Leviticus 21:16-24; 1 Cor 1:26-31; Deuteronomy 23:1-6

Peter Enns points out that in Proverbs 26:4-5 you find two very interesting, diametrically opposed verses which appear right next to each other…

They read as follows in the NIV Bible...

Proverbs 26:4-5

4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.

5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Isn’t that fascinating? Two verses right next to each other that give diametrically opposed advice.

Which verse is right? Which verse should we follow? If we follow the one verse, won’t we be going against the advice of the other, and vice-versa.

But Peter Enns suggests another approach: What if, under different circumstances, both verses are right. But it takes wisdom to know when to follow the advice in the one proverb, and when to follow the other proverb.

And this is the complexity of living with wisdom in the world. Sometimes under certain circumstances a set of actions may be right. But under different circumstances those same actions may in fact be wrong or inappropriate. In one situation it might be important to hold one’s tongue. But in another it might be important to speak. And it is only wisdom that will help to know the difference.

And so Peter Enns believes that in these two verses in Proverbs we get a micro-scopic view of the way the whole Bible works. Instead of providing simple and ready-made answers for living, learning to navigate the complexity of the Bible helps us to learn to humbly navigate the complexity of life itself where sometimes things are not as black and white as we would like them to be.

Take for example Jesus teaching in the sermon on the mount where Jesus says “Let your yes be yes and let your no be no.” It is a verse that seems pretty straightforward, encouraging us to conduct ourselves in the world with a clear and transparent honesty and not with duplicity.

But what would happen if you were transported back in time to Nazi Germany and your Jewish friend had come for refuge to you at your house because he or she was being hunted down by the Gestapo. When the Gestapo knock on your door and ask you are you hiding a Jew in your house, do you say “Yes, come right in and arrest him?” Or out of an attempt to protect the life of your Jewish friend, do you say “No! There is no Jew hiding in my house.”

It is a very extreme case, but it illustrates the point that while on the whole, it is wise and good in life to let your yes be yes and to let your no be no, there are shades of complexity that sometimes we need to navigate, when letting our yes be yes and our no be no, is not always the proper thing to do.

Reading the Bible invites us into a world of complexity that will over-time teach us how to navigate the complexity of the world with greater wisdom, and humility. And I use the word humility alongside the word wisdom, because to be truly wise is to acknowledge that I could also be wrong.

And so when you read the Bible in its entirety and take note of the detail, you will discover that rather than simply reading a completely uniform set of ideas, at times you are invited to enter a world of ancient Jewish debate.

One of the big debates that takes place across the New Testament is the relationship between faith and works. Paul had come to the conclusion that good works could not put you right with God, because human beings are incapable of consistently doing good works. And so Paul comes to the conclusion from his own life experience that we are not saved by good works, but rather by faith and trust in God’s saving grace made known in Jesus. As you can imagine, there is a danger in the position of Paul, and even Paul saw that some Christians used his argument to say that it no longer mattered how you acted as long as you had faith. Across the pages of the New Testament as a counter-balance to the words of the Apostle Paul, you hear the counter voice of the book of James that “Faith without works is dead.”

And one of the great debates that rages across the books of the Bible is the question: “Who can belong to the people of God?”

In Deuteronomy there are very clear instructions that certain people are to be excluded from among the people of God:

Eunuch’s, men who have been emasculated, may not be part of the people of God. Certain races and nationalities, the Moabites and the Ammonites are not to included within the people of God.

In Leviticus, there is a list of people excluded from the serving God as priests which includes people with defects of various kinds. People with skin defects, eye defects, crippled limbs, hunch-backs, dwarf’s, and the list goes on.

And yet across the pages of scripture, we find that in various places and in various ways, other writers have come to different conclusions about many of these exclusions that were enshrined in some of these very laws.

In the story of Ruth the Moabite, as she follows her mother-in-law Naomi with those moving words, “...your God will be my God, your people will be my people...”, it becomes apparent that detested Moabites in the laws of Deuteronomy can in fact be included in the people of God.

In Isaiah 56:3 Isaiah comes to the same conclusion, contrary to his own scripture in Deuteronomy: “Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain ‘I am only a dry tree’”. According to Isaiah, there is nothing to prevent a foreigner or a eunuch from being included in the people of God. This is reiterated in the books of Acts, where we discover that an Ethiopian eunuch can indeed be incorporated into the people of Jesus as he is baptised by Philip on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.

