Two versions of One Experience

Lets think about the scene Matthew sets in the reading we just heard.  It is early dawn on Sunday morning.  As few as two guards (if they are from the temple detachment) or as many as sixteen (if the outfit is composed of Roman soldiers), are keeping watch in a Jerusalem cemetery.  They arrived sometime on Saturday, inspected the tomb containing Jesus’ body, found it to be as it should, rolled a large stone across the entrance, and sealed it.  There is concern Jesus’ followers will unleash an attempt to steal the body in order to perpetuate a hoax about a resurrection.

Two women – followers of Jesus – approach.  Matthew tells us they want “to see” the tomb.  Unlike other gospel accounts, they are not carrying burial ointments.  They want to see the tomb.  Matthew’s lean description hints the women are not coming to the tomb to grieve nor are they here to tend to additional burial treatments.  They are here “to see”… presumably to see if anything has happened.  While the other disciples (and by other I mean the men) fail to grasp Jesus’ teaching he would die and rise on the third day, these women have heard it and are here to see… to see if only maybe, the horror they witnessed on Friday has been undone.

The approach of the women puts the guards on high alert.  This could be the first stage of an elaborate plot to steal the body.  Still, even if it is only two guards, the women in and of themselves do not pose a threat.  These men are trained security personnel who are more than capable of defending themselves against the women, or even a small band of Jesus’ followers.

What happens next would have been difficult for the women and the guards to process.

Forensic psychologists who attempt to understand why eyewitness accounts of a single event often differ provide critical insight.  When confronted with a sudden, dramatic event (such as a crime or accident or tragedy), the human brain does not record the experience in a way resembling a motion picture, but rather as a series of snapshots or snippets.  Years ago, I had the misfortune of navigating my mountain bike off a footbridge over a shallow ravine.  I still have a vivid memory of what happened, but not like that of a film.  It was snapshot – I have turned too sharply as I ride onto the bridge so I brake.  Snapshot – my bike has stopped, but my body has not.  I am flying over the handlebar.  Snapshot – twist and turn in midair.  I don’t have any conscious remembrance of making this decision.  Snapshot – it is dark, but my hands have caught side of the footbridge breaking my fall.  Snapshot – I feel safe, but wonder where my bike is.  Final snapshot – I am laying in the ravine after my bike come over the bridge and hits me in the head.  I am none the worse for the experience.  My bike, however, is beaten up pretty bad.

Have you ever had an experience like this - a snapshot, snapshot, snapshot moment?  If so, you have an insight into what happens at Jesus’ tomb.

As Matthew tells it there is a great earthquake as the women approach.  An angel descends from heaven.  Now, we may think of angels as being sweet little cherub-like creatures, but in the bible they are much more fearsome and intimidating.  Matthew describes it as being like a bolt of lightning.  Have you ever been close to a lightning strike?  It gets your attention, doesn’t it.  Your body reacts to it.  Your hair stands on end.  Your heart rate goes off the chart.  You duck involuntarily and turn away.  This angel event, whatever it is, stuns the guards.  They become like dead men.  The women are terrified and the first thing the angel says to them is “Do not be afraid.”  The angel then proclaims Jesus has risen and commissions the women to take a message to his disciples.

Here is what is interesting: up until this point in the narrative, the guards and the women have participated in the exact same experience.  The only difference is the guards are here to guard and the women are here to see.

The forensic psychologists who study the human brain’s processing under difficult circumstances note our tendency to fill in missing information lost in the gaps between the snapshots we remember.  It turns out the brain does not like an empty vacuum so it will manufacture information, or even appropriate the memories of others as its own.  Police investigators deal with this all the time when they interview multiple witnesses of a single event.  Discerning reality can be a tremendous challenge.  The two groups do not hang around to process their varying experiences and no investigator will be able to interview the women and the guards together. 

The women leave the scene quickly and then experience another “sudden” event.  Jesus meets them and speaks to them: “Greetings.”  They touch him and worship him.  They hear him speak to them.

“Some” of the guards leave the cemetery as well.  They report to their superiors the tomb is open and empty.  The superiors concoct a story about the body being stolen and pay off the guards.  I suspect the guards have no idea what happened.  They have mental snapshots of something like two women approaching, a lightening bolt, an open tomb, and an empty tomb.

On the other hand, the women have more mental pictures and are trying to piece together some kind of description of what has happened.  Matthew’s narrative reads like snapshots – angel, “not here”, “risen”, “go and tell”, “Galilee”, “greetings”.  Ultimately it is not the story they tell, but the experience they relate that becomes important.  Matthew’s gospel does not record the exchange between the women and the disciples, nor does it detail any encounter the disciples have with the Risen Jesus until they go to Galilee and see him there.  We can only surmise the women are very convincing.

