A Sermon
by
The Rev. Dr. Mark Achtemeier
Matthew 5: 17-32
Jesus’ ministry is just starting to get off the ground. He takes a look at
the crowds who are flocking to him, Matthew tells us, and his response is to
retreat to the mountain top and call his disciples to him for some
instruction in the Gospel that will stand at the center of their ministries.
Jesus addressing the first group of Christian ministers-to-be: it sounds
wonderfully suited to our setting here at the seminary.
But as is true of so many of Jesus’ sayings, the words come across as
radically inappropriate to the occasion, not to say offensiveat least as
measured by human standards. There are no warm congratulations on their
choice of vocation, no helpful tips for coping with ministerial setbacks, no
nuggets of wisdom for uplift and spiritual encouragement. Jesus instead uses
the occasion to radically reinterpret the law of Moses, and his words are
just plain terrifying.
The Bible says you shall not kill… But I say to you that every one who
is angry with a brother or sister shall be liable to judgment.
The Bible says, “You shall not commit adultery”. But I say to you that
every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery
with her in his heart.
The Bible says, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a
certificate of divorce. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife,
except on the ground of unchastity, is guilty of adultery.
These are harsh and demanding words. For two thousand years they have set in
motion a frantic scramble among the faithful to explain them away, to escape
from their indictment. We have all been looking desperately for the
Messianic press secretary who could come to the podium the following day and
issue “clarifications:” “What Jesus meant to say was” Yet for all our
efforts at evasion, his words still have a way of leaping from the printed
page and grabbing our lives by the throat. In an age when the church prefers
to speak about how loving and accepting and kindly and forgiving and
tolerant God is, it’s like being hit square in the face with a cold bucket
of ice water to hear these sorts of things coming from the Master’s lips.
“Whoever says `You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” What are
we to make of that?
I suspect that many of us probably avoid a serious confrontation with these
teachings, because deep down we have the feeling that Jesus couldn’t really
be serious about this stuff. Going to hell over a casual insult, calling
your brother or your sister a “fool”he couldn’t possibly mean what he
says…could he? Surely he’s exaggerating…isn’t he?
One section of these teachings which in my experience does a frighteningly
effective job of penetrating all the smokescreens and defenses we put up is
the part about divorce. I was teaching an adult Sunday school class on these
texts one time, and there were two or three people present in the class who
had been through divorces, some recently and some quite awhile ago. But for
all of them, it was pretty plain to see that the simple act of reading these
words out loud, much less talking about them, was an intensely painful
experience. Jesus links the business of divorce with the sin of adultery.
And that hurts. A lot. That hits devastatingly close to home, it brings to
the surface deep wellsprings of guilt and shame and anger that otherwise
might remain peaceably buried. Everyone in the class tiptoed around and
tried to be as sensitive as we possibly could be, but some of our members
stayed away for several weeks afterwards nonetheless. It was clearly a
traumatic experience for them, to come up against these words of Jesus.
Now I want to raise the possibility that maybe…just maybe…our divorced
brothers and sisters have the advantage over others of us when it comes to
hearing the full import of these teachings of Christ. That searing,
uncompromising assault which besieges their hearts and their
consciousnesscould it be that such an assault is directed at you and me as
well? How many of us have been angry in the past week? How many of us have
spoken a harsh word to one of our friends or family members? How many of us
have passed along with relish an ugly or uncomplimentary story about an
acquaintance or a co-worker? The guilt which accrues to these things, says
Christ, is tantamount to the guilt of murder! Whoever says “you fool” to a
neighbor shall be liable to the hell of fire. If we took this seriously
would not every one of us be in the same boat with our divorced brothers and
sisters, as we confront this set of teachings?
But how could Jesus possibly mean this seriously? Which of us can possibly
control the anger we feel? I might be the best, the most devoted disciple in
the world. But give me a lousy night’s sleep and set me out behind the wheel
in the middle of a traffic jam, and I guarantee you the black clouds start
welling up in my soul.
Or when we encounter an attractive member of the opposite sex, who can avoid
having their heart beat a little faster? My word, we took the kids to the
water park at Wisconsin Dells this summer, and I just about came home with a
case of whiplash from the bathing suits people are wearing these days.
But with chilling consistency Jesus maintains that YOU AND I ARE
RESPONSIBLE. “If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body
to be thrown into hell.”
