Les Miserables and Legalism

           This week my husband and I saw the movie Les Miserables, more because he wanted to than I did. And my prediction was accurate—he enjoyed it more than I. The music was wonderful, he said. He was right. It was. The story was true to the novel, universal and classic.

I knew, I just knew if I went I would once again face an old enemy:  Legalism.

And I did.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Victor Hugo novel, the stage play, or the movie, the story focuses on Jean Valjean, who spends nineteen years of his life imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child. He is paroled, steals again because he has no way to make a living, finds forgiveness for the act, refuses to report for parole, and then builds an exemplary life for himself.  Inspector Javert, who is committed to the law, can’t, in good conscience, abide the violations of law and commits his life to hunting down Valjean.

The suffering of the common people and the wealth of the rich were heartbreaking to me as I translated that into our modern world. Javert’s legalism took me back forty years to my college years and even farther this week as I continued to read through the Gospel of John.

What is there about legalism that appeals to humanity? Having lived in and under legalism, I’d conjecture that it provides a twisted kind of comforting structure for life.  After all, if you have rules and regulations for how to dress, how to act, how to live, you don’t have to spend much time listening to the Holy Spirit apply precepts and principles of scripture to your life. All you do is follow the rules. Or you report someone to the college administration for washing her car while wearing blue jeans. (Yes, this really happened to me. I was the one wearing blue jeans, and I got a letter from the dean of women.) Or you are guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around.

All you do is live by the rules like the Pharisees did. They nitpicked about tithing on a harvest of herbs but got bent out of shape when Jesus healed people on the Sabbath. Isn’t that astonishing? People were healed, transformed, and all they could do is get stuck on what day of the week it was. The healing was considered work. The blue jeans were considered—immodest? Taking a loaf of bread should be punished for a lifetime?

Where is GRACE? It was the bishop covering Valjean’s theft yet charging him to change his life.  It was in Valjean doing everything he could to help Fantine, who was forced into prostitution because she couldn’t find any work after she was fired from Valjean’s enterprise. It was Valjean adopting Fantine’s daughter Cosette and raising her. It was Valjean sparing the life of Inspector Javert when he could have taken it. It was the Pharisees, it was Javert, it was the school I attended—no, it wasn’t. There wasn’t grace at any of these places. There was legalism.

When Javert can’t reconcile grace and legalism, he takes his life by falling from a bridge. There is a sickening crack when he lands in a vast fountain. It was as if legalism broke him. And it does. It breaks anyone who lives in it. No one can live in legalism and truly live. Grace brings life. God’s wonderful, wonderful grace brings life!

Oh, how I love the grace of God!