Matthew 5:13-20

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I have now been a minister at West Epping for a year (can you believe it?), and there is a big question I run into again and again in pastoral conversations. It’s usually not the surface question, but underneath, it’s the one the causes anxiety or uncertainty for a great many of you. And the second part of today’s gospel passage addresses the question in a way which, without context or explanation, might make the anxieties worse, but which I think, if we explore it properly, can be enlightening and liberating. So here’s the problem:

The Biblical Law or Torah, which was in existence at the time of Jesus, contain lists of laws that cover everything: things we’d all agree with like “don’t murder” and “don’t steal”; things we might be more divided over like who you can and cannot sleep with; and things almost nobody regards as even vaguely relevant today, like prescribed hairstyles. Now, generally speaking, we as Christians believe that the way we understand and apply Torah has changed as a result of Jesus’ work of redemption and His teaching – that the Crucified Christ has freed us from the need to offer sacrifices and so on. Since then though, we have been in endless disputes about which laws should still be regarded as law for us. And for a great many people, this concern is real, because if the law spells out God’s requirements for us, then knowing how we obey it is pretty important to enable us to live lives acceptable to God. So we hit a problem: the most explicit teaching recorded as coming directly from our Lord Jesus on the subject is what we heard this morning:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

So, big dilemma. Jesus explicitly says that we will not even get into the kingdom of heaven unless our righteousness outshines even that of the acknowledged leading experts in the study and application of the law, and that not one iota of the law is to be discarded, and yet we clearly don’t follow even half of what those experts followed rigorously, and we have little or no idea how to even work out what exactly we should be following. Not only does our own entry into the kingdom of heaven apparently depend on it, but according to the first part of the passage where Jesus talks about us being the salt of the earth and a light on a hill, we are supposed to be a shining light to everyone else on how to live it out too. So of course, as your minister, my job is to stand up here and solve the puzzle for you in the next few minutes! Easy peasy.

The image Jesus uses of the light on a hill relates quite unambiguously to the Old Testament description of Israel as a light to the nations. Israel was meant to be a light for the world, shining forth to show the rest of the world the way towards God. If you literally imagine Israel on a hill all shiny, and if you make it your goal, the light won’t tell you all the details about what it will take to get there, but it will enable you to stay more or less on track.

Perhaps, Jesus is saying that the Law is more like a light on a hill than a detailed street directory; the Law shows us a pathway towards God, but we are still a fair way from reaching the top of that hill. And because we are still so far from that goal – the Kingdom of Heaven, one might say – this light is now fighting with the darkness around it. So what we have in the Bible tells us as much about what we have to leave behind as it does about where we are going.

One of the lines Jesus often quotes in his preaching is the Torah quote: God demands mercy, not sacrifice. This is not Jesus saying sacrifice is stupid. This is Jesus naming an argument in existence about who God is and what God requires of us. Some parts of the Torah argue for sacrifice, and others for mercy. But we are not left on our own to decide which side to take. The light on the hill image tells us that there is a clear direction emerging. If we keep following the light, the source of the light becomes clearer and clearer. And do you know what that source is? Who do we say is the light of the world, when we light the candle? Jesus. Jesus is the source, Jesus is the light, Jesus is the goal, Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection give us a clearer, higher voltage light that shows us who God is, what God is like, and what God asks of us. If we follow the Light of the World, we will move away from a primitive view of a fearsome God whose uncontainable power would kill us all unless he is placated by blood and we step on only the stones that the law has determined to be safe – all the way to a God whose love knows no bounds and who would rather sacrifice himself to our violence than give up loving us and forgiving us and welcoming us with open arms, and whose desire is that we model ourselves on that same love and mercy.

If I were to ask you to give me a definition of what the Bible is, I imagine some of you would tell me that the Bible is the Word of God. If nothing else, this is the take home message. The Bible is actually not the Word of God. Certainly, the Bible contains some of God’s words, but the Bible bears witness to the Word of God. The Word of God was fulfilled and made perfect in Jesus Christ. So the Bible is a collection of books that bear witness to the Word of God, which was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Take home theological statement for you today.

There have been people over the centuries who have argued that we should simply throw out the parts of the Bible that were written before Jesus, or at least all those sections that reflect the primitive blood-thirsty views of God. Many, perhaps most Christian preachers refuse to look at those uncomfortable texts. Sometimes, I’m one of them. Where is the Good News in God commanding the genocide of Jericho after the walls come tumbling down, or God killing the whole world bar Noah’s family? But, not only does Jesus urge us not to discard even one iota, but his own constant, sometimes critical engagement with those scriptures shows us how important they are if we are to understand where we are going. We need to be able to see what the light is leading us away from if we are to adequately grasp the startling truth of the amazing grace we are being led towards. We need to read all the Bible, not just the Gospels or the easy bits. We need to read it all, so we can be exposed to a clearer vision of who God is. All of it matters. All of it has something to teach.

So, when Jesus says things like “you have heard it said, do not murder, but I say to you do not even get angry or insult anyone”, please know that he is not saying “and there is an angry blood-thirsty God keeping score of your failings who will burn you in hell if you don’t comply with this new law.” Rather he is saying something more like, “If you tried to become all that God desires you to become by turning it all into laws and complying with the laws, this is how absurdly impossible those laws would become, and there would be no end of them. You could never keep track of them or live up to them.” Instead, set your sights on Jesus — the light on the hill, the light of the world, the one who fulfilled the Law by becoming the Word — and follow Him, and God will be delighted and the angels will be singing for joy, and all will be well.

And for those who feel too insecure if there are only lights and no laws at all, Jesus says, “Okay, all the intent of the law and the prophets can be summed up in just a couple of things: love God with everything you are, and love others, even your enemies, and treat them as you would wish to be treated yourself.” And blurring the distinction between law and light, he says, “Here’s a new law for you: love one another, even your enemies, as I have loved you. Just model yourselves on me, and everything will fall into place, and not one iota will be left unfulfilled.”

For the most part, we are not a church that puts much emphasis on biblical law or on the need to be obedient to every iota of the law, or even just the iotas that are currently fashionable among our fellow evangelical Christians. And I know that that sometimes leaves some feeling a bit insecure and unsure of whether we are acceptable to God and whether we are being led astray by our apparent disregard for various biblical laws. But I can assure you that the whole trajectory of the biblical law and prophets is pointing you towards Jesus, the Living Word of God, in whom every iota is fulfilled, and whose own righteousness is given to you freely and generously. And if you accept his gift, and model yourself on his generous love and mercy, every iota will be taken care of and your righteousness, gifted to you by Jesus, will indeed exceed that of even the most diligent of rigorous law-keepers. Be liberated from the law; be a real disciple. Thanks be to God! Amen.