We are accountableNot just for our outward actions, but for every stray
thought which comes drifting through our consciousness, for the feelings
which well up in our hearts, for the anger and the improper desires. WE ARE
RESPONSIBLE. I can protest all I want that I have no control over them. But
they are nonetheless MY feelings, my thoughts, my subconscious, evenit is
all a part of ME. And the whole of me is answerable to God. Our actions, our
feelings, our idle thoughts, our subconscious desiresall will stand before
the throne of judgment. YOU AND I…ARE…RESPONSIBLE!
Now I see many of you shuffling your bulletins, and shifting in your seats
and checking your watches, because that’s just unreasonable, isn’t it? This
couldn’t be what Jesus MEANT to say. These demands are all but impossible.
The Lord simply couldn’t be asking THAT much of us… could he? “But I tell
you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you
will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.”
You know what Jesus is doing here? You know why these judgments seems so
harsh and these demands so impossible? Because Jesus is telling us what our
lives have to become in order to be part of the Kingdom of God. He’s not
speaking from the perspective of everyday life, where “pretty good” is
plenty good enough, and it’s really only our outward actions that count. No,
Jesus isn’t speaking from that perspective at all. Rather, he is telling you
and me what it means to be citizens of the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom
admits no compromise, you see. The Kingdom is the place where God’s will for
you and me is complete. It’s the place where all the brokenness, all the
sorrow, all the lust, all the anger, all the greed, all the
unfaithfulnesseverything that contradicts God’s loving will has been done
away with. The Kingdom is the place where at long last everything and
everybody stand just as God in his love intended them to be. And so there’s
no going half way, you see. There’s no room there for compromiseeither
you’re the way God meant you to be or you’re not. Either you’re soul is
stained, or it’s not. And if the Kingdom is the place where all the stains
have been done away with, that means an angry heart will disqualify you just
the same as a felony conviction for murder one; lustful thoughts will keep
you out no less than aggravated rape. Either you’re spotless or you’re not.
That’s what the Kingdom is all about. “If your right hand causes you to sin,
cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your
body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
Now what is it about these words that makes them appropriate teaching for
all those new disciples back on that mountaintop in Galilee, and for the
rest of us as well?
I think Jesus was trying very deliberately and very strenuously to hurt his
new disciples with these teachings…to destroy them! I think Jesus is
trying to batter each one of us absolutely bloody with…the truth! With
this searing, heavenly reality of the Kingdom of God in all its pristine
radiance and uncompromising purity. I think Jesus here confronts all of us
would-be followers with the acid awareness that the Kingdom of heaven in all
its glory and all its splendor is hopelessly beyond our grasp. He attacks us
with this simple, bitter truth because we would presume to be disciples, and
the first step on the road to discipleship is to be broken, to be rid of any
pretensions or illusions we might have regarding our worthiness for the
calling.
“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be
subject to judgment”When that saying sticks in your craw, when you meditate
on it enough that it becomes a searing, festering accusation deep in your
own soul, when you hear the words well enough that the fear rises in your
throat and your breath catches up shortonly then are you ready to be a
disciple, because only then are you armed with the truth of what your
situation really is. Not until the ground dissolves beneath your feet and
you find yourself staring into the blackness of the abyss are you able to
see for what it is that hand which is stretched out to grasp you. Not until
you have felt the clammy grip of hopelessness dragging you downward are you
able sufficiently to embrace the hope which is given you as a gift.
And that is doubly the case for preachers. Week after week we mount the
steps of a pulpit, and in words either spoken or implied we bracket the
occasion with the declaration, “Thus saith the Lord”, and then we open our
own mouths and begin speaking. Now doesn’t that strike you as just a little
bit presumptuous? “Thus saith the Lord!”… and we share our ramblings for
the week. How is it that you and I should be the mediators between heaven
and earth? How can this act be anything other than a usurping of divine
prerogatives, a blasphemous storming of the gates of heaven, a seizing to
one’s breast of the deadly promise of the serpent, who proclaimed to Adam
and Eve in the garden of Eden, “You shall be like God”? How on earth, can we
preacherswhose chosen vocation is to take this monstrous guilt upon
ourselves on a weekly basishow on earth can we preachers…be saved?
