Getting Specific

 

Getting Specific

Matthew 22:34-46[1]

We have all kinds of images about what love is “supposed” to look like. If you’re in my generation, you will remember the line that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That “romanticized” view of love gets in the way of what I would say real love looks like. From the perspective of the Bible, love is about what we do. Love means caring enough about another person to set our wants and needs aside. Love means giving of ourselves without asking “what am I going to get out of this?” Whether it’s feeding the hungry, or clothing the poor, or comforting the sick and dying—or just listening enough to really hear someone—love is about what we do. And the Bible can get pretty specific about what that looks like.

In our Gospel lesson for today, when Jesus was asked about the “greatest commandment,” he answered with two well know passages from the Hebrew Bible: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. This would have been nothing new to the people of the day. The first command to love God was something that pious Jewish people prayed on a daily basis. The fact that Jesus added a “second” command to love your neighbor would also have come as no surprise. These two commands were the foundation for all the teachings of Scripture.

Where I think we may get hung up is on what loving God and loving your neighbor looks like in daily life. I think a closer look at the Hebrew Bible may help us. The “first” command to love God comes from Deuteronomy 6:5. If we look at the book as a whole, we find that God was establishing a relationship with his people. And the commandments were meant to define what that relationship would look like. Deuteronomy says it this way: “loving God” means “obeying the commandments of the LORD your God … , walking in his ways, and observing his commandments” (Deut. 30:16). That’s right, we love God by keeping his commandments!

This perspective isn’t limited to the Hebrew Bible. Jesus also defined love for God in terms of keeping commandments (John 14:23-24). And he went on to spell out what that looks like in very specific terms in the Sermon on the Mount. For Jesus, loving God means we avoid hatred and anger and we find ways to make peace in our broken relationships. For Jesus, loving God means we keep our intentions toward others honest, in both our actions and our words. For Jesus, loving God means we proactively do good to all people, even those who may be “enemies.” In other words, for Jesus, loving God looks very specific.

The second “great” command, to love your neighbor as yourself, comes from Leviticus 19:18. Again, I think it will help us to take a closer look at the Hebrew Bible. In Leviticus, loving your neighbor means leaving the edges of the fields and the gleanings of the harvest “for the poor and the alien” (19:11). Rather than using all our material wealth for ourselves, we’re to reserve a portion to help those in need. Loving your neighbor means not mistreating the deaf or the blind, but rather giving respect to all people (19:14). Loving your neighbor means not talking about others in a manner that diminishes them (19:16). And it means not taking revenge or bearing a grudge (19:18). This Scripture gets quite specific when it defines what it means to love your neighbor as yourself!

I hope that you heard some echoes between what it means to love God and what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Those two “great commands” are intertwined throughout the Bible. Loving God and loving others go hand-in-hand. It’s no coincidence that when the Bible gets specific about what it looks like to love God and love your neighbor, there’s quite a bit of overlap in what it has to say to us. We love God by the way in which we live our lives. And a big part of that is the way in which we treat others.

Some of us may be experiencing a “disconnect” with this sermon. We’re used to thinking that the “Old Testament” has been replaced and we really don’t need to pay serious attention to it. We’re used to thinking of the commands as “law,” which we associate with “enforcement.” But the Hebrew word for “law” is Torah. And it’s fundamental meaning is “instruction.” That’s the point of the very specific commands of the Bible. They are instructing us about what it looks like to live our lives based on love for God and love for others. That’s right—all the “thou shalt not’s” and “thou shalt’s” are meant to lead you and me into a relationship with God. In that relationship we love God and love our neighbors by putting into practice in our daily living what we learn when the Bible gets specific with us.

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[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 10/25/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

At the Core

At the Core

Matthew 5:21-30[1]

Anyone who has had extensive dealings with children knows that rewards and punishments have only a limited effect. Especially if the rewards and the punishments have no logical connection to the behavior that is being encouraged or discouraged. Rewards set you up for a continuing cycle of trying to “buy” cooperation from a child. And punishments only work if they are connected to something that our children actually value. Even then, many children know the right buttons to push to “get out” of punishment. These “extrinsic” motivations—so called because they relate to something separate from our children’s own attitudes—rarely succeed.