Here is the irony of Matthew’s story.  In the courts of the day, a woman’s testimony is considered unreliable and therefore is not permitted.  On the other hand, the testimony of a guard is considered to be beyond reproach.  As we gather this morning, I invite you to consider one certainty and two possibilities.  Based on Matthew’s account, this much is certain: the tomb containing Jesus’ body is empty by dawn on Sunday morning.  No one in this account, or in any of the other gospel accounts, disputes this. 

How the tomb came to be empty is disputed.  Either the defeated, fearful disciples who fled at Jesus’ arrest on Thursday night reorganize, overwhelm the well-trained guards (who, by the way, have no wounds to account for how they lost such a skirmish), steal the body, move it to a secret location, never reveal to anyone where it is hidden, and travel the known world proclaiming a lie for which each is willing to die, or the dead body of Jesus is resurrected and released from the sealed tomb though a means which we cannot explain apart from the power of God. 

I am intrigued this morning by how different people can be at the tomb on Easter morning, experience much of the same thing, and come away with such differing accounts – and therefore differing meanings – of what happened.  Here we are, participating in that moment through our hearing.  We are being challenged to take these snippets and formulate some kind of sensible story.  Why is the tomb empty?  Why do Jesus’ dispirited disciples rally to change the world? 

Did somebody or some group overpower the guards and move the body to a secret location never to be discovered?  Or…

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

  The Lord is Risen indeed!

"Let Us..."

It is so difficult to know what to say or do after reading the account of our Lord’s death.  It is somber and sobering.  It almost feels like the best and most appropriate response is silence.  Perhaps we all should just sit here together in a prolonged, shared moment of numbness.  What are we to do with what we just have heard?

Today’s second reading blazes a path for us to follow.  The Letter to the Hebrews probably was written to Jews living in Rome about thirty years after the Crucifixion.  Originally attributed to Paul, its authorship has been in question for a long time.  What is not questioned is the power and eloquence of the letter; exploring the person, work, and meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

The author has had some time to digest the events we have just read and thus is in a position to give us direction on how to respond to Jesus’ death.  He tells us to do three things.  Each begins with two simple words: “Let us.”

After setting out an intricate argument for how Jesus replaces the entire system of the Jerusalem Temple by making the perfect offering of himself (cleansing us of all sin), and describing how Jesus forever takes the place of the high priest (thereby giving us access to God’s presence), the author writes,

Let us approach [God in God’s sanctuary] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

So our first response is spiritual.  We are to be in this place in God’s presence confident in God’s love for us.  Good Friday is not a day about human failure, rather it is about God’s all-powerful, unfailing hessed – a Hebrew word meaning steadfast, covenant love.

My Jack Russell terrier has many different ways she responds to me based on the stimulation I give her.  If she has done something wrong and I have yelled at her, she slouches down, slinks forward, and gravels at my feet; wondering what she must do to get back in my good graces.  The author of the Letter to the Hebrews says this is not what Good Friday is to be like.  If I pick up her leash – signaling a walk – my dog begins to bounce and twist and yelp and basically loose her mind.  This is not what Good Friday is like either.  In the evening, when I settle down on the couch, I give my dog a bone and pat on my lap, signaling I want her to jump up and join me.  She eagerly obliges and settles down across my outstretched legs, comfortable and confident she is where I want her to be.  This is an image of Good Friday.  God has signaled us to come close.  Of this we are confident.

Here is the second directive:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 

The readers of this letter lived in challenging times.  Both Peter and Paul are martyred in their city, perhaps by Nero, around the time the letter is written.  The readers know their lives are in jeopardy.  The author sets out to encourage the faithful.  Hold fast.  Do not be discouraged by all that is going on around you.  God is with you.

Our world today is a challenging place for Christians.  In some places, like Egypt, the faithful gather in fear for their lives.  In other settings, churches have grown apathetic and indifferent.  Here at St. Paul’s, as with many western churches, our mission-mindset seems thwarted by a society not interested in what institutional religion is selling.  Good Friday calls us to hold fast to hope because our efforts are not grounded in our success, but rather in God’s faithfulness.

Here is the final directive:

Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

We all know people who say, “I don’t need to be in church worship God.  I can worship God in the mountains, or at the beach, or on the golf course, etc.”  To them I always respond, “I am glad you can worship God when you are at location X.  I wish everyone had a spirituality capable of being with God everywhere all the time.  But, when you are off worshipping God in your private way, how are you reaching out and connecting with others?  God is concerned with more than your worship.  God wants you to be in fellowship with other worshippers; offering your help and support and receiving help and support when you are in need.”

