What In The World (Take 2)

What a world we live in — it’s the world of the future. Aren’t you excited?

[In early 2023 I wrote What In the World…. This is the 2024 version.]

While I was growing up I had an aunt and uncle that for a time lived somewhere in Los Angeles (West Covina comes to mind), and we would visit now and then from wherever we were at the time. The trip would sometimes include a a day at Disneyland in Anaheim.

I remember many things from those visits, and from Disneyland. On the earliest outing to the latter, I remember my father and I sitting at a table outside a cafe talking while watching construction work for the then-future train ride, the one that later ran around the park.¹ I would have been five going on six years old if that was in 1955, when we were moving and en route from Florida to Alaska by way of Texas and California, with our little travel trailer in tow. I remember the gravel roads in places where there are Interstates now. I turned six somewhere on that trip.

On later visits, one regular stopover at Disneyland was Tomorrowland and its “House of the Future”² (1957-67). It contained all kinds of amazing things, or models thereof, including a flat-panel TV — imagine that!! Non-working, of course. Brought to us by Monsanto, as a monument to plastics. How nice. (If only I had known then what I know now, about Monsanto and about plastics.)

Well, the future has arrived and flat-panel screens are everywhere, and plastics, and other things depicted in that exhibit. But now I am left wondering where my world went, the one in which I thought I grew up. The one I was taught so much about. The one that offered so many things and conveniences that earlier generations had lacked. I remember still thinking I was living in it not that many years ago. But then suddenly it went “poof”.

The world on the surface looks much the same now as it did in more recent decades past, although with many more potholes in the roads, but when I view it now I see it very differently. I liked the old view. I don’t at all care for the new one. The covers have come off, and the masks of those behind it. What’s underneath is ugly. I never even dreamed of this.

In the earlier decades, as an adult, I sometimes reflected upon how peaceful were the lives that many of us enjoyed. I had and have my difficult times, some quite difficult, but I never directly experienced war, and I could go to the grocery store and buy whatever I needed. As I later learned more about what constitutes good food and what does not, my choice of stores narrowed, but there was still good and affordable (not cheap) food on the shelves every time I went shopping. It was very different from what my parents experienced, growing up in the Great Depression and living on subsistence farms, then going to war instead of college. I saw and appreciated what a difference it was. (Not everyone was so fortunate.)

Those days are memories now. I still eat good foods, although not so affordable and now we keep food and water reserves on hand, and we have a vegetable garden, not just an orchard. A generator starts up automatically when the power fails, and surveillance cameras keep watch on the property, recording everything that goes on. There was already an alarm system, but it’s a better one now.

Some of this is a little like what my parents dealt with growing up, but without having their farms and their ability to live off-grid. And without the communities in which they lived and supported each other — there are two of us living here, both of us single, childless, and in our 70s.

What happened? Well, lots of things were taking shape all through my life, rooted in the events of earlier centuries, all progressing behind the scenes without my knowledge, the real world about which my father knew something but only offered slight hints. Meanwhile, I was living in Fantasyland, believing many of the stories I was fed, although not all by any means.

Then, suddenly, according to some there was a pandemic from which the powers that be saved us. All praise to the Powers that Be. According to others, there was a pandemic of crime emanating from the powers that be. The Powers that Be must somehow be stopped. Some were pointing to evil germs (along with anyone that doubted that), others to evil people. Virtually always, the finger points outward. It’s them. They’re doing this. What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, nothing, if we’re just a bunch of people living on a planet in a universe that came into being by chance, us forever trying to make things better while things keep getting worse and worse. If so, nothing truly matters. We’re just fauna. If that assumption is in error, though — which is certainly possible — then there is lots that could be wrong with this picture.

Recently I was in a particular group discussion, part of an ongoing weekly in-person, interactive Bible study... Before going any further, I need to say that I have no particular expectations about readers here and their beliefs. I sometimes receive interesting comments about and pushback against things I write here, and that is fine. Here I am describing portions of a discussion that took place, not trying to persuade people to believe as I do. Even the other people in this group don’t exactly believe as I do, although we do hold a good many beliefs in common. On this particular day, our differences were showing. That’s our group. There’s room for differences.

We’re currently in the book of Matthew, going through it chapter by chapter, verse by verse, talking about what we see there. That’s what the group does. Finish one book; start another. I don’t lead this group, but as a participant I draw up on a reference library I bring with me on my tablet PC, offering historical and cultural context, and commentary attuned to the nuances of the original language texts.

We were in Matthew’s (likely misnamed) “Sermon on the Mount”, reading about things Jesus says there that I believe relate to the question above, “what happened?” This day we went through the following portion, one of the most difficult parts to appreciate in the overall passage.

Matt. 5:43 — “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I am telling you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ⁴⁵ so that you might be children of the heavenly Father because he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good alike and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what credit is that of yours? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same thing? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own kind of people, what more are you doing? Don’t even the pagans do the same thing? ⁴⁸ Therefore, you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.³

What’s going on here? What kind of reasoning is this? Well, first of all, let’s look at the setting. The popular view seems to be one of Jesus standing on a mountainside, shouting to a crowd, but that’s not what the text of Matthew says. It describes a different setting, an intimate one, at least at the beginning⁴.

