Analog Theology Part IV: Analog Ethics

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:33-34

In an increasingly digital world--a world broken down into one's and zero's, yes's and no's--I've been reflecting on human experience, and especially our experience of faith, as an analog phenomenon. It's unified, it can't be broken down, and in some very important ways, it will be slightly different every single time you play it back.

So we've already discussed analog reality, analog worship and analog faith. Here's where the rubber meets the road: analog ethics. We're done talking about what happens in our brains or hearts or souls. What difference does this make for what we do?

In his book, Ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer starts off with a bombshell:

"The knowledge of good and evil appears to be the goal of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to supersede that knowledge."

Whoah. Kind of sounds like this Lutheran pastor, who wrote several volumes of Christian theology, taught at a seminary, and stood up to Nazism when most of his Christian contemporaries couldn't cave fast enough, is saying that Christians shouldn't trouble ourselves about figuring out right from wrong.

Sounds like that, but it isn't.

Instead, Bonhoeffer writes at length about the search for "knowledge of good and evil" as the first human sin, and that the very fact that we feel like we need to know, as a sign that we're fallen. Remember that Adam and Eve didn't just eat the forbidden fruit because it looked tasty, but because the serpent made the case that eating the fruit would give them knowledge of good and evil, making them independent. They wouldn't have to be in relationship with God anymore; no more asking or reflecting with God.

What we as human beings desire is a formula: the ability to decode the data of our lives for ourselves, a long list of "yes's" and "no's," one's and zero's, "good's" and "bad's", that can be copied in its exact form to apply perfectly to any situation. In effect, what the serpent is offering to Adam and Eve is to "burn them a copy" of the source code to the universe. That's what we want. But as we've already established, that's not how the universe works. We can't come to any legitimate knowledge of what to do with our lives, unless we first seek union with the source of our lives: God.

There's a good reason why the shelves in any book store, Christian or secular, are overflowing with self-help volumes. And there's also a good reason why if you wait five years, you'll be able to buy each of them at a garage sale for a dime. We want a simple formula, and there isn't one. We want something that will create a life free from shame, mistakes, missteps, regrets, and we want it to work every time, for every person in every situation. We want one's and zero's: "yes" to envisioning your life goals, "no" to negativity, "yes" to my political platform, "no" to the other guy's, "yes" to fruits and veggies, "no" to carbs, on and on and on. We want a fool-proof guide to living in peace and harmony within ourselves and with others, in perfect, HD, digital clarity. And there's no such thing.

When it comes right down to it, that's where Jesus and the Pharisees parted ways. The Pharisees were offering a universal template for behavior, and Jesus was offering a relationship that makes a unique impression on each person. Life was getting complicated: in a newly globalized society, the normal way of making amends with God for mistakes--by offering a temple sacrifice in Jerusalem--was getting too costly and impractical. People needed a way to get free of that system. The Pharisees' solution was an increasingly complex mechanism for keeping your hands clean in the first place. They proposed more laws to supplement the laws; more rules to supplement the rules; a great, long list of commandments to help you make sure you were properly keeping the commandments you already had. The goal, it seems, was to eventually have a perfect, digital, "downloadable" rule book for staying ritually and ethically pure on your own.

Jesus' solution was simpler, yet more demanding. Yes, he did spend a good deal of time on ethical teaching, just like the Pharisees. And, like them, he generally set the bar ridiculously high. But unlike the Pharisees, that was what Jesus was actually trying to do. I won't go as far as many Lutheran preachers, who have taught that the whole point of Jesus' ethical teaching was to point out how impossible it is to even try to keep the law, so people would have to rely on good ol' salvation by grace through faith. That's an anachronism. Jesus was a Jewish teacher, and he most certainly did want people to stop selling themselves short, and actually try to do what God requires of us. But he also was very clear that this doesn't come from a rule book. It comes from following him. It comes from making a commitment to be a part of his movement, and trusting him enough to go where it leads, in community with other followers. You can't just download a rulebook, and follow it on your own, because the rules will change as the world changes. What matters is relationships: coming to him, no matter how dirty or clean we think we are, and being forgiven, and experiencing a unity with God that makes us able to make the earth more like heaven.

Jesus does not want to give us the latest updates of "ethical living 2.0" for individual household use. He wants to live with us, and make an "impression" on us. To cut grooves into our souls, to play back the loving music of the heavens for this world. And Jesus makes the conscious choice NOT to hand down a digital template, or a book of "Yes's" and "No's," but instead to use human beings--flawed as we are--to play back the message of God's love. So yes, it's going to sound pretty lousy sometimes. Through living among other scuffed-up people in a scuffed-up society, we will develop some pretty major scratches and skips. We will have wounds and scars, all the more so if we are actually trying to follow him. But the scars are part of the message. The stories of redemption become part of God's story in this world, by which other cracked and scratched people--people still bearing God's image after all these years--might come to follow.