Rules For Living

This was the sermon/message that I presented at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church (Putnam Valley, NY) for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, October 6, 2002.  The Scriptures were Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20, Philippians 3: 4-14, and Matthew 21: 33 – 46.

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Many years ago, I was a football official. It was something I enjoyed doing and, up until the proverbial career ending knee injury, one with a promising future of college games.

Like all football officials I started off with the Saturday morning elementary and junior high games. As my Dad, a veteran official in his own right, once told me, “You do these games to see things and make calls that you will never make at the high school and college level.” It was also at that level that the four most common words spoken by an official were “This isn’t Sunday, Coach!”

You see, most coaches at the lower levels try to use what they see the pros doing on Sunday when they are coaching their kids to play on Saturday. They ignore the fact that the kids they coach are not at the same physical level as the pros and that the rules for play on Sunday are dramatically different from the rules on Friday night and Saturday morning. And many times, the coaches try to coach as they were coached many years ago without trying to find out what is now legal and proper technique.

What people, coaches, fans and parents alike, forget is that the rules of the game are there for a purpose. And when you attempt to circumvent the rules or not even bother to learn the rules, problems arise.

Be it football, baseball, or just daily living, we have to have a set of rules by which we can live and be successful. We must remember that we have rules not to prevent life but rather to help life.

When the Israelites first left Egypt and began the long journey through the wilderness, they were simply a collection of people. That all changed when they came to Mt. Sinai. At Mt. Sinai, the Israelites changed from a collection of people into a nation established with God as King and a covenant or treaty to govern their lives by. The Ten Commandments represent the covenant entered into by the people of Israel with God and represent a set of rules that reflect the relationship between God and themselves.

We see this relationship clearly defined when we look at the Ten Commandments. The first three commandments define the relationship the people will have with God. By extension this is a statement of the relationship each of us has with God as well. The last seven commandments define our relationship with others. What we must understand clearly is that our relationship with God comes before our relationship with others but that neither relationship works without the other. If we fail to realize this or if we try to reverse the order of the commandments, if we put our interests before our relationship with God, then there will be trouble.

The parable from the Gospel reading for today is an example of that outcome. The owner of the vineyard first sends his representative and then his son to check on the status and well being of his vineyard. The workers of the vineyard ignored the representatives and killed the son, thinking that in doing so they would gain the vineyard for themselves. But the ownership of the property doesn’t go to someone who gains it by illegal or immoral means and trouble comes to those who seek action in such a manner.

Jesus told this parable as He was preparing for His own death on the cross. It was a story to remind the disciples that the vineyard owner was God and that the vineyard was this earth. Killing the Son of God would in no way give the workers rights to the property.

Jesus simply pointed out that you could not forget one’s relationship with God, which the people of that time had done.

In Paul’s letter, we hear Paul boasting that if anyone could claim sufficiency through the law it was he. For he was raised in the law and he knew the law and he did everything in his power to uphold and keep the law. But the law that Paul tried to keep was the law of man designed to enforce the rules of living. And such law will always be written or made in such a way as to favor the one making the law. As Paul points out, simply holding to the law, a man-made instrument, cannot and will not guarantee everlasting life.

More than once Paul reminds us of this point, of the need to have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, of holding to the relationship with God first. We are also reminded that the Covenant established on the mountain in the Sinai desert also included a relationship with others.

The rules for living have been laid out before us. They are not meant to be complex but rather a simple statement of the priorities of daily lives. When we put ourselves and how we view the relationships we have with others before our relationship with God, we cannot find a balance in our lives.

In a day when we seek to find a balance in our lives, when we seek to find a peace in daily living and a way to get through each day, it is nice to know that a set of rules, rules for living, does exist.

The Rules We Play By

This was the sermon/message that I presented at Walker Valley United Methodist Church (Walker Valley, NY) for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, October 3, 1999.  The Scriptures were Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20, Philippians 3: 4-14, and Matthew 21: 33 – 46.

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I used to be a football official but had to give it up when I suffered a knee injury back in 1986. It was a fun time, working games that ranged from the Saturday morning Pee-Wee and little league games through Friday night high school games. In fact, had it not been for the injury that one Friday night in 1986, I would have even gotten to do some college games that season.

And like any activity that one participates in, there are moments to remember. Such as the time when we called holding on number “00” only to be told that his number was “88”. It was hard for us to tell because half of the jersey was stuck inside his pants. Oh yes, did I mention that it was one of those Saturday morning Pee-Wee games?

Perhaps the greatest moment in my officiating career came one Saturday night in 1983 during two games at Southhaven, MS. It was a routine to give the announcer a card with the officials and their positions listed on it so that it could be read over the PA system. We always felt that if you were going to boo the officials, you should at least use the right names. For the two games that night the game card read: Robert Mitchell, referee; Tim Mitchell, head linesman; Terry Mitchell, field judge for game 1 and clock operator for game 2; and Tony Mitchell, clock operator for game 1 and field judge for game 2. This was the only time in our family history that the four of us worked as a game crew. And, to be honest, we never did find out how the coaches reacted when they found out that the game crew was a father and his three sons.

