Choosing Relationship

Matthew 5:21-37

February 16, 2020

I went down to the river to watch the fish swim by
But I got to the river so lonesome I wanted to die, oh Lord
And then I jumped in the river, but the doggone river was dry
She's long gone, and now I'm lonesome blue

            Watching the Ken Burns’ documentary, Country Music, last fall really, really, really got me into Hank Williams. So for Christmas this year, my dear husband gave me the Hank Williams Gold double cd set. My family can always tell when I’ve been listening to Hank on the ride from church to home, because I come in the house singing Cold, Cold Heart, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, You’re Gonna Change, or Long Gone Lonesome Blues.

            Nobody quite sings a heartbreak song like Hank Williams. I have an eclectic musical taste, and there are so many great artists who made and make amazing music every genre imaginable, but Hank Williams knew how to write and sing heartbreak like nobody I’ve ever heard before. He was a man with a deep brokenness in him, and that came through in his music and in the plaintive way he sang some of his songs.

            Hank Williams seemed to long to be in relationship, but solid relationships eluded him, and that came through in his music. But isn’t love and relationships the stuff of most popular music? They tell of joy and giddy happiness when you are in love and it is working, and heartbreak when it isn’t. You find it in music of any genre and any style: from The Beatles to Bruce Springsteen to Beyonce. Artists make music about relationships, because in one way or another, they are at the foundation of the human condition, the human struggle, the … human … human.

            Relationships are at the core of our passage from Matthew’s gospel this morning, a passage that is still in the larger context of the Sermon on the Mount. He has told those listening that he has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. In the verses before us this morning, it would seem that Jesus is not only fulfilling the law, he is, as one commentator said, intensifying it. And this intensity comes around how we break our relationship. His words in this section of the sermon known in biblical scholarship as the “antitheses.” Each one begins with Jesus saying,

            “You have heard that it was said …”

            “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; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

            That’s just for anger. I don’t think I’m a candidate for anger management classes just yet, but how many times have I gotten angry with someone? How many times have I thought something insulting or said, “You fool?” even if it was only to myself? I might have said that yesterday when I was cut off in traffic driving in Nashville. And my poor family knows that I can get pretty mad at times.

            Yet Jesus makes a correlation between anger and murder. It is not just about the physical action of murder. It is about what is at the heart of a person. It is about the anger we carry within us, even if we don’t act on it in a violent manner. Who among us has not, in a moment of anger, said “I’m so mad at (fill in the blank) that I could kill him/her/them?” Even though we may say it, we also know that it would be horrendous to act upon that instinct. Jesus says it is equally horrendous to think it.

            In each of these antitheses, there is also a given way to remedy or deal with the wrong that is done. Jesus tells the disciples that if they are angry with someone, or if someone is angry with them, before they can bring their gifts to the altar, they must reconcile with that person. They are to go and work out whatever conflict they have with someone before they can bring approach the altar with their gifts. In our context that would mean putting off partaking of the Lord’s Supper until we have reconciled the broken relationships we may have with a person or with people.

            But have we done this? I know I haven’t. When we celebrated the Lord’s Supper two weeks ago, did I come to the table with anger in my heart for someone or some ones? I’m sure I did. I’m sure I stood at that table with broken and unreconciled relationships. What about you?

            Jesus does not stop here. He goes on to talk about lust and adultery, divorce and swearing falsely.

            In that culture and in the context of the Law itself, adultery was defined as something done only by the woman. A woman who had a relationship with another man was the adulterer. This was not true for the man. A man could have several wives and concubines; and we have examples of this throughout scripture, starting with Abraham, the patriarch of our faith. It was a patriarchal society, so the burden of adultery was on a woman’s shoulders, not the man’s. That’s the way it was. But as one commentator put it, Jesus reorients, reaffirms and radicalizes the Law of Moses. It is not just about the physical act of adultery, nor is the onus of adultery only on the woman. If a man looks at a woman with lust; if he, in our more contemporary terms, objectifies her, then he is guilty of adultery. It is about what is in the heart and what is in the intent, as much as it is about the physical action.

            Jesus says it is better to tear out your right eye, cut off your right hand, purposely lose bits and pieces of yourself than have your whole body thrown in hell. Yes, Jesus was speaking in hyperbole, in exaggerated, extreme speech, in order to get his point across. But his hyperbole does not detract from the radical demands Jesus makes of anyone who follows him.

            Now we come to what is for so many of us the hardest part of this passage to hear – his words about divorce. At that time, divorce could only be initiated by the husband, and all he had to do to divorce his wife was write it down and hand it to her. I was told once that the husband merely had to speak it three times: I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you. It was done. Cause or reason for the divorce does not seem to have been a factor. If a wife burned bread, the husband had just cause to divorce her. Certainly, that is different from our contemporary context.

            But in any context, these are difficult words to hear. For as much as people desperately want to be in relationships, sometimes relationships end. Our songs about heartbreak don’t come out of a vacuum. Half of all marriages end in divorce, and it is no secret that the person standing in the pulpit understands intimately the pain of that statistic. All of us have been directly or indirectly affected by divorce. Even if we ourselves are not divorced, who know people who are. We have family members who are divorced; friends, colleagues, children, parents. How do we hear Jesus’ words? How do we deal with them? How do we deal with them in light of our own broken relationships?

            In the last of these antitheses, Jesus speaks about swearing. This is not about using bad language. It’s not about cussin’. It is about oaths, swearing on or by something. Growing up, I used to hear the phrase, “I swear on a stack of Bibles.” That seemed to add emphasis to whatever was being promised. Yet Jesus warns against that.

            Do not swear on heaven. Do not swear on earth. Heaven and earth belong to God. Do not swear on Jerusalem, that is the city of the great King. Do not swear on something else as a way of guaranteeing you keep your promises and your oaths. If you make a promise, keep it. Do not swear to keep it. Keep it. Let you word be “yes, yes” or “no, no.” Do not swear by something to do something, then break the promises you’ve made. It is just one more way of breaking relationship.

            That’s what all of this is about – broken relationships. We harm one another. We break our relationships. We break them not just in our actions, but in our thoughts. We also must remember that these antitheses were not spoken by Jesus in some random conversations. They were and are part of the Sermon on the Mount; the sermon that began with the Beatitudes. Blessed are … the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, the meek, the persecuted, the reviled. Jesus tells those who will listen and follow that they are salt, they are light. We are called to be salt and light. We are called to be salt and light in a broken world filled with broken people and broken relationships. We, the broken, are called to serve, to minister to, and to love the other broken ones. But wounded as we are, in following Jesus, we have been given a glimpse of the kingdom in our midst. Even in this broken, hurting world, we can see a bit of the kingdom reflected even in the places and people that seem most shattered. Our calling is not to avoid broken relationship. We all them, in one way or another. No, our calling is to work for their healing. Our calling is to choose relationships, to choose to be in relationship, no matter how hard, how messy, how broken they may be.

            To quote the late Paul Harvey, we who know the rest of the story know that Jesus came to heal what was broken. His birth, his life, his death, his resurrection was about restoring relationship. His coming into our lives restored our relationship with God. His ministry sought to restore our relationships with one another. Jesus came for the hurting and the sick, the forgotten and the oppressed. He came to bind the broken-hearted, and to tell the least of these that they were valued by God. Jesus came to show us in his very being what it means, what it truly means, to be in relationship. The very trinity we proclaim, God, three-in-one, is a model of relationship. This passage from Matthew’s gospel, as harsh and as painful as it is, is about relationship. That is good news. It is good news because it reminds us that God values us, and God values our relationships. Broken as they are, broken as we are, we are valued by God. We are loved by God. That’s why we are called to restore, to reconcile, to heal with is broken; in ourselves and in the world, and to trust and lean on the good news that God loves, no matter how broken we may be. That is good news indeed. So let all of God’s children, all of God’s broken children, say, “Alleluia!” Amen.