Trinity 6 – June 27th,
2014 – Matthew 5:17-26
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost +
As Christians, as those who pay attention to our Lord’s
Words, we ought to pay attention to that which He commands. That’s not an earth shattering statement –
all of us here know that we ought to try to behave, strive to show love to our
neighbor. And yet, what is the
reality? So often, we just don’t even
bother. And more than that, we justify
our bad behavior – we start playing fast and loose with the Word of God – we
ignore it, we twist it to serve our ends, rather than learning to love and
serve God and neighbor. Jesus will not
let that stand. And our Lord Jesus today
teaches and demonstrates the two major errors, the two major ways in which a
Christian can ignore, can twist God’s Word of Law in a harmful way.
First, our Lord says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish
the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” God in His Word has told us many things about
how we are to live, what we are to do, how we are to behave. He has given us the 10 Commandments, and
there’s a very good reason why even 3500 years after Moses we still sit down
with our children and teach them the Commandments to this day. God’s desire that we lead decent lives has
not changed. However – that doesn’t mean
that Christians aren’t tempted to. . . pretend that the Law doesn’t really
matter any more. Note what Christ warns
against – Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and
teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. There is the temptation amongst Christians
to. . . relax God’s Law. To shrug off
what He has commandment, to just. . . ignore the Word of God where it becomes
uncomfortable. This is the classic
“liberal” error when it comes to God’s Word – to just ignore what you don’t
like. A place where this is obvious
today comes up with the 6th Commandment. A lot of discussions in a lot of places on
Homosexuality relax, to use Christ’s Word, what God has said about
Homosexuality. A lot of places are
relaxing on the issue of premarital sex.
There is a whole facet, a whole wing of the Christian Church that is
systematically chipping away at Scriptural ideas of morality.
However, this is not just a time for me to lambaste all
those liberal Churches out there. They
might do this openly and publicly, but consider in your own life the times
where you yourself are tempted to. . . relax God’s Law. God says, “Love your enemy” – but we can… not
apply that to this particular enemy who has us really upset right now. Or how often do we ignore or forget that we
are to be patient and kind and rather justify and defend our anger because
*they* were just messing things up. The
temptation remains for us to cut ourselves some slack when it comes to right
and wrong – and that is dangerous, because when we do that, it’s not just a
small thing, it’s going directly against the wishes and will of God. Thus, as Christians, we are to be on our
guard against ignoring the parts of God’s Word that we don’t like.
There is another error that Christ warns us against – and
this is the opposite error of what we just discussed. Our Lord says, “You have heard it said to those
of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to
judgment.’ But I say to you that
everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever
insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You
fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.’” Our Lord here is attacking the
Conservative, legalistic error. The
Pharisees were by in large rather conservative folks – and the big danger that
they had was while they took Scripture seriously, they didn’t see its fullness,
they didn’t understand and apply it to themselves, and so they became
smug. They would hear the 5th
Commandment and say, “Well, I haven’t murdered anyone, therefore I’m doing all
right.” And they became legalists, they
became focused on how they DID the Law so well.
The thing was – they really hadn’t.
In their arrogance they assumed that they were righteous, when in
reality their righteousness was lacking.
Note what Christ does here – He ties murder to anger. Anger leads to murder, and so if God tells us
not to murder, clearly He would want us to avoid the anger which could lead us
to murder. And this is clear from the
Scriptures. Consider the first murder –
Cain slaying Abel. Before Cain murders
Abel, God says to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face
fallen?” Be wary of anger and
where it leads. Jesus isn’t teaching
anything new – He’s teaching what had been taught from the beginning – but the
problem was that when too many folks looked at God’s commandments, instead seeing
God’s Law as showing them their sin, showing them what they needed to struggle
against – too many folks simply viewed God’s instructions as a mere
checklist. And pride and arrogance crept
in. In fact, they would add extra things
to their checklists that weren’t in Scripture, like a good Jew would wash his
hands a certain way. Does this not
happen today? Are there not churches out
there that have this same pride and arrogance with how they keep the Law, are
there not churches out there that add their own little rules and say, “you
aren’t a good Christian if you smoke, or if you drink, or if you do this or
that”? Rather than focusing on what the
Scriptures say, people can go off on their own smug self-righteous ego trips, pointing
out how good they are.
But again, this is a danger for us today. We here strive to take God’s Word and His Law
seriously. And the danger is that we can
assume that we know what we need to know – we hear the commandment and we think
we’ve got it down – but we forget to think about the implications of the
commandment. This is one of the beauties
of the Catechism. Luther would keep us
from falling into this trap – because in the explanation he states not only
what we are to avoid, but what the commandment implies what we are to do. Take the 5th Commandment. “We
should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his
body, but help and support him in every physical need.” If we aren’t to kill, then we aren’t to
harm, and if we aren’t to harm, then that implies that we are to help. In every physical need.
When it all boils down, the danger is that we misuse God’s
Word, especially when it comes to the Law.
We can act as though God’s Law doesn’t matter and flat out ignore what
God says; or we can become prideful in how we are good Christians, and stop
thinking, stop mediating on God’s Word, and become unrepentant and
arrogant. But the truth is this – God’s
Law is deep, it is profound, and whenever we hear a commandment from God, we
should search ourselves to find out how we fall short of that commandment – for
each of us has sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, and there is not
one who is righteous, no, not one.
Whenever you hear a command of God, it should be obvious to you that you
haven’t done it like you ought - and if you don’t think that, then you aren’t
reading God’s Word rightly, you aren’t listening. Our Lord says, “Be ye perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect.” That’s the
standard, that’s always the standard of God’s Law. We dare not relax it, we dare not ignore it.
And we, dear friends, are by no means perfect. That should be obvious to all of us. And the consequences of the Law still hold –
the wages of sin is death. What Christ
says here is true – Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the
Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In and of ourselves, our righteousness is
never that high. Whenever we hear God’s
Law, we see our lack and our need to repent – every time. However, we also hear something else in God’s
Word – our Lord speaks and says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the
Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” There is One who is truly righteous,
whose righteousness has exceeded that of any of us, who lived the perfect life,
doing all that was pleasing in His father’s eyes, and that is Christ Jesus our
Lord. And what Jesus does is that when
He goes to the Cross, He is making a trade.
There at the Cross, Christ Jesus takes up all of your sin, all of your
lack of righteousness, and there He receives it’s wages in full and dies – but
He does this so that in exchange for your sin, He can give to you all of His
Righteousness. Consider this – you are
Baptized, you are joined to Christ. Your
sins have been washed away from you, and Christ has given you His
righteousness. When God sees you, He
sees Christ. Every good, every wonder
that Christ has done, that’s what God beholds when He sees you. When God looks at you, He sees the life of
Christ Jesus – and it shouldn’t be a surprise that it is this way. What happens when we commune – we receive
Christ, we receive His Body and Blood, His very life, so that our sins are
forgiven, removed from us, and so that we are filled with all that He is. We see and understand the depths and the
wonders of Christ’s forgiveness for us, His great love for us – that He has
indeed made us to be righteous – a righteousness that we will finally see in
full on the last day. May we see this
ever more fully as well!
And so dear friends, I warn you not to ignore God’s Law,
but rather I encourage you to examine yourself in light of God’s Law – knowing
that the light of God’s Law will shine on many-a-nasty spot. But when you see these flaws and errors, in
humility and faith repent of them, for God is faithful and just to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. When we see
our sins, we learn to not trust in ourselves (which can only lead to disaster),
but rather to cling to Christ Jesus, who in great joy and gladness freely gives
to us His forgiveness. In the Name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost +
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