Good Citizens, Saints, and the Law
Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
August 13, 2006
I want you to know that I am a good citizen. This past week I went to the county administration building in Anniston and got a driver’s license that shows my new address. You’re required by law to do that. I registered to vote in Calhoun County and even made sure of my new polling place. In true local fashion, they gave me directions by saying, “It’s behind the Burke’s Outlet. You know, across from the Chinese buffet.” So I’m all legal now. Oh, and when I visited Richard and Diane the other day I saw he had a new boat in the driveway. So I picked up a fishing license. You know, just in case.
So, I’m good with the law. Though that doesn’t get me very far. Following the law makes me a good citizen, keeps me out of jail, and keeps me out of others’ way. But that’s just doing the bare minimum. Following the law doesn’t tell me what else to do. The question remains: How am I supposed to live?
When you read the Epistles in the New Testament, you see Christians working out their new approach to life as Christians. The Book of Acts tells us the story of the early Christians debating this very point. What do you do when you’re a Jew who now follows Christ? Do you follow the Law, the Law of God as followed since the days of Moses? What if you are a Gentile, are you now required to begin following the Law in order to follow Christ?
St. Peter saw in a dream that it was all right to eat what once had been forbidden by the Law. The Council of the young church at Jerusalem decided that circumcision no longer was required. That answered some questions, but left some others open. Circumcision, that most ancient symbol of the chosen people, was no longer required under the new conception of the Law. But do remember that Jesus had said, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” [Matthew 5:18] In fact, Jesus sometimes said the Law ought to be even harder than what Moses taught.
This is hard. This is the sort of difficulty we have when we read the Bible because it isn’t simple. It isn’t as clear and easy as some want us to believe. You can’t go picking out favorite verses without relating them to all the others. You can’t invoke one “abomination” without raising the possibility of invoking all the others.
There were those like the fellow named Marcion back in the second century said we’d get around all these problems by just throwing away the Old Testament. That idea never took off because Jesus Christ said he was the culmination of the Law and the Prophets—and he honored the prophets and kept the Law. You throw out the God of the Old Testament and you throw out Jesus.
This is what St. John meant when he said that “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” [John 1:17] Jesus is the new manifestation of the Law and Prophets, the incarnation of God right here on earth.
Which is good theology, but it leaves us with the original question. How am I supposed to live my life? That is what the writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians is trying to help us with. He is passing on the teachings of the Apostle Paul to some of the earliest churches in Christianity. He wasn’t writing about problems at one church— St. Paul often did this—but rather was writing about the more general questions of life as Christians.
The Wednesday morning Bible study group has been studying Ephesians in depth. They can tell you that it isn’t the easiest reading in the Bible. The exciting story of David and Bathsheba and Absalom is much more compelling. War, sex, intrigue—that story has it all. In many ways, that story from 2 Samuel is the opposite of Ephesians. It shows us how not to live. Ephesians gives us guidance on how to live.
We are told to speak the truth to our neighbors. Be not angry and do not sin. Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander. Be tenderhearted. All good advice. Not exclusively Christian, however. The formula, “do not let the sun go down on your anger” is ancient. Go back and read Proverbs, or the Wisdom literature in the Apocrypha. Very wise, commonsensical, and definitely helpful in steering us to peaceful coexistence in Christian community.
Ephesians is not a restatement of the Law. And it’s not something newly unique about Christianity. It’s not a systematic statement of Christian ethics. In fact, there’s no such thing as a clear working-out of a Christian ethics in Scripture.
That sounds as if I’m pulling Ephesians apart, somehow disregarding it. Don’t you believe it. It’s Holy Scripture. It’s given to us for edification, for inspiration. It is inspired Scripture. But this is a letter meant by its writer to have a specific function, and it is not our business to make it into something it’s not. It is not a list of rules and regulations, not a new law to replace the historic Law. It is Scripture that gives us pro-active guidance toward behavior of the sort that my grandmother would have called “the Christian thing to do.”
You’ll notice that Paul and the other Epistle writers shy away from giving direct commands—you must do this, you are required to do that. But rather, they specialized in exhortation, urging us forward in love. Toward the goal of full Christian brotherhood. Toward salvation.
And salvation is the ultimate goal. Eternal life will come from our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from our relationship with the Lord, not from how we fulfill a list of laws. St. Paul and the writers of all the Epistles were quite clear about this.
