“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And the second commandment is like it’ Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37, 39-40
“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending by sending His own Son in the likeness of the sinful flesh to be a sin offering. Romans 8:3
There are two phrases which seem to capture so much of our thoughts and discourse lately. The first is the aspect that “There should be a law…..”. The second is the statement: “Everything I did was legal”. In and with these two concepts; there seems to lie an idea that the law and legalism can fix and judge most if not everything. Sadly perhaps, that rarely, if ever is the case. Why?
The reason laws, in and of themselves, rarely “fix” the society which instigated them, is that laws are really not designed to do that. Laws are meant to be a reflection of the society which passed them versus a mandated control on that society.
Let’s take discrimination on the aspect of race/ethnicity for example. For most of the history of the United States, the bulk of society felt the separation of races was an appropriate and correct characteristic of society. In fact there were a plethora of laws and court rulings which supported the legal separation of the races. Now contrary to what might be popular belief, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not the beginning of the change of that belief in the United States. No, although all too slow and painful, the heart of society changed when it came to how different races were to be treated. The heart of the nation saw that separate was not equal. However, societies are not, or least the nation of the United States is not, a unanimous moving entity. Society realized (and realizes) that there will be some who do not agree with the “heart” of society and want to go against its wishes. Therefore, to insure that society can enforce the desires of its heart, it codifies those desires into a or many laws so that those who agree with society as well as those who don’t, understand and can be held accountable to the behavior which is deemed appropriate based on the society’s desires.
Thus what we need to understand is that the passing of a law is neither the beginning, or should not be the end, of bringing about the behavior/culture that the society is seeking. For a law to be effective, there should be a will, a “heart of the matter” which is the foundation for that law, that society has agreed to. Additionally, just because a law is passed, does not mean that society’s efforts are finished. For a law to be successful it needs to be only a part of a larger cultural explanation and education process with brings about the most accurate alignment possible with the largest sections of the society with the foundation of why the law was passed. The larger the majority that believes in the law, the more effective the law will be plus the easier it will be to administer. There’s an additional consideration and that is to those who come new into the society. Here I’m talking about children primarily but can also apply to immigrants. It is more important that children learn the moral aspect, for example, that is it is not appropriate behavior to take something from someone else just because you desire it versus there is a law against stealing and the law is why you don’t do it. We need to teach what is at the heart of the law and not just the legal terms used to define it.
The reason that ideas and issues such as gun control, abortion and climate change, just for a few examples, are so difficult to draft laws around, is that our society has yet to come to an understanding of where society’s “heart” is concerning these matters. Oh yes, it is easy to site a statistical poll that most in the society support this or are against that. However, in most contentious issues, when you get past a percentage number, you find that there is a wide variance of opinion on just what that poll number accurately reflects.
Now let’s briefly take a look at a second part, the legalism part. So, we’ve been able to actually pass a law about something. By its very nature, it will have a statute which specifically defines the nature of the law and what constitutes a failure to uphold the law, as well as penalties. However, no law crafted has ever been so wise and carefully worded to be able to foresee all circumstances which might come into play concerning the law. Thus, a person might bring about great harm to another individual or group; however, the circumstances of the particular incident were not taken into account by some seemingly applicable statute. Therefore, the person states, with accuracy, that they did everything according to the law and therefore what they did was just fine. Going back to the previous paragraph, remember a law is meant to capture the spirit, will and/or desire of a society towards appropriate or inappropriate behavior. That the law can ‘t capture every foreseeable act doesn’t mean that the spirit, will or desire of society has not been breeched. Which means that stating some behavior was “completely legal”, does not additionally mean that behavior was not indeed offensive to society and went against what society had desired for appropriate behavior. It only mean that the writers of the law were not clairvoyant enough to predict every behavior one might attempt to circumvent the heart/will of society.
Why bring this up now dear Sisters and Brothers? Because, we seem more and more to look to human derived fixes, like laws to try and solve our societal ills. There is not evil in society; no, there is only a lack of an appropriate law with which to guide society to a more blissful existence. Paul was very clear as he spoke of the laws of commandments given by God. It’s not a particular law, or lack of a particular law that is the issue, it is in our heart and our desire to follow the law which is the issue.
So it is there we must always start; the heart. How is our heart aligned with the Heart of God which brought about the two greatest commandments? The two greatest commandments on which all other necessary, appropriate laws and teachings are based, are commandments of love; love for the Father and each other. That dear Sisters and Brothers is where our hearts must reside. Are we looking to “laws” that are laws based on the commandments of love? Are we looking for some type of legalese which can relieve ourselves from the process of reflecting on our own behavior and intentions based on appropriate love; allowing us to say “Well I wouldn’t have but the law said to do it,”.
Laws aren’t inherently good or bad but can become so depending upon to what extent we’re willing to reflect on the intent of the law and how connected the individual law is to the Greater Commandments of Love upon which all appropriate laws are based. It is by having the appropriate heart, sharing and teaching that heart to others, that we stand the best chances of having just laws and a society that brings praise to our Heavenly Father.
Our Most Gracious Heavenly Father, we confess that on our own we do not know how to behave. We are thankful, Most Merciful Father, that you have given us commandments by which we can learn what is acceptable behavior. We further confess that even with Your commandments we fall short of Your desires and are thankful that You sent Your Son Jesus Christ to fulfill the commandments, allowing our salvation which we could not do ourselves. Guide us Father when we seek to pass our own laws that they would conform and align with Your commandments of love. Keep us from the temptation Father to create laws in conflict with Your commandments and more in line with worldly desires. That in creating our laws our hearts would be centered on Your Love for us allowing us to live just lives that bring glory and praise to Your Most Holy Name. We pray in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen
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