The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 3, 2006
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
The Rev. M. Anthony Seel, Jr.
Deuteronomy 4:1-9
“The Empty Cube and God’s Design”
In the west end of Paris stands La Grande Arche de la Defense. Work on La Grande Arche began in 1982 and was completed in 1990. It was one of the grand projects of France under then president Francois Mitterand. The marble-clad structure is two 35-story office buildings linked by a 3-story roof section. The open cube design is 348 meters wide and 106 meters tall. It occupies a 100-meter square.
George Weigel is the author of The Cube and the Cathedral, and he reports that all the guidebooks that he consulted “emphasized that the entire Notre-Dame – towers and spire included – would fit comfortably inside the Great Arch” ( p. 2). The Great Arch was built to be a 20th century version of the Arc de Triomphe, “a monument to humanity and humanitarian ideals rather than military victories” (Wikipedia).
The Grand Arch is almost a perfect cube. The height, as I’ve said, is 106 meters. The width is 108 meters, and the depth is 112 meters. It is almost a perfect cube, but almost is a very important word in this case. The cube that is much larger than the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is not perfect. For Weigel, the cube is a metaphor for secular Europe cut adrift from its Christian past. The cube in all its modern sterility speaks of a vision of the world that deemphasizes or eliminates altogether any reference to God.
The cube, physically and spiritually speaking, is empty and hollow at its core. At the center, the Grand Arch is physically, literally hollow. La Grande Arche stands as a metaphor for what Weigel calls “the Europe problem.” Part of the Europe problem is what Orthodox Jew Joseph Weiler of New York University School of Law calls “Christophobia.” We see Christophia in the decision by the European Union to leave out of the E.U. Constitution any mention of the Christian heritage of Europe.
1500 years of Christian influence and contributions to the development of Europe were purposely excluded. In June, 2004, after much debate, the completed draft constitution included one reference to simply “the cultural, religious, and humanist inheritance of Europe.” Weiler, an Orthodox Jew mind you, comments: “to ignore the Christian roots of European democracy is to ignore the fact that Christian thought is part of the patrimony of Europe for believers and non-believers, Christians and non-Christians, alike” (ibid., p. 71).
We have a similar problem in the Church when we seek a New Testament Christianity that is cut off from its Old Testament roots. The New Testament cannot be cut off from the Old because the OT is necessary for us to properly understand the New. Moreover, the Hebrew Scriptures are what our Lord read from and taught from during His earthly ministry. Jesus said,
“For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be great in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:18-19
So, today, we turn to Moses, who says in our first lesson,
v. 1 “And now, O Israel. Listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”
First, Moses says, “Listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you.” Listen, because these statutes and rules are from God. God has given them to you to bless you. First, God has given them to bless you for life. As Christian ethicist Lewis Smedes says, “The commandments fit life’s design” (Mere Morality, p. 6). In his book, Mere Morality, Smedes suggests a question. Smedes reflects, “Behind all the traumatizing questions thrust at us by the cultural revolutions of our day lies the question of whether there is, in our spiritual environment, a creative Mind who wills human life to develop and grow within certain patterns and toward a purposed goal” (ibid.).
Our answer is an emphatic yes. God our Creator has given us a pattern for life and the commandments are part of that pattern. As Christians, we are a people of law and grace. Law and grace are not at odds with each other; they work together to bring us to God. The law shows us our need of God – we cannot live perfectly in the way that God has set out for us to live. Grace is God’s answer to our sin problem. We do sin and our sin brings us under the judgment of God who is holy, perfect and without any sin. On the cross, Jesus pays the penalty for our sins with His death. From the cross, Jesus offers us God’s forgiveness. Law leads us to grace, the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Between the false ways of legalism and moral relativism lies the genuine Christian way. On one side is legalism, a way that says that to follow the law of God scrupulously will lead us to God. This was the way of Christ’s opponents in our gospel lesson today. They even added to God’s law in their effort to live righteous lives. Legalism is getting fixated on the law and its observance as the pathway to God and a way, or the way of salvation. One of the problems with legalism is that we are not good enough and never will be good enough. We need God’s grace.
On the other side is moral relativism. This is the belief that all law is relative to particular people and circumstances. What is right for one person could be wrong for someone else. The result of this is that moral absolutes are replaced by personal preferences. One reason for this approach in America is our obsession with freedom. Universal moral standards impinge on individual liberty, and cannot allow this to happen.
A second problem with universal moral standards is that they bump up against a second cherished value of contemporary American society. That second value is tolerance. According to authors Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman, “Where liberty is the greatest virtue, intolerance is the worst vice” (An Unchanging Faith, p. 177). In other words, “to make moral judgments is to be intolerant, or judgmental, or divisive” (ibid). So in our pluralistic society, the best course of action has been determined by some to be the jettisoning of universal moral standards. However, there are problems with this approach.
One problem is that when everyone is a law unto themselves, anarchy reigns. Society doesn’t, and indeed could not operate this way. Neither can we as individuals.
There is a moral universe created by God. God has given us norms. “The commandments fit life’s design,” as Lewis Smedes says. The truth is that everyone has commandments, even toddlers.
Have you heard of the Toddler Ten Commandments? They’re also known as the Toddler Property Laws.
1. If I like it, it’s mine.
2. If it’s in my hand, it’s mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it’s mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine.
5. If it’s mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I’m doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks like mine, it’s mine.
8. If I think it’s mine, it’s mine.
9. If it’s yours and I steal it, it’s mine.
10. If I saw it first, or last, it makes no difference, it’s still mine.
Can anyone hear attest to the truth of the Toddler Ten Commandments?
Everyone has commandments, even moral relativists – only the absolutes are different. For example, all truth is relative is an absolute. Intolerance is always bed is an absolute. Of course, there is an exception made to this absolute. It is okay to be intolerant to the intolerant. The tolerant are allowed to be intolerant of those who maintain that there are absolute and universal moral standards given by God. We find this kind of intolerance in the Episcopal Church.
If we are going to have commandments, let’s make sure that our commandments come from a higher authority than our personal preferences. God says to Israel through Moses, listen to the statutes and rules that I am giving you. Not only listen to them, but also do them. The result of living according to the commandments is blessing. God says through Moses that observance of the commandments will bring Israel life and material blessings, in their case, the Promised Land.
The Scriptures are clear – God is interested in how we live our lives. God in His love has given us some boundaries. Life within these boundaries is blessed by God. Let me give an example of how this works. Driving on an interstate highway generally works pretty well when you stay within the lines drawn on the pavement. If you swerve into the other lane, you may have an accident. If you decide to try scraping along the guard rails you will quickly discover that this is not the best way to drive.
God’s commandments show us the main road. The commandments don’t answer every life question explicitly, nor do they solve every life problem. They do provide us with good direction. The Ten Commandments, for example, give us the divine big principles for our relationship to God and our relationships with other human beings. We do fail in many ways even when we’re trying to live life according to God’s design, and so we should never forget that “the God who commands is also the God who forgives” (Smedes, p. 243). We do fail, but as we confess our sins and repent of them, God forgives us.
The laws of God don’t save us, but they do show us how wants us to live. Life without the commandments is hollow and empty, like the Grand Arch in Paris. Life with Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit and the commandments is exactly how God designed us to live. Our keeping of the commandments brings us the blessings that come from living according to God’s design.
We keep the commandments not to earn God’s love, but out of gratitude for all that God has done for us. And when we fail and fall, Jesus our Savior is there to pick us up. God’s design is good. God’s design for us is for blessing. May we reap the benefits of living according to God’s design.
