Matthew 22:34-46
Todd Buegler
October 24 & 25, 2009
Lord of Life
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, who fulfills the promise! Amen.
Let me be the first today to say “congratulations” to all of you on this chance to affirm your baptismal vows. For most of you, baptism happened somewhere around 15 or 16 years ago, when your parents made promises for you. Today, it is your turn. And we are all very, very proud of you!
What we’ve been a part of here is about God’s work in your lives. We’d never want to reduce it all to cold, hard statistics. But, sometimes I get a little curious, so I’ve done some math and want to share with you all some statistics about your confirmation experience. There are a total of 164 of you being confirmed this weekend. You were a part of 23 different small groups that met on Wednesday nights and on retreats for a total of 88 hours of time together. Add up all that time your class gave to small groups in your faith journey and it comes out to 13,710 people hours. Together, you have all given (and this is a conservative estimate), 6,842 hours of service to people in need, and to the church. One of you did a total of 109 service hours…in one year. You have turned in a total of 4,864 worship notes. (actually, the number was 4,861, but as soon as the 3 of you still turning in the last ones on this sermon do so, it will be 4,864.) Finally, and perhaps most impressively, over three years, your class personally ate 1,122 large Domino’s pizzas. Congratulations!
And so after this 3-year journey, today we arrive at this milestone. Alongside your baptism, receiving your 3rd grade Bibles, your first communion, today is an important day, a marker in your faith. And on behalf of the church, I want to say thank you to your parents, for their bringing you to this point, for fulfilling the vows that they made at your baptism.
And I want to thank all of you for being a part of this so far; for what you’ve given…for how you’ve grown in your faith.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten to meet with, and talk with, a bunch of you in preparation for this weekend. And I’ve come to understand that even today, there is not total clarity about what this weekend is all about. Does your affirming your baptismal vows mean you’re ‘done’? No. This is not a graduation. We’re never done growing in our faith. Does it mean you’re supposed to have all of the answers? No chance. None of us have the all of the answers…as a matter of fact, the older we get, and the more answers we discover, the more questions we find.
So if today isn’t about ‘being done,' and it isn’t about ‘answers,’ what is it about?
Today is about “hinges.” Yes, I said “hinges.” Hinges, as in door-hinges...like these ones right here.
We don’t think about hinges very often…or maybe even ever. But we use them all the time. Every time you walk through a door, you are using hinges, you just don't think about it. Hinges might just be the piece of hardware that we take the most for granted. The thing that I think is kind of interesting about a hinge is that you never use one by itself. Do you know what you call a door with only one hinge? Broken. A door is useless unless it has two hinges, one on the top and the other on the bottom of the door. Without two hinges, a door just doesn’t work…it isn’t useful…it doesn’t do what it was supposed to do. For any door to work correctly it uses two hinges.
Check it out when you get home. Every door, every cupboard, every cabinet. Two hinges. Some doors will even have three. But the point is, there needs to be at least two for the door to work.
It is with this image of two hinges to make a door work that we approach the Gospel for our affirmation of baptism service today. Jesus is once again in conversation and confrontation with the Pharisees. If there was ever a group of people who approached life and religion differently than Jesus, it was the Pharisees. They were a rule-oriented bunch of people. For them, the very essence of religion was to obey the rules and regulations of scripture...the law. Their goal was to obey all of the commandments of the Old Testament.
Let’s return to statistics for just a moment…do you have any idea how many commandments there are in the Old Testament? How many rules there are? There are 613 commandments in the Old Testament. And what do you think: Are there more positive, or more negative commandments? Negative, as in “thou shall not…” versus positive, which would be “thou shall…” How many think negative? How many think positive. If you guessed “thou shall not…” you win. (your prize? Come to church next week and Pastor Peter will buy you a free donut.) There are 365 negative commandents in the Old Testament and there are 248 positive commandments. The very essence of religion during Jesus’ day was to know and obey these 613 rules; and if you messed them up, the religious leaders might throw rocks at your head. If you think confirmation might have been tough here, or that we have a lot of requirements, you’re just lucky you didn’t live 2000 years ago.
