Sermon: 12 February 2023 Epiphany 6
Text: Matthew 5: 21-37/ Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Theme: Be merciful
Prayer: O God, take my lips and speak through them, take our minds and think through them, yet take our hearts and set them on fire. For your kingdom’s sake. Amen.
There is an understanding that in the Hebrew Scriptures it is never about what we believe and all about what we do. So as in our first reading today, “What does the Lord require of you?" Not belief in several propositions but rather to fear the Lord your God and to walk in God’s ways, to love God and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God! Later in Deuteronomy in chapter 30 it is even more direct: “Choose life!"
Just two little words that sound so simple. The author even says that the choice between life and death, blessing and curses, is "not too difficult for you or beyond your reach" (30:11). The apostle Paul makes a similar appeal to wealthy Christians: "Take hold of the life that is truly life" (1 Timothy 6:19). And then there's Jesus, who says, "I've come that you might have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
These words sound simple, but our human experience proves otherwise. After all, as the poet George Herbert wrote: we're only "poor creatures, now a wonder / a wonder tortur'd in the space / betwixt this world and that of grace". In the most mysterious book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, the author describes their search for true life. They pursued all the obvious pathways — intellectual study, work, every imaginable pleasure, civic projects, and even righteousness itself. In the end, it all felt like chasing after the wind, a meaningless "futility of futilities."
But living like "mere mortals" is precisely what Christians are called to transcend. In the epistle for this week, Paul chides the Corinthians for their jealously and quarrels. Those are signs, says Paul, that they're living in a "worldly" rather than a "spiritual" manner. They're acting in an "infantile" rather than a mature way, he says, "behaving according to human inclinations" (1 Corinthians 3:1–9). Similarly, Jesus observes that there's nothing unusual about loving those who love you. No one should expect a reward for that sort of behaviour: "even the tax collectors do that."
That's like greeting a close friend or a family member: "Even pagans do that" (Matthew 5:46–47).
Jesus contrasts living like a pagan or a tax collector with living life in his kingdom. He gives six examples from the Old Testament: murder, adultery, oaths, retribution, and treatment of your enemies. Our passage this morning only takes us as far as the first four. With each example Matthew repeats the identical refrain: "You have heard it said, but I say" (Matthew 5:21, 27, 33, 38, 43). Jesus says that he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, to broaden and deepen it from mere outward ritual or external compliance to an interior transformation. But any way you look at it, he's calling us to a way of life radically different from that of what Paul calls "human inclination," and even beyond the ethics of the Old Testament law.
Instead of living like a pagan (5:47), Jesus demands perfection, as at the end of chapter five: "Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect" (5:48).
Perfection? Now this is where I struggle with Jesus as presented in Matthew! For mere mortals? That sounds ideal, but isn't it impossible? Isn't the quest for perfection the voice of the oppressor? Doesn't perfectionism lead to self-righteousness, a need to be right and to be seen as right? Doesn't it tempt us to edit our real but fallen selves and instead to project a false and sanctimonious self — to our own selves and to others?
The key to this conundrum is in Luke's parallel passage. I wonder if Luke was shocked by Matthew's prescription for perfection. Luke's shorter version of the same material makes several editorial changes. We know that whereas Matthew has a "sermon on the mount" (Matthew 5:1), Luke presents a "sermon on the plain" (Luke 6:17). But the most shocking difference is how Luke concludes the passage. Matthew writes, "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48), which echoes Leviticus 19:2: "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy." Luke makes a single but remarkable word change, "be merciful, just as your heavenly father is merciful" (Luke 6:36).
No one can be perfect, but everyone can show mercy. And in showing mercy we approach divine perfection.
To live a life of divine perfection, show mercy to your neighbour. Showing mercy, both Matthew and Luke agree, is precisely what God does. God causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil. God sends rain for the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). God is kind to the wicked and ungrateful (Luke 6:35).
Or consider Matthew's five examples. Divorce is understandable, at times even necessary, for some people inevitable, but what might happen if spouses extended mercy to each other? Avoiding murder is not much to brag about but moving from anger to mercy sure is. Retaliation is tempting, and retribution is part of our legal system, but mercy forgives and forgets. States and governments protect their self-interests by having us hating our enemies, but Jesus calls us to love our enemies.
And here's an even more radical idea — extend this divine mercy to our own selves, for that's what God has already done.
In my previous parish one of our Wardens was very much into poetry and art. Sophia introduced me to the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Much of his poetry is characterised by darkness and despair, reflecting his lifelong interior struggles. Hopkins was born in 1844 and raised in England, then educated at Oxford. After converting to Catholicism in 1868, which estranged him from his Anglican family, he promptly burned much of the poetry he had written and even stopped writing for seven years. After ordination as a Jesuit priest in 1877, an assignment in Ireland left him feeling isolated and melancholy, thus giving rise to his so-called "terrible sonnets" like I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark.
But somewhere in his darkness, Hopkins experienced God's light. Somehow, he moved beyond self-reproach to divine mercy. In one of my favourite poems, My Own Heart, he portrays an interior conversation about extending mercy to himself and accepting "God's smile" upon his life.
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies
Between pie mountains — lights a lovely mile.
On his death bed with typhoid at the age of forty-four, Hopkins' last words were, "I am so happy. I am so happy. I loved my life." That's the sort of perfection of mercy in an imperfect person for which we should all hope. But if Hopkins is a little too morbid for a morning worship, then may I leave you with words from another hero of mine – Mother Teresa:
“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centred. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
The Lord be with you.