Five pretty simple words really. We can label all we want—elevate our position, rank and righteousness, but it's all spitting in the wind. All dust. Right and wrong aren't people. Right and wrong aren't you and me. They're a moral filter: an analysis of behaviour based on codes established and evolving—within families, within churches and within communities.
All of us are capable of profound good and profound evil—sometimes in the same day. In fact, I reckon at the heart of all men lies a desire to do good and a struggle with evil. And, in some ways, that's us at our purest. Because absolute truth bears little resemblance to our evolving and established codes. In time, perhaps consciously, perhaps subsonsciously, we descend into a moral relativism where we reflect those codes rather than shine a light on them.
Trite as it sounds, we're called to add flavour in a pluralistic culture where the handles that once could be grasped hold of in all the noise are drowned out by that relativism. And every word of this post drifts way from the ultimate point: right and wrong aren't people, but Absolute Truth is. Absolute Truth can be known. Related to. Not in some esoteric, philosophical way, but in a rootsy, homely, life-changing and relational way.
Our deepest longings aren't our ability to tell right from wrong or even to grasp from the tree that will help us tell the difference. Our deepest longing is to be loved and validated by someone we rate. Someone believable and trustworthy. Someone who perhaps knows us well enough to know we're not really that lovable but buys in all the same. Part of the problem with our longing is that it's difficult to comprehend. Can perfection have anything to do with imperfection without being stained or allowing some of the mud to stick? "And then a hero comes along..." It'd take a supernatural hero to navigate both our hardheartedness and not be frustrated by the forays of unrequited love, the unction of unconditional love and the unreceived gifts of grace without questioning the worth of initiating. And yet 'kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall and Absolute Truth goes on'.
I guess Absolute Truth isn't dissuaded by our clumsy responses or complete obliviousness. Heart-broken, but not dissuaded. Absolute Truth keeps knocking on the door like one with a crush on a girl who's just found her name in the White Pages. Except that he doesn't give up. And his love isn't immature. And it's not ignorant. It's completely informed by matters of love, life and death.
There's time for seeing in him a perfection that inspires us to change our temperature. But that has little to do with a knock on the door. He wants to come in. Into the mess, into the noise, and into our messed up notions of right and wrong. And he wants to go for a long walk along a sun-drenched, pot-hole ridden beach.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Right and wrong aren't people
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2 comments:
Interesting that you should talk about right and wrong, absolute truth. My mind was puddling around in these thoughts yesterday and two ideas came into sharper focus. The first is that absolute truth is just that. It doesn't take me believing in it or not to make it true. In a few conversations I've had lately, both with disillusioned Christians and non Christians, it seems like truth is relative, as if it hangs in the balance, tenuously waiting for the individual to declare it's worth by believing in it. I can be sucked into the confusion if I'm not careful....but then I remember...we are not the creators of truth, truth is not relative but absolute. Our life long pursuit is to seek it out. And it seems increasingly clear to me that the more submissive the search, the greater the likelihood of discovery.
The second is probably more relevant to mainstream Christians in the 40+ category - but it's worth everyone avoiding. Someone half my age explained it to me a bit like this...you don't have to actually judge someone in order for them to feel judged, to feel devalued, lacking, inadequate, not able to live up to 'the standard'. All we have to do is give our opinions about life the universe or anything (without being asked)and sooner or later they'll shout the judgement. And the sad thing about this is that it leaves very little room for those around the opinionated person to hear the gentleness of the Holy Spirit who wants to be a light to their path, not a spotlight to their 'wrongs'.
yeah, nice. I think the whole notion that 'right and wrong aren't people' can be construed as some liberal theology...but the more caught up in the story you become (whether the story is creation, the fall, the flood, the incarnation) the more it seems to get plainer that it's the relationship rather than the proposition that actual brings transformation. An awareness of Absolute Truth through relationship ultimately seems to manifest itself through a life becoming daily transformed yet it changes from being a catalyst for something to the product of relationship. Grace, rather than works.
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