30:15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.

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Tracy Tyler
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1 Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Matthew 5:21-37 Deuteronomy 30: :15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 30:16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 30:17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 30:18 I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 30:20 loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Matthew 5: :21 "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' 5:22 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. 5:23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 5:24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 5:25 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. 5:26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. 5:27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' 5:28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

2 5:29 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. 5:30 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. 5:31 "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 5:32 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. 5:33 "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.' 5:34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 5:35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 5:36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 5:37 Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one. Laws and rules. These are put in place by our government and institutions to help us live together in harmony and see that each of our rights are respected. God gave the people of Israel laws that you can find in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Our OT passage today is from Deuteronomy and talks about obeying God s rules and good things will happen, whereas disobeying God s rules make bad things happen. It kind of reminds me of conversations I have had with my kids over the years. Teaching toddlers to understand and obey their parents and the rules of the household is hard. It takes a while for toddlers to understand the connection between disobedience and the discipline or consequences that follow. When Grace was a toddler, I had been trying to impress upon her that whether we had good days or bad days was partly her choice. If she chose to obey me, we would have a good day together, if she kept choosing to disobey me, we would have bad day. I was wondering when the message would really sink in, when I heard her talking to her brother, Henry, one day and she was saying, It is your choice. If you obey the rules we can have a good day, but if you disobey, we will have a bad day! Ah, it had sunk in! That didn t mean that she became completely obedient from that day forward, but she understood the importance of rules now. Laws and rules are important. Imagine what our world would look like if everyone decided to obey laws and live by the rules! Many of our police officers would be out of jobs, but for the rest of us, life would be so much better! Now I am very aware that some Christians have used passages like that from Deuteronomy to preach a prosperity gospel. If you love God and obey God s commandments, God will bless you with health and

3 wealth. If you are not experiencing prosperity, then perhaps you need to have more faith and claim God s promises. We know that way of interpreting the Deuteronomic Code doesn t stand up to the rest of scripture. If that were the case, then all of the prophets, like Elijah and Jeremiah would have known only success and earthly blessing, not rejection and time in a pit. Paul, the first missionary and author of so many epistles in the NT would not have been stoned or experienced a shipwreck and prison, but would have lived until old age in a mansion. The truth is God s laws are for our benefit and help us to know how to live in such a way that we will know the blessing of God s will and can be a part of God s kingdom come on earth, but it doesn t guarantee nothing bad will happen to us. Now, when we move from Deuteronomy to Matthew and continue our journey through the section called the Sermon on the Mount that David Freeman was preaching from last week and which he taught as part of his Wednesday night Bible Study a year or so ago, we hear Jesus give a different take on the laws that Good Jews knew to follow to please God. Let s look at what Jesus said. Some are harsh words. I read an article this week from Rev. Dr. Amy Butler, pastor of The Riverside Church in NY, NY who said, Last Sunday in worship, instead of preaching a sermon I had written, I decided to preach the entire Sermon on the Mount two full chapters with no breaks, the words of Jesus. In coffee hour after worship, several people came up to me to tell me they really did not like or agree with some of the parts of my sermon that day. Two chapters. Read from the Bible. The words of JESUS. There are several parts of today s passage from the Sermon on the Mount that I m not sure I like either. You see, just obeying the laws is relatively easy to do: check off the boxes and feel you ve satisfied the requirements. I was talking to an elderly relative a few years back and she said that it wasn t enough to believe in Jesus, she said you had to be sanctified. I agreed with her and then asked what sanctified meant to her. She said, reading the Bible daily and not cussing, smoking or drinking. It reminded me of the offering envelopes that I knew as a child that had boxes to check if you brought your Bible, if you studied your lesson and if you gave an offering. Just check the boxes to see if you were a Christian in good standing. Reading today s lesson makes me realize that Jesus seems to have something very different in mind. Is there any underlying theme? Should we take him literally or is he just speaking in hyperboles?

