“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
Sounds like the younger generation of today, doesn’t it? The generation of that I think most ACM readers belong to is the “Baby Boomer” generation. And we often, I think, make judgements on the young, particularly “Millennials” in some manner that sounds like the above opening statement. The only issue? That statement was made by Socrates during the 6th Century BC!
Even Aristotle in the 4th Century BC said “[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.… They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”
I was able to find statements like this made throughout history up to our present time. Older generations tend to look down on and criticize entire previous generations and paint them with a fairly broad brush. In general that they fail to live up to the high standards we established when we were the “younger generation”.
But the shoe also fits on the other foot…or some such variation of this saying. The younger generation of a particular age can find it appealing to blame the problems and difficulties that they experience on the previous generation. We see this today in that the Millennial group, to some degree, blame things like housing prices, taxes, prejudices, etc. on the behaviors of the Baby Boomers once they became in charge. We, as boomers, blamed our parent’s generation for being too caught up with money and tradition. Remember how we said that they were “Square”?
Of course neither characterization, the older generation of the younger or the younger directed towards the more established group, are fair and accurate. No generation is a homogeneous group. Individuals stand out and others blend into the masses. Each generation faces unique struggles that the other groups do not fully understand thus making uninformed judgements. Our generation faced Post War concerns about being able to survive with available jobs as the troops returned home. But we also had a boom in manufacturing as a consequence of the war machine that the rest of the world had not yet been able to take advantage of. So jobs, and income became more plentiful. Then as the world caught up, jobs began to dry up and began moving overseas. So the world subsequent generations faced was becoming far different. Technology played a huge role in that baby boomers were late bloomers with the digital world. Even millennials are caught short in comparison to Gen Z being born into life with cell phones, social media, internet, etc.
So how does this social diatribe conjoin with the readings today? Well, Ezekiel starts off with this somewhat bizarre proverb:
“Fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children’s teeth are on edge”?
What?!! Apparently this was a common saying that existed particularly around the time that the Israelites were being exiled into Babylon and also leaving behind in Jerusalem family and friends. Their world was crumbling around them and they needed a reason to explain why these events were coming to be. There was also the need to somewhat absolve themselves of responsibility and thereby place the blame squarely on others. So this saying was popular. The meaning basically states that the sins of one generation is due to the sins of the previous one. Or even centuries of previous mistakes made by others that came before them. So, in a sense, the current generation’s hands are tied by the action of the past.
Ezekiel prophesized in Babylon during the 6th century BC during the first wave of Israel’s exile to Babylon. God instructed him to convey to the Israelites the notion that their Father’s deeds (eating green…sour…grapes) do not result in automatic sin of their children (teeth being on edge, feeling the effect of the sour grapes). Each life would be judged on its own merit. Sins of the individual are the result of the choices made by that individual. And the merits are likewise assigned to the person. What this means is that the weight of your decisions lie directly with you and not to be assigned to some nebulous actions of previous generations. Now, while this may seem like a burden…that you are solely responsible for a lifetime of actions…there is one word that equalizes all things. REPENTANCE.
Generally the response to Ezekiel’s words were that they were unfair. Should there not be some sort of mathematical balance over the course of one’s life if they could not place the blame on previous generations? That God added up all the good and all the bad performed during a person’s time on earth and then have a net sum that would determine God’s judgement. But it is much simpler than that and Ezekiel needed to make his contemporaries understand. Repentance, the turning away from sin and returning to God, wipes the slate clean. Not the slate of generational sin but one’s own personal slate. A lifetime of adultery, steaking, lying, cheating, etc. can be eliminated by sincere rejection of those sins and a life once more focused on following God and loving those around you.
If a man is virtuous—if he does what is right and just….he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.”
But if they fail to live up to the precepts God outlined for them:
Because he practiced all these abominations, he shall surely die;
his death shall be his own fault.
So while it would seem easier to be able to blame life’s woes to those who “messed up” before us, it is easier still to lead a path away from sin and back to God. We have no control over what others may have done before us, or what some may do later to negatively impact our lives. But we have control over ourselves and how we lead our lives and how we treat others. And all the green grapes eaten by our Fathers have little bearing on that reality.
