Repent!

 

Matthew 3:1-12

Advent 2 / Year A

How is your Christmas decorating coming along?  Mine, I think, is finished.  There was a time when my outdoor decorating varied from year to year.  Then, maybe seven or eight years ago, I took two table runners, fixed to them letters spelling our “Peace” and “Goodwill”, and hung them from my porch.  It was a time when our civic life as a nation seemed to be marked by anything but peace and goodwill, so I saw this as doing my part (humble though it may be) to call us back to a common life of charity and respect for one another.  It worked so well (more accurately… had no detectable effect whatsoever) that I have stayed with the banners ever since.

Peace and Goodwill are words you hear a lot this time of year.  Nobody wishes you a “merry” Labor Day weekend or says “Rejoice” on Groundhog’s Day, but these words are on our lips at Christmas.  I wonder what it would be like to put out banners (one a week) featuring specific Advent words and messages.  Based on last week’s reading, the first banner could read “Stay Awake.”  That would leave my neighbors scratching their heads.  Today’s banner would have to spell out “Repent.”  I doubt it would cause anyone to change their behavior, but most likely it would get me crossed off the invitation list to a holiday party or two.

Repent!  Folks today tend to think of the grime prophets of old as being gloomy predictors of the future.  They were not.  They were folks willing to stick out their necks by telling it like it is right here, right now.  They point fingers and name names.  Their messages tend to be either in the first or second person imperative… “You need to get your act together” and “Ya’ll must stop doing X right now.”  Truth-tellers like this rarely are welcomed with open arms.  And yet, because they speak God’s word, and because God’s dream for the human family doesn’t change, the message of the prophets, uncomfortable though it may be, still holds true.  Repent!  You, you, and you!  Us, each and every one, without exception! 

Jesus tells stories which get you to think.  They center on Samaritans and prodigals; on loving your neighbor and forgiving with open arms.  Prophets like John the Baptist are more pointed, more specific.  He demands tax collectors be honest.  He commands soldiers not to abuse their power.  He calls kings to account for their immorality.  He requires everyone who has abundance to share with those who lack.   Repentance is about good behavior, he says.  It is like being a fruit-bearing tree.  You can produce either good fruit or rotten.  And then John tells it plain: “Every farmer knows what happens to the tree which bears only bad fruit… it gets chopped down.” 

The biblical word for repentance is metania.  It literally means turning around, like when you are driving down a road, realize you are heading in the wrong direction, and make a U-turn.  In this sense, repentance is a positive, hopeful word.  To harken back to last week’s Advent word, it is a waking up, accurately perceiving what is amiss in your life, and then doing something about it.  John’s call to repentance affirms each of us has the ability to amend our lives, turn around, and get right what we have been doing wrong, perhaps for a long time.

John believes his message is preparing the way for the One who is to come.  He stands at the threshold of a New Covenant.  Like the first testament, his ethic springs forth from the Law… Do this… Don’t do that.  His focus is on behavior and actions.  He wants your life and mine to shining examples of goodness.  He wants the world to be a better place.  He invites those who respond to his message into the river to be baptized as a sign of personal repentance, of turning your life around.  This, he says, is how you prepare for what is to come.

And what is to come?  God’s Messiah who, he says, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  It is not at all clear how clearly John understands what this will look like, but we are blessed because we experience it.  When the Holy Spirit is active in us, St. Paul says it produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. ^{Gal. 5:22-23}  Being baptized in Jesus is not merely about a change in behavior (the fruit of repentance), it is about a change in heart (the fruit of the Spirit).  Our deeds are no longer actions we know we are supposed to do, but grit our teeth while doing them, they emanate from our hearts which have been changed by being filled with the love of Christ.

So Repent is a good word for Advent.  It is a call to lead a better life, to be a better person.  But perhaps we need to add another banner with another word – Open.  Open your heart to Christ’s Spirit.  Be filled with It.  When this happens, no one has to tell you to do the right thing because it flows through and from you.  When you turn around, this is what you are turning toward.

Noticing God in the Here and Now

 

Matthew 24:36-44

Advent 1 / Year A

This past week I made my yearly pilgrimage to Wal-Mart for the sole purpose of staying (relatively) current on contemporary culture’s Christmas marketing.  Here is just a smattering of what I found:

·    Snoop (Dog) on the Stoop and Martha (Stewart) on the Mantle are taking on Elf on the Shelf.