Truly shaping a child’s character takes far more wisdom and effort. It takes “intrinsic motivation” to actually shape a young life—meaning values and attitudes that they embrace for themselves. Teaching our children that their actions have consequences is more important than arbitrary punishment. And it’s just a fact of life that children learn what they see. That’s why “do as I say, not as I do” never works. Children will learn from what they see us doing. They will make the choices that shape their character based on the way we choose to treat them every day. Either from respect for our integrity or from a desire to go a different way when that is lacking, children choose their path in life based on the values they embrace at the core of who they are.

I think Jesus’ approach to how we respond to what God expects of us is similar to this pattern of shaping character in children. There is always a tendency in religion to make obedience to God’s ways a matter of rewards and punishments. We do “the right thing” so that we will get to enjoy eternal rewards in heaven, not because it’s the right thing. And we avoid what is “wrong” in order to avoid eternal punishment, not out of a desire to do no harm. As is the case with children, this approach to the Christian life rarely produces people who actually follow Jesus’ example.

And so in our lesson from Matthew’s Gospel for today, Jesus calls on those who would follow him to go beyond the “letter of the law,” beyond a merely external show of obedience. He calls on us to embrace the values reflected in God’s ways and purposes at the core of who we are. Jesus knows that it’s too easy to put on an outward religious show so that others will think of us as “godly” and “Christian.” What God expects and what Jesus demands of those who would follow him goes far beyond any merely external action. Jesus goes straight to the heart of the matter, which is the character of our fundamental attitudes and opinions toward others.[2] He knew the value we place on others (or lack thereof) would always reveal itself in the way we treat them.

So he begins with the true “starting place” for any Jewish person of his time seeking to obey God: the Ten Commandments. It’s not enough at the end of the day to keep the commandment, “You shall not kill.” We can go our whole lives without ever taking a human life, and still not come close to the kind of relationship God intends for us to have with fellow members of our human family. All of us have ways that we can “hate” certain people. We may not think of it that harshly, but when we essentially disregard the value of another human being for any reason whatsoever, we have missed the point of the commandment to value and honor and respect human life—all human life.

The same thing applies to the commandment “You shall not commit adultery.” Beyond what we would traditionally define as “adultery,” there are all kinds of ways to betray the covenant of marriage. Jesus knew that infidelity doesn’t have anything to do with parts of your body you can simply “cut off.”[3] It comes from an attitude that sees others as objects to be used. The only answer is love that springs from a heartfelt commitment to honor and cherish another person. But when that is lacking, it’s easy to justify minor “indiscretions” and “little white lies.” What is so easily dismissed as “minor” usually has a major impact on the one betrayed.

If you’re thinking as a result of this that Jesus makes obedience to God more difficult than the Ten Commandments, you’re right. Part of the reason for that is when we measure our relationship to God solely by our actions it can be too easy to find loopholes. We can come up with all kinds of “what if’s” and “how about’s” to excuse our actual disobedience to God. When our hearts are not really devoted to God and his ways, we put our efforts into covering up our true character, all the while maintaining the disguise of faith.

Jesus makes it clear that this is not the path he intended to lay out for his disciples. Following Jesus means not only that we don’t take human life; it means we conduct our relationships in such a way as to honor the value of every human being. Following Jesus means that we not only avoid breaking our marriage vows; it means we truly love and honor and cherish our spouses from the heart. Following Jesus means actually practicing purity of heart and the intention to make peace. We who would follow Jesus are called to embrace these values not for any reward but simply because they are right and good.[4] We are called to live in such a way as to actually obey God, and that means embracing the commitment to treat other people with genuine love at the core of our very being.

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[1] ©2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/12/2017 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. W. D. Davies and Dale 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. “Obedience to rules, even to the Torah, does not automatically produce the spirit that Jesus requires of those who would follow him. Or to put it another way: purely legal norms, … , can never convey how life is to be lived by those who are genuinely poor in spirit, pure in heart, and full of mercy.”

[3] 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): 275, “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, where they point out that the imperative to tear out your eye or cut off your hand “is not to be taken literally. … Jesus and the NT writers knew well enough that amputation would scarcely curb the passions since the problem is not with the body itself but, as Paul put it, with ‘sin that dwells in me’ (Rom 7.17, 20 …).”