Good Friday is to be a day when good people come together to do good things.  I met with a group of local clergy a few weeks ago to learn more about Virginia Blood Services.  We are exploring the possibility of mobilizing churches in Suffolk for a donor drive.  One of our craziest ideas, which will have to wait at least until next year, is to organize a Good Friday blood drive.  Who could say no to giving blood on the day we remember Jesus shed his blood for us!  I think the author of the Letter to the Hebrews would applaud such an effort.  Can you imagine forty or fifty or more Christians coming together over the course of a day to do something so vitally necessary for our community.

So, this day we move from numbness to direction:

Let us approach God with confidence.

Let us hold fast to the hope of the faith.

Let us gather together, encourage one another, and do good things for our community.

This is the path we are to walk after hearing the Passion of our Lord.

A Violent Act & Its Impact

Crucifixion remains one of the most gruesome forms of execution in human history.  Most often, its victims died of asphyxiation; they simply lost the strength to pull themselves up to get a breath.  Others died of wounds suffered prior to being crucified or from sepsis or even from being attached by predator creatures as they hung exposed and helpless.  Practitioners developed many different styles and nuances.  For example, a cross could be T-shaped, X-shaped, or even Y-shaped.  A victim could be bound to the cross with ropes or nailed to it with spikes or metal shards.  A cross might feature a footrest, a comfort only prolonging the process, or it might not.  Typically, the person being crucified was stripped of all clothing, the ultimate humiliation of this degrading punishment.  No matter the variation, the experience was designed to be slow, painful, and “excruciating”, a word literally meaning “out of crucifying.” 

Crucifixions were very public events.  They always took place in areas where many, many local citizens could observe the execution or would pass by during the course of their daily rounds.  Often, victims were left on display long after death as a warning to everyone else to stay in line. 

I want to help us think about how the sudden exposure to such a violent act would have affected those closest to Jesus, especially those who gather at the Cross.  And I also want to help us think about the long-term impact this kind of public violence has on a society.

Keith Humphrey, a Stanford professor of psychiatry, writes of a time he and his wife were driving on a highway when a man wondered onto the road and was hit and killed by a car directly next to theirs.  The couple witnessed the entire tragedy.  Humphrey’s wife immediately began to scream and scream and scream whereas he turned to face directly forward, gripped the wheel tightly and stared into space, dimly aware that his wife was yelling somewhere in the distance.  In the face of this sudden traumatic event, his wife exploded with emotion whereas Humphrey became numb emotionally and detached from reality; a psychological response for self-protection known as dissociation. 

Humphrey’s experience illustrates how an initial response to a violent/traumatic act varies from one person to another.  The biblical accounts of the Crucifixion record the wailing of women and the fleeing of men.  This is not to suggest gender determines response, but it does mirror how Humphrey and his wife reacted.  However you want to describe Jesus’ closest disciples fleeing in the face of confrontation, and however you want to frame Peter’s denial, from a psychological perspective it is consistent with dissociation; a feeling of needing to hide from the unimaginable horror unfolding around you.

Have you ever experienced a moment like this?  I have.  I was with a female friend and loved ones, and while I don’t want to speak of the details, she responded with a angry, emotional outburst whereas I have a distinct memory of shrinking in the place where I was sitting and receding away psychologically from the painful event unfolding before me.  I recovered quickly, but eventually left the moment late in the evening and, coming back to Suffolk, I can still recall the feeling of how I wished the dark would not give way to the dawn so I could keep driving on forever as if nothing had happened. 

Based on that experience, you will never hear me criticize Peter or the other disciples.  In the crushing events unfolding before them, they reacted out of deep “fight or flight” response controlled by the most primitive part of our brains.  It is a process we neither control nor understand at the time.  Nor will you hear me praise or condemn the hysterical women.  We are who we are.  We act under crisis as we react.  We recover in our own way and move forward.  It is the moving forward and how we do it that matters most. 

For Jesus’ mother and the others who huddle beneath the Cross, what this experience means to them is far beyond my imagining.  Here is what we can know.  Here is what folks with comparable experiences experience in our own day:

· A profound sense of guilt: an irrational feeling you could have done something to prevent what happened, rather than accepting the terrifying truth you lack of control over many things that happen in life.

· Difficulty sleeping and nightmares.

· A heightened sense of alertness while awake.  Even mundane events will be interpreted as “fight or flight” moments, with all the body reactions associated with it.

Our present day understanding of human psychology provides a serious challenge to those who would deny the Resurrection.  A person exposed to such a horrific, violent act normally would exhibit the following:

· An inability to redevelop a sense of trust in others.

· A perpetual sense of victimization.

· A lack of personal empowerment.

· An intense desire to find meaning in life through revenge.

· A heightened sense of needing to protect self and loved ones from danger.

· A profound, debilitating sense of shame, guilt, powerless, and doubt.

These symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, chronicled in our day, would have been a part of the experience of Jesus’ family and closest friends, unless something else – something incredibly powerful – intervened; something beyond the typical way events unfold.  And the biblical record suggests something indeed does happen.  Jesus’ family and followers rejoice, trust, forgive one another and themselves, shed their fears and any need for revenge, and become incredibly empowered.