·    And speaking of Elf on the Shelf, he (or it) is a part of a much bigger product line called Santaverse, from which you can purchase oodles of stuff, including an inflatable peppermint blimp.

·    While we are on things filled with air, our local retailor offers not one, not two, but 54 different outdoor holiday inflatables.  I recommend either the pink dinosaur or something called Bluey. 

·    Dwarfed by the hundreds of Disney, Barbie, and sports ornaments, I managed to locate the following decorative items: two styles of stars made out of tin, an angel, and a cheap gold-colored plastic depiction of the Holy Family.

I like to think of my annual trek as being an Advent preparation rooted in the spiritual value of watchfulness.  During this liturgical season we anticipate God is about to break into our world in some new way.  By watching and waiting we show ourselves faithful, but even more, we find ourselves better able to discover all the different ways God is already present, yet often unnoticed. 

Years ago I read a book which melded the insights of Christianity and Zen.  It posed two questions one needs to ponder if you want to discern God’s presence in your life: “What time is it?” and “Where are you?”  The answer to the first is, “Now!” while the answer to the second is, “Here!”

The late poet Jill Baumgaertner made this observation about the writing of Annie Dillard:

Her intense watchfulness, her ability to concentrate so fiercely that the impenetrable becomes apparent, dazzles readers so much that they allow her to move beyond description into exhortation.  We live in a daze, she says to us, and it is time to wake our sleeping senses so that we can see what has been there all along.

By being watchful in the here and now of life we begin to discover there are things present which can’t be explained purely in terms of science or rational analysis; things like Annie Dillard describes and spiritual people discern. 

Currently I am reading a book by Dacher Keltner titled simply Awe.  In it he asks this:  

How can we live the good life?  One enlivened by joy and community and meaning, that brings a sense of worth and belonging and strengthens the people and natural environment around us?  Now, after twenty years of teaching happiness, I have an answer:  FIND AWE.

Keltner defines awe as being “an emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand” and he says it is our response to what he calls “the eight wonders of life”:

·     The strength, courage, and kindness we find in other people.

·     Collective movement, such as dance and sports.

·     Nature.

·     Music.

·     Art and visual design.

·     Mystical encounters.

·     Encountering life (like a child’s first steps) and death (such as the peaceful passing of a loved one).

·     Big ideas or epiphanies.

Notice, for us be aware of some of these experiences a choir of angels will appear singing “Glory to God in the highest.”  These are the big moments of Awe with a Capital A.  But most of Keltner’s list can be apprehended by knowing what time it is – now – and where you are – here.   Do this, he says, and we will find experiences of awe transforming us by “quieting the nagging, self-critical, overbearing, status conscious voice of our self and empowering us to collaborate, to open our minds to wonders, and to the deep patterns of life.”  In all of this hear Keltner articulating one of Advent’s deepest purposes: Be watchful.  Be expectant.

Now, I know this is a lot of lofty language, but let me share with you how one person, Douglas Burton-Christie, puts it into action:

“What did you notice today?” my three-year-old daughter, Julia, wants to know.  We have been playing a game lately of asking and trying to answer that simple question.  There are only two rules: you can’t say “nothing” (unless you don’t feel like playing), and you have to try to describe what you noticed, to say, “what it is like.” 

We started playing the game recently after Julia began attending preschool.  I realized that I did not know much about how she spent her days.  If I asked her what she did that day, I usually got a brief “report.”  This question did not seem to interest her much… So now we concentrate on the particular, on what has impressed itself on her senses.  I learn a lot more this way. 

One day she told me about looking up from the playground and seeing a flock of white birds flying overhead, sharp against the blue sky.  Another day it was the sting on her face of sand tossed by a rambunctious playmate that impressed her and remained with her until we met that evening.  Another day, she tells me of the sweet notes of a bird’s song floating down our chimney; is there a nest up there, she wonders?  Piece by piece, I learn about her world.  I am also learning about mine.

So, as we begin this season of Advent, I want to encourage you to think about where you are (here), what time it is (now), what it is you notice, and how God is present in all of it.  God is not so much about to break into your world as you are about to become more aware of how you live and move and have your being in God.