What is interesting is that nowhere in Scripture do we find those laws excluding people with defects explicitly overturned in Scripture. We have had to come to that conclusion ourselves based on an intuitive sense of the spirit of Jesus who treated all people with equal dignity and respect.

Perhaps we find this supported also in the story of David 1 Samuel 16, where the author suggests to us that God does not judge by outward appearance, but rather God looks at the heart. Maybe, contrary to the perspective of the writer of Leviticus, God is not so concerned about our outward defects as the book of Leviticus suggests. Maybe God is really only truly concerned about what is happening in our hearts.

And so being a good Christian is not simply learning the Bible by heart and learning to quote selected verses to try and end the debate on contentious issues. but rather it is about learning to discern the spirit of Jesus. And to learn to discern the spirit in which Jesus lived, is an invitation to humbly enter into the complexity of the Bible and to seek to navigate that complexity with wisdom and humility as a way of training us to navigate the complexity of life with similar wisdom and humility.

In 1 Cor 1:30 The Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus as having become, for us, the Wisdom of God. In other words, Jesus is an embodiment of God’s Wisdom. In the humanity of Jesus, God’s Wisdom is made manifest within the complexity of human life and living. When we learn to navigate the complexity of the Bible and the complexity of life with humility and wisdom, we become followers of Jesus who became the Wisdom of God for us.

When In John’s Gospel we hear the words of Jesus: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” we are being invited to see that the truth is not something that can be captured in words on a page. Instead, truth is ultimately something that is incarnated in a person. Truth needs to be embodied and lived in the world. It is a Way… that brings life. It is a Way of Living in the complexity of this world that brings life to ourselves and others. It is about learning to live courageously. honestly, compassionately and wisely. All qualities that we find in Jesus whose life was an embodiment of the Way, an embodiment of Truth, and an embodiment of Life. Jesus thus becomes for us the Wisdom of God incarnate that the Wisdom, the Way, the Truth and the Life of God might also become incarnate, or embodied, within us.

Deuteronomy 21:10-21
2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Last week I introduced some of Peter Enns’ thoughts on the Bible.  Having grown up in a very literalist and fundamentalist Biblical framework, the more he studied the Bible at university, the more that literal, fundamentalist framework didn't hold for him.  He came to see that rather than the Bible holding Simple, Obvious and Clear instruction for human life and living, he came to see that it as Ancient, Ambiguous and Diverse.  And rather than being a let-down, he said that this discovery is one that he celebrates. 

Why does he celebrate the fact that the Bible is Ancient, Ambiguous and Diverse without providing clear unambiguous answers. Because he says that it tells us that God is not a helicopter parent trying to direct every aspect of our lives, but rather, God is like a wise parent who is inviting us into a journey of becoming mature and wise adults, capable of navigating the complexity of life in this world by making mature and wise decisions. He believes that a Bible that is Ancient, Ambiguous and Diverse provides us space to ponder, to debate, to think deeply, and even to have the space to fail... all which are necessary if we are to grow in wisdom. 

So there you have last weeks sermon summarised in about a minute and a half. It makes you wonder why it took me close to 20 minutes last week to say essentially the same thing! 

Now last week I made reference to Deuteronomy 21 as a text that helped us to see first hand how the Bible is ancient, ambiguous and diverse.  But in last weeks sermon I felt like we only scratched the surface of this passage. And so today I had thought it might be helpful to dive in a little deeper and see if there are further insights that this passage might invite us into. 

There are three sections to the passage we read and so I would like to make a few brief comments on all three sections: 

In the first section, we have what I imagine most of us (and perhaps especially the woman here) would consider the horrifying laws about conquered woman being forced into marriages with their Israelite captors. 

The text says: If in a context of war, the Israelites conquer their enemies, and an Israelite warrior sees a captured woman who is beautiful and desirable, he has permission to take her as his wife. He must first let her grieve for a month. Next he must shave her head, clip her nails after which he shall be joined to her in marriage. If however she does not please him, he is not to make her into a slave. Rather he is to set her free to go where she wishes, because he has dishonoured her. 

