Perspective: Rebels with a Cause

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

Rebels with a Cause

Scripture:

Then the Son of Man appeared - He... ate with sinners and drank wine. And the people said, "This man is a glutton! He's a drunk! And He hangs around with tax collectors and sinners, to boot." Well, Wisdom will be vindicated by her actions - not by your opinions.

Matthew 11:19 (The Voice)

Give me words, I'll misuse them

Obligations, I'll misplace them

'Cause all religion ever made of me

Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet

It never set me free

From "More Like Falling in Love" by Jason Gray

Back in the month of April, I had the opportunity to teach Sunday school at my church two weeks in a row. Both of the lessons were based on stories of Jesus found in the Gospel According to St. John. I was familiar with both of these stories, but what struck me the most as I prepared to lead Sunday school those two weeks was the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, broke a lot of rules during His ministry here on earth.

Perhaps it could even be said that Jesus was a rebel.

One day Jesus and His disciples are traveling trough a region called Samaria, and, while His disciples go to buy food, Jesus, tired and thirsty, sits down at a well and asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. Jesus then strikes up a conversation with her, offering her "living water" that will quench the very thirsts of her soul. This conversation changes her life, and she goes on to share the message of Jesus with others.¹

In our day and time, we might not think that Jesus' striking up a conversation with a random woman over a drink of water was a big deal, but, in reality, Jesus was flouting a number of the social conventions of His culture. In Jesus day, Jews hated Samaritans, so the woman was naturally surprised that Jesus, a Jewish man, would speak to her. The fact that Jesus and His disciples were even traveling through the region was remarkable in itself. Furthermore, the woman was promiscuous, and Jesus was aware of this. No good, upstanding Jewish man would ask a promiscuous, Samaritan woman for a drink of water, much less have a heart-to-heart conversation with her.

Later on, Jesus and His disciples meet a man who has been blind since the day he was born. Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud, puts the mud on the man's eyes, and tells Him to go and wash in a pool. After the blind man does this, he is miraculously able to see. When the religious leaders learn about this miraculous healing, they become very upset with Jesus, for Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath day.² The fourth of the Ten Commandments forbids people from working on the Sabbath day and commands people to set the day aside for resting.³ Healing was considered to be work.

In the first story, Jesus breaks the rules of His society. In the second, He seems to break the Fourth Commandment, one of the Jewish people's most stringently-observed religious rules. Jesus and His disciples were criticized a number of times for what they did on the Sabbath, and Jesus was criticized time and again for associating with people not welcome in polite society.

Ironically, Jesus reserved His harshest critique for the people who were the best at following the rules, namely the Pharisees and teachers of the Jewish Law. One day, a Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner, and, when Jesus doesn't wash His hands before eating, He is criticized for not following the rituals of His more pious brethren. Jesus then launches into a tirade against the Pharisees and religious scholars present, sharply condemning them for their hypocrisy, their self-importance, and their utter lack of compassion.⁴

Was it not God who gave the Pharisees the rules they worked so hard to follow? As the Son of God, why would Jesus take such a cavalier attitude toward the Law? One would think that Jesus would be entrusted with the task of upholding the Law and commending those who adhered to the Law.

Maybe it would be a good idea to stop and consider the purpose of religious rules in the first place. One day, a scholar of the Jewish Law asks Jesus which of the 613 commandments in the Law is the most important. Jesus answers that to love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind is the most important and that to love one's neighbor as oneself is the second most important. He goes on to say, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."⁵ Jesus is essentially saying that all commandments given by God and all messages of the prophets of God were grounded in the command to love. The Law exists to keep peace in the world because people don't always love as they are called.

Perhaps it is possible for a person to follow the letter of the law while, at the same time, failing to embody the spirit of the law. I believe that it is for this reason that Jesus found fault with the Pharisees and religious scholars. Jesus, in His rant, recognized that the Pharisees outwardly followed the rules of the Law, but He criticized them for neglecting those in need. Likewise Jesus recognized that the religious scholars taught the Law to others, but He criticized them for not helping people to follow the Law and for making the Law unnecessarily difficult to follow.

