Sermon for Passion Sunday - March 9, 2008
“…the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?”
I INTRODUCE the subject to a table full of curious ministers. They have come for training as police chaplains, unsure of what that means and what they are to learn as I was 11 years ago. I ask them: Have you see the movie Robocop ? What a law enforcement officer he makes! With his telescopic eyes, and mechanical limbs, he's fast, strong, and specially capable. What if cops were all just robots? Not human at all. Fantastic machines able to go 24/7, rolling out of the station on treads, spotting illegal substances across a busy street, outrunning or outdriving anyone or anything and arresting with a mechanistic supremacy. They would have up-to-the-minute legal codes of every jurisdiction, photos of all wanted criminals in their computerized command centers and would nab all humans for every infraction. What perfect law enforcement. Shades of Terminator 4.
You wouldn't like that? What would be wrong with that picture? A machine can't enforce our laws because our laws are made by humans for humans to fit our human situations. Enforcement takes judgment, mercy, understanding, discernment. We submit to enforcement because we understand the laws are for us, not against us. So, a good officer is merciful, understanding, discerning, able to thread his or her way through a complex set of issues, and figure out a wise application of everyone's legal rights, even the right to remain silent. What makes people better cops than machines are the same parts of well-trained and highly motivated professionals that also make them vulnerable to the stresses and harshness of the job. The job is corrosive to them, and they absorb the worst of what they see and do. They take that in for us, the citizens, so we can enjoy life without thinking too much about the Criminal Code.
That's what chaplains are for. Police chaplains exist to minister grace to the softer, more vulnerable side of cops, a side that hurts because they are humans, not robots. They are human: body, mind, soul, heart and spirit. It is their spiritual side that knows right from wrong, a higher cause than what is written in the law books.
A great contest seems to be waging between two or maybe more philosophies in Christianity. I met Friday with two local pastors, one an Evangelical, the other a Pentecostal. We got along great by the way and care deeply for one another. But it calls to mind the schools of modern thought, practice and presentation of the Gospel in an emerging church culture. Evangelicalism says there is the Bible , God's Word, and you will read it and it will tell you what you must believe and how you must live. Pentecostalism says you must be born again in a baptism of the Holy Spirit , overcome with His indwelling power, and remain under that power always—praising and exuding the fruits of the new life. Both modes may look at Episcopalians and conclude that there is neither Word nor Spirit in Anglicans, just an empty ritual we mistake for godliness.
Now: that was not the substance of my meeting with these brothers in Christ. What I've described is a perception that goes out competitively and defines the message of some of our churches. What is the truth of it? Is our religious response to God to be based on the Bible, or on an emotional experience of a Spiritual encounter, or what? Shall we rely on the old ways: have they ever saved anyone? People are often very passionate about the answers they give to these questions.
St. Paul was not the first to break the boundary of Judaism for the Church to move into Gentile culture. Neither, by the way, was St. Peter at the home of the Italian Cornelius. After Christ's Ascension, the first outreach to non-Jewish people was by Deacon Philip, who first went to Samaria, and then to the Gaza strip where he met and converted the treasurer of Ethiopia. Racially and culturally different, these people came to Christ outside of Mosaic Law. But when Paul came to Jerusalem with stories about Churches in Asia Minor, the thing came once again to a head. Can these new Christians really be in God's will if they are not circumcised? They aren't even Jewish! Later, Jewish Christians would go to Paul's churches trying to cow them into compliance with Jewish law before they could be true followers of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. Much of Paul's ministry and cause thereafter was to fight that idea.
Hence his words in today's Epistle. God has made him and his fellow missionaries ministers of a New Covenant, “ not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.” 2 Corinthians 3:4
What is he saying? The Law God gave Moses was glorious, and the power of the Old Covenant made Moses' face shine from a close proximity with God's earthly presence. Down from the mountain came Moses with tablets of stone and the handwriting of God commanding His will for a holy people. That Law went far beyond the Ten Commandments. It applied to every moment of a faithful Jew's life, to clothes, to food, to what they may say. Such observance, when held dear, made a descendant of Abraham an Old Covenant saint. But it was hard, and few followed it faithfully, and when they did it made them proud. They reduced God's will to some 600 rules of life that, when followed, made you perfect. It gave you power over God because you'd done the dance, sufficient in yourself to claim salvation. That Law, because of the hardness of men's hearts and their pride, produced the wrong type of fruit. It should have made them humble enough to know their need of a Savior. When the Savior came, they despised Him.
St. Paul speaks of Law as a letter that kills. “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, even as it is written… if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is become uncircumcision… For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Romans 2:24-29 He even went as far as to say, “now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.” Romans 7:6 He speaks highly of life in the Spirit of God. “We received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words . Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.” 1 Cor 2:12-15
So: is it just for us to receive God's Spirit and we become a law unto ourselves? That would be like a cop making up rules as he sees fit. No court in the land would uphold such rules or convict any criminal based on a policeman's whim. There must be Law to keep the enforcers of law themselves on the right side of it. And they also must have spirits, and understand the reason for those laws, or they are no better than machines arresting us all. So it is with Christians, if we get over our distinctions.
God's Word is neither found solely in the pages of the Bible, nor in the ecstatic utterances of a spirit-filled worshipper. God has spoken, and the essence of the message, and all we are required to know and to follow, has been written down by ancient saints, painstakingly copied and kept by saints through the ages for us in the Scriptures. Yet, without the gift of the Holy Spirit for 2000 years in Christ's Church, and in us today, no one can discern the expressed Will of God, God's own Voice calling us, in His Holy Bible. Likewise, every spiritual power encounter must be measured with the inscribed Word to insure that this is God, and not a counterfeit revival. And liturgical Christians, in love with the order and grace of catholic worship must engage with the truth of God's written Word, partake of His Incarnate Word in Holy Eucharist, and invite the power of new life in the Spirit. Or else we fall short of our calling. New Testament Christians retain the New Testament and the Old. But the New explains the reason for that elder Covenant: it prepared a people for God. It should likewise prepare us.
Jesus broke the boundary to the Gentile world before any of His disciples. He ministered to a village of Samaritans through a fallen woman, healed the daughter of the Phoenician, delivered the demoniac near Gadara, and as read today, healed the deaf and dumb man of Decapolis, ten Gentile towns to the east of Galilee. He was given to Israel, yet He knew His mission would send the Apostles all over the world, breaking through the Jewish Law: not breaking the Law but fulfilling it. He understood that the exclusivity of Judaism was meant to keep them from defiling it with paganism. But it was used to revile all Gentiles. The letter killed the purpose of God's whispers to Abraham, His burning bush for Moses, His fire falling on Carmel's height, the ministry of Daniel to foreign Emperors.
Letter or Spirit? It's a fool's choice. They are one, or else they are both lost. God has spoken by His Spirit to people who wrote His Word down. Letter and Spirit come together as we read His Word . The meaning must come within or it is dead to us.
Someone may make a movie called Robopriest . He says the liturgy just right and moves his robotic arms in the sign of an exact cross, dispensing Sacraments that are stored safely in his magnesium shell. Are they valid? The holy counsel of Robishops has decided they are. His sermons are gleaned from the best ever written, delivered in voice simulation to people who may not actually come to church, but watch it on YouTube or download it to their iPods. No. Let's stay human . There is more than letters in these words, and more than just any spiritual experience in what we have together. By both Word and Spirit He gives us more than we desire or deserve.
PFH+