Life is complicated and it seems that it is getting more so all the time. I believe people and communities need guidelines and structures to make life better and more peaceful and productive. As a person of faith I turn to our Holy Scripture in the Word of God. There I find a guide for many decisions. There I find a light to my path.
When someone says “I just don’t know what to do,” I know I can refer to Micah 6:8 and offer that as a guide to them. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” As you can imagine that kind of answer is not always what the questioner was hoping for.
So what should we do? How shall we live in a manner that is wholesome for ourselves and helpful for others? How can we live in community together? How can we contribute and not take away? I find that the answer is usually simple, but accomplishing it is hard. In some form or another it comes down to playing by the rules. I don’t mean to imply that life is a game. But the need for rules and structures is applicable to both. Imagine playing tennis without rules and structure. What would baseball be without rules? Try your favorite card game without any rules. In some fashion life is more improved by rules than limited by rules. Do you like rules? Many people say they don’t. I deeply appreciate them.
I love road-trip discussions, and especially when I am driving a bunch of kids to camp like I did last week. We get in some great conversations. Recently we were talking about rules and who likes them and who needs them.
Part of the fun started when I asked how many rules Jesus gave us. Because the kids know me too well, the search for an answer gets to be like a cat and mouse game. The kids are always suspicious that I am asking trick questions. And, I admit, sometimes I am.
How many rules did Jesus give? And we started building a case for just one –“Love one another as I have loved you.” One rule seemed to be sufficient. It is a rule applicable to many situations.
We talked about how they didn’t like rules, so getting faith life down to one seemed like a positive approach. Then we remembered two more –“Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength; and your neighbor as yourself.” That didn’t seem too much to add.
But then we added another – “Abide in my love.”
And then we added another – “Love your enemy.”
Then we added two more –both which ended in “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Soon we included – Go make disciples; feed the hungry; honor your father and mother; go and sin no more. And then we stopped. The list seemed to get more and more comprehensive all the time.
Do you like rules? I actually do. I like safe roads, honest businesses, trustworthy public officials, good government, dedicated teachers and doctors, secure families, safe food, clean parks, etc. None of these just happen, and the conditions that make these happen all seem to relate back to the official Ten Commandments that God prescribed.
Moreover all the rules that benefit human life will come back to the most basic rule of all. We call it the Golden Rule. Sometimes it is phrased in the negative – “Don’t do to others what you would not want done to you.” Sometimes it is phrased in the positive – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Either way it sounds like “love your neighbor as yourself.”
I have learned in my many years in ministry that it actually all comes down to one word, one rule, one beautiful comprehensive guiding light. Love is the driving force behind all these things that result in good life. Love drives us to protect the children of every nation; love compels us to stop dangerous practices and dangerous persons. Love makes all these concerns worthy of our dedication and devotion. And this is not a surprising revelation, it is what we all learned as our earliest lessons in Sunday School and it is what we are learning every day in all our houses of worship.
Love, because God first loved us. Love, because God is love. Love, because the steadfast love and mercy of the Lord endures forever. Love, for love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is the most important rule of all. Bringing it down to one word may make it simple, but not necessarily easy. Nevertheless, we have this word from Jesus – Love!
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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