Made for Relationships

Made for Relationships

Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18[1]

One of the challenges of this time of separation from others is that we don’t have nearly as many face-to-face contacts with people. Of course, we do get to see each other on the screen with our Zoom gatherings, but it’s just not the same as being together. Believe it or not, I’m actually an introvert. I love being around people, but I need “alone” time to re-charge. Even those of us who are introverts need to see the people in our lives. I think part of the stress we’re all feeling is that we don’t have the same level of personal interaction with co-workers, friends, family, and the church family.

One of the main motivations for being a part of a church like ours is the relationships we form. As we heard earlier in our service, many times the church becomes an extended family for those whose are away from their family members. I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the things I miss most about being able to gather together in person. At the same time, I have a deep concern for your safety, and I don’t want to leave anybody out of our worship. For now, it seems that the best course is to continue to gather on Zoom, and to have regular opportunities for us to “meet and greet” one another in safe ways.

The fact that relationships are so important to us is, I think, something that is true by design. In the creation story in Genesis, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This passage is the basis for the idea that we as human beings are created in the image of God. Throughout the ages, theologians and scholars have debated precisely what that means. Some have said that it is our capacity for reason, others that it is our ability to “have dominion” over the rest of creation, and others have even said it is the fact that we walk upright!

I would say that the Scriptures point us in a different direction. Understanding God is in some ways straightforward, and in other ways it is complicated. Especially in the New Testament, as in our Gospel reading, the language for God is the language of “Trinity.” This is one of the most complicated aspects of our faith. As I understand it, Trinity means that God does not exist in a solitary condition. Rather, God is “God in three persons” who are bound together by love. God is “God in relationship,” “God in community.” The very statement that “God is love” implies that at the heart of who God is, there is relationship. For there to be love, there has to be an “other” to love. That love starts with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are bound together by the love they share for one another. And so it is that I think we are meant to read the creation of humankind in the image of God in part as a statement about who God is: God is “love overflowing” to all of us, and the whole creation.  

“God’s love overflowing”[2] reaches out to all created things, and especially to the human family. As I mentioned, that we are created in God’s image means that we are made for relationships. We are designed to respond to the love that God has poured out in our hearts. The primary way in which we do this is in our relationship with God our Creator. We are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). That means seeking God, following God’s ways, honoring God with our lives, and serving God by serving others.

That last part points us to the other essential way in which we respond to the love God has poured into our lives. Just as God exists in the community of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so we are made to love others. We are created to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). We love God by loving others through the relationships we build with them. Just as God exists in a fellowship of love, so also we who are created in his image are made for relationships.

We’ve been given an amazing gift: we’ve been designed to relate to God and one another with love. And we’ve been given an amazing task: we’ve been created to share God’s love with one another and with those around us. To be this kind of people, people who are fundamentally shaped by God's love, people who share God’s love with all those we encounter, is more than we can do by ourselves. Fortunately, we have an example of what that looks like in human terms in the person of Jesus Christ. And we have a “helper” to guide us and empower us in the person of the Holy Spirit. We who are made for relationships can look to God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer to live out the love we have been given by sharing it with all our fellow members of the human family.

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[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D., on 6/7/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] See the PCUSA statement on the Trinity entitled “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing” at https://www.presbyterianmission.org/resource/trinity-gods-love-overflowing/.

Finding Life

Finding Life

Deuteronomy 10:12-22[1]

It’s hard to mention Moses without thinking about the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments may remind us of Judge Roy Moore. He’s the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who commissioned a 5,000-pound monument depicting the Law of Moses. What you may not know is that “the Rock,” as it has been called, went on tour. That may not seem like a big 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]

That’s how we tend to think of the Ten Commandments, the Law of God, and the Hebrew Bible in general: as a burden. We tend to think that the people of Israel labored under the burden of demands they could never fulfill, trying to win God’s love, trying to earn salvation by their good works. And we see Jesus as the one who set us free from that burden by bringing salvation to us as a gift. As a result, we might be tempted to think that the Ten Commandments, the Law of God, and the Hebrew Bible in general are pretty much irrelevant.

