Based on Matthew 5:20-37. Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on February 12, 2023.
The Gospel According to Matthew is structured in such a way to evoke comparisons to Moses. Jesus is portrayed as the new Moses. We are currently in the Sermon on the Mount, which echoes the time Moses went up on Mount Sinai to enter into a covenant with God and receive the Law.
Jesus is the new Moses who delivers a new Law. This section is referred to as the antitheses, meaning a sequence of statements with contrasts. But as Jesus had just said, he came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. His contradictory statements make the Law even more strict. He is saying that the Law that Israel had received was not really complete. The Law of Moses was basically set on a 7 or an 8, and Jesus is turning it up to 11.
When Moses received the Ten Commandments and then all of the other laws captured in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, God was trying to create a new nation. Israel was just a ragtag assembly of tribes wandering in the desert. If they accepted God’s sovereignty and Law, they would become a holy nation, a priestly people set apart to serve God. Jesus comes along and says, That’s not good enough. Yes, it was fine back then, but now it’s time to create a new kind of community.
This new community needs righteousness exceeding the scribes and the Pharisees. The scribes were experts in the Law, and the Pharisees were known for following the Law scrupulously. But Jesus says, I AM the Law, and I will show you the way to fuller living in My kingdom. To be a part of this kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, here are all the things you need to do. And let me warn you, this is tough stuff.
First off, don’t murder. I think I can handle that one. I personally haven’t murdered anyone today. But Jesus goes further, saying, don’t insult anyone. In fact, don’t even be angry with anyone. For anger disrupts relationships, and holy relationships are the foundation of the kingdom of heaven. If you harm your siblings in any way, you are destroying that foundation.
As I mentioned last time, some Christian sects take the Sermon on the Mount very seriously. Most Christians throughout history have not. We started out as a small group living together with everything in common, as described in the Book of Acts, but later on allied ourselves with Empire. We made a deal with Constantine and his successors, sometimes implicitly but often explicitly, that we would condone their violent ways if they would allow us to continue to serve God.
Indeed, the Christian church often went further and actively perpetrated harm in God’s name. There are too many examples to list. The earliest one I can think of is the Crusades, where Christian armies went murdering and pillaging throughout eastern Europe and the Middle East under a Christian banner. Antisemitism has been rampant since the Middle Ages, resulting in the Inquisition, pogroms, and ultimately the Holocaust. The Doctrine of Discovery was used to justify brutal acts as Christians colonized the Americas. Boarding schools were created to destroy Native American culture, no matter the harm done to the children who were forced to attend them. Many churches openly supported slavery. Incidentally, on this date in 1909, the NAACP was founded in Springfield, Illinois, after race riots there. Denominations have continued to splinter over the past fifty years because of a variety of social issues that ultimately revolve around the question of who is to be included in God’s kingdom and who should have the privilege of leading and teaching God’s people.
We are the unfortunate and unwilling inheritors of this legacy. We can say that we’re not like those other Christians who did all of those horrible things, but we are tainted by the sins committed by our predecessors whether we acknowledge them or not.
Last week, I talked about our calling to be the light of the world. We should not be dentists to the world, but we should allow Christ to examine us and to show us our failings. In order to shine Christ’s love on others, we need to make ourselves worthy of carrying His love. We need to examine ourselves individually, as a congregation, as a denomination, and as a part of the universal Christian church to expose the ways in which we have caused or perpetuated harm.
Often, we commit sins of omission rather than commission. We fail to take responsibility for being a force for good in a broken world. Elie Wiesel famously said:
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.
Elie Wiesel
Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor who saw firsthand what happens when good people fail to act. Neutrality helps the oppressor. We who are strong must help those who are weak.
When I think about all the ways Christianity has sinned over the last two millennia, and the legacy of that sinfulness in terms of poverty and oppression, I become overwhelmed. I cannot undo four centuries of white European oppression of people of color in the United States, done either in God’s name or with the church’s consent. I cannot undo the harm that was done by marauding Christians throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. If I spent the entire rest of my life working for peace and reconciliation and restitution of what has been stolen, the most I could hope for is a drop in the bucket, an infinitesimal good among an enormous evil. Even if our congregation or whole denomination decided that was our only objective, we could barely move the needle.
