Songs of Sirens and Lesser Gods

We have talked before about the words of Jesus, and how many of the things he said are subtle, their wisdom ranging from the commonsense to the sublime. Occasionally, I have found, they can even sneak up on a person, highlighting an otherwise mundane event with greater significance.

Yesterday I met a man at church who I have seen before, but only from a distance. It so happens that attending an Episcopal Church as I do, many of the people who frequent would be prototypical examples of the category “white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant” (or WASP for short). That is certainly not true of every member, but it is true of many of them, often with greater means both financially and in terms of interconnection. Families in the church range from newborn infants to the silver-haired, and many of the latter in particular have accumulated a modest amount of wealth over the years. I would place this man in his early fifties, perhaps slightly older. Everything about him spoke of prosperity, and I was truly struck. Let me describe him a little more fully.

He was amiable and likable, and he had a certain charisma about him. I learned he had been a politician of some stature in his home state, and he certainly had the hallmarks we associate with politics: charming smile, white teeth, pleasant looks, adept at understanding and interacting with people. If you are tempted to dislike him based on these brief observations, I have failed to communicate my thoughts effectively. There was nothing about the man to dislike, and indeed, I enjoyed my conversation with him a great deal: not just the conversation, but I enjoyed the man himself, I enjoyed experiencing him as a person.

Now our minds tend to constantly form mental evaluations of other people, particularly during first encounters when our perspective has no previous history to shape its perception. Sometimes we see things on first encounters we become blind to later on, and sometimes we see at least certain things more clearly as a result. What I picked up about this man most was that he seemed, how would you describe it? somewhat empty? noticeably missing a certain vitality? Whatever descriptor expresses this idea of some kind of vacuum or lack adequately, it seemed apparent to me why this impression was true, if my first impression had any basis in fact. He was not just a passing admirer of wealth, but it had become to him something of a vice. I do not mean that he was greedy or dishonest: I never picked up any sense of those elements. Nevertheless, money meant a great deal to him, not just in the way he presented himself to the world in jewelry and expensive clothing, but it pervaded on some level deeper that I picked up intuitively. He had come to depend on it; it had taken on a larger-than-life role in his life that was creating for him a certain dependency, and, accordingly, hardship. Wealth and the influence it buys had worked its way into his thinking, into his perspective of the world.

I also noticed a related element as well: he cared what other people thought of him. For that matter, I think we all care what others think of us, and many of us probably care too much. This man seemed especially of the latter sort, though in a subtle way. His charm and his personality communicated to me a strong desire to be accepted, a need to be accepted, perhaps as an ongoing form of self-validation, a way to continually check his own appearance in the mirror of another’s eyes, making sure no hair was out of place or sprouting out from any unusual places. It was not unlike the college cheerleader who is a member of 26 organizations and who finds that her looks and her performance-driven approach to life are double-edged swords, winning her accolade but so often leaving her feeling a little hollow. This man was very polished, yet underneath the surface was an element of vulnerability not unlike a cringing puppy: “Please don’t hurt me.”

Let me now go back and underscore that what I am describing in this man was subtle, and I am not certain that everyone would have picked it up. However, I was listening to him intently, looking him directly in the eyes, absorbing something of who he really was even as I listened to him. He was not unlikeable in the least, and I felt oddly fond of him. But my fondness was not a direct result of his wealth or his charm or his pleasant appearance, but more a result of their combined interaction to produce, for lack of a better term, a tragic element that underlay his character. That is, this man had a certain vulnerability to him, a sense of being impoverished on the deepest levels, as though (in his self-perception) if you were to take away the clothes, the pleasant looks, and the charisma, you’d have nothing really left over. Put differently, this man seemed to have a nagging sense that he was somehow a fraud at any moment in danger of being “found out,” as though the white teeth and gold rings and costly fabric were magic charms to keep at bay the fear of being found a phony. How like most of us, at least at times, if we care to be honest!

Sometimes when we meet someone, they leave a powerful impression on us that we do not soon shake. So too this man. All the rest of the day and again today, I am almost haunted by what I read in his eyes. I am haunted not because his life was so extreme, as there was little extreme about him. I am haunted because I feel like I understand something that I believe Jesus also well understood as well. Hopefully the subtlety of what I hope to communicate will not be lost in translation.

I think first of the “rich young ruler” in Luke 18:18–30 who came to Jesus, saying, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” After challenging the man on addressing him as “good” (“only God is good”), Jesus tells the man that he is to observe the commandments. The ruler replies that he has indeed observed the commandments since he was a boy, and Jesus tells him that he lacks one more thing: “sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.”

