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August 28 , 2005
Leviticus 19:15-18
James 2:1-13
We live by a number of different codes of conduct. An easy one to discuss is clothing codes of conduct. It’s not as clearly defined in Tucson but we’re going to think about the east coast for this example. There are formal wear or black tie events. These events are filled with cocktail dresses or evening gowns and suits or tuxedos. There is business dress. At the hospital that I worked at we actually had to sign a document each year that described the professional dress attire. It stated how short skirts could be. How high collars had to be. How you had to wear a jacket if your shirt did not have a collar. What type of heel, makeup, and jewelry was allowed. My favorite part of this was the paper dolls that went with it. In case we were having difficulty visualizing they had actual life-like examples to demonstrate. There is Sunday church-going attire which is full of dresses, suits, and shiny shoes. There is casual attire which is worn out in the yard or to the beach. Just to name a few.
The people who think of these types of codes of conduct are the Priestly circles of today. People who are concerned about a certain decorum and practicality for how one is treated. Priestly circles began in the sixth century BC. They were focused on creating a code of conduct that would reflect the Holy. This holiness code is recorded in the first few books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers. Their entire practice of faith was working to live into this Holiness Code in order they might be continually in the presence of God. It is a bit like the cloistered communities of today.
In seminary we had to spend time in a culture completely foreign to our own experience. One of the opportunities that we had available was to go to a Monestary and live as a monk. Growing up in Wisconsin we had a lot of friction between the Protestants and Catholics. And, if you grew up in one tradition you knew nothing of the other, except that they were going to burn in hell. This opportunity in seminary allowed me to finally immerse myself in this tradition that had been forbidden for so long. These monks lived according to the rule of St. Benedict. They were Trappists. Their basic rule was to do one thing at a time and completely experience it in total. Even their coffee mugs had two handles. You didn’t have a bite of food and a drink of coffee, you savored every one thing that you did and smelled it, tasted it, experienced it fully. It forced everything to slow down to a very focused and intentional experience. No longer was living about service, or work, but solely embodying the presence and living in that presence. We began the day at 3 AM with a morning worship service thanking God for the day. We had the longest break here not meeting to pray and worship again until 8. By the end of the day at 8:30 PM we had been in service eight different times. We prayed and chanted the Psalms. We celebrated Eucharist. We meditated. We prayed the rosary. This was the work, the living into the word and breath of God. These monks were contemplative, only speaking when there was a need. Some wore deep hoods to keep them shut away from the world only focused on God’s call. I have never met such joy-filled, healthy, happy men before in my life. It’s not a life filled with doing chores or work, which they get done and do, but that’s secondary. It’s a walking, breathing living prayer, every day. I find much comfort in every day knowing in a small place like Eva Missouri there are twenty men praying for this world.
Now, as beautiful and transformational as this experience was for me it is not possible to force the entire world to work with these same rules. We don’t have the same call. Who would feed us, house, us, have our children, educate our children if we were all cloistered and focused only on prayer. It is an amazing call but it’s a call for a select few. And, this code is impossible to replicate within our world today. It requires many hours of quiet. It takes about three days of intentional silence to get really quiet within and allow everything to float away that’s about work, to dos, responsibilities and get centered. Most days we don’t have five minutes not to mention 72 hours to drop everything in order to get quiet and begin to pray. It would make sense to me, that the rules that support a vibrant community of cloistered, prayer-focused religious are not the same rules that support a vibrant community of workers, parents, visionaries. Being called to be in an intentional community of meditation no matter what tradition - Judaism’s Orthodox Community, Zen Buddhists' Community, or Monastic Trappists - requires a different set of operating instructions. And that is where we meet the Scripture passages for today.
The operating instructions for those Priestly communities in the first five books are the codes of conduct from which one must live to be holy within the priestly community. I remember one of the rules from St. Benedict is, “Before you go into town, put on underwear and wear a knife in your belt.” It’s right up there with instructions from Leviticus like “don’t wear cloth of two fibers” which makes polyester, rame cotton, lycra and spandex a sin! They are rules which may make sense when you are trying to teach people to live simply and focus only on what is between them and God. A life focused on the practice of prayer, where the external means nothing, it’s the internal work that’s primary.
