Josh Broward
January 23, 2011
In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a beautiful golden box as a wedding gift from the gods. The gods told her never to open it. However, on her wedding day, she was also given the beautiful/horrible gift of curiosity. This was all Zues’s cruel plan for personal revenge.
Eventually, Pandora could no longer keep herself from the box. She opened the lid, just a little bit, and all the evils of the world spilled out: greed, theft, lies, jealousy, sickness, death - every evil thing imaginable poured out into the air and into the world before Pandora could close her box.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus tells us that the real God has also given us a kind of box - the Bible.
Read Matthew 5:17-45.
So here is the Bible, this box that God has given us. It is beautiful and valuable, but how does it work? And how do we work with it? And how does the Old Testament fit with the New Testament? And how does the Bible fit with our lives today?
But here’s the real difficulty in understanding this box that we have as the Bible. Jesus seems to contradict himself.
First, Jesus expresses undying commitment to the Hebrew Bible. “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved” (5:17-18).
When Jesus says “not even the smallest detail … will disappear,” the word he uses is for the little dots, like the dot on an “i” or the dots (점) in Korean vowels. As far as Jesus is concerned, even the teeny, tiny stuff of the Bible is important. It’s hard to get more committed to the Bible than that.
But then, 60 seconds later, Jesus starts ripping into the law like a kid with a pair of scissors. In six successive points, Jesus says, “You have heard that our ancestors were told,” and he quotes something from the Hebrew Bible, always from the Torah (the “law” section). Then, Jesus says, “but I say” something different.
Once, Jesus reinterprets the law. “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (5:43-44).
Three times, Jesus adds to the law.
“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.”
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
“You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord.’ But I say ... Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.”
Two of those were from the 10 Commandments. Jesus said the 10 Commandments weren’t good enough!
But here is the really amazing part. Two times, Jesus flat out changes the law!
You have heard the law that says, ‘A man can divorce his wife by merely giving her a written notice of divorce.’ But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery.
Moses said a husband could divorce his wife if “she does not please him” or if he discovers “something wrong with her” (Deuteronomy 24:1). Some Jewish rabbis said that burning a meal was enough grounds for divorce. (If cooking food that is too spicy were grounds for divorce, Sarah could have divorced me 50 times.)
Jesus calls for a higher, healthier standard of marriage. Jesus says that faithfulness demands sticking with the marriage unless the other person commits adultery (Matt. 5:31-32).
That was a big, big step forward for woman-kind, but still ... was the Bible wrong? Jesus later says, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts” (Matt. 19:8). So Jesus can change what Moses said - in the Bible? Really?
OK, what about this? Moses was trying to keep people from going overboard in seeking revenge, so he said, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This concept was so important that it is in the Hebrew Bible three times (Ex. 21:24, Lev. 24:20, Deut 19:21)! But Jesus wipes all three of those aside and says, “Don’t resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also” (Matt. 5:38-39).
What?! Are you serious? OK, just for a minute, forget about whether or not we should actually “turn the other cheek.” Did Jesus just say that the Bible is wrong? Did Jesus just say that a command from the Bible, which was repeated 3 times, was wrong? Yeah, pretty much. It was good in its time. It kept the violence to a minimum. But Jesus says we’re past that now. It was good for its time, but it’s wrong for our time. Now we’re moving on to a higher morality, or perhaps moving down to the deeper morality which was at the heart of that command in the first place.
Notice that, for both of these texts (divorce and turn the other cheek), Jesus is bringing other texts to bear upon these texts. Jesus is reinterpreting these texts based on the deeper parts of the Bible. Jesus is saying that Genesis chapter 1 is deeper and more important than the Mosaic concession about divorce. Jesus is saying that God's love for every person is deeper and more important than this concession for getting limited revenge. The deeper more fundamental texts are reinterpreting the lesser texts.
So let’s review here. Jesus says:
1) He has not come to get rid of the Bible.
2) He has come to fulfill the Bible.
3) Even the smallest part of the Bible is here forever.
