God and Neighbor

     "The greatest of the commandments," says Jesus, "are two.  The first is this: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and mind, and strength, and soul.  The second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

     It's difficult enough sometimes for the wayfaring Christian to remember that the unpleasant fellow to his left is a man made in the image and likeness of God, capax Dei, capable of knowing the divine, of seeing God face to face.  Assuredly the man on the left is understandably burdened with the same difficulties regarding that unpleasant fellow to his right.  But to love God is to love those whom God loves, including all the glorious panoply of saints and sinners and sages and fools that throng the pilgrimage route, and who are all going the same way we are going, whether they or we know it or not -- towards death and judgment.  To violate that second commandment, then, is to violate the first.

     But what about violating the first?  There are sins that are a direct affront to the Deity, or that seem to involve only one's own private vice, at most a sort of inner disruption of the soul's love for God.  Is that appearance true?  Are we so constituted, individually or in community, that we can possibly sin against God without thereby also sinning against our neighbors?  If there is a truly private sin, I can't say that I see it.

     Nor any truly private virtue.  My wife and I have spent most of the last few days and nights in the hospital, at the bedside of her mother, who is near death.  She has been a loving mother-in-law to me, and a more generous and sweeter grandmother to my children it would be impossible to find.  But she was a hard woman to be married to, as she herself would admit.  I won't get into the details, but long ago, before I knew her, she and her husband were at the brink of divorce, and pulled away from it at the last moment, not because they had a change of heart toward one another, but because they saw how it tore up my wife, their only child.  They held to their duty, and there was a heroism in that.  They did not know, at the time, that what looked like an act of a strictly private virtue, or at most a virtue that involved only their daughter, they would be sowing the seeds of blessings for people they did not yet know, most particularly for their two grandchildren, whom they would love more dearly than they loved anybody in the world, aside from their daughter herself.

     Every man's sin diminishes me; and the corollary is that every one of my sins, and there are plenty of them, strikes at my neighbor, too.  But every response to the love of God, even if the call is but faintly heard, helps to build up on earth the Body of Christ.  So I've seen it, anyway, in the life of my mother-in-law, Esther, and may God bless her.

Comments

[GL]

Tony,

You and your family will be in my prayers. I hope your son is doing okay and I will specifically remember him.

[Mairnéalach]

Peace be with you and yours, Tony.

If God is a private matter, then so is sin. The delusion runs deep and strong. It is the loftiest idol of our day, and its throne runs with blood.

A year after my wife put me away, I finally mustered the courage to confront and name her adultery--particularly its effect upon our four year old son's attitude and behavior.

With indignant tone, she called the cuckold--her knight in shining armor--to her defense. "We did nothing", he pleaded pathetically. "She was honorable. I wanted to, but she would not let me."

In astonishment, I replied "Usually a man seeking to defend his beloved's honor ought to establish his own first. You baldly admit you coveted my wife. What profit would there then be in any truck between the two of us? I am a man of honor, you are not, by your own admission."

Indignantly, he replied "Whatever I did is between me and God, and is none of your business."

Sure! None of mine. And apparently, none of my boy's either.

"Enjoy the rest of your life", I told him. That is all he will have to enjoy.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>They held to their duty, and there was a heroism in that.<<<

Albert Camus, "The Plague".

[James A. Altena]

It seems that the claim that sin is private always comes up in relation to sexual sin, as opposed to money, speech, or any other type. And then, as Marinealach's post shows, those who commit it imagine that they can cloak or rationalize it with God Himself.

Our prayers are with you and yours, Tony, and also with you and yours, Mairnealach.

[Bobby Winters]

>>>between me and God<<<

As long as he thinks like that, it will be between him and God, separating them for ever and ever as he burns in the fires of hell.

[Mairnéalach]

Paul says sexual sins are unique in that they are against our own bodies. This is probably the factor which contributes to the peculiar blindness in that facet of our lives, which James notes.

