Companions & Conversation

Perhaps you recall that before I went to the Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria, VA, I spent a year at a conservative, evangelical seminary on Boston’s North Shore.  Fridays there were my favorite days because we always had a fresh, sea-food salad sandwich for lunch (still the best I have ever had) and dinner was always some kind of fish straight off the dock that would have cost us poor seminarians $50 at a Boston restaurant.  Outside the entrance to the large dining hall there was a bulletin board that served as the place for the student body to carry out running discussions or debates.  Back in the mid-80’s, at that school, abortion and the role of women in the church were hot topics.  I leave it to your imagination to conjure what I saw posted there as I waited in line for my Friday fish lunch and dinner.

In hindsight, I see now how that bulletin board set the table (so to speak) for every conversation that took place in the dining hall.  I remember countless discussions, some with near strangers, where the object was to mine down through our commonly held beliefs to find a point of disagreement.  This then became the place where we met – some inconsequential nuance of the amillennial understanding of the end times or a trivial aspect of John Calvin’s thinking on total depravity.  On more than one occasion, friends parted a meal no longer friends, and strangers who broke bread departed as combatants.

Hold that image in your mind as I give you my condensed version of the 23^rd Psalm, boiling down this beautiful poem to its contextual heart:

The Lord is my Host

who sets a table for me

in the presence of those who trouble me.

This, I believe, is the core of the 23^rd Psalm.  The author has been invited to a meal at which his enemies will also be at table.  In the midst of this ‘threat’ the poet meditates on the image of a shepherd leading his flock and takes comfort in the knowledge that God is present with him at that table.

Two words have been with me since the beginning of Lent; they are words central to the 23^rd Psalm: companion and conversation.  The word companion literally means “with bread”.  A companion is someone with whom you will break bread.  We in the Episcopal Church break a lot of bread.  Here at St. Paul’s it happens twice on Sunday and at various points throughout the year during the week.  Last year the Eucharist was celebrated in some form or fashion 139 times in and through our parish.  In addition to its frequency, our bread breaking is a sign of welcome.  Communion is open to every person baptized into the Christian faith and life regardless of age or denomination.

Through the Eucharist we become companions with one another; people who are gathered together in joy at a Table set by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our children are the ones who exhibit this joy most clearly.  They are the ones who run up to the altar rail with bright smiles and outstretched hands.  Believe me, they don’t get excited because the wafer is the best thing they will taste all day.  They are excited because they are doing something with their parents and with all of us.  They are excited to be a companion.

As happened in that seminary dining hall, being companions often leads to conversation.  The word conversation means the “art or act of living with another.”  This definition suggests at least two things:

First, we have to talk with another in order to maintain relationship.  Amy, our parish administrator, and I have conversation every day of the work week.  It may be extensive in the office about things that need to be done or it may be a brief text she sends to me saying a child is sick and she will not be able to come in or it may be me saying I will be on the road in the morning heading to a meeting and will call to check in.  Imagine how difficult it would be for Amy and me to live together without this basic conversation. 

The second thing suggested by the definition “the art or act of living together” is the more we talk with another person the more we know about that person.  And the more we know about another person – her views on life and politics, his innermost thoughts and worries – the more we either will open ourselves to deeper companionship or withdraw from it.  It is through conversation that we determine who we want in close relationship and who we do not. 

This has a tremendous implication for the church, doesn’t it.  Ironically, it hints the less we know about another person the more we may be willing to enter into the deepest act signifying our unity – communion (with unity) – and conversely, the more we know another person the more difficult it may be to be to break bread together.

Here is a question we might want to ask of the 23^rd Psalm: why would the Shepherd/Host host invite us to a meal with those who trouble us?  Wouldn’t it be a much more pleasant table if it was just the Shepherd/Host, me, and the people I like?  What kind of shepherd invites the wolf to graze with the flock?

