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Jesus' ministry is just starting to get off the ground.  He takes a look at the crowds who are flocking to him, Matthew tells us, and his response is to retreat to the mountain top and call his disciples to him for some instruction in the Gospel that will stand at the center of their ministries.  Jesus addressing the first group of Christian ministers-to-be: it sounds wonderfully suited to our setting here at the seminary.

But as is true of so many of Jesus' sayings, the words come across as radically inappropriate to the occasion, not to say offensive—at least as measured by human standards.  There are no  warm congratulations on their choice of vocation, no helpful tips for coping  with ministerial setbacks, no nuggets of wisdom for uplift and spiritual encouragement.  Jesus instead  uses the occasion to radically reinterpret the law of Moses, and his words are just plain terrifying.

The Bible says you shall not kill...  But I say to you that every one who is angry with a brother or sister shall be liable to judgment.

The Bible says, "You shall not commit adultery".  But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

The Bible says, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.  But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, is guilty of adultery.

I suspect that many of us probably avoid a serious confrontation with these teachings, because deep down we have the feeling that Jesus couldn't really be serious about this stuff.  Going to hell over a casual insult, calling your brother or your sister a "fool"—he couldn't possibly mean what he says...could he?  Surely he's exaggerating...isn't he?

One section of these teachings which in my experience does a frighteningly effective job of penetrating all the smokescreens and defenses we put up is the part about divorce.  I was teaching an adult Sunday school class on these texts one time, and there were two or three people present in the class who had been through divorces, some recently and some quite awhile ago.  But for all of them, it was pretty plain to see that the simple act of reading these words out loud, much less talking about them, was an intensely painful experience.  Jesus links the business of divorce with the sin of adultery.  And that hurts.  A lot.  That hits devastatingly close to home, it brings to the surface deep wellsprings of guilt and shame and anger that otherwise might remain peaceably buried.  Everyone in the class tiptoed around and tried to be as sensitive as we possibly could be, but some of our members stayed away for several weeks afterwards nonetheless.  It was clearly a traumatic experience for them, to come up against these words of Jesus.

Now I want to raise the possibility that maybe...just maybe...our divorced brothers and sisters have the advantage over others of us when it comes to hearing the full import of these teachings of Christ.  That searing, uncompromising assault which besieges their hearts and their consciousness—could it be that such an assault is directed at you and me as well?  How many of us have been angry in the past week?  How many of us have spoken a harsh word to one of our friends or family members?  How many of us have passed along with relish an ugly or uncomplimentary story about an acquaintance or a co-worker?  The guilt which accrues to these things, says Christ, is tantamount to the guilt of murder!  Whoever says "you fool" to a neighbor shall be liable to the hell of fire.  If we took this seriously would not every one of us be in the same boat with our divorced brothers and sisters, as we confront this set of teachings?

But how could Jesus possibly mean this seriously?  Which of us can possibly control the anger we feel?  I might be the best, the most devoted disciple in the world.  But give me a lousy night's sleep and set me out behind the wheel in the middle of a traffic jam, and I guarantee you the black clouds start welling up in my soul.

Or when we encounter an attractive member of the opposite sex, who can avoid having their heart beat a little faster?  My word, we took the kids to the water park at Wisconsin Dells this summer, and I just about came home with a case of whiplash from the bathing suits people are wearing these days. 

But with chilling consistency Jesus maintains that YOU AND I ARE RESPONSIBLE.  "If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."

We are accountable—Not just for our outward actions, but for every stray thought which comes drifting through our consciousness, for the feelings which well up in our hearts, for the anger and the improper desires.  WE ARE RESPONSIBLE.  I can protest all I want that I have no control over them.  But they are nonetheless MY feelings, my thoughts, my subconscious, even—it is all a part of ME.  And the whole of me is answerable to God.  Our actions, our feelings, our idle thoughts, our subconscious desires—all will stand before the throne of judgment.  YOU AND I...ARE...RESPONSIBLE!

