OUR DNA IS NOT ALWAYS AN EXCUSE

About eight weeks before I had surgery to replace my right hip, my younger brother had the same surgery on the same hip. In a few months our other brother will have the same surgery on the same hip. A few months after that one of our sisters will go and do likewise: same hip. I don’t know if our other sister will need her right hip replaced but the odds are she will. It seems to be in our family DNA.

Traits, characteristics, abnormalities and even addictions are handed down from one generation to another because of our DNA and there is not much we can do about that, at least presently. The geneticists of the world are working even now to try to find ways to alter genes that predispose us to various maladies and even pre-mature death sentences. There are those who worry that science can go too far, that we are meddling into areas that we should not. There are also those who say science can’t go far enough.

That moral debate will continue even as we all either suffer or are blessed because of our genetic makeup – or both. We came out of the womb who we are, as we are: imperfect creatures, children of God, brothers and sisters one to another, each unique but also limited because of factors beyond our control. All that is simply a fact of life in this life and we have to live with it.

The problem with all this only arises when we decide to blame DNA, our genes, our heredity for our failures and shortcomings, our lack of success or whatever else we perceive to be a negative reflection on our character. “It’s not my fault that I am this way,” we protest. “My DNA is to blame and I had nothing to do with that.” At that is true even if it is, in the end, no excuse for those failures.

During this time of year when we are still remembering and celebrating Jesus’ birth among us, we would do well to be reminded that even Jesus’ DNA was less than perfect, even if he was and is God’s Son. If we check out Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, we will discover some unsavory characters and even a few loose women who contributed to his DNA. As with every one of us, Jesus could have used his genetic make up and family back ground to be less than he was. He never did and he never was.

Would that we could say the same for ourselves. Whenever we find ourselves accused of doing that which we know we should not have done, even when that accusation is self-imposed, we immediately attempt to find an excuse for our behavior. The first one on the list always has something to do with forces beyond our control, such as our DNA. “What did you expect from me given my background?” we whine.

“More than what we got,” they say to us, God says to us and what we might even say to ourselves when we are honest with ourselves. It is always easy to find some excuse as to why we act the way we do, especially when we want to excuse those actions that bring condemnation from others and shame to ourselves. We know better. Perhaps, as we begin a new calendar year, we might want to make this year a time when we spend less time making excuses for ourselves and more time being the person we were created to be.