The Rev. Dr. Patricia Ramsden                        First Presbyterian Church

Matthew 5: 21-37                                                Feb. 13, 2011

 

            I have a love/hate relationship with preaching and today it is mostly hate because I know what I am about to say is extremely important and I feel totally inadequate for the job.  This is a passage of scripture that has caused untold pain and I have spent hours praying about this sermon ever since I discovered I would be preaching on it more than a month ago. 

            So let me begin with an explanation of what preaching is and isn’t in the Presbyterian Church.  First of all it isn’t a matter of my going to the top of a mountain and receiving from God a completed sermon written down on tablets of stone.  I do not have a direct pipeline to God.  I wish I did.  It would make my life so much easier.

            Instead I spend hours praying for insight into what God has in a scripture passage for us, here, today.  And I study.  I study other scripture that relates to the passage.  I study what other writers have said about the passage throughout history.  I study the culture of the time of Christ.  I study the breadth of Jesus’ teachings and then I pray.  And I pray. And then I sit in front of a blank computer screen and pray even more for the words to come – for God’s words to come.  And I write and I pray and I rewrite and I pray. 

            That’s my part of the process, and quite frankly it’s scary and never more so than on Sunday’s like this. But there is more to the process than that.  In the Presbyterian Church we believe that each of you play a vital role in the preaching process. 

We believe that you must come to the sermon prepared to listen with an open heart and an intelligent mind,  that you will take what I have to say, listen carefully, and have your faith informed by it.  That you will know that it is my faithful interpretation of scripture in this time and place but that it is my interpretation and you must listen for the “God” in it through prayer and what you know of scripture.  You are to listen through your own lens of faith.  You are not just to accept all that I say willy nilly as if I am the inerrant mouthpiece of God.  I am not. 

Having set those parameters, let me begin.

In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is looking at the code of religious law, not just for the Jews but for us as well for He is clear that He has come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  And what He tells us is that we must look at the intent of the law as well as the law itself.  We must look for God’s teaching, God’s desire for humankind,  that is the bedrock beneath the law. 

He sets this up by beginning with a law that people feel safe about, the law that says “Thou shalt not murder.”  When He begins here, everyone takes a deep breath of relief because we all know we He isn’t talking about us and we feel safe to act as judge and jury. 

But  Jesus tells us, we can’t get away with just following the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit behind it.  We can’t say I haven’t actually murdered someone so I’m off scott free, righteous in the eyes of God --- and man --- while at the same time breaking the very spirit of the law in our hearts by holding on to an anger that transforms not only our relationships but our hearts and souls as well.  Jesus says we cannot hold on to old scores that need to be settled or a bitterness that wants revenge. We are not even to resort to the emotion of anger.   If we do, Christ says, we are guilty before the throne of judgement.

Jesus takes a law that we think is clear cut --- the law against murder --- a law we know we are not guilty of --- a law we will condemn others for --- and moves it to what we would call a ridiculous degree.  Who among us can claim never to get angry?  If that’s the standard we are all guilty.

And that’s one of Jesus’ point.  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  And we should not be so quick to condemn someone else.   We should not be so quick to say “How could they?  Why would they?  For doing that (whatever “that” might be), they are outside the kingdom of God.”

Because the intent behind the law --- all of God’s law --- is that we are to love with a perfect love, with God’s love, always seeking for what is best for ourselves and one another, always seeking for God’s love and God’s will in every situation.  

That’s the ideal.  That’s what God desires for each of us and from each of us, but that ideal is not always possible.  We fail to love God, we fail to love ourselves, we fail to love others, in all ways, all the time.  We live in a world – like it or not – where love does not reign supreme despite our best of intentions.

And that brings me to the question of marriage and divorce.  No one ever sits in my office and says we want to get married but if things get a little rough we’re out of here.  We want you to marry us but we’re doing it with the intention of getting divorced if the meat is a little undone or our partner doesn’t pick up his socks. 

That sounds ridiculous, but in Jesus’ day that would actually happen.  A man could divorce his wife for any reason no matter how small, just by handing her a piece of paper in front of two witnesses.  And you’ll notice I said a man could divorce his wife --- a woman had no recourse in the matter.  She was just a piece of property in the eyes of the law and could be thrown out on a whim as just another piece of garbage --- not exactly the rule of love. 

So what does this mean for us, today?  I believe it means that marriage is a sacred bond built on the rule of love as no other relationship is built. 

I believe it is a gift from God and that there is nothing more like heaven than a good marriage, but that there is also nothing more like hell than a bad one.  

When marriage becomes the very arena where people are destroying each other, where safety, nurture, and honor are slaughtered and love is replaced by an abiding anger and hate, divorce may be the only answer.  Where love has died, for whatever reason, and there are many, divorce may be the most loving thing left to do.  And God calls us to love.

That does not make it easy or something to take lightly.  Divorce creates much pain and leaves many deep wounds.  It is usually a source of unbounded guilt – of whys and what ifs and if only I had’s.  But even in the face of all that, divorce must at times occur if God’s will for us to be the people He created us to be is to be fulfilled.

Let me also say divorce in this sense is not just a legal matter. Where love is distorted beyond recognition or broken in pieces too small to recognize, divorce has already happened.  Whether separation has occurred or a legal document has been signed is almost irrelevant.   Divorce can happen years before a husband and wife officially, publically, acknowledge it.  

So is divorce to be judged as some unforgivable sin?  As some ultimate failure that should and must be condemned?  No.  It is a tragedy.  It is always a tragedy when love fails to become all that love is intended to be, and when hopes and dreams die.  But it can also be a place of healing.  It can, indeed, be the only way healing will ever be made possible, where in some way we cannot understand, relationships can be restored on a different level than we ever expected.  It can make it possible for love to be rediscovered --- love for self and love for another.  And love is the final rule of God’s law. 

So am I saying we should ignore Christ’s teaching in this part of the Sermon of the Mount?  Am I falling prey to our culture’s expectations?  I thought about that --- I thought about it and prayed about it a lot.  It is a legitimate question, and I honestly believe the answer is no, I’m not. 

It’s true.  There are those who would maintain that Jesus is clear, “Anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  Black and white.  Right or wrong.  Jesus says it.  I believe it.  Case closed.

But just three verses earlier, as the lead in to the discussion of divorce, Jesus says, just as clearly, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away… If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”  Black and white.  Right or wrong.   Jesus says it, but I don’t believe He literally meant it. 

It is true that divorce is not God’s perfect plan.  Neither divorce nor marriage is to be entered into lightly, easily, or selfishly but responsibly – and yes -- even prayerfully. 

My words should never be mistaken to say we should celebrate the final breakdown of love, but we should recognize it when it happens --- and it does happen, like it or not.  Our task as brothers and sisters in Christ is not to condemn but to help those involved by binding up their wounds of love lost and dreams broken and supporting them in their healing and all the loving days to come. 

 

A lawyer asked Jesus a question to test Him.  “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  This is the first and the greatest commandment.  And a second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Amen