Now I see many of you shuffling your bulletins, and shifting in your seats and checking your watches, because that's just unreasonable, isn't it?  This couldn't be what Jesus MEANT to say.  These demands are all but impossible.  The Lord simply couldn't be asking THAT much of us... could he?  "But I tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven."

You know what Jesus is doing here?  You know why these judgments seems so harsh and these demands so impossible?  Because Jesus is telling us what our lives have to become in order to be part of the Kingdom of God.  He's not speaking from the perspective of everyday life, where "pretty good" is plenty good enough, and it's really only our outward actions that count.  No, Jesus isn't speaking from that perspective at all.  Rather, he is telling you and me what it means to be citizens of the Kingdom of God.  And the Kingdom admits no compromise, you see.  The Kingdom is the place where God's will for you and me is complete.  It's the place where all the brokenness, all the sorrow, all the lust, all the anger, all the greed, all the unfaithfulness—everything that contradicts God's loving will has been done away with.  The Kingdom is the place where at long last everything and everybody stand just as God in his love intended them to be.  And so there's no going half way, you see.  There's no room there for compromise—either you're the way God meant you to be or you're not.  Either you're soul is stained, or it's not.  And if the Kingdom is the place where all the stains have been done away with, that means an angry heart will disqualify you just the same as a felony conviction for murder one; lustful thoughts will keep you out no less than aggravated rape.  Either you're spotless or you're not.  That's what the Kingdom is all about.  "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

Now what is it about these words that makes them appropriate teaching for all those new disciples back on that mountaintop in Galilee, and for the rest of us as well?

I think Jesus was trying very deliberately and very strenuously to hurt his new disciples with these teachings...to destroy them!  I think Jesus is trying to batter each one of us absolutely bloody with...the truth!  With this searing, heavenly reality of the Kingdom of God in all its pristine radiance and uncompromising purity.  I think Jesus here confronts all of us would-be followers with the acid awareness that the Kingdom of heaven in all its glory and all its splendor is hopelessly beyond our grasp.  He attacks us with this simple, bitter truth because we would presume to be disciples, and the first step on the road to discipleship is to be broken, to be rid of any pretensions or illusions we might have regarding our worthiness for the calling.

"But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment"—When that saying sticks in your craw, when you meditate on it enough that it becomes a searing, festering accusation deep in your own soul, when you hear the words well enough that the fear rises in your throat and your breath catches up short—only then are you ready to be a disciple, because only then are you armed with the truth of what your situation really is.  Not until the ground dissolves beneath your feet and you find yourself staring into the blackness of the abyss are you able to see for what it is that hand which is stretched out to grasp you.  Not until you have felt the clammy grip of hopelessness dragging you downward are you able sufficiently to embrace the hope which is given you as a gift. 

And that is doubly the case for preachers.  Week after week we mount the steps of a pulpit, and in words either spoken or implied we bracket the occasion with the declaration, "Thus saith the Lord", and then we open our own mouths and begin speaking.  Now doesn't that strike you as just a little bit presumptuous?  "Thus saith the Lord!"... and we share our ramblings for the week.  How is it that you and I should be the mediators between heaven and earth?  How can this act be anything other than a usurping of divine prerogatives, a blasphemous storming of the gates of heaven, a seizing to one's breast of the deadly promise of the serpent, who proclaimed to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, "You shall be like God"?  How on earth, can we preachers—whose chosen vocation is to take this monstrous guilt upon ourselves on a weekly basis—how on earth can we preachers...be saved? 

It is here that you and I desperately need these words of Christ which have made us so uncomfortable this morning.  These words of Jesus will help us see the pit which really does open up beneath our feet as we assume the responsibilities of our calling.  These words of Jesus will help us feel the icy seal which Death has placed upon our foreheads as we carry out our duties among the people of God.  These words of Jesus will help us to remember the one source of hope for us as preachers and as fallen human beings.  The first step on the road to discipleship is to be broken.

