Sermon on the Mount
#3: Writing “The Law” On Our Hearts
October 15th, 2006
Gary Harder
Texts:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Matthew 5:17-31
Introduction
We are in the third week of preaching through the Sermon on the Mount. This week I felt rather overwhelmed by the texts in front of me. I had moments of almost despair as I tried to sort out what these texts meant for me, and what I might say about them. I would write something – pages in fact – and then throw them away because they sounded too superficial; too trite. But come Sunday the preacher better have something ready – can’t throw everything out, trite or not – so here goes, even thought these texts are beyond me, and the chunk of Scripture before me is far too large.
Jeremiah has a vision for a new covenant – a new walk with God. He says, “This is the (new) covenant I will make with (you)…I will put my law within (you), and I will write it on (your) hearts, and I will be (your) God and (you) shall be my people”. (Jeremiah 31:33)
Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill”. (Matthew 5:17).
It is the age old problem; the age old tension. How do you internalize, make your own, put into your heart, important things in life. Important things like law, like faith, like love, like prayer. Always these things want to be external first. But if they stay only external they are robbed of life. How do we write them on our hearts?
Both Jeremiah and Jesus speak about the Law, the Torah. When we think of law we might think of rules. We might think of legal structures. That is, we think of rather external things. Not so Jeremiah or Jesus.
Jesus was a Jew who loved the law. The law – the “Torah”, was revered and loved by every Israelite. The law, the Torah, was so much bigger than a set of rules. The law was a friend. It made survival possible. Torah gave the framework which permitted life in the community. It helped regulate relationships within the community. It helped people know how to remain in covenant relationship with God.
Deuteronomy 6 says that keeping the law is what allows you to enjoy long life. Torah is joy, it is light.
Psalm 19 is a doxology of praise for the law. Torah gives joy to the heart. It is more precious than gold.
The Torah spoke to how you as an individual and as a community could stay in covenant relationship with God, how you could live happily within the will of God. But always in Torah, in the Law, there is the inherent danger of making it only an external thing, only something you observe “out there”. The danger is always that we think that keeping some external rules will fulfill the requirements of the law. But then Torah loses its life-giving power. It becomes only a very shallow thing.
As parents we create a sense of law at home which we hope will help our children grow up into loving, compassionate, responsible adults. “You must always wash your hands before eating”. The parent will repeat that a thousand times. The young child will not yet understand about hygiene and germs. It’s mostly fun to have dirt on your hands. But eventually the child will develop an inner sense of hygiene and good health. And will discover many times when it is not possible to wash hands before eating. But since the law is now internalized, the particular rule isn’t quite as essential anymore, because the child knows about being careful about germs.
“Don’t ever take a ride with a stranger”. The law is meant for the child’s safety. There may be a stranger out there who will hurt the child. But at age six the child needs to go to a new school a bit further away and needs to ride the bus. Sure enough, the driver is a stranger. “Mom, I can’t go on the bus. I can’t go with strangers”. Mom says, “I’m glad you remembered what we said about not riding with strangers. But this stranger is ok. Trust me. You can get on the bus.” And the child goes happily off to school. And the child begins to internalize the fact that you need to be careful about taking a ride with strangers, but the rule can be broken when you learn to discern whom you can trust and whom you can’t trust. The law becomes internalized. And when the youngster starts using the internet, and chat rooms, that internal law to be careful of strangers becomes especially important.
Christian parents might say, “You always need to pray to God before you go to bed at night. We will teach you some bed time prayers”. The child looks forward to bed time, to the stories the parents read or tell, and to the bedtime prayer. But at some point the parent will suggest that the child pray his or her own prayer, move beyond the memorized prayer. Prayer is becoming internalized. And it doesn’t really matter then anymore whether the growing child misses praying some evenings, or prays at another time of day, or sometimes doesn’t feel like praying at all. Prayer isn’t about keeping a schedule or a rule.
Jesus says that he came to this earth to fulfil the law, not to abolish it. He came to deepen the law. He came to help us internalize our faith, our covenant with God. He came to write the faith on our hearts.
Six examples
And then, in our text from Matthew 5, Jesus becomes totally practical. He gives six examples of what he means, six examples of how he is fulfilling, or deepening, the law. I will try to look at the first three of these today. The other three wait for another Sunday.
1) About Murder (Love that makes peace) The first of the six examples Jesus offers is about murder. Or rather, its about anger. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’,…but I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement”. (5:21-26)
And in one stroke Jesus moves the sixth commandment from an external thing to an internal thing. I think all of us could immediately say, “Why, I have never murdered anyone”. I know how to keep the law. No chance of me breaking that one”. But Jesus asks, “Have you never been angry enough at some one that you harbored murderous thoughts?” And we all know that anger, even hot temper, lodges inside each of us. Suddenly this commandment, this law, touches each of us very, very directly.
