A
sermon based upon Matthew 5: 17-21
By Rev.
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat
Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,
Sunday August 30th, 2020 (Growing In Grace)
The late Southern
humorist Lewis Grizzard once told how he learned this the hard way. Once he got a questionnaire in the
mail entitled "Heaven: Are You Eligible?" Grizzard said he filled out the questionnaire and
was surprised to see that he had scored very low, which he said, was simply "too
close to call." He also said that it
scared “Hell, the devil” and a lot of other things he was thinking ‘straight
out of him.’ Then, he decided he’d
better not live by doing the ‘least’, but by doing his best.
In our text today, as
we continue with the theme of growing in Christ, we want to consider one of the
most important challenges Jesus ever gave to his disciples. Jesus said to them, “Unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Sounds pretty serious,
doesn’t it? If something would keep you
out of God’s coming kingdom shouldn’t you want to know what about it?
NOT TO ABOLISH...THE LAW
Our consideration the ‘righteousness’
that enables us to ‘enter’ God’s kingdom begins with what Jesus
says about the law. Jesus said that he did not ‘come to abolish
the law or the prophets..., but to fulfill’ them. What did he mean? Let’s gain some context.
Jesus has just opened
his ‘Sermon on the Mount’ with
the Beatitudes, which includes some very specific sayings about God’s kingdom: “Blessed
are the poor in Spirit for theirs in the Kingdom..., (5:3), Blessed are the
meek, for they will inherit the earth..., (5), and also, ‘Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom (10). From this Jesus moves to compares God’s
faithful to being ‘the salt of the earth’ (13) and ‘the light of the
world’ (14). These are unforgettable
images the kind of person a Christian is supposed to ‘grow’ to become.
But it his concluding challenge
that suggests a connection to God’s law, at least in Matthew’s thinking. Here Jesus challenges them to, ‘let your
light shine...so that they may see your good works and give glory to
your Father in heaven’ (16). When
Jesus spoke of ‘good works’ a faithful Jew of that day would have
immediately connected being, doing, and becoming ‘good’ to following God’s law,
as it was given by Moses and rightly reinterpreted by the prophets.
It was prophets like
Elijah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others, who explained how
Israel’s failure to live out God’s law, caused their ‘kingdom’ to be conquered
and to fall apart. They had preached
that the way back to God’s kingdom was to return to faithfully following God’s
law.
But rightly following
God’s law didn’t mean just fulfilling the ‘letter’ of God’s law, but the way
back was through the ‘heart’, and through the Spirit, by fulfilling the
original meaning, purpose, and intention of God’s law. Interestingly, Jesus’ favorite law book wasn’t
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus or Numbers, but Jesus’ favorite law book was Deuteronomy,
which means ‘second law’.
Deuteronomy was the
law given by Moses, but this time it is being reinterpreted, as it was by the prophets. Deuteronomy was the only Scripture Jesus quoted
when he was tempted by the devil. The
only other book Jesus quotes more than Deuteronomy, was Israel’s prayer and
song book, the Psalms.
I find it interesting
that even in our own Bible, even in the first 5 books, even in the Old
Testament times, the ‘law’ as it was given by God to Israel, already had to be ‘reinterpreted’. And you not only see this kind of thing in
the Books of Law, but you also see this happening throughout the development of
the Old and New Testament.
There are, in fact, as
we all know, laws that are given in the Old Testament, that we wouldn’t dare force
upon anyone or follow today. Only a couple of years ago, a humorous, but
humble and serious book was written entitled, ‘A Year of Living Biblically’. In
that book, a Jewish guy (who says he was at least as Jewish as the Olive Garden
is Italian), found 700 rules and laws that even Jews don’t follow today.
Can’t you think of
some OT laws we don’t follow, as Christians?
Who had bacon or ham for
breakfast? The law says that pigs are
unclean and forbidden as food. Who had
shrimp or other shellfish? The law said that
was also forbidden. And it’s not just dietary laws that we don’t follow,
but there are also certain ceremonial and civil laws we don’t follow, and even
can’t remember. We certainly don’t
observe Yom Kippur, ‘the day of atonement’.
