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Dear Baptized in Christ, especially today, Daniel Augustine, grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, today we’ve heard more of the sermon from Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, as we refer to it. And although it is definitely a sermon, I think that we could also see this as kind of a confirmation class, maybe unbiased because I teach confirmation. But Jesus kind of has, he’s withdrawn from these crowds, and now he has his disciples with him, and he’s about to catechize them. He’s about to teach them the Scriptures; he’s about to prepare them for the day when he sends them out on their own.
In our own confirmation classes, we usually begin with the two great doctrines of the faith, the doctrines of the Bible, that being the law and the gospel. And so Jesus is no different. He’s beginning this lesson with the law, and he’s teaching the disciples what keeping the law really looks like, and in doing so, he’s showing them that much of what they’ve been taught about the law has been wrong.
Now last Sunday, we heard Jesus kind of set this lesson up by telling the disciples that the law still applies, but then he says whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, well they’ll be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. And he was hinting at what he’s going to say next, and that is that he’s going to explain what it means to relax the law. In this, Jesus is especially looking at four of the commandments. So we’ll take a look at what Jesus says to them about those, and each of those, and then what they mean for the Christian today.
But first, I think it’s important that we see that in this sermon in teaching, God or Jesus is establishing his authority, and that is the authority of God. And again, we can look back to last week when Jesus says, “I have come not to abolish them, that is the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.” The language that Jesus uses in his teaching today really confirms this because first he says at each lesson about these commandments, “You have heard that it was said,” notice he doesn’t say, “The Lord says,” or “It is written.” Jesus is referring to this teaching that the rabbis, the scribes, the Pharisees have been doing; that all the things they have said and taught have come from their own mouths and not from the mouth of God.
They’ve twisted and perverted the law to their liking so that they can simultaneously claim their own righteousness because of the law, but yet condemn those who fail to keep it. And too often they have applied this law literally. They’ve attempted again to take it out of the mouth of God from the heavenly realm and put it in their world, the civil realm, and use it as a tool to execute justice, but in many cases, to justify their own self-righteousness. So they say what they’ve said because they know that it benefits themselves.
And Jesus now refutes this with his contradiction. Again, he says, “You have heard it was said, but I say to you.” I say, I God say. And St. Matthew again kind of set this up for us at the beginning of this account of the Sermon on the Mount with the words, “Jesus opened his mouth and taught them.” So with these words, Jesus is not only preparing to catechize these disciples about the law but confirms that he does so with all the authority of heaven.
And now, Jesus begins his catechesis, and he starts with the law’s prohibition on murder. Now as the law was given to Moses, the fifth commandment, it’s pretty simple: you shall not murder. But to this, these Jewish authorities had added, “And whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” That is, by their civil courts. And I think, of course, we can all agree that that’s right, that’s just. But here, about murder, the Pharisees were being literal. They were literally defining murder. They were saying that they were only concerned with the physical act, so only the physical act of killing was punishable, at least in their world.
Jesus now refutes this notion with His threefold explanation and expansion of exactly who is guilty of murder before God. Not just those who murder with their hands, but everyone who is angry with his brother, whoever insults his brother, and whoever says, “You fool.” So here we see Jesus speaking most especially of the relationships among believers, of animosity within the church, and therefore, his admonition about bringing the sacrifice to the altar. He said, “Don’t bring a gift if you have something between your brother. First be reconciled. Reason with one another.” And he says the same for these civil matters, these lawsuits. “Come to terms quickly with your accuser,” and vice versa. “Don’t let things get out of hand. Don’t let them escalate and get beyond your control.” And even more importantly, “Don’t pretend that your personal relationships are of no consequence to the relationship with the Heavenly Father.”
And now continuing with relationships, Jesus takes on the sixth commandment, and also the topic of divorce. “You shall not commit adultery.” Well again, to the Jewish authorities, this unequivocally meant the physical act, and honestly, it was probably directed more at women than anyone. And Jesus, of course, knows this, so he says as much with his inclusion of “I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent” also is a violation of this commandment. And you notice he directed that at men, probably another jab at the Pharisees.
So then he engages in what some consider hyperbole, some consider it literal, when he suggests it’s better to lose an eye that tempts you or lose a hand that offends you rather than be subjected to the eternal punishment of hell. But sin doesn’t come from the eye or from the hand; it comes from the heart. And Jesus’ point is that ridding oneself of these kinds of temptations and desires might call for some type of drastic, maybe even painful, action.
Now Jesus includes divorce in this lesson because it does tie to this commandment. And honestly, this can be a pretty tricky thing to teach and to understand. And to be sure, not every divorce comes about because of the breaking of the sixth commandment, but to also be sure, divorce is never God’s will. But even Jesus puts this qualifying remark about sexual immorality in his lesson because it is, after all, lawful to divorce for adultery, because of infidelity. But again, this isn’t what Jesus is talking about. Instead, the Jewish authorities, they’ve reinterpreted the law; they’ve made it easier for a man to divorce his wife, and therefore can free himself from all the constraints of the law. All they need is a little certificate of divorce, no matter the reason, and everyone is now free to do as they please, especially the man.
But in doing so, the man makes his divorced wife an adulteress, and if she would happen to remarry, the man that she marries becomes an adulterer. So the Pharisees, in this attempt to skirt the law and keep themselves from being labeled sinners, have caused everybody to sin, and it seems that self-justification then results in universal condemnation.
And so last, Jesus is going to touch on this topic of oaths, which touches on the second and possibly the eighth commandments. And though it’s not a direct reference to them, Jesus’ teaching undoubtedly points to the honoring of God’s name, to the name and reputation of our neighbor. It seems that the Jewish authorities had created this kind of hierarchy of oaths, this legal thing to what extent oaths could be enforced. Obviously, those oaths that were sworn before God were binding, but the rest not so much.
And to be sure, there are oaths which we rightly swear before God that are the things of God. For instance, marriage—a man and woman declare before God that they are going to commit themselves to each other until death. The ordination of a pastor, he makes six distinct vows and promises for which he must give an account to God. Once again here, Jesus isn’t talking about those oaths; he’s talking about the ones that have been made in an attempt to remove the accountability to God. Oaths taken with the words that you’ve heard people say like, “I swear on my life,” or “I swear on my mother’s grave.”
And so even in these promises, we are still accountable and answerable to God because the things that we swear on are still the things of God. Our life is not our own to swear on. So Jesus says, “Don’t take oaths casually or unnecessarily. Even better, don’t take them at all. Deal plainly with your neighbor. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
Now it’s easy to think that Jesus’ point in this text today is about how man has corrupted God’s law; he’s taken it for his own purposes into the world, and it’s true, man does take God’s law, he applies it literally when it suits him, and either changes or ignores it when it doesn’t. We’ve all probably heard it said, “You can’t legislate morality,” but that sure hasn’t stopped us from trying.
And we know that God’s law, the Ten Commandments specifically, they’ve been the basis of many of our laws for years, and yet we haven’t achieved peace, justice, and love. Not that we haven’t tried really hard to fix all of that. We have laws against murder. We have laws against assault. We have laws against violence. We even have what we call hate crimes. But who gets to decide what constitutes hate? Is it hateful only because it is said against a specific person, an idea, or in a certain manner? Isn’t all hate, no matter who it is directed at, wrong? And is spoken hate somehow worse than hate that is in the heart?
Well, Jesus obviously says, “No, don’t hate, period.” And just because we’ve established a law here on earth, that doesn’t mean that it’s good. Murder laws might not protect the unborn; they might not protect the incapacitated. Marriage laws might not recognize marriage as it was instituted by God between a man and a woman. This recently poorly named Respect for Marriage Act is evidence of that. Divorce laws, particularly no-fault divorce cases, they don’t uphold God’s intention for marriage, for protection of the family, for protection of children. And we can make a list that just goes on and on.
We make up these laws because, let’s be honest, it’s easier to change the law than it is to change our hearts, and that’s exactly what Jesus is talking about today—the heart. It is the heart which is sinful. It is the heart that turns away from God and away from our neighbor. It is the heart that is of the flesh and behaving only in a human way, as Paul says.
Now the law of God, we sang this last Sunday, the law of God is good and wise. And the law of God does govern our hearts, but any time that we try to make man’s law that has nothing to say about, then we get it wrong most every time. We take God’s law and we try to shape it to our world, and we ruin it every time. And that doesn’t mean that the law doesn’t have anything good to say about who we love or who we don’t love, our jealousy, our lust, our envious, our evasiveness, and truth-telling.
And although it is written on our hearts, the law always, always condemns. It doesn’t save, doesn’t work change in our hearts. Now it might make us feel bad or guilty for a moment, but we pretty much figure out how to get past that pretty quickly. And nor are our hearts changed by some ability of ourselves to do good or want to do better. No, a changed heart, we know, comes through conversion from unbelief to faith and the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
And so, it’s pretty easy today to look at everything Jesus is teaching and only see negative stuff. It’s all law. Where is the gospel in this gospel? Well, Jesus shows us today that even if we think all we are hearing from him are harsh words, the good news is that because we are free and liberated from the judgment of the law because of Christ, we are free. We’re free to forgive. We’re free to reconcile just as we have been forgiven and have been reconciled to God.
And we see what is in the heart of the Christian and how it leads us to a right relationship with each other, especially our brothers and sisters in the church, instead of seeing technicalities on how we can claim our own righteousness. And we do actually see this in our catechesis, especially on the commandments, the explanations: the what does this mean for us Lutherans? To help and support our neighbor in every need, to lead a chaste life in what we say and do, to not swear by his name, but to pray, praise, and give thanks, and to defend our neighbor and speak well of him.
And the good news too, of course, is that Jesus said all these things because he loves us. He wasn’t teaching the disciples these lessons about the law so they would go out and find the lawbreakers and beat them over the head with it. He wanted them to know what love for one another really looks like, that the great love that he has for us is reflected in our relationships, again, especially those right here within the church.
So the law doesn’t change our hearts; the work of the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit who comes to you by the gospel, by the Word of God, and delivers the gift of faith to the heart of the unbeliever, and the gift of daily repentance to the faithful. Who comes with forgiveness of sins in the water of baptism, in the body and blood of Christ at the Lord’s Supper. The Holy Spirit who sanctifies you and strengthens you for your daily fight against your sinful heart and against the attacks of Satan in a hateful world. The Holy Spirit whom Jesus sends to re-imprint his image on your heart.
So yes, we have the law, and it shows us our sin, but we have a far greater gift in the gospel which shows us our Savior. So we pray with the psalmist, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Amen. Now may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.