6th Sunday after Epiphany(A): The Law of Life

6th Sunday after Epiphany: The Law of Life

Matthew 5:21-37

The Rev. Joseph Graumann, Jr.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross just so we would behave. I firmly believe that. With four law-heavy texts this week, one could easily stick to interpreting the rules. While they bear some explication, simply sticking to the “do’s and don’ts” of these texts could result in a proclamation that rings hollow in sanctuaries and hearts alike. With lots of law, what then of the Gospel? Moses tells the Israelites to “choose life,” and elsewhere James tells us that faith without works is dead. In this interplay between life and death, one can find a starting place for a meaningful and evangelical (i.e. Gospel-centered) proclamation.

Gustavo Gutiérrez’s book, The God of Life, makes a simple claim that roots what Protestants would call both law and Gospel in God’s identity. “God causes all that exists to be because God is the source of all things; God gives life because God is life,” he writes.^[1] With God as life, God the father can be seen as life-creator and Jesus Christ becomes life-redeemer. In his crucifixion, Jesus takes death upon himself, and his resurrection is the eternal triumph of life over death. Crucially, for our purposes, Gutiérrez writes, “Oppression in any of its forms means death.”^[2] Since God righteously defends life, God righteously opposes oppression, and since God have us life, we too oppose the same.

The authors of Deuteronomy illustrate more than they legislate. Though in the imperative, “Choose life” serves as a hearty reminder that the one who gave life and freedom is the one worthy of obedience. The law becomes more than a way to live but indeed a way of life.

Moses exhorts his people to keep the commandments as a kind of farewell, immediately after a renewal of the Covenant and before his death. Knowing his time is limited, he begs his people to see that the Law will preserve their lives, root out oppression, and foster peace among them. Gutiérrez writes, “The law or Torah must be put into practice; it is life because it is a way to God.”^[3] Because God is a God of life, and oppression deals death to the oppressed, the law will bring life to the people. Likewise, because the law brings life, God’s law is a gift of life.

In his Sermon on the Mount, the life-redeemer fulfills this Law of life. Yet, if God is a God of life, the abundant life Christ brings hardly means the death of the law. The law becomes similarly abundant, similarly expansive. A simple injunction against murder becomes an exhortation to peace and reconciliation. The prohibition of adultery is a call to a pure heart. Divorce, which was once permitted, is reinterpreted with the oppression of women in mind. Honesty is similarly abundant, wherein a vow becomes unnecessary if one’s daily word is true. Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, we encounter Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as a triumph of God’s righteous life over sin and death.

Elsewhere in his Sermon, Jesus commands his disciples to “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,”^[4] highlighting two main themes in Matthew’s Gospel. First is the eschatological reality of Jesus’ coming on earth. Jesus brings the kingdom of God to earth in his very person. Second is the righteousness of God in Jesus. If the kingdom of God is the locus where God’s law reigns supreme, Jesus’ arrival expresses the law’s fulfillment. Gutiérrez writes, “When Jesus speaks in Matthew’s Gospel of seeking the kingdom and righteousness of God, he is calling attention to the demand that the seeking implies.”^[5] So, then, the law becomes a mark of seeking God’s reign on Earth. The church seeks an eschatological reality by practicing the law here and now.

With this interpretive lens, a preacher has a little bit of grace with which to interpret the law. The God of life gives the law to bring life, not death, for people of all genders. Some interpret the command, “choose life,” as the prohibition of reproductive justice. Similarly, the Sermon on the Mount appears to proscribe divorce. Yet, with an eye to a God of life, and thus a law of life, one has freedom beyond the plain text. Divorce would have been a means by which a woman lost all protection in a society where she could not work or hold property. It would have negatively impacted her life. In situations of abuse or an unhappy marriage, marriage could be death-dealing. In line with a great many thinkers, we ask ourselves, “What brings abundant life?”

I find grace in this text because it does more than show us how to behave. It shows us who God is, who God makes us to be through Jesus. The law of God gives us a glimpse of the kingdom of God, as if that kingdom were an earthly country. “This,” it seems to say, “is what life will be like when God’s kingdom fills all things.” In that kingdom, both faraway and near, death is forever conquered by life. Murder, adultery, and lying are no more. Relationships are healed and whole. All of this because God is life, and God gives us life abundant.

The Rev. Joseph Graumann, Jr., is the pastor of Saint Stephen Lutheran Church in Marlborough, Massachusetts. He is a native of the Jersey Shore, and he thinks sand in his car is the mark of a summer well spent. Joe is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

 

 

 

 

^[1] Gustavo Gutiérrez, The God of Life, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 1, Kindle.

^[2] Ibid, 3.

^[3] Ibid, 6.

^[4] Matthew 6:33, NRSV.

^[5] Ibid, 103.