Sermon for Australia Day, 2020.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law’ (Romans 13:8).
Let us pray: Lord, sanctify us in the truth: your Word is Truth. Amen.
Without exception.
In the English language there is the grammatical rule: "i" before "e" except after "c." But as early as Primary School, you learn that there are many exceptions to that rule. For the rule is broken in such words as: neighbour, weigh, feign, height, seize, heifer, weird and there's about 50 more that can be easily found with a simple search!
Musician Isaac Stern said, "Everywhere in the world, music enhances a hall, with one exception: Carnegie Hall enhances the music."
Poet John Holmes said, "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
And most humorously, Groucho Marx said, "I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."
The words "except" and "exception" are enormously powerful! Using these words you can take away everything else, thus rendering the "everything else" completely irrelevant. You can separate and distinguish millions and billions and trillions in favour of a factor of just one, a single item, or a single group!
God’s Word is also not without exception! Jesus said, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6). That’s how powerful exceptions can be! That verse captures that fact that, "all authority in heaven and on earth" (Mtt 28:18) has been given to Jesus! Consider another pointed word from Jesus. Speaking prophetically about his death and resurrection, he said, 'A wicked and adulterous generous asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah' (Mtt. 12:39). 'Except' has the greatest of powers to distinguish "this" from "all that:” a singularity distinguished from all the other possible selections “above, below and beyond,” as it were.
And on this Australia Day 2020, we come across another exceptional phrase. St Paul says in Romans 13:8: ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law’ (Romans 13:8).
But before we change Peter McCormick’s ‘Advance Australia Fair’ to the Lennon and McCartney’s ‘All you need is love,’ we need to pull on the reigns and learn what love really is – love that corresponds with truth - love according to God’s purpose and design, not ours. For we live in a world that reverses things, a world that likes to swap things around, a world that orders things incorrectly - disordered. When compared with how God ordered things in the beginning, the world is very much out-of-order. Satan sowed that seed of disorder in the Garden of Paradise a long, long, time ago, and it germinated into a humanity that pursued love according to its own rules and regulations, rather than according to God’s purpose and design. And now that seed has matured and flowered and is setting seed according to its own kind in our lifetime. The recent changes to the Australian Marriage Act is but one example. Such was voted on and done in the name of “love.”
And that’s where we have tripped up. How can the populace not but trip up when the right path has been obscured from sight? And if there is ever a spiritual awakening in the West, if we ever get to the point of truthfully finding out how far from the right path we have gone, we will need to consult the map: the map that reveals and projects the truth rather than the current practice of projecting our “truth” upon the map. And that’s the point at which we will have to return to the word “except.” For without exception, a world and a country that is out-of-order needs to know that Jesus said, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6).
This is the truth claim that must be either accepted or rejected. If it is accepted than it will give shape to what St Paul has said, when he said, ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law’ (Romans 13:8). But if it remains challenged and forsaken then we won’t have the freedom it promised in the 1960’s, rather we will have the “free-for-all” of an anything goes that it delivered. For true love has shape to it. Without accepting that Jesus is 'the way and the truth and the life’ then “love” can be molded into absolutely anything – without exception. “Anything goes” in the name of love when truth is relativized, rather than absolute. But love really does have shape to it. Love was given perfect shape in the Garden, that is, until Adam and Eve fell into temptation. And because of their fall, love has been misshapen ever since. And millions outside, and to our shame, almost as many inside the church, do not even know where to turn to find love’s true shape!
True love to our neighbour is shaped like this:
4. Honour your father and your mother.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and others in authority, but respect, obey, love, and serve them.
5. You shall not kill.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbour in any way, but help them in all their physical needs.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that in matters of sex our words and conduct are pure and honourable, and husband and wife love and respect each other.
7. You shall not steal.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbour’s money or property, or get them in any dishonest way, but help them to improve and protect their property and means of making a living.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbour, but defend them, speak well of them, and explain their actions in the kindest way.
9. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that we do not desire to get our neighbour’s possessions by scheming, or by pretending to have a right to them, but always help them keep what is theirs.
10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his cattle, or anything that is your neighbour’s.
What does this mean for us?
We are to fear and love God so that we do not tempt or coax away from our neighbours their spouse or their workers, but encourage them to remain loyal.
So when the Christian is asked, or asks themselves, ‘What does this mean?’ they are effectively asking, ‘And how does this Commandment take shape in my life?’ It’s that simple, and yet that profound.
St Paul said, ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. But why the text selection for our National Day ends there is anyone’s guess, for St Paul goes on to say in the following verses, ‘The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 10 Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law’ (Rom 13:9-10).
I’ve never thought of it like this, but what harm did Jesus Christ ever do to the world? We speak of him by telling others of all the good things he did and continues to do for us. But what if we spoke of him occasionally to others by saying that he has never ever done us any harm? St Paul says that, ‘Love does no harm to a neighbour.’ But again, our hearts are so misshapen that our excuse expresses itself in the phrase, ‘But I’m not hurting anyone.’ The world accepts that excuse without blinking an eyelid, for it sounds good to our ears. But that’s when the truth has to step in and give proper shape to our own personal or corporate “truth” claims. Yes, ‘Love does no harm to a neighbour’, but love also finds its proper shape in the truth of the Ten Commandments.
The Commandments primary purpose is show us just how misshapen our hearts have become. For example: A false love wants to take control of parental authority and reshape it into rebellion. A false love wants to take control of the gift of life and reshape it into assisted suicide. A false love wants to take control of the gift of marriage and re-shape it into something else. A false love wants to take control of money and property and reshape it into selfish gain. A false love wants to take control of other people’s failings and reshape them into self-promotion. A false love wants to take control of other’s people’s possessions and worker’s and reshape those gifts from God into objects of false desires. But true love looks nothing like any of this.
As love, and as he embodies it in the flesh, only Christ Jesus has put love back into shape for us to see in his self-sacrificial expression of love. Only he fulfilled the requirements of the law to love perfectly, all the way to his sacrificial death on the cross. And that’s where our failings are forgiven.
Only love that gets it shape and expression from the Truth is true love. And that is what every redeemed child of God is called into. As they stand, the Ten Commandments condemn us as failures. But Jesus fulfilled them perfectly in our place, and yet receives the due punishment of death, as if he had failed to keep even one perfectly. Faith in Jesus, without exception, is the only way true love comes to life in community, in country, for the sake of the life of the world.
Based on his love for us, God, has called us into a true and right relationship with him, and now love for us is always given shape by the truth – the truth of God’s Word, and as it is embodied in him who is, the Way, the Truth and the Life. As St Paul says elsewhere, ‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth’ (1 Cor 13:4-6).
And the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.