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+ + + 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.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus apparently corrects the Jewish leaders’ false teaching on the topics of murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths. Although there is no liturgical connection between Friday’s observance as Valentine’s Day and this Gospel Reading for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany of Our Lord, we might say that the importance of reconciliation for preserving marriage vows is a thread that runs through this passage from St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, as the importance of reconciliation for preserving marriages is a thread that also runs through a later passage from St. Matthew’s account (Matthew 18‑19), parts of both of which passages are unique to St. Matthew’s account. Regardless, today’s Gospel Reading comes immediately after Jesus spoke, as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:13-20), about His coming not to abolish the Old Testament Scriptures but to fulfill them, His saying that not an iota nor a dot will pass from the Scriptures, His condemning those who relax God’s Commandments and teach others to do the same, and His warning His hearers that, unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, they will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
That context is important in order to understand today’s Gospel Reading correctly, for that context certainly seems to suggest that the scribes and Pharisees were the ones teaching falsely by relaxing God’s Commandments about murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths—not to mention God’s Commandments about vengeance and love for enemies, as we would hear from the verses that immediately follow in next Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:38-48), if next Sunday were not the Transfiguration of Our Lord. Repeatedly in these passages from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, in contrast to the Jewish leaders, speaks with His own personal authority as God manifested in human flesh. And, by the end of the Sermon, Jesus’s teaching as One Who had authority, and not as their scribes, left His hearers astonished (Matthew 7:28).
The scribes and Pharisees not only thought of themselves as being righteous, but the scribes and the Pharisees also must have appeared to the people of Jesus’s day as righteous. So, the call for Jesus’s hearers’ righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees would have been at least somewhat shocking. But, the scribes and Pharisees perhaps could think of themselves as being righteous and appear as righteous in part because they relaxed God’s Commandments, making them more do‑able. Few people actually murder someone else, actually commit adultery, fail when they think necessary to get divorced, and maybe even swear falsely or fail to perform to the Lord what they have sworn. But, when Jesus corrects the Jewish leaders’ false teaching in those regards, widening the Commandments’ reach to their original intent, applying God’s law to His sinful people with its full severity, He indicted of their sin not only the scribes and Pharisees but also many other people, including us.
We may know other people whose lives outwardly appear to be righteous, or we may think of ourselves as being righteous. Perhaps we have not let either the Commandment’s original intent, their condemning also words and thoughts, reach us or the full severity God’s law be applied to us and so completely indict us of our sin. Or, if we do not so presume that we are righteous, perhaps we have been completely indicted of our sin but despair of God’s forgiveness, worry that His forgiveness is not more than sufficient for our sin. Or, if we are not at either of those extremes, perhaps we are somewhere in the middle, indicted of our sin and confident of God’s forgiveness but so confident of God’s forgiveness that we are not really struggling against temptation and sin, because we somehow think that we will be forgiven regardless of whether or not we do struggle against temptation and sin. As Jesus’s original hearers were suddenly and startlingly alarmed by Jesus’s teaching (ESL #5841), we should be so alarmed at the hell‑deserving depth of our own sin.
In today’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 30:15-20), God through Moses calls His people to choose not evil and death but good and life. Now, to be clear, God had first chosen them, redeemed them from slavery in Egypt, and brought them to the border of the Promised Land, where they could either turn away from Him and receive curses or walk in His ways and be blessed. God has similarly first chosen us, redeemed us from our slavery to sin with the holy precious blood and the innocent suffering and death of the God-man Jesus Christ on the cross, and put us in a position where we also can either turn away from Him and receive curses or walk in His ways and be blessed. God has not utterly forsaken us (Psalm 119:1-8; antiphon v.1); Jesus came to serve by giving His life as a ransom for all (Matthew 20:28). Jesus’s righteousness, which by far exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, is our righteousness, by grace through faith in Him, not because we struggle against temptation and sin but because of God’s great love, mercy, and grace when we do struggle against temptation and sin. When we turn from our sin and to the Lord our God with all of our heart and with all of our soul (Deuteronomy 30:10), then God forgives us of our sin, all of our sin, whatever our sin might be. And, so forgiven, we extend our forgiveness to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Together we are God’s field, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 3:1‑9). Through servants whom the Lord assigns, we come to believe and are watered, and the Lord gives growth. Such faithful servants of Christ are but stewards of God’s Word and Sacraments (1 Corinthians 4:1-2), God ultimately is the One Who teaches correctly, baptizes, absolves, and gives as real food and real drink the Body and Blood of Christ with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar, for the forgiveness of sins, for life, and for salvation. Yet, whether our brother or sister in Christ has something against us or we have something against our brother or sister in Christ (confer Mark 11:25), we should first be reconciled and then come and receive God’s gift from His Altar. For, in the same way that we fail to forgive or forgive those who sin against us, so God will fail to forgive or forgive us (Matthew 6:12; 18:15-35).
God’s Word is very near us, in our mouths and in our hearts, so that we can do it (Deuteronomy 30:14). God’s Commandments are not too hard for us (Deuteronomy 30:11), even properly understood. We are not angry and do not hold grudges, or we are liable to judgment for murder. We do not look at other people—male or female—with lustful intent, or we are liable to judgment for adultery. Married couples do not divorce and remarry in any case (confer Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18) but remain unmarried or else be reconciled (1 Corinthians 7:10-11), or are also liable to judgment for adultery. Apparently other than when required by the government (Large Catechism I:65-66), we do not take oaths at all but let what we say be simply “yes” or “no”, or we are liable to judgment for false witness. And, while we at least try to so walk blamelessly in the way of the Lord, with daily sorrow over our sin and trust in Him to forgive our sin, we also live in His forgiveness of sins—each and every sin—for all the times that we fail to so live, as we will fail.
God’s call on this Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany of the Lord to not be angry but to reconcile with one another, to not live in sexual immorality, to not divorce or at least not to remarry, and to not take oaths that we break does serve the romantic love that figures so prominently on Valentine’s Day. But, more importantly, as we heard, His correct teaching about murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths are more than “Iotas and Dots” that can pass from Holy Scripture as time goes on. For, when God’s law in its full severity condemns all sin, then God’s Gospel of the forgiveness of sin for the sake of Jesus Christ provides us its greatest comfort.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +