Deuteronomy 4:1,5-9
Matthew 5:17-20

Laws and rules are an important part of life.  They provide boundaries and without them the world would be a place of confusion and anarchy.  Have you ever played a simple game with some very young children where people are trying to help them feel successful?  There seem to be rules for the adults and no rules for the young children.  The rules are always changing to benefit the kids.  There is no clear winning! Imagine living like this in all aspects of your life. We need laws and we need rules.  Without rules, even games are no fun because everything is allowed. 

But laws also need interpretation.  Does the speed limit really mean 55 miles per hour or do we get a little leeway? 

The Law (Torah) is a very important part of Jewish culture.  It is part of Jewish identity as a “people” and is a highly valued part of Jewish spiritual heritage.  Moses tells the people, “I teach you statues and decrees as the Lord, my God, has commanded me, that you may follow them in the land you are entering to occupy.  Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and intelligence to the nations.  What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today.” 

Jewish life is legislated by Halakhah, which is translated as “Jewish law” but it is much more than a set of laws.  It is more in the spirit of “the path one walks.”  For the Jew, Law was much more than a set of requirements… it was a life a person lived because God called you to live it. 

Time after time, throughout various eras, we see Israel fall away from God, thinking they knew better than God.  They added and subtracted from “Jewish law.”  The Pharisees of Jesus’s time are famous for adding and subtracting to God’s law.  The Pharisees took it upon themselves to ensure that Jews obeyed the law by creating all sorts of rules to build a hedge around the Law.  And to make sure the Law could not be broken, they even put hedges around the hedges.  By the time they finished with the hedges, there were 613 rules for the Jewish people to follow.  Jesus calls them out as hypocrites when he refers to Isaiah’s prophesy, “This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me.”

If Jesus is going to discuss “the law,” and how to understand it, people wanted to know what was the new Law? What do they do with the Law given to Moses? Is Jesus trying to replace what was given to Moses? This is when Jesus responds, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets: I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Jesus came to fulfill the law…to make it abound!  He was not to undermine the law, not to do away with it and not to replace it.  He makes it about what God really meant in the Law and then providing a way for people to live the Law.  His interpretation of the law is tough!  What did God intend when he gave the Law to Moses? He says, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”    

And not only does Jesus tell us to obey the law but to teach these commands to others.  Those who teach these and practice them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven!  Teach them to your children and your children’s children. 

Everyone knew the Pharisees obeyed every law!  They studied them, read them and meditated on them.  They were meticulous…only taking the appropriate number of steps on the Sabbath…obeying the smallest letter of the law.  BUT, while concentrating on all the minutia of the Law, they were unable to live out the spirit of the Law. 

We are not called to do more righteous acts than the Pharisees.  Jesus calls us to a righteousness that requires a permanent change in our hearts and our attitudes…a righteousness that transforms us in the core of our being…not a righteousness enforced by a set of rules, regulations, and laws, but one that springs from out of a transformed heart!  There are still requirements.  The difference is that fulfilling them will come from our hearts. 

How can our wonderful community Saint Thomas More be a space, where the balance of Law and Love can be attained and lived? The God of Abraham and of Sarah is present in the midst of our community by faith in Jesus of Nazareth who sends us his spirit.