One of the things we can’t avoid in life is rules; rules, regulations, laws. We have them in everything we do in life and it’s just as well we do because could you imagine what life would be like without rules? I’m sure we’ve all tried to play games at times with someone who ignores the rules of the game, someone who cheats in other words, and we know how difficult and annoying that can be. I’m sure there are more than a few of us who’ve had fallouts, arguments and maybe even fights with someone who’s cheated during a game. And imagine what life would be like if there was no law against theft, for example. How would we all feel if someone quite openly stole something of ours and when we complained to the police, they just shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘There’s no law against it.’ So we have to have rules, set standards of conduct that are designed to make life run more smoothly by making it fair for everyone, so that we’re all on a level playing field as the saying goes. And we go through life expecting that the vast majority of people at least, will stick to the rules.
Having said that, one of my favourite quotes, lines from the film Reach For the Sky actually, and something I very much agree with, says that,
‘Rules are for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of the foolish.’
That saying doesn’t mean that only foolish people stick to the rules while wise people break them. What it means is that, while we understand the need for rules, we also understand the need to be flexible in applying them. It’s a saying that reminds us that rules can’t cover every situation we might come across. It reminds us that there are always exceptions to the rules because rules can’t cover every situation. I think it also highlights a very fundamental problem when we apply rules which is the potential for conflict between the ‘spirit of the law’ and the ‘letter of the law’. It also reminds us that a good rule can be misused, misinterpreted, or over zealously applied to bad effect. It warns us that a good rule applied in too strict a way, can be just as bad, if not worse, than having no rule at all.
This morning’s Gospel reading at St Gabriel’s, the story of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, is an example of how a strict interpretation of a rule, and an over-zealous application of a rule, completely negated the spirit of the rule. In this case, the on how to observe the Sabbath. I’m sure we all know the commandment about the Sabbath, but just to remind you, it says:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
I think what stands out in this commandment is how it begins and ends – God commands that the Sabbath is kept as a holy day because he himself has blessed it as a holy day. The problem though, is in the way this law, this rule was applied. The emphasis was put on resting and doing no work. It’s true that people were, and are, encouraged to worship God, to pray and to study the Scriptures on the Sabbath, but is this all there is to making the day holy?
Holiness, as we know, is about being dedicated to God and so the Sabbath is intended to be a day dedicated to God. It’s a day when we’re called to put aside our own business and dedicate ourselves to being about God’s business. Part of that is to worship and pray and study the Scriptures, but isn’t a large part of being about God’s business our calling to love our neighbour, to cater to the hungry and thirsty, to be hospitable to the stranger, to give aid to the poor and the sick? But how can we do these things if we’re forbidden from doing any work on the Sabbath? And if we can’t do these things on the Sabbath, even when they’re necessary, can we really keep it as a holy day?
This is the essence of the conflict between Jesus and the leader of the synagogue in this Gospel story. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, a work obviously, but one that made the day holy because doing it was being about God’s work. But in the synagogue leader’s rigid interpretation of the law, it was a very unholy thing to do, a thing that defiled the Sabbath, because it involved working. So in this instance, too rigid an interpretation of the letter of the law, negated the spirit of the law. In effect, this rigid interpretation and application of the law made keeping it worse than having no law at all because it stopped people from observing the essential thing about the Sabbath which is to keep it as a holy day.
There are actually, 39 types or categories of work that Jewish law prohibits on the Sabbath, and also some prohibited by rabbinic law. But making lists of what’s allowed and what’s prohibited always leads to problems. For one thing, we can’t list everything in such a way that every possible situation or extenuating circumstance is covered. So that leaves loopholes in the rules which some people will be only too happy to exploit for their own purposes. And whenever things are written down, we have the potential for ambiguities and different ways of interpreting what’s been written. And, of course, once we have differences in interpretation we open the way for differences and inconsistencies in applying the rules, which automatically leads to disagreements about the rules. And all this leads to even more problems; the problem of people insisting that their interpretation of the rules is the right one, and the problem of people making up their own rules and passing them off as the rules.
People who do this are perhaps like those whom Jesus speaks about in the Gospel reading at St Mark’s this morning, people who try to enter the kingdom of God by ways and means other than the ‘narrow door’ Jesus tells us we must enter by. And this is a very common problem.
To coin a phrase, I wish I had a pound for every time someone’s said to me, ‘I’m not a Christian (or ’I don’t go to Church’), but I’m a good person and I live a good life.’ Perhaps they are and they do, but by who’s standard are they and their lives ‘good’? Usually, it’s by their own standard which is almost certainly not the standard by which God judges who and what is ‘good’.
How many people, for example, have we all met who fall out and argue with others regularly because they can’t control their tongues, especially what they say about other people? And how many of these people excuse what they do by insisting they they’re ‘only telling it like it is’? Only telling it like it is. Really? Isn’t what they’re actually doing telling it the way they see it which is not the way it is, but only their opinion and interpretation of the way it is. And how often do people like this influence others so that have a bad opinion of someone that’s actually based on nothing more than tittle-tattle, malicious gossip? And yet aren’t these often the very people who insist that they’re ‘good people’ who lead ‘good lives’ – Not like such and such a body down the road. If people round here knew what they were really like, if they knew I know, that’d open their eyes. I could tell you a few things about them if you’ve got a week or two to spare! Or some other such. But what is it that Jesus said?
“… everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
But still, in their own interpretation of what’s good and bad, right and wrong, those who do this do very often do insist, that they’re ‘good people’ who lead ‘good lives’.
And if we think about the Church, how many people in the Church think their way, and only their way, is the right way? How many people in the Church not only criticise, but condemn others because of their tradition, their liturgy, their denomination? And how much of this criticism is based on the premise that ‘We’re right’ and so anyone and everyone who doesn’t do things our way must be wrong? But in fact, how much of what we regard as right and wrong in the Church all boils down to nothing more than our own interpretations and opinions?
We have rules, and we need rules, in our lives, and we have them and need them in the Church too. But we always have to remember the need to be flexible in our interpretation and application of rules. As Christians, we’re called to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. Every other law and commandment we have is summed up in these two great commandments, so everything we do, both in Church and in our lives should be done in such a way that we keep these commandments as well as possible. But that means we have to be flexible about the way we keep them. For example, as Christians we should be keeping the Sabbath holy by being in Church on Sundays to show our love of God in our worship, our prayers and by listening to the Scriptures. But if someone calls you, in urgent need of help on a Sunday morning, what do you do? The answer is, you do the most loving thing because that is keeping the spirit of the law. You might, in a sense, be going against the letter of the law by being late for Church, or by missing Church altogether that Sunday, but you will have given glory to God and shown your love of God, by showing your love of your neighbour so you will, still, have kept the Sabbath holy.
Rules are made for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of the foolish. We all want to enter the kingdom of heaven and Jesus tells us that to get there, we have to find and go through a narrow door. We find that door through faith in him and by living in obedience to his commandments, his rules, not ours. He also tells us, in the parable of the Ten Virgins, that only the wise find their way to the kingdom while the foolish don’t. So let’s be wise and find that narrow door by doing our best to keep every day as a Sabbath, a holy day, a day to be doing God’s work. That might mean that, at times, we have to use the rules for guidance only, but isn’t that what Jesus did?
Amen.
The Propers for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 