Letting Go Of Human Rules

Isaiah 29

¹¹ For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” ¹² Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”

¹³ The LORD says:

“These people come near to me with their mouth
    and honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
    is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

There can be an ease to life when everything is spelled out for us.  Clear boundaries that tell us when we are right or wrong; in or out.  There was a study of children on school playgrounds years ago.  They found that when there were fences around a playground the children would play right to the edges of the fence.  When there was no fence, most kids stayed several meters from the boundary.  Knowing how far we can go gives us a sense of safety.  And children on playgrounds, or in our backyards, should have that sense of safety.

But we find that we are no longer in the phase of saying that scrolls are sealed and hidden from us.  We are of an age where we no longer say we can’t read.  We might have difficulty or we might not enjoy reading.  But we are able.  We can look at the words God gives us and be moved by the Spirit to live well.    We can hear the meaning of words, not just the literal sense, but the deeper meaning that Jesus was showing to the disciples when he explained parables.  We can see that the stories are not just a lesson in history, but a lesson in who God is and what it means to be his people.

We continue to make strong statements about how we believe all should live.  But we also see that we will take things too far.  We forget that we are just a small part of the church and we need to listen to others in the church.  Seeing that the words we use show that all can belong and live within the grace of Jesus.  We want to live as children on a playground with defined walls separating us from the dangers of the world.  God sends us out to the world.  Protected by his Spirit walking with us.  When Jesus speaks to the disciples in Matthew 10, that is for us as well.

¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. ¹⁸ On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. ¹⁹ But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, ²⁰ for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

God has given us his Spirit to go into the world and bring love and grace.  Not our judgement and our condemnation.  God holds the place of Judge.  God will handle issues of discipline.  He sends us as sheep among wolves.  Be wise, be innocent.  But know that the Spirit is with us and speaking through us.  Not to make others follow a set of rules we are seeing for ourselves, and the rest, but to be set free, and to bring the freedom that the Gospel truly brings to the world.

Then we also hear the end of Matthew 10:

⁴⁰ “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”