Matthew 5:21-37
[Jesus said to the disciples:] “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that 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. 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.”
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Today’s gospel drops us right into the middle of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, right into a really awkward moment where Jesus is talking about some really tough stuff. We’re going to talk about this tough stuff, in just a few minutes.
But first, we have to begin at the beginning. And by this, I mean, the beginning of Jesus’s sermon.
The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’s first big teaching time in Matthew’s gospel. Channeling Moses, who went up the mountain to receive the law of God, Jesus goes up a mountain, and there, with his disciples, begins to teach them.
The Sermon on the Mount begins with something very familiar and famous words: the Beatitudes. Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are pure in heart, and so forth.
It is really really important today to remember that Jesus begins his sermon with blessings. Blessings for all who feel broken and beaten down, blessings for all who long for a world at peace, blessings for those who have known pain and fear and suffering. When we get to the hard stuff in today’s gospel, we have to hear that hard stuff in this context of God’s love and blessing poured out upon those who have been hurt, trampled, and betrayed by the careless or malicious actions of others.
Jesus begins his sermon by speaking blessing to those who follow him and seek his wisdom.
Through the blessings he gives, Jesus empowers his hearers to become blessing for the world. He calls them salt and light. He tells them to shine brightly in the world, that all may see the goodness of God through them.
In other words, Jesus says that all who live in relationship with God reveal God through how they behave in the world.
Jesus isn’t saying anything new here. The law that Moses received on Mount Sinai are commandments that God gave to the Israelites for the sake of their health and their the well-being. These commandments were also a way of preserving the distinctiveness of God’s people in a landscape of competing religions, gods, and values. The way that the nations would know which God they served was by watching how they lived.
The beauty of the way the commandments functioned for the ancient Israelites, and onward into modern-day Jewish practice, is that the commandments are intended to provide a seamless relationship between what you believe and how you live. Your behavior and beliefs inform each other. Align your behavior according to God’s commandments, and bit by bit, your heart will become more aligned with the heart of God.
When Jesus comes to earth, he comes, in part, to show us what it looks like when your heart is perfectly aligned with the heart of God; when your life perfectly reflects the grace and blessing that God has given you.
This is why Jesus talks about himself not as the one who will abolish or get rid of the law, but as the one who fulfills the law. The one who reveals the heart of the law. The one who distills the commandments into their most essential part.
And the essential heart of God’s commandments is love.
Later in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus will stop trying to explain individual commandments, and will instead collapse all 500-some commandments just two: love God with all you’ve got, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Love fulfills the law. And Jesus shows us what that looks like. He is the perfect embodiment of love that seeks justice, love that heals, love that extends grace, love that shows mercy, love that sacrifices itself, love that even defeats the power of death.
Love transforms hearts, and love will transforms the world.
And this is what today’s gospel reading is all about, when we peel back all the layers.
He takes a handful of commandments today, and for each one, says “you have heard it said....but I say to you.”
Using of these Big Uncomfortable Things as examples, Jesus makes a Bigger Point: that God’s love leads us to be concerned and cautious with how our actions and attitudes affect others. He asks us how to consider how small decisions made in love add up to big things grounded in love…and how small things done with spite or malice contribute to great acts of injustice and systems of harm.
Jesus isn’t talking here about what will save your soul for all eternity, and he definitely isn’t pretending that we can do any of this apart from God’s grace, nor that we can do any of this perfectly, nor that we can somehow live above our need for mercy and forgiveness and divine hope.
Jesus is talking about how to live a distinct life of faith in the world. He’s talking about the ethics that we embrace in faith. He’s talking about how faith demands that we make choices, big and small, based on how faithfully our actions show love for God and neighbor.
To quote a pastor friend of mine, “Jesus was about communal responsibility.” And love is all about living as God’s blessed and beloved community in this world.
So this means that we can’t just be concerned about the Big Things. We must be concerned with the small things behind the things. Unchecked anger and self-centeredness, objectification of others, microaggressions, carelessness or indifference in our relationships, resentment, spite, manipulation: these are not the values that we are called to embrace. These are not the ways that faith asks us to live. These are not the things of God’s heart. These are not revelations of God’s love.
And to address the big ol’ elephant in the sanctuary, no, Jesus wasn’t talking about modern-day divorce in this passage today. Jesus was criticizing a system where the one with the power in the relationship could simply dissolve the relationship, with no particular obligation to make provision for or preserve the dignity of the other. Jesus is challenging callous dismissiveness within the patriarchy, not making a moral judgement for our modern time, even though this passage has too-often been weaponized as if he were.
Jesus teaches us that every commandment God has given, at its heart, reveals God’s concern for the dignity, health, and wholeness of one another. He teaches us that love is the foundation upon which all other concerns of faithfulness are built. And if we live by love, then we shouldn’t need the commandments to tell us what to do. Our hearts will simply be trained in love to live love in the world.
For Jesus, every decision we make, big or small, is an opportunity to exercise the power of love. Jesus asks us to be loving in the way that we talk to each other and think about each other; to be loving in our attitudes, and not just in our actions. Jesus challenges us to use our power and privilege, when we have it, for the sake of generosity and goodness, rather than for self-advancement.
Because this is how love works.
It doesn’t seek the bare minimum in how we relate to one another and the world. It seeks the max. It demands everything. And it transforms everything.
Mother Teresa is once quoted to have said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Small things done with great love - this is how we live in the world. It is how we are called to relate to our neighbors. And to our enemies. And to those whom we don’t like or can’t understand. Small acts of love is how we are called to enter into our political conversations, and how we might transform our political landscape. Small acts of love are how we care for our creation, little bit by little bit, as we are able, in the face of a giant climate crisis. Small acts of love affect the attitudes we have toward drivers who cut us off, customers who are rude to us, or neighbors who wear us out with their needs. Small acts of love drive us to think twice about telling that off-color joke or making that slur or sharing that gossip. And even if it doesn’t feel like it, these small acts of love really will transform hearts and transform the world.
This is the call and the promise in today’s gospel, and in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. When we were lost, broken, fearful, despised, God is the voice that spoke blessing to us, gave us our dignity, gave us back our lives. We have been blessed by the grace and love of God, and even when we do not have the power to do all the Big Things, we can still do all the small things with God’s great love.
And small acts of love, done over and over again, will change everything.
Amen.