Standing Under the Scriptures
June 8, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

The readings we are considering this Sunday are the following:

Genesis 12.1-9: Abraham sets out from his homeland, forsaking all in obedience to God’s command.

Matthew 9.9-13: Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners not despite but rather because of their condition.

Looking back on last Sunday’s discussion is this time not just archival but also incumbent. For a couple of issues that arose in the passages we discussed did not really get resolved. And their importance requires our best efforts to resolve them. The passages were Deuteronomy 11.18-28, from Moses’ extended sermon to the Israelites poised to enter the Promised Land, and Matthew 7.21-27, the conclusion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps I can make some further contribution to our consideration.

The first part of the Deuteronomy passage concerned Moses injunction to “obey my commandment which I command you this day” and to “lay up these words of mine.” They are to be laid up both externally and internally, on hand and forehead and doorpost and gate and also in heart and soul. Further, they are constantly to be talked about to one’s children, as one sits, walks, lies down, and rises. I remarked that talking to people about God’s word is not a burden but a blessing, such as I experience in our class and others can experience too. And it was in this connection that our first issue arose. For a class member noted that people’s talking about their faith can seem meaningless to some or even off-putting.

This gave me pause. In my youth I often experienced such talk as meaningless, and there are connections in which I still do. For the most part this now far from the case. But I had to think back about how this came about. For me the key transformation was as described in the Prologue to my book, which I attached to the Weekly Notice for Easter Sunday (March 23). Not far into my introductory New Testament course at seminary we took up Mark’s Gospel, the instructor going through chapter 1 verse by verse and asking what each might have meant to a Roman of the latter first century. In the course of this something like scales fell from my eyes. The verses came alive as never before; as in changing from black and white to full color. What happened I think was that the cultural mold in which they had previously come to me was broken, so that I became able at least to glimpse them in their original power. I was prepared for this experience, I suppose, by my encounters with non-Western cultures in my Foreign Service postings (my vocation to ordained ministry came out of these) and by my increasing knowledge of the circumstances of the communities of faith out of which Scripture arose. The critical analysis in which the Foreign Service formed me and which I found fruitful for biblical understanding was a factor as well.

So my answer to the question of why talk about God’s word, about Scripture, can seem meaningless would be that this is because it has become encrusted with the culture. To be sure, our culture is all around us, in television, in literature, in films---perhaps especially in films. We can never entirely escape it, the more so because we are largely unconscious of it. But we can and should try, knowing that our reward will be great. This in fact is one way of looking at what we are doing in our class, a prime operating principle of which is to leave aside our preconceptions and look at what is actually in the biblical texts. From my standpoint it is a sharing with you of the experience that was given to me.

But we are not yet done with Deuteronomy. The latter part of our passage speaks of keeping all Moses’ commandment, of “loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and cleaving to him,” as leading to the driving out of the nations now inhabiting the Promised Land, so that Israel may possess it. And in the concluding verses (26-28) we read, “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. The blessing: if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God… the curse: if you do not obey… but turn aside from the way which I commanded you… “ The consequences of so turning aside are not mentioned, however. Thus we may fairly conclude that obedience to the commandments is itself the blessing, that one experiences blessing in so doing, and that turning aside is itself the curse, the removal of God from the picture being our ultimate desolation. Our own deep experience accords I think with this conclusion. Viewed in this light, the passage is not so much imperative, laying obligations upon us, as declarative, setting forth the way things are.

Turning now to our Matthew passage, essentially the same is to be said of Jesus’ comparison therein of two houses, one built by a wise man and the other by a foolish man. Both were subjected to rain, flood, and wind. But one held firm while the other collapsed, because it was built on rock rather than sand. The rock, Jesus specifies, is hearing his words and doing them; the sand is hearing but not doing them. And this also is the way things are. Ultimately there is in fact no ground which will enable us to withstand life’s buffetings and to fulfil our calling, other than the words of Jesus, God’s Word.

This was not the connection in which our other unresolved issue arose, however. Instead it was Jesus’ declaration the first part of the passage: “Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy… cast out demons… and do many mighty works of power in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you.’” Our concern was that these “many” were doing Jesus’ words, the will of his heavenly Father, and yet were utterly rejected. But there is something here that we should not overlook, namely that it was by their own account and not God’s that they were doing his will; herein I think lies the resolution of our issue. And it has implications for us: while we ought always to strive to do God’s will, it is not for us to determine whether we have in fact done it. The decision is his alone (cf. the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.31ff. in which both are surprised to learn of their status). And if we truly leave the decision to him, we can trust that he will not fail to accept us.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted