Commentary on Lectionary for February 13, 2011

Epiphany 6A

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119: 1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37

If there ever was a clear statement of conditional love, it is here in the book of the second law, Deuteronomy 30:16: “If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.” IF!…

It seems the equation is to choose life by adoring and serving the God of Israel, and adoring Him means to observe his law. To do otherwise is to choose death. And this passage today in worship is followed by the longest Psalm in the Psalter—176 verses—and every one of them contains a reference to—guess what?—The LAW! Psalm 119 is a meditation on the Torah.

For us Americans, the law is often looked at as constraining our freedoms. We “lay down the law” to our children. We seek to change the law or have it interpreted in our favor. We want to lay the law on criminals and have them prosecuted “to the fullest extent” of it. But Psalm 119 is a paean in praise of the law. It’s seen as a great gift of God; it cries out for full commitment to it. It is a point of pride to keep one’s eyes fixed on it. To find the law is to find God. With the law in your mind and in your practice, you know where you are and in what direction you are going.

The law enables us to live together; it can elevate our living together to another, more spiritual plane. We fear the chaos that can result from anarchy. Maybe that’s why Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 is so upset that the Corinthians are quarreling with each other. He accuses them of acting just like everyone else in that culture, instead of living according to the Spirit, as Jesus made possible and as he (and Apollos and Cephas) preached.

But the truly amazing reading today is the one from Matthew, still within the Sermon on the Mount. What’s amazing is that Jesus changes the law. He lays out a vision for a community (a kingdom, if you will) that considers anger as bad as murder, and the oppression of males over females as unacceptable, and abrogates any need to take oaths, because this new community is built on honesty and integrity.

A new law has just been promulgated. Only how do we reconcile it with unconditional love? One answer is to consider as the Psalmist did, that this new law is also a place to meet God, to achieve happiness, to experience love and all the joys of family. And to those of us who have not been faithful to Jesus’ new law, the answers may be in the story he told of the Prodigal Father, or in his own actions on the cross.

We are only headed in the wrong direction if we keep walking that way.