RCL Readings Monday, October 24

Texts: Psalm 119:41-48, Deuteronomy 6:1-9,20-25; James 2:1-8

Ah, the law. Some of us are programmed, whenever we hear that word, to cringe, to think it is about what we have to do to make God (or another person) happy, to think it is another thing to add to our already long list of what it looks like to live a Christian life. If that's all it is, who would want it?

So often, we think of God's mercy and grace only coming through Christ, rather than seeing the deliverance that has happened over and over again through the Biblical narrative. Yes, we do believe Christ to be the definitive expression of grace, the once-and-for-all mercy and grace to which we cling so desperately, but, if we only experience grace and mercy through Christ, what of the deliverance of which the Psalmist and Deuteronomy speak?

⁴¹Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise.

⁴²Then I shall have an answer for those who taunt me, for I trust in your word.

⁴³Do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your ordinances.

⁴⁴I will keep your law continually, forever and ever.

⁴⁵I shall walk at liberty, for I have sought your precepts.

⁴⁶I will also speak of your decrees before kings, and shall not be put to shame;

⁴⁷I find my delight in your commandments, because I love them.

⁴⁸I revere your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.

The promise of God's steadfast love is present throughout the narrative. We see this in the words of the Shema (so named because it forms the first word of this command):

⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵You shall love theLord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6 goes on to talk about the reason why the Israelites remember the LORD: it is because it was by the LORD's hand they were delivered from Egypt and from the wilderness. Though they stumbled and fumbled their way through the desert (even on foot, 40 years to cross Sinai is a bit of overkill) to find themselves in a land that was rich with blessing.

James, however, reminds us not to view external blessings as an indication of our salvation. So often, we create our own laws to measure whether or not we are being good Christians. So often, those measurments involve some sort of power, economic success, or prestige. When these laws become confused with God's laws, we create for ourselves images of stone, edifices made of the best materials money can buy, and they crumble in our fingers as we realize God's the law is one that liberates the other, one in which grace and mercy that come unbidden, undeserved, that make us hungry to look not to ourselves for how we determine the ways in which we live, but to the cross. We are reminded of the text from yesterday in James, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," not because it is a means of salvation, but because it is an expression of the grace and mercy first shown to us.