“OUR MANY SIDES : THE ILLUSION OF INNOCENCE”
Luke 15 : 11-3
March 9, 1986
A Spaniard once declared :” If you want to see the soul of Spain you have to look at Goya’s paintings. But you have to look at all of them, from the nightmarish sketches to the formal court portraits.
Similarly, if you want to see the soul of humanity, you can look at the parables of Jesus. But you have to look at all of the many people involved in the stories, for each parable presents many facets of ourselves.
I suppose that’s why I have been so drawn to Bill Dols ‘ way of doing Bible study. Some of you may recall that Bill came to preach here last fall. His major thesis was that Scripture is not only the record of God’s dealings with people, it also is a mirror image of our lives.
If Bill were here this morning, i could easily hear him saying after reading our Gospel parable: Each of us has within him a prodigal, a wilful child, who values freedom and independence more than anything else, who wants nothing more than to cut all ties, who every so often becomes aware of being caught in a far country, lost and lonely, and wants to come home. We know that person well, don’t we?
But also, we know that we have something of the father within us, too . There are times when we recognize our capacity to love, not counting the cost , being able to set aside the past, letting people go their own way, yet standing ready to welcome them home . This is another side of us, the bright side, which we hope people will see.
Both the bright side and the darker side — the loving parent and the wilful child — we readily acknowledge. But we cannot remain at ease in Zion simply with these two facets of our personality. The parable reminds us that there is still another side to our souls, a side we rarely acknowledge -the elder brother.
This elder son stands for that part of us that is quick to lay blame on others, which is judgmental in most relationships. He epitomizes the person who tends to complain and seek justice rather than mercy
It is one thing to have been a sinner, knowingly to have squandered part of one’s inheritance. This image we can own.
But to be reminded that you are a good person and that this goodness actually is more destructive to your relationship with God — this is hard for us to understand.
The parable tells us that you don’t have to be a Bengal tiger to be on the outs with God. Actually, it is just as bad to be a tame tabby, whining about the injustices of the world, and this is difficult to take. It calls into question even -our good behavior.
And so we deny it. We are not Pharisees, we are not elder brothers, we are not prudes. And when we look at the parable, we concentrate on the prodigal or the loving father, and gloss over the elder brother.
Yet let me say, as a pastor or as a people watcher, that in my observation, more harm, more hurt, has been done by people in the role of the elder brother than has ever been done by the dark side, the prodigal child, that lies within us.
One of the great tragedies in life is the vast amount of time and energy that we .all put into denying the ”elderbrother’ side of us. Yet at the same time, the elder brother keeps cropping up , laying guilt trips on people, sprinkling our conversations with oughts and shoulds, demanding that God punish the bad guys and reward the good guys, which we generally hope will be us.
Tennessee Williams has always been a favorite playwright of mine, and ”Streetcar Named Desire” is his very best. I never tire of hearing the dialogue between Blanche and Mitch — Mitch, who loves Blanche and wants to put aside her sham and pretense; Blanche, who has never allowed him to see her in the sunlight.
In his anguish, Mitch rips the cover off the light and floods her aging and bruised face.
(Blanche) What did you do that for? (Mitch) : So I can take a look at you good and plain.
Of course you don’t really mean to be insulting. No . Just realistic .
I don’t want realism. I want magic. Yes, yes , magic! I try to give that to people . I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth.
And, as they argue, the blind Mexican vendor, in a dark shawl, moves through the shadowy streets. She carries bunches of those gaudy tin flowers that are used by Elle poor at funerals. She softly ca11s out, ”Flores , flores para los muertos .” Flowers for the dead. The dead Magic had the illusion of innocence that Blanche will not bury.
Blahch3 is each of us some of the time and some of us all the time. We want to appear as the righteous, innocent ones. And the cost of maintaining righteousness is incredible. We have to do a lot of denial, keeping the harsh light of truth away from our own actions, telling what ought to be the truth rather than what is , constantly pointing fingers at those around us.
What a terrible cost it is to maintain the illusion of innocence! I remember in a former parish talking to a couple whose marriage was falling apart. One of the spouses had had an affair and felt awful about it, but the other party kept throwing it up and playing the injured party.
After listening for a while, I turned to the spouse playing the innocent party and said, Look, you have two choices. One, you can maintain your righteousness and end up divorced. Or, two, you can begin to ask forgiveness for yourself and maintain the bond of love. ”
They chose divorce. What an incredible price we pay to maintain the elder brother in us– the illusion of innocence!
A man named Roger Gould wrote a book a few years ago called Transformations. It is about adult life cycles and the predictable crises we encounter along the way toward maturity. It defines progress as the discovery of assumptions and the ability to discard them.
Between the ages of 18 and 22, for example, we might discover that we believed life would reward us if we kept the rules and did what is expected of us . Maturity is when we find that this is not always so.
Another assumption that Gould mentions is that in middle age, when you believe that if you take care of yourself and stay healthy, you will live forever. At some point, which Gould calls maturity, we lose this belief.
Then, later, as Gould says, there is another assumption that we begin to question — the illusion of innocence.
Sometime past middle age, we start to see that we cannot be righteous, and even when we have not done anything overtly, we still are a part of the brokenness of the world. Putting this aside is the beginning of growth.
The tragedy of the elder brother was that he never turned that corner in his life. He never was able to put off that false assumption of innocence, and therefore never was able truly to come home and experience God’s love.
The tragedy of the righteous person is that he always sees the sins of others and is not aware of his own participation In evil_ St _ Augustine said it: Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside of yourself.”
We are all part of the evil of the world. The old gospel hymn is so right: we don’t have to look to other people.
It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
There is a fantastic line in ” Auntie Mame” when she says, ”Life is one great banquet, and most poor slobs are starving to death. ” This is to say, I think, that we are waiting outside, but not because we don’t think we deserve to be inside in the Kingdom. It is just that we were waiting for justice to be meted out, for the bad guys to repent, for God’s special recognition, instead of rejoicing at the incredible love of our heavenly Father.
This period of Lent calls us to move beyond the obvious, to grow by putting aside our older images of ourselves. Lent seeks to do for us what it did for those who first listened to our Lord’s teachings. It gave them a clearer picture of who they were so that they could come clean and let go of their pretensions. May Lent do that for us all.
The feast is ready, the banquet hall is set. Can you hear the music and the dancing? Will you sit outside doing a slow burn at the injustices of life? 0r will you come in and be warmed, loved, filled, accepted?
It is hard to believe how often you and I say, “No,” and choose to starve ourselves to death, maintaining the illusion of innocence.
Amen
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Coming Home
1 Peter 2:1-10
February 1, 1998
Some years ago, I heard of a priest who, after several years in a congregation, was overwhelmed one Sunday morning by the strangeness of this thing called worship. Instead of beginning to say after the opening hymn, “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” he looked out at the congregation and said, “Who are you? You people who gather here? Why have you come to this place? What needs, what hopes have you brought here? Tell me who you are, and why have you come?”
Those aren’t bad questions to ask ourselves now and then. Especially when we come to welcome some people into our fellowship.