From our modern Western perspective, it is quite a shocking scenario. Just as shocking as Boko Haram in Nigeria capturing 276 school girls in April 2014 and forcing them into marriage with their captors.  According to Wikipedia, 6 years later, there are still 112 girls missing who have never returned, still living probably in forced marriages. 

Like I suggested last week, there is something quite ancient, one might even say, barbaric, about this practice.  If this passage is part of our holy Bible, what are we to make of this passage? Is there any light that shines from this verse at all? Tim Mackie, a founder of what is called the Bible Project gives a very helpful perspective. He says that if you want to understand and evaluate the laws of the Old Testament, you need to understand them and evaluate them from within their own ancient context. You need to evaluate them according to some of the laws and practices of other ancient people. When you do that, you begin to see some faint glimmers of light even in this dark, barbaric and primitive text. 

Within this text you can begin to see the faint glimmerings of our modern day understanding of human rights.  Despite the horror of forced marriage that this passage represents, there is strangely and remarkably alongside it, some faint conception of the human feelings and human dignity of the captured woman. Firstly there is the acknowledgement of her human grief for her lost family. She is to be given a month to grieve for them. But secondly, what is remarable is that her captor is not given permission to do anything he likes with her.  If she does not please him and he does not wish to continue in the marriage with her, he is not to turn her into a slave. He is to give her her freedom, because according to the text, he will have dishonoured her. 

There are many ancient cultures where a captor would have been given free license to do anything he liked with this woman he had captured... Even western slave owners up to the 1800’s, largely had carte blanche when it came to the treatment of their slaves. But here in this ancient passage, we see the faint glimmers of a higher consciousness beginning to dawn.  What is remarkable about the laws of the Old Testament is not that they are timeless absolute laws emailed from heaven that are true and valid for all time. Rather what is remarkable about them is that they represent a significant shift and early growth in concepts of justice and fairness that form the basis for modern day human rights. Our task is not to treat OT laws as absolute, which they are clearly not, but rather to see the trajectory and the direction in which they are pointing. 

It is very easy for modern Western European like ourselves to judge a passage like this, but it probably also needs to be remembered that arranged and forced marriages were quite common amongst our own ancestors up until the early 1800’s when things began to change. Although it wasn't legal, but certainly fairly commonly practised, it is quite shocking to think that the selling of wives in England was still practised until 1901.  Slavery was only first abolished among European nations in 1834. And perhaps even more startling that the first clear and unambiguous statement on universal human rights was only first expressed after World War II in 1948 with the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights just after the formation of the United Nations. And what might be interesting is that 8 nations abstained, including, I am embarrassed to say, South Africa.   

The practice of justice and fairness and a concept of universal human rights is a very new concept in the history of the world. But here in this ancient Old Testament text, we see some of the earliest faint glimmerings of light faintly glimmering through a very dark and barbaric practice.

In the next section of our passage, we likewise are confronted with what from our perspective as Western Europeans is another seemingly ancient practice of polygamy. It seems ancient because it has been many centuries since it was last practised here in Europe. But in other parts of the world, the practice is not so ancient. In South Africa, it is not uncommon. Up until two years ago we had a president who was a polygamist with 6 wives. When Wendy and I were renting out a property a year before we came to Dromore, one of the applicants was for the second wife of a polygamous man who would be paying her rent. And just last week I saw on a South African news website an article asking the question how an inheritance should be divided in the case of a polygamous marriage where no will has been drawn up. 

In certain parts of the world, the advice in this passage is perhaps surprisingly contemporary. 

From our perspective as modern Westerners, we might easily get lost and caught up in the injustice of a man marrying two wives and one being loved while the other is unloved. But when read it in it’s ancient context, what is remarkable about this passage is that there are the early glimmering in human consciousness of a sense of justice and fairness that goes beyond simply the affections of the human heart. Even where someone might not be loved, this passage comes as a reminder that justice and fairness are important values. 

The passage from our perspective is ancient, and ambiguous, because it has stuff in it that we would disagree with, but within it are also the faint glimmerings of God’s spirit, seen in the faint glimmerings of concepts of fairness and justice. 

