If you wish to be perfect (2)

I take my title from the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19. The rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to follow the commandments.

Now, the thing that has always intrigued me about this is that the conversation could have entered right there. The rich young man might have said, "thanks," and moved on. But he doesn't, he asks which ones.

Again the answer Jesus gives is straightforward—staggeringly so. He cites examples:

And Jesus said, "You shall not murder: You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Again, the conversation could have ended there but, again, the rich young man is not satisfied.  He says, well I do that. And then Jesus tells him that if he wishes to be perfect he must sell everything he has and come follow Him.

Now we should resist the temptation to sneer here. The disciples are greatly astounded when Jesus tells them how hard it is for a rich person to get into heaven. We are used to the notion that we can and should hate rich people. We think of rich people, we think of Conrad Black. But this rich young man is a guy of tremendous stature in his society. He would have appeared as one blessed by God to the disciples. A good modern analogy might be a generally admired pop star such as Bono.

For Jesus is not just asking the rich young man to give up his wealth, he is also asking him to give up his status. If we think of Bono, this would comparable to Jesus appearing to Bono and saying, quit playing rock music, change your name and disguise yourself so know will know who you are. Then go from town to town as an itinerant preacher relying on handouts.

It isn't too hard to imagine a Bono-like figure saying, couldn't I preach much more effectively from my current position of status?

Rules and virtues
This is the dividing line between rules and virtues. Back when I was an undergrad, the professor teaching me used to say that you could get a morality from Wittgenstein's ideas about rule following by postulating a rule such as "Always do your best."

I eventually convinced him this was nonsense and I'll use the same example that convinced him here. Rule following calls for agreement of judgment. We have to agree what does or does not count as following a rule. So, if the rule is that all monks will attend the Canonical hours and Bill fails to show up at Compline, then Bill has failed to follow the rule. Bill may have a good excuse (sickness perhaps) but there is no room for dispute about what counts as following or not following this rule.

Always do your best admits of no such clarity. There is always room for doubt; there is always room for wondering if we might have not done better.

In my discussion at the Theology of Andrew, my arguments were bound up with this question of rules and definitions. The definition of the contrition that can be called "perfect" in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is quite clearly worded so as to not give us an open-ended concept like always doing your best. This contrition is not easy—lots of people, including me, have really struggled with it—but it is attainable and we can know that we have it.

[This incidentally, is why Leviticus is actually one of the most humane books in the Bible. In our harsh world, there are always bad people ready and willing to burden people with very harsh standards whereby the can never know whether what they have done is good enough.  People who want to use God to order and run other people's lives for them. Leviticus sets forth neutral standards that everyone can tell whether they have met them or not. Although it doesn't read that way in our liberal society it was, in fact, one of the things that made the development leading to liberal freedoms possible.]

But what of those who, like the rich young man, aspire to do even more? Well, first and foremost, it seems to me that we should heed the warning I think is implicit in the words of Jesus: "If you wish to be perfect ...."  But what if we just wish to be better or the best we can be?

At that point, I think we have to leave the rules behind. We should still follow the rules but no rule that tells us to be the best we can be is enactable.