Rules

I like rules a lot. There is a rather popular saying that states that rules are meant to be broken, but I disagree. In my recent introduction to my new parish I stated something that I believe with my whole heart - I love the Untied Methodist Church, I love order, and I love rules. Because once I know what boundaries the rules set, we can creatively live into them and do amazing things. But if we don't know the rules, then we spend too much time guessing what they are and worried that we are doing something wrong.

There are a lot of rules in the United Methodist Church - a whole book of them in fact called the Discipline, which is reexamined every four years. I might not always agree with all of the rules, and I can actively work to change some of them, but until they change I need to abide by them. Because they mark who I am and how I can live into this vocation that I've been called into.

Today, I was struck by a comment that was made that no one ever follows the rules, and that is okay. This comment was made about the church. And I'm still trying to sort out how I feel about it. My initial thought was, why even have the rule if you intend for it to be broken - that in fact makes it not be a rule, but a mere suggestion. We would have been better off not calling something a standard or a rule, but simply giving people a list and say pick the five of these that appeal to you the most to follow. But the more I dwelt on this statement, the more I realized that it was a statement on the life of the church as a whole.

I once read somewhere that the church is loosing members, not because the requirements are too strict, but because they are too laxed. We are used to having rules and requirements in other areas of life. Serving in a college town, one of the first the come to mind is the Greek system. There are a lot of different things that people go through and abide by in order to pledge their allegiance to the Greek system - but when people emerge they are truly loyal to the system as a whole and specifically their fraternity or sorority. In other things that are important to us in life, we follow the rules and regulations. I knew how many credits I needed and what grades I needed to achieve in order to earn my degree. These were not suggestions. They meant something and had to be followed.

Yet, the church is afraid of being this strict, of making demands or setting rules. Perhaps this is because live in the tension of God's justice and mercy.These are all well and good things, but we still serve a God of order and rules. Lots of rules in fact. Some Christians like to mis-preach Paul and say that Jesus came so that none of the laws in the Hebrew Scriptures matter any more. But that isn't how I read Paul. Jesus came so we can be redeemed if and when we fall short from living up to God's standards and rules. However, this does not mean that we should purposely set out to break the rules or that they do not matter - for God gave them to us for a reason, to help us become the best creation bearing God's image that we could possibly be.

For some reason the church doesn't like to preach this message. Instead we preach grace and forgiveness which is only one attribute of the Godhead, albeit and important one. There is grace when we fall short, but we need to at least try. Rules are not meant to be purposely disobeyed or dismissed under the guise of never being able to live up to them. This is selling ourselves short as the beloved of God and sells the Church short as the bride of Christ. We are too timid at times with stating who we are, what we believe, and the rules that we need to live into as the people of God because we are afraid of blocking people from God or (more accurately at times) scaring people away so our numbers decrease. But this is like saying that we do not believe in our own rules because they do not matter. It is like saying that we can do better without the perimeters set by God and the Church, which often causes us to run amuck. What would happen if we tried to intentionally live into the rules with our entire being, instead of selling ourselves short by saying that they rules are unattainable and that everyone breaks them so we should be allowed to as well? What if we rethought what rules mean in our lives in order to see what we can get out of them instead of how they prohibit us? And what if we made the rules intentionally difficult to live into, so we couldn't do so without God? Could we possibly turn around the decline in the importance of organized religion in our country, if only we would see the Church as being worthy of having rules to be followed, like anything else that is important to us?