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Monday, September 3, 2018

"The Word of God: That's How It Is" (Deuteronomy 4:1-9)






Sunday, September 2, 2018

            When I arrived at Fort Benning, Georgia for army basic training in the 1989, the first stop was the reception station.  We were there a couple of days.  There recruits learn how to stand at “attention” and “parade rest.”  We got our closely cropped hair cuts and received our uniforms.  We were taught the very rudimentary basics of how to act in the military, but we were also warned of how intense life was about become once went “down range,” to our training platoons.  We learned to dread the phrase “down range.”
            On about the fourth day, we loaded onto cattle trucks for the ride to our homes for the next 12-13 weeks, our basic training company.  On arrival, red-faced, yelling drill instructors greeted us with four letter words and the order to “drop” at the slightest infraction.  “Drop” meant, push-ups, a lot of push-ups.  As intimidating as that welcome was, we adjusted to life in Alpha Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 54th Infantry regiment. 
            With a 4 AM wake-up, we did a lot of pre-5AM running and push-ups and sit-ups.  We fired automatic weapons, threw hand grenades, painted our faces with camouflage (that is hard to wash off and leaves a rash), and became intimately acquainted with the M-16 rifle.  After the field training exercise, training for chemical warfare, and the 14-mile rucksack march, we graduated.  We were no longer trainees.  We were soldiers.
            That experience came to mind as I read and re-read the opening verse of Deuteronomy chapter 4.  “Give heed to the statutes and ordinances … that you may live … and occupy the land the Lord … is giving you.  You must neither add anything to what I command you, nor take anything from it” (Dt. 4:1, 2). 
Moses is with the nation of Israel on the East bank of the Jordan River when he speaks these words.  These are the descendants of those who had been slaves in Egypt.  Led by Moses, they passed through the Red Sea, which God opened for them.  In the wilderness on Mount Sinai Moses received the 10 commandments.  After disobeying God, the people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.  All who came out of Egypt died in the wilderness.
Now in Deuteronomy, Moses instructs their children and grandchildren on how to live as the people of God.  When he finishes giving this law, at the end of Deuteronomy, he too will die, and Joshua will lead the next generation into the land to live there as God’s holy people on earth.  At the Fort Benning reception station, the message drilled into us trainees was “welcome to military life.  This is how it is.”  We were not invited to make suggestions.  We conformed.  If we resisted, we pushed the earth until we were ready to get with the program.
In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people, “You have been called to be the people of God.  This law shows you how it is.  Live by this law, and the rest of the world will see not only you, but the God who called you.  Live by this law, and you will draw people to worship God.”
We come to Deuteronomy as followers of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is our lens.  We understand the law through Him.  He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt. 5:17).  Followers of Jesus must be familiar with the Law of Moses.
Of course, we don’t worship in a tabernacle or temple.  The coming of Jesus shifted worship to a focus on sending the community out into the world.  We don’t do animal sacrifice in worship.  We take communion as a remembrance of Jesus – the one final sacrifice. He paid the penalty for sin with his death on the cross.  No sacrifice is ever needed again. 
This in no way alters the ethical teachings of the law or the call to holiness found throughout the law.  In Christ, we are to conform our lives to God’s ways, to walk the path God sets before us.  If we don’t like it, we do not demand that God give us another path more suitable to our tastes.  Deuteronomy 4:2 is clear.  We “must neither add anything to what has been commanded nor take away anything from it.”  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter of the law, not one stroke of a letter, will pass away until all is accomplished” (Mt. 5:18).  The same note sounds in the final chapter of the Bible, Rev. 22:18, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophesy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take that person’s share in the tree of life and the holy city.”
The scriptures can be studied, parsed, wrestled with, analyzed critically, and re-read.  We must use every scholarly discipline available to deepen our understanding of God’s word.  But, we must also conform.  Even if we cannot satisfactorily answer “why” God has unfolded things as He has, we must still submit to His lordship and live by His word, which we find in the Bible.  This is how it is. 
