I think we are all very aware of If…Then statements. When we were very young it was “IF you eat your dinner…THEN you get dessert”. “IF you are good…”THEN Santa will bring you what you want.” As we got older this may have developed into “IF you run 5 miles a day…THEN you will make the high school track team” or “IF you study Chemistry…THEN you will get an A.”
We are encouraged to follow a certain set of actions by someone dangling some sort of carrot, the THEN portion, in front of us with the idea that if the carrot is valuable enough we will follow through and perform the action. Some may even see IF…THEN statements in some civil marriage ceremonies where the couple may pledge IF you are faithful to me…THEN I will be faithful to you.” Or sometimes to our children we may tell them “IF you do your chores…THEN I will take you to the baseball game.”
What underlies many of these type scenarios is that we are establishing a sort of contract between the people involved. IF you live up to your end of the bargain…THEN I will live up to mine. There were conditions present that meant that if one person did not comply with the agreement then the agreement would be null and void. After all, isn’t that what a contract is all about.
Looking at today’s first reading from Deuteronomy we can see that what, on the surface, looks like a contract that God established with the Hebrew people. After all, God says to them, through Moses, IF you walk in my ways, observe my statutes, commands and decrees…THEN you will be my people and I will raise you up above all other nations. Sort of the original Quid Pro Quo. But what is REALLY a contract?
Remember that God made his original agreement with Abraham when Abraham (then Abram) left Ur of Chaldea for Canaan. He again reaffirmed it when Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. Then recall the multitude of times that God had to bring the Israelites back under his care after they drifted away from Him and sought to worship false gods. Weren’t these also contracts? The answer to that is…No. What God had established with the Israelites was a Covenant. Well, what’s the difference?
So, a contract means that if one party or the other fails to fulfill its obligations then the contract is dissolved and the parties can go their own way. Legally binding and legally terminated. No harm, no foul. But a covenant? Well, a covenant ends in only one manner. One of the party dies. Short of that, everything remains in effect. Which then requires a few things. 1) Persistence. Not giving up on the other person. 2) Patience in the other person as you wait for them to grown and mature. 3) Faith that this growth will occur and, the big one, 4) Mercy, because you KNOW you or the other person is going to fail in some way. And all of this is rolled into the idea of LOVE. The desire for the best for the other person.
God established a COVENANT with His people such that no matter what they did, He had their back. He may have had to allow some bad stuff to happen to them to help get their attention, but He always took them back.
But if you look at what the Old Testament people had to follow, to guide them in their relationship with God, what we know as The Law, you will see a long series of detailed ways to behave. A long set of IF…THEN statements. And this is how the Jews saw their relationship with God. I will do this for you…and you will then do this for me.
What exactly is the Law? To Jews, it is a set of 613 statutes that they had to follow, as outlined in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. A set of agreements that they would need to follow if they were to survive physically and spiritually. They consisted of laws on how to worship God, how to treat your neighbor, in legal dealings with each other, how to observe the Sabbath, eating rituals, etc. The problem is that they all became ritualized. A sort of formula for how to get along with God. So while God may have seen his agreement with the Israelites as a covenant, it was apparent that the Israelites behaved as if it were more of a contract. A legal agreement and not one that involved a close relationship with the Creator.
And God had Persistence, Patience, Faith and, through His love for us, Mercy. God sent Jesus as a visual, incarnate, sign of that mercy. Jesus modeled the Father’s covenant with us by His words and His actions. The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus stating some provisions of The Law but then taking it to a level that necessitated a RELATIONSHIP with the Father and each other and not just a legal agreement. We are told not to just avoid adultery but also to avoid lust. We are told not to murder. But more than that we are told not to hate. It is not just the action we are to avoid but also the attitude of corruption that leads to the action. To change the heart. Not because there is a Law against it but because of how such thoughts and actions affects our relationship with God and with each other.
Which brings us to the Gospel. We are not to just act kindly to our friends but we are to also act kindly, to actually LOVE, our enemies. And pray for those that persecute you. To go beyond what The Law says so that hearts are changed. There is a saying in the high holiday services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We are to beat our swords into plowshares (weapons into farming implements), to help avoid war. But it goes a step further, saying that we should not stop there. We should beat our plowshares into musical instruments. So that whoever wants to make war again will have to turn them into plowshares first. This makes war even more unlikely. In other words, take the next step beyond what the Law decrees.
And as Matthew says today, don’t just love your friends but also love your enemies. Abide not be the contract alone but by the spirit of the covenant. We are all in relationship with each other. Whether you see that person as good or evil in your sight. Because, Christ proclaimed, “He causes the sun to rise and fall on the evil and the good.” But maybe it should have been written as “He causes the SON to rise and fall on the evil and the good”.