While they were transformed, sadly, our society is not.  We live in a culture marked by incredible violence.  Each year, perhaps as many as 2/3rds of our children and young people witness an act of violence in their home, school, or community.  Each year, 5% of our children and young people observe an event involving a gun.  Studies indicate this kind of culture affects our children in specific ways:

· a desensitization to violence

· a greater likelihood of using violence as a means of resolving problems or expressing emotions.

· a significant deficiency in resolving conflict through non-violent means.

· a heightened inability to regulate stress and emotional response.

· a recessive development of the brain’s ability to focus and develop essential functions such as planning, memory, focusing attention, impulse control, and an ability to integrate new information into the decision-making process.

Just as Jesus’ family and followers lived in an incredibly violent society, so do we.  It impacted them in very specific ways, as it does us.  However, their deeply personal experience of the Resurrection transformed how they viewed life and engaged society.  Do we have that experience and that vision?  Can we, like they, work our way into the fabric of our violent culture and plant the seeds of the Gospel’s truth? 

Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory

Some very famous people have made some very famous pronouncements about themselves.  The English playwright Somerset Maugham said of himself, “I am the measure of all things.  I am the centre of the world.”  Winston Churchill observed about himself, “I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded.  In fact, if anything, I am the prod.”  Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, said, “I am the lizard king.”  Reggie Jackson said of his role on the New York Yankee’s, “I am the straw that stirs the drink.”

In John’s gospel, Jesus makes seven difference statements about himself.  After feeding the multitude he says, “I am the Bread of Life.”  After restoring sight to a blind person, Jesus says, “I am the Light of the World.”  In another place he says, “I am the Gate for the Sheep” and “I am the Good Shepherd.”  He says to Thomas and the Disciples, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  And he says to them, “I am the True Vine.”

For his listeners, these self-descriptions are consistent with their experience of Jesus.  He is like a good shepherd.  He has illuminated their lives.  He has feed them.  He has shown them the way and taught them truth.  He has brought them together and nourished them as a vine nourishes its branches.  These claims point to how truly remarkable Jesus is.  He is special.  He is sent from God. 

But the seventh statement is different from the rest.  “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”  Unlike the other six metaphors, you can’t sort of be like this.  Either you have the power of resurrection and life or you do not.  In uttering these words to grieving friends Jesus puts himself in a position of having to back up the claim he makes about himself.

Belief in a resurrection seems to have started some 400 years before Jesus’ life.  While its exact origins are unclear, most likely it is rooted in real-life near-death experiences.  A person thought to be dead and gone suddenly recovers.  That person’s account of what he or she experienced while ‘dead’ would have been as intoxicating as the stories we hear from people with similar experiences in our own time. 

In Jesus’ day the notion of the Resurrection, which literally translated from the Hebrew means “the standing up again of the dead,” is a hotly debated theological concept.  Within Judaism at the time, there are entire sects and movements that hold in contempt those who believe in the resurrection of the dead.  And within those groups believing in it, there is significant division around any number of questions: Who will and who won’t be resurrected?  When will it happen?  Will it happen for everyone all at the same time or individually?

Mary and Martha hold to a very specific faith and understanding.  For them, those who die are asleep.  This is a way of saying the time between death and the resurrection of the dead passes peacefully and quickly.  The resurrection will be a one-time event when those who have died will “awaken” in a renewed, physical body.  It is out of this belief we have developed the liturgical expression, “rest in peace and rise in glory.” 

Jesus responds to Martha’s statement of faith by saying, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  It is a remarkable claim.  Jesus says he is the one who oversees the life/sleep/new life event.  Martha affirms she believes this about him.

Jesus goes to Lazarus’ tomb.  Even though he believes he will give life to his friend by awakening him from his death/sleep at the resurrection, Jesus nevertheless is deeply grieved.  Perhaps this explains what he does next.  Or perhaps he senses the need to demonstrate just this once what his role will be on that day.  Jesus clearly believes he is calling his friend from death’s sleep.  And while Lazarus does not rise with a resurrected body, it is obvious to all who witness the event what has happened.  The verse at the end of today’s reading states: “Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.”

“Many” who saw it believed, but “many” is not “all.”  The text goes on:

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.  So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do?  This man is performing many signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”  But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!  You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed”…  So from that day on they planned to put him to death.

It is a report dripping with irony as they plot to put to death the one who has the power of life.  And they will accomplish this is short order as Jesus raises Lazarus just one week before the Passover.  Jesus will suffer the excruciating death of crucifixion on a cross.  He will die, but rise again from the sleep of death in a resurrected body. 

