The Hidden Original Sin

 

The actual mandate of John the Baptist, in Luke 1:

“He will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

This suggests that the key sin necessitating Christ’s coming was a lack of parental love for children. This was the crucial of not indeed the original sin.

This is also why God made the Jews his chosen people: to end child sacrifice among the surrounding nations, most notably the Canaanites. Christianity then in turn ended the legal right of parents to murder their children among the Greeks and Romans.

Since this is the core issue in all morality, isn’t it odd that it is even today overlooked? Isn’t it odd that people commonly only speak of an obligation for children to honour parents?

That this is so shows the sin continues, unabated. We see it obviously, of course, in abortion. We see it in the callous sacrifice of the interests and lives of aboriginal children since the closing of the residential schools. We see it in the growing practice of genital mutilation of children. We see it in the unnecessary bullying of the education system.

We pretend, of course, to care about children above all. The Devil always says the opposite of the truth, to conceal his crimes.

Today's Gospel

 

The mote and the beam.

Luke 6:41-45

41 Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.

43 “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.

44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.

45 A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Today’s gospel reading, from Luke, illuminates familiar passages in Matthew,

First, we have the passage best known in Matthew for the often quoted phrase “judge not, lest ye be judged.”

But here only the words that follow appear: about removing the beam from your own eye before removing the splinter from your brother’s.

This makes it clear that the command is not to judge as such. That was not the message, but rather not to judge others by a harsher standard than you judge yourself—it is against hypocrisy, not against making moral judgements, including of others’ actions.

“Judge not, lest ye be judged” is a phrase conveniently ripped out of context by the wicked to protect themselves from criticism.

The reference to the tree and its fruit—“by their fruits ye shall know them”—here is clarified; it refers not to moral deeds, but to speech. 

What counts as evil speech? 

Not necessarily evil counsel, for that would not be easily evident. Not lies, for the same reason. Not things that are intentionally evil—the tree does not deliberate over its fruit, and this coming from the heart implies something the evil person cannot hide with any cunning.

I suggest that “evil speech” means ugly speech; that this is an aesthetic judgement. It is speech that “tastes” bad, as a fruit can taste bad or look ugly. Someone who can speak beautifully is a good person; someone who cannot is a bad person.

And for “speech” here, read the arts broadly. “The arts” was not a concept available to Jesus or his listeners in the New Testament. But, as among Arabs today, the essential art among the ancient Jews was the art of fine speech.

Zacchaeus Out of His Tree

Zacchaeus called down from the Sycamore tree.

He entered and was passing through Jericho. There was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, and couldn't because of the crowd, because he was short. He ran on ahead, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way.

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house."

He hurried, came down, and received him joyfully.

When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, "He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner."

Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much."

Jesus said to him, "Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost."

--Luke 19:1-10

Zacchaeus is not a real person. The story of Zacchaeus is a parable. The image of little Zacchaeus climbing a tree is too obviously comic for real life.

Zacchaeus means “pure.” It is not really a name. His small stature makes him seem childlike. He climbs trees, as a child would. And as a self-conscious wealthy man would not. For it is publicly undignified, and likely to expose him to general scorn.

So this is a parable of innocence.

Zacchaeus is egotistic in an innocent way, just as a child is. His initial avarice is innocent, unreflective. Who does not spontaneously want to own nice things? Nice things are nice.

Jesus singles him out from the crowd. Just as Jesus elsewhere says, one must become like a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Innocence is the key.

But only the key. Jesus opens the door, when he tells Zacchaeus to come down from the tree.

This act of immediate obedience is the test. It equates to repentance. “Get off your high horse.”

Because Zacchaeus does this, wholeheartedly, Jesus comes and dwells with him.

It is surely significant that all this is said to have happened in Jericho: the city that was the entrance to the Promised Land. With such repentance, the walls come tumbling down.

The good man, in sum, is not the man who does not sin. The good man is the man who repents when sin is pointed out. The bad man resists and denies. The difference is the difference between sin and settled vice.

Compare today’s first reading, from the Book of Wisdom: “Yet you are merciful to all, because you are almighty, you overlook people's sins, so that they can repent.” God’s own forgiveness is absolute, but conditional on repentance.

We all sin. We all have avaricious urges. A fundamentally good person, faced with their own wrongdoing, repents and seeks to make amends. A bad person demands “forgiveness” without repentance. That is the difference.

The critical moment in the Garden of Eden was not when Adam and Eve ate the apple. It was when they hid in the bushes, and tried to shift blame.

The Unjust Magistrate

He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray and not give up, saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God and didn’t respect man. A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ He wouldn’t for a while; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’ ” 

The Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. Won’t God avenge his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them? I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This is what a parable looks like: no names, and shocking. God is blasphemously compared to an unjust judge. The parable implies that He can be worn out, get tired; nonsensical for a perfect being.

As usual, the story is actually saying the opposite of what it seems to say on superficial reading. It is all in the last line.

It seems to say God will answer prayer. It is really explaining why God does not answer prayer.

Unlike the unjust judge, God does not disdain mankind and want to be rid of us. Instead, he loves us. The parable illustrates that, if he easily gives us what we want, we will probably go away and forget about him. The last thing he wants us to do is go away and forget about him.

So he will present us with problems and fail to give us what we ask, for the sake of deepening the relationship. To progress, we must learn to be grateful, and to continue the conversation, even when he fulfills our wishes.