The most difficult thing
Nov. 15th, 2023 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boccaderlupoI was speaking awhile back to my daughter about confession (a.k.a. reconciliation, et al.), and she asked: what if you have nothing to confess?
Good point. Apart from the sacramental place confession plays in the drama of the Christian mysteries, though, I suspect there's something more at work. We in the West, even in this twilight time, are all probably acquainted with the 10 commandments (Exodus 20), as well as with Christ's assessment of the great commandment (Matthew 22), the two-fold command of loving God above all and loving one's neighbor as oneself, which roughly corresponds to the two phases of the 10. For most of us, the secondary, ethical aspect of doing good—or at least not actively doing evil (behavior), or even wishing evil, on one's neighbor—may seem relatively straightforward, and even easy, despite Christ's difficult admonition to internalize these in the Beatitudes (i.e. those who are angry with their brethren and murder, for example). Perhaps through some degree of fortitude or out of fear we have not indulged in any of these explicit, seemingly obvious wrongdoings.
It strikes me, instead, that the most difficult of all these commandments to adhere to is the first: of having no other gods before God, of loving God with one's entire being. Although this is frequently regarded through the lens of monotheism versus polytheism—especially given the historical context—I'd argue that's too narrow. Mindful here of my polytheist readers, I'd say that despite everything, nowadays this commandment applies moreso to those who worship entirely different idols—money, power, fame, all things that are far more prevalently worshipped in our society that the myriad aspects of the Divine. The truth is, we can hardly go a moment without averting our attention from the Divine, and I'd argue (heterodox Christian that I am) that those who are directing their attention to Divine persons are far more attuned to the call of things spiritual than those who subject their will to the fell things of "the World" previously mentioned. In and of themselves, all these things are Good; when they are worshipped, however, in place of the Divine, they become idols, and we reveal our deepest fault. For wherever we divert our attention, there our hearts also reside, and its indicative of our fundamental alienation from the Divine strata that we are virtually incapable of sustaining attention on the Divine for prolonged periods. Indeed, it's this failed alignment, I'd suggest, that makes moot any purely ethical approach (CF utilitarianism, etc.), underscoring that our inherent lack of communion with the Divine makes impossible the second part of the equation, namely caring for others. Sin, then, is the focusing of one's attention on anything that is less than Divine.
But if we were to do so, my friends, by the Grace of God...what then? We become like that which we worship, and those who manage to, in spite of their own predilections, and solely through the aid of the Divine, fix their gaze upon the things of Heaven...
Good point. Apart from the sacramental place confession plays in the drama of the Christian mysteries, though, I suspect there's something more at work. We in the West, even in this twilight time, are all probably acquainted with the 10 commandments (Exodus 20), as well as with Christ's assessment of the great commandment (Matthew 22), the two-fold command of loving God above all and loving one's neighbor as oneself, which roughly corresponds to the two phases of the 10. For most of us, the secondary, ethical aspect of doing good—or at least not actively doing evil (behavior), or even wishing evil, on one's neighbor—may seem relatively straightforward, and even easy, despite Christ's difficult admonition to internalize these in the Beatitudes (i.e. those who are angry with their brethren and murder, for example). Perhaps through some degree of fortitude or out of fear we have not indulged in any of these explicit, seemingly obvious wrongdoings.
It strikes me, instead, that the most difficult of all these commandments to adhere to is the first: of having no other gods before God, of loving God with one's entire being. Although this is frequently regarded through the lens of monotheism versus polytheism—especially given the historical context—I'd argue that's too narrow. Mindful here of my polytheist readers, I'd say that despite everything, nowadays this commandment applies moreso to those who worship entirely different idols—money, power, fame, all things that are far more prevalently worshipped in our society that the myriad aspects of the Divine. The truth is, we can hardly go a moment without averting our attention from the Divine, and I'd argue (heterodox Christian that I am) that those who are directing their attention to Divine persons are far more attuned to the call of things spiritual than those who subject their will to the fell things of "the World" previously mentioned. In and of themselves, all these things are Good; when they are worshipped, however, in place of the Divine, they become idols, and we reveal our deepest fault. For wherever we divert our attention, there our hearts also reside, and its indicative of our fundamental alienation from the Divine strata that we are virtually incapable of sustaining attention on the Divine for prolonged periods. Indeed, it's this failed alignment, I'd suggest, that makes moot any purely ethical approach (CF utilitarianism, etc.), underscoring that our inherent lack of communion with the Divine makes impossible the second part of the equation, namely caring for others. Sin, then, is the focusing of one's attention on anything that is less than Divine.
But if we were to do so, my friends, by the Grace of God...what then? We become like that which we worship, and those who manage to, in spite of their own predilections, and solely through the aid of the Divine, fix their gaze upon the things of Heaven...