Let me pause here for a moment and suggest that this is the same Jesus who, if we are to believe the author of John, says of himself, “I judge no one.” That certainly seems consistent with what we know about Jesus; as Father Ken’s homily this Sunday bore out, with Jesus there are no outcasts even if that is not true with us (every last one of us stumbles on this point with some group or another in society, whether it is their lifestyle we find objectionable, their appearance, our perception of their character, or whatever else). Jesus was constantly healing the “untouchables” and was accused of being “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19) because he associated with both prostitutes as well as the much despised publicans who often exacted usury over and above what the Roman government demanded. So then, whatever else this encounter between Jesus and the rich young ruler might have been, it was not one-dimensional. I can only assume that Jesus looked into his eyes and loved him (as Mark’s account of the same event explicitly suggests), and the words he spoke were the words of love that has the courage to tell people what they need to hear, not necessarily what seems polite. (Incidentally, the challenge for us in speaking such words is two-fold, ensuring that they at once come from a heart of love and that we are really seeing reality accurately.)

Jesus tells the wealthy young ruler two things. First he tells him “one thing you still lack.” Then he issues a direct command: “sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor.” Presumably we are to read this reply as consisting of two parts: the man is lacking something that is not directly identified in Jesus’ reply, and whatever it is that this man is lacking, it can be remedied, at least for this particular man, by selling off his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. Verse 23 gives us further context, detailing both the young man’s reaction as well as offering an explanation: “when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.” As this verse and the verse following suggest, the young man had a problem, not necessarily with wealth itself, but with his attitude toward or attachment to wealth: it greatly interfered with the quality of his spiritual life. The following verses include Jesus’ commentary on the situation:

For now, I will leave off analyzing the thought-provoking question “Saved from what?” (I submit a deeper analysis than the superficial gloss often given the idea may well be in order), and instead focus on the idea that our perspective and attachment to wealth is one of the things that keep us from fully experiencing God. That is to say that a focus in this direction stands in the way of the inner transformation that I see Jesus constantly referencing. Let’s look at one more extended passage, before bringing the point home:

This passage is a familiar one to many of us, though perhaps even now we can unearth a different perspective. No doubt you have heard and even given a lot of thought to the idea that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” However, what if we consider it in light of the idea of “no one can serve two masters”? And what if, in addition to that, we include this idea that if “the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness”?

If you want to gain a nearly instant friendship and form a favorable first impression, begin by asking the other person leading questions and really listen to the answers you receive. Most people, upon seeing that they have a sympathetic ear, will very quickly jump into the things that interest them most. Almost everyone has certain hobbies, certain interests, certain things that are “near and dear” to their heart. Carefully listening and showing interest in what you are hearing will solidify a positive first impression and often a lasting friendship; carefully listening with interest will also reveal something about the other person’s treasure (as well as your own, if you reflect on the comparison, parallel, or contrast). Do you suppose that the other person is aware that there is a very close link between where his or her heart is and what master he or she serves?

Now we can take this observation in many different ways. What I am definitely not doing is trying to sculpt an idea with a chainsaw. I am not suggesting that absolutely anything we happen to be interested in apart from God is some kind of idol, only that it can become idol-like, and to the degree that it forms a false basis of belief, to that degree it will create hardship and difficulty for us. And exactly what would form a false basis of belief? Anything that is susceptible to being moth-eaten, rusted, or stolen: that is, anything that is ephemeral, perishable, fleeting. Such things do not make reliable masters, because they are transient and impermanent.

A good friend of mine believes that one thing Jesus repeatedly stresses is that we will suffer or experience liberation under whatever God we serve (which my friend argues is often a perception or mental construct, that, however false in actual fact, might as well be true for us), and Jesus alone points to the true nature of God in his teachings, such as the parable of the prodigal son, or his promise that we will be fed and clothed just as the ravens or the lilies of the fields, or his commandments such as this one that take as their model the attributes of our loving Heavenly Father:

My friend suggests that these pictures of God are miles removed from any notions of wrath, anger, or judgment; in any case, his point remains that if we pursue any lesser god—whether as a treasure of the heart or simply holding false notions of the Father—we are kept in bondage to that “deity.” For that is how a deception or a lie works. It has power only as long as it is believed, and once it is shown to be false—and believed, on the deepest levels, to be false so that any remaining emotional attachment to it is also dissolved—it loses its power. It has power only to the degree that it is believed and forms the basis of other beliefs. A false belief about God or living our life in servitude to a “treasure of the heart” that cannot sustain its own weight: either one will result in a life of bondage. And as Jesus says, the truth alone will set you free, and you will be free indeed.

