Dennis Tuuri

My foes are like devouring beasts, their teeth like arrows, spears, their sharpened tongues like slashing swords. Increase my woes and fears. Surely we have experienced that each of us in our own particular way. And even more sadly, surely each of us has done that with our tongues as well, which the scriptures teach us are very difficult, nay impossible to control.

Today is our second sermon on the Ninth Word: to not bear false witness. Having its original emphasis in immediate application referring to testimony in court, but today we wish to broaden the perspective a little bit. We’ve talked about Deuteronomy section that preaches through the Ten Commandments. We’ve said that Leviticus 19 is another summary statement of the Ten Commandments, although not in order. We’ve said the book of Daniel is another place to go through the Ten Commandments in order. And in the case laws in Exodus, we find sections given to particular commandments, although again not in order, in a particular different order than the Ten Words.

So we’re going to turn today to Exodus 23:1-9. I believe this is the section of the case laws dealing with the Ninth Commandment, and we’ll use it to talk about the Ninth Commandment in ordinary life. It certainly has stuff about court and rulers, but it has stuff that’s very applicable to us in our everyday lives as well. So turn in your scriptures to Exodus 23:1-9, or you may follow along on the handout that’s been provided today. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. Nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute. If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.

You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. Keep yourself far from a false matter. Do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not justify the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous. Also, you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for reminding us once more of the great redemption from the greater Egypt of sin and bondage and death accomplished by our Savior 2,000 years ago in which we share. Thank you, Father, for your gracious delivery of us. And help us then to learn grace and mercy and truth and love. Help us by this word to be moved by your Holy Spirit to further be sanctified and mature as we try to control that uncontrollable element of our bodies, our tongues.

Help us, Father, to be encouraged to use our tongues and our hands for purposes of your kingdom and not to destroy people, but to build them up. Bless us then from this text. By your Holy Spirit, transform us. Give us this good gift now, Father, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Please be seated.

As I said, we move today from not totally away from a courtroom setting, as is obvious by the text, but to elements of application of the Ninth Word that are more to do with ordinary life. The cover of your order of worship today is the panel from Cranach’s painting of the Ten Commandments that deals with the Ninth Commandment. And you can see that the Ninth Commandment actually is. It’s not first and foremost a commandment that says don’t lie. It speaks specifically about testifying in court falsely. You can see on the front of your order of worship that’s a picture of a court scene.

There’s a rich man and a poor man. The rich man is demonstrated in a heavy garment, beautiful garment, and he has a sword. He has power. The judge has a heavy garment as well. He is a ruler. And we can see that the poor man’s in the right. There’s an angel behind him. The rich man is in the wrong. There is the devil himself in court with him, dressed up in goat’s hair, his appearance in court. There is probably a false document, false testimony being offered by the rich.

So we see those kind of scenes, and today we want to look at a scene that deals with applications rather that deals more with ordinary life as well as court. Before we do that, some people have said that Pastor Tuuri’s middle name is Review, and I’ve never heard that said in a good way. I’ve never heard somebody say, “You know, we really appreciate those long reviews you do that make your sermon that much longer.”

I’m sure they mean it that way, though. Well, whether they do or not, I wanted to show you this structure from last week, and we can do it by way of review. It’s been one of the great delights of my life in the last ten years or so to have trained myself by reading various books, authors, and talking to people in trying to discern the structure of various scriptures, including but not limited to chiastic structures.

Someone said this about these kind of structures: they represent the ripples of God’s word hitting our shore. So if we can sort of see these structures, they’re ripples and there’s an orderliness to them. Or another way to put it: meditations that begin to line up with God’s words. When we look at structures like this, we end up with meditations, and those meditations line up with God’s word very literally in the context of structures.

We talked last week about reflections on 9/11. And one of the most important things we said was to recover that sense of the need to pray, the need to clean up our lives that most of us felt ten years ago. And I would ask you today: if you made commitments to more prayer last week, have you fulfilled them? This structure that I’ve given you on your handout, and if you don’t have the handout, it’s really too bad. You should probably go back and pick one up, or you can get it later if you’d like.

But I think it’s an example of these arrows pointing to a center in a particular text. So if you look at 1 Samuel 7, based on the handout here, you see the A structures. The thing that began to get me to wonder if there really is a structure here is Samuel judging the children of Israel at Mizpah. And then this is repeated down in the A-prime structure in verses 15 and 16: Samuel judged Israel, and he mentioned several cities including Mizpah. So it seems like that’s an inclusion. It says here’s a little structure that you can begin to look at.

