February 14, 2010 Sermon

Law
Matthew 5:17-20

As I surfed the Internet for an illustration for this sermon I came across bricktestament.com, where the Reverend Brendan Powell Smith has posted photos of scenes from the entire Bible made out of Legos.  From Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the final battle of Armageddon, Smith has built biblical scenes out of Legos.  (One caution: I would not turn my eight year-old boy loose on this site just because he loves Legos.  It has a certain edge to it, as well as a quirky sense of humor that might not seem reverent to everybody.)  Yet the scenes stay remarkably faithful to the text.  The first three people I know who viewed them all said substantially the same thing, that this guy has too much time on his hands.  But he calls it a labor of love, and this comes across on-line.  Besides, he does have a set of coffee table books with the pictures on sale, so maybe he has not wasted all those hours after all.

What drew me to bricktestament.com was its set of images from the Law of the Old Testament.  One, entitled “When to stone your children,” shows a slacker teen with multi-colored hair disrespecting his parents (all in Legos, of course).  His parents give him several chances to obey.  He refuses.  They drag him before the “elders of the town”.  The final image displays the slacker on his back with gray, single-pegged Legos strewn around and on top of him.  Another scene is entitled “Diseases of the Head.”  Its first panel shows a banker-type guy with a shiny head.  The caption reads, “If a man loses the hair on his head, this is baldness.  The man is clean.”  But the following images show a man with a rash on his scalp and how the priest must examine it to determine whether to allow the man to live among the people.

These scenes, and others with far less-appropriate titles for a family service, come straight from the law Jesus told his followers he had come to uphold.  The text under each image at bricktestament.com comes verbatim from the Bible.  The Law section quotes Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, three-fifths of the Pentateuch, the holiest books for the Jews.  Jews in Jesus' day called them “The Law”.  Jesus preached in his Sermon on the Mount that he came, “not to abolish but to fulfill” the Law.  He added that “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be one of the least in the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus meant to uphold the Law.  But what does upholding the Law mean?

In our few verses we encounter one of Jesus' favorite techniques in his sermon on the mountain: hyperbole, or exaggeration to create a response.  Ancient written Hebrew did not use vowels.  Scribes wrote only the consonants and expected their readers to know which vowels belonged where.  By Jesus' day scribes were adding tiny marks to indicate the vowels.  They did it principally to avoid misunderstandings of the Law, the very text Jesus claimed he came to fulfill, but the use of written vowels quickly spread to all written Hebrew.  Our English text reads that Jesus said, “Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, shall pass away.”  He actually said, “Not one consonant, not one jot or tittle will pass away.”  Jots and tittles were two of the tiny vowel markings scribes started adding to texts.  Jesus means that he will not advocate against even the tiniest bit of the Law. 

We prefer a tame Jesus.  We prefer Jesus as the warm and fuzzy guy who brought grace.  We like forgiveness more than judgment.  And to be sure, Jesus purchased forgiveness for us on the cross.  Yet Jesus made it clear from the start of his public ministry that as the Messiah he would complete every aspect of God's eternal plan.  The Law remains.  Judgment remains.  We should not—we cannot—escape accountability for our behavior.  So how should we deal with the Law of God as found in the first five books of the Old Testament?  Must we stone our children when they persist in defiance?  Must we throw men with head rashes out of the church?  The Reformed Tradition to which we belong says, “No.”  We need not interpret this passage literally.  Jesus uses hyperbole to get our attention, to force us to think about his message, to take it seriously.  We must find the spiritual truth Jesus teaches here and follow that truth.

I mentioned the Reformed Tradition.  Started by Martin Luther, developed by John Calvin and great theologians through the centuries to the present, the Reformed Tradition emphasizes the authority of scripture.  Today we read a scripture that references scripture.  Today we read that Jesus preached he would uphold the Old Testament Law.  As John Calvin pointed out, this means we had better uphold that Law, too.  But if we do not believe we must obey it literally, how do we uphold that Law and satisfy Christ?  Calvin taught three uses of the Law: it convicts us of our sin, it governs our behavior, and it leads us day by day closer to our Lord. 

The Law convicts us of our sin.  Much of the Old Testament Law no longer applies to life as we live it.  Few of us own oxen these days.  Yet it does convict us of our sin.  In the Law we encounter the perfect holiness of God.  Any honest reading of it forces us to admit our unholiness, our sin.  Mark Wetmore coaches the University of Colorado distance running teams with great success.  He emphasizes “being righteous”.  He means that if runners want to compete to their utmost they either do their workouts to their maximum ability or they do not.  Either they avoid alcohol and get their rest or they do not.  There is no “kind of” for distance runners.  There is only the clock.  God's Law functions for us like the clock.  Either we obey God or we do not.  Either we are righteous or we are not.  And the bottom line is, we are not.  We understand, if only at a deep, subconscious level, what God expects.  Any honest reading of scripture, especially the parts of it that communicate the Law, tells us this.  But we do not do the right.  The Law convicts us of our sin.

The Law also governs our behavior.  No, we no longer need to know what color undershirt the priest must wear.  Yes, much of the detail in scripture tells us nothing about how to behave.  But this does not get us off the hook.  God's Law rests on the foundation of God's love.  A correct use of the Law leads us to behave lovingly.  Later a young lawyer will ask Jesus what he must do to go to heaven.  Jesus asks him what the Law says.  The man answers with a summary familiar to any Jew, to love God and neighbor.  This summary comes from Deuteronomy, in the Law itself.  But if we no longer must slavishly follow every vowel marking in the Law, how can we know what behaviors are loving in the eyes of God?  The Apostle Paul will write that the Spirit of God has written the Law on our hearts.  Listen to what the Spirit says deep in your heart and you will know how to act.

Driving through the snow storm earlier this week a man noticed a pickup truck coming the other way with a traffic cone stuck under its front suspension.  He realized the driver probably did not know it was there.  But what if it jumped up into the steering or brake mechanisms?  Though late for an appointment across town, the man turned around in a driveway and chased the truck.  It took five minutes of hurrying, then blinking headlights and beeping the horn, but the truck stopped.  That was a loving thing to do.  How many of us have relationships in which we see our significant other dragging a traffic cone?  What should we do?  To what lengths should we go, how much risk should we accept, to try to make it right?  The Law governs our behavior by writing love on our hearts.  Really, all we must do is read the writing on our hearts.

Finally, the Law leads us closer to the Lord.  Jesus preached about the Law in the Sermon on the Mount.  The points he made in this sermon became major themes of his ministry.  That he chose to make this difficult statement about the Law therefore means he cared about it a great deal.  He cared that his followers draw near to him, and through him to God the Father.  When we try to live a righteous life, when we try to act out the love of God written upon our hearts we cannot help but become closer followers of Jesus.

Notice that Jesus does not claim that obeying the Law saves us.  Only confessing our sins and entering into a relationship with Him can do that.  But the Law can become a powerful tool for us to do just that.  Forget about stoning defiant children.  Forget about your neighbor's oxen—or his dogs or his stereo or whatever.  Focus instead on following Jesus.  Let the Law of God convict you of sin so you can confess it to Jesus.  Let the Law of God guide your behavior so you can embody the love of Jesus.  Let the Law of God do its job so we can do ours: following Jesus.  Following Jesus right into the kingdom of heaven.