Sermon 2/16/2020: Love is the Law

Lessons: Sirach 15:15-20Psalm 119:1-81 Corinthians 3:1-9Matthew 5:21-37



For many years, Jeff and I have found one television series to watch together.  It’s not always easy for us to find time to simply sit together and veg out on the couch watching something that interests both of us. 

Looking back on our nearly 33 years of marriage, I bet we could both tell you which shows we chose.  Cheers and Star Trek:  The Next Generation, were a couple of the earlier ones.  Before we moved here, it was Doctor Who.  We just completed the three seasons of The Good Place. 
We have generally watched them in late-night reruns, recordings, On Demand, or now, on Netflix, because the regular airing time never seems to fit into the way we live.
Earlier this week, Jeff was wondering what we should watch next.  Our daughter, Erin, reminded us that she has been suggesting a show called The 100 to us for a couple of years.  To get us to commit, she logged us into our Netflix account and started the television.
The three of us watched the first two episodes together.  It is another dystopian story.  One of those stories that describe a society where there is great suffering or injustice.  The 100 is a show about the last 4000 humans living on a space station, called the Ark, after the earth became uninhabitable due to the nuclear Armageddon that occurred three generations earlier
The people on the Ark created their own society, of course.  Setting the rules and laws that help them maintain civility and manage their supplies as they live in a very confined place.  The story begins with a teen-aged girl, drawing on the floor of her jail cell.
It seems that many of the young people on the Ark have broken some rule or another and are placed into custody in the prison system on board. 
When a couple of guards come into her cell and try to put a cuff of sorts on her arm, the girl reminds them that she is underage and cannot be “floated,” or tossed off the ship, into space, to die.  It seems corporal punishment is a thing up in space.
She struggles, breaks free, is grabbed.  Then her mother shows up to tell her she is not going to be floated.  Instead, she has been chosen to go to earth with 99 other juvenile prisoners to see if the earth has become a viable place to live again.
One hundred young people—the next generation of humans—are sent on a ship to earth with no supervision, no supplies, to see if the earth has healed enough for the humans to come back.
These young people have been living under laws and rules that were developed by elders who had to design them in a way that kept what was left of humanity safe. 
When the kids disembark from their pod, they begin to realize that they do not have to live with the same rules or laws that some believed stifled their existence on the space station. 

At about this point in the show, Jeff commented that this looked like it was going to be a story much like William Goldings’ 1954 dystopian novel, The Lord of the Flies. 

The young woman from the first scene is the daughter of a high-ranking scientist.  The son of the society’s Chancellor is also on board.  Each has more information about why they were sent to earth than the rest of the 100.  Because of their parents, they are considered privileged by some of the other young people.    
The marginalized young adults think they want to live without rules or laws.  Of course, chaos ensues.  Of course, bullies emerge, victims are identified, the caste system they all were familiar with on board the starship is turned upside down.
The irony was that those who claimed they did not want to live with rules, those who wanted freedom from authority – it was those who began to create new rules that put them in charge and gave them the authority they craved.  They decided to remove the cuffs from their arms because they realized the cuffs were transmitting information back to the ship so the scientists on the ship would be able to know if it was safe to send more people to earth.  And they bullied, forced tricked and deprived others of food unless they would do the same.
What nearly all the 100 did not know was that the Ark was running out of life support for the people aboard.  This mission to the earth was not just an experiment, but a way for humanity to survive.

We are only two episodes in, but what I have come to know about this program is that this is an example of what happens when there are no rules.  And it will be interesting to keep watching to see how these young people, and those left on the Ark, will learn that there must be rules for a society to survive, for a community to thrive, and for people to be in relationship with one another.  Otherwise there is utter chaos.
Jesus knew this, too.  After telling the marginalized people in his presence that they are blessed, and reminding them that they are both salt and light, Jesus reminds them that God gave them rules, laws, commandments, to follow to keep them in healthy relationship with God and with one another.
We can look at all these rules and feel guilt or shame about the ones that we’ve bent or broken. We could think of them as excessive or unpopular or burdensome.  
OR we can look at them, recognizing that without them we cannot be in relationship with God or with one another.  We need boundaries.  We need policies.  We need norms and covenants.  We need to not only have these commandments from God, we need to have them with one another.
Why?  Because Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40: ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

It makes me think about the 1982 cult classic song title, “Love is the Law” by the Minneapolis Punk band called The Suburbs.
I know that might sound a little strange, but it sums it all up.  Love is the law.  And loving means we live in ways that express our commitment to God and to one another.  It means we pay attention to the promises we make to God in our baptismal covenant, in the vows we make when we marry, in the commitments we make when we sign documents from purchase agreements to voter registrations. 
When love is the law, we are more apt to live within the laws that maintain the civility, courtesy, and compassion needed to be a part of the communities in which we live and participate.  From our cities to our work to our church and back out into the world, love is the law.

Let us pray.
Holy One, we have dystopian stories that pop up on our television screens and in our literature that show us what happens when we do not follow the laws of loving you.  Help us to learn from these works of fiction so that we will prevent a world without the law of love.  For it is because of your love for us that you sent down commandments that teach us how to be in relationship with you and with one another.  Give us strength and courage to be your people, committed to modeling our lives after your beloved son.  Amen.