Br. Adam McCoy, OHC
From today’s Gospel: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” What were the people who put together the lectionary thinking, placing this Gospel so it would always occur near the 14th of February? Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today’s Gospel does raise the question: Just exactly what is the good news here? The awfulness of families and fellowships fighting with each other? The vicious consequences of lust? The nastiness of divorce? The ugliness of false speaking? The people evoked in Jesus’ discourse this morning are too close to people we know, and perhaps too close to ourselves, for comfort. And his judgment is so harsh! The council; the hell of fire; fines that wring the last penny out of us. Bodily dismemberment. Words leading us into the power of the devil. Strong stuff. And all that in the Sermon on the Mount, just verses away from Blessed are the poor in spirit! How can we take away some nourishment from this stew of conflict and vice?
I think the first two readings today give us some help. They give us a couple of lenses with which to view today’s Gospel.
In the lesson from Deuteronomy Moses addresses the famously difficult Israelites as they are preparing to enter the Promised Land. He wants them to understand that what they are undertaking as they cross the Jordan is not simply entering into another phase of Life As Usual, but into a new relationship with God. God is not evicting the people already in the land of Canaan just to give his people a cushy new home, where they will not have to work hard or be anxious, with all that milk and honey flowing on every side. They are not the spoiled children of a nouveau riche father who wants them not to have to go through all the hardships of life. Rather, they are being shown the way to something new and wonderful, but also to something quite rigorous and demanding. The Law is the path to life for them, and they must choose it and keep it in order to be worthy of the gift he has prepared for them. Life with God involves making the right choice: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” Our first lens is making the right choice.
In our second lesson St. Paul addresses the famously difficult Corinthians. He says, in effect, that they need to grow up. If the Israelites of Moses’ day have a tendency to self-indulgence and forgetfulness, the Corinthians are known for their jealousies and their quarrels. They apparently have not learned very much about the Gospel, even though they have had the best possible teacher. They are still operating by the standards of the secular world, what Paul calls the flesh. They have been prepared: Paul planted and Apollos watered. But Paul and Apollos want to see some growth. Which only God can give. Paul is impatient. It’s not hard to tell how impatient he is. “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready”, he says, and you can hear the sarcasm. When will these people grow up, already? Our second lens is growing up, becoming adults.
These passages teach us that we are to come to an understanding of who we really are: Not spoiled children of an indulgent god who has adopted us to give us a free ride, but chosen witnesses to God’s righteousness, shown by the choices we make in our lives. Not infants satisfied with spiritual pabulum, still being fed milk, dependent and unaware and self-centered like babies, but grownups ready for God’s truth, for the adult faith of a God who respects human life so much that he lived it and died it himself. God wants us to takes responsibility for ourselves, which means making the right choices. God wants us to grow up, which means leaving childish behavior behind and thinking and acting like adults.
Which brings us back to this morning’s Gospel, in which Jesus addresses the famously difficult ...... us, since we have been included in the audience of the Sermon on the Mount. This is a proclamation for grownups, for grownups who have the capacity to make the right choices. Jesus says, in effect, Have integrity, because some actions in life are so serious that they can permanently harm you, or even ruin you. And he gives four concrete, and quite painful, examples from daily life.
Conflict has consequences. Violence does not begin when blows are exchanged, but long before, when we despise each other, when we say hurtful words. And it is not enough to paper over the damage with apologies. We need to get back behind our pride, to be willing to take the first step toward reconciliation, as humbling as that may be. Not to do so can cost us everything in the end.
Sexual transgressions, adultery, violating someone else, destroying our own committed relationships by unfaithfulness, do not begin with the sexual act. That act began when we allowed desire to grow into thought, and thought into intention. What begins as an illicit but also rather pleasant and tempting idea can grow until in our delusion we act on it and that act destroys everything in its path. In his hyperbolic way Jesus envisions the totality which such a disaster can wreak in our lives and seeks the most graphic image of that damage: The destruction of the body itself. Better to cut these thoughts off at their beginning than to suffer the consequences of acting on them.
In Jewish culture at the time of Jesus, men could divorce their wives pretty easily, and apparently did. But Jesus calls those men on the carpet and lays out the consequence: Breaking that sacred relationship exposes your wife to social shame and ostracism. It can ruin her life. Just because you can do it does not mean you should. That action can destroy your wife. The question we might ask of ourselves today is, I think, not just about divorce in the strict sense, but also about power. Who has the right to ruin someone else’s life? When a person who has power harms a person who does not, is he (or she) not responsible for what happens to the one who has been harmed?
Why do you need to make grandiose claims for your promises? Is it because your own word is not sufficient? In the ancient world in general, and in this Israel was no different from any other ancient culture, you backed up your words with oaths by invoking whatever was most sacred, with the general idea that the divine power would enforce their intention, at your expense, if you failed to live up to what you promised. But Jesus asks, What is wrong with your own word? Should you not be trustworthy in and of yourself? Why do you need to drag heaven or earth or Jerusalem or your own head to witness for you? Is it because your plain word is really not worth anything by itself? Isn’t that your problem? Be a person of integrity and you don’t need extravagant oaths. Say yes or no and mean it.
Live in harmony with the people in your life. Don’t take advantage of other people because of what you want. Remember the consequences of hurting people less powerful than yourself and don’t do it. Be a person of integrity.
Make the right choices. Be an adult.
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