Deuteronomy 30: 15–20
Matthew 5: 21–37
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Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in your name. Amen.
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Long ago and far away I grew up gazing at an image of God. At
least, at the age of three or four, I was pretty sure that the figure
I saw in the great stained glass window over the altar of Trinity
Episcopal Church must be God. For this person sat in flowing
robes on a white marble throne, and his right hand rested on an orb I
took to be the earth. All around him were people – rank on
rank of them, all looking steadily at him. Clearly, this guy was
the boss. It had to be God.
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The strange thing is that that early image of God–as–judge
didn’t give me any sense of fear or foreboding. Instead,
my image of God as the peaceful one, the benevolent one in
charge – gave me a sense of reassurance. Somehow, I sensed
that I could trust this world where he reigned. For ultimately,
I suspected, his peaceful will would prevail, all around me.
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So, maybe it’s not surprising this morning when I read the
farewell words of Moses to the Children of Israel in the Book of
Deuteronomy, that I hear God’s promise in those words. Not
the threat of what could happen if the people didn’t follow
his Law — but the promise — as they entered the land he
was giving them. For I understand that God gave the Law as gift,
a gift of guardrails to keep the Children of Israel on track in this
new land. For He intended to bless them. He was telling
the people he’d already chosen, the people He already loved, how
to live together — comfortably, harmoniously — in a whole
new situation. The Law was His gift to them, His little guidebook
of how they were to proceed.
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The simplest way to explain “how they were to proceed” is
to say they were to go together. Everything they did, every
decision they made was to arise out of concern and respect for one
another. For the Law was meant to strengthen community. And
the logic behind that way of thinking is simple. If you are only
looking out for yourself, it’s you against the world. But
when you look out for others in the community, especially the vulnerable
ones — and they, in turn, look out for you – it’s
the community together that faces the challenges, and enjoys
opportunities as they present themselves. So, everyone benefits.
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What does surprise me is the number of people who can read these very
same words in Deuteronomy and hear something more ominous and
threatening in these words — like, “Watch your step, or
I will zap you!” It all depends, I guess, on our
basic understanding of God – whether, for us, His words are
reassuring or scary. It’s our basic understanding of God
that helps us interpret His words.
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And that, in turn, helps this morning when we come to our Gospel
passage, and find a parallel situation. This time it is not
Moses but Jesus who is speaking to the chosen people of God as they
too are about to enter a new realm. Only this time those chosen
people are — so far — only the small handful of disciples
Jesus has just chosen to follow him. Beyond them there’s a
wider circle of people listening, trying to decide whether to
follow. But altogether they too are about to enter a whole new
realm, the Kingdom of Heaven.
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Now, the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place on a map so much as it is
a way of life, a new way of life initiated by God. But here
again, their leader is telling them that their guidebook in this new
realm is to be the same ancient Law of Moses that guided their
ancestors. So, Jesus’ instructions to his disciples are
similar to Moses’ instructions to the Children of Israel, as
they were about to cross the Jordan. And once again, the
instructions are to keep the Law down to its smallest detail, down
even to their hearts’ inclinations. And once again I hear
those words as caring words, coming from someone who only wants the
best for us.
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“Keep the ancient Law of Moses,” Jesus tells
them. “Follow it carefully. And this new kingdom
of God on earth will become for you and for many a place to dwell
securely, a place to enjoy God’s protection and blessings.”
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And you know what? I think you and I have heard something
similar quite recently – not from Moses as the people prepared
to cross the Jordan River, and not from Jesus as he delivered the
Sermon on the Mount to his newly–minted disciples, but from
Bishop Wright, who visited us two weeks ago to talk with us about
the Catechism and the Baptismal Covenant.
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For three weeks ago, when I came back from a clergy day in Atlanta
with the news that you and I were to begin to learn the Catechism, so
we could talk about it intelligently with Bishop Wright the following
Sunday, there was something like consternation in our
midst. “We are to do what?” everyone
said. “We are to study the Catechism – that
most of us haven’t even glanced at for fifty
years — as a blueprint of our faith?” All
anyone could remember about the Catechism was that it was a long
series of complicated definitions of our faith – words we had
memorized as adolescents and hadn’t thought of since. Maybe
our reactions were similar to the reactions of the Children of Israel
when they first encountered all the small details in the Law of Moses.
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But bless your hearts, you did it! Everybody read or
re–read the seventeen pages of the Catechism that week and tried
to relate their faith and their practice to what they read in those
pages. Everybody found something in those pages they could relate
to. Just as the Children of Israel paid attention to the 613
tenets of the Law that Moses laid out for them – learning to use
that Law as a valuable guidebook of living God’s way. Just
as the new disciples listened to Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount
lay out what was required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In
all three of those texts, we learned something similar. We learned
if we want to live God’s way, we are to listen to Him. We
are to reacquaint ourselves with his word — and then be
concerned, be loving and merciful to people around us. We are to
love God and love others.
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And Bishop Wright understood that we had learned something.
Do you remember what he said to us, after he had listened for a
while? He said, “You know what you are like? You
are like one of those early churches, small enough to meet in a single
home. You’re the kind of church people exclaimed
over, “How they love one another!” I
think he saw you as you really are, because you had taken the
trouble to speak with him in the words he wanted you to
understand – the words of the Catechism and the words of the
Baptismal Covenant. And he knew you hadn’t just
memorized those words. You had recognized in them the way you
have already learned to live.
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Folks, I don’t know exactly what is coming our way. But you
can’t miss the signs that something in our world has
changed — and changed radically. It’s not just our
new weather patterns, causing famines and floods, arctic vortexes or
searing heat worldwide. It’s pandemics. It’s
earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis. It’s catastrophic wars and
a lack of civil discourse all over the place.
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Is it a new era? I do not know. But if it is, our Lord
has given us some guidelines for how to handle it in the ancient Law of
Moses, in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and even in the words of the
Catechism. (At the very least, we can check out the Baptismal
Covenant to recall what we ourselves have promised.) All these
words help us to understand our faith better. All these words can
guide us.
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And if we are smart, we will take those words to heart. We will
draw close to him and we will love others – trusting that he will
bring us through. And that’s my prayer for you and for me this day.
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Amen.
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