Though there were little hearted moments, such as that night, the business of officiating was a serious one and it bothered me that many coaches, and for that matter, many parents did not know the rules of the games. Too many times during a Saturday game, a coach or parent would complain about a call we made or one we missed or why we wouldn’t let them do certain things that everyone saw happening on Sunday afternoon. To these complaints, the response was “this is Saturday, coach; not Sunday.”

Rules are the way we live each day in a civilized society. Without rules and laws, life would be chaos. In giving the Israelites the Ten Commandments early in the Exodus, God was giving them the rules of basic morality and relationships.

The Ten Commandments are often divided into two parts, our relationship with God and our relationship with others. The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God:

1. Put God first in everything.
2. Reject ideas about God that He himself has not revealed.
3. Never speak or act as if God is not real or present.
4. Set aside a day to rest and remember God.

The remaining six commandments deal with our relationship with others:

1. Show respect for your parents.
2. Do nothing with an intent to harm another person.
3. Be faithful in your commitment to your spouse.
4. Respect the rights of others.
5. Respect others reputation as well as their lives and property.
6. Care about others, not about their possessions.

Robert Schuller wrote “ God gave us these ten laws to protect us from an alluring, tempting path which would ultimately lead only to sickness, sin, and sorrow.”

It is also important to note that God gave the commandments to the Israelites after, not before He chose them. He did not say to a group of people wandering in the desert to keep these commandments and you would become my people. Rather, people will want to live the kind of life described by the commandments because God saved them.

God also did not force the Israelites to accept his laws. He did say that this was what was expected of them and what would happen should they choose not to follow the laws. But God also promised blessings upon the Israelites if they obeyed the commandments. This was the foundation for what is called the Law Covenant. Unlike God’s covenant with Abraham, this was an agreement between two parties, God and Israel.

In any society, there is a need for laws and rules but it must be understood that laws themselves cannot be so constructed as to harm others. When I was growing up in the South, I saw the consequences of laws designed to continue the effects of segregation, even after segregation was illegal. In Alabama, students had to buy their own books rather than have them provided by the school system. If your parents could afford the books, then you had the books. If your parents couldn’t; well, you just suffered the consequences. In Tennessee, all music programs got the same amount of money each year but what was given was barely enough to buy the sheet music for one song. If you wanted more, or if you need instruments for the band, then it was up to the Band Boosters to get the money. So schools where the parents had the resources got the better instruments and the better uniforms. If the parents didn’t have the resources, then the band didn’t get the better stuff. Laws should be made to prevent injustice, not cause it.

In Israel, during Jesus’ time, the laws and the interpretation of laws based on the Ten Commandments had become so restrictive has to make it impossible to live. In that society, salvation was seen only in terms of following the law.

But if the laws of society were so restrictive, salvation was hopeless. When the laws are this way, you spend all your time trying to avoid doing wrong and not doing right. Remember how aghast the Pharisees and scribes were when Jesus healed the sick on the Sabbath, a direct violation of the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Somewhere through the passage of time, the Israelites forgot that the covenant with God given to them with the Ten Commandments was a two-party agreement. The parable from Matthew in the Gospel for today is a reminder of that covenant. As it said in verse 45, “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.”

The Pharisees and leaders of Israel had created a society that demanded perfection in following the law as the only means of achieving salvation. But God gave the laws to the Israelites after he saved them, not before. Following the law is not a requirement for salvation; believing in God is.

Paul, in the portion of his letter to the Philippians that we read today, makes it clear that he knows the law.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eight day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

But he, Paul, points out that righteousness cannot come from the law but rather from Christ and his salvation. In verse 9 we read,

Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

Paul pointed out that, though he had everything in terms of the law, he lost it all to Christ on the road to Damascus.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

Can we have a life without laws? Of course not. Laws are the rules by which society is able to keep together. The trouble is that we often see laws themselves, be they spiritual ones or political ones, as the means to achieving success. But when that happens, when we see the nature of laws as the means of success, when we believe that our path to heaven is set by how we obey the laws, then success can never be accomplished.

We are called Methodists for a particular reason. When John and Charles Wesley began the movement that would become the church, they felt that they had to do certain things in order to be successful. Among these were daily prayer and regular Bible studies. But the Wesley brothers, raised in the church, quickly found that this model would not work. Only after coming to Christ, only after knowing that Christ was their Savior, that He had died for them, did the structure of their own personal lives take on meaning.

The same is true for us today. If we try to live a life in terms of secular rules, derived though they may be from the Ten Commandments, we will quickly find that life is a difficult task. But when we come to Christ, when we as individuals make Christ the center of our live, it is much easier to live.

Paul wrote to Timothy about living life each day. In 2 Timothy 2: 11 – 16 we read,

If we died with him, we will also live with him;

If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us;

If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

A Workman Appointed by God

Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.

The rules that we live each day by are easy ones to understand but we must remember when we got those rules and they were given to us. Paul concluded the portion of the letter to the Philippians by noting that he continued to press on with the goal being the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

That is the same for us today. By which rules will you play the game?