February 13, 2011
It's Not About the Law
- Matthew 5:21-37
- Dr. Teri Thomas
Once there was a missionary trying to convert a tribal chief to the Christian faith.
What would it mean for his life asked the chief?
Well, the missionary explained,
you cannot cheat
you cannot steal
you cannot sleep with your neighbor's wife.
I don't need to be a Christian, the chief replied.
I am already too old to do any of those things.
Why are we so obsessed with rules? For too many Christians faith has come to mean following rules. Go to church on Sunday. Read the Bible. Tithe 10 % of your income.
Obey the Ten Commandments or at least the ones we can remember.
But it is not just religion. Our property taxes go up too much in one year and we make a rule about how and when they can be raised. A child gets hurt in an activity and we make a rule about who can participate and how. We are becoming like the Pharisees trying to legislate and litigate our way to salvation.
The Pharisees had probably started with good intentions and were sincere in their endeavor to please God. They wanted to protect God's laws from being broken so they created additional laws that would keep folks from breaking God's laws. The problem was that as time went on people become more familiar with and obedient to the laws of the Pharisees than to God's law. The original intention of the law was lost.
Last year while Jack and I were out of the country Indiana passed a new law. I knew nothing about it until I stopped at the store to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner. The very young clerk asked me for my ID. When I stopped laughing he explained that he was indeed serious and told me about the law. Not a bad idea, I thought out loud. Should help reduce under age drinking and that is a good thing.
The clerk went off. It is so stupid to have to ask old people, like you for ID. They are punishing all of us because a few folks don't follow the rules that are already in place. I mumbled something about him having a point, paid for my old person's wine and went home to dinner. The intention of the law was to keep those under 21 from purchasing alcohol. But to this clerk it meant don't trust clerks to do their job and don't trust customers to tell the truth.
Today there is growing concern about the institution of marriage. There are too many divorces. So there are efforts to tighten up the process of marrying. Take marriage preparation classes or pay more for a license. Require mandatory counseling before a divorce is granted. Make divorce more difficult and more costly. The results- fewer and fewer couples are getting married. They are living together, having children together, sharing their lives and their futures, without the legal marriage. Efforts to make rules to strengthen marriage are turning people away from marriage all together. Is that the intent?
Rules can morph so quickly from the original intent that sometimes we forget why the rule was created in the first place. But we continue. We create commandments because it is easier than changing people. Regulations are easier than relationships. We make rules rather than strengthening rapport. Laws are outside of us, distant and objective. Intentions are inside, personal and heartfelt.
So often we pass a rule, rather than addressing the real issue. The office manager institutes a dress code rather than talking personally to the one person who is inappropriate. The boss sends a memo declaring office computers are for business use only instead of dealing with the one employee playing video games. Seems to me that law is less demanding than love.
Seems to me that is what Jesus is saying in this morning's Gospel lesson. He continues his Sermon on the Mount with his discussion of the law. He says he has come not to abolish- but to fulfill the law. And no one seems to understand exactly what he means.
I've most often heard two nearly opposite interpretations of this passage. The first asserts that Jesus is urging us to take the law more seriously.
He is offering a new law that both exceeds and supersedes the law of the Pharisees.
"You've heard it said..., but I say..." It is like the Ten Commandments on steroids. The problem with this approach is that it makes the Christian faith even more about just following rules. Our faith becomes simply a matter of morality.
The second interpretation suggests that Jesus is taking the law to extremes precisely to show us that we are utterly helpless to follow the law. The purpose of the law is not to tell us how to live but to drive us to Christ for mercy. While this underscores our dependence on God for forgiveness, it nevertheless empties the law of any significant moral content.
Personally, neither of those approaches works for me. To tell you the truth, I don't think Jesus' main concern is with the law at all. I think Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God,
the kingdom that is coming and, indeed, is at hand. And whenever you're talking about God and God's Kingdom you're also talking about relationships.
We think the law is about, being legal – about doing the right thing, staying in the lines, keeping your nose clean. But the law is actually concerned with relationships.
The whole law is actually a way to honor those with whom we are in relationship. No longer do the teachings on murder and adultery apply strictly to acts of murder and adultery. Instead, they become doorways into the examination of many internal dynamics as well as external behaviors of one's life: anger, derision, slander, false generosity, litigiousness, arrogance, lust, temptation, alienation, divorce, and religious speech.
Law is given to guide us in the way God would have us honor, respect, and care for each other. Law understood primarily in legal terms, ends up being a moral check list:
No murder today; check!
No adultery; check!
Jesus wants more from us. Actually, Jesus wants more for us.
He wants us to regard each other as God regards us and to treat each other accordingly. Jesus is calling us to look beyond the law it see its goal and end: the life and health of our neighbor!
In this way Jesus calls us to envision life in God's kingdom as constituted not by obeying laws but rather by holding the welfare of our neighbors close to our hearts while trusting that they are doing the same for us.
The law is really about love.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.