Think of the consequences. It’s a maxim probably as old as consciousness, and — in broad strokes — it helps us to keep our actions in check. But have you stopped to think about what it means, really?
The way I see it, consequences can be broken down into two broad categories: specific and general. Specific consequences are those where you can immediately understand and extrapolate the most likely and immediate results of doing something. For example, if I stay up really late watching television instead of going to bed at a reasonable time, it’s a good bet that I won’t get enough sleep and will be less able to perform my functions at work or around the household the next day.
General consequences, on the other hand, are more difficult to determine. For example, what are the consequences of letting a child run full-tilt down a hospital ward? Well, it’s hard to say. The child may slip on a freshly mopped section, getting seriously hurt while skidding to the ground. Or the wrongdoer might run into a patient, causing distress or injury to either the patient or the kid. Health-care providers might be distracted trying to deal with or chase the runner, leaving them unavailable to care for other patients. Extrapolating the last one further, it’s possible to envision a health-care worker being unavailable to tend to the needs of a patient, who might even die because of the lack of treatment. All of this leads to the unusual situation where a parent would (rightly) scold their child for running down a hallway, even though there’s no specific consequence that can be pointed to as likely; it’s only safe to say that most imaginable outcomes are bad.
The upshot is, when it comes to thinking about general consequences, we often don’t know what will happen . . . we only tend to know the tenor of the effects of our behavior. (“Think of the consequences” also applies to good behavior; I may not see direct effects from treating people with kindness and respect, but I’m confident that the general trajectory of such actions all lead toward a rise in goodness in the world.)
This notion of general and specific consequences translates well to the idea of sin. Sin is, of course, the deliberate turning away from God in our thoughts and deeds. The ultimate, specific consequences of grave sins are completely known: We risk the fires of damnation by choosing to live according to our own selfish wishes and against the commands of God. That risk alone should be enough for any God-fearing individual to carefully consider their actions. But humans have a hard time envisioning effects that extend too far into the future. The long-term effects of bad health habits — overeating, smoking, failing to exercise — are 100% known, but there often aren’t any immediate consequences to those same decisions; eating one extra cupcake a day will have disastrous consequences to my health, even if it’s impossible to measure the effect of a single cupcake.
All of this is preamble to thinking about today’s readings. I’ll be honest; the first reading from the Second Book of Samuel was really hard. King David’s decision to take a census of his people leads to God offering him a terrible choice: three years of famine, three months of fleeing an enemy, or three days of pestilence. David chooses the last option, and “seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beer-sheba died.”
Working through that reading, I turned to my study Bible, which helpfully notes: “The narrative supposes that since the people belonged to the Lord rather than to the King, only the Lord should know their exact number.” (Deleted from today’s reading is a comment by Joab — leader of King David’s armies — in 2 Samuel 24:3, who knew the census was a bad idea: “[W]hy does it please my lord the king to order a thing of this kind?”)
And at first I had a great deal of sympathy for King David. I can’t imagine he thought the specific consequences of his actions would lead to such devastation. But, upon reflecting on it, I realized it doesn’t really matter, since the general consequences of disobeying God would surely have been known to someone who had such a close relationship with the Lord. And the decisions of leaders are always amplified to their people; banal policy decisions can lead to thousands dying or suffering needlessly, while exemplary decisions or leadership can inspire a nation to work together and be beacons of goodness for the world. King David chose to disobey God; he knew the general consequences (risking God’s ire) but not the specifics.
In today’s Gospel selection from Mark, we see another example of specific versus general consequences. In it, the adult Jesus is unable to perform miracles in his native home of Nazareth, because the people who knew him (and knew of him growing up) couldn’t reconcile the holy, knowledgable man with the youth who had lived among them.
So, once again, the faithful in the synagogue would have known that their actions were wrong; when you’re in a place of worship, you’re supposed to put yourself in a mindset of reflection and learning, not rolling your eyes at what you think you know. But they probably didn’t know the specific consequences of their actions: “[H]e was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.” In other words, the people were denied the opportunity to behold mightier miracles.
The mention of a “few sick people” leads me to think that there were other sick people Jesus didn’t heal because of the people’s disbelief; if so, it’s possible for me to imagine that people literally died because of their turning away from how God wanted them to behave. These would be the exact same (perhaps unforeseeable) consequences as King David’s suffered, at a smaller scale; people do wrong, and thus innocent people suffer and die.
So, if we have all sinned and are all-but-certain to sin again in the future, what can we do to make better decisions? Well, think of the consequences.
Understand that turning away from God, even if we can’t envision the harm it does or see the immediate fallout, does have consequences. If you’ve rolled your eyes at someone delivering an inspirational Christian message, or refrained from paying an employee a fair wage, or looked at illicit material, or sneered at someone who was different, or shrugged at a disabled group, or a thousand other ways that act contrary to God’s teachings . . . none of these actions have direct “a cinder block falls on you and you die” visible consequences, but they do displease God, and they do have consequences in the larger scheme of the universe, helping to increase the background radiation of sin and depravity in the world.
One of the central lessons that Christ taught is that you — each and every individual “you” — well and truly matter. And you matter not just for the good you do, but also for the ill you inflict on the world. Like a smudge of mud on an immaculate wedding dress, any sin diminishes the tapestry of God’s creation. You may not see the direct results of what you do wrong, but rest assured they’re there. Listen to your heart. Listen to God. Think of the consequences.
Today’s readings: 2 Sm 24:2,9-17; Ps 32:1-2,5,6,7; Mk 6:1-6
