Living the Law
THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
Matthew 5:21-37
I went to a high school in Atlanta that was both affectionately and disparagingly referred to as the Hippies on the Hill, depending on who you talked to. Those of us who attended this school that started out of a big old house across from a beautiful park, loved calling ourselves the hippies on the hill. Other private schools in Atlanta had spirit days where they “Dressed like a Galloway kid” and wore tie-dye and Birkenstocks. They thought they were making fun of us, and we thought they had finally learned to be comfortable!
My high school had just a couple rules—“Be kind and try. And wear shoes.” The second is required by law for schools but the first really taught us how to be in community. Our student handbook surely included more specific requirements of us, but I honestly don’t remember. Either way, those specifics only communicated a minimum requirement for our schooling together. It must have said things about attending class, about not bullying or causing physical harm to other students, and about hopefully wearing more than just shoes to school. I’m sure it included disciplinary warnings about vandalism or drug use.
We technically had other rules, but they did little to govern our lives together. Don’t hurt your classmate, but more importantly, be kind to them. Don’t damage school property, but more importantly be good stewards of resources. Keep your grades up, but more than that, stay engaged in your learning and encourage the success of your fellow students. Work together, support each other, be kind and caring. Treat people with respect and take responsibility for your actions.
The rules in a handbook governed minimum requirements for being a student and for being a part of the Galloway community. The rules that actually formed us and that my classmates also likely remember are to be kind and try and to wear shoes.
These communal codes asked more of us. They asked us to be part of a loving and caring community of lifelong learners. And that is far more beautiful than simply a community of rule followers.
I hear Jesus offering a similar ethic for his followers. Jesus is not dismantling or invalidating Jewish law but is expanding on it. The law shares requirements for membership in community, but Jesus’ expansion teaches more about how to genuinely care for that community.
Not murdering someone is a low bar. Not taking advantage of someone sexually is a low bar. Not forcing someone to disproportionately experience societal burdens is not enough.
More is asked of us. Jesus explains that even more than not murdering someone, we should be aware of our anger and resentment toward others. We should remember our conflicts with our brothers, sisters, and siblings in Christ as we offer ourselves to God. Our offerings to God are made fuller by working for reconciliation with our neighbors.
Sexual ethics and assumptions have changed since Jesus’ day, but when Jesus speaks of adultery and looking at another person with lust, he is speaking at least in part about the sexual objectification of other people. Jesus asks us not to treat people as sexual objects and to truly respect the humanity of other people. We are reminded of our personal responsibility to care for our siblings.
When Jesus speaks of divorce, he is speaking from a society where divorce had catastrophic implications for women. Women would become financially and socially destitute following a divorce, so when Jesus offers rules about the acceptable occasions for divorce, he is actually working to protect women.
Today we can see that while divorce can certainly have negative impacts on families and on the individuals within them, it can also be the right choice for many people. Society has changed and there are many more opportunities for women independent of a male partner. Jesus was primarily speaking to men, but we can now hear him speaking of marriages and relationships of all genders. Divorce is still hard. But staying in an unhealthy marriage also has negative consequences. What we might learn most clearly from Jesus’ discussion of divorce is to place significant care on our relationships, to consider how we care for people, how we protect them, and how we work to mitigate and minimize societal harms.
For centuries, rabbis have shared a similar practice. It’s called making a fence around the Torah. While the laws of the Torah have stayed constant, rabbinical teachings and their fences around the Torah have changed over time. Rabbis offer these as support for the integrity of mitzvot, the Hebrew word for commandments. They do not have the same status as the laws themselves but help the community to follow the law and can change relative to society. Rabbi David E. Ostrich explains, “As [the Jewish tradition] has shown over and over again, making a fence around the Torah can involve distinguishing historical form from timeless Truth, daring to change the first to uphold the second.”
He offers an example of Rachel and Leah. In this story, Rachel was planning to marry Jacob, but instead their uncle Laban gives Rachel’s sister Leah to Jacob. Jacob was cheated and Leah was not allowed to consent to this marriage. When Jacob is later able to marry Rachel, these sisters are forced to compete for the affection of the husband they now share.
Rabbi Ostrich names that the fences around the marital law of the Torah have shifted to honor the timeless truths of fairness, respect, compassion, and autonomy. In Rachel and Leah’s time, the historical form of the law allowed for polygamy and forced marriage. As times have changed, rabbis have offered additional instruction in the form of fences around the Torah so that the Jewish people require the consent of a bride in marriage and no longer practice polygamy. The historical form is altered in order to live into timeless Truths.
Let’s apply this logic for our lives, using secular law for a moment. The law tells us not to commit hate crimes, but Jesus might tell us to examine our unconscious bias and to work for reconciliation across societal divisions. Jesus might tell us to actively seek relationships in diverse communities where we can learn from one another and grow in our responsibility to each other.
The law tells us not to sexually assault people, but we might also hear a reminder from Jesus that “what was she wearing?” is not a faithful question. Instead, we might faithfully ask, “what am I doing within myself to ensure that I treat people with dignity and respect?” What internal assumptions about relationships am I working to heal and repair? How am I questioning society’s treatment of women, and I would add of trans and non-binary people? How am I working against misogynoir, or the hatred of black women?
Similarly, it is possible that we might question the law if it does not align with justice and flourishing for all God’s people. When laws have, and still do, explicitly and implicitly work against the flourishing of people of color, we should ask where justice is. When laws prevent LGBTQ people from living authentically as their full selves, we should wonder who is being protected and who is being harmed by legislation.
Neither government law, nor school rules, nor biblical law are enough if we do not acknowledge and live by the timeless Truths that the law points toward.
When Jesus expands upon the law, he is offering us an invitation to the kin-dom of God where care and mutual concern guide the way that we read and follow the law. Being in right relationship with God and with God’s people motivates and informs us. In the same way that I was formed by the rules to be kind and try, Jesus forms us with overarching codes of communal living. As Jesus names in Matthew 22, we are to “Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. On this hang all the law and the prophets.” The law and this commandment to love work together and inform on another. One without the other doesn’t offer full clarity on our life together.
We are invited to a kin-dom where law offers requirements for community, and the love of God, neighbor, and self help us to truly live as community.
This is my last sermon here in this community, so I want to leave you with this brief charge—
Live according to the timeless truths of our faith—care for your neighbors without exception, love Jesus in every human by treating them with dignity and respect, live as your God-created selves and make space for the flourishing of others. Love our God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself—which also means loving yourself as you would love your neighbor.
And remember, Jesus did not come to abolish the law… Jesus came to help us live according to the law, a law of love for God and for all God’s creation.
Amen.
© 2023 The Rev. Adelyn Tyler-Williams
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas