Year C Sixth Sunday after Pentecost July 15th, 2001
Deuteronomy 30: 9-14
Title: “God’s word is not too hard to understand.”
Our text is in the midst of a sermon, the third sermon of the book, delivered by Moses, exhorting the people to fidelity to Yahweh alone by living a way of life consistent with the character of God revealed in His words and deeds. The book has a long history of formation, one not entirely clear, but its major accomplishment was to see these various laws and traditions as part of the “legal stipulations” of a formal covenant made with God. The format for this was the widely used legal instrument of “covenant formulary,” a sort of template into which was poured specific stipulations for keeping a contract, along with curses for not doing so. The genius of Deuteronomy was to transfer these otherwise dry and formal specifics into a lively speech by Moses, a transfer that endowed the “word” or “words” of his speech with the same aura of divine revelation as the “commandment” or “commandments” of God. Deuteronomy is the first book to speak not of “laws” but of the “Law,” “Torah,” thereby seeing the various detailed expressions as originating in the unified will and plan of God.
Moses, of course, was not the actual deliverer of this speech. He was long dead. The text is at pains to say that Moses’ office as law speaker is handed on to his successors Deuteronomy 3:28; 5:1-6:3; 18:15-22; 31:1-29. Whoever holds the office stands in the place of Moses for his generation and speaks in his name or person. Just as the historical situation in which the speech is cast is the imminent entrance into the Promised Land, the actual situation for which the speech was written was the re-entrance into the Promised Land after return from the Babylonian Exile in 537BC. It was a time to renew commitment to God, loyalty to him alone. The whole theme of Deuteronomy was one God, one people, one land, one sanctuary.
There was considerable doubt that a people used to pagan Babylon for fifty years would be able to meet the high standards of behavior imposed by the conditions of the old covenant at Sinai. The ideals and even the standards seemed unreachably high. The law speaker assures the people that such is not the case. The Law is not only reachable, but doable, not only doable but livable. In fact, without its observance life itself would be unlivable, for separation from God is tantamount to death itself. They must now make up their minds, make a decision to follow Yahweh and his ways, his laws, his Law.
In verse ten, written in this book of the law, The book of Deuteronomy.
In verse eleven, for this command which I enjoin on you: “Command,” Hebrew mitswah, is used in the singular here. It was plural in verse ten. The singular and plural are used interchangeably, just as Jesus uses the terms in John. The plural form stresses the number and variety of “laws” while the singular stresses that they come from the one God and are, at heart, one basic “law.”
Today, this is an important word. At first, it sounds like this is a new, totally new, commandment. However, it is really the same as that imposed long ago at Sinai. “Today” is, if you will, the liturgical and spiritual present. It means “today and every day, all day.” In the liturgical assembly time is condensed into a sort of extended present. The past and the future are somehow present by virtue of the “liturgical consciousness.” This is an instance of taking an ordinary word used in “profane” contexts to mean one thing, but when used in “sacred” contexts it means that and more than that.
Not too mysterious and remote for you, this is the main point of this text. The “word,” communication, commandments, laws, expectations of God are doable. They are not beyond realization by humans. Understood here is that one does not “do” them on one’s own power but by the power bestowed in the awareness of God’s loving-kindness or covenantal fidelity, Hebrew, hesed.
In verse twelve, it is not up in the sky, it is not so airy, speculative, or esoteric that one cannot grasp its meaning. It is not among the secret things God has yet to reveal.
In verse thirteen, nor is it across the sea, one does not need superhuman heroes to go and fetch it. If Israel’s expected response to God and his word is not inaccessible, in the sky, neither is it beyond some insuperable barrier, the sea.
In verse fourteen, no, it is something very near to you, it has been received from Moses’ own mouth and put into human words for ease of understanding by the graciousness of God who realizes human limitations. God would not command the impossible. Besides, he is very near and thus so is his word.
Already in your mouths, Israel recites the law at her festivals and parents drill the law into their children at every opportunity Deuteronomy 6:6f; 11:18f.
And in your hearts, the heart, the center of the will and mind, is most itself when in conformity to God’s design. God has placed there the desire to do his will.
You have only to carry it out, it is not the mere knowing, but the doing of God’s will that makes the difference and it is what makes Israel different from the other nations.
Sermon
There were some who claimed the Exile was really God’s fault. He punished his people for not measuring up to a standard of behavior that was impossible to reach. This is not too far from Paul’s point about the Law not being able to be observed because there were too many injunctions to even remember, let alone do and there was no room for grace in the doing of them. Paul claims that Christ takes care of that problem by grace, whereas the legalists thought they just had to get everybody to try harder. Deuteronomy’s point is that it is possible, given the right attitude. For the author the Law is something like what we would call “natural law;” it makes eminent human sense. Doing the Law, keeping the commandments is the only way to be and become human. Taken to its extreme this position leads to thinking that the other nations are really less than human. We can succumb to that temptation as well. We can think that those who do not follow either the Jewish Law or our “ Law,” our ways of doing, thinking, feeling, are not quite as human as we.
Our text tells us that God’s ways are not so above us that they are unknowable or unreachable. While it implies that we cannot get there without God’s help, cannot do it on our own power, it does not clearly state it. Because of that, this and similar texts can be quoted and used for purposes that contradict their intention. The author wants to say that God is near, easily accessible, not far beyond us. And so is his word. Keeping it will make us more human, and at the same time more like him, but it will not make others less important in God’s sight. Neither will comparing ourselves to others and declaring ourselves “better” than they actually make us so in God’s eyes. Our worth is God-given, not deed-driven. Our worth is not a matter of comparison with others, but of grace. Certainly, we are “better off” than those who do not obey God, but not necessarily better. Indeed, consciousness of God’s word, his will, actually makes us more responsible for our behavior or misbehavior, whereas those who do not know his word will be judged less strictly; Matthew 11: 20-24; Luke 10: 13-16.
