Scripture: Exodus 20:13; Matthew 5: 21-26
Sermon: The Way of Death; the Way of Life
Topics: Pro-life, Anger, Inside
Preached: October 23, 2016 Woodlawn CRC
Rev. Mike Abma
Preamble: PATH
We are on the 6th commandment this week.
It is just two short Hebrew words
Which are exactly the same in Exodus 20: 13 and in Deuteronomy 5: 17.
There is the word for No – which in Hebrew is Lo
Then there is the verb, the Hebrew word Rasa.
I learned this week that when the NRSV translation committee gathered to confirm the final form of the NRSV translation, they were split down the middle between two different translations.
One half thought Rasa should be translated as “murder.”
The other half thought Rasa should be translated as “kill.”
So the 6th commandment can be read either way:
You shall not murder
You shall not kill (see the footnote in the text of your pew Bibles).
We confess that the Word of God
is a lamp to our feet
and a light to our path.
When the Israelites ventured from the mountain
and entered the wilderness,
these commandments were kept in the Ark of the Covenant
at the very center of the Tabernacle,
in the very heart of the community.
These commandments acted as a
source of life as they ventured into the territory of death.
This sixth commandment,
these 2 little words,
still need to be a lamp to our feet,
and a light to our path
as we walk through some pretty tough
and pretty perilous terrain.
Think of all the places this commandment touches on.
Think of the whole difficult terrain of abortion,
those tough cases our denomination recognizes,
when the life of the mother-to-be is threatened
and there is a heart-breaking decision to be made
which will either threaten the mother or the unborn child.
Think of the whole difficult terrain of euthanasia
where there is often that heart-breaking tension between
the ongoing pain of the patient and the sanctity of life.
Whoever says that navigating this terrain is easy clearly has never actually walked it.
This sixth commandment,
these 2 little words,
still need to be a lamp to our feet,
and a light to our path
as we walk through the quagmire of Capital Punishment.
For those of us who believe in the sanctity of life,
everyone’s life,
is it ever permissible to take a person’s life from them
if they have committed a horrendous crime?
This sixth commandment,
these 2 little words
still need to be a lamp to our feet,
and a light to our path
as we walk through the whole fog of War.
Is killing in war justified? If so, when and how is it justified?
Is it justified to use drones to do that killing?
And is this sixth commandment limited to the killing of human beings?
Does it say anything to the killing of other creatures we share this planet with?
These are just some of the many perils and pitfalls on our path
through the wilderness of life.
And we want, we need this commandment to be
a lamp to our feet
and a light to our path.
II. INTERNAL PATH
In this sermon, I could boldly set off
and try tiptoe through this wilderness of issues —
or maybe, American-Ninja style, I could race my way through them really,
really quickly.
But we are not going to do that.
Instead, we are going to stop a moment,
and try get our bearings.
We are going to do that
by turning to what Jesus said about this commandment
in his sermon on the Mount.
It can be found in Matthew 5: 21-26 (p. 576)
Matthew 5: 21-26
21 ‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.”
22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement;
and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council;
and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire.
23So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
We read the 6th commandment
and we think of all those morally murky paths
through all those difficult issues in the world.
But the path Jesus takes does not start out there in the world.
It starts in here, in our hearts.
Jesus is saying that before you start using this command
to navigate your way through the wilderness of this world,
you need to shine its light on
the wilderness of your thoughts,
the wilderness of your words,
the wilderness of your actions.
Shine this light on the inside,
and if there is any anger there,
you are already breaking this commandment.
Shine this light on the inside,
and if there are any insults,
you are already in the land of darkness rather than the land of light.
Shine this light on the inside
and if there are any actions
that treat another person with contempt,
as if they are a fool,
then you are already off the path of life and on the path of death.
What Jesus is telling us here is that there is a whole pathology
of draining people of life
stripping them of their dignity
and reducing them to nothing
that goes on in our thoughts, words, and actions
long before we lay a finger on anyone.
Jesus is saying the light of this commandment
has to shine on the inside first,
because if all that darkness and death is on the inside,
how can we be walking in the light,
walking on the path of life on the outside?
III. THE HOLOCAUST and OUR HOMES
If I were to ask you “What was the greatest transgression of the 6th commandment in the 20th century?” what would you say?
I think a number of you would say that the Holocaust was the greatest transgression of this commandment.
The Holocaust – the systematic death of millions of Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany.
Say you could be transported back to Munich or Berlin in 1939 or 1940.
Would you find a lot of people overflowing with anger and hatred toward the Jews?
No, you would not.
You would not because evil does not work that way.
Evil tends to takes something admirable, and then twist it out of shape.
Evil takes a reasonable love and then corrupts it somehow.
So back in Germany in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s,
people took something admirable,
like their love for their country,
and they turned it, they twisted it, into something idolatrous.
