Sermon from the 13th Sunday after Pentecost. Preached at Zion and St. Paul by Pastor Christian. Grace to you and peace from God the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
I’ve got some good news, some bad news, and some really good news.
First, the good news…
You are a giving people. Upon my arrival here in Ironwood I have been impressed with all of the expressions of generosity. Gifts of time and talents are freely given in this community and I have personally received many of these gifts including meals, cookies, quick breads, books, furniture, tours, and help of all sorts from lifting to sharing stories of the local history. We will enjoy the marvelous work that has been done to renovate the parsonage on Marquette Street and the Parish House on Curry Street. In my first week here it would take a day to write all of the thank you notes needed to thank each person, so from the pulpit I wish to extend thanks to all you who have been so generous in giving your time and talents. Thank you to all of you for the gifts you have given that support your new Parish and your new pastor(s).
As I look around this community I can see that there is a great emphasis on giving. There are examples of civic giving such as the memorial building and the big Indian that each testify to the willingness of people to give to the community. But more important is the level of concern people express for each other in times of crisis, grief, and loss. This is a community of many doers. If you want something done you aren’t afraid to go out and do it.
Today’s first and second readings reflect this same spirit of doing something for your neighbor. From the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy we learn about keeping the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that God has given His people. Laws and ordinances are a way of taking care of each other. Purity codes were for hygienic purposes so the health of the community would be maintained. Today’s equivalent might be the sign in the fast food restaurant bathroom that reminds employees to wash their hands before returning to work. But there were laws concerned with the economic and social well being of the people as well. There were household codes that demanded taking care of the impoverished, the debt laden, the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan. The purpose of the law was for the sake of the neighbor and community so that the people will never forget the good things that God has done. All in all the purpose of the law was to remind the people of God’s saving deeds. In the same way God rescued Israel from bondage and destruction in Egypt the law demands that we rescue each other from injustice, from poverty, from destruction of health and property. The purpose of the law is so that we can pass on from generation to generation the stories of God’s power to save, to free us from bondage, and to take care of us in times of trouble.
The reading from the first chapter of James is in the same vein. Think of these as guidelines for living in Christian community:
“Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; welcome meekness, rid yourselves of sordidness and weakness.” This is good advice for everyone, but we do this not because we want to look good or build up a fine reputation. We don’t do this for ourselves, but for our neighbor.
This is where we get to the bad news…
Somewhere between hearing and doing something breaks down. Either we ignore the commandments entirely or worse yet we turn the statutes and ordinances into an end in and of themselves, all while ignoring their purpose. When the latter happens by elevating the rules above the purpose and intention of the law, when we see the commands as an end in themselves while ignoring their purpose of loving the neighbor so we can remember what God has done, then the law becomes an idol and we become gods working out our own salvation. If we think we can save ourselves by obedience to the law we have another thing coming. Law abiders cannot save themselves. They can help their neighbors, but they do not earn righteousness by their obedience.
Commandments, laws, statutes are for the protection of ourselves and our neighbors, but they do not have the power to save. They can restrain, convict, condemn, and correct, but they do not save. When we elevate the law to savior then there is the temptation to justify ourselves. If we believe that by following the commandments, and statutes put forth in the legal system, or in the Bible, we can merit our salvation then Christ would not be necessary. If we could do it ourselves then Christ’s life, death, and resurrection were pointless. If I could rid myself of all sin then Christ is superfluous, he is at best a great teacher, a prophet, an all around good guy, and at worst he is a phony, an imposter, and a quack. But we know Jesus is more than that.
The recurring problem among religious people is the temptation to think we can save ourselves. When this happens we are fooling ourselves and working against God’s mission in the world. When the law is ultimate, and we think we have the internal capacity to live up to it ourselves, then we are in opposition to God’s word. Let me relay how a law can impede mission with a purely hypothetical example from daily life.