Matthew 4:25-5:2  Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the region across the Jordan. When Jesus saw the crowds, he ascended a mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he began…⁵

These words, particularly in the Greek, describe a rabbi — a teacher — escaping the crowds to a mountainside, sitting down to teach, and then beginning to teach his disciples privately. In this setting, the teaching can be intense, and it is.⁶ We also can learn from it.

Returning to the passage itself, it begins with a very sharp contrast, “you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy [v. 43]” vs. “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you [v.44]“.

Two ways of thinking are presented, one familiar and one foreign. Each way of thinking carries its own consequences. The familiar way takes us nowhere — we stay stuck. “For if you love those who love you, what credit⁷ is that of yours? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same thing? [v. 46]“ Nowhere.

After that, “And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? [v. 47]“ Nowhere still.

These two examples themselves stand in contrast to “He [‘your Father in heaven’] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. [v. 45b]“ This represents a way of thinking that removes the preference for ‘good people’ and does not reject the rest. God offers what he offers to all.

The consequences of the familiar way of thinking are active in the world as we know it, broken, and going nowhere (or worse). The consequences of the other way of thinking being taught here are “so that you might be children of the heavenly Father [v. 45a]“

This is a different kind of ‘child’: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. [v. 48]” This in turn is a recapitulation of v. 45a, “…be children of the heavenly Father”. It’s saying “have the same perfect love as your Father does.”⁸

As with “he sat down”, there is much more that can be said about “Be perfect…” Osborne offers a detailed analysis of these words and this verse. I will only suggest that the words for “be perfect” connote maturity and completion. In a sense, it’s saying “grow up!” We could use some of that right about now.

A fundamental theme runs through the Sermon on the Mount: when confronted with evil, respond with good. Receive evil; return good. This is not our ordinary response. This is an extraordinary way to respond. It is what is missing in our present-day conversations about the evils that confront us. We want to stop “those evil people” while we continue doing what we have been doing.

That’s not enough. It doesn’t work. When has it ever worked in a lasting way? It doesn’t even maintain the level of order of society, let alone improve it. Think of spinning in place until you begin to drill a hole and eventually drop from view.

What if, in an actual confrontation with evil, we were to respond with kindness rather than responding in kind? Where would that take us? Well, potentially any number of different places. Among them, however, are possibilities for change. For both parties. It would be such an unexpected event.

The extraordinary response carries with it the potential to take us to new places, and in a way that could conceivably have a positive effect on some of our enemies. Wouldn’t that be a better objective than simply wanting to dispose of them all? Couldn’t we give up our need to be right for that? Have we ever made similar errors?⁹ (Another subject I won’t go into here, but the problem is not just with “them”.) Would we want to be disposed of for our errors?

“Love your enemies” does not say to love evil. It looks beyond the behavior, to the person behind it. Actually, “enemies” is in the plural, while in verse 43 “enemy” is singular. The plural suggests “love all your enemies”. But in a particular way, returning good for evil, not evil for evil. It doesn’t excuse the wrong.

Isn’t this risky? Sure, but so is returning evil for evil. The latter, however, tends to close the door to resolution. Let’s keep it open.

What in the world is going on? How do you like this future? Sometimes it’s necessary to revisit our assumptions and beliefs, and this might be a good time to do some of that. I know I have had to revise portions of my own beliefs again and again, most recently during the past few weeks.

I can’t tell you for sure what is true, but I know that it is important to keep asking and seeking answers. And to do something with the answers you discover or are shown.

There is no way I can neatly wrap this subject up and put it to rest. This is something to wrestle with. Thoughtful comments are welcome.

---

Related: A. S. K.

1. Is the train there now? I don’t know. It was there on my last visit in 1978, when I took an afternoon off from attending the National Computer Conference across the street, which as best I recall included a session with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak talking about their garage and the company they founded. (I actually walked to Disneyland from the Anaheim Convention Center and back.)

2. See also this YouTube video about the House of the Future.

3. Osborne, Grant R., Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew, Zondervan, 2010. Translation by the author.

4. Matthew 7:28 refers to “the crowds”, sounding not so intimate.

5. Ibid. Translation by the author.

6. There is a context regarding the way that rabbis taught; I’m not trying to present that here, but the book Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg comes to mind. The important thing is that when the text says “And when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying…”, there is more to that than simply someone sitting down and others coming over, and someone talking. This describes a teaching session, a very intense one.

7. Other translations read “reward” instead of “credit”. Osborn comments “μισθός here [in affirmation of laudable conduct — BDAG] is not used of a ‘reward’ one earns but more ‘credit’ that one receives for doing well.”

8. Osborne, ibid.

9. I was tempted to write “mistakes” instead of “errors” but no, it’s errors. We all make them. If we can say “mistakes were not made” about others, we can sometimes apply it to ourselves as well.