This sermon is based on Matthew 5.21-37 and was preached during my internship. I used visual aids, showing slides from Power Point throughout the sermon. Reading it through isn't quite the same, and a few of the visual elements are missing because the pictures below are not in presentation form - but you'll get the general idea!
Here it is…the crime scene.
Almost every day someone commits a crime on this relatively quiet Watertown street. And that person is
ME! Most every day I cross the street NOT in a crosswalk or at a corner. That’s right. I am a jaywalker.
Here’s another crime scene. And no, the crime is not how dirty and salty my car is! See, Seth and I were driving home from a birthday party last week and all of the sudden I see not just one,
but two police cars behind me with their lights flashing. I quickly looked at my speedometer – I wasn’t speeding. I pull over and it turns out I have a brake light out. Once again, just call me Intern Stephanie –
criminal mastermind.
We have laws and rules in our world to keep it a safe place, to have civility, to be able to live in harmony with each other. Today’s gospel reading is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount preached by Jesus, and in it we hear of many laws and rules. When I read this text in preparation for this sermon, I had a reaction that I imagine would be similar to many other Lutherans – I was uncomfortable. As Lutherans, we are great at talking about
grace – this free gift from God that is given to us through faith. It is our firm belief that we cannot earn our salvation by doing good works or behaving in certain ways. Our identity is wrapped up in being beloved children of God saved by grace alone. But we Lutherans talk a lot less about
the law – which is why Bible passages like today’s gospel can make us uncomfortable at first. But our friend
Martin Luther certainly didn’t shy away from the issue. Law and Gospel and how they interact is an important idea in Lutheran theology. And today’s gospel reading is a great chance to explore it a bit.
Luther talked about two uses of the law. The first use is where my jaywalking and broken brake light issues would fit. The first use of the law is about maintaining civility on this earth. These are the laws the police enforce, offenders are judged in court.
The first use of the law is what keeps people safe, what keeps justice in the world – everything from traffic regulations to making drugs illegal to outlawing bodily harm and murder. These are the standards that we set up so that we live in a safe and civil world – in harmony and peace.
Luther also talked about the second use of the law as what drives us to the Gospel. The second use of the law accuses us - it makes us aware that we are sinners, that we are broken, that we are in need of grace – both as individuals and a community.
Luther pictures the law as a hammer that destroys human pride. Sometimes the law comes smashing down upon us – when we realize we’ve just said something horrible to someone we love that we wish we could immediately take back. To contrast, Luther also pictures the law as the rustling of leaves that signaled that God was present in the garden of Eden and awoke the conscience of Adam and Eve. Sometimes the law comes in softly, when we realized we’ve been ignoring someone at school because they are different, when we refuse to attempt to heal relationships, when we hold grudges. Finally, Luther talks about the law as a mirror. Mirrors don’t lie – our true and honest reflection breaks through any justification or rationalization we can think of to defend our sinfulness and our brokenness. A mirror accurately portrays us as people in need of God’s forgiveness, grace and agape love.
By acknowledging and realizing our sin and brokenness, we also realize that the only way to fully heal and find forgiveness is through the grace given to us by God. We simply can’t do it on our own. So who we truly are, lies in the work of God in our lives. Our identity is in grace, not in the law.
So why is Jesus
going on and on in the Sermon of the Mount about all these laws. He’s taking the laws of Moses, the ten commandments, and ramping them up, intensifying them. Suddenly it’s not simply about not killing people, it’s about not being angry with them. It’s not only about committing adultery, it’s about even thinking about it. Jesus, who came to spread a message of God’s great agape love seems to be setting the standards way to high – no one could ever follow all of these laws all of the time!
And this is exactly the point. Jesus was likely speaking to and about the Pharisees, a group of religious leaders at that time. They were very concerned about following all of these laws of Scripture. In their practice of religion, as long as they were able to check off the list of things they were supposed to do and avoid the list of things they weren’t supposed to do – then they considered themselves redeemed and worthy in the eyes of God. Their identity rested in these lists of laws.
Think about the jaywalking and the brake light. While these are offenses against the law, they are relatively minor. Really – jaywalking would be stupid and unsafe on a busy street. The spirit of the law against jaywalking is that it keeps people safe, and even though I jaywalk, I am certainly safe. I would imagine it would be pretty hard to find someone who would label me primarily as a “bad citizen” or criminal because of these offenses.
My identity as a person does not rest on whether I jaywalk or not. And unlike the Pharisees, our identity does NOT rest in the meticulous following of laws. Our identity rests in the cross
– our identity is shaped by a God who brings grace, who came to earth to spread the Gospel message of peace and hope and love, even though we can’t – and never will be able to – follow all the laws all of the time. Jesus is not giving us a list of rules to follow “or else” – as if our salvation were at stake. What IS at stake, what Jesus is focusing on is the character of our lives as a community of God’s people. The laws are important to God…but not in the way the Pharisees understood.
Law and Gospel are intertwined, always working together. Luther talks about it like this. The second use of the law (mirror/the hammer, rustling leaves) accuses us of being sinners, and therefore drives us to the Gospel. The Gospel, where our identity lies – frees us! Because our salvation lies in the grace of God, not in anything we do, we are able to focus on the first use of the law, and are driven back to the first use of the law…not for the sake of our redemption or salvation, but because we have received a gift to which we simply cannot help but respond to. What Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount is a guide for civility, and guide for harmony – ways that we can live as authentic people of God. Jesus is focusing on the root and the intention of all of those scriptural laws, including the ten commandments. The purpose of those laws was to create a world that reflected the kingdom of God – a place of justice, peace, and equality. And that means we need a lot more than people who stop just short of killing or just short of committing adultery.
So I believe that the law is a profound gift – law does not come without grace, and we are not handed grace and then told “good luck with your lives here on earth.” We are taught by our scripture, by the Word, how to live lives of character: lives that lie out God’s kingdom. The Pharisee’s simply wanted to follow the letter of the law – Jesus wanted to emphasize the spirit of the law and what has true importance to God – communities that live in harmony, justice and peace on the earth. These laws that Jesus speaks of are not requirements for our salvation, but they establish our responsibility for our neighbor as we live out God’s kingdom on earth.
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