Sermon preached by the Rev. John Elliott Lein at St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church on Feb 9, 2020 (the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A) following the texts Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 112:1-10, 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, and Matthew 5:13-20.

Today I’d like to talk a little bit about one of the great sermons of Jesus and what underlies its theme. In a typical Year A Season after Epiphany we’d have several Sundays to cover Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, but this year is different. Last week when we might have read the Beatitudes we had a special celebration of the Presentation instead, and next week we’ll be celebrating a Baptism with specific readings for that event rather than continuing on with the Sermon. So today is our one chance to look at this significant set of teachings of Jesus this year.

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The Sermon on the Mount is the first of five major sermons in the Gospel of Matthew. It begins shortly after his baptism and the beginning of his ministry and sets the tone for the rest of the Gospel and the four other sermons.

One of Matthew’s themes is depicting Jesus as a new Moses. In our Advent formation series we looked carefully at how that was done in the birth narrative, and then at how the five books of the Torah, what we call the Pentateuch, are reflected in these five sermons of Jesus in this Gospel. And if the connection isn’t clear, here is Jesus giving his sermon on the Mountain, just as Moses was on Sinai. In Luke’s version of this same sermon Jesus delivers it on a Plain, so we can see Matthew’s setting as making a very intentional parallel.

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The line I would like to focus on for today comes halfway through our Gospel reading:

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law and the Prophets;
I came not to destroy but to fulfill.”

Now this may seem at odds for some of us Christians with how we’ve been taught to think of the Law. Certain traditions of theology, particularly those associated with the great reformers like Luther and Calvin, read Paul’s letters as uniforming damning the Law as pure and harmful legalism. They identify anything we are required to do as “salvation by works” and reject that in favor of “salvation by faith alone.” On the other hand, the ancient Catholic and Orthodox traditions teach a “both and” approach, teaching of salvation by both grace and works.

Turning to Jewish tradition of the first century may help us understand Jesus’ perspective as a Jewish rabbi in Palestine.

The first thing we learn there is that when Jesus refers to “the Law and the Prophets” he’s making an explicit statement about the entirety of his Hebrew Scriptures. We’re used to thinking of the Hebrew Bible as one volume we call the “Old Testament,” but in fact it is composed of three separate volumes each “canonized,” that is, designated as Scripture, at different times. At the time only two of these had been declared holy Scripture. The first is the Torah (what we Christians often refer to as the Pentateuch) which means “Law” or “teaching”, and the second is the Prophets which include the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and what we think of as the prophets such as Isaiah and Ezekiel.

The second is that the word used to refer to the Law in Judaism is halakhah which means “the way of walking.” In Judaism the Law is a spiritual discipline, not legalistic oppression. Moses clearly expects the people of Israel to be able to follow this way in the book of Deuteronomy, and he tells them that God intends this obedience to be a life-giving practice.

In Judaism today the Law is seen as a gift even though different traditions hold it at different levels of adherence and application. As one commenter puts it, rather than being oppressive obligation, “when properly observed, halakhah increases the spirituality in a person's life because it turns the most trivial, mundane acts, such as eating and getting dressed, into acts of religious significance…When you do these things, you are constantly reminded of your relationship with the Divine, and it becomes an integral part of your entire existence.”

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Think about it this way. As Episcopalians, we follow a liturgy in our worship. We have certain rules and requirements in our practice, some of which can seem arbitrary and not conducive to modern independence-obsessed Americans. Why do we have this prayer here, and why that rule there? Why do we do the same things over and over? Why these roles and practices?

At their best, Law and liturgy both give us a beneficial discipline and structure within which to grow and connect to God and one another. They do not function as ends in themselves, but as means to the end.

Where they fail is when people take them as those ends. In this passage, the reference to “Scribes and Pharisees” functions for Jesus as a symbol of those whose devotion to law over the love the law points to has become legalism. I’m sure we all know people who are devoted wholehearted to the letter of the liturgy or creeds and yet seem to have missed the bigger picture of expanded love and broad inclusion with God that they point toward.

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In the following passage, Jesus goes on to intensify the law, not to deny it. He says it is not enough to avoid murdering someone but that anger in the heart is just as bad. That lust is as bad as adultery. He tells those around him to give without expectation of earthly or heavenly reward, to give up the right to retaliation, to not just love one’s literal neighbor but even one’s enemy!

In “completing” the law in this way, Jesus is emphasizing the goal that the law has always had—that its point is not blind obedience to satisfy God but to be a tool of inner spiritual transformation to become like God. He finishes chapter 5 with the command to “be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” This is not the outward “perfection” which hides inward suppression, but the “completion/fulfillment” of that inward being that God created us to be, in his image.

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So as we go on today, let us remember that Law and Grace are not contrasts but complements. That one cannot choose between outward and inward transformation exclusively and arrive where Jesus pointed.

Remember the balance; we are saved by walking in both grace and discipline, both pointing toward and enabling the abundant life that both the old and new Moses lived and promised to all.

AMEN.