Apparently, after that rather odd moment – at the beginning of the service – the priest managed to get a grip upon himself, and continued in the usual way. At the end of the service, strangely, no one even mentioned its peculiar beginning.
The next week, though, he received in the mail a handwritten letter with no signature. It was an answer to his question. It went like this. “We are a bunch of people, far from home, who have come to hear the story, break the bread, share the wine. We do these strange things to remind us of what it means to come home.”
That seems to me to be a fairly good description of what lies behind our coming together on Sunday. All of us have our reasons, our hopes, our expectations, and our needs. But beneath these reasons lies the deeper cry. We’re a long way from home. We’re on a journey. And when we hear the story, break the bread, share the wine, we are reminded of coming home.
Look closely at what the letter was saying – it started off by stating that we are a bunch of people. St. Peter, in his Epistle, says that once we were no-people. The Hebrew and the Greek make that a hyphenated phrase. You were No-people and now you are God’s people. We are reminded time and time again, when we gather here, that we are now a community, a bunch, who are God’s people.
In this tradition of ours, this means that we as a bunch are more open, more inclusive, than any community we can imagine. We welcome the stranger. We welcome freedom of thought. We welcome all sorts and conditions. Yes, we are a community, but Episcopalians have trouble making clear boundaries. We’re not always sure who is in and who is out. And it’s that kind of openness that drives some people crazy. They feel that to be God’s people, we ought to have strict membership standards, more rules, and more common beliefs. But instead, we’re a bunch of people who feel that openness, forgiveness, hospitality, and a sense of inclusiveness are more important than anything else for our life together as God’s people.
Thinking about the note again. You might recall, it said, “We’re far from home.” But what kind of a home are we talking about? I think Robert Frost gave one of the best descriptions of his home in his poem, “The Death of a Hired Man.” Frost tells of a farm couple faced with an unexpected problem. An old hired man, whom the husband has discharged, returns in physical and mental distress. He has become “homeless.” Pleading his cause, the wife says, “Warren has come home to die.” The husband says somewhat sarcastically, “You mean, home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in?” The wife goes even further and says, “I should have called it something you somehow haven’t deserved.” That simple, forgiving statement sums up for me the meaning of Home. Our Heavenly home is the place, which is not a reward, not a prize for being good. It is simply there, out of the prodigal nature of God. “Once you have not received mercy,” Peter says, “Now you are God’s people, and home is where you receive mercy.” Where you are made welcome.
We share the story, break the bread, and drink the want to remind us of home. And home is that place where our savior takes us and is preparing a place for us. That’s the story we share the story that says no matter where you are or what you’ve done God will bring you home. There’s a story from the Jewish tradition, that says it better than I could ever imagine. It’s a story of a young man who belongs to a very strict sect of Jews the hasidim he married outside his sect. In fact he married a Bureau who belongs to those Jews who had made a compromises with the culture. After he began to feel remorseful at betraying his tradition so remarkable that he began to drink and became an alcoholic. He abandoned his wife and let his children starve. The father-in-law, with deep anger, had the man thrown into prison period after he got out the rabbi consulted the law. The rabbi said that the law insisted that he who had abandoned his wife and children should be cast from the community. So the young man was cast out and shunned. In the end he died in the gutter
the scene now shifts to the last judgment with the young man lying before the Messiah on the throne. In front of the Messiah stands the father-in-law and the rabbi, holding the book of law. The question is what is to happen to this young man? The rabbi says he’s an outcast according to the law. The Messiah gets up from his throne gathers the young man in his arms and says the father-in-law is right the rabbi is right the law is right. But I have come for those who are not right and he took the man into paradise
who are you why are you here?
We are God’s people far from home we have come to hear the story of God’s mercy, break the bread, share the wine period to remind us of our homecoming
Amen -
O, Say Can you See?
Luke 2: 22-32
February 2, 1997
Throughout the Gospels, we come across little incidents, small vignettes, which are filled with meaning. At the same time they don’t seem to have much of a relationship to the central story line. These vignettes are a sort of story within a story. They make us pause, raise questions, and help us look at ourselves.
Let me set the stage for the vignette we’ve just heard. It was the custom, in those days, for devout families to dedicate their children to God. It was somewhat similar to our tradition of baptism. So when Jesus was at the right age, Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple. While they were going through the formal ritual of dedication, they encountered an old man Simin by name. Why he is there, we’re not told.- Was he there to say his ‘ prayers? Had he come there, like many old people, looking for companionship? Who knows. His motivations are lost in the mists of antiquity. But this much we are told. He is waiting there in the temple, and he sees the holy family and recognizes Jesus. The words from the prophet Isaiah seem to fall from his lips when he detects the Christ child: “Lord, now let thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
It is possible to see something time and again and fail to realize its significance. It is possible to listen to something a thousand times and still miss the meaning. Sometimes, the very familiarity of words tends to cloud our understanding. And then, sometimes, these words seem to leap out at you. I had that experience the other day, watching the beginning of the Super Bowl. As they started to sing The Star Spangled Banner, I suddenly heard as if for the first time the words, “0 say can you see.”
As the game continued, and my mind wandered, I began to think about those words. It seemed to me that “0 say can you see?” ought to be directed to all who come for a worship service.
O say can you see God as you look about? O say can you see as you go through the familiar routines and rituals? O say can you see, the way Simeon saw? O say can you see so that the words of Isaiah fall from your lips? “Lord now lettest thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
Let me share two stories of seeing and not seeing. They are offered as ways that might let us reflect on what it means to see, to discern, to recognize the Christ amongst us. The first comes from West Africa.
One day, we’re told, members of a tribe noticed that the cows were giving less and less milk. This was a puzzling situation, and a young man volunteered to stay up all night and watch the herd. In the middle of the night, a beautiful woman rode down on a moonbeam from the heavens, carrying a large pail. She milked the cows and returned with the milk to the heavens. The next night, the young man set a trap that caught her as she was milking the cows. He was dazzled by her beauty and told her he would not release her unless she agreed to marry him. “Yes, I will,” she replied, “but first let me go back to the heavens and prepare myself.”
Sure enough, she kept her promise and returned carrying a large box, which she set in their bedroom. She made her husband promise he would not open the box. Like most of us, curiosity soon got the better of him. One day, when his wife was gone, he lifted the lid. Much to his surprise, it was completely empty.
His bride, when she came back, said, “You looked, didn’t you? I can see it on your face.” The young man said, “What’s so terrible about looking at an empty box?” She replied, “I must leave you; not because you were impatient and opened the box, but because you looked and said there was nothing in it. It wasn’t empty; it was full of sky. It contained the light and the air and the smells of my home in the sky. When I went home for the last time, I filled the box with everything that was precious to me. How can I be your wife and lover if what is most precious to me is emptiness to you?”
This story is a warning to those of us who have become past masters at looking and finding nothing; at seeing but missing what lies behind the obvious.
