Scripture: Matthew 5:21-25; Matthew 5:3-6; Matthew 5:27-28; Matthew 21:12-13; Matthew 7:7 Series: 2023
Preaching on Matthew 5:21-25, the pastor argues that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus throws out our boundary-seeking instinct — the way children and adults alike push to find exactly where the line is. Jesus takes narrow moral categories (murder, adultery, false oaths) and expands them to the broadest possible scope (anger, lust, all swearing), so that everyone becomes suspect and no one can console themselves with ‘at least I didn’t cross the line.’ This radical ethic only makes sense if Jesus is Lord: honesty, freedom from anger, and conversion of desire are acts of faith that trust God’s justice rather than our own systems. Even Jesus cleansing the temple is read as un-angry. The call is not legalism (‘anything goes’) but constant repentance and turning the heart toward the God who is love, living Christ’s kingdom now by grace through faith.
Illustrations: madeline-doorframe-line, curly-city-slickers-day-aint-over, swearing-oaths-in-court, english-common-law-christian-origins
February 12, 2023
“You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘You idiot,’ they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and go. First make things right with your brother or sister and then come back and offer your gift. Be sure to make friends quickly with your opponents while you are with them on the way to court. Otherwise, they will haul you before the judge, the judge will turn you over to the officer of the court, and you will be thrown into prison. - Matthew 5:21-25
I think all children have a natural ability to try and find out where the line is. Now, some kids are not as big line pushers as others. You tell them what to do and they do it. I mean, I hear rumors of this existing, out in the wild. I don’t know for sure. Otherwise, children want to push the limit: how far do you mean? How far are you willing to take it? My niece, Madeline, who is about to graduate from Notre Dame, when she was a child, her parents told her to stay in her room after bedtime. She would come out to the doorframe and lay under the doorframe just to go right up to the line Grown ups do this too. We try and clarify: what are the lines we need to follow up? What are the boundaries? What are the actual boundaries? Boundaries at our job? What are the things we have to do? Prioritize? What are the things there’s a little more flexibility around? I mean, I think in honesty, we do this with God, with sin, in a lot of ways. What are the things we need to focus on about being a good person and following God? What should our priorities be? Should we beat ourselves up over every little thing? Yet what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount is kind of throw all of that boundary seeking out the window. It starts off in the Sermon of the Mount in Matthew five with famous, beattitudes ““Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” and on and on.
The beatitudes work with these inversions of expectations, blessed are the poor in spirit. Wait, what? And the word Jesus used is Macarios, for which a better translation is happy: Happy are the poor in spirit. People never want to go talk to the poor in spirit at a party, but that’s what Jesus says.
Happy are the meek? Happy are those who mourn? It’s jarring. That one especially is jarring. Happy are those who mourn Jesus. You’re being a little insensitive right now. Happy are those who mourn for they will be comforted. It’s an inversion of expectation. Happier. Those who mourn, not those who move on with their life and pretend that nothing happened. They are not the ones who will see joy. Happy are those mourn.
In Matthew 5:21, we have another example of Jesus inverting our expectation. You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, you shall not murder and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment. It was not just a Jewish thing or Christian thing. It’s a pretty much human thing. Society’s all over the world don’t often condone killing.
But with killing or murder, we have a clear boundary. People may think, “well, if I can’t kill, if I do everything except killing, I’m okay. If I beat this person half to death, but not all to death, I’m okay. I’m not killing him. I’m okay. I’m cool.”
Jesus says,” You’ve heard it said” to people who go up to the line but take consolation in not crossing it. but I didn’t kill him?,
“But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable for judgment.” So Jesus takes this fairly narrow category, murder. I mean, a lot of people have been killed over the years. People, I’m sure you all know people who have been killed and the tragedy of that, but it’s far narrower than anger. Anger is a much more common human phenomenon. I hope that most of us don’t have to consciously debate about whether we’re going to kill people during our day. We don’t wake up and it’s like, “who am I going to kill today? And that kind of thing. Maybe, maybe you guys have different minds than I would think, but that’s my assumption. And yet Jesus expands this narrow category to include probably the broadest one imaginable. You have heard that it was said, those of ancient times, you shall not murder. But I say to you, if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment. So it’s the first one. If you insult a brother or sister, you’ll be liable To the council. We have a higher level of authority. And then if you say “you fool,” You’ll be liable to the hell of fire..
So Jesus takes our expectations of how to be a good person, of what that looks like, and he points out how our expectations have a lot to do with the moral lines we draw. And we have this one category that most of us can feel like we’re not concerned about. We don’t have to worry about murder in our day to day life. And then he expands it. He flips it and expands it into something that we do have to worry about. We may get off the hook with murder. I don’t think any of us can get off the hook for insulting others at some point. Calling others, fool.