Tomorrow, August 14 is the feast day of Jonathan Myrick Daniels. As you probably know, he was a seminary student at the Episcopal Divinity School who came to Selma, Alabama, to work in the Civil Rights Movement. He was arrested in Fort Deposit on August 14 and on his release from jail in Hayneville six days later, he was immediately shot and killed. Murdered, while wearing his clerical collar.
Just a few months before, he wrote an article for his diocesan newspaper. Here’s what he said:
There are good men here, just as there are bad men. There are competent leaders and a bungler here and there. We have activists who risk their lives to confront a people with the challenge of freedom and a nation with its conscience. We have neutralists who cautiously seek to calm troubled waters. We have men about the work of reconciliation who are willing to reflect upon the cost and pay it. Perhaps at one time or another [we] are all of these. Sometimes we take to the streets, sometimes we yawn through interminable meetings. Sometimes we talked with white men in their homes and offices, sometimes we sit out a murderous night with an alcoholic and his family because we love them and cannot stand apart. Sometimes we confront the posse, and sometimes we hold a child. Sometimes we stand with men who have learned to hate, and sometimes we must stand a little apart from them. Our life in Selma is filled with ambiguity, and in that we share with men everywhere. We are beginning to see as we never saw before that we are truly in the world and yet ultimately not of it. For through the bramble bush of doubt and fear and supposed success we are groping our way to the realization that above all else, we are called to be saints. That is the mission of the Church everywhere. And in this Selma, Alabama is like all the world: it needs the life and witness of militant saints.
This is exactly what Ephesians is urging us toward—life as a saint. In verse 4:12, we are told that the job of evangelists and pastors is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Jonathan Daniels wasn’t trying to meet some particular requirement of the Law. No reading of the Law would have prepared him for the ambiguities of the times. But he had been equipped –by the teaching of the Scriptures—to live the life of the saints. To live in and among the saints, to break bread with them. To be a saint.
That is what we are called to be in the Epistle to the Ephesians. That is what we are called to be by the writers of all Scripture. That is what we are called to be by Jesus Christ, who told us that he is the bread of life, and that whoever believes has eternal life. We are all so equipped. Go forth, and be a saint.
Amen.
August 13, 2006
I want you to know that I am a good citizen. This past week I went to the county administration building in Anniston and got a driver’s license that shows my new address. You’re required by law to do that. I registered to vote in Calhoun County and even made sure of my new polling place. In true local fashion, they gave me directions by saying, “It’s behind the Burke’s Outlet. You know, across from the Chinese buffet.” So I’m all legal now. Oh, and when I visited Richard and Diane the other day I saw he had a new boat in the driveway. So I picked up a fishing license. You know, just in case.
So, I’m good with the law. Though that doesn’t get me very far. Following the law makes me a good citizen, keeps me out of jail, and keeps me out of others’ way. But that’s just doing the bare minimum. Following the law doesn’t tell me what else to do. The question remains: How am I supposed to live?
When you read the Epistles in the New Testament, you see Christians working out their new approach to life as Christians. The Book of Acts tells us the story of the early Christians debating this very point. What do you do when you’re a Jew who now follows Christ? Do you follow the Law, the Law of God as followed since the days of Moses? What if you are a Gentile, are you now required to begin following the Law in order to follow Christ?
St. Peter saw in a dream that it was all right to eat what once had been forbidden by the Law. The Council of the young church at Jerusalem decided that circumcision no longer was required. That answered some questions, but left some others open. Circumcision, that most ancient symbol of the chosen people, was no longer required under the new conception of the Law. But do remember that Jesus had said, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” [Matthew 5:18] In fact, Jesus sometimes said the Law ought to be even harder than what Moses taught.
This is hard. This is the sort of difficulty we have when we read the Bible because it isn’t simple. It isn’t as clear and easy as some want us to believe. You can’t go picking out favorite verses without relating them to all the others. You can’t invoke one “abomination” without raising the possibility of invoking all the others.
There were those like the fellow named Marcion back in the second century said we’d get around all these problems by just throwing away the Old Testament. That idea never took off because Jesus Christ said he was the culmination of the Law and the Prophets—and he honored the prophets and kept the Law. You throw out the God of the Old Testament and you throw out Jesus.
This is what St. John meant when he said that “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” [John 1:17] Jesus is the new manifestation of the Law and Prophets, the incarnation of God right here on earth.
