In 1992 the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA v. Casey, upholding by plurality opinion the right to abortion. Now, don’t worry, abortion is not my topic, though we probably should discuss it more than we do, because it’s an important subject and an ethical problem of the highest rank. Nevertheless, and apart from the question of abortion per se, and what I think is of interest in this case, is the following remarkable sentence in the plurality opinion co-written by justices Souter, Kennedy, and O’Connor: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Incredibly according to this opinion, it is the individual’s right, as something that goes to the very heart of liberty, to define for oneself such things as human existence, meaning, the universe, and the mystery of human life.

It is a message that is light-years from the Scriptures, where we get a completely different description of humanity, its promise and possibility, as well as its capacities and limitations. The main message of the Bible is not so much who we are as whose we are, or rather, we are who we are because of whose we are. The key sentence for us comes from our reading from Colossians where Paul says that Christ “has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.”

One commentator [K. Barth] said this about that passage: “The autonomy of our existence has been taken from us. [Christ] has taken it to Himself; He has not taken away our existence from us. We have not ceased to be ourselves. We are still free. But in that existence He has left us without root or soil or country, ‘having transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (v. 13), having Himself become our root and soil and country.” These lines gain potency when one realizes that they were written in Europe during the rise of Nazi Germany, where the phrase, “blood and soil,” bound together a radical attachment to the German homeland with a perverted emphasis on racial purity. We have been transferred, this theologian is inferring, from “blood and soil” into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, who now has become our true root and soil and country. He goes on to explain: “We cannot, therefore, seek our own being and activity, so far as they still remain to us, in ourselves but only in Him.” And he adds, “Those who have their future in the one kingdom have their past in the other.”

What are the consequences of our having been transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, who is now our root and soil and country? The other two readings today take up the consequences of faith by tying faith to obedience and obedience to faith. Those whose faith and trust are in the God of Israel and who have thus been transferred into his kingdom, not only will live according to the new standards of this new King, but will also, and precisely because of the trust and faith they have in him, long and love to follow his commands. Faith in God means that our identity, our reality, meaning, the universe, and the mystery of human life are not for us to determine for ourselves but are given to us in the relationship we have to the One in whom we place our trust and pledge our obedience. “My God, I put my trust in you,” says the Psalmist, “show me your ways…and teach me your paths.” And he says, “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.” In the same way Luther also recognized the strong and intimate relationship that exists between faith and obedience, whereby faith recreates us and gives us new direction by freeing us to observe the will and purpose of God. In his Large Catechism in the introduction to the Creed, Luther said that “[The Creed] “is given in order to help us do what the Ten Commandments require of us.”

A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus is aware that that the questioner, an expert in the law, knows the Scriptures. The lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus replied, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” Faith in God and love of neighbor go hand in hand, according to Jesus, but more than that, inasmuch as our faith is not faith in faith but faith in the God of Israel, so is our obedience tied expressly to what Israel’s God specifically commands. We have not been transferred into just any kingdom, but into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

The lawyer quoted Deuteronomy 6 (v. 5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”) and Leviticus 19 (v. 18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”). He did not evoke general religious or moral principles, but recited the commands of a specific God who identifies himself with a particular people. Recall what you heard today from Deuteronomy: “The Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

We cannot, therefore, profess to have faith in God and neglect, ignore, change, generalize, reinterpret, or redefine for our own advantage the commandments he has given to his people; nor can know fully what it means to be a human being, a moral person of dignity and value, and neglect, deny, ignore, generalize, reinterpret, or redefine for our own advantage the God who has revealed himself in a very specific way to a particular people. Ethics and the doctrine of God, divinity and humanity: in Christ they belong together. We become increasingly human the more we place our faith and trust in the God who created and redeemed us in Jesus Christ. We find our true freedom the more we willingly embrace his commands. As Psalm 119 (v. 45) declares: “I shall walk at liberty, for I have sought your precepts.”

God gave Israel the law in order to reveal what true faith in God entails and what true humanity is all about. God identifies himself not only with a particular people to whom he gave his law, but he also chose to identify himself with a particular Israelite, who is the personal fulfillment of that law. The God who loves us in Jesus Christ took on frail human flesh—he is the second Adam according to Paul--so that he could lead all human beings into a deeper and more intimate relationship with the God of Israel, and also into the depths of their true humanity, so that they may embrace their true freedom and claim their human dignity in their love of God and in their service to the neighbor, even if love of neighbor is best exemplified by a god-forsaken Samaritan.

In the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, obedience and freedom are not antithetical. When we follow the commands of the God in whom we place our trust we are truly blest and we are truly free; when we disobey his commands we deny that faith and betray that trust, revealing the true depths of our “bondage to sin.”

What we celebrate today, therefore, is God’s great and abundant mercy, a mercy that has “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,” a mercy that recreates us according to God’s love and makes us free to love God’s law, a mercy, therefore, that is exhibited in loving service to the neighbor in whom Christ, who is our root and soil and country, is not only our Lord, but also our brother.

-Amen-