Do the rules include being blessed?

 Sermon for the 6th Sunday in Epiphany, February 12, 2023
Text: Matthew 5:21-37

As I read through the Gospel of Matthew in gathering my thoughts, I noted that there are three chapters of Jesus’ commandments in Matthew’s Gospel, that is, chapters 5 - 7. The Beatitudes that we heard two Sundays ago are at the beginning of his commandments in Matthew, and last week we heard Jesus say that he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. The reading we heard this morning is a continuation of the commandments, with clear instruction regarding adultery, divorce, and lust, among others. These readings call to mind the image of Jesus acting like a traffic cop, pulling people over and writing them tickets for breaking a law. It makes us anxious about the things we do in daily life; did something I said or did in the moment break a law? Will I be punished? Life can be a perilous journey when we are always checking every little thing. It’s hard to reconcile this image of Jesus as the traffic cop with what he says in chapter 12 of Matthew’s gospel, where he himself confronts the Pharisees for insisting that righteousness comes from following every law to the letter. So, where does our righteousness come from, the laws or the Beatitudes? Do we obey the laws to be perfect Christians, or do we love one another as God loves us?

There are nine beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel, and two of them address people who are not perfect in their faith, giving us relief from the anxiety over our daily lives. The rest of the beatitudes address people who are modest or humble at heart, yet who receive blessings from the kingdom of God. They reiterate what Jesus says many times in the Gospels that humility and putting others first is as important, if not more important than following the rules. The beatitudes are nearly the opposite of the Ten Commandments in their tone and what they address. They are blessings instead of prohibitions; they are about uplifting the potential good versus condemning the wrong. Imagine for a moment, how much different our country would be if we insisted on posting the Beatitudes in our schools, courthouses and homes instead of the Ten Commandments that are posted there now. We would have a more compassionate view of the world and the people in it, patience with the world as it is, and a system of justice more concerned with righting wrongs than with punishing.

When we read and consider the rules regarding adultery, lust, and divorce in this morning’s reading, they sound like reasonable commandments to follow. There’s a certain comfort in knowing exactly what we need to do to be right and righteous, because there’s no ambiguity, no wiggle room, no discussion. Either you are or you aren’t righteous, and a quick rundown of the list will pinpoint where you failed, whether it's from a lack of obedience, or egotism, or some other attitude. Lists are great and they help me stay organized and keep my priorities straight, but as I have discovered when dealing with the end of my mother’s life, lists are inadequate. Yes, there are banks and financial companies and people on her Christmas mailing list to contact, but they don’t represent her life, and how she responded to the movement of the Holy Spirit within her. This has underscored for me that being obedient to these and other commandments is not about following only the law, because that’s what Jesus was constantly fighting against. It is also about the relationships that we have with people around us, and for Jesus, that is more important than being right. Jesus’ commandments are about building relationships, not rules that lead to righteousness in the eyes of God. My mother laid down rules of conduct as she raised me and my brother and sister, but those rules say nothing about the quality of our relationship because she chose not to define it with rules.

Jesus spells out the things that we should not do in our relationships because they do not come from loving others as we are loved by God. Taking people for granted, ignoring their worth, or seeing them as convenient and disposable is not showing them love. Objectifying people based on sexuality, or on race, politics, or beliefs, for that matter, is not treating them with love. Insulting or belittling others because we are angry does not come from love. The poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are hungry for righteousness matter, and they are not to be pitied and then forgotten. The beginning of a loving relationship with them and anyone else is when our yeses and noes mean exactly that, yes or no. Anything beyond that comes from pride and self-centeredness. These are all things we do and don’t do if we love our neighbors as ourselves, and love them with God’s perfect, selfless love. This is what my mother expected of us, to be open and honest with her, to admit our faults and mistakes, to acknowledge when we broke the rules. She might get mad, but she never stopped loving us.

All of these things, the blessed people, Jesus fulfilling the law, not casually divorcing your spouse, and other commandments that we hear throughout Matthew’s Gospel are ultimately about discipleship, what it meant to be disciples in his day and what it means to be Christians today. Archdeacon Rose said to me when I was in the diocesan School of Ministry that deacons are not made by the discernment process; you either are or are not a deacon. I find that that is true of being a Christian as well. It is not the list of rules, or checking off the boxes, that makes us righteous followers of the Son of God, it is instead about who we are.  As disciples of Christ, we make individual connections with people, inviting them into the community of faith. We build up the larger community, based on love for each other, rather than on rules. Our life and our relationship with God is so much more than just a confining list of rules.

We are about to enter Lent, where we focus on our shortcomings and things that we have not done as we should have, or done things we shouldn’t have done at all. It’s easy to focus on all of those things and feel like we have fallen short of God’s expectations and that we are not as good as we should be, and give up. But throughout Epiphany we have discovered who Jesus is and what it means to be a follower of him. The Gospel readings have revealed to us that to be a disciple is about being someone who loves our neighbors as ourselves, respecting their dignity, and making that visible through the relationships we have with them. In Lent, we accept that we are not perfect, we are not expected to be, and we work on how to make Jesus’ teachings and commandments a reality.