It is not the last step, however.  These words of Christ are words of judgement, but the judgment is subsumed under, and serves the cause of, a great promise and a great hope.  Christ's words make it clear that you and I, with all our compromises and all our fallenness, have within ourselves no hope of the Kingdom.  Christ does have a place in it, though.  He is the true heir and inheritor of the whole.  The astonishing gift of grace given to us is that as we are united with him, engrafted into him by the Holy Spirit, we become participants and sharers in Christ's own inheritance.  In him, we find a place there as well.  So Christ addresses these teachings to you and me who are, by grace, co-heirs in him of this Kingdom he is describing.  And so this proclamation comes to us finally not as an oppressive word of judgment, which weighs down upon us with its burdensome proclamation, "You shall!  You must!"  In the deepest sense this Word comes to us as a promise, as a glimpse of the future Kingdom that Christ will inherit and share with those of us who are found to be in him.  The proclamation of this Kingdom is given us as a glorious hope which says "This you shall be."  As heirs in Christ of this  Kingdom, we shall be those in whom anger and hatred and violence are overcome and set aside and done away with, as lions lie down with lambs and little children play together in happiness and serenity, as swords are beaten into plowshares and the peace of God reigns in every city street and town and hamlet.  "This you shall be!" 

As heirs of this Kingdom, you and I shall be those whose bonds of love with one another and with God shall be formed in gladness, and nurtured and preserved in respect and honor.  Leering and lust and domination of one sex by the other shall be no more.  Hearts will no longer be broken, and persons will no longer be violated, honor shall not be discarded, but the love of God shall fill every breast to overflowing.  This is the promised Kingdom that Christ's teaching holds out to us, "This you shall be!"

And among husbands and wives, heirs of the Kingdom, that eternal bond of love will shines forth which unites Christ the bridegroom with his betrothed the church, we will see it manifested in human hearts and human lives.  Bonds between men and women will be forged in fidelity and thanksgiving, in joyous communion and intimate oneness.  And no longer shall homes be broken and lives shattered by strife and dissension, no longer shall little children go to their beds fearful over what the future may hold.  This is the promise which Christ's teaching holds out to us as heirs of the Kingdom in him:  "This you shall be!"

You and I, as the Spirit engrafts us into Christ, share in his status as the rightful heir and inheritor of this promised Kingdom.  It is a hope whose radiance is so bright that it is almost painful for our weary and compromised and sinful eyes to look at it directly—witness our flinching from the words of this text!  But in Jesus Christ it is our hope!  And so we should be wary of all those realistic, practical-minded persons who would divert us away from the shining light of God's promise, toward the tarnished and fallen reflections of the so-called "real world."  We should be wary of all the voices within and without urging us to abandon this promise, to be "realistic" by hallowing the fallen status quo, to cast aside the glories of the Kingdom in favor of a cheap and easy pseudo-Gospel, that in the name of a false "forgiveness" declares God and ourselves to be perfectly content with the world as it.  Especially in the atmosphere of our modern, permissive society,  the temptations are almost overwhelming to scale down and compromise these great demands of the Kingdom, and thereby to lose our grip on its great promise as well. 

Our culture seems to produce a great many souls whose goals in life are set no higher than to make a lot of money and do as they please.  They will come to you as their ministers wanting very much for you to tell them that everything is okay, that they are accepted—in their anger and pride and lust and self-absorption—"just the way they are."  When that temptation confronts you, remember the Kingdom you have been called to proclaim—in all its uncompromising purity, in all its glorious promise.  My brothers and sisters and co-workers in the Lord, do not sell the divine birthright of yourself and your people for a mess of comfortable, worldly pottage!

Remember these words of Christ which have occupied us this morning.  Cling to them as reminders of the grace which alone will sustain you in your ministry.  Hold fast to them as hope and promise of that glorious Kingdom that God has called you to proclaim.  Stand steadfast in the Word of truth that you have been given, and may God in his mercy sustain, and guide, and uphold all our ministries. 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.