The Road to Redemption: The Law

 

    This past Saturday night Cindy was watching the 50s epic, The Ten Commandments. As I was passing through the room (it is not one of my must see movies) I heard Moses (aka Charlton Heston) telling Pharaoh (aka Yul Brynner) that he needed to let the Hebrews go so that they could be ruled by Law and not by a tyrant. This is an interesting statement considering Moses knew nothing of Law until the people of God had reached the wilderness. God had not tipped off Moses that the 10 Commandments would be forthcoming. For those of you who may be curious about why the writers of the film would make such a gaff about the Law being mentioned so early in the story we need to remember that this film was as much about critiquing communism as it was about telling the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments. Interestingly enough however the writers got their theology right even if they got their Biblical history wrong...which we will get to in a few paragraphs…but first a few words about Law.

While many of us may think of the 10 Commandments as something new and unique, it was not unprecedented. Over the more than a thousand years prior to the Exodus (usually dated in the 1200s BCE) various Middle Eastern rulers (Urukagina, Hammurabi, Ur-Nammu of Ur, and Lipit-Ishtar of Isin among others) produced law codes. These codes were designed to restrain governments (including kings) in their abuse of citizens and offer guidance in settling disputes between individuals. They point to an understanding that while the supreme ruler may be considered a god, as was often the case, this status was not an absolute license for action. It was a reminder that even "a god" needed a contract with his people or the "god" could be overthrown.

     What is remarkable about the Torah, or the Law of Moses, is that it is a contract between God and humanity, not between human rulers and those they govern. The Law begins by clarifying the relationship between the people and God (including religious rituals), then goes on to deal with relationships between human beings in areas as diverse as hygiene and sexual activity (again from a religious point of view). As a series of laws formulated during the time when Israel was still a loose knit agricultural society they do not deal with many of the issues dealt with by other law codes such as large scale commerce and the rule of kings. At the same time however there are similarities between the Torah and the other law codes such as when they deal with civil penalties and divorce.

    Now back to the ways in which the writers got their theology right.

The first is that Law directs the allegiance of people towards God as the law giver. It is a reminder that no human being should ever be given ultimate rule over the people of God. The true "king" will always be God. This understanding in and of itself was always a restraint on the power of the Israelite kings. Thus the orientation of the people will be to worship God and not the kings (which was not the case in Egypt, Rome and most of Mesopotamia where kings were often worshipped as gods).

    Second, the Law restrains evil. The Hebrew Scriptures make it clear that the God of creation is a God of order and not chaos. Therefore if people are to be truly free and redeemed, they need to live within life giving parameters. Chaos, or the lack of law and structure, leads to death and so needs to be restricted by the use of law.

    Finally the law points us toward the good. It offers us models of appropriate behavior in difficult circumstances…thus insuring order in God's world. All three of these uses of the law move us toward being the redeemed people of God…which is why Jesus made it clear that the law would never disappear.

    

The Road to Redemption: Freedom

    As human beings we are always caught between two forces; togetherness and separateness (this comes from the work of Murray Bowen, M.D.). On the one hand we want to be connected to others; to family, friends and community. Biblically we could speak of this as God's having created us to love God and neighbor (you can't love others without being connected). On the other hand we want to be independent; to have the ability to make our own choices and decisions. Biblically we could speak of this as the ability God has given us to "Choose this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." (Joshua speaking in Deuteronomy 24:15) While seemingly contradictory drives each is a gift of God that enables us to be fully human. They allow us to balance our lives between loving others (togetherness) and loving self (separateness). In order to work appropriately however each of these forces needs the exact same condition, freedom.

    It is freedom that allows persons to be truly together and separate. Loving togetherness, whether emotional or sacrificial (Biblical "agape" love) cannot be forced or coerced. While the use of force may create what appears to be loving togetherness (living in community or doing for others), it is in fact not love but coercion. This is forced togetherness. In the same way and perhaps more obviously we cannot be separate without freedom. Without freedom we cannot exercise the ability God has given us to make our own choices and be responsible for our own lives.