And then as you look at the B, B-prime structures, those are very interesting because in verse 7 the Philistines, hearing that God’s people were gathering together, they come out against Israel. So the Philistines initiate combat in the B structure, and in the matching B-prime structure at the end of the story, the Philistines are subdued. So we move from the Philistines attacking to the Philistines being subdued. In the C structure, when the Philistines attack, they’re afraid. It says they were afraid of the Philistines. But after the movement to the center, we find in the C-prime structure in verse 11 that they’re pursuing the Philistines.

So the people of God are moved from a fear of their enemies to a pursuing after and a fighting of their enemies, being involved in the warfare. That’s movement. That’s significant movement. So we see these nice structures that show us this movement: from attack of Philistines to their defeat, from fear of the Philistines to being empowered to pursue the Philistines.

And then in the D sections, the people asked that Samuel might pray to God, that the Lord himself might save us. And in the D-prime section, that’s what we find out. After the prayer at the center, the Lord thunders from heaven. He saves them. He saves them in an unmediated fashion, immediately, without the mediation, the normal mediation he would use of people. He thunders from heaven. And so it matches them asking the Lord to save us, and the Lord himself does save them without using other means. He thunders from heaven. And so there’s that movement.

And then on either side of the center is the burnt offerings that are going up. And remember, this is the ascension offering. It doesn’t mean to burn to death. It means to transform. And so what’s at the very heart of the section? What’s at the beautiful center of this little story? What moves us from fear of our enemies to pursuing our enemies? What moves God from being asked to do something to actually beginning the battle? What moves us from being attacked by enemies to seeing their utter defeat?

How do those things happen? We want to know that because we have enemies. They’re very real. And what is at the center, then? The very center is prayer. It’s Samuel crying out to God. The F section: Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him. That simple. The wonderful picture that moves these things and that gives us victory is the prayer of God’s leaders. Right? Ultimately, the prayer of the greater Samuel who in constant intercession, who ever lives to intercede for us, and to move us from fear to courage, to move us from defeat to victory. Right? To move us in terms of our sanctification and following him. But of course our own prayers—we’re all little Samuels in a way, right? We all hear the word of God and respond, and our prayers are what will be part of the most important mechanism this text tells us to move us in terms of victory and courage and into the future for the King of Kings.

Now notice that even in the F section, those smart ones about you who look at this, look what it says: Samuel cried to the Lord for Israel, the Lord answered him. Why? It’s a little seven-part heptastic structure right at the very center. We go from Samuel to Him, crying to answering, Lord to Lord, which puts what at the center of the text? Israel. Israel. Those who are ruled by God. And those who are ruled by God will be rulers for God. And we rule. We exercise dominion in the world in relationship—this text tells us—in some beautiful ways, in relationship to our prayer life. It’s that simple. It’s important.

That’s why we made this liturgical change last week. And now we’ve got a prayer song before the pastoral prayer to keep you involved, to train you, to set up the pattern today that we see the significance of prayers that God will answer and move us from fear to courage, and move us to being defeated to being victorious, to move our enemies from attacking to fleeing from God. So prayer—I pray that as we look at today’s text, we will end up praying about our tongues.

You know, the Ninth Commandment is about words. It’s about tongues. And this text tells us some very significant things about our tongues. So let’s look at today’s text now that I’ve done my Pastor Dennis review thing. But isn’t that beautiful? You wouldn’t have wanted me not to do that, or if you would have wanted me not to do that, maybe we should have a talk afterwards. It’s a beautiful text.

Okay, so today’s text, and there’s structure here too. And I’ve kind of laid out a little structure for you that maybe works, maybe doesn’t. Again, here there are some things that—you know, if you want to know why I do these things, well, if you look at today’s text, on the handout the E and E-prime sections are about poor people, and it talks about poor people. You know, don’t show partiality to the poor, and on the other hand, don’t show partiality against the poor. And so that kind of gives us a little structure to this thing that leads us to a particular center, which I’ll be talking about in a little bit. And it gives us some ways to meditate upon how some of these verses line up with each other. And so it’s meditation, you know, that puts us in relationship to the order and structure, the ripples of God’s word, the way he’s laid them out in the scriptures. Then I would encourage your meditation on these things as well.

Now, there are a couple of other structural things we want to talk about, and then we’ll talk about some of the detail things here. You’ll notice that there are essentially two sections to this exposition of the Ninth Word. Clearly, those first several verses are talking about somebody that’s going to testify in a court case, or even what we do with our tongues outside of court. It’s talking about the commoner, the average person, okay? And so it’s got several laws about all of us, and particularly then also witnesses, and then it gets down to a specific case of what we should do relative to people that hate us or that are enemies.

And then after that, in verse six: “You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in your dispute.” Now, the one that can pervert the judgment is the judge. And so in verse six, there’s a shift from the witness in a case to a judge in the case. “Keep yourself far from a false matter.” Judges can get all tangled up with false matters. “Do not kill the innocent.” Now, that could be you could say such a thing in terms of implicitly killing somebody when you testify falsely, but the judge is the one who actually can kill the innocent. He can order the death penalty. And so I think that the second half of these laws have to do with the judge. “Take no bribe.”

Well, the judge is the one that people are going to want to bribe. And so it seems like the structure here is that it addresses a number of specific things of witnesses and individuals. It concludes that with a kind of a general application: be kind to our enemies. And then it talks about judges, and then it concludes that section with a general statement again: not to oppress the foreigner. And while that applies directly to the judge by way of the context, it’s sort of a summary statement for the whole thing, really. The whole thing is about impartiality, and we don’t want to show partiality in the context of our lives, okay? So that’s a little bit of what we’re going to talk about.

So first, we’ll talk about the witnesses side of it. And on your handout, we’ll talk about the witnesses. First, the witnesses are using their tongues as community destroyers. So what they’re doing—look at the emphasis on tongue in verse one: “Don’t circulate a false report.” The word false there, in your handout today I’ve inserted in brackets the word empty. That’s what it means. It doesn’t mean, you know, there are words that can mean lying, but this word is false. This is the same word that’s used in the Third Commandment: you know, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in emptiness. So have a full confession of God. So here it isn’t circulating a lie necessarily, but it’s an emptiness, something that’s detrimental of course, but an empty or vain or false report. But it’s a report.

“Don’t put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.” Tongue. “You shall not follow a crowd to do evil, nor shall you testify”—tongue—”in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.” So what’s going on here is they’re using their tongues in an improper way. And just as we sang from Psalm 57, you know, they’re using their tongues in ways to destroy the righteous. When you pervert justice, when you attack the righteous, you’re essentially destroying community.

Now, I come to this text today having known of a number of situations in the last couple of weeks where this is going on—where in various churches tongues have been wagging, and as a result of tongues wagging, communities of churches are being destroyed. I know of at least three specific instances of this in pretty near vicinity to this church. Won’t tell you where exactly. And involving men who I know are absolutely committed to the reformed faith and to pastoring God’s people correctly.

In at least two of these three churches, a split is in process, or in one it’s already happened, and in another plans are being made. And it’s—I think it’ll be a little more amicable—but that’s what’s going on. The unity couldn’t be held together. And in another one of these, the number of people at the church is down to a quarter of what it was before. A very godly man pastoring that particular group.

Tongues can destroy communities. Tongues can destroy friendships. Tongues can destroy neighborhoods. Tongues can destroy a country. We see today—we live in times of tongue warfare all the time—and tongues can destroy and rend the body of Christ. Could something be worse? I don’t think so. So there are warnings here about using our tongues in particular ways, and the end result of all these things is the destruction of community.

James 3 tells us how difficult this topic is. And so when we started today with prayer, and then called for an emphasis in each of our lives this week to pray about our use of tongues, our own tongues—because it’s so difficult to do anything about our tongues. James 3:2 listen:

“For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man and also able to bridle his whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships, although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest the little fire kindles. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. And it is set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceeds blessings and cursings. My brethren, these things ought not to be.”

So now we’re accused in community circles, Christians of having an undue emphasis upon sexual sin. And I think that’s right. Sexual sin is an abhorrent thing. Sexual perversity is a great evil in our land. No doubt about it. But today’s sermon text, the use of the word perversion was found twice. And the perversions that today’s text is concerned about is the perversion of justice, which has to be—you know, be the foundation of any community, any Christian community. And not only that, but then the text went on to talk about the perversion of the words of the righteous. Righteous words can be perverted by tongues.

