The Rule of Love

The Rule of Love

Matthew 5:21-30[1]

I think many of us have a “love-hate” relationship with rules. We love rules when they protect our rights. We especially love rules when we see someone else violating a rule that we think is important. But if a rule may be too “confining” to us, we can rather easily toss it aside. After all, “Rules were made to be broken,” right? And the funny thing is that our selective approach to “keeping” the rules seems perfectly logical. Traffic laws are, I think, a perfect case in point. If someone else is “riding our tail,” or “cuts us off,” or is exceeding the speed limit (at least more than we are), we can become positively indignant. But we barely notice when we break the same rules!

Many Christians have this same approach to the “rules” in Scripture. We have our favorite commandments, the ones that we scrupulously observe. The ones we think everybody ought to follow. And we all have those commandments that we tend to “overlook.” We get scandalized by people who break the Bible’s teachings that we think define what a “good Christian” should do. But when it comes to the precepts we ignore, we find all kinds of reasons to justify why it’s perfectly fine for us to do so. It’s a rather fickle approach to “following the instructions of the Lord” (Ps. 119:1, NLT).

Jesus took a very different approach to the rules. To him, they were commands from God, the very “word of God,” and therefore to be fulfilled. In fact, in last week’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, we heard him say that he had come not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. And he went on to emphasize this by saying, “truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18). Jesus clearly did not advocate ignoring the teachings of Scripture that we have come to think of as obsolete!

There is, however, a difference about the way Jesus approached the commands of Scripture. The manner of fulfilling them that he advocated was very different from many in his day. He did not approve of the shallow legalism that enabled people to “pick and choose” randomly which commands they would follow and which they would ignore. In fact, he regularly raked the religious leaders over the coals for “straining a gnat but swallowing a camel” (Matt 23:24) by doing things like meticulously tithing even the herbs from their garden but ignoring justice and mercy. This picking and choosing on a whim is not the integrity God desires.

What distinguished Jesus’ approach to the commands was that he insisted that true obedience comes from the heart. He emphasized that what is most important is not just your actions, but your motivations. In our reading from the gospel of Matthew for today, Jesus gave concrete examples of what this means. It means that we not only don’t kill as the commandment said, we also try to make peace with others rather than holding a grudge. For Jesus, keeping the commands means that we not only avoid cheating on our spouses, we also relate to others with pure motives rather than using them to satisfy our own desires. Jesus taught us to follow not simply the “letter of the law,” but also the “spirit of the law.”

St. Augustine, one of the leaders of the ancient church, said it this way: “Love, and do what you will.”^[2] In the context, Augustine says that only love can determine the quality of one’s actions. It seems likely, then, that he is thinking about the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In this respect he is following the example of Jesus and the Apostles, who spoke with one voice in teaching that loving others fulfills the whole law. Every command that God could desire us to follow is summarized in that one command: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Based on this, I think we can say that the way for us to “follow the instructions of the Lord” as people of integrity is to practice the rule of love. This is different from the “love” that we associate with infatuation. This kind of love is what you do when you really care enough about another human being to set your needs and wants and expectations aside. It’s what you do when you simply give yourself to others. Whether it’s feeding the hungry, or clothing the poor, or comforting the sick and dying—or just listening enough to others to really hear them—to love another person means to give of yourself without thinking about “what am I going to get out of this?” This kind of love treats others as “friends” in the truest sense of the word. This kind of love expresses itself in actions that seek what is best for others. This is the rule of love that the Bible teaches us to practice.

When we consider the “rules” of Scripture, they can be overwhelming to us. There are 613 commands in the Torah alone! I would say that Jesus’ approach to the commands of Scripture both makes it easier and harder for us. It’s easier, because instead of 613 “rules,” we just need to remember one: the rule of love. If our actions are consistent with loving others truly, then we don’t have to worry. But Jesus also makes it harder. The external rules of the law are such that you can “check them off.” No murder. Check. No stealing. Check. And so on. But you can never “check off” the rule of love. It will take our whole lives to learn what it means to “follow the instructions of the Lord” by practicing the rule of love.

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[1] © 2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/16/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Augustine, Ten Homilies on the first Epistle of John, 7.8 (on 1 John 4:4–12); https://ccel.org/s/schaff/npnf107/cache/npnf107.pdf (p.862).

