“Law: What About It?”
Scripture Reading: Mark 12:28-34
Sermon Transcript for November 12, 2006
By Pastor Bob Coleman
This triggered a thought. It sounds like a wonderful, graceful statement. But in my reading there are volumes about two words that are found so often in Scripture and particularly interpretation of Scripture—law and grace. Almost as if they stand separate from each other. Jesus in this one statement gave an answer that has been further misinterpreted. There are those who have said, “Well, we do not have to pay attention now to the laws of the Old Testament.” Remember, the man said that these are more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices. There are those who have said that only the New Testament is important. The Old Testament is old and passed away as is the old covenant. Those laws or the Old Testament are not important for us now.
Well, that’s triggered me to think a lot about law and grace lately. Law and grace—are they separate or are they together? I had a recent experience that taught me to never believe you always know the right answer. Trust that you will always grow and get new information if you’ll open your heart and mind. You know we have a grandchild. I have 200 pictures I would be glad to show you at any moment. His father is Roman Catholic born and raised. The family is very strong in it. Their daughter-in-law is the first Protestant born into that family. It’s been an interesting experience for them. Kristen and Mark talked much before their marriage about many things and particularly their faith. How would they live this together? And they made a decision, which I think is a healthy, strong, and wise decision for them. One of those decisions is to have, of course, Jacob to be baptized in the Catholic Church with me participating. And I said, “We’ll see how that works.” So the moment has come. Two weeks from today we are going to look at that moment of sharing, or baptizing of Jacob. I met with the priest just recently. I went in not knowing what permission I would be given. I could stand there as a grandfather and maybe have some small role in it. The more we talked the more we shared, I would be able to hold my grandson, be able to apply the water, and also to speak the triune blessing of the baptism in a Catholic Church in a mass. I thought that was fairly graceful of the priest because I asked him this question. I said, “My understanding is that children born in a Catholic setting must be baptized or they are not in God’s love and they can not have salvation.” He said, “Some Catholics think that, but that’s not the truth.” And I won’t go in to the particular details, but it is a powerful, re-education that I thought law meant you could not be baptized or be participating in baptizing of an infant or anyone if I was not Catholic. I’ll be wearing my robe. I’ll be identified as a United Methodist pastor. Grace was applied. I found that there was more grace in the Roman Catholic Church than what I had thought previous.
What that says to me is that the laws that Jesus is speaking of He does not do away with. He says those two commandments are the greatest as summaries of the Old Testament. In fact, indeed, Jesus says, “I’ve not come to destroy the law; I’ve come to fulfill the law.” And the law is based upon one reason. Here is my simple understanding of law. Law is created for the purpose of protecting us from ourselves from doing harm to someone else, damaging or destroying a relationship with other human beings and, particularly as we understand law in the Christian faith, our relationship with God. It’s to stop us from those things that are harmful. That’s what civil law mostly is; to stop us from speeding too quickly that we might injure somebody else. All kinds of reasons of saying, “Thou shalt not…” If it says, “Thou shalt not,” it is to keep you away from something.
There is another side of law, though, and it says, “You should do this.” Thou shalt not steal, commit adultery, but thou shall honor your mother and your father, obey the Sabbath and keep it holy, have no other God before me.” That’s both together—thou shalt not worship another God; you shall worship me. Powerful understanding that law is both sides. And we need that as human beings because we are frail when it comes to making all of the decisions on our own. There are some of those who have said, “Yes, that law is over and done with. We do not have to abide.” On the burnt offerings and sacrifices—yes! But on many other parts of the Old Testament, they said “No” we do not participate. Well, then they would stand on the side of grace and say grace alone applied. “We could basically go do what we want and God will clean it up afterwards. We’re forgiven, aren’t we?” I’m forgiven even before. That’s what the priest said. God’s grace through Jesus’ sacrifice is there even before we know it. I said, “I think we have a word for that in our Wesleyan tradition. It’s called “prevenient” grace. It means that God has loved us and forgiven us even before we know it. And he said, “Yeah, that’s exactly it.”
What a powerful understanding! But when misused and misapplied it means that you don’t pay attention to your responsibilities. Grace and the setting of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was not a new interpretation of God’s laws, it was a fulfillment of God’s laws. The laws are still there. But grace applied means that we are in a situation where we can fully understand that laws will be broken. For if we live on the law side and pretend that we can live the law perfectly, we are fools. No one can. If we live only on the grace side, we misunderstand the need for God to continue to guide, direct, and correct us. Anymore than it would be foolish for us to live in a country that had no laws where true anarchy reigned, every one doing what they wished to do on their own regardless of the consequences. Now law and grace also says there is an opportunity to know what the law is and if you break it there may still be consequences, but you are forgiven. You may have to live with the result of your wrongful action or the omission of good action.
