Further requirements

It was all very well to suggest last week that there were three things for our lives that we need to take home, all true, but.. There is always a but isn't there. There is an enormous amount left out when we just start with the three from last week. Those three lead us into new life yet, as with all pathways they are guidelines that are meant to enable us to bring the light of Christ's light into the world (Matt 5.15). Following this easily repeatable saying from Matthew's gospel there is a hard piece of writing that enables us to deepen and brighten the light that we shine (Matt. 5.17-20).

Christ tells his listeners that he has come not to do away with the law but to, in effect, tighten its application. We must be very certain at this point what the law is that Christ is going to tighten the screws on. We know that law is a product of humanities need for some form of control or rather some way in which to order society for its benefit. The problem with this form of law is that it is subject to our own requirements and our own needs. Those who are powerful are more likely to ensure that the laws that ensure their continued control and power are maintained.  Those laws that are designed to ensure values that assist the community or a community or a minority or a despised sector are the lowest priority on the agenda. This is where we are at within our global community. We can not ensure that the powerful do not retain power nor can we ensure that laws which are detrimental to the greater good are not passed. Why?  In simplest terms because we are powerless within the building blocks of human law proposal and its enactment other than to obey or change the legislators in some way that the powerful have less of a voice.

Strictly by the book or by the Spirit

Christ wants us to take something that we have control over in our lives and live knowing that we do so not as a result of an external enforcement but as a result of us taking them to be part of our lives. We cannot look at the laws that Christ is talking about and place them on a parity with human laws. The laws that Christ will have us adhere to so strictly that we are better than those who suggest that they are obeying as opposed to what they seek to put in place for humanity, and you can discern that by all the laws that they in their power enact. The laws that God has placed on our hearts and has expanded in the Ten Commandments as well as its shorter derivative are the ones that Christ demands strict adherence to. Not in the human enforcement but in the spirit that is embedded within each. Isaiah calls out the Jewish population and the priests about behaviour in chapter 58 for just this type of behaviour that comes with legalising the commands of God. The commands that are embedded within our faith and are, or should be, the basis upon which we form community.

It is not the law that we enact but the law that God enacts within our hearts, the words of wisdom the Paul speaks of (1 Cor. 2.6). It is not the wisdom of the world but the wisdom of God and those of faith who follow and adhere to those things that build community, justice, peace, love, etc. All of these things are impossible for us to fully grasp which is why we have difficulty with God's laws and their enactment. We need to try and understand what these concepts mean and as we delve into their meaning we begin to bring to the surface our own thoughts to impose on others, etc. God's requirements and law do not require interpretation they require us to do, to act, to be as CHrist to our neighbour.as