We don’t still make animal sacrifices or bring in grain offerings. We also don’t observe Passover or force circumcision
as a required sign of covenant faith.
And there are many
other ‘moral’ and ‘legal’ examples I could give about things in the Old
Testament that we don’t follow. I could
even tell you some things in the New Testament too. How about me telling you women here that YOU shouldn’t
get a haircut, or telling boys and men that they should? What if I told married men to grow beards, or
that none of you should wear jewelry, that you should get a tattoo, or that women
must obey their husbands and be silent at church, waiting to talk to your
husbands at home. Of course, your
answer would be your husbands don’t like to talk, right? Yes, there are many things, in both parts of
the Bible that we don’t follow today, but we still ourselves biblical
Christians. How can we do that?
Even while we might
consider moral laws, like the Ten Commandments still essential to morality, there
are some moral laws in the Old Testament that aren’t considered ‘righteous’ at
all today. Have you ‘stoned’ an adulterer or about
stoning a rebellious child lately? (I
didn’t say thought about it).
And you don’t have to
look too far to find other OT moral laws that should be forgotten. Right here in Matthew, by portraying Jesus as
the ‘new’ Moses, he suggests moral laws that are declared no longer effective
for both Jews and for Christians. These
laws were given by God to Moses. They
were laws which allowed having anger toward a brother, allowed divorce to be legalized
and legitimized, made making vows necessary, made vengeance and the practice of
‘an eye for an eye’ the way courts and churches should work, and also, these
old laws once justified hating your enemies.
These very laws, whether you want to admit it or not, were all once acceptable,
respectable, moral rules of law, given by God to Moses.
Even later in the Old
Testament, when Ezra came to reinstitute and reconstitute Israel’s law, Ezra instructed
that the Samaritans and all other non-Jewish peoples were unclean outsiders. This would allow both the Samaritans, and us
the Gentiles too, to be considered ‘outsiders’ to God. But now, this whole understanding was being reinterpreted
and overturned by Jesus. Of course, Jesus could do this, he was
Jesus. But what about us? How do we still ‘fulfill’ the whole law of the
Old Testament without abolishing it?
THE LEAST... GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM
It is exactly here, in
this very question of what is moral; what is right and wrong, that we find the something
very important about need for both ‘moral’ and ‘spiritual’ growth when it comes
to believing, trusting and understanding the Bible. I believe that Jesus help us know that we will
always need to reinterpret law and Scripture, but this doesn’t mean that throw
away everything. Throwing away what
is still important would make us the ‘least’ or ‘less’ in the kingdom, but understanding
could help us grow into a better people for the kingdom, the church and in the
world.
When I was in school, in
Old Testament Bible Class we were told of a very helpful way to understand
these differences as a necessary part of God’s way of reveling truth to the
world. It was called ‘progressive’
revelation, which we might better call a developing or an unfolding
revelation’. This kind of scientific, interpretive tool, was
first coined and developed by Charles Hodge, a Presbyterian Professor and
Principal at Princeton Seminary around the time of the Civil War. In a time of increasing ‘doubt’ about the
Bible, Hodge made a strong argument for trusting the Bible, because, as he
explained, the problems with the Bible are about human ignorance and our
slackness or slowness to understand. God
couldn’t and didn’t ‘reveal’ everything nice and neat, nor all at once. Even
the coming of Christ, Paul wrote, was only accomplished in the ‘fullness of
time’ (Gal. 4:4). God was waiting
on us more than us on God.
It takes maturity to understand
how one part of the Bible would have God declaring certain foods and certain
people’s ‘unclean’, and then later saying this is longer valid, is just like one
part of the Bible has God calling his people to Holy War, whereas later, through
Jesus, God calls us to ‘Peacemakers’.