[GL]

Indeed, no sin is a private matter. That little sin of Adam's ripped the fabric of the universe and we all live with the consequences to this day. King David's little private sin, oogling Bathesheba and building lust in his heart, spun out of control, leading to adultery, murder of a loyal subject and an honorable man, the death of an infant son, rape of a daughter by another son, fraticide among his sons, rebellion of a son and his resulting death, and the execution of one son at the hands of another. Indeed, the sword never left his house because of a chain of sin begun when he privately looked upon another man's wife with lust rather than averting his eyes -- a sin he no doubt thought was merely a private matter. Through the years, I have observed the impact of my own sins, the consequences of which I thought at the time were also my own alone, on the lives of others in ways I never would have imagined. By damaging my own soul, I could not help but to cause harm to those whom I loved and who loved me. And by contributing my little drop of sin to the ocean of sin in our culture, I have done my part to make our society what it is today.

Mairnéalach, you and your son have my prayers.

[Bill R]

"Indeed, no sin is a private matter."

And, as Tony points out, no virtue is either. From one Life lived perfectly, redemption flows like a fountain through the channels of history. Trouble is, it's harder to see the effect of a good act performed, especially when one's life continues on a even keel. Tony's example is the rare one, where we really can see how a single courageous act unfolds for the good for all concerned. What heaven shall someday reveal!

I add my prayers as well.

[Gene Godbold]

Dear Bill,
I suspect that you're a better man than I, but I think I can see how my own acts, good and wicked, are reflected in the lives of the members of my family. If you follow the promptings of the flesh, the possibilities shrink--the world closes around you and grows gray--but if you walk after the Spirit, there is life and health and freedom.

My parents, though they bicker with and vex one another, made a decision to stay together (and maybe had to make the decision repeatedly :-) because their children--me, I think, particularly--would have been grieved had they parted. They have good and bad days, but things have been trending better for the last few years (in as much as I can observe them). When they think about it, I believe that they are relieved that they didn't divorce.

[Bill R]

"I suspect that you're a better man than I..."

I'm quite certain that's not the case, Gene, but I'm equally certain that there's a good reason God rarely allows us to see the effects of our good actions, yet usually permits us to witness the outcomes of our sins. Something to do with humility, I suspect!

[GL]

I'm equally certain that there's a good reason God rarely allows us to see the effects of our good actions, yet usually permits us to witness the outcomes of our sins. Something to do with humility, I suspect!

Frankly, many times when I think I am doing good, I later find that there was some unintended negative consequence. Undoubtedly, this is God's way of reminding me that He alone is good and my own acts of righteousness are but filthy rags. Such is the results of Adam's fall, that even our good works are corrupted. I hope and pray that when I leave this world, I will find that He has done some good through me, the positive consequences of which I will then be allowed to see, but also seeing that it was He who did the good and that I was merely blessed by Him to be an instrument through which His good was performed.

"No one is good except God alone." Luke 18:19 (ESV)

[Gene Godbold]

GL,
I think I understand what you're trying to say, but I love the beginning of the 8th chapter of Romans (I've got it on my cube wall):

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

I suppose if you think following the Spirit is "you" doing good you might get proud or whatever--but it's not. You're just His "hand" (or perhaps His left testicle if you feel the hand to be too important :-) and He's working through you. ("Yet not I, but Christ in me.")

[Bill R]

"Frankly, many times when I think I am doing good, I later find that there was some unintended negative consequence."

Yes, it can be discouraging to find that the only pure motives I have are the ones to commit sin!

[Reid]

"If God is a private matter, then so is sin. The delusion runs deep and strong. It is the loftiest idol of our day, and its throne runs with blood."

Mairnéalach, I am sorry for what you and your son suffer. May the Lord redeem your loss.

Your comment above is terrifying in its truth. Our courts worship daily at this idol, and the blood of the unborn floods the land because our most honored judges think murder a price worth paying to give the unchaste a right to privacy.

Our family courts count adultery a private choice, so private that children should be shelted from their parents' faithlessness. For support in this doctrine they lean on the psychologists who view adultery as a legitimate and blameless way of pursuing one's own happiness (which is, after all, an unalienable right in America). A faithful wife watches some whore seduce her husband into adultery, then divorce, then state-ordained "marriage" to the whore. The courts may harrumph at the adultery, but they will order the children to spend half their remaining childhood being raised by the adulterer and the whore -- and woe to the faithful wife if she exposes the sin and teaches the children the wickedness of the arrangement. (Or let the husband be faithful with the other sexes changed accordingly -- the story is the same). When the courts, out of a sense of delicacy for private matters, demand unconditional honor for "fathers" whose faithlessness blasphemes the character of the one true Father and unconditional honor for "mothers" who come only to "kill and steal and destroy," what fruit can we expect when the children are grown?

