ROOTS & WINGS : Commandments and Anxiety
Posted on Monday, May 30, 2005
If he were alive today, the loudest voice protesting the idea of placing the Ten Commandments on public buildings would probably be St. Paul. Paul was the most prominent early apostle for the spread of Christianity. Some of his saved letters comprise a major portion of the Christian New Testament. For Paul, his experience of freedom through Christ was freedom from the law, including the Ten Commandments.
Here’s how Paul experienced spiritual liberation. Formerly he was a devout observer of the commandments — not just the Ten Commandments, but all of the laws of scripture and tradition. And he was good at it. "If any other man thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more :... as to righteousness under the law, blameless."
What did he get from all of that effort? Nothing but anxiety. You might call it a form of performance anxiety. Am I doing okay? Am I not coveting my neighbor? But as soon as I think about it, I am coveting my neighbor. Like the later consciencestricken Martin Luther, Paul never experienced a sense of relief and acceptance from God for all his efforts, but rather doubt and anxiety. Even a sense of hostility toward God.
He felt isolated from others as well. After all, other people might become the cause of his failure in some way. He needed to be separated from them or even opposed to them to follow the law. Other people are likely to compromise your need to maintain purity and obedience to the law. What if they are impure? What if they tempt me to covetousness or another of the many ways to break the law All of that legalistic work became death to him. It created his definition of sin. For Paul, sin is precisely that total life-project of trying to make yourself good in order to earn your salvation. The worst thing you can do is to presume to follow God so well, that you’ve achieved justification. For Paul, that is disobedience. The life-project is always a failure. It’s fruit is anxiety, judgment and pride.
What brought Paul freedom from that death? He realized that he needed to do nothing to be completely loved, accepted and free before God. God already loved him and accepted him. That status is God’s free gift to all. "By grace we are saved."All Paul needed to do was to accept the gift. That’s faith. "By grace we are saved through faith."Simply accept the fact that you are accepted. That’s what he learned from Christ. It was his freedom from the law.
No more struggling to measure up. You are already accepted. He used a legal term, justification. The trial is over. Jesus’ life, execution and resurrection reveals the truth. Everybody’s acquitted. It is God’s gift. To know life as sheer gift is the greatest experience of freedom we can have. For Paul you either lived in a culture of grace — justification as gift — or sin — the performance principle. Through grace, says Paul, the whole system of law is destroyed with its objective standards and implied rewards and punishments. Gone. Dead. In one place he calls the Ten Commandments "the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets."Paul would be horrified at Christians demanding the placement of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms. To him it would be like erecting a monument to death," for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."For Paul, the good life and ethical behavior spring from the confidence and freedom one experiences from knowing that you are loved and accepted. Out of that firm foundation comes freedom, peace and joy. Freed from trying to live up to external laws and rules, you can spontaneously respond to the need of your neighbor. You can love for the sake of the other, not just so you’ll seem to be good. Living like that produces something new. He called it the fruit of the Spirit — "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, discipline."Against that, says Paul, there is no law. Those are the qualities that emerge naturally when we let ourselves be loved and accepted by God. In that light, the Ten Commandments and other traditions of wisdom become guidelines for action, not a criterion for salvation or damnation. For Paul, laws can be descriptive of right action but never prescriptive. Motivation comes from a relationship of grace, not an objective law. When you’ve been given everything you need, you are free from needing to covet your neighbor.
Paul’s life truly began when he realized that we are all accepted by God before we have done anything to earn it. Therefore we can be bold and confident rather than anxious and selfabsorbed. God loves us, so we are free. And that freedom allows us to respond spontaneously with love toward our neighbor. That’s Good News according to Paul.
Lowell Grisham is pastor of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. His column appears on Mondays.
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