The more things change...

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr captured the nature of life on Earth in 1849 when he coined the phrase, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Karr eloquently captured the nature of man in that simple phrase. His meaning – we recognize and celebrate superficial change, but the underlying cause remains constant.

Like Karr, another famous writer wrote about the unchanging nature of man much earlier in his letter to the Romans. Paul was drawn to the new Roman Christians and wrote to them frequently in efforts to guide them, but he was prevented many times from visiting them through God’s own hand. Still his opening chapter to the Book of Romans strikes me as painfully poignant in today’s society.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ” (Rom 1:18 – 20, NIV)

In a world of change, there is at least one constant. God is.

We can legislate morality – after all every law ever written is an attempt to legislate someone’s right over someone else’s wrong – but without the constant love and fear of God that legislation is lost. We see it every time there is a school shooting or a heinous murder or an elderly man is beaten behind the wheel of his own car for driving too slow. In our attempt to legislate someone’s morality, we fail to see the perfect simplicity in God’s own plan.

“Love the Lord your god with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, ‘Love others as much as you love yourself.’ All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matt 22: 37-40, CEV)

In Jesus’ time, the Jews had 613 laws on the books to guide and guard against evil and they still managed to wrongfully accuse and crucify the Son of Man – the most egregious offense in the history of history. The poor were still poor and the gap between them and the insanely rich was not bridged by any of those 613 laws. Today in the US we have over 20,000 laws on the ownership of firearms alone. We have nearly 60 different federal laws against murder, 52 different jurisdictions with their own laws against murder, and at least 6 different levels within the hierarchy of murder.

So maybe, just maybe the next time someone asks how to “fix” what is broken in these United States, we should revisit a lesson humanity learned thousands of years ago. “Love others as much as you love yourself.” Of course, if we refuse to see God’s simple truth we’ll just keep blaming Him for our misfortunes.

“They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Rom 1: 29-32, NIV)