People make rules about the craziest things.  I mean who’d have thought there could be a dispute over the ringing of church bells?  However, in May 2001 the bell ringers of St Martin’s-in-the-Bullring Church in Birmingham England proposed a special 3 1/2-hour bellringing. This was in honor of their rector being made an honorary canon of Birmingham Cathedral.

        You might think that that was a wonderful gesture – “the bells are ringing for me and my rector.”  However, the Central Council of Church Bellringers objected. They refused to authorize the ringing of “Five Spliced Surprise 16”.  This wasn’t because the local population might object.  It was because the mathematical formulae used to compose the piece are deemed illegal according to the rules of the Central Council of Church Bellringers. The Council has agreed to send the new method to a committee for examination, but the revolutionary bell ringers of St. Martin’s are going ahead anyway. They claim the Council’s rules were invented in a time before computer technology allowed more innovative bell ringing methods.

       There’s always someone who wants to stop the music.  That’s true even in the church.  One of the greatest problems facing the church today and throughout its history is legalism.  Legalism is substituting rules and formulas for relationships in the Christian life. 

       As we will see next Sunday, the Apostle Paul powerfully confronts legalism in Colossians 2.  But this morning I want to take a look at the problem of legalism in a general way from Matthew 23 and Galatians.  We are going to go into detail because legalism shows up today.  It didn’t end in the first century.

       Tony Compolo writes: “Several months ago I was conversing with a man I greatly admire. He said he was grieved on behalf of a missionary family he and his wife had known for years. The legalism they had encountered again and again on the mission field from fellow missionaries was so petty, so unbelievably small-minded, they had returned to the States and no longer planned to remain career missionaries.

       “He said it was over a jar of peanut butter. I thought he was joking, to which he responded. “No, it’s no joke at all.”  I could hardly believe the story.

       “The place they were sent to serve the Lord did not have access to peanut butter. This particular family happened to enjoy peanut butter a great deal. Rather creatively, they made arrangements with some of their friends in the States to send them peanut butter every now and then so they could enjoy it with their meals.

       “The problem is they didn’t know until they started receiving the supply of peanut butter that the other missionaries considered it a mark of spirituality that you not have peanut butter with your meals. I suppose the line went something like this: “We believe since we can’t get peanut butter here, we should give it up for the cause of Christ,” or some such nonsense. A basis of spirituality was “bearing the cross” of living without peanut butter.

        “The young family didn’t buy into that line of thinking. Their family kept getting regular shipments of peanut butter. They didn’t flaunt it, they just enjoyed it in the privacy of their own home. Pressure began to intensify.

       “You would expect adult missionaries to be big enough to let others eat what they pleased, right? Wrong. The legalism was so petty, the pressure got so intense and the exclusive treatment became so unfair, it finished them off spiritually.

       “They finally had enough. Unable to continue against the mounting pressure, they packed it in and were soon homeward bound, disillusioned and probably a bit cynical.

       “What we have here,” Compolo comments, “is a classic modern-day example of a group of squint-eyed rule makers spying out and attacking another’s liberty. Not even missionaries are exempt.

       What are some other examples from modern life?  Among the most common are drinking, movies, music, dress, and the use of leisure time.  The Christian legalists insists that their way is the only way and every “real Christian” will do it the way they do it.

       Legalism is not just annoying.  It’s poison.  It is divisive. It produces sterile, joyless faith.  If you know these people, you know what I mean.

        Legalism is dangerous because it turns Christian faith into a head-trip rather than a transforming experience with Jesus.  The result isn’t true transformation but pseudo-transformation.  We’ll talk about what that looks like later.

        Legalism is dangerous because it gets in the way of loving other people.  That was true of the Pharisees of Jesus day who condemned Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath.  It’s still true today.

       Charles Swindoll writes:  “I heard about a fellow who attended a legalistic college where students were to live according to very strict rules. They weren’t supposed to do any work on Sundays. None! Guess what? He spied on his wife and caught her hanging out a few articles of clothing she washed on Sunday afternoon. The guy turned in his wife to the authorities!”  Swindoll comments, “I’ll bet she was fun to live with the next day or two.”

      Maybe so.  But he was hard to live with on a permanent basis.

      Third, legalism perverts the gospel.  It takes the gospel of the cross and trades it for what Paul condemns as works-righteousness

       Fourth, legalism leads to pride if we measure up to our own high standard.  Our pride leads us to lay spiritual guilt-trips on others.

