Sermon: The Heart of the Matter

Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on February 19, 2017

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The Heart of the Matter

Audio Version

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.”  But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.  Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.  Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:33-48 (NRSV)

When I look into the face

Of my enemy

I see my brother

From “Brother” by The Brilliance

Arguably the most famous sermon in human history is what we know as the Sermon on the Mount.  This relatively short sermon could have been delivered in about sixteen minutes,¹ but, because it touches on so many different aspects of life, many series of sermons have been written about it.  Jesus begins this sermon with what we call the Beatitudes, a series of blessings for people the world would not usually consider blessed.  He goes on to teach His listeners that they are “the salt of the earth,” urging them not to lose their saltiness.  He then teaches them that they are “the light of the world,” challenging them to shine brightly in an often dark world.²

Jesus then makes a rather interesting statement.  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets,” He says.  “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”³  When Jesus speaks of the Law, He is referring to the Jewish people's instructions for living, which we can read in the first five books of the Bible.  The prophets of whom Jesus speaks are the brave souls who, in times of great moral decay and injustice, challenged people to live as God had called them to live.

There are a number of interpretations regarding what Jesus actually meant when He said that He had come not to abolish but to fulfill the Law and the prophets.  Something that is typically lost on us as Christians is the fact that Jesus is using a couple of idioms commonly used by Jewish rabbis.  To “abolish the Law” is to undermine the Law through misinterpretation.  To “fulfill the law,” on the other hand, is to interpret the Law in such a way those who hear are better able to follow the Law.⁴  Simply put, Jesus did not come to dissuade us from following the instructions of the Law or the exhortations of the prophets: He came to properly interpret them for us.

Jesus goes on “fulfill the Law” in this sense through a series of what Doug Pagitt would call “Flips.”  A Flip, as described by Pagitt, is a sudden, radical change in perspective that has a profound effect on a person.⁵  Many of the Flips we hear in the Sermon on the Mount take the form of teachings that begin, “You have heard that it was said...” and continue, “But I say to you...”⁶  When we hear these teachings, we might be tempted at first to think that Jesus is simply adding to previously established rules, making them more difficult to follow.  Through these Flips, Jesus actually reveals to us the purpose of the rules and, at the same time, calls us to live according to a higher standard than mere rule followers.⁷  Rules regulate people's behavior, but, through Jesus' teachings, we will see that the heart of the matter is really a matter of the heart.

First, Jesus calls to mind two of the Ten Commandments, but He takes our focus off the actions they forbid and turns our attention to the root causes of these sins.  Referencing the sixth commandment, He says,
You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.”  But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.⁸
The sixth commandment requires us to keep our tempers under control enough not to kill the people who make us angry, but Jesus calls us to be people who do not allow anger to fester into hate and bitterness.  Referencing the seventh commandment, He says,
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.⁹
The seventh commandment requires us to honor our own marriage vows and to respect the marriage vows of others, but Jesus calls us to be people who look at one another as human beings and not as objects to meet our wants and needs.¹⁰

Jesus then starts to call to mind instructions from other parts of the Jewish Law.  He says, “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’”  In Jesus' day, people sometimes took this instruction a little too literally so that they could give themselves loopholes.  If a person invoked the name of God when making a promise, then she was intentional to do what she said she would do because she had effectively made God a party in the agreement.  On the other hand, swearing by Heaven, by the Earth, or by one's own head was not unlike a child's crossing his fingers behind his back in our day.¹¹  Jesus introduces another Flip, saying,
But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
According to William Barclay, Jesus is essentially telling us that we are accountable to God for anything that we say we will do.¹²

Nowadays, people typically use phrases like honest to God, I swear to God, and I swear on a stack of Bibles simply to emphasize that they are telling the truth.  A person doesn't typically make an actual solemn vow unless he or she happens to be taking the witness stand, swearing “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” or standing before a clergyperson vowing to love, honor, and cherish another person, until death do they part.  Still, we tend to be more intentional about doing what we say we'll do if we use the phrase I promise.  Jesus says, “Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.”¹³  In other words, He calls us to be people who can be trusted to do what we say we will do without having to make promises, vows, or oaths.  Furthermore, a person who feels the need to swear on a proverbial stack of Bibles to get people to believe him might have a questionable relationship with the truth.¹⁴

Jesus then goes on to say, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”  Jesus is referring to the lex talionis, the law of retribution, which dictates that the punishment must fit the crime.  This law, which sets the standard for retributive justice, is nearly as old as human civilization itself, and it serves as the foundation of the ancient Code of Hammurabi, one of the world's oldest legal codes.¹⁵  It is also echoed throughout the Jewish Law.  For example, in the Book of Leviticus we read, “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.”¹⁶  The lex talionis places a limit on retribution.  If someone broke your arm, you would be out of line to kill him in response.  The most you could do is to break his arm.

Addressing our retributive notions of justice, Jesus introduces yet another Flip, saying,
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.
The lex talionis served its purpose by keeping people's desire for revenge in check, but Jesus calls us beyond retributive forms of justice to something more redemptive.¹⁷

Jesus instructs us not to seek retribution for a wrongdoing but rather to bring it into the light in a way that calls the wrongdoer to repent or rethink his actions.  Imagine for a moment that you lived in Jesus' day and time.  If someone struck you on your right cheek, then, provided he was using his right hand, he would have backhanded you, meaning that he considers you to be inferior to him.  To offer him your left cheek is to invite him to hit you once again – as an equal.  If someone sued you and took your coat, giving him your shirt as a bonus would leave you in a state of “impoverished nakedness.”  Your exposed body would expose his greed.  If a Roman soldier ordered you to carry his equipment for a mile, he would only be exercising his legal rights as a soldier.  Insisting on carrying his stuff for a second mile would put him in a rather awkward situation, for it would be illegal for him to make you go any further than one mile.¹⁸  When we're wronged, the world says, “Don't get mad; get even”; however, Jesus tells us to get creative.

