Empty Hands

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

August 17, 2008

Text: Romans 10: 5-15

Measuring up: a part of living.

At least 8 of 10 free-throws. To touch the rim, to get at least as high as my first finger joint: at 6 feet, and a scant 1 inch, this was measuring up.

At least 80 on the exam, to bring my Spanish grade up to a C.
 
A tithe of my income (is this figured on gross or adjusted gross or after taxes?)

In the Spring of 1969, I learned that Dr. Outler, Chair of my Board of Ordained Ministry, was asking each candidate coming before him for examination and approval, what John Wesley’s Three General Rules were. Being tipped off, this gave me time to stop by Bridwell Library to be sure. Dr. Outler, the greatest living scholar on John Wesley, would not be amused to hear me say that I did not know!
 
You will have your own list of expectations: Degrees, income, exams, parental expectations: the words of a father or mother which stay in our psyches: “Make something of yourself.” 

Or it may be the requirement, narrowly understood, given by someone in authority: “Behave yourself.” Or, even more daunting, “Be yourself.”

In our times, the “laws” or expectations (expected “shoulds” and “should-nots”) are not always religious. But these expectations are often religiously (seriously) held. To be acceptable in the eyes of those who count most to you, you may hear the demands: You should, must, have to be this or do that. To be successful, to have self-respect, to be happy, to be fulfilled----here is what you must do and not do. We often need to something to prove.

Much good comse from demands laid upon us or adopted by us; and  competition to accomplish our goals can spur us on, and can cause us to achieve great things, or stay out of trouble. (Michael Phelps’ mother remembers his coach asking his mother if Michael was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to become a world-class swimmer. Her response: “My Lord, he’s only 11 years old!”)

Religious law gets its foot in the door early if we are in church enough. I can remember by the age of 6 learning that it was important not to speak up or laugh when the pastor was giving his 10 minute prayer! At VBS, we were expected to memorize 10 verses of scripture which we would recite in front of the gathered assembly. So I learned that the words of the Bible were worth remembering (which may explain my early love of words). There is the risk, of course, that when we are young we may regard our learnings as simply another step of achievement, alongside gymnastics, grades in school, scout badges, etc. “Add this to my resume!”

And yet to learn early and often in church that God expects us to live and act in certain ways in opposition to certain other behaviors and attitudes, can be a good thing. Which is to say that, in addition to learning how much God loves you and me (Jesus’ compassion and the cross), it is important for us to learn that Jesus expects something of us (to show compassion and to sacrificially give myself for other’s sakes----and this means lives disciplined around expectations: fruits).

We church members who are age 60-plus may have grown up believing that church was all about the things we should not do----and we have spent our adult year rebelling against this negative view. In previous generations, we seemed to get the same impression of church as we did of diet plans---- that if it tastes good, spit it out! Groucho Marx found himself on an elevator with a Catholic priest. The priest recognizes him and says: “I want to thank you Groucho, for all the laughter you have brought into the world.” To which Groucho replied. “Thank you, Father. And I want to thank you for all the laughter you have taken out of the world.” (Source Unknown)

But, all in all, we know the importance of all of the should and should-nots.  

Jesus’ Jewish heritage was rich in Law, what they knew as Torah. Torah was the heart of covenant, God’s counsel on how to live in community together. The Torah was regarded as a wonderful gift. And at least one did not have to wonder what the boss requires.    And yet………

It is a part of our (fallen) human nature that we tend to make good gifts into burdens.

Take for example the ancient Israelites. God chose them, takes the initiative. As they tell the story, it is not that they advertise for a god who will do what they want. But for reasons known only to God, God picks Abraham and Sarah and makes a great nation out of them and their descendents. He makes a covenant with them. God will stick with them, bless them, and through them, bless all people. This covenant is God’s gift.

What are they to do in return? They are asked to trust God. Trust in God, that God has their best interests at heart. And because God loves them so much, God gives them, eventually, a way of life to uphold and commandments to follow. For their own good, God outlines for them what it takes to live together: These are known to us as the 10 commandments, really the 10 “words.” You shall have no other gods but worship me alone as the only real God. You shall not make idols and worship- them, for I cannot be seen. You shall not use my name for trivial or cursing purposes. Rest on the Sabbath (as even God did.) Honor your father and your mother, for without them you wouldn’t be at all! Don’t murder anyone. No adultery. No stealing. No lies about your neighbor. No lusting after (coveting) anything which is your neighbor’s.