The Episcopal priest and hymn writer Phillips Brooks said,

Let every man and woman count himself immortal.  Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection.  Let him say not merely, “Christ is risen,” but “I shall rise”.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” 

Jack and the Blindman

A dear Iowa friend of mine passed away a few weeks ago.  One of my favorite memories of Jack has him kneeling at the church’s altar rail flanked by his children and grandchildren.  They take up the entire rail and for this reason, although not wealthy by a monetary standard, Jack was perhaps the richest man I have ever known.  I met him soon after I accepted a call to serve as the rector of St. John’s Church in Keokuk.  He was an immensely likable fellow; tall, with a warm smile and laugh I wished my own grandfather had possessed.  Jack was positive, even-tempered, and soft-spoken without being quiet or withdrawn.  Retired before we met, he spent most of his working career managing a local grocery store.  After I arrived, Jack began to spend more time at the church.  He tinkered with broken things, kept the lawn mowers in good repair, and coaxed to life the ancient boiler every time the outside temperature dropped.

The parish’s custom was to have the rector appoint a Senior Warden while the Vestry elected a Junior Warden (some churches still do this and refer to them as the “Rector’s Warden” and the “Peoples’ Warden”).  Typically, the priest asked one of the local bank presidents (all of whom were members of the congregation), to be the Senior Warden.  One of these bankers, Ed, filled the office during the interim period through the first year of my service.  One day he came to me to let me know the time had come for him to step down.  Ed told me I needed to think about appointing a new Senior Warden and asked if I had anyone in mind.

Now, as I said, the local tradition had several prominent members rotating through various parish leadership positions on a regular basis.  They were all good folks who were dedicated to the betterment of the town as well as the parish.  The only problem was none really wanted the job.  Would they do it if asked?  Yes.  But was it their ministry or calling?  Not at that time.  I sat through more than one conversation where these gentlemen negotiated who would have to do what at the church over the course of the next few years.  “I just got off the Vestry.”  “It’s not my turn.”  “I am already on community boards X, Y, and Z so I don’t have the time.”  I had the impression the church’s officers were “selected” by who lost a card game at the local country club.  I longed to have a Senior Warden who would be enthusiastic about the job; who would see the work as a calling, not a duty; as a ministry, not an obligation.

So when Ed asked me if I had anyone in mind, I said yes… Jack.  I can still see the look on Ed’s face.  It was a mixture of shock and support; the kind of look indicating the notion of Jack as Senior Warden had never occurred to him, but it might just work out.  Well, Jack accepted my call and – guess what – it worked out beautifully!  He provided an example of leadership that was just what the parish needed at the time.  He was enthusiastic and willing to roll up his sleeves and get to work.  And whereas the bankers always had to negotiate with one another as competitors as well as parishioners, everyone thought of Jack as a friend.  After three years of service, the one and only downside to having Jack as Senior Warden was no one felt capable of filling his shoes!

I all my years of ordained ministry, asking Jack to be Senior Warden is one of the ten best things I have ever done, and I am still working on the other nine!  I saw something in him previous clergy had not been able to discern; perhaps because their notion of leadership was too small or too conditioned by the limitations of the local setting.  To pick up on the language of today’s Scripture readings, we might say they were blind.

Consider the reading from the Old Testament.  God appoints Samuel to anoint a new king.  Now, God knows Samuel is going to need a lot of assistance if he is going to get this task right.  So God tells the prophet what city to look in – Bethlehem.  And God even tells him which family to check out – the house of Jesse.  But, even with all this guidance, Samuel almost goofs it up.  He wants to choose the oldest, who is tall and dashing.  But God says no, don’t judge by outward appearances, rather, look at what is on the inside; look at the heart.  By focusing on conventional methods to gauge a person’s potential, Samuel exemplifies what it means to be spiritually blind.

Jesus confronts several layers of blindness in today’s gospel reading.  The first is physical.  A man blind from birth comes to him to be healed.  As the story unfolds we learn something truly remarkable: of all the manifestations of blindness, physical blindness is the easiest to cure.  A little dirt, a little spit, a quick wash of the face and, waala… sight!

The rest of the story deals with the more difficult aspects of blindness:

§ The inability to see God at work in the story of the blind man (“perhaps he was never blind in the first place”).

§ The inability to see Jesus as being the One sent from God.

If the restoration of physical sight is the main objective, the story should have ended after only a few short verses.  The more pernicious and persistent blindness is the inability to see how God is present in one’s life and the inability to recognize what God seeks to do though a person.

We have all had the experience of underestimating or undervaluing the gifts of another.  We have all been like Ed when first presented with the possibility Jack can fit the bill.  Ed was spiritually blind; unable to see what God saw in Jack, just as Samuel was blind to what God saw in David.

