A Dweller on the Threshold

Bartimaeus said to Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again.”  Job said to God, “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

If you could listen to the music of only one artist or group, who would it be?  The choice for me would be easy – Van Morrison.  Known to fans like me as “Van the Man,” the Irish-born Morrison has been performing and recording music since the late fifties.  His songs range across a wide spectrum of styles: Celtic, jazz, blues, country, rock, pop, and even hymns.  His lyrics are even more eclectic; often drawn from life-experiences, yet deeply spiritual. 

As I pondered today’s readings a line from one of Morrison’s songs kept playing over and over in my head:

I have seen without perceiving

I have been another man

Let me pierce the realm of glamour

So I know just what I am.

This first verse from the 1982 song Dweller on the Threshold certainly describes something with which most of can identify – having in inkling that there is more to life, but we simply cannot grasp what it is.  If life could be equated to a modern painting, it would be like listening to an art major speak for well over an hour about its nuances and subtleties and all you or I can say about it is “nice colors.” 

Bartimaeus cannot physically see what everyone else sees, but still perceives something about Jesus that the rest have missed.  Job has been through a terrible ordeal.  He, and his ‘comforters’, talk a great deal about God, but it is only near the end that Job perceives God with clarity.  The readings play with our notions of sight and seeing, of experiencing and understanding.  It is as if our life’s work is all about gaining sight and insight of something that is always there, but we struggle to perceive it for what it is.

Morrison’s song is wrapped around this idea and it echoes the pain and frustration we humans experience when we sense we are seeing without perceiving.  The lyrics were inspired by a quirky astrology book by Alice Bailey titled Glamour – A World Problem.   According to Bailey we all have subconscious stirrings, ideas, notions, experiences, and biases, which she calls ‘glamours’, that enshroud us like fog and prevent us from seeing the world as it truly is.  Our spiritual search for answers leaves us feeling like little more than dwellers on the threshold of being able to see.  She holds that illumination comes when the Angel of the Presence shines a light on us.  Listen to how Morrison develops all of this in his lyrics:

I’m a dweller on the threshold
And I’m waiting at the door
And I’m standing in the darkness
I don’t want to wait no more

I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am

Feel the Angel of the Presence
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher

I’m a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown

I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night

Now, I am not advocating Bailey’s astrological leanings, but I do want you to notice how Morrison’s song mirrors Job’s struggle for understanding; a struggle that ends not because of anything he has done, but rather because God pierces through his darkness with the light of God’s presence.  And it mirrors Bartimaeus’ struggle for the sight that will enable him to be with Jesus on the way.

A moment like this happened for me last weekend when I was in Ohio to attend a family wedding.  On Sunday morning we worshiped at a church where I once served as an Assistant to the Rector for four years.  That was twenty years ago.  At the time, the parish was raising money to build a new sanctuary, which has long since been finished.  As I sat in this space I recognized many of the people I knew so long ago.  By the way, no one recognizes me until I introduce myself. 

I thought about all that has happened in my life over the past twenty years.  Yes, I have less hair and more inches on my waist, but the most dramatic changes are on the inside.  How can you communicate that to people you haven’t seen in two decades?  How can you possibly hope to describe all the vivid joys, the painful losses, the satisfying accomplishments, the deep insights, the incredible experiences?  And what about them as individuals and as a faith community?  How do they communicate to me all that has happened in their lives: the weddings, the funerals, the baptisms, the mission trips, the answered prayers, the congregational split, the prayers answered only by silence, and on and on and on?  It can’t be done.

As I worshipped I thought about this strange and wonderful journey we call life and how it had brought me back ever so briefly to a place I had been before to be with people I had once served.  I realized that if, twenty years ago, I could have seen everything that was going to happen in my future I could not have faced it – not the joys, not that pains, not any of it.  And I suspect that if the congregation could have been shown its future the response would be the same.  And yet there I was and there they were.  We had made it from that time and place so long ago to this moment.  And we had made it through the grace of God.  As I worshipped I was caught up with the feeling that this day – like every day – truly is a miracle. 

Something clicked for me during the Eucharistic prayer when the priest said the Memorial Acclamation: “Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.”  Christ has died is the past, I thought.  It is where we have been.  It is no more, yet the experience of it somehow becomes a part of us.  Christ will come again is in the future.  We are not there yet and knowing what will transpire as we move toward it is not in our best interest.   All we need to know is that in the future the awaiting Christ will be with us.  Christ is risen is where we are right now.  We live in an eternal present of resurrection life and joy.  This day, this moment, this now is redeemed by God and infused with grace.  This moment, like every moment, is an abiding miracle.  As I went to the altar rail to receive communion I was caught up in an overwhelming sense of peace about all that was and all that is to come because God had brought me to that day.  It is a feeling that is with me even this morning.

