Lambert or a Wolf in a Sheepskin?

Romans 2:17-29
I am going to begin this morning by telling you two stories about sheep. And as we look at the text this morning I want you to keep these two images in your head. The first one is a little known Disney short called “Lambert”

On a warm night there was a herd of sheep asleep out in the pastures, when a stork came by carrying a number of brand new bundles for the expectant mama ewes who lay peacefully asleep. One by one the little furry bundles made their way their way among the ewes, curled up and fell asleep alongside of the warmth of their mama. In the morning each ewe was overjoyed to find their brand new baby lamb asleep by her side. All of them were perfect picture of white fluffy cuteness save one. One of them was not white at all, in fact he was not so much fluffy as he was fuzzy, and he was not what you would call white, he was more, well yellow, and in fact he did not resemble a lamb at all. His tail was too long and his feet were too fuzzy and the problem with his whiskers was that he had whiskers at all. The truth of the matter was the stork had made a horrible mistake and was not suppose to drop this particular baby off in the field at all, but instead was suppose to drop him in the African jungle because he was in fact not a lamb at all but really a lion cub. But his mama would hear none of this, he was her baby lamb and she loved him no matter how strange he was. She named him Lambert.

Lambert grew up alongside of the lambs in his herd. He learned to butt, he learned to Baa, and he learned to fear the wolf, who was always stalking the herd looking for to make a meal of an inattentive sheep or a wayward lamb who wandered to far from the herd. And as he grew his differences were apparent to his playmates. As he grew it was readily apparent that his tail was too long, his wool was too hairy, his color was too yellow and instead of a sturdy pair of horns he grew a long fluffy brown mane and sometimes when he attempted to baa it came out more like a roar and as children are wont to do, his playmates teased him and made fun of him for being different. Poor Lambert was the recipient of every childhood prank and the brunt of every mean spirited joke. Lambert often came home to his mother dejected and sad because he was not accepted among the other young rams.

Then one evening the wolf got brave and attacked the herd while they all peacefully slumbered on the hillside. He scattered the sheep, chasing one after another until he corned Lambert’s mother. Lambert was running scared just like the rest of the herd, trying to find a place to hide, to get away from the wolf, when he heard the frighten bleat of his mother as the wolf approached her. Lambert turned to see the wolf about to make a meal of his beloved mother and instead of running in fear, as he had been, he turned and placed himself between his mother and the hungry wolf and let out a might unsheeply roar. You can imagine the surprise of the wolf when instead of finding a dinner he found a raging lion and immediately turned and ran never to be seen by that particular herd again. From that time on Lambert, the sheepish lion was an accepted and even celebrated member of the herd. (This story is taken from the 1952 Disney short “Lambert the Sheepish Lion”)

The second story is one you have perhaps heard before. There once a wiley hungry wolf who no matter how hard he tried was unable to properly sneak up on a herd of sheep and get himself some dinner. Then one day when he went down to the river to get himself a drink and there on the river bank white and glistening was a sheep skin. The wolf saw it and immediately thought up a plan. He took the skin and fashioned himself a disguise to allow him to appear to be a sheep. The next day, he donned his new sheep clothes and went down unhindered among the flock and was able to lure a sheep away from the flock and make for himself a dinner of her so he was no longer hungry. He did this for quite sometime until the shepherd realized what he was doing, caught him and put an end to the wiley wolf.
We have two characters in these two stories, we have Lambert who looks like a lion (and quite frankly is a lion) but is truly a sheep in all ways that matter, and the wolf who looks like a sheep but is truly a wolf no matter what he appears to be. I want you to keep these two characters in mind as we begin to look at this passage this morning.