Through the years, after receiving these 10 rules, they came up with many more rules and laws: statutes and ordinances, which was really common law, based on situations that arose. Threatened by alien cultures around them, their rules more and more was a circling of the wagons, making sure that they did not get swallowed up by other religions. These included dietary laws, instructions about the keeping of the Sabbath, for example.

God could be trusted to stick by them and forgive them and bless them---- just because God wants to, and God needs helpers in the earth to share the news about him and the ways of living meaningfully and peaceably on this planet. They would God’s example of Shalom.  Their history is not a pretty one, as they are often stubbornly disobedient, and they suffer from their wrong turns.

In time, some leaders of God’s people got the idea that they could make themselves more loveable to God the more of the rules they performed. And so ‘religion’ was born---religion as the keeping of the rules in order to be closer to God, in order to be safe in God’s presence. By the time of Jesus, the religious leaders had spun out thousands of rules to follow to be acceptable in God’s presence. It was like a huge mountain built between God and God’s people which could not be climbed except by a few specially trained people.

Or so they thought. “Law was [originally] to engender trust in God who had chosen them”---- but the law, corrupted by sin, caused them to trust in their own efforts to keep the relationship alive and well, instead of trusting in God. They had made an idol of their own achievements. (Paul Achtemeier, Romans)
 
What happened was that the more people tried to be and do what God wanted them to be and do, the more discouraged they got. Many just quit trying. Most pictured God in their mind’s eye as a wrathful, unhappy, demanding God, far up above, the one who kept a big ledger with a listing of all the sins people had committed, measured off against the good deeds. God as covenant-maker and gift-giver was obscured.

Now it wasn’t that God didn’t expect anything of the people he chose. Just as a loving parent has expectations, rules and boundaries for his or her children, God does, too. Just as a business has expectations, codes of behavior, so does God.

But they had forgotten the covenant part: God’s choosing them and guiding them for love’s sake. They thought that, if they were just good enough, they could make God come down from heaven, or come up from the deep places and take care of  them.

The mind-set regarding the law is characterized by this verse from Leviticus 18: 15: “The person who keeps the statutes and ordinances of the Lord shall live.”

 “With the best of intentions, Israel sought to earn God’s favor by doing everything the law required…. In striving to make the grade, Israel had looked for salvation in its own efforts….” ( Karen Pidcock-Lester, Interpretation, July 1996)

Then the strangest thing happened. A man named Jesus of the village of Nazareth was born, grew up in the home of a man named Joseph and his wife Mary. He was Jewish. He learned the rich heritage of his people: the covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah; the rescue of his ancestors from slavery in Egypt; the 10 commandments and the messages of the prophets and the wise men and women. And when he was about 30 years old, he began to travel by foot throughout the area of Israel, teaching that this ancient God of the Mountain, the Law-Giving, Covenant-making God was not distant at all, but was in them and among them. He invited people, especially people of his heritage, to change their ways, accept God’s forgiveness and live in loving relationship with this God, and in active love of their neighbors----which included anyone in need, whether they were friends, family or strangers. Those who took up this way would know the joy of God’s steadfast love as well as the joy of a life lived for an eternal purpose: to be the pioneers of a new world of peace which God would accomplish in the future.

Israel was preserving a wonderful heritage, such an important calling!

 Jesus was proclaiming a new creation, rooted in that same ancient heritage.

 Laws? Jesus intensified the laws! But he spoke of the God of the Mountain who was in the valleys, too----with them and for them. And of law which would be written on theirs hearts, not on scrolls or in books.

And here was the good news of it all: they did not have to wait until they had performed the law perfectly------for no human being could do so!

No human being could or must do so. This was not the purpose of the law in the first place. The purpose of the Law in the first place was to demonstrate God’s guiding hand in their lives, shepherding them toward full maturity of God’s people who are grown up and act like it. Law was for the sake of reminding people that they are responsible agents in God’s creation----created and called not simply to take up space and oxygen for a time, but to be on God’s side, at God’s side, showing and telling of God’s dream for a restored creation!

And here is the most surprising thing of all about this man Jesus. Even though the religious and political leaders conspired to torture and kill him and did so, in three days God raised him back to life. That’s what his followers said, even those who came much later, like the apostle Paul: Jesus was no longer dead but appeared to them in some unimaginable way, and then went to be with the God who gave him birth. Resurrection’s result in their lives was this: every time they gathered for their holy meal, they experienced in the bread and wine the real spiritual presence of this same Jesus. The same Jesus the disciples knew was now portable and universally available to all people---as near as our lips and our hearts. (That’s very close!) “Covenant is not remote…..God has graciously reached out…..and drawn near.”

