A Matter of the Heart

We started this series two weeks ago, getting a taste for Jesus’ most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. And we began in the Beattitudes, the beautiful, unexpected welcome Jesus gave to the most unlikely of all followers. To those who would never be welcome in a church or synagogue or temple, he said you are blessed.

Matthew 5:3 CSB

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

You are welcome in the kingdom of heaven. To those who never use hashtag blessed because honestly it felt like their lives were falling apart, he said there is comfort for you. To those excluded, unwelcome, not good enough, not put-together enough, not born into the right families and not socially acceptable, he said welcome to the family. A radical, beautiful, too-good-to-be-true ushering in of a kingdom of God where every outcast could find a home.

Salt & Light

From there, Dr. Coutts brought us into his next words: that we are to be salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Matthew 5:13 CSB

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

This is to say, we continue to exist in this world - but everything around us is changed by our being here. Just like salt acts as a preservative, the presence of the kingdom of God in us brings out the flavour and true reality of those around us. Just like light doesn’t change the room, but rather illuminates what’s already there, so the kingdom of God makes plain what was hidden before.

Fulfilling the Law

And, lest this all sound too good to be true, like this Jesus guy was Mr. Nice guy doing away with any rules or matters of the Law, Jesus emphatically affirms that he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

17 “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill

That he is already now rehearsing for the future kingdom of heaven come to earth. That by fulfilling the law, he is ushering in a new kingdom - a new reality that will one day be for all people. So while we look forward to a day when there will be no more sickness or pain, we rehearse that future by treating sickness and pain. We look forward to the day when justice will reign, and we rehearse that future by practicing bringing justice to our neighbourhoods and our nations. Jesus is fulfilling the law… and calls us to practice that good news of God’s kingdom here on earth while we eagerly anticipate it’s complete fulfillment - on earth as it is in heaven.

And then Jesus seems to flip all that good news upside down with these words:

Matthew 5:20 CSB

For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

The Scribes & the Pharisees were as good as it got. That’s like saying, today:

Unless your good deeds surpass Mother Teresa’s.

Unless your passion for God rivals Greta Thunburg’s passion for climate change.

Unless your commitment to justice is greater than Martin Luther King Jr’s.

This is impossible! How is this good news? Also - how is this the same sermon? Wasn’t Jesus just telling the nobody’s, the outcasts, the ones who already KNEW they didn’t belong in the kingdom of God that they were welcome? Now he’s telling us even the best of us won’t make it? What is going on?

Jesus is telling us something we need to be constantly reminded of: being good will never be good enough.

The Jews knew they were the children of God, not because of their righteousness, but because they were chosen by God. They knew their acts of righteousness was a response to a God who had already claimed them - not a means of earning a place. And we, as Christians, know the same - it is by grace we are saved, through faith… But we all can get caught up in the achievement culture, and try to earn our way in. Jesus reminds us throughout the Bible - there’s not a chance.

But he also tells us plainly, this is not because the law is pointless. The law is infinitely valuable - it’s a reflection of God’s beautiful mind, his heart for humanity, his love and his purpose.

Psalm 119:16 (CEV)

I will take pleasure in your laws and remember your words.

The Psalms are full of prayers delighting in the law of the Lord, savouring the Law of the Lord, rejoicing in the goodness of the Law.

So when Jesus says you’ll never be good enough, he’s not discarding the Law as obsolete… he’s reminding us that the Law is only part of the story. He is the other half - He is the fulfillment of the Law. And in Him we see a whole different story.

So lest we get caught up in the do’s and don’ts of the Law and miss God’s heart in it - he takes 6 situations people commonly found themselves in - 6 situations we still find ourselves in today - and shows the absurdity of trying to turn God’s law into boundary markers to define who’s in and who’s out. And, in doing so, he reminds us of his purpose: not just to make us more moral people, but to usher in a new way of being human. A new way of kingdom living. A new way of being citizens of heaven, even here on earth.

The hard part

And so he looks at the Law - and reminds us that this isn’t the goal, this isn’t by itself the mark of a flourishing society.

Matthew 5:21 (CSB)

“You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.

While we all agree that a society where murder is not okay is a good thing - none of us want to live in a place where that’s the mark of goodness! Where, as long as you haven’t murdered, all is well. Not at all!

So Jesus takes it further: the good is not simply to avoid murder. He says this:

Matthew 5:22 (CSB)

But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister, will be subject to the court. Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.

Well, that’s a whole nother ballgame, isn’t it. Don’t even get ANGRY! And worse: it’s the exact same wording used as a consequence for murder as it is for getting angry.

Here in Manitoba, an adult facing murder charges is looking at 25 years in prison. Is Jesus really saying everyone who gets angry faces the same punishment?

Who’s left? We’d all be in prison! I had the priviledge of visiting a newborn baby recently - she was 7 days old and her 2 year old brother had ALREADY gotten angry with her! There’s no hope for any of us if this is the law required of us.

