God's Law or Love: Yes! October 05, 2008

Exodus 20
Matthew 21:33-44
The former slaves of The Pharaoh of Egypt had cried out from oppression and GOD made them FREE!
These former slaves of Pharaoh had cried out in hunger to God, and received MANNA from Heaven.
These former slaves of Pharaoh had complained of thirst and received WATER from solid Rock.
Afraid of the strangers around them, complaining against one another, God had provided them leaders.
Now finally, the people come to pay the piper, to receive the LAW and know what the Lord commands.
As slaves of Egypt, Pharaoh had ordered they build Pyramids and Statues, the Great Sphinx, National Monuments against all Eternity that not even Napoleon and his armies, or Hitler and the Nazis could eliminate from the face of the earth.
In order that they live, Pharaoh had commanded they kill their own babies and they had done so.
In order to be fed, Pharaoh commanded they labor without straw to bind the mortar, still they worked.
What now would this LORD require of them, for having destroyed their oppressor, for feeding them?

The 10 Commandments are strange and awesome, both because of what is required, and what is permitted, as well as the underlying pre-suppositions of what is referred to as the LAW of MOSES.
Despite satirists over time suggesting there were three or four tablets, 12, or even 40 Commandments, there are but 10. Four explicitly defining relationship to God, and 6 of our relationship to one another.
2 Requirements, and 8 Prohibitions. All of which makes one pause to consider, which is easier to fulfill, a Law that requires YOU MUST, or YOU SHALL NOT?
You shall Honor your Parents means that ALWAYS, in everything continually, you MUST.
You shall NOT COVET allows that you can do anything, and everything, all that is required is that you not desire to possess, to fight over, to guard ownership, and by the process of naming we insert the opposite that we SHALL DO, Have Compassion, act in love and devotion.

We have by virtue of believing in A NEW TESTAMENT, with a NEW COVENANT, perpetuated an understanding that the LAW of EXODUS was somehow insurmountable, unable to be lived.
BUT what Jesus described was not ABANDONMENT of the Law as unattainable, but rather, that he would demonstrate how we could so live into the underlying presuppositions of GOD'S LOVE that the LAW becomes self-fulfilled. By our undying commitment, by our willingness to sacrifice for what we love, by our Communion we more than fulfill the Commandments.

Often, people have examined these LAW by LAW, one after another, as if we could somehow find the loophole, the way around all the rest. VITAL to our understanding of the Law, is accepting their UNITY, that all our human relations are built upon our relationship as Human Creatures to God.

The difficulty, is that the GOD OF EXODUS is not a “USER-FRIENDLY GOD”.
We have a tendency to believe that either LONG, Long Ago, before Noah, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the CREATOR OF THE WHOLE COSMOS of universes and therefore in this Post-Modern, Computerized, North American culture, GOD cannot be concerned with what you and I do, think, feel;
OR that there is NO God, that God is the best desire of Human hearts and human aspirations. That as an ethical and moral people we have projected our philosophical ideals to Create a God of our making. Both of these are impotent and unreal. The One Time Creator God is far too distant in time and space, unconcerned, TOO LARGE to have care and passion and compassion for us.
The God of our best ideals, ethics and mores, is TOO SMALL, utterly dependent upon the values and emotions and beliefs of this people today.
BOTH Assume, there is No God, so we live as if we were God. That God has no hands but our hands. Countering both, is the God of EXODUS, who was so close at hand and attentive as to hear the people's cries, and TO CARE, and to enter in.
The God of Exodus was so powerful, that the most powerful and affluent of all the Pharaohs of the Awesome Empire of Egypt was manipulated into confrontation with all his resources, and in the end, the Pharaoh and Egypt, and all their technology and riches and weapons of war, were laid desolate.

For the last several weeks, our National Attention has been focused on the Economy, most recently the CREDIT Crisis, before that UNEMPLOYMENT, before that the STOCK MARKET, before that the HOUSING MARKET, before that GAS PRICES; and we have discovered the implications of our fears and our economy upon the whole world.
In response our leadership created a BILL, which was VOTED, ADOPTED and SIGNED into LAW, granting Powers and Authorities, Tax Breaks and the Ability to Tax the General Population in order to guarantee and protect our limited resources.
One Law, that gives authority for those trusted to use $850 Billion.
A Law to protect and save our investment for the protection and control of our limited resources.

In a WORLD OF POLYTHEISTIC IMAGINATION, God's Law requires we have faith in God alone.
The Bible assumes that Nations will put trust in Presidents and Governments in our ability to create Laws.
The Bible assumes humanity will desire to put faith in The ECONOMY.
Humanity will believe in our own power to wage WAR.
We will devote lifetimes, slaving to own and recreate a piece of Land, this is the reason behind a MORTGAGE that in Latin refers to until death.
For LOVE, for LUST, for PLEASURE for ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE, for PROSPERITY, for REDEMPTION, for PEACE, for CHILDREN what would we do? The 1st COMMANDMENT undercuts all else, that we place our trust, NOT in Washington, Not in Wall Street, not in POLITICS, not in the ECONOMY, not in WAR, not in EDUCATION, but that we place our faith and trust in the limitless generosity of God.
This is a God who does not allow us to use the resources of the earth to make statues or monuments or tombs against eternity, to show our devotion.
This is a God who Not only does not ask us to SWEAR DYING ALLEGIANCE, but who does not allow us to swear, by heaven, or by the name of God.
This is a God who demonstrating the sufficiency of Life, that we do not need to fear or be anxious, entreats us to regularly stop working to SABBATH, to reflect on life in all its fullness.

Repeatedly this week, in Board Rooms, in the Newspaper, in the Political Debates, INSTITUTIONS and AUTHORITIES were asked to name ethics and values, to define marriage, to define the rights and relationship between two who live a committed partnership, to describe what are the legal responsibilities we have for persons in our care and whether a person has the right to refuse treatment, to refuse what authorities determine to be best in order to live out their days and die as they choose, to define the responsibilities of a wife, a mother, a husband a father.
IF we begin with the belief that GOD and GOD alone is GOD, and that all our relationships evolve from the generosity of God. We need a few basic Commands to live by, and the number of BILLS needing to be passed to be LAWS, the rush to save to save the Economy, or to fight a War, or our political battles over Marriage, over defining human relationships will be few.

If instead, we begin, in our fears and our desire to possess to own, to be GOD, then we fail to understand the garden of life in which we live. We fail to see the winepress and the tower for what they can do, and instead guard and covet, even killing the Son of God, when our authority is challenged.