Tribute for our King

 

Luke 23:33-43

Proper 29 / Year C

Sir Austen Henry Layard was leading an excavation in present day Iraq in 1846 when the team made a significant discovery.  They unearthed a six-foot-tall obelisk made of black limestone with twenty different carved panels on its sides, each depicting a scene of military a conquest during the reign of Shalmaneser III, the King of Assyria for thirty-five years beginning in 859 BC.  In its day, the obelisk functioned like a cable news network does today – a 24/7 report to the masses on recent events of interest… with interpretive commentary in cuneiform script.

What makes this object relevant to us is one of the panels contains the earliest depiction of a Hebrew King: Jehu, who reigned over the Northern Kingdom of Israel for twenty-eight years beginning in 842.  In the panel Jehu is prostrate, face to the ground at the feet of Shalmaneser.  Behind him is a train of servants bearing gifts of various kinds for the Assyrian ruler.  These gifts are tribute, a common practice throughout the ancient Middle East in which conquered nations present money, precious metals, and expensive objects to their conqueror as symbols of submission and acknowledgment of his authority. 

Not all tributes are forced.  Some are voluntary, such as when the Queen of Sheba seeks an audience with King Solomon, whose wisdom is heralded throughout the region.  Her offering signifies honor and respect.  It is one of many examples of voluntary tribute recorded in the bible, the best known being the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh given to the newborn King of the Jews by eastern magi.  It is a practice continued throughout history and even in our day when heads of state making official visits exchange gifts symbolic of their country and people.    

The Jewish sacrificial system has roots in the practice of tribute.  Various offerings are prescribed for certain yearly festivals; each signals an acknowledgment of God’s greatness (God’s majesty) and one’s own absolute dependence on what God’s reign and rule provide.  And the offerings cannot be any old thing one has lying around; it is to be the best of the best – the best lamb, the best bread, the first fruits of the harvest.  The gifts offered (as we say) must be fit for a king.

Jesus, through his life and death, turns the notion of tribute on its head.  Never once in his life does Jesus demand a tribute or gift.  Christ our King has not conquered us.  He has conquered sin and has set us free.  He is, as we heard in today’s gospel reading, a ruling King who pays tribute to death by offering himself on the Cross in order to vanquish death.

Every Sunday we enact something like a tribute when we collect our offerings and present them at the altar.  But Christ has transformed this practice because there is only one gift which is a sufficient to present.  In his hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Isaac Watts describes it this way:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

  that were a preset far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,

  demands my soul, my life, my all.

Christina Rossetti, in her carol In the Bleak Midwinter, comes to a similar conclusion:

What can I give him, poor as I am?

  if I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

  yet what can I give him: I will give my heart.

Both describe a type of offering known as an oblation.  The prayer book describes this act as being “an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God” ^{p. 857}.   The physical things we offer on Sunday morning – the bread, the wine, our treasure – represent our life and labor.  As we offer them to God we offer not just them, but all we are and all we have.  When we sing “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me,” we are making an oblation, offering ourselves with a very specific intent: Use me, O Lord, to make the world more like the place You want it to be. 

And as God receives these oblations, the Holy Spirit does something amazing.  It falls on the bread and wine, transforming them into something more than bread and wine.  They become the Body and Blood of Christ – holy gifts which God offers to us.  And when we pray “may your Holy Spirit descend upon us” we ask to be sanctified, literally made saintly or saint-like; a people who set ourselves apart in order to be agents, working to manifest God’s dream for this world.

I am mindful of the powerful symbolic message which accompanies everything we present at the altar and I believe, in receiving it, God transforms it to be more than what we present in the same kind of way the offering of five loaves and two fish becomes enough to feed 5,000. 

I am especially glad this morning to add a new practice to our ritual.  Beginning today we will include in what we present an item or two donated to our feeding ministries.  At a practical level, they will serve to remind us of the opportunity we have to support our soon-to-be open again Food Pantry.  As an oblation they represent us and we trust God will use them to be and do more than we can ask or imagine.  

Our oblations speak of our relationship with God who we seek to honor through what we offer.  They reflect our belief Christ is our King and that we are committed to aligning ourselves with our Lord’s royal reign, giving all we have and all we are in witness to God’s goodness and love.

Risen with Healing in Its Wings

 

Malachi 4:1-2

Proper 28 / Year C

This morning’s first reading is taken from the Book of Malachi, the last of a series of twelve Old Testament writings known as the Minor Prophets.  Some background on its historical setting helps to put its message in context:

·       The Hebrew people exiled in Babylon for two generations return to Jerusalem in 539 BC.

