Feb. 12, 2017 (full size gallery)
We had a small congregation of 22 with several people sick or involved with other events.
We celebrated Howard’s and Clarence’s 87 birthdays along with Catherine’s daughter’s birthday.
For the Souper Bowl, the church donated $125 and 26 food stuffs last Sunday. Separately, the ECM announced they had bought food , $600 to the Caroline County Food Pantry in Bowling Green. There were funds left over from Christmas.
This Sunday’s readings particularly the Old Testament and Gospel readings are linked around the older community in Deuteronomy. (The setting is the plains of Moab, as the Israelites prepare to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land) and the new community in Matthew (Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount).
The sermon considered the scripture in terms of passion. "We need help negotiating our passions.That’s where God comes in…Our readings today bless us with insights from both Paul and Jesus about how we are to deal with our human passions so that ultimately we can choose life and blessings rather than death and curses."
"In other words, when we live passionate lives of love for one another, holding fast to one another because we hold fast to God, obeying God by living united to one another, even in our diversity.
"Then we become that field in which God can plant the seeds of love, love that will grow so abundantly in us that others can see the kingdom of God being realized on earth here and now through us!"
How do we get along in community ? The focus is the calling and teaching of disciples of Jesus. He continues the teachings of the sermon on the mount.
Today’s and next Sunday’s gospels come from the section called “the six antitheses” (5:21-48), so named from the repeated phrase “it was said…but I say.” Fundamentally, the antitheses are a statement about who Jesus is and what authority he bears (7:28-29). They also illustrate how Jesus fulfills the law (5:17). He does not pit his teaching against the law, but against the rabbinic interpretations and traditions.
Jesus reveals the spirit of the law in a new standard of righteousness. These antitheses reach back past the Mosaic law to the original or “creation will” of God. This means that in some cases (murder, adultery, love of enemy) the law has been strengthened. As sermon says "The words of the law are no longer just in our heads, but also dwell in our hearts."
In this text Jesus provides his teaching on three of the Ten Commandments (plus divorce):
1. You shall not commit murder.
2. You shall not commit adultery and divorce
3. You shall not bear false witness.
In each case it was not just obeying the law but fulfilling the intent of the law and the importance of building and nurturing relationships.
In the case of murder Jesus extends this law to include propensities to kill: nursing anger, calling someone good for nothing (as the Greek says) or a “fool” (v. 22). "When our passions turn into hatred, we want to seek revenge and to conquer the people who are our enemies. But Jesus tells us, the disciples, that we are to love our enemies. " He doesn’t say we have to agree with our enemies, like them but we must love them – deal with them in a civil manner and not destroy.
From the sermon -"Jesus used his own passions, not for anger, lust, or hatred, but to plant seeds of love in the people—by teaching, by healing, by loving his enemies, even when his enemies put him to death.
"And resurrection life is a life of reconciliation with one another, made possible by our desire to love God, to obey God and to hold fast to God, so that we can nurture and protect our relationships with one another, knowing and loving one another as fellow beloved human beings instead of objects to be possessed or vanquished,
We are God’s field, and God has sown the seeds of love."
In the case of adultery it is extended to consider people as objects. God expects purity of thought and desire as well as of action
With regard to the third contrast, there was no command about divorce, but it is implied in the instructions of Deut 24:1-4, which prohibited remarrying someone you had divorced. Divorce became a problem especially when Judaism began to move away from polygamy.
Because Jesus consistently shifted the focus from just act to attitude of mind we are able to embrace what also the wisdom about human relations has taught us, namely that usually adultery is usually a symptom of something else as well, so that things may have gone badly wrong, even irretrievably so, long before an act of adultery has taken place, indeed even when it has not taken place. Reconciliation and healing mean dealing with these complexities of the mind and attitude towards which the gospel also points us.
Challenging? Yes! Jesus knows that what he asks may be humanly impossible. But he also knows the power of his death and resurrection, which enable us to surpass our limitations.