Traction

Matthew 5:21-37

The week before there was a wonderful children’s moment, in which the facilitator, Chris Pierce, gave the children each a candy bar, with the rule they could not eat it until after church.  Chris then began to eat one himself as the lesson was on temptation.  He suggested they open the wrapper and enjoy the aroma, and made it clear they were allowed to open the wrapper, but the rule stood that they could not eat the candy bar.  Not one of the children would open the candy.  It seemed as if they knew if they opened it they would have a hard time following the rule they were given.  This is not unlike how rabbis interpret the Law, the Torah.  They will add additional restrictions to the law so to insure following the original law.  One of the greatest example that goes on today is how some Jews will respect the Sabbath with no work at all, including hitting a switch or pushing a button.  While others are more liberal about their interpretation.  The levels of restrictions differ, but they are to keep the original law followed.

With these antitheses Jesus seems to following in the rabbinic tradition of adding more layers on the law to insure the laws fulfillment.   Jesus had made it clear earlier in this Sermon on the Mount, that He came to fulfill the law, and these additional requirements will certainly make sure one follows the ancient laws.  However, I believe Jesus is not simply adding hoops, but is attempting to have behavior match intent.  It is about having all of us try to be more like our Father in Heaven, as Jesus says in verse 48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  After Jesus tells us that the Father makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good.  We are to be consistent like God’s Grace.

Jesus uses three illustrations to make this point.  The last was to not bother with oaths, or swearing on heaven, earth, or one’s own head.  Our word should be consistent. I do not believe that Jesus has a problem with our courts using oaths, or Doctors taking the Hippocratic Oath, the issue is if one’s word is only good when one swears.  The first illustration was that of someone bringing an animal to the temple for sacrifice, realizing that their brother or sister has something against them, they are to leave the animal at the altar until they reconcile.  This is truly not practical (first of all since Christianity and modern Judaism does not practice animal sacrifice), even then, for someone to return home to reconcile may mean days of travel from the temple.  The animal could not be left at the altar for that amount of time.  Even then this was a metaphor as we read it, that one’s behavior match intent.  That the law is not just a rule, but the way to live.

The other illustration, is that of the right eye and/or hand.  Jesus even uses this same illustration in chapter 6: 2-4:

‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Does Jesus believe we are like Peter Seller’s famous character from the movie, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,”  Dr. Strangelove.  Who was a former Nazi whose hand seemed to have a mind of its own.  Jesus knows that our body does not actually have its own quarrels or need to hide something from itself.  Jesus is emphasizing that we do have a conflict between following God and our “earthly desires.”  We are to find where we are going toward sin and these desires based on others and attempt to remove them.

This reminds me of driving.  Driving is a life or death act that most of us participate in as a driver or at least as a passenger.  Yet we all go out on the road in our vehicles and travel at a high rate of speed with others next to us or coming toward us a few feet away, without thinking about the reality.  We find ourselves talking to passengers, or on the phone, listening (and singing) to the radio, looking at the landscape, and I recall once seeing someone eating soup.  It seems to me that this very dangerous mode of transportation is not taken seriously until we do something that reminds us of the reality.  Like crossing over the line and hearing that “beep” from the other car.  Or think about how it was going out these past two weeks with ice and snow on the ground.  I am sure everyone was much more careful driving.  When you have to think about the traction you will be much more attentive to your driving.  Jesus wants us to live realizing we need to be consistently acting as if it is all for God and not for our earthly desires.

A great example of someone following his “earthly desires” over that of God’s is that of Jacob.  To be clear when I say “earthly desires” I do not meant the desires that are based of that of the body or physicality alone, but what is created by desires of others.  Jacob wanted his brother Esau’s birthright and thus tricked his way into getting it.  Jacob wanted something that others had, and when he had it he assumed his brother would want vengeance.  God wants Jacob to return and Jacob says to God in Genesis 32: 11-12:

Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. Yet you have said, “I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.”

Despite knowing God wants to do him and his offspring good, Jacob is terrified of his brother’s anger, for Jacob was angry enough himself for being born second that he lied and cheated his brother.  How much more would Esau be angry for actually being tricked then being born second?  Well then this occurred the night before Jacob met Esau, according to Genesis 32: 24-30:

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’

Jacob still did not get it, until he fell before his brother the next day ran to him to embrace him and weep. 

We need to be engaged with God at all times.  We are to deny our earthly desires, as best we can.  The good news is that Jesus says we are to hide what one hand is doing, or to cut it off, or to cut out an eye, for this means that Jesus knows we are in conflict.  While we are to be like our Heavenly Father, Jesus forgives us all from the cross.