when being "good" is bad, part ii

"The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues."   

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

As a teacher, I often hear that I am "too petty," act "too strict" or do "too much."  Effectively, I hear that my classroom is too focused on rule-following, high expectations, and hard work.  These elements are not what I am trying to teach, but I need to have expectations and rules in order to create an environment in which students can learn. 

Every semester, there are two kinds of students who fail.  The first kind are the students who break all the rules and in doing so never give themselves any opportunity to pass; no one is surprised when they fail.  The other kind are the students who have followed every rule, taken notes every day, and acted as model students; everyond is surprised when they fail.  They often come to me after class to protest; it's painful to have to explain that I was not testing them on their affect behavior, but rather insisting on affect behavior so that they could learn to apply the knowledge they receive.  Being good is only the means by which the end of understanding is achieved; these students were too good while not being engaged enough with what was important.  As Chesterton put it, their virtues were "wasted."

We don't get what Chesterton is saying here.  If we did, we wouldn't feel so bad for that "good student" who failed.  If we did, we wouldn't ask questions about what happens to "good people."  We wouldn't wonder about the things we've done - we'd know that they were "wasted virtues" at best.  

Jesus identified the same problem in his society that I see daily in the next generation of ours.  In his gospel (ch 9), John records a story in which Christ healed a blind man by putting mud on his eyes, giving him "light" - the classic literary metaphor for understanding.  This miracle upset the Jewish teachers because He did it on the Sabbath, which was breaking the rules.  They challenged Jesus. 

As he responded, "Some of the Pharisees hearing these things asked Him, 'Are we also blind?'  Jesus answered, 'If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.'" (v. 40-41) 

Jesus is telling us that we are too good.  In fact, it is our very trying to be good that damns us.  If we were more aware of our sin, we would be more aware of our need for Christ.  If my student were more aware of how much they didn't know, they would be more aware of their need for knowledge.  I think this is why God doesn't take away all the things that are wrong in the world - they remind humanity of our need for God.  Jewish tradition believe that bad things happened because people didn't obey the rules - as consequence of sin.  Jesus instead says that "It is not this man that sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed."  (v. 3)

The problem is not that we are too sinful, or mess up too much.  God can fix that problem; in fact, he already has. 

As Tim Keller points out, man "is not losing the father's love in spite of his goodness, but because of it.  It is not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father, it's the pride he has in his moral record; it's not wrongdoing, but righteousness." 

(Prodigal God, p. 35)