Alice Bailey might say one of my ‘glamours’ was taken away.  Job might say, “I too once heard with my ears, but now see with my eyes.”  Bartimaeus, no longer blind, might encourage me to follow on the way.  Van Morrison might say, “I’ll sing the song of ages and dawn will end the night.” 

To be a spiritual person is to be a dweller on the threshold.  It is to want to know, to want to see, to want to perceive.  And it is to wait for the door to open, for the light to shine, for the dawn to come.  When we meet Job and Bartimaeus today we meet them on a day when the door is opened from the other side; a day when the thing they have long awaited is granted to them.  But for each there were many, many days of dwelling at the threshold facing only a closed door.  That may not seem very satisfying, but recognize this, when the door opened, they were there waiting. 

That is the spiritual life in a nutshell, isn’t it.  That is what the search for God and truth and insight and understanding is like.  Searching does not lead directly to finding.  Rather it puts us in the right place to receive when God’s light shines forth.  Better to be Bartimaeus sitting on the road side day after day after day so that the one day when Jesus walks by you are there, then to have resigned yourself to darkness.  Better to be Job contending with his comforters so that when God speaks you are ready to listen then to have given in and given up long ago.  Better to be Van Morrison dwelling at the threshold and waiting at the door than to have walked away in defeat.

Focusing My Flickering

Toni Reynolds e-mailed this joke to me:  A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could trying not to be late for Sunday School.  As she ran she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late!  Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late!”  While she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress.  She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again!  And as she went she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late, but also, please don’t shove me any more!”

Today’s readings are interesting, to say the least – especially when paired with our annual Commitment Sunday.  Listening to the words of Job who, try as he might, cannot find the hiding God in front, behind, on the left or on the right, followed by the psalmist’s cry of being forsaken by God makes the little girl’s predicament of getting shoved seem tame.  Then we hear from Hebrews that absolutely nothing about us is hidden from God; that before God all our interior intentions are laid bare.  Finally, we hear Jesus saying that if you are wealthy – and by the standards of his day pretty much all of us here today are wealthy – you can forget about being a part of the kingdom of God.  So, sign me up, you must be thinking.  I am ready to make a commitment to the God who can’t be found when needed but still never misses a single wrong we do, and then demands we own little or nothing if we want to be a part of his crew.  These, folks, are not the basic ingredients of a successful altar call.

Let me ask a fundamental question: why should we care about God at all?  In ancient times, people believed in a god or gods who occupied some Olympian fortress meddling in human affairs at their whim and fancy.  Why care about God?  Their answer was so that the gods don’t punish you; hardly a satisfying answer to the modern mind because we now know the natural causes behind what people back then believed to be divine judgment. 

Another answer to why care about God holds that life is test to see who will get into heaven and who will be consigned to Hell; an underworld of flames and suffering.  If you pass the test by meeting some combination of being good enough and having had a required religious experience (baptism and ‘giving your life to Jesus’ being the two most prominent in the Christian tradition) then you merit an eternal reward.  Ultimately, this is not a satisfying answer either.  Do we really believe that the God who called forth this glorious creation is little more than a punitive judge-like figure keeping score of who has been naughty and who has been nice?  And do we really believe that the naughty descend to a place in the center of the earth to suffer for all eternity for the things they did wrong during their few short years of this life?

So why do we care about God?  Well, my answer is because we do.  There is something inside every human being that is seeking awe and responds to it.  There is something inside us that senses the reality of something greater than us.  We want to know this Other and to understand it, in part, so we can better know ourselves.  Why are we here?  What is our purpose?  How should we live?  If there is a Being who called forth creation than these questions can only be answered by searching for that Being.  Those of us who have searched have come to find that this Being exists and makes its essence known to us.  As we come to know God we find ourselves responding to this relationship through reverence, worship, and conformity (a word I like better than ‘obedience’ because it invites new searching as opposed to forced compliance).

But how to revere?  How to worship?  And how to align ourselves?  Every religious tradition has strands of insight derived from looking at the world around us and determining that certain attitudes, behaviors, and actions are better than others.  Most religious traditions go deeper than this to include understanding received through mystical experiences (revelations, if you will) that form the core of their teaching.  Beyond all of this, we in the Christian tradition confess that God’s very self became incarnate… a human being through whose words and actions we can see fullness of God’s desire and intent for all creation.  We human beings who seek awe and respond to it have seen in human flesh the Holy Awe at the heart of all reality.  It is in and through Jesus that we find satisfying answers to who we are, why we are here, and what we are to do.

So returning to our readings, let us embrace the truth of Job’s words… the truth that God at times is elusive; the truth that there are times when circumstances hinder our ability to detect God’s presence.  Isn’t it comforting to know that our sacred texts contain the angry, bitter words of people shaking their fists at God when their search for God comes up empty and their need for God goes unmet.  Isn’t it comforting to know that disillusionment at times is a natural and appropriate aspect of the human search for God.  In my experience, these times, while real and difficult, are never the final word.  Jesus said, “Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door will be opened.”  Sometimes we have to knock louder and longer than we would like, but the One we seek behind the door eventually opens to us.

