And you are probably wondering, what’s with Buzz?
If you were with us this summer, our theme was “A Return to Civility” and we focused on the Ten Commandments.
But, while civility may keep society intact, it is the minimum. Have you ever heard someone comment, at least they were civil? That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. And if you are told to “keep it civil”, it doesn’t sound like a loving caring relationship.
Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, “The great thing about civility is that it does not require you to agree with or approve of anything. You don’t even have to love your neighbour to be civil. You just have to treat your neighbour the same way you would like your neighbour to treat your grandmother or your child.”
And while we shouldn’t stop with civility, we need to start with civility.
300 years ago, Samuel Johnson wrote, “When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of a return to kindness or decency.”
Over the next six weeks, our theme will be “To Civility and Beyond”, and we will be looking at how Jesus’s teachings start with civility but take us beyond that to a life of love and respect for one another. You might say that Jesus’ teachings were Lightyears ahead of the law.
Jesus knew the importance of civility, and who that began with the teaching of the law, and so we begin with Jesus making this remarkable statement. Matthew 5:17 “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.
But did he really mean it? Can those words really be coming from the mouth of Christ? The same Christ that Paul wrote about in the book of Romans, where he said Romans 10:4 NIV Christ is the end of the law.
If you think about it, Jesus was executed for breaking the religious law. He didn’t follow the prescribed hand washing instructions. He healed the sick and allowed his apostles to pick grain to eat on the Sabbath. And then, he claimed to be God.
And yet here is the same Jesus speaking with reverence about the law of Moses. In the next verse, Jesus tells us Matthew 5:18 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.
Now the New King James Version is a little more poetic when it says Matthew 5:18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
It’s not as clear as the newer versions are, but it’s prettier.
So, what are jots and tittles? Glad you asked. The Jot was the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet also known as an Iota. Do you ever wonder when you say “That doesn’t make one Iota of a difference” what an iota was? An Iota looks like an apostrophe. Here is a picture of an Iota.
The tittle on the other hand was like a serif, you know the squiggly bit on a letter that makes it different then another letter. Let me illustrate, this is an “O” this is a “Q” and the bit at the bottom is a tittle. And everybody goes “Ahhhhhh”.
And so, Christ says not even something as small and insignificant as these two marks would be removed from the law by him.
Jesus tells those who would follow him that they can’t skip being civil. They can’t just dismiss the Law and say they are under grace. There was a reason we were given the law.
What is the Law of Which Jesus Speaks?
Well, in order to understand what Jesus was saying, it would help if we knew what Jesus was saying. So, what was the “Law”?
1) The Ten Commandments
2) The first five books of the Old Testament, what is often referred to as the Pentateuch or five scrolls.
3) The Law and the Prophets was referring to what we now call the Old Testament. And that is what Jesus said would not pass away.
But there was also a fourth meaning of the “Law” and that was the Oral Law or Scribal Law.
And it was this last one that Christ and Paul attacked. In the Old Testament there are very few rules and regulations and many great principles. Well, to the Rabbis that wasn’t enough, they would say that if it wasn’t there explicitly, then it was there implicitly. And so, the Rabbis said that out of the law, it must be possible to deduce a rule for everything.
For example, the Fourth Commandment tells us, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” That is a principle, it doesn’t give us detailed instructions.
So, the religious teachers asked, “Ok, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. How do we keep the Sabbath holy? Well, by not working. So, what is work? Carrying a burden would be work. So, what is a burden? Glad you asked.”
Here is a Rabbinical definition of a burden “Less than a burden is food equal to a dry fig, enough wine to fill a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put on a wound and enough oil to anoint a small member.”
And so, if something doesn’t fall into those categories is against the scribal law to carry on the Sabbath.
So, what about an artificial limb, a broach or necklace, a wig or false teeth? Do you see the bondage that was created there?
The scribal law or the Mishnah is eight hundred pages long in its English translation. The Talmud, or book of the law, contains seventy-two volumes. That is not the law that Jesus was referring to.
The Ten Commandments are a summation of the law of the Old Testament, and those ten can be summed up as repent and love God and love others.
