Choices, choices (mid-week)

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Nov. 4, 2021

Choices, choices

 

“Stop judging others, it may just save you from being judged.  For as you judge, so too will you be judged.  The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your sibling’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” (Matt 7:1-3)  

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are” (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 55b). 

I have been reading a little gem of a book from the Trinity library, one that I had not otherwise read or heard of, C.S. Lewis’ Christian Behaviour.  It is classic Lewis, with many of the mid-20^th century distortions he takes on from the tradition he received at the time (the role of women, an anti-LGBTQ+ bias, etc.). But it is still worth the read.  He makes several points that appear in his other works. 

 

One is that as Christians understand it, moral choice is made within the context of all sorts of constraints placed upon us.  We may, on account of genetics and upbringing, be naturally inclined to feel and do things that are praise- or blame-worthy.  This, however, is not moral choice, simply the result who we are due to things beyond our control and, rightly, outside the scope of moral reward or punishment.  When one person is inclined to do good things “because they are blessed with good digestion,” and another, bad things because they were abused as a child, this does not reflect their real heart, that space in each of us that actually decides to behave in one way or another.  Choosing to do good beyond our native inclinations and abilities, he says, is a moral act worthy of praise; choosing to do wrong despite them, is sin (whose basic meaning is “falling short, missing the mark”).  But if a bad choice is the product of our limitations, this is not a sin to be redeemed or punished, but rather, a sickness to be healed.

 

But choices still matter, and not because of reward or punishment:   

 

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.  And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into either a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be one kind of creature is heaven: that is, joy and peace and knowledge and power.  To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.  Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”  (Christian Behaviour, p. 23)

 

Because we cannot see all that went into making another person, we must avoid assuming that praise or blame must rightly be assigned to every choice.  How we judge others reflects more on us than it does on them.  When we scapegoat or assign blame to others, we most often are projecting our own dark selves onto them. 

 

In this, kindness is key.  Everyone we meet is struggling with problems and issues of which we usually have no idea.  So we must be gentle, and try to radiate God’s compassion and love, to help in the healing process. 

 

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+