Of course we should not murder anyone. But Jesus goes further He says that we should not even have murderous thoughts in our hearts. The word used here for anger is “nursing your anger”. Don’t nurse your anger at someone. Don’t call someone an imbecile or a fool, in that culture one of the worst insults you could offer.
I don’t think Jesus said, “don’t ever get angry”. Anger is very normal. Anger is not the problem. What we do or don’t do with anger may be a huge problem.
Over forty years ago already, we students at CMBC were surprised that a Mennonite Psychiatrist wanted to study us all. He was convinced that Mennonites had a higher rate of depression than the average person. He thought that was because we don’t know how to deal with our anger. We are supposed to be pacifists who don’t retaliate but instead turn the other cheek. So we tend to let our anger simmer inside of us. We turn it in on ourselves. We don’t express our anger in a healthy way. So it sits in our gut and turns into depression. Or it finally explodes in a huge outburst and we break our relationship with someone. The psychiatrist called it “The Mennonite Disease”.
Jesus says, “Don’t nurse your anger”. Don’t harbour and nurse and let seethe underneath the kind of feelings and resentments which surely destroy relationships and destroy community. It’s not enough only to refrain from killing the one you are angry at. It is not enough to be outwardly a pacifist. What is at stake is also our relationship with that person. Treat the other with dignity and respect. That might include confronting the other. It might include telling the other how angry you are. It does not include violating the other physically or emotionally.
Jesus invites us to deeper levels of keeping the Torah. Jesus offers two very practical suggestions for dealing with our anger and for preventing its bitter fruits from destroying community.
1) First, seek to be reconciled. Do everything in your power to get things sorted out and to restore your relationship. Even while you are worshipping, bringing your gift to the altar, if you remember that someone is upset with you, or that you are still mad, go and seek reconciliation. Talk it out – with respect and with dignity.
2) Secondly, if someone has a legal case against you and is taking you to court, do everything in your power to settle the dispute before it has to be heard by the judge. Take the initiative in reconciliation.
You have heard it said “You shall not murder”. Jesus has a new word, a fulfilment of that commandment. Not only do you not kill a person’s body. You don’t kill a person’s spirit either. The concern is your relationship with the other person. The concern is the health of the whole community.
Our legal system tries to deal with murder. It cannot deal with our stored up angers that break relationships and sometimes lead to physical violence. And our legal system cannot really heal the heart of a murderer or of the hearts of the victims of the murder. Our leal system is best at dealing with externals. Punishment. Protecting society for a while.
But people of faith have asked, “Is there a way to deal with the heart, with internal stuff.” And so we promote “restorative justice”, which tries to restore internal things like relationships and inner healing, and forgiveness. And we say that maybe, if we provide circles of support, some serious offenders may be able to live without violating other people, live without acting on their internal angers and drives.
Jesus tells us that the law is much more than not murdering someone. God’s law is about not nursing your anger and about not breaking relationships.
2) Adultery (love that honours boundaries) The second example Jesus gives has to do with marital infidelity. It has to do with adultery. “You have heard it said, ‘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.”
Again Jesus has made the thing very personal. I have never committed adultery. I can claim that I have never broken the seventh commandment. But I certainly know deep i
nside what lust is about. I have broken the deeper meaning of that law.
To lust after another person, a woman or a man, is already to abuse that person for it is treating the other as a sex object. Then we are violating something basic and important in the other person.
Lusting after another person probably does not refer to a glance of admiration for the beauty of the human body, as for example is expressed in the “Song of Songs”. It probably does not refer to the many sexual urges and thoughts and arousals which are a part of out everyday life – for every one of us. I think it does refer to the nurtured lust for another person.
In our society, where sex is so depersonalised, where women are still so often seen as objects for men to play with, (though women are catching up in the sexual objectification game), and where adultery itself is commonplace and socially acceptable, Jesus would tell us that the law remains. “Do not commit adultery”. But he also goes beyond the law, to the attitudes which will either build trust between the sexes, and build relationships and build community, and build marriage, or which will destroy them by making persons of the opposite sex objects and playthings and possessions, and casual sexual partners.
As followers of Jesus we commit ourselves not to commit adultery. The decision to commit adultery is made in the mind and in the will long before it is made in the act. To say that you were overwhelmed in a moment of passion is a total cop-out. You either give yourself permission or refuse to give yourself permission long before the situation or immediate temptation arises.
And so we decide not to commit adultery. In the first place because we know it is wrong. It is against God’s law. “You shall not commit adultery”. That external law becomes a protection for us at moments of temptation and weakness, at moments when our own marriage relationship is weak or when someone else is very sexually attractive to us.