The fact that there is corruption and nepotism still in evidence in modern Western democracies shows that we have still not fully got to grips with the concepts of justice and fairness. 

Lastly, we come to the rather shocking passage that suggests that capital punishment by stoning is an acceptable method of dealing with a stubborn and rebellious son.  It is quite a horrific passage if one lets one’s imagination run with it. For me, there is very little in the way of redeeming light that shines from this passage. The best that i can do to understand it in it’s context.  The Hebrew people were a small and vulnerable nation. Their very existence would have been constantly under threat from surrounding nations. Within that context, stubborn and rebellious children would have been a threat not just to their own immediate family, but to the clan, tribe and nation.  Severe discipline like that of this passage was probably considered necessary for survival. And yet, even an explanation like that doesn't diminish the sense of the barbarism and brutality of this passage from our own holy scriptures. 

Maybe, sometimes, it is ok to disagree with our own scriptures. And it is clear that in his own way, Jesus disagreed with this particular passage. The evidence is to be found in the parable of the prodigal son.  The prodigal son in Luke 16 is also rebellious and stubborn. Like the son in Deuteronomy 21, he is also a drunkard and a glutton. The same words that are used to describe the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21 and Luke 16. 

For any Jew who would have been listening to the parable of Jesus, they would immediately have made the connection with Deuteronomy 21. They might have wondered how the parable of Jesus was going to end.  Was the son in the parable going to be taken to the village elders? Were they going to gather around the son and stone him to death for his rebellious and stubborn behaviour? What a shocking twist to the parable it must have been to hear that instead of being stoned to death, as the law in Deuteronomy required, the rebellious son, on returning home, is received with love and affection.  The father in the parable, like a wise parent had given his son space to make mistakes, and to learn the painful lessons of life that would enable him to grow in true wisdom. 

The contrast between Deuteronomy 21 and Luke 16 shows us that the laws of the Old Testament are not simply to be accepted unchallenged.  At times, as we find in Jesus parable of the prodigal son, we can even challenge and disagree with them. In the end, God’s gift of the Bible does not force us into blind faith and blind obedience, but rather, invites us, to ponder, reflect, debate and above all to journey into a deeper wisdom, a journey that takes us beyond the written letters on a page, and into listening deeply for the spirit of God. For as Paul discovered in his own experience, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. 

Baptism Sermon Matthew 3:13-17
Throughout the opening chapters of Matthew, Jesus is given a variety of different titles from different sources. In his Genealogy, he is spoke to as "son of David, son of Abraham" (1:1). When the angel visits Joseph in a dream, he is given the name "Jesus" (God Saves). Prophetically, he is called called "Emmanuel" (meaning God with us) (1:23), "Ruler" (2:6), "my son" (2:15), "a Nazorean" (2:23). By the Magi, he is "king of the Jews" (2:2), which leads to the term "Messiah" by Jewish religious leaders (2:4). John the Baptist calls him "the more powerful one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire" (3:11).

Now, in our text in the Baptism of Jesus, it is the turn of the Voice from Heaven that speaks and gives Jesus a new title: "My son, the Beloved.”

And I believe in this phrase, we discover the real identity of Jesus, and in discovering the real identity of Jesus, I believe that we discover our own true identity as well.

In the Gospels, Jesus is often called the Son of Man, another way of saying, a Son of Humanity, the Human One. In other words, he is a representation of our truest humanity. He represents humanity restored and made whole. Which means in Jesus, we discover who we really are, and who God has always intended us to be, “the Beloved One’s of God!” God’s beloved daughters and son’s.

As we reflect today on wee David’s baptism, and also in our story, on the baptism of Jesus, I believe that above all things, baptism is meant to be a declaration of God’s love for us, a declaration that each and everyone of us is the beloved of God.

We may not always feel like God’s Beloved. We may not always act or speak like the Beloved of God, but baptism unveils the truth of who we really The Beloved of God.

As I said last week, Alan Storey believes that at the heart of the Christian message is the truth that we are made By love, In Love, and For Love.

I would like to look briefly at each of those three statements: Made By Love, In Love and For Love.

Firstly, We are Made By Love.