But that’s not what our prophet for the week, Moses, has to say about the matter. We may not be accustomed to thinking of Moses as a prophet, but in the Jewish world, including that of Jesus’ day, Moses was the prophet above all others. He spoke the word of God to the people. In our lesson for today, he begins with a question: “What does the Lord require?” (Deut. 10:12). It’s a straightforward question and at first the answer sounds clear enough: “to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

The problem comes when we read on: “and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being” (Deut. 10:13). That doesn’t compute for us on several levels. Most of us don’t equate “loving God and serving him” with keeping the commandments. But the witness of Scripture is clear that loving and serving God means “walking in all his ways.” Knowing God truly has always made a difference in the way people live out their lives—in every aspect of life.

Part of the reason why our Scripture lesson doesn’t compute for us is because it seems like Moses is saying that finding life depends on what we do. Somehow, it seems that our salvation is a matter of earning God’s love. And yet, Moses specifically says that the Lord chose people to live in relationship with him because he “set his heart in love on your ancestors” (Deut. 10:15). The original covenant with Israel was based on the same love as the new covenant. Keeping God’s commands was never a means of gaining or achieving salvation apart from God’s grace. 

If that’s the case, then why were the commands given at all? Why did Moses insist that the people keep the commandments? While it was never a matter of earning a relationship with God, the commandments were a way of defining what a genuine relationship with God looks like. They spell out in daily practice what it looks like to “walk in all God’s ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” The Bible teaches that it’s a part of God’s original intention for the human family: to lead us into a relationship characterized by love and faith that are not coerced and by heartfelt obedience that puts God’s will into practice in daily living.

I think the final aspect of this passage that doesn’t compute for us is found in the line that keeping the commandments is something that was intended to be “for your own well-being” (Deut. 10:13). They were meant to instruct us about how to find the life that is truly life, the life that God intended for us all to have in the first place. That is the heart of what the Law or Torah was about: instructing us in what it looks like to “walk in God’s ways.” And when we do so, we realize that God’s ways are not burdensome at all, but rather they are paths that show us the way to find life.

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 their role in God’s purpose for his covenant people, both then and now. The purpose of that covenant is to form a relationship. Not surprisingly, what God looks for is for his people to commit themselves to this relationship wholeheartedly. In that context, the purpose of the commandments is to spell out what it means to live a life defined by love for God. They were given as the parameters within which to live our lives—parameters that are intended to enable us to find a life that is full of living hope, lasting joy, and genuine love, both toward God and others. Elsewhere, Moses calls this way of living “choosing life” (Deut. 30:19-20). As we learn what it means to love God, to serve him wholeheartedly, and to walk in his ways, we find the life that is truly life.

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[1] © 2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/5/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Joshua Green, “Roy and his Rock,” The Atlantic Monthly (October 2005);  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.

From the Heart

From the Heart

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

  I’ve mentioned before that I inherited the Brehm family Bible from my Grandfather.  It was given to my Great-Great Grandfather William Brehm and his wife Elizabeth by her parents as a wedding gift.  I find it interesting that the inscription they chose for presenting a Bible to their children for their wedding was John 14:23: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  But it’s also interesting that this Bible is a version of Martin Luther’s translation.  The fact is that Luther “edited” his version of the Bible, placing books like James and Hebrews at the end because he questioned whether they really fit with the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.

  You see, Martin Luther originally had a hard time with God, because he believed God to be demanding, a God of justice but not mercy.  He tried every way he knew to live up to the demands of this severe God—even literally beating himself at times.  Finally he discovered that salvation was by grace alone, by faith alone.  Through the lens of that discovery, he began to view the New Testament as “gospel” and the demands of the Hebrew Bible as “law.”  For Luther, it was crucial that Jesus had come to set us free from the “law.”  And he “wrote” this perspective into his translation of the Bible by placing books he didn’t care for at the end.  But Luther wasn’t the first or the last to try to “edit” the Bible.  I think the real problem for us is that what they did on paper, we do in fact.  We simply omit those portions of the Bible from actual use.  I think this tends to apply especially to the “law” with its demands.[2]