Believe me, I have sat in silence many times in my life for long periods of time pondering this question in one form or another and I have concluded there is no sugar-coated answer easy to swallow.  Over and over again all I come up with is this: the Shepherd/Host of the psalmist is also the Shepherd/Host of the enemies.  We are all God’s children.  The Shepherd/Host extends the sign of comfort and welcome – the anointing of the head with oil after a long, hot, dry journey – to all.  The Table is made ready for all.  The over-flowing cup symbolizes God’s abundant love and grace and mercy extended to all people. 

The Genesis story of the Tower of Babel suggests that language is God’s gift to us so that, through conversation, we might learn the art and action of living together.  The story also reminds us of language’s limitations.  It is confusing at times.  We speak different dialects and even within our own tongue it is challenging to say what we mean and to hear the words of another as he or she intends them to be heard.  But the struggle and challenge of conversion is necessary because, as Jesus tells his disciples:

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.  So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” 

Conversation – the art and act of living together – is the way the entire flock learns how to be companions – and the bread we break at Table is the very body of the Shepherd/Host who brings us together.

All of this tells me that relationships will always contain both blessing and challenge, be they in the family, among friends, at work, in the community, or here at church.  The challenge comes from knowing we are not the same.  We have different ideas, different tastes, different values, different views.  These differences can and do stretch the bonds of common affection.  The blessing of these relationships is found as we move through our differences to gather at the Table of the One who calls us together.  This Table fellowship must be important to Jesus because he gave his life for it and continues to give us his life through it today.

I want to close by sharing with you this blessing by John O’Donohue.  It is intended for a new home, but I think speaks equally well of our hope for many places in our life, including our church home:

May this house shelter your life.

When you come in home here,

may all the weight of the world

fall from your shoulders.

May your heart be tranquil here,

blessed by peace the world cannot give.

May this home be a lucky place,

where the graces your life desires

always find the pathway to your door.

May nothing destructive

ever cross your threshold.

May this be a safe place

full of understanding and acceptance,

where you can be as you are,

without the need of any mask

of pretense or image.

May this home be a place of discovery,

where possibilities that sleep

in the clay of your soul can emerge

to deepen and refine your vision

for all that is yet to come to birth.

May it be a house of courage,

where healing and growth are loved,

where dignity and forgiveness prevail;

a home where patience of spirit is prized,

and the sight of destination is never lost

though the journey be difficult and slow.

May there be great delight around this hearth.

May it be a house of welcome

for the broken and diminished.

May you have the eyes to see

that no visitor arrives without a gift

and no guest leaves without a blessing.

And I might add,

May this home be a place

where a Table is always set for you

and for those who trouble you most

   so that we may be one flock with one Shepherd.

Loving Proof of the Resurrection

In many respects, Mark’s account of the Resurrection is the least satisfying of the four gospels.  Three women go to Jesus’ tomb to anoint the body with spices.  They know the location because they were there when Joseph of Arimathea placed the corpse in it and sealed it with a large stone.  They are concerned they will not be able to move the stone to do their work, but when they get to the tomb they find it is open.  They go inside to inspect and encounter a young man.  Who is he?  The text does not provide a single hint.  This mysterious person tells the women that Jesus has risen from the dead.  He instructs them to tell the news to the disciples.  He suggests they head to Galilee where they will see Jesus.  The women flee to tomb, terrorized by what has happened, and say nothing about the incident to anyone.

This is how the earliest, best, most accurate, manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel end.  Over the passing decades at least two editors, unsatisfied with the abrupt conclusion of the story, tacked on alternative endings, which scholars recognize as helpful, but not original.  Keep in mind this was the first gospel to be written.  Readers couldn’t flip to Matthew, Luke, or John to fill in the missing details. 

Plain and simple, there is not much here to convince a skeptic.  You don’t need to be a C.S.I. investigator to shoot holes in this resurrection story.  Perhaps the women went to the wrong tomb; an unlikely explanation because eventually someone would have gone to the actual tomb, found the body, and put the whole story to bed.  More plausible is that the young man stole the body.  He snuck to the tomb at night, broke in, took the body, hid it somewhere, and returned to tell his concocted story of a person rising from the dead.  Why would he do it?  Who cares?  Its an easier story to swallow than the resurrection.