And so the perversions that today’s text calls us to look at is that. And when James wants to write about the worst, most difficult to control member of the body, he talks about the tongue. He talks about our speech. Now, this is obvious as soon as we read it, as soon as we think about it. I don’t really need to say anymore, do I? Be concerned about your tongue. Be concerned about your friend’s tongues. Be concerned about your children’s tongues. Be concerned about your parents’ tongues. Pray for one another.

We can’t control it perfectly. It’s impossible. It’s been set on fire from hell by the serpent, teaching us in our fallen state how to use words improperly—giving half-truths, weasel words, equivocating words, lying words. When we became what we are in Adam, we became so by means of the tongue and speech. And we immediately began to enter into that kind of thing. So the Ninth Commandment is important to look at in terms of testimony and court and all that stuff. But the implications here are far broader.

The text before uses all these words for the use of our tongues and tells us that these tongues can end up—there’s kind of a movement to the text. By the end of the text, the last couple of verses, killing the righteous. Our tongues can kill the righteous. So may the Lord God grant us to have a restraint upon our tongues.

There’s this great scene in the movie Doubt. Probably many of you have seen it. I’ve recommended it so much. And the preacher, the pastor gives the homily on gossip. Wonderful scene. I wish I could do it the way Philip Seymour Hoffman does or show it in a video, but we don’t have that capability here. But it’s great. And you know, it’s not—it wasn’t written for the movie. That’s an old homily used in churches for centuries, and even before that used in Jewish synagogues as well, to talk about the harm of gossip.

And you know, the story goes that a lady has been talking to one of her neighbors about some person she doesn’t even know hardly at all, and they’re gossiping about this person. And the woman goes to bed that night and she has a dream, and there’s this big finger coming down from heaven pointing right at her. Right at her. A big finger pointing at her, and she—you know, you have those dreams and you’re like, “Ah.” And you wake up, and she goes to confessional the next day, ’cause she’s so shook up.

And you know, she says to the father, “You know what? I had this dream. Was the hand pointing to me? Was it wrong for me to talk about this person with my neighbor? Did I do something wrong? Was it a problem?” And the pastor says, “You stupid, ignorant, ill-trained woman. Of course, what you did was wrong. You gossiped, and gossip is a horrific sin. Of course, that was the conviction of God to you, your dream.” And the woman says, “Well, please forgive me, Father.” He says, “Not so fast. Here’s what you’re going to do: I want you to go home, get up on the roof of the building you live in, take a feather pillow, stab it with a knife, shake the feathers out, and then come back and talk to me.”

So she does it. She gets—the next day she stabs the pillow, and of course the video in the movie Doubt shows it best because the feathers go everywhere. She goes back the next day to the father and says, “Well, I did what you wanted me to do.” And he says, “Well, what happened?” She said, “Feathers? Feathers? Feathers, Father? They went everywhere.” He says, “Well, here’s what I want you to do next before I’ll give you absolution: I want you to go and pick up all of the feathers.”

Father, I can’t pick up all the feathers. They went everywhere. The wind carried them in places I didn’t know. I’d never be able to pick up all those feathers loosed by my ripping the pillow open.”

The father says, “That is gossip. That is gossip. When we do not employ our tongues in a godly way, and when we tell empty reports, let alone false reports about people, the gossip has that multiplying effect, and it damages, it kills a man’s reputation. Wouldn’t you rather die with a good reputation, seriously, than to live with a poor one? If you had those options—knowing that if you’re going to continue to live, you’re going to have a lousy reputation—or you could die with a good reputation, I would choose the former, the good reputation. That’s the most important thing a man or a woman has.

And gossip strikes at that. And it strikes in a way—and I speak for the voice of experience—it strikes in a way that can take years and decades, and in some cases never can be reversed. Those feathers never can be put back into the pillow. The Ninth Word is a strong reminder to us to use our tongues importantly and carefully. Our tongues can destroy communities when used improperly. Do not circulate a false report. Don’t go about as a talebearer. Don’t destroy people’s reputation.

And secondly, don’t put your hand in with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Now, it’s wrong, you know, if you’re going to testify against somebody in court, you’re going to bring a charge against somebody and you’re going to lie about it. That’s wrong. But that’s not what this is talking about. This is saying: when somebody comes along to you and they’re attacking somebody else in court, they want to get you to be a witness for them in the court matter, and you join hands with them. Why would you do such a thing?

Well, it’s much related to the very next verse: “You shall not follow a crowd to do evil.” Who doesn’t want to be on the in crowd? Who doesn’t want to be accepted and liked, particularly by the people who are accepted and liked? These things go together. Don’t follow a crowd to do evil. And yet we’re so prone to do it, particularly in what appear to be minor matters of discussing people’s reputation.

