Who in the World can be Saved?

 Who in the World Can Be Saved?

Mark 10:17-27[2]

Sometimes it seems like people either take salvation too seriously or too lightly. There are those who think that what it’s all about is securing your eternal destiny, and you just have to say the right words or go through the motions of the right rituals. As long as you get your “weekly dose” of God, you’re good to go. Then there are those who seem to think of salvation as an “impossible dream” or an “unreachable star.” No matter what they do, they seem to think that salvation is a goal that they can never attain. As with most things in life, I would say the truth lies somewhere between those two extremes.

If you’ve been following the last few weeks’ sermons, you may be wondering who could ever live up to the challenge of following Jesus in the life of the kingdom of God. Jesus has called us to “take up our cross” and “lose” our lives for his sake (Mk 8:34-35). If we want to follow him, we are to become “last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35). Jesus warns us in the strongest terms against causing others to stumble in faith or stumbling into sin ourselves. He has made it clear that following him means taking seriously our relationships. And this week, Jesus confronts the challenge that wealth poses to faith. We may well be wondering, “Who in the world can be saved?”

Our lesson from the Gospel of Mark is a familiar one: a wealthy man comes to Jesus and asks him “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ answer probably seems strange to us: “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother’” (Mk 10:19). Those of us with ears more attuned to St. Paul and who have “cut our teeth” on the Reformed version of the Christian faith would find it difficult to think that you “inherit eternal life” by keeping the “commandments.”

I think what we have to understand is that Jesus’ answer is framed in a particular way of viewing obedience to God. Everything Jesus says about obeying God has to be interpreted through the “two great commandments”: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18). Of course, I’m not sure that makes things easier for us. I’ve always said that it’s much harder to love God and love others—truly—than to keep a list of rules that relate to our external behaviors. But the idea that we are called to love God and love others may help us make sense of Jesus’ answer. I believe his point is that when we do so, it will show up in the way we live our lives.

But that’s only part of the problem with our lesson for today. The other part is that this man responded to Jesus by saying “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth” (Mk 10:20)! We might be tempted to think this guy was only fooling himself, but Mark’s Gospel tells us that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mk 10:21). I think this man was sincere in what he had asked and in his response to Jesus, and Jesus saw that. But we all have our “blind spots,” and unfortunately this man’s blind spot was the fact that he “owned much property” (Mk 10:22, NASB).

I don’t think it was an “accident” that Jesus told him to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor. You may have noticed that Jesus included the commandment “you shall not defraud” along with the others from the Ten Commandments. In the Bible, hoarding wealth at the expense of the poor constituted “defrauding” them. And the fact that this man owned “much property” directly violated Scripture. In that day, no land was to be permanently sold; every fifty years, in the “Jubilee” year, it was to return to the family that owned it originally. But in Jesus’ day, all the land was owned by wealthy people like this man. That meant that there were many families who had been “defrauded” of their property. This was the “blind spot” in this man’s profession of obedience to God.

We might think this was just a matter of this man’s relationship to his wealth. But Jesus goes on to say, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:25)! This seems to apply more broadly than just one man’s attachment to his property. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus makes it clear that wealth is a serious obstacle to “loving God with all your heart.” There’s something about our possessions that can “possess” us. If we aren’t careful, wealth has a way of taking over our heart and our life.[2] But selling all that we have and giving it away isn’t a very practical option for us. That’s why disciplines like hospitality, generosity, stewardship, and simplicity have always been part of the Christian life. The best way to ensure that your possessions don’t possess you is to give away enough of them that you notice it.

With all that we’ve heard from Jesus, our lesson for today might lead you to ask with Jesus’ disciples, “Then who in the world can be saved?” (Mk 10:26, NLT). I think it’s a natural response to Jesus’ deeply challenging statements about what it means to truly follow him. And we might really despair, wondering if anyone can ever live up to all that Jesus demands of us. But Jesus’ words to his disciples apply to us as well: “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible” (Mk 10:27). If we’re trying to “inherit” eternal life by our own efforts, we will always fall short. But as we seek—however imperfectly—to love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves, we have the assurance that “for God all things are possible.” God can do surprising things in our lives and through our efforts.

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[1] © 2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 10/10/2021 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Joel Green, Theology of the Gospel of Luke, 148: “Wealth becomes a master if it is not mastered.”

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.

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).

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.

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.”

