February 13, 2011
Do You Understand? - Matthew 5:21-30
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadI got out of the Army in May of 2002. Probably my greatest ever logical/debate victory came right before then in April. The Army made its soldiers take PT (Physical Training) tests every tests every six months. I was due to take one in early April. PT tests were not at all fun, and I decided to skip the last one around. So my boss called me at 4:30 the next morning with another idea. HIt had clearly been six months since I had taken a PT test and so he wondered just what I was thinking. I told him that it had indeed been six months, but I informed him that the actual regulation never even mentioned six months. What the regulation actually said, I went on to explain, was that soldiers were required to take two PT tests every year, with no less than four months in between them. I asked my boss if he understood that, and he said that he did. And then I very gently explained to him that since it was no less than four months in between PT tests, then it could be as much as eight months between PT tests, which would actually make my PT test due in July, and I would be out of the Army by then. So, I went on to say, I would take the PT test to make him happy, but for the record, I didn’t have to. He disagreed. So I explained it again, and again, and again, until he finally relented and told me that I would make a good lawyer.
Now for the record, per the letter, I was well within regulation. Per the spirit of it, however, I was way out of regulation. Maybe that’s what Jesus was up to in this passage, when he redefined our definition of both murder and adultery. For the record, I am innocent on both counts. Aren’t we all? In my thirty-five years of living, I have never killed anybody. I’ve got three children, the oldest of whom is four. Their mother is my wife. I’ve been married to her for eleven years, so I’m well within regulation. We are not pregnant now. If you are pregnant, I am not the father. I’m not. There are plenty of babies coming into the world every day, but not by me. Adultery and murder are the only two of the top ten of which I am completely innocent. Per the letter of the law, I am completely innocent.
Yet Jesus said that maybe I’m not so innocent. “You have heard it said…, but I say to you,” Jesus said about both murder and adultery. What I have heard is that I didn’t do it. But Jesus changes that. You can’t say that you live up to the letter if you disregard the spirit. You can’t look at internet pornography all night, for example, and be innocent of adultery. That’s not the way it works, Jesus said. You can’t say that because you have not stabbed somebody to death, even if you hate your neighbor and haven’t spoken to him in years, then you’re fine. That doesn’t work either. You can’t say “them” with contempt and not have blood on your hands. “You have heard it said…, but I say to you.” The Greek there literally means to understand. “You have understood this, but I am changing your understanding to mean something different,” Jesus says. Jesus has raised the stakes, so much so that we are all murderers and adulterers.
And not only that, Jesus tells us to go to these ridiculous measures to stay clean. Thinking about doing something fishy with your hands? Cut them off. It’ll be much more difficult to put your hands in the cookie jar if you don’t have hands. Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Or maybe you can knock your teeth out, or cut your tongue out. In our Bible study on Wednesday night, Adam Hamilton asked everybody who took the Bible literally word for word to hold up their stubs. Well? It’s unreasonable, isn’t it?
That’s one of the ways that we get out of this thing. Jesus said crazy things all over the Bible, so sure he didn’t mean all of that. Surely, like us, Jesus was reasonable. We are reasonable people. We follow a reasonable faith. If Jesus was here, he’d fit right in with us. He would never say anything offensive to us, or expose our hypocrisies, or make us feel bad, of make demands of us. When I read what Jesus said, I typically don’t look too good. So if I can just say that he was exaggerating or that he didn’t really mean all of that, then I’m fine.
But I find it very difficult to tell people to follow Jesus and then turn around and say that Jesus really didn’t mean most of what he said. Maybe Jesus was dead serious here. This is his only sermon, ever. Luke has bits and pieces of sermons, but this is by far the longest. Matthew sets it up like he’s Moses. And goodness knows Moses was serious, so was Jesus. It would probably be more genuine of us to say that Jesus probably did mean what he said, but that we’re not about to follow it. It’s just too high of a price. At least that’s honest.
