Delight in the Law
Is it bribery if you're being shaken down?
Last week, I attended the mens’ Bible study for my local church. It was early and I was struggling to stay awake. Fortunately, there was plenty of strong coffee and even some kolaches (or I guess they were actually klobasnikys, savory kolaches). Thank God for the Czechs who settled in Texas back in the day.
The topic of the week was Psalm 1. Here it is:
The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked
1 Blessed is the man[a]
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law[b] of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Overall, the Psalm contrasts the fate of those who follow God versus those that don’t. The people who follow God are like a tree planted by streams of water. Those trees receive the nutrients they need. They grow strong and prosperous and bear good fruit. In contrast, the wicked are just chaff that the wind eventually blows away. We’ve seen imagery very similar to this before, in our discussion of Jeremiah 17.
At the Bible study, during the table-level discussion we started with verses 1 and 2. Psalm 1 says that someone is blessed if they delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night.
We got to talking about what that means. Do you “delight in the law of the Lord?” What would that even look like? Have you ever delighted in laws for any reason, human laws? Some of the guys at my table struggled with what that meant and would look like. Fortunately, I had an example.
When I was in college, many years ago, some friends and I went to Mexico for a week for spring break. We stayed at a vacation home owned by a friend’s parents near Ensenada, Baja, Mexico, a short drive south of San Diego, CA.
One night, we went out to hang out in the local bars and generally engage in typical college-students-on-spring-break shenanigans. I was the designated driver for the night, so I was driving the car.
As we got into town, a Mexican police officer pulled us over. Through his broken English and our broken Spanish, we quickly figured out that he was insisting that we had made an infraction of some sort, but he was a bit evasive as to what that infraction was.
One of my friends, Jim, sitting in the passenger seat, figured it out. “Dave,” he said, opening up the glove compartment, “here’s the registration for the car.” He handed me some papers and when I looked down at them, I saw that he had put a couple of $20 bills on top. I looked at Jim and he looked at me. I suddenly understood. This was a shakedown!
It didn’t matter what we had done. There was no real infraction. The officer pulled us over to collect his fee. We simply weren’t leaving there without paying a bribe. There was really no recourse. We were in a foreign country and barely spoke the language. We didn’t even have passports (you didn’t need them to go to Mexico back then). We were completely at the mercy of this corrupt cop. We could have easily spent the night in a Mexican jail just because he felt like we should.
So, I passed the papers to the officer. He took the money from the top, barely glanced at the registration for a second, and said, “You’re free to go.”
That was it. He just wanted the money. We drove off, having just committed our first act of bribery of a corrupt public official.
(Or maybe it isn’t bribery if you’re being shaken down. I don’t know. Your humble author is not an expert in these matters. Regardless, I was 20 years old, and I think the statute of limitations has long expired.)
Interestingly, it wasn’t the last bribe we would pay. My roommate had to buy his way out of another situation later the same night with a different set of officers. There were lots of other college students in the area and I’m sure they were experiencing the same thing. Apparently, Operation College Springbreak Shakedown was in full swing with the Baja police force and everybody wanted in on the action.
A few days later, when spring break was coming to a close, we drove back into California, heading back to college. We passed through the USA/Mexico border checkpoint after waiting in line for what seemed like hours. Once on the US side of the border, I saw a San Diego police car driving on the highway next to us. I screamed, “Yeah, baby! Real law and order! I love it!”
In that moment, I actually delighted in good laws and the honest people who enforce them. When laws and the enforcers are just, they provide society with order. We know where we stand because we know what we have done. We know that enforcement will be applied fairly. We don’t worry that somebody is going to make up an infraction on the spot to shake us down or take advantage of us. We understand that the laws protect good, innocent people and punish those who create disorder.
And so it is with God’s law as well. Psalm 1 says that those who delight in God’s law and meditate on it will prosper and yield fruit. They will grow strong. This is the purpose of God’s law, in fact, to order society such that we all thrive and benefit. When people reject God’s law, we see disorder, with pain and suffering as the result. Contrary to what popular culture would have us believe, God’s law is not there to put an end to fun. Rather, it’s there to keep us safe and thriving. And we know that God will be fair and honest in how he judges. There won’t be any shakedowns or bribery.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. “Dave, we’re Christians! We’re not subject to the Jewish law. Jesus’s sacrifice set us free from that.” Yes, that’s absolutely true. Hold that thought. We’ll discuss it next time.
(Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, let me state that this post is not meant to be a commentary on Mexican or American law enforcement. There are honest and corrupt officers on both sides of the border.)
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Your story brought back memories. My parents lived in Mexico for many years. Every time we drove in, the border guard would ask for your passport, car reg, and Mexican insurance card. The guard would sweep your documents off the table, allowing the 10K peso note you put underneath to drop seamlessly into his lap. My parents followed this routine for years.
One time, I think after Vincente Fox's election which broke the PRI's 70 year control of Mexican politics and ushered in a (very temporary) anti-corruption mindset, the guard picked the documents up instead of sweeping them off the table, and the bill fell out on the table instead of in his lap. He didn't even look up: "that's not necessary any longer." We weren't sure what to do: pick it up and acknowledge on camera that we were trying to bribe him? We finally did and hurried out without incident.
My parents stopped going into Mexico shortly thereafter. As the cartels became less hesitant to target Americans, it just wasn't safe anymore. I have no idea what the bribery procedure is now, but I'm sure there is one. Because in most of the world, that's just the way it works.
We have many problems in America, but spending significant time outside of this country makes one very thankful for the many blessings we have too.
Great example!