And that’s Jesus’ point: he takes the law, raises the bar to the point of absurdity, then shows us the kind of living he desires.

Elsewhere in the Bible he says it differently: he’s not making us conform to a new set of laws, he’s making us into new creations.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

He’s getting rid completely of the way we used to think and making us into something brand new.

Later in Matthew, Jesus has an illustration that makes complete sense to me.

Washing Dishes

Have you ever lost a travel mug and come across it weeks later? I can’t be the only one. It’s disgusting. You know inside it’ll be stale and moldy and probably at least once in your life you’ve decided it’s not worth it and thrown the whole thing out. But if you must, you have to wash the thing.

And if you just want to wash the outside, well that’s easy. A quick wipe down and put it back in the cupboard and hope your spouse is the one to open it up to that nasty moldy surprise and deal with it later. Easy peasy.

But if you actually wash it out - bleach the insides, scrub it down, use boiling water, run in through the dishwasher six times for good measure...

You can’t wash the inside without the outside getting clean, too.

Matthew 23:25–26 CSB

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean.

This is what Jesus is talking about here in the sermon on the mount.

The actions, the wrong-doing - whether it’s murder or anger or contempt - that’s only a symptom of the problem. It’s the outside of the cup.

And for Jesus, it’s less a matter of what you DO - your actions, and more a matter of the heart - from where your actions flow.

So anger, insults, name-calling… they are all a symptom of a deeper cause: our separation from God. Our inability to see ourselves - or others - as beloved of God.

Jesus came to restore what God made good - to bring us back to life as beloved. To call us loved, to show us love, to bring us back to God. Through Christ, we are made new. Through Christ, we are cleansed from the inside out.

And when Christ lives in us, there’s no more room for treating others without dignity. It gets crowded out as we begin to increasingly live a life characterized by love.

Anger that we nurture gets discarded - not that we don’t become angry, but that we don’t feed that anger.

Insults are no longer funny.

Contempt has no more room in our hearts.

Jesus changing our hearts, overflows into changed actions.

A new way of living - kingdom living.

A New way

Jesus starts with the minimum standard: the letter of the law.

He ups the game - even to the point of absurbity, because none of us can live on our own strength the way He talks. Honestly, most of us can’t even make it through traffic home without insulting another driver or calling someone an idiot.

But Jesus isn’t making us a new set of harder rules. He’s painting a picture of what life in the kingdom would look like:

Matthew 5:23–24 CSB

So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

You have to understand - going to the altar to offer a gift is no small thing. You’ve got to be ceremonially clean. You prepare in advance for this - if you come across a dead body, even a dead mouse in the house (sorry, Judy), you’ve got to get ritually cleansed and wait 10 more days before you can try again.

To actually GET to the altar… and then turn around because of something you could probably handle later? That’s absurd.

And this is not a command he gives, that you HAVE to do this - it’s an illustration.

Minimum standard had always been do not murder.

Jesus raises the standard - don’t even get angry! Don’t even think about people with contempt!

And he gives a picture of what it might be like if we were kingdom people, washed from the inside out.

Rich Villodas says

At its core, sin is failure to love. If Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself, then the essence of sin must be the violation of that.

Murder is obviously a failure to love.

Anger, in and of itself, may not be - God describes himself at times as a God of wrath - but at injustice, at cruelty, at evil. Anger that we groom, pet, feed and foster - well, that’s a different matter. If we have to rehearse the wrong done to us, if we end up watching to catch someone and hoping they fall - if we feed the anger, that is a failure to love.

Contempt is always a failure to love. There is no way we can treat another - or ourselves - as the beloved of God and hold contempt.

So if we were to turn this on its head - the way Jesus does - instead of feeding that anger, instead of holding a person in contempt, we would be so motivated to clear the air, to make things right, to seek reconciliation that even at a moment that’s too important to interrupt, and too inconvenient to feel worthwhile - leaving a gift at the altar - we would still be compelled to seek that person out and restore them.

It might not be at the altar - it might be as you get ready for bed, or as you arrive at work in the morning, or as you see someone wearing the same color coat as that person you need to make things right with - the illustration Jesus gives tells us that no matter where and when that prompt happens, stop what you’re doing and make ammends. Don’t put it off. This is important - this matters in the kingdom of God. And this is what it looks like to love like Jesus loves.

This is the upside-down kingdom Jesus talks about. Not the minimum standards - not even that maximum standards, as impossible as they may be - but a new way of living that seeks to live the way of love.

Because kingdom living is is not merely about what we do or don’t do.

It’s about the overflow of what’s inside us.

It’s a matter of the heart.

Benediction

Go forth to walk in God’s ways. Hold fast to God in all you do. May your heart belong to God. May the love of God be yours. And may God’s blessings rest upon you.

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