Sermons

"People of the Law"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church by The Reverend Mark E. Long on February 8, 2009

Lections:  Ex. 34.1-5a, 10, 29a; 35.4-5a, 10a, 20-22; 36.34-38

                  Js. 2.8-13

                 Mt. 21.42-44; 22.34-40

"Sign, sign everywhere a sign; blocking out the scenery breaking my mind; do this don't do that, can't you read the sign."   The Five Man Electrical Band, a relatively obscure band of the early seventies, sang these lyrics and captured the imagination of a sizeable part of a generation.  The song points out the divisive nature of man's signs - hair length as a job qualification, fences to keep out others or claim a part of nature, places where you have to dress right and know the right people to be welcome - and asks the question "what gives you the right" to divide up life in such a way, in other words, "is this any way to treat a neighbor?"

Signs that provoke such a question should be challenged; they are signs produced in the fearful to keep at arm's length that or who they fear.  There are good reasons for some of these signs and not such good reasons for others.  But regardless these signs are the tools of fear.

Not all signs are so, some signs come unbidden and flow out of the unseen influence of something more mysterious than understandable - name it what you will - Spirit, the inner light, God, the higher self.  Names mean little; what is critical is that the signs are there to take us somewhere, at times we are willing to go and at other times not so much.

These signs at first blush can not be trusted any more than the ones the Five Man Electrical Band sang about.  Signs from wherever they come must be tested against a standard no matter how powerful their impact upon us.  If they bring you to an unhealthy physical, mental, or emotional place then, well, do you see the signs of God taking you to such places?

If so, then God the inner voice or whatever is not to be trusted and the only reasonable response is despair - more despair for a world already beset by quite enough of it.  There is no hope, end of story; let's close the book, the church and be people gone wild because our days under the sun are short.

But I for one would not be standing here if I did not as a first principle trust the God I feel so powerfully.  We are not left to wonder whether we are on the "right track" with the choices of our lives.  There is a simple standard by which to judge whether our choices put us on the "Lord's side."

Our standard is the "ten commandments," those words that as the story goes Moses finally got down the mountain with and to the people without breaking them on their behalf.  These words became the basis of the law that would guide the Israelites through the wilderness and over the river into the land promised by God.

There were ten but Jesus says later, according to Matthew, that all of them hang on only two:  "Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" - a fair summary of the first four - and, the second one, "love your neighbor as yourself" - which if you do then you have covered the next six.

So this is the standard by which the "signs," manmade or of a more mysterious origin, are to be tested:  Do they evidence a love of God and a love of neighbor?"  Do the "signs" of our lives promote a path of life-giving choices for us and reciprocity within our human relationships?  If so, then there is good reason to conclude that following them will lead us to our "land of milk and honey."

At some point as we concluded last week, we must choose - follow the signs or not that we have seen and heard.  We must act, faithfully not fearfully, if we expect any good to come to us and others.  Of course, we could continue to wander around the wilderness until our days under the sun are concluded, but that is the response of a life fearfully, not wonderfully, lived.

It is actions not words which answer Moses' question:  "Who is on the Lord's side?"  The Israelites chose rightly and faithfully and look where it got them - to the land promised to their ancestor Abraham.  Yes, they wandered around for quite some time in the wilderness before they were fit to cross over the river into their land of destiny.  But at the point they answered Moses' question with "we," they became students of how to live as people of the law - the only law that counts, according to Jesus - the law of love.  This law, not incidentally says James, is the law of liberty.

It is not just the Judeo-Christian tradition that says this either, the Sanskrit word for living in the way of the "law" is 'sattva'.  People of the law are identifiable by their clarity, compassion, calm, and fearlessness because they follow the only law able to transform their natures to include these blessings.

Signs are divine aids to get us there.  They are seemingly everywhere to lead people of energy into people of the law.  Ralph Waldo Emerson put it:  "There is guidance for each of us and by lowly listening we will hear the right word." 

I know how signs are everywhere to provide guidance for those who will "lowly listen" for words that they have no idea are right.  As I said last week, I was called to ministry around fifteen, thought to have fumbled it away by my early twenties, and pretty much went into a "shutdown" state until I was in my forties.  I had no wish to do any sort of listening, lowly or otherwise.  But as my choices put me further and further from the life I hoped for, I took a chance and opened my heart a crack.

When I did, my heart surprisingly cracked wide open and into it poured a most amazing series of coincidences, synchronicities, and downright jaw-dropping experiences.  It seemed for a time that the only topic on clergy minds across a range of denominations was Christian vocation - at least at the services I attended.  On two separate occasions in neutral settings, one on an airplane the other in a bar, women who knew nothing about my spiritual interest and who I had met moments before asked me whether I was going to become a priest.  No actually I had no such plan:  I had been running from such a plan for a long time.

But finally in despair, known by those no longer numb but who refuse to follow the signs - I found myself in a small Detroit apartment lying on my bed "lowly listening" to hear any comforting word.  I heard something, didn't make much sense, but I heard something.  Buechner bookstore.  These words took me to a bookstore and more words (these with a whole lot more apparent meaning for me) from a page randomly opened from a book by Frederick Buechner randomly picked; "listen to the events of your life."  I committed then to do a whole lot more "lowly listening."

Sign here - sign there - everywhere there were the signs of my calling.  I saw them; I felt them but not until I cracked my heart's door just a bit to chance I might feel something.  I did; nothing was the same after.  As the story says, the signs, if tested against the standard and then trusted, take us to the good things that God has in store for us.  It was for me.  I have had joy, peace, and a sense of abundance in circumstances that hardly would have brought me recognition of these things in my life before.

But something else about "signs," they are here today and gone tomorrow.  They leave when their target has made his choice.  If the heart is slammed shut to see and hear them because of fear, I believe, they will go away and leave him to search for his own food and water.  We are given opportunities only; we are not forced to take them.  I know that is what happened to me during the years that I was in law school and after as I chased the wrong dream in all the wrong places; the signs of my calling I could see nowhere and feel at no time.

But signs also go away when the heart has turned to commit to follow the path the heart wants to go.  The commentary for verse 37 of our lesson in Matthew says:  "The heart is the center of a person's willing, choosing, doing."  I heard in a jewelry ad recently, of all places:  "When your heart is open, love will find its way."  It will or at least it did in our story and in my life.

When it does, we find ourselves living no longer as people of energy in the "fits and starts" of faith owing to bouts of fear but as people of the law who have heard the calling of our hearts and have responded in love.

Hearts so turned then turn actions outward toward others to make right what is wrong and straight what is crooked.  Our actions will reveal whether we understand that we must first keep the commandment to love God, to live in the Spirit of a law that liberates us before loving others because it is God as our nature that enables us to keep the second.

Our story concludes that the Israelites once people of the law use their wealth to build an earthly dwelling for God rather than flashy idols.  In a similar way, we have an opportunity as present day people of the law to use our holy store of wealth - hope, faith, and (yes) love - to take faithful actions to show the world where God dwells.  

This is how I see it - at the end of a journey from "spiritual slacker" through a wilderness of "fits and starts" to the faith of people of the law learning how to be fit to live in the "the land of milk and honey."  But is it an end or a beginning?  Which for you; which for us?  What difference does it make?  Amen.