Christ said that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. The Greek word used here means to level up to the top or to complete something.
God had been speaking to his people through the law and prophets for 4000 years, he wasn’t suddenly about to say, “opps I changed my mind, let’s start over.”
Which is why Jesus told us in Matthew 5:19 So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Christ wants us to know that he’s not changing the rules in the middle of the game.
So, the first thing we need to understand is that the law is necessary, and the second thing is that you are not exempt from it, just because you’re a Christ Follower.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.
We are able to do anything, because Christ can forgive anything, but let’s not get into the mind-set. The word of God says in Romans 6:1–2 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
Now keeping the law means keeping the laws of the land as well as the laws of God, and in the same way, if you don’t agree with them, you have every right to break those laws. And society has every right to punish you for breaking them.
In the early days of the Wesleyan Church, the founders of our denomination disagreed with slavery and the laws surrounding slavery. Part of those laws said that it was illegal to help slaves escape, that would be on the same level today as someone who helped your car to escape.
That’s called stealing now, and it was called stealing then. But that didn’t prevent many Wesleyans from helping slaves escape to the Northern States and Canada. And while they may have been able to justify what they were doing; they were breaking the law, and they were willing to accept the consequences of their actions if they got caught.
A hundred and twenty years later Martin Luther King Jr. said, “One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
As part of their commitment to civility, Christians preserve world order by upholding the laws of the land to prevent decay. If the laws are unjust, the Christian may choose to break them, but that doesn’t mean they are free from paying the price for breaking them.
But the question remains: why? Why are there rules? Because, that’s why. Why are there rules today? Same reason to protect you and to protect others. That is why you aren’t supposed to drive when you’ve been drinking, why you aren’t supposed to eat raw hamburger, and why you aren’t supposed to sleep with everyone you meet.
Too often people look at the rules that God has put in place and decide that He does it because He’s a spoil sport, He doesn’t want us to have any fun, He just sits up there in Heaven snickering because of the rules He’s put in place. That couldn’t be any further from the truth. God put those laws in place for our benefit and for our protection.
The Law reflects God’s Love
Within God’s law there are laws that are laid down for people’s Physical Benefit: For example, Leviticus 11:7 The pig has evenly split hooves but does not chew the cud, so it is unclean.
They were also told they couldn’t eat other animals or reptiles or fish because most of those critters were yucky. The technical term was unclean, but it means the same thing. 3000 years ago, it was difficult to cook pork the right way to kill the parasites that live in it.
We know today that there are certain times of the year that you can eat shellfish and certain times that you can’t. We can read about it on social media or hear it on the radio but then, it was just safer to say “Don’t eat this stuff.”
Other rules are set down for our Social Benefit: Leviticus 20:10 “If a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death.
Don’t know if that was a deterrent, but it certainly cut down on repeat offenders.
Leviticus 19:11 Do not steal. Do not deceive or cheat one another.
Rules keep society from disintegrating. They keep family together. They protect us from each other.
It was Edmund Burke who said, “When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.”
Other rules are for our Emotional Benefit: Exodus 20:17 “You must not covet your neighbour’s house. You must not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.”
There are issues like covetousness, hatred and lack of forgiveness that lead to a lack of civility and will destroy our character. And so, there are rules that deal with these issues.
There are also rules and regulations that are there for our Spiritual Benefit: There are rules against worshipping idols Leviticus 26:1 “Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars, or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them. I am the Lord your God.
There are rules against worshipping other gods Exodus 34:14 You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.
This particular section even deals with how much we are supposed to return to God Leviticus 27:30 “One tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord and must be set apart to him as holy.
To be truthful we don’t know why God required some things, maybe for the same reason that we sometimes require things as parents and so we have the Just Because Rules: Leviticus 19:19 “You must obey all my decrees. “Do not mate two different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two different kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven from two different kinds of thread. How come? Just because.
There lesson there that is lost to us, but it wasn’t lost for the Israelites. Remember, the bible was written for us, but it wasn’t written to us.
