Outside the Law?

Jonah 2:1-9

5 The waters closed in over me;

the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped around my head

6 at the roots of the mountains.

……

8 Those who worship vain idols

forsake their true loyalty.

 

“True loyalty.” Now, that is interesting. The author of Jonah seems to be saying that loyalty can be found within us in some sort of indwelling and fundamental way. I went and looked up “Loyalty” and it seems to have something to do with faith, in the sense of “being faithful” to something or someone. It also seems that the author is saying that this ‘true loyalty’ isn’t damaged or diminished in any way by being ignored or abandoned, but still remains in full force as part of our true and complete nature. It’s because of this indelible and indestructible quality of faithfulness, which makes it so that it will always endure. Even if sometimes weeds are wrapped around our heads, loyalty remains an essential and abiding part of our very nature, even when we are heedless of it.

Acts 2:14,22-32

23 this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.

I was struck by the phrase “those outside the law.” The author is holding his audience’s toes to the fire by telling them that they can’t evade responsibility for Jesus’s execution. He’s saying, “I see what you did there!” Even if they thought that they could avoid the consequences by manipulating the Roman authorities, Peter is telling them essentially that God was watching the whole time, and wasn’t fooled in the least. He’s reminding them that they can’t have their cake and eat it too, and that by evading the law and getting someone else to do their dirty work, they have plainly showed that they consider their precious law, the very law that they wanted Jesus killed for violating, is a law that they themselves set aside at their convenience. Peter is calling them hypocrites in exactly the same way that Jesus did, but he is slamming it home to them that they would never have felt it necessary to keep their own hands clean, unless they had serious doubts that killing Jesus was the lawful and right thing to do. They would have just taken care of their own business in their own way, trying and condemning Jesus ‘in-house’ so to speak. Even though they didn’t have the legal right to carry out an execution on their own account under the Roman rule, they did stone people to death for blasphemy on a fairly regular basis, and the Romans didn’t interfere. Also Pilate made it very clear that Roman law had nothing to do with the crime of “blasphemy” and that he put no stock in the allegation that Jesus was a seditionist because he supposedly claimed to be “King of the Jews.”

Anyway, Peter ruthlessly airs their dirty laundry, and tells them that all their justifications have been rendered useless by Jesus’s resurrection, and that they’d better stop trying to fool themselves and admit that they chose to put politics before God, and that they perverted the law for their own benefit. Peter says in effect,  “Look where it got you.”  I particularly like the implication that, even though they’ve done this horrible thing, they can make it right even now by admitting the truth and believing.

 

John 14:1-14

10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

Jesus doesn’t talk on his own behalf, but lets the indwelling God be the motive power. He sounds a little annoyed at the disciples for not being able to grasp his description of divine physics in the intertwining of divine and human nature. There is an interesting nuance here, in which he seems to be asking them to believe because of their own understanding. That seems to imply that the idea that Jesus is “of one being with the Father” is something that anyone can recognize because it is innate; it’s part of our nature, and the mystery of the Incarnation means that our nature is at once both divine and human. He goes on to say, essentially, that if they can’t bring themselves to trust this innate understanding, then they can at least believe on account of the things that Jesus has done. This notion has a strong gnostic flavor. I am not talking about the so-called heresy of Gnosticism, which had peculiar philosophical accretions, but of the original Greek idea of “gnosis,” which is that knowledge or understanding can be gained through direct participation in the Divine.

Jesus seems to be making a distinction between two types of belief, one arising from inner understanding, and the other a sort of second-hand belief derived from logical deductions. He recommends the first, but concedes that the second is also legitimate, even if only because it’s better than nothing.

This helps me a great deal, because I struggle with my personal response to the institutions of faith that are founded on standardized creeds that people generally accept without thinking. Official dogma inevitably produces established organizations governed by rules and policies. Such institutions often unintentionally starve out joy, enthusiasm, awe, generosity, and compassion in favor of bureaucratic procedures which are more concerned with politics than people; more with forms than faith; more with guidelines than God.

But, if Jesus said it was okay, well then, who am I to argue? I will just keep on doing my best to follow his first recommendation: to seek within for the understanding of how to touch the untouchable, see the unseen, know the unknowable, and believe the unbelievable.