My wife and I moved into an HOA community a month ago. Such lovely people. Very hospitable. A couple of neighbors took us to church. Some brought cookies and brownies. A loving welcome. 

Then it happened. I got a call from the HOA management company. It seems that in less than a month, we committed 2 violations. Already, we are HOA criminals. 

Violation #1 was reported by a board member to the management company. The man (there are only men on the board) saw a storm door being hung on the front door. He called the authorities..

Violation #2 was again reported by a board member to management. We were trying to train our dog to keep in a boundary marked by little white flags. It’s a wireless system. The flags were momentary visual aids for the dog to recognize her border around the house. It didn’t work, so within a day we had taken up the temporary flags. Word was sent to management that we had installed an underground dog fence.

In neither instance did the board member approach us directly to address the circumstances. 

LAW – Rules and regulations to govern and monitor behavior to meet acceptable standards. Pages and pages of laws. I was asked by management if I had read all of their by-laws. I told them I had scanned the 40 or so pages, but I still had PTSD from moving and so missed the one about storm doors. By the way, the HOA specifies the specific door …. color, style. (Which is exactly what we had installed.) However, we are still required to get approval BEFORE we install the door. Which takes a month. Laws. 

GRACE – It’s about relationships, person to person. Someone willing to interact. There was no grace involved in our first encounter with the HOA. 

It all made me think about God. I’m a pastor. What do you expect?

When Jesus came, it was said that the LAW came through Moses, but GRACE AND TRUTH came through Jesus. Law was written standards and guardrails, if you will, for acceptable and approved behavior. Grace was a relationship with God through Jesus, his Son. God came in the flesh to relate to us directly. Jesus was God loving us up close and personal. 

Law is a rule. Grace is love. 

‘Christ is the end of the law’ is the way Paul put it in Romans 10.

OK. The rest of the story.

My wife emailed the 5 board members to apologize for the storm door incident and then filed a request for approval, nunc pro tunc. (Look that one up)