Three Stories Intertwine

Monday, March 16, 2009 -- Week of 3 Lent, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 954)
Psalms 80 (morning) 77, [79] (evening)
Jeremiah 7:1-15
Romans 4:1-12
John 7:14-36

It seems to me that today's three stories intertwine.

I quoted in my sermon yesterday from Jeremiah's Temple Sermon because I saw a connection between Jeremiah's words against the Temple, today's Daily Office first reading, and Jesus' prophetic action to shut down the Temple and its commerce, our gospel story this past Sunday. So much of Israel's identity was connected with the Temple. The great King David (c. 1000 BCE) had been promised a holy dwelling place for God and that David and his throne would be established forever. More than two hundred years afterwards, the influential prophet Isaiah spoke authoritatively interpreting the promises to David of God's gift of unconditional safety. The Temple was God's eternal dwelling place.

Another hundred years later, how shocking must it have been for Jeremiah to refute that orthodoxy. "Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." Jeremiah tells the people that the promises they have embraced about the temple will not annul their failure of justice. Unless they cease oppressing the alien, the orphan, and the widow and cease their violence and unfaithfulness, God will do to this Jerusalem Temple what God did to the older shrine at Shiloh. "I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim." For Jeremiah, when worship substitutes for justice, God rejects God's temple.

Fast forward six hundred years. Paul is facing a different challenge. He speaks to people who have put their trust not in a building, but in a body of law. After the destruction of the Temple, Jewish identity became more and more focused in the practices of following the complex series of laws and interpretations that had been handed down from Moses through the rabbis. Many of the laws proscribed ethical behavior and many others were concerned with forms of social and religious purity. By Paul's time, the common belief was that if anyone successfully obeyed all of the laws, you were in good standing before God. In the language Paul uses today, you had earned your dues.

But Paul had found his attempt to follow the laws produced only performance anxiety in him. He was certain that he and everyone else had failed in some respect. Jesus offered a way off of that merry-go-round. And Paul sees the gift that Jesus gives -- justification by faith through grace -- as foreshadowed not in Moses, but in Abraham. Before Abraham had been given the law, Abraham believed that God would bless him, and Abraham was justified by his faith through the grace of God. Because Abraham trusted God before he was circumcised, he is the model not just for Jews, but for all human beings who turn to the divine with trust. For Paul, when following rules substitutes for trusting God, we never experience true relationship with God.

Finally we see Jesus in a conflict because he has healed a man on the sabbath. He has done good, but he has done so in a way that violates the sabbath law. Controversy ensues. For Jesus, when religious custom blocks the opportunity for love and compassion, love and compassion always trump tradition.

I see all three of these stories as being connected. Jeremiah declares that justice is the prerequisite for a people's standing before God, regardless of their attention to worship or holy places. Justice is the social and corporate form of love and compassion. Paul enjoins us to love and trust God first, and then act out of that relationship, rather than to think we can earn our standing before God by following religious rules. Jesus summarizes the whole law and tradition with love: Love God, neighbor and self. Everything else is secondary, including the ancient gift of sabbath.

Again, it all comes down to love. First love and trust God, say Paul and Jesus. And love your neighbor as yourself (justice), say Jeremiah and Jesus. Traditions and Temples are always secondary to love.

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas