Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Texts:

 

Exodus 20.1-19

John 8.2-11

 

Every Goodie

needs an equivalent baddie.

 

Sir Denis Nayland Smith

had Fu Manchu.

 

James Bond,

of course,

has Blofeld

and Tom has Jerry –

or is it

the other way around?

 

Well the church

has always had

a similar struggle

between good and bad when it comes

to the commandments

and their application.

 

On the one hand,

it feels called

to extol

the observance of God’s law as found

in the writings

we call the Old Testament.

 

The problem

is these ancient books’ somewhat stark pronouncements

often niggle

with little passages

in the New Testament.

 

Places epitomised

by our second lesson

this morning.

 

Nevertheless,

despite these hints

that God’s law

needs very careful interpretation,

the church has tended

in the past

to place

its powerful authority behind a literal reading

of law.

 

The outcome being

a legalism

we see most poignantly

in witch hunts various

and penitent stools multitudinous.

 

And as a result

there are legitimate claims it has failed

to understand

those gospel incidents

when Jesus said –

hold on –

lets think about this –

lets discover exactly

what God’s intention

is rather

than what paper and ink seems to dictate.

 

But that was then –

what about now.

 

For, we are now

in an era

when the church

is powerless

and regarded

by many

as irrelevant.

 

How are we as a group

to promote

the value of

the ten commandments and God’s greater will today?

 

Well one way

is to pull up the drawbridge and man the barricades.  

 

We could insist

on an even more fundamentalist application of each jot and tittle

of ‘scripture’.

 

We could invoke

the past and continue

to issue high handed – nurse knows best – condemnations.  

 

But this form of defence

still has to face

those same annoying

bits of the Jesus story

that has tried

the church in the past.

 

The accounts of

when Christ dined

with tax collectors,

forgave the fallen

and drank with the unruly and chaotic.

 

In fact, the times

when he embraced

the sort of people

who always make up

the church

no matter how well scrubbed they appear to be.  

 

So then –

you are advocating

that we take or leave

God’s law  –

say you back to me.

 

An all things are relative

and nothing

is really bad approach.  

 

Well, indeed,

No I am not suggesting

that for a moment.  

 

For that thinking

has been an anathema

in any age

and in this peculiarly individual one –

as we saw last week –

can result

in literally holocausts.

 

 Such a suggestion

denies

that God has made clear certain universal

and utterly binding laws.

 

It denies too

there are badnesses afoot.

 

Moreover,

to leave humans

as the play things

of sociology,

psychology

and economics

robs them

of God’s greatest gift

to them of all –

and that is free will –

the right

to chose between good

and evil.

 

Therefore

to solve the problem

as how the church

is to be the interface between the Decalogue

and the 21st Century,

let us exercise

our free will,

let us roll up our sleeves and do some hard work.

 

Let us demand

that the minds,

hearts

of our community of faith be exerted

to the fullest extent

to come up

with a better answer.

 

For surely

this is the time

we should demand

of our Church leaders, committees

and ourselves

to do some thinking.

 

For thinking needs

to be done

as to exactly

what the old testament laws meant

and then

how Jesus interpreted them.

 

Thinking needs

to be done upon

what is immutable

and what was

simply ‘custom and practice’ from the past.

 

For example

I am not sure

we want

to employ the rules

on slave ownership

or dietary laws today.

 

Then thinking

must be done

as how God’s commandments

are applied

to the very tricky moral questions of today

not least in medical ethics, third world aid

and human relationships.

 

 

Now of course,

as I was regularly reminded by my

old Chemistry teacher, thinking is the hardest work we can do.

 

But in finding

the church’s voice

in this era

so much in need

of the Decalogue’s

moral compass,

none can shirk from it.

 

None can hide behind

the dictate

of another person or object.

 

Rather let the struggle

for understanding begin

and where better than

with an open mind,

a willingness to debate

and a zeal only

to find God’s will.

 

 In fact, we could do worse than applying

to the real commandments some of the  commandments for thinking proposed by

Bertram Russell.

 

 

For he suggested

 Never try to discourage thinking or you are sure to

succeed.

 Find more pleasure

in intelligent dissent

that in passive agreement, for,

if you value intelligence as you should,

the former implies

a deeper agreement

than the latter.