But here is a twist to Jack’s story.  Ed was not the only person blind to Jack’s potential.  The other person blind to what God could do in and through Jack was… Jack!  When presented with the opportunity to be Senior Warden, Jack hemmed and hawed; not like the bankers who did not want another responsibility, but because he did not see himself as capable or qualified to hold the office.  After much “encouragement” (my spiritual word of “arm-twisting”), Jack said to me, “Well, if you think I can do the job, I’ll accept on one condition – if you ever find that I am not doing a good job, you have to let me know so I can step down.”  “Deal,” I said, confident I would not have to follow through on the promise.

Do you ever underestimate yourself?  Are you spiritually blind to what God is doing in you?  Are you able to see what God is doing through you? 

Allow me to point out two truths from today’s readings.  One you probably saw, the other you probably didn’t.  Jesus says to the blind man, “I am the light of the world.”  Jesus is the one who delivers us from darkness to light; from blindness to sight.  He is the one who leads us and guides us; who illumines our minds and stirs our imaginations.  This, I trust, you have heard before.  Here is what you may have missed.  It comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus.  “Once,” he writes, “you were in darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.  Live as children of the light.”  Did you catch that?  Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.”  Paul writes to the faithful, “When you are in Jesus you are light.” 

What more needs to be said about the incredible potential abiding within each one of us as we abide in Jesus?  And yet, how many of us are like Ed – unable to see the potential in another?  And how many of us are like Jack – unable to sense or see our own potential?

The story of Ed and Jack is just one of dozens from parish life I could point to as being a healing of blindness.  Ed, to his credit, soon came to appreciate what Jack could do for the church.  He became one of Jack’s biggest supporters and most vocal cheerleaders.  Jack, in his own, humble way, grew in confidence and in the esteem of the congregation.  He came to see himself as a leader with much to offer.  And, to be honest, even though I saw potential in Jack, I never guessed how gifted he turned out to be.  I saw for myself how someone who is right on the inside can be empowered to serve God and God’s people.

Jack’s story, like that of the blind man and the boy David, hints at the potential of each and every person in our faith community and in our lives.  It reminds us to look at one another with new eyes; eyes that somehow try to take in what God is doing in our midst through our work and ministry to one another.  And it reminds us to look at ourselves in a new way too.  Every person who is in Christ, young or old, rich or poor, educated or untrained, is light and is called by God, equipped by God, and commission by God to do great things.

If You Knew Who was Standing before You...

“If you knew who it was standing before you…”

Joshua Bell is famous for two reasons.  First, he is a world-renowned violinist and conductor; a recipient of numerous honors and awards.  Which leads to the second reason he is famous.  Most people do not know who he is.  Three days after a critically acclaimed concert hall performance in Washington, DC, Bell donned a baseball cap and repeated his entire 45-minute program at the Metro subway station in L’Enfant Plaza.  27 commuters, only one of whom recognized him, tossed a total of $32.17 into his open case.  Thousands upon thousands of commuters walked past Bell and did not listen even to a small portion of a recital that would have cost them at least $100 to hear a few days earlier.

If you knew who it was standing before you…

In this morning’s Gospel reading we hear again the encounter Jesus has with a Samaritan women drawing water from a well.  Their conversation is rich and full and, for the woman, completely unexpected because Jesus crosses several chasm-sized social divides to engage another human being.  One divide is ethnic.  While Samaritans and Jews worship the same God, Jews refuse to associate with Samaritans because their bloodline is mixed with gentiles.  A second divide is religious.  The two peoples disagree about the canonical books of the bible and sanctioned places of worship.  Another divide relates to gender.  In their day and age, this is not the way men and women normally interact in polite society. 

The final divide is personal.  This woman is rejected by her own community.  She draws water, not in the cool of the morning, when all the other women of the village gather and socialize, but in the heat of the noonday hour.  She is ostracized.  She is divorced – multiple times. Five different men have committed to her and then written a certificate of divorce; essentially putting her out on the street.  Perhaps she is guilty of infidelity.  Tradition seems to view her has having loose morals.  But it is just as likely she is a casualty of a male-dominated society, which views wives as interchangeable parts.  Based on her edgy conversation with Jesus, which reverberates with the kind of verbal sparring associated with male-only rabbinic debates, it is likely this woman’s lone crime in five different marriages is being too “uppity” (read “intelligent”) for her dimwitted husbands’ tastes.

At the beginning of the encounter with Jesus, the woman does not know who is standing before her.  By the end of the story, her testimony becomes an integral part of the conversion of her entire village.  She enables them to see what she comes to see about the person standing before her.

For some reason, the Jesus of the bible and the Jesus of the Christian tradition, is not easy to recognize.  His true identity is obscured, even though he is standing right there in front of a person.

