August 24, 2025

Another Thing I Wish He Hadn’t Said

From time to time I screw my courage to the sticking place and preach a sermon on one of those things I wish Jesus had never said. He said a lot of those kind of things.
It reminds me of the story about Bob Zuppke who was the football coach at Illinois back when Knute Rockne was at Notre Dame. Like Rockne, Bob Zuppke was a master of the half-time pep talk; some thought he was even better. In one particular game, the fighting Illini was woefully behind at the half. Zuppke knew that he had to give one of his most dramatic speeches to enliven his team. And he did. As he neared the conclusion of his half-time talk, his voice became louder, his pleas more dramatic, and finally he pointed to the door at the other end of the locker room saying, “And now let’s go through that door and on to victory!” The team rose as one man, tears welling in their eyes, their throats choked with emotion, and they ran through that door . . . right into the university swimming pool.
Sometimes I think some of the things Jesus said were like that – well intentioned, but basically bad advice.
I know better. But some of his words I find pretty hard to swallow. I realize it’s not him – it’s got to be me – but I read them, then I read them again, and I find myself saying, “I wish he hadn’t said that.”
Like when he said, as Matthew records, “Till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
“Not an Iota.”
Now, I wish he hadn’t said that. Because, as far as I can see, he’s talking here about the books of the law in the Old Testament. In other words, out of all those dusty old manuscripts full of endless legal mumbo-jumbo from at least Genesis through Deuteronomy – where, for instance, descriptions were provided for the right kind of heifer to be sacrificed in just the right way, and how anyone who had a blemish or disability was not allowed to come near the sacred offering, and how one who blasphemed the name of the Lord should be put to death by stoning – that, out of all that, Jesus was not relaxing, and not allowing anyone else to relax, any of the provisions of those laws, or even to change one single tiny letter of one word of it. Not an Iota!
Now, I’ve heard all sorts of explanations for what Jesus is really saying here (you know, under the surface), what preachers will tell you Jesus would have said if he’d really said exactly what he’d intended to say. For instance: Jesus is just speaking to a Jewish audience and he doesn’t want them to think he’s down on Jewish traditions like the law, so he says this to kind of keep them on his side. Or, the explanation that’s most tempting to me: Jesus is here just pointing out that the law code of Old Testament Judaism is to be kept intact simply to bring people to a realization that they can’t ultimately fulfill all its demands and they are therefore dependent on Divine grace for salvation. And another one I’ve heard goes like this: Jesus is operating out of a kind of “crisis ethic.” In other words, he thought the kingdom, and judgement, and damnation, and the whole nine yards were just around the corner, so everyone should wise up quick and be as virtuous and righteous as possible in order to get to heaven. Of course the never stated, but clearly implied corollary of that is that now, since we know he was all wrong about the timing, we can relax.
All of the sermons I’ve heard on this text (and, I must confess, a few that I’ve preached) add up to basically the same thing: that Jesus really meant just about the opposite of what he actually said.
That would be convenient to believe; really much more comfortable. But I can’t help it; when he says, “Not an iota!” I get the chilling feeling that he means just that.
So what are we to do with these words of Isaiah, from the very same sacred writings to which Jesus referred?
“Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
I confess to being a little confused. It sounds like the Day of Atonement commanded by the Lord in the book of Leviticus is not, in fact, what that same Lord wants of the people. By Jesus’ standard, it sounds like God Almighty will be called “least in the kingdom of heaven.”
And what about all the stuff from the Apostle Paul about grace? Paul wipes out a ton of iotas. He says, “You have died to the law,” and “By grace you have been saved through faith,” and “The law was our custodian until Christ came, . . . but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian.”
Those are the kind of things I like to hear. I mean, another word for custodian is jailer; and those old testament laws can be pretty imprisoning! I’d like to throw out not only the iotas and dots of the law, but a lot of the ABC’s and XYZ’s! I like my religion comfortable. Which is why I squirm in my seat and complain when I hear Jesus say “not an iota will pass from the law.”
So what’s this all about? What’s Jesus up to here? Frankly, I’m not sure. But, being clueless hasn’t stopped me from preaching a sermon yet.
