13th June 2010 - "Rules are not enough"

Stephen Fielding - All Saints', Datchworth

I was last here in August.  Much too long ago.  Then, we looked at Psalm 119 - the longest psalm – all about the Law of God.  Keeping it, learning it, loving it. Every single verse of that great psalm about loving and keeping God’s law, the Law given to Moses. And this morning, after this great long gap, we meet the same subject again. Only this time the message is rather Different.  The Law – the Jewish Law - is not enough. Rules are not enough.

I wonder if you remember a few years ago that the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, attended the Roman Catholic funeral of his judicial colleague the law lord Lord Russell of Killowen. This was a mark of respect to a former colleague and friend. Lord Mackay of Clashfern was a ‘wee free’, and the wee frees were outraged that a member of that church should even visit a Roman Catholic church let alone attend a funeral service there. And so they excluded him from being a member of the wee frees. I don't know whether that strikes you in the same way that it strikes me, but it certainly struck Lord Mackay that a church which despised his honouring of a friend at a Roman Catholic funeral was not the sort of church which he wanted to belong to and he promptly left. For surely the honouring of a friend and the claims of respect and duty must be higher than the rules of the wee free Church which said that they should keep themselves to themselves, ‘unsullied and unspotted’ by the world.

Over the last two or three weeks, some of us have been reading the book of Joshua. At the end of the book of Joshua, the children of Israel reach the promised land. And the dying Joshua gives them these instructions. ‘God has promised to bring you into the promised land and he has done so. Now you must keep the Law of Moses, which God delivered to him, and you must keep that the law right down to the last details’. Every ‘i’ must be dotted and every ‘t’ must be crossed.  So we're not just talking about the great commandments of loving God and loving your neighbour, or the great prohibitions against murder and adultery, but every single regulation and ordinance, such as keeping the dietary laws and, if you are a male, being circumcised. Every outward and inward mark of being Jewish must be maintained, in the face of all the dreadful pagans roundabout who threaten to corrupt and seduce you away from the Lord your God. It’s about your identity as Jewish people, God’s chosen people. Keep the Torah, the Law of Moses.

You and I know that the attempt by the children of Israel to keep the Law of Moses was not a success, to put it mildly. Again and again the prophets of God will say to them that they must mend their ways and get back onto the path that the Lord wants them to walk on. Keep the law, and obey the rules. You must maintain your identity, your ethnic identity, because you are God's chosen people. (Though of course if they had really listened, they'd have heard the great 2nd Isaiah saying that God is the God of all humankind, Jews as well as non-Jews).

And now we come face-to-face with the central problem of Paul's letter to the Galatians, from which our second reading was taken this morning. Is it right for Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians to eat together, to enjoy table fellowship together? The issue was that Peter had been quite content to eat with Gentiles, uncircumcised Gentiles. But when the Christians from Jerusalem came, that is those Jewish Christians who were very keen on sticking to the Jewish law, ‘zealous for the Torah’, he promptly withdrew from sharing his food with the Gentiles. What St Peter was really saying to those pagan Galatians who had become Christians was that  if you want to be part of the real family of God you are going to have to become Jewish. You’ll have to adopt this ethnic identity.

And Paul says no. It's not about ethnic identity. It's not about  sticking to the Jewish rules that protect Jewish ethnic identity. What Paul is saying is that the identity that Christians have is not an ethnic one. OK he seems to be saying, you are Jewish, but as a Christian Jew you ought not to be separating on ethnic lines. To be reckoned by God to be a true member of his family does not come about by keeping the Law of Moses, with all its rules for protecting ethnic identity. We are members of one Family – God’s family - by the faith of Jesus Christ who rescued and saved us. The rescue consists in the cross of Jesus and the faithful obedience that Jesus showed. We are justified, says St Paul, by the faith of Jesus Christ. And we appropriate that justification by our own faith. The works of the Jewish Law won’t save you – and they won’t save Gentile Christians either.

And so as members of God's family through what Jesus has done for us, and by our accepting this and embracing this, there's no longer any distinction between Jews and non-Jews- all are one in Jesus Christ. What Paul is saying to the early Christians who were Jews is that if you erect barriers between yourselves and other Christians who are Gentiles then you are failing to live as the unified people of God in the kingdom of heaven where Jesus is king and his spirit rules. You're behaving, as it were, like the wee frees who excluded Lord Mackay of Clashfern because he goes to a Roman Catholic funeral. The only rule is the rule of love.

As for the forgiveness of sins, the subject of the Gospel this morning, I hope it won't be another 10 months before we can tackle that great topic together!

Let us pray: our gracious heavenly Father, you want us to be people who are united in love for you and for each other, to be guided by your freeing and enabling spirit, in a kingdom where rules are not enough except the rule of love and the  power of your Holy Spirit. Let us celebrate and delight in the unity we share under the King of Heaven and the Lord of our hearts and lives.

Amen.