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry?

Eat, Drink and Be Merry?

Lk. 12:13-21[1]

  Greed is one of those words that by definition simply has no positive meaning.  Only the most callous Wall Street capitalist could say with a straight face that “greed is healthy.”[2]  Most of us will agree with that on the surface of things, but once we walk out the doors of this church, our lives betray a different creed.  I’m afraid we’re all more products of a culture of “consumptive consumerism” than we’d like to admit.  One definition of this way of living is “The preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods.” I’d say that pretty much sums up the way we live these days--preoccupied with the acquisition of stuff.

  So when Jesus says, “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Lk. 12:15)[3], I doubt that too many people in our world really believe that. We might nod our heads in assent.  And none of us would go so far as to say “greed is healthy.” But, as a people, we continue to occupy ourselves with acquiring more and more.[4]  It would seem that we really do believe that our lives consist in the abundance of our possessions.[5]  It would seem that we believe that’s what it takes to be able to “eat, drink, and be merry.”

  All of that is fairly obvious to anyone who has the eyes to see it.  I don’t think belaboring it helps anybody.  I think the real issue is where this obsession comes from, and how we free ourselves from it.  It seems to me that the source of our greed is a lack of satisfaction with life.  We just don’t seem to have it in us to look at where we are today, what we have, what we’re doing, and say to ourselves that it’s just fine the way it is.[6]  There’s always something we want to change.  Always another “golden calf” out there that we imagine will make our lives complete.[7]  But no matter how much stuff we manage to acquire, it’s never enough.  There’s still an empty place inside us that won’t be filled with newer, nicer, better things.

  Others among us think that we can fill the void with activities.  If we work hard enough and long enough, we can distract ourselves from the real question that haunts us--the question of what it will take for us to be truly happy with our lives.  It’s a painful question, and one that isn’t easily resolved.  So we really rather not have to face it at all.  Instead, we run from one activity to another, immersing ourselves in busy-ness so that we won’t have to think about that emptiness that gnaws at us when we’re too still and quiet. [8]

  But the solution to the compulsion to fill our lives with something, with anything, so that we don’t have to feel that emptiness, can only be found elsewhere.  Centuries ago, St. Augustine said it this way, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”[9]  The ancient truth is that the only way to be free from the obsessions that fail to satisfy us is through the steadfast love of God.  It is a love that surrounds us constantly.[10]  It is a love that is in the very air we breathe, in the sunshine that drives the trees to produce the air we breathe, and in the chemical process in the leaves of the trees that gives off oxygen.  If God’s love can be found in something so basic to our very existence, surely it can be found in the other aspects of our lives as well, if we have the eyes to see it.[11]

  The Psalmist reminds us that it is the steadfast love of God that provides us with the very food we eat (Ps. 107:9).  And so he calls us to “give heed to these things” (Ps 107:43).  I think that means we’re supposed to catch a clue, get the hint, learn the lesson.  If God goes to such lengths to establish the very cycle of nature that supports our lives in ways we take for granted, we can surely trust God with the other aspects of our lives that we think we have to manage.  St. Paul took that one step further.  He reminded us that God also gave us what was most precious.  God gave his only Son for us all so that we might have new life.  And Paul draws the natural conclusion: “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” (Rom. 8:32).[12]

  The real solution to seeking our lives in how much stuff we have, or in how much we can do to distract ourselves, or how well we can “eat, drink, and be merry,” is to find our lives in the new life that God offers us all.  It is a life that is truly fulfilling, a life of learning that becoming content with God’s love turns whatever we have into everything we could ever need.  It is a life of loving God in return and therefore serving those around us in love--especially by sharing what we have with them.  Jesus calls this “being rich toward God” (Lk 12:21).[13] When we find our lives in this way, then we can see the folly of thinking that anything else could possibly satisfy us.  Then we can see the truth that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

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[1] © 2013 Alan Brehm.  A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/4/2013 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Ivan Boesky made this statement at his 1986 commencement speech at The University of California at Berkeley.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Boesky.

[3] Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreters Bible IX:255, on the dangers of wealth in Luke’s Gospel.

