SEATTLE MENNONITE CHURCH

October 16, 2005

Sermon: Weldon D. Nisly

TITLE: Antitheses for life: You have heard….but I say…LOVE

THEME: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount

TEXTS: Isaiah 50:4-9

Matthew 5:21-37

The Sermon on the Mount: A list of things you can’t do

Wendell Berry, one of America’s wisest poet-prophet-philosopher-preacher-farmers, was recently invited to speak to seminary students. He spoke on “The burden of the Gospels” that led him to “An unconfident faith” (The Christian Century, Sep. 20, 2005, 22-27).

Wendell Berry began with an insightful observation:

Anybody half awake these days will be aware that there are many Christians who are exceedingly confident in their understanding of the Gospels, and who are exceedingly self-confident in their understanding of themselves in their faith. They appear to know precisely the purposes of God, and they appear to be perfectly assured that they are now doing…..God’s will…..They are confident, moreover, that God hates people whose faith differs from their own, and they are happy to concur in that hatred (22).

Wendell Berry went on to offer a personal confession.

Having been invited to speak to a convocation of Christian seminarians, I at first felt that I should say nothing until I confessed that I do not have such confidence. I would have to speak of the meaning, as I understand it, of my lack of confidence, which I think is not the same as a lack of faith. It is a fact that I have spent my life under the influence of the Bible, particularly the Gospels, and the Christian tradition in literature and the other arts…...I am by principle and often spontaneously, as if by nature, a man of faith. But my reading of the Gospels, comforting and clarifying and instructive as they frequently are, has caused me to understand [the Gospels] also as a burden, sometimes raising the hardest of personal questions, sometimes bewildering, sometimes contradictory, sometimes apparently outrageous in their demands. This is a confession of an unconfident reader (22).

Wendell Berry recognizes better than most Christians that Jesus is serious in the Sermon on the Mount and that Jesus means it for him for life. He is not one to easily make bold claims for Jesus and quickly dismiss Jesus’ most complete teaching for life.

Antitheses for life: You have heard….But I say….

Jesus went up on the hillside above the Sea of Galilee and sat down to teach the disciples and the crowds. He began with the Beatitudes, climaxing with “Blessed are you when

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people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (5:11).

Jesus then posed images of salt and light as who we ARE in and for the world. Jesus concluded that eloquent introduction with a preface to a series of six antitheses and closed that preface with the warning: “Unless your righteousness exceeds [those who consider themselves most righteous], you will never enter the kingdom” (5:20).

Now Jesus is ready to lay out six antitheses for daily living. All are in keeping with “fulfilling not abolishing the law.” Today we hear four of Jesus’ six antitheses.

The First Antitheses: Concerning anger….5: 21-26

It all begins with anger! Anger – that murderous emotion that destroys and dehumanizes both the giver and the receiver.

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment (5:21-22).

In connecting anger and murder, Jesus is referencing the sixth of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).

This prohibition of murder reveals God’s intention that God’s people are not only not to kill each other, they are not to harm one another. Murder is the ultimate harm and anger is the seedbed of murder. Jesus is hereby prohibiting not only explicit murder but condemning any act, including the act of abusive language, that harms another person (Hare, 51).

In a teaching not long after the Sermon on the Mount Jesus insisted:

I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every

careless word you utter….(Matthew 12:36).

Yes, we recognize that anger is an emotion that warns us something is amiss. Anger is a natural emotion. Anger is a necessary emotion. Anger is also a murderous and cancerous emotion that destroys and dehumanizes us as it seeks to destroy and dehumanize the one with whom we are angry.

In this whole series of antitheses Jesus is not so much naming a series of prohibitions for what we can’t do as he is fulfilling the law – which is the love commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself…and your enemy.” It is the greater righteousness that Jesus is calling us to live for life.

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“Concerning anger”, the love command is that “Love shows no hostility and makes peace” (M. Eugene Boring, The Gospel of Matthew, NIB, 189; Richard B. Gardner, Matthew, 105).

The Second Antitheses: Concerning Adultery…..5: 27-30

This antithesis is also rooted in the Ten Commandments.

You have heard that it was 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 (5:27).

In the Ten Commandments, the command following “You shall not murder,” is the command, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14).

A few of us are old enough to remember the public reaction to Jimmy Carter, when he was running for president in 1976 and made the mistake of admitting that he had violated this commandment and committed the sin of “lusting in his heart.”

A simple straightforward hearing of Jesus’ command here is that sexual relationship is reserved for a married couple only.

In our Confession of Faith in Mennonite Perspective, in the Article on “Marriage” we profess that “right sexual union takes place only within marriage” (Article 19, p. 72).

For all the truth of that confessional statement, here with this antithesis Jesus is saying more than that “right sexual union takes place only within marriage.”

Again we get our clue from the Seventh Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” (Ex 20:14). The Seventh Commandment is to be linked with the Tenth Commandment to understand what Jesus is promoting and prohibiting here.

What is the Tenth Commandment?

You shall not covet your neighbor's house (Ex 20:17).

What does coveting your neighbor’s house have to do with adultery?

The Tenth Commandment doesn’t stop there does it? What follows in that Commandment? What elaboration about coveting does God give Moses?

you shall not covet your neighbor's wife,

or male or female slave,

or ox, or donkey,

or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

What is going on here? At the top of the list of what you dare not covet is that “you shall not covet your neighbor's wife.”

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Why doesn’t it also say that you shall not covet your neighbor’s husband? Because a wife was the property of the husband! This commandment gives a list of the husband’s property rights that may not be coveted.

The law that Jesus is “fulfilling” not abolishing here is at least twofold and it is directed to men: women and wives are not to be treated as property and the act of adultery begins in the heart and the mind as lust.

