While I will never advise to break many rules, I also do not like those people who follow rules so precisely that they can’t help but open their big mouths when others make the slightest error. There is of course a saying that if you do not like a trait in someone else it is because you possess that same characteristic. We can’t stand it when someone loses their temper with us thinking how she or he needs to control emotions, then we turn around and blow up at someone else. Or there is the classic, “I don’t ever want to be like my mother,” which turns into “I cannot believe how I am just like her now.”
I don’t like those people who follow all the rules because I tend to be someone who follows all the rules. When I was a kid growing up at camp during the summer I knew every tradition, every rule, and every guideline. Sometimes my counselors would even turn to me to get a particularly misbehaving child to follow the rules once more. Even though I was only seven or eight years old I couldn’t stand it when someone broke a rule, like the time I went canoeing with a truly juvenile leader-in-training.
For some reason as the rule abiding child I was I decided on this day to ride in the “dry” canoe. Other boats might engage in some splashing and even “tumping” the canoe, but not me. I did not want to walk around all afternoon wearing a wet bathing suit. Thus, I rode in the dry boat.
Well, one childish older camper who was supposedly learning to be a leader decided that it would be funny to break the no splash rule and he began to soak me and my counselor with nasty creek water. Something in me snapped. I began cursing like a sailor telling this so and so that if he didn’t stop I was going to do something with the canoe paddle that would not be pleasant.
To this day I do not actually remember this happening. I don’t recall what I said. I have pieced this much together from others though that I was so very angry and I let him know it. I could not stand that someone had broken the rules and in the process gotten me soaking wet. Nevermind that my response was to break all sorts of camp rules with the language I used. This is a Christian camp I’m talking about, and I was not using charitable words toward my neighbor.
I was and still can be so much like the leader of the synagogue. Unable to see that there is life beyond the rules. By no means am I advocating for an anarchist, lawless society; however, I do believe that Jesus calls us to see beyond what is mainstream, normal, or within the box. Jesus brings healing into the world in ways that we may never understand. That healing may even make us uncomfortable or change how we see God.
God wants us to receive His healing power regardless of the day of the week. Yet, when we cling too closely to following all the rules we can miss the joy of splashing around in a canoe. Jesus’ grace abounds in this world transforming our lives. We can chide others and ourselves for being open to that healing or we can take part in a little holy rebellion.
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