While the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that everything about us – our exterior actions and interior motives – is known to God, it wants to shift our focus from human frailty to human potential.  The author points us to Jesus who, because he was human like us, was tempted in every way as we are.  Still, he lived into God’s design and intent not because he was divine, but through his humanity.  Now we are invited into Christ’s presence so that we might be empowered through his example and the indwelling of his Spirit to live aligned with the fullness of God’s intent.

In the Gospel we learn of one person’s search for God.  “What must I do,” he asks Jesus.  The response is to be a good and moral person – live as God intends for you to live.  The man says he has done this since he was young so Jesus, sensing he wants to go even deeper, invites this person to divest himself of all that holds him back in order to live in the Kingdom of God here and now.  This person, attached to his possessions, could not follow.  He was distracted.

I can’t say why God at times is elusive, but I do know that much more often my search for God is inhibited by factors attributable only to me.  Denise Levertov captures one of these factors in her poem Flickering Mind:

Lord, not you,

it is I who am absent.

At first

belief was a joy I kept in secret,

stealing alone

into sacred places;

a quick glance, and away – and back,

circling.

I have long since uttered your name

but now

I elude your presence.

I stop to think about you, and my mind

at once

like a minnow darts away,

darts

into the shadows, into gleams that fret

unceasing over

the river’s pulling and passing.

Not for one second

will my self hold still, but wanders

anywhere,

everywhere it can turn.  Not you,

it is I who am absent.

You are the stream, the fish, the light,

the pulsing shadow,

you the unchanging presence, in whom all

moves and changes.

How can I focus my flickering, perceive

at the fountain’s heart

the sapphire I know is there?

How can I focus my flickering?  What will aid me in my search for God (a drive which is as real inside me as my heartbeat and every bit as important)?  Jesus, in responding to Peter, hints at the answer.  Peter states that he and the other disciples have left everything to follow Jesus.  Now, we know in fact that this does not mean the disciples had liquidated all their assets because after the Resurrection, Peter and the others returned to their boats and took up again the living of fishermen.

Here is what Jesus says to Peter: “Those who have left house or family or fields for my sake [and in this I hear the allusion to searching for God and responding to God with reverence, worship, and conformity] will receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, families, and fields… and the promise of life in the age to come.”  Now, from our history, we know that none of the disciples came to own a hundred homes and a hundred fields.  Jesus was not speaking of economic gain, but of the blessed relationships that come from being joined with others who are searching for God and living in accordance with God’s ways as they come to understand it.  Today we call these blessed relationships a congregation, a community of faithful people like us here at St. Paul’s.  How do can I focus my flickering pursuit of God?  By being a part of a people who are trying to focus their flickering.  Somehow, in and through this place, our individual pursuit of God is strengthened through our collective pursuit of God. 

A Russian poet named Yelena Rubisova wrote “I am a camel, hulking, clumsy.  Go through!  Go through!” in reference to Jesus’ famous teaching about the eye of a needle.  But, obviously, for a camel this is impossible.  So Rubisova describes what needs to change:

Let me become like thread, and put anxiety aside,

so the doorkeeper’s hand will lead

me through the triumphal gates

of the eye of the needle.

I like this image.  If the search for God can be compared with passing through the eye of a needle and if we are like camels trying to do so, then two things need to happen.  First, there must be a transformation.  We must morph from camel into thread.  And second, thread still doesn’t get through the needle’s eye unless someone guides it.  Somehow, someway, God is at work in our lives; guiding us in our search and transforming us as we make our way.  And a tool God uses in this process is our collective life here at St. Paul’s.  As I recognize this in my life I find myself committing joyfully to the work and mission of this parish.  I invite you to recognize and celebrate how God uses this place in your search and I invite you to commit yourself to St. Paul’s because of how God is using it in your life and in the lives of so many others.

The Blessing of Children

A little girl was staying with her grandmother for the weekend and on Sunday they went to church together.  Now the girl had never been to church before, so everything was new and unfamiliar.  Before the service started, folks were walking up to the altar and placing cans of food on it.  “Grandma,” the little girl whispered, “what are they doing?”  “Well,” the grandmother answered, “everyone brings a can of food to church so that we can hand them out to poor people.”  The girl thought this was a good idea.  Then the music started and the choir processed down the center aisle and up toward the altar area.  “Look Grandma,” the girl said, “Here come the poor people to get their food.”

