February 16:The Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany – Monroe
Setting
The lessons this week are not easy and comfortable words. The preacher might well be justified in looking at one of the other lessons.Afterall we’re given the choice of preaching on: 1) murder, 2) forgiving your enemy, 3) adultery, 4) cutting off one of your hands to prevent sin, 5) divorce, 6) swearing in court – known as perjury in our legal system.
Let me read from another version – loose translation by Eugene Peterson. I use it sometimes because several bishops through the years have confessed to me that they use it when they celebrate Eucharist.
Matthew 5:21-37 The Message (MSG)
Reconcile
Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.23-24 “This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.
25-26 “Or say you’re out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don’t lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you’re likely to end up in court, maybe even jail. If that happens, you won’t get out without a stiff fine.
Adultery and Divorce
27-28 “You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.29-30 “Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.
31-32 “Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure.
Empty Promises
33-37 “And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.The Sermon on the Mount
We hear from the first chapter of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – Matthew’s version of it. We would have heard from the beginning of the chapter 2 weeks ago, but the readings were changed for Candlemas. Last week’s excerpt was “You are the salt of the earth …” “You are the light of the world …” We will finish hearing from it this year in 10 days on Ash Wednesday.As I tried to think about the pattern in the readings – it’s punctuated by that repeated phrase “You have heard what was said to the people …” “You have heard that it was said…” “You have heard how it was said to our ancestors …”
In each phrase Jesus expresses a received value and guide to action and then looks to his audience and says, “But I say to you you have to do better than that …” “You have to go deeper than that …” “You have to get serious about that …”
The values that I can identify are:
- Peace / Reconciliation / Shalom
- Honesty
- Faithfulness / Fidelity
- Keeping one’s word / Promises
Jesus’ point:
In this “sermon” – that lasts for 3 chapters in Matthew’s gospel – Jesus takes the inherited “traditional values” of his society and tells his listeners, “Your inherited values don’t go deep enough!” You have to be radical in living those values."We might say in today’s world, it’s not enough to separate cans and plastics for your recycleables. You must change your lifestyle.
But then can we take a concern for the environment as a shared value? Probably not.
Political?
This is not a political sermon. But it seems to me that we cannot talk about Jesus’ word to us today without considering that the culture we live in has sought to extinguish the inherited values upon which the lesson is made.My words aren’t necessarily political. It is about values that we live by. It is about what Jesus has to say about our cultural values. Let me think of an illustration.
Defending Russian traditional values
- Vladimir Putin has put himself forth as the standard-bearer and defender of Russian values, morals, tradition.
- He has sought to impose that message for years, as the foundation of his regime. 1
- wikipedia
“The political system under Putin has been described as incorporating some elements of economic liberalism, a lack of transparency in governance, cronyism, nepotism and pervasive corruption.”
He has built up the values of power, authoritarianism, plundering, and greed.
Clearly the pattern is being repeated around the world. How close to home is it?
The danger of our time is that the received, traditional values that we had formerly received, are now perceived as optional or a sign of weakness or treachery.
The sign of our times is that before we can go beyond the values we have received, those values must themselves be revived.
Received values
I asked myself who passed on to me the values that have guided my life? A key figure was – ironically, because he wasn’t very much a part of my life after I reached adolescence – my father.“Gentleman” and handkerchief … one of the things I have remembered through all the years are the 2 things he said any gentleman would do.
First a gentleman would always have a handkerchief in his pocket. This was so that he could deliver it when needed to the lady who accompanied him.
The 2nd thing I very much associate with him. It is that a gentleman would be as comfortable eating with the poorest of the poor as he was while eating with the rich and powerful.
But there was much more in that “gentleman” designation. It had to do with much of what is in today’s gospel: honesty, keeping one’s word, faithfulness.
The other value at the beginning of today’s reading – love, Shalom, Peace – I got from other places.
But the main idea I can’t escape about today’s excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus’ teaching to us has to do with the need to go deeper than the values we have received. It is not enough that you be honest you must have integrity.
Jesus’ admonition to take the received values and make them deeper and more significant – that “command” if you will, is problematic if we have not received the basic values he presumes:
- honesty
- genuine desire for peace and reconciliation
- faithfulness
- desire to keep one’s word
If we have lost “what is passed down to us” – if the foundational values are watered down and finally reduced to empty phrases – then we have nothing left to build our gospel life upon.
Another illustration:
For a long time I pointed to a turning point in American society. It occurred during the turbulent years of President Richard Nixon. At a certain point, after he had been accused of having lied to the American Public, he said in his own defense that he had mis-spoken. The media accepted that as a defense and there was no public outcry that it was an empty excuse.
The problem was not a leader lying to the public. That has always gone on. The problem was the silence of the people. When the media and the people accepted mis-spoken as a defense for lying, … at that point it became ok for our leaders to lie – provided that they explain it away.
The gospel demands that not remain silent.
Loss of received values
Here is the reason I raise the political figures. They help us to determine how far we have lost the very foundation that makes the Sermon on the Mount real. We -flive in a time when our political leaders claim to be defending “traditional values.” But they really are acting so as to undermine and destroy the very foundation upon which the gospel depends in order to make sense.- honesty
- genuine desire for peace and reconciliation
- faithfulness
- desire to keep one’s word
Closing
It is insufficient to go beyond the received values when the received values have been lost or not passed on.The demands of the gospel today require that we not remain silent. Each of us in whatever way is available to us must demonstrate that these values:
- honesty
- genuine desire for peace and reconciliation
- faithfulness
- desire to keep one’s word
The gospel today demands that we not remain silent.
Notes
lectionaryComing week:
- February 17:Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, and Martyr, 1977
- February 18:Martin Luther, 1546
- Why Putin’s Defense of “Traditional Values” Is Really a War on Freedom
The sensible way to fight back against Russia’s anti-gay campaign
foreign policy ↩︎
- Irish Times editorial ↩︎
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