Infinite Demand, Infinite Succor

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany                                        February 13, 2011

Text: Matthew 5:21-37                                                          The Rev. Dr. Ross M. Wright

We are now at the point in our study of the Sermon on the Mount (SM) where Jesus addresses three sensitive areas of our lives, three areas that cut close to the bone, because they are central to our identity.  The first is anger: how we deal with resentments, broken relationships, and the hurts sustained from the slings and arrows of misfortune.  The second area is sexuality: adultery, and beyond that, the stewardship of our sexuality, whether we are married, single, or single again.  And the third area is oaths:  making promises, and the consequences of breaking them.   

As I am sure you have noticed, there is a clear pattern to this part of the sermon.   Jesus introduces each area by saying: “You have heard that it was said,” and then quotes a commandment from the Torah, the Law of Moses:[1] 

“Thou shalt do no murder.” 

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.” 

“You shall not swear falsely,” or as we know it, “Thou shalt not commit false witness.” 

Nothing unusual there – you don’t need to read the SM to know about the prohibitions against murder, adultery, and bearing false witness.  The shocker comes when Jesus continues: “But I say to you,” and then proceeds to announce the will of God in each of these matters for anyone who intends to follow him.  

But I say to you, if you are angry with your 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. 

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart

But I say to you, do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

Notice that in each case, Jesus claims to speak with greater authority than the Torah.  It is easy to miss the significance of what he is doing here and how shocking, even offensive, it would have sounded to Jesus’ original audience as it would to the contemporary Jewish community.  For the Jew, the Torah is God’s greatest gift to the world.  This is why in the synagogue, the Torah scrolls are handled with such reverence.  They are placed in a special tabernacle or “ark,” to be precise, in the front of the synagogue, roughly the same place where our altar is located.  

To a Jew, it would be the height of arrogance for any rabbi or teacher, however revered, to say: “You have heard that the Torah says this, but I tell you. . .”  Such a statement would be on the order of a Presidential candidate saying: “You have heard that it was said: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’.  “But I tell you. . . ”, claiming to speak with greater authority than the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

So what is Jesus doing here?  He does not contradict the law about anger, adultery, and oaths.  But he does claim the authority to reveal the will of God in each of these areas for us who follow him as Savior and Lord.  And he does so in a way that that goes deeper than the law, because he speaks to the very heart of the human condition.  Jesus goes beyond the behavior itself to the underlying cause of the behavior.  So, he redefines murder to include not just murderous acts but also the anger from which murder springs.   Anger and murder come from the same place.  As one commentator puts it, “The emotion which is the source of the act is of the same nature as the act.”[2]  The apostle John puts it simply and forcefully: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.”[3]

Or take adultery.  There is the act of adultery.  But there is also the adultery of the eye: the lustful look.  There is emotional adultery: becoming wrapped up with another person in ways that are appropriate only within the sanctity of marriage.  And then, there is our fantasy lives.  Imagination is a gift from God, but like all things human, it is fallen.   With the imagination, we have the capacity to create our own little mental universe that no one can enter.  We can arrange the furniture (figuratively speaking) as we like.  In our fantasy world, people do our bidding, and we can emerge from this world any time we want, and no one is the worse for it. 

Obviously, there is a world of difference between anger and murder in terms of the human consequences.  But in terms of our standing before God, there is no difference at all.  There is a world of difference between thinking about adultery and actually committing adultery in terms of human consequences.  But in terms of our standing before God, none at all.    

Think about two people are late for the train.  One reaches the platform just seconds after the train pulls out of the station, the other is two hours late.  There is a big difference between two seconds and two hours.  But if you’ve missed the train, you’ve missed the train, whether it is by two minutes or two hours.  

In the SM, we discover that the will of God is far more demanding than the law of Moses or any human law.  These are not matters that you can check off the way you do in your annual physical:

“Are you a smoker?” “No.”

“Have you ever had a seizure?”  “No.”

“Do you engage in sports such as skydiving?” “No.”  

Unlike a physical, the SM is not a collection of regulations for healthy living that you can check off: 

“Are you guilty of murder?” “ No.”

“Ever committed adultery?” “No.”

“Ever lied under oath?”  “No.”   

We are dealing here with demands that make sense only when we remember who gives them: the son of God who shed his blood for us.  We are dealing with demands “whose logic and purpose can be understood only in light of an end which we cannot see except through a glass darkly.”[4]  In short, we are dealing with infinite demand.  

But if the demand of Jesus is infinitely great, so is the help that he offers us.  In the SM, infinite demand is met with infinite succor.[5]  I choose the old-fashioned word, “succor,” deliberately.  To offer succor is to give assistance in times of want.  It comes from the Latin, succurere, which means “to run to the aid of someone.”

And that isn’t that what God is like?  We think of the father who runs out to meet the prodigal son, as the son slowly makes his way back to the father’s house.  His clothes are in tatters from his journey into the far off country.  He is broken by shame and regret.  As he slowly makes his way back to the father’s house, the father runs out to meet him – runs to his aid – and throws his arms around him, just as he throws his arms around us, when we came back to God from whatever far off countries we have been visiting.  This is a picture of divine succor.  

God’s succor sometimes meets us in the form of breakthroughs in those areas of our lives where we are struggling, particularly in these three sensitive areas of anger, sexuality, and broken promises.  How do these breakthroughs come?  There is no formula.  The grace of God breaks through when it breaks through.  But there is one unmistakable sign when it does: and that is love.  It is in those moments when we know that we are loved by God – deeply loved, even when wandering in the far off country – in those moments, we are enabled to forgive those who have hurt us or to break with our self-destructive ways.  Love is that elixir, that succor, that melts our hard hearts so that we both receive God’s mercy and offer it to others. 

I said a moment ago that, in the SM, we meet both infinite demand and infinite succor.  But the flip side of that statement is also true: infinite succor leads us back to God’s infinite demand: “Be holy as I your God am holy.”  You see, we glorify God when anger leads to reconciliation; when there is fidelity in marriage; when we keep the promises and vows we have made.  The Lord keeps his covenants; we are to keep our covenants.  So, in the way we conduct ourselves in theses three areas, we demonstrate who God is and what he is like.. 

With that in mind, I invite you to come to the Lord’s Table this morning.  He welcomes us with open arms, offering his succor so that we may glorify him and be holy as he is holy.