To continue this thought, my friend interprets the idea of the eye being full of light as, in essence, a metaphor for the understanding being filled with truth. But “if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness,” this expression is again a metaphor, this time for a “darkened” understanding. If what you take to be truth is actually a form of deception—that is, to the degree that your understanding has become poisoned by an inaccurate understanding of the true nature of reality—then you will continue to be enslaved to your (false) understanding to that degree, wandering around as though a man lost in the fog. Thus, “if the light that is in you is darkness”—if your understanding is poisoned by a false belief of any sort—“how great is the darkness!” Your entire internal operating system, so to speak—again, your understanding—has been compromised by a rogue virus which will affect how you see your world. You truly will be seeing specks in your brothers’ eyes while failing to see the logs in your own, or, as Father Ken put it in the homily this week, failing to see the entire forest of logs in your own eye, at least at times. (Of course, the aspect of seeing specks in other people’s eyes confronts yet another false notion about our role as “pure” believers and what purity of heart means. As with everything Jesus taught, the truth is always an “internal affair,” dealing with inward transformation that can at best be seen indirectly from the outside and is ultimately known only to God and the individual soul.)

In the “light” reading material I assigned at the beginning of the semester in critical thinking, we looked at a model of cognition, a way of “thinking about thinking” as I like to tell the students. This particular model suggests that we make distinctions, these distinctions create relationships between similar and dissimilar things in our thought, these relationships and the distinctions that comprise them can in turn be thought of as systems, and systems in turn involve perspectives, seen from both a definite point and accordingly forming a particular view (which is what is literally implied in the familiar expression “point of view” more so than having a particular “vantage point”). Taken together, these are known as the DSRP, an acronym derived from the first letters of the four methods of thought.

I mention the DSRP, not because I suddenly want to launch into a lecture on critical thinking, but because of something one of the articles suggests about our perception of the world and how that relates to Jesus talking about the eye being the lamp of the body just as the understanding is the lamp of the soul. Here are a few excerpts of that article, culminating in the paragraph or so I wished to share:

This particular account refers to distinctions, but it is also applicable to our perspective or perception of the world in general, which I think further comments on the idea of the eye being the lamp of the body. The way that we perceive our world, whether as a conscious choice, a perspective we have inherited, or an interplay of the two, does indeed “affect our entire system of thought.” Therefore, if the eye that is in you be one of darkness, how great is that darkness! Everything you see will be misperceived, which, especially given that this verse is interspersed with hearts and treasures and the inability to serve both God and money, reminds me of the story of King Midas: everything he touched turned to gold, his bed, his food, the flowers in his garden—even his own daughter! The parallel between these accounts is an almost exact one, as Midas carelessly evaluated gold above and beyond its proper place and paid the price for his folly. When his initial wish was granted, the “Midas touch” poisoned his ability to share in the deeper relationships of friends and family or even to nourish his own body. Everything he touched was reduced to crass materialism, a lesser god that could not sustain the weight of worship because of its perishability, subject to both tarnish and thievery. A poorer yet richer Midas, when his foolish request was finally undone, learned that matters of the heart are of far greater value, eternally grateful when his daughter was restored to life and all else that he had touched was returned to its original, untarnished state.

I would hardly say of my new acquaintance that he was a foolish Midas, yet I do think that, like the rich young ruler, to a degree wealth has formed for him a lesser god, and, true to its nature of being subject to tarnish, has tarnished him and will continue to tarnish him as long as it occupies its current status. As George MacDonald says so well, if where our treasure is, there our heart will be also, that means exactly the same as saying that our heart will suffer the same fate as our treasure, left out in the open where moths feed, rust decays, and thieves plunder and steal. For we become like the gods we serve, to whatever greater or lesser degree we serve them. If they are perishable, we suffer their fate along with them.

Archive note: See also the discussion forum thread regarding this newsletter.

Gold tarnishes. When the treasure of our heart is the unhealthy and unrealistic elevation of other people, not for their own edification, but because of some narcissistic need within ourselves, other people invariably become lesser gods: other people cannot realistically sustain the weight of our worship for long without it taking a toll on both us and most likely them as well. We cannot long attempt to create people in our own (false) image and expect that they can bear up under the weight. Other people put on pedestals become like Midas’ daughter—golden and not exactly (real-)lifelike—and like all statues put on pedestals, are continually subject to erosion and decay, crumbling bit by bit until they suddenly fall into pieces before our unbelieving eyes, leaving us shattered, devastated, greatly disillusioned and embittered. So too, our hearts become a bit more moth-eaten when expensive attire (and the mindset that accompanies it) dominates our interest. Likewise, if our God, though God, is angry, wrathful, and ready to rain down fire from heaven at the slightest provocation, we not only suffer anger and wrath ourselves as well as enduring the psychological effects such a god produces, but we too tend to become like this god we serve, less loving and more rigid, cold, and judgmental.

We cannot serve two masters. We bow to the expectations of the god we serve, our inner eye filled with the degree of light or darkness that our god brings.

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