Twenty Fourth Sunday After Pentecost: The Law is our Delight

Unedited Transcript Follows:

Of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit. Amen. There's a comedian Gary Goldman and he has a bit where he takes on the Old Testament. He's a secular Jewish man. And he calls, um, the Old Testament, a compilation of Jewish suffering. Right. It reminds me kind of the chi.

It reminds me of the cheeky line from the, uh, from the one of my favorite musicals, the Fiddler on the Roof right? God. I know where your chosen people, but did you ever think of choosing someone else? And ultimately Goldman closes his bit by talking about God's relationship with the Jewish people.

Being best described by the title of the 2009 film. He's just not that into you. He says if he doesn't text you back, he's not that into you and if he enslaves you for 400 years in Egypt and then delivers you to the only strip of land in the Middle East without an oil.

Well under it. He's just not that into you. It's clear that Yahweh wants to see other peoples, he said, And it's witty and it's silly. But it isn't that hard to find even Christians who treat the Old Testament, as a long boring indigestible prequel to the real story which God waited to tell in the New Testament.

We do that both in our neglect of the Old Testament and sometimes in our disdain of it, it's been long enough since I showed you. I mean, gosh, what two weeks? But, uh, Here's where the by the New Testament begins in our Bibles. Right. And we often treat. The scriptures.

And this has that like concordance and like Maps. I mean, it's like even deceptive like look at that. Look how short that is compared to like the Old Testament and it's so easy for us to treat the scriptures. Like this is the long boring prequel To the story that really matters here right?

And and it's it's what someone like Goldman is pointing out. I mean that's the testimony that's given to the world when we treat the Old Testament that way And yet the Jewish people had access to all the same stories, they knew of these enslavement in Egypt for 400 years.

It's not like they weren't aware of that. They knew about the golden calf and the judgments and the plagues. And in the psalm, what we write here is what the writer of Psalm. 119, had to say about the law, in verse 14, I have had greater Delight. The way of your testimonies.

Then in all manner of riches. Delight. In the law of God. This is what the people of God have handed to us from the old Covenant, to the New Covenant Delight. In the law of God. What does it look like to Delight in the law of God? To see the law of God as what, another psalmist, comment sweeter than how many honey from the comb.

What's it look like to Delight in the law of God. See, the early Christians saw the Old Testament as a book about Jesus. They read it as a book about Jesus, he taught them to do that when he showed them in the law and the prophets, and the writings, how all of it pointed to him, right?

He taught us to read the Old Testament as a book about Jesus and the earliest Christians read that book of the law, the book that they'd inherited. They were all Jewish the earliest Christians and they read that as the stories about Jesus. Jesus, who was not only the one who kept the law perfectly.

Ultimate fulfillment of the law. See, Jesus prayed the Psalms You know that? Jesus prayed the Psalms the psalter was his prayer book and his hymnal. And he knew how to Delight in the law of God. Why is the law of God? A delight and what helps us to distill the law as something beautiful and worth delighting in.

That's what we'll look at. So first, why would the law be delightful? The result of keeping the law? Is a fruitful good life in the land, a light, a life that is good. A life. That is fruitful lightful a life that Brings life and it is fruit bearing. So Deuteronomy 6 was our first reading today.

And Deuteronomy 6 1, we see that they they were given the law. The people were given the law so that they might do them, that kind of might seem a little redundant. They were giving the law so that they might do it. Right? So that they might obey it, they were to know the law so that they could obey the law and they were to know the law and teach it to their children.

In verse 7, it starts with you shall teach them diligently, teach these laws diligently to your children. And she'll talk of them when you sit in your house. And when you walk, by the way, that this law is just continually on their lips, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, you shall write them on your doorposts.

Wow. The law was going to be. The way that they live their life, they were meant. To know the law to pass on the knowledge of the law to their children. And to obey the law. And that and like all of it, right? All of it. And even, even the parts that were maybe more challenging culturally for them to understand.

It reminds me like so with my kids and I've shared this with some of you before but with my kids we have Uh, my kids are especially as they grow. They're becoming more um, Dialectic, which means there, which means they're learning, they they're asking why A lot. Yeah. So a, why a lot?

So and Because Mom and Dad said so isn't enough? Um and it's not and it shouldn't be enough at that stage. They're at a good stage where they're starting to question. So which is good. But we have a saying in our house, we obey first Right, we obey first and then we can talk about, why?

So if I say go do this, Obey. And then if we want to come together and have a conversation about why I'm happy to sit down and have a conversation about why, but we obey first and then we talk about why, right? And I think that this is a disposition that um, Would be healthy.

For the people of God to orient ourselves toward the law obey, the law first, and then ask all the questions you want. Why did God have? Um, what I mean, the big thing for us probably today would be like, why does God have these like really strict sexual ethics?

You know, um, that's probably culturally something that we wrestle with in Western culture. Obey first. And then wrestle, you know, wrestle with the Y and what's God doing with all that and have the conversation. But obey first is a great disposition to sit with and to live with and we have a general disposition to obey and then to ask the questions, right?

There are hosts of things that you and I don't understand. We're called to obey the law first and then ask the questions and gain understanding. Right. And and keeping this law. The reason that this law was a delight is that this law results in things going? Well, in their lives.