So lets ask a basic question: why didn’t Mark provide more “proof” that Jesus had risen?  Why didn’t he include a story about the women meeting Jesus or Jesus appearing to the Disciples?  Why didn’t he tell us more about the young man in order to make him more credible and less suspicious?  If Mark submitted this story for publication today a reviewing editor would say, “Great story, but the ending needs some work.”

Here is what I think.  Mark was not writing to prove anything.  He was writing to tell people the story of Jesus.  People were curious to know more about him; what he said, what he did, and why he died.  They were not looking for proof for one plain and simple reason… they already had it.  Proof #1: people who encountered the Resurrected Jesus and told others about it.  Proof #2: people experienced closeness and companionship with the Resurrected Jesus just as we do today.  And proof #3 (which in my estimation is the most compelling): people met the living Christ in the lives of his followers.  Mark’s audience was not looking for proof, it craved understanding; who is this Jesus who makes such a profound difference in the lives of his followers?

Early in the second century, the Roman Emperor Hadria wanted to know why Christianity was spreading so rapidly throughout the land.  An investigator named Aristides gave him this explanation:

“Christians love one another.  They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them.  If they have something they give freely to the man who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home, and are happy, as though he were a real brother.  They don’t consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God.”

The Christian faith grew one person at a time as a person met the living Christ in the love of one of his followers.  No military force, no intellectual idea, no government sanction, no cultural craze, and not even brutal waves of persecution could stop it.  This passion for the living Christ was all the proof Mark needed. 

If this is how the Christian movement began, we might want to ask how is it doing today?  The answer… not so well.  Recent surveys indicate an alarming number of people today associate Christianity with hate and intolerance.  Jesus’ followers are not winning over the world with love, we are pushing people away with hypocrisy and judgmentalism.  If our lives are supposed to be the proof that Jesus is risen, many of the folks who are looking at us are not convinced.

Throughout Holy Week I spent time meditating on and praying over the poem “African Easter” by Abioseh Nicol, a writer from Sierra Leone.  The poem consists of three parts: Good Friday, Easter Eve, and Easter Morning.  He begins Easter Morning with this:

Another day…

Sleep leaves my opening eyes slowly

unwillingly like a true lover.

But this day is different.

The lonely matin bells

cut across the thin morning mist,

the glinting dew on the green grass,

the cool pink light before the heat of day,

the sudden punctual dawn of tropic skies,

before the muezzin begins to cry,

before the pagan drums begin to beat.

Easter morning.

For Nicol, the day breaks like any other.  If we were writing it, we might describe the challenge of waking children and getting them dressed for church.  We might speak of a desire to stay home and relax before the beginning of another busy week.  Nicol acknowledges this as the poem continues:

But still for me

the great rock remains unrolled.

Within my wet dark tomb

wounded peace remains embalmed,

the pricking thorns still yet my crown.

Easter morning.

He goes on to describe the tribal religion he embraced in his youth, but turned from to Christianity.  Listen to how he describes his faith now.  It is mechanical, institutional, lacking substance, lacking life.

I am a good Churchman, now.

Broadminded, which means past caring

whether High or Low.

The priest may hold the chalice,

or give it to me.  It depends

on where he trained.  I only mind

that he wipes the wet rim

not to spread dental germs.

A tenth of my goods

I give to the poor

through income tax.

Easter morning.

Then something begins to stir deep within the heart of the poet:

Yet you Christ are always there.

You are the many-faceted crystal

of our desires and hopes,

behind the smoke-screen of incense,

concealed in mumbled European tongues

of worship and of praise.

In the thick dusty verbiage

of centuries of committees

of ecumenical councils.

You yet remain revealed

to those who seek you.

It is I, you say.

You remain in the sepulcher

of my brown body.

Isn’t that an incredible line, “You remain in the sepulcher of my body.”  I know exactly what Nicol means by that and I suspect you do as well.  But, just as it happened at the closed tomb in the garden, Resurrection comes.  Nicol concludes his poem by breaking forth with a shout:

Christ is risen, Christ is risen!

