Whence these wild grapes? A Consideration on Rebelliousness in the human heart

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 10/5/2014 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[markomalley]

Among the issues that stands out in yesterday’s (Sunday) Gospel about the vineyard, is the wild and strange over-reaction by the tenant farmers that the landowner was owed anything in terms of the fruits of the harvest. Notice that they beat, stone and kill the servants sent to collect the owners portion. They do the same with a second wave and then even end up killing the landowner’s son!

And this is not mere story. It was born out time and time again in Israel’s history in the shameful rejection, hatred, improsonment and killing of the prophets. It was about to culminate in the astonishing killing of God’s own Son! The text of yesterday’s parable said, They seized the son, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him (Matt 21:40). And as the Book of Hebrews affirms of the ancient Jews, and also of us, So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured (Heb 13:12-13).

And down through history the human family has repeated this pattern, killing those sent to preach the gospel to us, and holding up God’s own Son for contempt, and even murder in the killing of members of his body who are force to die “outside the camp” They are ostracized for the mere preaching of the gospel, and the calling for the fruits that befit the righteousness of those made in the image and likeness of God.

What is wrong with us? Why this special and outrageous hatred for God and his very reasonable request that we bear fruits that are suited for creatures made in his image an likeness?

Some will say that it is just the human tendency to dislike rules and limits. But honestly, most of us like rules just fine in most other contexts. If anything our modern American scene is dominated by an increasing demand for rules and laws.

Look at all the campaigns against smoking, drunk driving, sexual harassment, fair hiring and labor practices, civil rights, and now even rules about calories, salt and sugar content….etc. There has been an almost endless parade of demands for new laws. Not all these laws are bad but they DO illustrate Chesterton’s old axiom that when we cast aside big laws we do not get less law, we get lots of little laws. So, cast aside a big law like honesty, or mutual respect, or justice and you get ten thousand little laws.

And we not only tolerate these laws, we demand them, even as we complain that Government is too big and intrusive we still want more laws, more protection, more, more.

Look also at the American rage about sports and football. As I write this post many Americans are glued to screens and quite literally obsessed about a bag full of air being moved up and down a field. And the game is FULL of rules. There are boundaries, lines of scrimmage, 30 second clocks, etc, that the players dare not cross the lines or transgress the clock. There are dozens of fouls that stop the game; penalty flags that fly, disputes that must be decided by appeal to rules and laws. 80% of the game is rules. And not only do we like this, but we become downright indignant if the referee or line judge misses a violation by the “other team.”

So I am not so sure that it is merely our tendency to dislike law. It will be admitted that most do grumble about too many laws, but at the end of the day no one want to get rid of a law that protects them or their interest.

But there is a special anger that seems to get excited in many people, especially today, whenever the law in question is thought to be religiously based. Suddenly an almost visceral reaction sets up in many. And the same people who demand the outright banning of smoking (but strangely favor legalized marijuana use) are crying out in anger: “Get your rosaries off my ovaries and your Bible out of my bedroom.” Almost anything at all can be discussed in the public schools. Our children are being exposed to some pretty awful and strange stuff, but if you even think about mentioning Jesus, lawsuits are threatened and bitter anger is exhibited by increasing numbers.

Why this strange anger, this overkill, this hostility way out of proportion to the very reasonable and salutatory influence of faith and religion in the public discussion?

Some will argue that things like smoking and civil rights are public matters are public matter, but sexuality, abortion, euthanasia, marriage etc are private matters. But they are not. The act of sexual intimacy may occur in private setting (and I hope this continues to be the case) but the results are anything but private. They have very public effects: the birth of children, or abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, higher divorce rates, single motherhood, children without fathers, poverty, pornography, sexual addiction, and so on. All of these are very public matters and problems that few people are willing to discuss as the very real effects of our so-called private acts.