[4] Cf. U. S. Department of Labor, “100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending,” May 2006, accessed at http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/report991.pdf. In the introduction, the report says, “Mass consumption, spurred by advertising and consumer credit, has become a distinguishing characteristic of modern society. Today, consumer spending has become the largest component of U.S. gross domestic product.”

[5] Cf. Darrell Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53, 1146, 1150, 1155, where he points out that Luke’s intent in conveying this parable was to warn his Christian audience against the danger of placing one’s trust in wealth.  It would seem we still need that warning!

[6] Cf. Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap, 61.  She describes getting to this place as a gradual process: “I find that it’s essential during the day to actually note when I feel happiness or when something positive happens, and begin to cherish those moments as precious. Gradually we can begin to cherish the preciousness of our whole life just as it is, with its ups and downs, its failures and successes, its roughness and smoothness.”

[7] Cf. St. Paul, Colossians 3:5, “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: ... greed (which is idolatry).”  Cf. also Fred Craddock, Luke, 163, where he says that the problem with the rich man in the parable is that “He lives completely for himself.”  Cf. similarly, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Luke X-XXIV, 972; and Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke” NIB XI:257: “Until the voice of God interrupts the fool’s reverie, there is nothing in the story but the man and his possessions.”

[8] Cf. Chödrön, Taking the Leap, 15, where she uses the analogy of a young child with poison ivy who cannot resist the urge to scratch, which only makes things worse.  She says, “in the face of anything we don’t like, we automatically try to escape. In other words, scratching is our habitual way of trying to get away, trying to escape our fundamental discomfort, the fundamental itch of restlessness and insecurity.”

[9] Augustine, Confessions 1.1; accessed at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf 101.vi.I_1.I.html . On this, cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 28, where he comments that when people “go off in search of other things, ... , they are really engaged in a ... search for God, except they do not realize that it is God for whom they search.” Cf. also Henri Nouwen, Here and Now, 21: “there is a space within us where God dwells and where we are invited to dwell with God.”  Cf. also G. C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, 196: Man never appears as an isolated self-contained entity, or in the pure factuality of his weakness or strength or poverty or riches, but always and exclusively in that relationship which so decisively defines man in the full actuality of his existence (cf. Ps. 84:6, Luke 12:21).

[10] Cf. Nouwen, Here and Now, 20: “Jesus’ core message is that God is ... a lover, whose only desire is to give us what our hearts most desire.  To pray is to listen to that voice of love.”

[11] Cf. Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 78: “Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, the wonder of our breathing.”

[12] Cf. Nouwen, Here and Now, 136: “Wherever we are there are voices saying: ‘Go here, go there, buy this, buy that, ...,’ and so on.  These voices keep pulling us away from that soft gentle voice that speaks in the center of our being: ‘You are my beloved, on you my favor rests.’”

[13] Cf. Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” NIB IX:257: “the rich man’s vision of the future sounds uncomfortably like one that most of us have for our retirement years. Are we really planning prudently? What gives our life meaning now, and what will give it meaning then?” Cf. similarly, John Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 688.

Perishable Things

Perishable Things

Jn. 6:24-35[1]

Last week we talked about the difficulty of putting our faith in a God that no one has ever seen and a Savior whom none of us ever met in person.  I think the challenge we have with believing in things “unseen” is one reason why we tend to put our faith much more easily in other things.  Things we can see and touch.  Things like career, finances, family, relationships, and our own ability to control our lives. Unfortunately, life has a way of reminding us that our faith in those things may not be rewarded in the way we expect.  When it comes to our career, most of us these days can expect to experience a significant disruption in our career at least once in our lives.  Finances are no more reliable.  We entrust our life savings to financial institutions who engage in what is basically a sophisticated form of gambling, and may wind up losing our shirts.  And people—whether our family or our spouses or our children or our friends—are all flawed and fallible and imminently capable of letting us down when we most need them. 