This is a statement about who God is. Isn’t it interesting in the Gospel of Matthew, that the voice of God, the voice of Heaven is only spoken twice through the entire Gospel. The first time is here at Jesus Baptism. And the Second time is at the Transfiguration. On both occasions the words that are spoken from Heaven are words or affirmations of love. This is my Son, the beloved. This is my son whom I love.

In Matthew’s Gospel (as with Mark and Luke’s Gospels), God could be said to be one of few words, but when the Voice from Heaven does speak, the words that are spoken are words of love.

Matthew’s Gospel underlines this truth in Matthew chapter 5, where Jesus describes God in these words: "He makes his sun to shine on good and bad alike. He sends his rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous." God is indiscriminately loving. God is loving to those who deserve his love. God is loving to those who do not deserve his love.

The Rev. Ray Light under whose ministry I grew up used to say the following: “You can be the best person you know how to be and it make God love you any more than God loves you right now. And you can be the very worst person you know how to be, and it wont make God love you any less than God loves you right now.”

How we behave may determine the quality of life as we experience it, but it will not change God’s love for us.

Mystics of every faith and religion who have awoken to the Sacred Presence of the Divine in the end, all speak with one voice, that God, Ultimate Reality is to be experienced as Infinite Love.

On this Baptism Sunday we are reminded that the very essence of God is Love, and that each of us is made, By Love. Little David has been made by love.

Secondly, on a Baptism Sunday like today, we remember that we are all made not just By Love, but also made In Love.

It is a statement that reminds us that the Act of Creation itself is an act of love.

In the ancient Babylonian Creation Story, the creation of the world is described as an act of violence. After a great conflict between the gods, Marduk the great champion, fights and kills Tiamat. He shoots an arrow and splits her in two, and from her eyes flow the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and from her body, Marduk creates the heavens and the earth. For the ancient Babylonians, creation was an act of violence. But by contrast, the Judeo-Christian tradition, says that the act of creation is in fact an act of love. We are made by love, and we are made in love.

Creation wasn't something that only happened somewhere way back then at the beginning of time. Creation is happening here and now today. Creation happens every time a seed begins to germinate under the ground and little shoots break through the soil and a plant or tree or flower begins to emerge. Creation unfolds every time the miracle of conception takes place and a little baby begins to grow in the womb, the work of creation happens all over again. And this act of creation is God’s great act of Love.

Not only are we made by Love, but we are also made In Love. It takes an enormous sacrifice of love to bring new life into this world.

Today, we acknowledge that little David who we have baptised today has been made By love, but also in love.

Lastly, in Baptism, we remember that as God’s Beloved Son’s and Daughters, we are also made for love.

And that can be interpreted in two ways...

Firstly it reminds us that the environment that is best suited to our growth as human beings is an environment of love. And anyone who has worked with little children can testify to that. Give a child a warm, secure, loving environment, and that child will begin to thrive and blossom. The more secure, stable and nurturing the home environment is, the more a child can thrive. But the converse is also true. The less secure, stable and nurturing a home environment is, the more a child will struggle and often those struggles will continue deep into adulthood.

We are made for love. We operate best in a loving environment.

But we are also made for love in another sense. We have been made for acts of love and kindness. It is part of our human purposes in this world. Our real fulfillment in life comes through acts of love. You will know that yourself. When you do something you love, it brings joy and fulfillment. Some of you will know that my brother was a professional tennis player. For most of his career my brother loved playing tennis, it brought him joy. But at the end of his career, the last year and a half, his love for tennis had begun to wane. For those last months he said he was playing only for the money, and it became burdensome and life-sapping for him.

But we are made for love also in the sense that when we engage in acts of love towards others, it makes us feel good about ourselves and about life. Haven’t we all experienced how when we have been rude, or unkind, even when we feel it is justified, it leaves us feeling empty and hollow, unfulfilled and sometimes even dirty or unclean.

If there is a God shaped hole inside every human being that only God can fill, and if it is true that God is Love, then it is equally true that there is a love shaped hole inside every human being, that only Love can fill.

Today, on his Baptism day, we affirm especially of little David, that he has been made by Love, in love and for love. And as we hear that it is true for David, we hear also that it is true for each and everyone of us: The voice from Heaven, in the story of Jesus Baptism whispers over each of us today saying: You too are My Beloved.