A friend of mine was a new faculty member in history at a Midwestern university. As she began to get know people, she discovered that a fellow faculty member in art was a nationally known painter. When she finally saw his work at the winter faculty art show, she fell in love with his paintings. His use of color and light was phenomenal! The paintings made her spirit soar. The artist himself was surprisingly friendly and personable. It was easy to see why other faculty members and even students spoke so highly of him. As she talked with him at the show, she discovered that they were about the same age and had grown up in the same county in Iowa. No wonder she liked him! One day, a few weeks after the show, she ran into him on campus. When she said how much she had enjoyed seeing his paintings, he invited her up to his studio to see his latest work. As they walked around the studio, he explaining his various goals in the paintings, and she enjoying seeing his ideas come to life, an electric spark began to jump between them. He became more animated. She connected more deeply with his paintings. Would something more happen between them? There was only one obstacle. They were both married. They both loved their spouses and intended to keep the promises they had made to them. They let the electricity die down, as they backed away from the paintings. She gave him a light pat on the arm, thanked him for showing her his work, turned around, and walked down the stairs.
Perhaps when my friend and the artist gracefully backed away from the attraction they had suddenly felt for each other they remembered the passage from Matthew’s gospel we just heard. We are still in the middle of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in chapters five through seven. Scripture scholars surmise that the historical Jesus didn’t sit down on the mountain and spout off all these prescriptions of moral theology in one go. Rather, it is likely that the evangelist carefully collected remembered teachings and sayings of Jesus and wove them together into the sermon.
Why would the evangelist have done this? Unlike the other gospels, Matthew was written to a community of mostly Jewish Christians. They would probably have been observant Jews who differed from their fellow Jews only in their allegiance to Jesus. Most likely too they lived outside Israel, having been forced to leave Jerusalem with other Jews when the Romans destroyed the city in 70 AD.
As the leaders of these dispersed Jewish communities adapted to life outside Israel, they debated how the Law of Moses could be kept in Gentile societies. What was important and must be retained? What could be reinterpreted or changed? What way of life does God expect of the faithful? What was the true intent of the Law beyond its surface commands? The goal was not to abandon the Law but rather to understand its importance in new circumstances. Indeed in our gospel reading last week, Jesus had said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” In showing that Jesus gave his followers a new way to be faithful to God’s commands, the evangelist thus reassured his hearers that they could observe the Law and still follow Jesus. All that was needed was to understand the Law in a way appropriate to their new situation.
The evangelist also had another concern. He was writing to a small group of Jesus’ followers who were beginning to draw away from their fellow Jews. Their way of life also differed significantly from that of the Gentiles among whom they lived. So the evangelist was also concerned to help his hearers strengthen their communities, so that they could truly begin to experience God’s realm in them.
As you hear the evangelist portray Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law, can you also hear that Jesus has shifted the focus from individual personal punctilious observance of the law to care and concern for the people our actions affect? It is not enough, for example, to observe the sixth of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not murder,” by refraining from taking up a knife or gun against someone. Haven’t we all felt “the urge to kill?” Anger is such a basic human emotion, one we need to recognize and acknowledge when we actually feel it. But if we care about the people we live with, if we really want to build up our communities, if we really want to grow in love, we will also realize how destructive anger can be. We will find ways of managing our anger that do not lead to physical violence or verbal abuse. More to the point, we will pursue forgiveness and reconciliation when we have been wronged or have ourselves wronged someone.
What about Jesus’ reinterpretation of the last commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife ….”? Do you only disobey the commandment when you actually sleep with someone else’s spouse? No, says, Jesus. If you care about the promises and covenants that married people have made with each other, you might admire a married person, but you will not seriously entertain asking him or her to violate their relationship with their spouse. When my friend and the artist realized that they might do just that, i.e., break their promises to their spouses, they wisely backed away from each other.
In his teaching on divorce, Jesus is referring not to one of the Ten Commandments but to a prescription in Deuteronomy. In the ancient world, there was virtually no place for a divorced woman, other than to return in disgrace to her parents’ house. Here perhaps Jesus is reminding men that, if they care for the women with whom they have made a covenant, they will remain faithful to that covenant and not force their wives to become socially, morally, or economically bereft. Scholars and church people have debated over the centuries the intention behind Jesus’ reinterpretation here of common ancient practice concerning divorce. We now live in a different culture from that of the ancient world. And so we have come to realize that perhaps not all marriages are made in heaven. We may need to sorrowfully acknowledge our human frailty and our inability to keep our promises. We may come to understand that they may be times when dissolving the marriage will be a more compassionate choice than forcing partners to remain together in misery. But the underlying concern, then and now, is compassion for the spouses, children, and families of all those involved in the dissolution of a covenanted relationship.
In the last part of today’s reading, the evangelist addresses Jesus’ prohibition of oaths. Scholars disagree as to whether he was reinterpreting the third commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” or the ninth, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” The ancient world, in both the Jewish and Greek communities, had a complicated system of oaths. Suffice it to say, that Jesus was advocating maintaining personal integrity and compassion for others by speaking the truth without any external restraints. For us, the issue is not the taking of oaths, since we seldom take formal oaths in our culture. Most of us encounter oaths only in a court of law or if we are elected to public office, although there are those who take Jesus’ words here so strictly, including most Quakers, that they refuse to swear even in those circumstances. However, it’s not hard to see all the ways in which we engage in deceptive speech: distorting or bending the truth, gossip, or making promises we don’t mean to keep, for example. Doesn’t such speech undermine our personal relationships? Think of the political talk shows and advertisements. Many of us believe that the pundits, talk show participants, and advertisement voice-overs, who bandy about outrageous untruths, have all contributed to the current deeply polarized political climate. And how about the lies embedded in marketing? Will the latest gizmo, that the ads urge us to buy, really make us smarter, nicer, better looking, or richer?
At the heart of all of Jesus’ reinterpretations of the Law of Moses is compassion. Indeed, the same is true of much of the reinterpretation of the law undertaken by the rabbis since Jesus’ time. We are faithful to God when we share deep care for those around us and when we work to strengthen the bonds among us in our various communities. More important, our compassion and concern is ultimately grounded in the intents of our hearts. For me, Margaret Thatcher’s words in the film The Iron Lady indeed ring true: “Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become.”
God’s desire for all of us is that we grow in wholeness, trust, and personal integrity, and that our human communities reflect God’s realm. As disciples of Jesus we hope, pray, and trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us more and more deeply into that blessed place.
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