In a very real sense, most of the what we invest our faith in fall under the category of “perishable things” that Jesus talks about in our Gospel lesson for today.  After feeding the 5000 with five loaves and two fish, he and the disciples crossed the lake, only to find that the crowd had followed them there.  When they approached him, he abruptly accused them of seeking the “food that perishes.”  In a sense, he said they followed him not because they were trusted in him and in God’s cause of peace and justice and freedom in the world, but because they had a good meal.  In the dialogue that follows, it would seem that they were looking for a repeat of the miracle of manna in the wilderness.  It would seem that they believed that if Jesus could give them the manna from heaven like Moses did, then he must really be the Messiah.[2] It’s hard to tell whether the crowd was even aware of the miracle that had happened the day before.[3] What they did understand was that it was Jesus who fed them, by whatever means. 

But Jesus was constantly aware of the dangers of faith that is based on tangible results.[4]  Whenever you get whatever it is you asked for, it’s only a matter of time before you begin to wonder, and then you need something more to bolster your faith.  I think that’s why Jesus was so harsh with the crowd.  He was aware that they weren’t looking for the new life of God’s peace and justice and freedom.  They weren’t following Jesus because they believed he was bringing them this new life.  They were following him because they were looking for some kind of visible confirmation so they could believe.[5]

But Jesus called them to a completely different kind of faith.[6]  He called them to “Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent” (Jn. 6:29 MSG).  That means throwing their lot in with God’s cause.  It’s the same kind of the faith that the three young men displayed when they confronted King Nebuchadnezzar and refused to worship his statue.  In effect, they said to him, “Our God is able rescue us from the fiery furnace, but even if he doesn’t we will not worship you” (Daniel 3:17-18).  They had “thrown in their lot” with God’s cause in the world.  They weren’t about to give that up for the sake of anything or anyone.

That kind of faith is not easy. It’s very much like Abraham and Sarah setting out on a journey without even knowing where you’re going.  That kind of faith without external props can feel incredibly uncertain. It deals with “things hoped for” and “things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).  It’s impossible to wrap your hands around that kind of faith and get a firm grip on it.  It’s no wonder most of us prefer to place our faith in something concrete, something we can see and touch.  But at the end of the day, all those seemingly reliable objects of our faith fall short.  They all let us down.  And we really shouldn’t be surprised at that.  Because those “perishable things” that we put so much of our faith in simply lack the ability to satisfy our deepest need.  What we need is the life that only God can provide.

I think Jesus knew that we all have a tendency to put our faith in things that ultimately cannot satisfy the deepest longings of our soul.  St. Augustine said it this way, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”[7]  The only “bread” that can truly satisfy our hunger is the life that God offers us.  And the amazing truth is that when we take the risk of “throwing in our lot the one whom God sent” to carry out God’s cause in the world, we find that somehow we experience a peace, a freedom, a quality of life that none of those “perishable things” can possibly provide.  When we take the risk of faith and begin to quiet our restless hearts, we find the life God offers us truly satisfies us in ways we may never have expected.

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[1] © 2012 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/5/12 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, 98.

[3] To some extent, it would seem that only Jesus and his disciples knew what had happened. Cf. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” New Interpreters Bible IX:599: “The crowd does not recognize the sign that has been enacted before them.”

[4] Cf. O’Day, “Gospel of John,” New Interpreters Bible IX:611; cf. also ibid., 576: “The person who interprets a miracle solely as a miraculous act will remain transfixed by and limited to the act itself … .  Jesus could be revered, perhaps even believed in on account of that act, but only as a miracle worker.” On the contrary, “it is not the miracle per se, but the glimpse of the presence of God at work with and in human experience that can lead to faith.”

[5] This is somewhat problematic in John’s Gospel, because one of the main emphases in the Gospel is that Jesus works miraculous signs so that people might believe.  I think  Stephen Fowl “John 6:25-35,” Interpretation 61 (July 2007): 315 puts it in perspective well when he says, “the signs challenge those who see them, hear about them, and ultimately read about them, to look beyond the miracles that are performed to the one who performs the miracles. … Signs, rightly understood, deepen and strengthen belief in Jesus. They are gracious gifts. Like many gifts, however, they are not always received in the right ways.”

[6] Cf. Gerard S. Sloyan, John, 73: “This chapter is about believing without seeing (v. 36), about coming to God through Jesus and being assured that trust in him cannot be misplaced (v. 37).” 

[7] Augustine, Confessions, I.1; cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 15, 29, 127, where he discusses Augustine’s statement from the perspective that faith always involves an element of being restless and “unhinged.”