Getting Specific

Getting Specific

Lev. 19:1-2, 9-18; Mt. 5:38-48[1]

  Much of our faith falls in the category of what most people would call theoretical.  For example, How do you really prove God’s existence?  How do you explain the Trinity?  Who’s ever experienced the afterlife?  But there are other aspects of our faith that are quite specific indeed.  When our faith talks about how we’re to live, it gets down to specifics.  Like measuring the quality of our faith by how we treat the weakest members of society.  Or insisting that our words and our actions match.  Or defining the character of our hearts by the quality of our words and deeds.  When it comes to these kinds of themes, our faith is quite specific.  Maybe too specific for our comfort levels.

  Take our lesson from the Hebrew Bible for today.  If you read Leviticus 19:1-18, you’ll find all the Ten Commandments repeated there, except for the last one.[2]  But what’s really interesting is that the commands are more specific.  Instead of just saying “you shall not steal,” this chapter also says “you shall not deal falsely” (19:11), “you shall not defraud your neighbor” (19:13), and interestingly, “you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning” (19:13). In other words, outright theft isn’t the only kind of “stealing” that the command prohibits!  And when it comes to “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” this chapter may step on some toes.  It says, “And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God” (19:12).  In other words, the dishonesty of the people of God influences the way others think about God’s character![3] Talk about getting specific!

  But this interesting chapter is also where Jesus got the “second greatest command,” “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).  We like that command.  It sounds nice.  But I’m not sure we’ll like it so well after we hear what loving your neighbor means when the Bible gets specific.[4]  Loving your neighbor means that “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest” (19:10). Rather, “you shall leave them 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 also means that “You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind” (19:14).  Instead, they should be treated with dignity and given the respect due to all human beings.  Loving your neighbor means that “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people” (19:16).  The way of love insists that we not talk about others in a manner that diminishes their character. Beyond that, loving your neighbor means “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people” (19:18).  This Scripture gets quite specific about the kinds of actions that “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” covers.[5]

  Again, we might be tempted to think that Jesus and the Apostles might give us a break when it comes to being so specific about the actions that loving your neighbor demands of us.  But I’m afraid that’s not the case.  In the context of Leviticus, it is very likely that “loving your neighbor” meant loving fellow Jewish persons.[6]  It didn’t apply to foreigners in general, except those who sought refuge among the Jewish people.  And so Jesus recites the command “you shall love your neighbor” along with its traditional counterpart, “and hate your enemy” (Mt. 5:43). 

  But Jesus won’t stand for that. When it comes to loving your neighbor, Jesus insists that it applies to everyone, everywhere.[7]  He says to “love your enemies” (5:44).  And when you do that, when you can see the person you’ve considered an “enemy” as a “neighbor,” then the whole structure of friend and enemy is dismantled.[8]  Instead of allies and foes, we’re simply left with human beings who are all children of God. And because they are all children of God, they all benefit from God’s love equally.  As Jesus put it, God gives the life-sustaining gifts of sun and rain to all equally (Mt. 5:45).  And if God takes such a generous approach, then those of us who claim to be people of faith can do no less.[9]

  I think that’s what Jesus meant when he called his disciples to “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48).  It doesn’t mean that we have to be as morally and ethically flawless as God is.  That’s impossible.  But what it does mean is that we are to be constantly striving to give the same generosity to others that we’ve received so freely from God.[10]  I think that’s what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.”  Beginning with the Apostles, serious Christians throughout the ages have sought to discern what that means in terms of specifics.  And we continue to follow that commitment to getting specific when we try to live out the generosity we’ve received from God toward those around us.

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[1] © 2014 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/23/2014 at First Presbyerian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Although the first, “You shall have no other gods before me,” is not mentioned specifically, it seems to me that it’s implied in the call, “I am the Lord your God.”

[3] Contrast Jacob Milgrom, A Continental Commentary: Leviticus, 227-28, where he argues that this identification should not be made, but rather the Holiness Code is simply focused on “lying oaths” here.

[4] Joel S. Kaminsky, “Loving One's (Israelite) Neighbor: Election And Commandment In Leviticus 19,” Interpretation 62 (Apr 2008): 125: In the context of the covenant relationship, “loving one's neighbor was not simply (and perhaps not even primarily) an affective state, but rather an obligation to act properly towards such an individual.”  Cf. Similarly, Milgrom, Leviticus, 234; and Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew, 59.

[5] Cf. Walter Kaiser, “The Book of Leviticus,” New Interpreters Bible, I:1136, where he says, “To be holy is ... to imitate God. To be holy is to roll up one’s sleeves and to join in with whatever God is doing in the world. That is why, in this great chapter on moral holiness, the emphasis falls on social justice.”

