But I Say to You...

Matthew 5:17-48 - The Greatest Sermon - But I Say to You ... Doug Partin - The Christian Church - 07/19/20 A South African woman stood in an emotionally charged courtroom listening to white police officers acknowledge the atrocities they had perpetrated in the name of apartheid. Officer van de Broek acknowledged his responsibility in the death of her son. Along with others, he had shot her eighteen-year-old son at point-blank range. He and the others partied while they burned his body, turning it over on the fire until it was ashes. Eight years later, van de Broek and others arrived to seize her husband. Hours later, van de Broek came to fetch the woman herself. He took her to a woodpile where her husband lay bound. She was forced to watch as they poured gasoline over him and ignited the flames that consumed his body. The last words her husband said were "Forgive them." Now van de Broek stood awaiting judgment. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission asked the woman what she wanted. "Three things," she said. "I want Mr. van de Broek to take me to the place where they burned my husband's body. I would like to gather up the dust and give him a decent burial. "Second, Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him. "Third, I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God and that I forgive him, too. I would like someone to lead me to where he is seated so I can embrace him and he can know my forgiveness is real." As the elderly woman was led across the courtroom, van de Broek fainted. And someone in the courtroom began singing "Amazing Grace." Yes, it really happened. -Stanley W. Green, Canadian Mennonite (September 4, 2000)1 Jesus had just challenged His followers to live lives so radically different than the world around them that they would be like salt and light toward it. And I want you to consider that "the world" around this particular crowd to whom Jesus was speaking was primarily Jewish. So it seems a little odd, when you think about it, that Jesus challenged them to let the Law set the standard for their "righteousness." They had grown up with the Law, went to school to learn about the Law, but even in a Law saturated culture, you can find ways to live by your own desires; and some of them had gotten so familiar with the Law, that they, like any good lawyer, found "loopholes," whereby they could, technically speaking, "keep the law," while still doing what they really wanted to do. You probably don't know, because few people do, that their word for "righteousness" meant, at its most basic level, "to show or evidence." For Jesus, the Law established what was the "best" or "right way" of doing things, and so, living by it "evidenced;" that is, it "displayed" your "righteousness" for all to see. In other words, for Jesus, your "righteousness" or "unrighteousness" for that matter, was based in what your belief about what was right ended up motivating you to do. If you believed that what the Law said was best, and you did it, you would be "righteous," but if you didn't believe that it was the best, and you decided to do something else, well, then by making that choice, you would show yourself to be "unrighteous." That's why James would later argue that Abraham was "justified." And before I go on with what he said, I want you to understand that their word for "justified" was only a slight variation of the same word translated "righteousness." You are "justified" when what you do is shown to have been the right thing to do. Abraham, James said, was justified by his works when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the alter. His faith and behavior were working together. Abraham believed God, which motivated Him to do what God had asked him to do, even if he didn't fully understand why he was being asked to sacrifice his son; and his making the preparations to do so was considered for Him "righteousness" - the evidence of His faith. I'm so glad that God interviened and provided the lamb to be sacrificed in his place, and so was Abraham. So, "righteousness" really is tied to doing what God asks us to do. Which is why Jesus taught that living by the Law, as it was intended to be understood, was the best path toward expressing love, which is the only right way of living. It provided clear directions and concrete examples on how to live in a way that expressed love for God, yourself, and others. The problem, Jesus would point out on occasions, wasn't the Law, but lousy interpretations of it. As I said earlier, the most common one back then was a legalistic approach that allowed one's inner, selfish, and worldly desires to be satisfied while at the same time appearing to keep God's requirements. They created a system by which they could consider themselves "righteous" even though their behavior declared that they were "unrighteous." As James would later argue, "You can't see your brother in need, without anything to eat, and do nothing for them, except offer a prayer, and consider yourself righteous." (James 2:16) A righteous person, as the Law directed, would get them something to eat. And doing so would reveal what you really believed. But they had definitions about who was, and who wasn't their brother, and felt that God was okay with them neglecting those who didn't meet their definition of brother. Jesus corrected the false, legalistic, approach by saying that when the Law advised, "thou shalt not murder," it was addressing anger. Killing someone out of anger was certainly wrong, would probably get you arrested, and punished by the court; but anger might also lead you to demean others by calling them inappropriate names. Jesus said that calling your brother an "empty headed fool," which was probably done because your brother didn't do what you wanted them to do in the way that you wanted them to do it, and you were mad about it. But, since you didn't murder them over it, you were okay? Right. Jesus said, "No." If you got angry enough to yell at them. It was the same as if you had murdered them, because you were still being motivated by anger. It was "unrighteous behavior," that is, it displayed that you were not choosing the best way to handle the situation. Which should make you ask, "How would a person of love handle a brother who didn't do what you wanted them to do?" I could probably preach a whole series of sermons on anger management. But we'll save that for later. Jesus pushed His point a little further, asking, "Why would someone, in the act of making an offering, be able to recall that someone was angry with them?" Evidently, they were well aware that this other person was angry with them. And evidently they had decided to avoid them instead of confronting them, seeking a way to resolve the issue. A person of love, Jesus said, would realize that they are not living by God's directions if they only keep the rules about making offerings while ignoring the ones about dealing with relationships. As John would point out in his first letter to the believers in Ephesus, "How can you love God whom you can't see, when you don't love your brother whom you can see?" His point was that if you love God, you would take care of your brother's needs. But if you didn't or won't take care of their needs, then it shows that you don't really love God. (1 John 3:17). Jesus pushed this point even further, saying, if you've done something so wrong that a brother has every reason to take