This law results in, in Good things happening for them. So, in verse 3, Be careful to do them why that it may go well with you. And that you may multiply greatly as the Lord your the god of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Right. The results are good. There's good results. Now this comes for a few reasons. One is, it's a result of God's direct blessing as we obey the law of God, we receive blessing from the Lord. That's that's definitely particularly an old Covenant idea, right? That that's like what the whole book of Proverbs is based on obey the law of God and God will bless you directly, but it's not simply about God blessing you directly in relation to obedience to him.

It's also just being about being in harmony. With how things are made, right? So just recently, maybe about two weeks ago or three weeks ago, I finished Auggie. And I, Built a Lego R2D2. So I I don't know what could be nerdier than that, but it was awesome. You know.

So we built R2D2. By Legos. You know. And so we we got a hold of one and we built it and it was awesome but there were 500 something steps. In the directions for building this R2D2, right? And, I could. Have just opened up all the bags. And kind of eyeballed it and tried to build R2D2, right?

I could have done that. I don't think the result would have looked much like R2D2. Right. I think it probably would have looked like a big mess right? If we if I would have just said, I'll go for that and I wouldn't have just meticulously walked through the steps.

There was actually one point in the process where One step I think. I argue would say it was him, so I'll go with that. Auggie said, he missed a step at one point and uh, We had to. Try to fix that and it was a pain because as you guys know that have put those together that trying to get inside of like they're it's all falling apart.

I was about to throw the thing at the wall and start over. Like I was like Daddy needs to walk away right now. Uh yeah, take a deep breath. Uh because I'm getting angry at R2D2 more than I need to be right now. Uh and so but we so we've experienced this, right?

We I and we walk through that process and we recognize that to live in harmony And to not have it all fall apart and to not throw the thing against the wall, we have to follow meticulously the steps. And I, I think we should look at the law of God as like the Creator.

Giving us steps to live that are going to work. With how he created us. Right. Just like these. I mean it's like Engineers who do these Legos things I think like and they like make it step by step and this is how it's going to work. It'll work if you do this.

And it won't work if you don't and the Creator. Of all that is has given us the law, which is The way to live. If we want it to work, So, maybe even more than just direct blessing from God. By obeying but because we obeyed him, it's more like as we live in harmony with the way that God made things to be.

Life goes better. And, and life is good and there are good results of that. So God's. Given us a gift in the law. He showed us how to live. He showed us the way to live in harmony with creation. And and we know that because of our Brokenness that we fail to live in harmony with how God made us and that we fall into sin.

But we can begin to see how these people could have looked at the law with all the commands and all that is and say. It's a delight. It's a delight because it shows us the way that we are to live. What we see in Our Gospel reading today. Is the summary of this law.

We see how Jesus summarizes that law that God has given us that law. That is a delight to our eyes, right? That law, that is meant to be a delight to us. We Begin every Eucharist with an ordinary time with the words that Jesus says here, right? Every Eucharist and ordinary time.

So when we're not actually reading the decalogue, Right? Which was you which we do in penitential Seasons. We start every Eucharist with this summary of the law. We read it from Matthew. Right? We read it from Matthew. We read it today from Mark, but we read these. Same words, love the Lord.

Your God with all your heart mind, soul and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself on these two Commandments defend all the law and the prophets. Jesus is saying this is the summary, this is what it's about this is what all those Commandments are about.

It's about love of God and love of neighbor. Right. Jesus is saying here's the lenses. He does it with two quotes. The Deuteronomy 6, which we read today, marks the only one that actually Gives us that first intro that we get from Deuteronomy 6. But he also quotes Leviticus 19:18.

About loving your neighbor as yourself, and he takes these two spots. And he says, here's what the whole thing's about. If you are to rightly understand the law, you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And you'll love your neighbor as yourself.

When we speak about theology, or Doctrine, or catechism or the essence of Christianity, Here's the deal. If it doesn't lead to Greater love of God, and your neighbor. It isn't Christian theology. It isn't Christian catechism. Christianity. And the whole law of God is summed up in love of God.

And love of neighbor. So, if your theology Doesn't make you a more meek gracious person. It isn't Christian theology. If your ethics, don't make you more gentle and kind to your neighbor. They aren't Christian ethics. If your understanding of the church doesn't lead you in deeper fellowship with other True Believers and radical forgiveness for, uh, for those who offend you.

You don't have a Christian understanding of the church. If your Ministry for justice, doesn't lead you to Greater love for both the oppressor and the oppressed You don't have a Christian view of Justice.

If your disciple making plans, don't lead to people who love God and their neighbor, you aren't making Disciples of Jesus. Christianity, always leads to Greater love for God. And greater love for neighbor. The whole story is summed up in that. There were people that loved the Lord Our God and that love our neighbors.

And that's the whole story. And, and all the rest of it is about leading us into greater, love of God and greater love of our neighbor. Our neighbor who was made in His Image. Loving God's image in them in our neighbors. Whether they're offensive, whether they've hurt us. Um, whoever they are like this, this love of God leads us directly into love of neighbor.

And this is the Christian Gospel. This is the law, and this is the Fulfillment of all of it. So, our Psalm this morning, Started us with a call to Delight in the law of God. Delight in the law of God, far from being something, we ignore or disdain. The law is a gift to us.

And it's something that we can Delight in. When Jesus invites us to Delight in the law, he gives us a summary of what it's about. And he calls us to be people who grow in our obedience to the law. Which is, which is summed up in love of God and love of our neighbor by God's grace.

Jesus tells us what it means to Delight in and fulfill of God and fulfill the law of God. Love God. With all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Because this fulfills all the law and the prophets. Amen.