One of the obvious features of reading the Bible is that people are people. While we can only aspire to be as courageous and faithful as Jesus, we better recognize ourselves in the other Biblical characters. We have seen the bluster of Peter, the bull-headedness of Paul, the reluctance of Thomas, the fear of the disciples in ourselves and in so many others we know. The people of the Bible are our people. The list of vices in the gospel – evil thoughts, unchastity, greed, malice, deceit, envy, arrogance – are the vices of this age as well as the time of Jesus. Human nature has not changed in the past 2,000 years or 20,000 years or, for that matter, in the 200,000 years since homo sapiens first walked out of the Olduvai Gorge. While that is true, each age has a particular way that we think about things — a world view, if you will. The problems and the issues might be the same but the tool kit we bring to address the problems differs. One way to think about the differences between the way Biblical people look at things and the way we look at them: when God blows breath into a human being, the Biblical Adam looks at God and asks, “Who am I?” When God blows breath into a modern person they look at God and ask, “Who are you?” Those in the Biblical era received their identity and values. That helps to explain why Moses giving the law, the commandments, on Mount Sinai was so important. The Law of Moses shaped and formed a people. “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us.” How wonderful it was to have a clear description of who one was and what God expected them to do. Having the law was the greatest blessing for the Chosen People. Those of the modern era, by contrast, don’t receive their identity, they create their identity. With this mindset, laws are looked upon as impositions. Recall some of today’s commonly-held wisdom. Was it Thoreau who said, “The government that governs best, governs least?” A line from a modern poem captures the mentality of modernity: “I am master of my fate. I am captain of my soul.” Instead of sitting under the commandments we decide whether they are relevant to me. Or how about this statement made by the current chief chaplain, the head of campus ministry, at Harvard University in the NY Times: “We don’t look to a god for answers. We are each other’s answers.” The Times approved of that thought – nor should not surprise us for that’s the world we inhabit.
Because we are modern people this way of thinking has a certain logic to us. John Wayne saying, “A man’s got to do what he thinks is right” could be the poster for contemporary ethics, minus the sexist language of course. However, while we drink in the modern world with our mother’s milk we as believers still wrestle with the word of God. Jesus simply presumes that God’s commandments are more important than a human perspective. St. James in the epistle instructs us to “humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.” But instead of being judged by the Word, the modern world judges whether the Word still works in our context. You’ve got to update and adapt, goes the modern refrain. While we might disagree with that attitude it won’t do any good to bemoan the modern world as hostile to faith. We have to find a way to faith as modern people. So this is the balancing act: on the one hand we will continue to judge everything from our personal point of view as of value or not because that’s what modern people do. On the other hand, we trust in the tradition that tells us what really matters is much bigger than little, old me and so we must see things as God sees them.
The way to resolve this dilemma comes when we go back to the questions our supposed Biblical Adam and our modern Adam asked. “Who am I” and “Who are you” are not two distinct questions but two sides of the same coin. The Biblical and the modern world marry once we understand that the me, the person, the modern individual is a child of God. While modern people might tend to judge things from an individualistic perspective, it is the perspective of someone made in the image and likeness of God. The puzzle piece that is human existence snaps into place as part of the divine picture. The self that we are is made to reach the kind of happiness that only God can provide. Our hearts are restless until we rest in God. If we are truly attentive to where our heart leads us we will inevitably fall into the arms of God. The problem comes, of course, in that we imagine that something other than God will provide what we need. We suppose we need more stuff. Greed is good, according a popular movie a few years ago. So when we get stuff and that doesn’t satisfy we think we need more stuff and get trapped in a vicious cycle. Or we suppose that the answer is being able to do whatever I want, to be in control. But as this pandemic has taught us if we simply do what we want and don’t pay attention to the needs of others around us, we and the entire world become sicker. An exaggerated sense of freedom ultimately is destructive. Instead we need to understand that certain things only make sense together. A bun is made for a hot dog, with mustard, of course. A glove is made for a hand and a boot for a foot and a hat for a head. We are made for God. We only know ourselves, we only are ourselves as part of the divine plan for we, ancient and modern, are children of God.
