We all have to follow the law and yet we are all on the look out to find ways to evade the law. We do not like being constrained by the law. Most especially when we feel that the law encroaches on our own spaces and personal freedoms. We complain if things are not going our way and really speak out if we feel that a law is unjust, even if it might be quite a good law in itself. God and Christ give us commandments which we are told that if we love Christ we will obey (Jn. 14.15). What are these commandments? Simple really Love God and Love our neighbours as ourselves. Nothing really problematic about these. Here comes the rub. We begin to debate with and amongst ourselves about the interpretation of these two laws. Who is God? Is God male or female? Who is our neighbour? If my interpretation of God is different to your interpretation of God does this mean that I am loving God better than you and you need to follow my way? In these very real, to us, questions there is a need to bring in some perspective to deal with the inevitable conflicts but how do we do this when we all argue about interpretation?
God calls us to follow these commandments from our baptism throughout our lives. In becoming bogged down in interpretation we loose the essence of the command that is given to us. It is not in the legal definitions and interpretive arguments that we will find our way but rather in changing our perspective. In fiddling around with the legal definitions we begin to fiddle around with the truth. Once we start playing around with the truth in our lives we begin to fall away from God and our gospel is not supported by the Spirit nor does the Spirit advocate for us. Office bearers, no matter how high in life, tend to look out for themselves and those that they believe will look after them. No matter how much they protest that they follow Christ their deeds point to the truth. The letter 1 Peter talks about our actions towards each other (1 Peter 3:8-9) and yet when we rise to a position that wields power we tend to forget the principles of the Christ-ian ethos of love. We actually need to put away our tendency to look for our advantage and start to see the world from a different view point. In today's society we have lost the true understanding of being whole and holy in the sight of God. In this loss we lose the Spirit enabling us to follow God / Christ and enact the commandments of love. Just think for a moment about the injunction to love our neighbour.
Let us change our perspective and do rather than think.
If, we are to look at scripture for inspiration on this one, we may find ourselves bogged down in wondering why, if we are to love our neighbours, is God so violent towards them in the Scriptures? or perhaps if God requires justice and peace in the world why is it that there is so much vicarious violence throughout Scripture? What is it that we are missing? Where are we going wrong in this exercise to find inspiration when all we have is violence and more violence with little in the way of the peace and love God commands us too? We need to see a different world a world that is filled with the essence of our love for anyone and everyone as we share the resources of the world with each other. The need for our children to see that everyone is the same, creations of and images of God. It is when we instil prejudice and fear of the other in our children that we perpetuate the violence of our history/herstory. We do this naturally, which is why the task set for the community and for godparents and parents is so hard. We very rarely look to those who are on the marginal end of society but rather we look to our friends and those we think will assist us in our own lives. We only have to look at the bigotry, anti-love sentiment in many of our political leaders to understand this. The issue here is that we find it difficult to utilise the power of love in our relationships rather than the power of might and abuse. We lead in our pride and strength rather than in our humbleness and weakness
In changing our perspective on our own lives we begin to understand the requirements that God is asking of us. It is when we begin to speak with truth, the truth of love, which is very up front and honest that we begin to realise what God's power is and how the Spirit advocates for us in the time of need. Our truth speaking needs to be in our lives as we are followers of Christ who is the truth. It is in how we mirror Christ to the world accurately and with truth that enables the Spirit of Truth to be our advocate in the world. When we live lives that are false in terms of God and Christ we lose the advocate and are unable to be the Christian people of the way. It is not that the law that needs interpreting by each individual it is that the law needs enacting by each individual. It is as if we have to place the question "what does it mean to me?" on hold and say "How can I perform this in reality?" By looking at the need to take an action we do away with the think and start to do. We operate out of our wish to see the other in a better place than we are. In doing this the other starts to look at ways of increasing our well being as they follow the example set for them. Can we actually start to do rather than think about doing.
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