Rules and Expectations

Well, it’s that time of year again. The weather is getting cooler, the days are getting shorter, football season is in full swing, and Halloween decorations are on the shelves at our friendly neighborhood retailers.

I’ve never really enjoyed Halloween.

Even when I was a kid, the thought of dressing up, getting candy from strangers, and being scared to death was not a pleasant one. I didn’t mind my parents keeping me home from trick-or-treating, and I certainly didn’t want to go to a haunted house. I may have some repressed memory of some haunted house trauma where a zombie clown pretended to suck out my brains. That would probably also explain my fear of clowns.

Yep, I’m a Hallo-weenie.

I once heard Halloween described as the one day of the year we’re expected to pretend to be someone we’re not. Costumes allow us to play out our fantasies, to face our fears, and hide the things we don’t really like about ourselves.

Of course, Halloween has a long and legendary history. As a child, I learned all about the one day of the year the veil between the living and the dead is supposed by pagans to be the thinnest. I learned about All Saints Day and Jack, who lost his head and wanders purgatory with a lantern made out of a pumpkin looking for it.

At least, I think that’s how it goes.

But in our consumer culture, regardless of its roots, Halloween is considered just a fun night to dress up, party, and get a bunch of candy. As much as I don’t really like Halloween, I really enjoy candy and dressing up.

When I was a kid, the thing I dressed myself in most often was my perception of what everyone around me expected. Give me a list of rules and expectations, and I could be pretty much whatever you wanted me to be. I could even change, like a chameleon, depending on my surroundings and people I was with. It became a bit awkward, though, when I was hanging out with people from different circles at the same time.

That’s the problem with focusing on the rules.

Anyone can fit themselves into a box we create for them. Anyone can pretend to be something they’re not. At least for a little while. You may be a member at BBC, or even just hanging around checking us out, and you may be completely different from the person you present to us at church. It has certainly happened before.

But following the rules doesn’t have anything to do with true life change.

Galatians 3:21: Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been of the law.

I’m not talking about a passive “let life happen” approach to our Christian life. As we are faced with Scripture and are convicted about what God wants for us, we act and actively pursue the things that He desires for our lives.

James 1:23-24: For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

We can force people to follow the rules or leave, and that would be fairly easy to do. The much harder thing, and the thing I believe we're called to do, is to love and accept people no matter what and show them by our actions and love who Christ is and what God's character is like. People can follow rules without any true change whatsoever. That was the problem with the Pharisees. People cannot, however, consistently behave contrary to what they truly believe. So we want to help people to know, understand, believe, and apply principles of Scripture, not force themselves into a mold that we create for them.

When people see the way you live your life, do they see Christ's love, or do they see a list of rules and expectations?

Galatians 3:26-27: For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.