FINDINGS V By Harry T. Cook

Epiphany VI - A - February 16, 2014 

Matthew 5: 21-37

 

  

Harry T. CookBy Harry T. Cook
2/10/14

 

 

 

Matthew 5: 21-37

As you must know, it was said to our ancestors that one should not kill another and that whoever does that will be subject to judgment. But I am telling you that those who even display anger to another will no doubt be brought to justice. Those who call another empty-headed will have to answer to the council and take a one-way trip down to the ever-burning garbage dumps* as well. Therefore, here's how you handle grievances: When you are about to offer your gift at the altar and remember that another has a grievance against you, put the gift aside and go find that one and make it right with him, after which you may return and offer your gift. If the dispute gets as far as going to court, try to come to terms with your accuser or you may be handed over to the judge, and from the judge to the sheriff and be thrown into jail. I am telling you that you won't get out until you have answered every claim against you fully.  - It was also said to our ancestors that one must not commit adultery. Well, if you have so much as ogle a woman, you have committed adultery already [with none of the physical pleasure]. If your right eye [the one you ogled with] causes you to lose your self control, tear it out. Better you should lose one organ than to have your whole self thrown down into that flaming trash heap.* Should your right hand follow your right eye into immorality, cut it off for the same reason as you would rip out the eye. And speaking of adultery, it was said to our ancestors that a man could divorce his wife simply by giving her a certificate to that effect. But I am telling you here and now that anyone who does that, except in cases of infidelity, turns her into an adulteress. And any man who takes to wife a divorced woman commits adultery. Our forebears were told further that one should not give an oath he knows to be false in the name of God. In fact, give no oaths at all either before heaven, for it is the throne of the Holy One; or by the earth, because it is God's footstool; or by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great king. Do not even take an oath on your own head, for you cannot change the color of even one hair upon it. So let your "yes" mean yes and your "no" mean no. Anything beyond that has its origins in evil.  (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)

(*The word γεεννα in the Greek text is transliterated "Gehenna," and it probably refers to a valley southeast of Jerusalem (downwind of the city) where garbage, human offal and perhaps human remains were burned in perpetual fires. It was once a site of fire-worship, which was abolished by Josiah in the late 7th century BCE.)

 

 

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"You have heard it said of old . . ." Here is a sure sign that, however grounded Matthew's gospel may have been in traditional or even synagogue Judaism, he is about to repudiate some of it. What was "said" of old is undoubtedly a reference to "all these words" from the mouth of Yahweh in Exodus 20:1ff., being the first or chief of the 613 commandments of Torah. Just as Matthew has said that "something greater than John the Baptist is here," so now something greater than Torah is being spoken. It's a new day in the neighborhood.

 
Murder, that is of one's own kith and kin, had been outlawed long since. Now anger, which is often a prelude to murder, is enough to bring one to justice or judgment (
κρισις), to the court of assizes or to the moment of judgment. Hurled insults, calling someone "you moron" or "you rebel" partook in basic evil. "Raka" (ρακα) appears to be taken whole cloth out of Aramaic and could apparently mean anything when used contemptuously of another. Such locutions could not be admitted to the circle of public discourse, no matter how individual or singular the incident. Whatever these Matthean verses may reflect of the practical ethic of Jesus, it is clear that community and solidarity within it were important, to the extent that whatever the sacrificial offering was to be, it was to all purposes invalid if peace had not been made between feuding siblings or members of a community.

 

Since the Gospel according to Matthew is by most counts a document of the late first century CE, the reference to a sacrificial offering must be left over from some pre-70 CE time when the priestly apparatus was still in place and working in the Second Temple, suggesting that the "anger" saying came from an earlier time. Some of the Jesus Seminar editors offer the possibility that while Jesus did not say directly what is reported the content of the saying is true to the character they believe he was.

 

This text addresses the issue of adultery from a fresh perspective. Not only does it remain among those things that are forbidden, as by Torah, but now also what may lead to it is also proscribed. This is a sexual asceticism that probably goes beyond common everyday ethical wisdom. The well-turned ankle or suggestion of sensual hips beneath even the most modest of garb will catch the most well-intentioned and happily married man off guard, and the imagination, unbidden, takes over if only for a moment. The same observation may be applied to women who notice men. In its inception, this prohibition may have reflected the code of a truly ascetic (or priggish) community, or of more ascetic-minded followers of Jesus. In any event, it sets an extremely high standard - perhaps even an impossible one.

 

The last part of this passage (5:33-37) gets the exegete into roiled waters in what may have been some mistranslated Aramaic. There are echoes of the Mishnah in the distinctions drawn between giving oath by invocation of deity. If the saying as reported by Matthew originated with Jesus - and a number of exegetes say they doubt that - its probable import had to do with simply stating the truth of a matter without hedging it about with a thousand qualifications. See James 5:12 for a close parallel to the prohibition of oath-taking.

   

In the text at hand, the homilist or seminar leader will quickly perceive that it is a grab-bag of behavioral lessons -- all the way from refraining from insulting your relative or friend, to sucking up to one with a grievance against you, to giving into sexual temptation with a person not your spouse, to the odd practice of swearing oaths on everything from the upper atmosphere, to the ground upon which one walks, to the city of a royal seat, to one's own head.

 

Murder and adultery were long since prohibited in the community of Israel - that is, murder of one's own tribe and adultery with a member of the opposite sex in that tribe. Murder is connected to anger, and adultery to selfishness and giving oaths to the all too human habit of not telling the plain truth when the plain truth is not only plain but deserving of acknowledgment.

 

These are essentially humanistic values being spelled out here, and they deserve to be treated as such, unconnected to complex theological formulae. If, as Jesus is credited with saying, the domain of divinity is within and among the community, then murder, insult, adultery and dissembling and equivocation are anti-human and should be labeled as such. Or as the author of the first epistle of John wrote: "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love a God whom they have not seen." (I John 4:20)

 


Copyright 2014 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 

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