The Gospel writers remembered many things that Jesus said, but one warning seems to stand out. In the final analysis, we will be judged by our ability to see and recognize the Christ in life. Last Sunday, in our parish meeting, Bob Cox, the new Senior Warden, quoted that wonderful passage, the passage where all humanity is brought before its source to learn how well they have done – it’s report card time, in the ultimate sense. And we are told that they are divided into two groups. Those on the right hand are blessed, while those on the left are judged inadequate. And you might recall the criteria by which the division is made. Interestingly enough, it boils down to “seeing.” The ability to recognize Christ in people. Those on the left murmur, “When did we see you?” And God replies, “That’s the tragedy. You looked, but you failed to see anything beyond the obvious person indeed.”
This brings us to the next story of seeing and not seeing. It comes from this country, from Hollywood, of all places. Not many of us remember Charlie Chaplin and his portrayal of the lovable tramp. In one picture called City Lights, the tramp is at his most vulnerable. The pathetic little bobbing tramp is helped by a rich man who is very drunk most of the time. In one of those moments of drunken comradeship, he gives the little tramp a very large sum of money. But when the man sobers up, which happens very fast in Chaplin films, he accuses the tramp of stealing the money. Fleeing for his life from the police, the tramp manages to give the money to his friend, a blind girl, who works in a flower shop. It is to be used for an operation to restore her sight. She gropes towards him, gently touching his arm and face, and thanks him for his generosity. Shortly thereafter, the tramp is arrested. Unable to give the money back, he is imprisoned.
After serving his sentence, the tramp emerges from prison, cane on his arm hat half cocked, buttons uneven, shirt tail askew, shabbier and lonelier than ever. We learn that the girl has had her eyesight restored and does not even recognize him. She had thought all along he was a handsome young man of means. Coming into the flower shop, the little tramp is ridiculed by the very one whose sight had been restored by the stolen money. Only in the final scene does she discover that this pitiful, disheveled tramp was the person who allowed her to see. She touches his face once again as she had done in her blindness. And in the moment of recognition whispers, “You.”
Throughout Scripture, we’re told that Jesus healed many people. Many of the stories were of his healing blindness. One thing we can be fairly certain of is that these healings were not simply to overcome physical illnesses. I am convinced that the healings were for a deeper reason. I believe they were performed so the blind person might recognize his or her salvation. Healing blindness was so that people could be freed to whisper, “You.”
Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we are really gathering to encounter God. That’s what our worship is all about. And every time the priest says, “Turn to one another and pass the peace,” we are really being asked to recognize the Christ in every person. At our best, we would simply turn and whisper, “You”
So remember, if you will, that you are in the temple of God. The story can be yours. You wait, you watch, and then another person turns to you. This is the moment of encounter. This is the moment of recognition. O, say can you see?
Amen -
Who Is Your Audience?
Matthew 6:1-9
February 3, 1980
Keith Miller is a layman in the Church whose words are increasingly seen as prophetic. I went to school with Keith, and so I have always been partial to his writings. I am particularly grateful to him for his ability to take a simple incident and draw out some profound learnings.
One such incident happened at the time of the publication of a book of his. Critical reviews began to come in from all sides. Keith said none of this particularly bothered him until one day he read a critique that devastated him. He was thinking after that of stopping writing. This person’s evaluation mattered enormously, and his criticism cut to the quick.
Miller concluded from all this that each of us has a select audience before whom we play the drama of our lives. It may be only one person, or it may be a large group of people. But whoever they are, Keith points out, we allow them to exert an enormous influence over our actions. In fact, we entrust almost God-like powers to those we select as our audience of significance. And Keith concludes his thoughts by asking us all to identify our critical audiences. Once we determine that, he says, we can better understand our actions and begin to correct some of our crippling behaviors.
This is the fourth in our series on workaholism. I won’t be talking strictly to workaholics today, but let it suffice to say that workaholics, as well as the rest of us common garden variety type of neurotics, can take a clue from Keith Miller. The beginning of a recovery for a workaholic is found in identifying who is your audience of significance.
Right after I concluded my first sermon on workaholics, a woman came up to me and said: “Your sermon was helpful, but the one question you didn’t raise, and the real clue to workaholics, was: For whom is a workaholic working?” In other words, who gives a workaholic his applause, his strokes, his critiques, his reviews? I think that woman was right, and so, to expand on it, I would start by asking all of You: Who is your audience of significance? Whose reviews mean something to you?
It is interesting to note that this was the issue that Jesus addressed in our lesson. Let me start by giving a little background. In the first-century Jewish church, the three great religious acts were alms-giving, prayer, and fasting. These religious acts were to be done in relation to God and God alone. But Jesus observed that this was not the way these things were actually done. With almost X-ray vision, Jesus detected a different agenda. As he watched the religious workaholics, the Pharisees of his day, he concluded that they had a significant audience other than God. As the Bible put it, “they wanted to be seen of men.”
Take, for example, the business of almsgiving. As Jesus observed the Pharisees, their actions were calculated to win the approval of their peers more than of God. The situation was that into the brass coffers, shaped like trumpets, outside the temple, people placed contributions for the poor. As Jesus watched, he saw the Pharisees busily breaking down theIr offering into the smallest eotna9e possible and then, at the busiest time of day, dumping all the coins. into the container. Imagine the noise it would make, the attention it would attract, the murmurs of approval that might arise! All this meant, as Jesus put it, that the real, significant audience, consciously or unconsciously, was the peer group, the other Pharisees, and not God.
To be perfectly honest, as I observed what Jesus was saying, I became increasIngly uneasy. What he uncovered in the life of the Pharisees is a dynamic that I find present in my life. The older I get, the more I become aware that I have been influenced, controlled, driven, and shaped by the significant audiences in my life. And many times these audiences have hurt, embarrassed, and stopped me from doing things , or caused me to do other things, that were not helpful.
I can recall my first Christmas as a priest. I had been ordained for 20 days and had been an assistant for six months. I was serving in a large, prestigious parish in New Jersey. The custom in that parish on Christmas was for the Rector to take the Christmas Eve service and the assistant to take the next morning service.
The midnight service was beautiful. The Rector. who had a tremendous voice, intoned or sang the service. The choir was magnificent, and it truly was an outstanding worship experience. After the service, I went to the Rector and said, ”I have a problem about tomorrow morning. I can’t sing. They tried to teach me in the Seminary, but I can’t hold a tune. I really cannot do the service the way you did tonight. ”Nonsense,” the Rector said, assuring that, since he had a lovely voice, everybody could sing. ” Just do your best and it will be fine. Remember that God is the audience, and all our gifts and talents are acceptable to Him.”
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink. I started warming up at 5 o’clock. About a half hour before church, the Rector and the choir director took me aside and we had a quick rehearsal. At the end of our rehearsal, I once again protested: ”I really can’t sing, and. I’ll feel foolish.” “Don’t worry,” the Rector said. “God is your real audience, and He will accept your voice. ”
Five minutes later, we lined up in the procession. As we were filing past the organ bench, the choir director handed me a note. I read it as we were walking down the aisle. He had written: “God may be your audience, and your singing may be acceptable to Him, but it’s not to me. Let’s say the service this morning. Merry Christmas — Arthur.” And of course I said the service. I was devastated, but I learned something also, friendship was invaluable. There were some significant audiences in my life other than God.
