“Lame excuses”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, November 30, 2023
Deuteronomy 30:11-14 (Forward, p. 32) CEV p. 201
It has often been stated, “Ignorance is no excuse of the law”. I’m not sure whether I totally agree with this legal principle but still it stands. For instance, I have been driving a car for some fifty years and have never had a chance to reread a driver’s manual over that course of time. I say that because I am quite sure that there have been some changes to driving laws in the meantime. Which means that, unless those changes are widely publicized—which they aren’t—I would be totally ignorant of those laws. Even so, by law, I am still culpable.
Ancient Israel, at least by today’s reading, is accused of trying the same trick. It suggests that God’s laws have never been ‘brought to earth’ and explained. ‘No’, Moses says, ‘you already have them and know them…and besides, they’re not impossible to obey.’ Then Israel tries a second lame excuse, ‘No’, they say, ’they are too far off, too unreachable. It is as if they are off on the other side of the ocean.’ And again, Moses puts a kibosh to that idea. He reminds them that they already know them by heart. So, no excuse there either.
So, what about us today, especially given that there is a widespread ignorance of the Bible & a wholesale neglect of the Ten Commandments?
Indeed, some, those of a more secular or ‘rational’ way of thinking, would go further and suggest that there is no worldwide standard or universal code of ethics or standard of morality, that each society and period of history develops their own and imposes it upon their people.
Others, however, have suggested that while a culture or society may offer various interpretations, there are still some things across the board that are considered immoral or abhorrent. Murder, for instance, may be seen in various lights, but it is still seen as wrong. And likewise, theft or lying. Indeed, that is what the apostle Paul suggests in his letter to the Romans, namely that people have God’s law written upon their hearts—in their consciences (Romans 2:14-15). So, regardless of people’s purported ignorance, we can still appeal to what is innately inside them, those truths that are part of them, whether they know them consciously or not. Indeed, in a sense, God is already at work in each of them and has already
prepared the way for us—and the truth—to speak to them. We have only to tap into that, that is, become aware of that and speak to it. (And, believe it or not, the ‘lame excuses’ won’t matter.) And so, there is a mission field out there that we are often only faintly aware of, if at all. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (verse 13).
“I once had to preach from the Gospel of John, in which Philip says to Jesus, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus answered, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ I had no idea what I was going to say until I ran across a quotation from the Zen Buddhist sage, Hakuin: ‘Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.’ The quotation gave me insight into the words of Jesus: indeed, the truth is right here, staring us in the face.
“We hear this message throughout Scripture: the Way is neither arduous, exotic, or difficult to understand; it is open to sinners, making no distinctions of race, gendre, or nationality. We don’t have to travel great distances to attain it, nor perform heroic feats. Paul sums it up this way: ‘If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’” (emphasis added).
Moving Forward: “Have you confessed that Jesus is Lord?”