Sunday, October 29, 2023

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Leviticus 19:1–2, 15–1
Psalm 1
1 Thessalonians 2:1–13
Matthew 22:34–46
or
Reformation Sunday
Revelation 14:1-7
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36

Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘You shall be holy; for I, Yahweh your God, am holy.

Reformation Day is on October 31st, but we celebrate on the Sunday that falls immediately before October 31st. So, on this upcoming Sunday, many churches will remember the bold action of Martin Luther, who in 1517 posted ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg Church. We are just nine years from the 500th anniversary of this great and world changing event. Around the world Lutherans are preparing to remember and celebrate Luther s life, ministry, and faith. While preparing for our celebration, we are also in conversation with our brothers and sisters in Christ from whom we have been divided for so long. There are issues dividing us, and there is no reason to set them aside. But we are also bound together by the Holy Spirit and the common faith we have in Jesus Christ.

I love to talk about Luther, but this devotion reaches an extremely diverse audience, people from the four corners of the world, and from the entire spectrum of God’s church. There may even be some who are not Christian, either members of other faith communities or even those who do not believe in God. I write to encourage Christians in their faith, but I can always hope that God will use my words to help someone come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many years, with your patience, I write as a Lutheran. The texts for Reformation Sunday, focus on justification, which was (and is) the heart of Lutheran theology in Luther’s day as well as today. We are made free from the power of sin and death by the grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ through His life, death, and resurrection. Despite this freedom, we continue to struggle with our human nature which always looks to law for justification. We try, to no avail, to be the saints we were reborn to be, but the sinner in us still has too much control. We are a work in progress, and the only thing that truly saves us is that God saved us; we are saints based on His promises, not on our ability to be perfect.

Since I usually focus on the Reformation, I’ve decided to look at the texts for the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, which I have not done for more than a decade. Visit my archives if you want to read more about Martin Luther.

A man owned a trailer that was vacant, so he offered it to a couple who had become homeless due to a hurricane. Soon after moving in, the couple decided to sue the Good Samaritan to gain possession of the trailer. The couple was legally considered squatters, but according to local law, the man could not evict them. They were not paying for utilities, so he tried to turn them off, but the couple borrowed a child to live with them, making it legally impossible because of a law that protected the welfare of children. An act of kindness because an act of injustice.

There are homeless and hungry people who need our help and God has called us through faith to act as His hands to provide mercy and justice to those who are suffering in our world today. Unfortunately, stories of those abusing the systems that were designed to help those who need it, make Good Samaritans hesitant out of fear that their kindness will be turned against them. It is also unfortunate that many people think that justice means that the little guy wins and the big guy loses no matter what.

In Leviticus 19, God told Moses how His people can live as He calls them to live: as holy people. He called them to be holy because He is holy. The chapter includes a list of commandments, rules that would lead them to that holy life. The rules show a connection between holiness and the separation of God’s people from the things that are profane. Holy people respect mother, father, and honor God by keeping the Sabbath. Holy people do not turn to idols. They follow prescribed ritual properly and leave some of the harvest for the poor and the foreigners. They do not lie, steal, cheat or defraud their neighbors. They pay their debts. They treat the disabled with respect and consideration.

The text does not include the familiar commandments, but jumps to verse 15, “You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.” We have never been able to find a good balance that is taught in this lesson. It is a vicious circle that human nature travels. We show favoritism to the rich and then the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme where we show partiality to the poor. We manage to find a way to make our opinions fit the Bible, and yet we never seem to find the real path God has called us to live. We can’t seem to be holy like God is holy. We aren’t any closer to holiness than the Pharisees who tested Jesus in the final days of His life.

If you type the word “heart” into your online search engine, the first few hits are likely to be about the organ in our chest. Another top find is the rock group Heart. You’ll also find sites about playing the card game and sites dedicated to things with pictures of hearts. There are organizations with the word ‘heart’ in their name. These organizations are often focused on the physical organ, but many use the word as the source for compassion and respect.

While the heart is the center of the human circulatory system, the early Christians and those who came before them, thought of the heart as more than a pumping muscle. There may have been some with medical knowledge, but they did not fully understand the physical characteristics of the heart beyond experiencing the pumping inside their chest. It was the center of the being: the spirit, the soul, the intellect. They had no better understanding of the brain, so for the people in that day, the heart dealt with everything internal. Prayers came from the heart. Anger and hatred came from the heart. Wisdom came from the heart. Even today there is some of that still present in our thoughts. We learn things by heart. We forgive from the heart. When we are excited about something, our heart is in it. When the opposite is true, our heart is not in it. In today’s knowledge, we know that those things are controlled by the brain, not the heart, and yet the heart is still the center of our being.

The Pharisees asked Jesus a question in today’s passage. This was the fourth of four questions put to Jesus in these days following His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus was on His way to the cross, but the leaders were still trying to understand Jesus or find a way to destroy Him. This series of passages, which we’ve seen a few over the past few weeks, represent the types of questions the early rabbis asked: law, doctrine, meaning of life, and seeming contradictions in scripture texts.