You were not dead.

It was just that we

could not see clearly enough.

We can push out the rock from the inside.

You can come out now.

You see we want to share you

with our masters, because

you really are unique.

What a powerful image: “We can push out the rock from the inside.  You can come out now”; the stone that covers our hearts, that keeps Christ’s love entombed in us, being rolled away from the inside.  Nicol discovers from within that he can be – even to his masters – what those Christians of old were to the world… living proof that Christ is alive. 

His poem leaves me with several questions; questions which I will leave for you to ponder on this joyous day.  What keeps you from rolling away the stone in front of your heart and letting the love of Christ resurrect in you?  Is it fear?  Is it doubt?  Is it indifference?  Something else?  How would your life be different if that stone got pushed away?  How would you approach the day?  the people you encounter? the world in need?  And finally, what would the world look like if you and I became irrefutable, loving proof of Christ’s resurrection?  How would it transform Suffolk?  How would it change this parish?  How would it bring life to your life?

Good Friday

There is a strong strand in Christian spirituality that invites us to feel personally responsible for Jesus’ agonizing death.  As a youth I was taught that if I was the only person in the world ever to sin Jesus still would have hung on the Cross for me.  I was told that my sins are the nails that hold him to the Cross.  It was led to believe the question, “is it I Lord?”, should be my question because I betray Jesus and I deny Jesus again and again and again.

Given this spirituality, it is easy to see how Good Friday becomes a day of extended confession for many.  Each swing of the hammer and each drop of blood are meant to elicit in us deep remorse and complete remembrance of every wrong we have ever done.   In some form or fashion the focus of this day becomes me and what I did to Jesus.  Let me suggest we lay aside this strand of spirituality and approach this day and this moment in a different way: as a sign of love… God’s enduring love for us and our Christ-like love for the world.

During Holy Week I have been meditating on and praying over the poem “African Easter” by Abioseh Nicol, a writer from Sierra Leone.  The poem consists of three parts: Good Friday, Easter Eve, and Easter Morning.  Let me read Good Friday for you, which has the subtitle The Wounded Christ:

I am not your God

if you have not denied me once, twice,

if I have not heard you complaining,

or doubting my existence.

I am not your Love,

if you have not rejected me often.

For what then am I worth to you

if you are always sinless.

Pace these sandy corridors of time,

turn again and live for me your youth, listening

to the gently falling rain, the distant cock crow

then proceed once more to deny

that I had a part in your being.  Say

that I am an invention to keep you held

always in thralldom.  That I was

the avant-garde of your disintegration.

After me, the stone jars of cheap gin, ornamental

glass beads, the punitive expeditions, your colonial status,

I have heard it all before; hide your face,

bury it, for fear that finding me, you may find peace.

For in this hour when the dying night lingers

unwilling to surrender its waking darkness

over your face and fevered brow, my torn fingers

will stray bringing such comfort

as may claim your doubting heart.

From Nicol’s perspective, human sin and shortcomings are an inevitable; they are something God expects and accepts as inherent in the relationship between creature and Creator.  To focus exclusively on our sin is to “hide our face”, to “bury it” – as Nicol puts it – so as to miss completely the depth of relationship God seeks to have with us.  It would be like a child who knows nothing of the parent except “I told you not to do it, now go to your room and stay there.”  Yes, this is a facet of the parent/child relationship, but only a small part.  The relationship is so much richer than just rules, remorse, and reprimands. 

“I am not your God if you have not denied me once, twice, if I have not heard you complaining, or doubting my existence.  I am not your Love, if you have not rejected me often.”  As a youth Nicol believed otherwise and it led him away from God.  He embraced doubt and distraction because at a deep level he believed himself unworthy of God.  His great fear was that he might learn God loves him and in that love would find peace with God and himself.  Nicol says this day – Good Friday – is an invitation to do just that… to face not our sins, but God’s overwhelming, all-encompassing love for us.