Paul in this passage is speaking to certain Jews or a stereotype of a Jew, who see that due to their relationship to God through the law have a privileged position among those who believe. Paul argues that having the law in and of itself does nothing. The law does not grant relationship with God. Paul points particularly to circumcision which is the physical sign of the covenant given by God to the people of Israel. Paul says the physical sign means nothing in and of itself unless it actually has meaning and bearing upon the life of the one who bears the sign. Neither the law nor the sign of the covenant will do anything for you in the end unless there is real inward change in your life. You can have the law but unless you live the law and allow the one who has given the law to you change who you are at your core than neither the law nor the outward sign of the covenant matter.
This understanding if the inefficacy of the law is not usually something we struggle with today as Christians. As far as I know none of us are of Jewish descent and then therefore do not see the Law of Moses as something given to us and our ancestors. We make no claims to salvation based on heritage or lineage. So it is easy to nod and smile understanding that the law and covenant given to the Israelites by God do not give Jews a special place in the eyes of God regardless of what their actual relationship with God is like.

The law itself is not under attack here though. God gave the law to the people. The Jewish people just failed to live up to the law and failed to share the relationship the law gave them to God with others. The Jewish people were given the law and chosen by God so that hey may be a nation of priest to all peoples of the earth, that is they were the ones who were suppose to bring the people of the nations around them into covenant relationship with God by teaching them about who God is. Even at the very beginning God called Abraham so that through him all the nations of the world may be blessed. But they did not reach out and share the love and relationship God gave to them with those of the nations around them. They instead, cut themselves off from those who did not believe. Instead of inviting those around them to come to know the one true God of the universe, they used their belief in God as a barrier which separated them from those who did not believe as they believed. Instead of allowing the law to embrace all peoples and to bring all peoples into an understanding of who God is, they used that law as boundary which set them apart and as a wall on which they stood and were able to look down on all the foolish pagans all around them who did not know to worship God and live the way God called for them to live. The law which was something which was suppose to light the way and give instruction as to what it meant to live as a people of God was instead a barrier and a wall allowing the people to see themselves as better and more privileged than others.

Paul is addressing a Jewish mindset in this passage but he is speaking to us non-the-less. We as modern non-Jewish Christians we struggle just as much with our versions of “the law” as the early Jewish Christians and the Israelite people before them. We might not see the Torah as a privilege we have that others do not nor do we live by it so that we can see ourselves as a cut above the rest of the world. But most of us whether we realize it or not live by a set of rules, which we see as the standard by which all Christians should live. We, like those to whom Paul is speaking here, stand on this standard and look down on all those who fall short of the standard. The standard does not need to be elaborate to be used this way. It does not need to include 600 laws derived and redacted upon from scripture like many first century Jews did, it can be something as simple as, “I don’t drink, smoke or chew and I don’t hang with those who do.” Paul is not speaking to the goodness or badness of drinking or smoking but what Paul is speaking to is the superiority held over others by those who live by these standards and way these standards are lorded over others.
Paul speaks to this kind of understanding of scripture and the standards which we see set up in scripture. Paul is not saying that living in a Godly manner is not something a Christian will do, but Paul is saying that having the standards of God and the ability to live by them is not what allows us to be in relationship with God.
Paul tells those in the church in Rome that you may have the law, you may know and understand what it means to live the way God wants you to live, you may think that you can lead and teach others but you can’t in reality you are blind and are foolish, unlearned and therefore not qualified to teach. You think you understand, but you don’t. You may know the law, you may be circumcised. You may have read the manual and know it backwards and forwards, you may know what a good Christian should do and not do, you may be baptized but all this is worthless. All these things are outward signs of the covenant but the covenant is not an outward thing. It is inward, it is spiritual it deals with a person’s heart, who they are at the core of their being. The covenant must be written on your heart. You must bear an inward sign of the covenant not just an outward sign of one.

The difference is the difference between Lambert and the wolf. The wolf had all the outward signs of being a sheep. He looked like a sheep, he smelled like a sheep, he may have been able to baa like a sheep but underneath, inside, he was still a wolf. He was not a sheep. Lambert on the other hand looked like a lion but really he was a sheep. He acted like a sheep, he lived with the sheep and deep down what mattered to him were the same things that mattered to the sheep. Lambert had the good of the sheep always at heart, but the wolf was actually a threat to the sheep. We need to be more like Lambert than the wolf.