Jesus continues this with lying and with adultery. He takes narrow categories and broadens them so that we all become suspect.
You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. There’s a nice clear line there that Jesus completely runs over. He does this with divorce, it has this with oaths and swearing. We have expectations and he flips them.
The oaths one i I think is always very interesting. Every person who serves in our, our military, every person who serves in in state government or federal government, who swears an oath. To do that goes against Jesus’ words here. They didn’t design the system, but Jesus is direct here and makes no exceptions. Anyone who testifies in court, “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” goes against the words of Jesus here. The words of Jesus are pretty straightforward here.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no. And we may say, “that’s good enough for you, Jesus, but we live in the real world. And if people don’t swear on something, they’re just gonna lie. What then?” The answer to this and every question that is begged by the Sermon of the Mount is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in the kingdom of heaven. We can only let our yes be yes and our no be no if Jesus is Lord. If Jesus is not Lord, we do need a complicated system to determine the veracity of people and consequences for lies. If Jesus is not Lord, swear all you want, keep those moral lines crystal clear, and be satisfied in the life you are living on your own. If Jesus is Lord, then that system smacks in the face of faith in Jesus.
English common law, which makes up the backbone of our legal system, was formed and created in a very Christian environment. I don’t think that they were trying to disobey the words of Christ when they started having people swear in court. And when the early US court system developed ways of swearing, they weren’t intentionally opposing the words of Jesus. There were practical and pragmatic reasons for which they needed a way to hold people accountable. And yet the words of Jesus here challenge those practicalities. Let your yes be yes and your no be no is an act of faith because it believes more in the God of truth than in our own ability to adjudicate the truth, to solve of it and be responsible for it.
But this form of of faith works for all of these situations. Murder is not just limited to the discreet taking of another’s life, but it also refers to anger in your heart. And this only works if you believe Jesus is Lord. If you do not, it makes no sense whatsoever. Adultery is what we know it to be unless Jesus is Lord. Then it is any lust in our hearts because any lust in our hearts is a lack of faith in the God who is love. A lack of conversion of our desire in our hearts.
These expanded moral categories seem like it would make life more difficult. If I can’t help from sinning, what is the point of the language of sin?
If we are stuck in a binary conception of sin. That is sin is bad, non-sin is good, we miss what Jesus doing here. Jesus shows us that a radical life of love is possible in this world if we seek God. A life oriented towards God by grace and faith. We don’t need to settle for half-sins. We don’t need to console ourselves by saying, “at least I didn’t kill anyone today.” As Curly from City Slickers would respond, “Day ain’t over yet.”
Our consolation can only be found in Jesus Christ.
We are only facing in the direction of God by grace through faith, only because of faith. Only because of stepping beyond ourselves and beyond our certainty. not by knowing which rules to follow, which rules to break. Only by faith. Anger is a lack of faith. Anger is an attempt to take justice into my hands and take it from God’s hands. If justice is on God’s side, I do not need to be angry. And every act of anger towards another is like murder because I am forsaking God’s justice by taking my own. Many people say that Jesus speaks against anger in the temple, later, when he turns over the tables. He shows no signs of anger there. From Matthew 21
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’
He overturns the tables, but he’s not angry. We like to imagine anger here. We like to imagine Jesus overturning tables in anger so that we can justify our own anger. But he’s not. In another version, Jesus makes a whip in order to whip the animals out of the way, not the people. So Jesus doesn’t contradict himself by condemning anger in Matthew 5 and then later overturning the tables.
What we are left with is encouragement for a life of faith that we can truly follow God. We can only truly do this by faith. We need to let go of our expectations that we’re going to save ourselves and we all have ‘em. Those clear moral lines are tools for us to save ourselves and they are all going to fail. This doesn’t mean anything goes. It means we all must repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We all must constantly convert our hearts away from our own desire and self-satisfaction towards the God who is love. And this takes faith.
We’ve gotta let go and take a step of faith. And that means looking at our hearts often, what do we desire? What do I desire? What do I hope for? Is it towards God or away from God? If it is away from God, I need to turn around. There will be mercy, but I need to turn around. I can’t keep going backwards. If I say I love God, I need to be going forwards, towards God and towards my neighbor in love and hope and peace and neatness. This is the promise of the sermon on the Mount. This path is open to us. Christ’s kingdom is here for us to live out on earth. Not in some ideolistic future but now. All we must do is repent and believe that Jesus is Lord. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Let us pray, Heavenly Father, your word is lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. May we follow your path and not our own. May we let go of ourselves and enter into your kingdom. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.