Law and love

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

There are 613 commandments in the Torah, which divide up into 248 positive commandments (Thou shalt's) and 365 negative commandments (Thou shalt not's). Jesus says that all these hang on the two commandments to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves.

Tom Wright, the former Bishop of Durham, has a helpful illustration for the way in these negative commandments work. He says, “The illustration I sometimes use is that when you learn to drive a car, the idea is that you will quickly come to do most of the things “automatically”, changing gear, using the brakes, etc., and that you will develop the “virtues” of a good driver, looking out for other road users, not allowing yourself to be distracted, etc.; but that the highways agencies construct crash barriers and so on so that even if you don’t drive appropriately damage is limited; and also those “rumble strips”, as we call them in the UK, which make a loud noise on the tire if you even drift to the edge of the roadway. “Rules” and “the Moral Law” are like those crash barriers and rumble strips. Ideally you won’t need them because you will have learned the character-strengths and will drive down the moral highway appropriately. But the rules are there so that when you start to drift, you are at once alerted and can take appropriate action – particularly figuring out what strengths need more work to stop it happening again.”

The other side of the equation are the positive commandments; the virtues in life which we are intended to quickly learn to do automatically. This is where we begin to engage with love and see that love and law can work together. Tom Wright has said that “the point about “vice”, the opposite of “virtue”, is that, whereas virtue requires moral effort, all that has to happen for vice to take hold is for people to coast along in neutral: moral laziness leads directly to moral deformation. The thing about virtue is that it requires Thought and Effort . . .”

So change begins with a conscious decision, not a magical or instant makeover. Tom Wright says, “The point about the word “virtue” – if we can recapture it in its strong sense – is that it refers, not so much to “doing the right things”, but to the forming of habits and hence of moral character ... All behaviour is habit-forming … we [can] use the word “virtue” and “virtuous” simply to mean “behaviour we have had to work at which has formed our character so that at last it becomes natural and spontaneous to live like that.”

Let’s use an illustration to consider how this works, that of parents teaching their children the rules of the road. To begin with, when children are very young, the rules of the road are very restrictive i.e. the child must never cross a road without a parent and must always cross at a crossing with the parent and while holding the parents hand. As the child grows, they are taught new rules for crossing the road; for me, that was the Green Cross Code - stop, look and listen. Now, the aim is that the child learns to judge for him or herself when it is safe to cross the road. Eventually, the rules with which we began – don’t cross on your own, don’t cross unless you are at a crossing – are left behind because the child has learnt how to cross the road safely using their own initiative. Elbert Hubbard has said, “Initiative is doing the right things without being told.” We are able to use initiative because we have not only learnt the rules but have learnt to apply in our lives and situations. At this point, we are no longer restricted just to crossing the road at specific crossing places but can cross wherever we judge it to be safe to do so. So, we have gone beyond the rules by learning and applying the rules. In other words, we have found the true purpose of those rules which our parents enforced when we were young; which is that we learn to cross the road safely by ourselves wherever we are.

Jesus is essentially saying the same thing when he speaks about the Law. The Law starts by keeping us safe – do not murder, do not steal. If we all abide by the Law then we do not harm each other. That is good, but it is not enough. We also need to learn to love one another. That means doing more than the Law requires but to do that is also the fulfilling of the Law. If the Law is about maintaining good relations between us, then love is the fulfilment of the Law’s intent, and that is why Jesus said the heart of the Law is found in these words: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

In order to fulfil the Law and these teachings we are to love as Jesus loved; with a love that is patient and kind, which does not envy or boast, is not proud. does not dishonour others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

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Dominique Lawalree - Minimum II.

Love fulfils the Law

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the Deep Magic “was a set of laws placed into Narnia by the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea at the time of its creation. It was written on the Stone Table, the firestones on the Secret Hill, and the sceptre of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea.

This law stated that the White Witch, Jadis, was entitled to kill every traitor, and if someone denied her this right then all of Narnia would be overturned and perish in fire and water.

However, unknown to Jadis, a deeper magic from before the dawn of Time existed, which said that if a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Stone Table would crack, and Death would start working backwards.”

So in this story, there is a Law which is about actions and consequences and there is a deeper Law which is about love.

C. S. Lewis, who wrote the Narnia stories, was a Christian who drew on his understanding of Christian faith in writing his stories. It may be that he had passages like these in mind when he wrote about the deeper magic from before the dawn of Time.

Jesus is saying in his teaching from Matthew 5. 21 - 37 about the Law that it is not enough simply to keep the Law. He wants us to go deeper than simple obedience of the Law and the deeper place into which he wants us to go is Love.

Most of us actually keep the laws of this land most of the time. On the whole, because the laws are prohibitions – do not’s, like do not murder or do not steal – and because we live in a time of relative wealth, our laws are not that difficult to keep.

But prohibitions simply keep us from doing harm to others. They don’t enable us to love others. Simply refraining from murdering others or stealing from others is enough to keep the Law (we call it keeping the peace) but doing these things doesn’t mean that I am actively loving anyone at all.

To love means that I have to do something more that simply keep the Law. That is what Jesus is teaching and illustrating here and it is what C. S. Lewis shows us in Narnia through his imaginative story.

Let’s think briefly about the way laws and love work together. Parents teach their children the rules of the road. To begin with, when children are very young, the rules of the road are very restrictive i.e. the child must never cross a road without a parent and must always cross at a crossing with the parent and while holding the parents hand. As the child grows, they are taught new rules for crossing the road; for me, that was the Green Cross Code - stop, look and listen. Now, the aim is that the child learns to judge for him or herself when it is safe to cross the road.

Eventually, the rules with which we began – don’t cross on your own, don’t cross unless you are at a crossing – are left behind because the child has learnt how to cross the road safely using their own initiative. Elbert Hubbard has said, “Initiative is doing the right things without being told.” We are able to use initiative because we have not only learnt the rules but have learnt to apply in our lives and situations. At this point, we are no longer restricted just to crossing the road at specific crossing places but can cross wherever we judge it to be safe to do so.

So, we have gone beyond the rules by learning and applying the rules. In other words, we have found the true purpose of those rules which our parents enforced when we were young; which is that we learn to cross the road safely by ourselves wherever we are.

Jesus is saying the same thing. The Law starts by keeping us safe – do not murder, do not steal. If we all abide by the Law then we do not harm each other. That is good, but it is not enough. We also need to learn to love one another. That means doing more than the Law requires but to do that is also the fulfilling of the Law. If the Law is about maintaining good relations between us, then love is the fulfilment of the Law’s intent.

Jesus said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” (Matthew 5. 17) and he commended, as being the heart or summary of the Law, these words: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” As Paul writes, “Love is the fulfilment of the law.” (Romans 13. 10)

So, in order to fulfil the Law and these teachings we are to love as Jesus loved: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13. 4 – 7).

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Ben Harper - Don't Give Up On Me Now.