Keeping (all) the commandments

‘… Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”....’ (Matt 5:37)

 Matthew 5:17-37 (Year A: 3^rd Sunday before Lent Sunday 12^th February 2017)

Following the opening of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ with the 8 Beatitudes, the evangelist Matthew now recounts an elaboration on the Law of the Gospel. The ‘New Law’ is not, strictly, speaking any different from the ‘Old Law’.  The ‘Law’ is the Law of Love: to love God with all our hearts and minds and to love the person next to us now as ourselves.  That’s the Law and it is needs to be written on our hearts by the Author of that Law who sent His only Son to show us what Love really entails.
In this extract from the long ‘Sermon on the Mount’ four substantive issues are brought up by Jesus: Anger, Adultery/Lust, Divorce and the Swearing of Oaths.  While the interdiction of Swearing of Oaths has been overwhelmingly ignored by Christians (there is always a get out clause in scriptural exegesis to fit current needs….) the first three continue to inform public discourse and Christian contributions to it.  Judging by print space in many ecclesiastical publications one might be forgiven for thinking that the Gospels are all about sex and things to do with sex. Alas, the Gospels as well as the Bible in general is very ‘disappointing’ when it comes to sex. The scriptures as well as the teachings and life of Jesus witness to a Godly concern about truth, justice, care and the inclusion of the outcast.  Yet, ‘sex and things to do with sex’ are surely very important to us today and to the many generations that have heard and received the teaching of Jesus. 
An executive summary….
Underlying the Sermon on the Mount and underlying the ten commandments (at least two of which are explicitly covered in this particular extract from Matthew) is the universal, comprehensive, all-embracing and all-demanding commandment to (i) love God with all our heart and mind and (ii) love our neighbour as ourselves. It is from these absolutely foundational and non-negotiable principles that everything else takes root including the teaching of Jesus on adultery and divorce. The point about any of the 10 commandments is the following ‘executive summary’:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ (Matthew 22:37)

Love your neighbour as yourself. (Matthew 22:39)

The reason murder, lying, stealing and being a cheat are wrong is that they strike at the very heart of God in our brother or sister. The reason ignoring God and casting God aside is wrong is that we cast aside our brother and our sister in whom God resides and is united.  Not for nothing did God come to save by the Cross where the crossbeam is held up by the vertical beam and the vertical beam is stabilised and held up by the cross beam. Our Christian religion in a seamless and frictionless fabric where the Divine and the Human are distinct but united and we, through baptism and faith, are woven into that fabric. However, the unity of the divine and human goes beyond the boundaries of faith and sacrament. In some mysterious way the Risen Christ is united to all humanity.  What is done to one is done to all and to God in all regardless of who they are. 

Adolph Hitler and his accomplices did not just murder six million Jews: he murdered one Jew six million times.  When one child, one man or one woman is murdered or let die by another we are all impacted because humanity is interwoven.
An old Law
The evangelist, Matthew, reflecting his communities and audiences places considerable emphasis on the Jewish Law and the clear understanding that Jesus is the fulfilment of that Law.  In this case, the focus is on continuity and development and clarification rather than disruption or revolution. Indeed, the simple commandments to love God and our neighbour (see above) are taken from the Old Testament:

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ (Deuteronomy 6:5)

‘…love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18)

It is accurate to say that Jesus did not bring anything essentially new to the table of God’s Word in so far as these two foundations are concerned. However, He did bring something new in revealing himself as the unique way to salvation through the free gift of faith and adherence to the Law of Love founded on that faith. Moreover, in the Gospel of John and the Letters attributed to John we see these commandments taken to a pitch of reciprocal and communitarian love rooted in the Holy Trinity which leaves no room for an individualistic Christian faith or ethic. We are, all, bound together by one Faith and on Love in the all the richness and diversity of life. From 613 distinct precepts in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and many of which Jesus patently did not observe (ritual cleanliness being an example) to 10 commandments to two Great Commandments….

Jesus goes to the roots of murder, cheating, lying and stealing.  The roots are in those desires and fears that radically disrupt relationships of loving care.  A recurring thought, desire or obsession is like a seed. Watered and habituated it grows and sprouts and becomes a very nasty weed and briar that becomes harder to root out the more it grows. If we are seriously about observing the Laws or the Law of God we need to go to the roots deep within us. This is where the practice of deep of repentance and surrender and reception of loving mercy can make a vital difference and, literally, save lives in some cases.

Issues to do with faithfulness, marriage, divorce and remarriage pose a challenge to Christians today in almost every part of the world including, of course, Ireland. None of us has not known directly someone who has gone through the most painful and disruptive experience of marital or relationship breakdown. Approaching this matter in a loving, humble and fair way is not easy. Some has been hurt – badly hurt and this must be acknowledged fully.  From a period of absolute prohibition on many things from contraception to divorce to acceptance of homosexuality and to abortion we have moved rather quickly, at least in this part of the world, to a situation of almost ‘anything goes’.  In our own faith communities and circles of spiritual support, we must fall back on the four principles of (i) scripture, (ii) tradition, (iii) reason and (iv) experience – not in a spirit of individualism or ‘I know best’ so much as in a spirit of open dialogue, respect, freedom of conscience and, at the same time, faithfulness to the Word of God.  This is no easy journey. Some thoughts on one particular aspect of this challenge are contained in a previous Sunday Blog [How do we respond when relationships fail?]

We do well to sit, together, at the feet of Jesus on the side of the mountain listening to his loving words ever new and ever old transforming our minds and our hearts in a fascinating and troubled world.