So we hear gossip. We don’t, you know, tell the person, “Don’t do that. Go back to the person you just talked about and talk to them.” We don’t do that because we don’t want to offend people. We don’t want people not to like us. We want to be loved. We want to be accepted. Who doesn’t want that? And so our sinful tendency is to hear gossip, to go along with a false witness, even if we haven’t started it. Passing the information along, somehow ending up being part of this conspiracy, following a mob to do evil.

That is in our nature. And if we do not steel ourselves against it, that is the sort of thing that we’ll give into. And that is the sort of thing that is destroyed churches for millennia. And right now in several good churches in three different good denominations in pretty much our general region here, that has been a major part of destroying, or at least greatly troubling, three bodies of Jesus Christ.

You do the devil’s work. The devil is a slanderer, and the last thing the devil wants are strong Christian churches combating the evil that’s being done in this world through statuses and Asherahs—those that worship the forces of nature, sexual force, and statism, the collective voice of the people. The church is the bulwark against all of those tremendous, oppressive, enslaving evils in a culture. And if Satan can destroy the church, then he increases enslavement. And you do Satan’s work when you carry gossip and slander in these ways that create great difficulties for the church of Jesus Christ.

Resist it. Resist it with all your worth. And then secondly, talk to people you know who are giving into the sin and encourage them to resist it for as much as they’re worth as well.

Secondly, this text tells us about the heresy of democracy. The majority is not always right. This is obvious, but I wanted to point it out today, right? We have today a situation where we think, “Oh, it’s a great thing. Democracy is coming here and there.” But democracy means 50% plus one decides things. Meaning 50% plus one can decide to do evil, or it can decide to do good. We are not to follow a democratic group just because people want to do a particular thing. Don’t follow a crowd. It doesn’t actually say a mob. It says a crowd, a number of people.

It doesn’t mean, you know, when you see people with pitchforks, get away from that. Of course, it means that. But in a more broad sense, this particular verse says, “Don’t follow a crowd to do what’s wrong. Don’t go along with the many just because they are the many.” And again, here, who wants to be the sore thumb? Who wants to be the one standing up and saying, “Well, I know we all sort of think this, but that’s not what I think”? Nobody wants to do that. But that’s what we’re called to be.

That’s the proper application of the Ninth Word. You know, I was thinking last night—I’ve got a wonderful life, sitting around watching the game with my two sons and talking to Charity about her job—and you know, we, the Lord has given us such blessings. We have these tremendous blessings, but these blessings can be lost as we move away from God’s word. God’s word tells us how to maintain and promote those blessings, and one way we do that is through a proper application of the Ninth Word in a general sense to ordinary life, to what we do in terms of our decision-making process, individual speech, and collectively as well. Don’t follow a crowd to do evil.

Third, we have a tendency of the commoner to favor the poor. Here, this is interesting because if you look at these two sections, it’s in verse three that says, “You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.” And then in verse six, “You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in the dispute.” Now, I think that—it’s again, it’s like the witnesses are being addressed first, and then the judges. And what it means is the common man will have more of a tendency to show partiality to the poor because he identifies with them. We like our group. We like people that are like us. And so the admonition to most of us is a great warning not to be partial to the poor.

But the judge, on the other hand, he’s going to come from the better part of the culture. He’ll probably be middle or upper class, typically. His associates will be rich people. His tendency is going to be to show partiality to the rich. And so what the Bible does here, as it always does, is it preaches to our weaknesses. And we have to recognize this is a weakness we have. We tend, if we’re not, you know, a powerful person, we tend to be partial to the poor. And if we are a person with wealth, then we tend to demean the poor and look down upon them.

And God works it both ways and says, you know, “Don’t show partiality.” Again, this whole section of scripture is about impartiality, particularly in judicial matters. And so the tendency of the commoner to favor the poor.

And then we come to the next couple of verses, in verse four: “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.”

Okay. And from one perspective, that’s the center of the text. You know, we’ve got laws about justice, and then we’ve got, from a perspective of the witnesses, and then we’ve got laws about justice from a perspective of the judge. And in the middle, we’ve got these two verses that really don’t have anything to do with the courtroom. It has to do with two situations. The first is: you’ve got an enemy, you find his beast in your field. What are you going to do?

