6th Sunday of Epiphany, 12 February 2023: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5: 21-37
“If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you.”
Today’s readings from both the Hebrew scriptures and the Gospel focus on commandments and laws. The writer of Deuteronomy makes it seem simple: walk in his ways, observe his commandments, decrees and ordinances. To me, the red flag that this is not so simple is that there are commandments, decrees, and ordinances: this is getting complicated.
The psalmist continues this theme, but tells us we are happy if we “walk in the law of the Lord”. Again, the reference to “all your commandments” makes me pause. What if I forget one? What if I cannot, for some reason, follow them all. Several writers have recently tried to follow the biblical commandments as literally as possible. In their books (A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically and Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood) both note the difficulty of meshing rules developed in an agrarian society 3000 or more years ago with modern life.
And if you think Jesus is going to make it simpler, you should skip this week’s Gospel. Jesus tells us that following the commandments is not just not doing particular things (murder, adultery, etc.) but the spirit behind those actions. We are to make peace with those with whom we are in conflict. Oh, and by the way, looking at someone with lust is the same as committing adultery.
To put it simply, we’re screwed. I am pretty certain that every married person has at one time or another looked at someone not their spouse and lusted: not that they acted on it, but they looked. And in our culture of division and conflict, most of us have people we don’t want to deal with; we have probably called others a lot worse than “fool”. Some of us have bad bosses, people who have power over us and use it badly. Some of us have family conflicts, over money, politics, you name it. Some of us have been hurt by others and long for vengeance. In all of these, we at least momentarily, see others as less than human.
This is when it helps me to remember that the gospels are stories told within Christian communities about Jesus 40 and 50 years after his death. So in this passage, it’s evident that we all fail at least one of the tests Jesus puts to us. But the people who wrote down these stories also had a follow-up: the grace given to us by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Paul tells us that insofar as we argue and are jealous, we are “behaving according to human inclinations”. So we are. Paul also reminds us that ultimately we are not in control, but God is. If we can’t fully follow the rules in spirit and act (and we can’t) our only hope is God’s grace. It is that which allows us, in the words of our Baptismal Covenant, to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”. When we do that, we are following the commandments.