We saw the first, a question of law, in last week’s passage. In that passage, the Pharisees asked Jesus whether or not the people should pay taxes. The question was designed as a trick, but Jesus answered shrewdly. He told the Pharisees to give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

We don’t hear the question of doctrine in the lectionary, but we are surely with the story (Matthew 22:23-33.) The Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, asked about a widow who married seven brothers. “Whose wife will she be in heaven?” they asked. Jesus answered that they did not understand the scriptures and that the resurrected life will be different than that of normal human experience.

The last two types of questions are asked in today’s passage. First the Pharisees, happy to see the Sadducees’ question about resurrection shot down, next asked a question about the meaning of life. “What is the most important commandment?” they asked. Now, you might think this is a question of law, but it is actually a question of purpose. What is our purpose but to live faithfully to the word of God? Jesus answered with two great commandments: to love God and to love neighbor.

Jesus did not give them time to respond; He asked them a question. “Whose son is the Messiah?” They answered, “David’s son.” This, of course, is the right answer, and yet it offers a question of contradiction. Jesus responded, “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’ If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

The Jews in Jesus’ day were looking for a military hero, a king in the line of David. Their Messiah would be the man who could sit on the throne and restore Jerusalem to its former glory, to the golden nation that it once was. They were stumped by His question. They did not know how a son of David could be greater than David himself. How would David have called that son “Lord” long before any sons had risen to the throne? This seeming contradiction cannot be easily answered, unless you believe that the Messiah would be someone greater than David, someone who would be more than an earthly king. The only way for David to call the Messiah “Lord” is if the Messiah were God in flesh.

This is a concept that we have a problem understanding even with our greater knowledge of the world. It is not a fact that can be explained intellectually. It is something we have to believe from our heart. This is the tricky part since our hearts can be fickle. In our hearts we can know love and hate, joy and anger, knowledge of good and evil. If we rely on our feelings, we will be led astray as we follow our own desires and intelligence. Feelings can be deceptive. We might feel that we are doing right, but others will consider what we are doing is wrong. Our gut reactions can lead us to do something that will hurt our neighbor. The man who lent the trailer felt it was the right thing to do regretted his decision and began to rethink being a Good Samaritan, ignoring the opportunities to act with justice. The people who fought to keep it for themselves thought it was right and just. They all lost touch what God meant by justice, forgetting to be holy like God is holy.

If we think of the heart as they did in Jesus’ day, we’ll see that love is not about feelings but about living wholly and completely for God and neighbor, living our purpose in this world. The scriptures of the Jews could be summarized with just those two sentences about loving God and neighbor. We could spend days, even a lifetime, discussing, debating, interpreting, and understanding the Law, but holiness is not achieved by obedience to a list of rules. Holiness comes in our commitment to live as God has called and gifted us to live.

Love is about commitment. Commitment takes work. It means putting heart, soul, and mind into the relationship. Just as we see the heart as more than the physical organ, love is far more than physical attraction. Love is willing to sacrifice for the sake of another, to give one’s whole being into the relationship. It means being holy like God is holy.

How can we be holy? I wonder if I've ever had even one day that could be counted as holy, let alone an entire life. I can’t get through a day without yelling at some driver on the road or thinking unkind thoughts about my neighbor. Some days I can’t seem to get through a minute without doing something that is far from holy. Yet, we are called to be holy. What does this mean for you and me? What does it mean to be the holy people of God, called to be like Him in this world?

A pastor did a sermon series about the Beatitudes, the attributes of those who are blessed by God found in Matthew 5 and Luke 6. He called them the “blessed attitudes” because those who see the world from those points of view and react to it from those perspectives are blessed. They don’t seem like blessings; poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, and thirst are not points of view from which any of us wish to see the world, but in faith we know that God is with those who suffer these things. When God is near, we are blessed.

Sometimes the Beatitudes are translated “Happy are they” instead of “Blessed are they” but they mean the same thing. We generally think of happiness in terms that can be expressed with a smiley face, a manifestation of good feelings about life. Yet, the most common understanding of the word “happy” according to Merriam-Webster’s diction is “favored by luck or fortune.” In the case of the beatitudes, the favor comes from something truer than luck or fortune: God. When God blesses, we have reason to be happy.

In the psalm, the happy one is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers. Whether we walk, stand, or sit, the blessed one is the person who drinks in the Word of God, meditating on the scriptures like a tree next to a stream drinks in the passing water. There is something to the progression of these actions. As we walk in counsel, we order our life according to what we have heard. As we stand in that message, we position ourselves with it. As we sit, we settle into the position we have chosen. When walking we can change our path. When standing we can turn around. When sitting, we are set in our way. So, it is important to find the right direction while we are walking so that we won’t settle into the wrong way.