  But that’s not really consistent with our lesson from Deuteronomy for today.  The basis for the commandments was the relationship God wanted with the people of Israel, called the “covenant.”  Throughout the Hebrew Bible, God called the people to commit themselves wholeheartedly to this relationship.[3]  The commandments were viewed as a gift that made it possible for the people to align their lives with God’s intention for their life.  In the context of this relationship, the purpose of the commandments was to define human life in terms of loving God.[4] Our lesson from Deuteronomy says it this way: “choosing life” means “obeying the commandments 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).[5]

  Some might object that in the “Old Testament” people had to earn their salvation through obedience, while we’ve been set free from all that by Jesus Christ.  Not only does that not do justice to what we’ve heard from the Hebrew Bible today, it also doesn’t accurately reflect our Gospel lesson.  In this section of the Sermon on the Mount,  Jesus’ approach to the commandments is not to set them aside, but to make them a central part of what it means “hold fast” to God![6]  For him it means that we not only don’t kill one another, we also avoid hatred and anger.  Instead we practice reconciliation in our relationships.[7]  For him keeping the commands means that we not only avoid promiscuity, we also relate to others with pure hearts.[8]  For him, obeying God means that we avoid all the ways people use to circumvent the truth and practice simple, straightforward honesty.[9]  In other words, for Jesus, obeying God is not just a matter of what we do, it’s something that comes from the heart.[10]

  All this may sound very confusing.  I think many Christians over the ages have been confused about what they should do with the Hebrew Bible, especially the Law and its commandments.  Our lessons for today, like many other Scriptures, teach us that the purpose for the commandments has always been to call people like you and me into a relationship with God.  It is a special kind of relationship, one defined by sincere love and trust, and by obedience that comes from the heart.  That’s right--all the “thou shalt not’s” and the demands that go beyond the way everybody else lives have always been about our relationship with God!  God has worked through Prophets and Apostles and Saints and Sages throughout the centuries from Abraham to today with one goal in mind.  And that goal is to lead you and me into a relationship with him in which we respond to what he has done for us with love that comes from our hearts. When we have that kind of relationship that comes from the heart, we can do no less than make every effort to practice the way of life defined in Scripture as “walking in God’s ways.”[11]

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[1] © Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/16/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 140: “we know that one is not saved by keeping the law and can think of no other reason why one should try to do it.”

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

[4] Cf. Miller, Deuteronomy, 113: “The one who keeps covenant expects Israel to keep the covenant commandments; the one who loves Israel expects this people to love wholeheartedly in return.”

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

[6] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible, IV:1175, where he compares what Jesus says here with Psalm 119. He says, “Jesus ... sought to extend the torah to represent God’s sovereign claim upon all of human life (see Matt 5:21-48).”  Cf. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew, 51: “What Jesus teaches brings to articulation the ultimate purpose of God for his people expressed in Torah.”  Contrast W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 508-9, where they insist that these verses do not “offer us Jesus’ interpretation of the law,” because although “the Torah supplies him with a point of departure,” his demands surpass the Torah.  Therefore, for Jesus, “strict obedience to the commandments of the Torah is not enough” because “obedience to rules, even to the Torah, does not automatically produce the spirit that Jesus requires of those who follow him,” i.e., love. I’m not sure Davies and Allison are actually saying anything different from others on this, they’re just saying it more emphatically.

[7] Cf. Glen H. Stassen, “The Fourteen Triads Of The Sermon On The Mount (Matthew 5:21-7:12),” Journal of Biblical Literature 122/2 (2003):272: “To avoid ever being angry would be an impossible ideal, but to go and be reconciled with a brother or sister is the way of deliverance from anger.”

[8] Cf. Stassen, “Fourteen Triads,” 275, where he observes, “Of course, literally getting rid of the right eye or right hand would not prevent what causes the sin.”  Cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 524.

[9] Cf. Stassen, “Fourteen Triads,” 278: “The way of deliverance from the deceit and distrust of oaths that are not real, and from fine distinctions designed as escape clauses, is the transforming initiative of straightforwardly telling the truth.”  Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 533: “Jesus enjoins ... invariable honesty and integrity” which “makes the oath superfluous.”

[10] 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.”  This is consistent with Jesus’ approach to the law in the Sermon on the Mount.

[11] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.2:697: the demands of the Sermon on the Mount “show very plainly that the impact which is made on man by the mercy of God revealed and operative in Jesus Christ is something radical and revolutionary.”

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.”