“Woe to me!” I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people of unclean lips.” – The Prophet Isaiah
Isaiah was a man on a mission. Judah was in an advanced state of putrefaction and he, a court prophet, had been sent by God twenty-seven hundred years ago to preach judgement to the political and religious leaders of his day.
Judah had long before severed its moral, intellectual and emotional moorings to Jehovah God and was adrift on a sea of political intrigue, religious shallowness, and social degradation. Into this rotting carcass of a nation Isaiah launched his diatribe.
“Woe to the sinful nation,” Isaiah warned the elite of his day. “A people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.”
It would have been easy for Isaiah to think himself superior to his peers. After all, wasn’t he God’s prophet? Wasn’t he the man God chose to deliver his message of judgement? But God would have none of that.
In a surprise move, God turns the tables on Isaiah and appears to him in all of his glory and holiness. His message was obvious: “Just in case you think that you’re above reproof, Isaiah, I have news for you. You aren’t. I have a problem with you too!” To which Isaiah replies in abject repentance, “Woe tome! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people with unclean lips.” (You can read the story in Isaiah chapters 1 and 6.)
Isaiah’s experience is universal. We all have our ideals which we freely proffer others. And yet we all fail to live up to our ideals. Moses delivered – etched in stone, no less – the command, “You shall not murder.” And yet he was a murderer. David sought God with all his heart. And yet he was a rapist (and a murderer!). The disciples followed Jesus for three and a half years. And yet, at the end, they deserted him.
Carrying this truth into the present age, George Washington had his slaves, the Catholic church its pedophiles, white evangelicals their bigots and adulterous pastors. Banks have their Wells Fargo’s, car makers their VW diesels, sports its Lance Armstrongs, medicine its Theranos and opioids, Wall Street the recession of ’08, and Western Civilisation it’s imperialism, slavery, and world wars.
Need I say more? Idealism is a part of humanity’s provenance. Hypocrisy, a part of our fate. We all have our own personal “errand into the wilderness,” as Perry Miller so famously described early American history. We all also have our own personal moral failures. Asserting our ideals without acknowledging our own failure to live up to them is arrogant hypocrisy. Asserting our ideals while at the same time recognizing that we ourselves are a work in progress is moral humility.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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