Confessions of a Religious Sadomasochist
“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”
—Matthew 23:2-4
Observation:
The sad thing about the Pharisees is that they were convinced they were doing everything right. It was not until after the resurrection that they started to understand how far away from being right they were, and that was just a lucky few like Paul who saw the light and repented. They preached the law but then practiced the law in such a way they were actually the worst violators of it. They tried to teach others how to follow the law their way and made the task of trying to follow the law all that much harder. In essence they were religious sadomasochists who engaged in prohibition instead of a godly-control.
Application:
When we are taught about what it means to be a follower of Christ we are often taught it through the lens of prohibition. This is the idea that if we can only practice abstinence, meaning that we abstain from anything deemed in appropriate, we will be counted as approved and accepted. The problem with this is that it does nothing to deal with the actual problem, a lack of godly-control, and thus walls and boundaries are set in place in order to protect this prohibition and maintain this practice of abstinence. But what do we do when the wall crash and the boundaries are violated? Do we build bigger and stronger walls, while pushing the boundaries further and further away? No! I tell you this is useless and thus will fail eventually as well. It is merely a religious Pax-Romana. The solution is to address the issue that is really the cause of this felt need for prohibition and abstinence. No this is not to say that we engage life in any manner we deem fit, but rather it is to understand that no amount of boundaries or walls will give you godly-control in your life only complete surrender to God can do that. When we surrender to God godly control becomes a byproduct as well the other fruit of the Spirit. But this religious sadomasochism is the reason why people can go their entire lives professing to be followers of Christ and never really see any of the Spiritual fruit that is supposed to accompany that path.
I have to confess I have become a really good practitioner of this religious sadomasochism. But thankfully we serve a God who allows us to mess up and return to Him. I realized that these prohibitions serve a two-way function in my life. First they did help me not to become tempted in certain areas of my life, but at the same time they also served to keep me from realizing areas that I needed to surrender to God. These prohibitions only leave us unable to experience and not in control. The only way that followers of Christ can gain control is to completely surrender the entirety of their being.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for showing me the difference between prohibition and surrender. Lord, I want to surrender the entirety of who I am to You and allow you to shape and mold me in your image. Amen…
Comments