Rules

Jesus entered the synagogue.   There was a man there who had a withered hand.  The Pharisees watched him closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.  He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.”  Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” But they remained silent.  Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored.  The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death. (Mk 1-6)

When we were young, my brother, eighteen months younger than me, and I could have been poster children for the people doing research on birth order tendencies.  I’d be the quiet one, nose in a book or working on a jigsaw puzzle, never a problem, ready at any moment to pop and up and do whatever errand was asked of me.  Dutiful to the bone, “yes, Mom” was my middle name.  My brother, Don, on the other hand, would be the one getting the baby powder out and seeing what it would look like if it snowed in the living room.  Rebel to the core, “rules, what rules?” was his motto.

My rule-following bias seemed to be part of every aspect of my life.  I was always intrigued by numbers – they followed the rules.  At IBM, I found that if I followed the rules, worked hard, and made my boss look good, success followed.  I enjoyed sports from the point of view of how the coaches strategized and the players performed in the context of the rules of the game. 

And finally, I was Catholic.  Boy, do we have rules.  I followed the rules as best I could.  And even if I broke a rule or two along the way, there were more rules about how I could get back in the game.  And then, after a presumably long and blessed life, I would die and meet good old St. Peter at the pearly gates.  And, what do you think he had – this big score book – the master rule book – with my name on one of the pages.  As I was following the rules, St. Peter was keeping score to see if I won the game!  Of course, dutiful as I had been and had planned on being, I was always pretty confident of winning entry through those pearly gates.

When I think about it, I am also sure that I would have been a pretty good Pharisee in Jesus’ day.  And, as we see in today’s passage, that would have grieved Jesus terribly.

For people like the Pharisees and me, the rules became how we defined ourselves, and more importantly, how we defined others.  Follow the rules closely, and you are on the side of good.  You win.  Ignore the rules, flaunt the rules, pretend the rules are just not for you, and you are evil.  You lose.

Of course, not everyone was as good at following the rules as I was.  Truth be told, I wasn't even that good at following the rules, but it was clear – to me at least – that I was better at it than many others.  Certainly I was better than my brother, eh?  Truly, my heart had hardened.  As Jesus grieved at the hardened hearts of the Pharisees, so he grieved at mine.

You see, following the rules is insidiously tempting.  If you pick the right set of rules – fair and just rules – for much of the time that you are following them, they are leading down a road right next to Jesus.  You may think that you are on the road with Jesus.  But if your eyes are only on the rules, you are simply following a road that, for a time, runs parallel to Jesus’ road.

At some point – perhaps in a yellow wood – the two roads will diverge.  If your eyes are on the rule book, you will miss the road that Jesus takes.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a wood – and I

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

It’s your choice: follow the rules or follow Jesus.

Follow Jesus.