Each year at this service I say essentially the same thing.  The distinctive feature of the Good Friday liturgy is The Solemn Collects which we will pray in just a moment.  These biddings and prayers are comprehensive; no person or need is left out.  Placed where they are in the liturgy, the Collects suggest that once Christ’s work in the world is completed on the Cross, our work in the world begins.  His love for the world becomes our love for the world.  And the starting point for us as we seek to manifest this love is prayer.

As I said, Good Friday is many things.  Certainly this includes the spirituality that was instilled in me as a youth.  Today I add to it this… God saying, “O.K., I get it.  You sin.  I know it and I expect it.  It is a part of the contract I signed on for when I created you.  Don’t look away in shame.  Don’t hide your face.  Look at me and see the love I have for you.  Look at me and find peace.  And then look out and look around.  See the world I love so dearly.  See the world through my eyes.  Help me show my love for the world by sharing my love for you with others.”

African Easter

by Abioseh Nicol (1924-1994)

Good Friday

The Wounded Christ:

I am not your God

if you have not denied me once, twice,

if I have not heard you complaining,

or doubting my existence.

I am not your Love,

if you have not rejected me often.

For what then am I worth to you

if you are always sinless.

Pace these sandy corridors of time,

turn again and live for me your youth, listening

to the gently falling rain, the distant cock crow

then proceed once more to deny

that I had a part in your being.  Say

that I am an invention to keep you held

always in thralldom.  That I was

the avant-garde of your disintegration.

After me, the stone jars of cheap gin, ornamental 

glass beads, the punitive expeditions, your colonial status,

I have heard it all before; hide your face,

bury it, for fear that finding me, you may find peace.

For in this hour when the dying night lingers

unwilling to surrender its waking darkness

over your face and fevered brow, my torn fingers

will stray bringing such comfort

as may claim your doubting heart.

Easter Eve

The African Priest:

I have sat down by the waterside

watching the grey river pulling away.

I have listened me with willing ears

to your vesper bells across the fields.

Come close to me, God, do not keep away,

I walk towards you but you are too far,

Please try and meet me here halfway,

because you are my all, my all.

What are you, Negro, Lebanese or Jew,

Flemish, Italian, Indian, Greek?

I know within my heart exactly what you are – 

What we would like to be, but never are.

The warm blood sticks to your whipped shoulders

(Drink this in remembrance of me).

Only when the whirling throngs have raised red weals

on our complacent bodies, then we remember you.

Change our salty tears of brown remorse

into your flowing blood, it tastes the same.

(Oh, River Niger, you too have come from far away),

Fill my uplifted silver calabash

with your sacrificial wine.

And I, your least novitiate, will sip,

with my thick lips, your ancient memory

So God the Father who art above,

Christ His Son, our only love,

Holy Ghost, eternal Dove,

make me a goodly man.

Easter Morning

The African Intellectual:

Ding dong bell

Pussy’s in the well.

Another day…

Sleep leaves my opening eyes slowly

unwillingly like a true lover.

But this day is different.

The lonely matin bells

cut across the thin morning mist,

the glinting dew on the green grass,

the cool pink light before the heat of day,

the sudden punctual dawn of tropic skies, 

before the muezzin begins to cry, 

before the pagan drums begin to beat.

Easter morning.

But still for me

the great rock remains unrolled.

within my wet dark tomb

wounded peace remains embalmed,

the pricking thorns still yet my crown.

Easter morning.

Where are my ancestral spirits now?

I have forgotten for many harvests 

to moisten the warm earth

with poured libations.

Where are you now, O Shango?

two headed, powerful

man and woman, hermaphrodite

holding your quivering thunderbolts

with quiet savage malice;

brooding over your domain,

Africa, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil,

slavery of mind is unabolished.

Always wanting to punish, never to love.

I have turned away from you

to One who stands

watching His dying dispossessed Son 

shouting in Aramaic agony

watching the white Picasso dove

hovering above the Palestinian stream

watching and waiting, sometimes

to punish, always to love.

Sleep confuses my tired mind

still the bell rings

I must up and away.

I am a good Churchman, now.

Broadminded, which means past caring

whether High or Low.

