(Audio)
I tell you,
unless your righteousness surpasses that
of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
The Pharisees were more concerned about the appearance of righteousness than the substance. They were fastidious in keeping the ceremonial law but their hearts remained more or less untouched. They still experienced forces like pride and greed as primary motivations and merely covered over these with external obedience. They exploited what they perceived to be loopholes in the law to do what they wanted to do anyway. They hoped to hide the true depravity of their hearts with all the varied minutia of their religious rituals. This was in fact tragic. The law was meant to be a powerful force of transformation. But when approached merely from a superficial point of view, concerned with the details, but not with the underlying principles, it did nothing to liberate them from domination by sin. Worse, it made them believe themselves to be righteous, to believe that they had no further work that needed to be done.
The law was good and remains good when a person has faith. Christians, no less than Pharisees, face the temptation to focus on externals while neglecting the need for inner transformation. We too look for loopholes, for the least amount we can do to still get a passing grade. We too allow ourselves to cherish and entertain impure motives while showing ourselves to the world as a picture of devotion and purity.
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment,
and whoever says to his brother, Raqa,
will be answerable to the Sanhedrin,
and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
The initial stirrings of an emotion like anger are in fact beyond our control, and they are therefore not blameworthy. But how we respond to those initial stirrings is in fact a ball in our court. It is not enough to avoid violence toward one who has angered us. We convince ourselves that we don't have a serious problem with sin by thinking things like, 'At least I never killed anyone.' But we are nevertheless willing to cherish and meditate on negative thoughts about others. We even give voice to those thoughts in gossip and slander. By the things that we do choose to actively will we shape habits that make us more likely to be angry the next time. Those habits in turn will give more force to that anger and make it harder to restrain our acting on it.
The first step of responding to the initial stirrings of an impulse to an unjust anger is to control the way we speak about it. Rather than a story of judgment against the other we can tell ourselves the best story we can imagine to justify them, remembering that they are God's beloved son or daughter. In addition to speech we can take positive action in response to a perceived wrong. We can pray for our persecutors, just as Jesus commanded. We can actively initiate reconciliation and work toward the restoration of relationships even if part of us is convinced that the fault is not our own and that it is therefore not our problem.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.
Hearts that cherish grudges, that entertain judgments about others, or that gossip about others and slander them, even if perhaps smiling at them when they are present, are still hearts in need of conversion. In heaven we will not be sitting and stewing over past wrongs done to us. And this will be true more because of what happens in us than in others. In order to be prepared to enjoy the life of the blessed we must learn to allow God's grace to work an inner transformation in us here and now, to give us more fully the new hearts he has promised.
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court.
Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge,
and the judge will hand you over to the guard,
and you will be thrown into prison.
Amen, I say to you,
you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.
It may be that we have not only fooled others with our external ritual piety but even ourselves. We may not realize the degree to which we allow ourselves to cherish and cling to motives that are not fit for citizens of the Kingdom or the way we have allowed such motives to dominate our thinking and infect our speech. If so, we will always feel like a house divided even if our external actions still appear to conform to the commandments. But the Lord is not asking us to receive new hearts because it is hard or because he is mad at us. It is rather that it is so much better to have such hearts, so much more free, and he wants that blessing for us.
Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked?
says the Lord GOD.
Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way
that he may live?
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