“ONE HAVING AUTHORITY”
Matthew 7:21-29
The Rev. Ms. Laurie A. McNeill
Montclair, New Jersey
May 29, 2005
Have you ever driven in California? There are, on major thoroughfares, traffic lights, but in
residential areas there are stop signs. Lots and lots of stop signs. People living on the Pacific Coast
have established a particular way of dealing with their dense population and unrelenting traffic. In many
neighborhoods, four-way stops halt cars at almost every corner. You stop, because California is a busy
place and, ordinarily, you are not the only person at an intersection. You stop, to avoid mowing down a
pedestrian. You stop, to let every other car take its proper turn at passing through the intersection.
You stop, because there are a lot of people in California with whom you must negotiate sharing the
roads. And you stop, because it is the law.
Laws often seem to be a nuisance. Laws may feel like they inhibit our lives, like they keep us in
check instead of allowing us to move freely, as we desire. Sometimes laws seem silly. Laws,
nevertheless, are established for a reason. They are designed to facilitate our ability to live in
community. There is a context for having laws.
England has gone so far as to create a system where laws may be custom-made for specific
situations. During the tenure of Prime Minister Tony Blair, “anti-social behavior orders” have been
established. ASBO’s, as they are known, are reactive. Anti-social behavior orders restrict certain
individuals from specific behaviors that have proved to be damaging. For example:
...a suicidal
young woman who tried to drown herself
in the Avon got an ASBO that forbids her from jumping
into any rivers. Two teenage gang members have to stay
out of certain neighborhoods in Gloucester until they
turn 24. A girl suspected of shoplifting has an ASBO
that will land her in jail if she wears a hooded sweatshirt
to hide her face. [As Christopher Caldwell has written,]
Britons have long managed to balance a need for order
with a tendency toward eccentricity. With astonishing
speed, the state has gone into the business of micro-
managing morality.
(“There Ought To Be a Law?,” by Christopher Caldwell,
The New York Times Magazine, 5/22/2005, p. 17)
Britons have concluded, as a people, that there ought to be laws against a young woman drowning
herself, gang members bullying a neighborhood, and the wearing of clothes that aid a shoplifter in her
crime. Anti-social behavior orders exist to help the community thrive. ASBO’s are an aid to create a
moral society.
The United States did not write its first laws to dictate morality. The Constitution was written to
establish order. Our nation’s founders recognized that a new people were coming together to form a
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