[4] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.2:696: “these examples are intended to make clear that the grace of Jesus Christ, the grace of the kingdom which has dawned, claims the whole man absolutely.” Cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, “life in strict accord with legal observances is not enough. God demands a radical obedience that cannot be casuistically formulated.”

Light for the World

Light for the World

Matt. 5:13-20; Isa. 58:1-9[1]

  There is an important balance that can be found throughout the testimony of Scripture.  Although it’s foundational for truly grasping the message of the Bible, I’m afraid that far too many have missed this balance.  It’s the balance between grace and demand.  In the Bible, God’s grace, God’s gift of life and love and mercy, always precede any demands.  This is true from the Ten Commandments to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount to the Apostles’ teachings.  Grace always precedes demand.  The point is that we who have experienced amazing grace in the gifts of love and new life and community are to reflect that grace in the way we relate to others.[2]

  This balance is crucial for our understanding of Scripture because when we downplay one side or the other, it skews our vision.  When we overlook the fact that all the commands of the Bible are grounded in the grace and love and mercy that God has so freely given us all, we turn those commands into rigid rules that are applied often in a strict and severe way.  We can think of various communities in our world who do just that: enforce a ruthless set of demands and expel those who don’t live up to them.  I don’t think that’s a very accurate portrait of the God who has lovingly called the human family into relationship throughout the centuries.

  The opposite is also true: it’s all too easy to focus only on grace and ignore the very real demands that are found not just in the Hebrew Bible, but also throughout the New Testament.  When we make that mistake, we miss the whole point of God’s outpouring of grace in the first place: to shape us into the people we we’re meant to be from the beginning.  In the words of the pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when we ignore the demand for heartfelt obedience to God’s commands, we turn all that God has done for us into “cheap grace.”[3]  I believe we can also think of those voices in our world who expect a loving God to be tolerant of any and all kinds of behavior, regardless of the consequences to others or ourselves! Again, I don’t think that’s a very accurate portrait of the God whose love has always called the human family to practice justice, compassion, and mercy toward one another.

  We see this balance reflected when we look at our Gospel lesson for today in light of its context.  Jesus opens the “Sermon on the Mount” with the beatitudes, which are not primarily instructions for living.  The beatitudes are a declaration of the grace that God is pouring out on all people through Jesus Christ.[4]  They are a more detailed announcement of the heart of Jesus’ message: the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  If you wonder what the kingdom of heaven is about, look at the beatitudes.  It means blessing and peace and comfort for those who have been trampled on in our world!  Right from the start of this “sermon,” Jesus makes an elaborate statement about the grace that God gives to all people who will open their hearts to it.

  Immediately following our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus begins to teach his disciples what it means that he was calling them to a righteousness that surpassed even that of the great examples of piety in their day.  But whereas the Jewish religious leaders had sought to fulfill God’s demands by specifying the precise actions one could or could not do, Jesus called his disciples to obey the commands from the heart.[5]  That would mean not only not killing, it also meant avoiding the anger and hatred that leads us to devalue the life of another enough to justify killing.  In other words, Jesus didn’t make it easier to obey God’s commands, he made it harder.[6]  He went back to the original intention of the commands--to produce a people who would practice God’s justice, compassion, and mercy toward one another.  And they would do so not for fear of punishment or in order to gain some reward.  They would practice this kind of life because God’s grace had changed their hearts, and they could do no less.

  It seems to me, that’s what Jesus had in mind when he told his disciples that they were light for the world.[7]  They were to demonstrate the difference God’s grace makes in real human life on a daily basis.[8]  And if you’re wondering what that means in terms of specifics, our lesson from Isaiah 58:6-7 puts it this way: what God desires of us is “to loose the bonds of injustice, ... to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke ... to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them.”  It sounds very reminiscent of Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 25:35-36, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”[9]  When we live our lives in this way, demonstrating the difference God’s grace makes in real human life on a daily basis, we are living as light for the world.[10]

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[1] © 2014 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/9/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. Perry Yoder, “Liberated by Law,” Sojourners Magazine, September-October 1999  (Vol. 28, No. 5), 46; Patrick D. Miller, Deuteronomy, 113; O. Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics II:363.