The priest may hold the chalice,

or give it to me.  It depends

on where he trained.  I only mind

that he wipes the wet rim

not to spread dental germs.

A tenth of my goods

I give to the poor

through income tax.

Easter morning.

Yet you Christ are always there.

You are the many-faceted crystal 

of our desires and hopes,

behind the smoke-screen of incense, 

concealed in mumbled European tongues

of worship and of praise.

In the thick dusty verbiage

of centuries of committees

of ecumenical councils.

You yet remain revealed

to those who seek you.

It is I, you say.

You remain in the sepulcher

of my brown body.

Christ is risen, Christ is risen!

You were not dead.

It was just that we

could not see clearly enough.

We can push out the rock from the inside.

You can come out now.

You see we want to share you

with our masters, because

you really are unique.

The great muddy river Niger, 

picks up the rising equatorial sun,

changing itself by slow degrees

into thick flowing molten gold.

Expectations & Disappointments

I wrote a paper in seminary on a 1941 book titled The Nature and Destiny of Man written by a theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr.  In it, Niebuhr argues that we human beings are both finite and limitless.  We are limitless because we are made in the image of the Creator.  Our minds are capable of soaring to fantastic heights and our souls are endowed with the possibility of infinite expression.  But we are also creatures and thus limited.  We are confined to space and time.  We are imperfect and lack omniscience.  Niebuhr said that humanity is both free and bound, both limited and limitless, sinner and saint, subject to history and social forces but also the shaper of history and society, creature of the Creator but potential lord of creation, egotistical but capable of living for others.

Niebuhr believed we are drawn into relationships with other people when we see the infinite in them; when we see in a lover or a mate or a friend the mystery of that person, his or her unique capacity for good and beauty and strength and virtue.  Conversely, these relationships are challenged when we recognize the other person’s finite nature; when we see how small and powerless and petty a person really is.

Niebuhr’s thinking sheds light on one aspect of the hugely complex events that envelop the Passion of our Lord.  Throughout the Gospels we see people being attracted to that part of Jesus which gives flesh to true Divinity.  Drawn by his miracles and his healings and his signs and his teachings and his personal aura, they came from far and near to meet Jesus.  He seemed to be unencumbered by the elements of this life that drag down the rest of us.  He contended fearlessly with oppressive politicians and corrupt, uncaring religious leaders.  He demonstrated a boundless capacity for compassion to all who were sick, lonely, anxious, or despondent and for those who were not accepted in society’s upper echelons.  Demons cowered at his rebuke and the raging seas lay still at His command.  He was God from God, Light from Light... of one Being with the Father.

And, as you know, by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made man.  He emptied himself, as St. Paul says, and became humble as we are humble.  He was limited by thirst and exhaustion.  He was not able to right every wrong or exceed everyone’s expectations of Him.  His critics recognized his finite nature and wagged at the foot of the Cross, “He saved other but he cannot save himself.”  As he rode into Jerusalem, Jesus was praised by those whose held high expectations for what he would do and as he stood before Pilate the same people rejected him for disappointing them.

Expectations and disappointments: these are emotions born of our limitless potential and the finite nature of our physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual condition.  The cry of “hosanna in the highest” is raised for those from whom we expect great things and the shouts of “crucify” are aimed at anyone who lets us down beyond all measure.

It is a dynamic that we do not reserve just for the Savior of the world.  It plays out in every relationship between individuals, between groups, and between individuals and groups.  How many marriages have begun with two people singing hosanna only to end with demands for crucifixion?  How many politicians have strolled into office on a red carpet only to be booted out the back door when they fail to deliver the world to their constituents?  How many coaches have helped how many young people to graduate only to be fired because they did not win enough league championships?    How many churches have split when two sides can not agree on the ‘truth’?

We demand a kind of greatness and perfection from one another that only God can live up to, and even then, only on God’s best days.  As a result we have become an extremely cruel and unforgiving society that throws away those who disappoint us with a stunning, but predictable regularity.  We shun, sue, or sabotage anyone unfortunate enough to have their limitations exposed to our boundless expectations.  The cry may not be “crucify him,” but the intention is the same.

