Exodus 20
I was talking to a group of folks yesterday about the relevance of Old Testament notions of communal sin for the current economic crisis. Someone specifically referenced the reading this week in Exodus, this business about holding the 3rd and 4th generation accountable for the sins of the forebears. People, in American and elsewhere, are paying--with jobs or taxes or lost investments or lost money--for the sins of a few. As proud individualists, I think we have the tendency to say 'that's not fair!' both to this passage in Exodus and to this part of the economic crisis. So, in that conversation I was having yesterday, I thought they were probably right. I have long thought that this section of Exodus is descriptive, not proscriptive. It's not that God sees a sin, and then jumps out and boxes someone's ears for misbehaving (proscriptive). It's more like that this is simply the way the world works, and God is letting us know (descriptive). If parents sin, the cost of that sin will extend beyond themselves.
To someone with much experience of addiction, this is not a surprise. It's not fair that children and spouses of addicts pay a heavy cost for sins they did not commit, but they do. They have greater emotional burdens to unlearn, genes to overcome, ingrained habits to consider, practices to erase--and none of it is their fault. Perhaps, if we were willing to engage with it, our long fought (and almost totally ignored) battle with addiction would have taught us more about the looming economic difficulties. Perhaps addiction and money are related in all kinds of ways, ways that could have helped us. Or could still help us. (I am reminded of an acquaintance who once argued quite fervently to me that Anonymous in AA was a mixed blessing. At the same time it freed people to seek help without even greater shame than they already felt, it also prevents the wider public from knowing just how many people struggled with addiction--a number that would likely astound the world.)
But while I think this is all true, it struck me in my conversation yesterday that this was all 'old hat' for me, stuff I knew pretty well. I find myself wondering instead: why do we worry about the fairness of sins that affects 3 or 4 generations away, but we neglect the strange blessings that extends for thousands of generations? If I have gained some of my bad habits, or self-esteem, or socio-economic status from people beyond my control, why don't I wonder at the tiny gifts my ancestors, thousands of generations back, have given to me?
Sure, I'm judgmental, snobby, and self-centered. But I'm also compassionate. Why am I compassionate? Perhaps because my parents were--or perhaps because my pre-school teachers were--or perhaps because my first friends were. But why were they? Perhaps their parents were. Where in my human family did that compassion begin? Where did someone, sitting in front of a hearth on a cold night, say: I feel bad for my neighbors who have no hearth. Perhaps I could share.
Lent with its self-examination is too often a practice in the genealogy of badness. We sift through those thoughts, words, and deeds, done and undone, and try to map them out--"where did this come from? Why do I have such a temper?" And so on. Fine--that can be helpful, and hopefully we all know something of the role of repentance in our lives of faith.
But perhaps Lent should also be a time for a genealogy of goodness. "How did I learn when to hug someone, and when to give them a handshake? Why do dogs always make me smile?" Surely we pay for the sins of others, but we also receive benefits from the gifts of others. If it seems unfair that we must pay for the sins of the community, is it unfair that we have all benefited from long-gone loves, receiving grace upon grace?
If Lent is to be a time of self-examination, it must be honest. And honesty means that it can never be only a list of things done wrong, commandments violated. It must also be a list of things done well--flowers bought, money given away, time shared. Not all that we receive in our common life is a cause for repentance.
