I finally got a copy of the Rules of Life. We all want them because we think that having a set of rules for life will make life so much easier and less confusing. Just find the twelve rules and follow them and it will take away a lot of worry and agony out of life. So I was excited when I got them. I do not know who made them up, but I got them by e-mail off the Internet, so I know that makes them official. The Twelve Rules of Life:

1. Never give yourself a haircut after three drinks.
2. There are only two tools required: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it is supposed to move, squirt it with WD-40. If it moves and it is not supposed to move, wrap it in duct tape.
3. The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship are "I apologize" and "You are right."
4. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
5. Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom.
6. If someone says that "you are too good for me" ... believe them.
7. Learn to pick your battles: ask yourself, "Will this matter one year from now?"
8. When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. Crow tastes better when it is still warm.
9. If you woke up breathing, rejoice. You still have a chance.
10. Living well really is the best revenge. Being miserable because of a bad or former relationship just might mean that the other person was right about you.
11. Work is good, but it's not that important. Money is nice, but you can't take it with you. Statistics show most people don't live to spend all they saved; some even die before they retire.
12. Anything we have isn't really ours; it was loaned to us by God. He just let us borrow it while we are here ... even our children.1

Of course, these twelve rules give us the same problems Paul had with rules and laws. The more we follow the rules, the further away we go from the happiness we seek from the rules. There is no salvation in the rules. There are some who try to tell us that we can never really keep the rules, but Paul was always claiming that he had fulfilled all the rules. The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks Jesus what must be done to inherit eternal life, and Jesus tells him about keeping the law. The rich young ruler claims that he has kept the rules from his youth, and Jesus does not argue with him. We keep looking for the rules so that we can keep them so we can feel contented with our lives. We think that if we can do what is required we can have some peace and satisfaction with ourselves. If we just have the laws and we keep them, then we can have the joy of knowing that we have fulfilled our duty, done our share, proved our worth, contributed our portion, and been good.

Paul talks a lot about the law and about a relationship with God created by obedience. These twelve rules of living do exactly the kind of things that Paul discovered in trying to keep the Jewish Law. First, the law has a way of inspiring us at the beginning to amend our ways, to try to do better, to dedicate ourselves to doing that which the law says. Number 3 urges us to apologize more and to accept the wisdom of others better. We hear that rule and we say to ourselves, "Yes, we are going to do that. We need to do more of that. That would be a good thing," and so we are inspired for a while to try to do different, and to be better.

But the law is a hard master. The law sets the standard and before long the law begins to reveal our failures. There is a book by two professors of theology in New England on the theology of baseball, and one of them says that in baseball, there is no grace. Baseball is all law and rules. We have the rules. We keep all these statistics. We know the score and we know the results we want. It is all law. What will you do this time at bat? The batter comes to the plate with the intention of getting a hit. We celebrate and honor and reward highly anyone who can get a hit four out of ten times. But the law points out that even a 400 hitter has failed six out of ten times. The law may inspire us, but the law exposes our sin, our missing of the mark. The rule about eating crow when it is warm is a clear reminder that you will fail. The law inspires. The law condemns by pointing out the gap between what we should have done and what we did.

Paul knew it so well from his own life. You can hear it in the voice of the rich young ruler as well. The law may inspire us, and the law may embarrass us by showing our failures, but where we are able to keep the rules, Paul says we become arrogant and self-righteous. The better we are at keeping those twelve rules, the more obnoxious we are going to be to live with. The more we can check them off - done that, done that, done that - the higher opinion we are going to have of ourselves; and the more entitled and the more honored we are going to expect to be. If the goal is to be rich, then those who are rich feel entitled and expect things to be given to them. The keeping of the law has a way of making us want what we have earned. We have kept the law the most, we have earned the most, and we want the most. Whatever the rules, we keep them because we want to be known as the best. It is not an attitude that brings us together. You remember the news story of the young girl in a very competitive suburb who did not want to share the honor of valedictorian of her high school class with two other students. There were a couple of small differences in the other students' and her experiences. She had earned it. She wanted it.