·       Having been sacked back in 587 BC and left unattended, the Temple is in ruins and much of the city, including its walls, is in disrepair.

·       Through much hard work and sacrifice and thanks to the leadership of Haggai and Zechariah, the community is able to rededicate the Temple in 515.

·       After this, Ezra, a priest, and Nehemiah, the governor, marshal the effort needed to repair the walls and gates.

The people of Jerusalem are feeling pretty good about all they have accomplished and what they have become.  Into this moment steps Malachi, whose name which means “my messenger.”  And Malachi’s message, in a nutshell, is this: You have tended to the infrastructure of your city but have neglected the soul-structure of your community. 

The Book of Malachi contains six short sermons which comprise its message.  These are some of the themes they touch on:

·       The priests have failed the people by offering inferior worship, sacrificing blind and sickly animals rather than the best of the flock.

·       This same group has failed to provide the people with proper education and instruction.

·       Intermarriage, unfaithfulness, and divorce are rampant, which Malachi sees as being a metaphor of the people’s relationship with God as they dabble in the practices associated with foreign gods and cults.

·       The rich are exploiting workers and show no appreciable concern for the most vulnerable people in the society: widows, orphans, and refugees.

·       The people complain the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer and thus say religion is a waste of time, withholding their tithes to the Temple.

Malachi’s assessment is this: God judges their civic morality and personal piety to be lacking. 

What will happen?  According to Malachi, judgement and salvation.  “A day is coming like an oven,” he says, “it will burn up the evil and arrogant.”  This is the judgment part.  Here is the salvation: “The sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”  The imagery reminds me of the end of those Disney movies when an evil spell is broken, a new day dawns, and what had been a black and white world once again is filled with color.

We in the Christian tradition, through the life and message of Jesus, tweak the pattern of judgment and salvation in the prophetic message.  We critique it as being too focused on “them” (the evil) and “us” (the good).  We talk rather about “Crucifixion” and “Resurrection”, about death and rebirth.  We understand each of us needs to die to self in order to rise in Christ.  We see ourselves in Peter, who denies Jesus, in Thomas, who doubts, and even in Judas, who betrays.  We understand our personal need for the healing rays of the Lord’s day to fall upon us; to make us new, to make us whole. 

In the bible, end of time visions such as Malachi’s express a longing for a time sometime in the future when God’s final judgment will separate the wheat from the chaff, banish sin once and for all, restoring all that is fallen in our broken world.  2,500 hundred years later, we still wait.  But Malachi’s vision also calls for repentance and amendment of life in his own day, his own time, in his own society, and in the hearts of everyone who hears his message. 

We in the Christian tradition share his hope for the future as we anticipate the full and final establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth.  We also look for signs of its healing rays breaking through the darkness of our own day and in our own hearts.  And we find in this moment, in the meal we are about to receive, the healing rays of Christ’s own Body given for us and Christ’s own blood shed for us.  From them we receive the strength to confront the challenges of our daily lives, the wisdom to know what we ought to do in an ever-confusing world, the courage to speak and act for the good and the right, and a hope which endures through all hardship.

One day, we believe, the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings to reign over all space and time.  In this moment we find the rays of the Son breaking through to touch our hearts and lives empowering us to go forth to love and serve the Lord.  Rejoice and give thanks for the warmth of the Light which God sheds on you this day.  It exposes what is dark.  It banishes all that must go.  It heals.  It renews.  And it is enough.

"That Age"

 

Luke 20:27-38

Proper 27 / Year C

There are any number of religious groups populating the Holy Land during Jesus’ days; including the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  Sadducees are aristocrats who, because they cooperate with the Roman occupiers, hold positions of power.  Pharisees are more blue collar.  Their place is out among the people in the synagogues of towns and villages.  And while there are other things which distinguish one group from the other, this morning we hear of the most significant: Pharisees believe in some form of life after death while Sadducees don’t.

If anyone ever invites you to attend a theological debate, take my advice and find a polite way to decline.  They tend to be deadly dull affairs where long dead writers and unpronounceable German words are tossed around as if they part of everyone’s daily lexicon.  It was not like this in first century Palestine.  Back then, competing groups went after each other with passion and energy, most often debating absurd possibilities, but at least they were something even common folk like you and me could understand. 

