Matthew 5: 17-20

            Carolina still has a law that no work may be done on Sunday -that concludes today's sermon. In Alabama, bear wrestling is prohibited - that's B-E-A-R. In Arkansas, there is a state policy that emergencies will be held to a minimum. And in Georgia, you have a right to beat somebody up if you have been provoked by "fightin' words.'" I hope pointing out dumb laws doesn't qualify as "fightin' words.'"

            Those are state laws - there are also hundreds of local laws that grab your attention - things like not tying your goat on a busy street, and, quite understandable laws outlining the fines for breaking public spittoons. And we can be reasonably sure that every law on that list served a purpose when it was legislated. We can be just as sure that when you take a law out of its context, it quite often doesn't make much sense, and might even qualify as a dumb law.

            This comes into play when we read the Bible. As I'm sure most of you know, the Bible has a lot of laws in it, especially in some of the earlier books, like Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Every one of those laws had an important purpose when it was first implemented. But many of them, when you take them out of that context, don't make much sense today. It's not that we just disregard them- it's that we understand they were written for a different social setting.

            For example, one of the most repeated laws in the Bible is, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk." That law is repeated in several different places. I can truthfully say that it is a law I have never been tempted to break. But to be so frequently repeated, it must have been important at one time - nobody quite knows why. The Bible also says, "You shall not plow with your ox and your ass together." I don't mean to brag, but I've never broken that one either. But, at one time, it was important to have a law about it. Now here's a law I have broken - the Old Testament law, as most of you may know, prohibits the eating of pork. We disregard that law because we understand that the social setting has changed. It was an important law at one time for some reason, but the need for the law has changed..

            On the other hand, the Bible has many laws that are obviously true in any context. The Ten Commandments fall in this category. Every society would gain by applying these: Honor thy father and thy mother; Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not steal; and so on. These are laws that have formed the basis of many, many legal systems. When you start to interpret them, you find it's not so simple. (Someone has said that the United States has 35 million laws on the books to try to enforce Ten Commandments.) But, in themselves, the wisdom of the Ten Commandments is timeless and unquestionable. Some of the other laws surely fit into that category.

            Our problem is knowing which ones. I'll lift up one of the most obvious and controversial examples that we are grappling with today - the biblical restrictions against homosexuality. There are perhaps a half dozen places in biblical law where homosexuality is prohibited. The question is, do we count those references as examples of socially conditioned laws that don't mean the same when you remove them from that setting - such as plowing with your ox and your ass together, or eating pork - or do we consider them as timeless wisdom in the same category as the Ten Commandments? Obviously, there are people with strong opinions about that on both sides in the Christian Church today. And I don't expect that will be resolved in my lifetime. The tragic thing is, many people are being deeply hurt while the Church is trying to figure these things out. And I wonder if God's heart isn't breaking as well.

            It may be some comfort to know that these questions about the law are not new. They were perplexing people from the very beginning of the Church. The apostle Paul taught that followers of Jesus are free from slavery to the law. The law was our custodian for a period of time, said Paul. But now that Jesus Christ has come, we are saved by the grace of God, and freed from having to follow every tiny little law. And it seems that as soon as Paul wrote that, it was misunderstood. He had to write chapters to explain that, "Oh, by the way, that doesn't mean that we can just live however we choose, and disregard all law. We can't just go around breaking the law now just because we're saved."

            And there were groups of people who were saying just that. There's a name for them - they were called the 'antinomians' - people who believed that they were set free from all laws, could do whatever they wanted, and Christ would save them. And that was part of what was being taught when Matthew sat down to write his Gospel. And that is the background to these stunning words from Jesus in an early chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew. This is what Jesus said about the law:

            "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one iota, not one dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." And then this line which must have knocked people over. If there were two groups that did know and teach and carry out the law, it was the scribes and Pharisees. No one could try harder than they did. But here's what Jesus said: "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

            At this point, many of those listening to Jesus would just scratch their heads and walk away; Jesus was talking nonsense. Nobody could exceed the scribes and Pharisees in applying the laws. But the people who didn't walk away - the ones who stayed and listened - they were the ones who might have begun to understand that Jesus was talking about a different kind of law - the law of the heart. And over the next few weeks, as we read on in Matthew's Gospel, we're going to see how Jesus applied the law of the heart to describe a whole new recipe for deep and joyful life.

            Here's the bare fact we can learn from the scribes and the Pharisees - the one that I should bring all of us up short. You can follow all of the commandments - cover all of the bases - do everything that is required - and totally miss the righteousness of God. You can be an expert on the laws, and do them all, and still be a mean-spirited, hypocritical person who plots to put Jesus Christ to death - that's what the Pharisees

did - because they didn't understand the law of the heart.

            People might say, "Gee, now that Jesus has come, do I have to follow all those picayune laws?" Jesus says, "No, you have to do more than that. You have to desire with your whole being to please the one behind the laws - to want to have a godly heart, to want to follow the law out of joy and devotion, rather than duty. It is nothing short of a total change of heart. A new attitude inside.

            Here's what that would look like if we applied it to some of our civic laws: what if instead of driving ten miles over the speed limit, using our cell phones, and watching ahead for police cars - we drove under the speed limit, and put the cell phones down, because in our hearts we don't want to hurt somebody in an accident? Or what if, instead of doing everything possible to find every loophole and withhold every dime from the government that we can, we paid twice what we owe to the I.R.S., because we love our country and want to profess our patriotism?

            I don't know anybody that thinks that way, but that's exactly the spirit Jesus is talking about when it comes to following the commandments of God. If you truly love God, then following the law is a privilege - Psalm 119 talks about what a delight it is to live under the law of the Lord. Jesus is talking about a love in the heart so deep that you don't just want to cover the bases to get to heaven - you want to be like God. You want to be so transformed inside by the spirit of God, that following God's law is nothing but sheer delight - to love people the way he loves them.

            There are a lot of Pharisees around today. There are a lot of people who want to tell you that God spends a lot of time fretting about whether you are following this or that rule, this or that lifestyle, this or that religious practice - you can only be saved if you do this, or if you say this, or if you believe this, or if you live like this. Don't get me wrong - what you do and say and believe and live is important - not one iota or dot of the law changes, says Jesus. But there's something beyond that law - there's the desire to love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's what Jesus talked about. And then he died on the cross to show us how deep that love can go.

            And that's where it begins for us. How will we live in this world to reflect hearts that know that Jesus died on the cross to save us? As we go about our week at home or work or school or wherever, hopefully none of us will be fined for breaking any spittoons, or wrestling any bears - and, for heaven's sake, don't say any 'fightin' words.' But beyond that, maybe this Lenten season is a good time to try to reflect in some new way the love of the one who died for us - that is the law for a follower of Christ. Not as easy to legislate; not as easy to measure - but God will let us know if we are getting it. The test question is, "Am I showing the love of Jesus right now?" If you can truly answer Yes, then you're on the Way.