+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Every time there was an arrest for a major crime, the television newsrooms I worked in wanted moving video of the suspect arrested (static mug‑shots worked great for the newspaper, but we were doing television, after all). If our cameras missed the actual arrest, the next‑best thing was video of what was called the “perp walk”, the perpetrator’s walking to or from a car or van at the courthouse or jail (unless the walk was done in such a way as to keep it from our cameras). Most of us have probably seen such “perp walks” of the suspects, with their brightly‑colored jumpsuits, their handcuffs, and their attempts to hide their faces. Such images may even be what first come to our mind when we think of criminals—criminals like the murderers, adulterers, and false‑swearers about whom Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel Reading. Based on that Gospel Reading, the theme for this sermon then is “Murderers, Adulterers, and False‑swearers”.
Today’s Gospel Reading continues Jesus’s so‑called “Sermon on the Mount” from right where last Sunday’s Gospel Reading left off. You may recall that last Sunday we heard Jesus call His disciples “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” and speak of His own not abolishing but fulfilling the Old Testament Scriptures, His providing righteousness that overflowed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:14-20). Jesus gives multiple examples of God’s commandments that those Jewish leaders “relaxed” or eased; we heard several of those examples today, and we will hear two more next Sunday. Today’s examples relate to the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Commandments (any one of the three could get a whole sermon of its own). Jesus is not giving or making new laws, but He is contrasting what His hearers heard from the Jewish leaders with what He Himself says, correctly explaining how the Commandments apply more‑broadly than the Jewish leaders applied them—for example, not only to acts, but also to thoughts and words.
Back in 19‑76, before some of you were born, then Democratic Nominee Jimmy Carter famously alluded to today’s Gospel Reading, when, weeks before the presidential election, he told Playboy magazine that he had “looked on a lot of women with lust” and “committed adultery in [his] heart many times.” So easy it is to break the Sixth Commandment, as well as the Fifth and Eighth Commandments! Simply being angry with people and calling them names breaks the Fifth Commandment, and swearing‑falsely and not performing what we have sworn to do breaks the Eighth Commandment. We easily and often lament the decline of morals that we see in society, but not‑so easily and less‑often we lament the decline of morals that is also evident in our church body. For example, too often divorced people are remarried when they should not be. As I researched and wrote years ago, Jesus’s teaching about divorce and remarriage in today’s Gospel Reading is at best unclear at first. The Gospel accounts of St. Mark and St. Luke, as well as the teaching of St. Paul, likely based in part on today’s Gospel Reading, are more clear: remarriage after divorce is adultery. The Early Church understood that and practiced accordingly, but, in the years since, even Christians have become like the scribes and Pharisees, “relaxing” or easing God’s commandments and teaching others to do the same. Yet, none of us are not liable to judgment for something. When we think of criminals, we may not think of ourselves first, but we should. In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus sets equal offenses of thoughts, words, and deeds against the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Commandments. Jesus makes clear that we all are murderers, adulterers, and false‑swearers, and so He makes clear that all of us are liable, ultimately, to the hell of fire.
Now, no pastor I know, including myself, likes to preach God’s law, even on topics that we may have researched and written about at length. Yet, the preaching of the law is necessary for us all to see our sin and so ultimately to repent and to believe the Gospel. By nature, we are all of the sinful flesh and behave only in a fallen‑human way, as the Epistle Reading mentions (1 Corinthians 3:1-9). We are not morally neutral, free to decide whether to believe or not, to choose life and good over death and evil. Even in today’s Old Testament Reading (Deuteronomy 30:15-20), God’s Word first gave life to those dead in trespasses and sins, and only then, after they were made alive, were they free to turn away, to refuse to hear, to worship and serve other gods, and so surely to perish. However, when we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin; He forgives it for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus is the fulfiller of the Old Testament Scriptures, both of their commandments that we break and of their promises to send a Savior from our sin of breaking them. Jesus became the Murderer, Adulterer, and False-swearer for us, and He made His righteousness overflow to us. Jesus delivers us from judgment by reconciling us to the Father with His death on the cross (Romans 5:10), offering Himself as a sacrifice for us (Hebrews 7:27; 9:28), being handed‑over for us (Matthew 26:48-49), and, as it were, paying the last penny we owe (Matthew 20:28). Jesus did not, as He could have, send us away on account of our unfaithfulness (Isaiah 50:1), but instead He loved the Church as His Bride and gave Himself up for us, that He might make us holy (Ephesians 5:25-26). And, Jesus swore truly and performed to the Lord what He had sworn (Matthew 26:63-64). Thanks to the God-man Jesus’s death and resurrection for us, we are no longer murderers, adulterers, false‑swearers, or anything else like that. Instead, when we repent and believe in Him, we are forgiven—forgiven of all our sin—of being angry with someone, of an adulterous second marriage, of misusing God’s name in an oath, or of whatever our sin might be.
In Jesus Christ, God reconciled the world to Himself, not counting our sins against us, and God entrusts to His called and ordained servants the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). As in the Epistle Reading, the specific servant does not matter, only God, Who gives the growth. His preached Word of the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). His washing of water with the Word in Holy Baptism cleanses us who are in the Church so that She may be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:27). His words of Holy Absolution, spoken by pastors to those individuals who privately confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts—those words are as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself. And, His words with bread and wine in Holy Communion give us His true body and blood given and shed on the cross for us, and so they give us the forgiveness of sins, and so also life and salvation.
The forgiveness we receive from God in these ways flows out into our lives with one another. We help and support our neighbors in every physical need, and we reconcile with them before coming to the altar to receive God’s forgiveness. We lead sexually pure and decent lives in what we say and do, and we do not mutilate our bodies to do so, but we resolutely repress our sinful desires, “however painful the effort may be.” We defend our neighbors, speak well of them, and explain everything in the kindest way, and, as necessary, we take oaths “in support of the good and for the advantage of our neighbor” (LC I:66). Aside from our using hair dyes (something Jesus in the Gospel Reading is not really considering), God alone makes one hair white or black. He alone enables us to live us His children, and He alone forgives us when we fail to do so. His law keeps us from hypocritically thinking we are sinless, and His Gospel keeps us from despairing over our oppressive sin.
After reflecting on today’s Gospel Reading, when we think of criminals maybe we all will be more inclined to think first of ourselves, imagining our faces and bodies in the video of the “perp walk”—with brightly‑colored jumpsuits, handcuffs, and attempts to hide our faces. By nature, we all are “Murderers, Adulterers, and False-swearers”, but in Christ we are forgiven, as we are baptized, absolved, and nourished in body and soul with His body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. As we prayed in today’s Collect, the Lord has graciously heard the prayers of His people, and, by His goodness to the glory of His Name, He has mercifully delivered us, who justly suffer the consequences of our sin.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +