The Inner Life

February 16^th, 2014      “The Inner Life”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Matthew 5:21-37 with Deuteronomy 30:15-20

          All this month we are studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel and our reading for this Sunday picks up right where we left off last week.  This morning’s reading is a section of teaching where Jesus deepens the understanding of God’s will for humanity.  In this series of lessons, Jesus gives an example of the traditional Jewish law regarding sin, and then takes it deeper, exposing the root of that sin in our lives.  Taken as a whole, these lessons reveal the importance of our inner life of faith.  Fair warning: we will spend most of this sermon outside of our comfort zones.

          The first issue that Jesus discusses is anger.  He says to his followers, “You have heard that you shall not murder, but I tell you that you should not even let anger fester in your heart.”  Jesus’ lesson is less about having anger, than about what one does with the anger that they have.  Anger is a natural human response to things in the world that threaten or upset us.  In the scriptures we read about both God and Jesus being angry at times.  Rather than a flash in the pan moment of justified anger, Jesus is warning against the holding and festering of anger in our hearts.

          We all know those people who are good at holding a grudge.  Perhaps we might hold a few of our own.  This is just the type of anger Jesus is warning us against, an anger that simmers in our hearts continually.  It is this anger that leads us to hurt the other person in subtle ways.  We begin to look down on the person, to call them names, and in essence, to not see their humanity anymore.  It is this anger that leads to resentment, and before we know it there is nothing we can do to return to a civil relationship with this person. 

Jesus is warning us that this type of anger destroys a relationship as much as murder does.  We might think that we are OK, since there are no outward signs of our sin.  But in reality, we are broken and in broken relationship with the people around us.  When we hold anger in our hearts, then the inner life we live poisons our outer actions. 

Jesus even warns us against calling other people “fools” or “idiots” as this lessens them as people in our eyes.  I would like to say, “I never do that”, but anyone that has ridden in a car with me on snowy roads knows that’s not true.  I might not call people “idiots” to their face but I certainly yell at them in their car.  Any parent knows that it only takes one time of a child mimicking you in the car to feel truly convicted.  My words of anger betray my inner spiritual landscape. 

Jesus teaches the disciples that they cannot have a proper relationship with God unless they have a proper relationship with each other.  They should leave their offering at the altar, go and heal the relationship with the other person, and then they will be able to properly worship God.  Jesus teaches us that even though we don’t murder, we still need to be on guard for hurting someone with the anger that we hold in our hearts.

          Jesus’ second lesson is about lust.  He says, “You have heard it taught that you shouldn’t commit adultery, but I teach you that you shouldn’t even lust after someone in your heart.”  Now we all know that we are biological creatures, and it is impossible to control what pops into our heads at certain moments.  Sometimes our bodies think things we don’t want to think.  Just like with anger, what Jesus is talking about here is what we do with these thoughts.  Jesus doesn’t warn against natural biological reactions, he warns against deliberate lusting after another person.  The Greek phrase translated “to look at” here can also be translated “to stare at” or “to leer.”  This is not simply glancing at a beautiful woman or man; this is about staring at people with the express purpose of fostering lustful thoughts in our hearts and minds.  This is about objectifying people. 

          When Jesus speaks, he sets it only in the male gender and that is really significant.  “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  At the time, when someone did commit acts of adultery, it was often the woman who was blamed, no matter what she did.  What Jesus teaches in this passage is radical.  Women were no longer held solely responsible for enticing men; rather, men are asked to control their own thoughts and urges.  In a strictly patriarchal society this would have been a very edgy thing to say.

          Of course in our own time and place, there is no end to lustful imagery presented to both men and women.  Jesus’ eyes would have been boggled by the images that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.  Sex sells everything and we see it on TV, in magazines, newspapers, the internet, everywhere.  Even at the Olympics, since when was ice skating supposed to be sexy?!?        

Once again, the sin of lust that Jesus is referring to is all about our inner spiritual landscape.  If we are spending time in meditation and prayer, considering the needs and struggles of others, then we are more likely to see the other as a whole person like us.  The sin of lust, while it may occur solely in your own mind, is no less sin since it objectifies another person. 

When we engage in lustful thinking, we refuse to see our neighbor as a whole person, and instead focus on specific body parts that arouse our own desire.  This behavior is dehumanizing and wrong.  Such that, Jesus warns a proper punishment would be for us to be separated from our own body parts, just as we separate people from their’s when we lust after them.  That’s why there is all that talk about cutting of hands and plucking out eyes.  Jesus teaches us that it is not enough to simply not sleep around, rather we will be held accountable for the sleeping around we do in our minds as well.  Jesus calls us to account for our inner life as much as our outward one.