In the story of “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy and Toto set off to find the Emerald City by following the yellow brick road. They soon come to a crossroads in the midst of a field. There, Dorothy wonders which direction she should go. Scarecrow first points one direction, then the other, then both directions. After a little song and dance, Dorothy, Toto, and Scarecrow head down a road with complete trust in their decision. For the next hour, they face all sorts of dangers, make friends, and eventually end up at their destination. I always wondered what would have happened had they chosen another road. Why were all the roads yellow brick? Did they all lead to the Emerald City? Would one road have been easier than another?

I know that “The Wizard of Oz” is just a story, but how many of us have experienced what can happen when we get on the wrong road? I’ve made the mistake of getting off the wrong exit or turning the wrong direction, putting me in the difficult position of finding my way to my destination on unknown roads. Even with GPS we can get lost. It is easy sometimes, not so easy other times. Wrong turns have put me into horrible traffic jams, dangerous neighborhoods, and made me late. A wrong turn once put me in the path of a drunk driver, totaling my car and nearly killing me.

We are called as Christians to follow the right path. When we love the Lord, we live according to His promises and obey His commands. When we obey God’s Word, in the name of Jesus, then goodness and mercy will shine through our lives, and the fruit of His Spirit will be produced abundantly. The more we study the scriptures and live in God’s Word, the better equipped we are to share Christ with those we meet. Blessed are those who meditate on God’s Word, drawing ever closer to our Lord Jesus Christ where we live as people who are blessed, happy. And then Christ will shine out of our lives into the world that others might be blessed, happy. This is what it means to be holy as God is holy.

The Old Testament lesson gives us a list of holy actions as related to our relationships with our neighbors. These rules are about judging rightly and fairly and treating one another as we would want to be treated. In other words, these rules call us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, not perverting justice or showing favoritism. Justice is not about raising one type of person above another; it is about judging fairly. Though it might not seem right according to our society, sometimes the rich man is right. We are to treat all people fairly, no matter their circumstances.

The next two rules are related. We are not to slander or endanger our neighbor’s life. This means we should not harm our neighbor by words or actions. Children we learn that “Sticks and stones break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” but we know that slander can destroy a life. If a businessman is slandered, he might lose his customers, leaving his family desolate. A false statement against a teacher can mean removal from the job. A leader who has been slandered will lose authority to do his job. Those loses can be worse than death.

Isaiah continues, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” Do we hate others? I’d like to think that we understand that hate is not good but there are always people who rub us the wrong way. Instead of dealing with the sins and differences between us, we separate ourselves from those with whom we disagree. However, in the scriptures, hate is not what we define in today’s world. When the scriptures said that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, it did not mean that God had an aversion to Esau, but that God put Jacob ahead of Esau. So, when commanding that we should not hate our brother in our heart, God is telling us not to put ourselves above our neighbor. Instead of separating from them, we should find a way to reconcile and restore the relationship, lifting them and their needs above our own.

The instruction about hate is juxtaposed with the next command, “You shall surely rebuke your neighbor.” If we don’t, the Lord tells us that we will share in their guilt. In other words, though we would much rather keep our noses out of the business of our neighbors thinking that their sin is not our concern, we are called to rebuke our brother for their sake and our own. If a brother or sister is doing something wrong and we ignore the trespass, we are as much to blame for the harm it causes another. In this case, love means truth no matter how much it might pain us to speak. But when we speak that truth, it is to be done with mercy and grace. We should not seek revenge or hold grudges but love our neighbor as we want to be loved.

Holiness means being righteous, not in terms of moral behavior but in terms of justice, doing what is right and fair for and to our neighbor. We are called to be truthful in the way we deal with our neighbor both when speaking about them and to them. We are called to respect their life, body, and soul. We are called to forgive, so that our relationships might grow stronger and our love deeper. That’s what it means to be holy, to be like God. It will never be easy to be holy, but as we strive to be like God in our relationships with one another, we’ll discover that we are better able to live within our God-given purpose.

Paul wrote, “Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you, not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us.” Paul traveled extensively, planting churches in many cities. He always moved on to a new place, but he never left the growing congregations in his wake. He had friends who visited, and he even returned occasionally as his schedule permitted. He wrote letters to the congregations, helping them to grow but also to stand firm. He didn’t just lay the Gospel on them and then abandon them to their own means of growing in faith. He nurtured them, kept them accountable, rebuked their sin, and corrected their error. He praised their faith and encouraged them to bear good fruit. He thanked them for their work for Christ, for the Church, and for him.

We are encouraged to do the same. Our task is not just to take the Gospel to all nations, but to also teach each other to obey all that Christ commanded (Matthew 28.) We are to give others more than the Gospel; we are to give them our whole selves. We are called to love them, not just with a call to believe but with an invitation into a relationship with Christ, His Church, and us. It is easy to speak a word, but it is far more fruitful to be in a relationship with them, so that they will be made into disciples for Christ.

It is all about the heart. Not feelings, but the center of our beings. Not knowledge, but true justice. We are called to live God’s purpose in the world, by loving Him and our neighbor with our whole selves, striving to be holy as God is holy. In doing so, our neighbors will see the Messiah and hear the Good News, joining us in our quest for holiness in this world as we wait longingly for the day when we will live eternally with our God.