[6] Kaminsky, “Loving One's (Israelite) Neighbor,” 123-24. Cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:804.  Unfortunately, he argues that this is also true of the “love of neighbor” in the New Testament. He says it applies to “the circle of the community of Jesus Christ gathered by the Holy Spirit.”  Even though he recognizes the fact that Jesus included “the enemy” in Mt. 5:44-45, he says, “Even here, however, there can be no question of any extension in principle of Christian love to a universal love of humanity.”  Contrast Milgrom, Leviticus, 226, where he asks, “Are we to infer that the Israelite is free to lay aside any of the ethical rules in dealing with him? Here is where abstract logical reasoning leads astray. The forgotten factor is that the H school probably had no contact with foreigners.”  In other words, the fact that “love for neighbor” was applied only to fellow Jewish persons resulted from the limited contact the circle that developed the “Holiness Code” in Leviticus (“the H school”) had with foreigners.  But he argues that making that a principle of ethics leads us “astray”!

[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): 282.

[8] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope, 202: “We are not the enemies of our enemies; we are ‘the children of our Father in heaven’, ... . If we do not react to enmity with enmity, we creatively make it possible for our enemies to turn away from their enmity and to enter into the life we share.”  Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, A Broad Place: An Autobiography, 175: “One should not become the enemy of one’s enemy, but should liberate him from his enmity.”

[9] Cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 555-55.  Contrast Kaminsky, 128, where he distinguishes between "the perfectionist ethic found in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount" with "the much more realistic ethic found in the Levitical code" which "never commands one to love one's enemies, a rather unnatural act."

[10] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 562, where they say, “To obey Jesus words ... is, therefore, to love utterly: no more can be asked.”  They further observe (p. 563) that “The motivation for being ‘perfect’ in love is grounded in the Father’s ‘perfect’ love, in his giving without measure.”  See further ibid., 560, where they suggest that what actually lies behind the “be perfect” of Mt. 5:48 is the “be holy” of Lev. 19:2.

Finding Life

Finding Life

Micah 6:1-8[1]

  We as a people are, I think, tragically confused about how to find life.  I think we’re not even sure what we’re looking for in life.  But whatever it is we’re looking for--happiness, fulfillment, success, or just pleasure--it seems to me that we’re looking for it in all the wrong places.  And we look to all the wrong people as our examples of what it means to be happy.  The rich and famous and beautiful have become the inspiration for many when it comes to how to find the life they’re looking for.  And yet the path many of them have shown us is that the way to be happy is to do whatever we please.  The sad truth is that when we turn freedom into a license to do as we please, the end result, time after time, is that people get hurt.

  But the lessons of prophets and sages of all the ages is that we do not find life by indulging the will to do whatever we please.  We find life by following the truth of what is right and good and beneficial to us all.  I believe our lesson from the prophet Micah points us in this direction:  “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8). I realize this flies in the face of the “freedom” we think we have to do as we please.  It talks about what God “requires” of us.  It sounds like the way to bondage, repression, and restriction, rather than happiness in life.

  But if we were to conclude that, we would be missing one of the central points of the whole Bible.  From Moses to Micah to Matthew, the witness of the Scriptures is that we find life through our obedience to God’s principles.[2]  We find happiness and true freedom through the “truth that sets us free.” And an integral part of that truth is that we find fulfillment in life when we do what is right, when we treat others with love and kindness, and when we recognize that we are not the masters of our own fate.[3]  But the converse is also true: when we live for ourselves and our own selfish desires, when we treat others as a means to attain only what we want from them, and when we place ourselves on the throne of our lives, we become slaves to our selfishness, and lose the chance for true freedom and happiness in life.

  Essentially, this verse from the book of the prophet Micah is an eloquent summary of the commands of God throughout the Bible.[4] There are others: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18), which serves as the conclusion to an alternate version of the Ten Commandments in Leviticus.  The prophet Isaiah said this: “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:16-17). Our Psalm for today says this way of life is demonstrated in “Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart” (Ps. 15:2).[5]  And, of course Jesus said it this way: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12). 

