Yesterday we observed that attempting to live by laws is always futile. Laws are incomplete. There’s a funny story illustrating that principle in Philip Yancey’s memoir, Where the Light Fell.

I love Yancey’s work: his What’s So Amazing About Grace? should be required reading. That said, this memoir is difficult to read since he talks mostly about growing up in an extremely legalistic environment. If you grew up in such an environment and want to see how God can redeem someone out of it, read the memoir.

Philip grew up in Atlanta, and I grew up just up the road in Greenville, South Carolina, also in a legalistic environment. I could identify with many parts of the book although my life was not nearly as tough as his.

Philip does not name the “South Carolina Bible College” he went to so I won’t either. But the school was very legalistic as he describes it, which makes this story about the failure of legalism funny.

Philip’s older brother Marshall was more than a bit rebellious and while attending that same school, he decided to drink alcohol just to violate a rule. He was under age so he couldn’t even buy alcohol so he got two upperclassmen to help, and they procured a bottle of wine. Marshall had one cup. He felt terrible about it. When Marshall confessed, the dean said he had to say who helped him.

This presented a problem. If he identified his co-conspirators, those guys would be thrown out of school just before they graduated. What to do? They discovered the student rule book (66 pages) had no reference to alcohol! (Just like there was no reference to murder, Philip says.) The guys went to the dean and pretended that they didn’t know anything was wrong with drinking alcohol. After all, they said, Jesus changed water to wine. The Episcopalians serve real wine at communion, etc. The school couldn’t expel them for a non-existent rule!

Of course, the next year’s handbook included a prohibition against alcohol. As I wrote yesterday, we’re always adding to the rules, usually while missing the important stuff.

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? (Matthew 15.1 – 3, ESV)

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (Matthew 23.23 – 26, ESV)