Are you familiar with the story of St. Martin of Tours?  As a young man in the early part of the 4^th century, he serves as an officer in the Roman army.  At a time when he is in the process of preparing to be baptized, Martin happens upon a cold, scantily clad beggar.  Acting almost on instinct, Martin removes his heavy red army cloak, draws his sword, and cuts it in half.  He keeps one piece for himself and shares the other with the beggar.  That night, in a dream, Martin has a vision of Jesus wearing his cloak.   

If you knew who it was standing before you...

The Christian tradition is filled with accounts of various people encountering Jesus in the person of another, particularly in the poor and needy.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta talks of seeing Jesus in “the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor”.  She writes about finding a crippled, homeless woman sitting on the side of a street in Rome.  Tumors poke out of the woman’s sparse gray hair: 

My heart was intensely affected at the sight of her and I wanted to scoop her up off the street and save her from her homeless life.  Instead, through tears, I kissed her hands, prayed with her, and gave her a blessed Miraculous Medal.  I overwhelmingly saw Jesus in this woman and I wanted to love and comfort him in her.

If you struggle with this kind of sainthood you are not alone. 

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the 19^th century monastic so devoted to our Lord she is know as “the little flower of Jesus”, writes about one particular nun who has the singular ability of irritating her in everything she does:

As I did not want to give way to my natural dislike for her, I told myself that charity should not only be a matter of feeling but should show itself in deeds.  So I set myself to do for this sister just what I should have done for someone I loved most dearly.

Every time she crosses paths with her sister nun, Thérèse prays for her.  Each and every day she sets herself to do something selfless and thoughtful for her sister.  Whenever Thérèse wants to say something unpleasant in response to something her sister does, she smiles instead.

One day, the sister approaches her with a beaming face and asks, “Sister Thérèse, will you please tell me what attracts you so much to me?  You give me such a charming smile whenever we meet.” St. Thérèse thought to herself, “It is the Jesus hidden in the depths of your soul who attracts me, Jesus who makes the bitterest things sweet!”

If you knew who it was standing before you...

It might just transform the way you see the poor and needy.  It might just transform the way you see the person who most annoys you.  And perhaps, it just might transform the way you see the person looking back at you every morning when you look in the mirror.

John Berger, in his revolutionary 1972 book Ways of Seeing, describes a profound difference between the way men and women are raised in our society:

A woman must continually watch herself.  She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself.  Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping.  From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually…  She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life.  Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....

Berger goes on to write:

One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear.  Men look at women.  Women watch themselves being looked at.  This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves… Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.

When you stand in front of a mirror, do you know who it is that is standing in front of you?  Are you simply an object, or are you something more?

I think the woman at the well has to come to recognize two different people.  First, she has to see who it is asking her for water.  This person, she comes to see, is the Messiah, the Christ.  And this is no small perception, to be sure.  Perhaps even more difficult for her is seeing herself in a whole new way.  She, rejected by five husbands and ridiculed by an entire community, she, a half-blood not from good enough stock, she, of a subservient gender in her male-dominated society, she becomes the image-bearer and message-proclaimer of God in Christ residing in each and every human being – the poor, the annoying, the dismissed, me, you!

This prayer of Thanksgiving for the Diversity of Cultures and Races is in one of my favorite collects in the prayer book:

O God, who created all peoples in your image, we thank you for the wonderful diversity of races and cultures in this world.  Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

At a time in our national life when homogeny appears to be the medicine for all that ails and worries us, this prayer is a protest.  At a time when we are creating more and more chasms between people, it reaffirms God’s desire for our lives to be enriched through ever-widening circles of fellowship.  It holds up the conviction of our Scriptures and our tradition that Jesus appears to us in the guise of the other, especially in those people who differ most from us.

If you knew who it was standing before you...

Nicodemus

Nicodemus is one of those figures in Scripture, that, if we could meet him personally, many of us would find it easy to relate to him.  Deeply entrenched in the Jewish orthodox faith, he is a man of education, position, and status.  While others in his circle regard Jesus with suspicion, Nicodemus recognizes a rare spiritual quality in his life.  Cautious by nature, he comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness at a location far enough from the city to allow them to chat discretely.  In spite of all that Nicodemus has going for him, he has a lingering, nagging feeling within that something is missing in his life.  Simply stated, Nicodemus senses his life has been filling, but not fulfilling.

In his book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, the famous psychologist Carl Jung makes this observation: “About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senseless emptiness of their lives.  This can be described as the general neurosis of our time.”  His words ring truer today than when the book was published in 1933.

If you ask the average person what she or he really wants out of life, the answer (in one form or another) will be “I want to be happy.”  The pursuit of happiness is a right guaranteed in the Constitution.  We buy books, take classes, do charity work, attend church, go on vacations, drink and flirt and spend a little more than we ought, all in a never-ending attempt to find the elusive quality called “happiness”.  Even still, I suspect most people do not feel very happy most of the time.  Our lives are full, but they are not fulfilling.