  In all of these summaries, the same premise serves as the foundation for a way of life that is very different from the one many of our cultural icons hold out for us.  It is the premise that we find true freedom when we surrender our will to the will of God.[6]  It is the premise that we find true happiness when we give up the folly of “going our own way” and we follow the truths that have been handed down to us for generations (which happen to be many of the same truths that have been handed down for generations in the other major religions).  It is the premise that we find what we’re looking for in life when we give ourselves away in kindness and compassion for others, rather than trying to take as much as we can get for ourselves.[7]

  Ironically, this is the essence of the “Law” in the Bible.  The Torah, which basically means teaching or truth, is not about preventing us from doing all the things in life that make us happy.  A quick survey of some of the commandments makes it obvious that they only prohibit what hurts us and what keeps us from finding life.  And so it is that throughout the Bible, the heart of what the prophets and apostles have taught us is that it is through obeying these spiritual principles that we find the true freedom and true happiness we’re looking for in life.[8]

  That’s part of what Jesus’ message was in the Beatitudes.[9] When we look at them, we see a reflection of a way of living that is different from the self-gratification of our culture.  He talks about the happiness of those who are meek, while we give our praise to the proud.  He talks about the happiness of those who are hungry for God’s justice, while we  indulge in obsessive pleasure-seeking.  He talks about the happiness of those who are pure in heart, while we seem to think that purity is a quaint and obsolete notion.  If you’re looking to Jesus for an excuse to ignore the truths that have been handed down to us in the Bible, you’re looking in the wrong place.[10]

  It seems to me that when the advocates of doing what you please run into criticism, they inevitably turn to Jesus to defend themselves.  Or at least something like his principles of tolerance.  But those principles are part of a whole way of life.  The tolerance that Jesus and other prophets and teachers advocated is a part of a way of life that is very different from self-indulgence.  The kind of life that Jesus advocated, along with many prophets before him and after him, is a way of life that finds happiness and freedom and life through “Seeing that justice is done, letting mercy be your first concern, and humbly obeying your God” (Mic. 6:8, CEV).[11]  It seems to me, if we want to find life, that’s the path we need to be taking.

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

[2] It is essential to recognize that in this passage from Micah, as well as in all the summaries of God’s “requirements,” God’s gracious deeds of salvation always precede the demand placed upon those who benefit from them.  Cf. on Micah, Hans Walter Wolff,  A Continental Commentary: Micah, 183; and Daniel J. Simundson, “The Book of Micah,” New Interpreters Bible VII:582.

[3] Cf. Simundson, “The Book of Micah,” 582-83, where he points out that “what the Lord requires” is both easier and harder than the questions in Mic. 6:6-7 imply.  He says, “It is easier because there is nothing that we need to do (or are able to do) to make ourselves sufficiently worthy to approach God.  It is harder, because what God expects of us is a dedication of our whole lives, not just outward and occasional acts of piety.”

[4] Cf. Wolff,  Micah, 183; cf. also James Limburg, Hosea-Micah, 192, where he says the answer to the question “What does the Lord require” is “He has showed you ... what is good”; in this “one thinks of the whole tradition of the commandments and also the wisdom directives, long known in Israel.”  Cf. similarly, Simundson, “Book of Micah,” 583.

[5] Psalm 15:3 elaborates more specifically what it means to “do what is right, and to speak the truth from the heart”: they “do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbors.” Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 84, says that the character traits listed there “belong to the established tradition of right and wrong in Israel’s religion” and that they are “cases of conduct that effect the well-being or shalom of the various levels of the community.”  Cf. also H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 228-29.

[6] James L. Mays, Micah, p. 136, suggests that the point of this passage is that it is not a “what” but a “whom” that the Lord wants.  He says, “It’s you, not something, that God wants. 

[7] Cf. James Limburg, Hosea-Micah, 193, where he says the call to “walk” is “similar to the call of Jesus, whose most characteristic invitation was not ‘believe’ but rather ‘walk’ or ‘Follow me.’”  He also says that Micah 6:8 “describes a step-by-step living with God and living for others, acting as advocate for the powerless and showing care for those who are hurting and need help.”

[8] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:566: “it is the grace of God which expresses itself in” the claims made upon us in the commandments. “It is always God in Jesus Christ who, as He puts these claims, wills to have us for Himself, to call us to Himself.”

[9] While Jesus was primarily proclaiming the good news of what God was doing through him to bring the peace and justice and freedom of the Kingdom, not teaching us a list of character traits that we are called to embody, I think we can also see the way of life summarized by the prophets and apostles reflected here.  Cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 440, where they point out that while the primary function of the beatitudes is not ethical, “it would be foolish to deny the imperatives implicit” in the beatitudes.

[10] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:567: Jesus “Himself is the claim which God has made and continually makes upon all men.”