Jew or Gentile: which includes all of us, any of us, listen: What do you do when you want to be secure, safe, in God’s family?

Do you have to show your credentials? Your resume? Your transcript? Your financial statements? Your geneology? Your drivers license or social security number? Your awards for perfect attendance?

 “Temptation: to feel we can and must earn God’s presence. God calls us not to help him be available but only to acknowledge his ready availability.” We are invited to “[see] in the events of Jesus of Nazareth the guiding hand of God himself---this is what faith is all about.” (Achtemeier)

Even  after all of these centuries, you and I come to God with empty hands. “Shall we never permit our hands to be empty, that we may grasp what only empty hands can grasp?” “In the tribulations of our existence, in our sighing and questioning, in our seeking and crying, God reveals the riches of divine salvation and divine healing, which are the hidden roots of our tribulation.” (Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, page 383 and 380-381) …

If you respond, you do so simply acknowledging that there is no way you, on your own, can do all that God expects on your own. You come stripped of every illusion about your own self-sufficiency. You only “embrace God who in Jesus Christ has opened wide the divine arms and waits to embrace” you. (Pidcock-Lester)

Whosoever will: the best news of all is this: “Every one who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” God “bestows his riches upon all who call upon him.” “Wherever and whenever the gospel is preached, salvation is to be found here and now, within us, because God has drawn near.” (Barth)

“With our lips.”

Lots of words pass our lips. With our voices we curse and bless, praise and complain. We reveal what it is we believe and what we doubt. In the earliest church, citizens of the Roman Empire were required, on penalty of death, to confess in the presence of witnesses, that Caesar was Lord----in other words, that Caesar was their only god, that their ultimate allegiance was to him.

“Jesus is Lord” is not some incantation, some mantra which saves you or me. Could it be, however, no trivial matter to make this confession? The specificity of it! Jesus of Nazareth is the one in whom God has come to us, to save us and the whole world. Jesus is my Master teacher? I will look to Jesus----his teachings and example, his way of relating to others, his life of self-giving---as the way to live my life?! This is certainly, if not dangerous, at leastcountercultural.

I appreciate the way Eugene Peterson translates Paul: “It is the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us.” (The Message, Romans 10: 11)

Or in the words of my dear teacher, “it is in the giving of ourselves wholly into the keeping of this [unbounded love], by surrendering all other securities, that we realize our authentic life….abandoning ourselves wholly to God [as revealed in Jesus as our redeemer and creator.” (“God Acts in History,” in The Reality of God, Ogden, page 186, adapted)

It is our “heart” that we are to believe with. “Heart” is another way of saying our whole thinking, feeling, willing self. “Faith makes us ready to be taught and led and willing to listen and to yield….” (Luther, Romans)

Believing that God raised Jesus from the dead?! Whoa! How do you convince your mind to believe that? I do not believe Paul was asking for mental gymnastics here. Resurrection was not any more a plausible event in Paul’s day as it is in ours.

 To believe in the resurrection is to believe that somehow God has made it so that the Jesus we read about is present in us, in our fellowship and working in our world, here and now; that the person we encountered in Jesus came from God and returned to God and that this Triune is still made known to us through the Holy Spirit. To trust that this is so is to believe with the heart and be restored, it is salvation. Salvation not only as a future event, but also as something we experience at least partially in our daily lives.

Notice again: this confession is not something we do. “We are calling out to God, trusting God to do it for us.” (Message) We surrender our attempts to save ourselves, and accept God’s acceptance of us, through faith by grace alone. There will be much that we can and will do as disciples of Jesus, but not so as to win God’s love and forgiveness. We will be freed to work for God---to be responsible in the use of our considerable talents----- as loving response to God’s saving grace.

There are many gods and lords vying for our full allegiance (nation, racial pride, the almighty dollar). There are many teachers who tell us what we must do to be fulfilled, happy, complete or safe (possessions, knowledge, the right mate, the pursuit of popular ideals of physical beauty; even a certain set of religious practices). Almost drowned out is the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the good news as close as your lips and your heart, which was spoken by Jesus long ago, and is always timely:

“Come unto me all who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11: 28-30)

For Further Reading I recommend:

Schubert Ogden, The Reality of God.
Paul Achtemeier, Romans.