A few weeks later the grandmother brought her young grandson to church when he was visiting.  It was also was the first time he had been in church.  He squirmed and fussed and did his best to behave, but it was not easy, especially when his grandmother kept chiding him to sit still.  After the service was over the boy said, “Grandma, when I grow up I want to be a preacher.”  The grandmother was both surprised and delighted.  “Why do you want to do that,” she asked, expecting that the boy had had some kind of mystical experience.  “Well,” he said, “I think it would be a whole lot more fun to stand up and yell at everyone than it is to sit still and listen.”

Children are a blessing.  It is a cliché we affirm in the abstract, but often overlook in the moment.  I saw where Holly McNeal posted on facebook this week her joy that Justice slept six-and-a-half hours straight one night; a thankful occurrence she did not expect to repeat itself any time soon.  One of my favorite St. Paul’s memories happened when Joby Webb whisked little Graham out of church one Sunday; swooping him up in his arms and heading for the door.  The last words we heard – and we all heard them clear as a bell – came from Graham just before they exited the Narthex: “But I am being a good boy.”  My guess is the Charlene Henry has put in enough time at the Emergency Room waiting for Samantha to be seen for yet another injury that she could be qualified as a registered nurse.  Yes, in the big picture children are a blessing, but the experience of that blessing can vary greatly from moment to moment.

I have some bad news to present to the Vestry at tomorrow night’s meeting.  We need more money.  There are too many infants and toddlers in our nursery for two people to manage.  The Vestry is going to have to find the funds for a third attendant.  What a nice problem to have!  At Game Night a few weeks ago I identified another problem.  St. Paul’s has an emerging ‘boy vibe’ in and around the kindergarten age.  A ‘boy vibe’ is active, it’s busy, it’s hands-on, and – of this you can be certain – inevitably involves someone getting hurt or something getting broken.  There is also a baby girl boom happening at St. Paul’s.  I can’t wait to see the vibe they bring to the parish in just a few short years.  

Jesus took children in his arms, held them tight, and blessed them.  The act of blessing is a curious thing.  We all know it when we see it, but if asked, would have a difficult time explaining what it is we are doing, or asking God to do.  Think about it… we bless backpacks when kids go to school, our pets on St. Francis Day, the food we eat, couples when they are married, bread and wine for communion, and on and on and on.  We do it.  We are comfortable doing it.  We are comforted by doing it.  But what exactly are we doing?

There is a three-fold aspect to every blessing.  First, we are thanking God for the grace we see at work in the person, event, or thing being blessed.  Second, we are asking that God will continue to favor the person, thing, or event so that he/she/it may live fully into God’s purpose and intention.  And third, we are seeking God’s empowerment so that the person, event, or thing may in some way bear witness to the gospel in the world.  Thus, blessing has a three-fold character.  It acknowledges what is already present—God’s goodness.  It sets apart something as holy and prays for the divine grace needed to fulfill God’s purposes.  And it recognizes the person’s call to be a light to the world.

So last Friday, when I blessed our pets, I was acknowledging the goodness, love, and joy each brings to the lives of our families.  Next, I was praying that each pet will be empowered to live more fully and completely into God’s divine intent for it – and this is where actual results may vary!  And finally, I was praying that the world will know something of God’s love and goodness through each one of our pets.

Through the act of blessing children, Jesus was doing much the same.  He was acknowledging God’s goodness that it already at work in them.  He was praying for the presence of God’s Spirit in their lives so that they might grow into what St. Paul calls “the full stature of Christ.”  And he was asking that each child, in his or her own way, will be a city set on a hill, a light set out on a table, a reflection of God’s goodness and holiness all the days of their lives. 

Beginning October 28, we will have a baptism on three consecutive Sundays.  If that is not a cause for celebration and a sign of hope, I don’t know what is.  It should also be an occasion to give each one of us pause because we will make a promise to each child and to their parents that we will do all in our power to support these infants in their lives in Christ.  Not only is it a promise we make person to person, but it is a sacred promise – what the bible calls ‘a covenant’ – that we make with God.  I suppose many of us imagine standing before God at the last judgment and having to answer for all the times we took the Lord’s name in vain.  But what if that moment looks more like this – like God asking us to describe how we did all in our power to support the children we promised support at baptism?  How would you answer that question?  What have you done?  What are you doing even now?  What might you do in the future to support the children of this parish in their lives in Christ?

You know the old saying: be careful what you wish for.  Everyone in this parish – like everyone in every parish I know – wishes we had more children and young families.  Well, God is granting our wish.  And I pray God isn’t finished.  We are at that wonderful place where we walk the delicate balance of passing on the faith that was given to us in the ways it was given to us while at the same time asking our children and young people what do you want to do with the faith that is growing in you.  It is a delicate balance because we always want to pass on what is essential while at the same time be willing to let go of what is non-essential.  Sometimes knowing which is which is a challenge, isn’t it.