[11] Cf. Simundson, “Book of Micah,” 583, where he says, “If one is in right relationship with God (walking humbly with God), one need not worry overmuch about what to do to win approval or forgiveness for sinful indiscretions.  If one is not right with God, no liturgical ceremony, sacrifice, act of generosity, or rigid adherence to theological absolutes will be sufficient.”

Non-Virtual Faith

Exod. 20:1-19; Ps. 19[1]

It seems that more and more of our lives are focused on what can only be called “virtual reality.” Most of us spend a great deal of time staring at some kind of screen or another—and the younger we are the more this is true for us. Whether it’s composing a document or tweaking a spreadsheet, what we’re looking at is not the “real” thing, but pixels of color meant to represent reality on our computer screen. In many cases, we don’t even handle “real” documents any more—they just get passed around from one computer to another. And then there’s the internet—a vast store of knowledge, the greatest encyclopedic collection of information in the history of the world. But all of it is virtual as well. When we look at pictures of the places we want to go, we’re not looking at the real thing, but again at pixels that present a more or less realistic facsimile of the real thing. Even our televisions don’t show us what’s real, but tiny bits of color transmitted over the cable network to represent the people, places and events on the news programs.

It’s no wonder that virtual social networks have become so popular—more than 800 million people belong to Facebook, a number that will soon soar because Africans who have limited access to internet service will soon be able to connect to Facebook via their cell phones. The attraction of Facebook is easy to understand—we spend so much time at our computers anyway, that it’s nice to check in on what our friends are up to for a few minutes before and after and in between working. But it’s still a virtual connection. There’s no real voice. There’s no human touch in the interchange. It all happens over computer.

When it comes to living out our commitment to repentance and faith in order to experience the life and love that God is constantly working to bring into our lives, our fascination with virtual reality will simply not do. The Scriptures are incredibly down to earth and practical when it comes to what it looks like to experience a relationship with God, to follow Jesus the Christ, or to live out the life of faith.

I think this is one of the reasons why the Ten Commandments remain so important to us today. They are practical, objective, and specific. I think we can see this in the way Jesus made faith a matter of loving God and loving others. When we look at the two passages in the Hebrew Bible where he drew those great commandments, we get a better idea of how practical and specific they are as well. In Deuteronomy 6:4-6, loving God means to bind the commands to your lives, adhering to them with your heart and your actions and diligently passing them on to your children![2] And the context for the second great commandment is even more specific. It’s an alternate version of the Ten Commandments in Leviticus 19:1-18. In this chapter, to love your neighbor means to refrain from stealing, oppressing your workers, cursing the deaf or trying to trip up a blind person, being impartial in judging between the poor and the rich, hating another person, and taking vengeance or bearing a grudge (Lev. 19:13-18)! Just in case you have any doubts about how important these very specific instructions are, they conclude with “I am Yahweh”![3]

Of course, in a Christian context, many of us have been taught essentially to ignore the Hebrew Bible. Since the days of Martin Luther, “law” has occupied a secondary place in our faith, if it has any place at all! But make no mistake about it: the Ten Commandments are echoed by every major writer in the NT—they remain an important guide for the specifics of what it means to love God and love others. And Jesus made them a central part of what it means to live in relationship with God in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17-48)! There Jesus spells out in very specific terms what it looks like to respond to God’s love with repentance and faith. For him it means that we not only don’t kill one another, we also avoid hatred, anger, and disrespect. For him it means that we not only don’t engage in promiscuity, we also relate to others with pure hearts. For him, it means that we not only love our friends, we also love our enemies.

That’s not something you can do virtually. It has to move beyond an idea we hold in high regard into the actual ways in which we live our lives. That’s why I like Eugene Peterson’s translation of our Psalm lesson for today 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.” (Ps. 19:7-8, Message).[4] The directions for living we find in the commandments and in Jesus’ teaching are intended to be put into practice in real life. And they are intended to make that life more whole, more peaceful, more joyful.[5] When we live this way, we are allowing the life and love of God to flow through us, healing the broken and wounded world around us. Living out the repentance and faith that Jesus calls us to embrace translates to love, compassion, understanding, kindness, mercy—in our actual, real-life relationships with those around us.

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[1] © 2012 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/11/12 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Walter Brueggeman, “The Book of Exodus,” in New Interpreters Bible, I:837.

[3] Cf. Walter Kaiser, “The Book of Leviticus,” in New Interpreters Bible, I:1133-34, 1136.

[4] Cf. similarly, J. Clinton McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” in New Interpreters Bible IV:752, where he translates v. 7 as “the instruction of the Lord is all-encompassing, restoring life.”

[5] 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; and Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge, 146.

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.”