The great irony is that the words “crucify him” – aimed at those who, in their limitations, have disappointed us – these words are generated in us not from what is infinite and glorious and generous, but from what is finite and mean and unforgiving.  We condemn in another what fail to see in ourselves.

Each one of us has been victimized by unrealistic expectations and each of us knows what it is to be thoroughly uncharitable with regards to the short-comings of others.  It is an old phenomena, older than the Passion of our Lord for sure.  One of the things we learn from today’s story is that it should be O.K. to be human.  It should be O.K. to have limitations and to make mistakes.  We ought to cut some slack for others when they fail to attain the impossible standards we set for them.  We are not God.  We are not even gods.  We are limited human beings making our way through life as best we can. 

But we can be like God in this respect: God recognizes and accepts that we are finite and thus we will fall far, hard, and often.  The Passion of our Lord is the most powerful testimony imaginable of just how low we can sink.  Yet it also shows us that God’s mercy for us knows no bounds.  That very mercy is woven into the fabric of our being.  It is – should we choose to act upon it – a part of who we are in our limitless potential. 

Each week we come to the Lord’s Table to taste the bread and drink the wine which will promote in us that which is charitable to those around us.  Living on our own resources and left to our own devices, the cry of “crucify” seems to well up within us again and again and again.  Making ourselves present to God’s grace opens within us that which is limitless and capable of near-infinite mercy and compassion.  

Create in Me a Clean Heart

The time is the 5th Century BC.  The place is somewhere within the sphere of the Hebrew religion.  A person, most likely a man, lies sick; perhaps to the point of death.  Pondering his life, his physical aliments, and his many transgressions, this person realizes that first and foremost he must become right with God.  He writes these words, which are some of the best known in the entire Psalter:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

   and renew a right spirit within me.

It is a verse found often in our liturgy and I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed its prayer with only a degree of sincerity.  Let me tell you about my heart.  There are evil things rooted in it which you may glimpse on occasion and there are some things which I will work very hard never to let you see.  There lurks still more in my heart that I try to hide even from those closest to me.  And if the psychologists are right, there are things in my heart hidden even from me.

There is a part of my heart, too large I am afraid, that is deeply bitter.  This part believes no adversity should ever befall me.  Its doctrine holds no adversary should ever prevail against me and no one close should ever disappoint me.  My heart spews forth an acid-like emotion when ever its arrogant assertions are violated.

Tell me about your heart.  What lies in its secret places?  Tell me about your heart.  What hides within its deepest recesses?  Is there hatred?  Immorality?  Bigotry?  Rampant pride and conceit?  Vindictiveness?  Does your heart covet?  Is it consumed with shame?  Is it controlled by an addiction?  Does it ever boil over into violence?  Or perhaps your heart is mostly passionless and indifferent; lacking hope and purpose.  Maybe it is broken and, to your estimation, wounded beyond repair.  Tell me about your heart.

Let me tell you about another heart.  It belongs to a character named Morrieaux in Michael Christopher’s play The Black Angel.  The play tells the story of a W.W.II German general named Herman Engel who was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for atrocities committed by his army.  At the time when the play takes place, Engel has been released from prison and is living in a cabin in a remote woodland location where he and his wife hope to finish out their days in obscurity.

Waiting in the wings is Morrieaux, a Frenchman, whose entire family had been massacred by Engel’s army.  Morrieaux had privately vowed that, if ever presented the opportunity, he would take Engel’s life.  His personal death sentence was kept alive over three decades by the fire of hatred which burned in his heart.  Now, with Engel free, the time has come.  Morrieaux stirs up nearby villagers into a frenzy and they plan to go to Engel’s cabin at night in order to burn it to the ground.  They plan to execute the general and his wife.

