Being a Christian is not just about rule-following

Too often in Church circles (and outside) the thought is promoted that ‘being a Christian’ means merely following a set of rules and social conventions. As a result of this misconception, Christians often become over-righteous and puffed-up and end-up destroying themselves, and others, in the process.

I’ve been re-reading a Herman Hesse novel entitled Narziss and Goldmund about the relationship between a monk and his pupil. One response from the monk to the pupil’s questions concerning the nature of sin and the love of God was as follows: ‘The love of God’ he said, weighing his words, ‘is not always one with a love of virtue. Oh, if it only were so easy! We know the good for it is written. But God is not only in what is written, boy. His commandments are the smallest part of Him. We may keep the commandments to the letter, and yet be very far from God.’

This reminded me of the rich man’s encounter with Jesus recorded in, for example, Mark 10:17-31: ‘And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’”And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

And, finally, there is the rarely preached on verse in the Old Testament book, Ecclesiastes, 7:16, which I have often meditated on and wondered about (taken from the Amplified Version as this seems to me more revealing): ‘Be not [morbidly exacting and externally] righteous overmuch, neither strive to make yourself [pretentiously appear] over-wise – why should you [get puffed up] and destroy yourself [with presumptuous self-sufficiency]?’