They took something reasonable, like their desire for law and order,
and they twisted it into something racist.
They took something understandable, like their own struggles and hardships,
and they twisted it into something accusatory.
And how did all these things on the inside get translated on the outside?
Well, first the Jews were not really true Germans.
Then the Jews were, by their very nature, all swindlers and thieves.
Then the Jews were a big reason for their hardships and suffering.
And finally, the Jews simply needed to be gotten rid of,
the way you would exterminate an infestation of rats.
Before you hurt, harm, or kill someone,
you reduce them, you diminish them, you dismiss them.
Now I know the Holocaust seems so long ago and so far away.
It seems like such an extreme example.
So let me get much more mundane,
much more close to home — in fact, let me talk about our homes,
and our marriages.
Do you know what they say is the first casualty in a marriage?
Civility.
Civility is said to be the first casualty in marriage.
Spouses no longer say “please” or “thank you.”
There are no longer gestures of warmth and respect.
When my wife Shirlene and I led those pre-marriage weekends out at Camp Geneva, we would spend most of an afternoon talking about
the things husbands and wives do, and say, and think
that are life-taking,
that drain the life and the love out of a relationship.
And then we would talk about
the things husbands and wives do, and say, and think,
that are life-giving,
that fill a relationship with life and love.
IV. PATH through the WILDERNESS OF THE WORLD
The light of this sixth commandment
has to shine on the wilderness of our hearts first,
then has to shine on the wilderness of our homes,
our closest relationships.
And finally, the light of this sixth commandment
has to shine on the path that leads us through the wilderness of our world.
John Calvin, our very own John Calvin,
was very big on how the 6th commandment
has to blaze a path for us to help the weakest, the poorest, the most
vulnerable in our world.
Calvin says that
If there is any way we can save a neighbor’s life,
We need to save it;
If there is any way we can bring peace to a neighbor’s conflict,
We need to bring it;
If there is any way we can help people in danger,
We need to help.
Why?
Because the world can be a wilderness filled with dangers,
where many are threatened by death,
but we, as a Church, must be like Noah’s Ark,
pulling people to safety.
That whole image of pulling people to safety got me thinking of a short documentary I saw recently on the New York Times website.
The documentary is called 4.1.
4.1 refers to the 4.1 miles of open water
between the coast of Turkey
and the shore of the nearest Greek island, Lesbos.
The documentary is only about 20 minutes long.
There is no narrator, no commentary.
A camera simply follows Captain Kyriakos and his Greek Coast Guard ship for a day.
It is a harrowing video,
that captures
how hard it is to go out to sea
and find these rafts overloaded with desperate people;
how hard it is to actually get them all safely on board;
how hard it is to find the people who have fallen off the raft
and are floating in the open sea;
how hard it is once you get all your rescued people to shore,
to go right back out to rescue more.
There is one scene, near the middle of the video,
where Captain Kyriakos is scanning the horizon
looking for any bodies that might still be floating in the water.
He says he is haunted by the thought of missing someone —
and with 1000’s trying to cross everyday
it is hard to spot everyone.
His face is weary.
You can see that the weight of what he is doing is heavy.
In the silence, you wonder how he does it, day after day.
Then the camera moves from his face,
to a Greek Orthodox icon, hanging in the cabin of his ship.
I do not know my Greek icons that well,
so I am not sure if it was a picture of a saint or of Jesus himself.
But in showing that icon,
you get the clear sense
that what is pushing Kyriakos to go out,
day after day, hour after hour,
to pull people out of those waves of death
onto his ship of life
is because he is following the One who
left the safety of his own home
to enter the wilderness of our world.
He is following the One who
came to reach out and save us all –
the strong and the weak
the rich and the poor
the sinner and the saint.
He is following the One who ended up in a sea of hatred,
and in a wilderness of insults and anger,
of mockery and humiliation.
This man stood in our dismal darkness, as a beacon of light;
This man stood in our wilderness of death as the tree of life.
CONCLUSION
Here is the truth —
the path of life will take us all through some sort of wilderness of
death.
In that video,
it took people to the miseries on the Mediterranean.
Perhaps it will take you through the fog of conflict,
or through the quagmire of justice,
or through the heart-break of health care decisions.
Wherever your path takes you,
allow this commandment
to shine a light
On the wilderness of your hearts,
On the intimacies of your homes,
On the complexities of your world.
Wherever your path takes you,
allow Christ to be your Captain,
for his life is stronger than death,
his light is greater than any darkness,
his kingdom is bigger than any of our moral complexities.
With the Word as our Light,
and Christ as our Captain,
we become a people that dies and rises with Him;
A people committed to dying to all that is deadly in us,
and rising to all that is life-giving and life-affirming in him.
That is how we move forward
That is how we move forward
through whatever wilderness we face:
as Resurrection People,
as people of life not people of death.
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