The question I would raise with you right now is: Why do we allow these significant audiences so much power? Why do we hand over 51% of our voting stock to them? Why do we allow our actions to be shaped by this audience? And we turn to our Lord’s words for clarification. He reminds us that our audiences give us our justification through the imagery of rewards. He shows us not only the way life is but the way it could be. He points out the temporary rewards that we receive from most of our audiences, and the more lasting reward from our Father in heaven.
What Jesus means is this: if we make any person or group other than God our “audience of significance,” all we will receive from that group is their limitations. Most of the time, our reward consists of a temporary label, a moment of acceptance, a fleeting second of respect;.
But these rewards pass, and then we are left with the emptiness and hollowness of actions without learning, of life without love. On the other hand, if we make Almighty God our audience, all the experience of a loving Father will be ours.
This is difficult for us to understand, and sometimes a story makes the point in more graphic ways. Keith. Miller provides us with such a story.
In a small sharing group in which he participated, there was an attractive, outgoing 40-year-old woman. In the course of a discussion about the important people in one’s life, the woman said God was most important, and then she shared her life story. Her own words are so poignant that I want to quote them verbatim:
When I was a tiny little girl, my parents died and I was put in an orphanage. I was not pretty at all, and no one seemed to want me, but I longed to be adopted and loved by a family. As far back as I can remember. I thought about it day and night, but everything I did seemed to go wrong. I must have tried too hard to please the people who came to look at me….The result was that I seemed to drive people away.
Then one day the head of the orphanage told me that a family were coming to take me home with them. I was so excited that I jumped up and down and cried. The matron reminded me that I was on trial, and that this might not be a permanent arrangement, but I just knew that it would be, So I went with the family and started school in their town I was the happiest little girl you can imagIne, But then one day a few months later I skipped home from school and ran into the house. No one was at home, but there in the middle of the front hall was my battered old suitcase with my coat thrown across it. As I stood there and looked at the suitcase, it slowly dawned on me what it meant: This family didn’t want me anymore
At this point, Keith reported, the woman stopped speaking, and there was hardly a dry eye in the circle as everyone tried to imagine what it must have been like. But then the woman cleared her throat and said almost matter-of-factly:
This happened to me seven times before I was 13 years old. But wait, don’t; cry it was experiences like this that ultimately brought me to God. When I was having so much trouble finding acceptance from other people and from myself, I found God. Here was a parent, a father, a lover, whom no amount of rejection could remove, no amount of criticism could change, And suddenly I found myself blessed far beyond any rewards that I could think of.
I come back, then, to the original question. The question is the ultimate one: Who is your audience? I am indebted to Keith Miller for the form of the question, but to Jesus Christ for the piercing analysis of the concept. We all have an audience to whom we play our lives. John Donne was right: No man is an island to himself. Every one of us, somewhere, someplace, has an audience to whom he or she plays. Workaholics or not, all of us are shaped, evaluated, and criticized by these significant audiences.
Who, then, will it be? Who, then, will give us our rewards? The way we answer that will determine the pattern of our lives.
Amen -
The Lost Art of Coping
Mark 6: 30-44
February 19, 1984
No moment in the life of a parent is more awesome than when a child leaves home for the first time.. As you watch them walk away, you wonder, have I prepared this one adequately for all he will face? Will she be able to manage in the harsh world?’ Because none of us does the parenting task perfectly, it is not unusual that sooner or later those same children come back and ask, Why did you not tell me about all those problems? Why did you not warn me about all the difficulties ahead? Why didn’t you prepare me for all those crunches ?
This happens to clergy as well as parents. Oftentimes, we will run across people who have grown up in the Church, and they will be saying much the same thing. “I thought, ” they will say, “that if we were Christians, hard times would be avoided. Why didn’t you caution us?” 0r “I was told that faith would remove all obstacles. It hasn’t been so. Why didn’t you warn me?’
Today, I would like to speak to those people and present to you a pattern for coping with crises, which might help to avoid the frustrations that we often encounter. Predictably, I would turn to Scripture for my model, and I would focus our attention on the person of Jesus and suggest, as we watch our Lord handle a typical crisis, that we may learn something about coping .
The setting for our reading this morning was the eastern shore of Galilee, but it could have happened on the western slope of the Catalinas. Jesus had been teaching all afternoon, and the multitudes were beginning to get restive. They were hungry and tired and a long way from home. The disciples, who were quite sensitive to public opinion, suggested that it might be smart to wind things up and dismiss the people before the crowds got out of hand.
But this was contrary to the style of Jesus. He said, in effect, ‘We are involved in this event. In fact, I am partly responsible, and silently pulling up one’s tent is not a helpful way to cope. ” It is clear that for Jesus, the way out was always to face into a situation. Jesus never looked for comforting or tempering relief; facing the harsh realities was for him the first step in coping.
Once when the bottom dropped out of my life, I went to see a friend who was a top-notch counselor. “I’m feeling miserable, I said. Good! He answered . Can you stay with that feeling? I was shocked; I thought I had come for comfort, or at least a tranquilizer. He thought I had come to face reality, no matter how painful.
Fortunately, he won. He made me face my misery and not try to escape. And I learned something about coping. As I got up to leave, my friend pulled out of his wallet one of those Salada tea bags, with sayings written on it. He said he kept it around just for people like me. This is what it said: Don’t complain about the way the ball bounces if you are the one who dropped the ball.
Facing reality – it may not solve all your problems, but unless you face them, there is nothing much that can be done . This we can learn from Jesus.
It is interesting to note that the incident of feeding the five thousand must have made a deep impression on the disciples; it is the only story recorded in all four Gospels. And I think it is so prominent because of the valuable learnings the second understanding we might gain from the story is really in terms of what is not said. And one thing we can observe is that Jesus does not blame anyone else for the crisis. He leaves out any recrimination.
A great temptation for all of us when we are faced with difficulties is to pass the buck on to others. Can’t you just imagine the disciples saying, “If only the Roman government had done a better job of food distribution. If only the foolish multitudes had stayed nearer home, we would not be faced with this horrendous situation. It’s their own fault.
While some choose to cope, others choose to mope , and a favorite trick of mopers is to press the paranoid button. Every one of us carries around a little paranoid button, and whenever we get into a rough situation, we press it and begin to blame others for our troubles.
Many years ago I bought a helpful book called “Psycho-therapy and a Christian View of Man”, In it David Roberts, the author, describes the tendency we all have to fix the blame for circumstances on outside elements. He states that this can keep us from mobilizing our coping potential. Here is part of what Roberts says :
When an individual is not aware of the seriousness of his conflicts, this may be due to the fact that he has projected them onto people and circumstances outside himself. Then the trouble always lies, in his opinion, with the wife, the boss, the world situation, the Jews, the Communists. And if these external annoyances were straightened out, he assumes, everything inside himself would form a serene harmony.
Not so , Dr Roberts points out. Those outside forces are simply ways to avoid facing one’s own inner reality. When difficulties overwhelm us, it is easier to poke at windmills rather than to face our own inner struggles. I do it all the time, and I am sure you do. Where would we be without our enemies?