But even this is not enough to appease the hatred of the lead character.  As the play reaches its climax, Morrieaux posses as a reporter and goes to Engel’s cabin.  He grills the general about the details of the village massacre.  The years have taken their toll on the Nazi and in his feeble humanity he seems to Morrieaux less like the monster he had imagined and more like a tired old man.  Beyond this, some of the details of the Engel’s version of the story do not fit together as neatly as Morrieaux had imagined.  Doubt begins to contaminate the place where once only pure hate and vengeance had dwelt.

As the afternoon wears on, Morrieaux takes pity on Engel and tells him of the villagers’ plans for that very evening.  He offers to lead the old man and his wife to safety.  “I will go with you on one condition,” Engel tells Morrieaux, “You must forgive me.”  In his fantasies Morrieaux had rehearsed a thousand different ways in which he would kill this man, now he was willing to cancel the execution, but not the hate.  Morrieaux departs alone, his hate-filled heart in tact.  As he walks away we hear the villagers approaching who, with sacks over their heads, proceed to burn the cabin and murder the general and his wife.

The play asks the question why was Morrieaux unable to forgive?  Why was it easier to save a man’s life than to forgive him?  It was too much for Morrieaux to forgive because his hatred had been a passion too long lodged in his soul.  He could not live, he could no longer be the person he was, without his hatred.  He had become his hatred.  His hate did not belong to him, he belonged to it.

When I say the words, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” the longer I go without offering up my bitterness, the more I sense it becoming me and me it.  Sometimes I cannot imagine what life would be like if I did not carry it in me.  Do you want to know something strange?  Thinking about the people I am bitter at without being bitter at them scares me to death.  How about you?  What about your heart?  Are you afraid to let it go?

I think back to the Hebrew Psalmist, whoever he was, lying close to death.  I wonder what it is about facing mortality that opens the desire within us to put our hearts right.  I don’t want to wait until the end of life to open myself to the Creator of heaven and earth to create a right spirit within me.

Our Gospel reading this morning records a one verse parable of our Lord:  “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  The meaning of the parable then follows:  “He who loves his life loses it and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  We don’t need the character of Morrieaux to show us how difficult it is to disdain the present condition of our hearts.  If we seek validation of this truth all we need to do is take stock of the things which we do not want to turn over to God’s creative renewing.

One time Jesus met a lame man who was sitting by a pool of water said to have magical, healing powers.  There were dozens of people around the water waiting for the chance to be made whole, but for some reason our Lord focused in on this particular individual.  Jesus asked him just one question, “Do you want to be healed?”  I always thought this to be such a silly question until I realized how desperately we all cling to the things that pull us down.  Every smoker knows how devastating cigarettes are to the body, yet each continues.  Alcoholics will watch their lives fall apart, along with the lives of those who care about them, all the while believing the bottle is their best friend.  Young people will engage is sexual activities which threaten not only their future, but their very lives.  Me, well I have my bitterness and you know what lies in the secret places of your heart.

Do you want to be healed?  If so, you must truly hate that part of your heart which you fearfully grasp with all of your might.  You must surrender.  You must die to that part of self where you have not let the light of Christ shine nor let the joy of the Gospel ring out.  You must let go, but letting go is exactly what we struggle most in life to do.  It is what we fear.   Just as the grain of wheat begins to grow only when it gives itself up to the unknown of the soil, we too will only begin to grow when we let go of the safe, the familiar, and the known in order to reach out for the new and unknown.  Not to let go is to assure death, yet we have been told since our early years, “Look before you leap; never quit your job until you have a new one; better safe than sorry; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”  So we just hold on to it.

Jesus Christ calls each of us to a radical faith and trust.  This call begs each of us to name as evil the familiar poison in our hearts.  This call questions, “Do you want to be made well?”  This call lifts up the example of the grain of wheat which remains alone until it dies to self.  And the person who issues the call gives nothing less than the example of His life.  Jesus Christ faced the greatest unknown of all –  death – and He triumphed.  Jesus Christ bids us, “Crucify the bitterness, the hate, the pride, so that I may resurrect your heart.”

St. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things are passing away.  Behold, new things come.”  May God give to you and to me the hatred of the present condition of our hearts and the courage to face the unknown so that our hearts may contain only the law and the light of the new covenant of Christ.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”