The reality is that the world is broken in ways that I can’t heal, and that we as a group cannot heal. But, we are a people of hope, not hopelessness. We are a people who believe in a God who can overcome sin and even death. We worship a risen Christ who promises eternal life in his kingdom. Reconciliation may be impossible for us, but with God, all things are possible.
Jesus commands us to be reconciled with our siblings in the kingdom. If you’ll notice, he didn’t say, “If someone has wronged you and you are holding a grudge, go and be reconciled to them before offering your gift at the altar.” No. He said, “If you have wronged someone, go and be reconciled to them.” The onus is upon the party who has committed the sin.
Again, you may say that you haven’t broken any relationships that need to be healed. But Jesus sets the bar impossibly high and asks us to broaden our perspective. Think about the people who are not here today and why. At least some of them are people that we know who have been hurt by our actions or inaction. Many more of them are people that we don’t know, but who hold us accountable for the sins of the Church.
Being the light of the world means showing love to those who need it. Jesus says that we should be reconciled to those who have a claim against us. Relationships are healed one-on-one. Relationships are healed when the person who is in the wrong reaches out in humility and asks for forgiveness. Relationships are healed when two people come together and experience God’s presence, the binding power of the Holy Spirit. Relationships are healed when you are willing to own your role in the harm that has been done, or in perpetuating a system that is harmful, or in enabling harm through your silence or inaction.
This is hard. This can be painful. But ultimately, healing comes only when you build something new and beautiful as you work towards a greater good.
Let me tell you about a situation I was in right at the beginning of my tenure as department chair, back in August. There is an endowed professorship that historically was tied to my department. The previous professor who held that position left in summer 2021. The end of the story is that the position is no longer restricted to my department, and there is an active search right now to fill the professorship with a new hire in a different department. This was an extremely painful experience, right after I took over. I was extremely angry at various administrators, which reached its climax with a call to my dean that I regret.
The story has a happy ending of sorts. The dean and I have a pretty good relationship now. He understood where I was coming from, and I eventually understood that there were just miscommunications along the way. Also, the root of the problem wasn’t any evil act on anyone’s part. Rather, the problem came about because of a set of mutually incompatible expectations and a lack of sufficient resources. It resulted not from a personal failure but from a systemic failure.
So often, our interpersonal relationships are damaged by these systemic issues. There isn’t enough time or money or space to satisfy everyone’s needs. Saying yes to one good thing means saying no to another good thing that deserves a yes. What we say is not always the same as what other people hear, and vice versa. Decisions that were made a year or decade or century ago have repercussions that are still felt. The systems are too big for us to change on our own.
But what we can do is to heal relationships one at a time. I cannot resolve the university’s lack of sufficient resources, but I can develop a good relationship with my colleagues so that we can work together towards the greater good of serving our future alumni. I cannot resolve all of the harm done by the Christian church over the centuries, but I can show Christ’s love to those who suffer because of the church’s actions.
Jesus sets the bar impossibly high. He asks us to live in this life just the same as we will live in his eternal kingdom. He asks us to be perfect in an imperfect world. He says all these things knowing that we cannot possibly reach that ideal. But he also promises to fill us with the Holy Spirit who can help us grow in grace and become more Christ-like. He also promises forgiveness when we forgive, new life when we abide in him, and a glorious future that he is preparing for us.
Not every relationship can be salvaged. Not every harm can be remedied. But in baptism, we have each been claimed by Christ and responded by promising to be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. We embody God’s Word when we bring peace to a violent world, when we heal broken relationships, when we enable the oppressed to go free and flourish. We may fall short—in fact, we will fall short—but Christ will be with us by the Holy Spirit, helping us to do God’s will if we will only try. We are Christ’s body, Christ’s eyes and ears and hands and mouth to everyone we meet as we heal what is broken in this world. Let our yes be yes, as we answer our calling to be vessels of Christ’s reconciling love. Amen.
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