This week, as Pastor Nancy mentioned, we sent out a sheet that is somewhat routine in one way, but maybe not for you, to make a pledge or a commitment. You have heard us in these informational meetings talk about tithing, the foundational definition of giving. Is that something we shy away from? But let me make sure you hear clearly that God in the Old Testament applies grace along with the law. Is that a surprise? If you think Jesus is the first new understanding of grace, I want you to listen to these two passages that each taken on their own give you a very different understanding but together, by two prophets both with the same first initial, Malachi and Micah. Listen to what God says through the Prophet Malachi in the third chapter, 6-8 verse: “Return to me and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, “How are we to return?” “Will a man rob God? Yet you robbed me,” says the Lord. But you ask, “How do we rob you?” “In your tithes and offerings, you are under a curse, your whole nation of you because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house.” Stop right there and see that if you take that by itself, if you are robbing God, thou shalt not steal, right? And there should be punishment. If you do not bring tithes into the storehouse, God will punish you. What a powerful statement by itself. That means people who tend to live under condemnation and judgment to the point where they either freeze up about what they choose to give or they do it out of law. They do it out of compulsion because someone else has told them they ought to do this. That’s an extreme.
The gift of grace gives them the Old Testament because in Micah 6:6-8 God brings balance to the interpretation of the law to tithe and offerings into the storehouse. When the prophet speaks in the sixth chapter, 6-8: “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” You see, the person is saying, “Well if the tribes run him out and you love me because of that, if I give even more, you’ll love me more, won’t you Lord?” The prophet continues in the voice of God and says, “He has showed you all of that, what is good. What does the Lord require of you, to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
That’s the Old Testament. It is not a law to be applied with judgment and condemnation. It’s an open doorway to say, “Here is something you can do that will help you to grow.” But more importantly even than what you bring in to the storehouse is what are you doing on a daily basis with your life? Are you living it as a disciple of Christ? Are you loving justice and supporting and encouraging it wherever possible? Do you act justly with mercy and kindness? Do you walk humbly with your God?
This would be clearly what I see as the true balance of the Scripture. The balance is the laws are still there. They are there to protect us from harming and also to do that which is good. They are guidelines, laws, rules that we will break and God’s grace is fully applied. When it comes to giving, the question isn’t what do you get but the question is, “How is it with your soul?” Are you giving out of compulsion and a sense of judgment begrudgingly or do you do what Paul says in II Corinthians, 9:6 and following: “Remember this; whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows generously will reap generously. Each one should give what they have decided in their heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loved a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things, at all times; having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written, He has scattered abroad His gifts to the poor, His righteousness endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich.” Be careful here. Some people have heard, “If I get more, I’ll have more.” “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
An action of the heart is what God requires not compulsion of the law. The law teaches us, shows us what is right and good and true. But as it says in Romans 5:20, “Grace abounds even greater.” Not to keep covering more of our sins, but to continue to grow us in heart and mind and spirit to be the people that God wants us to be individually and as a congregation. For we can do great things together that we may not be able to do separate. So not compulsively, not under rule and judgment of the law, but with the guidance of law with grace applied—that’s how you are to present yourself. Not the goods—they are an expression outwardly of what God asks first that you be an offering, that you be the one that gives generously because your heart is overflowing with gratitude for what God has, and is, and will do in your life.
God of grace and God of glory, we confess that we are rich in things and poor in soul. This hymn expresses what the law tells us. If we are not generous it will cost us. But the generosity starts with your heart, not with your pocketbook. It starts with your spirit, not with the outward expressions. Truthfully, when we ask you to present your offering before God, what we are asking for you to understand is, “How is it with your soul?”
If you do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the first offering is to offer that confession and to accept. If you do know Christ as your Lord and Savior, move forward as the Lord guides and directs in your heart and spirit. Let us join together for a word of prayer, “Gracious God, you really make it fairly simple for us. Laws are for our protection and our guidance our education and our training, but we fight against your laws because at first they feel restrictive. We try to do it on our own but we need your strength and your grace. For grace is not just forgiveness for those things that we have done wrong and forgiveness for those things we have omitted doing right, but grace is there to guide and to continue to help us to grow in spirit and in truth in heart and in soul. We thank you that you have sent us Jesus, the Christ.” Amen.
E-mail Comments to: Pastor Bob Coleman