God remembers. At least four hundred years later and God
remembers the covenant he made with Abraham and Isaac and Joseph. God remembers that the cries of oppression
that he hears are of a people that God is calling into a greater purpose. People separated by centuries of time, are a
people still connected through God’s sacred plan. Abraham’s offspring have become a multitude
and now is the time for them to leave Egypt
The story of Moses is well known in
our modern culture. There are numerous
movies about the plight of the Hebrew people under the forced labor of Egypt,
the plagues, and Moses leading the people out of the country with the parting
of the Red Sea. Moses leads tens of
thousands of people out of Egypt and into the wilderness. Three months into their journey they arrive
to a place called Sinai and it is here that Moses receives a new Covenant, the
Covenant of the law.
As God gives this third Covenant,
Moses becomes the mediator between God and the people. In the cases of Noah and Abraham, God gave
the covenants directly to them, but now, there is a transition, instead of God
speaking to all the people of Israel in the Wilderness, just Moses is called to
receive the covenant.
Another major difference in the
receiving of this Covenant is that it is no longer an eternal covenant but
rather a conditional covenant. God
proclaims: If you obey and keep these
laws, then you will be a community consecrated to the service of God. If / then.
God now has established some requirements for the community. You are to be my people, a consecrated
community, but in order to do that, you must live your life reflecting these
laws. And so the law is given. We are rather familiar with the 10
commandments, but we are less familiar with the long list of other laws that
follow.
Why a covenant of law? Just as the other two covenants marked God
bringing forth a new creation, so too is this.
The movement of people out of slavery into freedom is a new creation and
in order for these people to transition, transform themselves, become a part of
God’s new creation, they need to understand how to live together as community
and as God’s people.
Thousands of years later, there are
still people within our greater community that are living out this covenant of
the law. By keeping Kosher, and other
forms of rigorous religious living, a people are maintaining this covenant as a
consecrated people to God. When I see
people walking to temple on Saturday morning it seems completely outdated and
yet, the dedication and commitment amazes me.
In such changing times, to hold so firmly to one’s tradition, one’s
religious practices, one’s purpose within God’s community is a powerful
witness.
Covenant Law, the people needed
guidelines in how to live together as a new community, as a people leaving
behind the security of the everyday routine into the future of the
unknown. And so as God gives Moses the
tablets of the law, the covenant is marked with a sign. Noah had the rainbow, Abraham has circumcision,
Moses receives the tablets and seals this covenant with a sacrifice of animals,
and scatters the blood binding the agreement between God and people.
And then Moses has the people make
an Ark. This will be a sacred box in
which the tablets will be place and it will be carried with the people
throughout their journey towards the Promised Land. They are not just given this covenant
verbally, it is now a sacred symbol journeying with them, a constant reminder
that God is with them, God is leading them, God is calling them to live within
the structure of these laws.
As the people learned to live as a
people of God rather than has slaves under Pharaoh there were a lot of growing
pains, but eventually the do make it to the Promised Land, or at least their
children do. And the law continued to
guide them as their spiritual leadership changed over time. They remained a people called by God to be a
kingdom of Priests, a Holy Nation, a people with a divine purpose.
Jump forward thousands of years into
the day and age of Jesus, Jesus is able to take a step back from his religion,
from the laws in which he too has lived his life. He sees how strict they have become, how they
are no longer giving people the freedom to live as God’s people, but rather
have become a burden to the people. The
law was to be a boundary, a way of illustrating right and wrong, but rather,
they became too constrictive keeping people from God rather than binding them
to their Creator.
Jesus uses Sabbath keeping as an
example. No work on the Sabbath become
so burdensome, no work included not helping a person that needed help. As Jesus heals on the Sabbath, he makes his
point that it is better to give life on the Sabbath than to neglect the needs
of another. And so we have this passage
of Woes against the scribes and Pharisees that sit on Moses’ seat. They are the keepers of the law. They are the keepers of the Covenant given to
Moses and the people so many generations ago.
They are the keepers of this Holy Nation and they have placed such a
burden on the people that they are keeping people out of God’s purpose.
Jesus goes as far as to say – Woe to
you scribes and Pharisees for you lock people out of the Kingdom of
heaven. These are strong words. The very people that are suppose to be
bringing people to God Jesus accuses of keeping people out. Jesus had a heart to see those that were left
out, the poor, the disabled, the outcastes, and yes, even the sinners. God did not call a select group within the
Israelite people to be God’s people, God created the entire nation to be a Holy
Nation. Every person should feel valued
by God, not thrown away, not on the fringes, not unclean. But that is how so many people felt, they had
no hope of being made whole spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, and
socially.
Jesus proclaims, I did not come to
nullify the law, but rather fulfill the law.
Under the teachings of Jesus, there is still the law, there is still:
Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your neighbor as
yourself. All of the law can be hung on
these two commandments. Thou Shall Not
does not sound anything like love, but if you think about it – if you love God,
then thou shall not take God’s name in vain.
If you have love for neighbor, thou shall not kill. Reversing the way these laws are heard seems
to be more inclusive for us in today’s world.
The covenant of the law, given to
Moses so long ago, is still a strong hold for us today. Most everyone knows of the 10 Commandments,
although we might not be able to list them all.
We know the main ones: Thou shalt
not kill, or steal, or covet. These seem
to make sense for community living whether we are a people living in the
wilderness or a people living in our modern world. And yet, and yet we still can’t seem to get
it right. Our world is hurting, people
are grieving, lives are not valued, and there is great tension in many
communities. There is so much anger and
that anger needs to be used for positive transforming results instead of more
violence. Years ago, I gave sermon
called: be angry but do not sin. Anger is okay, in fact, we should be
angry. But what we do with that anger is
essential.
God gave Moses the covenant of the
law and the scriptures make this a very personal connection. God wrote the covenant with God’s very own
finger. By the finger of God the law was
given. I believe that for us today, we
must reconnect with the personnel connection God has with us. Where is the finger of God touching the
world? God remembered God’s people in
the days of Egypt, and God remembered God’s people in the days of Jesus, and
God remembers God’s people in the age of technological greatness, and God is present
in our pain at senseless violence. We
may not live our lives by the code of the rigorous laws of our scripture, but
let us at least live into love of God and love of neighbor.
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