[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 4, 43.  For him, “cheap grace” meant that God’s grace “justifies sin” without making any difference in the sinner, so that “everything can stay in its old ways.”He continues (p. 44) by saying that “cheap grace” means that “there is no difference between Christian life and worldly life,” and “the Christian need not follow Christ” because this “cheap grace” is the basis for their comfort and security.  This translation is by far better than the common one, entitled, The Cost of Discipleship, which in my opinion suffers from a great many translation errors when compared with Bonhoeffer’s original Nachfolge.

[4] cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 466: “by opening the sermon on the mount [the beatitudes] place it within the context of grace.”

[5] Cf. Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge: A Shortened Version of On Being a Christian, 140-41: Jesus made it clear that God “demands not only external acts which can be observed and controlled, but also internal responses which cannot be controlled or checked. He demand’s man’s heart.”

[6] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 482: “what Jesus requires of his followers surpasses what has traditionally been regarded ... as the requirements of the Torah.”

[7] It is important to recognize that Jesus speaks of being light for the “world” not just for the few: Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 125-26; Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.2:804-805.

[8] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 499, where they define this in terms of “right intention, right word, right deed.”

[9] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 127: “it is not only love that is demanded. It is in the first place faith, the faith, namely, that the least of the brethren are waiting in Christ’s stead for the deeds of the just man. It is not that the wretched are the object of Christian love or the fulfilment of a moral duty; they are the latent presence of the coming Saviour and Judge in the world.”

[10] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 475, where they quote St. John of the Cross: “the followers of Jesus are to be windows through which the divine light enters the world”

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.”

“Minding” God

Psalm 19[1]

Words have a strange and fleeting existence. Do you remember what life was like before the words “online” and “internet” became everyday words? What ever happened to the mimeograph machine, or the typewriter ribbon? Can you imagine “developing” the “film” that you take out after you “wind” the camera! Among the words we have stopped using I would like to call your attention to the word “minding.” When I was a kid, you were supposed to “mind” your parents—which meant do what they said. But there were other uses of the word that we’ve left behind as well—do you remember what it meant to “mind” your manners? In that respect, “minding” is more like “remember” or “pay attention to”; it’s a matter of “keeping it in mind.”

That’s the kind of “minding” I think of when I look at Psalm 19. The Psalmist opens this expansive hymn by portraying the whole created order as a great declaration of God’s glory. But the strange thing about it is that the Psalmist also insists there are no words! How does that happen—speech without words? It would seem that the Psalmist recognizes two aspects of creation’s witness to God—it is clearly unmistakeable and it is completely inaudible! In effect, the Psalmist views all creation as an extensive visual aid to help us keep God in mind.

The same thing is true for torah. You might wonder what do creation and law have to do with one another? Yes, we can recognize that the music of the spheres is a beautiful song of praise to God. But we’ve been schooled to view the “law” as something restrictive, something oppressive, something that really doesn’t express or embody God’s gracious and merciful will. But I doubt that the Psalmist would allow any distinction to be made between the torah of the Hebrew Bible and Christ as “the way, the truth, and the life,” in the New Testament.

Psalm 19 is one of the more elaborate celebrations of torah in the Bible.[2] This psalm describes torah in as many ways as possible, and describes the benefits of torah for all humankind in as many ways as possible. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy. The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes. … The decisions of God are accurate down to the nth degree” (Ps. 19:7-9, Message).

Here torah includes instructions, testimonies, precepts, and judgments. Torah consists of directions that were intended make it possible for us to return to a way of life in which we all can thrive; it contains principles or parameters that undergird living in covenant with God.[3]Torah also consists of the ways of God’s saving justice, as well as the stories about how God’s demonstrated saving justice to the covenant people.

The way the Hebrew Bible speaks about “observing” God’s ways is with the language of keeping the commandments. To “keep” the commands, however, is not at all like six-year-old children who “following the rules” because they’re just learning about rules and can in fact be obsessed with rules. That’s where some people seem to get stuck—in a childish legalism that’s obsessed with the rules. Jesus’ interactions with the Jewish religious leaders are a case in point. They faulted him for “breaking” the Sabbath commandment in order to restore life to a man who was suffering, while they are oblivious to the fact that in their keeping of all the Sabbath “rules” they were indeed violating the spirit of the Sabbath by using it to plot the death of a man they saw as a threat—Jesus himself![4] That’s where that kind of obsessive rule-keeping usually gets us.[5]

