Sermon:
July 25, 2004
Sunday Night Alive  

Scripture:
Matthew 5:17-20

“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups—the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.” 

If you don’t already know, these are the words that open each episode of the popular television show, Law and Order. If we were to scan the TV Guide, we would begin to see a trend. Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Sundays at nine. The Practice, Sundays at ten. Crossing Jordan, Sundays at ten. CSI Miami, Mondays at ten. Judging Amy, Tuesdays at nine. Law and Order SVU, Tuesdays at ten. NYPD Blue, Tuesdays at nine. Blind Justice, Tuesdays at ten. The Shield, Tuesdays at ten. CSI New York, Wednesdays at ten. Law and Order, Wednesdays at ten. CSI,  Thursdays at nine. Crime and Punishment, Saturdays at ten. The Jury, Fridays at nine. JAG, Fridays at nine. And The District, Saturdays at ten.  

Scan the afternoon sections and you will find more of the same. Come on now, I know we’ve all paused—even if it was just for a moment—to watch Judge Judy, The People’s Court, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Mills Lane, Judge Hatchet or Judge Mathis. And in the late night’s channel surf— come on now, admit it—we’ve all stopped, even if it was just for a moment, to watch the action unfold when we heard that now-familiar tune, “Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do… what’cha gonna do when they come for you?” 

And just so you don’t think that this is some recent phenomenon, flip over to those rerun channels and you will see a lot of our old favorites. Hill Street Blues, Dragnet, The Rockford Files, Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote, Quincy, Matlock, Adam 12, Perry Mason—they are all there. They made cop and lawyer shows for everybody. For the ladies, Cagney and Lacy. For the eighties, there was CHiPs. GenXers had 21 Jump Street, while the disco dancers had Starsky and Hutch. Looking for a cop in a wheelchair? There’s Ironsides. How about for the guys without hair? Kojak. For guys who didn’t want to shave or wear socks, we had Miami Vice. And for all of us who deep down want to be cowboys, we still have Walker, Texas Ranger.  

As long as we have been watching the tube, there have been programs dealing with cops, criminals, lawyers and judges. What does this says about us? I guess it says that we like to see justice be enacted. We like to believe there is a system, a code, an ethic that will provide for safety, protection, morality and order. We like to see “bad guys” get caught and “good guys” ride into the sunset. We like to see played out on our TV screens the hope that the system of rules and laws we have created will do its job. If we simply obey what is written and follow the law of the land, then we too will reap the blessings of good, upright and law-abiding behavior. At the end of day, I guess we are hoping for some law and order.  

That is why this Jesus character is so difficult for us to grasp sometimes—and even more difficult to follow. A careful reading of the gospels doesn’t paint a picture of our Lord and Savior as a law-and-order man at all. If Jesus were to appear in one of our cop or court shows, it might be his face we’d see as the flashing lights cuffed and stuffed a young man and his gang of followers. 

Let’s face it. As far as the law of the land went, the list of charges against Jesus was long. 

“Jesus of Nazareth, you are charged with publicly associating with an unclean leper. You are in violation of the law. Please refer to Leviticus 13:2-14:57. What are you trying to do, create a public health crisis?” 

To which Jesus might reply, “But the man needed to be healed and nobody would help him. So I reached out to him. It was out of love that I broke the law.” 

“So? What’s love got to do with it?” 

“Jesus of Nazareth, you are charged with legal violation of the Sabbath. You can’t pick corn on the Sabbath. That is in violation of the fourth commandment. Don’t you know that? I guess that’s why the commandments need to be posted in all the schools. Come on, Jesus. You can’t just go around breaking the law.” 

To which Jesus might reply, “But my disciples were hungry and they are poor men. They did not know when their next meal would be. So out of love, I broke that law and let them eat.” 

“So? What’s love got to do with it?” 

“Jesus of Nazareth, you are charged with disobeying your parents, a direct violation of the fifth commandment. You did not honor your mother or your father when they came to you. You sent them away, saying you had a different family. Jesus, the family is the bedrock of our society and these laws are there to ensure that. What gives?” 

To which Jesus would reply, “I have been called to bring Good News to the poor, to feed the hungry and bind up the brokenhearted. They are my family, and out of my love for them, I broke that law.” 

“So? What’s love got to do with it?” 