Finally, one last learning from the story: As we focus our attention on Jesus, we can see that the climactic step in the process of coping comes when he takes the available resources and begins to meet the needs of the situation. It sounds so simple to say Jesus began to do the best he could with what he had – – and yet this is the bottom line of the whole story
Most of us , when faced with difficult
circumstances, become totally immobilized (i . Anxiety and fear become the dominant emotions, and we begin to focus on how ill-prepared we are. Jesus copes by using whatever God-given resources can be found at hand. Hope replaces fear, and action drives away immobility by taking that first step.
A problem for Christians is the interpretation of Gospel events. Many people look at the loaves-and-fishes story as an example of a miracle, a miraculous multiplication of resources. If we use that interpretation, it is easy to conclude that Jesus was some kind of cosmic magician – a cosmic magician who, instead of pulling rabbits from a hat, pulls food.
But suppose you put aside this magical thinking. Suppose, rather than seeing the story as an example of divine intervention, suppose you see it as Jesus 1 using what is at hand. And the real miracle is how others were encouraged to share their own small amounts, and how it multiplied.
This interpretation is important, not only for giving us a substantial clue to coping, but also for helping to clarify our theology. Understanding Jesus’ humanity does not depend on our regarding him as a magician. Only if we can see that Jesus became in all things like us can we identify with him. And only in his humanity can we understand our potential. If our theology speaks of a distant God who comes in from somewhere out there and from time to time saves a rough situation, we have something less than the Incarnation. Only if Jesus is truly human can we use him as a model for coping . Only If he uses the given resources can we learn to use our own.
We move back to where we began, when a youngster or oldster comes and says, But you never told me how tough things would be! My answer is always the same: No one ever promised you a rose garden. ” All we can offer you is reality; yet it is blindness to imagine any situation without some positive resources. There are always five loaves and two small fishes in the midst of every problem – if only we have the eyes to see.
And finally, I would tell that person: Look to Jesus, and then that crisis, that difficulty, that impossible situation will become nothing more than the moment to begin.
Take our minds and think through them. Take our lives and speak through them. And take our hearts and set them on fire
So that a few loaves and two fish will feed the multitude
Amen -
Belonging Without Believing
Mark 1: 9-13
February 20, 1994
The young man stood at the bank of the river. He was in his early 30s and wearing a clean white robe. It was a beautiful morning. The sun shone brightly. And there in the middle of the river, surrounded by members of the community, was his cousin. He beckoned the young man to come forward. And as the choir softly sang, the young man was plunged into the cold water with the words of repentance and new life said over him. It seemed as if the very heavens opened, and he thought he heard a voice saying: “This is my son with whom I am well pleased.”
Following this experience, the young man began going to all his friends and acquaintances announcing: “I am saved – I am saved! I’ve been baptized! Alleluia! I’m saved!” (Needless to say, this young man was not an Episcopalian.) In the ensuing weeks, he continued to tell whomever would listen that he was saved and belonged to the church, but little else seemed to change in his lifestyle. Finally, an old friend, a veteran of the faith, took the young man aside and said: “Saved from what? Saved for what? Until you can answer those questions, you’ve got the name, but not the game. You’re on the road, but you’re not going anywhere.”
Last Sunday, I began teaching a course on the Episcopal Church. I usually start by asking the group what they have heard about the Episcopal Church. Several years ago, someone replied: “The Episcopal Church is the only church you can join and still remain a practicing Atheist.”
Is it true? Can we belong without believing? Can we be baptized, go to Sunday School, be confirmed, and still be a non-believer?
As we begin our 40-day Lenten journey, let’s be honest – radically honest – painfully honest. You who are members of the church, have you ever felt that belonging and believing had much of a correlation? We in the church place great emphasis on belonging, but when it comes to believing, we usually say that’s a private concern too personal to share with others. Or maybe we’re modern Christians and say: “It doesn’t really matter at all – as long as you believe in something.”
One of the wisest men in our time, a sociologist from the University of Michigan by the name of Kenneth boulding, once wrote that many people have gone through three stages of what they believe in their religion.It colors time and life and their belief in believing. And finally, they simply belong without believing much in anything.
Many of us are in Stage 2 or 3. To use a Jewish term I just read last week, we are in a ‘bat kol existence. It’s a new term for me – it’s Hebrew. Now, in Jewish parlance, “Bat KoI” means an echo. Translates literally, it means “daughter of a voice.” You don’t hear the voice itself, you hear only the child of the voice – the echo of belief. And therefore, the echo doesn’t take hold in your life, change you, or make you a different person. We’ve got the name, but we don’t have a clue about the game. We’re Bat koI” people, and the crying shame is that we don’t think it matters to US or to God. But it does. The problem is that a belief cannot be second.-hand – cannot be an echo of your parent’s faith – cannot be a vague tolerance for everybody. A’ belief only comes about as we wrestle with God and the devil – as we struggle to find who we are and why we are here, as we turn our face down the road Jesus took.
Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days. And he came out a new person. A different person. He came out knowing what he was made for. He came out heading down that lonesome road toward crucifixion.
Good people – we have been given 40 days to search, to wrestle, to probe into our beliefs. Some of you might recall I issued a challenge to bring an unbeliever to church. Now, this wasn’t to add another name to our roster. My hidden agenda is to place you in a position to wrestle with yours and someone else’s beliefs – to share with another your faith. Are you really buried with Christ in his death – or are you simply a mild echo of someone else’s belief? is what happens here on a Sunday morning simply collecting scalps, or does it speak to a living faith? Shaped lives – changed lives? A people prepared to walk hand in hand with their Lord?
I really wish there were an easy way to be a Christian. If the truth be known, I wish we could avoid going into the wilderness. It isn’t comfortable to wrestle with your beliefs, for it may lead you down difficult roads. It isn’t comfortable to spend 40 days reflecting on where you are and where God wants you to go. It’s not part of my comfort zone to dwell in the wilderness. The are no Holiday Inns or McDonald’s arches where Jesus goes after his Baptism. And so it is for us.
Lent – is a time of examination – a time of reflection, a time of wrestling – a time that we choose the road leading to crucifixion or to a more comfortable place. It isn’t good enough to belong to the church. It isn’t good enough to do a number of charitable acts, good deeds, acts of mercy. On the surface, you may look the part, but underneath, what you believe is as important as where you belong. Where you’re headed is as important as where you’ve been
Let me end this meditation by sharing a short passage that has haunted me for years. I offer it to you as you prepare to go into the 40-day wilderness. It comes from early Christian writings – from the monks who went out to live in the desert. Listen to it – meditate upon it – see if the story doesn’t stick with you throughout these 40 days.
“And when the darkness came over the earth, the old man, Joseph of Arimathaeus, passed down from the hill, into the Valley of Desolation. And there he saw a young man weeping. And he said to the young man: 1 do not wonder that your sorrow is so great, for surely he was a just man.”‘
“And the young man answered: it is not for him that I am weeping, but for myself. I, too, have been baptized by John; I have changed water into wine; and I have healed the leper and given sight to the blind. I have walked upon the waters, and have fed the hungry. All things that this man has done, I have done also. And yet – they have not crucified me.”‘ AMEN -
“Lent: What You Can Learn in the Process”
Exodus 16: 1-15, Mark 1: 9-13
February 20, 1999
When I was in junior high, I received a great shock. Our math teacher informed us that it was no longer good enough to produce the right answers. We also had to tell how we got the answer. At the time, I didn’t appreciate this direction. It seemed grossly unfair. As long as you arrived at the right answer, whether you got it with a little help from your friends, or made a lucky guess, or worked it out in your own system, it all seemed equally valid.
I seem to recall arguing that if I were asked what 2 plus 2 was, and I gave the answer 4, what difference did it make how I had gotten there? What does the process have to do with anything, as long as you arrive at where you should be?
Well, I’m a little older and maybe a little wiser. And now I
know that I was being taught one of “the rules of life.” How you get there is everything. Or to put it another way, the process is every bit as important as the destination.
I am reminded of that learning, as we think about Lent. Lent is a time, a process, and a period of preparation that leads us to Easter. Most of us would prefer to move rapidly from the ashes of this past Wednesday to the lilies of Easter, and skip the process in between. We see little to be gained going through the agony of forty days.
Why wait when the question raised on Ash Wednesday about our mortality is answered by the Resurrection on Easter Sunday? But, as my old math teacher used to say, “The process is every bit as important as the answer.
In biblical language, the process is usually symbolized by a story of some kind of wandering in the wilderness or in the desert. And so it is in the Gospel. Jesus wanders in the wilderness for forty days before taking up his ministry. In Mark’s Gospel, which is probably the most accurate, the writer doesn’t go into any detail. All we really know is that it was forty days, and during this difficult period, the angels of God ministered to Jesus.
In the Hebrew Scriptures (which we read as our first lesson), the people of Israel wander for forty years in the wilderness before reaching their destination, and we read that God ministers to them in the desert. Forty years, forty days, it seems to be a magic number. The problem is that we Americans who have grown up on instant foods, instant credit, instant gratification, would rather make it twenty days, or ten days, and certainly forty years is way beyond our imagination. Be that as it may, we know a great deal more about the forty years, and therefore, I want to concentrate our attention on the Hebrew Scriptures. I hope this story will tell us about our own wanderings, our own process during Lent.
We begin with our first lesson. The sixteenth chapter of Exodus really is in the middle of the journey. You will remember the Hebrew people had been freed from slavery, escaped the Egyptian army, crossed the Red Sea, and are on their way to the “Promised Land.”
Are they a grateful, contented, happy lot? Not at all. Like many church people, they are looking for all their needs to be met, and met instantly. We might describe them as acting like unhappy customers whose primary concern is their own comfort. The writer of Exodus puts it in a more polite way. He tells us, “They murmured as they wandered in the desert.”
Can’t you just hear the murmuring? The discontent, the whispering. It begins with nostalgia, a longing for the good old days, which always look better than they actually were.
And then, like most church groups, they quickly lose confidence in the leadership. So they send some representatives to Moses and say, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt; when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16: 3)
If I were Moses, I would have left them there, resigned, quit, or retired to write my memoirs. Who needs that kind of aggravation? Who needs those ingrates? And if I were God, I would have sent them straight back to Egypt and into the arms of the Pharaoh. They would rather the fleshpots of Egypt; I would give them the fleshpots of Egypt, and the slavery that went with it.
But fortunately, I’m me, and God is God, for God is a lot more tolerant than I seem to be. God responds in the twelfth verse, “I have heard the murmuring of the people of Israel. At twilight, you shall eat, and in the morning, you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am your God.”
And thus we then read that daily there rained down upon them from heaven a sticky sweet substance that kept them alive throughout the wilderness journey.
One further note: this bread was called Manna, and while I was ill, I did some research on what Manna is. In Hebrew, Manna simply means, “What is it?” From this extensive research, I’ve learned that if you ask the wrong question, you’ll end up with an unsatisfactory answer. If you want the actual, real, scientific meaning of Manna, here it is. It is aphid dung. That’s it. Manna is the excrement of certain birds that feed on the secretions of the Tamarack tree. Manna is a four-letter word not usually heard from the pulpit. Now, aren’t you glad you asked?
The question, of course, is not what for but what does it mean? How does aphid dung become the bread of Heaven? And the answer is simple and clear. When you’re wandering in the wilderness, God does not leave your side. God provides even in the desert. And what God provides becomes the gift of Angels. Heavenly bread
Well, what does this story have to do with us as we go through the forty-day process? Let me leave you with three things to ponder as we think about Lent.
First, the fashioners of this lovely red altar frontal felt that this sentiment should be prominently displayed for everyone coming forward for the bread of Communion. In several places on the frontal is written the Latin Ditat Deus. Ditat Deus, translates is God provides.
Second, remember when you are feeling most lost in the wilderness, most ready to murmur, throw in the sponge, God has a way of providing bread from Heaven. All you have to do is be open to discovering Manna.
Third, remember that God is found in the process. Remember, when it’s over, it is not over. There is still a journey to go, and God will be with you.
I recall when I was in the Seminary being taught that a sermon ought to conclude with some action that the congregation could do. This morning, I am inviting you to go literally into the desert with me and meet with the Yaqui people of Old Pascua Village. This is a community that, like the Hebrew people, has wandered for many years. And I ask you to come with me and pray that the people of St. Philip’s might be Manna, bread from heaven, for these people and they for us – for we are all on a journey. Amen. -
“It Ain’t Necessarily So”
Mark 8: 27-38
February 23, 1997
We live in exciting and unnerving times. New living arrangements are emerging throughout the world. New paradigms are being fashioned. Old truths are being discarded, and new virtues are replacing ancient idols. Partially because we’ve learned more about ourselves, and partially because the world is shrinking. What seemed like certainty fifty years ago is being replaced by a belief in the changing capriciousness of history.
When I was growing up, I was taught that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. But now I know differently. We all were taught that the time-honored ways were the best ways. But much of what we’ve seen in the last century has made us question those assumptions. Truths that were imprinted upon our psyches at an early age have been found to be seriously flawed.
One of the most enduring songs of the past fifty years comes from the show Porgy and Bess. The title is “It Ain’t Necessarily So./’ That song title serves as a symbol for many of our learnings in the last twenty years. It ain’t necessarily so what we’ve been taught, what we’ve been scripted, what the world has held out to us as truth. “It ain’t necessarily so.”
And that/s also our theme for Lent: “It ain’t necessarily so.” Lent is a time in the Christian year when we are asked to dig deep into the truths that we hold. We are asked during these forty days to plumb the depths of what we hold dear, to go into the abyss. We are asked to go against the grain and question long-held assumptions about God, ourselves, and our relationships
For Christians, the symbol of Lent is forty days in the wilderness. Forty days in the desert. Forty days of digging into the depths of what we hold as truth.
Let me warn you ahead of time. Lent is not a time of comfort for those who take seriously the call to enter into the spirit of this season. We are being asked to destabilize our beliefs, to look at our world, our culture, our common wisdom, and say, “It ain’t necessarily so.”
There are many ways that we might describe the Jesus we meet in the Gospels. One of the most current ones is to see him as a teacher of subversive wisdom. Much of his teaching seaously questions the conventional wisdom of the ages. Jesus often does this by delivering one-liners that challenge and invite us to transform our perceptions of what is truth.
