Matthew 5:21-37
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
Did you ever notice that most of our worship services begin with a kind of confession of sins and the season before us, Lent as we observe it, also emphasizes confession of sins and repentance? There is a reason for that. It is not because you and the other people of St. Peter’s are worse or in more need of confession than everyone else; you are not worse and you do not need it more than everyone else. But you do sin. (We all sin!) Jesus made that very clear in today’s Gospel as he increased the level of culpability, let’s say, to that of murder for anyone who simply gets angry; Jesus wants us to understand that to God one sin is as bad as the other. Do you understand what that means? It means that when I am angry at that driver who cut me off on the road, and when I look at an attractive woman a little too intently, and when I take a vow of any kind that I do not keep, I am sinning, I am breaking God’s Commandments and there is no grading of sin from bad, to worse, to very bad, to unforgivable; sin of any kind is simply very bad. So, are you angry with someone this morning? Have you been looking a little too intently at someone, not your spouse? Are you a little too lax in keeping your pledges/vows or in telling the truth? Yes or no? You can tell me; I’ll admit that I have sinned and am surely deserving of God’s judgment and punishment; my guess is that you are deserving of this as well.
Deserving! Jesus wanted everyone to understand that they were all deserving of God’s punishment. The church, as did Jesus, continues today to feel the need for each of us to be convicted of our sin. That is why confession was so important to Jesus and why it is so important in today’s church. Think about it, if we do not recognize that we are sinners, what would it matter to us that Jesus went to the trouble of suffering and dying for the forgiveness of our sins? Who would care? In our world, there are too many people who do not care in the least, who have no concept of personal or corporate sin, who live by the philosophy that the “ends justify the means”, and who do not worry about anyone other than themselves or at least their own goals and expectations. We all know people who are like this; many of them are in our prisons, many are involved with organized crime, yet others are involved with big and even small business and still others are involved in our country’s politics and government; the world is loaded with people who believe things like “might makes right” and “my way or the highway” and “the truth is, what we make it to be”, although I have to admit, that within big and small business and within our government there are also those who are well-meaning and caring individuals who understand sin and want to be a light to the world, and who try to do what is right and good and loving. But this is not about politics or business; Jesus was making a very important point for all people and that point is, bad is not limited to bad people: no one is good; no one is able to stand before the Lord our God and say that he or she is without sin, no one. And it is not just Jesus looking for humility; Jesus wanted and still wants everyone to know and understand that they are, by their own merit, undeserving of God’s love; and that everyone is in need of God mercy and forgiveness. Knowing that we are sinners, changes everything about us; and because we know that we are sinners, we can seek out better ways to live; knowing that we are sinners we can look for help in the form of guidance and forgiveness; help that Jesus, because he loves us, is very willing to send our way. Again, what would it matter that Jesus died for our sins, if we did not see anything that we did as sinful, if we did not recognize our sin and our need for Jesus’ forgiveness?
Repentance is not a way to earn Jesus’ forgiveness; repentance is simply the acknowledgement of our need for Jesus’ forgiveness, a thing that (I should remind you), has already been offered to us. It is truly amazing; it is a wonderful thing; before, even, we know or recognize our sin, before we are convicted of our sin, Jesus is here with us, forgiveness in his hand, offering it to us, like a precious jewel, ready to give it to us, and offering to us through his forgiveness and love, peace of mind and hope for salvation. Nothing in Jesus’ message was said simply to make us feel bad, or feel guilty. All of what Jesus said was designed to convict us of our sin so that we would freely receive Jesus’ forgiveness; maybe even appreciate what Jesus has already done for us. That is why the part of the service that we call the “Confession of Sins” always ends with a statement of absolution for your sins. In today’s Gospel reading, unfortunately, the forgiveness part does not appear, primarily because our reading is long and what we read is just a portion of a much longer story, but we should not overlook all that Jesus spoke about God’s forgiveness and love, and we should not ignore Jesus’ many acts of healing and feeding and forgiveness and love, including Jesus suffering and his crucifixion for us. Even from the cross, in his time of suffering, Jesus called upon God to forgive his executioners and again from the cross Jesus forgave the criminal who shared a similar suffering.
Jesus, by his suffering and death paid the price for your sins, my sins, everyone’s sins, so that you and I and others do not need to suffer God’s punishment.
Sin and punishment are not really the point of Jesus’ message. Just as the point of the Confession of Sins is not about making us feel bad, its point rests in the absolution, so the point of Jesus’ message is all about forgiveness, it is about God’s love and mercy, it is about God’s hope that we will grow into a relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. A child grows up depending on his/her parents; eventually the child becomes an adult, feeling no need for his/her parents, it is only when the new adult experiences struggle, maybe failure and admits to the difficulties of life that the child is able to form an adult relationship with his/her parents. Similarly, it is through confession and the other struggles of life that we are able to build a strong relationship with God. A relationship of love, trust and faith.