My father was a policeman for many years. In one of our early conversations we were discussing laws. Dad claimed that laws were made because not every one has common sense. Not everyone for example would stop their car at a busy intersection unless told to do so by a traffic light. Then too, not everyone has the common sense to exercise caution on a mountain road and so speed limit signs are posted for safe driving. I questioned many things that he told me but this answer made sense. If I needed any further proof I just needed to check the church parking lot after mass. There were no stop signs, no specific directions and with everyone trying to get out of the lot it was bedlam, perhaps even mayhem and the good will fostered in the church was quickly tested on the way out.
So what of the laws that God has given us? Jesus said ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill'. What does that mean to us? This is what I have been thinking about. I know laws are meant to help us but there are times when I have intentionally broken traffic laws, like when when daughter was born. I raced and, stopped at red lights, looked and sped through to the hospital.
With this same wonderful daughter ( and son ) I had a great many rules as they were growing up and I was an enforcer. It wasn't until they could understand that the rules would be bent a little if not dispensed with.
From my own life experience with all the churchy rules and rubrics I find it difficult to believe that Jesus came to tell us that every single element of the law would stand until heaven and earth pass away. This very statement seems contrary to Jesus' own words about the the two great commandments. That however is the precise point. Anyone can obey laws. In Matthew 19:22, a rich man had obeyed every point of the law and asked Jesus what more he had to do to achieve salvation. Jesus told him he should sell your possessions and give to the poor. Hey wait. The selling of possessions and giving to the poor is not one of the ten commandments is it? Yet Jesus said it and the man went away very sad.
The point is obeying laws might have been enough at one time, when we were a young people and perhaps incapable of much more understanding. Jesus came to say the laws won't go away until we temper them by those two great commandments. We must see things in the eyes of love. We must use our brains and our hearts. Just as God conveyed a universal truth in the creation stories because we were not capable of understanding 'the big bang" or anything more complex than "God created the world". Even with the big bang, God still created the world. It really changes nothing except that we understand a bit more.
So too, all the laws that Moses came down from the mountain with will not be going away. But they must all be understood, tempered by love. I always said obeying those two great commandments is much more challenging than simply obeying those strict ten commandments. But if we are to grow as humans, if we are to grow as humanity into the loving beautiful creatures God created us to be, we must use our brains and not fall into the trap of being thoughtless, mindless rule spouters.
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