February 12, 2017, the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

We are surrounded by rules. The Ten Commandments are painted on the wall. We obey traffic laws on the way to church. We accepted terms of service to use the apps on our cell phones. We are guided and our lives are bounded by rules. We often only think about them when we break them. Was I driving too fast when I passed that police car? Should I have that second brownie? In working out our spiritual lives, we are often worried about the rules we have broken, and perhaps less concerned about rules we have neglected.

Jesus teases out the meaning of the rules. He extends beyond “You have heard it said…” He tells what seems to be an even stricter interpretation. We have to remember what the rules are for. Moses gives the law to show the people how to live. God’s law is not merely a set of peculiar practices – it is a way of life. The motivation to obey is not fear (of punishment) but love. We obey because we love God. We obey because we love our neighbor.

As Jesus unpacks the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount, we are drawn to the sexual sins for which we are ashamed, and somehow we neglect the other sins that seem to be more common. People fret about divorce. Why do we not worry over anger, or telling lies? When Jesus tells us not to look with lust, and not to divorce for trivial matters, he is reminding us to respect each other. He is not instituting yet another barrier to separate people with shame.

Jesus uses many more words to talk about anger. Even an off-hand comment of disrespect imperils our soul. It is so important to cease from anger that we should leave everything else – including worship – to rush to seek reconciliation with our sister or our brother. Wouldn’t things be better if we spent more energy seeking reconciliation in our time, rather than seeking new ways to shame each other? We are surrounded by anger and fear. Jesus would have us work for something better. We need to be troubled about our lack of respect for each other more than our worry about keeping the letter of the law.

All of ways that Jesus reframes of the rules are about moving beyond the trivial to the profound. It’s not enough to give up murder. You have to give up hate. It’s not enough to refrain from adultery. You have to give up lust. It’s not enough to fill out proper paperwork for divorce. You have to respect marriage. It’s not enough to swear an oath. You have to always speak the truth. When we only obey the law in a technical way, we miss the purpose behind it.

If we hold onto anger, we will have broken relationships with our neighbors. We can still hold onto our principles. We do not have to agree. We are forbidden to hate. We are forbidden to treat another person as merely something to gratify our desire, because people are worth infinitely more than that. Divorce is forbidden because marriage was not the equal partnership we know. Women had few rights. They could not obtain a divorce. If women were released from marriage by their husbands, they had no status or income, and it was disastrous for them. God did not give permission so that it could be abused. The rules are given so that we treat one another with dignity and respect.

And when we fail or fall, we are reminded that our relationship with God and with each other is not meant to be broken forever. How odd that divorce keeps people out of community? Why should that failure be uncorrectable? We sin and God forgives. We begin again and God helps us live into new life. The rules are not a barrier. They are a path towards life. The goal is to live lives of love and integrity where our words match our actions and we rejoice in loving relationships. Our yes is yes and our no is no because that’s how people talk when they love and respect each other.

Jesus doesn’t demand our obedience. He demands love. We might be fooled into thinking that God’s love is contingent on our obedience. We have it in the wrong order. The grace of God is never contingent. It is always true. It is where we always begin. Moses doesn’t say that God will love them only when they obey the commandments. The offer is a way of life or a way of death. God always offers love and life. We only die when we refuse to accept it.

As Jesus re-tells the rules of life, it can sound even more difficult. In a sense it is. We have to seek the meaning in all that we do. We have to seek the best way to love in every circumstance.  If we succeed or fail, God loves us anyway. Jesus is calling us to persist in the better way. Jesus is not setting up an impossible standard so that we can retreat into misery and dependence. Jesus is offering a path where we have to keep seeking the best outcome. We have to seek the way that recognizes the dignity of every person we encounter. We are given eyes to see as God sees, and hearts to love as God loves. As we come to every inevitable impasse, it is not enough to judge who is right or wrong. Jesus calls us to seek the way of life. That is what saves us.

February 5, the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

For Christmas, my wife was worried about my back injury, so she signed me up for yoga lessons. I had my first class this week. I marvel that some of my muscles are as stiff as they are! I marvel that I have aching muscles I didn't know I had. I am not generally unhealthy, but over the years, parts of my body have become less used, and bad habits of posture have begun to catch up with me. This new discipline has made this plain.

