Monday, September 7, 2015

"But what about the pub?"

The title of this blog is merely an example of a mistake this is made far too often.  Too often people will not do something or condemn/reject something, on the grounds that it might be abused.  "You shouldn't drink alcohol because you might get drunk."  "You shouldn't eat dessert because you might be guilty of gluttony."  "You shouldn't read book x,y or z because it might lead you into sinful thoughts."  The examples could be multiplied but it is safe to say that all of these miss the point.
We don't live under the Old Covenant any longer. In other words, Christians don't operate under the law, we live by love.  Love for God and love for neighbor.  Because that one principle is to lead our every thought, word and deed, we cannot rightly function by a black and white set of external rules.  This is about maturity.  In the same way that a child grows up to the freedom yet responsibility of adulthood, so too the people of God have grown up from being children in the desert to the maturity of the Promised Land.
We have spiritual fathers and mothers and the pattern of the historic church, but our underlying, motivating force is love.  If we honestly assess everything we think, say and do by the criteria of love, we can't go wrong.  But when we do go wrong, we can know that God has forgiven us, we have the church to help us back into our feet and the sacraments of grace to help us grow.
As the Beatles said, "All you need is love."  They were very right, but in a way they didn't understand.

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