To understand how the truth of the Bible ‘unfolds’ we have to grow and gain
perspective. And this means, that we must learn to accept
that the in the Bible has also grown and developed, just like the people of God
grew and developed. And even God too,
who can only be understood by us, who are limited, always remains beyond us. This is why and eternal, unchanging God is
also shown, from time to time, to change what he says right. Why does God do this? Why does one part of the Bible sometimes seem
to contradict another part, even before the whole Bible was finished? How can we still trust a Bible and a God who
sometimes looks like this?
Well, having this kind
of mature faith certainly will require some spiritual, moral, and intellectual maturity? You certainly can’t tell a child, who isn’t
yet old enough, smart enough, or mature enough, that everything isn’t written
in ‘black and white’, can you? It would
confuse them. You also can’t fully explain ‘why’ about
everything, but when they are children you have to teach them to understand
that ‘no’ means ‘no’! “You can’t do
that?” Why, Moma? “Because I said so,” my mother would inform
me.
A certain kind of ‘maturity’
and growth is very important when it comes to most everything that matters in
life; just like it matters in understanding the Bible as adults. While we still teach the Bible very simply to
children, we certainly can’t remain ‘childish’ in our own interpretation of it
for ourselves. People who choose to remain ‘childish’ and
immature might even lose faith.
In the world outside
of the Bible, mean Science, we have acquired a lot of knowledge about how people
develop, not just physically, but also emotionally, morally, and spiritually
too. Several years ago, another
American Christian teaching at Princeton, applied human learning to how we grow
spiritually. Based upon the science of
moral development, James Fowler put together a five-stage theory of how people develop
in their understanding of faith, religion, God and the Bible.
We don’t have time in
a sermon to consider his theory in detail, but his application reflects what the
apostle Paul meant when he said, as an ‘adult he learned to put away
childish things’. I’m oversimplifying,
but his ideas are one hand expressed in very complex, scientific ways, but convey
common sense: When we are childish,
everything needs to be alike, but then, we learn to see and appreciate differences—that’s
growth. Also, we start learning through stories, but
then we start learn with rules, with logic, and then also with ideas---that’s
growth.
When we are young, it’s
important for us to find our identity in groups. “I’m go to this school, this kind of church,
or I’m this a Wake fan. We know who we
are mostly as a as part of a group, as part of well-established tradition, or a
part of a certain family. But then we
grow up, and we begin to think about ‘who we are’ and we question things, we leave
home, we strike out on our own. It’s
hard at first. Sometimes there’s rebellion
and rejection, but as we grow up we come to both appreciate what is behind, as
we move on to what is ahead of us.
Then, finally, most of
us move from having to see everything in concrete, literal terms of ‘black and
white’ to learn how to accept the ‘grey’, the color, and the ‘truth’ in life
that is more dynamic, abstract. This starts, very young. If I tell you that I’m so hungry, I could eat
a horse, a small child would picture a horse and laugh.
But the older and more
mature we get, we don’t have see everything ‘literally’. We can see things figuratively, ideally, and
symbolically to. Growing in our understanding
of the Bible and in Faith is this kind of growth. It has literal truth, but sometimes to take
the Bible seriously, you have to learn what it points us toward, not only what
it’s saying in that moment. For
example, when Jesus says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to get to heaven, you only get the point beyond
what’s literally said. It’s that way in
many of the stories and truths of the Bible.
Another example can be
understood when Paul told women not to wear jewelry, or he told men to cut
their hair, or even when he demanded that the women be silent in church. To understand these commands, we have to
move beyond the ‘literal’ to get to the truth for us. The actual situation has changed, in Paul’s
day verses our own day, but the principle or the point still hasn’t. Paul was pointing to Christians being ‘modest’
in how they dress. When he told the ‘women’
to be silent, he was speaking to particular women in a certain situation and
church. It takes maturity be able to
see beyond what the Bible says, to figure out what it can still means for us. This is what we call interpretation.
