Gospel reading: Luke 20.27-38
(Click HERE for last Sunday's readings)
Grandpa Springfield let on to my brother and me that he was considering taking us to Kansas City to see our first major league baseball game. He seemed to be almost confiding in us when he told us this, because he said, "The game is on a Sunday. Does your daddy have scruples about that? Do you know what scruples are?"
I didn't know what a scruple was. But I could guess it had something to do with the obvious conflict. Sunday was church day.
But in that little exchange with Grandpa, I also sensed that two categories of people were beginning to form in my mind. Some let their religion get in the way. Others...not so much.
Besides the obvious thrill inherent in a big league baseball game, I was also secretly pleased to have access to the 'not so much' crowd in my very own grandfather. He was a Methodist. A tepid and convenient form of religion in the minds of more serious Christians. Or religion free of unnecessary scruples, as Grandpa might put it.
"Tobacco, banjo playing, and dominoes do not figure in the Decalogue as recorded in the Book of Exodus," says Kathleen Norris in our chapter for this week. This is her way of saying that the 10 Commandments are not a collection of scruples. But she also says that they are meant to get in our way. In the end, she may be saying that both my Grandpa's Methodism and the folks I knew who carried grave suspicions about denominational Christianity were partly right about commandments.
The problem with scruples is that their significance seems to lie in how they define us rather than how they form us. I sensed from a very early age that the real problem with tobacco use wasn't lung damage (although we inisted that it was). It was joining another category of people. The real tragedy wasn't smoking. It was becoming a "smoker".
When we use our religion simply to define ourselves over and against others it has become idolatrous. This holds true for people on the left, right, and center. But when we remember that our faith is about transformation and abundant life our scruples become practices that open up new life to us.
We live in a time in which our mere opinions about sins are enough to divide us deeply. When the Pharisees asked Jesus to speculate about a woman who marries seven brothers - in succession, of course, after each one dies - (click HERE to read Kate Alexander's insightful sermon on the passage) they want to know what Jesus will say about marriage after the resurrection. But what they really wanted was to make a division. The information they hoped to get from Jesus had no practical use in their lives other than to define Jesus as one of those strange people who think like that - whatever 'that' may be.
When I remember that even the 10 Commandments are about finding an abundant way of living, God can use them to shape me in life giving ways. God gives them for the purpose of restoring relationship with God and with one another. And so often God shapes us by opening us to God's work in other people. We may find that in keeping ourselves sequestered and safe from the strange lives of banjo players and smokers and people who go to ballgames on Sunday we are keeping ourselves safe from another unexpected encounter with the redeeming love of God.
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4 comments:
I may ramble a bit and may miss some of the point but, here goes.
There are several thoughts that went through my mind as I was reading your blog; thoughts that apply to me, of course. It put into words a couple of the scruples I have in applying the Ten Commandments especially the first one! (I forget it far too often.) But it's the second that really gets me confused just like it did your grandfather. However, in reverse.
First, I'm the one that tries to keep us going to church together as a family every week. No deviations but, apparently, scrubled! I constantly battle leaving them alone to do whatever they want on Sunday. But, this blog has reminded me that the Ten Commandments are good scruples to live by and church isn't going to change the content of your scruples if you sleep in on Sunday especially, if they're doing something healthy. Either way, it's just another scruple I'm willing to transform if it provides me with some inner peace with God.
The second is a real scruple problem for me. You said,"When we use our religion simply to define ourselves over and against others it has become idolatrous." Now I'm in scruple trouble. I know I don't do this but I sure get upset with all those scrupier than thou people who think they have the scruples to judge everyone and, I usually find them on the "right".(Actually, I probably do a little of it myself.) Their scruples are just too destructive for me. They build road blocks to progress and peace. However, I suppose they have as much chance of being right about their scruples on the Ten Commandments as I. But, their scruples could never become my scruples or practices. I see no transformation there and, for now, I'm comfortable with that.
Maybe my saving grace will be that my concerns for the "right's" scruples focus on the effects they have on people here on earth and not, if any, on resurrection. I only hope that my strong scruples on the First Amendment will help me find God's work in their scruples so I can apply the thoughts in your last paragraph unconditionally someday.
I guess that my first scruple is on its way to transformation but, the second has a great deal of scrupling to do.
The week my mother died was a crazy blur of people and phone calls, ministers, friends and the occasional private moment with my sister. We have all lost someone, and I'm sure my experience was typical.
At about four in the afternoon on Sunday of that week, my sister and I were out running some errands before leaving for the burial in Mississippin on Monday. Suddenly I remembered that I had the key to the church in my pocket, and I was supposed to open up and make coffee for a meeting at six o'clock. I was overwhelmed. I knew there was no way I could make the six o'clock meeting, and I had forgotten to give the key to someone and ask them to open up. I started really crying for the first time since it all began days before, and I said, "God, I can't do this, you have to help me." I was in my sister's car at the intersection of Cantrell and Mississippi, and I looked up through my tears as I prayed and there was my friend Rex, who I knew would be at the meeting, in the car next to us. I rolled down my window, yelled and got his attention. I said, "Rex, pull over." We pulled over into the parking lot of the grocery store and got out, and I explained to him that I needed for him to take the key and open up and make coffee. In that moment I knew beyond a doubt that God was taking care of me.
Now things don't always work out like that, but often when I feel overwhelmed, I think of that day, my desperate prayer, and Rex. I don't know much about God, and I am not sure whether God has a plan for my life, or whether God answers prayer, in the way it seemed that day.
Deuteronomy 30:11,14 says, "Surely, this commamdment that I am commanding you is not too hard for you, nor is too far away...No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe." When God's ways seem far away, if not impossible, I remember that the impulse to pray and to depend on God when I feel totally powerless, seems written on my heart, like an impulse. Just when things seem the most bleak, the love of God, like the love of a small child who's been lost and finds his mother, pops up, like a gift, unimaginable, unbidden, just there.
If all the Law hangs on "love God with all your heart...and love your neighbor as yourself", maybe that impossible love is already there, a pure gift, if I am desperate enough to reach out and grasp it, like my mother's hand.
Hey Scott,
Thought I'd let you know that you have a very small but enthusiastic readership in NC.
-Ben & Brandy
Scott, I have to say, I bet you made your composition teachers proud! Beautifully done!! And not just beautful writing - there is also depth of spirit and much to think about. God bless you. A++ :~)
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