In the Psalms, “keeping” the commands resembles more the way the whole of creation obeys God’s will—it’s simply a matter doing what we’re meant to do by instinct. In the same way, the torah of God teaches us the way to live in harmony with God’s will—with God’s justice and mercy and love. It is a matter of keeping the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.[6] The Psalmists see that not as something burdensome, but as a gift—keeping God’s torah effects restoration, grants wisdom, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes. Those are words for salvation[7]—which the Psalmist sees coming through written word, but we would say ultimately comes through the Living Word![8]

The bottom line is that torah, like creation, is a means for helping us to “mind” God—i.e., keep in mind the things of God, the ways of God, God’s truth and God’s justice, God’s love and God’s mercy.[9] This kind of receptive internalizing of scripture is one of the frames of mind and action that help us learn God’s ways. It reminds me of a line from one of Paul’s letters: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/15/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Of course, everything else pales in comparison to Psalm 119 with its 176 verses! In fact, Psalm 119 is actually longer than more than half the “books” of the NT!

[3] James L. Mays, Psalms, 99: Torah is “the wisdom by which Israel is to live and find life”; he says further that torah “bestows life, wisdom, and joy.”

[4] Cf. Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross, 150-51. See also John D. Caputo, On Religion, 107-8, where he says that the violence endemic to this kind of fiercely literal fundamentalism is the result of their attempt to keep the passion for God contained in “boxes” of their own making.

[5] Cf. also David E. Garland, Mark, 114: “The Sabbath controversies show how God’s purposes for humankind are frustrated when circumscribed by a bunch of rules from pettifogging [def: nitpicking] religionists”!

[6] Cf. Greg C. Earwood, “Two Languages,” Christian Reflection: Moral Landscape of Creation (2001), 34.

[7] See the David J. A Clines, “The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm XIX),” Vetus Tesamentum 24 (1974): 8-14, where he compares the language of Psalm 19 regarding the torah to the language of Genesis regarding the benefits our original parents (mistakenly) assumed would derive from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge; cf. also Heidelberg Catechism 4.090-091, which defines eternal life as “Complete joy in God through Christ and a strong desire to live according to the will of God in all good works” and good works as “those which are done out of true faith, in accordance with the Law of God, and for his glory.”

[8] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 100: “it is only by the salvation of God that joy in the creation and observance of torah are possible.” Cf. also Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 141-42, “to live within [God’s law] is to live the life that is eternal. To be sure, law is not the source of rightness, but it is forever the course of rightness.”

[9] See the Study Catechism (1998), which says that the law “teaches me how to live a life which bears witness to the gospel, and spurs me on to do so.”

“New Life—True Life”

Rom. 8:1-11; Mt. 13:1-9[1]

Over the last few weeks we’ve been taking a look at what St. Paul has to say about new life in Christ in his letter to the church at Rome. In a nutshell, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have all “crossed a line”—from sin, slavery, shame, and death to righteousness, freedom, and life! Anyone who has crossed this line can never go back—at that point “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). The Gospel according to St. Paul is that we have new life in the risen Christ, a life that truly is life. That means we are set free from the power of everything that threatens to enslave or distort or destroy our humanity—free to serve one another in love.

In our lesson for today, Paul emphasizes that the Holy Spirit poured out on all creation makes possible this new life in us. Much of what the Bible promises in term of “new life” must sound like “dreaming the impossible dream.”[2] It just seems too good to be true. But that is precisely what Paul promises us in the name of our Risen Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ—that what seems to us a “vast impossibility,” the creation of a completely new life for all humankind, is exactly what God is up to in this world.[3]

The way Paul frames that new life is by returning to an old theme—one that pervades the whole Bible. Essentially, the Bible says that God’s intention in all the many and various interactions with humanity over the centuries was to make it possible for us to return to a way of life in which we all can thrive—together with all creation! That was the original intention of God’s gracious and loving Torah, or law. The Scriptures insist that the law was never a means of gaining God’s favor, but rather that God entered a covenant relationship with the Jewish people simply because God loved them (Deut. 7:7-8). And when they agreed to the relationship, God gave them 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 for God and for others–in other words, a life that is truly life. Paul’s Gospel is that the Holy Spirit gives us this life in part by enabling us all to live again within those parameters that make life thrive—or a Paul puts it, to “do what the Law commands by obeying the Spirit instead of our own desires” (Rom. 8:4, CEV). The end result, Paul says, is that “the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God” (Rom. 8:10, TEV).

