Richard Davenport
September 1, 2024 – Proper 17
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
The Israelites have a lot to learn. They’ve come out of Egypt. They’ve been freed from slavery. They’ve seen God working in power, working in ways no one thought were possible. They’ve seen God proving that he alone is God and that nothing succeeds apart from him. God can do great things, mighty things and he does them to help his people. The Israelites have a new life ahead of them, but what to make of it?
It isn’t as though they suddenly know what to do with themselves as soon as they cross the Red Sea. You still hear about it from time to time, those starry eyed youth who leave home and everything else behind and rush out to Hollywood with the dreams of making a name for themselves. Harrison Ford was one, but he had a plan. He knew it might be quite a while before he got a break, so he put his woodworking skills to use in the meantime, making furniture and such, so that he had a stable income while he sought work as an actor.
But he’s just one guy and all he had to manage was himself. Many go out there without any real plan at all. How then do you manage hundreds of thousands of people who suddenly have to leave behind the life they knew, harsh and cruel as it was, and toss them out into the wilderness to live?
God knew that would be a problem and planned accordingly. When they arrived at Sinai, God gave them a manual of sorts. Rules to live by. It wouldn’t dictate all of the things they’d need to know in order to farm or trade or all of the basic details of life. But it did give them the structure they’d need to be righteous people. It showed them what a righteous life looks like, whether you live that life as a farmer, a merchant, a governor, a scribe, or anything else.
Once they had the manual, as it were, they had to actually use it. Moses is calling their attention to it, making sure they don’t forget what it is or why they have it. Forgetting to use it or choosing not to follow it may not seem like a big deal, but it’s a statement of what’s important to you. If God’s will and his law aren’t important, then you won’t waste much time with it. If it is, then your life should reflect that. A righteous life can only come from God, so a righteous life is one that points back to the source, back to the one from whom all goodness and righteousness flows.
It worked for the Israelites, at least for a while. It gave them the structure they needed or order and organize their lives in a way that reflected both God’s greatness and his mercy. Had the Israelites wiped out the inhabitants of the Promised Land, as they were supposed to, perhaps they would have stayed that way a lot longer.
A message for Israel is a message for the church. Just as the Israelites were called to live a righteous life and follow God’s laws, so are we today. We might not have all of the civil laws and such they were given, but all of those laws were meant to teach God’s people what righteousness looks like and why they should seek it. We may not need to wear clothes only made out of one kind of fabric, but we should look like we are unified in how we act and how we live.
However, the world around us isn’t so interested in living a righteous life. There are plenty who do good things here and there, though even there it’s usually for the wrong reasons. There are many more who actively reject the need to live a righteous life, openly flaunting their rejection and calling on others to do the same. There are a variety of benefits, if we can call them that, that these folks think they are getting by refusing to live a righteous life. The freedom to live life without any restrictions. The freedom to determine what is good and what isn’t. The freedom to do all of the things that make you feel good, whatever that might mean for you. For many, the righteous life simply can’t compare with what you would have if you followed a different path.
You watch it on the news, you watch it in your neighborhood, you even watch it among family and friends, this rejection, this flaunting of God’s will, this desire to choose your own path and do things your own way. History is full of people who have rejected righteousness and found their lives ending in a very bad place. It happens around us all the time. It happens every day. We see it happening with depressing regularity. Whether they are living large, living wild, or whether they are living a disciplined, orderly life that follows a different set of morals, it all ends up looking more or less the same. A life without love. A life without joy. A life without peace. A life without a firm foundation.
Many times these people go to their graves still vainly clinging to their own ideas of how the world should work. They weren’t convinced. They couldn’t be convinced. They made themselves miserable, thinking that everything that didn’t go their way was some sort of hideous injustice against them.
At some point you start to wonder, “Why bother? Why waste time on these people? Why do we continue to demonstrate righteousness to them? Why don’t we leave them to their own devices? If they aren’t going to listen, then we shouldn’t have anything more to do with them.”
There’s certainly wisdom in not getting too entangled with people who refuse to listen, especially when they are trying to actively lead you astray. We don’t want to risk losing what we have been given by God. We seek to follow his will because he has claimed us and made us his own. He has forgiven our past misdeeds and saved us from slavery to sin and from eternal death. We don’t want to return to those things. We don’t want to go back to where we were. There’s a reason God told the Israelites to wipe out the pagan inhabitants of the Promised Land. Their failure to do so contributed to their eventual downfall.