This morning we give thanks that we have the opportunity in a new and a fresh way to live into one of the most endearing aspects of Jesus’ witness… his love of children.  Even folks with a minimal knowledge of the bible seem to know that Jesus welcomed children into his presence and taught us to do the same.  On this morning I am so very thankful for the children and young people of St. Paul’s… for their joy, their energy, their ‘vibe’, their witness to the Gospel, and for the hope they offer for our future.  What a great time to be a part of this parish.  Let’s do all in our power to support these folks in their life in Christ.

Useful & Salty

(Salted with Fire by Jan Richardson)

Settle back while I tell you a bedtime story Scandinavians tell their children…

One day a sheep and a pig decided to build a house that they could live in together.  So they began a long journey to find just the right place to make their home.  They came upon a rabbit who asked them where they were going.  “We are going to build a house,” said the sheep and the pig.  “May I live with you?” asked the rabbit.  “What can you do to help us?” they answered.  The rabbit replied, “I can gnaw pegs with my sharp teeth and I can put them in with my paws.”  “Good,” said the sheep and the pig, “You may come with us.”  A little farther on the three met a goose who asked, “Where are you going?”  “We are going to build a house.”  “May I live with you?” asked the goose.  “What can you do to help?”  The goose thought for a moment and said, “I can pull moss and stuff it in the cracks with my broad bill.”  “Good,” said the three, “You may come with us.”  Farther still the four met a rooster who asked where they were going.  Once they told him the rooster asked if he could join them.  “I can crow very early in the morning; I can awaken you all.”  “Good,” said the sheep, the pig, the rabbit, and the goose, “You may come with us.”  The five went a long, long way until they found a place to build their house.  The sheep hewed logs and drew them.  The pig made bricks for the cellar.  The rabbit gnawed pegs with his sharp teeth, and hammered them in with his paws.  The goose pulled moss, and stuffed it in the cracks with her bill.  The rooster crowed early every morning to tell them that it was time to rise.  And they all lived happily together in their little house.

So here is the question raised by the story; it is, in fact, the same question Jesus poses at the end of this morning’s Gospel reading: What can you do that is useful? 

Jesus gets at this question through the imagery of salt and three statements about it.  The first statement is this: “everyone will be salted with fire.” It has been described as one of the most enigmatic expressions Jesus uttered.  It is not at all clear what it means, but general consensus among biblical scholars is that it relates to animal sacrifice.  Prior to being offered on a fire, a carcass was rubbed with salt to draw out the blood.  Once this was accomplished it was roasted over a fire and offered in sacrifice or served for human consumed.  The salt was useful in this process, but once used it lost the qualities that made it such leading to the second statement: “how can saltiness be restored?”  The final expression, ‘have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another,” is an imperative to be useful in all our relationships.

So again I ask you: what do you do that is useful?

No doubt, your answer changes based on the context where your find yourself.  You are useful one way at home, another way at work, and still another way here at church.  There may be common threads that connect the various ways you are useful or they may be quite independent of one another. 

How is your usefulness recognized?  Are you paid for it?  Is it a great deal of money or is it just a little?  Or perhaps your usefulness is acknowledged only with a thank you.  Some times we are the only person who knows our contribution while other times we are the last to suspect just how useful we are.  As you ponder your usefulness, are you thinking about things that you do?  Do you cook meals for the family or keep the cars in good repair or make sure the books are in order at the office or get the kids to practice on time?  When thinking of our usefulness most often we think of things we do.

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a colleague when he said to me with admiration, “Keith, you seem to be at peace with yourself and with the world around you.”  Well, the warring factions within me started a raging argument that still carries on.  One voice shouts “if he only knew” while another voice tattles “you are such a hypocrite” and so on.  But a new voice has been gaining traction in my inner the debate.  This voice reminds me that usefulness is not confined solely to what we do, but it also involves who we are.  Thomas Merton wrote that “we are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being.”  As a result, he said that we are valued not for what we are but for what we do and for what we have.  Jesus might say that we have confused salt with saltiness.  It is not how much salt you have that matters, it is how salty your life is becoming.  Or, to put it another way, our being, when grounded in God, is useful to others.

Saltiness.  Last month Laura Cook asked me to meet her at the farm where she kept her horse.  She asked me to say prayers with them the day before she was going to have her horse put down.  Debbie Askew had been in conversation with Laura about this difficult decision and agreed to join us.  When we gathered I offered some prayers from a liturgy.  I am useful that way.  But Debbie was useful from her being; comforting Laura from the vast reserves of her experiences with horses and reassuring Laura her that she was making the right decision.  It is a moment that stays with me because it highlights how each of us has something useful to offer in this glorious thing we call God’s kingdom here on earth.

The gospel reading begins with one of the disciples complaining to Jesus that someone else – someone not of their little band – was invoking Jesus’ name to effect healings.  Shouldn’t that person be stopped, the disciple wondered.  Today we might say that he wanted to micro-manage the situation.  Jesus responds that the healer should be left alone because what he is doing he is useful.  He was helping other people.