 

 

Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth

is inconvenient,

for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

 

And best of all –

do not feel envious

of the happiness

of those who live

in a fool's paradise,

for only a fool

will think that it is happiness.

 

When Bill Clinton

met Nelson Mandela

for the first time,

he had a question on his mind: "

When you were released from prison,

Mr. Mandela,"

Clinton said,

"I woke my daughter

as I wanted her to see

this historic event."

 

Then the President zeroed in on his question:

"As you marched

from the cellblock,

the camera focused

in on your face.

I have never seen such anger,

and even hatred,

in any man

as was expressed

on your face at that time.

 

That's not the Nelson Mandela I know today,"

said Clinton.

"What was that about?"

 

Mandela answered,

"I'm surprised

that you saw that,

and I regret

that the cameras

caught my anger.

 

As I walked across

the courtyard that day

I thought to myself, 'They've taken everything from you that matters.

 

Your cause is dead.

 

Your family is gone.

 

Your friends have been killed.

 

Now they're releasing you, but there's nothing left

for you out there.'

And I hated them

for what they had taken from me.

 

Then, I sensed

an inner voice saying to me, 'Nelson!

For twenty-seven years

you were their prisoner,

but you were always

a free man!

 

Don't allow them now

To make you into

their prisoner!'"

 

For, you can never be free to be a whole person

if you are unable to forgive.

 

Well, here

is an example

of another piece

of hard work

we must require of others

and ourselves;

and that is

the discovering

what the heart

says as well as the mind about interpreting the law.

 

For Mandela’s mind undoubtedly told him

of his right to be bitter;

that message

to forgive came

from the heart.

 

So too we must test

each and every fruit

of our solemn thought

in our hearts.

 

We must say to ourselves - does what

we are being told

or telling

accord

with what is

at the heart of the gospel – that very heart we saw

wide open

when Christ confronted

the self-righteous mob

at a lynching.

 

We need ask –

do we know

in our hearts of hearts

that our opinion

meets the vision

of God’s will

displayed to us

in the actions of Christ.

 

That indeed,

each and every

moral pronouncement

by Christians meets

the rule that surmounts

all others;

the golden rule;

the core commandment that Jesus taught us

saying;

Love the Lord your God

with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your mind.

 

And the second commandment is –

love your neighbour

as yourself.

 

 

One of the early church fathers,

a man named Origen, suggested

that when Jesus

said to Peter,

"Get behind me, Satan," what he actually meant was,

"Peter, your place

is behind me,

not in front of me.

 

It's your job to follow me

in the way I choose,

not to try to lead me

in the way YOU

would like me to go."

 

Well, in that story

is the final arduous task

we must perform.

 

For in considering

how God’s commandments are to be applied today

we must never ever forget who we follow.

 

For, we are,

ultimately,

called to follow

not an ink and paper law,

or a power structure’s ruling

or another human’s statement.

 

Rather we are called

to follow

but one divine man.

 

Therefore, above everything else,

we must seek

the guidance of his spirit

in both the simple

and the difficult.

 

We must submit

the fruits of the hard work of mind and heart

to his online,

real-time judgement.

 

We must truly place

his urging

above all other inputs.

 

For to do so

is not to be

a community

of arid and blind obedience but one

ever renewed

by a living faith;

faith that

our mentor’s walks with us and talks to us

and will not let

our feet fall too far

from the safe road;

Faith that he is alive

to the changes

and constants of our world; faith that he knows the heart and mind

of his father’s ways of truth, justice and mercy.

 

Faith, indeed,

that he alone

can help us

not just to know

good and evil

but to judge good from evil.

 

Therefore,

for the commandment’s sake,

let us turn ourselves over to the hard work

of knowing the mind

of the commandments,

the heart of the gospel

and the enlightenment

of faith.

 

For these alone

are the struggles

advised by Yves Congar

in the finding

the church’s witness

to a morally complex world when he wrote:

 

There is nothing

more urgent

than doing all we can

to know a

nd make known the will

of the true God;

the God whose last name

is pronounced - Jesus Christ.

 

 

Amen

 

 

Interpreting Church