The Alternative Truths for Jesus People

Matthew 5:21-37

The Gospel this morning is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount, but today’s teaching by Jesus are some of the most troubling in the entire bible, for us to comprehend.

Jesus has just called this community salt of the earth and light for the world. Yet as we examine ourselves in the light of this teaching, we might well feel convicted as Jesus expands the scope and application of each of these commandments.

Lately, in our everyday lives, we have been hearing a great deal about “alternative truths” and “alternative facts”, much to my dismay and perhaps to yours. Yet in our Gospel today alternative truths and facts are exactly what Jesus is giving us. the “alternatives” that Jesus delivers are not truths and facts that disregard, contradict, or go against the commandments as much as they offer a different, deeper, more complete way of understanding the impact of each commandment for the life of the community. If the church is to truly function as salt and light for the society around it, then Jesus wants us to understand these truths.

We know from our readings of Exodus and Deuteronomy that God gave the Ten Commandments to the people for their own good, and for the good of the community.

Moses says, If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 

God gives the commandments as a gift, that God’s people might live in good, healthy, mutually supportive and loving relationships with God and with one another. Fact.

From Genesis to Revelation, we witness a God who pursues, guides and provides for good, healthy, lively relationships for God’s people so that they might live in harmony with God and with and for each other and the creation God has made. Fact. It’s all about relationship!

God’s Law guides human relationships and keeps people focused on God and on such life-sustaining behavior. Fact.

So, if we accept as fact that God gave the Law for the welfare of all people, and that God’s Law is good, why does it seem that Jesus is changing the law? If God says obey this Law because it is good; then why does it seem Jesus is offering ‘alternative fact’? Is Jesus giving us alternative rules?

At the beginning of the Gospel for today, Jesus says, you shall not kill and that anyone who commits murder is liable for judgement; but I say to you that even when you are angry with a brother or sister you are still guilty, or even if you simply insult one of these, you will face judgment.

We’ve been hearing terms like alternative facts and alternative truths, and we might be tempted to see what Jesus is doing in the negative light of that experience. But what Jesus is doing here is not trying to change the Law but to give an alternative way to look at the Law that deepens and broadens our understanding of God’s intent and desire for living out our relationships.

In each of these alternative statements, Jesus goes deeper; “you’ve heard it said,” he begins, followed by a commandment, to which Jesus then responds, “But I say,” and then Jesus’s teaching point – his alternative fact.

The thing is, Jesus isn’t there to disregard or change the old teachings, rather, this Son of God will fulfill, amplify, deepen and transcend the Law. In this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his disciples on how to look more deeply and broadly at these commandments and to see how they are lived out in our lives and in our world today.

Jesus just finished telling this community of Christ followers that they are salt and light for the world, and now he teaches them what it means to live like it.  Following Jesus’ alternative facts means choosing life in his name.

Jesus frames teach teaching by reminding us of the literal reading of the law but then broadens its meaning and impact: he does this each time he says, but ‘I say to you’ a statement that carries the same weight in Matthew’s Gospel as his ‘I Am’ statements do in John’s Gospel.

This is the royal, the divine statement of identity and authority of Jesus in this Gospel; this is the divine ‘I’, reminding us that all religious and ethical authority rests on Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah. In obedience to God’s voice which spoke from heaven at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, we should ‘listen to him now’.

The students in our Confirmation class are currently studying the Ten Commandments, and one of the things that we are doing is going deeper, looking at the broader scope of each of the commandments.

In Luther’s Small Catechism, Luther asks the question of each commandment, “What is this?” or, “What does this mean?” – these are like the “why” questions our kids love to ask, and the story goes that they are mirrored after his own children’s questions. In each case, Luther gives an answer, for teaching of the faith.

As we look at this commandment, Jesus invites us to go deeper and wider with our understanding of how this commandment – ‘Thou shalt not kill’ guides our relationships.

Jesus gives us an alternative way of looking at the commandment. Killing is not just murder. Killing is not just shooting someone or stabbing someone or poisoning them until they are no longer breathing. Truth be told, as far as I know we are all probably innocent when it comes to murder.

But here is Jesus’ alternative fact regarding murder. …..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. Wow. Jesus has just put a different spin on our understanding of the commandment, and has probably indicted all of us.

We might think, that hardly seems fair. How can Jesus fault us for anger? It is an essential human emotion, isn’t it? While there are people who have anger management issues and seem to get angry about everything, acting rashly and even dangerously when they do, they are more the exception than the rule.

But for the rest of us, isn’t anger a good thing? Isn’t even the most sainted, mild-mannered among us likely to get angry sometimes? Shouldn’t certain things make us angry, and doesn’t anger sometimes spur us on to godly action, like fighting for justice, and caring for our brothers and sisters? Didn’t Jesus himself reveal anger on occasion? How can anger be equated to killing?

