Who and Whose are we?

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Matthew 5:21-37

I wonder if Jesus has been reading our newspapers! Anger! Murder! Divorce! Lust and adultery! Swearing oaths! Let’s add LGBTQIA++, immigration, abortion, classified documents, spy balloons, invasion and self-defense, and more.

Jesus is speaking in this Gospel text about the hot-button topics of his day. He tells the crowd, and us, that the Ten Commandments are still relevant. They tell us to how to live in community, so that the community may feel safe. The Commandments insist that members of the community behave respectfully toward God and toward one another.

Jesus wants us to understand that even minor violations matter. He suggests extreme measures to ensure that we don’t sin. Anger leads to murder, so make peace with your neighbor before you come to worship. That way your gift to God is pure gift, untainted by your resentment and you no longer wish to do harm to your neighbor.

Lust leads to divorce and adultery. Pluck out an eye, if it keeps you from looking in lust. Cut off a hand, if it is tempted to touch something forbidden. It’s easy to be tempted, with one small thing leading to greater things.

It seems odd to us today that swearing an oath was such a big problem that Jesus mentions it, but we need to remember the context. Rome was in charge, along with their culture, their religion, their multiple gods. Many Jews were Hellenized, more Roman in behavior than Jewish. So perhaps it became easy to fit in with the neighbors and swear oaths to Roman gods.

Further, people would swear an oath – promise to do something – and then not do whatever they promised. So, they were not fulfilling the promise they made. Jesus says, say what you mean and mean what you say!  

… At our Bible study class last Thursday, we had some fun with the portion of this text relating to divorce. The text seems to be very sexist, relating only to men who are bored or angry with their current wives. Pastor Nate suggested that it doesn’t apply to him, since he would not be marrying a woman.

Jesus makes clear that since in God’s eyes the man and woman were still married, there were consequences. If the man later married a divorced woman, he made her an adulterer. If the former wife married another man, she was an adulterer. Jesus doesn’t add that the man himself is an adulterer.

The problem with divorce was that a law that men could say three times, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,” and the woman – maybe with her children – were suddenly out on the street. By saying that they should not divorce, Jesus has compassion on the women and children. And consequently, the text is actually sexist in favor of women.  

... So, what does this have to do with us today? Rather than focus on the specifics, let’s think in more general terms about the Commandments.

God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to define how the people Israel were to live in relationship with God and with each other. The first three Commandments tell us how to be in relationship with God – have only one God, don’t misuse God’s name, remember to take time for God.

The remaining seven tell us how to relate to each other: honor your elders, respect life, be faithful to your spouse, don’t steal, don’t lie about your neighbor, don’t want what is not yours.

The Commandments help us know who we are, in relation to each other – we are neighbors. And who we are in relation to God – God’s own, chosen. With Jesus, we are siblings, beloved and blessed, children of God. The Commandments help us know who and whose we are.

… Congregations in transition have challenges and opportunities. This is a time to consider, to reconsider, who we are, by paying attention to whose we are. We have  examined who we have been: started as a campus ministry with a supporting or sustaining congregation. Our pastors have had different visions for how to best serve the congregation and the campus folks. That was then; this is now.

In a few weeks, we will begin to develop a vision for who God is calling us to be in the present and into the future. Last week we adopted a budget, a plan for how to spend what God has given us. How we spend it will be driven by how we envision the future God is calling us into.

There is always some unease about the future, because past experience has taught us that things, life, ministry, doesn’t always go as planned. Here's a quick, hopeful, story.

Just a month ago, I heard a lot of uncertainty around the future of Campus Ministry. Several students will graduate and move on to jobs or more education at other schools. The Peer Ministers were included in those leaving, with a result that it seemed only 2 students would remain in the program next year. But then, last week I heard that several more students had joined the Thursday supper group, and some of those had been in worship with us, and now the future looks hopeful.

I tell this story because it indicates for us the reality that the future is unknown, but it is in God’s capable, loving, and merciful hands. As long as we remember this, the future for UELC will be almost exactly as God envisions it.

Amen