You are running for the bus. The bus stop is across the road, next to the traffic lights. The road is empty of traffic. The bus appears. You run a little faster. You have a good chance of catching it. There is just one problem. You have to cross the road, and the pedestrian crossing light is red. What do you do?
There are no right answers, and no prizes. Some of us might reason that the law is the law, and wait while the bus draws in, stops and sets off again without them. Some of us might reason that the point of traffic lights is to ensure a regular flow of traffic, and since there is no traffic, we can ignore them. Or that one of the tasks of the traffic lights is to allow pedestrians to cross safely, and since there is nothing coming, it is safe to cross whether the lights are red or green.
To take this parable (for parable it is) a stage further, imagine that you choose to follow your impulse ("common sense", you might call it) rather than obey the law. You are about to dash across the road and catch your bus. But then you see a couple of eight-year-old schoolchildren approaching, wearing their luminous sashes and clearly very vulnerable to traffic danger. Do you still cross the road in defiance of the red light?
St Paul would have said no. And so would our German neighbours, who remind pedestrians at traffic lights Beispiel geben - rot stehen, grün gehen. St Paul would have said no for two reasons. Firstly, the law - and here I mean the Old Testament law - had a purpose. For those who were not mature enough to make their own decisions, it provided simple and easy answers. It was, as he says in Galatians 3:24, our tutor until Christ came. You cannot say to young children that they must form their own judgement as to how safe it is to cross a busy road. You tell them to cross at the zebra crossing, and if the light is red, then they must wait.
And secondly, no matter what we feel entitled to do, we should always respect those "weaker siblings" who may be looking to us for an example. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul says to the church in Corinth, "Yes indeed, you may eat food sacrificed to heathen idols. But if there are people present who might misunderstand, then don't do it."
This "keeping up appearances" could be thought hypocritical. But it is not. Even Jesus "kept up appearances" (look at John 7:8-10!) The object is not to deceive others, but to help them.
A lot of things that we do involve using our own judgement - sometimes even in defiance of "the rules". Sometimes we use our judgement and get things wrong - God sees this, and knows, and is always ready to forgive. Sometimes we think we've got it right and boast about it, either to ourselves or to others. Or, even worse, say that other people have got it wrong.
Jesus' command, "Do not judge, lest you be judged yourself" (Luke 6:37) not only applies to what we think of others. It also applies to what we think of ourselves. Luke follows his account of Jesus' saying with his question. "Can the blind lead the blind?" It is so easy to forget that we too may be blind - blind to the eight-year-olds who look to us for an example, to the people who see only the negative side of our behaviour, to people who may too easily misinterpret what they see us doing.
The Gospel has freed us from the Law, so that there is basically only the law of love. Yet we have many neighbours, and to love them all often means sticking to the Law, crossing only when the light is green (unless nobody is looking!) Only if we are "a light for others" will we convince the world that we are part of God's creation redeemed in Christ.
HD