Rules of the Road

by Tom Gilbert
Published September 29, 2005

How can it be that a religion that professes a God of unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy can get so bogged down in rules, restrictions, and judgments?

This is the dilemma facing today’s Christianity. Despite the Gospels’ harsh criticism of the overbearing legalism of the Pharisees and religious leaders of the day our modern day practice of religion often falls into the same trap. This is done even with the best of intentions. Denominations that put God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit at the center of their doctrine and creed can still be full of hierarchy, bureaucracy and countless rules.

Aside from specific Christian denominations and their various ways of conducting things we have the same kind of problem deep within each individual. There is always the battle between selfish living and surrender to God’s will. Be honest. This is within you, me and everyone. The saints we’ve admired through the ages were the first to admit it. That wasn’t false modesty. It was rigorous honesty. Paul put it best in his amazing letter to the Romans. The constant struggle inside each of us doesn’t just go away when we decide to follow God and do what is right. In Chapter 7 it is clear that Paul is agonizing over his desire to do the right thing and his inability to do it on his own power. The conclusion he came to is that on his own he is powerless, but with God all things are possible.

Fortunately for us we have the great writing and theology of Paul in his many letters dealing with the dilemma of the human condition. The apostle was merely trying to help the various new and small communities with the struggles they were having. What they were going through is really no different than the difficulties we see in our churches today. Because that is the case we can rejoice that we have a God, a Savior in Christ, and the wonderfully inspired words of disciples such as Paul to guide us in our inevitable conflicts.

Nevertheless, it is frustrating. How can we keep reading scripture that speaks of love, compassion, and caring for the poor and less fortunate as the true way to worship God and yet keep building walls and empires? We can’t say we don’t know better. If we do Jesus’ own words will judge us! We must recall that Jesus not only spoke of love and forgiveness. He also intervened when his closest followers, the disciples with him on a daily basis, became arrogant or self-righteous. Jesus knew the human dilemma and how years of being raised with bias and prejudice meant selfishness would keep asserting itself. When his disciples argued over which of them was the greatest the Lord brought a child into their midst and gave another counter-cultural lesson. “Whoever is least among you is the greatest.” – Luke 9:48.

It's the Journey

Life is a journey and we’ve all heard that before. Yes it’s a cliché, but don’t let that detract from the wisdom. We are all travelers on this journey and that means lots of traffic. Where there’s traffic there is congestion. Without some rules for the road there would be chaos. Inevitably there will be “accidents” because some of us don’t follow the rules. The great traffic director we have – Jesus – doesn’t dwell on who is at fault when a major accident happens. He’s more concerned with giving first aid. With smaller infractions we might just get a warning.

So, as we travel along this road of life let’s be courteous and considerate. God’s invitation is for all and that means lots of traffic. We don’t have to go and build new highways of living just because we can’t or won’t get along with some of our fellow travelers. If we do we just might end up with a needless detour. The “rules of the road” are posted. Accidents will happen if we don’t follow the rules, but that’s not God’s fault. He gives us the freewill to “drive our cars”. Christ has already given us the direction to head in and instructed us to show everyone the way. I don’t think he told us to be the traffic cops along this road, handing out citations to sinners. Good Samaritans was the example He gave.

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