Lent 5 Year B 2006

It is amazing to those of us who are parents that God would give us the most precious gift in the world, a small child. Some parents wonder why God would not give them an instruction manual on how to raise that child. If you buy a computer, or a car, or a DVD player, you get a manual, but for the most intricate and complicated gift in the world, a human infant, there is no manual. While the Bible gives us great principles and guidelines for raising children it always seems we want more details. Raising children is a tough job.

I like the story of one mother with four small children at home. A friend gave her a playpen, and the mother wrote a thank you note to her friend. “I love it. I sit down in it in the middle of the living room. The children can’t get to me for hours.” We can appreciate that.

Bill Cosby has an amusing routine in his book Fatherhood about the first parent. The first parent, according to Cosby, was not Adam and Eve. The first parent was God. Even God has trouble with His kids, according to Cosby.

The first thing God said to his kids was what most parents say to their kids, “Don’t.” And Adam replied, “Don’t what?” And God said, “Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.” And Adam said, “Forbidden fruit? Really? Where is it?” Bill Cosby says, “That’s beginning to sound familiar, isn’t it? You never realized that the pattern of your life had been laid down in the Garden of Eden.”

It’s over there,” said, God, wondering why he hadn’t stopped after making the elephants. A few minutes later God saw the kids having an apple break and He was angry. “Didn’t I tell you not to eat that fruit?” the first parent said. “Uh-huh,” Adam replied. “Then why did you?” God asked. “I don’t know,” Adam said, “All right, then, get out of here, go forth, be fruitful and multiply,” said God. Cosby goes on to comment that this was not a blessing, but a curse. God’s punishment was that Adam and Eve would have children of their own.

In our first lesson today, Jeremiah describes a relationship between God and humanity that very much resembles a parent and a child. As parents we give our children external guidance and discipline while they are young with the hope that when they are older those values which we have sought to instill will be manifested in responsible behavior. But, says God, there is a day coming when humanity will not need external laws, for His laws will be written on their hearts.

I would like to speak to you this morning on what it means to have God’s laws written in our hearts. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the last to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

To have God’s laws written on our hearts, first of all, means to become inner directed people rather than outer directed people. Those two terms – inner directed and outer directed – were words popularized many years ago by sociologist David Reisman. He spoke of a society that has become more and more outer directed. We guide our behavior according to the behavior of others. Whatever is popular, whatever is in, whatever is in agreement with the spirit of the times is that which we embrace.

If abstinence and chastity are old fashioned, then we need not worry about abstaining or being chaste. That belongs in the old days. We are a modern society. How do we determine what is right or what is wrong in an outer directed society? We take a poll and see what the majority believes. The result determines our values. For outer-directed persons peer pressure is irresistible. Such persons are dominated by the desire to blend in, to be popular, and to not appear out of step with their friends. The outer-directed person seeks experiences that give them pleasure. They are pleasure driven people. The danger of such orientations should be obvious. God says, “I will write my law…in their hearts.”

John Burroughs, one of America’s greatly beloved naturalists, made a neighborly call upon a woman who knew him and his writings well. She was aware of his love for birds and noticed how often his feathered friends were described in Burroughs’s books. As the woman sat on her front porch visiting with the naturalist, she complained, “Why is it, Mr. Burroughs, that there are so many birds at your place? I have no birds at all in my yard.” John Burroughs had been watching, in absorbed fascination, all sorts of birds, flitting amidst the shrubbery and flying among the trees around the lady’s house. He replied, “Madam, you will not see birds in your yard until you have birds in your heart.”

No outward law will suffice. If we do not have the inner sense of who we are and whose we are, and why we were created, and what our chief end in life is, no outward law is likely to help. We do not have to take a Gallup poll to determine what is appropriate for us. When we have invited Jesus to come and live in our lives, and we have the indwelling Holy Spirit moving within the parameters of the written revelation of God, the Bible, we have all we need to become inner directed persons. Because the Holy Spirit will never move us or direct us to do something that is contrary to the Scriptures, we can trust that as we become more sensitive to the Spirit within us, it will become more natural for us to do the right thing, to do what God wants us to do. This is really the mark of a mature believer, he or she becomes more and more inner-directed rather than outer directed.

In the second place, having God’s law written in our hearts means being other-centered rather than self-centered. The immature person is always centered on himself or herself. The first thing a newborn baby does is cry out to have its own needs met. The hardest lesson in life is how to share.

When my daughter Alexandra was little we worked with her to learn this concept of sharing. One day I asked her I could have one of her cookies. Nancy used to really be into health foods and healthy snacks. She had made two different types of cookies, one is what I would call a good cookie, but very unhealthy. The other I would describe as tasting like sawdust, but very healthy. Thinking she would share with me, her beloved dad, one of her good cookies, she reached over to the plate with the sawdust cookies on them, grabbed one, handed it to me and said, “Here you go, Dad.” She wasn’t about to share her “junk food cookies” with me. Thankfully she has moved much more in the direction of being other centered rather than self-centered. When we have God’s law written in our hearts we begin to move from being outer directed to inner directed, from self-centered to other-centered.

There is one final aspect of having God’s law written in our hearts. That is the idea of trusting God. The esteemed psychologist Eric Erickson wrote many years ago that the primary task of childhood is the development of a sense of trust. The mark of the adolescent, of the immature, is to be fearful, jealous, and possessive. The ability to walk through life with confidence and conviction because we have an inner security and peace is one of the greatest gifts that God gives the believer.

David Buttrick tells about a pastor whose office desk faces some specifically designed wall paper. The wall paper repeats, line after line, all over the wall, “Let go. Trust God. Let go. Trust God. Let go. Trust God. There are many folks that are good people, who are more inner-directed than out directed, who have moved closer to being less self-centered. They are loving, generous people. But they have never been able to let go and trust God. They never reach the status that H. G. Stafford reached. Stafford lost his home in a fire, and both his daughters in a shipwreck, yet was able to write one of the most powerful and beloved hymns, “When peace like a river, attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea-billows roll. Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well, with my soul.’”

“But,” you say, “You don’t know how I’ve suffered, what I have had to go through in my life.” No I don’t. But even the Son of God learned to trust God through what he suffered. Let’s look at Jesus’ suffering. He was initially rejected by his brothers and sisters; some of the religious people tried to stone him; his cousin was beheaded; many people turned back from following him; he was falsely accused, arrested; flogged near death; forced to carry the implement of his own death, a cross; almost all of his friends turned against him including one who betrayed him; he suffered an agonizing death on the cross. Even at the end, he still trusted in God, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

What is keeping you from letting go and trusting God today? Is it fear? When you have the Holy Spirit living inside you and the law of God implanted in your heart, then you will be reminded each time you fear (if you listen to the Spirit within you) that the perfect love of God is there to cast out all fear from you.

Is your difficulty in trusting God based on past disappointments with God causing you to blame God for your suffering and loss? Listen to the voice of the Spirit who would remind you, “My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord.” Listen to the words of Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God and he will direct your path.”

Perhaps your lack of trust is partly based on a rebellious spirit that does not want to submit to God. Pray the prayer that we read in our Psalm today, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

When we have a right spirit within us, one that is seeking to be in relationship with Jesus; one that is wanting to follow the leading of the Savior, then we are more likely to be inner-directed, other-centered as the law of God becomes something we obey by nature rather than by a conscious act of the will.