Which is good theology, but it leaves us with the original question. How am I supposed to live my life? That is what the writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians is trying to help us with. He is passing on the teachings of the Apostle Paul to some of the earliest churches in Christianity. He wasn’t writing about problems at one church— St. Paul often did this—but rather was writing about the more general questions of life as Christians.
The Wednesday morning Bible study group has been studying Ephesians in depth. They can tell you that it isn’t the easiest reading in the Bible. The exciting story of David and Bathsheba and Absalom is much more compelling. War, sex, intrigue—that story has it all. In many ways, that story from 2 Samuel is the opposite of Ephesians. It shows us how not to live. Ephesians gives us guidance on how to live.
We are told to speak the truth to our neighbors. Be not angry and do not sin. Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander. Be tenderhearted. All good advice. Not exclusively Christian, however. The formula, “do not let the sun go down on your anger” is ancient. Go back and read Proverbs, or the Wisdom literature in the Apocrypha. Very wise, commonsensical, and definitely helpful in steering us to peaceful coexistence in Christian community.
Ephesians is not a restatement of the Law. And it’s not something newly unique about Christianity. It’s not a systematic statement of Christian ethics. In fact, there’s no such thing as a clear working-out of a Christian ethics in Scripture.
That sounds as if I’m pulling Ephesians apart, somehow disregarding it. Don’t you believe it. It’s Holy Scripture. It’s given to us for edification, for inspiration. It is inspired Scripture. But this is a letter meant by its writer to have a specific function, and it is not our business to make it into something it’s not. It is not a list of rules and regulations, not a new law to replace the historic Law. It is Scripture that gives us pro-active guidance toward behavior of the sort that my grandmother would have called “the Christian thing to do.”
You’ll notice that Paul and the other Epistle writers shy away from giving direct commands—you must do this, you are required to do that. But rather, they specialized in exhortation, urging us forward in love. Toward the goal of full Christian brotherhood. Toward salvation.
And salvation is the ultimate goal. Eternal life will come from our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from our relationship with the Lord, not from how we fulfill a list of laws. St. Paul and the writers of all the Epistles were quite clear about this.
Tomorrow, August 14 is the feast day of Jonathan Myrick Daniels. As you probably know, he was a seminary student at the Episcopal Divinity School who came to Selma, Alabama, to work in the Civil Rights Movement. He was arrested in Fort Deposit on August 14 and on his release from jail in Hayneville six days later, he was immediately shot and killed. Murdered, while wearing his clerical collar.
Just a few months before, he wrote an article for his diocesan newspaper. Here’s what he said:
There are good men here, just as there are bad men. There are competent leaders and a bungler here and there. We have activists who risk their lives to confront a people with the challenge of freedom and a nation with its conscience. We have neutralists who cautiously seek to calm troubled waters. We have men about the work of reconciliation who are willing to reflect upon the cost and pay it. Perhaps at one time or another [we] are all of these. Sometimes we take to the streets, sometimes we yawn through interminable meetings. Sometimes we talked with white men in their homes and offices, sometimes we sit out a murderous night with an alcoholic and his family because we love them and cannot stand apart. Sometimes we confront the posse, and sometimes we hold a child. Sometimes we stand with men who have learned to hate, and sometimes we must stand a little apart from them. Our life in Selma is filled with ambiguity, and in that we share with men everywhere. We are beginning to see as we never saw before that we are truly in the world and yet ultimately not of it. For through the bramble bush of doubt and fear and supposed success we are groping our way to the realization that above all else, we are called to be saints. That is the mission of the Church everywhere. And in this Selma, Alabama is like all the world: it needs the life and witness of militant saints.
This is exactly what Ephesians is urging us toward—life as a saint. In verse 4:12, we are told that the job of evangelists and pastors is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Jonathan Daniels wasn’t trying to meet some particular requirement of the Law. No reading of the Law would have prepared him for the ambiguities of the times. But he had been equipped –by the teaching of the Scriptures—to live the life of the saints. To live in and among the saints, to break bread with them. To be a saint.
That is what we are called to be in the Epistle to the Ephesians. That is what we are called to be by the writers of all Scripture. That is what we are called to be by Jesus Christ, who told us that he is the bread of life, and that whoever believes has eternal life. We are all so equipped. Go forth, and be a saint.
Amen.
posted by Michael+ at 11:21 PM
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