true freedom
Mullah Nasruddin found a diamond by the roadside but, according to the Law, finders can only become keepers if they first announced their find in the center of the marketplace on three separate occasions.
Now Nasruddin was too religious-minded to disregard the Law and too greedy to run the risk of parting with his find. So on three consecutive nights when he was sure that everyone was fast asleep, he went to the center of the marketplace and there announced in a soft voice, “I have found a diamond on the road that leads to the town. Anyone knowing who the owner is should contact me at once.”
On the third night, however, a man happened to be standing at his window and heard Nasruddin mumble something. When he attempted to find out what it was, Nasruddin replied, “I am in no way obliged to tell you. But this much I should say: Being a religious man, I went out there at night to pronounce certain words in fulfillment of the Law.”
End of the story. Moral lesson: To be properly wicked, you do not have to break the Law. Just observe it to the letter.
My dear future canon lawyers, liturgists and parish priests: I hope this story hits home and I hope this story would find its way in your hearts and in your minds, to remain forever etched in them lest it be forgotten.
I am telling you this story because I would like to do something very important with you starting this year. We are going to do it together. For me it is something very important – something I would like to prove, something I would like to see in reality. For four years now I have been teaching the New Testament and every time we come to the letters of Paul I have been always intrigued and disturbed by his pronouncements especially in his letter to the Galatians regarding what he calls freedom from the law. We gentiles have benefited greatly from this strong stand of Paul wherein gentile believers were not to be required to become Jews first, to follow Jewish laws, in order that they can become Christians. Without Paul we would have been ritually circumcised even now and it would have made us sinners just by having pork and dinuguan for supper. Though this is something we don’t bother ourselves with anymore, or something we simply overlook as we enjoy eating pork barbecue during recess, we cannot simply shelve the underlying principle of Paul – freedom from the law
Even while urging Christians to stand fast in this manifold liberty conferred by Christ, Paul diverges widely from modern libertarian assumptions. The freedom he cherishes is far from self-will asserting itself against all restraint; it is exercised within loyalties and obligations, freely accepted, that limit, enrich and under gird it. Paul mentions, again successively:
-loyalty to the true gospel – no one is free to distort the truth
-loyalty to the divine commission – the Christian is not free to desert his
vocation
-loyalty to moral integrity – inconsistency is not freedom
-loyalty to self-discipline – license is not liberty either
-loyalty to social responsibility and love – Christians can never be free of each other
-loyalty to Christ whose law is supreme.
Such limitations are not burdensome to hearts in love with Christ; they remain binding, nevertheless, adding to the security and values of the freedom with which Christ has made us free.
Now Nasruddin was too religious-minded to disregard the Law and too greedy to run the risk of parting with his find. So on three consecutive nights when he was sure that everyone was fast asleep, he went to the center of the marketplace and there announced in a soft voice, “I have found a diamond on the road that leads to the town. Anyone knowing who the owner is should contact me at once.”
On the third night, however, a man happened to be standing at his window and heard Nasruddin mumble something. When he attempted to find out what it was, Nasruddin replied, “I am in no way obliged to tell you. But this much I should say: Being a religious man, I went out there at night to pronounce certain words in fulfillment of the Law.”
End of the story. Moral lesson: To be properly wicked, you do not have to break the Law. Just observe it to the letter.
My dear future canon lawyers, liturgists and parish priests: I hope this story hits home and I hope this story would find its way in your hearts and in your minds, to remain forever etched in them lest it be forgotten.
I am telling you this story because I would like to do something very important with you starting this year. We are going to do it together. For me it is something very important – something I would like to prove, something I would like to see in reality. For four years now I have been teaching the New Testament and every time we come to the letters of Paul I have been always intrigued and disturbed by his pronouncements especially in his letter to the Galatians regarding what he calls freedom from the law. We gentiles have benefited greatly from this strong stand of Paul wherein gentile believers were not to be required to become Jews first, to follow Jewish laws, in order that they can become Christians. Without Paul we would have been ritually circumcised even now and it would have made us sinners just by having pork and dinuguan for supper. Though this is something we don’t bother ourselves with anymore, or something we simply overlook as we enjoy eating pork barbecue during recess, we cannot simply shelve the underlying principle of Paul – freedom from the law
Even while urging Christians to stand fast in this manifold liberty conferred by Christ, Paul diverges widely from modern libertarian assumptions. The freedom he cherishes is far from self-will asserting itself against all restraint; it is exercised within loyalties and obligations, freely accepted, that limit, enrich and under gird it. Paul mentions, again successively:
-loyalty to the true gospel – no one is free to distort the truth
-loyalty to the divine commission – the Christian is not free to desert his
vocation
-loyalty to moral integrity – inconsistency is not freedom
-loyalty to self-discipline – license is not liberty either
-loyalty to social responsibility and love – Christians can never be free of each other
-loyalty to Christ whose law is supreme.
Such limitations are not burdensome to hearts in love with Christ; they remain binding, nevertheless, adding to the security and values of the freedom with which Christ has made us free.
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