But we’ve always done it that way.  What is that tried-and-true definition of insanity: repeating the same actions while expecting a different result?  Because Jesus did not do the things the people had been taught to do in the way they had been taught to do them, there was a lingering suspicion that there was something disreputable about Jesus.  He wasn’t their kind of holy, even though he did some mind-blowing, eye-popping works of power the likes of which only God could do, which only God could make possible.

Jesus tells those listening—both his critics and those who just don’t know what to think—“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” (5:17).  Complete, finish, make perfect—that is, to accomplish the purpose for which a thing exists.  A perfect tool does exactly what it’s supposed to do in exactly the way it’s supposed to do it.  Though the tool itself may be a little beat up from regular use, it flawlessly does its work.  A perfect meal fires on all cylinders, to mix metaphors, though a perfect meal is rarely just about the food.  Perfect love accomplishes the purpose of love.

Does love have a purpose, really?  Isn’t it just a feeling, there some days, gone the next?  Is the purpose of love to make happy?  Make who happy; whose happiness matters most?  Well, mine, of course.  When I love perfectly, I’m perfectly happy?  Does that sound right?

A perfect life accomplishes the purpose of life.  Oh, the old search was for the purpose of life.  All the one-frame cartoons of the seeker reaching the top of the mountain to ask the wise guru about the meaning, the purpose of life!  The answer is always deliciously, delightfully ironic.  We thought it might be one thing; it turns out to be something else entirely.  Maybe the purpose of life is surprise.

Presbyterians have the benefit of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which tells us about the purpose of our existence: The chief end of man (our main purpose, that is) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  So our purpose is for another rather than for ourselves.  We do not exist for ourselves but for someone else entirely.  It was St. Augustine, that favorite church father of the Reformers, who wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”  I don’t think Augustine means rest as cessation of activity, or death.  I think he means quiet confidence, peace, security in the struggle.  Perfect peace—what is the purpose of the peace Christ gives?  Full confidence in God, no matter what happens, because we are safe, no matter what happens—and you and I both know full well that all kinds of things can and do happen!

So the question remains: do we want the peace Christ holds out to us, or do we want some other peace, a peace we think will satisfy our hearts more fully, more . . . perfectly?  That is what Jesus is asking, part of what he is pointing out when he says he did not come to abolish the Law or the prophets but to fulfill.  He is pointing out the messy mess people make of God’s expectations, once we get our hands on God’s Word and start filling in the details.

A man asks Jesus who is the neighbor.  Another asks what he must do in order to inherit eternal life.  Both ask even though they’re pretty sure they already know.  The rabbis had spoken at length about the topic of the neighbor: there were definitions and qualifications, rules, exceptions, and codicils.  We have any number of ways of making life burdensome for ourselves and others; we have myriad ways of letting ourselves off the hook.  The prophets detail it all as they call, and beckon, and point.  God in Jesus Christ continually puts one question to us: what is the Law?  And Jesus goes further for us—have you noticed that he always goes the extra mile or five hundred for us—Jesus constantly shows us the Law.  Jesus is the embodiment of the Law, the living Law: loving obedience.  And it doesn’t often look much like the rules and excuses we fashion and forge for others and ourselves.  It’s wrong for them, but not for me.  It’s not wrong if I want it.  It’s right if I want it.  It’s blessed if I want it.

We need to take a closer look.  We need to spend more time in the company of Jesus.  He’s quite clear about this Law: “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” (5:18).  Much was accomplished at Calvary.  Much was accomplished when Christ arose.  There is much yet to be accomplished: Christ has not yet come again, though he knocks constantly on many a heart’s door.  Praise God, Jesus isn’t turned away from the door, every time.  He teaches us to pray: “Thy kingdom come.”  In these beatitudes that we’ve been walking our way through over this summer, Jesus is telling us about this kingdom, and kingdom living, where God’s will is done as promptly, gladly, and completely here as it is in heaven.  When Jesus returns, he shall usher in the kingdom in its fullness.  In the meantime, we live and serve as ambassadors of the kingdom, giving people glimpses and helping one another to see the beauty and glory of the kingdom.  God’s Law of loving obedience is in force right up to the day when “everything is accomplished.”

