Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
Today, as we celebrate Scout Sunday, we
welcome the boys of Troop and Pack 16, as well as their leaders and parents. Let me take a moment for a shout-out to a man
who’s had to deal with two of the most demanding roles I can imagine: Dave Banks.
One of those demanding roles has been serving as our Troop 16
Scoutmaster, a job of great sacrifice from which he is stepping down at the end
of this month. The other, even more
demanding, role has been getting stuck with following in Morgan Olander’s
footsteps. Dave has given countless
hours in his service to the Scouts of Troop 16, their families, and the family
of St. Andrew’s – so please show him your appreciation.
So, as we mark Scout Sunday, I want to be
clear in what it is we’re celebrating.
We’re not honoring a community partner, some organization we allow to
use the building each week. We’re raising
up one of the primary youth and family ministries of our church. I draw that distinction because Scouting is about
formation – from a Christian perspective, it’s about forming followers of Jesus
in how they represent Jesus to the world.
And the same could be said about the Girl Scouts, too. Scouting isn’t just campouts; it’s
discipleship. And that journey of
growing as a disciple, of growing more and more into “the measure of the full
stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) – that’s a journey God asks every last one
of us to be taking.
A bit later today, six of the boys of
Troop 16 will become Eagle Scouts. As
you know, it’s the pinnacle of Scouting achievement. But, as I’m sure we’ll hear in the remarks this
afternoon, it’s also just the beginning for these boys. Their lives will change the world – certainly
in small ways, maybe in big ways, too. So,
although these Scouts will earn the fruit of their labors this afternoon, they’re
definitely not finished with the work God has given them to do. And that illustrates what may be the best
characteristic of Scouting, and certainly something Scouting shares with other
ministries that form us as Jesus’ disciples:
Scouting is aspirational. There’s
always another merit badge to work on; there’s always a further rank to
attain. As the grown-up Eagle Scouts
among us demonstrate every day, there’s always a greater difference to be made,
a greater benefit to bring to the world and the people around you.
Aspiration runs through the readings we
heard this morning, too. In Deuteronomy,
we hear Moses trying to explain to the people of Israel that, when it comes to
God’s Law, the stakes are so much higher than they imagine. The Law is not simply a list of rules and
regulations for people about to move into a new land. The Law is God’s path of blessing for a people
set aside to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. Following the Law is the way wilderness wanderers
become a great nation, how wayfaring strangers become a light to the world. As Moses tells his people, following the Law
is the great choice God asks them to make, in that time and place. I have set before you two options, the Lord
says through Moses – the way of life and prosperity or the way of death and
adversity. It’s just that stark. This path of blessing, for yourselves and for
the world, is not something you can simply sample as it suits you, a path of convenience. This path of blessing brings you life, and it
brings the light of God’s life to the
world. So, Moses cries to his people, choose
this steeper path. “Choose life, that
you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and
holding fast to him,” Moses says. Aspire
to be the beloved community, living out nothing less than the reign and rule of
God.
That kind of aspiration runs through the
Gospel reading this morning, too. This
is the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is teaching something that
might make us good Christians stop short.
We like to think about Christianity replacing the Jewish Law with the
good news of grace – that God’s salvation can’t be earned, only gratefully
received. True enough. So following the Law isn’t something we do – but that’s not because the Law’s
intentions missed the mark. Actually, Jesus
takes the Law of Moses and raises the bar even higher. “You have heard that it was said to those of
ancient times, ‘You shall not murder,’” Jesus says. “But I say to you, that if you are angry with
a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.… You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall
not commit adultery,’” Jesus says. “But
I say to you that everyone who looks at [someone else] with lust has already
committed adultery … in his heart.” (Matthew 5:21-22,27-28) To me, we miss the point if we focus on what
Jesus means by the “hell of fire” (5:22), the consequences that come when we
miss the mark. To me, the point is where
the mark lies.
The kingdom of God, the beloved community,
is about always aspiring to love more. For
example, to name one of the elephants in the room that comes out of this
reading – hear what Jesus is saying about divorce. Clearly, Jesus is not a fan of divorce, and
you can find that in other Gospel accounts, too. But what he’s saying here isn’t about
judgment for people who find themselves in the tragedy of relationships broken
beyond repair. What he’s saying here is
that the minimum requirement of the Law just isn’t enough. For that time and place, there was some love
in that Law about divorce. It said a man
couldn’t just abandon his wife if he didn’t like her anymore; he had to write a
certificate of divorce, which relinquished his property claim on her and allowed
her to remarry rather than wandering unprotected as a social outcast. But for Jesus, that’s not enough love. He’s looking to protect the woman, the
powerless one in the relationship in that time and place, from being tossed
aside on a man’s whim. My point is that
Jesus looks at the Law, at the minimum requirement of love, and he says, “You
know, that’s not enough.” Living
faithfully isn’t about whether we check the boxes of legal requirements,
whether we do just enough to pass the test, or what might happen to us when we fail, as we surely will. Living faithfully is about recognizing that
God raises the bar because God wants for us as much love as we’re willing to
choose. Each day, God sets before us the
choice to be a blessing. So “choose
life,” God says, “that you and your descendants may live.”
What does that look like for us, in our
present moment? Well, here’s one way I
believe God is calling us to aspire to love more and love better, to go beyond
the minimum requirements of the law. It
has to do with how we see our opponents, those who disagree with us; and the
ways our small, daily actions bear that out.
In a tweet the other day, the president called people who oppose him
“haters.” Really? By the same token, on Facebook I saw posts from
people on the other side that called people they disagree with “sexist fascists”
and “thieves.” Anymore, we throw around demeaning
language as if words don’t matter. But
they do. And it’s not just the potential pain those
words inflict on others. Throwing around
demeaning language to describe other children of God forms us to see those
other people as something less than
children of God. And it forms us, as a
nation, to live far below the heights where the “better angels of our nature”
dwell, as Abraham Lincoln said. Whether you
see it on a protest sign or in a presidential tweet, any message that denigrates
those who disagree with you has no place in the kingdom of God. That’s not how we follow our baptismal
promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” Because every human being is a child of
God. Every
human being – maybe especially those
with whom we most deeply disagree. As
Paul writes in the reading from First Corinthians this morning, “As long as
there is jealousy and quarreling among you … you are behaving according to
human inclinations” (3:3), not aspiring to grow more and more into the measure
of the full stature of Christ. Instead,
choose a different path. For we “have a
common purpose,” Paul says. “We are
God’s servants working together” (3:8-9).
The six boys who will become Eagles today
didn’t have to choose the path they chose.
They didn’t have to work toward one merit badge after another. They didn’t have to freeze through winter
campouts. They didn’t have to learn to
lead their peers. But for them, the Scout
Oath and Scout Law pointed them down a path of aspiration. If they were truly going to do their best to
do their duty to God, and to their country, and to the other human beings
around them, then they had to choose the steeper path, the path toward
Eagle.
The call to us from God’s Word says very much
the same thing: If we’re going to do our
best to do our duty to love God and love neighbor, to live out the Baptismal Covenant,
then we’ve got to take the steeper path, too.
We’ve got to choose to be better than we have to be. We’ve got to choose be a blessing to the people
we encounter. We’ve got to choose life,
that we and our descendants may live.
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