Year A
 Deuteronomy 30:15-20
 Psalm 119:1-8
 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
 Matthew 5:21-37

May the words of my mouth…  O God…  speak your truth…

Moses has been dealing with his mortality… he knows he’s about to die… the Israelites are at the Jordan river about to enter the promised land… and Moses is looking back on the highs and lows they’ve experienced… he wants to tell his people one more time how to live… he wants them to choose life…  but what does it mean to choose life…  isn’t that what we all do… 

According to Moses… it means loving God with all our heart… mind… strength…  and soul… but Moses also says that the good life includes things like canceling the debts of the poor… urging the government to guard against excessive wealth… limiting those who can be drafted… offering hospitality to runaway slaves… paying employees fairly… leaving part of the harvest for those who need it…  and we continue to deal even today with things like these which were written seven hundred years before Jesus was born… here’s what Deuteronomy 15:5 says about protecting human dignity by limiting punishment…

It says take the land that the LORD your God gives you as a possession… and establish within it three cities…  so that if someone kills another person unintentionally…   two people who had not been enemies before…  that he may flee to one of those cities and live…  suppose…  the text says…  suppose two go into the forest to cut wood…  and when one of them swings the ax to cut down a tree… the head slips from the handle and strikes the other person…  and he dies…  what we might call accidental homicide…  and since the two had not been enemies before…  since there was nothing estranged in their relationship…  then that man may flee to one of these sanctuary cities and live…

Today’s Gospel is again…  a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount… like Moses… Jesus is expounding on the Ten Commandments… and what he teaches has everything to do with relationship… ]  it’s bad enough to commit murder because of unresolved hostility… but Jesus is saying that even anger can kill… it kills relationships… it kills opportunity… it keeps us from loving our neighbor as ourselves…

Jesus says that if we’re angry with someone…  then we too will be subject to judgement…  that there’s a relationship between judgement and anger…  and anger can arise when our experience of something is at odds with our expectation of it…  like how some people would feel if their favorite Super Bowl team loses…  the one with one of the Kelce brothers on it…

Jesus says that if we’re at the altar offering our gift…  and we remember that someone has something against us… to go and be reconciled… not if we realize that we’re angry with someone else…  but if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you… go and be reconciled…  that tells me that God cares more about reconciliation than about receiving our gifts…  and that it’s all about relationship…  ] but don’t most of us…  I do for one…  sometimes wish that liturgy was a substitute for dealing directly with those we have wronged… I mean… bringing a gift to the altar… seeking atonement with God…   is easier than seeking out the one you have wronged… or who has wronged us…  that’s why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which addressed apartheid in South Africa was so painful yet powerful…  because people spoke their truth…  even when their voices shook…

Jesus said…  a man who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart… this one is harder to understand… someone may say…   I didn’t do anything… but that negates powerful and subtle motivations…  the husband of the woman may notice that look … and may become suspicious that something is going on… may start treating her badly… may beat her… as though it had really happened… and their relationship is damaged because of a look…  even  today… in some parts of the world… young women are killed because they speak the truth…  even if their voice shakes…  they refuse to marry a man they don’t love…  or they try to escape from an abusive relationship…  and their relatives believe they have brought shame on the family…  it’s all about relationship…  so the more that men really want to protect the dignity of women… the more they ought to avoid looking at them as sexual objects…

We want to lift up those things that bring us honor… and minimize or deny those things that bring us shame… we don’t want to be wrong…  we don’t want to lose face… sometimes… in a broken society…  we may have too little self-esteem to start with…  honor and shame… how they affect our relationships… and speaking our truths… 

I’ve described the movie Powder before… classmates Jeremy and Lindsay are talking…  and Lindsay asks “What are people like, on the inside?” Powder answers: “Inside most people there’s a feeling of being separate, of being separated from everything. And they’re not. They’re part of absolutely everyone, and everything. And how beautiful they really are. And that there’s no need to hide. And that it’s possible to talk to someone without any lies, without any sarcasm, or deceptions, or exaggerations or any of the things that people use to confuse the truth.” Speaking the truth…  even if your voice shakes…

We are good people…  we are salt and light…  but sometimes we can be too polite…  we don’t want to offend…  but sometimes we can unwittingly compromise our truths in some of the ways we speak…  for example…  if I dislike broccoli…  really dislike it…  if in a million years I would never buy broccoli or eat it from a salad bar…  and you ask me if I like broccoli…  and I say…  Oh…  I don’t like broccoli…  that doesn’t really speak my truth…  it might mean that I dislike it…  but it might also mean that I’m neutral about it…  that I can take it or leave it…  even when I would never take it…  and I’ve missed an opportunity to let you know me…  but you may say…  but that goes against what Jesus said in Luke 10:8…  Whenever you enter a town and are welcomed…  eat what is set before you…  but we don’t tell those who are gluten intolerant to just receive communion bread and see what happens…  Leviticus 11:10 teaches that shrimp is an abomination…  but I don’t tell Joel… who’s allergic to it…  just eat it and see what happens…  it is part of our hospitality to accommodate people when we can…  and anymore…  when we invite someone over for dinner…  we ask… are there any food allergies…

Speak the truth…  even if your voice shakes…  our truth is simply our experience… Jesus spoke out of his experience…  but too many of us think that our experience has to be right…  or we’re afraid that someone will make us wrong for what we think and feel…  we confuse the truth because we’re afraid of being shamed…

And what’s ironic… is the only time we deserve to feel shame… is when we try to act like God… that’s what’s shameful… there’s no grace in that…  real grace allows us to experience all of the subtleties which influence our relationships… real grace forgives…  real grace asks that we stand up for those whose voices shake…  even when some of those people may be us…  it allows our simple Yes…  to be Yes…  and our simple No…  to be No…  and it allows us…  to be enough…