The story goes that: “A young soldier and his commanding officer got on a train together. The only available seats were across from an attractive young woman who was traveling with her grandmother. As they engaged in pleasant conversation, the soldier and the young woman kept eyeing one another; the attraction was obviously mutual. Suddenly the train went into a tunnel and the car became pitch black. Immediately two sounds were heard: the ‘smack’ of a kiss, and the ‘whack’ of a slap across the face. The grandmother thought ‘I can’t believe he kissed my granddaughter, but I’m glad she gave him the slap he deserved.’ The commanding officer thought, ‘I don’t blame the boy for kissing the girl, but it’s a shame that she missed his face and hit me instead.’ The young girl thought, ‘I’m glad he kissed me, but I wish my grandmother hadn’t slapped him for doing it.’ And as the train broke into the sunlight, the soldier could not wipe the smile off his face. He had just seized the opportunity to kiss a pretty girl and slap his commanding officer and had gotten away with both!”
It’s brilliant, isn’t it? You break all the rules and you come out of it smelling like a rose. It would be something if it really worked like that, wouldn’t it? I think the way things usually work, the soldier would have stumbled and kissed the grandmother in the dark, and hit the officer just as the light came back into the train. The girl would have said, “Why did he kiss my grandmother and not me? He must be some kind of perv!”, and slapped the soldier. But, like the soldier, we still keep hoping that can really get by with something. We want to have our sins forgiven, but we don’t want to stop our sinning. We want Jesus to be our loving Savior, but we don’t want him as our Sovereign Lord. We want to be thought of as a good soldier, while doing things in the dark that are not what we should be doing.
I think that there are many Christians who are not really living the life, because they are not willing to wholeheartedly follow Jesus, especially if things get difficult. Part of the problem is that we have a distorted idea of what it means to live the Christian life. For many, it is only about being forgiven and going to heaven. It is almost as if many Christians think that what they do doesn’t matter. Or if it does matter, God will simply forgive them.
A lot of people live as though the Christian life is only a matter of rules. But it is not about rules, it is about a whole new way of life — not just a new way of acting, but a new way of thinking, a new way of feeling, a new way of seeing the world. It is a new way of living with God and other people. It’s about a new way of treating the people in your family. It’s about a new confidence in life, because you know that this is God’s world and he has not given up on it. Living by rules often keeps us from seeing Christianity as a way of life. I often hear people who are very concerned about the fact that prayer is not allowed in school. I have to admit that I have very little concern over that. What concerns me is that there is no prayer in our homes. I am not so concerned over the fact that Bible reading is not permitted in our schools as I am the fact that there is no Bible reading in our homes. I am not so concerned that the schools are not teaching creationism as I am the fact that we are not engaging our children in spiritual conversation at home. We don’t change the culture by changing its laws. We change the culture by changing people — and it must begin with us. So when you don’t pray with your family or read the Bible together, you have lost your right to complain about it not being done in our schools. Live the life, and don’t expect someone else to do what is your responsibility. Somehow we think the rules we want to impose on others don’t apply to us. The Scripture says, “If you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth — you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?” (Romans 2:19-21).
Legalism is so easy to see in others, and not so easy to see in ourselves. We understand it in the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They loved rules, and they were always making new ones. The problem is that they did not just make rules for themselves, they wanted everyone else to follow their rules. Be clear that I am not talking about major moral rules that are from God and clearly outlined in Scripture, I am talking about man-made rules that had very little to do with a person’s relationship with God — although they insisted they did.
Jesus was incensed at those who made these kinds of rules and said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23:23-28).
On another occasion, the Scripture says, “The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were ‘unclean,’ that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, ‘Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with “unclean” hands?’ He replied, ‘Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men” (Mark 7:1-8).
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day turned living for God into living by a set of rules. They said it was all about how you washed your hands, how you washed cups and dishes, how you tithed herbs, what you did on the Sabbath — how far you walked, the weight of what you carried or whether what you were doing on the Sabbath could be considered work. They walked around looking for people who broke the rules and condemned them.
But Jesus defined living for God in terms of a relationship. Listen as the Bible describes one scene: “One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these’” (Mark 12:28-31).