Marriage too is a very public act as the LGBTQIA interest groups affirm in demanding public recognition for their false “marriages.” And the fight over marriage shows just how public and central marriage is to our culture. If the LGBTQIA interest groups really believed that sex was private and marriage was private they why do they demand public recognition and even affirmation for their behaviors.

Likewise, euthanasia cheapens the life of the suffering, the dying, the handicapped and others who are increasingly seen as taking up too many resources. And instead of respecting their struggle and admiring their strength, we are suggesting they be eased out the door sooner rather than later.

And for those who want abortion to be private, it must simply and firmly be said that the death of 50 million fellow Americans cannot be considered a private matter and their blood is crying out from the soil of this land and this land will answer for what we have done to them “legally.”

So enough of this talk of “private” matters. We who live in community must recover an understanding that even our private behaviors have many public effects.

But we are back to the central mystery of why there is such a special venom against the Lord and his Church. The tenants of the vineyard and their wildly outrageous anger at the landowner are a picture painted by the Lord of our human condition. And in our fallen condition we seem, at least collectively, to have a special hostility and rebellion towards God.

The biblical answer to the reason for the hostility comes down to one fundamental word: “flesh.” The biblical phrase “the flesh” (ho sarx) is not per se a reference to our physical bodies. It is a reference to our fallen condition of hostility and enmity with God. The flesh is that part of us that doesn’t want to have a thing to do with God. It is that part of us that is hostile to God. that doesn’t like to be told what to do and bristles at even reasonable limits on our behavior. It is that oddly obtuse part of us that, when told not to do something, wants to do it even more. It is that strange and self destructive streak that desires intensely even things that we know are bad, very bad, for us.

It began in the garden when Satan hissed at Eve saying, ” Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’? (Gen 3:1) Eve rightly answers that God only forbade one tree. But Satan pressed his case and insisted that God has no right to set ANY limits on us and that we have the right to be gods and should not let God keep us down. Satan thus portrays God as an opponent of human flourishing, as an enemy of self actualization. It was a direct appeal to our pride and Adam and Eve bought into it. And pride has been our problem ever since. It has many ugly siblings as well: rebellion, resentment, fear and anger directed against God.

Fundamentally this is what St. Paul means when he speaks of the flesh. There is indeed a special hostility directed towards God and the things of God most identified with him.

There are several forms of this hostility and aversion to the legitimate demands of God.

1. There are those who cannot (yet) take it upon themselves to directly hate or resist God. Thus they use what their own minds considers proxies (substitutes) such as the Church. It is easier for them to say the Church is evil, corrupt, out of touch, sinful, full of hypocrites, etc. But in so doing they must set aside the biblical insistence that the Church and Christ are one body and that Christ cannot be had without his body the Church.

And even if there are legitimate things about the Church that are less desirable, the real anger isn’t about those things, the anger is about our unyielding insistence on the sacredness of life, of the body, of marriage and sexuality; (all things Christ and his apostles taught) that really angers them. Things like crusades and inquisitions are not the real issue, discrediting and hating the Church are the real goal and no attempts to explain or contextualize these largely symbolic issues will have any effect, because they are not the real point. Hating and vilifying the Church as a kind of proxy for hostility to God is the real goal and need. Christ and his Church are ultimately one.

And all this they do as a substitute for hating God directly. But dividing Christ from his body the Church is ultimately a lie.

2. There are those who move beyond the Church to the Scriptures and direct their venom there. The book is either outdated or to be discredited since it contains passages about genocide or “supports” slavery. Never mind that the same book shows God leading his people away from savage warfare in stages, or that the slavery of the biblical world was fundamentally different from the slavery of colonial times. Again, that is not really the point. The point is to use unfair and non-contextual attacks to undermine the source itself. The book is bad, hateful and has to go.

Even within some Christian denominations there has been an attempt to set aside large portion of the clear moral law by the subterfuge that “God is Love” and surely wants people to be happy and fulfilled. Therefore Jesus did not mean what he (plainly) said in forbidding divorce and remarriage, warning of hell, greed, lust, dissentions, factions and the refusal to believe and so forth. Thus in their own mitigated way they too stab at the heart of Jesus and his message. Here too is a basic and sinful rejection of God rooted in the flesh that will not be told what to do.

