VI Epiphany – February 13, 2011 – Year A (RCL)
I’m afraid there’s not much warmth to be found in this week’s lessons from Holy Scripture.
At least on first reading them, on first hearing them, they do sound pretty bleak.
You may have gotten the feeling that I tried to read the Gospel lesson in as gentle a tone as possible—at least I hope you did—but it takes some doing.
(Hey! It’s almost Valentine’s Day! Where’s the love?)
It may be helpful to know that the passage we heard from the Book of Deuteronomy is supposed to be part of a sermon—at times it’s almost a harangue—that Moses delivers to the Hebrew people, as they stand at the entrance to the Promised Land, after wandering around in the desert for forty years (read: “a really long time”).
“Choose life” is what Moses says to them. “If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish.”
(In other words: If you turn away, you’ve chosen death.)
So, which did they choose—the one or the other?
I turns out that it wasn’t that simple.
(It’s never that simple.)
From what we can tell from looking at their subsequent adventures, Moses’ frail charges hesitated in their choice of one or the other and ended up dabbling in both.
In their weakness (I guess this morning’s collect has it right when it refers to “our weakness”) it was pretty easy to forget who they were and whose they were—which means that it was easy to let the choice-thing, the “either/or”-thing, kind of slip away, only to discover that by not making a conscious choice you may have made one after all and it’s the wrong choice.
Maybe this is why Jesus seems to come on so strong in this week’s passage from the Gospel according to Matthew.
Of course, as far as the writer of Matthew was concerned, Jesus was the second Moses, and so after he gets done with all the “blesseds” in the so-called “Sermon on the Mount” it makes all the sense in the world that Jesus should delve into the fine points of the law the way he does.
And Jesus’ uncompromising recital of all the ways the unsuspecting can get on the wrong side of the law does nothing to lighten our spirits that could use a little lightening after the bleak stretch of weather we’ve just gone through, until we realize that all Jesus is trying to say is that “Hey, behavior does have its consequences” and “Discovering the intent of a commandment is much more to the point than simply following the letter of the law, since following the letter of the law can also be a perfect way to hide behind it or skirt around it.”
Naturally, it doesn’t help to have Jesus talk about cutting off your right hand if it causes you to sin (steal, let’s say), since we immediately think of some of the more grisly aspects of Sharia law as practiced by Muslim fundamentalists, though Jesus is obviously employing such a stark metaphor to drive home his point and not proposing that what he says should be taken literally.
(And we don’t have to scrutinize Jesus’ pronouncement about divorce and adultery very long to realize that he makes it entirely from the standpoint of the male, nor does he allow for the possibility that a woman might look lustfully at a man and thereby commit adultery in her heart!)
Still, if the apostle Paul expressed doubts that his Christian brothers and sisters in Corinth were far enough along in their spiritual journey to be fed with solid food instead of milk, it would seem that Jesus had no such qualms about his disciples.
Jesus gave it to them straight.
So what does all this say about us?
After all, thanks to the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary, we have to relate whatever insights we can gain from these readings to our own situation.
How do we stack up as far as dealing with the kinds of choices that Moses set before the children of Israel?
If we’re honest with ourselves, aren’t we likely to fall somewhere in between, the way they did?
United Church of Canada pastor Edwin Searcy, writing in the latest issue of The Christian Century, allows as how we “come from a world in which choosing the good life looks like securing the bottom line, building up a good portfolio, bolting the door against trouble, and playing your part as a consumer. On Sunday we enter a world in which trying to save our lives leads to the loss of everything”, yet “dying [to everything] for Jesus’ sake turns out to be the portal to a life that is richly blessed”.
Well, isn’t that the human condition—sometimes we choose the course of action that leads to life, sometimes we choose the course of action that leads to death?
Isn’t this what Jesus was taking such great pains to point out, when he insisted on subjecting the religious law to such scrutiny?
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times,…[but] I say to you….”
Wasn’t Jesus saying that trying to keep God’s commandments in so far as we possibly can will take us a lifetime, but that it’s well worth trying to do?
Rather than reciting a list of prohibitions, by asking his followers to take another look at the ancient law, to see it and hear it with new eyes and new ears, Jesus was inviting them to invest in a richer, more fulfilling life.
It’s significant that Jesus was issuing this invitation to a group of people, to his disciples, to the beginnings of the faith community he would eventually establish that would come to be known as the Church.
Karen Armstrong, in what I think is a monumental study in spirituality, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, builds on the principle implicit in Jesus’ invitation, when she points out that, like the dynamics of self-help organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, meaningful spiritual growth needs to take place in a faith community that is firmly anchored in an awareness of a power above and beyond itself and whose members hold each other accountable for their progress.
Ms. Armstrong outlines an ambitious, but what she considers to be a workable program, which begins with something as basic as becoming acquainted with the nature of compassion and ends with something as revolutionary as loving your enemies, maintaining that learning to live a compassionate life “is not a matter of only heart or mind but a deliberate and often life-altering commingling of the two”.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him,” were Moses’ words to the people that he had brought out of Egypt, but fast forward to our time and one can almost imagine these timeless words being addressed only a few short weeks ago to the descendants of the people who stayed behind.
Doubtless, with the help of God’s grace, in the days that followed those first stirrings of discontent in the streets of Cairo, despite the feelings of frustration, despite the political turmoil, the Egyptian people, thousands of them—the protesters, the army, finally, even the beleaguered regime—were able to make the wise choice, were able to opt for cooperation over violence, were able to choose life instead of death, at least for now.
You and I are witnesses to what seems like a miracle.
They chose life, and they have stuck to their choice, but I’ll say it again: at least for now.
Because regardless of how many we are or where we are or who we are, it’s a choice we all have to make again and again and again.
Thank heaven, remembering not only who we are but whose we are makes it a little easier!
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