Hardware

This Sunday is Gideon Sunday at First Presbyterian Church in Berryville. We will be hearing the report of the local and global Gideon Society so I will not be in the pulpit. This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Chruch in Berryville, Arkansas on the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time in 2005.

Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I love watching “This Old House” on PBS. When I was younger, the show was much more about home improvement tips, how-to advice, and new technology for the home. Now it is more about characters and stories involved in home remodeling. Some of the more memorable recent episodes deal with the hosts meeting with the homeowners and the historical commission of whatever city they are in that season. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Salem series and how they attempted to put a parking area in the backyard. They eventually lost that one to the city Historical Commission. And I liked last season’s “wooden mantle piece” episode in the Carlisle home. It had all of the drama that could be mustered by fire codes, Underwriter’s Laboratories, and a wild computer set up. But I do long for the good old days of “This Old House.” The days when they would teach you how to put up wallpaper, put in new windows, and hang doors.

Hanging doors is mysteriously difficult. When mounting a door, you have to make sure the frame is square. If it is not, the door will not hang properly, and then opening and closing it becomes very difficult. The door knob and lock set are pretty easy to get right, assuming you use the proper jig, but the hinges are a different matter. Setting the hinges seems to be a source of high drama. For a door to be put in hinges properly, if both sides are not lined up perfectly, putting the hinge pins in is impossible. Yes, jigs exist, but with at least four hinge plates on each door, and usually six, there is a lot of room for error. And with that many opportunities for error, just one misplaced hinge plate and the door will not hang well, causing all sorts of problems. Depending on which door, it can make heating and cooling more expensive or even become a security issue.

When asked which commandment in the law is the greatest, Jesus told an expert in the law, “This is the greatest and first commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He followed this saying the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets.”

This is it, these are the big lessons Jesus wants us to learn. It’s not surprising. These commands from Deuteronomy and Leviticus answer this lawyer’s questions very well. In Mark’s account of this encounter, the lawyer even praises Jesus for his fine response. It is not uncommon for Rabbis and Prophets to summarize the law in one way or another. Moses started with 613 commandments spread throughout the Torah. David was able to reduce the number to eleven, and then Isaiah to six. Micah whittled the number to three; Amos to two and Habakkuk finally got the number down to just one.[1] So Jesus’ answers are good for the man who is schooled in the law; faithful to the law and to the traditions of the prophets.

Over the past several weeks we have followed the cross examination of Jesus on important issues and trivial matters in Matthew’s gospel. He is asked about paying taxes and he is asked about the resurrection. He teaches in parables and shows wisdom far beyond the cunning of those serving as his prosecutors. Before this exchange, Jesus silences the Scribes and Pharisees like a snapping dog is muzzled. And now they are dumbfounded by his wisdom, unable to ask any more questions.

Since they are unable to ask any more questions, Jesus is left to ask the next one. If David calls the Messiah “Lord,” and the Messiah is the son of David, then how can the Lord be David’s Son? Now, I don’t mind telling you (well, maybe a little bit); I do not have the answer to every question. I have faith and trust the Holy Spirit that when I am asked questions I will either receive an answer from the Lord or have the good sense to say, “I don’t know.” This is one of those “I don’t know” moments. I find Jesus’ question very confusing. Back in the day, I would have been as dumbfounded as the Scribes.

Among my spiritual disciplines, I read one chapter of Proverbs every day. With 31 Proverbs, It’s pretty easy to read one every day, and start again at the beginning of every month. I recommend it; it helps me become more familiar with the wisdom of Solomon. But the Proverbs have a lot of interesting little twists in them, especially about dealing with fools. And it infuriates me! The one that comes to mind is Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5: “Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.”

Don’t answer fools according to their folly? Answer fools according to their folly? I don’t get this one at all. One of these proverbs follows the other, and they completely contradict one another. I understand them individually, the wisdom is flawless. But the logic of one directly following the other is beyond my understanding. So today I pray. One day I will consult the commentaries and hopefully I will find some sort of explanation. Until that day, I rest in the wisdom, and ponder the logic.