[Gene Godbold]

Guys,
I wouldn't spend too much time navel-gazing as to motives. You can get in a solipsistic situation that can become a breeding ground for spiritual anxiety: Am "I" trying to do too much? Is it me or is it God?

You can see Paul deflect this sort of thing on numerous occasions in the epistles. "I do not judge myself, nevertheless..."

[anonymous]

May God give mercy and repose to the newly departed, Esther, and peace to loved ones who remain. For all of us, especially the good Professor, Mairnealach, and all humble readers and commenters, perhaps a prayer from Orthodox Morning Prayers may unite and help our hearts. A Prayer of St. Basil the Great:

O Lord Almighty, God of hosts and of all flesh, Who dwellest on high and lookest down on things that are lowly, Who searchest our hearts and innermost being, and clearly foreknowest the secrets of men; O unoriginate and everlasting Light, in Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning; Do Thou, O Immortal King, receive our supplications which we, daring because of the multitude of Thy compassions, offer Thee at the present time from defiled lips; and forgive us our sins, in deed, word, and thought, whether committed by us knowingly or in ignorance, and cleanse us from every defilement of flesh and spirit. And grant us to pass through the night of the whole present life with watchful heart and sober thought, ever expecting the coming of the bright and appointed day of Thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, whereon the Judge of all shall come with glory to reward each according to his deeds. May we not be found fallen and idle, but watching, and upright in activity, ready to accompany Him into the joy and divine palace of His glory, where there is the ceaseless sound of those that keep festival, and the unspeakable delight of those that behold the ineffable beauty of Thy countenance. For Thou art the true Light that enlightenest and sanctifiest all, and all creation doth hymn Thee unto ages of ages. Amen.

[Reid]

Anonymous, thank you for posting the prayer.

[Bill R]

How weak and insipid our prayers today sound when compared with men of God such as the Great Basil!

[Mairnéalach]

The prayerful empathy I receive always gladdens me. What gladdens me more is to be able to say to all: the prayers are working. By using the magistrate's sword to indulge her lust, the woman forfeited her control over our son's spiritual life (an unintended consequence which she still curses to this day); for the last year, I have been free to pray, laugh, & worship with him without her hindrance. The effect upon his soul has been nothing short of miraculous. Whatever difficulties the divorce wreaks upon him, he has a new resource to combat them with: his newly minted faith. Praise God.

[cyrano/rox]

An interesting problem, private sin or private virtue. The Right likes to wring its hands about sex; lets talk about money. As an example, one Mr Bennett, who gambled large sums of money while married, and writing about virtue. Is that private? he embezzled from the common funds of his family, though no financial harm came to them, as far as I know, because they had so much. But does it affect the wider world in a spirtual way? He shames his crowd, heartens his opponents, but is my money affected? I don't see it. To the extend that such a man repents, confesses, and makes amends, the sin is really between himself and God, because I, as a random example of all men, forgive him.

Or take the opposite case; one Mr Newsom, mayor, who had an adulterous affair with his employee's wife. Ugly, treacherous, messy; dashes one Democratic hope and cheers the GOP. But is my marriage affected? No, of course not. And again, it is between him and God, because I forgive him.

How can there be sins between me and my neighbor, if I forgive? I'm not boasting of any extraordinary ability to forgive, but that is the norm to which I aspire.

But the real problem is deeper; the idea of sin as crime, as particular acts that could be photographed. Many sins are like that; typically the warm, wet sins, the sins of the leopard. The cold, dry sins, aimed for the deeper pits, can't be captured in a snapshot. Envy, malice, and fraud are concealed by their nature. So we easily point out the glutton or the john. Sin is more and other; distortion of love, privation of good, separation from God.

But if one man is so greedy for money that he gambles conpulsively, is my greed or temperance affected? I don't think so. Viewed correctly, imho, he's just one more example of human fallenness, no more nor less. If another must have such-and-such a bedmate, at any cost, he makes the society of men that much worse; but he does not make me more likely to stray. Again, an example of human frailty, merely. And separation from God? Despite a certain innuendo lately, I am no reader of souls [just of prose] and I cannot judge anyone's separation from God. Therefore, while the general fallenness in which I participate definitely affects me, and anyone, it is impossible to assess the particular effect of any one person's hamartia on any other person; in effect, it is private by the structure of human life.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>But the real problem is deeper; the idea of sin as crime, as particular acts that could be photographed.<<<

The Eastern Churches do not think of sin as crime, they view sin as illness. They also believe that sin has both a personal and a cosmic dimension: the sin of one affects the whole world, therefore the whole world is sick, but it can only be cured through the healing of each and every individual soul. Moreover, as long as one soul remains sick, it can and does infect the souls of those around it, so that sin is indeed a contagious disease.

[GL]

A London newspaper (I believe it was the Times, but I am not sure) asked several famous men to write essays on what is wrong with the world. One letter the editor received read as follows:

Dear Sir,

I am.

G.K. Chesterton

cyrano/rox,

All of our sins are personal and against God alone, yet all of our sins are like drops of water contributing our own iniquity to the ocean of sin which define what is wrong with the world. You may not be more prone to gamble because William Bennett does, but his gambling is a small part of a larger gambling problem we have in this country which contributes to the breakup of families and personal financial ruin for many. Anna Nicole Smith's sex life may not cause you to sin sexually, but it is small part of a sexually disfunctional society which leaves little babies with uncertain paternity with a chain of consequences flowing therefrom. David sinned against God alone, but his sin had profound negative consequences for his family and his kingdom. It is not private or public, but private and public.

[cyrano/rox]

Stuart, remember that St John of the Ladder says that he who condemns a sexual sin commits a worse sin than the sexual sinner, because the sexual sin partakes of some degree of charity, love, or fellowship.

We are all, already sick with sin; there is no one who has a worse strain of the common disease. That is the point of the liturgical statement, in chorus, that 'I am the first of sinners'.

Sinfulness is cosmic, but since we cannot assess the degree or details of any one man's separation from God, his sinfulness is inherently private from other men, indistinguishable in the fallen nature, as you cannot point out one bucket of water in the ocean. And we can't really say one man has a greater quantity of sinfulness, so we can't blame the flood on the men whose sins we can point out.

The post started with comment about private virtue: consider the case of a person who keeps perpetual fast, without reference to Christian ideas. Has he contributed to the general fund of virtue? By the reasoning I see here, he should. And I hope it's true. My own father lived 30 years without the ability to speak or use words, following a stroke; it's a rare monastic who keeps such a vow. I have prayed that it may be accounted to him as virtue, but if it is, surely that's God's mercy and irony, not the operation of law. Does either of these facts truly affect the spiritual lives others who did not know the men? again, as bucketfuls in the ocean; and since we cannot judge the degree of virtue of any given person, it must remain private from other men as a cause.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, remember that St John of the Ladder says that he who condemns a sexual sin commits a worse sin than the sexual sinner, because the sexual sin partakes of some degree of charity, love, or fellowship.<<<

Don't cherry pick or cite St. John out of context (one reason why The Ladder should only be read with the guidance of a spiritual father). St. John is condemning self-righteousness, he is not condoning sin, nor is he saying that sexual sins in general are not sins or have no effect on the life of the world.

>>>Sinfulness is cosmic, but since we cannot assess the degree or details of any one man's separation from God, his sinfulness is inherently private from other men, indistinguishable in the fallen nature, as you cannot point out one bucket of water in the ocean. And we can't really say one man has a greater quantity of sinfulness, so we can't blame the flood on the men whose sins we can point out.<<<<

Therefore, seek holiness, condemn sinfulness, forgive sinners. Or, perhaps, you are saying that St. John Chrysostom was lacking in Christian charity?

>>>The post started with comment about private virtue: consider the case of a person who keeps perpetual fast, without reference to Christian ideas. Has he contributed to the general fund of virtue? <<<

Fasting divorced from prayer and almsgiving is dieting. St. Kirsty Alley, pray for us.

[cyrano/rox]

Stuart, of course St John was condemning self-righteousness, and not particularly endorsing any sins. I thought that was obvious as written.

Don't quote out of context? you have to be joking; all quotation, in such a brief format, is a choice. Is there any indication that I am accusing St John of anything?

Is fasting only dieting? I was thinking of convinced vegetarians of various degrees, with various ideas about the use of the animal creation, not only people aiming to alter their weight or health. But let it go; a minor example.