A friend of mine said that he had always thought that being elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame was an honor given to players by the public at the end of the career. When Roger Clemens won his 300th game, the news was all about how he was a sure-fire Hall of Famer, because he had earned it. Roger Clemens must have believed that as well, because he began to tell the Hall of Fame which uniform he wanted to wear when he went into the Hall of Fame. He not only felt entitled, but able to dictate terms. The more we keep the rules, the more highly we think about ourselves. The more we keep the rules, the more entitled we think we are to honor, and to recognition, to praise; and the more we create division and separation in the community.

We want a list like the twelve rules of life because as long as we keep trying to find our joy, our rest, our peace, our salvation in the keeping of the rules, the longer we continue to live and act on the conviction that we can control our own destiny. The keeping of the law is a trust in our own ability to determine our own future. It continues to widen the separation between us as creatures and the Creator who has made us for relationships. As long as we say, "Let's see how I measure up to these twelve rules of life," we are the ones who deceive ourselves into thinking that we are the ones who know what justice, mercy, and righteousness are. We make ourselves not only the creatures, but then we are the judge and we check off that we did or did not do that rule. We are the ones who decide who are good and who are not.

No one is declared righteous in God's sight by the keeping of the laws. We can keep the rules. Lots of people day in and day out play by the rules. There are lots of us who say the same thing. We are not bad people. We mow our grass. We pay our taxes. We vote. We have not killed anyone. We have not stolen anything. We love the mates we are with. We have kept the rules. But that kind of being right is wrong if you are hungering for a kind of fellowship with the Creator, if you are seeking a kind of peace of the heart, if you are feeling lost and alone in creation and need companionship and a relationship. If you realize that there is a generosity and bountifulness at the heart of life, to that you owe a debt of gratitude which you can never repay, the righteousness of the law is wrong. You know when you look at the mirror in the morning that most of your waking hours have been focused entirely on your wants, wishes, and whims, and there is forgiveness needed for that selfishness that you can never give yourself. The rightness of the law cannot help you. That kind of righteousness, that kind of being put back into alignment with God, that kind of putting the wheel of your life back on the center of God so that all of it turns and spins smoothly and without wobble or whump, that kind of being put right with God is not a result of the righteousness of the law.

The great good news of the Christian story is that being put right with God in relationship has been offered as a gift by the grace offered in Jesus Christ. That is what makes this message of God acting in Jesus Christ so special, so powerful, so refreshing. The word of the Good News is that God has already offered in his own love for us the possibility of the relationship we have been trying to achieve. For you and me it is not an accomplishment we need to complete. It is a gift that has already been given and we are invited to receive and enjoy. It is a gift of love that opens to us the relationship with God that we know needs to be restored. God has offered that things can be right between us and God by our accepting the gift and rejoicing in invitation to come again into the living relationship of faith, hope, and love.

Making things right by God in Jesus Christ is good news because it frees us from having to keep all of the different rules and laws. The good news is that breath of fresh air, the feeling of a huge burden lifted, a pardon offered for all past failures. God has offered to put right our relationship in love.

The law, the rules, the regulations have a powerful attraction for us, but they cannot bring us to the peace of a restored relationship with God. God comes to us and offers us that restored relationship. The story of Jesus is the story of God coming for us, making another gesture toward us, another invitation, another demonstration of a love that desires to live in communion and fellowship with us.

The life of Jesus is the good story that nothing we have done as human beings is so bad that we do not have a future in God's love. There is no darkness so dark that God cannot find us. There are no deeds we could do that are worse than the cross, and God has not been defeated by that rejection. The righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. The grace of God in Jesus restores a relationship that the law can only make more intense.

1. These were received as an e-mail from a friend. There was no additional identification as to the author of this list.