From there Jesus launches into a series of teachings that, if taken literally, encourage self-mutilation.  But played against the question of usefulness, they ask a very sensible question: What are you doing that is destructive – either to you or to others?  If our call is to be useful - to be salty - then we also need to ponder how and when we have the opposite affect.  What in our doing and what in our being is detrimental to our usefulness?  Perhaps you complain too much.  Maybe your usefulness is tarnished by selfish ambition.  Do you always have to get your way?  Are you overly critical of yourself, demeaning who you are and what you do?  If so, that aspect of your personality needs to be removed.  It needs to die on the Cross so that God may bring about a resurrection of new and more useful life in you.

This morning we celebrate the usefulness that we can offer to the world in which we live.  When done in Christ’s name it becomes a part of what it means to be a steward.  It is one way we offer in God’s service all that we are and all that we have to contribute to the project of life and living.  The tale of the sheep, the pig, the rabbit, the goose and the rooster reminds us of something Jesus said long ago: there is always some way for you to contribute, every contribution is important, and no contribution goes unrecognized by God or unrewarded.  Have salt in yourselves!

A Gentleness Born of Wisdom

“A capable wife who can find?”  Our first reading from Proverbs seems all at once both timeless and hopelessly out of date.  Men, do we really need a wife who is a seamstress, merchant, chef, home administrator, property realtor, and wine maker?  Women, how do you warm to the thought of rising before the sun and staying up after everyone else has retired; providing for your family and taking care of the poor; keeping yourself always attractive while being tasked with promoting your husband in the eyes of others; eschewing idleness whenever a task-free moment arises while maintaining a perpetual sunny disposition that even your children acknowledge?  And you thought walking on water was a tough act to follow! 

Still, within these lofty expectations and charmingly outdated duties, there remains something that is timeless; that rings true even in our day.  More precious than jewels is a relationship that can be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables both to see in each other the image of God.  Is there anything more attractive in a partner than inner strength, a sense of dignity, a light heart, the habit of speaking words of wisdom and kindness, demonstrating a concern for others, and possessing a sense of awe related to all that is holy? 

If there is a fulcrum verse in this morning’s readings on which all others rest, it comes from the Letter of James: “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”  There is something of this behind all the qualities and characteristics put forward in Proverbs, isn’t there.  This gentleness born of wisdom is both a disposition we cultivate on our own as well as a gift that we receive from beyond ourselves.  James goes on to say, “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”  Yes, these are traits that we can and should pursue through our own efforts, but they will never find their fullness in us – be able to establish deep abiding roots and bear consistent fruit in our lives – unless we seek the nourishment of God’s Spirit in our souls. 

In this morning’s Gospel reading we see Jesus’ disciples in a mode that is about as far from gentleness as you can get.  Some context to the reading is helpful.  Jesus has led his followers out of the region controlled by Herod Antipas after the ruler had ordered the beheading of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist.  Jesus has been in seclusion because he fears being arrested, because he is grieving, and because he needs to rethink his mission in light of this tragic loss.  He emerges from this period of discernment realizing that he is the Messiah – God’s anointed one – but also with a new understanding of what this means.  At the time, people anticipated God was going to raise up a Messiah to be a political leader – someone who would rally the people of Israel to rise up in revolt, overthrown the Roman rule, and reestablish a Jewish monarchy through David’s lineage.  After John’s death and a period of reflection, Jesus begins to see that the power of oppression, like the power of sin, can only be conquered through his death and resurrection. 

Do you recall from last week’s reading how Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah and in response Jesus orders his disciples not to breathe a single word of this?  It is easy to understand his reasoning.  If word spreads that he is the Messiah and if people believe that the Messiah is sent from God to lead a revolt, then Jesus will find himself at the forefront of an uprising, not offering himself on a Cross as a demonstration of God’s love for the world.  Jesus chooses to embody the words James would write some decades later… he will show the good life through his work done with gentleness born of wisdom. 

His new mission only sharpens the irony that, while he is teaching this message to his disciples, they are arguing privately about whom among them is the most important.  No doubt they were looking toward their imagined future and pondering one another’s place in King Jesus’ palace.  Jesus responds to this with a teaching and a living parable.  The teaching: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  Then he shows them what this means in practical terms by placing a child in the midst and saying that greatness is demonstrated not through positions of power but through the manner you receive the powerless.  A trait that will do you no good in welcoming a child is self-importance.  A trait that will never fail is gentleness.

