Grappling with Jesus’ hard sayings
Christians throughout history have struggled with the Sermon on the Mount—how to apply it, understanding what it is we are to believe and do because of it. Much of that difficulty comes from wrestling with the “hard sayings” of Jesus found in Matthew 5: 21-48. In this section, Jesus address six common beliefs taught by religious leaders but based on a poor understanding of God’s law, and then provides his own authoritative interpretation. We looked last week at the command to not murder and how Jesus applies this to the hearts of his people, calling them not only to refrain from the act of unjust killing, but to repent of unbiblical and demeaning anger from the heart.
This week, we’ll look at three hard sayings having to do with adultery, divorce, and oaths. These are, perhaps, the most discussed and debated portions of the Sermon on the Mount. They were the hardest to receive in Jesus’ day and they are the hardest to receive in our own. I think it’s why some pastors tend to avoid preaching the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. By this, I don’t mean to criticize others. These are sensitive matters that must be handled with care and discretion. In every congregation, there will be many who have been impacted by divorce, either as children of divorced parents, or as former spouses who have wronged their spouse or been wronged, abused, abandoned, or simply were unable to resolve marital conflict. Others have struggled or continue to struggle with besetting sins related to lust and wonder if change and growth is possible. We look at these statements of Jesus and wonder, where is grace? Where is Jesus’ compassion? Where is my hope if I’ve fallen short of his words?
To answer these struggles and questions, we need to start with how to interpret Jesus’ hard sayings. First, context: The sermon on the mount is Jesus’ teaching about what it looks like to live as citizens & representatives of God’s kingdom in a broken world. It’s not a new and harder law to determine admittance to God’s family. The leaders of God’s people had done two things that made Jesus very angry. First, they bent God’s law to make things easier for those with power, like husbands in his time who had all the power in marriage and were permitted by misapplication of the law to divorce for any reason. Second, the religious leaders enforced an “external” religion. They sought and praised outward obedience but neglected the weightier matter of discipling hearts that loved and followed God’s law from within.
Jesus addresses their abuse of God’s law by engaging in a Jewish legal form of argumentation called Midrash. Midrash is a commentary on how to apply God’s law—typical of the day. It includes both precise legal argument about allowed and disallowed behaviors (Halakhic argument) and expressive pastoral explanation of the meaning, values and ideas that underlie God’s law (Haggadic argumentation). Jesus’ hard sayings are chiefly the latter. His desire is that those who follow him would have God’s morality written on their hearts (to reference Jeremiah 31), not merely that their behaviors would align to the letter of God’s laws.
Jesus’ hard sayings do not provide a precise and comprehensive external law to be obeyed but rather express the moral heart of a person who follows Jesus. His sayings intentionally omit any qualification in order to disturb the complacency and permissiveness of his society. That’s why, on some of these matters, Jesus and the Apostles speak with greater clarity or an expanded perspective, even in the book of Matthew. It’s why, in the section of my sermon on divorce, I’ll be referencing Matthew 19 rather than Matthew 5. It’s a somewhat fuller treatment of the same subject but also is easier to understand with less explanation for people living in a different context and culture. We have to be careful, in seeking to obey Jesus, we do not take his words in these hard sayings and fabricate for ourselves a new external law to use as a club with which we can beat people, but rather receive them as an invitation to love what Jesus loves, hate the destructive sin he hates, and mourn sin’s consequences.
This isn’t one of the “easy” weeks, either for me as your pastor or for you as listeners and fellow laborers in God’s church. Jesus’ words are hard and I want to be careful that I’m communicating God’s grace and truth together, particularly for those of you who have struggled or who have endured the impact of sin in marriage. But it is never grace to withhold or gloss over God’s truth and his call to a radical heartfelt obedience. We don’t get to skip this. My prayer for you as we wrestle together with Jesus’ hard sayings is that we would embrace his costly grace in which he calls us to follow him, live as citizens of His kingdom in a broken world, and display by contrast with it the goodness of his design for marriage and relationships.
~Pastor Mark