Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The San Antonio Zoo is making headlines. For a small
donation, and a few clicks of your keyboard, you can purchase a cockroach and
name it after someone – presumably whom you dislike – and they will feed it to
a meerkat. It’s a new twist on the old adage of revenge is best served cold, I
guess, a double insult of taking a bug most people don’t like, name it after
someone we don’t like, all while feeding it to another animal to turn into
fertilizer.
We chuckle at this story. The idea of naming a bug to be
chomped is ridiculous, even if it’s someone we despise...but then we think
about him…or her…and, why not? It sounds like so much fun, especially for just
a few bucks! Then we hear the words of Jesus. “I say to you that everyone who
is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement; whoever insults his
brother will be liable to the council; whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable
to the hell of fire.” The world says, “It’s OK to be angry,” but Jesus exposes
just how sinful our angry desires are. It’s not so funny anymore.
There’s a new, magical movie out. While the lead male and
female characters dance seductively in the rain, he loses his shirt and her dress
clings to her for dear life. Our sinful nature wants to go to see this movie…and
it ain’t because of the over-priced snacks. The sensual scenes make hearts beat
faster as viewers ogle and stare at the curves of the beautiful bodies on the
screen. Then, we hear the words of Jesus, “I say to you that everyone who looks
at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart.”
And, just to be clear, this applies equally for women looking at men with
lustful intent. The world says ogle and stare, it’s natural. Jesus says there
is nothing natural about lust so pluck out those ogling eyes and chop off the
groping hands. The movie isn’t as
entertaining anymore.
A coworker describes how great things have been since
getting a divorce. There is so much freedom and opportunity, and if only it had
been done years ago, life would have been so much better. Our sinful nature
ponders this while laying awake listening to your spouse snore, the spark long
gone from your own marriage, and you wonder. The world says spouses should be
traded up every few years for a newer model. Jesus describe that one who divorces,
except in the case of sexual immorality, is doubly guilty of adultery of both
self and spouse as well.
Someone demands, “Did you know anything about what was going
on?” Caught off guard and defensive, almost automatically, the sinful tongue
snaps, “I had no idea…I swear!” hoping that you are believed because you can’t
prove otherwise. Jesus says, “Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”;
anything more than this comes from evil.” The Law cuts deep as we realize how
sinful our words are.
Hmm…How do we fix this? We need a plan. We need to work harder
at this stuff. Yes…maybe we can shield our eyes from these temptations. We’ll
stop going to movies…or watching most television…and reading those books. Oh,
and looking at the ads in the mail and on-line. And those billboards on the
side of the road. Hmm…this might be harder than we thought. I guess that’s why
Jesus says what he says about plucking out eyes, or even deafening ears, or
cutting out tongues – it’s all around us. And, then there’s the heart. All
these temptations, Jesus says elsewhere, they stem from the heart of the Old
Adam and the Old Eve that still beats within us.
And, if that’s not enough, the rest of this chapter goes on
to say, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other. And if
anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And
if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” Then, “Love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” And after all of this, so there
is no doubt, Jesus caps it off with the perfect icing on the perfect,
proverbial cake, “Therefore, you must be perfect as your father in heaven is
perfect.” Perfect? Everything leading up
to that was hard enough, but perfect? The Old Adam and the Old Eve cringes
deeply at these words. There is no room for wiggling or squirming, here. Not
pretty close, not almost there, not “but I really tried,” not even Ivory soap
99.44%, but perfect. It cuts to the heart for Jesus’ disciples, both then and
today. It’s Paul’s “the good I want to do, I don’t do, but the evil I don’t
want to do, I do,” put into real life. One
writer describes these twenty verses as the deepest, and darkest, verses of the
entire New Testament because they leave us with nothing, spiritually naked
before God. Perfect, indeed.
Be perfect? With the plumb line of God’s holiness held up
against our crooked sinfulness, we stand no chance. No self-justifying,
self-righteousing, self-correcting program could ever sanctify us in the eyes
of the Lord. But, even if we could, what are we going to say – Jesus, you
fulfilled the Law, now it’s my turn and I’m going to do the same? Do you really
think you can do that? Of course not.
