The farther we get into Jesus’ sermon on the mount, I begin to imagine how the scene around him might have been changing, reacting to the things he was saying. Remember he was amidst a large crowd of people who had been following him. And he went up to the top of the mount, a little distance away from the crowd, to teach his band of disciples. But assume, also, that the crowds below could hear what he was saying.
He begins his sermon with some jarring statements – the strange blessings – lifting up all the qualities that the world tends to find embarrassing, or even shameful. So maybe the people in the crowd raised their eyebrows in surprise, but they would continue to listen.
Then he starts calling them salt and light, whatever that means. And he says they must exceed the Pharisees and Scribes in their righteousness if they want to have a prayer of being welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. And, well, that’s intimidating.
Now he starts with the “You have heard … but I say” sayings, where he shows them just how serious he was when he said not one jot or tittle would be taken from the law until all was accomplished.
I think by now some folks are drifting away. This is not what they want to hear; it’s gone beyond puzzling to just plain offensive. I imagine some are thinking that life is hard enough without having to hear some preacher telling you that you may as well hang it up. That you’ve lost already.
It must have seemed disappointing, to put it mildly. They believed they had found something new, something hopeful in this man, Jesus; something different. But now he just seems to be tightening the screws.
Saying things like, “You have heard that it was said, “you must not commit murder.” But I say to you, it’s way harder than that. You must not even think bad thoughts about another person. You must not be angry.
You have heard that it was said, “you must not commit adultery.” But I say to you, if you even let a scintilla of the thought of it enter your mind, you are guilty.
It looks like he took an already hard system and made it harder. But at the same time, when you look at it in the context of the whole gospel, that doesn’t seem like something Jesus would do. He is forever criticizing the Pharisees for their zeal about the law, and the hard burden they put on the people. And Jesus even seems to flaunt his law-breaking in their face. Surely Jesus would not lay an even heavier burden on them.
So once again, it seems we need to take a deeper look into his words. When Jesus speaks of the law, he means something different than what most people did. And perhaps different than what we, as his followers, think of it.
There are basically three ways that Christians tend to relate to the law of God. The first way is to just dismiss it. Which some Christians do. It’s called Marcionism, one of the greatest heresies of the church, named after the 2nd century teacher Marcion.
Marcion became a Christian, but soon his strange beliefs became apparent and he was excommunicated. Marcion simply refused to believe that the God of the Old Testament had anything to do with Jesus Christ. So he threw away the Old Testament – and large parts of the New Testament, as well, because they challenged his view of a happy, happy Jesus. A soft-focus Jesus, who gives us inspiring, morally-uplifting messages.
Marcion was excommunicated from the church, but he still had a large following. It was a very popular heresy – and still is. And Marcion’s heresy lives on, it’s easy to see.
The second way Christians might relate to the law is to say that, for us, the law is a reminder of how futile it is to try to attain righteousness on our own. This is where Martin Luther started from in his own spiritual awakening. He had tried so hard to be a man blameless before the law, as Paul described himself to be. But the harder Luther tried the more he realized that he was incapable of it. He was a sinner by nature, as we all are. The only way he could achieve righteousness is through Jesus Christ, who was tempted as we are tempted yet remained without sin. For Luther, the law is to remind us just how far we fall short of righteousness, how much we need God’s grace. In that way, it is of critical importance.
We sometimes call that the Second Use of the Law. But there is another way of regarding the law, which Presbyterians embrace: that the law is not obsolete. The law is not just something to scare us or make us feel bad about ourselves. This Third Use of the Law is to hold it before us as an ideal. We will never achieve perfection in the eyes of God’s law, but we should never stop striving toward it. Because God’s grace enables us to grow.
And that is where these words from Jesus’ sermon become meaningful to us. The law is not some dusty relic of a time gone by. But neither is it just some big scary stick that makes us want to run away from it into the arms of our loving savior. Rather than the stick, God’s law is the carrot that draws us in as we begin to see how it is useful to us.
And it is useful to us when it begins to show us a better way than so much of what the world offers us. Particularly as we see the contrast in how we may relate to other people.
Let me tell you about a man named Louis Howe. He was a political advisor to Franklin Roosevelt. Howe worked for Roosevelt from his early days in the New York State Senate, up through his presidency. Howe was devoted to Roosevelt until his death.
Apparently, Howe had a tendency to be harsh – rude and even cruel to some people. He played political hardball. And it is said that on one occasion when Howe was very harsh with someone at a White House social event, Eleanor Roosevelt took him aside and asked him why he did that. He answered that it was because this man had once been unsupportive of President Roosevelt. Eleanor said, “My goodness, I had forgotten all about that” Howe said, “I didn’t. I never forget.”
Howe, it seems, was the kind of man who kept an enemies list in his head. I’m sure he wasn’t the first man in politics to do that, and we know he wasn’t the last. It’s all too easy to turn your opponents into your enemies. And from there it’s a small step to turn enemies into objects of contempt.
And it’s easy to justify all of it. As long as you haven’t murdered somebody you are on the right side of the law. And I realize there are those who seem to believe they are exempt from the law. But that’s another sermon for another day.
As long as you haven’t stolen from them, you’re on the right side of the law.
We can defend some really awful behavior by saying that it doesn’t break the law, because it doesn’t cross the boundary between legal and illegal. But Jesus was trying to draw our attention away from that boundary line and toward the heart-center, where he resides, where God resides.
So instead of only trying to clear that low bar we might shift our focus to what is truly good.
Rather than making it all about rules, Jesus makes it all about how we treat one another. It’s about the quality of love in all our relationships.
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law. But he did intend for us to understand the law in a whole new way:
For the whole of the law can be summed up in these two commandments – love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. And if love is the essence of the law then we know these things:
That it is right to seek reconciliation rather than retribution.
That we should speak the truth always, in love.
And to never, ever lose sight of the essential humanity of anyone.
Remember that God’s love and forgiveness is showered on everyone – even those we think don’t deserve it. God loves us all.
Let each one of us strive to do likewise.
____________________________________________
Photo: Willa and Nicaraguan children reading a book
