When I was a kid, I loved what I then thought were "patriotic" quotations: the "hooray for us" sayings that (I then thought) defined loving my country. They all struck the nationalistic "My country, right or wrong" note. Only later did I understand that "nationalism" is a prideful caricature "love of one's country," and actually destructive to one's country.
One saying I memorized back then was Oliver Hazard Perry's triumphant report of his naval victory in the War of 1812: "We have met the enemy, and he is ours."
By the time I was a young adult, I'd become a fan of Walt Kelly's wonderful newspaper comic-strip, Pogo. And I had to laugh when Pogo re-worked Perry's quotation for the turbulent Vietnam years: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Walt Kelly's proverb stuck in my memory not just because it was clever and funny, but because it was so spot-on relevant to America in that time. It remains in my memory because it's relevant for human beings, of whatever nation, in every time.
That wisdom almost bears the force of a Biblical teaching. That's why the inner front-page of my Bible, where I've written the verses that I've kept going back to for a half-century, includes a section of exhotations to self-examination.
Knowing "all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do" (or "Him to Whom we must give account:" Hebrews 4:13), every disciple is wise to practice the regular discipline of self-examination, "to see if you are in the faith" (II Corinthians 13:5). How else can we be sure we are walking in God's ways, and not merely satisfying our own caricature of them. ?
When I was a mailman, I substituted one day on a route in the student ghetto. There was a run-down old two-story frame house on one block: paint completely weathered off its walls, its porch sagging, and every other sign of long neglect. But people were living there, maybe very poor students or very poor drug-users: and I had mail for them.
As I stepped onto the porch, I saw a large notice spray-painted on the wall next to the front-door: NO RIFF-RAFF ! Maybe put there by a threatening landlord or the house' residents, I didn't know: but I froze, not sure if I should dare walk across the porch to their mail-box.
At that uncertain instant I had to examine myself, if I might be riff-raff. If so, I'd very definitely been warned. And that's undoubtedly the point of scripture's exhortations that we continuously examine ourselves to see if we're "in the faith."
We put our faith in being a follower of Jesus: forgetting that Jesus called out some of His followers as "Hypocrites !" (Luke 12:54-56). That was His invariable characterization of the Pharisees: so it should sharply catch our attention that the only other time He used it was of a crowd of His Own followers.
We easily convince ourselves that our devoted Biblicism and evangelicism stand us in good stead with Jesus, forgetting that He excoriated the Bible-believing, evangelical Pharisees as hypocrites in those regards (John 5:39, Matthew 23:15). (Jesus even endorsed the things Pharisees said, telling His listeners to obey their teachings (Matthew 23:2): as prelude to His point-by-point condemnation of the Pharisees' hypocrisy.)
We want ourselves, indeed every follower of Jesus, to be convinced hearers of the Word, and heralding the Kingdom to all people. More importantly, that's Jesus' desire for us. His is the one that counts. Our continual need for self-examination is that we may be satisfied with less than Jesus desires for us, and do His Word only to our own measure.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Amen
