Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46
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O God of Love who holds all things together in yourself. Draw us ever nearer to you and to one another, that all may come into the reach of your saving embrace. Amen.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Which came first, the rule or the relationship? While the answer to the chicken and egg conundrum still perplexes many, the answer to what takes primacy…either rule or relationship…should never have been a matter of confusion…but, oh, how it has!
If you’re like me, one of your earliest memories related to your faith is probably memorizing the Ten Commandments. This well-meaning pedagogical segue into religious education, however, has had, in my opinion, a detrimental effect upon generations of young minds and hearts. Our first introduction to the idea of God was not of a loving Creator who eagerly, even desperately, desires a relationship with us, but of a demanding Ruler whose “Thou shalt nots” impressed upon our young, impressionable minds a foreboding dread of eternal repercussions. Which came first, the rule or the relationship? For many of us, it was clearly the rule. And, sadly, for many still, the relationship never followed. No wonder so many of our churches have emptied and, quite ironically, have been turned into secular places that foster relationships, like restaurants, reception halls, and even homes. How different would our faith formation have been if instead of a list of “Thou shalt nots” we first heard a list of “I am” statements, like… “I am Yahweh your God, who will save you and protect you from all harm;” “I am the bread of life given to nurture you and sustain you;” “I am the light of the world to lead you and to guide you;” “I am the good shepherd here to make you lie down in green pastures;” “I am the true vine so that you may know the abundance of joy;” “I am the resurrection and the life that you may live forever.”
The history of religion, Christian or otherwise, is marked by a striking contrast that we are only now beginning to clearly see and discern. In this regard, the demise of Christendom is a gift and a way—perhaps the only way—forward to an authentic and vital faith. The contrast is between a religion of rules and a religion of relationship. It’s between a God whose primary identity is Judge and Lawgiver or a God whose primary identity is Father and Mother and Friend. Notice, I said, primary identity, not sole identity. There is a place—a very important place—for rules and regulations in the life of faith (we monks live under several of them), but rules and regulations were never meant to be considered primary in the life of faith. This would be a form of idolatry and the path toward a way of being religious with deadly consequences—always to one’s own soul and, as we have seen throughout history, sometimes deadly to others…those who don’t “abide by the rules.” Sick religion is just this—religion infected by the spirit of judgment without love, without compassion, without grace. Its motive is fear; it operates on threat and coercion, and its end is frustration, anger, numbness, and death.
By contrast, healthy religion is grounded in a loving, compassionate God who created us for one purpose above all—to know God as intimately as possible and to bind all creation within the bonds of this love (which, by the way, is the etymology of the word religion, meaning “to bind together”). This type of religion liberates the soul, transcends one’s own self-interest, and finds fulfillment in giving one’s life away in service and compassion. Its motive is love; it operates on mercy and grace, and its end is what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven.
This contrast between a religion of rule and a religion of relationship is on vivid display in today’s readings. Did you notice the bookends to the Ten Commandments from the passage from Exodus? Or did you go immediately to self-interrogation, questioning how much trouble you’re in with God today? But the most important parts of this passage are not the Ten Commandments themselves but what precedes them and what follows them. “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” I am your God, given over entirely to your well-being…who will do whatever it takes to make sure that you need not live one more day bound in slavery but free, just as I always intended you to be. And the passage ends with, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin…” to which we quickly add… “so that you do not sin…and go to hell!”… when God actually implies “so that you do not sin…and lose your way and end up back in slavery.” The Ten Commandments in this context are rules to guide us and keep us close to God…they’re at the service of the relationship and not an end in themselves.
Jesus of Nazareth came into the world at a time when this delicate balance of rule with relationship in Israel, for a complex set of circumstances, led to an unfortunate imbalance that emphasized rule to the extreme and all but eclipsed relationship. To explain it simply, the fear of offending God and experiencing another exile from the Promised Land filled the religious leaders with dread of a wrathful God who, in turn, filled the nation with this same dread. Israel had come to see God almost entirely in terms of transaction and quid pro quo, and no longer in terms of covenant and promise. In shocking contrast, Jesus comes along and prophetically denounces this perverted theology of legalism and legislation and preaches (and embodies) a theology of love and compassionate service, that sometimes, in the eyes of the legislators, broke the rules. The rule based leaders simply did not know how else to handle who they deemed posed such a threat to the nation’s protection from a God of threat and punishment. So they killed him. To be clear, this was not an argument between Jews and Christians, this was an argument between two different versions of Judaism, and Jesus was functioning in this context as a reformer, even a prophet, calling for the recovery of the God of relationship over the God of law.
This conflict between rule and relationship is also the context for Matthew’s parable of the landowner who planted a vineyard. As an allegory, the “landowner” is God, the “tenants” who kill the slaves and the son are Israel’s religious leaders, the “slaves" are the prophets and the “son,” of course, is Jesus. The "other tenants” to whom the landowner ends up giving the produce are the gentiles, the outsiders. The moral of the story, which Jesus directs toward the religious leaders of his day, is that a warped understanding of God leads to a warped understanding of reality that confuses, in St. Benedict’s terms, bad zeal from good zeal. It validates prejudice, hatred, and phobias of all kind with a god who justifies them and even sanctions aggression and violence (“bad zeal”) and is deafened to the voice crying in the wilderness for mercy, forgiveness, and compassion (“good zeal”). And notice that the context of the parable is a vineyard. Only one of these ways leads to the joy and fullness of life that the vineyard symbolizes…it is the way of mercy and grace…the only way that gives true knowledge of the true God.
This battle between the God of rule and the God of relationship played itself out most stridently in the life of St. Paul, and the fruit of his wrestling is perhaps nowhere more stunningly articulated than in this passage from his letter to the Philippians. The primacy of rule over relationship in Paul’s early life led him to aggression and violence against the early followers of Jesus, but through a dramatic conversion experience and through years of growing in correct understanding of the knowledge of God, the relationship between rule and relationship began to work itself out. What was born through this internal wrestling was the Apostle of grace and inclusion patterned on the life of Christ himself. Whatever he had gained in his status as a good and faithful, law-abiding Jew, he counts as rubbish…for what? For the surpassing value of knowing Christ. No less than six times in these ten verses does Paul hammer at what is most essential to him: knowing Christ. That’s it…nothing else. Everything else that makes up the life of faith is directed toward this one end: knowing Christ and pressing on toward the goal of knowing Christ more. And, for Paul, this is not simply a theoretical knowledge. It’s a mystical knowledge…a knowledge that embodies what it believes. For Paul, Christ is a life-giving Spirit…a spiritual vitality that makes one merciful, gracious, and kind…a Spirit that consumes a person in the flames of charity and makes one like God…who is love. It is here, in the flames of this coruscating, dazzling, glorious offering of oneself in love that there is no law, no rule, and no legislation. Life, here, is fulfilled and free and transfigured!
Every one of us who takes religion seriously has this same drama between rule and relationship playing itself out in the course of our own lives. If we are not intentionally aware of these main characters of rule and relationship, we fall into the danger of becoming passively disengaged and will never mature in the spiritual life. But if we know these characters, their motivations and their proper roles, with Christ as our sure guide, we can grow deeper and deeper into the knowledge of God and enjoy the fruit that the new wine of this knowledge brings.
Here’s a way to test yourself and your progress: how much do you spontaneously thank God just for being alive?; how much joy do you take in helping others?; how much freedom do you have from the compulsions of the world?; how much do you smile without even realizing it? When these things begin to happen, that’s when we know that relationship has taken primacy in our lives and our knowledge of God is becoming real.
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