One of my favorite stories that I read as a kid was Mark Twain’s
classic, A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court. In it, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut is accidentally transported back in time to the court
of King Arthur, where he fools the
inhabitants of that time into thinking he is a magician—and soon uses his knowledge of modern technology to become a "magician" in earnest, stunning
the English of the Early Middle Ages with such feats as demolitions, fireworks and the shoring up of a holy well. He attempts to
modernize the past, but in the end he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur and an interdict against him by the Church, which grows fearful
of his power.
The story is about a stranger who enters a strange land. Living among
unfamiliar people, the stranger brings his own values and traditions and worldviews
– he even brings he own technology to life among the people he meets.
One of the hardest problems we face in hearing or reading the Bible, is
that of time. We don’t have time machines, and even if we did, we’d journey
back in time with the ideas formed in us by our nationality, the communities in
which we grew up, our family traditions, and the things we take for granted. If
we tried to get back to the people for whom Matthew is writing his account of
the life and teachings of Jesus, we’d land in a strange land, among unfamiliar
people. No doubt they’d think us pretty odd, too.
The gospel today (Matt. 5:13-20) underscores the great gulf that is
fixed between our time and the first century of the Christian era. The verse
where the passage ends only makes matters harder for us to understand. St.
Matthew is writing primarily for Jewish Christians, who had been raised to
attempt to keep the laws and rules of Judaism. Some of them had probably been
Pharisees before their conversion. The word “Pharisee” is loaded with not
always very complimentary meanings for us. We think of proud, intolerant
people, filled with self-admiration for themselves and full of harsh criticism
for people they believed to be sinners.
The Pharisees, or Pious Ones, began their history as a reforming group,
intent on bringing the Jewish people back to faith in their God. They believed
that the best way to do that was to stress the Law of God, as given by Moses
and elaborated on in the religious books developed over the centuries. In
Jesus’ time, some of these Pharisees opposed the teachings of Jesus because
they thought he was undermining God’s Law. They saw him as a threat to
religious purity. Not all of them opposed Jesus. Two are named as his
supporters.
As the church grew, opened itself to non-Jews and developed its own
teachings, a great debate arose about the place of Old Testament Law in the
life of Christians. St. Matthew, a Jew himself, seeks to assure Jewish converts
that Jesus hadn’t come to abolish God’s law. He records Jesus as saying that
the whole law would remain in force forever. And yet in the gospel we just
heard, he says that in keeping this law, we have to do much better than the
Pharisees.
Is Jesus saying that we must keep the Jewish Law, all that stuff about
what we can eat, or what we can do on the Sabbath? Are we to be like some
people, perhaps we know a few, who think they are better, more moral, more
upright, than the rest of us and are harsh in their judgment of others,
intolerant of anyone who is different?
This rather difficult passage comes in the middle of what we call the
Sermon on the Mount. Just as Moses gave the Law to Israel on the Holy Mountain,
so now Jesus gives the law to his disciples and those who would follow him. He
begins with a description of those who are happy or blessed. He will go on to
expand, or “fulfill” the meaning of the Law. In the verses that come after this
gospel, Jesus will warn against an anger that leads to violence. “You shall not
kill,” begins with our dealing with what happens when we give way to anger,
disgust, when we take offense. Jesus will teach us that we are to seek
reconciliation with people with whom we quarrel, that we are not to “come to
the altar” if we haven’t done all in our power to love our neighbor; for loving
those close to us, those in the communities around us, is one of the
commandments of the Law Jesus identified as the foundation of “all the Law and
the Prophets.”
So what can we take home with us from the gospel today? Keeping the law
of God is not a matter of feeling and acting as if we are superior to those
who, in our judgment, fail to live up to our standards. We love God in loving
others. St. Paul often reminds us that the Law shows up our own inadequacies.
We are in no state to judge others. But having received God’s love in Jesus,
despite ourselves, we are empowered to help those who stumble. It’s not that we
are to abandon all hope of perfection, of holiness. Rather it’s a matter of
understanding that the road to holiness is the path of love, compassion, of
caring and sympathy, of helping each other along that journey, stopping to
assist those who have become tired, have fallen on the way, or who have given
up in despair.
Some of the most tragic stories that emerge from wars involve prisoners
or refugees, walking along roads, herded by brutal guards. The heroes of these
stories are those who in the midst of their own miseries, despite the dangers,
share their meager rations, water supplies, even clothing, to help those who
have fallen by the side of the road, who might well be shot by the guards
because they can’t keep up.
On the journey of faith, we are not appointed by God to shoot those who
stumble, who fail to obey orders. We are called to go out of our way to care.
The whole point of God’s Law is to urge us to put God and others first and to
die to our own self-love and desire for self-preservation.
Of course, the strength to live for God and for others will not come from
attempts to keep God’s commandments. That strength comes from God, in Jesus, by
the Spirit. We meet here today to receive that strength we call grace, not as
the righteous company of God-supporters but as those to whom mercy is
continually given. When we leave this place to “Go in peace to love and serve
the Lord,” we go as forgiven, empowered people, strengthened to keep God’s Law
by loving all who we shall meet.
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