Fulfilling the Law

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Jesus said, ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil’ (Matthew 5.17-20). What did it mean for Jesus to fulfil the Law? After all, he debated aspects of the Law, criticised the Pharisees for their interpretation, and excused his disciples from certain aspects of the Law.

The Law received by Moses introduced a system for the sacrifice of animals but also did two other things. First, in the Ten Commandments, it gave minimum standards for the maintenance of good relations within society – do not murder, do not steal, do not covet etc. Second, in the greatest commandment, it set love for God, others and oneself as the goal to which all the other laws, including those concerning sacrifices, pointed. The Law was given not that people became of obsessed with the keeping of its minutiae but that people moved from the base point of not harming others to the point or goal of the Law, to love God, others and oneself.

A helpful illustration for the way in which he wanted his disciples to learn to use the commandments is that of learning to drive a car. As part of learning to drive, we should quickly come to do most things ‘automatically’; changing gear, using the brakes, etc., and also develop the “virtues” of a good driver; looking out for other road users, not allowing ourselves to be distracted, etc. This equates to taking on board and applying the positive commandments (the ‘thou shalts’ which are primarily to do with respect for others). These are virtues for us to learn and practice in order that they then become second nature.

Then, continuing our driving analogy further, the Highways Agency also construct crash barriers which, if we don’t drive appropriately, ensure that damage is limited; and rumble strips, which make a loud noise on the tyre if we drift to the edge of the roadway. The negative commandment (the ‘Thou shalt nots’) are like those crash barriers and rumble strips. Ideally, we won’t need them because we will have learned to develop the virtues commanded by the Law and will drive down the moral highway appropriately. But the rules are there so that when we start to drift, we are at once alerted and can take appropriate action.

The Law, then, is there to keep us safe. The ‘Thou shalt not’s’ of the Ten Commandments are all to do with limiting the harm we do to others; do not murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness or covet. These are minimum standards of behaviour which enable society to function because respect and toleration exist. If we all abide by the Law, then we do not harm each other. That is good, but, by itself, it is not enough because the Law also wants us to learn to love one another. That’s where our learning the virtues – the positive commandments – comes in; but that can’t be simply about learning by rote or following the letter of the Law. To genuinely love we need to obey the spirit of the Law, not simply the letter of the Law.

Jesus taught that the heart of the Law is found in words from the Book of Deuteronomy: ‘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.’ The intent of the law is that we live well together. The best way in which to live well together is that we love; therefore love fulfils the intent of the law. But the law cannot legislate for love therefore we must go beyond the strict letter of the law in order that we truly love. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

To understand the way this model of learning and law works, another road based illustration is helpful; that of parents teaching their children the rules of the road. Take a moment to think back to when you were a very young child. To begin with the rules of the road are very restrictive; we would never cross a road without a responsible adult and would always cross at a crossing while holding someone’s hand. As we grew, however, we were taught new rules for crossing the road; for me, that was the Green Cross Code with Tufty – which taught us to stop, look and listen. Now, the aim was that I would begin to judge for myself when it was 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 we have learnt how to cross the road safely using our own initiative; initiative meaning that we do ‘the right things without being told’.

We learnt to use initiative because we not only learnt the rules but also learnt to apply them in our lives and situations. From that point onwards, 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. In the same way, we need the Law to prevent harm but prevention of harm, by itself, does not guarantee good relations. For that, we need to genuinely love others and love takes us beyond the laws which prevent harm.

When we understand the purpose of the Law in this way, we are then able to improvise responses to situations not specifically covered by the Law on the basis of the virtues we have practised and the parameters which the Law sets.

Jesus is the supreme example of someone faithfully improvising on the basis of the true purpose of the Law. When the practices of his day would have prevented him from healing on the Sabbath, he went ahead and healed anyway. When the practices of his day discriminated in favour of husbands over wives, he taught a tightening of the Law in order to give added protection to women. When he was asked, ‘Who is my neighbour’, he told a story about love for those who are our enemies.

As we have heard, he was clear that he had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; instead he had come to fulfil them by enabling us to live according to the spirit of the Law, rather than the letter of the Law. He embodied everything the Law of Moses was designed to do, by embodying love in all its forms and depth; even to the extent of sacrificing his own life that we might live and love. As Jesus embodied the law of love himself, it is as we come close to him, loving him and learning from him, that we too can embody the law of love. Jesus is a person and a relationship and any law that doesn’t have that will end up becoming arbitrary but, with Jesus, the Law becomes truly loving and truly lively.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike Scott - Bring 'Em All In.