The hypothetical question about in heaven who will be the husband of the women who marries successive brothers is typical of the discourse between these two groups; concoct an extreme scenario and then throw it out there for debate.  It is not unlike the Philosophy 101 question “Can God create something so big God cannot move it?”  Such juicy conundrums can create lively discussion.  And while I have no evidence to back up my theory, I doubt the Sadducees in today’s reading are the first to ask this question.  No doubt it has been kicked around for some time.  And, in my estimation, it is not the first time Jesus has heard it, but this perhaps is the first time he is asked to comment on it in public.

In his response, Jesus does two things to reframe the conversation.  First, he draws a contrast between what he calls “this age” and “that age” of the resurrection of the dead.  His message is straightforward: You can spend a lot of time and energy trying to image what the resurrection life is like, but you are locked into and limited by what you presently know and experience.  The life to come is wholly other and it is near futile trying to describe it based on what we know of life in the here and now.  As one commentator puts it, “Jesus asserts the rules we put in place to navigate this world are not important, or even relevant, in the next one, because it is so fundamentally different from what we normally experience.”

We get glimpses of this in the biblical accounts of Jesus’ appearances after his Resurrection.  Sometimes he is recognizable, other times he is not.  He has a physical body which still shows the marks of his wounds from the Crucifixion and can be touched, and yet he materializes in locked rooms and then disappears from them.  He eats and drinks with his friends before he ascends into the sky in bodily form.  Theorize if you must, debate all you want, raise your voice and shake a fist to make your point, but perhaps it is best to say apparently “that age” is very different from “this age” and leave it at that.

The second thing Jesus does to change the conversation is to pivot from what in symbolic logic is known as the specific to the universal.  He moves away from the question of marriage in the resurrection to the real question of the resurrection itself.  For Jesus, God’s revelation to Moses that the Patriarchs live and somehow are present in the present moment is evidence enough.  When today’s text states “for to God all of them are alive” it hits on something critical.  It affirms in the realm where God exists, they live.  What is this reality which I just said is best left undescribed?  

All of creation, including us, exists in time and space.  It has a beginning, has moved into the present movement, and will continue to move until it comes to an end.  God, who has no beginning and no end, exists beyond time and space, and yet can and does, in some form or fashion, enter into time and space; self-revelation, the Incarnation, and the imparting of the Holy Spirit being primary examples.  Because God exists beyond time and space, all of time is present to God; certainly the past and the present and in ways I don’t understand and can’t explain even the future (to some degree). 

Perhaps a limited way to illustrate this is to image taking a picture of yourself from every one of your birthdays and then laying them out in front of you on a table in order.  In a sense, you can look down from above at your whole life laid out before you.  Each moment is present to you manifested through a photograph, but you exist in a reality beyond them.  An exercise like this would bring to the present past memories, some so real and evocative you can be caught up in them again. 

Now, as I said, this example has its limitations because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whom Jesus references) are not mere memories, figures God has not forgotten.  They are resurrected from the dead, which is to say they now dwell with God in that place and age beyond time and space.  To go back to the photographs, it is as if every person in those pictures who has died sits with you at the table and now looks down at the snapshots with you. 

As I said, I have no idea of what “that age” will be like.  I am pretty sure it won’t involve floating around on a cloud while playing a harp.  But my hope is this is the life to which one day, through the grace and power of God, I will enter.  Now, hope is not the same thing as a wish.  I define hope as a trust in a future reality which has implications for how you live and order your life today.  Because I had hope a college education would make for a better life, my parents paid tuition while I attended classes, read books, wrote papers, and took tests.  Because I hope my future will be better served by having a retirement account, I refrain from spending a certain amount of my income and invest it so it will accumulate and grow.  Hope is acting in a certain way now consistent with what you believe will be realized in the future.

The Catechism in the prayer book asks, “What is the Christian hope?”  Its answer: The Christian hope is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.” ^{p. 861}  I invite you to live with confidence in the fulness of life which is ours in part today and in that age will be complete.

Contempt

 

Luke 19:9-14

Proper 25 / Year C

The Pharisee prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.”  ^{Luke 18:11}

Notice something about this parable Jesus tells.  Luke’s gospel tells us who it is directed at – those who are self-righteous and regard others with contempt.  Allow me to make a few distinctions so we can be clear what Jesus is describing:

·    Pretentiousness is an unwarranted or exaggerated sense of importance or stature.  It is concerned with how you want to appear to others.

