Lost in Good Behavior

“Do not remove the ancient boundary stones that your ancestors placed.”
Proverbs 22.28

Boundary stones are markers where land is divided. The division of land was very important to an agricultural and nomadic people like the Israelites. Those boundary stones were meant to stay. But beyond the division of land, there is a larger theme in the faith of Israel and boundaries.

For the Hebrews, boundaries are important in all of life. In the law of Moses there was a general prohibition against mixing things together that God intended to be separate – planting two crops in the same field, breeding different kinds of cattle, mixing different kinds of soda together as my sons often do. It’s just not right. You may have wondered why parts of the Old Testament, say Leviticus, seem so concerned with the repetition of trivial details and minutiae. Well, to the faithful follower of the Law, there is no trivial detail. God is very specific about what should be and should not be eaten, worn, seen, recited, ignored, scorned, or venerated. Check out the preparations for eating the Passover, for example.

Or the boundaries for clothing. The boundary or fringe of your cloak was to be trimmed in tassels. These tassels were meant to serve as a reminder of the Lord’s commandments. Jews well into New Testament times continued to wear tassels on the boundaries of their garments.

Some people today have an anti-ritual bias. Their attitude is why sweat the details, we are free to worship God anyway we want. For the ancient Israelite, and for most Jews for most of their history, you sweat the details because God is in the details.

To ignore the details; to go beyond the boundaries God has set, is to court sin. And isn’t this what idolatry and addiction are- to use something in a way or to the extent that was never intended by the Creator?

To break the power of sin and addiction we must restore God-given, time-honored boundaries in our lives.

I say restore, because in the life of an addict, the boundaries have been compromised, cajoled, eroded, or totally wiped out. When you look at an addict, you are looking at a person without respect to boundaries as it concerns their disease. It’s like looking at a spoiled child. Just saying no is really not in the conversation anymore.

Let’s set aside the addict for a moment and just consider our sin. What boundaries have been compromised by you? What boundaries need restored in your life? Boundaries can take different forms: you may need a boundaries for the places you socialize; boundaries for the people you are surrounded by; boundaries for the kinds of entertainment you seek; boundaries for the food and drink that go into your body; boundaries for what comes out of your mouth, boundaries for how you spend your time.

The goal of restoring boundaries is to provide limits to temptation. It’s to help yourself begin to think in right ways about good things again – “restore us to sanity” as the Step says. By setting boundaries we actually make more room in our lives for better things than the sin and addiction. “Better things” can be new friends, a good book, new hobbies, old interests that were once cast aside by the addiction, right-ordered passions.

Anyway and any tools we can find at our disposal to break the cycle of sin are steps in the right direction. Behavioral psychologists call this “coping.” Recovering alcoholics learn to cope by meeting together. They say, “I need a meeting tonight.” One of the reasons that go to meetings often, maybe daily, is the meeting helps them cope with ache within.

Boundaries alone cannot change us. Boundaries cannot do the real work of inner transformation. But they are a start.

“The law (the rules) is not the source of rightness, but it is forever the course of rightness,” writes Dallas Willard.

Now I want to return to the Parable that we looked at several weeks ago, the parable of the two sons. We find that the younger son, the prodigal, has returned to his father’s house and, to everyone’s surprise, has not only been received back, but has been showered with attention by his father. The father has called for a grand celebration to welcome back his lost son. The finest foods are prepared, guests are invited, the music is struck. Dancing ensues. (Apparently this wasn’t a Methodist household>.) There is true joy in the house.

But outside the house, there is one left in the dark about the party – the elder son. “Why is there music and dancing?” he asks a servant. When he is told why he is furious. Now it is his turn to disgrace his father. He refuses to go in to what is perhaps the biggest feast his father has ever and will ever put on. As Timothy Keller writes, “(the elder son) remains outside the door, publicly casting a vote of no-confidence in his father’s actions.”

The father comes outside and begs his son to come in and join the celebration. But the elder son says no. He reminds his father of all of his hard work and moral living. He demands his rights. He is saying to his father, “You owe me!” He doesn’t address his father with any respect – not “esteemed father” but rather “Look, you!”

How does the story end? It ends with the father once again graciously pleading with his son:

“My son, despite how you’ve insulted me publicly, I still want you in the feast. I am not going to disown your brother, but I don’t want to disown you, either. I challenge you to swallow your pride and come into the feast. The choice is yours. Will you, or will you not?”

It is an unexpectedly gracious and dramatic appeal.

Jesus’ listeners are on the edge of their seats. Will the family be reunited? Will the brothers be reconciled? Will the elder brother be softened by his father’s kind words?

As we think about those questions, the story ends!

Why doesn’t Jesus finish this story and tell us what happened? Because the true audience for this story is the Pharisees, the good religious people. They are the elder brothers. Jesus is pleading with them to forsake their self-righteousness and come in to the Father’s house.

Jesus is telling us that you can be just as lost in your good moral behavior as the prodigal wasting his money on prostitutes. Because both are just ways of saying to the father, “I am independent. I have no need of you.”

His father’s happiness has never been the elder brother’s goal. His goal has always been about himself. He hid behind his outward goodness. Inside he was more sinful, that is, further removed from love, than his younger brother ever was. At least the younger brother knew he had sinned.

Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don’t obey God to get God himself – in order to resemble him, love him, know him, and delight in him.

Remember, sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge.

So in a sense, the younger brother is blessed in his recklessness. Standing in the pig slop turned out to be a better place than where his brother stood. Standing in the mud and excrement of the pig sty, whether he knew it yet or not, the younger brother was on his way to salvation. He was on his way to becoming a changed person.

The gospel tells us that everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this, and change.

One last example: remember in the gospel, the woman who waded through the crowd to be healed by Jesus? It was so crowded and noisy. But the woman, in desperation and faith, reached out and touched the tassels, the boundary, of Jesus cloak. The scripture says that Jesus became aware that healing power had gone forth from him. Jesus was aware, because, much more than he cares about boundaries and borders, God cares about people who have gotten lost beyond the borders. Jesus still loves and saves lost people.