So one day, one of the Pharisees came to Jesus and asked him a question in order to trap him. “Jesus, of all of the 613 rules and regulations of the Old Testament, which one is the most important?” One of these 613 rules was that no rule was important than any other…depending on how Jesus answered, they could arrest him. But Jesus didn’t bite. His reply was to go back and quote Dueteronomy 6:4: “You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul.” And even though the Pharisee only asked for one, Jesus gave him two. He said “and the second one is like it…” and Jesus reached back into the book of Leviticus, chapter 18…”and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments HINGE all the law and the prophets. On these two commandments HINGE all the scriptures as the Jews knew them.
Jesus was saying that all of the 613 laws, and all the words of the prophets are like a door. And these two commandments, which if you’ll remember from your 9th grade year we call “The Jesus Ethic”, each of them is like one of these hinges.
What use are all of these 613 rules and laws? Jesus is saying “without these 2 commandments, not much.” Like a door with out hinges, rules and laws without love of God and each other don’t work, and are not much good to anyone.
During the past three years of being involved in C3, you have studied the scriptures. We spent a whole year walking through the Old and the New Testaments. And then in the other years, we had a scripture lesson attached to every week, as we looked at Lutheran belief and doctrine, at the teachings of Martin Luther, we discussed decision making and ethics, worship, the Lord’s Prayer, the 10 Commandents and the Apostle’s creed. We heard speakers at Sunday Night Festivals share their faith stories. On retreats you looked at who was Jesus…at discipleship, and just a month ago on our 'day away', at what faith and belief are.
This large body of stuff that we've learned about together is like the door. And Jesus teaches us that our two hinges are still: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself.” Everything that we've learned together is hinged on these two commandments.
There are those who would want to do away with the door altogether and claim that they just need the two hinges: “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself.” They would argue that everything else is optional. The essence of all religion, they would say, is just boiled down to the two hinges, and that is all they need. Unfortunately, for these folks when life becomes difficult, when their faith is challenged, they won’t have the great stories of the faith, the knowledge and the understanding to stand on, to support them.
Others, all they really want is a door full of Biblical knowledge. They know a lot about the Bible and the church, they know the rules, but they really don’t love God with everything they have, nor do they really love their hurting neighbors. They are more interested in religion than they are in faith. They may know what Jesus did (past tense), but they forget what Jesus does (present tense.) They are more interested in the knowledge and in the law, than they are in loving God and loving each other. They don’t grasp the importance of the hinges.
No...to walk through a door, to enter into our faith, it is all about having both the door and the hinges, the knowledge and the love, the law, and the gospel. And Jesus invites each of us to enter into this faith.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last two weeks looking at the faith statements you wrote on our Day Away at Gustavus. Thank you for great work on these. I wanted to share a few of these…they were amazing. I’m just going to come down here, and I think I’ll pick a few of you at random to read yours…no…I’m just kidding. But I did ask a few of you to share yours.
Sat: 1:30 – David Gale
Sat. 3:30 – Brady Jacobs
Sun. 1:30 – Summer Getty; Melanie Kraemer
Sun. 3:30 – Austin Kurtti; Alisha Stieg
Thank you! That is wonderful. Do you hear both the hinges in these words? Do you hear love of God? Do you hear love of neighbor? And the door is there. There is knowledge, and understanding, and it all hinges on this great love that comes from God.
10th graders: In your baptism, at the font, you were given this great gift of faith. Your parents now for 15 or 16 years have nurtured that gift. You have been given the knowledge and the understanding. And because of God’s indescribable love of you, you can hang all of these gifts on the two hinges; loving God with your whole heart, mind and soul, and loving
Ultimately, the affirmation of your baptism today is not about a ceremony...not about a robe...not about the 'stuff' that we studied together. It is about an invitation and a gift. It is God who invites you to walk through the door...to enter into a profound relationship. God does not have to do this...no, God does this because he loves you. Each one of you. Deeply.
And today is your chance to affirm that invitation...to say 'yes' to the God who first says 'yes' to you, and to walk through that door, to enter into a new relationship. And every single day, we have the opportunity to say 'yes' and to enter into that relationship.
Our prayer for you this day is that you always remember the invitation that God gives to you. May you always know that the door is made up of knowledge and understanding, but that this door hangs on hinges: God's call to love Him, and to love each other. And as you daily enter into this relationship, may you remember the gifts that God gives, and the love that God feels for you.
Amen.