Last May, when a group of us met to evaluate our Sunday School program, several people mentioned how positive it is that Al Reese comes out of the church after the sermon and leads the children in a song before they come in to join us.  Our kids love Al and enjoy their time with him very much.  It speaks volumes to us that a person as talented and gifted as our music director/organist is willing to do this.  He is not demeaning himself, but rather is highlighting the value of children.  Al uses his gifts with great gentleness and wisdom and I am extremely grateful for both his ministry and his witness.

In early August, David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, wrote a very thoughtful piece weighing in on the debate about the roots of success – to what degree are we self made and to what degree do we owe our success to forces beyond ourselves?  Brooks offered the following insight:

There were many different chefs of the stew that is you: parents, friends, teachers, ancestors, mentors and, of course, Oprah Winfrey.  It’s very hard to know how much of your success is owed to those people and how much is owed to yourself.

Given this, Brooks writes:

You should regard yourself as the sole author of all your future achievements and as the grateful beneficiary of all your past successes.

It seems to me that if you had this outlook your works would be done with gentleness born of wisdom.  Throughout his column Brooks notes how we approach the question of credit differently at various stages of our life: 

In your 20s…, you should imagine that you have the power to totally transform yourself…  This sense of possibility will unleash feverish energies that will propel you forward...

In your 30s and 40s, you will  begin to…  have a lower estimation of your own power and a greater estimation of the power of the institutions you happen to be in.  You’ll still have faith in your own skills, but it will be more the skills of navigation, not creation...

Then in your 50s and 60s, you will [develop an], understanding that relationships are more powerful than individuals…  You will find yourself in the coaching phase of life, enjoying the dreams of your underlings.  Ambition… is most pleasant when experienced vicariously...  You’ll find yourself thinking back to your own mentors, newly aware of how much they shaped your path…

Then in your 70s and 80s,… your mind will bob over the decades and then back over the centuries, and you’ll realize how deeply you were formed by the ancient traditions of your people — being Mormon or Jewish or black or Hispanic.  You’ll appreciate how much power the dead have over the living, since this will one day be your only power.  You’ll be struck by the astonishing importance of luck — the fact that you took this bus and not another, met this person and not another.

In short, as maturity develops and the perspectives widen, the smaller the power of the individual appears, and the greater the power of those forces flowing through the individual.

Brooks is suggesting that gentleness emerges in us as time works on us.  We are not a finished product at any point in our lives.  Rather we are on a constant journey to grow into what St. Paul calls the “fullness of Christ.”  Those disciples who argued amongst themselves about their importance were not rejected because of their misguided self-estimation.  Jesus continued to nurture them toward a good life where their works were done with gentleness born of wisdom.  It took time, to be sure, but Jesus never gave up on them – neither before his death nor after his resurrection – and Jesus never gives up on us either. 

Brooks ended his column with these words:

[You] are right to preserve your pride in your accomplishments.  Great companies, charities and nations were built by groups of individuals who each vastly overestimated their own autonomy.  As an ambitious executive, it’s important that you believe that you will deserve credit for everything you achieve.  As a human being, it’s important for you to know that’s nonsense.

We who follow Christ give our best in everything we do, knowing that our best – if laced with pride, arrogance, or selfish ambition – is all for not.  Our best, when put in the service of others, fulfills what Jesus teaches… if you want to be great you must be last of all and servant of all.  I pray that this life continues to emerge in me as it continues to emerge in each one of you.

General & Specific (Revelation)

So Jesus and Peter are golfing.  They come to a long par 5 with a huge sand bunker in the middle of the fairway 300 yards from the tee.  Jesus takes out a driver.  Peter suggests using an iron to lay up for an easier shot.  Jesus replies, “Tiger Woods wouldn’t lay up.  He’d drive over the trap.”  So Jesus swings away and just as Peter warned, the ball lands short and rolls into the bunker.  Jesus walks up to the ball, swings again and it lands in the cup for a double eagle.  The next hole has a lake on the left side of the fairway.  Jesus takes a 3 wood out of his bag.  Peter reminds him that he has a tendency to hook his drives, but Jesus says, “It’s the club Tiger Woods would use.”  He swings and, sure enough, the drive hooks into the water.  Jesus walks up to the lake and then walks out on the water, addresses the ball, swings, hits the ball, and it lands in the cup for an eagle.  Well, the foursome playing behind our Lord and Savior have been watching all of this in disbelief.  One of those golfers approaches Peter and says, “Who does that guy think he is… Jesus Christ?”  “Well,” says Peter, “the funny thing is he is Jesus Christ.  The problem is he thinks he is Tiger Woods.”

In this morning’s Gospel reading we hear the person who thinks he is Tiger Woods solicit feedback on what others are saying about him.  He then asks those closest to him what they believe.  Peter proclaims, “You are the Messiah.”  Jesus then sternly orders them not to breath a word of this proclamation to anyone because, at least in the verses that follow, he needs to reframe for them what it means to be the Messiah.  It is a lesson that pairs nicely with what we heard read from the Book of Proverbs where God’s wisdom, personified and walking through the streets, offers counsel to all who will listen.