4) We can’t ignore even the little stuff in the Bible.
Then he says:
1) You guys just aren’t getting what the Bible is really talking about. Your teachers are misinterpreting and misapplying the Bible.
2) The Bible (even the 10 Commandments) didn’t go far enough.
3) Sometimes the Bible seems wrong, or at least different for today. (It's not really fair to say the Bible is "wrong" because the whole Bible is inspired by God. But at least some parts don't mean the same thing today. Some parts need to be reinterpreted based on the deeper parts of the Bible.)
Is anybody else confused, here?
First of all, I want to say, “Don’t fire me. I didn’t say this stuff. Jesus said it, and I’m just trying to understand it and to help us apply it.”
Second, I think we can find our keys to understanding this through two words. The first word is Torah. Remember Jesus has been quoting all of these Bible verses from the Torah.
We usually misunderstand the word Torah. Most of the time, Torah is translated into Greek or into English as “law,” and sometimes Torah definitely means law or specific laws. But Torah has a much richer meaning.
To start with, Torah is also the name of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and sometimes, Torah is even used to refer to the whole Hebrew Bible. This in itself shows us that Torah must mean something more than “law.”
Think about it. Jews of Jesus’ time calculated that the Hebrew Bible has a grand total of 613 “laws,” or specific commands from God. That sounds like a lot – 613! That would take a lot of memorization. But think about this. The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) has a total of 27,570 verses. If you figure that each command takes one or two verses, then “laws” make up only 3-4% of the OT and only 10-20% of the Torah.2
Most of the Bible, even most of the Torah, is story. How can a story be “law”? Imagine if that you go to a lawyer or a judge with a legal question: “Is it legal if I …” And she says, “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who kissed a frog and …” Huh?
Story can’t be “law,” but it can be “instruction” or “guidance.” And that’s what Torah is really all about. The Torah is God’s guidance on how to live. Dennis Bratcher explains it like this: “The OT concept of Torah is a lifestyle of nurtured and nurturing relationship with God and others... Torah is not primarily a book to obey or rules to follow; it is a path to walk, a way of life to lead.”3
The point of the Torah, and the Bible in general, is to teach us how to live God’s way, and really, the point is more than teaching. The point is to get us to actually do it.
The Biblical concept of Torah is complicated. Torah is living and active. It is both stable and changing. Torah is law and story and application and song. Torah is old and new. Torah is written and unwritten. Sometimes Torah is the written code of laws. Sometimes Torah is the fresh voice from God to the people
In the first chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah says, “Listen to the Torah of our God.” Then he goes on to tell the people that even though they are obeying the laws in a technical sense, they still aren’t obeying the Torah. In fact, Isaiah’s preaching is an actual embodiment of God’s continuing Torah or instruction on how to live. Isaiah says, “God doesn’t care about your sacrifices. Get your lives straight and help other people.” Isaiah’s preaching is a new part of the Torah of God.
Being committed to the Torah is being committed to the ancient voice of God preserved for us for generations and being committed to the present voice of God who interrupts our lives and speaks a new word. Being faithful to the Torah involves a commitment to the written words and a commitment to the Spirit of God who continually reinterprets those written words in our lives.4
In our passage today, Jesus expresses a deep commitment to the written Torah. But - like Isaiah - Jesus is bringing out more Torah, new Torah from God. Jesus is helping the people to get closer to God’s original intent with the Torah. Jesus is saying, “Look, this is what God really wants for us.”
Have you noticed any themes with our powerpoint images today? I’ve been hinting at our second key word throughout the sermon. Every slide has had one symbol in different forms. Heart.
It’s not enough to understand the Bible. The path of Jesus is to get the heart of the Bible into our hearts. We have to let the life that God really wants for us to come alive in our hearts. The Kingdom of God, the Torah, God’s dream for the world, the revolution of God – it starts in our hearts. It lives in our hearts, and from our hearts it moves out into our lives and into the world.
