09/01/2013 ~ Proper 17 ~ Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost ~ Jeremiah 2:4-13; Psalm 81:1, 10-16; Sirach 10:12-18 or Proverbs 25:6-7; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14 ~ Labor Day Weekend ~ Communion Sunday.
The Law of Love
“...Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?’” — Luke 14:3.
The ELCA— the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American— {the pastor points to a person in the congregation}— I have a Lutheran out here who is saying the words with me— is one of the largest denominations in the United States. The denomination claims more than 4 million members in nearly 10,000 congregations across the 50 states and the Caribbean. Christ Lutheran on North Broad Street is a member of this group of churches.
The denomination recently made some news by electing a new presiding Bishop. Unlike the United Church of Christ, Lutherans do have Bishops. The news is that by a very wide margin the Lutherans elected the Reverend Elizabeth A. Eaton. The Reverend Eaton will be the first woman to hold the office of Presiding Bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American.
In fairness, I do have to point out the Episcopal Church has already accomplished this kind of first. In 2006 the Episcopalians elected the Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, who had been a Bishop in Nevada.
In any case, I heard Bishop Elect Eaton interviewed this week. This was the first question the person interviewing her asked is this: “What’s the greatest challenge for your church as you take over.”
The new Bishop wisely demurred. “I won’t be taking over,” she offered. “God is in charge. I find great comfort in that.”
When it came to the rest of her answer, she again demurred by making sure she applied the answer to the state of churches in general, not just Lutherans. And she stated the obvious. It is no longer the 1950s. The church has to be aware of that.
She then said something equally obvious, something we often tend to forget, especially when people operate out of a memory of what the church was in the 1950s, as churches sometimes do. She said in the 1950s the church had a privileged status.
In the 1950s, she said, kids did not play sports on Sundays. By law, professional sports teams could not start their Sunday games before 2:00 p.m. That kind of privilege, that kind of acceptance, that kind of legal protection granted to a specific religious group is ancient history, said the Reverend Eaton, a thing of the past.
“When the church was new, it did not have any kind of privileged status. The world in which Paul preached,” she said, “did not make any special accommodation for Sunday. The Roman Empire did not give people Sundays off. Still, it seems to me,” she insisted, “we did rather well in the long run.” (Slight pause.)
I, myself, often wonder why, in our society, churches tend to look to the law to protect a privileged status. Just as a current example, there were many churches who were and who still are against same-sex marriage— not this church, but there are many.
No one has ever been able to explain to me why those churches need the law as a means to the end of having things their way. This is especially true since the laws which are in place and allow for same sex marriages do not require those churches to officiate at, to preside over any of those marriages.
I, personally, am happy to let other churches go their own way, do what they want. I do not want those churches to, by law, have control over my life. I do not want those churches telling me what to do by trying to turn their practices into law. There is a difference between practice and law. (Slight pause.)
“...Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?’”— words from the Gospel of Luke. (Slight pause.)
So, what is law? (Slight pause.) I would be the last to deny law is a rule or a set of rules. The rules which comprise all laws are strictures, walls, barriers, a box within which one stays.
Please note: in both a real and in a theoretical sense and contrary to populist belief, the prime reason for law, the reason all law exists, is not to punish. Punishment is not its prime purpose. The prime reason for the existence of a law is to set a boundary.
Punishment can and may happen after boundaries are shattered, broken. But punishment is not the reason law exists. (Slight pause.)
So, what is Biblical law? Is Biblical law simply a series of rules, a set of strictures? Some people seem to think it is. After all, why would there be so much arguing about the Decalogue being the basis of all law if some people did not think it is?
However, while political populists may not agree with what I am about to say, scholars, theologians and Jesus all agree— scholars, theologians and Jesus all agree— the basis of law is not the Decalogue. The basis of law is a twofold imperative: love God; love neighbor.
In fact, you can see something very interesting behind the story we heard today. By asking (quote:) “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out even on a Sabbath day?” Jesus is not asking them if they will pull a child or an ox out of a well on a Sabbath— of course they will. Jesus knows it; they know it.
Jesus is asking a deeper, more cutting, question. Jesus is asking ‘are you willing to use the law as a cudgel?’ Jesus is asking ‘why are you willing to use the law as a weapon?’ Jesus is asking ‘why are you willing to use the law as a means of punishment?’ Jesus is asking ‘what is the purpose of the law?’ (Slight pause.)
You have heard me say this hundreds, if not thousands of times. I said it earlier. The law— Biblical law— boils down to this: love God; love neighbor.
Too often the follow up question asked of that statement is: ‘who is my neighbor?’ But the question, itself, is the wrong question. It is wrong because it, effectively, asks about a neighbor as if a neighbor can be found in a physical location.
Neighbor is not a geographical concept. It is not about the location of said neighbor. The term ‘neighbor’ is not even about which person or group qualifies as neighbor. No, indeed, neighbor is a moral concept. The imperative to love one’s neighbor is an invitation to a moral practice.
Therefore, loving one’s neighbor means maintaining both a collective responsibility and an individual responsibility which insists on the need for the preservation of the dignity of others. Loving one’s neighbor means maintaining both a collective and an individual responsibility which insists on integrity of all people. (Slight pause.)
So, what is Biblical law? Biblical law is not a rule or a set of rules or a stricture or a wall or a barrier or a box within which one stays. Rather, Biblical law is a moral imperative.
More importantly, it is not a moral imperative inside which we are expected to confine ourselves. It is not a moral imperative out from which we are called to live. (Slight pause.)
It has occurred to me, and perhaps it has occurred to Bishop Eaton too, that the privileged place Christianity had in society, the legal protection rendered by a secular government— which Christianity probably even sought— may not have been the best thing that ever happened to Christianity. Paul, just as a for instance, did not think in those terms, did not think in terms of the law protecting what he might believe or even his practices.
So perhaps what we need to understand is something quite simple. The only law we find in Scripture is not at all like the law rendered by secular government. The only law we find in Scripture is the law of love. And that law, the law of love, transcends rules.
Further, the law of love should not be reduced to something (pardon the expression) simply warm and fuzzy. Love is a feeling, there is no question. But the love being addressed here actually goes beyond that. Biblical love is a moral imperative. And, as would be true of any moral imperative, loving God and loving neighbor is also a call to action.
Indeed and to paraphrase the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the only thing we can do which is harmful is nothing. Love your neighbor: a call to action. Amen.
09/01/2013
United Church of Christ, First Congregational
ENDPIECE— It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Congregational Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “My late Mother had this funny little interesting saying. She said: ‘I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand.’ And you can understand that when you get exasperated with somebody. I get it. And loving humanity in one sense is a moral imperative. The question is ‘how does that happen?’ Well, it happens the other way around. You need to love people. You need to reach out when they have a health problem, when they’re hungry, when they’re homeless. You need to love people. If you do that the humanity part will take care of itself, won’t it?”
BENEDICTION: Let us place our trust in God. Let us go from this place to share the Good News as we are witnesses. And this is, indeed, the Good News: by God we are blessed; in Jesus, the Christ, the beloved of God, we are made whole. Let us depart in confidence and joy that the Spirit of God is with us. And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God, that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else. Amen.
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