          Jesus’ third lesson in our reading is about divorce.  Now this is a sticky one in our modern world, where half the people in any given congregation are divorced.  So let’s begin with a bit of background on divorce in Jesus’ time.  The rules of divorce were pretty lax in Jesus’ day; any man could get a divorce at any time for any reason.  If he didn’t like his wife anymore, he basically just signed a piece of paper and she was gone.  The problem was that the wife didn’t have any say in the matter.  Plus, in a society where only men could hold land or work, without a husband a woman would be unable to provide for herself.  If she were to marry again to find support, she and the new man could be charged with adultery.  What Jesus is teaching is a limit on this divorce practice.  Only in the case of unchastity is divorce permissible, he says.

          Once again, Jesus is referring to that inner life of faith.  How do we truly see the people around us, from our own spouse to the other married and single people we might encounter in any given day.  When God created humanity, God created us in a pair.  We were meant to be paired or married together as a binding agreement or covenant.  This theme of marriage is used to describe God’s relationship with Israel and Jesus’ relationship with the church.  This is God’s ordered plan for creation.  But, humans live in broken relationship, the selfishness of our inner lives is revealed in our outward actions.  And so we hurt each other and break these covenants we have made.  Jesus warns against the casual breaking of these vows.  These are not simply covenants to be thrown away at our whimsy he says; rather they are to be taken seriously before God.

          Now as your Pastor, I must tell you that I believe that there are times to take this covenant seriously and to work through our martial problems.  That is always the first and best choice.  But, at the same time, there are unhealthy unions that foster more broken relationships than healed ones.  There are marriages where people are repeatedly hurt and abused and I do not believe that it is God’s will that these covenants be maintained.  Sometimes, healing in relationships necessitates the breaking of the marriage bond.  But, just as Jesus warns, marriages are not to be thrown away; they are a binding contract before God that should be honored as much as possible for the health of both individuals.

          Jesus’ last lesson in this morning’s reading is about taking oaths.  Again, we need a little background.  In Jesus’ time, if you wanted your word to be taken as truth you would swear by something that would stand by your word.  It’s like when we were kids and you would use the language of “swear to God”.  Or like when people are on the witness stand and they take an oath over the Bible.  Lying in general is bad; lying under the oath is a punishable crime.  You get the idea.

          Jesus is teaching that all our words should be true.  We shouldn’t have to swear by anything, because everything we say should be truthful and reliable.  Our speech should be simple, our yes is yes and our no is no.  Again, we return to that theme of the inner spiritual life.  If we are fostering a healthy inner self and spirit then we won’t feel the need to lead others astray.  The truth of who we are will shine through everything we do and say. 

          So the challenge for us today is to ask, what can we do to cultivate a better inner spiritual life.  Well, there are lots of things, chief among them being prayer.  If we are a people grounded in prayer, then we will be a people who are just that, grounded.  We will be less swayed by the immediate emotions of anger, lust, or selfishness.  Times of intercessory prayer, when we remember others before the Lord, and times of silent prayer when we simply sit in the presence of God are imperative to cultivate a healthy inner spiritual life.

          Other spiritual disciplines are important as well.  From reading the scriptures for understand the teachings of God, to sharing the things that we have with the world around us, to attending worship regularly and being held accountable in a community of believers, there are many outward things we can do that will help foster the inner spiritual life. 

          The task for us today is to choose to do these things.  It takes time and energy to focus on our inner spirits and the world around us is constantly calling us away from God.  Like our reading from Deuteronomy, God has placed choices before us.  We can choose life, or choose death.  We can choose to follow God or we can turn and walk away.  Jesus’ lesson today from the Sermon on the Mount reminds us that it is not as easy as simply being mindful of outward action, we are called to mindful of our inner dialogue even more.

Throughout this reading, we find that Jesus is going to the root of our sins.  Where we might think that only the outward actions of our lives were liable to judgment, Jesus warns that we will be held accountable for even the secret thoughts of our hearts.  Your inner life is just as important, if not more important than the outward life you live for the world to see.  We need to discipline our intentions as well as our acts, because not only our behaviors but our attitudes and emotions also fall under the scope of the law.  We will be called to account for the whole of who we are and who we have been.

It is my prayer today that we would all strive for a healthier inner life.  And in the words of Deuteronomy “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying God, and holding fast to God; for that means life to you” (and to those around you).  Amen.