Take the one-liner in our Gospel today (I’m using the New English Bible translation): “For what does a person gain by winning the whole world at the cost of his true self?”
The wisdom of the world says: be successful, make something of yourself, accomplish some goals. And then Jesus comes along and says: “It ain’t necessarily so.” As a matter of fact, in following the path of conventional wisdom, you are in danger of losing your soul.
Two illustrations that come from contemporary writers might serve to point out what Jesus meant by this one-liner. The first is from Peter Drucker, the management guru. In one of his books, he points out how business people can get seduced into the “accomplishment game.” The person trying to justify their existence, striving for success, and climbing to the top of the ladder is often in trouble. And sometimes, in the dark of the night, he or she begins to dig deep and raise the question, “Is it worth is?” Many people, Drucker points out, “as they climb up the ladder . . . the ladder is leaning against the wrong building.’/ Or to put it in more crude terms, winning in the rat race often only shows that you’re a rat.
The second illustration comes from Sherwood Anderson. In one of his essays, he presents us with a theory which he calls “The Grotesque.” it runs something like this. All around us in the world are many truths to live by, and they all have merit. The truth of thrift, the truth of self-reliance, the truth of patriotism. But as people go through life, they often snatch at one of these truths and make it a priority, which can turn them into a “grotesque.”
Thrift, for example, is a good think. It can be a commendable goal. But if we place too much emphasis upon this virtue, we often degenerate into hoarding. And hoarders can become misers. And then they become grotesque. Conventional wisdom also tells us that self-reliance is a good thing. And to be successful, you must first learn to be independent. The problem is that self-reliance easily degenerates into indifference, and indifference can become a lack of compassion towards those who are not able to make it in our society. This hardening toward others often turns us into “a grotesque.”
The theory of the grotesque in Gospel terms is that you can gain all the virtues that you were taught as a youngster. You can survive, be successful, achieve all that you set out to accomplish, and still end up being grotesque, losing your soul.
Good people, it’s not accidental that the most notable symbol of our faith is a broken, ruined, and abandoned human being. The image revolutionized our way of thinking and questions our very priorities. The Jesus we meet in scriptures keeps exploding our boundaries and inviting us to dig deeper than the conventional wisdom of our society.
Lent is a time for questions, for digging, for looking closely at what we have been taught. The crucified one reminds us that we can achieve all sorts of things and still become grotesque, lose ourselves, and our souls.
Let me leave you with some words from Nikos Katzantzakis, as we move into the desert of Lent. Katzantzakis commands us to listen to our depths and dig. Don’t simply accept what is, but dig deeper.
“A command rings out within me: Dig!
What do you see?
Men and birds, water and stones_
Dig deeper! What do you see?
Ideas and dreams, fantasies and lightning flashes!
Dig deeper! What do you see?
I see Nothing! A night as thick as death. It must be the wilderness.
Dig deeper!
Ah! I cannot penetrate the dark. But as I enter into it,
I proceed, trembling. One foot grips the secure soil, the other gropes in the darkness above the abyss.”
This Lent, I invite you to dig, to walk into the dark, to put aside the wisdom of the world, to gain your own soul. For what will it gain you – if you win the rat race and lose your own self?
Amen -
On Not Being Able to Say You’re Sorry
Luke 18: 10-14
February 24, 1985
In a recent biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, there was a particularly insightful section on the Vietnam War. As LBJ began to reminisce on that disastrous period in our national history, the question was asked: Why did he keep committing more and more resources to that conflagration when he knew we couldn’t win?
With a burst of candor, Mr. Johnson replied:. “We were unable to admit that we were wrong. ” What a devastating commentary on history! “We were unable to admit that we were wrong. ” That was the Pharisee’s problem in our Gospel lesson this morning. Let’s look closely at this parable as we enter into Lent,
Two men went up to the Temple to pray -one a Pharisee, which these days can be translated as a churchgoer, or, if you prefer, the rector of a large metropolitan church, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: “God, I thank thee that I am not like other people, ”
The Pharisee further typifies us by listing the vices from which he abstains, “I am not like other people– extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like that tax collector”
Without a doubt the easiest way to feel virtuous is to concentrate on the wrongs you don’t commit, and avoid at all costs examining your motives for abstention. Contrary to popular belief, most good behavior is due to the weakness of our passions rather than the strength of our character. The older you get, the less beguiling are the temptations.
But wait, you say; the Pharisee went further. He began to list what he does do, proving that he is a candidate, if not for canonization, at least for Man of the Year. He fasts not once a year but twice a week. And he tithes — dare I say it? -far more than most of us . He does a lot of religious things , which only goes to prove what Luther said: “Good works don’t make a person good. ”
The Pharisee had one tragic flaw; there was something askew in his makeup. When you are so caught up with being right that you can it admit to being wrong, when you have to blind yourself to your own sins , you are in trouble. The evil that you so vigorously reject has a way of infiltrating your security system.
Reinhold Niebuhr was on target when he wrote: “Ultimately considered, evil is done not so much by evil men but by good men– men who do not know themselves and are concentrating on the evil outside of themselves ” God, I thank thee that I am not like other people.
The point of the parable is that our secure presumption of righteousness is in itself our greatest sin. This is one of those paradoxes in life: The more we pursue good behavior, the less likely we are to be aware of our own failings.
If you stop to think about this, it is not as crazy as it sounds. Anyone seeking to be virtuous is probably no longer seeking God or his neighbor. The enterprise is too self-absorbing, too engrossing -it will not allow time for much else.
True, the Pharisee goes into the Temple, but only as so many Christians do — to make their last stand against God. True, the Pharisee does good works, but only to gain points toward some goal of a heavenly kingdom.
As someone once said: To pharisaical Christians, the Kingdom appears as a corporation in which they have acquired sufficient stock to warrant the expectation that someday soon they will be asked to join the board of directors,
But what about yourselves? Can you see the Pharisee within you? Can you identify with that need to be virtuous? Can you dimly discern that part of you that wants to say, “God, I have been good. I have done my very best to keep the law, at least I have done a better job than some I could mention.” ?
Can you see yourself starting on that road to sainthood? if so, you had better watch out, for this can so easily turn into the road to self-destruction. Pascal was right: “The world divides itself between sinners who imagine themselves to be saints, and saints who know themselves to be sinners. ”
The tax collector was on the road to sainthood, not because of what he did but because of what he sought. He was seeking God’s mercy, and this he could do because first he acknowledged his sense of sin,
There is a wonderful expression in the confession of the old Prayer Book that reads: “There is no health in us “It may have been somewhat in the extreme, but it certainly didn’t leave any doubt as to why we were seeking God’s mercy. The tax collector basically was saying these words: “Lord, there is no health in me, ”
Friday night we were with some friends talking about old movies. Someone brought up that best seller and popular picture “Love Story” Do you remember that oft-quoted line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” ? Nonsense! Love means the acknowledgment of your need for forgiveness,
The only way we can love is by first acknowledging that there is no health in us , no rightness,, that we need the other person, This is why there is such difficulty in so many marriages; everybody sees himself as right, This is why the counseling of people with marriage predicaments is so hard; both people are ready to forgive That that is easy – but neither party is ready to be forgiven that is hard.