    Unfortunately we live in a world in which coercion and forced togetherness has often ruled the day. Human history is replete with nations, tribes and religions coercing, bullying and killing others in order that everyone conforms to the norms and beliefs of the dominant group. There are any number of reasons we could give for this tendency; fear, arrogance, pride and so on. Regardless of the reason such limitations on freedom are a violation of God's plan for the world. We can see that this is so in the scriptural stories in which God insures humanity has the freedom to exercise both drives.

    We first witness this gift of freedom in the opening stories of Genesis (Chapter 3) in which God gives Adam and Eve choices. God has created a marvelous place for them in which they can live in loving relationship with their creator. At the same time God leaves them free to choose how close, or distant they desire to be (the metaphor of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). Even when they make the wrong choice God continues to allow the forces of togetherness and separateness to function.

We see God's desire for freedom again in the great story of liberation we call the Exodus. God's people have found themselves enslaved in Egypt as an inferior race. God's people cry out to God. God hears their cries and sends Moses and Aaron to act as their liberators. Through a series of plagues and miracles God's people are free. As the people enter the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land God once again desires loving togetherness (through the giving of the Law) but allows the people be separate by giving them the ability to choose how close or how distant they desire to be to God.

    We see God's desire for freedom in the gift of God's son Jesus of Nazareth. As the Apostle Paul tells the story each human being's will is enslaved to the powers and principalities of this world (in other words our natures are aligned against God and the life God offers). That being the case it is impossible for human beings to fully choose (exercising separateness) the ultimate good of loving God and neighbor (exercising togetherness). In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the power of sin was broken thus giving us the ability to choose to be loving (togetherness) and independent (separateness). Through Jesus then we become capable of balancing the forces with which God imbued us; thus allowing us to be fully alive and fully human. This balancing act is one of the keys which makes redemption possible.

The Road to Redemption: Abraham

    So what is God going to do about the mess the world is in? That is the central question that leaps out at anyone who reads the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis, or who turns on the evening news. The first eleven chapters of Genesis begin well and end badly. Genesis begins with God's marvelous creative activity and God declaring that it is all good. Things begin to go south immediately thereafter. Adam and Eve want to be like God. One of their sons murders his brother. Evil expands so greatly that God decides to begin again with Noah and his family…though even after God saves them from the flood Noah gets drunk and his son…well let's just say the Bible does not go into all the details but it isn't pleasant. Finally humanity returns to the original sin of wanting to be like God and tries to storm heaven. With that kind of behavior (even in metaphoric story) little wonder the world is in the shape it is in.

    As chapter 12 opens everything changes. We move from a world which seems almost mythic (meaning stories intended to explain spiritual truths) to a world very much rooted in history. While there has been an ongoing debate about the historicity of Abraham (just as there has been much debate about the historicity of much of the Bible) the language of the Abrahamic stories is ancient. Words and names which are used in this portion of Genesis are not used again. The cultural norms described fit well with what historians and archeologists have discerned about the time in which Abraham would have lived. In other words, I believe, we can with relative certainty know that by chapter 12 we have moved into the realm of the historic and out of the mythic. I believe that is important not only because of the role Abraham plays in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths, but because of the promises that God makes to Abraham.

    The Abrahamic story begins with a call and a promise from God. God asks Abraham to risk everything in exchange for three things; land, offspring and blessing. While much of the world today focuses on the first promise, land (this is at the heart of the fight over the land of Israel in the Middle East), we ought to be focused on the second and third promises. We will begin with the third promise first. The third promise is not only that Abraham himself will be blessed but that he will be a blessing to the entire world. "And by you all of the families of the earth will be blessed." (Genesis 12:3) The concept of blessing is not simply that someone will be healthy, wealthy and wise, but that they will be whole in every aspect. This means they will be whole in their relationship with God, neighbor and creation. Thus through Abraham, God is going to restore this broken creation.

    The second promise to Abraham, offspring, is one that offers us a glimpse into how great God's blessings will be. Abraham is told that his offspring will number more than the stars in heaven and the sands on the seashore. In other words, God's blessings which will somehow come about through Abraham will impact not just a small group of people (the Jewish people who are biological descendants of Abraham) but a massive swath of humanity. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Rome makes it clear that anyone who believes in Jesus is included in those offspring (more about that later).