4 He starts out saying, You have heard it said in ancient times He is pointing back to God s law from the Torah and laws that the scribes and Pharisees had developed to flesh out some of God s law. Wasn t God s law good enough? Was Jesus telling them to disregard God s law for new laws from Jesus mouth? What Jesus is saying in each of these instances is that obeying the law is all well and good but just abiding by the letter of the law is not enough if you are truly to follow Christ and become the kind of person that God is calling us to be. This is a much harder road than just checking off the boxes in Sunday School and feeling good about being a Christian. This is truly difficult stuff. The law says, Don t Murder. Great, I can handle that, but Jesus says if you are angry at a brother or sister you are just as guilty. If you call someone a name or say, You fool! you are in danger of the fire of hell! Wait just one minute! You can t live your life without getting angry, it is just a normal emotion. When my oldest was 2 or 3 we had a disagreement about getting in the car or something and then she yelled at me, Mommy stop making me angry! Never make me angry again! I almost laughed out loud because I knew there was no way I could avoid making her angry again. Anger is a normal emotion and holding it in can cause resentment, violent outbursts or depression. But, Jesus knows anger harbored in our hearts in a way that makes us think about the things we d like to see happen to the person that angered us: That kind of anger is a pre-curser to violence, even if we don t follow through. Also, Jesus says you should never call someone a fool. Hasn t he seen the way some Huntsville people drive? I must confess that, in the past, when someone cut me off or did something I didn t like on the road, the first thing out of my mouth would probably be, You idiot! Does that put me in danger of hell? It seems like everything has become so politically charged over the past few years. There is so much talk about Political Correctness. Many people seem to resent being told not to use certain words for people and some other people seem to be so quick to take offense. Can t people take a joke? We are Americans and free speech is one of the first rights in the first amendment to the Constitution. I have a legal right to say anything I want to! My child, Grace, has helped me see that calling someone and idiot (or what some say that is even worse, Retard) is not only hurtful to the person being called an idiot, but also for anyone nearby who might be developmentally disabled, or learning disabled or have a loved one who is. They hear those terms used as an insult and feel less than human. Hurling insults attempts to make the other less than we are, less

5 human, less deserving of respect. Later in Matthew 15:18, Jesus says after discussing whether his disciples should have observed the hand washing rituals before eating, But, the things that come out of a person s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person. In C.S. Lewis book, Mere Christianity, he says at one point that every decision we make turns us into either a more heavenly creature or a more hellish creature. Perhaps this is the kind of thing that Jesus is talking about when he says calling someone, you fool puts us in danger of hell. The first chapter of Genesis reminds us that all humans, male and female are created in the image of God. Jesus is not asking us to be politically correct. Jesus is calling us to change our hearts to see each person as God sees them and to address them as people for whom Christ died. That is not easy. Then what about leaving your gift at the altar if you remember someone has something against you. Every time I read Jesus works there, I want to change it to read, and there remember something what a brother or sister has done against you. You see I want to change it to focus on something bad someone else has done to me that I might need to forgive them for. I don t want to think about the fact that someone might have a legitimate beef with me that there might be something that I need to hurry and ask forgiveness for. I m good, I m not guilty of sinning against a brother or sister! That kind of soul searching is not comfortable. Our interpersonal relationships affect our relationship to God. When Jesus says that we should leave our gift at the altar and go be reconciled to our brother before we come back and to worship God, Jesus is saying that attending Church is not enough if it doesn t affect our relationships. If I treat someone badly to the point that they have a real gripe against me, God doesn t care how many times I come here and sing in the choir. God wants me to go make it right with that person. Settle it the sooner the better, even and especially if someone is bringing us to court. Does that mean that a Christian must never go to court? Settle, don t litigate. Don t I have a right to my day in court and be vindicated before a jury of my peers? I don t think Jesus is saying that, but we must decide if it really is worth it for our reputation as Christian. Just because something is legal doesn t make it right or God honoring. There is a difference between legal and ethical and godly.