The most important rule, Jesus said, was about a relationship — it was about loving God. We are still making man-made rules, aren’t we? Over the years I have seen Christians make the Christian life all about how you dress, whether or not you wear jewelry, whether you play cards, watch movies, smoke, drink or dance. You may not do any of those things, but what about your relationship with God? Do you love him? Do you love other people? You may believe all the right things, but are you mean and surly, judgmental and cross? You are obeying all the religious rules, but are your relationships are a mess? You have all the minor things down, but you find it hard to forgive. You read the Scripture, pray and attend church, “But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness.” You are “straining out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
I really wish it was about a few rules; it would be so much easier. If it were simply a few things I should avoid, I could do that. But it is much more difficult to seek the kingdom of God over my own little kingdom, love my neighbor, forgive my enemy, live as a servant, have a pure mind, practice kindness, and love God with all my strength. I wish it was all about what I should not do, rather than what I should be doing like being selfless, putting others first, letting go of grudges, and overlooking insults — the kinds of things Jesus actually talked about. It would be a lot easier to stop going to movies or watching TV, than it is to have a passion for God, seek the kingdom with my whole heart, long for his righteousness, and live with joy and enthusiasm because of a deep, abiding faith and trust in God. Those are the things I find difficult. Kingdom living is far more difficult, I find, than keeping a few rules.
Two stories this past week have captured the attention of the media. The first is the story of hypocrisy, and the second is the story of authenticity. At the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a young Republican congressman from Florida condemned President Clinton on moral grounds for having a relationship with a White House intern. He said, “It’s vile. It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction.” The congressman who made that statement to the press was Mark Foley. He has served six terms in the Congress, and has been known for crusading against sexual predators and Internet pornography. But he has now resigned in disgrace because of reports that he sent lurid e-mails and instant messages to teenage boys who served as congressional pages.
Everyone dislikes a hypocrite, and unfortunately, we have plenty of them parading as Christians — people who say one thing and do another. It is the number one reason people say they do not come to church. But there are many genuine and authentic people as well. The second story that toped the media headlines this week was the execution-style murders of five Amish school girls in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. I watched as reporters struggled to understand the families and other members of the community who said that they forgave the shooter — 32-year-old Charles Roberts. And it was not just words, for they not only sent word to Robert’s family that they had forgiven him, they went to Roberts’ funeral, invited his family to their community and started a fund for his children.
Ann Curray on NBC’s web site reports on the incredible faith of the Amish people. She says, “This forgiveness seems especially incredible, coming on the same day the coroner is being reported to have counted almost 20 bullet wounds in the body of a 7-year-old girl. An Amish woman told me perhaps the good that might come of this tragedy is, ‘We can tell people about Christ and actually show you in our walk that we forgive, not just say it, but in our walk of life. You know you have to live it, you can’t just say it.’” Ann Curry ended by saying, “I realize I did not know what forgiveness was until now.” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15134112/)
I am sure the Amish families who lost their children wish that living the Christian life was only about wearing home-made clothes, riding around in buggies and living without electricity. It would be much easier if that was all it was about, rather than forgiving someone who had committed an atrocity against your child. But living the life the way Jesus taught transforms us from the inside out. It not only changes what we do, it changes who we are.
Ravi Zacharias recently wrote: “In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde describes an exceptionally handsome young man so captivating that he drew the awestricken adulation of a great artist. The artist asked him to be the subject of a portrait for he had never seen a face so attractive and so pure. When the painting was completed, young Dorian became so enraptured by his own looks that he wistfully intoned how wonderful it would be if he could live any way he pleased but that no disfigurement of a lawless lifestyle would mar the picture of his own countenance. If only the portrait would grow old and he himself could remain unscathed by time and way of life. In Faustian style he was willing to trade his soul for that wish. One day, alone and pensive, Dorian went up to the attic and uncovered the portrait that he had kept hidden for so many years, only to be shocked by what he saw. Horror, hideousness, and blood marred the portrait. The charade came to an end when the artist himself saw the picture. It told the story. He pled with Dorian to come clean, saying, “Does it not say somewhere, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’?” But in a fit of rage to silence this voice of conscience, Dorian grabbed a knife and killed the artist. There was now only one thing left for him to do; he took the knife to remove the only visible reminder of his wicked life. But the moment he thrust the blade into the canvas, the portrait returned to its pristine beauty, while Dorian lay stabbed to death on the floor. The ravages that had marred the picture now so disfigured him that even his servants could no longer recognize him.”
Ravi closes by saying, “We too, face Dorian Gray’s predicament. Sooner or later, a duplicitous life reveals the cost. The soul is not forever invisible. But there is one who can cleanse and restore us. The Scriptures give us extraordinary insight into this subject of our soul-struggle, and God deals with the heart of the issue one life at a time. Indeed, hear the words of the prophet Isaiah to which Oscar Wilde alluded: ‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be like wool’ (1:18). So come, friend, willingly and obediently, and find God’s rejoinder to the marred portrait within. The greatest artist of all speaks even today.”
Rodney J. Buchanan
October 15, 2006
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