But there is a deeper reason not to commit adultery. We know the incredible pain and broken-ness which will be the inevitable result of our adultery. We start with an attitude of respect and love for our spouse, a commitment to nurture a loving, faithful relationship. For we can sin as easily within marriage as outside of it. We sin when we objectify the other. We sin when we have only a sexual relationship with the other and don’t nurture a full orbed intimacy which engages the other’s heart, not only body. And part of our commitment to our spouse is not to damage this relationship by committing adultery.
But we make a commitment also to treat all persons with dignity and respect, not allowing ourselves to use them or to be used by them.
Which already speaks to how Jesus has fulfilled and deepened the law about adultery. “When you look at a woman with a nurtured lust for her, you have already committed adultery in your heart.”
Again, the law of God has found a deeper fulfilment, it has become internalized. We commit ourselves not to commit adultery physically, nor to commit adultery in our heart. Our commitment is not to violate the sanctity of another person – neither our spouse nor anyone else who may sexually attract us. And we don’t violate our own personal sanctity and integrity.
3) About Divorce (Love that keeps commitments) The third example Jesus gives is about divorce. (5:31-32) “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”.
I cannot do a full study of divorce here – that is far beyond the scope of his sermon. Jesus does talk about divorce more fully in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16. We will stay with Matthew 5.
The law of Moses did allow for divorce, but only for men. (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). I find it a bit startling that Moses seems to accept the cultural norms of that day and gives permission for a man to divorce his wife if she does not please him or if he finds something objectionable in her. Two schools of thought developed around this permission for divorce. The Hillel school was rather broad in its interpretation, allowing a husband to divorce his wife rather easily if she did anything to offend him – say, burning his supper. The school of Shammai was much stricter, allowing a husband to divorce his wife only if she had been unchaste or immodest. Jesus is closest to this Shammai school.
It does seem that at the time of Jesus divorce was a fairly simple procedure – for men. Never for women. Jesus challenges the existing system. No, divorce is not the will of God. God intended marriage to be a loving, faithful, permanent relationship until death. It is not right for men to easily divorce their wives while women live under different rules.
Yet Jesus does give one exception clause – when the wife has been unchaste. Then divorce is possible. Not mandatory, just possible. It is hard for us to understand the statement, “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for unchastity (adultery), causes her to commit adultery”. In that culture it may have made more sense than it does to us. In the first place, it was considered a curse for a woman to be single, to be without a man. She would almost be forced by societal pressure to find a man to live with – any man. In the second place, she would have no means of support without a man, perhaps forcing her into prostitution just to survive. Economic need wold almost compel her into adultery.
But if she had already been unchaste wi
thin that marriage, then her husband could not be held responsible for causing her to become an adulterous should he divorce her.
Adultery is clearly an exception clause allowing for divorce. But an exception clause is never the main principle. The main principle is to reject an easy divorce for men. I think it was the culture of divorce in his day that he was rejecting. And in that challenge he recognized the impossible dilemma it placed the divorced woman into. He also recognized human sinfulness and broken-ness. He recognized that marriages may be destroyed by sin. And then legal ties can be broken.
I think Jesus would also challenge our culture of easy divorce and impermanent relationships, though fortunately by now we have more equality between men and women, an equality which I think Jesus embodied in his relationships. And fortunately women now do have economic means of support without being dependant on a man.
But I also think Jesus knew that many of us struggle with our primary relationships, knew that broken-ness and pain and sin sometimes do destroy a marriage. And surely then he would offer forgiveness and healing when a marriage has been broken.
So much has changed since then, some things for the worse, but many things for the better. Jesus said that it was okay to be single. He took the curse out of singleness. It is not necessary for everyone to marry, or for every woman to be dependant on a man. And so divorce may not be as devastating economically and societally to a woman now as then, though it still may feel very devastating personally.
What has not changed is God’s intention for deep permanent relationships. What has not changed is God’s compassion and forgiveness and healing when we fail.
Conclusion In all three of these examples of “fulfilling the law” – murder, adultery, divorce – Jesus has given us a new word, a deeper understanding of Torah, a new light on the will of God. In each case he moves from an external structure of law to an internal “written on the heart” application. And then it touches each of us deeply. I think we would all have to confess to nursed anger and murderous thoughts, to lustful longings and sexually abusive attitudes. And those of us who are married know that we all sometimes act in ways which are destructive to our marriage relationship. We all sin in our relationships. One impact of reading these verses is to remind us of how far short we fall from fulfilling the full will of God.
But I don’t think they are meant to lead us to despair. After all, grace and forgiveness are at the heart of Torah, just as they are at the heart of Gospel. And grace expresses itself most fully when we move beyond the outward structures of law to the inner intention of the law – when we write it on our hearts.
Says Jeremiah, “This is the new covenant I will make with you…I will put my law within you, and I will write it on your hearts, and I will be your God and you shall be my people.
Says Jesus, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it”.
And that is very good news.