Just Us

If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things …  who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor's wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. … -- Ezekiel 18:10-13

The thing that struck me in this verse is “does not restore the pledge”.  This refers back to Exodus 22:26-27 -- If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

The Lord knew that it was possible in those times that a man might have nothing except his heavy outer garment, not unlike the Scotsman’s plaid of the Rob Roy style, to give as collateral for a loan.  A man would always come back for his cloak, at which time he could be reminded of his promise to repay.  However, it would be both pointless and too cruel to hold a man’s cloak overnight, for he would suffer and possibly become ill or even die from exposure. 

Still, it seems rather extreme to include the “crime” of holding onto a coat with adultery (or rape), robbery, killing, idolatry, and the rest. Yet all the more blatant acts of wickedness arise from the same root:  a sad lack of empathy, a sociopathic disregard for the good of our fellow humans.  We were talking about this the other day, in that, as the song says, “If you don’t love your neighbor then you don’t love God.”  We fail to recognize that our down-and-out brother has the same nature that we have, is a child of our Father, as we are, and is indwelt or maybe indwelt by the same Holy Spirit as we ourselves.   

Further, the message Ezekiel was given in this chapter is a counter to a proverb that was in common use:  The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.  That is, the people were seeing great turmoil and tribulation in their lives.  Some were suggesting that this was a result of the “sins of the fathers”.  There’s no doubt that the apostasy and iniquity of previous generations had caused Judah to come under condemnation.  We see the same thing today in America.  Our profligate spending throughout the last several decades, our embrace of an all-powerful central government, our acceptance of the welfare state, etc., all have contributed to our current decline as a nation, but it is no excuse for individual moral laxity. 

In the end, to sing yesterday’s refrain, the course of human events is not my concern.  We hop on the wheel of time, the cycle of history where it finds us, and we ride it to our getting off point.  We do what we can, where we can.  We may not have a lot to work with.  It may just be handing someone back his coat or inconveniencing ourselves to help someone get home.  God doesn’t forget any of it.    

I Have One Job

And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it. -- Ezekiel 17:24

Despite the advances in information technology and data dissemination, we do not know everything that is going on in the world.  Certain catastrophes and cataclysmic occurrences bubble up into our awareness, but history, we might say, is happening all around us every moment.  It’s like individual human consciousness, just because we are not aware, every second, of our heart beating doesn’t mean it is not a critical thing. 

Perhaps we could think of human history as analogous to individual memory.  We don’t have memories of things of which we were never conscious in the first place.  Or, do we?  They aren’t memories because we can’t remember them; we can’t recall or articulate them.  Nevertheless, there are things in our bones, in our guts, in our taste and tendencies and preferences, and in our dreams that we cannot explain.  As far as we know, it goes to our genetic heritage, and some of it probably does.  We were born this way, but we also learned things, came to know things, experienced things that remain always obscured and hidden below the surface.  

We have become who we are not solely by the things that we note and contemplate in our forebrains.  So, too, with history, it is not the treachery of kings and prime ministers that drive the fall of the kingdom.  Ezekiel 17 is a parable about Judah being subjected to the rule of Babylon then secretly aligning with Nebuchadnezzar’s enemy, Egypt.  The consequence would be destruction.  Out of that, however, the Lord would replant a Branch:  On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest (v.23).   This is a prophecy of the Messiah who is to gather and shelter those from all nations.

God is not dealing with nations.  He is not negotiating with the president or Congress about the fate of the United States.  He is working with each one of us.  Certainly, we may suffer together in aggregate because the majority of us vote for some stupidity, or because we as a nation have become wanton and degenerate.  Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment (Romans 13:1-2).   I don’t care much for our present government, but I recognize that we, as a whole, have brought it upon ourselves.  When we stand before our Father, however, we will stand alone and answer alone. 