Seriously, maybe that’s the place to begin. I think clueless is not such a bad thing to be. If I could stand before you Sunday after Sunday and offer thorough explications and explanations of every passage of scripture and every point of theology, neatly wrapped up with a tidy bow on top, something tells me I’d be dishing out more hooey than authenticity. And I think that’s one of the biggest things for each of us to take from this; developing the capacity to live with unanswered questions and disturbing dilemmas is, I believe, essential to a strong and sustaining faith. So, I urge upon all of us to simply take in these words of Jesus and let their discontinuity bounce around in our heads for a while.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
But, there does have to be more to it, doesn’t there? If we get stuck with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, we run the risk of becoming theological couch potatoes. So, it’s also important, I submit, for us to wrestle with these questions, even if we’re not likely to come up with any answers. It’s in the wrestling that unexpected insights often spring to life. So, let me wrestle for a moment in front of you.
One of the first things that came to my mind as I grappled with this “not an iota” business is how it relates to our feelings about guilt and grace, and what they might have to do with our human quest for authenticity. You and I get easily hung up between our guilt about regularly dropping the iotas from the law week to week, and yet knowing that we live by Divine grace and forgiveness. Here’s what I think: the more authentic we become, the more honestly real and capable of intimacy with ourselves, with life, and with each other we become, the less personally defended we become, and the more free we are to recognize our faults without turning away in humiliation. But, the more authentic we become, also the more free we are to experience grace and forgiveness.
It occurs to me that, in this way, judgement and grace are really one and the same thing! Divine judgement is like a light that shines into our lives and our world. It’s a light that exposes everything in its truest and most honest form. It’s a light that says, “This is what is,” and leaves us to deal with the consequences of that truth. The very same light is the light of grace. It’s a light that shines into our lives and into our world, and says, “This is what is,” and leaves us with the realization that the deepest and most honest truth about ourselves and our lives — that we are children of grace, is also illuminated in that light of knowing.
All of this begins to make some sense when we realize that “the law” Jesus was talking about is the heart of Israel’s covenant with the Lord of Hosts. And a covenant is a far-reaching, holistic relationship based on love, the kind of love that means devotion and trust. You can’t do away with any part of such a relationship or it’s immediately violated. As soon as you begin asking which parts of the contract you can set aside, you have already violated the relationship. As soon as you ask which ones of the marriage vows you no longer need to consider, you’ve already violated love, and violated the marriage.
So what does all this have to do with us? Near as I can figure, it means we completely miss the boat if we’re still stuck trying to figure out what we have to do and not do to be a good Christian.
It’s like the story I heard somewhere told by a Rabbi who watched a guest at a major Chicago hotel rushing to pay his bill and check out. Suddenly the guest realized that he had left something in his room. Seeing an employee of the hotel, he asked, “Would you please hurry to room 1203, I think I left my briefcase there. Run up as fast as you can and see if it’s there; the airport limo leaves in six minutes.” Several minutes later the bellboy came back running across the lobby saying, “Yes sir, your briefcase is still there.”
See, if you have to explain that you’re only doing what you’re told, it’s obvious your heart’s not in it. And if your heart’s not in it, nothing else matters. I think that was Isaiah’s point. Going through the motions of worship and making an offering because it’s what we’ve been told to do can just be another way of putting blinders on to injustice, oppression, hunger, homelessness, and poverty.
Although we rarely admit it (even to ourselves), so many of us live in a way that seems to ask the question, “What can I get away with?” And the thing I keep choking on is, “Not an iota!”
I may never entirely sort all this out for myself, but I hope my reflections on this annoying little saying of Jesus have been at least mildly illuminating, and have not simply muddied the waters. At any rate, two things do seem to come into focus:
To live in covenant relationship with the Lord and in the community of faith, is to feel the joy and gratitude of the freedom that comes from dwelling in the gracious light of Holy Love, being loved as we are, and accepted even though we don’t deserve it.
And maybe we need to choke on a line like this a bit. Because maybe if we become comfortable throwing out the iotas, it won’t be long before we start expelling the ABC’s. Maybe it’s somehow good for us to wrestle with the body of scripture as we have it, inconsistencies, anachronisms, and all – every single iota.