The importance of rules—and freedom—for St. Paul

A Reflection for Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Find today’s readings here.

One of the gifts of raising children in New York City is the expansive system of parks and playgrounds. In addition to splash pads, slides, swings and monkey bars, many of them are outfitted with fences and simple latch gates placed too high for little hands to undo. It’s a good system: Parents have some peace of mind that their kids are relatively safe, and kids can exercise more freedom (and hopefully burn off some energy) within that containment. It brings to life G. K. Chesterton’s quip that “Doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.”

In St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, he is beyond frustrated. In chastising the Galatians, new members of the Christian movement, for veering off track, he posits a fundamental question: “Did you receive the Spirit from the works of the law, or from faith in what you heard?” (Gal 3:2) 

Now, the particulars around Paul’s dispute with the Galatians are foreign to us today (We argue much less about circumcision, at least in church documents). Paul is specifically writing about the question of whether pagan converts need to follow the Mosaic Law—and arguing forcefully that they do not. He is not saying that new life in Christ is without any moral demands or precepts. But the pastoral questions and dynamics between new converts, rules, freedom and outside pressures are still with us. 

Cradle Catholics are often guilty of harboring suspicions about Catholic converts. I do not see this as much on an individual, person-to-person level in families or parishes, but I do see it in the comments sections and op-ed pages. There can be an air of “welcome to the club, but take a seat and listen some more before you offer your opinion.” 

What I suspect is behind this suspicion is actually skepticism toward people who are attracted to a faith because of its rules, disciplines and structures. In one of the most extreme versions of this view, one finds “the integralists” who yearn for a more closely aligned church and state, and who admire Franco much more than Pope Francis. But on a smaller level, I’ve spoken to many older Catholics who are baffled by resurgent practices like, say, veiling, because they saw the elimination of that stuffy old custom as the church taking a step forward. 

For many people, the world feels wildly unstable (he writes while gesturing vaguely at “the news”). Instead of a playground with walls, it feels like a casino with no exit. And it is precisely in environments like this where a regrounding in rules and disciplines can feel like the first step toward a truer sense of freedom. You cannot fill a porous container. And yet when I read St. Paul, I am also reminded that the rules and the structures and the disciplines are not the Spirit. There is still a freedom in Christ to receive and share. But I also feel some empathy for those “stupid Galatians,” as St. Paul calls them. 

A couple of weeks ago, a small child approached me and my daughter as we were entering the playground in my neighborhood. We had just latched the gate behind us, but my young neighbor wanted to know if I would open it back up for him. After I told him that I could not, he let out a deep sigh, climbed halfway up the fence, unlatched it himself and walked out. His loving parents were halfway down the block waiting for him.

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