Jesus' Take on Rules (Epiphany 6A)

 

Jesus’ Take on Rules

12 February 2023

Sixth  Sunday After Epiphany Year A

Homily preached at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist

Parish Church of St, Mark the Evangelist, Medford Oregon

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Sirach 15:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37; Psalm 119:1-8

 

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

 

In last Sunday’s Gospel Jesus told us that we are the salt of the earth.  So here is a salty story to begin my homily today.  My daughter Emily gave me a T-shirt for Christmas.  I never would have bought it myself, and I would not ever have worn it but for the fact that she gave it to me and I trust and love her implicitly.  So I wear it on occasion, despite my misgivings.  It has a picture of a very traditional icon of our Lord raising his right hand in blessing and in the left hand holding a book that normally reads “Ο ΩΝ” (The One who Is.). The source of my hesitation in wearing it is this: instead of the traditional Greek words, is the simple commandment in English, and excuse me for the vulgarity in Church, “Don’t be a Dick.” 

 

I am always surprised by the reactions it provokes, even in liberal open-minded Ashland.  First, most people when they see the icon but before they read the words give a little “hmmph!” turned down smile while averting their eyes, as if to say “how dare this guy wear his religion on his sleeve—or worse, on a T-shirt!” They are expressing a basic condition of life in the Great Unchurched Pacific Northwest—it is bad form to admit you have faith, and even worse form to advertise it or push it on others.  But after a beat, some look back and actually read the words. A few, presumably those who have a traditional faith in Jesus, give bug-eyed looks of shock revealing their thoughts: “How dare this guy put a vulgarity on the lips of our Lord and Savior!” But even fewer break into broad smiles, and even laugh aloud or give me a thumbs up sign: “That’s right.  That’s exactly what Jesus would say to people, especially those who like to use him as a stick with which to beat up on others.”     

    

When Jesus says that we, his disciples, are light and salt for all, he isn’t telling us to be light and salt, he says we already are that, and his point is that just as those two things have an essential character who absence is unthinkable—tasteless salt, light that doesn’t shine—Jesus’ followers have an essential character—doing good deeds and acts of compassion—whose absence is just as unthinkable.  He contrasts this with “the uprightness” of those are mere rule keepers and says that our uprightness, if we are true to our nature as his disciples, must go farther and deeper that mere rule keeping.  And that is where today’s Gospel picks up.  

 

We have heard these verses often. And they are loaded with triggers and troubling images.  We often misunderstand them.   

 

This is the start of body of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew’s answer to Moses giving the Law on Mt. Sinai.  These verses present Jesus as giving a series of Halakic rulings (applications of the Torah), stressing above all the motivation and intentions of the Law and those who strive to keep it.  He is saying rule keeping is not the point—intentionality and having our outward actions match our inward self what matters.

 

This is not a diatribe against “Pharisees and scribes.”  These for Jesus just stand for rule-keeping at its worst.   Jesus’ halakah is close to that of the progressive rabbis of the Pharisees, and he speaks as a Jew to other Jews.  He says that one’s “uprightness” (efforts to fulfill our duty to God and our fellow human beings) must be based in good intentions, and exceed the minimal standards set by tradition, religious scholars, and rule keepers.

 

We often read these verses as if they were new laws, new rules, that need to be applied literally.  But if that is so, they are sick indeed.  Is having a fleeting wandering sexy thought REALLY the same as committing adultery, betraying your spouse and ruining your marriage?  Is getting angry with someone REALLY the same as committing murder?  Or calling someone an idiot such a grievous act that it merits burning in hell?  Should we never swear an oath because it too merits hellfire?   I think not, and neither did Jesus.  And should we take literally the order to poke our eyes out or cut off limbs because they might make us do something worthy of burning in hell?  Early church father Origen, troubled by his bodily urges, after reading this passage amputated his genitalia.  He learned the hard way how wrong it is to take such imagery literally. That’s why the Church never honored him as a saint.

Even the word Jesus uses for hell suggests he was deliberately being overly dramatic to make a point here:  Gehenna, a common word for the idea in that era, was actually just the name of a large garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where trash fires were constantly burning.  

When Jesus says that divorce, even when conducted according to the restraining rules of having a written procedure, is just plain wrong, is he telling us that we must stay in a hopelessly toxic relationship, even an abusive one, at all costs?  Again, I think not.  It’s about keeping us away from abusing each other by abandonment and washing our hands with each other, all legally according to the law, not about avoiding the contamination of what seems to be the promiscuity or adultery of being with someone other than a former spouse.

Like that Jesus on that T-shirt Emily gave me, Jesus is trying to shock us into seeing things in a new way.  These sayings are like Zen koans—statements that make no sense on the surface that try to get us to see beneath the surface. 

And what’s beneath the surface is the point.  Jesus is saying just keeping the rules isn’t enough.  What matters is our intentionality, what’s in our hearts, and making our outward actions conform to the good in our hearts.  Like that salt and light, it’s out letting the good inside of us break out into the world.     

We tend to read these verses and  think that Jesus is telling us to make our inward selves conform to our outward rule-keeping, but that’s not quite it.  While “faking it till you make it,” acting better than we are so that we can actually become better, is a tried and true practice to improve ourselves, it can be corrupted into hypocrisy, pretending to be better than we are so that we can just stay the same way. 