We think we are doing pretty well until we adopt a new perspective. In general, we are good people, living the best way we know. Once in a while, we see ourselves from a different perspective and we have to re-evaluate how we are doing. The prophet Isaiah has a stern judgment about the people of God. This poem of warning was probably written after the people returned from exile, yet hadn't seemed to return to a place of blessing and success. Perhaps they had managed to accumulate some wealth and power, yet the people seem disconnected to God.

Isaiah points out their hypocrisy. They make a show of fasting, and they neglect to feed the poor among them. No wonder God ignores their prayers. Isaiah reminds them that it is not words or ritual that gets the attention of God, except when they are accompanied with works of justice and mercy. In all our public discussions about true religion, we forget the obsessions of the prophets. You'd think God cared about sex as much as we do! The prophets scolded the people almost exclusively about two sins, idolatry and neglect of the poor.

Idolatry is the sin of worshipping a God who is not God. While we do not set up physical idols, we are often guilty of worshipping money, or power, or patriotism, or whatever besetting sin you can imagine. For all our worry over the worthiness of others, the prophets commanded the people to care for the poor without any tests of worthiness or neediness. Imagine how different the world would be if we competed in how much we gave instead of in how much we have?

Isaiah (like all the other prophets) is reminding the people about the most important purpose of the law. We are to love God and we are to love our neighbors. When we worship another God, we lose our love for God. When we neglect the poor around us, we neglect our love for our neighbor. We stop being who we are.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he tells us we are the salt of the earth. I have read many interesting commentaries that try and explain how salt can lose its saltiness. Perhaps ancient Israelites used a sort of low-grade salt that loses its efficacy? I read another commentator who surmised that salt used in religious rituals could become ceremonially unclean - and then it had to be discarded. I think all of these explanations miss the point. There is no such thing as “unsalty” salt. There's no such thing as a lamp shining under a basket. There is no such thing as a city on a hill that you can't see. So, how can we hide who we are?

The good we do shows the glory of God. Why do we try to do otherwise? Later, Jesus will talk about doing good deeds in private, and we will be reminded of this on Ash Wednesday. Jesus is speaking of the absurdity of a private faith. We are so careful to be tactful; we forget that everything we do is an expression of what we believe and of who we are. This public faith is not for our own ego, but to proclaim to everyone around us just how good God is. We do good works as a declaration of Gods love for us and to declare how God helps us to love our neighbor.

Jesus will begin to compare two ways of true worship. Jesus will speak against the scribes and the Pharisees, yet it is also important to remember that he is teaching as if he is one of them. If you were to read ancient accounts of arguments of points of law between first century teachers and Pharisees, those arguments sound quite similar to what Jesus is arguing. He is very much like a first century liberal Pharisee. There was a tendency to become over-scrupulous in the observance of the law after the exile. Those conservative Pharisees didn't want to make the same mistake of their lapsed ancestors. In exile, they learned to adhere to the law as a way of devotion and as a way to preserve their identity in a foreign land. After the return, and under Roman rule, there was still a tendency to live a life in opposition to the dominant culture of Rome. The Pharisees took great pride in their observance of the law and they worried about anyone who had any excuse to relax their practice.

Jesus reminds us what true practice of obedience is, and why we do it. We devote ourselves to God because we love God (or we seek to deepen our love for God.) We perform good works, not to prove our commitment to laws, but to declare our love for our neighbor (or to deepen our love for our neighbor.) This is how we might surpass the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees - not in some ridiculous race to be even more correct and pure in our obedience - but in our desire to draw nearer to God in love, and nearer to our neighbor in love.

Of course this is not easy. As soon as we try, we face our own fears and hypocrisy. We are immediately confronted with questions about how best to serve the poor. Are we serving their true needs or only our own? Are we helping or enabling bad behavior? What do our neighbors really need from us? Who are we responsible for? How wide a circle can we draw? The closer we look, the more we feel like we are at our first yoga class, discouraged and stiff. The good news is that God's righteousness does not look like perfect observance. God's righteousness is love.

As long as we keep asking uncomfortable questions - as long as we keep offering our imperfect love - God will help us discover how best to shine. We must be ready to look foolish. The cross is no wise or easy thing. The truth of the cross is love and sacrifice. As we are willing to offer whatever we have to be used for God's glory, the closer we will find ourselves to the heart of God. We will gain our saltiness. We will shine more brightly. We will be a people on a hill, for everyone to see.