Thursday of the 5th Week of Easter
Acts 15:7-21 | Psalm 95:1-3, 10 | John 15:9-11
Today’s reading showcases an aspect of the early church that resonates to this day: the fascination with rules and regulations.
The Mosaic Law that the Pharasaic Christians wanted to impose on their new Gentile brethren is pretty much impossible for a typical person to keep in its entirety. The Catechism of the Catholic Church characterises it thus:
According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good, yet still imperfect. Like a tutor it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. (CCC 1963)
Peter himself admits his own inability to “keep up his side of the old bargain,” as it were:
It would only provoke God’s anger now, surely, if you imposed on the disciples the very burden that neither we nor our ancestors were strong enough to support? (Acts 15:10)
Instead, Jesus introduced a New Law of the Gospel, one founded on charity and perfection of one’s heart towards others, whose fundamental precept is so simple that every Christian knows it by heart: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (It also happens to be the base message in today’s gospel.)
Yet too many Christians still cling to the old foundations of “thou shalt/shalt not” as the basis of their faith-in-practice. Sure, it seductively eliminates the need for careful pondering about the why of what we do/don’t, but it also opens the floodgates to rules lawyering:
- “Mother Church only encourages us to receive Holy Communion once a year at Easter, so see you next year!”
- “Pirating software is not stealing! I wasn’t going to buy it anyway, so the vendor didn’t lose any income. Why you so ngeow one?!?!”
- “How can it be adultery if we’re not even married? Anyway, she refused me, so I gotta find my sex elsewhere, no?”
- “If I abstain from meat on Fridays, can I eat lobster and caviar instead?”
(I didn’t make any of the above up; they were all uttered in my presence over the past decade.)
This prompted a Muslim programmer friend’s highly jaundiced observation with regards to “God’s versioning of religion”:
v1.0 – Judaism: Prescriptions and proscriptions galore, so you knew what to do to be good in God’s eyes.
Bugs found: No mortal human could follow all 613 rules religiously.v2.0 – Christianity: Simplify, simplify, simplify. Charity and love. Trust believers to do right by God.
Bugs found: Too many preferred the old “tell me what I can/cannot do” rigidity. Others took lots of liberties in their new-found freedom. Still others simply stopped caring.v3.0 – Islam: Basically v1.0, with refinements.
Bugs found: Too similar to v1.0, practitioners on both sides go to war over trivialities.
It’s really quite blasphemous, but there’s enough truth in his description of Christianity-as-practised to burn like acid on bare skin.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Jesus gave us a new commandment not because the old ones were wrong, but because a heart full of love for one’s neighbor can better adapt to changing circumstances (any oxen in Singapore for me to covet?) and continue to uphold the Holy Spirit of the Law. And no, that wasn’t a pun:
The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. (CCC 1966)
As Christians, we really should lay off “nitpicking over loopholes” and focus more on “what can I do for my neighbour today?”
Lord, send the Holy Spirit upon us, and kindle in us the fire of your love, that we in turn may set others’ hearts on fire with the immensity and infinity of Your Love for all creation. Amen.