Having been on vacation the last three weeks, driving all over northern England, I can attest to the fact that maps are a necessity. We can’t get where we need to go without good maps, clearly labeled road signs and a set of directions. But a set of directions goes much farther than plain geography. All of us have or are seeking to find a sense of direction through the journey of life itself. There is something in our make-up as human beings that needs such a sense of direction; an idea of where we are headed and to what end. The great questions in life continue to be, as they have been from the beginning: Who am I? What am I to do with my life? Where is meaning and purpose to be found? The human urge to have a sense of direction drives each one of us. We either find that sense of direction, or we flounder without purpose or worse, we seek meaning and purpose in all the wrong things.

Finding a sense of direction is critical if our lives are to have meaning and purpose. But along with a sense of direction, we also need a set of directions. Being human, being fallible, being sinful, we need not only to be pointed in the right direction but we need an instruction manual to guide us as we go. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the Bible – the story of God’s dealings with human beings in particular places and times – contains both a sense of direction as well as a set of directions. Our readings today from the Bible illustrate this perfectly.

The reading from Deuteronomy is part of a very long talk given by Moses to the Hebrew people, unpacking, as it were, their experience as God’s people up to this point in time and specifically unpacking the Ten Commandments, which Moses has just received from God on Mount Sinai. The portion of that talk we heard today is designed to help the Hebrew people reflect on their experience up to this point and to put it in the perspective of God’s plan for them. God has promised them a glorious future in the land of Israel, where the people will prosper, where the land will be theirs, and where their future will unfold in freedom, in abundance, and in safety.

But the only way the people are going to get to that glorious future, Moses says, is by maintaining both a sense of direction and a set of directions. The sense of direction they are to remember is that they are God’s people and that God is leading them, guiding them, protecting them and sustaining them. The set of directions they are to remember which will make possible their future with God and each other are the Ten Commandments. Moses says: “Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land...” and goes on to describe in vivid detail the abundance of this promised land. For these people, who have been homeless, who have had only the clothes on their backs, and who are surviving their hunger and thirst by the grace of God alone, this is very good news.

But we know from knowing the rest of the story of the Old Testament that the people had a hard time remembering both the sense of direction and the set of directions that God had given them. We know, in fact, that the people began over a period of centuries to focus on the set of directions – the rules – to such an extent that they created rules about the rules and ended up in the place where it was the set of directions themselves that were glorified and worshipped, not the God who had given the rules to them in the first place. That’s what was going on in the world Jesus was born into, and it was his mission to draw the people – whoever would listen – back into a better balance between a relationship with God and obedience of God’s laws – with the relationship coming first.

And so we come to the reading this morning from Ephesians, which at first glance seems full of the rules and regulations that got the people of God into such trouble to begin with. But there is a different dynamic going on here, and that is that the rules which Paul gives to the Christian community in Ephesus are not a set of directions in and of themselves but are totally intertwined with the sense of direction given by Jesus Christ himself. What makes these rules distinctive is the context they are put in, which is what Paul has to say at the end of the passage: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself us for us...”

As Christians, our morals and ethics, our values and virtues are shaped not simply by a set of rules and regulations and directions. The set of directions are clear, but they can only be understood and carried out and lived when they are understood in the context of the life of Jesus Christ himself, who has become the heart and guiding principle and direction setter of our own lives. Let me put it in very 21st century terms. Even though it’s become a mass-market money bonanza, the four initials we see on everything from coffee mugs to bracelets is exactly the point Paul is making - WWJD: What Would Jesus Do? Our sense of direction and set of directions derives from Jesus himself.

It’s Jesus himself who shapes our lives and sense of direction, and it’s Jesus himself who is the heart of the set of directions given to all Christian communities from the 1st century to the 21st century. Go back through the set of directions given by Paul to the Christian community at Ephesus and test it out. “Be angry, but do not sin. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.”

I can guarantee you that if you tried to follow this set of directions as soon as you leave this church today, you would fail – probably before you arrived home for lunch! But if you try to follow this set of directions because you have a sense of purpose in your life – that no matter what you do or who you are – you are trying to be an imitator of Christ, living in love as Christ loved us – you stand a better chance. And if you fail, you know enough to ask for forgiveness so that you might be strengthened to try again.

Who are we? We are Christians. What are we to do with our lives? We are to be imitators of Christ. Where is meaning and purpose to be found in our lives? By living in love as Christ loved us. And there’s one very important other thing. We are not called to this awesome and wonderful ministry – this life in Christ – in such a way that we have to dredge the strength and power on our own to do it. In fact, we can’t do it without the help of Jesus. Which brings us to the very last thing.

We come here week by week to be given the strength and power to be imitators of Christ by “feeding on him in our hearts, by faith and with thanksgiving.” The glorious love of God in Christ Jesus for each and every one of us is that we are strengthened through Jesus himself, who is for us very the bread – the basis of life itself, in our communion with him.

Who are we? We are Christians. What are we to do with our lives? We are to be imitators of Christ. Where is meaning and purpose to be found in our lives? By living in love as Christ loved us. This is the basis of our values and virtues, our ethics and morals, our faith and our religion. This is the great gift every one of us has been given, through Christ who loves us and through Christ who strengthens us. May God use us, living in love as Christ loved us, to do his will for the world.

Amen.