Living with the LawA sermon preached at All Hallows by Jan Betts on 15 July 2007Readings: Amos 7:7−17 or Deuteronomy 30: 9−14, Psalm 82 or 25:1−10,
Colossians 1:1−14, Luke 10:25−37
There are four readings in the lectionary for today, and we haven’t had all of them read out to us, but I want to reflect on them all because I want to get a sense of what today was about. I’m not a theologian, so this is a very personal reflection. A number of themes emerge from the readings. For me, the main theme I found is about the Law, what it is, what our relationship to it is, and how we can be helped to obey it. There’s a lot which Paul says about the law and how we are not under law but under grace – but we do still have a small matter of obedience and doing God’s will to grapple with in our lives and this idea of obedience to God’s desire to have us live holy lives, loving him because he first loved us, seems to me to be what I can take from today. The law is about how we can live as God wants us to. I want to think about:
The transparency and purpose of God’s lawThe one reading we haven’t had is a reading from Deuteronomy 30 which you could read if you were interested. Then there’s the reading from Amos about a plumbline as a metaphor for judgment in not keeping the law, a reading about a man who asks about the law, and a reading from Colossians about growing in faith. At a simple level, all the readings seem to me to be about the transparency of God’s law and the way obeying it gives us life, here and hereafter. In Deuteronomy, God says that the law is there, openly and without mystery, for us to practice, and obeying it is just what we need to do. ‘the word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to put into practice’. And the text goes on to say that if we choose to obey God’s law, we choose life. That’s important: obedience is about living. Amos says God has a plumbline, a guide for our lives to keep them straight, and we need not to stray from God’s will of justice for his people. The Israelites Amos was addressing knew the law and were not doing it. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus and a lawyer agree that there is a clear answer in the law to what is necessary to obtain eternal life and in Colossians, Paul commends the Christians of Colossae for recognising God’s grace for what it truly is, and trying to be obedient, even if they failed sometimes. So far so good. There’s a law, set out in Scripture both old and new, it’s straightforward and we need to obey it, and be reminded to obey it. And above all God wants us to obey it because it’s what gives God great pleasure, it’s how we are meant to live and obeying the law is the way to be authentically human. But obeying the law is also a tough call, as we all spend much of our lives finding out. We have so many ways of avoiding it, AND it’s not always as clear as we would like. It’s not always transparent to us. So we tend to make up our own versions of it, to twist it, unconsciously, to our own ends, to fail to see what we should be doing, or to try to justify ourselves by other means. Who can remind us of the law?One of the ways in which we are helped in this healthy obedience is by being reminded of the law, in various ways and by various people. One of the lessons which seems to come out of these readings for me is about who can do that reminding. The words in Deuteronomy are given to Moses, a leader, who cared about his people. You might expect such a leader to do this reminding. But Amos was just a shepherd, so not very smart in all sorts of ways. He was off his patch in Israel, where he was prophesying. He had no professional qualifications to be a prophet and he was derided and threatened for going anywhere near the royal court and daring to prophesy about God’s anger to them over their social injustices. Amos’ response has a touch of the life of Brian about it: ‘I’m not a prophet, I don’t belong to the Guild of prophets! I just look after sheep, and trees, don’t blame me’ He did then claim a much higher authority than the guild of prophets, saying God had told him to rebuke Israel for their disobedience to God’s laws of social justice. . So he did it in spades! God has no need of professionals to remind his people of the law. What he does need are people who are prepared to obey Him and to demonstrate his law. I am reminded of a story from long ago…Peter a missionary in Africa, and the church who supported him had no money. He was hungry, he was in difficulties. And the Muslims fed him, because they respected him and saw he was hungry. What did Jesus say about the law?This idea, that we can be shown the law of God’s love in strange ways by unexpected people is one of the points picked up by Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Much has been written about this parable and I’m a bit daunted by it. I have tried to work out what I think is going on here, and done some reading. I could only begin to get near it by thinking through a parallel situation for myself. One of my students comes to me. This student is not stupid, nor unfriendly and he really does want to pass his studies, but he’s a bit of a barrack room lawyer and will always try to argue as a way of finding out what he wants to know, not just ask. And he never minds making me wriggle a bit. He says ‘what do I need to do to pass my course?’ He really does want to pass but he wants it to be as easy as possible and wants me to say that he is doing all that he needs to do – but we both know he has a sneaking suspicion that he probably isn’t. So I respond. ‘What are the criteria for the course which you have to demonstrate in order to pass?’ He knows what these are, exactly as the lawyer who had attended the temple would have known what Jesus would ask him in response to his question. Both my student and the lawyer know the reply they will give. My student and I have gone over the criteria many times, so he tells me them with no difficulty. There are 4 simple criteria which he has to follow, and one difficult one which is ‘write a critical account’ of something. This is something he struggles with. I say ‘you’re right. Well done, follow those outcomes and you will pass.’ Then I wait. It has just been ritual sparring until now. Neither of us has done anything except quote the regulations. So he then he lets me know what he really is unsure about, and wants some help over and he says something like ‘ well what does it mean to write a critical account, what does critical mean’…and then we are into a real exchange of views, a real discussion. This is my way into thinking what was going on here. There is a simple exchange between Jesus and the lawyer, which seems to be almost a ritual one, exchanging bits of the law, which they both knew. There’s nothing much to question really . You can hardly ask ‘which bit of love the lord your God don’t you understand?’’ But neighbour — that’s about action, about what you do at the sharp end of being human. Maybe that’s the bit he really wanted to know about. How do I treat people? What do I really have to do? Am I doing OK? And Jesus says, in reply, ‘ah, now I can really talk to you because you’ve asked me a real question.’ I wonder if the lawyer wanted a real answer? What does Jesus respond? It seems to me he says, like Amos, that it can be anyone at all who both reminds us of and demonstrates and illustrates God’s law of how to love your neighbour, and anyone who makes us think and struggle and widens our views from our places of satisfaction with ourselves. I’m no theologian but this is what I read. The priest and Levite weren’t necessarily bad men, and the lawyer would have admired them, I guess, but they were men who put one version, their version, of obeying the law against a version which is Jesus’ interpretation. They were professional Jews in their Jewishness. We do it this way around here. They were being loyal to their understanding. They thought they were obeying the law and in one way they were, but it was a self absorbed and narrow version of God’s law which was in them and this version, in Jesus’ story, was butting up against a situation where it simply wasn’t OK. I want to say here that I have no idea how often I do just this. I truly speak to myself when I say that I know I am blind to the spectacles I wear, the assumptions I make, the things I was brought up with, socialised into, unable to see differently, a bit smug and complacent about and so often in the name of the law of God’s love as I see it. I let myself off the hook, or simply don’t see what needs doing as Jesus sees it. And guilt is a useless emotion so we need not to feel aimlessly guilty but to keep the eyes of my heart, our hearts, peeled for this smugness, this conviction that I am doing it right, in the name of Jesus. Through God’s grace, I can be faced with that smugness in all sorts of unexpected ways, and through unexpected people. I think about the man lying the road and I don’t know how often I have left my victims on the other side of the road. One of the things this parable encourages us to do is to ask who are our victims? Who have we either slugged in some way, or ignored? So Jesus really goes for it, maybe because the lawyer really wants to know? Or doesn’t want to know? There’s no way of telling. He points out to the lawyer that his neighbour, far from being family, professional body, tribe, the Association for retired and aging lawyers, or his religious colleagues on the equivalent of the PCC or ministry team, are actually those whom he despises. Not only is he required to look after those who he despises, but those he despises are potent reminders to him of how the law should be done. Here is where this hits home to me again. The man on the ground is a victim of physical abuse, and was despised for that. The man who helps him is a victim of prejudice and racial hatred, and is despised for that. Both of them are ‘enemies’ to the lawyer. And yet one of these is helping the other and being a very forcible reminder to him of what the law is really about. I think Jesus was saying that under God’s law we can have no enemies, no one who can despise. There is no one who you can decline to help because you are superior to them in any way, nor can you be at enmity with them. I have very very occasionally found myself consciously despising someone for what I think is a good reason. But there is nothing on God’s earth which allows me to have them as an enemy, or to make them into a victim of my despising. The lawyer sees two people he really thinks are pretty low forms of life doing God’s law. And later Jesus becomes a victim, and also does God’s law in being the one who cares for us. I did do a bit of theological ferreting around this, and the word used for compassion here, as expressed by the Samaritan, is the same word as used in the story of the prodigal son – ‘his heart went out to him’. It’s the word used when the heart is ripped out of a sacrificial victim. That made me think that when we offer this kind of compassion, this reaching out, there is something asked of us which is about us being offered up, offering ourselves, for another. I think that’s a hard line to tread, to find the way of no enemies, to offer up our selves as carers, but at the same time to preserve something of ourselves. We have to love our neighbour as ourselves. We have to not be our own victims too. How can we help each other to keep the law?And in one other way of reminding us of the law, of the new law of love and no enemies, Paul writes to and prays for the Colossians. He writes that they achieve their loving kindness to all God’s holy people because God has rescued them from the ruling force of darkness, and transferred them to the kingdom of the Son that He loves. It is through the hope stored up for us in heaven that we are able to have no enemies. We love God because he first loved us, and obedience to this love is the way to the fullness of our humanity. This gives us a small tip or two about how we can help each other to keep the law which leads to life and gives us our deep relationship with God. Paul wrote, prayed for, cared about, heard about and commended these Colossians. He took an interest. He also took an interest in telling them off as well as commending them. So maybe at All Hallows we too can remind each other that living in obedience to God’s law is our right and proper way to be. I think this happens by us watching each other, and caring for each others spiritual wellbeing. I know so many people here who hold me steady sometimes by their humbling obedience to God’s law of love. I think it happens when we are obedient to prophetic voices in our midst as well. I think it happens when we remind each other of scripture, and it certainly happens as we pray for and with each other. I am profoundly grateful for all these things, which happen in this community. Copyright © 2007 Jan Betts AudioThis sermon was recorded. 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