Advent Lutheran Church

"What’s Law Got To Do With It?"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            The word “inspire” tends to be one of those words we toss around quite easily, as in “she was inspired to say that” or “he was inspired to write that” or “we were inspired to skip church this morning and play golf instead.”  Well, we wouldn’t say that, but you understand what I mean.  “Inspire” is one of those elastic words that we stretch to cover a number of different occasions.

            But here at Advent we’re pretty specific about that word, because we know that a basic ingredient in that word “inspire” is Spirit, as in Holy Spirit.  That’s why one of our mission directions is Inspiring Lives of Faith.  We have an overarching purpose statement that guides our ministry.  It’s Celebrating, Sharing and Growing in God’s Love.  And that purpose statement has given rise to four mission directions, particular ways in which we bring that purpose statement to life; one of them is Inspiring Lives of Faith.

            It’s a privilege to be able to see the Spirit at work in the lives of our youth and their adult leaders.  A number of those youth and adults participated in a couple of trips this past summer; one group went to Rainbow Trail Camp in Colorado, and the other went to the ELCA National Youth Gathering in New Orleans.  I’ve asked a couple of those participants, Alyssa Stuckey and Shelly Clemen, if they would share some of their experiences as a way of fleshing out that mission direction, Inspiring Lives of Faith.

            [At this point, Alyssa and Shelly spoke of their involvement in the trips, and how their faith was impacted.]

            As I listen to Alyssa and Shelly, and as I listen to so many of our youth and their adult guides, a refrain that I keep hearing again and again is that of relationship: relationship with God and relationship with each other, and how deepening one leads to deepening the other.  But that life of faith: How does it start?  What’s its origin?  And if faith is already a strong part of my life, how do I hang onto it, and deepen it?  We find the answers in our Gospel lesson this morning.

            The Pharisees were strict observers of religious law.  As far as they were concerned, the way to a right relationship with God was through obedience to what the law required, nothing more and nothing less.  It was the lens through which they viewed all of life, the way they measured themselves and others.  And so when they encounter Jesus they want to know if he’s a legitimate teacher and leader, if he knows the law.  They ask him, Is it lawful – is it allowed – for a man to divorce his wife?  But Jesus turns the question back on them and reframes the entire issue of divorce.  He tells them that they’ve asked the wrong question. 

Jesus had a genius for asking the right question, for keeping the main thing the main thing.  On another occasion, when someone asked him, “Who is my neighbor?”, Jesus said, “Wrong question.  The right question is, ‘Who is willing to step up and be the neighbor to someone, anyone, in need?’”

            And now, regarding divorce, he says, “Is divorce legal?  Of course it’s legal – we all know that; the hard-heartedness of human beings demanded that a law be written to address the reality of divorce.  But to ask if divorce is legal is to ask the wrong question.  The right question is, “What was God’s intention in giving the gift of marriage in the first place?” 

            He then reaches back into the depths of the Hebrew Scriptures, into the book of Genesis, and observes that marriage was embedded into the very act of creation itself, and that creation happened long before the law was given.  God’s intention in giving marriage to humans, he said, was for a lifelong, profound joining of two lives.  What’s of primary importance, Jesus says, is to focus on God’s intention, not on the letter of the law.

            These words of Jesus about divorce can be hard words for many people.  As our national divorce rate continues at about 50 percent, his reminder of the supremacy of God’s intention for marriage can sting, and sting deeply.  As much as divorce is painful for those going through it, it must pain the heart of God even more to see his children not live out his intention for them.

            But it’s important to note that just as God’s intention for marriage is for a lifelong covenant relationship, it is also for a lifelong, life-giving and life-sustaining relationship.  Sometimes, because of the brokenness of the human condition, because of sin, marriage can disintegrate into marriage in name only.  A marital relationship that is characterized by unfaithfulness, by constant back-biting, by physical and emotional abuse that pains and tortures one or both members – this is absolutely not God’s intention either.  Sometimes, divorce is indeed the right answer, the life-giving answer.

            And when it is, we must remember that with God there is forgiveness; forgiveness and the ability to once again claim the blessing of our baptism, which allows us to walk in newness of life and to once again commit ourselves to living out God’s intention for our lives.  Yes, even in this life, resurrection is possible.

            It is the love of God that gives life – the love of God, not the law of God.  It is the love of God that brings us relationship with God and with each other.  The life of faith doesn’t start with obedience, with right doctrine or with reciting the appropriate creed.  It starts with God, who will go to absolutely any length to form a relationship with us.  That’s what we see in this story about Jesus blessing the children.

            The disciples would have shut that whole project down; “these worthless ones are a nuisance – they have no status, no authority – they’re a waste of everyone’s time.”  But Jesus said, “No, don’t get in the way, because this is a God who will stop at nothing to have a relationship with his children.  But it’s a relationship that must be on his terms, not your own.  You can’t earn that relationship by following the rules, you can’t earn it by being good enough.  You can only receive that relationship as an infant receives love – you can only receive it as a gift.”

            I recently heard the story of a Cambodian refugee who made her way to the United States in the mid 1980s.  The name she adopted when she arrived in the U.S. was Vera.  While she was in Cambodia, Vera and her husband lived a quiet life in the Cambodian countryside, until there came in the middle 1970s a time of terror and death.  The Communist regime in power at the time instituted a campaign of brutality in which about 2 million of the country’s population of about 7 million were killed.  It would go down in history as one of the worst tragedies of the 20^th century.  It came to be known as the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

            Vera and her husband were caught up in the madness of that time.  They were arrested, and separated.  He was sent to a labor camp.  Sometime afterward, Vera became deathly ill.  Word reached him that his wife was ill, and he decided that he simply had to go to be with her.  So he did an incredibly brave thing: at midnight one night he stole his camp commander’s bicycle and rode three hours under the moonlit sky to spend just a few minutes comforting his wife before riding three hours back in order to return the bicycle to its place so that no one would know it had been taken.

            Vera says that when he arrived in the middle of the night, his face was covered with bee stings.  He had stopped along the way to scoop honey out of a beehive to bring to her as a gift, to comfort her.

            Several months later, he died in that labor camp.  Vera says that while she was grieving over her husband’s death, someone told her about Jesus.  “And when he got to that part of the story where he told about Jesus’ death and Resurrection, I recognized him!  I recognized Jesus!  His body, covered with the sting of death.  His hands, filled with the sweet mercy of love and forgiveness.  And that,” she said, “is when I became a Christian.”

            The life of faith doesn’t start with obedience, with right doctrine or by reciting the appropriate creed.  It starts with God, who will stop at nothing to have a relationship with us.  If you find that your life is driven by words like “have to,” “need to,” “got to,” “should,” and “must,” it’s time to re-evaluate.  Time to carve away that tough outer crust and reconnect with the God who will go to any length to plant in you the seed of faith, the faith that says that you are accepted, no matter what. 

            As you receive that gift of quiet power, may your living be shaped by your gratitude.  Amen.