Whose Rules?

It seems strange that institutional Christianity is all caught up in rules and punishments.  The religion is based upon a person who was born into this world beyond any rule, scriptural interpretation or doctrine of his religion.  Which is why Jesus was so little accepted among his people.  He did not fit their way of seeing things.  God never fits into institutional, historical religion.  But we make up rules that don’t fit God.  Example, go to mass on Sunday or burn.  I thought that God wanted to be our friend and have a love relationship.  Would you want a friend who said, “I will do thus and so with you or for you so that you don’t zap me.”  That is neither friendship or love.  I think that manny rules simply fit the institution and its agenda rather than the God of which it speaks.  If my dogma is right, then God came into the world conceived of a woman who did not have a husband relations, born poor, into a carpenter home in a little out of the way village, and then did nothing spectacular for about 30 years.  God the unexpected.  So be open to the unexpected coming, presence of whoever this God is, who seems less about rules, and our expectations, and more about Love.  Love is so often a surprise. Think of your first falling in love when you saw that person across the room.  It has no rules.