Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

March 23, 2003

St. Luke's, Jamestown

by The Rev. Eric M. Williams

On this Sunday I want to begin with a moment of silence.  We are at war.  Thousands of miles away, men and women are fighting on our behalf to end the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.  Whatever your feelings about this conflict, I urge you now to bow your heads in prayer and to remember, as I know you have already done and continue to do, to pray for our troops at home and abroad, our leadership, especially our president, along with the people of Iraq and their leaders.  May peace come quickly, without more loss of life, and without spreading this conflict.  In the time to come, may God’s peace come to every nation and every human heart, so that violent conflict and terrorism may cease forever. 

Friedrich Nietzsche tells of the legend in which there are three stages of the spiritual saga. First, we are a camel; then a lion; finally, a child.

First, a camel: We begin life by kneeling down, loaded and laden with the tradition of our parents, teachers, ancestors, friends. When we are fully loaded for our journey, we are led out into the desert and there discover that we are alone, that this is our journey, not our parents' journey. At this realization we are transformed into the second stage, a lion.

The lion in the desert has one primary task: slay the dragon. In the desert lives a great dragon named Thou shalt. Upon every scale of the dragon is written a law, some of which are four thousand years old, some two thousand years old, and some two days old. It is the external world that tells you what to do, who you are and what you must not do. The lion of your soul must slay that ancient dragon. If we persist in this quest to become ourselves, then we become transformed into the child.

The last stage of the spiritual quest is the child. We are transformed into the divine spontaneity and the freedom of a child who has God's word engraved in his heart. In this stage we do not have the derivative, defensive laws which we had as camels imprinted on our souls, but a new law, a law of the Spirit that brings us to joy and fullness and ecstasy. [1]
 

Jesus, as far as we know, didn’t get angry very often.

         So we ought to pay attention when he did.

                  He lost it most famously at the temple.

There are lots of theories about why he got so mad.

         Perhaps he was mad because the moneychangers were cheating the pilgrims.

                  Or because it was inappropriate to have money inside the temple gate.

I have a different theory.

         I think he was mad about something much more fundamental.

He was disgusted with the whole misguided religion.

         He spent his life trying to convince people

                  that religion is about a living relationship with God.

And yet everywhere he went,

         people had turned religion into empty rituals.

                  The Pharisees loved the laws—

                           they had every one of the hundreds of Biblical laws memorized.

Their idea of holiness was to observe them all,

         or at least to convince others to obey them!

                  But their mistake, and the mistake of the Sadducees at the temple,

                           was to make the laws themselves into a kind of god.

The law was God’s gift to humanity,

         a gift particularly to the people of Israel.

                  The ten commandments were the pinnacle and the symbol of that gift.

The ten commandments to this day serve as a timeless symbol of God’s law.

         They show us right behavior, right conduct,

                  right relationship with God and others.

                           They have stood the test of time.

But they are not the end; they are the beginning.

         The goal, the whole point, is a relationship with God and others

                  that is based on love, grace and forgiveness.

                           That is the point of Nietzsche’s story.

There is a wonderful sign in a church in Baltimore.

         “Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

                  It is signed -- the Sisters of Mercy.

I believe that, just like the Pharisees and Saduccees,

         we are still in danger of missing the point.

                  We still would rather have the law

                           than the freedom Jesus offers.

There is an old joke often told

         about three people who died and went to their judgment.

                  All three of them were found wanting and were sent to hell.

The first, a Methodist, confessed to having a drink.

         The second, a Baptist, confessed to gambling on the ponies.

                  The last, an Episcopalian, what was his offense?

                           Using the wrong fork.

The law would be fine if we stuck to the 10 commandments.

         But we keep adding and adding to the list.

There is an old Frank & Ernest cartoon showing the two in front of a wall of bookshelves in the Law Library.  Frank is saying to Ernest, “It's frightening when you think that we started out with just 10 commandments.”

We all carry in our minds and hearts a list of do’s and don’ts.

         Many of them come from childhood.

                  Get your elbows off the table. Sit up straight.  Eat your vegetables.

                           And all of them, I’m sure, are good for us and important.

But at some point these well-intentioned rules

         begin to take over our life.

                  They suck the joy out of living

                           and they become, in fact, the reason for living.

We forget that life is about loving and being loved

         and we start thinking that life is about being right

                  and getting others to do the same.

The priest I worked for when I was just ordained was from England.

         He told me the difference between the English and Americans.

                  “Americans,” he said, “want to be happy.”

                           “The English want to be right!”

I think he was mistaken.

         I think we all want to be right.

                  We are desperate to earn love and approval

                           by learning the rules and following them.

And often, because it’s the right thing to do,

         instead of showing our love to others,

                  we set and enforce a set of rules and expectations.

Please don’t misunderstand me.

         Rules are good and necessary.

                  Accountability is important.

But deep down don’t you ever get tired of the burden

         of always having to be right?

                  Aren’t you tired of always feeling like a failure

                           because you can ever be right enough?

There are always more rules, more laws, more demands

         than we can ever keep up with.

                  If others don’t give them to us,

                           we make up our own impossible list.

For many many people God is the stern father

         who will never approve of us,

                  never appreciate us,

                           never really love and accept us,

                                    no matter what we do.

And it’s right there in the scriptures if we want to justify that vision.

         “I the Lord your God am a jealous God,

                  punishing children for the iniquity of parents…

                           but showing steadfast love…to those who…

                                    keep my commandments.”

In other words, God says,

         “If you keep my commandments, I will love you.”

                  But Jesus turns that around and gives us a whole new spin on God.

                           Jesus puts love first.

If you love me, keep my commandments.

         And what are my commandments?

                  Love.  Just love.

Love totally and without reservation.

         Love God, love each other, even love yourself.

                  Just love.

Kids get this much better than adults.

         The best part of each day for me is when I come home.

                  When Emily sees me at the door her whole body responds.

She offers me the gift of absolute unconditional love.

         She yells, Dad-dy, and runs over with arms outstretched

                  and hurls herself against my legs at full speed.

She hasn’t yet learned to hold back her love.

         She hasn’t yet learned that there are rules and laws and conditions.

                  Wouldn’t it be something if she never had to?

Jesus said that in order to enter the kingdom of God

         we would have to become like little children.

                  Maybe Nietzsche was on to something.

                           Maybe this was what Jesus meant.

Maybe, just maybe, if we could let go of our need to be right all the time,

         if we could let go of the litany of do’s and don’ts,

                  if we could move beyond the camel and the lion,

                           we could experience the freedom that Jesus offers—

The freedom to love as we are loved,

         to forgive as we are forgiven,

                  to accept others as we have been accepted.

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