Sunday, February 12th: "Thank God for Rules"
First United Presbyterian Church
“Thank God for Rules”
Rev. Amy Morgan
February 12, 2023
Psalm 119:1-8
Happy are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord.
Happy are those who keep his decrees,
who seek him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways.
You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
O that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous ordinances.
I will observe your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me.
Matthew 5:17-3717 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; 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. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
‘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. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
‘It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
‘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.
Early in my days as a youth pastor, I found a game for the youth group that I thought was genius. It was called “the Rule Game.” It started out with no rules. Everyone sat in a circle, and each person got to have a turn making up a rule for the game.
The first couple of kids to go had a tough time thinking up rules for a game out of nowhere. But one finally said that every time someone said the word, “the,” we all had to clap our hands. Brilliant. And then the next one decided that when anyone sneezed we all had to stand up. Great. This was getting fun.
And then we got to the kids in the group who always remembered that we’re at church and the answer is always Jesus and love. So one of them declared their rule to be that everyone wins the game at the end. Groan. And her friend decided that the game couldn’t end until everyone had gotten a hug.
But before the hugging could start, we got to the rowdy segment of the circle, the kids who always seem to figure out how to take things off-track. Danny made a rule that whenever he stood up, everyone had to crawl around on their hands and knees. Eric then made a rule that no one could go to the bathroom without his permission. I started to sense things were moving in the wrong direction with this game.
But things really went off the rails when we got around to Mary and Alex, two sisters in the group who had entered the room that night in a hot family feud. They immediately seized on the opportunity of the rule game to exact vengeance on each other. First Mary made a rule that nobody could talk to Alex for the rest of the night. Then Alex made a rule that whenever she shouted, “dogpile,” everyone had to tackle Mary.
The rest of the group picked up on this theme of using the rule game to target one another, and very soon the hugging and everybody wins rules were replaced with arguing and vengeance. Obviously, this meant we never actually played the game. Nobody got hugged and nobody won. But at least nobody got tackled either.
What this experience highlights is how differently rules can be used. We tend to think of rules only in the sense of confining or controlling behavior. But the Rule Game demonstrated that rules can unite us, get us doing the same thing, and bring us together as a community. Rules can affirm our value and encourage loving connection. Or, rules can be used to elevate the status of some and oppress others. And rules can even be used vengefully or punitively.
Jesus was well aware of all these uses of rules when he arrives at this moment in his sermon on the mount. He’s aware that the rules, or laws, of his Jewish community were being applied in a variety of ways. The laws of the Torah were meant to unite them as a people and encourage loving connection between neighbors. But sometimes the laws were used to elevate some people and oppress others or even to exact revenge.
But Jesus’s answer is not to throw out the laws, call off the game, so to speak. Instead, he insists that the laws themselves are righteous and enduring. And, he adds, that he has come to “fulfill” the laws and their prophetic interpreters.
Now, when Jesus says this, it does not mean that he fulfills all the requirements of the law and therefore we’re not on the hook to do that anymore. That would effectually abolish the law, which he has just explicitly said he is not doing.
Fulfillment here really means something more like “to exhibit the full potential of.” Jesus is the full possibility of how life-giving and God-honoring the law can be. Jesus teaches and lives the law in a way that demonstrates the fullness of human thriving God intends.
Biblical scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Mac Zvi Brettler assert that what Jesus is doing is a practice that was common in rabbinical Judaism. It was called “fencing the Torah.” To build a “fence” around the laws or commandments, rabbis would offer interpretations that addressed the root causes of law-breaking. If you are deterred from calling someone a fool or insulting someone in your community, it is much less likely that you’ll get into a situation that would invoke anger and may ultimately lead to murder – the actual breaking of the commandment.
So Jesus is “fencing the Torah” by extending the commandments beyond their stated requirements: “from forbidding murder to forbidding anger; from forbidding adultery to forbidding lust; from forbidding false or violated oaths to forbidding oath-taking; from permission to divorce to forbidding it.”
The other thing that is important to understand about this section of Jesus’s sermon is that biblical laws are not like the civil laws we operate with today. Levine and Brettler explain that “the Torah is not a law code in the sense of a comprehensive set of laws intended for use by the court, and in a number of cases, such as the Decalogue [or Ten Commandments], it is unclear how or by whom they were enforced.” The Torah is made up of “several collections of laws that reflect different periods, authors, and audiences.” So really “it is best to speak of biblical laws rather than ‘the law.’” Some of these laws “are theoretical or ideal; they reflect societal aspirations rather than legal norms.”