This is what Jesus means, “Your righteousness has to be better than the Pharisees and teachers of the law” (Matt 5:20). He doesn’t mean we need to take their 613 laws and make 614 or 6,014. Our righteousness has to be qualitatively different, deeper, from the heart. It’s Jesus’ life in us. It’s Jesus’ goodness in us. It’s Jesus’ love in us. It’s in our hearts, from our hearts.
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. … You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13-14). Salt does lots of different good things. It makes fires burn hotter; it makes meat last longer; it makes food taste better; but basically it makes the world better. Light is pretty much the same. It makes things grow; it gives life; it shows the way; it makes the world better. Jesus says, “You are salt and light for the world. You are God’s instruments of change in the world. You are God’s instruction or Torah to show the world how to live. So be salty. Live a bright life.”
Jesus said, “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see.” The Greek word for “good” here is not just “good in quality.” It is that kind of good, but it is also beautiful, attractive, alluring.5 It’s like Mother Theresa said, “Let’s do something beautiful together.” Jesus is saying, “Live a life so beautiful that the world sees what I really want. Live the Kingdom of God from the center of your heart. Live so that your very life becomes God’s Torah for all who see you. Live way of God so beautifully that the world will become captivated by the beauty of God’s love. Live the way of God so beautifully that others will find the way of God.”
So what does this mean for us and Jesus, for us and the Bible? Let me start explaining that by telling a story.
When I was in college, some of my friends used to sing a fun little kids’ song:
If I had a little white box to put my Jesus in, I’d take him out and smooch, smooch, smooch, and share him with my friends.
If I had a little black box, to put the Devil in, I’d take him out and SMASH HIS FACE, and put him back again.
Sarah keeps telling me that the theology of that song is not so good. Maybe she’s right, but it’s so FUN!
Here’s my point. We spend a lot of time taking Jesus and the Bible out of our little white boxes and putting him back again. We like to tell Jesus how wonderful he is (smooch, smooch, smooch) and then put him back in the box where we can contain him. We like to read our little Bible passage for the day or the week, and then put it back in its little box where it can’t disrupt our lives.
We have to honestly face that the Bible is a difficult book. Being Biblical is not simple because the Bible is not simple. The Bible reinterprets itself. It’s always adjusting, modifying, clarifying, stating a different angle on the Truth. This is beautiful, but also difficult.
But that doesn’t mean we abandon the Bible. We don’t just give up on the Bible because it’s hard. And, we don't just use it in a shallow way, like taking our daily God-vitamin. Instead, we go deeper into the Bible. We join the ongoing adventure of swimming into the depths of the Bible. We plunge our souls deep into the heart of God’s Torah, especially as revealed in Jesus. And there, deep in the heart of God’s dream for the world, the Spirit will shape his Torah into our hearts.
Like Isaiah in his time, and like Jesus in the New Testament time, God has a new word - a new Torah - for us. God has something new to say to us about how to be his faithful people in this time, our time. Together with each other and with the Spirit and with the Bible, we need to discover God’s new word for today.
It may not be an easy word. It may not be comfortable. It may not sound like the words we heard before. It may feel different than the church we grew up in. Once we start hearing God’s new word, we may want to put the lid back on the box. God’s new word will shake up the church. God’s new word will shake up Christians. God’s new word will shake up our world.
Like Pandora’s Box, we won’t be able to close the lid. Once the heart of the Bible starts getting into our hearts, the Spirit will break out in wild and uncontrollable ways in our world.
But here’s the difference, this explosion of the Spirit in our spirits will bring healing not destruction, love not hatred, peace not strife, generosity not greed, and good rather than evil.
God’s Torah is alive and active. Don’t shut it up in the same old ways of doing everything, the same old ways of thinking about everything. Let it out. Let the Spirit speak a new word into your life. Let the heart of God into your heart. If we do this, the Spirit might escape us. Once we let him out, we might not be able to stop the Spirit. Things might get out of control. It might be dangerous to be this Biblical.
Make it so, God! Make it so!
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