No. Jesus is saying we need to focus on what’s inside, and not reject it and beat up on ourselves over it, but rather, seize on the good that’s there, and cultivate it, and let it shine out in our actions.  Unity, not separation. Oneness, not alienation, inside or out.  We are already salt and light.  We are already good.  We just need to let that out in our behavior, need to let our outward selves conform to this core of goodness inside us. And we must not be dishonest and think somehow that we aren't human, with drives and emotions that sometimes do not reflect our best selves.  We have to accept what Jung called our shadow selves, because that's part of who we are.  But in being attentive to what's inside us, we must not feed and nurture our shadows, we must not feed the beast.  That's why we must turn our attention way from things that in their nature will alienate us from ourselves, others, and from God--things like anger and indiscriminate sexual urges--not because we must rid ourselves of impurity or contamination, but because by boosting them and nurturing them we hurt our inner selves.  

Holiness is a hard thing to talk about.  It happens when we have moments of unity with God, unity with ourself, and unity with our fellows.  Like the muse, it often comes unbidden.  Institutional religion or ethics has a hard time even talking about it since it seems so will-of-the-wisp.  So instead, we talk not about unity and oneness, but separateness and division, not about holiness but about purity, avoiding contamination.  It’s easier to write rules and think they are the most important thing.  But in so doing we encourage sometimes the very alienation that is the opposite of true holiness. 

Jesus here is not saying kill your emotions, reject your passions.  He lived all of his life, indeed, died on the cross, singing the Psalms as the core of his spiritual practice.  And the Psalms contain every single human emotion, from the sublime and gentle, to vengeful rage so murderous that it wants to bash babies’ heads against the wall. Their inclusion in the Psalms tells us that having such feelings is not in itself a bad thing—it is just part of being human, of being the creatures God made.  What matters is how we act on it.  When I begin to be angry, and my fists clench and my face flushes, that’s OK.  But I shouldn’t egg it on, and make it worse by raising my voice and verbally abusing others.  Therein lies only pain and horror.  We put negative emotions and passions away not by denying them or pretending they are not there, not by beating up on ourselves about them, but by admitting them, and in their place by focusing on gratitude and loving service. 

 

I lost my spouse of almost 50 years a year and a half ago.  During our marriage, in order to cultivate and protect the relationship I had with the love of my life, and remain true and faithful, I needed on occasion, when faced with wandering urges, to do that little trick sung about in the Broadway Musical, “The Book of Mormon,” “just turn it off.”  This came at a cost, a cost well worth the prize it bought, but in the degree that I thought that somehow I was getting holier or better by it, I learned to loathe myself, and developed a habit of alienation rather than holiness.  Now I am dating again and looking for another love of my life.  And under direction of a counselor and a wise and loving spiritual director, I have learned that alienating myself from myself and my urges is not a healthy way forward.  It actually kills the effort and ability to find someone to love.  But accepting who and what I am, embracing the creature God made me when he said, “It is very good” is the way foward, I hope, to bliss.  Trying to live my best values is, not loathing myself. 

 

We are the light of the world, the salt of the earth.  It’s not about just keeping rules. We need to go beyond those who dislike my T-shirt because it is religious and violates secularist social convention, beyond those who dislike it because it breaks their little religious rules and conventions, even beyond those who think that Jesus mainly just is saying “don’t be a jerk, first do no harm.”  It means actually doing good, out of our own goodness, beyond rules and conventions.  Being salt and light means acting out the compassion God has placed in our hearts, in being true to who and what we are.  We are the loving arms of God in this broken world.  Not helping those who need help, not having compassion and solidarity with all our siblings and even with our own hearts—well, that’s as unthinkable as tasteless salt or hidden light. 

Thanks be to God. 

For On-line readers: This is how I translate the passage: 

 

“Don’t suppose that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish, but to complete. Truly I tell you, heaven and earth will pass away before even the smallest part of the smallest letter will ever pass away from the Law, that is, before everything has concluded once and for all. Therefore, whoever disregards even one of the least important of these instructions and teaches others to do so will be called least important in Heaven’s Dominion. But whoever obeys and teaches these instructions will be called greatest in Heaven’s Dominion. I tell you, unless your practice of uprightness surpasses that of the religious scholars and Pharisees (rule-keepers), you will not enter into Heaven’s Dominion. You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not murder; whoever commits murder will be held to account by a court.’  As far as I’m concerned, whoever becomes enraged against a sibling should be held to account by a court, and whoever calls their sibling “Loser” might as well be answerable to the High Court, and whoever says, ‘Idiot!,’ account for themselves in the fires of the garbage heap outside Jerusalem.  Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your sibling has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your sibling, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with them. Otherwise your opponent could hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the guard, and you be thrown into a prison, truly, from which you’ll never escape.  You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ As far as I’m concerned, if anyone looks with lust at a woman, in terms of their inward self they might as well have committed adultery with her! If your right eye causes you to fall short, pluck it out and throw it away! It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your body thrown in one piece into the burning garbage heap.  And if your right hand causes you to fall short, cut it off and throw it away. Losing one of your members would be far better for you to than going into that garbage heap with your body still in one piece.  It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces a wife must provide her with a certificate of divorce.’ But as far as I’m concerned, whoever divorces a wife (unless the marriage was unlawful in the first place) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.  Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not swear an oath falsely, but make good all your vows to the Noble One.’ As far as I’m concerned, you shouldn’t swear any oaths at all:  not any sworn ‘by heaven,’ for heaven is God’s throne, not yours; nor any sworn ‘by earth’, for it is God’s footstool; nor any sworn ‘by Jerusalem’, for that city belongs not to you, but to the Great King.  You shouldn’t even swear by your own head!  For you can’t make a single hair on it turn white or black! Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more complicated than that comes from the evil one.”