In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, a prisoner named Brooks Hadlin is granted freedom by the parole board of Shawshank Prison. Later that day Brooks threatens to slit the throat of a fellow inmate, tearfully explaining, “It’s the only way they’ll let me stay.” His friends are baffled by this, and simply can’t imagine why anyone would rather remain in prison when given the opportunity to live in freedom. Finally, Red (an inmate played by Morgan Freeman) says this:
“The man’s been in here fifty years. Fifty years! This is all he knows. . He’s institutionalized. I’m telling you, these walls are funny. First you hate ’em. Then you get used to ’em. After a while you get to where you depend on ’em. That’s institutionalized.”
Sure enough, a few weeks after Brooks is released into the freedom of the outside world, he writes a startling letter to his former inmate friends:
“I have trouble sleeping at night… I wake up scared… Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they’d send me home. I don’t like it here. I’m tired of being afraid all the time. I’ve decided not to stay.”
Brooks takes his own life.
He couldn’t cope with freedom.
It was too frightening.
The story of the Exodus depicts the same phenomenon. When the Israelites are set free from 400 years of oppressive slavery in Egypt, they gladly leave for a better country while rejoicing that their days of bondage are over. It seems like that’s when the credits should have rolled. It didn’t take long, however, before they started complaining about the uncertainty their newly found freedom involved. They had to live each day by faith, so they began longing to return to Egypt, where they were controlled, and everything was decided for them. Eventually, Moses proclaims the Law, also known as The 10 Commandments. Ah, finely, the climax of the story, where everything gets straightened out.
Nope. In fact, the text tells us that at that point, the people began to “indulge in pagan revelry.”
Why?
Because law enslaves.
The apostle Paul encountered this problem in his ministry in Galatia, as seen in these verses from his epistle to them:
“Some so-called Christians there… sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us. . . But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. . . Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. . . The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. . . So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” (NLT)
The law is good. I believe that. It reveals our sinfulness and gives us insight into the character of God. I am grateful for it. But it is not what Jesus preached toward the prostitutes, drunkards, gluttons, and thieves of his day. Jesus did say “Do not think I have come to abolish the law.” But keep in mind that he would not have had to say that unless it appeared to people that He was trying to do so.
I wonder sometimes, if we have become “institutionalized” by the law-driven nature of many churches.
A young guy in our community once reprimanded me rather strongly because of three things: I quoted author Rob Bell in a positive light in a sermon, I attended a local event that featured Tony Campolo as the keynote speaker, and I mentioned that I once read a book by Brian McLaren. When I asked why he felt such a strong need to confront me about this, he looked me in the eye and said: “Those men are not Christians.”
Somewhat stunned by his statement, I asked him how he could be so confident about judging the spiritual destinies of these men whom he didn’t know and whose works he admittedly had never read. He responded, “Well, maybe saying they aren’t Christians isn’t the best way to say it. However, they are definitely false teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and workers of iniquity.”
I care very deeply for the amazing flock God has given me. I strongly desire to point them to Jesus and not to lead them astray. So as I was still trying to figure out in my own mind what would lead this young man to feel that I was indeed leading my church astray, he said these words: “The most important thing to be preached is the Law.”
And that’s when the scene from Shawshank reeled in my mind.
I grieve for this young man. I’ve been where he is now. His addiction to the letter of the law has enslaved him to the desire to always be right. And as a consequence he is unable to extend grace to other believers who differ with him. Believe me, I struggle with this too. Its a fierce idol in many pastor’s hearts. But telling people to be better and telling them what books they should stay away from and labeling theologically flawed Christians as workers of iniquity is no way for a pastor to live. Tim Keller notes that this was the condition of the “scoffer” in the book of Proverbs.
But the Gospel of free grace leads to compassion and humility toward sinners everywhere, not arrogance and condemnation of those sinners out there.
The puzzling thing is, I am by no means a staunch advocate of Bell, Campolo, or McLaren. I recognize that they have said things I not only disagree with, but which make me uncomfortable. By the same token, I also recognize that I often say things that make me uncomfortable, and are just plan wrong. I am simply in no position to denounce these men as false teachers or workers of iniquity. In fact, I am grateful for their writings, for they challenge me to think rather than tell me what to think (the latter of which actually keeps us from having to think).
Flannery O’Connor once said that some people avoid Jesus by avoiding sin. It’s true.
The law provides a tremendous amount of protection. It protects us from having to think. It protects us from having to make decisions that might turn out to be unwise. Steve Brown says that the best day of his life was the day he realized that his job as a pastor was not to tell people how to live, or to diligently strive to keep people from sinning. He writes this:
So I became a teacher of “radical” grace. After I realized what I was supposed to do and after I had gotten over the initial shock, I thought, Cool! I’m supposed to tell God’s people that he isn’t mad at them and that his love isn’t measured by how much they can earn it. I thought, Is this a great job, or what? People will love me!
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
I started getting the criticism. They said that I was a hawker of “cheap grace” (if it weren’t cheap, I couldn’t afford it); that I didn’t care about holiness and sanctification (I care deeply); and that I was encouraging sin (sin doesn’t need encouragement) and would have to answer to a holy God. They said that I had compromised; that I had failed in presenting the “whole counsel of God”; and that I had betrayed God, country, motherhood and the flag. I almost stopped and would have if God had not told me to do it. He was a lot bigger, scarier and far more intimidating than the critics. I figured that I could choose to offend him or them. That’s a no-brainer.
But the criticism still bothered me. Why did people get so angry at the message that God wasn’t angry at them? What was so offensive about the doctrine of grace to people who said they believed it? Why did people become so unloving when I told them that God loved them?”
He goes on to explain that grace is simply too offensive to some people. Law provides a much more controlled environment for protecting people from the sinful world out there. The tragedy is, it can never protect them from the most destructive sin in the universe: their own hearts.
A friend once told this story from her own life:
“As a parent of young children, I certainly understand the desire to protect our children from danger and from evil influences. But the thing I am completely unable to shelter them from is the sin in their own hearts, as well as the evil example set for them by their parents and siblings. I witnessed my own 3 month old daughter as she let out numerous screams in order to have her older sister be scolded. She smiled broadly and repeatedly when her sister was reprimanded. Again, she was 3 months old! She had barely been out of our home and certainly had not been taught this behavior; it was from her own dark heart. It’s tempting to blame our children’s sin (and our own) on what some call “an increasingly sinful society” (but remember, earth’s 2nd generation included a murderer, and the 10th generation was so wicked that God destroyed all but one family), but if we’re honest, we sin because we ourselves are sinners. How do we protect our eyes, ears and minds from ourselves?”
The answer is simply this: Only by the freedom of grace, available to all who embrace the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Martin Luther, whose view of God’s free grace to sinners was labeled scandalous, said these words:
“There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of freedom. . . These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins… use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and stubborn so that they may learn that they are impious, that their law and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up.”
Brennan Manning sums it up accurately: “The Gospel of grace continues to scandalize.”
Preach this, and you will be in danger of being labeled imbalanced, afraid to “take a stand,” and perhaps on a slippery slope towards a post-modern view of salvation, or even universalism.
But fail to preach it, and you will be in danger of leading people into the slavish prison of law, and thus not protecting them from their own heart.
Common Grace 