Sixth Sunday after Trinity, July 11, 2010.
The Rev. Kurt J Henle, Rector, All Saints Anglican Church, Traverse City, MI
OT: 2 Samuel 19:16-23; Psalm 109:1-4, 20-30; Epistle: Romans 6:3-11; Gospel: Matthew 5:20-26
The summer is in full swing. We enjoy the bounty around us: fresh fruit, berries, vegetables, salads, flowers and herbs. We are in the “green” season of growth, not only in fields and gardens, but also in our Christian walk and journey, as we have said in the past. The goal of the Trinity season is to mature us from baby Christians into witnesses to and images of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We hear that appeal in our Introit, where we acknowledge that God has called us out of the bondage of sin into the perfect freedom of being His children, becoming “servants of Righteousness” so that we may bear “fruit unto holiness”. The common theme in our Scripture readings today is Righteousness - and the lack thereof in the story of Shimei.
What do we mean by Righteousness? As children, we were taught simply to do the Right Thing. Listen to your parents, don’t talk back, excel in appointed tasks, and mind your manners. Above us, the 10 commandments are posted – cryptic in Hebrew to most of us – but well known in English all the same. Sometimes we recite them in place of the Summary of the Law as part of our liturgy. Now, are we righteous if we keep the 10 commandments? Some of the “big” sins seem easy to avoid, like murder. Yet Jesus in the Gospel today said that whoever insults his brother is guilty of a kind of murder. Clearly, the 10 commandments explicitly cover some sins, but not others. The Rabbinic tradition developed a list of 613 commandments, presumably to cover all bases.
In Western Christian medieval tradition, the 10 commandments were supplemented with a more modest list of 7 deadly sins, mostly based on principles from the Book of Proverbs.
The deadly sins include Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth. Only envy (coveting) overlaps with 1 of the 10th commandments. 7 Heavenly Virtues are given as positive commandments inversely corresponding to the 7 deadly sins: Humility instead of pride, Charity instead of greed, Chastity instead of lust, Kindness instead of envy, Temperance instead of gluttony, Patience instead of wrath, and Diligence instead of sloth. Now, are we Righteous if we avoid 7 deadly sins, practice 7 heavenly virtues and obey 10 commandments?
Actually, the New Testament (NT) contains its own set of 10 commandments. They are mostly positive laws – what to Do, not so much the “Do not” kind of laws of the OT. The NT commandments are found in 1 Thessalonians 5 (last yrs sermon): 1. live in peace with 1 another, 2. seek after that which is good for 1 another, 3. rejoice always, 4. pray w/o ceasing, 5. in everything give thanks, 6. do not quench the HS, 7. do not despise prophecy, 8. examine everything carefully, 9. hold fast to what is good,10. abstain from every form of evil. They are wonderful principles by which to live. But do they make for true Righteousness? How are we scoring so far? Remember that Jesus called us to perfect Righteousness in the Sermon on the Mount.
Fortunately, God also knows our weakness when we are left just to ourselves. In Rm 13 and Gal 5:14 we hear the good news that “the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love is the key to Righteousness. Love is a relationship. A love relationship supersedes specific rules and regulations concerning right behavior. Our Righteousness means 1st a right relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, and then a right relationship with our neighbors – the Summary of the Law. The Epistle speaks of being baptized with Christ into His death, so that we might also be raised with Him to newness of life – it means that the demands of Righteousness are fulfilled by love.
What then are we to do with rules and commandments?
Vices, virtues, and commandments are MEASURING POSTS for our relationship with Christ and neighbor. Jesus said: “IF you love me, Keep my commandments!” (Jn 14:15). Are we growing in maturity? Are we conforming to the image of Christ?
Our alignment with commandments, virtues, and vices is an important indicator of spiritual progress. But such alignment is never the MECHANISMS by which we become more spiritual or righteous. 1 Cor 2:15 reads “The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.” This means that Christians ought to examine and judge all things, beginning with themselves. So, how are we doing? We should examine ourselves daily in private, and then weekly before our corporate Confession of Sins.
With heart-felt repentance for those sins, we then receive the Absolution through Christ, as we sang in our sermon hymn, “Jesus, thy Blood and Righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress”. His Righteousness becomes ours and the sole basis for our claim to the “mansion in the sky” (last verse of the hymn) because we have returned to a right relationship with God. This is the good news of our salvation which we should never take for granted. And so we have a warning in the OT lesson in Shimei who appeared to return into a right relationship with the king, but really remained unchanged and hostile.
Shimei was from King Saul's household and the tribe of Benjamin. He harbored hostility to King David ever since King Saul and his son Jonathan were defeated and killed by the Philistines and David ascended to the throne. When King David fled for his life from his rebellious son, Absalom and his army, Shimei saw his chance to vent his true feelings. In 2 Sam 16 we learn that Shimei had his house near the tribal border of Judah and the road from Jerusalem down to the Jordan. When David and his loyal men retreated down on that road, Shimei ran along the ridge over against the road, cursing David, throwing stones and dust at him, shouting, "Get out of here, you bloody villain, you worthless scoundrel!” “The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned. And now, the LORD has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, how your evil has returned to you, you bloody crook."
Abishai, David’s nephew and general, was more enraged than David and was ready to kill Shimei, saying “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head.” David stopped him. He even accepted that perhaps God had permitted Shimei to curse him. Ps 109 is a Psalm of David – perhaps his feelings at that time. It is 1 of the “Imprecatory Psalms”, maledictions that for Christians are difficult to understand. We don’t have time here to discuss these in more detail, but they are a fascinating topic.
In Ps 109:27, David prays “Though they curse [Shimei, Absalom], may YOU bless; let those who rise up against me be confounded, but let your servant rejoice” - a wonderful Christ-like prayer that grows out of a right relationship with God. So, How did Shimei’s story end?
In our OT passage for today, Absalom’s rebellion was defeated. Absalom was dead, caught by his luxurious hair in a tree. King David and his men were returning to Jerusalem. They came up the same road, crossing the Jordan river, where a group of 1,000 Benjaminites greeted them with Shimei in front. Shimei fell down before the king, and essentially claimed “I didn’t mean what I said”. V 19b “Do not let the king take it to heart.”
Again Abishai was eager to repay Shimei’s treason. But once again, King David told Abishai to back off. He did not want to avenge old wrongs on the day of his restoration and he promised to Shimei –v 23 - "you shall not die.” King David offered mercy and a chance for Shimei to restore a rightful relationship through confession and repentance. But Shimei was only afraid of punishment. Fear is not a lasting basis for a new relationship. He had no love for David.
On his deathbed, King David charged his son & heir King Solomon to keep an eye on Shimei. He was to build a house, and stay in Jerusalem for the rest of his life, never to return again to his old house and to his former life. Shimei even swore that if he was ever caught outside the city, he would forfeit his life. After a short period of 3 yrs, Shimei broke his promise to pursue 2 of his fleeing slaves. Caught outside the city, he was killed by Solomon’s officers. His unrighteous relationship based on fear w/o love brought his penalty on “his own head”.
In the Gospel, Jesus calls us to a right relationship with Him and with our neighbors, a relationship based on love. That love always begins with God reaching down to us and enabling us to love in return. In our Collect we accept that God has prepared for us good things that pass all understanding – perfect love. And so we pray “Pour into our hearts such love toward you that we, loving you IN all things and ABOVE all things, may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire – through Jesus Christ our Lord.” AMEN.