We don’t know why the tax collector came into the Temple. It is difficult to know people’s motivations. He might not have been able to see any light at the end of the tunnel. We have all been there – some of us too many times-when you feel completely helpless and are caught in that victim posture. And all you can do is cry out in despair,
We don’t really know whether the tax collector found himself there, particularly since there is no sequel to the parable But if we simply take the tax collector at face value, and if we can assume that he had heard the Good News — the Good News that declares there is more mercy in God than sin in us — if we can assume that, then we can also assume that the tax collector became as zealous as the Pharisee,
Only it was a different kind of zealousness. The tax collector’s zeal lay in expressing his gratitude for the love of God, which came to him when he was still a sinner. The zeal of the Pharisee was based on his effort to prove himself. In any event, the point is crystal clear: Mercy and forgiveness can come only to those who seek them.
The Pharisee and the tax collector is a story as old as the Bible and as fresh as your next look in the mirror. Can you see the relevance of the descriptions? More than that, can you feel the two pulls in your own life?
The Pharisee and the tax collector story is our own story. I doubt that Jesus told the story simply to point out two kinds of people. Instead, I believe it is a parable about each one of us.
Each of us contains within himself or herself both parts: We are quick to cover over our mistakes, and we often find ourselves on our knees, in each of us dwells a bit of the Pharisee and a bit of the tax collector, just as in each us there dwells a little of the saint and a lot of the sinner.
Good people, in this time of Lent, when we seek to look into our hearts, in this time of rugged honesty, when the Church asks us to take a journey of self–examination, and as we take the first step along the way, hand in hand with the Pharisee and the tax collector — we might think together of St, Augustine’s words recalling the two thieves who hung on either side of Christ. He wrote:
“One was saved, do not despair. One was not; do not presume,”
Amen -
“The Courage to Change”
Genesis 5: 14; Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-12; Mark 1: 9-13
February 25, 1996
With everything and everyone that belonged to him, Abraham set out to seek a new home. At the time, he was 75 years old, settled in, respected, well-known, and ready to enjoy the golden years in Haran. And then, suddenly, we read of this call. “Leave Haran, leave what you know, leave the comfortable life, and go on a journey. Go out into the wilderness.”
Can’t you just hear the neighbors? “Abraham, what’s gotten into you? Where in the world do you think you’re going?”
‘I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going on a journey.” ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? What is this – some
wild dream? Some postponed mid-life crisis? Have you thought of Sarah? And what about that promising nephew of yours – Lot? He’s just starting in business. And furthermore, it’s dangerous out there. It’s a wilderness, and you might encounter all sorts of harmful things.”
“But, but I’ve been called.” And so we read that Abraham leaves Iran and goes out to the wilderness without knowing where his final destination will be. For Paul, as well as for countless Christians throughout the ages, this journey that Abraham undertakes is the great symbol of faith.
This is the second in a series on Abraham, our spiritual forebear. And it’s the second in the series on our “senior years,” – the second half of life, where conventional wisdom suggests that we play it safe, sit back, and enjoy the good times. But for Abraham, the second half of life meant something else. It meant responding to a call, taking a risk, and leaving the known for the unknown.
But first, we might ask what the nature of a call really is. What is it that Abraham heard? Was it a resonant voice that sounded sort of like Charlton Heston and identified itself as coming from God? Was it something that looked and sounded like the voice of an angel, or the appearance of a dove? I think not. This is where we often become confused. We await a call as if it were coming to us from central casting. And thus, we either miss or ignore the call because it comes in many different voices and forms.
Last week, Peter began this dialogue with us by defining a call. Let me try my definition. Fundamentally, I believe, a call is anything that we might label as new information that appears to us. Any information that asks us to make a basic change, to do life differently. You can get a call when you learn that your company is moving to a different part of the country. You can get a call when you learn of a bad diagnosis. You can get a call when you’ve finished one Chapter of life and are about to start a new one. You can get a call when you begin to read the want adds and hear about downsizing. You can get a call when you are baptized. All of these are or can be calls. A call is some new information that summons us to make a decision. For me, a call is anything that elicits a change and would cause you to go on some kind of a journey, either an inward journey that changes the shape of your life, or an outward journey to some far-off country. My point here is that we need not get hung up on the nature of the call. The real question is: What do you do about it? How do you respond? That’s the real dilemma. Abraham left Haran to take on a new role and journeyed into the wilderness. But what about yourselves? What has your response to calls been? Do you or do you not go out into the far country? Do you or do you not take the risk of journeying into the wilderness?
The one factor that I believe will determine your response is how you view the story of your life. I’m told there is a new type of therapy being practiced today. It’s ca11ai “narrative therapy.” The central belief of this new method of psychology is that each of us is involved in creating our own life stories, which we repeat endlessly to ourselves and others. Each of us, the practitioners of this therapy believe, is constantly writing and interpreting different aspects of their story, but the basic storyline is constant. The stories can be either tragedies or comedies, epics or .love stories – and you, the writer of your story, are either in a , role as a victim or a hero. But whatever role you play, you are the principal actor in your narrative. You are the one who dictates what the storyline will sound like.
The purpose of narrative therapy is to refine and enlarge one’s understanding of his or her story.
There’s a sad tale told about a young man who went to one of these narrative therapists. He’d been going to doctors for years and thought of himself as “psychologically incurable.” This was of comfort to him because at least it made him something – “incurable.” The new therapist annoyed him by saying: ‘Well, I don’t believe you are as sick as you believe you are.”
She asked him to imagine he was perfectly normal and that all his past experiences were simply ways in which he could and new meanings. The patient never came back for the next appointment. He didn’t want to be on a journey called wholeness and health. His version of himself as an incurable fit into his life story in a much better way. This new information was just not acceptable.
Now it’s easy to dismiss that young man as sick or misguided. But let me suggest that it’s not easy for any of us to rewrite our basic stories. It’s much easier to ignore or dismiss any new information.
Returning once again to Abraham, we read that he heard the call, let in the new information, opened himself up to Change, took on a new role, and re-worked his story. Perhaps there were others in Haran who received the same call, the same information. “God wants you to leave and go out into the wilderness. and become a father of a new people.” But that information didn’t fit other people’s stories. They knew how their story was to be played out, and it didn’t include a journey, nor did it include a new role. And so they chose not to respond. They chose to stay with the known.
This process of a call, of a response, of a journey is repeated throughout Scripture. The Gospel for this morning is another example of the same thing. Jesus goes to be baptized, he hears a call, and leaves on a journey into the wilderness. Jesus descends into the water of the Jordan as a carpenter, and he comes out as a spiritual leader, one who goes out into the wilderness on a journey.
Traditionally, the church has read this story at the beginning of Lent. It holds this up as a picture of faith. Faith has never been about believing a set of doctrines or a bunch of teachings. Faith has always been about journeying – going into the wilderness – wrestling with the devil – and taking the risk of changing your narrative.
Good people, Lent has begun. The response is up to you.
Are you willing to take a journey? Remember, remember – you may be starting this journey as a citizen of Tucson. You may end a citizen of Heaven. AMEN.
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