Had You Walked in the Way of God – Baruch 3:13

The whole of our adult lives is crowded with decisions, their consequences, and our ability to take responsibility for those consequences. It has always been so. We see in the Old Testament prophet Baruch, when he warns, “Had you walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt in enduring peace” (Baruch 3:13). This was written five years after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. It is a long prayer of national confession, for it recognizes that the Jewish kingdom had been lost because they had not “walked in the way of God” for a long time. And, of course, the truth is that, in our own time, we, too, have not walked the way of God all too often, and just as back in Baruch’s time, this continues to be the cause of all of our suffering. We, like the Jews of Baruch’s day, are often blind to our pride on one hand, and to our jealousies on the other.

The ancient Greeks also understood this problem. They saw how pride is the center of much of the suffering in our lives. They called it ‘hubris’, or overweening pride, and that when unrecognized, it always leads to a downfall of tragic proportions. Their understanding was very sophisticated. The playwright, Sophocles, put it at the center of his work. The main characters of his plays were of very high social status, such as kings, as in his play, ‘Oedipus, the King’. They were understood to be good, even noble characters, but that they were blind to a particular flaw within themselves (always hubris) and all of their decisions and actions were made in and through that unseen, unrecognized flaw, with the inevitable result of a great and tragic fall that not only affected the main character but everyone around them. Does this not seem familiar? Is this not a fair description of sin, from the sin of Adam down to our own self-absorbed, prideful times? Do we not see it all around us?

One of the offshoots of pride is the sin of jealousy. The psalmist recognized this in the powerful, incisive Psalm 73. He writes, “How good God has been to Israel,/ to those who are pure of heart, / Yet my feet came close to stumbling,/ my steps had almost slipped/ for I was filled with envy of the proud/ when I saw how the wicked prosper” (vs. 1-3). He looks around him and sees that the rich, the famous, and the powerful seem to be able to do anything they want with impunity. He writes, “For them there are no pains;/ their bodies are sound and sleek,/ they have no share in men’s sorrows;/ they are not stricken like others./ So they wear their pride like a necklace,/ they clothe themselves with violence./ Their hearts overflow with malice,/ their minds seethe with plots” (vs. 4-8).

The psalmist doesn’t stop there either. Guided by the Holy Spirit, he furthers his observations on those who, in their pride, walk in ways that are not of God. He writes: “They scoff; they speak with malice,/ from on high they plan oppression” (v. 8). He recognizes that those who are driven by this pride think themselves above the demands of God’s Law, or any other law. “They have set their mouths in the heavens/ and their tongues dictate to the earth” (v. 9). And he recognizes how the people react to them, how they come to idolize and to imitate them. “So the people follow them/ and drink in all their words./ They say: ‘How can God know?/ Does the Most High take any notice (vs. 10-11)? Look at them, such are the wicked,/ but untroubled, they grow in wealth” (vs. 12). Is this not familiar? Is this not what we are seeing in our daily news today?

This is not new. Neither are the inevitable consequences of that blind hubris, that overweening pride. We may not see the consequences yet, but there is no such thing as an action without a reaction, a decision without its consequences. There will always be consequences for our blindness to our own prideful or jealous decisions and actions. It is clear, then, that this blindness happens not just at the personal level but at the societal level. We must pray that we are not like those of whom the psalmist speaks; that we are not those who follow the wealthy, the famous, and the powerful, jealous of their supposed ease; that we are not falling for their ruses and “drinking in their words”. Are we walking in the way of God, submitting to his wisdom alone, and not to the ways of the world, or are we wittingly or unwittingly following the ways of the worldly? The consequence of following the way of God will be peace and communion with God and with all others. The consequence of following the latter will always be the terrible surprise of the inevitable fall from grace.

We will only know where we stand on this question if we develop the habits of prayer and humble self-reflection based on our deepening understanding and acceptance of the Gospel. If we set our minds and hearts to this, the Holy Spirit will be our Advocate and our Guide. We must be people of prayer, then. Praying over this psalm regularly would be a great place to start.

Lord, You gave the Church Your Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and to each of us in our Baptism. Help us to listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, rather than to the shouts of the world. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.