Do we realize that when we fully surrender, and give ourselves completely to God’s vision for humanity, we enter the very deepest joy and most satisfying life possible?  Moses connected the law with a life of right, joy-filled relationships with each other and with God.  “Give heed to [this word] … that [we] may live!”  As Jesus fulfills the Law of Moses, He expands our grasp of Moses’ words.  Moses offered life.  Jesus says, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.”  From God’s perspective, the abundant life is one lived in rich, truly loving relationships, and one that is attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit.  That’s the life Jesus has for us. 
We are to demonstrate love, compassion, and justice in a way that attracts the world.  As we commit ourselves to prayer, to study of the word, to the spread of the Gospel, and to actively working for justice and the uplift of the poor, we mature.  We become more responsive to promptings of the ever present Holy Spirit.  As a trainee develops his skills and becomes and more disciplined until he is ultimately a soldier, we grow in faith to the point we become more and more like Christ.  No longer newborn believers, we graduate to become disciples. 
Both testaments show instances that reveal how flawed disciples are.  David, Jonah, Peter, Paul – they all failed many times.  Followers of Jesus make mistakes and fall off the path.  Yet, when we keep our eyes on Jesus, he draws us back, picks us up, cleans us off, and gives us another chance.  For our part, we grow as we submit to God’s authority and conform our lives to the life the scriptures lay out before us.   
My own experience is that we discover the deepest blessings of God in our relationships.  Heidi Ann Russell is professionally trained theologian who also has a deep interest in science.  Her reading in the area of quantum theory has given her analogies for the way life unfolds when we abide in Christ and order our lives by the scriptures. 
One analogy comes from the notion of entanglement.  Electrons in two different spaces effect each other.  When one acts, the other entangled with it will have to re-act.  Similarly, when we are in Christ, we find ourselves as not simply individuals, but members of a single body: the body of Christ.  First Corinthians chapter 12 uses this metaphor.  I experience something: joy, pain, loss, blessing.  Whatever it is, it happened to me, but the entire community of believers feels the effects.  The church family comes around me to rejoice with me, cry with me, or to try to help me. 
Relationships might not be what comes to mind when you think of the Law of Moses.  Perhaps the first inclination is to hear in our heads a stern voice “You shall not” over and over.  Yes, the law includes some “do’s” and “don’ts.”  But those specific commands exist in the service of the two great overarching commands: “love the lord with all your heart,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”  The specific laws guide us in living into what we are to be, a community of self-giving love.
I studied family systems for three years in my doctorate of ministry program.  A foundational principle in the philosophy I learned was that no individual exists independent of a system.  If someone in a church family complains constantly, we don’t just isolate that person.  We look at the entire church family because we all bear that person’s struggles and dysfunctions.  Heidi Ann Russell notes that we exist in a “field of relationships.”[i]  We cannot know ourselves apart from who we are in relationship to others and to God.  This is as crucial to being a disciple as mastering the workings of the M-16 is for trainee becoming a soldier. 
“This is how it is” can sound like an uncompromising imperative.  Deuteronomy 4:5-6 says,  “I now teach you statutes and ordinance; … you must observe them diligently.”  We are tempted to imagine a life of neurotic worry.  Am I breaking the law here?  Did I sin there? This is not what God intends.  Rather, these words of law from Moses, are, in light of Jesus, an invitation into a life of love relationship with other followers of Jesus.  When we successfully live in love and share Jesus’ love outside the church, those who are not followers will become curious.  Instead of us worrying, we’ll be diligently working on relationships, forgiving, helping, and laughing together. 
Those on the outside will want what’s in here.  Verse 6, [those outside the kingdom] will say “Surely this great nation is wise and discerning.”  Conforming our lives to the path laid out in the word of God brings us peace and draws lost people to Jesus. 
From calling to salvation to submission to the law to living in relationships and sharing of our faith: this is how it is when our lives built on following Jesus. 
My prayer is we will do exactly do that: exist as a people who live in the love of Jesus and share that love with the world.
AMEN



[i] H. Russell (2015), Quantum Shift: Theological and Pastoral Implications of Contemporary Developments in Science, Liturgical Press (Collegeville, MN), p.68.  She takes the phrase “field of relationships” from Anthony Kelly.

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