A Question to Myself

John 3:1-17[1]

It seems to me that most of us are not great risk-takers. We want our lives to be comfortable, and safe, and predictable. And we turn to Christian faith to provide us that comfortable, safe, and predictable life. We want our faith to be something that we can depend on, something we can rely on, something we can count on. So we take faith and make it into certainty in order to fill that need for assurance. At least that has been the traditional approach, which construes the Christian faith as the truth that was “once for all” delivered to the faithful and preserved inviolable throughout the centuries in an infallible text and an infallible church.

Before we point the finger at other Christian traditions as the offenders here, we’d better look to our own roots. The Reformed confessions from the Sixteenth Century depict faith in this very way. The Second Helvetic Confession, from the Swiss branch of the Reformed Church, says that Christian faith is “a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind, and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles’ Creed.”[2] That doesn’t leave much room for doubt. [3] And the Westminster Confession, which was the confession of faith of the Presbyterian Church for centuries, hardly even speaks the language of faith—it’s all about knowledge and absolute truth and certainty. It’s easy to understand why we look for this certainty in our faith. It’s comforting and reassuring to have something firm to hang onto in the midst of all that’s changing in our world.

But in our gospel lesson for today, Jesus speaks very differently about faith. In fact, what he had to say about new life was so confusing to one of the “teachers of Israel” named Nicodemus that he misunderstood Jesus meaning completely. Jesus said, “you must be born from above,” but the way he said it could also be understood, “you must be born again.” That’s what led Nicodemus to think Jesus was talking about some kind of bizarre ritual by which an adult physically climbs back into the womb and is born a second time. In fact Jesus was talking about a different kind of birth—a birth that brought new life from the Spirit of God.[4] And I can just picture Nicodemus sitting there, scratching his head.

It’s no wonder. Jesus said what he was talking about was like the wind blowing. He said, “You can hear the wind, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going” (John 3:8). Now, Jesus wasn’t talking meteorologically. These days all we have to do is turn on the Weather Channel and we can see the precise atmospheric conditions that are generating the wind we hear when we walk outside. But if you don’t have access to any modern technology, and a wind comes upon you suddenly, you’re just as surprised and baffled as if you were living in the First Century. The new life that Jesus points us to is just as much a mystery as the wind can still be.

Because it is so mysterious, there is something inherently uncertain about what God is doing in our world to bring new life. Like a sudden wind that takes us by surprise, the newness that God brings to us is something that overwhelms us. When God’s Spirit blows into our lives, we are out of our element and find ourselves exposed and vulnerable, placed in a situation where all we can do is “sink to our knees in faith and hope and love, praying and weeping like mad.”[5] If that is the case, it seems to me that we have to acknowledge that there must be something inherently uncertain about our faith.[6]

So what in the world makes us think that we can somehow take that mysterious spiritual reality that is beyond our ability to understand or explain, and turn it into absolute knowledge and certainty? What makes us think we can try to make faith into something safe and manageable and predictable?[7] For some, I dare say it’s a matter of keeping faith convenient, seeking to limit our response to God’s new life to “how little can I get by with.”[8] This approach to faith is a little like a teenager preparing for an exam, and trying to get by with a minimum of effort.

I think that for many, this obsession with certainty stems from “a repressed fear that faith is only faith and as such a risk with no guarantee of anything.”[9] But that is precisely what faith is: a risk with no guarantee of anything! No matter how we try to make this life safe and comfortable and predictable, there is something inherent uncertainty about life. That uncertainly applies as much to our faith as it does to any other aspect of life. I think St. Augustine was talking about this uncertainty when he reflected on all he had done and not done, despite his best efforts, and he said: “I have become a question to myself.”[10] One of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time basically admits that, for all his insight into faith, he doesn’t even understand himself!

It seems to me that the only way to take the risk of faith is to acknowledge this “question to myself,” to acknowledge that we don’t even understand ourselves, let alone the new life, or the Spirit of God. If we’re going to take the risk of faith, we have to reckon with the fact that when the wind of God’s Spirit blows new life into our lives, it is not going to be safe and predictable.[11] When God’s Spirit blows into our lives, we will find ourselves exposed and vulnerable. In that moment, we may want to try to hang on to our lives and keep all the pieces manageable and predictable and save. But if we are going to take the risk of faith, we can only respond by opening ourselves to new life God brings. We can only respond by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and therefore changeable. We can only respond by saying, “Here am I.”[12] I think that’s what the Bible calls faith.

