Sermon Notes: Ordinary 6, Year A – the letter of the Law
Text: Matthew 5:17-37
- It is the law which so often runs us into trouble
- Controversy over European Courts vs the Sovereignty of Parliament
- The letter of the law being very different to the spirit of the law
- Laws that are unenforceable,impractical or simple knee-jerk reactions (Dangerous Dogs Act, CRB Checks, and even worse the shelving of the ISA safeguarding mechanism)
- The Laws of Moses have been both a source of light and inspiration to us over the centuries
- And have also been a millstone
- because they weren’t written for us
- they were written for a nomadic people, moving into a new territory, seeking to ethnically clense the land of the Canaanites and replant the vine of Israel (Ps 90)
- The Law of Moses is about separation, about practical purity, about ensuring that the Jewish lineage was not diluted by intermarriage
- So the Law of Moses prescribes in both literal and metaphorical terms the dangers of mixing with the locals
- So a fabric may not be made of two different kinds of thread
- So the eating of animals which are neither one thing nor another (like shellfish) is prohibited
- So ritual practices associated with the worship of ‘foreign Gods’ such as tattooing or sexual practices are forbidden
- These laws were written because as Jesus says in relationship to divorce “because of the hardness of your hearts”
- For the context in which these laws were created, they were in many ways appropriate (although the culture of separation and ethnic clensing is perhaps debateable)
- To love
- To forgive
- To heal
- To reconcile
- That lust inside is as corrosive as the adulterous act itself
- That the law merely frames the evil and wrong doing of society
- If the law on Murder were repealed tomorrow, it would not make murder any more acceptable
- This isn’t just for law breaking
- but rather for failing to grasp the call of the Gospel
- for putting ourselves before others
- for placing others on the edge of our concern
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