I read recently about a woman who dreamed of marrying a successful doctor or corporate executive so she could live in a fancy house in a posh suburb.  But once her dream came true she began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t more to life.  She made lunch dates with friends and worked to raise money for worthy causes.  She even opened a boutique, hoping if she could fill her days so she could banish the gnawing sense of emptiness in her soul.  But no matter how busy she kept herself, the hunger did not go away.

Why is happiness so difficult to find and to maintain – both for those who get what they want out of life as well as for those who don’t?  Why do people with so many reasons to be happy feel as if something is missing from their lives?  Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book When All You’ve Ever Wanted isn’t Enough, observes the more we sacrifice our lives before the altar of success the more we find things like money and power do not satisfy the unnamable hunger in our soul.  Kushner writes:

Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.  What frustrates and robs our lives of joy is the absence of meaning.

In South Wales there is a species of moth that has no mouth.  As a caterpillar it lays its eggs and then changes into a moth with no digestive system.  It has no way to take in nutrition and therefore starves to death within a few short hours.  Nature has equipped it for one purpose – to reproduce.  When the moth has assured life for the next generation it has served its purpose and then dies.  Are we like that?  Are we here just to produce children and then fade away?  Or, is there some higher purpose to our existence?  In the end, do we matter?  Is there more to life than filling our days?  Can we feel fulfilled?

These questions about meaning are the ones we turn to religion for answers and insight.  Maybe they are the questions Nicodemus has on his mind, but I don’t know.  My guess is he, like many of us, is looking for something more significant than he has already found.  He wants Jesus to say or to do something that will lead him to a sense of meaning and purpose; to a feeling of fulfillment.  Jesus perceives this and quickly brings their discussion to this very point.

Jesus says to Nicodemus, “No one can see the Kingdom of God [find the one thing so significant in life that with it all the other pieces fall into place] unless he is born from above.” 

I suspect many of us view with skepticism the born-again rhetoric of revivalist religion.  You only need to watch a few minutes of a TV evangelist to come to the conclusion nothing close to a deeply significant, life-changing insight is going to be mediated through born-again religion.  But if we can separate ourselves from the preconceived stereotype of the televangelist and listen again to Jesus’ words we might hear something important.  He says it is God’s Spirit that not only fills us, but fulfills us.  He says what will fill the unnamed hunger in our soul cannot be found in this world nor is there anything you can do to secure it.  It comes to us freely from God by the means of God’s grace.

The fancy name for the Christian doctrine of new birth is “regeneration”.  Now, regeneration is not a resolution – a commitment on your part to turn over a new leaf.  Regeneration is not morality – a desire to be a better person.  Regeneration is not even religion, if by this you mean devotion to a religious institution or practice.  II Corinthians 5:17 states, “If anyone is in Christ he or she is a new creature.  The old has passed away and behold, new things come.”  This is regeneration. 

There is a story about a frustrated social worker that gets to heart of what regeneration and new birth from above is all about.  In the story, a social worker tries in vain to persuade a family to clean up their trash-filled home.  When nothing succeeds, she creates large, colorful arrangement of flowers, brings it into the house, and sets it on a table in the center of the family’s living room.  From there its beauty sits in judgment of all the filth surrounding it.  First the family tidies up the living room to make it a more fitting place for the new gift.  Then the living room sits in judgment of the rest of house until the family cleans it up too.  Beauty comes into the house and changes both it and the people who live there.

This is exactly how new birth/regeneration happens.  God’s Spirit comes into us in ways we do not know, understand, or deserve, and yet there is God… in us!  When we recognize God is within, even though we are not worthy to stand before God, much less have intimate fellowship with God, we begin to change in ways we ourselves never dreamed possible.  We begin to move from existing to thriving, from being filled to fulfilled.

Now, lest you send me packing with a tent to preach my revivalist thinking to the less educated, let me point out no less of an authority than our own cherished Rite I liturgy supports me in this matter.  We say in our corporate prayer,

Here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may [1] worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, [2] be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and [3] be made one body with him, [why?] that he might dwell in us and we in him.

By any measure these words are a prayer for new birth from above.  But it is not the words or the actions that are important, it is, of course, the longing of the heart and stirring of the soul brought about by God’s indwelling which leads to regeneration.  John Lincoln, a scholar and critic of the late 20^th century, once stated that the time he was converted was when religion became no longer mere duty, but pleasure.

Nicodemus comes to the Lord in secret under the cover of darkness.  Although he has the best of all life can offer, although he is a success by every standard of the world, he still wonders if there might be something more.  This is what he comes to Jesus to ask.  Jesus replies, “Nicodemus, if you want to see the Kingdom of God, you must be born again!”  You must allow God’s beauty to dwell within you and let it begin to change everything about you.  Embrace this intimate divine, holy fellowship and your life will be fulfilling.