I can think of no better example of someone who crosses over from a life that is oppressive and inhuman to one that is authentic and free than Lt. John J. Dunbar. You may remember him as the main character in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves.” After being wounded in the Civil War, he is rewarded for his bravery by being given his choice of posts. He goes out West to the farthest edge of the frontier because he wants to “see it before it’s gone.” When he gets there, he finds the outpost abandoned, but he sets up shop anyway and begins to rebuild the place. In the process he encounters a group of Native Americans from the Lakota tribe. At first they are clearly not sure what to make of each other—they relate with equal parts fear and curiosity. After Lt. Dunbar breaks through the communication barrier, he begins to learn all he can about their life and their culture on the prairie. Eventually, Lt. Dunbar leaves behind his post, along with his whole life, and embraces the way of life of the Lakota people, now under the name “Dances with Wolves.”

At one point, one of his best friends in the tribe remarks to him, “I was just thinking that of all the trails in this life, there is one that matters most. It is the trail of a true human being. I think you are on this trail and it is good to see.” That is precisely what has happened to Lt. Dunbar. He has discovered a way of life that is characterized by harmony and community, and he has embraced it to such an extent that Lt. John J. Dunbar effectively ceases to exist, and instead there is only a member of the Lakota tribe named “Dances with Wolves.” His new life with the Lakota has transformed him into a completely new person.

Again, this kind of utopian image may seem far-fetched. Who gets to live out that kind of dream? But the fact is that we find testimony throughout the Scriptures to the faith that God’s intention for us all is to win our hearts and minds to love God with all our heart and mind and strength and to love one another. It’s the same kind of change of life—change of being—that Jesus had in mind with the “good soil” that represents those who receive the word and bear fruit. Though it may be hard for us to believe, the Gospel Paul proclaims to us all is that in the Holy Spirit poured out on all creation, God is doing just that—working to enable us all to enjoy the new life in Christ, a life that truly is life.

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[1] © 2008 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/13/08 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] See Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember, 29-30: “The ancient myths and dreams of a power beyond power and a love beyond love that hold the cosmos itself, hold all things in existence reflect a reality which we can deny only to our great impoverishment; and the dream of a holiness and a mystery at the heart of things that humankind with all its ingenuity and wisdom can neither explain away nor live fully without goes on being dreamed.”

[3] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 105, calls the hope of new life that Paul holds out in Romans as the “impossible possibility of our redemption”; cf. also 108-9, 113, 125-26, 134, 211, 269, 272-73.

“The Way of the Lord”

Isaiah 5:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11[1]

I don’t know how many of you are now or ever have been into gardening. For a while in Fort Worth, I actually took care of a garden. I had bought a house from a woman who worked for one of the Bass families—they inherited the Sid Richardson fortune. And every year the family she worked for bought a whole new bunch of expensive rose bushes and cleared out the old ones. So my garden in Fort Worth was planted with a variety of rose bushes—approximately 70 to be exact! Well, in Fort Worth rose bushes do pretty well, except when it’s a rainy year. Then you have to fight a disease called “black spot.” And the aphids. And keep them pruned and trimmed. You get the idea. It was a never ending job. I wasn’t sad to leave those rose bushes when I moved away.

If you’ve ever done any serious gardening, you have some insight into our lesson from Isaiah for today. Isaiah laments that God had done everything that could have been done to make his “garden” thrive. But instead of bearing good fruit, it bore only bad fruit. Instead of walking in the way of the Lord, the way of justice and peace that makes life thrive for all, the people of Israel had chosen the way of violence and greed and injustice, a way which would inevitably lead to their destruction.[2] And it broke Isaiah’s heart to think of how much it broke God’s heart. Isaiah lamented the disobedience of his people not because he prized conformity or status quo, but because he knew that the only way they would thrive as a people was to follow the ways of the Lord.