Leviticus focuses on these priestly codes of conduct. Chapter 19 focuses on the priestly code of conduct to be used in legal matters. The religious community had its own court system which settled all matters from a faith perspective. Justice was to be disinterestedly administered. It was generally to be determined by a group of the person’s peers. Partiality was not to be shown to the poor and weak nor deference to the rich and powerful.
Our passage for today also warns the community about those things that will divide them. People like the troublemaking gossip and accuser as well as the silent nonparticipant, recognizing that those who have information and stay silent could affect a neighbor’s capital case. It’s not just the judgment from the bench, but the conduct of all that affects the community. Grudges are not allowed in the community. Instead we are called to directly confront the other and have it out. Repression of feelings instead of an open interchange hurts people. And this hurt and repression are seen as eventually leading to sinful actions like slander and deceit. Harboring hatred in the heart is seen as possibly leading to vengeance in court or out, and grudge-bearing.
The Leviticus passage ends reminding us of the love command. This suggests the golden rule, “To do onto others as you would have them do onto you.”
And this is where we meet James today. James was writing for a general audience. It is unlikely that he criticizes the practice of a particular community when he describes an assembly. Scholars don’t think James is describing an assembly for worship but rather an assembly for community judicial decisions. James is addressing those who are responsible for their Christian legal system. It is clear from these writings that blatant discrimination has taken over their court system, and from a Christian perspective, James reminds, this is unacceptable.
James reminds that favoring the rich supports their own perception that they are more important. When you allow the rich man to walk into the sanctuary and show him to a good seat but ask the poor man to stand in the corner in the back it reinforces the second-class status of the poor man and the higher importance of the rich. (How many places do we go today where more money allows you more prestigious seating?) When God chooses the poor to be rich, how could this court system or any assembly gathered under God’s rule act in accord with the dominant culture’s perspective that the rich are more important?
James reminds the assembly of the code of conduct of the past. Judges were not to be swayed in the community judgment by appearances; decisions must be made without partiality, they were only to be swayed by the merits of a case. Once the rich are given special places in the assembly simply because of their lordly appearance, the community has begun corrupting its judgment. It betrays not only the witness of the unconditionally loving God but also the witness of the love of the poor by Jesus. We are called to have the same compassion and deference for the poor that Jesus had.
James reminds that loving our neighbors as ourselves is the royal law. James states that this is what is at the heart of the Torah, the law. But, it’s a new twist. This law is centered in freedom, for its goal is only to inhibit harmful activity.
Harmful activity like what a gossip or accuser can do to a community. Harmful activity that comes from harboring hatred and feeding that fire of vengeance. All of these instructions are to encourage people not to be caught up in the outward, but to become the authentic, gifted humans we were created to be. When we live in this manner, into our truest selves and respecting the created, authentic others in our lives, instead of being forced to oppress ourselves and others we can liberate ourselves and others. This twist comes from understanding that the law is nothing if it is not love. The law is nothing if it doesn’t reflect the mercy and compassion of the Creator. This is how God measures in mercy. We are held to codes of conduct today. But these codes mean nothing, nothing at all if there is not mercy and compassion.
In other words, it’s not our work to sit in judgment about who is living up to the codes of conduct we function by. It is our work to love one another and to provide mercy and compassion to our neighbor no matter what conduct they are expressing. We have an historic problem in this community with gossip and grudges. We all know how both sides of both of these ugly issues feel. James reminds us today to stop it! To be the people of faith we claim to be. To live up to our code of conduct and take our issue to the person that we have a grudge against and have it out. If we can’t get the grudge worked out one on one we are to ask our peers to join us and help us get it out. But, it is not the work of our peers to judge how petty we are, to gossip or accuse where we are but to stand with love in helping us to love one another. For we are the community of faith and when people step into this room, or find out we go to church, or find out we love God, they measure us by those standards. We must remember to hold ourselves to them out of the desire to live into the holy. Let’s quit playing favorites and begin having it out that we might show mercy to this aching world. Let us pray. Bridle our tongues that our minds might consider the consequences before we speak. Open our hearts that we might consider how much energy we spend holding onto a grudge. Help us to work for love, mercy and compassion instead of grudges, vengeance, and hate. We ache to be your unconditionally loving people, help us to begin it today.