Looking Up

I confess that I am secretly a closet Catholic.

(pun intended)

It's not that I agree with every bit of doctrine so much.  But I love the liturgy and the reverence for God in the mass.  I love the things that are repeated and addressed.  I love and admire the faithfulness I see in the priests, brothers, monks, nuns, and faithful attenders.  I check in with EWTN regularly just to hear the mass.

And of course I say this, I am quite sure, to the great dismay of those friends of mine who hold securely to their evangelical church beliefs.  That's ok.  We'll deal with that issue when we all get to heaven.  Remember the old joke about Peter giving the tour of heaven and having to be quiet when you passed one of the rooms?

We all, Catholics and Protestants alike, have a tendency to be all about the rules.  There is a lot of very beautiful liturgy that is essentially "paying" for the sins committed.  The same is true of many other protestant denominations:  we want to measure everything, and we make all these rules so that we can see just how far we are from God -- and just how much better or  worse we are -- from each other.  Catholics go to confession and then say "Hail Marys."  Baptists don't dance or drink.  Mennonites don't follow the current trends in terms of dress, in an effort to not be "of the world."  My own church opposes abortion, drinking alcohol, and pre-marital sex.

Everybody is pretty much in the same boat when it comes to their church.  You're supposed to follow a lot of rules and be good.  It's no wonder that so many people call themselves "Christians" and yet have absolutely no relationship with Christ Himself, other than to try and be good people.

I was reading in Galatians 3 today; Paul's very strong language to the Galatians who were very interested in keeping rules and tallying up just how good they were.  He had this to say:

^2-4Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?

Paul is hopping mad at these guys who insisted that the new Christians follow the old Jewish ways of the law.  And with good reason.  He continues:

^9-10So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: "Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law."

So much for being a good person, right?

 ^11-12The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you.

And here is where I believe Rick Warren got it right -- a purpose-driven life isn't one where we do and do and do for God.  It's one where we take a look at what God is doing, and we do what Paul says, which is embrace what God arranges for us.

Habakkuk had it right: "The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that's the real life." 

Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: "The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them."

I, for one, am quite decidedly in favour of NOT living in that prison.

Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.


Who says it better than that?

 ²⁷But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God.

When I read this, I thought about my two brothers and my sister.  One brother in particular tends to fall back on the old belief that being a Christian is all about having to give up all the fun things and keep all these rules.  His philosophy is like so many others -- "I don't steal or cheat, I'm faithful to my girlfriend, I've never killed anyone, I pay my taxes.  Why would a merciful God kick me out of heaven?"

The longer I live, the more backwards I find that kind of thinking.  Making it all about the rules condemns us to hell.  And that is of our own doing.  

God calls me to look at Him, lifts my chin, speaks my name.  He makes me laugh.  He lets me fail and allows me to choose things that might hurt me, so I can learn.  My life isn't about rules at all.  It's about being a child whose Father delights in her.

Rule books are for referees.  Jesus is for those -- Catholic, Baptist, Mennonite, Church of Christ, and everybody in between.  My friend Rich Mullins said it very well in one of his early songs:

"Look up -- you could see if you just looked up. . . "