LAW AND ORDER, GRACE AND FORGIVENESS
The Rev. Mark Sherwindt, Pastor
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
Pentecost 17: September 3-4, 2005
"If another member of the church sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained you a member. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall someone sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." [Matthew 18: 15-22]
This Gospel Lesson is becoming my signature text here at Zion. I must admit that I never noticed it much before I came to Zion. I arrived, as many of you know, as a great fan of the Gospel of Mark. For theological insight there is none better. For the art of story-telling, who can argue with the Gospel of Luke? For the sheer depth of insight found in its long discourses, the Gospel of John is without parallel. But for talking about the nature and mission of the church, the Gospel of Matthew is quickly becoming my authoritative source; and this text in particular says it all and says it best, better than the Great Commission in Matthew 28, better than the Great Commandment in Matthew 19, better than the call to service found in that classic text that deals with the final judgment in Matthew 25. Live what God gives. Practice what you preach. Live in such a way that the grace God gives becomes the forgiveness that we live, especially here in the church. I will always appreciate that great line in Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Church, where he tells us that the Great Commission and the Great Commandment make for a great church, assuming, of course, that the great commandment actually guides our lives as Christians and the great commission actually guides our life as a church. In truth, the Great Commission has been a powerful factor in moving the church beyond its concern with itself; and Matthew's unforgettable picture of the final judgment, with sheep on the right and goats on God's left, has forever and indelibly underscored what we know to be true, that God wants us focused not on ourselves but on neighbors in need - the hungry, those in need of clothing and shelter, the lost and the lonely, the ignored and forgotten. Reaching out to the world with the good news of God's grace and reaching out to our neighbors with our testimony to the love of God: that is the key to a great church. In this regard, Zion has much to be proud of with its commitment to service. On the other hand, we have been challenged when it comes to turning the grace God gives into the forgiveness we live, sharing this gift as freely with one another as God shares so freely with us. But we are not alone in this regard, and this is the right struggle to be concerned with and engaged in as those who have found new life, true life, in Christ. In fact, I have been wonderfully impressed and deeply gratified by the focus so many of our members have brought to bear on the reciprocity that connects God's being gracious with us and our being gracious with one another, the reciprocity that connects God's being as merciful toward us and our being merciful toward one another. This is the key connection that has challenged Christians for as long as there has been a Christian community. In Matthew 6:12, we read, "Forgive us our trespasses as we have forgiven those who trespass against us." Again, in Luke 6:36, we read, "Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful." Sure, we're not all on the same page with the same commitment to making these connections. I, like many of you, struggle to turn God's grace into a life-style of forgiveness; but we're not a community of the perfect, just folks who want to live God's love more and more faithfully every day. Fortunately, we share a great tradition, which has told us that God's grace and our forgiveness are the key, the defining key, to the meaning of the word "new" in New Covenant. The Old Covenant delivered the twelve tribes of Israel into the promised land through the redeeming event of the Exodus, with the waters parting and the cloud of fire leading the way. Twelve disparate tribes, living as slaves in Egypt, were called and empowered to become a holy people, God's people, through the gift of the Law, which literally brought law and order to a people who once were no people. You know, building community is a lot harder than you might imagine. We want it done in Cecil B. DeMille time, right now, with all the bells and whistles. Divided and disparate tribes in Iraq should become a single, stable nation right now! But it takes time, lots of time, a sustained effort, with serious discipline. Take a look at New Orleans, for example. There she was, the Big Easy, rolling along as if life were grand - great restaurants, great jazz, the Mardi Gras. Look at her now! What a picture of desperation and despair, with more than a glimpse of depravity and a whole lot of chaos. Signs of lawlessness abound, with the mean taking advantage of the weak, and the meek, and the needy. It's shocking, truly shocking! But that is what happens when folks lose sight of the Ten Command-ments, and the many local laws, regulations, and ordinances that lend a sense of law and order to our life together. The gift of the Law for Israel was more than the Ten Commandments, carried down from the mountain by Moses and set on the public square as a monument to God. The gift of the Law involved as many as 613 local laws, civil ordinances, dietary rules, and ceremonial regulations. All of this together brought with it the reality of law and order, a sense of identity as a people, and the camaraderie of community. It didn't happen in Cecil B. DeMille time. It didn't happen in a New York Minute, or in the fantasy of LA-LA time. It took generations of experience, forty years of wandering through the wilderness, often longing for the security that slavery offered in Egypt, but finally sensing the possibilities of freedom through the gift of the Law that came with God's commitment to the Old Covenant. New Orleans has brought into our living rooms reminders of what can happen to us when law and order break down. It's not very pretty; and it's never far away. The Law was clearly a good thing, the gift that Israel needed, as God transformed those who once were no people, just a crowd of strangers, into one nation, a single people, God's people. That was a miracle by any measure. The Law was a good thing, to be sure. But God knew that more was called for. That "more" is the connection between grace and forgiveness. It is this connection that defines the gift of the New Covenant. The grace God gives was always intended to do more than the Law could ever hope to accomplish. Paul deals with this relationship throughout the Book of Romans; and today he tells us that the law of love perfects the Law by exceeding it. He tells us that if we focus on love and pay attention to what God's love has accomplished in and through Christ, we will fulfill the Law, and then some. In other words, the gift of God's grace doesn't do away with the demands of the Law. It goes beyond it. It was the prophet Micah who, in response to the question, What does the Lord require of us?, told us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. [Micah 6:8] That's a great summary of the Law; but loving mercy is not a substitute for doing justice. Loving mercy means going beyond what the law demands and what justice requires. That is how the New Covenant completes the Old Covenant, perfecting it by calling us to focus on God's grace as the key to living as God's people. The gift of the Law is a good thing; but if it doesn't penetrate the human heart, it remains at the surface, and we remain unmoved by its goal and unchanged by its power. The gift of the Law is a good thing; but if it doesn't penetrate the human heart, we can kill its aim with a thousand qualifications. We can undermine God's intent with a million ifs, ands, and buts that justify just about anything we're interested in, just to sound good or look right. In the end, as New Orleans has made so clear, we wind up fooling no one but ourselves, turning what could have been a good thing into a wasteland of disappointment, with no one to blame but ourselves; and we're really the last ones we'll ever blame for the misery we cause. All this would remain thoroughly abstract, if we didn't have New Orleans to look at. In this mess is all the evidence we need that the Law is never enough. If our hearts have not been transformed with a sense of gratitude for the gift that has been given and the possibilities that are ours, then nothing God does will ever be enough to inspire our desire to rise above the least we can get away with; and that's why the Law, without the gratitude that grace inspires, is always insufficient. In the end, it's not about what we say we want, or what the Law says is good. It's about what we do. It's about what we love. That's what determines who we are. God wants to write His Law on our heart. He wants to place His will inside our hearts. For only then will we be transformed to become what He desires, what the Law spells out, what God's grace makes possible. New Orleans has some challenges to meet in the coming weeks, months, and years, and so do we at Zion. Unlike New Orleans, our challenges do not involve reclaiming a sense of law and order. Rather, our challenge is to grow into the possibilities of God's grace by living the grace God gives through the discipline of learning to forgive, as often as seven times a day, or seventy times, perhaps even seventy times seven times. For this is always the key to what it means to live … in Jesus' name. Amen