Village Shepherd

At a recent Bible study of Hebrews, we were introduced to the idea of Jesus as a pioneer, since this is a word which only occurs in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. The Bible study leader described Jesus as someone who hacked a way through the jungle, blazing a trail and clearing a path.

Words of Jesus which could prove difficult, such as "no-one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6), then became easier, for "through me" could be seen as following the same cleared track. This left room to come to God via other faiths and other means, for Jesus is simply clearing the way for us.

He did this by obeying God's commandments in every respect. But there were plenty of people who were horrified by many of Jesus' acts and by many of his statements, and who genuinely considered Jesus to be disobeying God's commandments.

Back in the days of the Old Testament God had given his Law to Moses in order to help the Israelites to keep their side of the tribal covenant with God. The Law was given not only in the form of the Ten Commandments, but was also fleshed out in minute detail in the book of Leviticus, in case anyone sinned inadvertently because they weren't sure of the correct thing to do. So the Law covered as many aspects of life as possible, so that the people could feel secure in knowing that they were doing right.

Over the centuries the Law was refined even further, and by the time of Jesus, a branch of Judaism had arisen which was renowned for its religious fervour and its attention to the details of the Law. These Pharisees were known to be the holiest of people whose whole life revolved around God.

But Jesus turned all those assumptions on their head. He challenged these ultra-religious people, he was rude to them on several occasions, and he failed to keep some of the laws which they believed had been given to them by God, especially the laws governing the Sabbath. So on the surface, the Pharisees were quite justified in their view that Jesus disobeyed God's Law.

It's easy for us with the benefit of hindsight to see the fervour of the Pharisees as hypocritical, as Jesus said. But I wonder how easy it was at the time? Those who break the law cause shock and horror and disgust in their own generation, even though future generations may be amazed at the stupidity or unjust discrimination of the law. Back towards the beginning of the last century, Suffragettes who chained themselves to railings and refused to leave were regarded as a disgrace by both men and women in society. But looking back now, we're amazed that there was a time when such discrimination against women was enshrined in law.

Jesus didn't obey the law which people thought had come from God, he obeyed God's law. He cut through the injustices which were enshrined by law and did what he knew deep down inside himself, was right. And we are called to follow him, to do the same.

Our difficulty is that it's hard to identify what is God's law and what isn't, so we tend to keep the rules as we know them because that's the way it's always been. And if we dig deep enough in the Bible, we can probably find something which appears to indicate that we're right. Those who supported slavery claimed Bible backing for their views, as did opponents of votes for women and more recently, opponents of priesthood for women. And I don't doubt that those who oppose women as bishops will claim support from the Bible for their views.

The Bible gives us general guidance for living, but it was never intended to be a blueprint for every age. It was written according to the accepted customs of the time, which may be very different from our customs. St Paul, for instance, says that long hair on a man is a disgrace, and that women should wear hats in church. Neither of those customs are followed now.

We're thrown back onto our own decisions. If we wish to obey God's commandments, as the writer of today's passage from the first letter of John tells us we must, like Jesus did we have to decide for ourselves exactly what God's commandments are. We can do that by studying the life and the words of Jesus from the gospels, but also by asking the God within.

The Holy Spirit, the God within, is a teacher and a helper and a comforter for us. If we ask God directly he will respond, but to do that we need to regularly find time and space for God, so that God becomes part of the very fabric of our being. Even so, we'll still make mistakes and get it wrong from time to time. But mistakes in God's book are a learning process and an opportunity for us to grow towards him. God always forgives, and always picks us up to start over again when we fall.

And once we begin to obey God's commandments rather than just the rules, then we'll begin to be filled with such love that we really will be children of God.