The 3rd Sunday of Lent - Faith and Commandments

A Lutheran pastor and a Jewish rabbi had been eating lunch at a cafe.  Now they were saying good-bye to each other.  “Keep the faith,” the pastor said as the two friends parted.  The rabbi responded, “Keep the commandments.”  This little story reflects what some see as the two principal aspects of religion: what we believe in and how we will live.

At any particular moment we may emphasize one over the other.  Martin Luther saw the writings of St. Paul, particularly in his letter to the Romans, as saying that salvation comes to us from God by grace through our faith.  On the other hand, in his epistle, James emphasizes the importance of how we choose to live.  In the second chapter James wrote: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but do not have works?”  He continues by describing how we should help those in need and by declaring that faith without works is “dead.”  He challenges those who would disagree, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”  So could keeping the commandments and keeping the faith really refer to the same thing?

So let's look at how God's commandments can be understood in the context of our faith and how our faith can be understood in the context of God's commandments.  One scholar commenting on the passage we heard from Exodus call it “a gift, an opportunity to grow deeper in relationship with God in Christ.”  He goes on to say that these commandments—God's words—help us reflect on how we “fall short of Christ-likeness” and also give us “a roadmap of faith”—could we say a GPS of faith?  Our faith in God as our GPS—what an interesting image!  What destination should we type in?  Heaven?  God?  Will our faith guide us to God by telling us how to get there—by describing what we must do to get to God?  But the brains of the GPS—the processing unit, if you will—would be God's words—the Ten Words—the Ten Commandments.  So when we come to an intersection, a choice point, the commandments will guide us into making a faithful choice, leading us closer and closer to God.

Here is another perspective of how faith and the law are intertwined. In Psalm 19's hymn to the law, we see the law as foundational for faith in God.  The English translation of verses 7 through 9 by the International Consultation on English in the Liturgy makes this obvious:

God's perfect law revives the soul.

God's stable rule guides the simple.

God's just demands delight the heart.

God's clear commands sharpen vision.

God's fautless decrees stand forever.

God's right judgments keep their truth.

We can understand God better and our faith will be supported by hearing how God wants us to live. The theologian Walter Brueggemann wrote:  “These commands might be taken not as a series of rules, but as a proclamation in God's own mouth of who God is and how God shall be 'practiced' by this community of liberated slaves.”

So the “practicing of God” as a way of faith:  In the Gospel reading this morning we heard that when Jesus' disciples saw him drive the animal sellers out of the temple and overturn the table of the money changers, they “remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'”  Jesus' consuming zeal that God's house should be holy place, not a market place, appeared to be placing faith in God—not the purity practices of no blemished animals and no Roman money—at the center of the most holy spot for Judaism.

Jesus' zealousness for keeping practices in the Temple faithful to God was carried one step further by his teaching about believing in God's power.  He prophesied: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” God’s power to redeem what humanity seeks to destroy becomes the sign that Jesus is God's Messiah and our Savior.  The disciples' faith then (and our faith now) has become strengthened through Jesus' zealous words and actions.  For Jesus knew the law: “ . . .you shall have no other gods before me . . . You shall not make for yourself an idol . . .”   No correct coins, no unblemished animals, no pile of stones is more important than a relationship with the living God.

The gift of the law God gave to the recently freed Hebrew slaves at Mt. Sinai to strengthen their faith and bring them closer to God's self became the gift Jesus gave to his disciples, to the people coming to worship in the temple that day, and finally to us.  Jesus' gift was to show us God's commandments, faithfully practiced, should free us from fear.   Because our efforts to keep God's commandments, successful or not, should lead us closer to knowing God, thereby strengthening our faith.

The monk Thomas Merton expressed this thought in a prayer with great eloquence.  You may have heard his prayer before, but let me share it now:

O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
And the fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
To make my journey alone.

So let’s go back to that cafe I spoke about in the beginning.  Were we present that day in the cafe and sitting close enough to hear the Lutheran pastor and the Jewish rabbi bid each other farewell, we might quietly say to God, “I offer you myself as I seek to keep the faith, and seek to keep the commandments.”

Except for the Merton prayer, quotes in this sermon were taken from commentary for the Third Sunday in Lent, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 2., edited by D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor, p 74-97.