The Sixth Sunday After Epiphany A

The Sixth Sunday After Epiphany A

Four times in this passage before us, Jesus repeats the formula: “You have heard it said…, but I say to you….”  Jesus calls up two vital commandments:  the one against murder (vs. 21-26) and the one against adultery (vs. 27-30).  He also calls up two other rules important to the religious elite of his day:  the one permitting divorce (vs. 31-32) and the one against swearing falsely (vs. 33-37).  Jesus treats those commandments and rules with a rather dismissive “You have heard it said…” almost as if they were rumors or gossip.  What Jesus dismisses is the assumption that outward behavior fulfills the commandment or the rule while the affections of the heart can remain unchanged.  To those whose heart wasn’t in it regarding their outward behavior, Jesus delivers the “But I say to you…”  Jesus’ preaching during what we have come to call his Sermon on the Mount intensifies the Law’s ethical demands.  Jesus makes the demands so great that sinners cannot meet them… and that is our bondage.  Jesus has delivered the Law in such a way that we sinners can have no hope of fulfilling it.  The Law demands us to be something we cannot be in our sinful and broken condition; the Law demands that we be holy and righteous, not merely in our behavior, but in our hearts as well.  Only the new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) has a holy and righteous heart.  While the flesh still adheres to you… while you still possess a mortal body… while you walk in the days of your baptism… that holy, righteous, and clean heart belongs safely and only to Jesus Christ.

Prayers from one who is so bound in sin that he likes to imagine that his own heart is holy and righteous…

Holy Father, deliver Jesus Christ to me so that my bondage to sin is broken and, as he comes to be my life, I receive his holy, righteous, and clean heart.  Father, hear me!

Holy Father, deliver Jesus Christ to me so that, on those occasions when I get to thinking that I myself possess a holy and righteous heart, I am repented, exposed as dead in my sin, and receive Christ as my life once again.  Father, hear me!

Holy Father, deliver Jesus Christ to me in such a way that faith is engendered, and I come to trust the righteousness I receive from you through Jesus Christ rather than the righteousness I achieve for myself.  Father, hear me!

Holy Father, deliver Jesus Christ to me so that my callings and vocations do not become distractions from my piety but remain as those various places where you send me for the exercise of the righteousness you’ve provided me.  Father, hear me!

Holy Father, deliver Jesus Christ to me in the unexpected places of family and work where I receive the forgiveness of my sins from the lips of my closest neighbors.  Father, hear me!