Law - Grace

I was reflecting this morning on what exactly drives some of my friends in their lives and conduct. My church is going through a study of Romans and that was a formative "book" to my salvation and faith.

And one of the core things that really struck me about it in that formative time was about chapters 6-8 about the history of God and man, from creation, fall, law, and grace.

When I was a child, I had great feeling, but poor communication skills. I struggled to channel my energy in a productive manner, as my small, frail, fierce vessel was insufficient to translate being right with the world. I burned myself out on tantrums, because in my state of imperfection, I was mad that I failed to perform to a greater standard. Whether it was something asked of me, or something I FELT NEEDED to be DONE, I was an idealist who took people at their word and thought everyone had a similar drive to live up to their words.

I had internalized some parts of Matthew 5:36-48, and was paralyzed by the last verse in light of the responsibility of the 37th verse about keeping your word. So when people did not keep their promises, I fell to divine rage and disappointment?! How could they not do it? They were big and adult, I was small and weak?! I was not liberal with giving myself a pass either though, as what little control I had, I wanted to be better. A lot of the passage in Matthew 5 above seemed like a lot of work and was to be done as soon as possible. It was a expectation that I would have enemies, that the world would ask much of me, and I was to be a packmule and punching bag at their request. 

God expected this of his bravest, tiny soldier and I was going to hold everyone accountable. This was rash of me, but children are extremists, and I was firmly committed to my internal compass. If my thoughts were wicked, that was a personal failing of not taking every thought captive. I was determined that God was not wrong in His expectation and that I could be made right with discipline and hard practice to improvement.

I must have been exhausting as a child with big thoughts and poor words. Glaring with intense scutiny for imperfection in myself and others and being consistently let down by reality. The Law was perfect for tiny me, as I had the example of external regulations to guide my path and keep me in line. I could point out to others that God wanted us to be better bearers of His name and slacking was for sluggards who should look at ants. (Proverbs 6:6)

But as a child. Ants are just tiny and hated. Rarely is something smaller than you, and maybe they could be despised and looked down on. I guess a later interpretation through reflection is that ants live in community and work together to sustain it and each do their part. There are probably other elements, but as a child, "first idea is best idea."

But eventually my words got better. Some of my pressure from constipation of the feelings was relaxitive from doses of working out my emotions and getting accustomed to people just failing my standards. But what eventually broke through my mind was the gospel of grace in Romans 8. I was stuck on the soundbyte of Phillipians 2:12, without reading a little further. I wanted to be perfect first, then God would be justified in loving me because I was worthy of His love. I had tuned out the idea of grace because that felt like the easy route of knowing God loved you even as a failson. But that was not ideal, I wanted to be a successful Sisyphus, learning nothing more than just push through it up the mountain of this world. I was to live up to Phil 2:14 to do all things without grumbling or complaining, no matter how hard it was, God the schoolmaster wanted that from me. The beatings would continue until morale improved and was right to do so, as He was perfect and had made us. Like in Matthew 5:48, drowning out the other comments in Philippians 3:12 and James 1:1-8.

I don't think I was as unhappy as I was earlier, when words were few and feelings were mighty. But I was blind to the concept of grace, even when I knew 1 John 4:16-19, I did not understand what 19 really meant. Somehow, this Romans study, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, broke my habit of just skimming the Bible looking for applications of the Law so that I could live up to them. I was like Israel and the gospels, maybe even like a Pharisee, who did not understand the message of Christ in spirit and deed more than the letter of the law projected large and extrapolated. I was confused by this grace, as it didn't seem fair. Like the laborers in Matthew 20, I didn't understand the generosity of the vineyard owner at the end of the day with the plentiful harvest. I was the other brother in the Prodigal Son, I did not want to stray in my behavior, and largesse was undeserved?!

But. It broke through. 

God. Loved. Me. First.

What a wild and freeing idea to go through Romans, seeing that from Creation, He loved this world, and worked through man up to Israel, to whom He shaped and guided. And like a rebellious child, it got tired of living up to that expectation and acted out. God repeatedly worked with them in history, preserving a remnant of His plan to ultimately be a sacrifice in the way He had told them in the Law. Sin has a cost, and it is the pain of loss of relationship with God and your fellow man with your actions. Israel worked the land and were farmers. Many of the sacrifices were grain and livestock, the life of their trade. When they sinned against God and each other, the priests would hear the confession and oversee the judgement of assessment for the behavior. To look a pair of goats in the eye, that you raised, and had hope of a future through their growth and offspring. And in Leviticus 16, one is slaughtered for the sons of the people and the other is sent out in exile to wander the wilderness. I wonder about that symbolism and that life. But it is very tangible, more than currency, there is a cost and that cost goes into a sacrifice that costs you, and it goes to provide for some other people in the community, not to give you a license to sin. It is as a reminder that straying from what your God asked of you, His representative people on the earth. It reflects on what kind of God Israel serves, to themselves and other nations witnessing.

This is very general, but overall I got the order of operations wrong. In trying to be made in God's image, I thought I had to be perfect before I could be truly a reflection of Him. But a lot of the Old Testament is a love letter from God to His imperfect people and His fallen world, giving promises of hope in the future, a time when all good things come to pass and what is wrong and evil is corrected.

God led with His great love for others. And that grace transformed my view of life and what it meant to be a Christian. I didn't have to follow the Law, but I got to witness the Giver of James 1:17. And of 2 Corinthians 9, with the keystone in verse 7. Not given out of reluctance or compulsion, but from joy. My works in Romans 3:23 were met with the hope of 3:24-28. I am not playing from behind. I have been redeemed from a great gulf of loss and isolation. My works and own creation, a fortress to seal me from a corrupting world? That is folly and vanity of vanities.

And it fundamentally changed me. Brick by brick, I became a more forgiving person, not by requirement or obligation of the Law, but out of gratitude that I could extend that same grace I received to others. My Father loved me with a great love and I wanted to share that where I could. And gradually, the spirit takes root in me, that I might bear Galatians 5 fruit, with a patient kindness like in 1 Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 4. 

I am yet imperfect, but I am growing in love. I am not as frustrated with the world and how it does not meet an internal measure, or even an external Scriptural law. I want to lead my life with mercy and grace, for before there was law, God looked at His Creation and saw it was good. A few chapters later, He again speaks at the fall of Man, with the judgment of man, earth, and the new work involved, but the ideal was grace and balance. Man decided to do more and defy the request of heaven, and wandered outside of Eden. But restoration was promised through the crushing of the serpents head eventually, though it took generations to manifest. When it comes to the Great flood and God repents of making Man, it is perhaps one of the more dramatic moments in Scripture. But this Creator and Sustainer persisted in hope, and I want to follow that example.

In the end, I think I started with being moral out of fear and obligation of a mighty and holy God, but to understand kindness, I had to despair of the death of my works in Romans 6, in the knowledge of the law's schoolmaster in chapter 7, to relief and release of grace in Romans 8. 

It is a difference of approach and action. Some of my friends are moral and fair, but it took the unfairness of grace to draw me in and learn to be kind, living into Matthew 5:43-48, not to just to love others who love me, but to love and honor those even who do not regard me highly.