“It doesn’t stop there, Jesus. The list is long. Defending an adulterer, touching a woman while she was in her cycle, not keeping appropriate fast days, touching dead people (I don’t care if Lazarus was a good guy). And don’t give me that love stuff. We are trying to run a country, a civilized society, a church with some standards here. And rules, well, they have to be maintained.  You can’t just go around breaking rules or changing traditions. Who do you think you are, anyway? God?” 

Jesus was not a law-and-order man. This fact would cause (and still does cause) a great deal of confusion, anxiety and even fear among those who claim to follow him. In every one of these instances just recounted, Jesus breaks religious and civil laws—laws that were recorded in the scriptures, God’s holy and inspired word. If one could so easily disregard God’s word, in the very of name God, it raises serious questions. What is the place of scripture in the life of the church? If scripture is not where we find our rules, laws and guidelines, where are we to go? If we are to take the scriptures seriously, how are we to know what do with what we discover in their pages? 

The freedom with which Jesus lived over and against traditional understandings of religious and scriptural law raised questions among his early followers as to the need for scripture at all.  (Interesting how so many of the questions stay the same, isn’t it?) What is the relationship between discipleship and observing scriptural law and guidelines? Isn’t it enough to be hard-working, tithe-paying, creed-saying people, just like the Bible says to be? Just follow God’s law and everything will be all right. Right, Jesus? 

That is why Jesus’ teaching in today’s scriptures is so important. Hear him answer the question about the place of scripture and law in the life of the church and how we are to use it in the context of our lives. He says: 

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 

Jesus does not abolish the law. He does not do away with scripture. In fact, Jesus declares that the truth embedded in the scriptures will stand the test of time and will be with us until the very end of time. The scriptures are one of God’s clearest revelations to us. We are to immerse ourselves in their pages. We are to know their story and let their story know us. I hope you all know that I consider the Testaments, Old and New, to be the central document of my life. In their pages are the secrets to life and the keys to salvation. And in our reading today, Jesus is clear, both to followers of his day and ours, that scripture is a central component to the lives of the faithful. 

But there is more to it than that. Jesus’ life makes that clear. While Jesus does not abolish the law, he does not merely affirm the status quo. Jesus came to challenge the way people read and used scripture. In our reading today, he commends his followers that unless their righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the crux of today’s message, and in it, the answers to the questions about how to read and use the scriptures. 

“Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.” It is in this statement that Jesus draws a comparison—a comparison between two ways to read and use scriptural law and two ways to live out your faith in light of what is found within it. “Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.” To understand this, we must remember who these Pharisees and scribes were. To put it simply, they were the church- going folk of their day. The Pharisees and teachers were the hard-working, tithe-paying, creed-saying people who knew their Bible inside and out. They were completely loyal to God’s law. They memorized chapter and verse and could quote it on demand. They knew what was required of them. They did their best to follow God’s commandments. They crossed their t’s and dotted their i’s with great care and precision. 

So what seems to be the problem here? Why is Jesus so critical of these pillars of the church of his day? It seems that these religious types (do you know any religious types?) were more interested in themselves than they were in God. Religion had become for them a means of self-glorification, so whatever light their lives were able to shine seemed to shine only for themselves. They used the Bible and threw around their knowledge of biblical laws to justify their disregarding, abusing, humiliating, disgracing, harming and hurting others. When asked that question, “What’s love got to do with it?”, these folks, with their Bibles tucked under their arms, would stare back blankly. It is to them, and to all of us who have the tendency to do the same, that Jesus says, “You are missing the point here.” It is to all who have ears to hear that Jesus warns, “Your righteousness, your reading of the scriptures, your living them out, has got to exceed this.” 

What’s love got do with it? Everything. In our reading today, Jesus gives us the key to understanding the scriptures, its guidelines, its laws, and the life it points us toward. Remember, he says, “I have not come to abolish the laws but to fulfill them.” Jesus says he has come to fulfill the laws, to embody the law, to make the scriptures come to life. Not to memorize them or quote them, but to live them out, in flesh and blood reality, in midst of real people and the lives they live.  

Jesus makes it plain here. The scriptures are to be obeyed, not for what they are in themselves, but because they reveal the very nature and will of God. The importance of scriptural study is not to bring about proper confession, but to result in changed lives. Jesus embodies the word. He is walking, talking, breathing scripture. He encourages his disciples to be the same. He is the Word, and those who will follow him are to live in a similar way. 