Fulfilling the Law

Here's my sermon from today's Eucharist for Schools Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

How do we know the right way to behave in any given situation? Rules or commandments, including the Ten Commandments, often seem to be the answer and every society or organisation, including our schools, needs a set of rules as a baseline for acceptable behaviours. Considering the place that rules or commandments have within our lives and faith and the models of learning associated with them is, hopefully, a useful exercise on Schools Sunday.

The Ten Commandments were the first commandments given to Moses for the people of Israel, but there were more which followed; 613 commandments altogether, which divide up into 248 positive commandments (the ‘Thou shalt's’) and 365 negative commandments (the ‘Thou shalt not's’).

However many rules or commandments there are, however, they can’t cover every possible situation we encounter in life. Do the Ten Commandments or the Law of Moses, for example, have anything to say about our use of social media, as social media didn’t exist when they were given? What should we do when we encounter a situation that isn’t covered by a rule or commandment? If we are completely rule-bound, then we are likely to freeze in that moment and won’t able to act because we don’t have the instructions we need. Equally, we could say that we can do whatever we like because there are no instructions covering that situation. And what do we do when life becomes more complicated than the simple rule we have been given. How should we honour both our father and mother, for example, when they are arguing among themselves and giving us contradictory advice or instructions?

The answer that the Pharisees gave in the time when Jesus was alive was to issue extra clarifications. The Pharisees took the 613 commandments in the Law of Moses and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments were to be kept. Extra clarification sounds helpful, particularly if we like clear instructions, but Jesus criticised this approach as one which created the burden of not only trying to keep hundreds of commandments but also thousands of additional regulations. It is, in essence, the argument that people often make today about Health and Safety legislation!

Instead of trying and failing to cover each and every possible scenario that might possibly arise and instead of simply following rules to the letter in every situation, Jesus encouraged his disciples to learn how to apply the commandments to a range of different situations and he used stories – the parables he told – as scenarios or case studies about which they were to think.

A helpful illustration for the way in which he wanted his disciples to learn to use the commandments is that of learning to drive a car. As part of learning to drive, we should quickly come to do most things ‘automatically’; changing gear, using the brakes, etc., and also develop the “virtues” of a good driver; looking out for other road users, not allowing ourselves to be distracted, etc. This equates to taking on board and applying the positive commandments (the ‘thou shalts’ which are primarily to do with respect for others). These are virtues for us to learn and practice in order that they then become second nature.

Then, continuing our driving analogy further, the Highways Agency also construct crash barriers which, if we don’t drive appropriately, ensure that damage is limited; and rumble strips, which make a loud noise on the tyre if we drift to the edge of the roadway. The negative commandment (the ‘Thou shalt nots’) are like those crash barriers and rumble strips. Ideally we won’t need them because we will have learned to develop the virtues commanded by the Law and will drive down the moral highway appropriately. But the rules are there so that when we start to drift, we are at once alerted and can take appropriate action.

The Law, then, is there to keep us safe. The ‘Thou shalt not’s’ of the Ten Commandments are all to do with limiting the harm we do to others; do not murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness or covet. These are minimum standards of behaviour which enable society to function because respect and toleration exist. If we all abide by the Law, then we do not harm each other. That is good, but, by itself, it is not enough because the Law also wants us to learn to love one another. That’s where our learning the virtues – the positive commandments – comes in; but that can’t be simply about learning by rote or following the letter of the Law. To genuinely love we need to obey the spirit of the Law, not simply the letter of the Law.

Jesus taught that the heart of the Law is found in words from the Book of Deuteronomy: ‘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.’ The intent of the law is that we live well together. The best way in which to live well together is that we love; therefore love fulfils the intent of the law. But the law cannot legislate for love therefore we must go beyond the strict letter of the law in order that we truly love. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

To understand the way this model of learning and law works, another road based illustration is helpful; that of parents teaching their children the rules of the road. Take a moment to think back to when you were a very young child. To begin with the rules of the road are very restrictive; we would never cross a road without a responsible adult and would always cross at a crossing while holding someone’s hand. As we grew, however, we were taught new rules for crossing the road; for me, that was the Green Cross Code with Tufty – which taught us to stop, look and listen. Now, the aim was that I would begin to judge for myself when it was 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 we have learnt how to cross the road safely using our own initiative; initiative meaning that we do ‘the right things without being told’.