It is here that you and I desperately need these words of Christ which have
made us so uncomfortable this morning. These words of Jesus will help us see
the pit which really does open up beneath our feet as we assume the
responsibilities of our calling. These words of Jesus will help us feel the
icy seal which Death has placed upon our foreheads as we carry out our
duties among the people of God. These words of Jesus will help us to
remember the one source of hope for us as preachers and as fallen human
beings. The first step on the road to discipleship is to be broken.
It is not the last step, however. These words of Christ are words of
judgement, but the judgment is subsumed under, and serves the cause of, a
great promise and a great hope. Christ’s words make it clear that you and I,
with all our compromises and all our fallenness, have within ourselves no
hope of the Kingdom. Christ does have a place in it, though. He is the true
heir and inheritor of the whole. The astonishing gift of grace given to us
is that as we are united with him, engrafted into him by the Holy Spirit, we
become participants and sharers in Christ’s own inheritance. In him, we find
a place there as well. So Christ addresses these teachings to you and me who
are, by grace, co-heirs in him of this Kingdom he is describing. And so this
proclamation comes to us finally not as an oppressive word of judgment,
which weighs down upon us with its burdensome proclamation, “You shall! You
must!” In the deepest sense this Word comes to us as a promise, as a glimpse
of the future Kingdom that Christ will inherit and share with those of us
who are found to be in him. The proclamation of this Kingdom is given us as
a glorious hope which says “This you shall be.” As heirs in Christ of this
Kingdom, we shall be those in whom anger and hatred and violence are
overcome and set aside and done away with, as lions lie down with lambs and
little children play together in happiness and serenity, as swords are
beaten into plowshares and the peace of God reigns in every city street and
town and hamlet. “This you shall be!”
As heirs of this Kingdom, you and I shall be those whose bonds of love with
one another and with God shall be formed in gladness, and nurtured and
preserved in respect and honor. Leering and lust and domination of one sex
by the other shall be no more. Hearts will no longer be broken, and persons
will no longer be violated, honor shall not be discarded, but the love of
God shall fill every breast to overflowing. This is the promised Kingdom
that Christ’s teaching holds out to us, “This you shall be!”
And among husbands and wives, heirs of the Kingdom, that eternal bond of
love will shines forth which unites Christ the bridegroom with his betrothed
the church, we will see it manifested in human hearts and human lives. Bonds
between men and women will be forged in fidelity and thanksgiving, in joyous
communion and intimate oneness. And no longer shall homes be broken and
lives shattered by strife and dissension, no longer shall little children go
to their beds fearful over what the future may hold. This is the promise
which Christ’s teaching holds out to us as heirs of the Kingdom in him:
“This you shall be!”
You and I, as the Spirit engrafts us into Christ, share in his status as the
rightful heir and inheritor of this promised Kingdom. It is a hope whose
radiance is so bright that it is almost painful for our weary and
compromised and sinful eyes to look at it directlywitness our flinching from
the words of this text! But in Jesus Christ it is our hope! And so we should
be wary of all those realistic, practical-minded persons who would divert us
away from the shining light of God’s promise, toward the tarnished and
fallen reflections of the so-called “real world.” We should be wary of all
the voices within and without urging us to abandon this promise, to be
“realistic” by hallowing the fallen status quo, to cast aside the glories of
the Kingdom in favor of a cheap and easy pseudo-Gospel, that in the name of
a false “forgiveness” declares God and ourselves to be perfectly content
with the world as it. Especially in the atmosphere of our modern, permissive
society, the temptations are almost overwhelming to scale down and
compromise these great demands of the Kingdom, and thereby to lose our grip
on its great promise as well.
Our culture seems to produce a great many souls whose goals in life are set
no higher than to make a lot of money and do as they please. They will come
to you as their ministers wanting very much for you to tell them that
everything is okay, that they are acceptedin their anger and pride and lust
and self-absorption”just the way they are.” When that temptation confronts
you, remember the Kingdom you have been called to proclaimin all its
uncompromising purity, in all its glorious promise. My brothers and sisters
and co-workers in the Lord, do not sell the divine birthright of yourself
and your people for a mess of comfortable, worldly pottage!
Remember these words of Christ which have occupied us this morning. Cling to
them as reminders of the grace which alone will sustain you in your
ministry. Hold fast to them as hope and promise of that glorious Kingdom
that God has called you to proclaim. Stand steadfast in the Word of truth
that you have been given, and may God in his mercy sustain, and guide, and
uphold all our ministries.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.