Daily Retreat 08/16/08
2008 Aug 16 Sat: Ordinary Weekday/ BVM/ Stephen of Hungary, mm
Ez 18: 1-10. 13b. 30-32/ Ps 50(51): 12-13. 14-15. 18-19/ Mt 19: 13-15
From today’s readings: “Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD.... Create a clean heart in me, O God.... Suffer the little children to come to Me....”
Who’s Responsible Here?
Another hallmark of Ezekiel is his insistence and clarification of personal responsibility. Elsewhere in the Bible, the collective consequences of sin are explicitly affirmed, e.g., Exodus 20:3, that part of the First Commandment where God explains, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me.” A pessimistic and fatalist misapplication of this principle led to the proverb quoted today, "Fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children's teeth are on edge," suggesting that even a bit of imprudence (eating green grapes) leads to a vindictive aftermath for the succeeding generation (crooked teeth).
People were conveniently blaming all their woes on the previous generation, something not totally unheard of in our own day! While not denying the obvious truth that ill-effects of parents’ sins are felt by their innocent children, Ezekiel attacks the abusive appeal to this principle as a cop-out. Instead, he clearly explains that each individual is ultimately responsible for his own sins.
Remember though, Ezekiel was himself saddled with the inequitable burden of communal responsibility - while many had engaged in idolatry and other sins which led to the divine chastisement of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians, Ezekiel himself presumably was not guilty, even though he too was suffering exile. But doesn’t that contradict what Ezekiel insists about personal responsibility?
No, because Ezekiel’s strong emphasis on personal responsibility/culpability (found throughout his book but especially in Chapter Eighteen) was needed to correct the prevalent overemphasis on collective (ancestral) responsibility. Essentially, though, Ezekiel’s position is completely compatible with the Christian distinction of personal sin vs. social sin - the former is the more fundamental reality (and where the emphasis clearly belongs!); the latter is a derivative phenomenon, certainly not to be denied, but neither to ever be so overemphasized as to extenuate accountability for personal sin.
Ez 18: 1-10. 13b. 30-32/ Ps 50(51): 12-13. 14-15. 18-19/ Mt 19: 13-15
From today’s readings: “Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD.... Create a clean heart in me, O God.... Suffer the little children to come to Me....”
Who’s Responsible Here?
Another hallmark of Ezekiel is his insistence and clarification of personal responsibility. Elsewhere in the Bible, the collective consequences of sin are explicitly affirmed, e.g., Exodus 20:3, that part of the First Commandment where God explains, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me.” A pessimistic and fatalist misapplication of this principle led to the proverb quoted today, "Fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children's teeth are on edge," suggesting that even a bit of imprudence (eating green grapes) leads to a vindictive aftermath for the succeeding generation (crooked teeth).
People were conveniently blaming all their woes on the previous generation, something not totally unheard of in our own day! While not denying the obvious truth that ill-effects of parents’ sins are felt by their innocent children, Ezekiel attacks the abusive appeal to this principle as a cop-out. Instead, he clearly explains that each individual is ultimately responsible for his own sins.
Remember though, Ezekiel was himself saddled with the inequitable burden of communal responsibility - while many had engaged in idolatry and other sins which led to the divine chastisement of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians, Ezekiel himself presumably was not guilty, even though he too was suffering exile. But doesn’t that contradict what Ezekiel insists about personal responsibility?
No, because Ezekiel’s strong emphasis on personal responsibility/culpability (found throughout his book but especially in Chapter Eighteen) was needed to correct the prevalent overemphasis on collective (ancestral) responsibility. Essentially, though, Ezekiel’s position is completely compatible with the Christian distinction of personal sin vs. social sin - the former is the more fundamental reality (and where the emphasis clearly belongs!); the latter is a derivative phenomenon, certainly not to be denied, but neither to ever be so overemphasized as to extenuate accountability for personal sin.
posted by FrPitstick | 8/13/2008
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