Truth and Legalism

    Reading Eric Metaxas' biography, Bonhoeffer, is making me late for a lot of meetings and appointments lately.  I can't walk past it without reading a few pages, because it contains so many nuggets from Bonhoeffer's diaries and notes that shed light on his theology, as well as  the development of his thoughts that led to his resistance during WWII.

     Have gotten to the "tipping point" section, where excerpts from his unfinished work, Ethics examine the relationship between Truth (a Big Topic in mainline denominations these days) and Legalism (Big Topic No.2 )

  In Tegel prison, Bonhoeffer wrote an essay titled, "What Does it Mean to Tell the Truth."  He wrote that God's standard of truth involves more than merely "not lying," and requires a deeper level of obedience.  

     Never telling a lie is "easy religious legalism."  The illustration he used is if a teacher asks a child in front of the class if her father is a drunkard, (and he is) and the child answers, "No," then our first impression is that the child has told a lie.

     Bonhoeffer believed that the "flip side of the easy religious legalism of never telling a lie" was the cynical notion that there is no such thing as truth, only "facts."  But if our relationship with God orders everything else around it, then we can't separate our actions from our relationship to God.  So:  If this child standing before her teacher is responding from the seat of her understanding of both her relationship to God and to her father, then for her to answer factually in public that he is a drunkard, is to dishonor her father in truth, damaging her relationship with God and with her father, which would be a greater sin before God..

     He wrote this about the "truth legalist":  "He dons the halo of fanatical devotee of truth who can make no allowance for human weaknesses, but in fact he is destroying the living truth between men.  He wounds shame, desecrates mystery, breaks confidence, betrays the community in which he lives and laughs arrogantly at the devastation he has wrought and at the human weakness which 'cannot bear the truth.'"
Nothing like a German theologian to turn my brain into a pretzel.  This is much deeper than simple situational ethics - this is Sermon on the Mount Stuff.  Better to think about such things now, before Jesus asks us what we think about it.

Us versus Grace

     In a room full of traffic offenders, almost everyone is indignant that they have been caught speeding when others (who were, apparently, faster and therefore "more wrong") got away without being stopped, and so the offenders who were slow enough to get caught should not be found guilty.  Awesome logic, that.

     The second attempt to deflect attention away from one's own bad actions is to blame something inanimate that forced your unlawful action:  "The speed limit is too low on that road," (as though every driver is empowered to be his or her own legislature); or  "It was raining/there was a lot of construction/I was in a strange neighborhood/it was dark and I couldn't stop/avoid the collision/see the stop sign," (as though there was no driver responsibility to avoid obstacles or adjust their driving according to road conditions).  

     When I was a judge in my previous life, I used to try to explain that in America, self-government meant that we were expected to use self-restraint and respect the rights of others; and that people shouldn't complain about the government making "too many laws" because it is their own behavior that caused the proliferation of laws:  folks couldn't manage to drive in a single lane, in the same direction, at a safe speed.   (Someone once told me that "if you throw the book at somebody you don't get to lecture them; if you're reducing the fine, you can say whatever you want...")!

     The following profundity is why I love studying the Bible in small groups...while not an exact quote, the gist of the comment was:

     "When people can't restrain themselves and respect others, we create rules. When there are lots of rules, people break them. It becomes a lot of trouble to deal with the rulebreakers, so we just declare everyone right."

     That's our way.  This is God's way:

     This is the way to live a God-centered life.  Exceeding these limits will result in chaos, sickness and death.  I know you will not only break through these limits, you will bend them and blur them and blame others.  I love you and will forgive you for this, but you are still wrong in both your understanding and your actions, and I want you to let me steer you back to the best course, a better way.

     So when Grace is available, why do we still insist on being right?

    

Compromised Christian

When John Calvin used the term "total depravity," he wasn't trying to say that human beings were totally, completely evil through and through.  

What he was getting at is that whatever we do, good or bad, is "tinged" (a little bit colored, a little bit spoiled) by sin.  This is my personal test:  Did you ever do anything selfless and good?  Are you proud of it?  Well, there ya go.  I like to think of it as being a "blue man" - we look like respectable people, we want to do the right thing, and sometimes we can do good things, but there's always that little bit of blue that won't scrub off, and leaves a smudgy fingerprint on everything we touch.

Pentecost has me thinking about how Jesus is Lord over the whole world and all of life whether you've asked Him to be or not.  It can't be any other way.  Christ is either Lord of all of life or none of it.  "Brothers and sisters, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37b)  "...What kind of people ought you to be?  You ought to live holy and godly lives."  (2 Peter 3:11b)

In nearly every crisis situation there is some spiritual aspect, where the person or persons involved have tried to do something they thought was a good thing (like getting married, raising children, starting a new job, lending money to a friend or family member, and on and on), without considering what God's will might be for their lives, or what Scripture says about it.  The protests usually begin, "But I thought..." or "Why would God..."  God gets blamed for plenty of things God didn't do...

Week after week, people go back to whatever it was they were trying to do on their own, thinking that spending family time at a sports event is as helpful - or better - than being in church together; children are dropped off at Sunday School while parents go out to breakfast, leaving the church to attempt to accomplish in one hour a week what God tasked parents to do on a daily basis; couples go off to spend a weekend at a swanky hotel hoping that it will save a marriage the same way that praying together and having the support of a church family can; singles rush to nightspots looking for "Mr. or Mrs. Right" on Friday and Saturday nights instead of waiting on God's choice.

Of course, we thank God for grace.  Of course, we will all continue to make mistakes.  Of course, nobody's perfect.  Of course, the blood of Jesus gives us "white fingerprints" instead of blue ones.

"What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to sin and death?" Romans 7:24 

 But how much more likely are we to grow in grace if we quit working so hard to make our own lives turn out the way we've planned, and instead make room for God to work on our behalf while we worship and pray together?  Why not call a "time out" and back off yourself, your kids, your spouse and your employees for awhile?  What would happen if we got your eyes off of ourselves and back onto Jesus?