“Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”
In my second year at Chichester, we were stricken with a ‘flu bug. Our Director of Studies (who later became a friend), pastor that he was, came round to check up on us and to our embarrassment found several of us, huddled around a small colour portable television…watching - of all things - Blue Peter! This was in early February, and you may guess what they were making – Valentine Cards! Our host, every ready with a quick witty retort greeted the director with the words, “Well Father we are thinking of using the same technique for Sunday School making of Sacred Hearts!”
Well, as yesterday the Church celebrated Saints Cyril and Methodious, up and down the country varieties of expensive and sentimental greetings were dropping through letter boxes or gifts being exchanged. Mostly these are expressions of deep love, but I am sure we have all heard of those cards sent, no doubt out of affection, but simply so that a person received one.
Today’s somewhat fragmentary Gospel reading – we gave you the abridged six verse version out of the possible twenty verses from Matthew 5 – is Our Lord’s plea for sincerity of action described in our Collect as coming from: -
‘hearts that are just and true,’.
Let’s set the context. If you were a good Jew in Jesus’ time, ‘The Law’ was regarded as the ultimate revelation of God’s will for actions and thoughts. Now when speaking of ‘The Law’, ‘The Law’ that pointed to God’s action in the world and that continued action which, in fact, point to his coming into the world it is the post scriptural commentaries that he addresses. Thus, we find Jesus constantly taking an aspect of ‘The Law’ which he upholds but then gives it a more profound meaning, writing into it the necessity of being moved by the Holy Spirit to upholds its meaning. In this way he calls his listeners to an understanding that salvation does not come from literally observing rules; but living lives motivated by what underlies them.
Now before we become carried away and think Jesus is speaking of free license let’s remember that just as for any society there needs to be guidelines and standards: by his teaching Jesus is setting just those guidelines and standards for his post Easter Church. So, what standards and guidelines do these seemingly random comments of our Lord based on the ten commandments highlight for us – the commitment of hearts that are open to abandonment to the workings of the Holy Spirit and not limiting our response to obeying one rule one day and another the next!
In his homily last week Fr. Andrew reminded us how we entered our relationship with God at our Baptism and that thus through that relationship our relationship with each other and with the Church that is the people of God. It seems to me that trusting in those bonds we can have the courage to, guided by the latter’s teachings to say “Yes” when we mean it, “No” when we need to and always be aware that both bring implications of word and deed.
You would be right if you have been thinking I have been leading up to mentioning preparation for the season of Lent that begins on Wednesday. Lent, that time of year when the Church calls us to reflect on whether God sees hearts as described in the words of the Collect. Yet, Lent is not only about looking back and saying sorry, but also about new beginnings and we should not fall into the trap of thinking we have heard it all before. Indeed, the communities for which the Book of Sirach was written, the people of Corinth and indeed the disciples to whom Jesus addressed his words had heard it too.
It seems to me that one of the greatest call of Lent is to admit our human frailty, that itself leads us to hide behind a set of rules that enable us to say, “I’ve done that” or “I’ve not done that”: to reflecting on what lies behind those rules – the great privilege we share in now and the hope we have been given in the future – to reflect but then to quote the Collect again act: -
‘that we be so fashioned by God’s grace as to become a fitting dwelling place for him.’