The Order of Things

Rembrandt's Mennonite Preacher and Wife

In part, it was a preoccupation of another age, the obsession with the order of things. Who or which is the highest in God’s eyes, who or what is next, is the soldier greater than the blacksmith in the eyes of the Creator who made both? Who or what must show deference to whom or what to satisfy the plan that the Creator established when, for instance, he gave mankind dominion over the animals and plants? Are kings greater than bishops? Are men greater than women? Are children more or less than servants? Would the world cease to function if the established order were ever ignored or discarded?

For a description of what was postulated in the Middle Ages to be the hierarchical nature of creation, The Great Chain of Being, click HERE.

The result of such a sensibility has been a perception of worth that touches us all; we respect medical doctors more than garbage collectors, the difference reflected in the pay with which we reward them for their work. We defer to people of wealth and expect the poor to defer to everyone else, to be grateful for charity. “Children should be seen, but not heard,” places the young firmly in their proper niche. You may kneel before the bishop and kiss his or her ring, but don’t expect a reciprocation. We still have popes and bishops and cardinals and reverends and on and on: remnants of the Great Chain of Being mentality.

We kill deer for sport.

A preoccupation with, a compulsion for order generalizes to every aspect of life. Things must be in their proper place; functions must unfold in their proper order, as in: first the appetizer, then the main course, then the dessert. Compulsive, obsessive order is a cliché for German culture, but the English also had their Upstairs, Downstairs period of enforced hierarchy of persons and of proper etiquette in everything persons did and were. Take table settings, for instance, meticulously set by a servant who lived in a basement room.

Some indigenous spirituality visualized that in the creator’s eyes, all things, all creatures were made to live in symbiosis (each playing its unique part in a functioning whole) and this engendered a need to respect all of it. Europe was probably far more in need of being “missionaried” by this worldview than the other way ‘round.

Speaking of the German mentality on the subject of order, my time in Germany acquainted me with some of the orderly habits that persist, especially in the countryside. Ordnung muss Sein (there must be order) was never the whole story, though; the culture recognized and lampooned its proclivities in this area as in the coining of the quip, Wer Ordnung hält, ist nur zu faul zum Suchen (The one who demands order is just too lazy to search for things) or, Ordnung ist typisch Deutsch, wie Sauerkraut, aber wer kann jeden tag Sauerkraut essen? (Order is typically German, like sauerkraut, but who can eat sauerkraut every day?)

At the same time, a sense of and adherence to order prevents chaos and anarchy. In sports, the referee’s or umpire’s authority is respected or else games break down into lawless, heated scrapping. (Hockey is the exception here; despite referees’ authority, heated scrapping seems to have been adopted into the rules . . . implicitly!) It’s a choice we make; we defer to the order (the umpire can eject the manager from the stadium and he/she will obey) in the interest of a greater goal, which is the fair pitting of team against team based on skill and energy, not on feuding. Even in crokinole, power and prestige must yield to the rules, or chaos would erupt at Mennonite family gatherings.

I, personally, spend an inordinate amount of time searching for things because I’m too lazy to put the tools of my trade back where they belong when I’m done with them. (That is, assuming I’d taken the time at some point to decide if and where they have proper places.)

Our scriptures refer to order and hierarchies repeatedly, sometimes conservatively, sometimes liberally. Matthew 19:14 (KJV), for instance, has Jesus saying: Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. In John 13:16 (KJV) he’s quoted as saying, The servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. Paul in Colossians 3:22 (KJV) says: Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God . . ..

On the meaning of order and hierarchy in culture and faith, there’s plenty of ammunition for proof-texting on every side. Everything from punitive assaults on children to slavery to the subjugation of women have been defended at some time by misappropriating scriptures. Racial prejudice, ethnic divisions, protected inequality of means, US resistance to universal healthcare, all are remnants of the age of order we called The Great Chain of Being.

And yet, we better all drive on the right side of the road and at an agreed upon speed—more or less—or we will die!

It behooves us (I love that word, behooves; reminds me of horses though) to pick up our scriptures and our newspapers and evaluate where and how our obsessions with correctness, hierarchy and order hinder or help us fulfill the great commissions of our faith.

And if we don’t know by now what those are, we just haven’t been listening.

On this entire subject, I’d suggest that we study in depth the meaning to our worldview of Matthew 10:29. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (NIV) Read it as a human first, then as a sparrow.

It occurs to me today that numbering the hairs on my head wouldn’t take that long anymore. Figure of speech, I guess. Hyperbole. Exaggeration in the interest of truth . . .?