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[1] © 2011 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/20/11 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] “Second Helvetic Confession,” The Book of Confessions 5.112.

[3] Cf. the similar statement in the “Heidelberg Catechism,” The Book of Confessions 4.026, explanation of “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” says, “I trust in him so completely that I have no doubt that he will provide me with all things necessary for body and soul.”

[4] Cf. Sandra M. Schneiders, “Born Anew,” Theology Today 44 (July 1987): 189-96.

[5] John Caputo, On Religion, 12; cf. also p. 31: “Something grander and larger than us comes along and bowls us over and dispossesses us.” Cf. also Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics, II:255-56, 355-56.

[6] Keith Ward, God: A Guide for the Perplexed, 185, 190, 194-95, 197-98, 204, 209-216; cf. Caputo, On Religion, 8, 7-16, 19, 23-34, 53. Cf. Karl Barth, Romans, 98-99, where he says, “Faith always involves “a leap into the darkness of the unknown.” Cf. also Karl Barth, Word of God and Word of Man, 76, where he says that faith impels us “out and on to the edge of all experience, thought, and action,” and compels us “to attempt to leap off into the air, where obviously no [one] can stand.”

[7] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 12, where he observes that we want our faith “manageable, cut to size and proportioned to our knowledge, so that we know what to do in the present situation and what to expect in the future.”

[8] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 28. He warns that those who think they “specify and determine in well-formed formulae what they love when they love their God” must be careful that it does not turn into “an easy irresponsibility and complacency” or “a convenient answer, which substitutes for responding ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24).”

[9] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 124; cf. also Caputo, 35-36, where he describes this approach in terms of “closing the circle of faith, to slam shut the doors of faith from the intrusions of other faiths or of un-faith, to keep faith behind closed doors, safe and secure, and thus to suffer the illusion that there is some way to settle the question whose very meaning is to be unsettling.”

[10] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 18, 27.

[11] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 12-14; see especially 33-34: “Faith is not safe. … Faith is always—and this is its condition—faith without faith, faith that needs to be sustained from moment to moment, from decision to decision, by the renewal, reinvention, and repetition of faith …. Faith is always inhabited by unfaith, which is why the prayer in the New Testament makes such perfect sense, ‘Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief’ (Mark 9:24). For my faith cannot be insulated from unbelief; it is co-constituted by unbelief, which is why faith is faith and not knowledge.”

[12] Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 28.

Finding Freedom

Deut. 30:15-20; Mt. 5:21-37[1]

It’s hard to mention the Ten Commandments these days without thinking about Judge Roy Moore. He’s the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who commissioned a 5,000-pound monument depicting the Law of Moses. And then he was removed from office for refusing to move it from the State Capitol. What you may not know is that “the Rock,” as it has been called, went on tour. That may not seem that big a deal, until you think of what it takes to lug around two-and-a-half ton sculpture. It rode on a flatbed truck and had to be lifted off and back again with a five-ton, fifty-seven-foot crane![2] What a perfect image to portray the commandments as “burdens, weights and heavy obligations,” as one commentator put it.[3]

But it doesn’t really seem consistent with the way our lesson from Deuteronomy portrays the commandments —as life-giving, liberating, restorative, and redemptive. In the Hebrew Bible, the commandments are an amazing gift that makes it possible for us to live in harmony with God’s will—with God’s justice and peace and mercy and love. Our lesson from Deuteronomy says it this way: “choosing life” means “obeying the command-ments of the LORD your God … by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments” (Deut. 30:16). It means “loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him” (Deut. 30:20).[4]

