Subject: Giving Content to Principle
Date: For the Week of June 14, 1999
Montana was the only state in the country with no specified daytime speed limit. The Supreme Court ruled last year that the state's "reasonable and proper" rule was too vague. Such a criterion, the court said, provided no objective standard for compliance with the law.
It reminds me of a story Marshall Shelley, editor of Leadership magazine, tells about an experience while studying Hebrew at the University of Denver. His teacher, an Orthodox rabbi, introduced himself as "what you all would call a Pharisee, one who takes God's Law seriously." He proceeded to lecture on various Sabbath, holy day, and dietary laws and how Orthodox Jews such as himself kept them.
"You Christians claim to obey God," he continued. "I've just described the laws of God that I live by. Tell me, you Christians, what laws of God do you obey?"
After an awkward silence, Shelley finally said. "Well, I guess I'd answer the way Jesus did when asked to summarize the law. He said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And to love your neighbor as yourself."
The rabbi smiled, stroked his beard, and proceeded to tell a story. "Have you ever heard the story of the centipede with sore feet? He had 100 feet, and they were all sore. He couldn't walk, so he went to the wisest creature he knew -- the owl -- to ask what he should do. The owl heard his plight and then intoned his solution: ‘Learn to fly, give your feet a rest, and you'll be fine.'
"‘Oh, that's a wonderful idea!' replied the centipede. ‘How do I begin?' The owl retorted, ‘I gave you the principle. The specifics you'll have to work out for yourself.'
"That's what you Christians do," said the rabbi. "You talk about loving God, but how? That's a nice principle, but it's not very practical. It lacks specifics. We Jews like things a little more well-defined."
Ouch! The rabbi's rebuke is on-target for a generation that too easily puts love and law in conflict and argues that love may sometimes demand that one break the rules of so absolute a code as the Ten Commandments.
The ruling about Montana's highways reminds us why God has posted specific markers on the highway of life about murder and adultery, stealing and lying. Love needs law for guidance; law needs love as motivation. The two are not enemies, but allies. Thus Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15).
If your moral life seems confused, maybe you need to reread the