    Where this leaves us then is with two important points. The first point is that God is not going to allow sin and evil to have the last word as regards God's great creation. Instead God will work toward the redemption of the world. The second point is that God is going to use ordinary human beings as the means of this redemption. God will neither start over (as with Noah) not will God simply wave God's "hand" and make everything better. God is going to get down and dirty with humanity in the process of redemption. Over the next several weeks we will look at the slow, yet steady work of God as God works with humanity toward the redemption of the world.

Sin: Brokenness Due to Anti-Semitism

The word anti-Semitism was first coined in 1860. It was used to describe the attitude throughout Europe at that time which argued that Semitic races (especially Jews) were inferior to Aryan races. While it would be comforting to think that this kind of anti-Jewish sentiment was new to that time, it wasn't. The Jewish people had been the victims of oppression, expulsion and death for more than two thousand years before this. From the Babylonians who tried to destroy the Hebrew nation and society in 587 BC, to Antiochus IV Epiphanes who tried to destroy Judaism around 267 BC, to Roman persecution between 70 and 130 CE, to crusader slaughters in the Middle ages, to expulsion from Spain and Portugal in the late 1400s and to ongoing pogroms in Russia, Jews were abused and oppressed long before 1860.

    Helen Fein, a Holocaust scholar defines Anti-Semitism as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as a collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions – social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence – which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews." This sense of Anti-Semitism is reflected in stereotypes of Jews that have been used across the centuries: greedy, untrustworthy, desirous of world domination, genetically inferior, and ultimately as Christ killers. These stereotypes and latent hostility have been used to marginalize, brutalize and ultimately attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.

    Christianity has taken a leading role in this anti-Jewish effort. While it is not as pronounced today as it has been in the past (Henry Ford once published an anti-Jewish paper entitled "The International Jew") there are still those who want to diminish the Jewish people and their relationship with God. A first group teaches what is called "Replacement Theology." Replacement Theology states that because the Jews rejected Jesus, they were replaced as God's people by the church. Thus the Jews are outsiders to God's promises. Others who teach premillennial dispensational theology (these are the people who believe all faithful Christians will be "beamed" into heaven before the end times begin) while rejecting Replacement Theology still proclaim that the church and the people of Israel are two entirely separate entities. And while God may have plans for the Jews in the future the Jewish people are essentially irrelevant until the end times. While neither of these views is overtly antagonistic toward Judaism they each express an attitude that somehow the Jews are no longer God's people and thus once again attempt to marginalize the Jews as people.

    The sin which is at the heart of anti-Semitism is the dehumanizing of a particular people. This is an extension of human communities' tendency to divide people into insiders and outsiders (insiders being good and worthy, while outsiders are evil and unworthy). By so doing we marginalize men, women and children who were created in the image of God and in whom the very breath of God lives. Additionally with Judaism it means to ignore Israel's place in our own scriptures. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Rome (11:1-2) put it this way. "Has God rejected God's people? By no means…God has not rejected God's people whom God foreknew." Paul makes it clear that while some Jews have rejected Jesus this does not mean that God has replaced Israel with the church. In fact Paul later speaks of the church (Gentile believers) as being grafted into the root of God's people in Judaism. Thus the church is merely an extension of Israel and not its replacement.

    The challenge for us as Jesus followers is twofold. First it is to acknowledge our gratitude toward the Jewish people. It was God's originally called people who kept the story of God alive and became the incubator for our Jesus' faith. Second it is to build relationships with our Jewish brothers and sisters to acknowledge that we worship a common God and share common aspirations (to love God and neighbor). By so doing we honor God who desires reconciliation and peace among all peoples.

Sin: Brokenness Due to Nationalism

It was Monday morning and I was speaking with Forrest Merten and Troy Montoya as Forrest was waiting to take members of the Mexico Medical Mission team (of which Troy is a part) to the airport. We were speaking about Troy's homeland of Columbia. In the middle of the discussion he mentioned Panama. As he did so I searched the chemical data banks in my mind and remembered that it was the United States that had been instrumental in supporting Panama to break away from Columbia in 1903 (it had been part of Columbia since 1821). The support came because the Columbian Senate would not ratify the treaty to build the Canal, which was desired by the U.S. So we used our military power to help "free" Panama thus insuring we could build the canal. It was nationalism at work…our national interest trumped those of another sovereign state.