       And fifth, legalism leads to game playing if we fail to live up to the standard we have set for ourselves.  We always find ways to skate by rules that get in our way.

       Orthodox Jews in the Fairfax District in Los Angeles, for example, are proud of their strict adherence to the law. They are restricted by their reading of the law as to how far they can travel on the Sabbath.  The result is that there is a thin wire that runs from utility pole to utility pole around the entire perimeter of the District.  That wire has no function.  It simply makes the entire multi-block district into a single house so that Orthodox residents are free to travel within the Fairfax District without worrying about the law.

       You do this long enough and you start to think that God doesn’t care that you play games with His law.  Or you might start to think that God actually enjoys the game.  Both beliefs are dangerous.

       Jesus condemned legalism at every opportunity.  Look at Matthew 23.  In fact, it was the champions of legalism in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees, who most wanted Jesus dead.  Look at how he talked to them.  Paul condemns legalism in every one of his letters.  So if the issue is so clear, why does legalism still exist in the church?

       First and foremost, legalism exists because some believers don’t understand what God has actually done for us in Jesus.  Every Christian legalist would claim that they are just standing up for Christian truth butt they are not.  We’ll look at this in detail in Colossians 2:16-23. 

        Second, legalism exists because some believers honestly believe that anything fun is automatically wrong.  They sense that the goal of the Christian faith is unhappiness rather than joy.

        According to the old story, the minister of a Scottish congregation had to travel some distance from his home to the church, where he was to conduct worship. It was winter, the roads were impassable, and the river that flowed past both his home and the church was completely frozen over. The minister decided to skate to the church. Church members were surprised to see their preacher arrive on skates.

       The incident gave rise to debate as to whether the minister should have skated on the Sabbath. The elders met and discussed the matter at great length. The argument raged back and forth on the question of whether the practicality of getting to church or the keeping of the Sabbath should be the prime consideration. At last came the vital question to the minister, "Did you enjoy skating up the river?” If the experience brought him pleasure, it was wrong; if it did not, it was permissible.

       These elders saw God as a cosmic killjoy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  When God was here on earth He went to parties – and got into trouble for going.  He was called a drinker, a glutton, and a friend to sinners.  Of course, that’s good news to me because I’m a sinner.

       Third, legalists have a fear of faith.  Rules are easier.  Rules are easier than faith because you know when you’ve done enough.  How do you know if you’ve ever done enough in a relationship?

       Fourth, legalism exists because some Christians don’t trust other Christians.  “I’m not sure you know how to act so I’m going to put a leash on you.  I’m going to box you in.” As Christians, we need to trust each other – even when other Christians are able to do more than we can. 

       This was brought out in a wonderful way by a Swiss pastor and poet named Walter Hollenweger.  Hollenweger has written a number of "animal” prayers,  One of these is a prayer that I find instructive when I deal with believers who are able to go places where I cannot.. Hollenweger calls it "The Prayer of the Ostrich.”  Here is part.

      “O God, sometimes I feel like an ostrich,

        A bird with wings-yet he can only run,

        A bird with wings-yet he has only the memory of flying.

        And so I run over the hot sand and spread my wings, yet only a poor hop is the result.

        So I am a bird and I cannot fly

       And yet I see other birds taking to the sky.

       So I bury my head in the sand, in the Bible, in the tradition, in scholarship.

       Today I pray just for one thing, one little thing.

       O God, help me at least not to hinder the others from flying.

       Help me not to think that because we cannot fly, other birds shouldn't either.

       Help me to rejoice in the sight of those who fly higher than I can ever dream.”

       That’s a great prayer.  It’s a very loving prayer.  But the legalist cannot bear to have others go where they can’t or don’t dare.  That’s why I appreciate  Hollenweger’s  poem.  It is a plea to be set free from  legalism in his own life.  We need to learn to celebrate the gifts God has given others and the ways others are created to express spirituality. I must not disqualify something that blesses another person just because it does nothing for me.

       Finally, legalism exists because some people don’t understand what God is doing in the church.  Paul says in Ephesians 3:10  that God designed His church to reveal his “many colored wisdom.”  This means that God has a great range of things that He enjoys and that He blesses.  We may enjoy guitars, mandolins and drums. Others prefer Bach to rock and organs to accordions.  The point is that musical instruments aren’t spiritual.  What is spiritual, what Jesus calls us to, is mutual acceptance and forbearance in love. 

       There is a difference between real transformation and pseudo-transformation.  To achieve pseudo-transformation is to become what Mark Twain once called "a good man in the worst sense of the word.” 