6 Jesus goes on to talk about adultery. Okay I understand that law. I understood it when I said my marriage vows. I m good. But then he goes on about lust being the same as adultery. A person can t help noticing beauty around them, right? Is he serious about gouging out your eye or chopping of your hand? That s like Iran s Sharia Law stuff, right? I don t think Jesus wants us to mutilate ourselves, but he s is asking us to back up from the sin of adultery to the state of our mind and heart when we start to look at a person and think about what we d like to do with them. Perhaps there is a co-worker or neighbor or client who makes our heart lighter when they are around and we d like to find more times to be around them and then maybe find a way to be alone with them. If we notice that someone makes us more excited than our spouse does right now, we should take steps to spend less time with them, not more, even if it means cutting something out of our life and then we need to tend to our marriage, once we ve removed ourselves from the temptation. Adultery starts with a thought, not a touch and we can choose whether to entertain and feed those thoughts or whether to make changes to stop those thoughts before we get into trouble. Now the passage about divorce is also hard. I have pastor friends that would never take the verses about gouging out your eye or cutting off your hand literally, but they want to take the verses about never remarrying literally. Once again, Jesus is just saying that treating people in a way that is legal is not always enough for God. In Jesus time, a man could divorce his wife at his whim. Maybe he d tired of her. Maybe he was interested in someone else, maybe she burned the toast. He could divorce her as long as he gave her divorce papers so that she was legally free to marry again, so she wouldn t be destitute. Women had no right to divorce their husbands at all. Jesus is saying that is not enough. People are not to be thrown away. Jesus is saying that God s intention is for Marriage vows to be taken seriously, not lightly. God s intention is for marriage to be a lifetime of blessing for each person in the couple. It is a serious tragedy when divorce happens. Does that mean that Christians can never divorce and remarry? It has been my experience that some marriages become toxic. Perhaps they started that way, perhaps they became that way. But I do know that sometimes divorce is best for the emotional and even physical health of one or both persons. I ve also known many couples who are in second marriages that have been a true blessing for them and their families and drawn both of them closer God and the church. If those marriages were not God s will, I don t think they would be bearing such good fruit.

7 And finally, Jesus talks about oaths. In Jesus time it was customary to swear oaths to make binding promises just as we swear before testimony in court. But what does that mean about our trustworthiness if we have to swear an oath for people to believe us. If we lived lives of honesty and integrity all the time then people would understand that our yes means yes and our no means no. We would not need to place our hand on the Bible and swear, so help me, God. So help me, God. That part is true. If I am ever going to live up to Christ s standards, I m going to need a great deal of help from God. Isn t that the point though? The way of the world is to just live by the law and stretch or bend the law when you can to get ahead. Play by the rules and you will have a good life and stay out of jail, like it says in Deuteronomy. Even a small child can learn that. But Jesus says, You have heard it said in times of old. But I say to you Jesus wants so much more. Jesus doesn t want good citizens, good Jews, even Good Christians. Jesus doesn t want us to be just politically correct or good democrats or good republicans. Jesus wants true followers who have allowed the Holy Spirit to transform us into the likeness of Christ. The kind of person who doesn t get angry and wish bad things for their enemies and call their enemies disrespectful names. A person who does soul searching to recognize when we have done something wrong toward another and be the first to work towards reconciliation. The kind of person who lives up to their marriage vows and avoids lust and temptation. The kind of person who lives a life of integrity, whose word is their bond. This part of the Sermon on the Mount is a kind of mirror. When I truly look at myself through this mirror, I don t always like what I see, do you? How close are you to reflecting Christ s likeness as he reveals it in this passage? If we truly lived up to this standard, all of us, I think people would notice. The media is full of discussions about Christianity being less respected than it used to be and membership falling. If we lived up to Christ s standard what kind of press would the church be getting. What kind of press would THIS church be getting? Which one of these verses stung you the most this morning? Where are the places that God is asking you to grow into a more true reflection of Christ? I know I have some growing to do.

Lectionary Readings. February Year A

Lectionary Readings. February Year A Lectionary Readings February 2017 Year A Sunday, February 5 (5 Epiphany) Isaiah 58:1-12 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house