Relationship Above Rules
Epiphany + 6 - February 16, 2014
Watch the sermon here.
Not too long ago, I had a picture come across my Facebook feed. Maybe some of you have seen it too. It’s a photo of a young boy, looks like he’s maybe 4 or 5 years old, and he’s stretched out, laying on his belly on the deck of his house on a beautiful sunny day. All of his body, that is, except his feet, which are still firmly inside the house. The caption on it said, “Future lawyer? He was told not to set foot outside the house.” It’s a classic case of someone who knows and understands the letter of the law but misses the spirit underneath it. Technically, this young boy is obeying what he was told, but of course, we all know that’s not really what his parents meant. He ignored the real intent of what they wanted him to do.
We get a similar picture from the gospel reading for today. Once again, we join Jesus and his listeners as he delivers what we’ve come to know as the Sermon on the Mount, and today we pick up right where we left off last week. Jesus has just finished saying “…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” (Matt. 5:20) and then he goes into this teaching that makes it sound like he’s laying out the way to become more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. “You have heard it said,” Jesus says, “But I say to you…” Over and over again, Jesus lays out the situations. He talks about what the religious law and commandments say – Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't abandon your spouse (that's what divorce amounted to back then), don't swear falsely. These are what the rules are, Jesus says. Everybody knows them, and nobody knows them better than the scribes and Pharisees. “But,” Jesus says, “Don't be too sure of yourself.” Don't strain your arm patting yourself on the back because you haven't murdered anyone or because you've been physically faithful to your spouse and have followed through on whatever it is you “swore to God” you'd do. The scribes and the Pharisees – and lots of other people for that matter – manage to follow the letter of the law, but the whole time, they’re really lying on the deck, keeping just feet inside the sliding glass door.
On the surface, it doesn’t look too hard to follow these basic commandments, right? But then Jesus raises the bar. “You have heard it said… But I say to you…” Never murdered anyone? Okay, but I bet you've been angry with them. Never cheated on your spouse, but you've looked at someone with lust, haven't you or given the time & energy that should go to the person you’ve committed your life to to something else – your work, your hobbies, TV, your smart phone? Carried out the vows you made to the Lord, but why is it that your word alone isn't good enough for people to believe you'll do what you say you'll do?
I imagine that some of the people listening that day were shocked and dismayed at what they heard Jesus saying. His words worry us too – because if following the letter of the law isn’t enough, if what we think in our minds and feel in our hearts counts too, if our inner motivation - not just our outward behavior - makes a difference, then what hope do we have? How can we ever measure up? Because these examples Jesus gives us reveal to us in no uncertain terms that none of us is off the hook. None of us can perfectly monitor our actions, let alone our thoughts and emotions! If the scribes and Pharisees, the ones who studied God’s law and taught it to others, weren’t righteous enough to enter the kingdom of heaven, how can we ever expect to be?!
That's because we think that what Jesus says here is all about fulfilling the law. We think that Jesus is mainly concerned with us learning to follow the rules perfectly, inside and out, just for the sake of following the rules. Our main motivation for following the rules is so we can avoid punishment – the judgment or the council or the hell of fire that Jesus talks about – or because we think we can somehow live up to the rules and so earn our place in God's good graces, so we can deserve to enter the kingdom of heaven someday.
But we've got it all wrong. Because even though our main concern may be following the rules so that we can avoid judgment or earn rewards, what Jesus really cares about is our relationships. The rules aren't there simply to give us a moral checklist to follow. They’re not there to keep us trapped in the house instead of running around on the deck enjoying a sunny day. They're there to help us to learn how to live with God and with each other. When Jesus is asked elsewhere in Matthew about what commandment in the law is the greatest or most important (Mt. 22:36), this is what Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mt. 22:37-40). (That's in chapter 22, in case you want to look at it later.)
Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's what all the commandments, all the laws boil down to. They're there to show us what it would mean if we really did love God and our neighbor.
But it isn't enough simply to follow the letter of the law. It’s not enough to keep our feet inside the sliding door while the rest of us is outside the house. Because we can technically obey the law, while while the whole time we are neglecting the spirit of what God desires. It's easy enough most of the time to keep the commandments, until we realize that God's law goes much deeper than our outward acts and down into our hearts too. God's will for us extends into the core of who we are. And it's not about the rules so much as it is about the relationships. Underneath these laws Jesus talks about there is a deep concern for community, for how people live with and treat one another.
And so Jesus lays out a vision here, one that reveals something about what it looks like when God's will reigns in our lives, when God's followers live out that prayer for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven... Because when God's love rules in our lives, we stop worrying so much about obeying the law to keep God happy or avoid making God mad. We start to see ourselves as the beloved, cherished children of God that we are. We start behaving as the salt and light Jesus tells us we are – and we look beyond wooden obedience and slavish rule following to see what God's heart desires for us: a community of people where everyone matters, where we learn to let go of anger and make the first move toward reconciliation, where we stop objectifying others and see them as human beings, where a person's word is good enough and there's no need to swear to God to convince anyone that you can be trusted. It's a community where we seek after health and wholeness and after those things that give life to each other. This is the kingdom Jesus ushers in. It's the kingdom he lives out. It's the kingdom he invites us to enter and live in even now. It's not about rules. It's about relationships. It's not about the law. It's about love – God's love for each of us, the love that then spills over from us to each other. Let's let that love rule.
Amen.
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