3. Yet another form is the designer God phenomenon. Instead of directly attacking God as he has revealed himself, this group simply redesigns him to suit their fancy and thus they don’t have to attack him (or her, or it). Sometimes called the “god-within” movement, this group creates a god of their own understanding, who just happens, by the way, to agree with everything they think. He (she or it) affirms them, never raises his (her or its) voice, would never judge, and is really cool with anything they want to do.

This used to be called idolatry, but that word seems so “harsh” and since the designer god would never be harsh, the word doesn’t “fit.” There are vast numbers today who think they have a perfect right to invent their own designer god.

This prideful rejection of the true God is cloaked is the soft clothes of niceness and phrases like “I’m spiritual not religious.” But at the end of the day all this talk is just a way to avoid and hide from the sinful rejection of the true God. Maybe they are even lying to themselves. But whatever the intention, it is what it is: the rejection of the True God who has reveled himself quite clearly in Sacred Tradition and Scripture. He has to go! The designer god has to take his place. Cloaked in niceness, it is still ugly pride and an angry rejection by the flesh.

4. Finally there are those who cast aside all euphemisms and attempts to cloak their outright rejection, even hatred of God and the things of God. More than mere atheists, these are really better described as anti-theists. God must go, the Bible and religious myths must go, the Church must go. Laws and walls must be erected to contain the spread of religion which is thought to be worse than a disease.

To them religion (not sin) is the cause of almost all human suffering, war, ignorance, hatred, bigotry etc. They do not just see the Church as a misguided institution, but as a terrible enemy that must be vanquished. The anger of these anti-theists is at times quite exceptional.

Likewise there is a similar wrath from many deeply mired in the sexual confusion of these times.

I have surely had to field the wrath of many of them on this blog who seem to even have a strange fear of me and of the Church. I often ask, “Why do you care what I or the Church say, think or teach? If we are so irrelevant and fading away, why do you fear us so? If am just some dude who is deluded and my God is just some imaginary friend, why such anger from you. Why such apparent fear? What’s that all about?”

Part of the answer, I think, is that deep down they know were right. So do the dissenters from any number of of our teachings know deep down that we are right. Hence the “over-the-top” quality to their anger.

But the other deeper answer has to be simply “the flesh” that deep drive of pride against God. We may try to cloak it and substitute it with other proxies as detailed above, but deep down in all of us is a very rebellious streak that must be increasingly mastered by God’s grace, the sacraments and the truth of his word. Sadly we live increasingly in a world that encourages, fuels and even celebrates this rebellion.

But no amount of celebration can make this rebellion less ugly than it is. It is ultimately a rejection of the plan of God for our salvation, wholeness and holiness. To remain in rebellion brings only ruin. God will do whatever he can to save us. As yesterday’s first reading said: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done? Why, when I looked for the crop of grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? (Is 5:6)

But if we finally refuse and indulge the flesh there comes a moment when God hands us over to our willful rebellion, whether individually or collectively. And thus the same passage says,

Now, I will let you know what I mean to do with my vineyard: take away its hedge, give it to grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled!…it shall not be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to send rain upon it. The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished plant; he looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed! for justice, but hark, the outcry! (Is 5:5-7)

Pray that the moment when God hands us over does not come. But evidence is mounting that things have now come to that point in the decadent West. When our collective rejection of God and his kingdom reaches a certain point, God says, your will be done, I will “interfere” no longer.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

[markomalley]

Msgr Pope ping

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

So does he want those “little laws” or not?
They never quite say.

[NYer]

Ping!

[defconw]

This one is going to leave a mark!

[IronJack]

Just a quibble , but the correct phrase is “BORNE out,” as in past tense of “bear out,” as in “carried or transported.”