Jesus then says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”  In the Book of Leviticus, we read, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”¹⁹ but conventional wisdom is what tells us that not everyone is our neighbor and that a person is either friend or foe.  In response to our conventional wisdom, Jesus says,
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous...  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Though our modern ears tend to associate sunshine with happiness and rain with sadness, Jesus' original audience would have considered both sunshine and rain to be blessings from God since their crops needed both to thrive.  In the same way that both rain and sunshine fall upon people without discerning who is worthy or unworthy, Jesus calls us to bless people with our love and our prayers without discrimination.  An enemy is not typically someone we love, so perhaps He is encouraging us not to even think of people as our enemies.

To live as children of our Father in heaven is to love all of our Father's children, without exception.  To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is to love perfectly.  I think that, with this last Flip, we have reached the heart of the matter in regards to all religious instructions.

At the very beginning of the Bible, we read a poem that describes a God who speaks into existence the world and all life that lives therein.  Having created the lifeforms that inhabit the land, the sea, and the sky, God created a special kind of creature who would serve as the caretakers of everything God had already created.²⁰  The ancient poem tells us,

So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.²¹

As human beings, we were created in the Image of a God who is, according to one early Christian theologian, love itself.²²  No doubt you've heard the immortal words of St. Paul, that “love is patient,” that “love is kind,” that “love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude,” that love “does not insist on its own way,” that love “is not irritable or resentful,” that love “does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth,” and that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things.”²³  I would add that love does not merely exercise self-control around others with gritted teeth, for love desires and even seeks the good of others.

We were not created to follow rules: we were created to bear the Image of the God who created us, in the same way that children look like their parents.  We were given rules to follow because so often we don't look very much like a God of love.  Rules do not generally come out of thin air.  There would be no commandment forbidding theft if people weren't already stealing from each other.  There would be no commandment forbidding murder if people weren't already settling their disputes through violence.  There would be no commandments forbidding the worship of idols and false gods if people weren't already doing horrible things a God of love would never want them to do.  We weren't created to follow rules, but we were given rules to follow because far too often we fail to love as we were created to love.

Jesus, toward the end of His earthly ministry, enters Jerusalem and creates what one might call a holy ruckus.  At one point, His detractors start asking Him loaded questions in an attempt to trap Him with His own words.  One expert in the Jewish Law, approaches Jesus and asks Him which commandment in the Law is the most important.  Jesus replies, “‘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.’”  Jesus then goes on to say, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”²⁴  In other words, every instruction in the Law and every exhortation of the prophets is meant to teach us what it looks like to love God and to love one another.

In the end, it all comes down to love, for love fulfills the requirements of the Law.  If we had loved as we were created to love, we never would have needed the Law and the prophets in the first place.

Jesus was not interested in regulating anyone's behavior, for He had come to transform hearts.  Humans were created to bear the Image of God, and Jesus Christ, who is called “the Image of the Invisible God,”²⁵ came to show us what it means to be truly human.  He came to fulfill the Law, through His teaching and through His life.  He showed us what it means to love one another: He befriended the friendless, showed mercy to those who were suffering, spoke the truth to those who thought they already knew everything, and gave His life for us on the cross.  “This is my commandment,” He said, “that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”²⁶

The Jewish rabbis counted 613 instructions in the Law.  Jesus teaches us that all of these instructions are rooted in the commandments to love God and to love one another.  These two simple commandments are easier to remember than the 613, but they are, by no means, easy to follow.  Christ has provided us an example, and He invites us to abide in Him so that He may abide in us.²⁷  We can love, knowing that Christ loves us.

Thanks be to God.


Notes:

1. Jonathan Tompkins.  “Flipping the Script: Blessed Are the _____.”  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church podcast, 02/06/2017.
2. Matthew 5:3-16
3. Matthew 5:17 (NRSV)
4. Lois Tverberg.  “What Does It Mean to 'Fulfill the law'?”  En-Gedi Resource Center.
5. Doug Pagitt.  Flipped: The Provocative Truth That Changes Everything We Know About God.   2015, Convergent Books.  p. 7
6. Pagitt, pp. 18-19
7. Matthew 5:20
8. Matthew 5:21-22 (NRSV)
9. Matthew 5:27 (NRSV)
10. My synopses of these two teachings of Jesus are based, in part, on the previous week's sermon at Bethel UMC, which was delivered by Pastor Syliva Watson.
11. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume One.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 183-184
12. ibid
13. Matthew 5:37 (CEB)
14. Rob Bell.  “The Weasel Factor.”  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 08/01/2010.
15. Wikipedia: Eye for an eye
16. Leviticus 24:19-20 (NRSV)
17. N.T Wright.  Matthew for Everyone, Part 1.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 51
18. Wright, pp. 51-52
19. Leviticus 19:18 (NRSV)
20. Genesis 1:26
21. Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)
22. 1 John 4:8
23. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NRSV)
24. Matthew 22:34-40 (NRSV)
25. Colossians 1:15
26. John 15:12-13 (NRSV)
27. John 15:4

The Sermon on the Mount was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1877.