I realize all too well that by even raising this issue I am already on shaky ground. I am on shaky ground because we love this nation and are hesitant to believe that anything we have done as a state was less than honorable. We look around at the freedoms and opportunities we are given; at our ability to meld persons of different nationalities and races, languages and ethnic identities, sexual orientations and religious beliefs into a politically stable state; our saving the world from imperialism, fascism and communism; and our being the economic engine which keeps the world humming and we wonder, how could anyone critique such a wonderful nation? The answer is that the United States, like all other great nations before it, has been and is tempted to fall into the sin of nationalism.

I define nationalism as the belief that a particular nation is intrinsically more valuable and deserving than other nations and therefore that nation has the right to impose its will and way on all other nations. Nationalism is not a new phenomenon. In fact is has been around as long as there have been larger societal groups with the military and economic power to dominate their smaller neighbors. History is replete with the names of these nations: Sumer, Uruk, Akkadia, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome (in the west); Harappa, Vedic (India); Maya, Inca (Americas); Xia, Shang, Zhou (China); Egypt, Nri, Oyo, Asanti (Africa). Modern nationalist empires have included those of most Western European nations as well as the United States (by defeating Spain in 1898 we took Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines as part of our "empire").

These nation states (empires) believed that for whatever reason (race, power, the blessings of the gods or God) they were privileged and thus could conquer, enslave and even annihilate those around them. In addition it meant that these nation states (empires) could take the resources of their neighbors which often led to starvation and impoverishment (look at what the Stalin did to the Ukraine in 1930s where he starved almost 7 million people). The belief in national superiority leads persons to demean and diminish others as if the others were not equally children of God. The belief in national superiority leads nations to use their power to negotiate unilaterally rather than mutually beneficial treaties. Finally nationalism is probably responsible for more wars and deaths than any other sin in human history because it allows for large scale oppression and dominance.

While the effects of nationalism are being somewhat mitigated by the increasing integration of the world through economics, technology and communication we continue to see its impact in the world (China and its push for dominance in the South China Sea is one example). As followers of Jesus Christ in the United States our calling is to be alert to those moments when our nation is poised to succumb to nationalist tendencies and to speak out about them. While we are to be proud of our nation, we are also to hold ourselves accountable to a larger vision of God's kingdom in which we are a part and not the whole. Our task as the church, as Amy reminded us last week, is to be a blessing to the whole of creation and not simply to our national interests.

Sin: Brokenness Due to Classism

America is a land that has always struggled with the issue of classism (meaning not only the division of our nation into economic classes but the discriminatory attitudes of one class towards another). We have struggled with classism more than most other nations because we attempt to hold two competing ideals in tension. The first ideal is equality. We are a nation of equals. Unlike much of the rest of the world in which it was always a given that there were two classes, the rich (who deserve to be rich and richer) and the poor (who deserve to be poor and poorer), America was created as a place where those class differences would no longer stand. Every citizen was given, by God, certain inalienable rights which meant we were all equal. The second ideal however was that one could rise above ones station and become as wealthy as one pleased (Mellon, Ford and Gates were examples of this second ideal).

Though we still see ourselves as a nation of equals the differentiation between classes is becoming more and more pronounced (meaning that since 1980 the top 1 percent of Americans have seen their share of the nation's income more than double while the bottom 90 percent have seen theirs shrink). This growing differentiation brings with it not only a sense of despondency for those at the bottom but a sense of entitlement for those at the top. I realize that when the word "entitlement" is usually used it refers to those on the lower end of the economic spectrum rather than the upper. Yet as the Wall Street meltdown demonstrated the entitlement mentality was alive and well among those who claimed to deserve large bonuses even thought their firms could not demonstrate any increase in income or profits which would warrant such bonuses (this was according to Kenneth R. Feinberg, President Obama's special master for executive compensation, as well as the New York Times).

