Tag: laws

THE HOA AND ME: LESSONS IN LAW AND GRACE.

george gaffgaLeave a comment

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)

welcoming our gay brothers and sisters

george gaffga3 Comments

Back in 48 A.D. the church was predominantly Jewish. Soon Samaritans entered and then the Gentile world responded to the Good News. And get this- the church rulers at the time went from 613 laws of Moses to just 4, an interesting 4 at that (see Acts 15). Gentile Christians were asked to abstain from food that had been sacrificed to idols, sexual immorality, the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming the blood of animals.

Why these four? It had something to do with accommodating the consciences of Jewish believers. It was like a negotiation in order that the two groups would be able to fellowship together. Sort of like today the Presbyterians saying they won’t baptize infants while hanging out with the Baptists.

Today those four laws that came from the Council (in Acts 15) are not required for Gentile Christians. In fact most of them are not even understandable to a lot of Christians. Jewish Christians these days do celebrate many of the traditions found in the Old Testament but not as legal requirements.

But what about the question of sexual immorality? What did that even mean? It meant rampant promiscuous sexual activity outside the context of marriage between a man and woman.

Now, a parable of sorts: God is the great Maestro conducting his orchestra in such a way as to accommodate people who have learned to play a different tune And God also accommodates people who play, in some people’s opinion, out of tune. See, the tune we play is not what gives us entrance into the orchestra. It’s our trust of the Maestro to get our music to the place of glory. The Maestro has been making such accommodations since the beginning of time.

This little parable is meant for us today. Jesus gives us two commandments that he says cover the whole law. They sum up everything God wants from us. One is to love God with our whole being and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves, as Paul repeats in one of his letters.

So what about people who are of homosexual orientation and practice? Why are we laying a heavy burden on them which denies them God’s love and their intimate love for one another? I am not speaking of promiscuous sex, which is in reality outside the bounds of real love for all of us. I’m emphasizing friendship love and romantic love that comes from a commitment between two people.

In my humble opinion, we are not to prohibit homosexual Christians from embracing faith or being embraced by the church community. This is a legitimate accommodation the Maestro makes for the Kingdom Orchestra. If any person knows and lives God’s love they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Yes, there is a change in the tune since 48 A.D. And God is smiling upon all the new members of his orchestra. God’s ongoing love makes more than an accommodation. He creates something beautiful from all corners of his gorgeous and glorious creation.

CORAM DEO