Some rules cross over into several areas. Leviticus 18 almost exclusively deals with sexual issues. Issues which we would say were provided for our social wellbeing. Without regulations concerning marriage etc., the family unit begins to fail, and we are seeing the results of that in Canada today.
However, they also are there for our emotional health as well. Which can be attested by the devastation that is felt when you discover your spouse has been cheating, or even the damage done to yourself when you break your wedding vows.
You understand that you will pay. My father used to tell me that if I wanted to dance I’d have to pay the fiddler. Solomon says something similar in Proverbs 6:27–28 Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire? Can he walk on hot coals and not blister his feet?
By the way, those verses deal specifically with the consequences of adultery, check it out for yourself.
But the rules governing sexual conduct are also there for our physical good, the physical consequences of promiscuity cannot be ignored.
Whether it is unwanted pregnancies or STDs there are many things that could be eliminated by following the rules.
When Christ came and offered himself up as a sin offering for each of us, he made many of the laws in Leviticus concerning offerings and the priesthood irrelevant. But there are rules that govern our personal behaviour that still stand, and I don’t think I need to tell you which are which, I think you can figure that out on your own.
However, simply being legal isn’t enough. The motive under which the religious elite of Jesus’ day, lived was to satisfy the law.
Everything was aimed at doing what was specified in the law. Theoretically, a person could say, “I have done all that is required by the law.”
Our Response to the Law reflects Our Love
The difference in the life of the Christ Follower our motive is not fulfilling the law, it is love.
We seek to satisfy God’s will not so that we have fulfilled the law, but because we love God.
For the religious leaders 2000 years ago, and for some people today, the aim is simply to satisfy the law of God. To make sure that you have dotted all the i and crossed all the ts. But for the Christian, the Christ Follower, the goal is to show our gratitude for God’s love and salvation.
Now for some, grace is summed up by the words of Augustine, who supposedly said “Love God and do as you please.”
But that doesn’t work, because when you truly love God, you don’t do what you want, you do what he wants. When we see the love that God sets before us then we seek to answer that love with reciprocal love. And that’s why Jesus said John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.
He didn’t say if you respect me as a teacher, obey my commandments. Or if you acknowledge me as God, obey my commandments. Instead, he said, “You’ll obey me if you love me.”
Respect and fear will only take you so far. It will be love that will take you the rest of the trip.
In verse 20 of our passage, Jesus says something that must have scared the snot out of his disciples. Matthew 5:20 “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
Now that’s a pretty heavy trip. If there was one thing these guys did right, it was keeping the law, no matter how minute.
Remember when Jesus told them Matthew 23:23 “. . . For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, . . .”
In order to keep the law on giving they were careful to give 10% of everything. Their income tax refund and the free coffee they won during roll up the rim.
I would doubt very much if there were any of us here today that our outward righteousness would come even close to the righteousness of these guys. However, I trust that in motive that our righteousness will outshine even the Pharisees. You see again, we need to go beyond the law and not just meet it but fulfil it and cram it full of our love for God.
I hope that we can see beyond the law to see people and I hope that we can see beyond our own righteousness to our reason for being righteous and that is our love for Christ. And so, Christ gives us examples of what he means. The law says you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce, you shall not lie, and you shall love your neighbour.
Each of these five statements in one way or another symbolizes the Jewish society in which Christ was raised. Each of these five statements was part of the Mosaic Law laid down to guide the people of Israel. There was behind each statement a purpose and that purpose was to hold together a civilization, to keep it from deterioration, to prevent it from dissolving into chaos, and to allow it to govern itself.
What these basic five laws as laid down here did was to act as salt for society in order to maintain civility in society. The Ten Commandments and Mosaic Law were not intended for a redeemed society, they were to prevent an unredeemed society from tearing itself apart.
Often, we think of the “Ten Commandments” as being Christian principles, but the same guidelines can be found in most civilizations around the world and throughout history. Without these principles society and everyone in it would destroy themselves. And Christ is saying that when we have been touched by his love and his grace that even more is expected of us then what is expected of everyone else. That when we fulfill the law that we become salt and light to the world.