Break the rules. Start now.
Break the rules. Go ahead and break the rules. Dare to break the rules developed by the dominant Christian culture. The rules that prevent you from loving other human beings and restoring their dignity-- break that rule, it is okay Jesus did.
The law commanded women caught in adultery to be stoned to death. Devoutly religious folks had no problem stoning a woman (not a man) to death. Jesus broke that "rule". Who is the sinner in our society that your church says it is okay to stone to death publicly? Break that rule. Jesus did. Start now.
The law said one cannot heal on the Sabbath. The devoutly religious folks allowed humans to suffer and die. They thought it was okay as long as one did not break the law. Jesus broke the "rule". Who are you unwilling to heal for the "law" tells you not to? Break the law.
Sometimes we are so masterful at not breaking the rules that we break God’s laws of love. The Christian life is not about following a certain code of beliefs so that having the right beliefs will save us. Jesus never spoke about the "Christian life." Jesus spoke about God’s kingdom, God’s reign or more appropriately, God’s dominion. Jesus said for us to awaken to the reality of God’s presence in the world and to turn and join the love train that is moving in another direction. Being a follower of Jesus or what ever one calls oneself, is a bout a relationship with God that transforms us into more compassionate beings. We are to be the loving, incarnational presence of God in the world.
If your religious laws prevent you from being a loving, incarnational, compassionate presence in this world then break your laws. Break your rules. Jesus did.
Break the law that tells you not to touch some one for you will become impure. Jesus did. Embrace that person and thereby make them pure through your healing love. It is okay, Jesus did. If you are more concerned about a "rule" than you are the fact that there are starving people in your neighborhood or that people don’t have health care then you have missed the point.
Stop quoting scripture to people. Stop quoting your laws to people. It proves nothing. Jesus said even the devil knows the scripture. You sound like a loud gong and a clanging cymbal when you have no love. Let love be your gong and bang the hell out of your gong. Love an outsider. Let love be your cymbal—start clashing. Who is the "sinner" your church despises? Start there. Love that person. Jesus does. Church is not something you do on Sunday. It is something you are the rest of the week. Hate gay people? Start there. Be the church… be the Body of Christ. Break whatever rule you have that prevents you from being the loving, incarnational presence of Christ in this world. Jesus did. Follow him.
Leonard Sweet says, "We know how to save the world. We just don’t realize we know what we know. The way to save the world is not through more rules to live by, but through right relationships to live for."Break those rules that prevent you from embracing the "least of these" in relationship, it's okay Jesus did.
3 Comments:
I want out of the box. I want out of a culture that thinks "rule-following" is Christ following. I want to live like Christ did--with love.
Ofcourse, Christ also lived with total holiness.
And I want that, too.
I want to walk in the New Way of the Holy Spirit. To learn to love and to let the sin of my life fall away.
YES! Well said.. keep it coming!
Push our buttons and get us out there. Let's not just read this and celebrate the rhetoric. Let's feel the kick in our pants and do something about it..
blessing Rick..
As Emeril would say, "Oh, yeah, baby. That's the good stuff." Like bacon-wrapped filet mignon...
One of the things that my readings in postmodern-dom has made me crazy about is the number of folks trying to define the very word postmodern, in terms of sociology, quasi-cultural-anthropology, and various forms of theology. I'm less than half-way through The Church and The Emerging Culture, and already I've wanted to scream half-a-dozen times. So far, tt seems that the discussion has become about defining who's "in" and who's "out" (or "mod" vs. "pomo") all over again...instead of how we can perform what one writer calls "dinosaur heart transplants" in the church of Christ.
What I hope for the emergent church is that some of us can learn from the failures of modern Christendom, and find a way to form comunities of faith that are more authentic (outwardly and inwardly) at "following Jesus, rather than just being Christian" (to steal a phrase from a wise man...).
You're right, Rick. Jesus broke the rules regularly - about who was "clean" or "unclean," who could share table fellowship with him, you name it. And our willingness to reach out to the undesirable is perhaps our best indicator of how close we are to our Savior's path.
Back in the very early 90's at an open-air art show in Kansas City, I saw a pencil drawing of Jesus hugging a young man in a hospital-gown, covered with what seemed like Kaposi's-sarcoma lesions. The caption said, "Be made clean." Like an idiot, I didn't buy it then - and have never seen it (or anything like it) since. But I never forgot the image, or the message behind it.
As for me, I'd love to make a poster out of "If your religious laws prevent you from being a loving, incarnational, compassionate presence in this world, then break your laws. Break your rules. Jesus did." I'd even split the royalties with you...
Preach on, preacher.
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