Total Pageviews

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Freedom from Stone Laws

            I have enjoyed Sabbatical for the past months.  In 7 days, I return to my work as a church pastor.  I will sit with people over cups of coffee or lunch at Mexican restaurants.  In the same conversation, I will listen as they share their fears that the Tar Heels aren’t going to have a good season and their fears that their young adult children aren’t going to live good lives.  I will talk with our administrative assistant and our associate pastors about the daily details of life in the church.  I will get that email that the surgery has been scheduled, and then I will meet the family at the hospital at 6AM, and together we will pray.  We will pray that all will go well and she will be fine.  And as I leave the hospital, I will pray that my presence there helped with the anxiety, even just a little.
            And sermons.  I will be back to the work of studying scripture and studying our congregation and studying our culture and world, and all that study will merge on the interstate highway of ideas.  After merging, one focused idea will exit the off ramp that leads to the next Sunday’s message.  Yes, I am ready and very excited about returning to the flowing motion of sermon writing and worship planning.
            To all of this, I am ready to return.  Who am I, the man returning to this life?  I’ve written in previous posts that I want to learn to be gentle.  I want to be known as a person who gives graces.  I pray that I can grow into gentleness.  I pray that I can live grace-filled and be extravagantly generous in giving grace.
            What obstacles overshadow my efforts?  There are many, but one stands out from my time of personal Bible reading.  I’ve been making my way slowly through 2 Corinthians.  In chapter 3, Paul contrasts the old covenant[i] and the new.  Now, as an aside, I caution Christians not to be dismissive of the Law of Moses (see Exodus-Deuteronomy, books 2 through of the OT).  We must not see the coming of Jesus as rendering that scripture as obsolete.  Jesus fulfills that Old Testament word of God.  Jesus does not negate it.  Gospel is found in the Law, but we see the law through the light of Jesus.
            When Paul writes about the old covenant, the discerning reader has to be very attentive.  In 2 Corinthians 3 he says, “The Old Covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.  The old way, with its laws etched in stone, led to death” (see verses 6 & 7).  Ends in death.  In order for sins to be atoned, an animal sacrifice was required.  Something had to die.  In the new covenant, something comes after death – resurrection: first Jesus, then us.  The new covenant leads to eternal life.
            Etched in stone.  That can be taken literally.  Moses ascended the mountain and came down with laws that were inflexible – etched in stone tablets.  But living out that fixed law requires a dynamic relationship with God because questions arise.  What if someone is in a situation where he has to “bear false witness” (tell a lie) to prevent a murder?  Is he breaking the law if in doing it he prevents another of the commands from being broken?
            The new covenant it written on our hearts (Romans 2:29).  Our very inclinations, motivations, and impulses are guided by the Spirit – the Spirit of the same God who gave the law that was originally etched in stone.  There is continuity from the tablets Moses held to the way of God the Holy Spirit who is active in our daily lives.  However, we must live on the far side of history, the post-resurrection side, where we live responsively.  Our lives are a dance in which the Holy Spirit is the leader and we the follower, the responsive dance partner. 
            What’s obstructed my path to gentleness and grace are the laws etched in stone: laws I have etched in the rigidity of my expectations.  In some ways, this has been my own personal bugaboo for my entire life.  I expect things to go a certain way (in relationships, in ministry, in sports).  Then life turns our differently than I expected.  The girl breaks up with me, my kids do the opposite of what I say, the church doesn’t like my new idea, my team loses.  And I am disappointed, angered, and defeated.  My poor children bear the brunt of this when I get angry at them for not being who I expect them to be instead of loving who they are.  If I can just learn to be gentle with them and give them (and my wife too) grace, lots and lots of grace, I will change as a person.  I will become a “graced” person.  Or more accurately, I will begin living in the graced identity Christ has already given.
            One of my favorite Christian role models, Tony Dungy, writes, “Your real influence [as a Christian] comes from the foundation of your character.”[ii]  I want God’s grace to be the foundation of my character.  That Rob Tennant, man.  That guy is full of grace.  When people talk about me, that’s what I hope they will say.  This is the “greater glory” under the “new way,” which makes us “right with God” (Apostle Paul – 2 Corinthians 3:8, 9).  
            I am not there yet.  I know from the ways I have harangued my 15-year-old the last few days, I am not even close.  But because God is so grace-filled, God’s grace for me is never exhausted.  I fail and then, with tail tucked between my legs, come repentantly to God.  My sin is before me and I have to sit with it a while, but the Holy Spirit showers grace and forgiveness down on me, and cleansed, I try again. 
            My life rhythm is about to change.  I’ll return to the world of church work.  I come back with goals and hopes and dreams, but the big story, for me, is the prayer that I will follow the Spirit and walk alongside the Law (old covenant) down the path that leads to life in Christ (new covenant).  The further down that path I walk, the more people will see newness in me.  My life will emit the fragrance of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14-16). 
            To walk that path, I have to do what I have struggled to do my entire life.  I will need to turn my expectations over to God.  I need to be freed from the stone laws I have set over myself, the unyielding determination that things will turn out the way I think they should.  I need freedom from the yoke with which I burden myself.  One of the songs we sing at church has this line in it.  “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.”  That’s 2 Corinthians 3:17.  In the next verse says, “The Lord – who is the Spirit – makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.”
            As I get ready for the world of church work, I yearn for freedom the stone laws, freedom to live in the dynamic of the Spirit. 



[i] I use “old covenant,” “Law of Moses,” and Old Testament interchangeably in this post because each phrase represents the content that we find in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy, and I read these texts from a Christian/New Testament perspective. Thus, I also use “new covenant,” “Christian,” and New Testament interchangeably. 
[ii] T. Dungy and Nathan Whittaker (2011).  The Uncommon Life Daily Challenge, Tyndale-Momentum (Carol Stream, IL), September 8 entry.  This book uses calendar dates, not page numbers.

No comments:

Post a Comment