·    Arrogance involves elevating oneself while looking down on others.  It is a manifestation of how others appear to you.

·  Disdain is the estimation another person or group is unworthy of your consideration or respect.

·  Scorn is the outward expression of negative thoughts or feelings about another person or group.

Contempt takes all of this to a much deeper level by holding another person or group is inferior and/or unworthy.  It combines a sense of one’s own felt superiority with disgust and disrespect for the other.  While it is held as an inner hostility, it can be manifested as mockery, sarcasm, hostile humor, name-calling, mimicking, and/or body language such as sneering and eye-rolling (which, interestingly, is found in almost all cultures). 

Researchers highlight three primary catalysts giving rise to contempt.

·    Social rejection.  One study found in unrequited love, 25% of those rejected reported harboring contempt toward what or who they once sought.

·    Moral transgression.  Contempt is one way to respond to those who violate a boundary or norm, be it an offense against our personal autonomy, community practices, or religious beliefs and standards.

·    Recurring conflicts.  When a problem or problems go on and on with no resolution, everything about the other person or group may become intolerable.

Contempt holds a kind of finality.  Anger with another person or group often focuses on an action or belief.  You can only be angry with a person or group if you hold out hope for the possibility of change; the other person might apologize, atone, and change behavior.  Contempt is not focused on deeds, but on an individual person or group you have so devalued you cannot even the possibility of their redemption.

Far from being a solitary experience isolated to an individual, contempt clusters like-minded people into “in groups” who rally against “out-groups” they deem to hold inferior qualities, ideas, and/or values.  From the “It” group in middle school to cable news talking heads and their audiences to everything in between, contempt is both a magnet and a glue; drawing together those with similar toxic assessments and binding them as one.

With all of this as background, let’s turn our attention to this morning’s reading.  A month ago we heard Jesus’ parable of Lazarus (a poor beggar) and a rich man.  In that story, the rich man is completely unaware of Lazarus and his need, even though he passes by him every single day.  Today’s parable has the exact opposite relational dynamic.  The person of higher social standing is hyper focused on the person of lower station.

The setting is the Temple; the occasion a time of prayer.  In this sacred place and moment, a contemptuous person gives thanks not for the splendor of the whole creation, not for the wonder of life, and not for the mystery of live.  He does not give thanks for the blessing of family and friends, nor for the loving care which surrounds him on every side.  No, he gives thanks he is not like the worthless person praying next to him.

If God’s call to me in life is to be better than other people, I will feel pretty good if I compare myself to George Cornell, but not so good if I weighed my merits against his wife, St. Phyllis.  But your call and my call is not to compare ourselves to others.  We are called to one purpose – to base our life (or attitudes and our actions) on the life of Christ. 

Paul instructed the church in Ephesus to be imitators of God by walking in love as Christ loved us ^5:1-2.  He invited the church in Corinth to imitate him in that he sought to imitate Christ ^11:1.  Then, in his next letter to them, he wrote about being transformed into the image of Christ ^4:6.  St. John, in his first letter, wrote whoever seeks to abide in Christ will walk in the same way Jesus walked ^2:6.  Our prayer, when we stand in the Temple should be, “When others look at me may they see the reflection of Christ.  Bless me to make it so.  Forgive me when his image in me is blurry.”

Jacob the Trickster

 

Genesis 32:22-33:4

Proper 24 / Year C

One of the more prevalent literary architypes is that of the trickster; a person or figure who uses wits and guile to triumph over those more powerful, often using methods which are morally ambiguous at best.  From Greek mythological figures such as Prometheus (who steals fire from Zeus and gives it to humankind) and Odysseus (who dreams up the scheme of the Trojan Horse) to Bugs Bunny and Bart Simpson, every culture and age has its tricksters.

Perhaps you have never noticed how tricksters and the stories of their exploits are sprinkled throughout the bible, especially in the Book of Genesis.  Its first trickster in it is not a person, but rather a creature – the serpent in the garden.  While it has come to represent for us the personification of evil (Satan), from a strictly literary perspective, the text tells us only that the serpent is “more crafty than any other beast of the field the Lord God has made”. ^3:1  And a reading of the text reveals, while the serpent questions what God has commanded, it never lies.  For her part, Eve, when question by God about eating the apple, deflects responsibility by saying “the serpent deceived me.”  Note how the serpent is guilty of trickery, not treachery.  The text itself offers no insight as to what motivates the creature.  Other biblical authors and commentators will have to draw from the narrative conclusions which are not explicitly revealed in the initial story.