We continue that here in the church, ensuring that what we teach and preach is always in accordance with God’s word. We heed the warning God gives through Moses, not to forget what we have been given and not to forfeit his gifts by rejecting them. But those outside the church don’t have them to begin with, because they never wanted what God has been offering. Christ’s sacrifice means nothing to them. His love was never important to them, at least not important enough to give up their own ways of doing things. Forgiveness isn’t something they care about because they don’t think they need it.
It’s hard enough trying to live a life of righteousness, to hold on to God’s will and his promises in spite of our sinful natures that drive us to seek our own path. We constantly need to come to him for forgiveness for our own transgressions. If you add in all of those other people in the mix too, with their destructive ideas and selfish attitudes, how are we to get anything right?
The divisiveness of our country isn’t just out there in the distance, seen only on the news and in national events. That divisiveness cuts right through our state, our community, our family and friends. Each side looks at the other and labels them worthless, less than human, not deserving of care or mercy. There’s the strong motivation to thrust them away and not deal with them any more than strictly necessary. The bad attitude those other people have just brings everything down. Better to not associate with them in any sense.
There is some wisdom to this. More than a few times God is directing his people to purge all of the bad influences from their lives. The Israelites needed to get rid of the inhabitants of the land who could, and eventually would, lead them astray. St. Paul tells churches at times to cast people out who are claiming to be Christian but who have no intention of acting like it. If these sorts of people are able to draw you away, then you have lost everything.
At the same time, God never tells the church to completely isolate itself. Eventually, when everything come crashing down, the only thing left standing will be God’s Laws and those who understand that his will is what provides structure to the world.
We look at those around us, those who are perishing under the weight of their own very bad choices and their refusal to acknowledge God’s law and we respond to them in the same manner they treat us. They get angry at us. They insult us. They mock us. They treat us with derision. They cast us out and isolate us. So we do the same to them. We hold to our own version of smug superiority, knowing we live the way we’re supposed to and we cast them out. We mock and belittle them. In our own smugness, we prevent them from seeing and hearing the Gospel that would lead them to salvation.
In claiming to be better, many times we end up being just as bad, only in other ways. Even if we do a somewhat better job of listening to God than others do, we still fall far short of the mark. Christ’s own example demonstrates how even we don’t come close to measuring up. Looking to him, we see we need our own dose of humility and to come to him in penitent faith. We fail on both sides. We don’t live the perfect lives we ought, and then we fail to live as examples to those around us who see only chaos, grief, and ruin all around them. With no other examples in their lives, they just keep making the same mistakes over and over again, spreading their misery around because it’s all they know.
“Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? 8 And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—
God gives the message to the people through Moses. Listen to God’s law and learn from it. Know that he has created the world to work a certain way and that you will only find joy in your lives by following his law. Misery comes from fighting against it. Do not forget God’s law in your lives and make sure your children learn the lesson from you instead of finding out the hard way.
But the rest of the world needs you too. They need to see God’s will in action. They need to see that peace truly comes not from fighting for control over everything, but from submitting to God’s good and gracious will, letting him work on your behalf instead of thinking you must do it all.
God has already saved you. Christ came here to die for you so that your sins would be washed away. The Spirit has been given to you, enabling you to live in accordance with God’s will. All of these gifts have already been given to you. Do not forget them. Do not forget where they came from or how you received them as God’s free gifts. Teach your children where they came from, but also remember the world around you that knows nothing of God’s love and mercy. Remember that your life, however sinful and imperfect, still shows the light and love of Christ within it. Your life carries with it the promise of grace, the Gospel message which you heard and believed. Others see and hear you too. Don’t let your life be one of malice, smugness, and derision, but one of wisdom, of love, and mercy. We were once those people, those who rejected God and his wisdom. But God has claimed us and redeemed us. Do not go back to the ways of the rest of the world. Be guided by God’s grace. The wisdom of God and his sacrificial love for his selfish sheep will be seen by others and they will come to know where true joy and peace may be found.