The Rector Writes:
Selected Sermon Series
Fifth Sunday before Lent 2011
Matthew 5.13-20
“Do Not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil”
The Context finds Matthew addressing Jewish audience. Jesus is the fulfilment and he is the answer but the Jews had to be convinced.
The atmosphere was electric. The president of the United States was about to address a gathering of radio talk show hosts in the White House. As the president entered the hall, they all stood and applauded. All, that is, except one — a woman with strikingly blond hair, wearing a bright green suit. At first, her presence rattled the president. He lost his train of thought several times before he finally spoke directly to the sitting talk show host.
“Excuse me, doctor,” the president said to her. “It’s good to have you here. Are you an M.D.?”
“A Ph.D.,” she retorted smartly.
“In psychology?” he pursued.
“No, sir,” she said.
“Theology?”
“No.”
“Social work?”
“I have a Ph.D. in English literature,” she replied.
“I’m asking,” continued the president, “because on your show people call in for advice and you go by the title ‘doctor,’ and I didn’t know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology, or health care.”
“I don’t believe they are confused. No, sir,” she responded.
“Good,” said the president, raising his voice sarcastically. “I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.”
“I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President,” she replied haughtily. “The Bible does.”
“Yes, it does!” he shouted. “Leviticus 18:22.” The president was just warming up. “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?”
After a brief moment, he continued: “While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it OK to call the police?”
Now on a roll, the president steamed on triumphantly. “Here’s one that’s really important, ‘cause we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
“Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side?
“Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?
“Think about those questions, would you?
Augustine once said: "[the law] discovers disease, but does not heal it; nay, the malady that is not healed is rather aggravated by [the law], so that the cure of grace is [even] more earnestly and anxiously sought for" (On the Grace of Christ, chap. 9).
The only people for whom the law is healthy are people who never break the law, and I know of no one who never breaks the law.
Malcolm set me a very difficult task for this week’s sermon, he has asked me to explain what I believe to be the fundamental shift between the Old and New Covenant, why I believe as Christians we would be far better to concentrate on the New Testament, a new covenant between God and his people rather than to cling to a book and claim equality for the Old Testament when it causes so many difficulties, misunderstandings and bad blood, and gets fundamentally in the way of us bringing the good news to the people. Our scene from West Wing that I began with illustrates my point, but I can go further. Take the law of Sabbath observance as an example, lets see how many of us fulfil this law. How many of you feel you keep the law of Sabbath observance. What exactly does it mean to work on the Sabbath, what constitutes work? How many of you drove to Church, how many of you made breakfast this morning. Did you carry more than a glass of milk. Was your food for the day sourced from Kosher supplies. Have any of you men shaved your beards and if you have a beard have you shaved the corners. Oh dear I am afraid ladies you have all failed terribly you have not covered your heads – oh the shame of it. A nice little punishment then – death by stoning okay for you?
It is argued by some that the bible is like the Koran the literal word of God. Mainstream Christianity wouldn’t normally go that far preferring instead the inspired word of God, after all humans wrote it and like in anything else we do we are prone to making mistakes, or even feeling we knew better than the original and correcting it to suit our purpose. This is the 400th year of the King James’ version of the bible, many confuse it with the later and better translated RSV which followed and was a standard for most churches through the 20th Century. The King James version was a stellar work compiled from difficult and often incomplete sources. Over the next 400 years older originals sources were found and better translations made. I believe the King James has what would be considered over 2000 substantial errors in translation.
Scripture is difficult and so is translation. It is often dependant on theological perspective – evangelical or catholic, extreme fundamentalist, extreme liberal. Each changes how we read and understand the Word of God. Thankfully we are not tied to the book like the Muslims who we currently see struggling with the ideology of early Medieval if not dark age thought and how it relates now to our present day issues. We are not tied to scripture in this way - we are people of the Holy Spirit in whom Scripture can be made new in every generation. We are called to make it relevant to the here and now. And crucially as deacon and priest we are called to bring the Good News to people, to bring the Gospel, the New Testament into peoples’ lives.
The Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, do not hold the same place in our hearts and minds as the new, and quite rightly. The Old Testament is not our Story, we have little understanding of the pressures, cultic story, ritual laws, even modern day Judaism is largely divorced from its past, a past dominated by Temple worship and a self-understanding as a unique, privileged Child of the True God. Temple worship is gone and now two of the greatest world religions share a common God, understood in uncommon ways.
We cannot possibly get into the mind frame of the 5th Century BC editors of the Old Testament – it is a Judaic world and we are Gentiles more influenced by Greece and Rome than the Hebrew world except for the Person of Jesus Christ and his initial followers who were Jews but who moved away from the religion of their fathers, dominated by an impossible cultic legal system that failed its people and separated them from their God. They were persecuted by the Jewish majority because they changed beyond all description their understanding of who God was. No longer, remote and wrathful, the peoples sins mediated through a religious elite who controlled all and demanded obedience to impossible laws and a costly sacrificial cult that slaughtered thousand of animals to their jealous God. Jesus revealed God’s true nature a God who did not ask for sacrifice – immediately undermining the economic and political structures, who came for those deemed unclean and excluded from God and were called whole – even prostitutes whom the Old Testament would have stoned. He is a God who enjoys loving personal relationships with us through the Holy Spirit. Salvation came not through obedience to the law – a law none could comply with and still have a heart that loved. Salvation came through faith in the Person of Jesus and in his law that called people to love rather than told them not to misbehave.
Although coming from Judaism, although influenced by the Hebrew Scripture I believe that in Jesus all was fulfilled and a New Covenant ushered in a new way of living and of life itself. God’s people entered into a new relationship with God through Christ. The New Testament is about a grown up relationship, with greater expectations upon us his children, expectations that see us at the heart of the divine mystery as co-creators empowered by grace and living in a community of inspired love.
The Old Testament held the people down, the New releases us and enables our potential, but while we remain shackled to a book that horribly distorts our message and gives an impression of God that I would walk away from, we will find it difficult to let our faith grow into what it should.
It is through the Old Testament imagery that the church became shackled to power images and got lost trying to dominate the world through harsh rules rather than love, mercy and forgiveness. It is through the Old Testament Judizers of the first and second centuries, putting back into Christianity what the apostles had taken out that women took another 18 hundred years to achieve equality in the church. That the church couldn’t cope when it was told the world was round and that the earth went round the sun, or that slavery was deemed acceptable, and now in certain African countries polygamy is deemed acceptable while homosexuals can be killed.
To conclude a piece that could take up several volumes rather than a short inadequate sermon. I believe that the Old Testament is a useful document with some lovely passages revealing Gods love for his children, but that it’s writers and the people got lost, they took roads separating God from his people. In Jesus God sought to put us back on the right path with the simple and uncomplicated truth that he loves each one of us, that his mercy is boundless and if we love him and love our neighbour as we love ourselves we won’t go far wrong. That message is often damaged and corrupted by a book that in many ways is not ours and takes us away from our tasks to bring Jesus into the lives of people we meet. We can’t bring people to Jesus if we start them on Genesis and we will have lost anyone with any sense by the time we get to Leviticus. I know that the Old Testament is held to by many of you very dearly and it has played a great part in your lives. I don’t decry that and I give thanks for what this has created in you. I only ask that we consider our front of house – how do we present ourselves today in the here and now. I believe that our message is often confusing to those coming to hear that they are loved unconditionally by our God and it is a confusion that can be easily dealt with.