So, what then is His purpose? Jesus means the words seriously – the part
about amputation is not prescriptive but descriptive of the seriousness. It’s
not to shock us into being good. If that were possible, His death would have
been a waste of time. Surely, He knows perfection is impossible for us. Adam
and Eve couldn’t do it then and we are as incapable as they. What is His
purpose? Six times, He takes the Commandment and widens and deepens the meaning
– “But I say to you”. What is His purpose? So there is nothing to hide behind, no
self-justification that we can offer, no self-righteousness that we can fool
ourselves with to think we can dare to stand before God on our own merit, no
arrogance that we can dare to compare our righteousness to that of our brothers
and sisters and pretend, “well, at least I’m not as bad as him or her.”
That’s how the world works. He is speaking to disciples. He
is speaking to us. Discipleship is not worldly. Remember, we are salt and
light, we are to be different, radically different from what we see around us.
But discipleship never begins with us. Discipleship begins with Jesus.
Discipleship ends with Jesus. Discipleship places us at the foot of the cross,
the very cross where Jesus bore our sins, stripping them from our unrighteous
hands and hearts and eyes and mouths, and carrying them to His death and their
death in Him.
So, let’s go back to the beginning for a moment. Has the Spirit
of God worked through the Law to convict you?
Was it lust or adultry? Jesus knows them both. More than
that, He died for every time we have lusted after someone other than the love
of God and a holy relationship with Him, replacing other people and other
things as our god in which we place our fear, love and trust. Repentance clings
to Jesus.
Divorce? Jesus knows divorce. He’s seen every trick that the
devil uses to try to separate His bride, the Church, from Him, the Church’s
bridegroom. He’s seen what satan does to the body of Christ, too, and husbands
and wives. More than that, Jesus died for those for whom marriage came to a
terrible halt because of satan’s work. Repentance grasps Jesus’ great love for
sinners.
Oaths? Jesus knows this, too. For every time we have have
thrown God’s name around like verbal confetti, trying to bedazzle our words by
frivolously asking God to be our witness, Jesus calls out to the Father, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His yes was yes, His no was no for you.
Repentance trusts Jesus’ sacrifice.
Anger? Jesus knows anger. His death satiated the Father’s
anger over our sins, our rebellion against Him, our pretending to be as God
knowing better than Him what we need, what we want, and what makes us happy.
Jesus died, paying the very last penny of the wages of sin for you. Repentance
holds fast to Jesus substitution for you.
And, in Christ’s death for your sins, God declares you holy. Those words of Jesus, "be perfect?" It's no longer an impossibility. It's a present-tense reality in the eyes of God. Your sins have been stripped from you, remember, by Jesus. He paid them in
full. Your sins are no longer yours. But Christ’s holiness is yours. You are
declared righteous, that is, right with God. You are forgiven of your sins and,
by God’s grace, so also are the sins of your brothers and sisters in Christ. Let me say that again: remember
that declaration, “You must be perfect”? That’s not yours to attain, to somehow
reach perfection. But it is God’s to give and, in Christ, you are declared as
such. Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, God sees you as perfect,
so perfect in fact, that He calls you Christian – little Christ – washed white
in the blood of the Lamb.
Standing as disciples under the cross of Jesus, we repent of
our angry hearts, and lustful eyes, and adulterous thoughts, and tongues that
misuse God’s name, we repent of the ways of the world, we repent of seeking
revenge with our enemies. Instead, we surrender.
That’s what Christian sanctification is: it’s surrendering
our will and our plans and our goals to the will of the Father through Christ
Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. The sanctified life is the Baptized life
and through your Baptism, the Holy Spirit is quite busy at work, stripping
those temptations from you to get even, or to look, or to wonder, or to touch. But,
He does not work in a vacuum. He works where He promises to work: in the Word,
in the Lord’s Supper, and in returning to your Baptism in confession and
absolution. Find yourself being angry? Open the Scriptures. Confess it. Be
absolved. And pray to resist as you are enabled by the Spirit of God. Find
yourself tempted by the allure of someone who is not your spouse? Open the
Scriptures. Confess it. Be absolved. And pray to resist as you are enabled by
the Spirit of God, including flee the temptation – including leave the movie
theater, turn off the internet, stop talking to him or her outside appropriate
boundaries.
It's not to take Jesus’ job away. It’s living freely as
Baptized children of God because Jesus died for you. It’s being salt and light
in a world that desperately needs the flavor and the light of the Good News.
You do it because you are freely and fully forgiven in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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