         How do I know if I'm settling for pseudo-transformation, instead of the real thing? In Matthew 23, Jesus gives list of warning signs. He gives the list in giant capital letters.

       First, am I focusing on externals?  Jesus said, "Woe to you…for you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence.”  A focus on externals involves a pre-occupation with appearing to be spiritual rather than true spirituality.

       John Ortberg writes: “I remember hearing an acquaintance say once that churches should not use contemporary music or drama because to do so would make them look worldly: ‘If you use the same kind of music people hear in the world, and you use drama, which they're used to in the world, how can you be any different?’  He said ‘Everybody knows that in the church we're supposed to be different by being more loving and more gentle, and everybody knows that we're not. So don't we have to do something to show we're different?’  In other words,” Ortberg comments, “if we can't be holy, shouldn't we at least be weird?

      Second, Am I blind to my own faults?  Jesus said, "You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”

       Am I sometimes I am more bothered by the sin around me than the sin within me? Do I find myself getting too much pleasure out of righteous indignation? Do I not really live in the light of my own need for the cross? The person who settles for pseudo-transformation chooses to remain unaware.  To become aware would require real change. 

       Third, am I becoming showy and puffed-up?  Jesus said, "They love to have the places of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues.”  Do I make a show of my faith?  Do I look for the praise of people because of my religiosity?  

       Now I want to take a risk and share with you a law that my friends call “Wilkinson’s Theorem.”  I have developed this over years of observation. It is my growing belief that the more pastors wear, in the way of clerical shirts, huge crosses, and elaborate robes, the less they actually believe.  They make up in show what they lack in substance.  I’m sure there are some exceptions to this – but not a lot.

       Fourth, am I growing tired of pursuing spiritual growth?  That’s a result of pseudo -transformation.  Jesus said, "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others.”  But Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.  It fits who you are.”  Real transformation should make us more joyful. But the pursuit of pseudo-righteousness wears people out.  It makes them smaller and smaller. 

       An Oregonian named Steven Mosley described the shriveling impact of pseudo-transformation in a  book named A Tale of Three Virtues.  He speaks of how we trivialize goodness, becoming "a peculiar people” set at odd angles to the world rather than being an attractive light illuminating it.  As a result, he writes, “our morality calls out rather feebly. It whines from the corner of a sanctuary; it awkwardly interrupts pleasures; it mumbles excuses at parties; it shuffles along out of step and slightly behind the times... It's often regarded by our secular contemporaries as a narrow, even trivial, pursuit…tragically,” Mosely concludes, “conventional religious goodness manages to be both intimidating and unchallenging at the same time.”

       "Intimidating and unchallenging at the same time” – that’s the hallmark of pseudo-transformation.  It is intimidating because it makes tons of rules for me to keep.  It is unchallenging because I may devote my life to observing all those rules and yet never open my heart to love or joy.

       This was exactly what Jesus was getting at when he made the statement: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. On the surface, this saying looks very hard. I mean, as far as the rules went, the Scribes and Pharisees were the spiritual over-achievers of Jesus' day.  And to be told its necessary to exceed their efforts sounds impossible.

       But when Jesus says that His followers' righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, he is actually setting the bar exceedingly low.

Because righteous -- as God views righteousness -- is precisely what the Scribes and Pharisees were not. They were rigid, judgmental, strict, and exclusive.  But, as John Ortberg points out, when it came to truly righteous living, which is characterized foremost by love, they were pre-school drop-outs under the sad illusion that they were working on their doctorates.”

       This whole matter of Christian freedom is hard to communicate.  It’s like walking a narrow plank over a canyon.  You don’t want to fall off on either side.

       On the one side is the trap of what is called anti-nomianism – the belief that you can do anything you want as a Christian.  That is clearly not true, as we will see when we get to Colossians 3.  On the other side is the trap of legalism that we’ve talked about today – the belief that your Christian life is defined by the rules you keep and the rules you can impose on others.

       The truth is in the middle.  Martin Luther said that the Christian is at the same time free from the law and totally subject to the law of love.   Paul says that we are not to allow ourselves to be enslaved by the opinions of others but that we are not to use our freedom in such a way as to cause our brothers and sisters in Christ to stumble.  “You were called to freedom,” Paul tells us in Galatians 3, “but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh but through love serve one another.”

      It’s a hard balance.  The only sure way to walk the narrow plank and not fall of either side is to put your hand in Jesus’ hand, walk with Him, and live in His love.