With that in mind, perhaps it is sometimes necessary to break the rules in order to do what is right. When Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, He was not acting in rebellion to the Laws of His religion: Jesus was acting to show love to people in need regardless of what day it was. There was a time in my life when I understood Christianity as a system of rules, an endless list of "Thou Shalt Nots." Since then, I have come to realize that truly following Christ might actually require a person to break the rules. There might even come a time when a follower of Christ will need to break the rules of the religious establishment.

Jesus is not the only rule breaker honored in the Bible. The Old Testament Book of Joshua tells the story of a woman named Rahab who lived in the city of Jericho. Rahab hides two Israelite spies and lies to the local police, telling them that the spies have already left the city. Rahab then pleads with the spies to spare her and her family in the upcoming battle between Jericho and Israel. It is generally considered a sin to lie, but by telling a lie Rahab spared the lives of the Israelite spies and ensured the safety of her family.⁶ Rahab is even given a place in the ancestry of Jesus Christ⁷ and is honored in Scripture as a hero of faith.^{8 9}

I imagine that, during the time of the Holocaust, some people had to make similar choices when hiding people from the Gestapo.

So when should a person break the rules? Sometimes we are tempted to break rules in order to benefit ourselves, but at other times it might be necessary to break the rules in order to show love to other people. I will never tell you that "the ends justify the means," but life is not always simple, and very few issues - if any - are completely black and white, devoid of any gray area. When you face a difficult decision, put your own self-interests aside, and let love for God and love for other people be your guide.

Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn recounts the travels of the titular character Huck with a runaway slave named Jim. Huck had grown up in a culture in which slavery was the norm and in which slaves were considered to be property. In such a culture, to help a slave escape would be tantamount to stealing. At one point in the story, Huck is faced with the choice either to turn Jim in or to continue helping him to escape and thus to violate the Sixth Commandment. Ultimately, he decides not to turn Jim in, saying to himself, "All right then, I’ll go to hell."¹⁰

Huck knows the rules, but his conscience and his love for his friend would not allow him to obey. He essentially decides to sacrifice his own soul for the sake of another person. Some would condemn such a decision, "for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"¹¹ Personally, I think that there is something radically Christlike about Huck's choice.

Not long after the Second World War, Dr. John Mackie, the president of the Church of Scotland, traveled to the Balkans with two other ministers. At one point in the journey the three visit an Orthodox priest who offers them each a glass of wine. The two other ministers piously refuse, but Mackie gladly drinks a glass of wine and asks for another. Appalled by his actions, the two later ask him if he drinks. Mackie replies, "No I don't, but somebody had to be a Christian."¹² Dr. Mackie didn't believe in drinking alcohol, but he drank wine to honor the priest's hospitality and to set the priest at ease.

If Jesus had followed the rules, the Samaritan woman at the well would not have received the "living water" that quenched the the thirsts of her soul. If Jesus had followed the rules, the blind man would have been left to beg for the rest of his life. If Rahab had followed the rules, the two Israelite spies would have been killed, and Rahab and her family would not have been spared in the upcoming battle. If the literary character Huck Finn had followed the rules, his friend Jim would have had to face the unthinkable. If Dr. Mackie had followed the rules, he would have left the priest ashamed and embarrassed.

These people were all rebels with a cause,

and the cause was love.


Notes:
1 - John 4:4-42
2 - John 9
3 - Exodus 20:8-11
4 - Luke 11:37-54
5 - Matthew 22:34-40 (NRSV quoted)
6 - Joshua 2
7 - Matthew 1:1-17
8 - Hebrews 11:30-31
9 - For more thoughts about the story of Rahab, see my perspective "From Humility to Honor." 
10 - Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ch 31
11 - Mark 8:36 (KJV)
12 - Michael Yaconelli. Messy Spirituality. 2007, Zondervan. p. 68-69

The painting featured in this perspective, Christ Healing the Blind Man, was painted by Eustache Le Sueur in the 1600s.


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