A Higher Standard

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 4, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 5:21-48.

            Back in Old Testament times, there were a lot of religious laws.  It started, of course, with the Ten Commandments, and that was fine.  There were only ten of them, after all.  And for the most part, they were pretty simple and easy to remember.  Don’t murder.  Don’t steal.  Honor your parents.  People could handle that.

            But as time went on, more and more laws were added.  Almost all of the book of Leviticus is law.  A lot of Deuteronomy is law.  The laws got more complex.  They got more detailed.  They were harder to remember.

            And then, through the years, came all the interpretations of the laws.  All the decisions of the rabbis.  All the rulings on close questions.  And pretty soon, there was more religious law than anyone could deal with.  People would violate religious laws without knowing it, because they simply could not remember all those laws.

            It was a mess in a lot of ways, and yet, it was really important.  Because the laws came from God.  They were a measure of your faith in God.  They were the way you showed your obedience to God.  The breaking of a religious law, even a minor one, was not a trivial thing.  It was something for which you needed to show repentance.  And you needed to actually do something to show that repentance.

            Then Jesus came.  And, according to some people, Jesus said we could forget about all those religious laws.  After all, Jesus did not always follow them–He broke the Sabbath law, one of the most major laws of all.  We’re not under the law anymore, we’re under grace.  John Chapter One, Verse Seventeen says the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  Romans Chapter Six, Verse Fourteen says “you are not under the law, but under grace.”  Galatians Chapter Two, Verse Twenty-one says, “If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.”  Galatians Chapter Five, Verse Four says that if we’re trying to be justified by the law we have been alienated from Christ and have fallen away from grace.  So, clearly, we don’t have to worry about those laws anymore, right?

            Well, yes and no.  On the one hand, it’s true that we no longer have to worry about following hundreds of religious laws to the letter.  But on the other hand, Jesus certainly did not embrace an “anything goes” philosophy.  In fact, in freeing us from the letter of the law, Jesus called us to live according to a higher standard than what the law required.

            One of the things I do every year in confirmation class is have the students read the Ten Commandments.  Then I ask them, what word that is incredibly important to our faith does not appear in the Ten Commandments?  Do any of you know what it is?

            It’s “love”.  Nowhere in the Ten Commandments are we told to show love to anyone.  They do not tell us to love our neighbors.  They don’t tell us to love our parents.  They don’t even tell us to love God.  We’re not supposed to mistreat our neighbors, we’re supposed to honor our parents, and we’re supposed to worship God.  But nothing is said about love.

            You see, what the Ten Commandments do–what all of the religious laws did–is govern behavior.  That’s what all laws do, really.  They regulate behavior.  They tell us what we cannot do.  Sometimes they tell us what we must do.  Sometimes they tell us when and where we can and cannot do things.  But they govern our behavior.  That’s what laws are designed to do.

            And that’s not wrong.  All societies need to have rules of behavior.  You cannot have a functioning society without that.  But when a law governs behavior, its goal is not love.  Its goal is obedience.  We must obey a law.  

            And that’s what the religious laws did.  They forced people to obey.  But while a law can affect our behavior, it cannot affect our feelings.  In other words, you can make me do something, but you cannot make me like it.  You can make me obey you, but you cannot make me love you.  In fact, sometimes forcing obedience has the exact opposite of effect.  Sometimes, when we’re forced to do things, we start to resent the one who’s forcing us to do those things.

            Then Jesus came.  And, while Jesus obviously cared about behavior, his goal was not to require obedience.  His goal was to inspire love.  Love for God, and love for others.  And that’s a higher standard than simply doing what the law required.

            Look at what he says.  He says it’s not enough to just not commit murder.  He says we should not even get angry with a brother or sister.  He says if there’s some problem with a brother or sister, don’t come to church and offer a sacrifice.  Go to your brother or sister and get that problem resolved.  Then, you come back to church and offer a sacrifice.

            He says if you get into a disagreement with someone, don’t get mad and go to court to solve it.  Go to the person you have the disagreement with and work it out.  That’s the way one of his followers is supposed to resolve things.

            Jesus goes on and on, calling us to this higher standard than just doing what the law required.  The law said not to cheat on your spouse, but Jesus says don’t even look at someone with any sort of desire in your heart.  The law said if you take an oath before God, you had to live up to it.  Jesus said we should not even need to take an oath–we should always be honest and keep our word.  The law said that if someone attacked you, you could do no more to them than what they’d done to you.  Jesus said we should not even hurt them at all.  The law said it was okay to hate your enemies.  Jesus said we should love our enemies.

            Over and over again, Jesus calls us to that higher standard.  And Jesus explained why.  He said, look, everyone loves people who love them.  Everyone’s nice to people who are nice to them.  People won’t notice that you’re my followers if that’s all you do, because you won’t be doing anything that’s any different from what everyone else does.  If you want to be my follower, you have to do more than that.  And then, Jesus says that he’s not just calling us to a higher standard, he’s calling us to the highest standard of all.  He says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”         

Jesus told us that God is perfect, and we should be perfect, too.  We hear that, and it’s tempting to reject it.  Or to say that Jesus did not mean it.  After all, we’re only human, right?  We cannot be perfect.  God is perfect, of course, but a human being is not and cannot be.  Jesus is holding us to a standard we cannot possibly meet.

            And that’s true.  He is.  And Jesus knew that, of course.  Note, Jesus did not say we have to be perfect to go to heaven.  None of this negates what Jesus said at other times–that our salvation is based on faith in him, and not on our behavior.  The point is that if we truly believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God, and if we truly claim to be His followers and His disciples, then we are called to live differently from those who are not Jesus’ followers.  We are called to be better.  We are called to be the best people we can possibly be.  Not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven, but because of love.  Love of God and love of others.

            That’s what Jesus’ higher standard is about.  The law governed behavior, but Jesus wants to rule our hearts.  We are not supposed to live our lives based on obedience to a set of rules.  We are supposed to live our lives based on love–love of God and love of others.

            If we live our lives based on love, we will be perfect.  Not in the sense of never making mistakes–we will always make mistakes.  There will be times when we need to ask for forgiveness, both from God and from others.  

But a life based on love is a life based on God, because God is love.  A life based on love is one in which we try to live as close to the way Jesus wants us to live as it is possible for humans to live.  That’s the sense in which we will be perfect–perfect in our goals, perfect in our intentions, perfect in our desire to live as much of a Christ-like life as we possibly can.

The law governed behavior, but the law could not touch people’s hearts.  Only the love of Jesus can do that.  If we love Jesus, we will do our best to live by a higher standard than what the law requires.  We will live our lives based on love.  And no matter how many mistakes we make, a life based on love will always be perfect in God’s eyes.