Doing the right thing the wrong way
You may remember the song: ‘It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it, that’s what gets results.’ Catchy tune, catchy title. But wrong. Actually, it’s the other way round – ‘It ain’t the way that you do it, it’s what you do…’

The problem the Pharisees have – but don’t understand or even know that they have it – is that they are so fixated by keeping to the letter of the law, they forget that the purpose of being given the law in the first place was to bring justice, peace and healing among God’s people.

They recite the fourth Commandment recorded in Exodus 20:8-11: Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.

In striving so hard to follow the rules, they lose sight of their purpose. They believe that the important bit is doing no labour. It isn’t. The important bit is keeping the Sabbath Holy, resting from the necessary activity of living day-to-day, and celebrating the Sabbath as sacred and special. And what could be more Holy than healing others in God’s name? Even when Jesus explains, they refuse to hear Him – indeed, they plot to have Him killed. He’s rocking the boat – their boat – and He can’t be allowed to carry on.

There is one proviso though. You might summarise the above as ‘The end justifies the means’ – a phrase first coined by the Roman poet Ovid (and plagiarised by Machiavelli). But the Russian political theorist Trotsky rightly qualified this by insisting that it is only true if the end itself is justified.

In our case, the end – furthering the Kingdom of God – is achieved by means of obedience to the New Commandment Jesus gives – to love. Sunday, Monday, Holyday and everyday. It is justified in Him.

A meditation for Pentecost

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 

‘And what is Truth?’, said Pilate. Of all the world’s most cynical sayings, Pilate’s is one of the worst. His whole life has known betrayal and lies. He speaks from experience of intrigue and political deception in search of power. We don’t know how many bribes it took to land him the position of Governor – what we do know, from his actions, is that he was weak and eager to please both his Roman superiors and the Jewish religious hierarchy in order to maintain a fragile accommodation of his role and position.

‘And what is truth?’. Pilate’s philosophical position is what we would today call ‘post-modernism’ – the denial that there is any absolute reality. ‘Truth’, for him, is relative and changeable according to prevailing circumstances.

For others, ‘Truth’ may be whatever the majority of people are led (fooled) to believe – a weakness that many unscrupulous aspiring leaders manipulate. Hitler’s rise to power – and that of others since – was dependent on that naivete. So long as the lie is big enough, and repeated often enough, people will believe it.”

Or ‘Truth’ may be personalised – truth is whatever I want to believe. Whatever is most convenient and useful to me personally.

For some, ‘Truth’ may only be found in a particular tradition or culture, denying the value of other experiences and driving sectarianism.

On ethe other hand, Secularists would say that ‘Truth’ can only be defined by what can be scientifically ‘proven’ – but the more science discovers, the more we find out that we don’t actually know much (Actually, Socrates said that first). When confronted by the unpredictability of subatomic particles, Albert Einstein, who wanted absolute certainty, never found it – but he continued to seek it, in his frustration insisting ‘God does not play dice’.

No. He doesn’t.

In our secular, physical, world, we can search for absolute truths and look to prove them on the basis of ‘facts’. Good luck with that…

But in Christ, a much more reliable ‘Truth’ can be found. Truth in the ‘Logos’ – the Word. The Word made flesh. We find truth in Him – and the proof is the existence of that strange God-given thing called love. Undefinable, irrational, self-denying, unexplainable, unconditional love

The rules of grammar define that a conditional statement takes the form ‘If P, then Q’. In other words, if something is true, then something else is also true. No buts, no exceptions.

Today’s Epistle reading from 1 John ends with such a conditional statement.

‘If you love God, then you love your brothers and sisters’. You cannot have one without the other. If you do not love your brother and your sister, you cannot claim that you love God. No exclusions.

It is essential to understand and accept this, in particular that there are absolutely no limits to the definition of ‘brother and sister’. Who is my brother and sister? Paul answers in Galatians 3:28. ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female: for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Which makes it difficult – impossible – to explain why, for two thousand years, some (but certainly not all) who claim to be ‘Christian’ have persecuted people who are different because of race, culture, tradition or anything else. From the Crusades, through slavery, pogrom. sectarianism, the denial of civil rights and ongoing racial hatred to this day when parents see their children die in war and those who seek refuge from injustice and threat are turned away as unwanted immigrants. Closer to home, we see the growing need for food banks; and we are only just becoming aware of the frightening level of domestic violence in our society.

Loving brother and sister is not just saying the right words – it demands both practical and economic help, even to the point of discomfort and changes to personal status quo. We must stand up against any failure to love, in ourselves, our church, our community – and so doing won’t make us popular in an increasingly populist social agenda. We are the bleeding-heart liberal targets so disdained by the gutter press.

Those on the political extremes of society – increasingly at the moment the extreme right – search for justification of their prejudice. They disparage anyone who tries to exercise love in action using the term ‘political correctness’, or the neologism ‘woke’ – the actual definition of which is ‘being alert to injustice and discrimination in society’. Yes, sometimes the pressure for equality and inclusivity goes to ridiculous lengths which are beyond that definition, such as denial of platforms for those with whom they disagree and the Bowdlerism of ancient hymns, songs and poems; but before dismissing them it is always illuminating to place oneself in a situation of personally silently experiencing that discrimination for years. How would you feel if you were marginalised and/or excluded through the use of careless language, even if unintentional?

People say ‘Yes, that’s all very well, but when does ‘loving brother and sister’ go too far?

Ask the man nailed to a cross.