Sins of Our Fathers

Reading more Jeremiah.  What I'm finding is that, we don't see in the bible the idea that people simply decide their fathers did wrong, or had a bad attitude, and so they distance themselves from their fathers, and get off the hook without repercussions.  They repent and so they don't suffer as a result of past stuff?  No price to be paid?  Sadly, it (life/reality) doesn't work like that at all.   The fathers eat bitter grapes, and this taste lingers in the mouth of the children when they try to eat anything, and it sets their teeth on edge, even if the fathers have long since died. The sins of the fathers ARE visited upon the children.  Actions and attitudes have consequences, and in a very real sense, children are nothing BUT consequences of people's actions and attitudes. Outcomes, even.

   And what have I decided are the shortcomings, arrogances and failings of the particular "nation," this little corner of modern Christianity in which I grew?  If you've read this blog, you've seen what kinds of things I feel we have (generally, more often than not, most of us) not only been raised to be, but have grown to live adult lives which are unrepentantly characterized by:

• the arrogance of claiming some kind of special, superior position of obedience, duty, teaching and worshipfulness before God, above all or most other Christians. 
• using "light" (correctness and piety) verses and doctrines as a way to excuse ourselves from even attempting to understand, let alone try out the love (connection, relationship) stuff in the bible.
• being judgmental, and never (practically, rather than just theoretically) forgiving anyone for anything, or being willing to actually go make amends, mend fences or restore people to our circles.  Judging and never forgiving ourselves, and therefore never acting any different.
• scattering the flock.  Endlessly dividing and redividing and subdividing, being willing to use any excuse at all (or, pretty much, nothing) to justify us going right along and helping make sure we all get minced up like garlic on a cutting board.  "Planting" far more churches than we can ever fill and not giving a fig as they die on the branch left and right.
• presenting and trying to follow a God who somehow has us store up pleasures in Heaven simply by sacrificing most forms of pleasure down here.  Puritanism, essentially.  Bitter grapes indeed.
• burying our selves and our talents in the ground, so as to be guaranteed we not misuse them and make a mistake of some kind and face judgment.  Guess what?  That's a huge misuse of them, a huge mistake. And yes.  There is judgment.
• living show-lives, choices made based not on what will work, but on what will or will not 'send the right message.'  Our consolation for this has been to aspire to look pious and obedient and dutiful.  Phariseeism, essentially. More bitter grapes.
• backstabbing and betraying Christian people in our groups, using lies, manipulation and the basest forms of political subterfuge and intrigue.  Doing treachery that the status quo may be maintained.  Evil that good may come.  The spirit of Jezebel and Judas, essentially.
• making a idol of Being Right.  Justifying all manner of horrible behaviour in service of that.
• making an idol of The Nuclear Family.   Justifying all manner of horrible behaviour in service of that.
• self-harm and acts of self-punishing humiliation akin to the cutting themselves and crying and fasting and shaving patches in their heads, rending their clothes and cutting off beards practised by the pagan idolaters.   Mainly psychological and social and relational self-harm, in our case.  We have made ourselves self-flagellants with supposedly pious shame and guilt.  In fact all we have done is withdraw from/into ourselves and hurt someone God loves, smiting ourselves instead of speaking to ourselves, making the same mistake Moses did with the rock.
• worshipping our own groups, our own doctrines, our own political positions, our own act of coming together to worship God, rather than actually worshipping God Himself.  We have sung songs in praise of our praise, about how much we enjoy singing songs of praise.
• offering our children to Moloch.  Sacrificing our children's needs, in the name of looking like a pious family, no matter what spiritual wreckage it makes of our children.
• focusing on a safely (or about to be) dead Jesus, so we don't have to deal with his life before or after the cross, terribly much.
• not letting the bible speak for itself.  Not letting it say only what it says, while refusing to speak on various topics, more often than not, about any number of things.  Because we've always had an answer.  A theory.  A chart.  No matter what the bible doesn't say.  Because we're using the bible.  Using it to make ourselves happy.  To comfort ourselves.  To make us feel correct. No matter what God has to say about things.
• being and doing no good at all in the world
• seeing good and calling it evil.  "Warning people against" good people and things.
• following a human-created system, a prescribed lifestyle instead of a Living Person,
• pretending the world used to be Christian, and we have to keep it that way, or try to return it to its more Christian state, by getting involved in human systems and politics, through which we think we can bring about this mythic act.
• elbowing aside any and all individuals who want to work, if they don't bow the knee and jump through the hoops of human systems we serve,
• removing all wisdom from our midst by casting out any acknowledgement of or attempt to deal with the daily realities that are complexity and nuance
• replacing what could have been a life long path of learning, a lifelong conversation, with simply requiring people to "take firm positions" on everything.  We have traded reality for expediency.

But we want blessing.  We don't want to be exiles.  We want our lives to "work."  We want to act like these sins of our fathers maybe weren't all that bad.  That's God's okay with all that.  That there's no good in focusing upon it.  Or that we're different.  That there is no effect springing from this cause.  That we can forget about it and move on and not be affected by where our roots are, by the soil from which we sprang and from which we still grow.  That God has nothing to say to us about any of it. That if we're fine, somehow none of that past baggage will be real, seen or felt.

   There is a price to pay.  And we'll pay it, one way or another.  We are paying it already, in fact.  Some of us can feel it.  And on our own heads be it if we pretend we're suffering reproach for our obedience, when we are actually suffering for our own and our fathers' lack of faithfulness.  And on our own heads be it if we pretend we're suffering at the hand of God for our lack of sufficient servitude to our culture/the Puritan God, when we are actually suffering for our own lack of faithfulness to and knowledge of the Creator of all Good Things. 

   Jeremiah was sent by God to express His displeasure and retribution against Judah for very similar spiritual indulgences as are listed incompletely above.  And Baruch was the unlucky man whose job it was to spend all his time with the Messenger Most Likely To Be Shot, Jeremiah, writing all this stuff down. We know what God said to Jeremiah only because Baruch wrote it down.

    And Baruch was part of the generation being judged by God for their attitudes and actions, for the sins of their fathers. And Baruch wanted a life that worked.  Didn't want to suffer exile and live in danger, infamy and reproach.  Wanted blessing from God. Prosperity. A safe, happy life, and a safe, happy family.  And what did God tell him (through Jeremiah)?  What was he given, which he in turn had to dutifully write down?  This:

Thus says the Lord: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war...