In fulfilling the law, in “fencing the Torah,” extending the commandments, Jesus is not creating a “comprehensive set of laws intended for use by the court” to be enforced by ecclesial or civil authority. He’s speaking to a first-century Jewish audience about how the laws can better reflect their “societal aspirations.”
But these societal aspirations will be different from what these people have experienced before. Because Jesus is inaugurating the reign of God on earth, and with that reign comes new possibilities. With that reign, humanity can flourish and thrive in ways that exceed righteousness under biblical laws.
This is what Jesus is describing in his sermon: the new way of life that is possible in Jesus Christ. A life characterized by kindness, faithfulness, commitment, and honesty. Jesus illustrates this new way of life through the extension of biblical laws. But truly, he is extending this way of life beyond even the fence he establishes here. These are but a few examples of the possibilities available to us as we follow Jesus and live into the reign of God.
But we can use these sayings of Jesus in a variety of ways. We can use to them to unite as a community and live in a distinctive way. We can use them to love and affirm each other. Or, we can use them to elevate the status of some and oppress others. And we can even use them vengefully or punitively.
These teachings of Jesus, intended as life-giving guidance for human thriving, have been used by Christians over the centuries to command reconciliation without justice, to shame women for men’s lustful glances and discourage teaching about healthy sexuality, and to force people to remain in abusive or unhealthy relationships. So when we hear these teachings today, we tend to recoil from them. The way these rules have been used in the past colors our view of them in the present.
But my hope is that we can liberate these teachings from their abusive applications and see how Jesus’s life-giving intentions shine through. I hope that we can find in these teachings a way of life that we desire to follow as passionately as the Psalmist desires to steadfastly keep God’s statutes.
To do that, we need to ask ourselves how these teachings of Jesus are unifying, how they bring us together as a community, how they provide love and affirmation, for us today.
In a nation that experienced more than 26,000 murders in 2021, we need guidance on how to curb this terrible rise in violence. Jesus’s teaching is just as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. Stop calling each other names and getting indignant and angry. Sort out your differences peacefully and proactively. This is a good rule, not just to avoid murdering each other, but to bring us together as a society and love our neighbors.
In a nation where tens of thousands of women and children are forced into sexual slavery each year, we need guidance on how to curb lustful and objectifying inclinations that fuel this oppressive industry. That doesn’t mean we should encourage the suppression of healthy sexuality. We live in a society that bombards us with messages and advertising that tell us we deserve more, we should want better, what we are and what we have is not enough. This is the root of lust. And the antidote is not suppression of our natural desires. The antidote is gratitude for what we have. It is recognizing one another’s humanity so that we can honor and respect each other. It is learning about relationships of mutuality and consent that lead to fulfillment so that we don’t objectify and abuse children of God made in the image of God.
Jesus’s teaching about divorce is an extension of his commentary on adultery. Jewish law allowed a man to divorce his wife if she displeased him in any way. While some kind of provision usually had to be made for the wife being divorced, it still placed this woman in a perilous position in society. Some interpreters see Jesus offering this teaching as a protection for women in the first century, and that may be so. But there’s really no getting around the fact that this teaching is much more conservative than almost any other rabbinical interpretation of his time.
What Jesus is establishing here is not a law prohibiting divorce that should be adhered to no matter what. He is calling us to fidelity in our relationships, loving commitment that is trustworthy, honest, and faithful. A marriage that does not possess these qualities is not what Jesus is commanding us to maintain. And those who have interpreted this saying in such a way are making this an oppressive rule rather than a loving and life-giving teaching.
Finally, in a society that has been called “post-factual,” Jesus’s teaching to not slander God’s name by swearing on it is highly relevant. Simple honesty, that doesn’t require oaths or vows, is how we unite as a society for the thriving of humanity. Straightforward answers without qualification will guide us toward a shared truth. Yes and no. Not, “yes, but…” or “no, but…” Humble recognition that there is so much that is not in our control will restrain our impulse to believe we can create or alter the truth of our reality.
These teachings from Jesus may sound exaggerated or even harsh to our 21st-century ears. But they are intended to show us what is possible. We may not be able to live in this life-giving, God-honoring way every minute of every day. We are still human and God’s reign on earth is not yet complete. But Jesus shows us the potential for a way of life that allows for all God’s children to thrive and truly reflect the image of God in which we were made.
Thank God for this possibility, this potential. Even in those times when we fall short of this ideal. Especially in those times when we realize how far off-track our lives and the world around us have gone. But let’s stay in the game, grateful for rules that bring us together and encourage us to love one another as God has loved us.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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