We learnt to use initiative because we not only learnt the rules but also learnt to apply them in our lives and situations. From that point onwards, 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. In the same way, we need the Law to prevent harm but prevention of harm, by itself, does not guarantee good relations. For that, we need to genuinely love others and love takes us beyond the laws which prevent harm.

When we understand the purpose of the Law in this way, we are then able to improvise responses to situations not specifically covered by the Law on the basis of the virtues we have practised and the parameters which the Law sets.

Before I was ordained I worked for the Employment Service where I once interviewed an unemployed man who told me in the course of our interview that his marriage was breaking down. My role at the time was basically to refer him to either a training course or a job hunting programme. However, I did have a third option which involved alternative referrals, usually used when some form of voluntary work might help the person prepare for work. In this case, I decided that the man would be unable to focus on job hunting while his marriage was in crisis and, with his agreement, booked an appointment for him with Relate, marking that down as an outcome under our third category.

To some of my colleagues, my decision would have been entirely inappropriate as we were only there to place people into training or JobClubs. My view was that we were there to assist people into work and that where people’s personal circumstances mitigated against that happening, those issues needed to be addressed first. In this instance I was improvising a response to a situation that wasn’t specifically covered in the guidelines I had been given and tried to do so in a way that was faithful to the reason for being there i.e. to help people into work.

Jesus is the supreme example of someone faithfully improvising on the basis of the true purpose of the Law. When the practices of his day would have prevented him from healing on the Sabbath, he went ahead and healed anyway. When the practices of his day discriminated in favour of husbands over wives, he taught a tightening of the Law in order to give added protection to women. When he was asked, ‘Who is my neighbour’, he told a story about love for those who are our enemies.

He was clear that he had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; instead he had come to fulfil them (Matthew 5. 17) by enabling us to live according to the spirit of the Law, rather than the letter of the Law. He embodied everything the Law of Moses was designed to do, by embodying love in all its forms and depth; even to the extent of sacrificing his own life that we might live and love. As Jesus embodied the law of love himself, it is as we come close to him, loving him and learning from him, that we too can embody the law of love. Jesus is a person and a relationship and any law that doesn’t have that will end up becoming arbitrary but, with Jesus, the Law becomes truly loving and truly lively.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victoria Williams - What Kind Of Friend.

Law & Love: The Greatest Commandment

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook (this sermon will shortly be available to listen to on the London Internet Church site):

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” says Jesus (Matthew 22. 34 - end). What does he mean? What do laws about shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money, and much more have to do with loving God, loving ourselves and loving our neighbour?

Jesus frequently attracted criticism, particularly from the Pharisees, for seemingly setting aside laws which they thought important but also said that “until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 15. 8). So how did Jesus understand and relate to the Mosaic Law?

These verses and this saying are actually key to answering all these questions. By saying, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” Jesus is arguing that all 613 commandments in the Torah, however much they may also be about shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money or whatever, are fundamentally about love for God, for ourselves and for our neighbours.

The commandments divide up into 248 positive commandments (Thou shalt's) and 365 negative commandments (Thou shalt not's). In the Ten Commandments the Thou shalt not’s are all to do with limiting the harm we do to others; do not murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness or covet. These are minimum standards of behaviour which enable society to function because respect and toleration exist.

Tom Wright 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. 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 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.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victoria Williams - Love.

The impossible demand of constant generosity

A member of our congregation recently asked me for my views on tithing. Tithing involves giving 10% of your income to God and is a practice which comes from teaching in the Old Testament. This person had concerns about the way in which the practice was used among churches in his home country which resulted in pastors becoming rich at the expense of their congregations. Christine will confirm that that is not the case here!

In discussing this issue with him I talked about the passage we have heard this morning from 2 Corinthians 9 in which it says that “God loves the one who gives gladly” or God loves a cheerful giver. I said that, instead of fixing an amount for how much we ought to give and then giving out of a sense of duty, the New Testament encourages us to be generous with all that we have and are, as the only possible response to a God who genuinely gives all he has for us.

The starting point for thinking about our giving as Christians, then, is what God has already done for us. In 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about God supplying all that we need and elsewhere in the New Testament we read of Jesus giving up all he had, even his own life, in order that we might receive all that God has to give us. We often ask ‘what do you give the person who has everything?’ but the question we really need to ask is ‘what do you give to the person who has given everything?’ The answer is that you give generously yourself as an act of thanksgiving for all that that person has done for you. 

However, that does not answer the specific question of precisely what we are to give. One of the attractions of tithing is that it sets a specific measure against which we can then assess our own giving. Are we giving enough or too little? If the measure is 10% of our income then we can easily work out the answer, but if the measure is generosity then we are not so sure. We have to decide for ourselves what to give rather than being told by someone else.

If the measure is 10%, then we know when we have given enough and can stop giving because we have fulfilled our duty but, if the measure is the generosity of God, then we are actually forever in his debt and can never give enough – there is then always more that we can give.

That is the point of our Gospel reading – the story of the Rich Young Man. His question to Jesus was essentially about measurement. How could he know when he had done everything necessary to receive eternal life? Jesus took him through the traditional measures – the keeping of the Commandments – but then made it clear that simply keeping these was not enough. “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said, “go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor.” 

By saying this, Jesus was making an impossible demand; one that the young man could not meet. Why ask something of the young man that he could not meet so that he went away sad? Why not rather ask him to do something that he could manage – giving 10 or 15 or 20%?  

Jesus was making the point that there are no measures which are enough when it comes to the generosity of God. There is nothing we can give that is enough to earn God’s love and generosity towards us. Instead, it is freely given and once we receive it there is also no limit to the giving that we can do in response to that love. God’s extravagant generosity – giving all he has, even his own life – calls for similar generosity in us.

By making his impossible demand of this young man, Jesus was saying there are no limits, there is no enough, there is no measure; there is only the generosity of giving. So, for each one of us, there is always the challenge to change; to give more, to become more generous.

Each year when we talk about Church finances in our PCC we say that during Stewardship Month we must make clear the difficult financial situation of the church. We must make it clear that if we continue with a shortfall year on year that in a very few years we will run out of money. That is the reality of our financial situation which we haven’t yet resolved. It won’t take many more years before we reach that situation. So, we do need more giving, more Gift Aid, more fundraising, more halls income, more grants and so on. All that is true, but it is not the reason the New Testament gives for our giving.

What the New Testament says is that God is extravagantly generous towards us; he gives us life and he gives us the life of Jesus. There is no limit to what we can give back to him for all that he has given to us and therefore we can and should always be challenged to give more to him in response. How we do that is for us to decide in relation to our money, time and talents in the context of care for our environment and our community. There is no measure to say that we have given enough, instead there is this impossible demand of constant generosity to be a constant challenge to us.

It can sound demanding and pressured and yet we know that real generosity is actually a joyful, liberating experience. It is when we hold on to possessions and go grasping after more that we are exhibiting a mean spirit and therefore experience anxiety and worry. To give is not only liberating, it also enables us to receive from God in all sorts of other ways which bless and enhance our experience of life. This is not a quid pro quo, as some churches seem to suggest. Financial wealth and success does not follow as a result of genuinely giving generously in response to God’s love, but we do in all sorts of other ways knowing love, friendship, trust and peace in ways that are never felt by those who are grasping and lacking in generosity. May all our giving be in these ways and for these reasons!

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Rickie Lee Jones - Falling Up.

The heart and spirit of the Law

Jewish law identifies 39 categories of activity prohibited on the Sabbath. Work is understood from scripture to be creative activity which includes activities like: building, cooking, gathering, igniting a fire, kneading, laundering, planting, sewing, sorting, tearing, tying and writing, among others. It is likely that the synagogue official has these or similar categories in mind when he said to the people in this story, “There are six days in which we should work; so come during those days and be healed, but not on the Sabbath!” (Luke 13. 10 - 17) 

Although there is considerable debate within the Jewish community about what is and is not permissible on the Sabbath, these categories are used by many Jews today and are an attempt to define how the fourth commandment in the Ten Commandments can be met.

