Proper 17 B (2-3 September 2006)
Deuteronomy 4:1-9
Pr. George L. Murphy
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron OH

TRAVELLING HOPEFULLY AND ARRIVING

In our First Lesson from Deuteronomy the people of Israel are near the end of their journey – sort of.  They’ve been traveling through the desert for forty years and are now about to enter the promised land.  But the torah, the five “books of Moses” at the heart of the Hebrew scriptures, ends with them still there, on the verge of entering the land.  As they stand there, Moses repeats the law, “the statutes and ordinances” which God has given them for their continuing journey through life.

There’s a message there.  Possession of the land was important but the trip goes on – and not just for ancient Israel.  Our journey continues.  And the question comes quite naturally as it does for the small children in the back seat of the car – “Are we there yet?”  Will we ever arrive?

Some say that it doesn’t matter.  “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive” is a popular proverb.  But think about it.  In a conversation between two men in one of C.S. Lewis’ novels, one of them repeats that – “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”  The other replies, “If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully?  There would be nothing to hope for.”  [C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Macmillan, 1963), p.37]  If you knew that the end of the journey would be a letdown, how could you look forward to it?

So we continue to ask, “Will we ever arrive?”  To answer that question we have to think about the type of journey we’re on. 

We’re talking about the journey of our lives.  And the point of our text is that it’s to be a journey with God’s law.  Israel was to keep the “statutes and ordinances” that they had been given.  “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God.”  The point was not that God would have nothing further to say – because he did – but that the law is to be kept completely.  Halfway obedience or 90 percent wasn’t sufficient.

And a warning went with that.  “You have seen for yourselves what the LORD did with regard to the Ba`al of Peor.”  On their journey through the wilderness some of the Israelites had been seduced into idolatry, worshipping the god of one of the tribes they encountered, and had been destroyed. 

So what is this law we’re to obey?  The rabbis counted 613 regulations, but ten is enough for this sermon – especially since those well-known ten are at the heart of torah.

They begin in a familiar way.  “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no other gods before me.”

That’s the first and fundamental commandment, and with it we already have a serious problem.  That commandment means that we are to give our trust and obedience to God ahead of everything else, all the time.  Idolatry is not just bowing in front of a statue, but putting our ultimate reliance on anything other than God.  Israel had to learn that on its journey – that it wasn’t just things like the Ba`al of Peor but wealth or political alliances or military might, or a person’s own strength or wisdom that could be an idol.  “Son of man,” God told the prophet Ezekiel, as he pointed out some of the leaders of Judah, “These men have taken their idols into their hearts.”  He could have been talking about us.  

After we’ve seen our idolatry problem, our failure to keep the other commandments – neither adding anything or taking anything away – is almost an anticlimax.  “Honor your father and your mother” – but I get tired of the old man telling me to get a job and Mom saying my skirt’s too short.  “You shall not murder” – but I sure won’t help the guy.  “You shall not commit adultery” – but it doesn’t hurt to think about it.  “You shall not steal” – but it’s OK from these big companies that rip us off.  And “You shall not covet” – well, be serious!

Israel didn’t keep the law and we don’t.  God must have known that it was impossible.  What’s the point if we not only don’t measure up but can’t measure up.  Is this whole “journey” thing just a road trip through futility?

We need to think about that journey on two different levels.  To begin with, we  have to live in the world.  And to live with reasonable peace and order in society, external obedience to the law is enough.  Respect authority, don’t kill or injure others, honor marriage, don’t steal, tell the truth in court – that’s all that’s needed.  You don’t have to like other people and you may wish you could get away with something, but if everyone follows the rules, we can get along.  That’s what theologians call “the civil use of the law.”

The second function of the law, what’s called its “theological use,” goes deeper.  This use is what we’ve just see – the law points out our problem.  It’s a diagnostic tool – like something a doctor uses.  Or to continue our journey metaphor, like what happens when you take your care into a mechanic who hooks it up to a computer to find out what’s wrong with it.  And the mechanic comes back with the diagnosis – “Got some bad sin problems.  Idolatry, jealousy, lust, covetousness.  They could get you killed.  I wouldn’t take it out on the road if I were you.”

What’s the next chapter in this story of life as a journey?  You can’t get back on the road because your spiritual car is in the shop.  The journey seems at an end.  Does Jesus appears as the mechanic to fix your car so you can continue on your way?

Well, I guess you could say that but Jesus is more than a religious Mister Fix-it.  St. Paul said in Romans, “Christ is the end of the law, that everyone who has faith may be justified.”  He is not just someone who repairs us so that we can get to the end of the journey.  He is the end of the journey.  He is the one the law has been pointing to.  He is the one who embodies what the law is all about.  When you hear the story of Jesus Christ you begin to learn what it means to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and ... soul, and ... mind, and ... strength, ... and your neighbor as yourself.”

The end of the journey is, as the Letter to the Ephesians says, that “all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”  (Notice that phrase “all of us” – this isn’t just a matter of me gaining my individual salvation.)  We’re not there yet, but Christ is the one who heals us and leads us forward.  And yes, we still need to pay attention to the law.  We still live in the world with other people, Christian and non-Christian, and we still need to be reminded and warned about “the sin that clings so closely.”  But the law is a tool, not our purpose or our goal.

And we can travel hopefully.  The resurrection of Christ and his promise to be with us to the end of the world assure us that we will arrive.