Sunday, February 16, 2020

5^th Sunday in Ordinary Time; 5^th Sunday after Epiphany

The Revised Common Lectionary passages for the Lord’s Day are:

First Reading: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
Second Reading: I Corinthians 3:1-9
Gospel Reading: Matthew 5:21-37

The liturgical color for the day is: Green

Jesus says, “If your right eye cause you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.  If your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Excuse me?  Do what Jesus?  This isn’t literal stuff.  Put your pocketknife away.  Don’t pluck anything out or cut anything off.  Jesus is saying pay attention, because intention matters.  It isn’t about blindly knowing the rules and following them.  It is about discerning how we are to be in relationship with each other and then making choices accordingly.  It is about discerning how God would have us be and making choices accordingly.

It is not just a knowing the constraints.  It takes it further than that.  It is a heart thing…it is a thinking, feeling, discerning, paying attention to others thing.  It is about making choices and decisions that count for you and those around you.

It is, for Jesus, about choosing that which is life-giving in our relationship with God and each other. 

The old Deuteronomy words are, in effect, the words of Jesus: “Choose life.”

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There is an incarnation of wisdom in those words.  Life’s choices confront us every day.  I think often we forget that. We start to think everything which happens is thrown at us—or we come to the conclusion that we have no control over what happens next in our lives or what’s happening to us at all.  So, we end up feeling unhappy or even depressed.

We end up feeling stuck. There can be this gray cloud that rolls in over our blue sky, and it seems to just hang there leaving us powerless and unable to alter the course of our lives.

Not so, according to the text.  We are not helpless; we are not meandering through life.  God has placed before us life and death, blessings and cursing, and it is up to us to engage all the senses—to use the mind and heart—it is up to us to choose life.

Rev. Dr. Daris Bultena
General Presbyter & Stated Clerk