WHO IS TO BLAME?
January 15, 2006
Texts – Jeremiah 31: 29-35
Matthew 7: 1-12
It is a timely, almost contemporary, description of societal malaise. “The parents have eaten sour grapes,” Jeremiah says, “and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” [Jeremiah 31: 29] It reminds me of that cartoon of a father and son conversation which I’ve shared before.
The son is a teenager, bringing his report card home for parental inspection. The grades are not good – two “C”s, two “D”s and an “Incomplete.” Father is not pleased. “What do you think the problem is?” the son asks the father. “My environment or my heredity?” (The boy is bright beyond belief!)
Anna Russell, the Canadian comedienne of the last century, captured the same spirit in one of her musical parodies.
“At three I had a feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers, (she sang) And so it follows naturally, I poisoned all my lovers. But now I’m happy, I’ve learned the lesson this has taught, that everything I do that’s wrong is someone else’s fault.”
“The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
Now of course, there is a measure of truth in the old saying. We are all to some degree the product of the influence of our parents and our peers. Our genetic heritage does set real limits as to what we may achieve and become. All of that is true. But if we come to see ourselves as wholly victims, without any freedom to shape our own future . . . if we evade completely all responsibility for what we are in life, we fall into a slavery worse than death. All motivation and meaning is eroded. We lose energy and hope.
In Jeremiah’s day the scene around him was grim. To the north powerful forces threatened the security of his people. National unity had broken down. Corruption was everywhere. The poor were neglected. Then, as now, everybody was looking for someone to blame – the former generation of leadership, their neighbors, the other guy. In the midst of all this, Jeremiah has a vision of hope. He sees a future in which each one of his people embraces life responsibly, and lives the gift of life without excuse or blame.
Is that something we need in our day? “In those days,” he prophesies,
“they shall no longer say: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But every person shall suffer for their own sin; each person who eats sour grapes, that one’s teeth shall be set on edge.”
Which means – people will accept responsibility for their own lives, for their own actions. Isn’t this what Victor Frankl taught us out of his experiences in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany
class=Section2>during World War II? The one freedom which no one can take away from us is the freedom to choose our attitude toward our own life.
But Jeremiah’s vision does not stop there. “I will make a new covenant with my people,” he hears the voice of God saying; “I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts.” [Jeremiah 31: 31, 33] Which means what? It means that instead of a system where the conduct of the people is shaped by priestly authority and social pressure, where morality is dictated from outside by church and state, Jeremiah sees the possibility of a people of informed conscience, who know to do the right thing no matter what the temptations and pressures of the world may be. His vision is of a self-governing people shaped by a new spirit within them, a spirit attuned to the will of God.
Does it sound hopelessly old-fashioned and idealistic? I hope not. Do you remember Eric Fromm, that gifted teacher of human psychology? “There are immutable laws inherent in human nature and (in) human functioning which operate in any given culture,” he said.
“These laws cannot be violated without serious damage to the personality. If someone violates his (or her) moral and intellectual integrity, (that person) weakens or even paralyzes his (or her) total personality. They become unhappy and they suffer.”
We ignore our conscience, in other words, at our own peril.
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts.” It is a vision of a future time, but also a description of a present reality. There are things written on each of our hearts, and yes some of them are the product of environment and cultural heredity. As children we tend to equate the voice of conscience with the voice of God; as we grow older, we become more discerning . . . and sometimes more cynical.
I like the story of the man who went to a therapist. “My problem is this,” he said –
“I am miserable. I feel awful. I have these high ideals, and I am not living up to them.” “So,” replied the psychiatrist, “you want me to help you improve your performance?” “Heavens no,” says the client; “I want you to help lower these darned ideals.”
And sometimes that’s a good thing, a necessary thing, because the voices which have helped to shape our consciences have been unhealthy ones. But there is danger on the other side as well – for if we feel free to dismiss the pangs of guilt we do feel, it is a very short step to no longer feeling any inhibitions of our ego-needs at all . . . and that, my friends, is a sure-fire recipe for chaos and destruction.
Integrity of conscience . . . For mature Christians, Jesus becomes the shape of our conscience, the core of the law which is written on our hearts. It is what we proclaim to the world and to ourselves when we lay claim to the title “Christian.” The word means “Christ - like.” What we are saying when we embrace that label is: I am one who strives to be Christ - like, who accepts as model for healthy human life the life I see lived by Christ. Through prayer and study and worship we strive to internalize Christ’s life into our own, and to model that life in our lives.
class=Section3>“I will put my law within them,” Jeremiah prophesied, “and I will write it upon their hearts.” It is a promise fulfilled for you and me in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. But the prophecy does not end with that promise. Jeremiah goes on – “They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” [v. 34]
What is this talk about forgiveness all about? Well, in the first place it is not about excusing us from the call to live up to the highest within us. God, in forgiving us, does not let us off. Some years ago there was a Prodigal Son cartoon in which the father is going down the road to meet his son. The caption reads, “I’ll be glad when this boy grows up; this is the sixth fatted calf.” Some of us have sacrificed at least that many in our parenting, haven’t we?!
No, Jeremiah’s word is that while God does not let us off, God also does not let us go. Forgiveness is for the morally serious who fail. It is the word that God does not abandon us at end of day, but reassures us that God’s spirit and power is still at work within us, calling us to another morning and another embrace of life. Forgiveness is the word that with God it is not perfection, but direction that counts.
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, in her marvelous little book “My Grandfather’s Blessings,” tells of a woman who grew up with a perfectionist mother . . . a mother who for years drove her family crazy with her insistence on absolute order. Then a diagnosis of cancer changed all that. Listen to Dr. Remen –
“She told me of a recent visit (with her ) sister . . . . ‘We were sitting together in the kitchen drinking tea and talking,’ (the woman said to Dr. Remen), ‘and I happened to look into her living room. She has one of those carpets that shows every footprint. It had been vacuumed so perfectly that every fiber was pointing in the same direction. At one time, this would have given me a deep sense of satisfaction. Now it just looked sad and lonely, untouched by life.’
She began to chuckle softly. ‘There is so much more to life than a perfectly clean kitchen floor (or living room carpet), Rachel,’ she told me. . .”
Dr. Remen concludes:
“The marks life leaves on everything it touches transform perfection into wholeness. Older, wiser cultures choose to claim this wholeness in the things they create. In Japan, Zen gardeners purposefully leave a fat dandelion in the midst of the exquisite, ritually precise patterns of the meditation garden. In Iran, even the most skilled of rug weavers include an intentional error, the (so-called) ‘Persian Flaw.’ In Puritan America, master quilt makers deliberately left a drop of their own blood on every quilt they made. Native Americans wove a broken bead, the ‘spirit bead,’ into every beaded masterpiece. Nothing that has a soul is perfect.”
She knows what she is talking about, doesn’t she? None of us are perfect. All of us yet have a long way to go. Yes there is a law written on our hearts. Yes we stumble and fall time after time as we strive to live it out. And yes, forgiveness is what each and every one of us needs if we are ever to become the adult children God intends us to be.
Allow me to quote Dr. Remen once again –
“When life weaves a spirit bead into your very fabric, you may stumble upon a wholeness greater than you had dreamed possible before. There is often more wisdom to be found at the edges of life than in its middle. Life-threatening illness may shuffle our values like a deck of cards. Sometimes a card that has been on the bottom of the deck for most of our lives turns out to be the top card, the thing that really matters. Having watched people sort their cards and play their hands in the presence of death for many years, I would say that rarely is the top card perfection, or possessions, or even pride. Most often the top card is love.”
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts,” the old prophet of Israel said. “They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” It is a promise fulfilled in Jesus the Christ. It is a precise description of the way we are invited to go and of the path through which we can grow into the fullness of life everlasting. Amen.