Lest women feel let off the hook, I doubt if Jesus meant to leave you off the hook or believed that lust was never a temptation for women.

There is explicit historical reason why Jesus was speaking to men, men who view women as property. And there is an intimate connection between viewing women as property and viewing women as sexual objects. There is also a close connection between the roving eye and the roving hand of lust. As harsh as it may sound, Jesus goes on to tell us to tear out our eye and cut off our hand if it causes us to commit the sin of lust and adultery – or treating women as sexual property or objects (5:29-30).

To put this prohibition by Jesus in terms of love, it is “Love that honors boundaries and is not predatory” (Gardner, 106; Boring, 190)

The Third Antitheses: Concerning Divorce…...5:31-32

Jesus continues that line of reasoning with a third antitheses:

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 (5:31-32).

Here Jesus’ reaches behind and beyond the current understanding of divorce. First, Jesus goes behind the current understanding about divorce to God’s intention regarding marriage. Implicit is the understanding that God intended marriage to be monogamous, the permanent covenant of marriage between two people (Hare, 54).

Our Confession of Faith in Mennonite Perspective, in the same Article on “Marriage” we profess:

We believe that God intends marriage to be a covenant between one man and one woman for life (Article 19, p. 72).

Second, Jesus also goes beyond the current understanding of divorce. Again Jesus is concerned for the rights of women. Whoever divorces his wife…deprives her of her right to support and makes it necessary for her to enter a second marriage in order to survive (Hare, 54).

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However, we must not turn either Jesus or our Confession of Faith into a new law. None of these antitheses are to be turned into harsh legalism. In the gap of life between God’s intention and our human frailty and sin, God is not served by harsh legalism. It is too easy to enter into the self-righteous legalism of those whose righteousness we are to exceed by making any of these antitheses into law.

We know all too well and painfully about marriages that are no longer marriage due to abuse, infidelity, neglect, failure to communicate, and any number of other ways of rendering marriage partners battered and broken.

We hold steadfastly with Jesus and our Confession of Faith that marriage is a sacred covenant between two people made by God and intended to be permanent.

Nevertheless, in our sin and brokenness we don’t always live up to that ideal. In the Church in Christ under God in the power of the Holy Spirit, we also receive and embrace each other when we have not been able to live up to God’s intention and our own. We seek forgiveness and healing from God and with each other in our sin and brokenness.

A generation ago divorce essentially excluded one from membership in Mennonite Churches. There are Mennonite congregations today who would not accept divorced members and Mennonite pastors who would not marry divorced people. Yet it is my experience as a pastor that in at least half the marriages I have performed, at least one of the couple getting married has been married previously.

A question that we would do well to ponder prayerfully is: Do we believe that we would be a more faithful church IF we denied membership to divorced or remarried people?

I hold strongly to Jesus and our Confession of Faith upholding the intention of the permanent sacred covenant of marriage. I also hold to a place for exception over legalism and inclusion over exclusion. Is that not what Jesus is doing here in these antitheses – fulfilling the law in love and not abolishing the law?

With Wendell Berry, I confess that I am reluctant to express too much certainty about God’s will, especially when my certainty harms or is unloving to another person. One thing I am certain about is that we are a more faithful church not a less faithful church by including the redeeming presence in the church of sisters and brothers who have faced the pain and brokenness of divorce and remarriage.

Yet we strive wholly to uphold the love side of Jesus’ prohibition regarding divorce seeking always for a “Love that keeps commitments and is faithful in marriage” (Gardner, 107; Boring, 191).

The Fourth Antitheses: Concerning Oaths……5:33-37

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Jesus goes on with a fourth antitheses telling us to not swear falsely.

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God….(5:33-37)

Jesus issues this prohibition against swearing oaths for two reasons. First, Jesus implies that oaths implicate God in one way or another and we are not God and don’t speak for God. Does not God desire that we be truthful in all our speech so that our “Yes means yes” and our “no means no” without swearing oaths? (cf. 23:16-22; Gardner, 108; (Hare, 54).

Second, Jesus alludes to the double standard regarding truth inherent in swearing oaths. If oaths are needed to assure that what we say is true, then we have already lost the meaning and capacity for speaking the truth in love at all times (Gardner, 108).

The love side of this prohibition of Jesus is that “Love always speaks the truth” (Gardner, 108; Boring, 193).

Love is the Law and the Law is Love

In all these antitheses, Jesus is striving not so much for law as he is for love. What drives Jesus’ antitheses is not law but love. The primacy of love takes precedent over all else and is the priority in all our relationships and language and action.

Every hearer knew well God’s Word and Way of the great commandment:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself” (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18; Matt 19:19; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27). In the very next antitheses Jesus adds a further fulfillment to the love commandment: “Love your enemies!” Listen for this most difficult law of love next Sunday.

The Apostle Paul echoes Jesus in the well-known chapter 13 of his Letter to the Romans. They are among the most ignored and most important words Paul speaks:

Owe no one anything, except to love one another;

for the one who loves has fulfilled the law (Rom. 13:8).

These are days when love is needed in the face of suffering for so many people of the world, whether in New Orleans or Pakistan, Iraq or Palestine, Sudan or Central America, our Lake City neighborhood or your neighborhood.

We offer our love by placing our lives with those who suffer. With love today we have a special offering for those who suffer from the hurricane in Guatemala where Rebecca Allen is serving. Further explanation is in the box at the bottom of the worship order. Checks may be made out to Seattle Mennonite Church and designated for “Union Victoria.” Rosemary Allen, Rebecca’s mother will see that it gets to her. Let us give

our offering with love as we sing hymn # 545 “Be Thou My Vision.”