Theologians make a distinction between what they refer to as “general revelation” and “special revelation.”  We see one and then the other in these two readings.  The word ‘revelation’ refers to what we know about God and what we know we can only know because God chooses to make it known to us.  General revelation is knowledge about God that can be discerned from what God has made – the creation.  We can look at the world around us, at human beings and our social ordering, at art, music, and beauty and discern something about the nature and will of God. 

I’ll give you an example of this.  In my office I have a hanging that depicts a specific teaching from each of the seven great religions in our world:  Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism.  Although the words of each teaching are slightly different, they all put forward what we in the Christian tradition refer to as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Islam, for example, teaches “Not one of you will be a true believer who does not wish for his brother the same that he wishes for himself.”  Confucianism asks if there is a maxim that one ought to follow throughout life.  Indeed there is.  It is called the maxim of peaceful goodness: “What we don’t want done to us we should not do to others.”

This is one example of general revelation; of God’s personified wisdom being open and discernable by all people in all times and places.  It is proclaimed in the streets and the valleys.  It is written on the stars and proclaimed in the lilies of the field… general revelation that all people can know. 

Jesus Christ is the embodiment of God’s special revelation.  We learn things about God in the Word incarnate that we can not know through general revelation.  Take this morning’s Gospel.  We can look no where in the created order and discern the teaching that if we seek to save our life we will lose it and if we lose our life we will find it.  In fact, what we learn from creation is just the opposite, isn’t it… life is about natural selection and survival of the fittest. 

The Christian tradition holds that special revelation is not something we achieve, but rather something we receive.  When Matthew recounts the reading we heard this morning he recalls Jesus’ response after Peter’s confession, “Blessed are you for flesh and blood [general revelation] have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven [special revelation].” 

From this I take that every human being is able to know something of God and God’s will.  And thus, every human being is accountable to God for that which is readily apparent to all people – a certain awe for a higher Being and a certain value and respect of all living things.  But I also take from this that those of us who have received the special revelation of Jesus Christ are tasked with a mission and held to a higher standard.  Our mission is to worship Christ, to embody Christ’s teachings in a manner that is faithful and compelling, and to preach the Gospel (using words, if necessary) to the end that others might become people of faith.

I count myself as blessed to have received the good news of God in Christ and to be called to this mission.  It is a special revelation that has come to me because of a variety of factors to which I can claim no credit.  First, I was born in a time after Christ.  Second, I was born in a society that is predominately Christian at a time when most parents took their children to church.  Next, I was born into a family of Presbyterians and we went to a church each week.  That church offered a variety of programs for children and youth to expose us to the faith.  It hired a young youth minister who was devoted to Jesus and shared his faith openly with us.  These are factors that not everyone enjoys.  But beyond all of this, there was something more… something – as Jesus puts it – from the Father.  Beyond being an accident of time and place, faith is a gift that bestows blessing and implies calling.  I am blessed to be a person of faith and called both to live it and to share it with others.

What if I had been born into a different family in that Presbyterian church; one that attended only on Christmas and Easter?  Or what if I had been born closer to this day and age when attending church is not a given and many young people have serious reservations about Christianity as they see it lived out in our day?  Or what if I was born in an Islamic country?  Sure, I might be familiar with the teachings of Jesus, and I might even be open to seeing how many of his teachings corresponded with those of my tradition, but would I strip away all the layers of my culture and heritage to take on another so completely foreign to my own?  Probably not.   I am who I am not because I am special and certainly not because I am better than other people, but because God chose to be known to me.  It gives me a task, a purpose, a role to play in life.  I am to be a witness to God in all that I say and do.

The German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, writing in the 20^th century, proposed a notion he called the “anonymous Christian.”  Through it, he made a compelling case that those born before Christ and those who came after Christ but never heard the gospel could in fact be saved by Christ through the faithful practice of their own religion.  It was an idea that met with widespread acceptance.  Since then, others have broadened Rahner’s thinking about anonymous Christians to include adherents faithful to other religions who live in accord with what this morning we are referring to as general revelation. 

I used to look at today’s Gospel reading and think that Peter was going to get to heaven because he knew something about Jesus that other people did not.  I used to think that because I knew it too I was going to be rewarded while those who did not were going to be punished.  That fixation on heaven does not sit well with me now because Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven is not just some glorious afterlife, but is a reality emerging in the here and now.  I now see how people of faith – all faiths – are to learn from God’s general revelation and bring it to bear in the world.  We in the Christian tradition who know the special revelation of God in Christ are given the added responsibility of living for the world those deep truths that can be found nowhere else but in the incarnate One.  I now see that we have been given a light not to be hid under a basket.  We are called to let that light shine for all the world to see and know what God has made know in Christ.