What are you going to do? And the text commands you to return it. Now, think about what that’s going to look like. When you return the donkey, you’re going to have to take it back to him and give it to him, right? That means you’re going to have to see him. That means there’ll probably be a little bit of conversation. It means his heart may actually sort of soften to you because you’ve done a good deed for him. It means a lot of things. It doesn’t just mean give the donkey back, ship it back via UPS or something. It’s a liturgy again, right?

These liturgical actions form our desires. They tell us what our hearts will love. And God says, “I don’t care how you feel. God’s very realistic. I understand. I’m not telling you don’t hate that lousy guy. I’m not telling you he’s been a nice guy. I’m not telling you to forget everything.” God doesn’t. He’s realistic. It’s okay that you have emotional difficulties with particular people. But what God says is do a ritual, do a liturgy, do a kindness for this person. Return him his donkey. And you know what? It’ll be good for you.

And then the second case is the same thing. It’s even more pronounced. Now you’ve got a donkey, and the language is a little difficult, but the basic idea is you’ve got a donkey and he’s got a bunch of stuff on him—too much stuff—and he’s fallen down. And so the idea is you’ve got to take things off the donkey to stand him back up for his owner to be able to use.

And you’re actually—you’re not supposed to just sit back and say the stupid guy that hates me overloaded his donkey. You’re not supposed to think that in your heart. God says, “Okay. You know he hates you. You, I understand that you’re not particularly pleased with him. Okay. But what I’m telling you to do is to engage in action—a ritual action. You can do things. You know, you can’t—I can’t, you know, it’s difficult to tell you to change your emotions—but surely each of us has the ability to control what we do with our hands and our feet. We can do that. So he says: do this liturgical action. Go over there and help your neighbor. Take that stuff off of his donkey’s back and help him in that way.

And the end result of this is the opposite of what the first few verses talked about. The first verses talk about how you destroy community. You do it with your tongue. And these section here, the middle section, says how you create community. You do it with your hands. You do it with your hands, okay? You can talk a good game. But the love that’s shown at the center of these two texts about justice is a love that is action, not emotional.

Now, I think that those actions lead to emotions. We have those conversations. We begin to help people. We see after we talk a little bit with them or get a little closer, they’re not a demon. They’re not, you know, a horrible person. All our characterizations of them that made them inhuman are not real. We have to interact with them as people, and things start to change. So we have these laws about justice, but in the midst of justice, the text tells us, in the midst of justice is this emphasis upon grace.

Grace and mercy and love. Galatians 6:10: “Therefore, as we have opportunity to do good to all, we are to do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” We’ve got Joan Jones here today from Love, Inc., and wasn’t planned this way. But, but you know, in the Bible, people are representatives of, or animals are representatives of people. And I think it doesn’t take too much of a biblical knowledge of the scriptures to say, well, we’ve got this donkey under a heavy burden, and we’re supposed to help someone else care for that donkey by removing the heavy burden off the donkey, okay? It’s an act of grace. It’s an act of love, and it’s a way to help somebody.

But if we think of the donkey as the person, it’s a way to unburden the donkey so that he can be on his feet again. Oregon City, Clackamas County—our people in this church—they’re under heavy burdens. They’re down on their knees. They’ve been crushed through various things that have happened. Some their fault, some not their fault. You don’t sit there and tell the owner, “Ha, you overloaded your donkey. Too bad.” No. You help lift those things off the donkey.

And what we’re supposed to do is we’re supposed to show the love of Jesus Christ in the name of Christ. Love in the name of Christ. And help that donkey get up off of his feet by removing some of those burdens. That’s what we do. I heard Christine Gregoire, the governor of Washington, on the radio a couple of days ago, said the safety net is shredded in Washington state. We’re going to have to use a lot of local volunteer groups and ministries to help in people’s lives. The opportunity probably has never been greater for the church of Jesus Christ to fulfill the center of this text, in the midst of our justice, to remember love and to do love, to help people by unburdening them, and to help people by lending a hand—even when they’re our enemies, even when they hate us—to help them and to be neighborly to them, to love God and to love our neighbor and to love, as Jesus said, our enemies as well, and to do good to those people, even those that despitefully use you.

Never a greater opportunity. Do you want to do that? I hope you do. I mean, the word of God has come to you today with a message about justice. But the message about justice has taught you that you need to speak in a way that’s careful, not to destroy community. You’ve got to pray for your tongue as you use it to not destroy community. And then you’ve got to use your hands—the word of God has told you today—to help people who are your enemies, and who hate you, to help them as a way to build community. The text is about tearing community down and building community up.

