I have felt so privileged to have three or four deep relationship over the past
fifty years. Relationship of which I
think we know about every aspect of each others physical, physiological,
philosophical and spiritual foibles and victories of life’s journey. What a joy it is to get together every year
or so to renew, remind, and reward each other; relaxing and refreshing
ourselves at a distance from the hustle and bustle. John and I had such a time just a couple of
weeks ago. One day was taken up with a discussion
that led us relating the cultural and value differences between our childhoods,
his in a small village in Africa, mine in a small town in Wyoming . As septuagenarians (new word)) we
shared how those cultures and values are impacting and informing our lives
today. How those cultural and value
differences found their expression in a set of rules which have been, adhered
too, modified, laughed at, completely ignored and in some cases, scoffed. As a
young man, my church culture enforced a particularly prescribed set of rules:
no dancing, no drinking, no card playing, no long hair. These were rules
that could not be violated. John, given birth by, Canadian Pentecostal,
missionary, parents was raised similarly.
We both traveled down parallel tracks when it came to breaking certain
rules. By breaking the rules we both would
invite censure from the church community, but I was also warned that it would
put my eternal standing with Almighty God in jeopardy. John’s warning was less severe.
As we discussed our kind of upbringing, we expressed how we have now come to move
as far away from our childhood rigidity as we have. John and I attended the same Bible college in
California . Of course, California is known for its laid back
attitude and freethinking ways. Not speaking for John, only myself, when
I say I was pleased to find a church community that was free from the
constricting rules and legalisms of my childhood and teen years. Yet, I was in for quite a
surprise. While I had indeed moved far away from the many rules of my
childhood town, and church, I discovered that the rules of San Jose, Los Gatos,
Santa Cruse, Sana Rosa, involved minute intricacies relating to use of the
beach, parking restrictions, garbage pickup, water usage, street crossings,
selection of school choice, dress code, taxes, environmental regulations, and
hundreds of other culturally monitored rules. As far as the church’s rules; the wrath of God
may not have been invoked in the threats of punishment, but I suffered the
self-righteous censure of the faith community just as bound by legalism as the
one in which I had grown up. Everywhere, oddly, I found that the rules seemed
more beloved than the people they were meant to shape. These were the days of the “hippie era” and
impact on the church.
After our days together, ruminating and rehearsing our stories, I am
embarrassed at a string of self-recognitions, finding myself within the
details of my own story. I have easily looked down on one set of rules,
while elevating the rules of the other. Yet, I grimace at the irony of my
own self-righteous response. Regardless of the rules involved, I
have come to believe that human beings seem to be lovers of legalities.
But “why is it that human beings become legalists regardless of the rules
involved?,” I ask myself. The desire to have clear boundaries, and a
concern for decency and order to guide communities and churches, is both
necessary and prudent. Yet somehow rules meant to offer shape for community
and church living often grow into gods we come to worship—gods who serve as
judge and jury for all who fall short of dictates. Clear boundaries
become walls of separation dividing human relationships and community, and the
enforcers quickly draw lines around the righteous and the unrighteous. It
seems to me that legalism prompts one to declare his "virtue" as the
clearly superior standard.
Could it be that it is easier for me to love legalities because it is easier
than loving people? In my experience, people are inconsistent and
imperfect, and are easily controlled and confined by rules. Jesus, in his
life and ministry, frequently shattered these easy definitions put in place by
those lovers of legality in his day. He upended expectations and eluded
the tightly drawn categories of those who sought to control him. He often
kept company with those deemed unrighteous—prostitutes, tax collectors, and
others called sinners—and he earned the label of "glutton and a
drunkard" by those whose laws drew clear boundaries around appropriate
company. For those who had clear rules about the Messiah of Israel, Jesus
eschewed (new word) political power and stood silently before those who would
eventually order his crucifixion. And for those who wanted a
"rebel" Jesus, wholly antinomian and defying every convention, he
answered by challenging his followers towards a righteousness that exceeded
that of the most religious-of-the-religious in his day. In his own words
he told those who would follow him that he did not come to abolish the law, but
to fulfill it.
Far from being a measure for establishing self-righteousness or from creating a
new legalism for his followers, Jesus fulfilled the law by revealing its true
intention. He showed the true intention of the Sabbath law for rest on
the seventh day not by enforcing rest rigidly but by healing those who were
diseased, broken, and therefore kept separate from their communities. I
stand to be corrected but I think the rest God intended for humanity was
expressed not in the rule of non-work per se, but in the spirit of good for all
in need of reconciliation. Fulfilling the law, he restored relationships
and opened the door for transformation; he reconciled persons to one another
and to God.
Indeed, when he was questioned about the greatest commandment Jesus replied,
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind. And a second is like it: you shall love
your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law
and the prophets." Jesus understood that the ground of the law was a love for God and a love for persons. To replace the love of
persons with a love of the rules missed the point. Loving the rules for
rules' sake engenders self-love; loving God engenders love for others.
Father, God I am embarrassed to admit of the many time in life I have missed You
command to love you and my neighbors as I love myself. As a lover of legalities, I have to often preferred
to apply my community rules broadly and widely as a function of my
self-love. I ask Your forgiveness in my idolatry of legalism and the
attempt to prove self-righteousness. I
now confess Your truth spoken long ago:
The letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Amen