Well, the good news, my friends, is that Jesus isn’t talking about legitimate angry response in the face of injury, injustice, sin, and the things that, indeed, should make us angry. Instead, the Greek word that appears in this passage refers to anger that is long-lived, simmering, glaring anger, the anger that is nursed, the anger that is less a reaction to a passing insult or injury than it is a choice that is made - to hold a grudge, to fan the flame of rage or antagonism, to destroy a reputation.

Further, Jesus addresses the angry retort, the name-calling, the tendency to strike out in anger with harsh words that wound and scar. I read somewhere that “Resentment and hard words kill more people than drugs, alcohol and tobacco combined.” I don’t know about the statistics on that, but I do know, as we all do, that our angry words and actions can and do kill relationships, the very thing that God has created us for.

Anger and the actions and words that we use within the sphere of anger hurts, wounds, kills, scars, and has lasting effect on the person, family, or communities whose quality of life is whittled down by the lingering effects of anger.

Jesus came to bring life and love, grace, mercy and forgiveness to the world. Jesus came to teach us to be bridge builders and disciples, carrying his radical message of inclusivity, acceptance and deeper, broader engagement with God and with each other through the Word he brings into the world. As we look at the commandments, Jesus offers us the alternative ways of life that invite us to go deeper, and broader in our relationships. Jesus encouraged us to seek to understand how these directives for life address each and every one of us.

Today, when I look at my news feed, read news reports and editorials, when I have conversations with you, when I search my own heart, I confess that it is anger that I see rising to the top of so many of our communications and interactions that surround us. Not anger within this community so much, but anger at our neighbor. Anger born of fear and anger that inspires fear.  I confess that I feel anger at what is happening in our country and in our world. Again, some of this anger is healthy but truth be told, I know that much of it is not. It is the result of our collective feeling of helplessness. It is absorbed from the culture around us in which the debilitating, destructive, fuming, unproductive kind of anger is prominently being promoted, encouraged, and its flames fanned. And it isn’t good.

The color is seeping out of this beautiful world and the life that God offers us all through Jesus. Instead, faithful people on both sides of every argument inappropriately use the church and Scripture as a weapon to wound, insult, and drive a wedge between people.

The gospel good news that I wish to share with you today my friends, is that God is present and working in the midst of this chaos. Jesus came that we might have life and light in his name. We are disciples of Christ, called to bring healing and blessing to the world around us.

So let’s begin by each of us looking at this commandment and searching our hearts, our actions and our words, and remembering who we are and whose we are. There is a difficult fight ahead of us, and today more than ever before, we are sent to proclaim the love and justice that Jesus brings.

The good news is that Jesus has called us as disciples and had made us salt and light for the world, and he does not leave us alone to do this. Instead, he sends the Spirit to guide our hearts and our ways.

Jesus has called us to bring his Word of peace and grace into just such a world as this. Through baptism Jesus has anointed us to speak grace into the turmoil that surrounds us, has called us to be his church, and his blessing for the world.

Sometimes, this means that we will agree to disagree about things like politics. Sometimes this means we will get angry about social injustice and oppression. We will work together to speak out against it or to combat such things.

Always, being called to be the church of Christ and God’s heart and hands in the world, we will be guided by his love. It is love that will defeat the sin of the world when the kingdom comes to its fullness at Jesus’ return. May the alternative truth, the message of love, mercy and grace, guide us and shape us as Jesus people, for the sake of the world. 

  

Beautiful Feet and Mercy Kissing Peace

Romans 10:5-15

God is always doing a new thing. This we believe. Yet despite our belief about the eternal workings and creativity of God, we humans have a tendency to cling to our ideas of how God works, thus in our minds, we keep God and God’s potentiality in a box.

Our lessons today all point to the fact that God has always been doing new things for the sake of God’s relationship with humankind. Our Christian witness tells the story of the way in which God has done the greatest new thing in sending God’s own Word to dwell with, in and around us through the incarnation of Jesus Christ into the world, the biggest game changer there ever was or will be.

Still, the wall we consistently smack into, comes because we are so entrenched in our ideas of what was. We are attached like barnacles to a pilings and rocks to the way things have always been. This includes our understanding of how God works, despite the biblical witness of God’s unceasing pursuit and faithfulness to this relationship God desires; to our welfare and salvation. All of our previous and current understandings of how things work are both limited and limiting.

In the August issue of The Lutheran magazine, Pastor, author, and columnist Peter Marty reflected in an article entitled “God language,” on the 1969 Apollo 11 lunar module landing. Marty helps us remember that at the moment that his feet hit the dirt (or whatever you call the substance covering the surface of the moon), Neil Armstrong uttered the now-legendary words, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Marty comments that if this historic moment had occurred just 15 years later, cultural shifts would likely have insisted on more inclusive language, influencing this statement instead to be something like, “One small step for man,” [or, even, person, I would suggest] “one giant leap for humankind.” 

