The Point of the Rules (Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

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I love working in my shop. But my shop is my garage, and I have a single car garage. And as I’ve increased and upgraded my tools, I just don’t have enough space to work and to store all my tools, even if I banish my car to the driveway.

And so recently, I’ve begun the process of planning for a garage addition, essentially turning my one car garage into a two car garage. That way, I’ll have room for the tools, room to work, and even be able to get my car back in the garage at night.

And decades of being a Pastor who’s been involved in church building and renovation projects has somewhat prepared me for what I’m doing right now – dealing with all the rules! Even with a very small project (which Tom tells me exempts me from some of the stuff we’ve had to do at church), there are still all the County rules about where on my property, and how close to the property line, I’m allowed to build. There are the HOA rules about what any architectural change to my house has to look like. And this is before we even get to the building code rules about how I’m actually allowed to build this thing!

But, I’ve had to deal with these kinds of rules before in other situations. And like all sets of rules, it’s often the case that many rules:

• Actually do make sense, even if they’re kind of a pain – I mean, I don’t really want my neighbors building something bizarre next to my house, so it makes sense I should demonstrate that I’m not doing that to them…!

• Make you wonder about the common sense of the people who must have inspired the rules – in my first congregation, we were installing windows on the addition, and the screens came with required warning labels reminding you that if you leaned on the screen you might fall through…!

• Really make no sense at all – there are all kinds of codes that just seem random and arbitrary; maybe if I were an engineer I’d understand, but sometimes even my engineer buddies tell me they don’t make sense to them either. But, they’re there and you gotta follow them…

Now if I want a building permit, I’ll need to follow all the rules, even the ones I think are silly and the ones I don’t understand the need for. But in fact, we all face rules in our lives like that. Many of them seem unnecessary. And some of them seem either outdated or just kind of goofy. And so it’s often appropriate to ask why the rules are there in the first place. And why is following the rules important?

Today’s biblical readings are also all about rules – God’s rules. And they also raise the questions of why the rules are there in the first place and why following them would be important. Indeed, this is the basis of today’s debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. And that debate long preceded Jesus.

These kinds of debates were long standing because there were a lot of rules in the Old Testament! Some of them seemed really important, and some not so much.  Indeed, many other debates Jesus has with people center on which commandments – which rules – matter the most.

Moreover, people also realized that following the rules didn’t always work out well for them. As some of the Psalms and books like Job attest, there were people who followed all the rules and suffered greatly in life. And at the same time, there were people who flaunted all the rules and made out like bandits (actually, some of them were probably bandits!)

So really, why follow the rules? There are a few places in the Old Testament which suggest that God will, in the afterlife, punish those who break the rules and reward those who unjustly suffer for following them. That theme is sometimes picked up in the New Testament, especially in books like Revelation. And sadly, in the history of the Church, sometimes that idea has been inflicted upon people by church authorities who sought to control people’s behaviors, and added to biblical rules all kinds of other rules that are never found there.

But actually, following the rules so that you get rewarded in heaven (or so that you don’t get punished in hell) is NEVER the point of why you should follow the rules, even in books like Job and Revelation. The idea in books like that is simply to remind faithful people – who even in their faithfulness will never follow all the rules exactly – that God won’t abandon or forget them.

But if heavenly reward or punishment isn’t the reason to take the rules seriously, what’s the point? Why even try to follow the rules?

The first and most important thing to remember is that as Christians, we’re supposed to trust in the forgiveness Jesus offers, not our own ability to follow the rules perfectly. And yet, it’s often the case that we’re called to follow the rules, not for our own righteousness or purity, but because following the rules can often:

• Help us focus on living in ways that help us grow as God’s people – in the Gospel reading, Jesus is concerned not with “dirty hands” but with “being dirty”; this is one of the examples of people focusing on a minor thing (like washing your hands, which Jesus doesn’t say is wrong) in such a way that you ignore what it is that you do with your hands; and what you do with your hands can help or hinder you in growing into the kind of person God created you to become…(do you want to be the kind of person who is basically good, or just looks good to others…?)

• Enables us to show God to others in the world – Moses tells the people to follow the commandments diligently, not so that God will love them, but so that others will come to know how great God is and what a great deed he’s done by establishing Israel; Confirmation classes begin this year studying the 10 Commandments, which were unique to the religions around Israel, because they lifted up the idea that God actually cared about how people lived and behaved with each other! And living like that shows God to the world in ways that self-righteousness just can’t…

• Gives us an opportunity to act and be involved in something worthwhile – James writes “be doers of the Word and not hearers only”; sometimes, following the rules forces you to focus not only on God but on others and not on yourself. That’s why James cautions, “your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” My anger is about me. But God’s will is done by people who actually do what God calls us to do, not by people who just sit around and stew about those who don’t…

Sometimes, rules make sense. Sometimes they don’t. And that’s sometimes true even with God’s rules. But the point of following rules is never to earn God’s love or forgiveness. And the point of following the rules is never to feel self-righteous or to judge others.

Instead, God’s rules are really there to help us grow as the people God created us to be. They’re there to guide us in showing the love, mercy and grace of God to others by the way we live our lives in the world. And they’re there to give us opportunities to act in ways that do what Jesus did – to make God’s presence a tangible and visible reality in the life of the world around us.

Amen.