We’re not used to talking about the commandments in this way. We’re much more familiar with talking about them as a burden, a weight, or a heavy obligation—like a 5,000-pound monument made out of Vermont granite. But that misunderstands the role of the torah in the covenant God made with the people of Israel. When God entered the covenant with the Jewish people, it was to form a relationship. Not surprisingly, what God was looking for from the covenant people was to commit themselves to this relationship wholeheartedly.[5] In that context, the purpose of the commandments was to define human life as an expression of what it means to love God.[6] They were given as the parameters within which they could live their lives—parameters that were intended to enable them to enjoy a life that is full of living hope, lasting joy, and genuine love, both toward God and others.[7] Viewing the commandments as burdens misses the fact that they begin with “the good news of what the liberating God has done” (“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,” Deut. 5:6) and then they describe “the shape of the freedom that results.”[8]

Here I’m quite sure we’ve entered terra incognita. Who ever heard the word freedom associated with the Ten Commandments—especially in church? When we think of freedom in connection with the Law of Moses, we tend to go down the path that sounds something like “Jesus sets us free from the Law.” But our Gospel lesson for today doesn’t really bear that out, does it? Jesus’ take on the Ten Commandments is not to set them aside, but to make them a central part of what it means to live in relationship with God! In a very real sense, our Gospel lesson shows Jesus spelling out in very specific terms what it looks like to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. For him it means that we not only don’t kill one another, we also avoid hatred, anger, and disrespect. For him doing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven means that we not only don’t engage in promiscuity, we also relate to others with pure hearts. For him, doing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven means that we not only love our friends, we also love our enemies.[9]

So, how in the world can we speak of this kind of life in terms of freedom? I think St. Augustine was onto something when he said, “love, and do what you will.”[10] I think he was saying that if we truly love God and truly love others, then we are free to do whatever we want, because what we want will be an expression of love toward God and others![11] When we make the choice to align ourselves with the fulfillment of God’s justice and peace in this world, there’s not much in the Ten Commandments that will be limiting or restricting to us.

Events in Egypt this week have reminded us of how important freedom is for life. But they also remind us that true freedom requires certain parameters—civil rights, free and fair elections, the ability to make a livable wage, access to education, and others. Time will tell whether the Egyptian people will achieve true freedom. We hope and pray that they do. Our Scripture lessons remind us that we all constantly stand before the choice of true freedom. We find freedom when we commit ourselves to doing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. We find freedom when we live our lives in harmony with God’s justice and peace and mercy. We find freedom when we embrace a way of living that is defined by love.

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[1] © 2011 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/13/11 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Joshua Green, “Roy and his Rock,” The Atlantic Monthly (October 2005); accessed at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/roy-and-his-rock/4264/ .

[3] Cf. Thomas G. Long, “Dancing the Decalogue,” in The Christian Century (March 7, 2006):17.

[4] John Shelby Spong, Living Commandments, 14, 15, says that the Ten Commandments are the principles through which we find “the fullness of life, the depth of love, and the meaning of our own humanity.” Cf. also James L. Mays, Psalms, 99.

[5] Cf. Miller, Deuteronomy, 125, 213 where he says that to live in covenant with God means “to commit oneself wholly to God and to God’s way.”

[6] Cf. Paul J. Achtemeier, Romans , 199: the original purpose of the torah in the context of a covenant relationship was “to show how life was to be shaped in ways appropriate for God’s people as their faithful and trusting response” to God’s gracious covenant and salvation. See also John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles 175–176: “the law, which is spiritual, does not command only external works, but enjoins this especially, to love God with the whole heart.”

[7] There is a potential for misunderstanding here. The language sounds like life and prosperity are a reward for obedience, and using rewards to motivate obedience tends to undermine the whole idea of a loving commitment. In reality the point is that life is the result of living in a way that is consistent with God’s purposes.

[8] Long, “Dancing the Decalogue,” 17.

[9] Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge, 146, reminds us that “God wills life, joy, freedom, peace, salvation, the final great happiness of [humanity]” (altered).

[10] Augustine, Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John; http://www.newadvent.org/ fathers/170207.htm.; See also John Caputo, On Religion, 3-7, 24-28, 109-116, 134-36, 139; and Küng, Christian Challenge, 154: “love puts an end to casuistry.”

[11] Jacques Ellul, “Christian Responsibility for Nature and Freedom,” Cross Currents 35 (Spring 1985): 50 reminds us that true freedom is “inconceivable without … a life within the love of God and neighbor.”