Paul slips through cracks
Between Easter and Pentecost, Catholics around the globe are
reading the Acts of the Apostles. The
readings now are about Paul’s adventures along the coast of Turkey and Greece. And today’s reading is about a time when Paul
got hauled into court by some brother Jews.
Paul looked over his accusers, and saw an old ideological
split. Some of his accusers were
dogmatic about their beliefs concerning a spiritual life that transcends daily experience,
including angels and spirits and a life after death; others were equally dogmatic
in denying such fuzzy-wuzzy. So he made
an appeal to one side, asserting his roots in their beliefs. The two sides forgot about Paul and attacked
each other. When the melee began to spin
out of control, the Roman intervened and pulled Paul out. Case closed.
I find the reading immensely comforting, addressing a
personal worry. When I was in court in
the 1970s and 1980s, pro-life activists used to argue about whether to raise technical
issues in court, or ignore technicalities and focus on speaking about children’s
lives. I was generally a strong advocate
for scrapping all the technical nonsense and focusing on the real issues at
hand; I felt dirty when I descended to trivia amidst a slaughter. But I did it at times. Once, there were three of us on trial for
blocking access to the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Silver Spring,
when it was on Cameron Street. The court
was on Georgia Avenue, a few hundred feet south of Cameron. Everyone in the courtroom knew exactly where
everything had happened. But still, the prosecutor
neglected to ask witnesses whether the events occurred in Montgomery County. No one bothered to say that Cameron Street,
right over there, was in the county. And
so there wasn’t any explicit testimony establishing the Montgomery County court’s
jurisdiction in the case. So when the
prosecutor finished, I asked for a dismissal, and got it. We didn’t argue about babies and go to jail;
we raised a technical issue, and went home, to fight another day.
It is a delight to me to read that Paul did the same kind of
thing. He expected to get convicted of
some capital crime, sooner or later, and was at peace about that; but on the
way, he felt free to wiggle and dodge at times.
(Polycarp did the same, a few decades later.) So I can, too; and I don’t have to feel dirty
because of it.
But Fr. Martin asked, this morning, whether anyone still
argues about theological issues with the passion that caused the riot that
freed Paul. I was startled by his
question. Of course they do! (Hm. Of course we do.) Half the Catholic Church is convinced that
God really cares about sexual morality, but doesn’t have a strong opinion about
how to write laws defending a nation’s borders.
The other half is equally convinced that God has been sending prophets
to denounce injustice throughout human history, but doesn’t get too fussed
about details of urination or fornication or other genital activity. Morality versus justice: which does the Lord
care about? I think the division is
weird beyond belief. But still, the current
reality is, these two sides denounce each other with bitter passion.
"but doesn’t have a strong opinion about how to write laws defending a nation’s borders"
ReplyDeleteModern national borders, like modern nations themselves, are for the most part little more than conventions and typically not at human scale, so why should there be a "strong opinion" so to speak?
If I understood you, borders are conventions, not generally created by God's direct intervention. But their transient nature does not make them unimportant. Throughout Scripture, God demands hospitality, speaking principally to nations.
ReplyDeleteThe cardinal term is "not at human scale" Where as God made us at human scale.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, law allowing abortion are also not at human scale. They have the appearance of being law, just as modern borders have the appearance of being borders.
Franklin, I am not sure I understand this phrase you use, "human scale." Perhaps you can refer me to a philosophy text that explains it. From my perspective, the phrase seems full of paradox. I think the universe is about 14 billion years old, and stretches across space for lightyears. In the midst of this spacial and temporal vastness, I am pretty sure that the universe makes no sense until it reflects on itself, is self-aware. And as far as we know, the only self-aware self-reflective creature in this vastness is -- well, it's the human race, these arrogant little ants on a speck of dust in the corner of one galaxy. I think that the whole universe awaited the coming of humanity; the whole shebang was meaningless until Adam and Eve came along. So when they chose lies over truth, it was devastating! One detail of the coming of Christ into the universe was that he re-established our proper relationship with Arcturus and other stars (and galaxies). So: "human scale"? I need some help understanding what you're after.
ReplyDeleteBorders, like society itself, are by nature scaled according to us, just as our shoes are scaled according to our feet.
ReplyDeleteJust as size matters with shoes, so likewise does size matter with society because it too is grounded in man's material nature that is limited.
Borders exist because man by nature is limited according to material scale, just as sizes farms and sizes of houses are limited. Exceptions don't disprove the rule, but instead give evidence to the rule because even mansions are scaled in most respects to the same approximate scale as any other house, so likewise with vast farms.
And just as a single farm is seen as unnatural when it extends for a hundred miles, so likewise can a society be unnatural when it too extends beyond its natural limit.
What the natural limit is, is not always easy to discern, but we can know it at its limit the same way as we can judge that a single man is not worth million dollars a day when his servant is worth one hundred dollars.
Justice concerns itself with the balance, and at one end of the fulcrum is human scale, in its various forms.
Adding on, modern borders are not true borders for the same reason that the leviathan we call "our nation" is not a true society. And because the modern nation is not a true society, God does not have a "strong opinion" on its defense.
ReplyDelete'Where as there is at the more local level a great need for that defense, which is lacking because of the false notion of what our society actually is.