The Sixth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 5:20-26

In Christ Jesus, our Great Physician, who came to save the spiritually sick, to call sinners to repentance and cleanse them by His holy blood (Luk. 5:31-32), dear fellow redeemed:

The nurse knocked on the doctor’s door. She had a strange look on her face. “A patient is here to see you.” The doctor followed her down the hall to the examination room. He opened the door and was shocked at what he saw. Sitting there was a man covered with cuts and bruises. One eye was swollen completely shut. His right arm was in a make-shift sling. The way he held his fingers made the doctor think quite a few of them were broken.

“What happened to you?” he cried out.
“I’m glad you noticed,” said the man. “I’ve been working on losing weight, and I’ve dropped five pounds since my last visit.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” said the doctor.
“Oh, you’re asking about the soreness I had in my knee—that’s been feeling a little better too.”

We can’t imagine this scenario playing out in real life. But something like this often happens when people assess their spiritual condition. They focus on little life improvements they have made while ignoring deeply rooted spiritual issues that are endangering their faith. In His “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus teaches us how to apply the Law to ourselves, so that we clearly understand our sinful condition and what is needed for our treatment and healing. The Great Physician Conducts a Spiritual Examination and provides the spiritual cure.

The Jewish religious leaders, including the scribes and Pharisees, were accusing Jesus of doing away with the Law of God. This was not true, of course; Jesus upheld the holy Law in every way. Just before today’s reading, He said to the crowds: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mat. 5:17). He said that the tiniest details of the Law mattered, and that none of God’s instructions and commands should be relaxed (vv. 18-19).

What He criticized the religious leaders for was that they put their own traditions on the same level as the Law and thought that they were able to keep God’s Law without sin. They couldn’t see how ugly they looked in the mirror of the Law. Like the man in the examination room, they were focused on the little things while ignoring their most pressing issues. Jesus made it clear that the righteousness of these outwardly pious people was not enough: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Like the scribes and Pharisees, we want to decide where the bar of righteousness is set. We want to determine the standard that verifies we are good people. So that standard could be: I generally treat others with fairness and respect. Or, I am a responsible citizen and a reliable employee. Or even, I am a life-long member of the church, and I have consistently given offerings to support the work here. But none of those fulfills the high standard that God sets in His holy Law.

God is not just interested in how you act outwardly or the good impression others have of you. He wants more than your actions and your words. He wants your heart and your mind, your entire body and soul, attuned to His holy will.

In today’s reading, He conducts a spiritual examination by using the Fifth Commandment: “You shall not murder.” This is one that people often think they have kept, since they have never taken another human life. But Jesus opens up this Commandment for further consideration by identifying both what God forbids on the basis of this Commandment and what He requires.

What God forbids is more than physical harm that results in death. He also forbids the sinful anger that rises up inside us against someone else. We often hear in our culture: “I have a right to be angry,” whether it is anger toward a family member, an employer, or a public figure. “My anger is justified because of what she said or he did.” While anger is an understandable response to bad things that happen in our lives, Jesus says it is neither our right to feel angry nor is it justifiable. James 1:20 says, “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Jesus warns against anger because anger often leads to sinful words and sinful actions. He shows that progression in His teaching. He says that the one who is angry with his brother is often the one who plots against him, wishes evil against him, and speaks words that are meant to harm him. Perhaps none of that leads to physical harm (or perhaps it does), but the Fifth Commandment is still broken by his sinful thoughts and words.

Think about how easily anger enters your heart and mind. Someone pushes you. Someone pulls out in front of you on the road. Someone questions your work or your decisions. Someone disagrees with you. Someone fails to understand your struggles or your needs. The more you give way to that anger, the worse the other person looks in your eyes.

You start to assign all sorts of harmful motives to him or her. You dwell on all their bad qualities. You turn them into your enemies. And when you look at others as your enemies, it’s hard to see them as neighbors anymore whom God requires you to love. But even if they are your enemies, Jesus says in the same Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mat. 5:44).

So the Fifth Commandment forbids murder, physical harm, hatred, and anger toward others. But what does it require of you? Jesus says that if you remember some harm you have done to others, you should try to be reconciled. He puts it in the context of divine worship, the time when we gather to confess our sins and be taught and guided by His Word. He says, “if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

We might think of how this applies with the Lord’s Supper. As we prepare to approach the altar to receive Christ’s body and blood for the remission of our sins, we need to examine ourselves. Do I recognize that none of my sinful thoughts, words, or actions are justified, no matter how much or how often others have sinned against me? Do I see that while others have failed me, I have also failed others? Even if the sin I committed is small compared to what was done to me, do I recognize that even a seemingly small sin is enough to move me to apologize and seek reconciliation?

This applies to anyone you might be angry at: your spouse, your sibling, your parents, your children, your fellow classmates, employees, or teammates, your next-door neighbors. No one is exempt from God’s command to love. You are to love others as He loves you. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

Along with seeking reconciliation with those whom you have wronged, God also requires in the Fifth Commandment that you forgive those who have wronged you. Forgiveness is the way to put a stop to anger. It is letting go of the hurt and the desire for revenge and leaving justice to God. Jesus knows how difficult it is for us to forgive. That is why He taught us to pray for it: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Jesus, our Great Physician, prompts this spiritual examination, so we don’t think good, spiritual health is just a matter of shedding a few pounds of sin or taking care of a little sinful soreness. The Law shows us that we are poor, miserable sinners, spiritually weak and ugly, beaten up by our conflicts with others, and unable to heal ourselves.

But the Great Physician does more than diagnose our spiritual condition. He provides the spiritual cure. “I forgive you all your sins,” He declares, including all your sins against the Fifth Commandment. “Take, eat; this is My body,” He says. “This cup is the New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins.” His gracious Word and Sacraments are the medicine we need, both for healing the wounds made by sin and for strengthening our faith.

By faith in Him, we are connected to the righteousness and holiness we need to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ life far exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. It was not just a superficial righteousness. It was a complete righteousness in all of His actions, words, and thoughts. He perfectly fulfilled the holy commands of God for us, and He credits that righteous life to us.

The love that He shows us works love in our hearts toward others. The Holy Spirit moves us to see the people around us as hurting and broken just as we are. They need help just as we need help. They need mercy just as we need mercy. We have the opportunity to bind up their wounds and address their pain and guilt with the holy and healing Word of God. We can point them to the Great Physician who alone has the power to save.

We sinners may be in pretty bad shape when the examination light of the Law is pointed at us. But our Great Physician has the eternal remedy. He gave His holy blood to cleanse us from our sins, to make us pure and holy before God, so that we are fit to enter His heavenly kingdom.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

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(picture from “The Sermon on the Mount” by Carl Bloch, 1877)