The Law is Christ.  The fullness and perfection of the Law is Christ.  When Christ is fully accomplished in us, perfected in us, we will know the perfection of the kingdom, where God’s will is done as quickly, delightedly, and perfectly as it has always been done in heaven.  The Law—Christ—shows and teaches us, corrects and restrains us, disciplines us.  Disciples are under the discipline—the training, the education—of Christ, who is the Law of loving obedience.  At the perfection of all things, we will no longer need the Law external to us because the Law then will be the conduct of our lives, just how we live, with no thought or inclination to live some other way.  No serpent to call us away; no itch to magnify ourselves at the expense of God, at the expense of God’s Word, at the expense of our fellow human beings.

If what Jesus asks of us seems so very difficult, it’s because our hearts are so naturally, inherently disinclined to do it.  Jeremiah and the prophets had to hear all about it from the people, all too often.  Our hearts, naturally, are inclined to do things the way that seems best to us, that suits us—maybe not right for you but right for me.  And we’re okay with that.  Live and let live.  As adults, and even as children, it’s particularly difficult and irksome to hear that we aren’t doing something right.  And don’t let nobody tell us we’re wrong.  We don’t like to be told what to do or how to do it.  I’ll do it myself, my way!  That’s independence, right?  And when we apply this way of thinking to our dealings with other people, well, who’s to say who is right and who isn’t, anyway, after all?

Now apply this same way of thinking to our dealings with God, through God’s Word.  Sure, Jesus says things and does stuff, expects and commands things, but why can’t my way be right, too?  I’m trying to wrap my mind—my heart, really—around what Jesus might mean when he says, “anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (5:19).  What does he mean?  Are we all to be observant Jews, then?  The Pharisees were ultra-observant, yet Jesus doesn’t seem to commend them.  The Pharisees were faithful in their own eyes, based upon their own rules; yes, they had a kind of love for God, but what they really loved was their own way of doing things, all while telling themselves they were being so very faithful, in their own way.

Through the prophets, God several times speaks of His displeasure with all the sacrificial blood His people offered Him.  Going through the motions, external observance, left God cold.  Religion as chore and bore—and we wonder where everybody is on Sunday morning.  Church by its very nature, by its very calling, is communal, not individual.  God’s heart is warm towards those who are continually coming to Him begging for the internal observance, the changed heart that lives the heart of the Law, which is all the law you and I need in order to have life, abundantly.  The Law is Christ.  Strive to live more and more like Christ, from Christ’s heart, and less and less from the desires, inclinations, itches, alibis, and rationalizations of our own hearts.  We’re always remarkably adept at justifying ourselves.  God obliterates every self-justification.

Let us then, all, and all together, strive for a more faithful walk with Jesus.  Let us all, and all together, have some care about what we even unintentionally teach others by our acts and words.  The gospel message is not complicated, but it is deep, plunging down into the deepest things of the human heart, and the deepest things of God.  Gospel life in itself is not hard, but it can be remarkably difficult, and feel remarkably demanding, especially as our hearts still yearn for whatever teaching holds out hope for indulging our broken ways and bent appetites.  Yes, true, of course—my way isn’t right for you, but it isn’t even right for me.  Your way isn’t right for me—yes, true, of course—and it isn’t even right for you.  God’s way is right for us all.

We love the first four books of the New Testament: the Jesus stories!  Beloved, the Bible start to finish is the Jesus story; we, also, are the Jesus story.  Our lives are to tell his story.  As we tell his story through our deeds and words, we experience more of the righteousness of Christ.  Our righteousness is never the sum of our own works and words.  Our righteousness is always Christ.  The Pharisees had what they and many around them who were not Pharisees regarded as righteousness: just look at how punctilious they were in even the minutest details of their religious observance!  Just look at how seriously they took even the matter of washing their hands or tithing even the herbs from their garden!  Now that’s serious faith!  Or is it?

James tells us what true religion is: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).  Compassion and remembering one’s call to holiness in Christ.  God Himself tells us about the faithful discipline that pleases Him: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Is 58:6-7).  Compassion, grace, blessing, restoration to fellowship with one another and with God—to love holiness, to rejoice in it, and constantly to strive to live this life as one who is being made fit for holiness by the holy God who has claimed you in Christ for His very own, forever.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.