For centuries there has been a great deal of confusion over what interest, if any, Christians should have the issue of obedience to the ways of the Lord. At the end of the middle ages, a young German monk named Martin Luther was struggling with his belief that God was a demanding God, a God of justice but not mercy. He tried every way he knew to make himself live up to the expectations of this severe God—even literally beating himself at times. Finally he studied the book of Romans and discovered that salvation was by grace alone, by faith alone. He viewed the NT in terms of “gospel” that saves and the demands of the OT he called “law”—with the implication that it only has the power to condemn.

This tension between “law” and “gospel” is still with us today. If we have been saved by grace, why all the fuss about obeying the ways of the Lord? In fact, the tension between obedience and grace goes back to the Bible itself. The people who lived in covenant with God promised to obey God’s every word, but time and time again they ignored the commands. And those who call themselves God’s people still wonder why they should bother with trying to live up to a set of rules when we are saved by God’s grace.^[3]

I think the way to move from confusion to understanding is to begin at the beginning. If we’re going to gain some clarity about the place of obedience to God’s commandments in the Christian life, we have to understand the reason for them in the first place. Keeping God’s commands was never a means of gaining or achieving salvation apart from God’s grace.^[4] Living in relationship with God has always meant loving him, serving him, and obeying him—living the life that is truly life. To enter into this kind of saving relationship with God has always meant “to commit oneself wholly to God and to God’s way.”^[5] The scripture calls this “choosing life” (Deut. 30:19-20).^[6] Behind the “law” there has always been “gospel” and “grace.” The point is that a lifestyle of obedience to God is one that promotes life; it is a way of life that makes it possible for all people to thrive. But time and time again, the people who pledged themselves to follow that path instead departed from it at the first opportunity.

In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus is placed in a completely opposite situation. By contrast to God’s “garden” Israel, Jesus was led out into the desolate wastes and placed in a setting where everything that could be done to make him stumble was done to him. And yet, unlike the people of Israel, Jesus chose to hold fast to the life of obedience—to keep walking in the way of the Lord, which leads to life. We can see this in his response to the tempter’s questions. At every turn, the tempter sought to induce Jesus to stray from the path of obedience. And at every turn, Jesus responded by going back to basics—“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”; “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”; and “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”[7] Jesus didn’t debate theology or ethics with the tempter; he simply affirmed and re-affirmed the choice to follow the path of obedience.[8] Why did he do this? In one respect, the temptation struck at the heart of his calling as God’s Suffering Servant.[9] But at another more profound level, the temptation hit him in his fundamental relationship with God—would he follow the path of obedient faith and faithful obedience? Or would he seek to advance his own agenda and like Israel of old abandon the way that leads to life? And Jesus remained firmly committed to his relationship with God.[10]

Lent is a season for us to reflect on our own response to the temptations of this world. Have we followed the path of obedient faith and faithful obedience? Or have we abandoned the way of the Lord and followed our own paths? It’s very likely that we have done some of both. That’s why we observe a Lenten discipline—to gain some clarity about the ways in which we have abandoned the way that leads to life. But there is also “gospel” and grace behind this “law.” As the Apostle Paul reminds us, the faithful obedience/ obedient faith of this one man was powerful enough to overturn the whole history of human disobedience and restore us all to life.[11]

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[1] © 2008 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/10/2008 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. Brevard Childs, Isaiah, 44-46, 49.

[3] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 140, is right on target when he says, “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.”

[4] Cf. Perry Yoder, “Liberated by Law,” Sojourners Magazine, September-October 1999 (Vol. 28, No. 5).

^[5] Patrick Miller, Deuteronomy, 213.

[6] Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 141-42, says, “to live within [God’s law] is to live the life that is eternal. To be sure, law is not the source of rightness, but it is forever the course of rightness.”

[7] Respectively, Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:16; and 6:13. Cf. Patricia Ferris, “Bedrock Truths,” The Christian Century (Jan. 30, 2002); http://www.findarticles.com/p/ articles/mi_m1058/is_3_119/ai_83143840.

[8] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Remaining Human,” The Christian Century (Feb. 7, 1996); http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n5_v113/ai_18023704.

[9] Cf. Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus; he described the temptations in terms of being relevant, spectacular, and powerful. Cf. also Frederick J. Streets, “Clarification,” The Christian Century (Feb. 3, 1993); http://www.findarticles.com/ p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n4_v110/ai_13509819.

[10] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:262-64.

[11] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:333-35 speaks of the “alteration of the whole human situation” through Jesus’ death and resurrection.