The text is about placing justice in the proper context of love at the center of it, and a love that doesn’t rely upon emotions. A love that is action, that will then change emotions. Again, you know, you didn’t come here today necessarily because you had a great heart’s desire to. Hopefully, you did. But even if you didn’t, you came here to go through liturgical actions and to receive wonderful gifts from God, to be trained—for your hearts to be trained to desire God’s knowledge, God’s glory, God’s life. And when we engage in the liturgical actions of obedience, to helping our neighbors, to helping even our enemies, and to put into place this love at the center of justice that builds community, then our hearts are changed. Then our hearts desire what the heart of God is.

After all, what does Romans tell us? Jesus is the one who died for us when we were yet enemies. When we were those who hated him, when we were those in antithetical relationship, hatred against Jesus. The text tells us he died for us. And of course, this text today moves to its conclusion with the reminder of the very same thing. Don’t oppress a stranger. Lots of strangers. Lots of people that look different. Lots of people that are outsiders and not insiders.

In the context of Israel, they were a trade center. All kinds of people move in all kinds of ways. And the tendency is to oppress these people. But God says, “Don’t do it.” Why? Don’t do it. Because he said, “You were a stranger in Egypt, and I released you.” So we have statements on justice. We have statements at the center of justice—that the way to build community is through love and actions that form our hearts and form up a new kind of community and affect relationships. And then the text moves to its climax by a reminder of the grace of God to us through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is an important text once more for the times in which we live. We used to talk about the welfare state, and that all changed. But the new term I think that we might want to start using about where we’re at today is the warfare state. We have been involved for fifty years as a country creating all kinds of special legislation for special groups, showing partiality to this group, this group, this group, this group, this group. And more and more what’s happened is a direct result of that liturgy—of forming these bills and setting up these programs and giving people particular benefits because of being a particular segment of the population.

A result of partial legislation—not partial in the sense of incomplete, but rather having, rather than impartial justice, we have partial justice now. We have laws that apply to itty bitty little groups of people, segmenting everybody up. We have a niche country now. And the end result is each of those particular groups of people fight for their piece of the pie, or your piece of the pie, or more pieces of the pie. What’s happened is a result of legislation that flies in the face of today’s text. Legislation that encourages and promotes partiality in justice—not impartiality—is warfare.

We now have a warfare state. And we, to our shame, have a president who has whipped this warfare up and is attempting to whip it up in incredible ways. Could somebody tell me what the fair share is? The rich should do their fair share. It’s only fair for the rich to do put in their fair share. What is that? Right now, 1% of the wage earners—the top 1%—pay 30% of all taxes in the country. The top 5% pay 60% of all taxes in the country. The top 10% of wage earners pay 70% of all the taxes collected. Isn’t that fair enough?

Now, I bring it up as an example because what it is we’re having, we’re having language now from our president, and we’ll hear it for the next year, that emphasizes a warfare state that pits groups of people against one another. And as a result of that, our country is in turmoil. Communities been destroyed through speech. Legislation of partiality has produced warring elements within a culture.

We’re the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re the church of Jesus Christ. We’re to understand why that’s happened. We’re to be careful not to engage in the sorts of words and improper use of our tongues that create warfare amongst our friends, our communities, our church. And we’re to be those people who actually engage in physical actions, acts of love, doing things in the name of Christ that bridges the warfare state, where people are hating one another.

We’re the answer. The problem is obvious. And the answer to the problem in our culture is obvious from this text as well. You’re the answer. The takeaway is: pray for your speech. Pray for your actions. Listen today, after the meal together, to the presentation on Love, Inc. Think of ways that you can help take those burdens off a particular donkey, bring him back to his feet. Because in that little anonymous act, you’re doing your part to rebuild the community that is in the process of being torn apart and destroyed.

We can move away from the warfare state as we simply apply this text to our tongues and to our hands, committing ourselves not to destroy community, but to build community.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you. Thank you for today. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his word. We thank you for the beauty of the sort of community that comes out of an understanding of your word. You’ve gifted us, Lord God, with an understanding of your scriptures. Help us this week not to forget what we’ve learned. Help us not to be the foolish person who goes away and says, “Oh, okay,” and forgets it all.

Help us to pray this week. Help us to be ever so careful with our speech. And help us to be ever so involved with our hands. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.