In the view of the synagogue official, Jesus has clearly broken the Sabbath requirements and presents a dangerous precedent to the people. So we could say that what Jesus does here shows that the Jewish law is wrong or obsolete and that, as Christians, we don’t need to pay attention to it. But that would be to misunderstand some of the Jewish background to this story as well as some of the Gospel background.

If we start with the Gospel background, it is helpful to remember that Jesus said, as we can read in Matthew 5. 17 – 18: “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true. Remember that as long as heaven and earth last, not the least point nor the smallest detail of the Law will be done away with – not until the end of all things.”

Now if Jesus is not doing away with the Law of Moses by healing on the Sabbath, then what he would seem to be doing is challenging the way in which this part of the Law is understood. That brings us on to another aspect of the Jewish background to this story, which is that, in the event that human life is in danger, any Shabbat law can be disregarded if it stands in the way of saving that person.

So, what Jesus and the synagogue official are actually doing is debating whether the life of this woman was in danger or not. Both want to practice the requirements of the Law but, as continues to be the case within the Jewish community, they have differing or opposed views on how to do that. The synagogue official is saying that healing is a form of work and that, although she is unwell, the woman is not about to die, therefore she can and should be healed on a day other than the Sabbath. Jesus is saying her illness is something which endangers her life and therefore he is justified in healing on the Sabbath.

These kinds of debates between rabbis have been recorded and collected in Judaism and form part of the Oral Law which is interpretation of the Written Law. Judaism is therefore clear that interpretation and debate are part of the way in which we understand God’s words and Jesus too took part in just this kind of debate and interpretation.

However, what Jesus has to say regarding the Law goes further and deeper than just this alone. By healing on the Sabbath even when there is no immediate threat to life, Jesus is highlighting the compassion which is at the heart the Law and which is the spirit of the Law.

Love, he is saying, is what the Law ultimately aims at. Firstly, because it seeks to limit the harm we are able to do towards others. So, in the Ten Commandments, we are told not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to covet because all these things cause harm to others. Secondly, because the opposite of a negative is a positive; so, the opposite of wanting to murder others is to offer help; the opposite of committing adultery is to be faithful and the opposite of coveting is to give.

So what the Law seeks to do is to constrain the harm we do in order to create space in which we can learn to act lovingly toward others. The 39 categories of work constrain what is done on the Sabbath but simply to abide by these constraints is not actually what the Law is about. The Sabbath is not primarily about the things that aren’t done on it. Instead, those things are done in order to create space to focus on God and love him more deeply.          

Jesus commended the teacher of the Law who knew that love is the heart, the soul and spirit of the Law: “‘Love the Lord your God will all your heart, will all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’” (Luke 10. 27). That is the summary of the Law. It is what the Law is all about and, if some of the detail of the Law is preventing people from practising the purpose of the Law then, Jesus says, our interpretation of the Law has gone wrong.

And that is what is at the very heart of his debate with the synagogue official. For the synagogue official keeping the Sabbath constraints overrides compassion for the woman who is unwell. Jesus is saying that the spirit of the Law means that we have to put things the other way and override the constraints in order to show compassion. This is not because we are anarchists opposed to all Law or because the constraints are wrong. Instead, it is about fulfilling the purpose of the constraints. They are there in order that we have space in which to learn to love. So, when we do act out of love then we are fulfilling their purpose even though we might override them.

A final illustration of this might help as we close. When we are young children, our parents place severe constraints on us when we are crossing a road. We are told we must stay with our parents at all times, hold their hands and only cross at the designated crossing places. Our parents do this firstly to keep us safe when we are too young to make appropriate decisions ourselves and secondly to help learn how to cross the road safely. We learn when and where we can cross the road safely, so that in future we can do it for ourselves without our parents there and can do it wherever it is safe to do so and not just at the designated crossing places.

The purpose of the constraints is that we cross the road safely and when we know how to do that we don’t need to abide by all the constraints we once did. In a similar way, Jesus is saying here that the Sabbath constraints are about learning to love God and others and that, if those constraints need to be overridden in order to show compassion to others, then that is actually to fulfil their purpose.      

After being commended by Jesus for giving the summary of the Law, the teacher of the Law asks Jesus who is my neighbour. Jesus answers by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. He then asks which man acted like a neighbour towards the man attacked by robbers? The one who was kind to him, the teacher of the Law replied. “You go, then,” says Jesus, “and do likewise.”   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U2 - Angels Too Tied To The Ground.