doing the rules
This weekend as I was teaching our faith community I made a startling confession (well, startling for some, but for most it was affirmation). I said in a confident tone, “I hate rules.” The gasps thankfully were hardly audible. After my confession, I asked who else felt the same way. To my astonishment nearly half of the room raised their hands. One who did was a 13 year-old kid who raised his hand, and then looked up at his Dad.
This was not all that I said, but when I said it, I meant it. I still mean it. It really is not the rules themselves, rather it is the way the modern world has couched the rules. Rules are always about “do not.” This is so negative, and for me an optimist, it always caused a grind. I grew up with a long list of “do nots.” The rule books at most of the institutions I attended were exhaustive in their prohibitions. You had to think twice before you ate your dinner, let alone kiss your girlfriend. It is this kind of world that drives me crazy.
More so, these lists of rules were the measuring stick used to gauge one’s godliness. As you can well presume, due to my disinterest in negativity I was quite an ungodly person. The problem was that in my heart I wasn’t. My wife (who during my college years was my girlfriend) was always having to explain to people why she was dating me, because they thought I was such a bad guy (incidentally, she still answers questions about why she married me, but for different reasons). Some of the people who were questioning my wife were the “godly” people. Meaning, they were able to live up to all the “do nots.” Troubling for me was that I knew these people. Not all of them were what they appeared to be, they just could “not do.”
For a long time many said that this drove me crazy because I was rebellious. For a long time I believed that. However, I later graduated from all academic institutions, burned the “do not do” rule books, and still felt the same way. However, this time it was more serious because my attitude cringed at the thought of what God said I couldn’t do (or at least what I thought he was saying). The larger problem was that I was a pastor … I was the guy who was supposed to the ambassador of the “do not” administration.
About 7 years ago, I began to realize something. This realization came by way of prayer, illumination from the Text, and from the community of people in which I found myself. I was seeing people who loved God with all of their minds, hearts, souls, and strength and loving their neighbors as themselves. The thing that I could not figure out is that these were the same people that were sneered at by the “do not” people. However, when I hung out with them there was more freedom in them than I ever saw in those who imprisoned themselves with rules. They lived by two rules … Love God, Love others.
These two rules call us to “do.”
This simple understanding of “doing” versus “not doing” that I was blind to for so long is what awakened in me an understanding of true freedom in Jesus. Now, one might say, “Well the Ten Commandments are all framed in the negative.” For sure the words are … but the intent of how one obeys them is not. We would focus on the “do not” part, the Holy Spirit speaking through the Text empowers us to “do.”
For example, “Thou shalt not murder” (I had to use the King James Version for effect). If we take our “do not” world to its furthest extent then we can rest easily knowing that most all of us can get by without killing someone. Most are not likely to shoot, stab, choke, bludgeon, or whatever someone to death. So, we hear about “murderers”, and with mirth in our hearts we know that we “do not” murder. What if this commandment was understood as calling us to action? What if it reflected the beauty that God places on life? What implications would it have for us? What if this command were viewed as one that demanded action of us in relation to life?
If we are obedient to this command, then we would be people who would “do.” We would speak on behalf of the widow, the fatherless, and the foreigner who have lost their rights that all men and women ought to have as people in the image of God. We would speak into the hearts of men and women who perform abortions, and we would walk alongside of women who are considering having an abortion. We would be forced to help, raise our voices, and bring awareness to those who die of hunger and curable diseases every day. We would have to consider what this view of life means in relation to capital punishment. We would have to assess war and conflict in light of this commandment. Obedience to this suddenly becomes about “doing.” It ceases to focus solely on what we are “not doing.”
If we were people who cared about life like this, not murdering another human being would be a natural by-product of our active obedience.
There is so much more that God tells us to go and do, compared with what He prohibits. I would love to see a faith-based academic institution have a rule book telling their students what they have to “do” in order to be a student. I wonder what that would look like. Many would say, “Well you have to have things that you don’t do if you want to have order.” Given, but this is too often where we stop. We never move beyond that. Sadly, for many this is what is killing the faith of some. They have never been introduced to what they can do, only what they cannot.
If I have an XBOX I want to know how to play the games. I do not want to focus on not dropping it, not getting it wet, not allowing it to be in intense heat … no, I want to “do” something with it, I want to play games until my eye sockets dry-out and get fried by the television. This is the kind of Jesus follower I want to be. Jesus himself said, “Go.” This is doing. Let’s stop focusing so much on what we are not doing. If you smoke, and chew and run with girls who do … my question would be, “What are you doing to continue the revolution that Jesus started 2000 years ago?” (My second question would be “Why are you running with girls who chew?”)
I believe that being obedient to Jesus is about our “doing.” When we are living out his mission and “doing” the “do nots” take care of themselves. Recapturing this mission that He has asked us to continue in our day is the essence of freedom, and the most beautiful kind of living.