Matthew 5:33-48

Jesus isn’t pulling any punches.  After a very captivating introduction, He has immediately launched into calling His followers murderers and adulterers.  The fact that the people didn’t turn and walk away at this point but stayed to hear where His accusations were going only shows how starved they were to hear the truth of God’s Word.  Whether the verdict was good or bad, they just wanted to know who God is.  So the Lord Jesus continues with this difficult teaching.

Jesus calls His hearers a bunch of liars (5:33-37).  He does this by implying that they are quick to swear promises on structures or items that they consider holy – thus, implicating God in their oaths – but that they have no real power to bring those promises to completion.  Every time I make a promise, I am banking on my own reputation to back up the verbal contract we’ve enacted.  If my reputation is not good, then the one I want to deal with might not be willing to accept my word of good faith.  Or if what I’m asking of them is “too big” for my reputation alone to back up, they might require more.  It is when we feel like our own reputations are too little or too marred that we bring swearing into the mix. 

To swear was not to use foul language.  It was to bank on the reputation of something bigger, more important, or more eternal than oneself.  So a guy might say, “I swear on the Temple that I’ll pay you back by Friday.”  Or, “I swear on the king’s throne that nothing will happen to your ox while I’m borrowing it to plow.”  But Jesus goes on to say that God is the master of heaven and earth, Jerusalem is His city, and everything that is eternal or important is associated with Him.  He goes on to say that if you swear even by your own head, you can’t even make a single hair turn black or white.  The point is, we make lots of promises but we truly have no power to make our word come to pass.  I don’t even know what will happen to me this afternoon.  I could have a terrible accident… I could lose my home… I could even lose my life.  When I make promises about the future, I am trying to guarantee something that I can’t know.  This kind of recklessness with the truth makes me a liar.

Add to this, when I swear a promise by these kinds of items, I implicate God in my contract – calling on Him as a co-signer.  There are promises we might make… there are contracts we might sign… but there is also a very special set of promises that we call “vows.”  A vow is a promise that we call on God to witness.  Most familiar to us are the “wedding vows.”  In the public ratification of that promise, we call on God as witness to our bond with one another in marriage.  So when I call on God as a witness to my verbal promise, I’m making a vow before the Lord.  It’s one thing to bank on my own reputation.  I might fail and my reputation would take an appropriate hit.  But when I tie God into my agreements, I am putting His reputation on the line.  He refuses for His name to be cheapened by associating it frivolously with our worthless words.  This is why we are not to take His name in vain.  It’s about more than dirty words.  It’s about associating His name with what is common, dishonest, or profane.  Any time we are less than realistic with the truth, we place ourselves in the realm of dishonesty.  When we implicate God in our dishonesty, we are also blasphemers.

Finally, Jesus calls His hearers a pack of thieves (5:38-48).  We’ve probably all been robbed at some point in the past.  There were a couple of times my family home was broken into as I was growing up.  I had a jacket, a backpack, and an important school assignment stolen from me when I was in high school.  Maybe you’ve lost possessions, credit, ideas, or reputation to someone who stole these things from you.  So, having learned these anger and disappointment of loss from experience, most of us are very careful not to take anything that doesn’t belong to us.  But once again, Jesus turns this commandment on its ear and reminds us that stealing from others is not just about what we take… it can also be about what we withhold.

Jesus talks about three incidents that a person might find himself in: What if somebody slaps you on the face?  What if somebody tries to take your possessions?  Or what if somebody forces you to work for them?  Our retaliation in all these situations has a lot to do with our pride.  I don’t want to lose face, so I stand up and fight when I’m abused.  I don’t want to lose my possessions, so I fight to keep them.  I don’t want to serve someone I hate, so I do the bare minimum and let them know that I’m angry because of it.  These are our natural human reactions to these types of impositions.  We don’t like to be used, abused, or degraded.  Notice that none of these situations threaten our lives.  Nobody is holding a gun (or spear) to the victim.  It’s the pride that is affected more than anything.  And in this, Jesus reminds us that we must view people as more important than our pride.

If turning the other cheek purchases me an opportunity to share the Gospel with my attacker, then it’s a choice I should consider.  If giving my coat as well as my shirt will buy me an opportunity to share the Gospel, then it’s a choice I should consider.  If giving more of my time and labor – even to an enemy like the Romans – will buy me an opportunity to share the Gospel with my oppressor, then it’s a choice I should consider.  In the end, what’s the most important thing?  That I find some small satisfaction in fighting or quarreling, or that one who was lost is saved?  Certainly, Jesus considers the latter to be the most important.  And He doesn’t just tell us to do these hard things; He goes on to do all these Himself.  He is silent when He is abused at His trial, though He could have called many angels to bring vengeance on His abusers.  He gave all that He had to those who were in need, holding nothing back from those who asked of Him.  He loved even His enemies and went the full distance of giving His life so they could be saved.  If we are going to say that we follow Jesus, then we must be willing to live by His example and not by the pride that separates us from His teaching.

As the Lord Jesus closes this section of His sermon, we are left with the inescapable truth that we are all guilty.  We are thieves: guilty of withholding God’s grace from others to bolster our pride.  We are liars: guilty of playing it fast and loose with the truth of what we’re truly capable to accomplish.  We are adulterers: guilty of breaking our vows before the Lord through our lusts and the unfaithfulness of our hearts.  We are murderers: guilty of walking the road of anger and bitterness that could naturally lead us to lash out and kill those who cross us.  If there is any truth we take away from this passage, I hope it’s the understanding that every one of us needs a Savior more than we know.