History will record the names and deeds of our heralded and our honored, our heroes and our leaders.  It is, though, the millions of us unknowns that shape the nature and character of those we elevate or who are elevated into the consciousness of history.  They are the part of the iceberg that is seen and can be described.  The nation that honors Audie Murphy or that can produce Alvin York is different from the nation that calls Kanye West a visionary or that glorifies the perverseness of Bill Clinton. 

I cannot change the nature of a bunch of state-raised sheep by voting for the lesser of two evils – which won’t stop me from voting, but I should recognize the limits of what can be done.  I need to live the life of Christ.  I need to listen, to hear what God is saying to me to do today.  I have people I can help, things I can change.  I was reading somewhere a day or two ago about how the old Stoics have gotten something of an undeserved reputation.  It comes down to accepting that we do have control over some things, and those things we ought to do everything possible to control.  But we also have to accept that there are other things – a whole bunch of other things and especially other people – that we can do absolutely nothing about.  Those things, there is not only no point in worrying about, it’s counterproductive.  Myself, my reactions, my attitudes, behavior, virtues, etc., I can deal with that.  I can do something about those things.  That’s what I should work on.

Let's Get Small

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.  -- Matthew 7:5

 

The title of yesterday’s post was “what this country needs”, talking about man’s craving for right standing with his Creator and playing on early 20^th Century advertising slogans suggesting that the good of the nation depended on some reasonably priced, high quality consumer product.  In a nation of over 300 million on a planet of over 7 billion souls, the choices of one individual hardly seem noteworthy.  Politics, even at its best, thinks in terms of groups and masses, and it is primarily for this reason that political solutions to human problems have always and will always fail.  The programs are failures even when they can be sustained, even when the unintended consequences are less than catastrophic.  Most often, of course, they end in blatant destruction, economic disaster, and bureaucratic tyranny. 

What is needed is a better class of humans.  Communists and Fascists like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot – to give them their bloody due, understood this.  They simply killed off those who would not fit in their systems.  These despots, not unlike many of us, see the other guy as the problem, and, sometimes, the other guy is the problem, but it is mostly a result of him trying to fix me. 

I have always disliked collectivists and statists.  It is, perhaps, bred in me.  We were a clannish lot.  We took care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors.  If we needed a schoolhouse, we got together and built it.  If we wanted a church, we covenanted together and raised it.  We hardly thought beyond the borders of our township, let alone the county, when it came to solving problems.  When you are dealing with a few dozen people, when there are twenty or thirty children in the one-room school, and Sunday School attendance is fifty, it is easy to realize how vital it is for me to do the right thing and be a decent person. 

It does not take a village to raise a child, but a village does do a better job of it than a massive, bureaucratic, central government.  The further away the center of responsibility and accountability, the less we think what we do makes any real difference. 

Jesus tells us this is not so.  I am inclined to believe He is right.  It does not matter if we find ourselves living in a massive, parasitic, corrupt police state.  What matters ultimately, the only thing that matters ultimately, is my relationship with God.  A nation changes, for the better, when enough individuals change for the better.  You can change regimes, change governments, change political parties, reform laws and policies, but, if you have a nation of collectivists, a nation of individuals who point the finger and blame someone else, something else, you are going to have a corrupt, collectivist nation. 

First, take the beam out of your own eye, even if the other guy doesn’t.  We can easily get trapped in worrying about fixing Washington and getting a better president and a better Congress, pouring ourselves into that effort.  We can complain about intrusive government, militarized police forces, and corrupt, tyrannical politicians.  The truth is that we have the kind of government that a majority of citizens desire.  It does not matter that they are being deceived.  The easiest person to deceive is a deceiver. 

But, you say, I’m not that way.  I have gotten right with God.  Things are still messed up.  What do I do?  Read it again.  Once the log is out of your eye, you can see to get the speck out of your brother’s eye.  Bring some light to the life of your family, your friends, and your neighbors.   We may not be able to move the mountain just yet, but we can get the gravel out of our boots. 

Mountains can, though, be moved, and they will be moved when we address them in faith.  Maybe we will ponder that a little tomorrow.