The concern is who we are inwardly. We may be able to put on Christian clothing. We may be able to look like a Christian, we may say all the right things and do all the right things but unless our hearts and our inward lives are changed eventually who we are inwardly will come to bear. God is not calling for us to be able to do all the right things. God is not calling for us to be able to say all the right things. God is calling us into a relationship. God is calling us into a relationship which will forever change who we are and our lives, much like being married or having a child. It is the kind of relationship which completely changes how you live your life.
When you get married or have a child, what you can and can not do changes, your priorities change, and your whole life changes. When you get married, who you spend you time with changes. It changes what you can and can not do with other people. You have to consider the other person in almost everything you do from when you get up in the morning, where you put your clothes, and what you eat for dinner. When you are married and making decisions about all these things, you have to consider the other person. Preferences, wants and desires are all run through the filter of the relationship. Everything in your life is influenced by this other person who is now in your life.

Likewise when you have a child everything changes. Suddenly every aspect of your life is seen in light of this new little person in your life. It is truly amazing how such a small person changes every aspect of your life, from how much sleep you get, to when you eat and when you can go out with your friends. I can remember the first time this really struck me. Cidra was probably 3 months old. Mike was at fencing and I had a friend over to watch movies. We decided we wanted ice cream. We got our shoes on, grabbed our purses and were on our way out the front door when suddenly we both remembered that Cidra was asleep in the other room. We could not just run out and get ice cream; someone had to stay home with the baby. Still I do not live my life the same way I did before I had the girls. My life is completely changed.

It is the same when you choose to follow Jesus, when you choose to live the way God calls you to live it is not just a surface change. It is not simply about following a set of rules, coming to church, reading your Bible and doing and not doing all the right things. That would be like simply putting on a sheepskin and calling yourself a sheep. It is about entering into relationship with the God of the universe, learning to love God and be loved by God. This is not like any relationship you have ever been in and it is a love like none other, it is a relationship more profound than marriage and a love that changes your life greater than the love of a child. It is a relationship which changes you at your very core, it does not merely change what you do, what you say and how you live your day to day life, but it changes who you are at the very core of your being, relationship with God is able to make you something you are not. Lambert really was sheep, in all the ways that truly mattered. He lived like a sheep, he ate like a sheep, he cared for the things that sheep cared about, feared the very things a sheep feared, the relationship he had with his mother ultimately changed who he was at his core, he became something he would otherwise be unable to be.

As Christians is it easy to get caught up in the rules the standards and begin to think that they are what makes us who we are. The rules and the standard can be a sheepskin which we put on to allow us to look like a Christian, so that we can fit in among the other Christians. They can even become a sense of pride, a boundary we use to segregate ourselves from those around us, and a wall on which we stand from which we are able to look down up on all those lesser humans who refuse to love God the way we love God. But our love is not really a love for God but is a love for the rules and the standards which God has laid down which show us and guide and allow us to live the way God called us to live.

We are not called to follow as standard. We are not called to follow a set of rules. Christians do live differently than other people. There are things we do; there are things we don’t do. Our words, and our actions are different than many who do not choose to love God, it changes our entire way of living. But we are not called to love a way of living. We are called simply to love; to love God, and to love one another. And that love changes who we are, changes how we live, it changes everything. It is not the standard, the rules, the way of living that makes us who we are, it our love for God. Simply following the rules, living a lifestyle, changing your actions is like the outward sign of the covenant. Living a life which stems from our love for God is living out of the inward sign of the covenant. The difference between being the wolf or being Lambert is what was in each one’s heart, what was going on in the inside. Lambert was a sheep at heart and the wolf no matter how well dressed he was, was still a wolf at heart. As Christians we are to have the love of God at the heart of who we are, changing us and making us into the people of God.