One of the ways I deal with this is with a piece of advice I received in seminary. One of the supplementary textbooks for “Introduction to the Old Testament” was Michael Joseph Brown’s, "What They Didn’t Tell You, A Survivor’s Guide to Biblical Studies." This book offers twenty-eight “rules of thumb” for seminarians. Some of the information was useful, some wasn’t. But one of the rules has stuck with me like a stone in my shoe. Rule number ten says, “The Bible means what it says, and says what it means. Except when it doesn’t.”

Some days I am wound pretty tight, but when I remember this rule, it helps remind me that I am not going to understand every nuance of scripture, and it sets me free to consider what is going on in the text beyond my human logic. It helps me with this Proverb, and it also helps me with this portion of our gospel reading.

You see… locked into our earthly time and place, locked into our human knowledge, Jesus’ question to the Scribes and Pharisees is puzzling. But the question cannot be answered with our terms. When we consider it as prophetic insight from our Lord instead of a genealogy question, this piece of scripture challenges the leaders—it challenges us—to recognize Jesus as the Messiah commissioned by God to manifest God’s saving presence and eternal empire as attested by David.[2] From a riddle about a Lord to a prophetic voice, Jesus challenges all who have ears to hear the Word of the Lord, not only as it is written but as it is in person.

And here, Jesus rides a camel through the eye of a needle. He dares to answer the fools their foolish arguments. He answers them in wisdom beyond their perception and with a question beyond their understanding. This isn’t the last time Jesus will be asked questions. And it won’t be the last time he shares wisdom in the temple. But the lack of response to this riddle speaks volumes. It is difficult to answer this divine question using human thoughts and genealogy. It can only be answered with faith and trust.

Hebrews calls faith “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”[3] Calvin says faith is, “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”[4] And when we do not this conviction of things not seen; this firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence, then answering Jesus’ question is impossible.

Just a moment ago, I said that I would have been dumbfounded by Jesus’ question. And that is true. Does it mean my faith is not strong enough? I pray not. But I will admit, there are many times when I try to build on the foundation of education and logic. Working in Higher Education for over ten years, spending ten years more working on degrees, becoming a man of letters, I am trained to think that way. When I am confronted by questions like this one Jesus asked the Scribes and Pharisees, I am forced to take a step back, and consider what I know. I am forced to consider what I don’t know. And I am forced to consider how I came to know it. I am forced to remember that I am a child of God, saved by grace through faith. And I am forced to remind myself that sometimes I act like a Pharisee.

This is where I return to the hinge again. Hinges have three main parts, two halves and the pin. These are our two halves:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind.” We are not told by Jesus to leave any of our faculties at home. God wants us to love with all that we are, and all that we can be.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God too wants us to love one another with all our heart and soul and mind. We are called to bring every God given talent with us to the church as the body of Christ and the rest of the community. We are called to love one another fully, completely, and without reservation. On this hinge hang the law and the prophets.

We confess that moral law is found and realized in the Ten Commandments, delivered by the voice of God upon Mount Sinai, and written on two tables of stone. The first four commandments contain our duty to God. Jesus summarizes these when he tells us “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind.” The other six summarize our duty to one another. This is in the statement, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The amazing thing is if either one of these elements is missing, the law and the prophets will not be fulfilled. But with the hinge, without the pin, the hinge is useless. In this illustration, Christ is our hinge pin, holding in place these two commandments.

If love of God or neighbor is missing, the value of Jesus is diminished because he came as the living incarnation of the love of God and humanity. Fully human and fully divine, Jesus bridges the gap between the two and holds them together in a way that allows the law and the prophets to be fulfilled.

One of the many things Jesus is called is the law, the Torah, personified. Jesus not only fulfills the law, he is the law. The God of Abraham and Isaac writes the law on stone tablets and gives them to Moses. Jesus lives the law for our lives and gives himself to us, a life given in Jesus the Christ. We are called to live this moral life, a life given in the Ten Commandments. We are given them in the simplest of directions, you shall love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself. Let us accept the commandment. Let us answer Jesus’ question to the Scribes and Pharisees this way—the Messiah can be the son of David because you, the son of David, are the Christ, and my Lord. May we respond by doing your will. Amen.

[1] David, Psalm 15:2-5; Isaiah 33:15; Micah 6:8; Amos 5:4; Habakkuk 2:4.
[2] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, comment on Matthew 22:41-45
[3] Hebrews 14:1
[4] Institutes, Vol. III, Part 2, Paragraph vii.