The Scripture can and
must be reinterpreted, but not broken. In
the same way, God’s laws, even the laws written in the Old Testament, must
still be obeyed ‘in the Spirit’, even when they are no longer followed by the
letter. This is what it means to live a
spiritual life, being filled with the Spirit and being guided by the
Spirit. In this maturing, spiritual life,
we grow up so that we can learn to rely even more upon the law ‘written in our
hearts’ as much as the law written on paper.
...ENTER THE KINGDOM.
So, we still need the
law, like a rocket needs a launching pad, but we can’t get anywhere in life if
we only stay on the launching pad. Sometime
or other, we have to we have to ‘blast off’ into the unknowns of life, leaving
behind what needs to be left so we can more toward what still needs to be understood
and gained.
As Jesus understood,
we still need law, but we also need to understand ‘where’ the law wants to take
us and needs to point us. WE need to fulfill
the law, but this means following the intent, not always the letter of the
law (as Paul explains later), which is only found by ahead with the Spirit and in
the spirit of the law, so we can continue to grow in lives that are lived by
faith, going places the law can’t always go.
This is where this whole
discussion of ‘righteousness’ is going in this Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is indeed, the new Moses, even greater
than Moses, who is taking us where neither the Moses, nor laws could ever take
us---to live a spiritual life that is based upon a living, daily, dynamic,
growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite
statements in the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message, which was the Southern Baptist
statement of faith was a line that explained how everything we find in the
Bible, come to believe or decide to do as Christians, has to be filtered
through the living Spirit of Jesus, who is the final criterion for determining
how to live a life by faith. I still
can’t understand why this line was removed, unless there were some who were
trying to take us back to a more ‘legalistic’ kind of faith, where we take the
Bible simply as it says. But this just
isn’t possible, at least to me. The
Bible isn’t always that simple, and neither is Jesus, for that matter, and
neither is life. Life isn’t always
simple, because love isn’t always simple or easy, but this exactly what makes life,
life, and what makes love, love. It can
be complicated, but this is what enables complicated people like us to learn,
grow up, and mature in our faith.
Where Jesus was wants us
to go is a to live in a way that ‘exceeds’ the Scribes and Pharisees. This is not a call to live a simple, easy
life, but it’s to live a live based upon God’s love. It is love that God wants to get into our
hearts, our heads, and into our world so we can all grow up and live life, as
it should be lived, by ‘faith’ so we can all grow in ‘love’. Exactly because you can’t write a law for
everything in life, life will end up written by the love (or lack of love) that
is in our hearts. And when you grow up
in love, you can write even new laws for life as you go along, and might even
learn to live without needing any law at all, except the law of love.
We learn to love beginning
with ‘law’ which leads to ‘faith’ than ends with love, but this ‘faith’ based loving
relationship with God isn’t legalistic, but it also isn’t wishy-washy, uncertain
or unsure either. My relationship with
my wife is put down on ‘legal’ paper called a marriage license, but my marriage
to her isn’t based on that paper. It’s not
only based on beginning faith either. The
life we live together today began by ‘faith’ over 40 years ago, and it’s still lived ‘by
faith’ that we will take care of each other, but this ‘faith’ we have in our
marriage only becomes real in how we live with each other and for each other each
and every day. In the same way, our
relationship with God begins with faith, starts with law, and continues by
faith, but it is a life that also must grow up facing the realities of everyday. Our faith and words of love to God only
become ‘real’ when we grow and live out this ‘faith’ in real, tangible ways. The Bible calls this ‘obedience’. As Samuel told King Saul, God wants ‘obedience’,
not sacrifice.
So, this is why our
full obedience to God can never be reduced to obeying a Law, following rituals,
or doing only the good we want to do, but our obedience to God is living in a constant,
challenging, interactive, relationship with the Living God. Jesus put it this way, ‘if you abide in
me, you will bear much fruit’. In
other words, only through a living relationship with the living God do we grow
and mature in our faith. Amen.
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