The problem for us humans is that there are many “laws” or systems of thought out there competing and conflicting with God’s Law and even many who make God’s Law seem rather arcane or mysterious, full of distinctions, impossible to learn let alone keep. Having spent some time in a pagan culture, namely, Babylon, the returning exiles needed to realize that one set of laws, of behaviors, is not as good as another in God’s eyes. God condescended to reveal his law to humans and he expects that it be followed. If it did not matter to God how we behaved, why would he have bothered to tell us otherwise? The various concrete expressions of that one law correspond to the various situations humans find themselves in. They do not reveal an “anything-goes-so-long-as-it-feels-right-at-the-time” attitude on God’s part. They reveal the very character of God as it applies in various situations. In effect, God says, “This is how I would behave in a similar situation.” While that may be hard for humans to actually do, impossible without God’s grace to do it, it is not hard to understand what God is saying. To claim that God’s word is too arcane or mysterious, too theoretical is simply a human ruse to avoid obeying it. People may be duped for a time by the dictates of their inherited culture, like the Babylonians or Egyptians or Greeks or Romans, but, once they have heard the truth of God’s word, there is something God has placed in the human brain that allows them to recognize the truth even when it contradicts their own tradition. If that were not so, people would never be able to reform their lives according to God’s express will. No one would be able to recognize error. We would all simply repeat what we learned and live lives pretty much the same way our respective cultures and families always lived them. On the lips of Moses, the law speaker wants to assure his listeners that reform is possible, that they can change, and change not for change sake but for God’s sake and for their own sake, in their own best interests. For, if humans deviate from the purposes of their Creator, they are surely doomed to die. Oh, all are “doomed,” if we can call entering into eternal life being “doomed,” to physically die, but there is a greater death than that, a living death whereby we merely exist but do not truly live. The Law of God has been given to us, indeed revealed to us, so that that need not happen.
Keeping God’s laws makes no sense unless we have a personal relationship with him.
Keeping God’s Laws makes humans truly human and alive.
God’s Laws speaks to the human heart as well as to the human mind because God has planted a connecting link or lock within the human person in order to recognize truth.
The Connecting Link: What we now know about the genetic code can help us better understand how God works and how he communicates with humans. Everyone’s genetic code is unique. A sample of hair, blood, saliva, semen, skin, whatever can reveal our unique identity. It is the unique combination and order of a single filament composed of the same material found in the entire universe that allows us to be identified from among all of the other people of the earth, past and present. While this has not yet been perfected in practice, the theory is virtually certain. When a sperm unites with an egg two different genetic codes meet and form what we might call a compromise. It is as if they decide which characteristics will be the dominant ones in this new alliance, this new entity. Thus, the new entity, the fetus, is an exact replica of neither the code of the sperm nor the egg. Nonetheless, the material in both sperm and egg comes from the same genetic pool. They are not different materials, just different arrangements and quantities of the same material. Like God himself, fundamentally, they come from the one source, one “law,” if you will, but form a variety of beings “laws,” if you will. That is pretty much the way God’s word works too. First, God uses many words to communicate his one word, namely, love, himself. Secondly, his word contains the same message for all, but it is individually suited or tailored or modified to fit the unique situations in life of each unique individual. On the surface it might look like somewhat contradictory messages but underneath it is the same message, a communication not really of words but of Word, of the divine, loving presence himself. We as humans are able to recognize the truth when we hear it much the same way as our genetic code can recognize elements it needs to replicate itself, to continue to live. It works like a key, or a code. The grooved edges of a key will fit into only one lock, unless it is a master key. God’s word acts like a key. It fits perfectly into our beings and “unlocks,” us so that we can act and live according to that code. That is how we can recognize the truth. Now, Moses and his successors did not have such language to describe their experience with God, so they used larger natural entities like seas and mountains and skies to communicate the same message of truth. God is indeed far above us, beyond us, transcendent. If He were not He would not be God, only a part of or the sum total of creation, not separate from it. However, God is simultaneously within us. If not, He could not be known. The recognized revelation of God, first spoken publicly and recognized as of divine origin by God’s people and later written “in the book,” is spoken into every person’s heart and mind, whether recognized as such or not. It is as intimate and all-pervasive as the genetic code. Those who do recognize it form an association with each other under God, a covenant, and behave according to the same standards. Those who do not, behave differently. Yet, even those who do, also recognize that God has specific applications of his word for each individual, not inconsistent with the general message, yet not so general as to destroy the individual’s uniqueness. God’s Law, God’s code, does not produce robots, clones, or pre-cut cookies, not the computer kind, but unique instances of what it means to be an image of God, to reflect an aspect of God that no other entity in the universe, past, present or future, could reflect, reveal or replicate. The connecting link between God and the human person and all persons as a group is God himself under the title or word “grace,” God’s spiritual genetic material for the life and continuance and well-being of the human race and, indeed, all creation. It can be rejected, like a transplanted organ is, diseased by contact with evil or simply passively ignored. The revealed word of God, be it written in Scripture or “written” on the human heart, is much more than a body of information about God. It is the very spirit of transformation, empowering a person to become an image of God and commune with him intimately. Amen.
