B, Pent 13 Proper 17 - Psalm 15 - James 1:17-27 "Perfect Law that gives Freedom"
Texts
Deut. 4:1,2,6-9; Psalm 15:1-5; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-9,14-15,21-23
Sermon
If one was to summarise what the content of the bible texts is this week we would have to admit that they speak a lot about law. And where there is a lot of law there is a requirement for the hearer to take up the task of doing. In previous weeks we have heard Jesus feed the five thousand and offer his being as the bread of life, sent down from God for us to receive. Now we hear law and it seems to be a far cry from the being Christ has called us into! Or is it?
Now that we have Christ who has died for us and has been raised to life, there is a real temptation to think that the law is defunct; that it is no longer relative or that we no longer need it. Some even think that the law is a bad or evil thing, and spend their lives resisting the law.
However, the law is the wisdom of God, it is holy, and it sets God’s will before our eyes. The law was put in place so that a holy God could dwell in humanity’s presence, after doing it cleansed each participant.
God’s being is holy and for him to dwell in our presence, we too need to be holy. After all God tells us over and over again in Leviticus, “I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44) Our being has to be holy to be in God’s presence.
So the question is asked of us in the Psalm. “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?” (Psalm 15:1) This is a very good question to ask ourselves and it quickly reveals to us what our being is. In fact God asks of us: Are you blameless, are you righteous? Do you always speak the truth from your heart? Has there ever been slander on your tongue? Have you watched out for your neighbour? Have you wronged or cast any slur on others? Have you wrongly honoured evil people in favour of honouring those who fear the Lord? Have you made suspicious oaths and have you always kept promises even when it hurts? Have all your money dealings been acceptable? Those who do these things will never be shaken. Well, I am shaken to the marrow of my being with guilt!
The Lord has placed his statutes, ordinances, teachings, observances, or laws in place for us to follow. Our observation of the laws of God, especially the Ten Commandments, equips us with discernment and wisdom. And it does the same for our children when we teach them the law too.
The law is a boundary put there to keep us safe. There is one problem though. None of us can fulfil the law. None of us can do enough to be holy. The law shows us righteousness, but it also dooms to death when we sin or transgress!
Jesus came head long into conflict with the Pharisees. The Pharisees for all intentions and purposes were not bad people. They lived exemplary lives and were peaceful God fearing people. In our community today they would shine far above any of us, in their service of God, in their love of God, in their daily deeds, and in service to those in need. So why does Jesus come into such violent verbal conflict with them?
He says to them, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding onto the traditions of men.” And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.” (Mark 7:8-9, 13)
In short they became so focused on the doing of the law in the external — their visual practises; they never let it permeate their hearts — the internal being. Their focus became the law rather than God who gave them the law so they could dwell in his presence.
Why they did this could have been for a number of reasons. Perhaps they thought, if they could keep their external acts of righteousness separate from the things going on it their hearts they might have “felt” justified before God? Perhaps, they did let the Law, in its wisdom and purity, penetrate their hearts. And what it revealed was a cesspool of sin. Being holy as the Lord was holy, proving too difficult for the hearts of these pious ones. So instead of throwing themselves on the Lord’s mercy, which even in those days was infinite, they projected an air of self-righteous holiness to work righteousness in themselves before God and man.
But when Jesus, both Son of God and Son of man, came before them as the Word made flesh. His word and their words were different. They had changed the rule of God for their own rules and the holiness they projected was not holiness at all. Their faultless external acts, which would far out weigh the acts of the most pious person today, were no curtain for the Son of God who saw the reality of their hearts. Before the perfection of God, manifest in his Son Jesus Christ, their pseudo self-righteous holiness was shaken, as is ours.
Today we hear from the Epistle of James, and in coming weeks we will hear more from this epistle. Hot on the heels of hearing about Jesus being and how we are called to believe in him and his doing, we hear in James about our doing. In Lutheran circles the book of James has not been held in high regard as its “faith without works is dead” mantra, seems to come into conflict with the Gospel and texts such as Roman 3:28 where Paul says, “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”
However for us, holding these two views together in tension is important. We are justified by faith apart from the law, but then again if there are no works then faith is dead. So we ask the Holy Spirit for diligence to turn from our pharisaic ways, a sickness from which we all struggle to escape. We constantly repent and return to God’s word and the holiness we receive because of Jesus doing.
The issue for us is not so much that we should or shouldn’t do good works, but rather the issue is what works do we do, and how do they come about?
We are rightly told in James 1:17-18 that, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”
God give us our being, our Christian being, through the word of truth we are born — the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Our work is to believe, or as James says to persevere, “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:4) And again, “Blessed is the person who perseveres under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)
In perseverance you regularly repent and return, opening yourselves to receive faith from the Holy Spirit in the word, who brings us to the grace of God in Christ, worked on the cross, so that we might live in the peace of God’s forgiveness. In this gift of perseverance you are able to humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. This is the doing that God requires of us!
So we just don’t look at the word and forget it, we receive it by allowing the Holy Spirit to do God’s work within us. We look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom. This perfect law is Christ and the Holy Spirit’s faith-giving work to place Christ in us so we might have life.
The law convicts us to death and shows us the depth of our sin but the perfect law that gives freedom is Christ living is us freeing us to believe and trust we have an eternity of peace with God our Father. So as we continually see the horrors of our human nature we flee to God’s infinite mercy given and shed for us on the cross.
So back to the question put forward in Psalm 15, “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?” Because of Jesus Christ, we can dwell in the holiness of God’s presence; we are living on his holy hill! Jesus blood was spilt to atone for our sin — believe it and trust it.
If we work outside of enduring in Christ we step out of God’s holy and merciful presence and into his holy but wrathful presence and death. So stay under the umbrella of God’s mercy in Christ Jesus.
God says, be holy, because I am holy. This is no longer just a command but now it is also a promise for those who believe in Christ. We are holy, our being is holy, because God the Son is holy!
We may be shaken at times, but we cling to the cross, we persevere in Christ and his word, and we live in forgiveness and in the holiness given through his death and resurrection. Amen.
A prayer of Martin Luther from 1516. Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, just as I am your sin.
You have taken upon yourself what is mine, and given to me what is yours.
You have taken upon yourself what you were not, and given to me what I was not.
You have made my sins your own, and made your righteousness mine. Amen