Maybe we can do this. Instead of chopping off our hands and plucking out our eyes, we can throw our TVs and computers away. I am a man, and I cannot tell you how a man is supposed to even turn on a TV or get on the internet and not be tempted. How can we not have impure thoughts? It’s their fault, we say. It’s Hollywood’s fault. And it is. Hollywood is not innocent. But if every Christian in this country would take Jesus seriously here – as I believe he meant to be taken – and throw their televisions in the trash until Hollywood showed us something other than trash, then I can assure you that Hollywood would change its tune. Hollywood plays trash only because we watch it, and we like it, and the vast majority of us, including me, do not take Jesus seriously. If you’re one of those who like to say “amen” in sermons, now is a perfect time to say it because you know I’m right. Marriage is a huge deal in our culture, especially gay marriage. Many of us say that gay marriage is not marriage, that it actually makes a mockery of marriage, so we fight it. Yet almost every TV show that we watch makes a mockery of marriage, too, and we love every minute of it. If you’re serious about marriage, if marriage is so important to you, if you really intend to heed Jesus’ warnings on adultery, then I say chunk the TV and the internet. Leah and I gave up TV for Lent one year, and it amazed us how little we missed it.
Maybe that’s an understanding of adultery that we can live with. I’d also like to propose maybe a modern day understanding of murder. As I said, I’m fresh out of murder charges against me. And to be honest with you, I can’t think of anybody that I hate. I can’t think of any enemies out there who want to kill me, or who I want to kill. But I can certainly think of people who get on my nerves. Jesus said in verses 23-25 that relationship is as important as worship. You cannot worship God with any integrity and at the same time harbor hate or resentment against other people, especially in the Christian community, especially in the Church. You cannot come to Church with any integrity and resent other people in the Christian community.
Now it’s hitting a little closer to home, isn’t it? Your toes should be thoroughly stepped on right about now. We all have positions, on everything from taxes to marriage to foreign affairs to terrorism to health care to capital punishment to abortion… You name it, we have opinions. For whatever reason, we are more polarized today than we have been in years. Christians are especially polarized, especially mainline Christians, on many, many issues. Those issues are currently killing us.
Now to be sure, we have some very valid opinions on the matter, and I think those opinions should be heard. But all of our opinions and fifty cents might buy us a cheap cup of coffee. The only option, then, is to split this city on a hill in different quarters, right? Put them over there, and us over here, and let them do what they want to do, just so long as they leave us alone. That’s a very appealing plan, and by far the easiest one proposed. In fact, it would just be so much easier to put them on an island somewhere where we never have to see them ever again. If the city on a hill had a train tracks in the middle of it, or maybe a river, or better yet an ocean, and we could shove all the people who disagree with us on the other side of that ocean, then we’d have it made. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. We are in this together. There’s no such thing as an amicable divorce, especially when it involves one part of God’s kingdom divorcing itself from the other.
So this is what I think we should do. This is what I think Jesus is calling us to do. I’m going to find somebody who disagrees with me, and I’m going to take that person to lunch. In fact, I’m probably going to invite that person over my house. I’m going to get to know that person, and see that person for child of God that he or she is. That’s what’s going to get us out of this awful mess. Dividing up in our separate quarters, or harboring resentment, or casting rocks, or slamming our fists down in our righteous indignation won’t cut it. That’s not what Jesus said to do. Worship without relationship is useless. In fact, it’s offense to God. Opinions without relationship are useless. Our opinions are not in the least bit valid until we at least attempt to reconcile with the other side. To do anything less than that, according to Jesus, makes us a bunch of murderers.
So, for the record, as it stands on murder and adultery, my hands are safely connected to my wrists and my eyes are safely in their sockets. But being a man and all, and knowing the temptations that we men face, it would probably be a good idea not to invite temptation in our lives. And, you’re not going to see me on trial for murder anytime soon. But, I’ve got some reconciling to do. Until I at least attempt to do that, I cannot come in this Church and worship God with any integrity. We cannot disregard what Jesus said here. I think Jesus was dead serious. I think he meant what he said. I think he changes our understanding of things, specifically in this passage on murder and adultery. As it stands, we’re guilty of both. But maybe, by the grace of God, we can come clean, confess our sins, enjoy this new creation that God has made in us, and sin no more.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
