The Spirit of the Law

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I will admit, as I’m driving down Court Street, and I see a car or a motorcycle fly past me driving 15 mph over the speed limit; or I see a car drive through the intersection not on a green light, a yellow light, or even an amber light (that intermediate time between yellow and red), but driving through a solid red light; or in construction zones, when a car blocks an open lane because they don’t understand how a zipper merge works; I want to be like the cops in the TV shows, throw a red bubble on the top of my car, pull them over, and write them a ticket for breaking the law.  I like the law, and I like it when people follow it.  If I have to, they should, too.
    But when it comes to The Law, not just man-made laws, but the Law given through Moses, how do we deal with it?  How do we consider the Law for others?  How do we consider the Law for ourselves?  More often than not, we have stricter standards for others than we have for ourselves, whether intended or not.  We tend to notice the splinter in our brother’s eye rather than the beam in our own.  
    And at face value, St. Paul seems pretty tough on the Law.  Today he refers to it as the ministry of condemnation.  He often writes how the Law does not save.  So we might think that we don’t have to follow the Law.  But, on the other hand, we tend to accept the Ten Commandments, the heart of the Law.  And if we don’t accept the Ten Commandments, we’re in trouble.  We need to follow the Ten Commandments.  But yet, the other six hundred odd points of the law, we tend not to follow.  And every time you eat bacon or a cheeseburger, you should thank God that we don’t have to follow the Law, as any meat from pig or any mixture of meat and milk was illegal.
    The other option finds its basis ostensively in the epistle, where Paul contrasts the law and the spirit of the law.  It can be easy to say that we need to follow the spirit of the law, not the law itself.  And there are numerous Gospel passages where our Lord seems to suggest that we go beyond what the clear text of the Law states.  But the difference is that whereas the spirit of the Law as presented by Christ tends to be stricter, whereas our idea of the spirit tends to be easier.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Christ teaches that the spirit of the Law not only forbids us having sex with someone who is not our spouse, but also means we cannot look at another person with lust in our hearts.  Whereas now many would say that the spirit of the law means that Christ would never want us to be unhappy or that Christ wants us to love, so however that happens is ok, no matter what the Law says about adultery or sexual relations in general.  
    So when people use the phrase “the spirit of the law,” often they’re taking on an anti-nomian mentality (the Greek word for law is nomos).  But the point the Apostle is making in the epistle is not that we get to eliminate all rules, but what the Law is supposed to do, and what Christ came to do.  
    The Law, St. Paul says elsewhere that God gave us the law as a tutor, as a way to teach us how to follow God.  It did have a certain glory because it came from God.  Indeed, as Moses received the law from God, Moses’ face began to shine, which freaked out the Israelites enough that they would make Moses cover his face with a veil in their presence, and then remove the veil when he returned to the presence of God.
    But the way of life that Christ taught us, the way to live like Him, in full obedience to the Father and in the most fulfilling form of life we can live, goes beyond the simple “Thou shalt not,” and gets to the deeper ways that we can live as beloved sons and daughters in the Son of God.  And this starts to transform us even more, and helps us shine like Christ shone at the Transfiguration.  We put halos around the heads of saints because there is a way in which holiness helps us to shine, like lights, in the midst of a world that includes a lot of darkness.
    Looking at the law, God forbade the people from murdering each other, or taking an innocent life.  That taught us a baseline minimum.  But Christ, the New Moses, says that true holiness comes from living at peace with others, and not letting grudges fester.  When we come to the point when we can love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, we experience a freedom that truly frees great.  It’s no longer walking around convincing ourselves not to kill that person who forever gets on our nerves, it’s not letting another affect us in such a way that we feel we need to exact justice, rather than letting the source of justice and mercy, deal with the person in the best way possible.

    Or, looking at the Gospel, the man thought he was fine because he knew God commanded to him to love God and his neighbor, but missed who his neighbor is.  And notice that the Samaritan hero of the parable doesn’t simply make sure the victim isn’t dead.  He takes the victim on his own beast of burden, takes him to an inn where he can be cared for, and even pays for the victim’s medical care.  Again, the spirit of the law of love of neighbor didn’t mean that you could ignore people you don’t like or because the person is a foreigner.  The law of love for neighbor means doing what you can, however much or little that might be, to help the other person know that it’s good that he exists.  Rather than the colloquial idea that the spirit of the law means the bar is lowered, the spirit of the law tends to mean that the bar is raised, but also helps transform a person more to live in accord with the will of God.  
    The Law is not bad.  Some of it has been done away with (like kosher laws and animal sacrifices).  But the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, is eternal.  Still, the Commandments provide us with a basic understanding of how to live as God wants.  The spirit goes deeper, to transform the entire person and transform and transfigure us to live like Christ.  May the Holy Spirit help us to understand not simply the basics of living as God desires, but truly transform us at our deepest levels to put on Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.