Abraham, the father of the world’s three great monotheist religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), is also a trickster.  Not once but twice he passes off his wife as his sister to a foreign king because he believes he will be in danger if the truth about their relationship is revealed.  His trickery is tricky to understand, but not nearly as puzzling as the result.  When his deception is discovered, each king apologies to Abraham and rewards him with gifts of livestock and other forms of wealth before sending him on his way in peace.

Well, we could do an entire Lenten series studying only the tricksters found in Genesis, but let’s home in on the biblical figure synonymous with trickery – Jacob.  His moral character is foreordained from the beginning of his life when he is born clutching at the heel of Esau, his first-born twin brother.  The name Jacob means “supplanter”; one who tricks or deceives.   Apparently, it is a family trait.  When the time comes for Isaac, his father, to pronounce his blessing on his chosen elder son, Rebekah (the boys’ mother) helps Jacob trick the old, nearly blind man by passing off the younger son as his brother.  Even though given under false pretense, the blessing, once given, cannot be taken back. 

When Esau learns of it, he is filled with a murderous rage.  Jacob flees for his life, eventually landing in the Land of Naran, his grandfather Abraham’s home of origin.  Here he falls in love with Rachel, the daughter of Laban.  The father agrees to allow Jacob to marry her, but first he must work seven years in servitude to earn her.  When the time is up, trickery ensues.  Laban forces Jacob first to marry Leah, his older daughter and then work another seven years for Rachel.  Both men engage in more trickery before Jacob can marry his true love and then depart for his homeland with his bludgeoning family and possessions.

Returning to Canaan, however, means a reckoning with his brother.  When word comes Esau is approaching with a vast cohort of war-ready associates, Jacob uses every trick up his sleeve to placate his brother, sending wave after wave of lavish gifts ahead of him before their meeting.  He takes his family and retreats across the Jordon River to learn from a safe distance if his ploy works. 

On the night before Jacob will face the music, he is alone.  The text tells us he is assailed by someone (or something) with whom he wrestles until sunrise.  At first, we are told he contends with a man (could it be Esau?), but at the end of the conflict his adversary is revealed to be an angel.  For his part, Jacob says he has seen God face to face and prevailed.  He refuses to relent until his opponent blesses him and the struggle ends only after he receives it. 

Still, it comes at a cost.  Jacob’s hip is dislocated.  As a new day dawns, he limps forward, changed by the encounter.  After a life of trickery and being tricked he is ready to face the consequences of all he has done while being willing to let go of all that has been done to him.  For me, it is the most poignant and powerful human moment in the entire Old Testament.  It is reminiscent of what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “When I grew up, I put away childish things.” ^13:11  Come what may, when he meets up with his brother, Jacob will take the whatever happens as an adult, accepting the consequences of his actions with maturity and moral resignation.

What follows is perhaps the most grace-filled moment in the Old Testament.  Of all the possible outcomes, we do not expect the two brothers to embrace and cry in one another’s arms.  Esau too has changed.  His murderous rage has given way to unconditional love.  He has learned to forgive.  It is the kind of happy ending Hollywood loves.

I spent some time this week researching the motif of tricksters in the bible.  Scholars, it seems to me, grope for an explanation as to why God choses such questionable characters to be the patriarchs and matriarchs of a holy people and nation.  I didn’t come across a satisfying answer.  Perhaps none exists. 

But I did find something which helps me to understand Jacob better.  Some tricksters trick others simply for amusement while others do it to survive in a dangerous world.  Jacob’s actions fall into the latter.  But after the encounter wrestling with God, he abandons trickery and trusts come what may the Holy One will be with him.  Yes, the world is dangerous, but Jacob comes to realize he is not alone.  Yes, the world is complicated, but God is with him, even though he must contend with God to make sense of all that he has done and all that has been done to him.  He holds on to God and does not let go.  In the end, even as he must deal with the mess he has made out of his life, he comes to realize he is truly blessed.  This is what we call faith.