St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
February 12, 2017
Year A: The Sixth
Sunday after the Epiphany
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37
Fulfillment
Jesus
said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have
come not to abolish but fulfill.”
You
may remember that we heard Jesus say those words in last week’s lesson from the
Gospel of Matthew:
Jesus
comes not to do away with the Law but to fulfill
it.
Some
of you know that last week I managed to get away for a few days of vacation.
And, while I’m grateful for those days of rest I’ll admit to being a little
grumpy about the fact that where I was it rained almost the entire time.
So,
that was a bummer, but it gave me the chance to read a lot – to read a couple
of books and also to read the newspaper a little more thoroughly than I
normally do.
One
day I read an article about the discovery of some letters written by Jacqueline
Kennedy to a friend of hers who, after President Kennedy’s assassination, had
wanted to marry her.
Maybe
you heard about this, too.
Not
a particularly important story, I guess, and I wonder about the ethics of
publishing, and now auctioning, these very personal artifacts.
But,
I was struck by this quote in the article from a biographer of both President
and Mrs. Kennedy:
“Jackie
loved in Jack the man he wanted to be.”
“Jackie
loved in Jack the man he wanted to be.”
On
the one hand, there’s something beautiful about that, isn’t there?
There’s
something touching about a wife who can see in her husband his deepest hopes, aspirations,
and ambitions – and love him for them.
But,
on the other hand, there’s the implication that maybe she wasn’t so crazy about
the man he actually was, with all of his human flaws and failures, many of
which have come to light in the years since his tragic death.
And,
then there’s President Kennedy himself, born into wealth, fame, and power –
Kennedy, who despite his many accomplishments and gifts at a relatively young
age – war hero, U.S. Senator, married to an intelligent and beautiful wife,
adorable children, Pulitzer Prize, and, finally, President of the United
States, apparently still yearned for more, to be more, to be better, yearned to
be fulfilled.
But,
I guess, none of this should surprise us, right?
We’ve
all heard of lots of people, famous and successful in the eyes of the world,
who never seem happy or satisfied, who always hunger for more fame, more money,
more power, more popularity, more pleasure – people who seem to already have
everything and yet still yearn to be fulfilled.
In
the words of that great theologian William Shatner reflecting on his own sense
of dissatisfaction, “It hasn’t happened yet.”
And,
often, in the desire for “it,” in the desperate search for fulfillment, the
rich and famous do great damage to themselves and others, right?
They
end up choosing death instead of life.
And,
I bet, that lots of us have had similar experiences, thinking that if I just
got this job, or earned this amount of money, or if this person loved me, or if
I could just somehow escape my responsibilities even for just a little while,
if I just had “it,” then I’d finally be satisfied, then I’d
finally be fulfilled.
But,
it hasn’t happened yet, right?
This
human predicament is an old, old story.
Someone
who knew all about it was Augustine of Hippo, who lived back around the year
400, and for many years he searched for fulfillment in different philosophies
and religions, searched for fulfillment through professional achievement and,
yes, through, sex.
It
didn’t happen, though.
It
didn’t happen - until he finally turned to God.
Later,
when he sat down to write his life story, when he began to write his Confessions, he offered this reflection,
this now-famous prayer to God:
“You
have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their
rest in You.”
Fulfillment.
We
are made for God and so we find our rest, our ultimate fulfillment, in God.
Now,
I’m guessing most of us can agree with that at least in theory. We’re onboard
with that, but we’re left with the question of how.
How
do we find our fulfillment in God?
Well,
the people of Israel had and have an answer.
We
find our fulfillment by following faithfully – by fulfilling - God’s Law.
Now,
we Americans and we Christians, we have a kind of complicated relationship with
the law – and even with God’s Law, right?
As
Americans, because we value personal freedom so much, it’s kind of in our
national DNA to see the law as oppressive and to push the envelope when it
comes to the law – to calculate just how much above the speed limit we can
drive without getting pulled over and ticketed – to jaywalk all over the place,
making our streets chaotic and dangerous - to litter because we can’t be bothered
to find the nearest garbage can – and for the well-to-do and big corporations
to find and use every tax loophole and benefit, walking right up to, and
sometimes crossing, the line.
You’ll
notice that all of this tends to make us and our communities miserable, right?
And
as Christians, we’ve spent a lot of time debating how much of God’s Law still
applies to us. I think it’s safe to say the Ten Commandments – and certainly
the great commands to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
As
Christians, we’ve tended to think of God’s Law as somehow separate from God’s
love – that, like a doting grandparent, God loves us so much that God isn’t
terribly concerned about us following the rules.
But,
our Jewish brothers and sisters didn’t and don’t see it that way, and neither
does Jesus.
For
them, God’s Law is not a bunch of burdensome rules meant to make us unhappy but
a beautiful gift of love, a gift because it offers us a way to respond to God’s
love, offers a path to God.
God’s
Law is a gift because it paves the road to fulfillment.
“You
have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their
rest in You.”
In
fact, the way Matthew tells the story, Jesus doesn’t just embrace the Law but
he calls us to fulfill the Law even more deeply – to even more deeply fulfill
the Law by paying close attention not just to our actions but to what’s going
on in our hearts.
The
Law is fulfilled and we are fulfilled not just by following the rules, not just
by avoiding idolatry and adultery, not just by not killing and not coveting - but
by aligning our hearts to God’s way.
Now,
let’s be honest. Even with God’s help, none of this is easy, right?
But,
you know what else isn’t easy?
“I’ll be fulfilled if I just get this
job, or earned this amount of money, or if this person loved me, or if I could
just somehow escape my responsibilities even for just a little while, if I just
had “it,” then I’d finally be satisfied, then I’d finally be fulfilled.”
That’s
not easy – it hasn’t happened yet - and, in fact, is doomed to fail.
It’s
true that God’s way isn’t easy and, even with God’s help, we’re going to fall
short – we’ll still get angry with each other and even insult one another –
we’ll still check out people we find attractive, treating them, even for just a
moment, as things instead of images of God – we won’t always be able to hold
our relationships together, and, yes, sometimes that’s for the best to keep us
safe and sane – we’ll still break things that can’t quite be put back together
again.
No,
none of this is easy and we’re going to fall short, and we can only even begin
with God’s help and forgiveness, and we can only continue knowing that Jesus is
right here beside us, loving us and praying with and for us – we can only
continue knowing that we’re all in this together, ready to love and support
each other no matter what.
It’s
not easy, but following God’s Law is the way of life, aligning our hearts with
God is the way to be, not who we want to be, but who God wants us
to be.
Fulfilling
God’s Law is the way to fulfillment.
“You
have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their
rest in You.”
Jesus
said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have
come not to abolish but fulfill.”
Amen.
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