you to court. Why didn't you own up to what you did in the first place and make things right? Since this is a section on anger, we'll assume that you were angry at the person and so, you did something wrong toward them out of that anger. And because you were angry, you were not willing to admit that what you did was undeserved, and you have no desire to make things right. So, their only recourse is to take you to court. Jesus was suggesting that perhaps, even on the way to the court, it would still be better for you to repent of your anger, and make amends on the way, before you get thrown into jail, in which you would not be released until someone paid what the court determined was owed to the other person to make things right. The Law of Love calls for more than just refraining from the act of murder. But Jesus didn't stop there, He said that when the Law advised, "You shall not commit adultery," it was dealing with faithfulness. The lack of which might lead to an outright act of adultery, but it might also lead to lust, which is just one of the desires of the flesh that motivates unrighteous behavior. These desires can lead a husband to send his wife away with a certificate of divorce so he can feel justified in his pursuit of another woman in hopes of acting on those desires rather than fighting against them and remaining faithful. In this example, Jesus said that such a "divorce" was really an act of adultery, and it even set the wife up with no other choice but to break her own vow. She wasn't lusting after another man, but she was still sent packing, and now, although she is divorced, she will have to break her vow in order to marry again. And whoever marries her will be the one with whom she has to break that vow. Jesus isn't condemning her, but pointing out that she doesn't have any other choice because of the situation that her former husband put her in. That's not righteous behavior. As I pointed out in our recent study of Ephesians, a righteous husband would be loving His wife like Christ loves the church; not sending her off so he can act on his lusts. Appropriately, Jesus moved on in His sermon to say that when the Law advised "not to make a false vow to the Lord," it was addressing trustworthiness. They had created an elaborate system of when you really had to keep your word, and when you didn't. Often invoking God, to do something bad to them, if they didn't keep their promise. But God wanted them to be trustworthy. If they were to say "yes" about something, they were to do it; and if they were to say "no" about something, they were to refrain from it. Which might get a little personal since a lot of us don't like to say "no," when asked to do something. But better to say no, then to say yes, and resent it, and become passive aggressive about it. Jesus keep up the pace, moving on in His sermon, saying that when the Law said, "eye for eye and tooth for tooth," which comes out of a context in the Law that was addressing proper compensation for an act that caused injury, but was used in Jesus' day to justify an escalated act of revenge toward someone who hurt or offended you. That if a person were to strike you, you were to respond to them as one who was motivated by love. Does love strike them back with equal strength? Does it strike them back with an even stronger blow? Jesus said that the Law was really calling for a restrained response, and it gave room for offering the offender forgiveness. He pushed this point further by saying that if someone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, don't get into a legal battle with them, it is not righteous thing to do. Jesus said to let them have your coat as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, which would most likely have been a Roman soldier back then, who could force you to carry his rather heavy gear one mile, Jesus said that you should carry it two miles. Just imagine what you would say to someone about your faith over the course of a couple of miles. A Roman soldier might actually listen because they would never expect such a radical act of love toward them from a person whom they were forcing to carry their stuff. In another example of how an "eye for an eye" was misused, Jesus addressed how to respond to those who ask for help. He said, "Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who want to borrow from you." We tend to shy away from lending our stuff when the last time we did, it didn't get returned, or came back damaged. We could insist that the person "make things right," that we get our "eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth" or we could not make an issue out of it. Jesus wanted them to consider what a person of love would do. Jesus also kept right on preaching, saying that when the Law said that you were to love your neighbor, it meant all of them, even those who you might consider an enemy, it even included those who might persecute you. It was taught that such people were not your neighbors, and it was okay for you to hate them, but Jesus includes them in the definition of a neighbor. I don't know about you, but Jesus quit preaching a long time ago and started meddling, didn't He. It is one thing for Him to talk about other people and their problems; but this sermon goes to the heart of our motives, and challenges us to be radically different than those around us. He really does want us to be Salt and Light, and if we are not different than anyone else, we can't be Salt and Light. Jesus kept preaching but our Bibles bring this section of His sermon to a close because Jesus paused to ask those listening to Him, "Why should we act so radically different than we have been taught to act?" Because, Jesus said, it "demonstrates," it "exemplifies," It "displays" your righteousness. It "reveals" that you really are a child of your Father in Heaven. If He sends rain and sunshine on everyone, the evil and the good, shouldn't we also do likewise? If we only "greet" those who meet our limited definition of brother, that's not very radical. That offers no "light" into a dark world, that has no "saltiness" to it. After all, even the Gentiles do that; therefore, we are to be..., Jesus said, perfect as our Heaven Father is perfect. The word translated "perfect" is "telios," A word that indicates the "end" of something. We might call it "maturity" or "completeness." It carried the idea of being what you were meant to be. A seed was "perfect" when it grows into a plant and bears it fruit. But it isn't "perfect" when it doesn't grow as it was intended to do. And in this sense of the word, we are to grow into people who bear the fruit of righteousness - of acting in loving ways, because we are motivated by love. Not because it is required of us, but because that is the sort of person we have become. Impossible? Not at all, radical, yes. We must remember that nothing is impossible with God, and we have been transformed by Christ's love. We are no longer slaves to our old desires which once motivated us. We are filled with the Holy Spirit. And we are maturing, we are growing, we are becoming people who love like our heavenly Father loves. And as we do, we will live radically different lives than those around us. We will even, as that South African woman did, express the law of love, when everyone else calls for revenge. 1 Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 85. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------