Let’s say hypothetically, there was a certain public library in a certain small town. There was a certain newcomer to town who wanted to check his email at the library. So this newcomer went to the library with ID in hand and a piece of mail to prove residency in a certain town. The policy of this particular library was that one needed a driver’s license from that particular state in order to get a library card and access to the library. Now, I understand that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, but this certain newcomer to town only had an out-of state driver’s license and so was turned away without a library card or access to the internet. I am confident that the mission of this certain public library is not to deny newcomers to town access to library resources, but to serve the whole community, but on that particular day the policy took precedent over the mission of the library. The law stood as an impediment to the mission.
Another example of the law impeding mission is the health information patient privacy act or HIPPA. The HIPPA laws make it impossible for health care providers to discuss the health of their patients with out the patient’s explicit permission. In the process, pastors, family, and friends have great difficulties finding out what is wrong with their loved ones and finding out about hospitalizations. Here is a good opportunity to mention, if you have a friend or loved one in the Parish, even outside the Parish, in a nursing home, hospital, or other care facility who you know would like a visit from a Pastor, please call the Parish House and let us know. The hospitals and health care workers can no longer give us this information. In the case of HIPPA the law impedes the healing mission of the institution that implement it by standing in the way of the process of providing spiritual care to the sick and dying.
Law that impedes mission is something we have to be careful about in our churches. Are there laws in the form of traditions, policies, ideologies, and doctrines that stand in the way of the mission of God’s church?
The Gospel for today offers insight into this question. Here we learn that it is not the external observance of any tradition, commandment, or statute that matters, but the internal observance that matters. This came as a shock to the Pharisees who devoted their lives to cultivating external observance of the law. I really feel for the Pharisees who dedicated so much of their lives to learning and living the Torah and who were confronted and confounded by the one who fulfills the law right there in their presence. They were so invested in their system of how to get to heaven and how to save themselves when Jesus came along and taught that it is not what goes in that matters, but what comes out. They were so ingrained in their daily routine of ritual ablutions, purifications, determining who and what was in and out, what was sacred and what was profane, that they lost sight of the simple thought that it is what comes from within that matters not what comes from the outside. What matters is what comes from the heart. What comes from the inside out is the important stuff, not the other way around.
Like the Pharisees the bad news for us is that the temptation to save ourselves by external observance is so ingrained in much of our religious teaching. The message “get right with God” is being preached this morning in many Christian churches. It is so easy to slip into the notion that we can earn or merit our own salvation by what we do externally: that there is something we can do to get right with God. We want to do it ourselves. We want to pull ourselves out of the pit of our sins by doing right and in the process denying the one who is righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Worse yet, in our preoccupation with saving ourselves we leave our neighbors behind. In the struggle for moral superiority we leave behind the poor, suffering, stranger, widow, and orphan. When we are out to get ours we leave others in the dust to get theirs. In this quest for self-justification and self righteousness, in the name of being right we have so often been so wrong.
Let’s conclude with the really good news that I promised:
The good news is that Christ comes to break us out of this pattern of self seeking self justification and self righteousness. The Word of God who is Jesus Christ came into the world to fulfill the law because we couldn’t. Christ comes breathing on us the Holy word of forgiveness that sets us free from sin. Christ comes pouring out himself so that we can be washed in his Holy and precious blood. Christ comes in our baptism washing us again and again cleaner and deeper than any ritual cleansing we could ever perform ourselves. Christ comes in this meal that we are about to celebrate to give us a pure heart that we can live lives that serve God and neighbor. That is the scandal of the cross. That is what was so shocking to the Pharisees. Jesus comes to fulfill the law because we can’t. No amount of effort on our part will save us from death. No one here by their own effort gets out alive. The wages of sin are death and we have all fallen short; there is no external effort on our part that can change that. But the good news is that by the work of Christ you have been saved. Your sins are forgiven. You are set free. You are given new life. Clothed in Christ’s righteousness you are saved. You are given a new life and a chance to live in gratitude for that new life that you are given. Go forth today fed and nourished by God’s word and sacrament to live in the freedom of the Gospel. Go forth confident in Christ’s power to save being doers of the Word and not mere hearers.
