What Happened to the Rules?

It's a question we hear a lot these days. Heck, it's a question we ask a lot these days. And it's understandable, considering how even the once self-evident laws of nature are so often rejected by man. How could we not ask, "What has happened to right and wrong?"

But is that the best question to ask? I don't think it is, because nothing has "happened to the rules," per se. They still exist; people just don't follow them. Nor has anything "happened to right and wrong." Right is still right, and wrong is still wrong. A more helpful question, it seems to me, may be to ask, "What can enable a modern person to do what is right in the eyes of God?"

When John the Baptist, for example, calls us to repent in order to receive Christ (as he does this Sunday), he seems to be answering for us that second question. It is the grace of God in Christ Jesus, he would say, that enables the modern person to do what is right in the eyes of God. Christ Himself said it, "I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it." And He alone makes this possible. "No one comes to the Father except through me."

John used the word "repent," and it seems to have worked well for him 2,000 years ago; lots of people showed up on the shores of the Jordan. But the word "repent" does not work well in modern times. Like the word "commandment" or "obligation," it fails to reach the heart. The message is the same. The rules and laws have not changed. But the language and methods we used in the past fail to move those who have stopped seeking conversion.

So instead of asking "What happened to the rules?” or "What has happened to right and wrong?" perhaps we might ask how to bring the grace of Christ to the hearts of those who are far from God. Right will always be righteous. Truth will always be true. Nature will always be natural. But what will it take to correct an erring person in these modern times? That, I think, is a better question to ask.

In fact, it seems to me that this is why the Holy Spirit inspired Pope John XXIII to convene the Second Vatican Council, then gave us the charismatic John Paul II, then the soft-spoken Pope Benedict, and now Pope Francis who seeks the lost sheep through dialogue. This is the age of discovering new ways of communicating the Gospel, and it’s not easy. But it began in the 1960's. Nor did it end there. On the eve of this new millennium, Pope John Paul II called it the "new evangelization" when writing on the Church in America, and we are still trying to realize this dream of the Holy Spirit.

For what it's worth, I pray that you and I will continue to wrestle with this challenge, and resist the temptation to hide in the corner behind questions about what "happened to the rules." Because the question isn't "Where is God?" The question is rather the first question that God asked us in the Scriptures, namely, "Man, where are you?" +