FREE TO BE LOVED

The word ‘religion’ was invented by Cicero, the Roman orator, politician and philosopher who lived in the first century BC. He invented the word to describe men who are ‘tied, or bound to a monastic code.’ Cicero died before the Saviour of the world was nailed to a cross as a thank you from the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders for having lived a perfect life. Their problem was that he ignored their rules because his life was guided by love. Blind guides, Jesus called them, for they taught the law, but they missed so much; they should have known that all their righteousness was as filthy rags, they knew nothing of mercy which is better than justice, they had no understanding of grace; they saw only the seat of Moses; the law.

Cicero was right, he saw something in the religious fabric of his day that broke the heart of the Messiah. ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,’ Jesus cried. ‘The city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me.’ They were self-sufficient, they thought they could please God by their squeaky-clean performance, their heartless, loveless lives of empty ritual. In another place Jesus said, ‘You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me so that I can give you this eternal life.’ They chose to be bound, hand and foot, to a monastic code of their own making.

One of the most moving parables Jesus told was of the man who had a hundred sheep, but one of them wandered away and got lost. The legalistic mind says, ‘Well, it’s his choice. He decided to leave the flock. His suffering is God’s punishment. Maybe it will teach him a lesson!’

The controlling pastor says, ‘See? Haven’t I told you? You do things around here the way I say. I’m God’s chosen mouthpiece.’ And pointing to the little lamb caught in briars he adds, ‘That’s what happens when you think you know better than me!’

But what does the Good Shepherd do? It never ceases to amaze me that he left the ninety-nine who thought they didn’t need him, to find the one who was different. The one who didn’t want to conform, the one who wasn’t like the others, the one the others sneered at, ‘What’s your problem? Why can’t you fit in, be like the rest of us? Look at the trouble you’ve made!’

But the Good Shepherd doesn’t think like that. He doesn’t want us to be tied to any code other than his code, and here it is; ‘By this shall men know that you are mine. Love each other!’

That’s the truth that sets us free, free to be who we are, free to stop striving to be like the others, who are struggling to be like somebody else. The truth that sets us free is that he loves us as we are, we’re free because we’ve nothing to prove, we’re free because our sole purpose in life is to receive the Father’s love, and pass it on. Why do so many of us prefer to be tied and bound to a monastic code?