Behavior

I've been thinking about behavior lately. At one extreme it seems as though everything is about it. We read the Bible to determine the proper way to behave. We look to it to provide steps of action and to provide expectations we can impose on ourselves and others. Impose, that word takes us to many destinations. It has an inherent lack of justice, a sense of manipulation. Perhaps a better, less baggage laden word could be used, but in one sense it seems like the appropriate word.

But have we become too focused on behavior? At work I know that my way of doing things is very different from my boss's. In my relaxed demeanor I telegraph to him laziness, lack of focus, too slow, etc. He recognizes this and says words like "our personalities are different," but in reality he wants me to change. He cannot look beyond the means in action to the results. But isn't this a limitation we all have? Don't we all have the tendency to want to reproduce ourselves in our friends, spouses, children, etc.? I see great tension in married couples where there is a huge disconnect because all each person can dwell on is how different the other approaches life. I'm not talking about substantive issues, but things like talking too much or talking too little. This difference is not treasure it grates us and we often use whatever means it takes to try to change the other person.

I've been meditating on if the biblical message is really about behavior modification. We can flippantly say, "NO!," but this fast response is not honest. You can't move too far from behavior before you realize there is no being without action. It's an Existential thing. We become what we do; we become what we think; where our intentions and beliefs become tangible is significantly who we are. And yet, is Christ's message really, "I just want to keep the world from having inappropriate sex, being socially and fiscally conservative, and not killing each other."? But, you have forgotten about the question of eternal existence. Really, how much of our communication reflects this over behavior? Don't we gravitate to removing the whore's whoriness or the homosexual's same-sexness over conditions of the heart? Isn't our message of salvation as much about getting people to behave as we see best as it is being part of God's work in their life? Isn't it funny how we want to elevate one element to the descension of another? Perhaps behavior, heart, thought, etc. are just always supposed to be in tension and that's OK.

I find myself wanting to make Jesus the bestower of newer, more difficult laws and at the same time the unshackler of all law. And then I think he came to show a way outside of law, but I'm not sure that works either.

We gravitate to behavior because it is so visible. We distrust emotion partly much because of its hiddenness. At my church we go so far as to segment the "spirit" from the "soul" because there is so much discomfort with part of who we are being out of control. We set up a hierarchy of spiritual legitimacy for our being:
1. Spirit - place God talks to us; creme de la creme
2. Soul - keeper of emotion; has no inherent policing capabilities; to be feared because it can lead the Body astray
3. Mind - keeper of reason; there to keep soul in-check; police, but can be corrupted; to be almost as feared as Soul because can lead the Body astray
4. Body - temporary location; no importance; gets us in trouble; causes pain; "real" sin agent; to be avoided

I can't put my finger fully on it, but we have gotten something off kilter a bit when it comes to behavior.