So then, fulfill what is written. Discover the core of the scriptures and live it out. And if you can’t find the core, get confused by the words, get lost in the language or history, or get tangled up about what to do, then Jesus says, “Look to me, for I am the Word become flesh and in my life, death and resurrection is the very key to understanding all that has been written in the Law and the Prophets. In my ministry you will discover the very core of what is contained in the scripture.” It is true. In Jesus we will find the compass that will always point us in the right direction. 

So what is at the core of our Bible that Jesus fulfills and encourages us to do the same? What does the compass that is his life point us toward? In Jesus we understand that the entirety of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, can be summed up in one word—one word that is the very essence of his life, ministry, death and resurrection. Come on, you know it. I know you do. We sing about it every year at Christmas.  

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign. 

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

Love. Love is at the very core of the scriptures. Love is the very nature of the God who the scriptures point us toward. Love is to be the very foundation of our lives.  

Let us be clear on what Jesus is saying here today. Read the scriptures. Read them thoroughly.  Teach them to others. But when we read them, make sure we have a compass handy. Make sure the arrow is pointing toward love, and then read away. 

At the end of day, Jesus says the entire scripture is summed up in the Law of Love—a love that, unlike the religion of the Pharisees, frees us from rigid moralisms and shallow religiosity. But, in what may be the hardest part for good ol’ church-going folks like us to accept, this Law of Love has few prescriptions, few lists of rules and no strict guidelines. Look within yourself, Jesus suggests. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Once we begin to do that, we discover what the Pharisees and religious types always struggle with: The Law of Love is not really a law at all. It is a way, a sign, a manner of being in relationship. It is a way of life. Love is the fulfillment of all that is contained in the Bible. 

So why is this so important to Jesus? Why does he want his followers to make sure that they have a compass with them when it comes to reading the Bible? Why is this so important to Jesus? 

You see, this issue hit pretty close to home for Jesus. It was there right from the start of his earthly life. You remember, don’t you? We tell the story every Christmas. Joseph is engaged to Mary, but discovers she is pregnant. There is going to be some confusion about who this baby’s daddy is. So what’s he going to do? Joseph is a good man, a righteous man, a man who wants to do the right thing. That’s great, but how does he know the right thing? What is the right thing to do?   

Many from his community, especially those religious types, probably told him, “Just do what the Bible says. You can’t go wrong if you do what the Bible says.” What about that for an answer? I know we’ve all heard it before. “Just do what the Bible says.” Well, Joseph knows what it says. From Deuteronomy 22: “She is to be taken out and stoned to death in front of the people.” That is what the Bible says.

Joseph is a good man, and he rises to a point that is absolutely remarkable for his day and time. He loves his Bible and he knows his Bible, and bless his heart for it. But he reads the Bible with a compass in his hand, a compass that points to the character of a God who is loving and kind. Therefore Joseph says, “I will not harm her, abuse her, expose her, shame her, ridicule her, or demean her value, her dignity or her worth. I will protect her.”   

Where does it say that, Joseph? In your Bible? I will tell you where it says that. It says that in the very nature and character of God. It is because Joseph read his Bible with his compass in his hand that Mary was able to have that baby—a baby whose very life would embody the scriptures Joseph learned to read and discern. Do you want to know why how we read our Bibles was so important to Jesus? It was personal. It was a matter of life or death. Reading the Bible is still personal and can still be a matter of life or death—just ask Jesus, just ask anyone who has been shamed because of divorce, any woman who has had her call into ministry questioned, any African American whose ancestry’s slavery or segregation was justified, any Jew whose persecution was minimized, or countless others who have been mistreated because somebody read their Bible without a compass. All of that can by justified by the book, you know. It’s all in there. It’s personal. It’s a matter of life and death. That is why it is so important to Jesus that we learn to read our Bibles differently than the Pharisees and all those religious types.      

So, what’s love got to do with it? Everything. It is the very fulfillment of the law and the prophets. So grab your Bible and pick up a compass. Go home and study the scriptures. But do more than just read them. Fulfill them. 

Note: The last example of Joseph and how he read the Bible was adapted from an illustration Fred Craddock used in a sermon entitled "God is With Us" in The Cherry Log Sermons.