Ripple Effects--July 19, 2021

 

Ripple Effects--July 19, 2021

"Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent to carry out their ritual duties; but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people.  By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary  has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent is still standing. This is a symbol of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms,  regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right." [Hebrews 9:6-10]

My daughter walked into the home office just a bit ago, and on her way out the doorway, she knocked over something on a shelf... which knocked the AC adapter cord for my computer onto the floor... which came very close to causing a chain-reaction involving a coffee mug.  Suffice it to say that a disaster was only very nearly averted.  Now, when I called her back into the room to address this, both she and I knew that she had not meant to cause trouble, and she was not being malicious or mean-spirited--she just wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, and she didn't think out the ripple effects of her actions.  So I wasn't upset or hurt because of what happened, but I did want her to know that she is responsible for her actions, even when she doesn't intend harm or injury.  The object on the shelf still fell, the cord in the wall was still jerked, and the coffee mug was still very close to being taken down in the momentum.  She bears responsibility for her actions, even if she didn't maliciously or willfully try to engineer a spill onto my desk.

And at the same time, I probably bear some responsibility for this near-catastrophe--I need to do a better job managing my shelves, and making sure that cords are not strewn precariously, either.  I didn't intend for an accident to happen, either, but my choices about how I leave my workspace set up all those potential pitfalls.   My way of leaving the workspace arranged was like setting up a chain of dominos standing on edge, and my daughter's action was rather like tipping over the first one:  neither of us might intend to cause the whole arrangement to fall down, but each of us plays a role--and bears a responsibility--for what happens when things start hitting the floor.

I have been thinking about that moment alongside these words from the book we call the letter to the Hebrews, and how much it reveals about our collective responsibility for our actions, our words, and our inaction as well.  In a way rather unlike our culture's narrow assumptions about individual responsibility, the Scriptures insist that we can be--and are!--responsible for wrong actions and words of ours, even if we didn't realize the wrongness at the time, and even if we participated in them collectively.  

That's a big deal.

It's important to acknowledge, for one, because it is so different from the buck-passing, spin-doctoring, shoulder-shrugging mindset of our culture that wants to deny responsibility for how our actions and choices affect others.  And second, it is important to face because the biblical writers keep showing us that our relationship by God is affected by those kind of things we so often say we aren't responsible for or didn't realize we were doing at the time.  

The writer of Hebrews, for example, notes that in the set-up of the ancient priesthood and temple system of Israel, the high priest offered sacrifices, not only for specific and known offenses the people had committed, but for the hidden, insidious, and even systemic (and yet still very real) sins of the people that they didn't even realize they had committed.  I mean, sure, if you steal your neighbor's chariot in the night or bow down to a golden statue, those sins are obvious, clear, and nameable.  But subtle things like showing prejudice against a neighbor who is different or came from another country... or skimming a little off the top for yourself at harvest tie... or leaning your hand on the scales just a smidge when that person you don't like comes to buy from you... or the unspoken trust you put in your weapons or your bank account that is really owed to God... these things are sin as well, even if you didn't necessarily "mean" them hurtfully, or didn't realize you were doing them.  And even though the long-term effects of a few cents here, or a few unkind words there, or a denied opportunity once in a while, might not look like they are big deals that actually cause harm to your neighbor, over time they have a huge impact, like dominoes falling in a chain, or erosion carving a canyon over eons.  Those were things the ancient Israelites understood--at least in theory--were things they were responsible for.  Those small injustices, even when no single individual committed them alone, still distort their whole communal relationship with God, and they need to be addressed.  The sacrifices brought by the high priest for the "unintentional" sins of the people were a reminder that God cares about how our collective actions affect one another and our connection to God, even when we may not realize at the time how our actions will cause ripple effects.

The point here isn't to just assign blame or make people feel guilty for things they didn't realize they were participating in, but rather to help the whole community be set right, and for every person to know that they bear responsibility for helping making things better--more just, more truthful, more faithful, more kind.  

In our day, we need this reminder more than ever, I think.  It is so easy to look at the troubles of our homeless neighbors, or those struggling with addiction to opioids, or the way hatred and fear of "the other" still makes life harder for some, and to think, "I haven't caused any of those problems personally, so I can't be held responsible for helping make things better!" It is easy to say, "I'm not wearing a white hood or burning a cross, and therefore I don't have a racist bone in my body," rather than the harder--but more honest--admission, "There are probably ways I make life harder for people who get treated differently because of their skin color, and I may not even realize I am contributing to it, but I still bear responsibility for checking those blind-spots in myself and learning to do better."  It is easy to say, "I'm not buying booze for my alcoholic relative, so I'm not a part of their problem," when maybe the more honest assessment is, "When I intentionally ignore destructive behavior rather than dealing with it, I may be contributing to the cycle that is slowly killing my loved ones."  It's easy to say, "I haven't evicted any one from their home, so I'm not at fault for the homelessness problem!" but it's probably a lot more truthful to say, "Every time I vote against the construction of new housing that would be affordable for people who are struggling to get permanent homes, because I assume they'll be criminals, or because I'm worried about what it will do to the resale value of my property, I'm contributing to the problem."  And yes, for all of those, we do bear responsibility, even if nobody intended to knock over the coffee mug onto the computer or tip the whole chain of dominoes.  Each of us does bear responsibility for the ripples we make on the world, even if that doesn't mean we are supposed to be petrified with guilt over it.

If the goal of naming those kinds of sins is just to make people feel bad or wallow in shame, we've missed the point, I think.  But from a biblical standpoint, it's much more about ensuring that everything is set right.  When we think of religion as merely a matter of individual scorekeeping to earn a postmortem spot in heaven, we will be insistent we only get minus points on our account for actions we have directly committed--robbing a bank, setting a fire, cheating on a spouse, and the like--but an awful lot of the brokenness and the hurt of the world will go unaddressed then.  But when we see that God's concern is more than giving out gold stars or red X marks on our permanent record, but about setting all things right, then we'll care about seeing our wider and deeper responsibilities to each other.  That's the vantage point of the biblical writers--we're the ones who have distorted things into this hyper-individualist perspective that ignores the impacts of our actions further down the chain.

So today, maybe it's enough to remember that God cares about the ripple effects of our choices, and those things we leave undone as well, and not just the red-pen marks or demerits that lower some imaginary tally of heaven points.  And then maybe we can find the courage to see how each of us is contributing to accidents, troubles, problems, hurts, and patterns of sin that make things worse for all God's world, and affect all of our relationships with God, too.

Maybe we each need to watch where we're walking... and how many things we have carelessly left to fall at the slightest touch.  It's good to know that God cares about those things, too.

Lord God, give us the courage to see ourselves, our choices, and our responsibilities to each other clearly and honestly.