So why is this kind of classism sin at work (meaning missing the mark)? It is sin because it divides us as a people. It divides us by jealousy emanating from those at the bottom and often by condescension from those at the top. I have heard many of those on the bottom rung of the ladder express the opinion that those at the top got there by cheating those below them, while I have heard those at the top say that the poor are poor because they are lazy. It is sin because it divides us by opportunity. Children who go through schools in our area are overwhelmingly college bound, while only 62% of entering freshmen in Detroit public schools will even graduate high school. It divides us by access to healthcare. One example is that patients of lower socioeconomic position are less likely to receive recommended diabetic services and more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes and its complications than those in higher income classes (and there are multiple other examples).

As someone with a degree in both economics and business (and having worked in the non-church world for a while) I understand some of the complexities of income (job) generation, distribution (pay) and management (keeping businesses alive). This means I know that there is no quick or easy fix to either income distribution or the classism that is generated by its disparity. However if we are called to be a community of Christ in which the needs and aspirations of all are equally important (since we are all children of God created in God's image) then part of our calling ought to be working toward a society in which the opportunity for meaningful work, decent income, education and health care is available for all. To pretend that some people are more deserving of these opportunities and benefits than others is to fall into the sin of classism. Needless to say in our current economic crisis this is a monumental task. Yet as the old saying goes, the longest journey begins with a single step. So the challenge before us begins by working on our own perceptions of the "others" who occupy income classes other than our own (either above or below) in order to see them as children of God deserving of all that this world and this nation has to offer…and then we can go from there.

Sin: Brokenness Over Sexual Orientation

Sometimes the examples are so hard to imagine that we want to believe that someone has made them up; protesters holding up signs that say "God hates fags" at the funerals of American soldiers who have died in combat; people who have destroyed materials written by Gay Talese or articles containing the name Enola Gay; attacks on teenagers who appear to be gay; professional athletes who are hide their homosexuality for fear of being dismissed from their teams. All of these examples are snapshots of homophobia at work in this nation. If we so desired we could expand our vision and move abroad where homosexual conduct is punishable by imprisonment or death (homosexual activity is a crime in China and Zimbabwe, and GLBT persons have been flogged and executed in Iran). Needless to say much of the world, and much of our nation, holds a view in which anyone in the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered) community is considered a threat and ought to be dealt with as such.

These attitudes have been so deeply engrained in societies that there has been tremendous resistance to the continuing discoveries in science and psychology which have demonstrated that GLBT orientation is not a choice but is biologically driven. In essence what science has discerned is that sexuality is not either/or (either you are straight or gay) but in fact runs on a continuum. A variety of studies have shown that both men and women can be attracted to members of the same sex in varying degrees. In terms of homosexuality itself the Royal College of Surgeons in Great Britain states that the research and clinical literature demonstrate that same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality. The longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation (Submission to the Church of England's Listening Exercise on Human Sexuality).

The struggle within Christianity is that any behavior which appeared to be non-heterosexual in nature was traditionally seen as sinful, rather than sin being the fear of or anger expressed toward those who demonstrated such behavior. This view was rooted in the ancient Jewish holiness code which prohibited any non-heterosexual sexual behavior. There has been great speculation as to the basis of these prohibitions. Possible reasons given have ranged from an aversion to the homo/bi-sexual temple practices of competing religions to the desperate need for procreation in order to maintain the community in the face of high infant mortality and short life spans. Regardless of the reasons the early church, led by the Apostle Paul, adopted those same views and argued that any non-heterosexual sexual behavior was abnormal and therefore a product of human sin.

The gift of being Presbyterian however is that we are to be Reformed and always Reforming (meaning we are never to be trapped by past beliefs but are to be continually searching for the truth not only in God's Word but in our world). This search for truth has led us to discard six literal days of creation, an earth centered view of the cosmos, the belief that illness is caused by demons, a subservient role for women and a multitude of other beliefs expressed in scripture but which have been proven to be incorrect. The same is true, at least here at First Presbyterian Church, for sexual orientation. We believe that each person's sexual orientation is a gift of God and that we become our fullest selves when we can live out that orientation in long-term committed relationships. Sin on the other hand is the fear of and anger toward those GLBT persons who choose to do so. It is sin because it tears at the lives and relationships of GLBT persons who have been made as surely in the image of God as any other person. Our task as followers of Jesus Christ then is to work toward a world in which this sin (along with all others) becomes a relic of the past.