Marty writes, “Language changes over time. In the church,

however, we can be slow to make adjustments to linguistic shifts.” Marty then expounds on the patterns and impetus for using gendered language for God, and the problems and limitations of such language; but I believe that the application of his illustration goes far beyond linguistic tendencies and applies as well to the ways in which we understand God, how God is working, and how our lives are impacted by God’s grace and mercy. God always doing a new thing for the good of humankind and for the sake of God’s eternal relationship with us is illustrated in each of our readings today, and is a topic Paul continues to wrestle with in the epistle reading.

          Readings from Romans remind us of how Jesus’ faithfulness expanded “God’s circle of mercy and grace” to include those previously considered excluded…emphasizing just how new a thing God has done in Christ.

You might remember that in this portion of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, Paul is addressing what is a point of crisis for him. This crisis arises from the fact that most of the Jewish people, his people, have not accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t understand why this gospel has had no effect on them. What is God’s plan here? What new thing is God still doing in the life of these people?

As in chapters 1 – 3 of this same epistle, Paul asserts that both Jews and Gentiles alike are estranged from God and under the power of sin. All suffer from disobedience to God in some form. All reject God’s love and God’s law to some extent. But for Paul there is good news in this: God still saves people out of those conditions. God remains faithful. God is merciful to all and so through the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the word of salvation is still very near, for everyone.

The Greek word, pas, is used repeatedly in this section of the Paul’s letter – a fact that points to its importance in this scripture. This word can be translated as either all or everyone:

All of this is because God is faithful. God is relentless in God’s attempts to win heart and soul of all. God pursues all people to the end of the world. And in God’s faithful, relentless pursuit, God is doing a new thing here: God has become the righteousness of everyone who believes in God and calls upon God’s name, and in Jesus Christ God has opened the gates of life for all.

Lest we forget this, in chapter 9:15 Paul reminds us of the foundation of God’s promise to Moses, spoken in the wilderness tent: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” The extent and purpose of God’s righteousness will be determined by God, and God alone. God will not be boxed in by the limitations of our thinking, believing or understanding. Further, “Those who were not my people I will call my people.” (9:15)

For those who still believe that it is their participation in the law that saves, Paul adds, “For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” Christ both fulfills and annuls the law. Borrowing from the beautiful words of our psalm reading for the day, in Christ, God’s “steadfast love and faithfulness have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” (85:10)

Paul’s point is twofold and is relevant for us today. First, we ought not presume that we can make our salvation happen; not by following the law, not by doing good works, not by praying the right prayers, singing the right songs, not even by possessing the “correct understanding” of how God works. Our righteousness is the result of God’s effort. We don’t manufacture our salvation or attain new life on our own. Christ is the means of God’s manifestation of life for all, and God claims us through the faithfulness of Christ. God will give what is good for all.

The good news in this word is the accessibility of God that is inclusive and broad in its scope: Christ’s faith is a game-changer in our walk with God. The embodiment of faith, first and foremost, is the faithfulness of Jesus that brings new life. And for all of us who have tired and failed at perfection, this is good news. For all of us who have known times of trial and doubt, this is good news. For all of us who have been worn down by the idea that unless we are able to live sinless lives we are doomed or that God cannot forgive us our failings and sin because they are too large, this is good news that we can embrace.

So where, we might ask, does the law come in? When we believe in Christ and Christ lives in our hearts, our faith is evident in our actions. It is not our actions that save us. But in faith, our actions, influenced by the law and inspired by Christ bring the good news of God’s love and mercy for the world.

In study with one of our Confirmation students this week, the topic of discipleship came up. We talked a bit about the measure of discipleship that was made popular a few years ago; WWJD - What Would Jesus Do? Remember that? The idea was that each of us, along with all who believe in Jesus are disciples and that fact impacts our lives in ways that are evident to the world.

So “What Would Jesus Do” became the mark and measure for our decisions and behaviors in order to guide, rather than condemn. The law works in the same way. For disciples, living in obedience to the law of God made evident through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus becomes a way of life. For disciples, living Christ-shaped lives becomes our goal. In his book entitled “Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a Changing World,” Michael Foss describes the six marks of this kind of life. According to Foss, the marks of discipleship are Prayer, Worship, Scripture, Service, Relationships, and Giving. According to Foss, developing these areas of our lives will help us to grow in our relationship with God and will grow our discipleship in the world.

What does it mean, then, for God to work in and through Christ, and always, still, doing a new thing? Where do we see God working in this way in our lives and in the world?

The final verse of this second reading points to the answer: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” This declaration points to the text from Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns.” Today, this messenger announces the presence and victory of God. Today, this messenger proclaims the good news of God in Christ through word and action. Today those whose feet are beautiful, share God’s love, peace and mercy through acts of kindness, love, compassion, forgiveness, faithfulness and generosity. The disciple of Christ is this messenger. The disciple whose feet are beautiful who make God known to the world is you. And me. May it be so.