| January 20, 2008
You are Welcome to Reflect on this Message From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit Epiphany – January 20, 2008
This weekend in worship we celebrate the gains that have come in our world when different people worked together for the common good; spearheaded in our lifetime by heroes like Dr. King, an American Baptist preacher, whose words changed the world for the better in our lifetime. But the tenor of our time is against bipartisanship. Because it infuriates extremists, who fear losing ground to compromise; which, to diehards amounts to a betrayal of faith and a disregard for the rule of law. Especially if the law leans your way. Using the rule of law to accomplish desired goals is one way to get things done, by offering a standard by which to judge. Fearful souls rely on the rule of law for security. And the simplicity of it is appealing.
In some folks’ eyes, though not God’s, breaking the law can keep you out of heaven. But if heaven is gonna be full of the absolutist/legalist crowd, then maybe hell wouldn’t be so bad, if there was one. I’m with ol’ Mark Twain who said: “Heaven for climate. Hell for company.” The Australians say, “We got the convicts. America got the Puritans.” You’ll have to decide who came out best. But when people do things because they can, they need a code to back them up. Sometimes it’s the Bible, distorted, for sure. But anything uncomplicated: Do the crime, serve the time. That way nobody gets away with anything. ‘Cept maybe OJ.
In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul talks about the rule of law, but with this twist: “What the law cannot do.” Jesus knew that, and nearly got himself tossed over a cliff in Nazareth the fateful day he “laid down the law” and took up grace in the local synagogue. Jesus was always laying down the law for something else. Later he simplified the entire decalogue in 2 declarations: “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” The law of love replaces the law of rules. But people still prefer the restrictions. They don’t make the rules, they just worship them!
Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty are philosophizing one day out under a tree: “Do you know any good rules for living, Chuck?” “Keep the ball low, don’t leave your crayons in the sun, knock before entering and get your first serve in.” Pattie’s mystified: “Will those rules give me a better life?” That depends on the fairness of the rules and the interpreters and enforcers, doesn’t it? Sometimes the rules are there for a reason. Like the family with 10 kids and one bathroom: you better have some rules! But never a need for legal idolatry. Even Peppermint Pattie knew that some laws make life better and others make it worse. The law held its ground till Jesus came to give us something that rises above the law. The church calls it the gospel. And that’s why Paul says the law can’t cut it.
Realize too, he’s somebody who knew the law, kept it, and honored and respected it. But he also saw its deficiencies. He highlighted them by contrasting both Judaism and Christianity. On one side he lays out the external proscriptions of Moses to make people toe the line. On the other side he sets the inner strength the Spirit of Christ gives, resulting in a new quality of life. The church calls it “conversion.” But whatever you call it, it’s a heckuva lot better than forced regulations -- still trying to mandate what only creative spiritual energy can accomplish.
Both of these impulses are always present among us. One works through power politics, stacked courts or ballot boxes and reactionary religion. The other works through homes, schools, churches, and voluntary religion. One regulates life, from without. The other creates life from within, where changes that matter are really made.
Some folks still don’t get it, but the Bible teaches there are things the law cannot do. And one of ‘em is, the law can’t get any more goodness out of somebody than what’s already in them. We’ve always tried to make people moral, or behave according to subjective standards. But there are some things you can’t make people do. You can’t make somebody love, learn, worship or give. Those things must come from inside. The law is like a pump. The water that’s pumped is no more muddy or clean than those doing the pumping. No law ever existed that can guarantee goodness; or morality. It can punish us when we step across the line. But it’s helpless to redeem.
Not that it hasn’t been tried before. They used to burn witches up here in New England. But it didn’t stop folks from sinning. In the days of prohibition they tried to legislate morality. But it didn’t stop people from drinking alcohol. When the abstinence law started pumping, it could only pump what was already on the inside of people. So they found a way to get around the law. We call it bootlegging.
The “letter of the law” is defenseless in the face of addiction. Such external things are beyond the reach of the law. To conquer an addiction, it takes a change in the heart, soul, and will, things that lie beyond the law’s jurisdiction. Putting good things into people is what worship does, because good is stronger than evil. And that’s something the law can’t do. That comes from our upbringing, sane ethical standards, our character, our faith, our church. Law lacks the ability to create a single one of those things. We’d better remember an old history lesson. In the 4th century Constantine decreed that the Christian religion was to be the national religion of the Roman Empire. That’s significant because to that point, Christianity was against the law. Church and state were separate. But it was a thriving, spiritual force. Those were the days that faith meant something, because they bled for it. When it became the legislated state religion, it almost spoiled both. And it wasn’t until the Renaissance that we caught on.
So the Roman government became Christianized a long time ago. And it nearly ruined the world. But it didn’t make Europe more peaceful or Christian. It just added a lot of illegitimate numbers to the church roles. Preachers call it dead wood. If the world could be saved by the law, the 10 Commandments would suffice. But that’s the best the world could do before Jesus. Because redemption is something that takes more than tablets of stone. The law can’t touch your soul. It can crucify your body. But to transform somebody requires a higher power.
Our voluntary helping agencies, like education, AA’s, Habitat, or the opposition to slavery. These are good things that came to be not by the rule of law. But because some creative Christians took it upon themselves to make Providence a better place. All of them started in the church. The church can do things “the law can’t do.” It steers our youth to develop Christian character and do right because it’s right when people are tempted to do wrong. “What the law cannot do,” the church is doing, and has been for a long time.
The law is defensive. All it can do is keep you from losing. But to win you’ve gotta have an offense. The law is static, but living things grow from their roots. All the law in the world could never produce a Martin Luther King, Jr. Yeah the law threw him in jail. But his non-violent courage, moral cause and willingness to sacrifice for it are beyond the scope of the law.
The spiritual creativity of Jesus gave the world something that only God could dream up. The Nazarene claimed he didn’t come for the law-keepers but the law-breakers. “They that are whole have no need of a physician...” That’s what got him in trouble with the law-keepers. Jesus didn’t base abundant life on keeping the law, but on serving God. He fulfilled the law with life giving love, which renders the law unnecessary. Paul saw the weakness of the law: “I delight in the law of God in my inner self, but there’s another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin, which dwells within me.”
There you have it: moral law commanding a righteousness it has no power to deliver. Law can penalize the lawbreaker, but it can’t reform one. The law says “you ought,” but lacks the power to say “you can.” Anybody who’ll admit to failing knows the last thing you need to be told is what you did. You already know that. What you need is help to overcome it. Redemption, forgiveness, salvation, grace, mercy, that’s why we come to church, to avail ourselves of something society can’t offer.
In Mark’s Gospel Jesus encountered a leper, segregated by the law. Quarantine was all the law could do for a leper: defensively protect the rest of the community against him. All the dogma could say to the leper was: “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.” But the leper said to Jesus: “If you will, you can make me clean.” There was no recourse. All he had was leprosy and the damning verdict of the law: “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.” And I don’t know that they were all that sorry either. But at the boundary of human hope, he reached out for the mystery of grace-beyond-all-hoping and his faith moved Jesus to compassion. And touching the untouchable, he said, “I will. Be clean!” On that day, “nothing can be done” was abrogated by the merciful word of the Lord, “I will!” “God has done what the law could not do; sending his own Son...” Yeah the law can segregate and quarantine. But healing must come from somewhere else.
Somebody said what we deserve is what we accept. When I was growing up that was put to the test. Society was separated by racist laws on the books that dated all the way back to post civil war days. I never made much of a fuss over it because nobody I knew ever complained. Most folks just went along. It was the code of the South. But during my senior year in High School, a courageous preacher from Montgomery, Alabama had a big dream and a lot of guts. He started saying busing laws are “unacceptable.” America can do better. But it’s the law! Unfair, yes. Cruel, yes. So Americans were being called to live by their best laws inscribed in the Constitution, where “all are created equal.” And a man with a dream and a speech changed the world, because he showed us that not all laws are good and many are way too fuzzy, susceptible to being misinterpreted and manipulated by corrupt, prejudicial majorities. So we remember King’s birthday, not Bull Connor’s, because he turned out to be right and the law was wrong.
The Apostle knew there are things “the law cannot do.” Freedom, forgiveness, constructive change, reconciliation, doing what’s right, redemption -- that’s God’s business. He left it to the church to finish, because it can do“What the law cannot do...what the law can’t do, God can.” Thank God!
May the Lord give you grace -- to never sell yourself short, (By William Sloane Coffin) |
