I want to talk today about the three
different types of laws. This is not the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
use of the law in the classical Lutheran sense—(that’s a topic for a dreary day
when you want to take a nap); instead, I am going to talk about the three particular
types laws that you can find in the Bible and why we only concern ourselves
with two out of the three anymore in the Christian Church. Understanding the
distinction between laws will help you to grasp what is happening in today’s
reading between Jesus and the Pharisees, but even if you don’t care about this
particular story because it doesn’t seem all that thrilling, it’s just as
important to understand what laws are applicable and why so that you know what
God wants you to do here and now.
In order to wrap our heads around
the law, we are going to have to fast forward a bit to another part of the
Gospels. In this scene, a legal expert comes to Jesus (when I say “legal
expert” I do not mean a lawyer as we would understand them today but an expert
on the Torah which was the law of the Jewish people), and this legal expert
asks Jesus a rather important question.
“Teacher,” he says, “What must I do to inherit
eternal life?” (10:25).
Jesus responds, “What is written in the Law? How
do you interpret it?” (10:26).
This is the first thing of note:
Jesus answers a question about the law with a question about what the law says.
It’s not simply that the Pharisees are pro-law and Jesus is anti-law. In fact,
as we discover, Jesus is much more into certain aspects of the law than the
legal experts. Back to the scene: The legal expert answers Jesus, saying,
“You must love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and
love your neighbor as yourself” (10:27), quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and adding
that bit about a neighbor.
Jesus responds, “You have answered correctly. Do
this and you will live” (10:28).
We should note here that an important facet of
the law, according to Jesus, namely that it has two parts: Love God and love
your neighbor.
Sounds simple, right?
If the question is, “Which laws should I
follow?” then the answer is the ones that tell you to love God and to love people.
Straightforward enough for us, but this would have created a host of questions
in the minds of these legal experts since a good portion of the Torah pertains
not just to laws about loving God and loving neighbor but also to laws about
being set apart as the Chosen People. This third group of laws is where we find
the contention between the Pharisees and Jesus in our reading today.
But before we get there, I want to
continue with that legal expert and Jesus in Luke 10, because the man doesn’t
stop there. After offering the most important commandments—to love God and to
love our neighbors—the man asks a very important follow-up question, “And who
is my neighbor?”
Jesus gives a rather interesting
answer to that question; in fact, he gives no direct answer at all. Instead, he
launches into the parable of the Good Samaritan. The legal expert is asking
Jesus about the third type of law—the part that Jesus had neglected to lift up
as the most important; the type of law that set the Jewish people apart from
everybody else—and Jesus answers by telling a story where the half-blood,
impure half-Jew comes out looking righteous (that is to say, the Samaritan)
while the ritually pure, holy, and astute priest and Levite come out looking
bad. The legal expert expects that that answer to the question, “Who is my
neighbor?” will be: “All Jewish people.” Instead, Jesus answers by suggesting
that everybody can and should be our neighbor, and in so doing Jesus is telling
us why that third category of laws—the ones about purity and holiness—are no
longer binding. The way of Jesus is open to all people regardless of whether
they keep the Torah or not. Instead of being set apart by ritual purity, a
person’s faith would be revealed by their capacity for mercy.
Knowing this, we can return to today’s reading
understanding that Jesus was a total hardliner on the first and second type of
law—love God and love your neighbor—while he came to put the third law—the one
about purity and holiness—to an end.
In the scene we just read, Jesus starts by defending
his disciples’ lack of hand-washing. Thankfully, for germs’ sake, Jesus doesn’t
prohibit washing hands; he just
suggests it is not longer required for ritual purposes. This leads Jesus to
make a truly radical statement when he says,
“Nothing outside of a person can
enter and contaminate a person in God’s sight; rather, the things that come out
of a person contaminate the person” (Mark 7:15).
According to Jesus, it doesn’t
matter what you eat or drink, whether you keep kosher or eat pork, whether you
are a Vegan or on Keto—your diet will not make you holy. We might take this for
granted, but in the world of 1st century Judaism this was heretical.
Jesus goes further, suggesting that none of the rules around holiness
matter—not anymore. They had served their purpose, which was to maintain the
identity of the chosen people through ages in which they were threatened with
assimilation in the face of conquering powers. To the Jewish people today, the
rules are the same for the same reason, but this is why Christians follow them
no longer.
So, if you’ve ever wondered why we no longer care
about eating pork or shellfish, this is it. Christians adhere to Jesus’
interpretation of the law. Love God—love people. End of the law. Every law in
scripture passes through that lens. Is it is about loving God and loving
people? Or is it about setting ourselves apart as distinct and holy? This is
why we hold on to the Ten Commandments (the first three having to do with
loving God and the last seven with loving people), but we ignore much of the
rest of Deuteronomy as it pertains to rules that set the people apart from
their neighbors.
Every law is now filtered through that lens of
loving God and loving people. If this doesn’t impact how you read the Bible I
don’t know what will. After all, Jesus was saying that a whole category of
rules found in the Bible are not eternal, but these laws are not random and neither
is it a case of the Old Testament being replaced by the New. I’ve always
thought that if we reject the Old Testament just because we have a New
Testament then what’s stopping God from giving us a Newer Testament some time down the road to replace the New? The
criteria for Christian law has to be more than what is old and what is new. The
question is: Will a law help you love God
and will it help you love other people? If it doesn’t address
either of those two questions, then it might still be a civil law and it may
well be part of Jewish law but it is not a Christian law.
Because of this interpretation, it has become trendy to imagine Jesus as
being lax on the law while the Pharisees are hardened, conservathe tive, and
unyielding, but this really isn’t the case. In fact, as it pertains to loving
God and loving people, Jesus makes the law much harder than the Pharisees ever
did. After all, since there is no holiness code to get in the way of helping
the man bloodied on the side of the road, you have no excuse not to help! There
are no loopholes anymore. We can see the particular harshness of the approach
in another scene when the another young legal expert comes to Jesus asking how
he can earn eternal life and Jesus tells him to go and give away everything.
Jesus is the hardest of hardliners when it comes to loving God and loving our
neighbors. We must do it perfectly.
In Matthew 5:48 Jesus says, “Be perfect like your father in heaven is
perfect.” Suddenly, this messiah who we thought might be coming to obliterate
the law is the harsh law-giver.
The disciples bemoan this, asking, “Then who can be saved?”
They understand this much: Jesus hasn’t come to make life a free-for-all. Instead,
he has come to stand against the powerful that love neither God nor people and
to return the focus to what really matters. Love God—love people. But this
leaves the disciples petrified since they know that Jesus’ interpretation is
much harder—nay, impossible—compared to not eating shellfish and wearing the
correct clothing.
So, here is where we are left: Jesus eliminates the holiness code—that whole
third set of laws—and he reinforces loving God and loving people to such an
extent that we can’t do it. And that’s the point. Only God can do it. In fact,
that’s part of the reason the holiness code laws are eliminated in the first
place. It’s not necessary to be a practicing Jew to follow Jesus, because we
are not set apart by our actions any longer but by the grace of God which
overcomes our sin. Having that assurance of God’s grace, we respond by showing
mercy following the first and second type of law—loving God, loving
people—because that’s what Jesus-followers do. Then—only then—can we let go of
all the other rules. We don’t need to be set apart; we can’t become more holy;
we can’t save ourselves. Jesus is clear on this. Love God—love your neighbor.
End of story.
The law is still there; in fact, it’s all the stronger. But the good news of
grace won by Jesus on the cross is stronger still. So, the end of the law is
love. Which—all things being equal—is a pretty fantastic thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment