The Way of the World
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Psalm 37:7b NASB
Prospers– Sometimes we read something that perfectly captures our anxiety about the world. Sometimes it was written long ago but turns out to be just as true today. Sometimes it’s worth reading again and again. Here is one of those times:
“The situation has deteriorated considerably in this century; which has witnessed the greatest triumphs of majestic man in his drive for conquest. Majestic Adam had developed a demonic quality: laying claim to unlimited power—alas, to infinity itself. His pride is almost boundless, his imagination arrogant, and he aspires to complete and absolute control of everything. Indeed, like the men of old, he is engaged in constructing a tower whose apex should pierce Heaven. He is intoxicated with his own adventures and victories and is bidding for unrestricted dominion.”[1]
“He, of course, comes to a place of worship. He attends lectures on religion and appreciates the ceremonial, yet he is searching not for a faith in all its singularity and otherness, but for religious culture. He seeks not the greatness found in sacrificial action but the convenience one discovers in a comfortable, serene state of mind. He is desirous of an aesthetic experience rather than a covenantal one, of a social ethos rather than a divine imperative. In a word, he wants to find in faith that which he cannot find in his laboratory, or in the privacy of his luxurious home. His efforts are noble, yet he is not ready for a genuine faith experience which requires the giving of one’s self unreservedly to God, who demands unconditional commitment, sacrificial action, and retreat. Western man diabolically insists on being successful. Alas, he wants to be successful even in his adventure with God. If he gives of himself to God, he expects reciprocity. He also reaches a covenant with God, but this covenant is a mercantile one. In a primitive manner, he wants to trade ‘favors’ and exchange goods. The gesture of faith for him is a give-and-take affair and reflects the philosophy of Job which led to catastrophe—a philosophy which sees faith as a quid pro quo arrangement and expects compensation for each sacrifice one offers.”[2]
David’s comments on the prosperity of the wicked in the 10thCentury BCE seem just as appropriate today. We fret over evildoers. We agonize about the inequities of life. We want justice. We get politically-correct accommodations. Life seems to reward those who cut all the corners, who cheat and scheme. We are the losers. They are the winners.
Except, of course, what Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote. Read it again.
Topical Index: Psalm 37:7, Rabbi Soloveitchik, prosperity, man of faith
[1]Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith, p. 97.
While we assume the truism “that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” is patently obvious, wicked men have found a clever work around. Work any poor creature to near death in a hot and cruel environment so that when you do lead him to any water, even brackish water, he will quickly quench his thirst. After a period of partaking of putrid water, when the proffered pool is polluted and the drink ultimately poisonous he will gladly slack his ravenous thirst to avoid death from dehydration. In our utopia driven Westernized world where the promised more is better and the bigger is best, perhaps we have unwittingly fallen prey to becoming slaves to our own carnal flesh, even if we must pay for it dearly and deadly. When we labor long and play hard we become desperately thirsty and we will willing drink from the stagnant pools of organized religion, not knowing we are poisoning our very souls, but ohhh, how good it tastes after working all day in the salt mines or the unshaded fields. Soon enough we become delirious from their poisonous doctrinal deceptions and we faint at their alter in passivity. Then the promise to be able to soar in the cerebral fleshpots of the sacred becomes an attractive option and then, an addiction. The devotees gladly pay any price to offer a sacrifice on it’s alter. And once again, as Skip noted: “We are the losers. They are the winners.” Thankfully Psalm 37 doesn’t end at verse 7. Verse 39-40 says: ” But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord : he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.”
Amen.
Ironically, it seems that even though people THINK they want all the strange substitutes you listed above, Michael (what an astounding and inspired description!), I think they are still looking for what they were created to have: shalom and relationship and the freedom and ability to exercise their God-given need to make the world a better place. They are still thirsty at the end of all their days serving Baal.
The cisterns have to break, it seems, before we become interested in the idea that we might have had it all wrong: that fake water and stones for bread still taste like dry stones. Some people actually do get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Those are the lost sheep. “Lost” has to become a recognized part of the paradigm, however, before the sheep can develop the capacity to want to be found. Defining the problem correctly is, as always, the most essential part of solving it. Gone are the (bad) old days when preachers preached sin and defined lost. We stoned them off the stage, but found nothing to replace the problem definers with, I think. Nineveh would, I am sure, stand in judgment of us who cannot even see our problems, much less want the cure for them.
If we are making the Job mistake, then surely we are setting ourselves up for the Job disasters. Those of us who substituted the worship of self and fell for the illusion of ‘control’ over nature have yet to see the backsides of these modern gods. Self is the worst place of all from which to achieve peace or love or purpose, and nature, while she makes a willing and obedient mistress, can be the most spectacularly horrible god of all. I think we are starting to see our bad relationship with that nature coming home to roost. We have polluted and destabilized and abused her for a good while now (not a wise thing to do to your god of choice). Surely the whirlwinds, plagues and disasters cannot be far behind. And that is “just the beginning of sorrows” for those who refuse to “trust in him”.
Andralamousia
They win in life as it exists in four dimensions. They win in a reality disconnected from Truth. It’s very hard to remain transcendent and live in a Kingdom that is not of this world. Dying daily and picking up a cross can seem so ludicrous. The struggle is real.
Man is not so much afraid of giving himself to God as he is of God’s searing light that exposes the trail of havoc he has blindly left in his wake and his deeply seated, hidden from his consciousness unclean motives.