20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Todays readings are an excerpt from the Sermon on The Mount, Jesus’ typological fulfilment of Moses giving the Hebrew people the Law from the Mountain. This section of Matthew occupies chapters five, six and seven. In the verses previous, Jesus adamantly proclaims he is not here to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. This tells the purpose of his teachings, the Law was not an end to and of themselves. But was a part of God’s divine pedagogy, his method of teaching his people. This gives us context for why he says what he says in todays readings.
The righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes, a lot of the time we assume they were all liars and scum but that is not what the Gospels actually show us. Yes in many cases their are people that fail in their obligations to the Law but on the most part these were the most rigid of Law adherers. They lived the Law and died by the Law. This is the problem that Jesus is actually highlighting, the Law was not an end of itself but was supposed to raise the Hebrew people up to higher standard, the eventual end is divinisation, being like God. The Law simply does not do this, it only makes them more virtuous than most pagan cultures. If your righteousness does not go beyond clinging to the Law you will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, the beatific vision.
21 “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’
Jesus now refers to one of the Laws of the Decalogue, you shall not kill. Whoever does is liable to judgement. This statement is still true and Jesus confirms that.
22 But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.
The point of the Law against killing innocents was not to cling to a check list of do’s or don’ts. The purpose was to make the person see the value that God placed on others. The higher standard isn’t just about not killing people, it extends inward toward the intentions we have toward people. Murder isn’t a random action but an extension of anger and animosity towards another and therefore perceiving their right to life or dignity as a person made in the image God less than others, especially less than yourself.
So being angry with your brother is like teasing the action of murder. You will be liable to judgement for this as well. Those that insult others, another connected action to that of murder because of animosity shall be liable to the council. The same goes for calling your brother a fool, they will be brought before the Sanhedrin, the council of 70 Hebrew elders that administrated the Jewish people under the guidance of the High priest of the Temple. Calling your brother a fool will cause you to answer for it in hell fire.
Jesus is in fact displaying gradients of sin and their respective punishments. Anger against another requires “judgement”. The word in Greek here is krisei in this context it is the least of the gradients of sin and is sometimes translated as “court” or “tribunal”. Local secular authorities is the most likely fit.
Those that insult their brother go before the council. “Insult” is not really a good translation as it disconnects from the ancient context. The word used is actually the Aramaic “Raca“ and it essentially means “worthless”. Considering that “worthless” in Hebrew (Beliyal) was also the name given to the Evil One among various Hebrew groups in Second Temple Judaism this is much worse than generally insulting someone.
The word for “council” is synedrion which is where we get our English transliteration of Sanhedrin. This is not a random council but the Religious authority structure, in the Old Covenant it was the Seventy Elders that served under the High Priest.
The final infraction is calling someone a “fool”. At least that is what our English translation says, some render it as “renegade”. Kind of confusing such varying ideas of a term right? The Greek word is “mōros” and without the cultural contextual weight behind it, it can be a confusing word to translate. The most literal translation would be “atheist”. That is the point of what it is. To be Godless, in ancient times this was synonymous with being retarded and an idiot. People go around these days identifying as such, our cultural context does not see the gravity behind this insult though individually we might. Imagine going up to someone you know at Church and accusing them of being an atheist, now the gravity might make a little more sense. The punishment for this is the harshest, hell fire. Gehenna. We should also understand that this is to do with calling someone Godless that isn’t a professed atheist. It is basically standing in and denying someones faith in God that they profess. The punishment if left unrepented is eternal damnation.
23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Now Jesus offers the creature of advocacy that we have in material space. Time. You still have time to mend these things. If you are going to offer your gifts at the Temple and remember your brother has something against you, you should mend that relationship before you give your offering. It’s simple but appeals to relentless forgiveness of God in doing so. Your offering to God will be more if you mend your communion with others.
25 Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison;
26 truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny.
Make friends with those who accuse you during the time you still have on the way to the court, mending that communion between you and him will release you from the legal proceeding. If you don’t he has every right to bring you to the judge who will hand you over to the guard who puts you in prison. You will not leave that prison until every penny has been paid in recompense for what you did. Many point to this as a veiled teaching on purgatory and I do see what people are getting at, especially with the previous mentions of Gehenna (damnation).
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