Sunday, March 30, 2014
Looking upon the Face of Suffering: Sermon, 12-29-2013.
At Northville United Presbyterian Church, our attendance averaged about 85 per Sunday. In this casual and intimate setting, sermons were preached without notes or manuscript, and often included interaction with the congregation.
This audio begins with a lay leader reading the second scripture, Hebrews 2: 10-18, and was also based upon Isaiah 53: 1-6. The sermon proper is followed by the benediction from the end of the service.
Delivered by Kirianne Riehl, 12-19-2013, Northville, NY.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Sermon: Outside In.
Have you every been in this chapel in the evening? If you ever have the chance--if a free evening comes your way--I recommend spending some part of it here in this room. During the day, of course, the room is beautiful: colorful and bright and full of joy, as we are all used to seeing it. But as evening falls, it develops a wonderful stillness, a peace, which brings with it a different kind of beauty--perhaps a more meditative, more unusual kind. The time passes like this: as the sun slowly tumbles through the sky, the light from the windows immolates each pew in turn, in dancing jewel tones, row by row. And then, when the sun is low, oblique to the horizon, the ruby light of the sunset burns from the west directly through this window behind me, until it becomes so bright it seems to shine like the sun itself - "Lord, teach us to pray" (inscribed in the rose window, front and center) - and then, later still, as the daylight is submerged completely beneath the earth and the night-wind begins to whisper secrets outside, the windows fall into darkness and there is only one light left in the chapel. It shines, brightly, on this book, on the Bible, and it is illuminated. And the light reflects upward, off the page, throwing tiny stars onto the bright edges of the chalice beside it. Through the dark hours of the night, that light shines, and the smooth pages of this great tome glow like the bright surface of a perfect moon.
This chapel is a place, in the evenings, where we can come to be by ourselves, but not alone... where we can come to pray, and be at peace.
It helps me to imagine that picture of Jesus up on a high mountain, praying. Everyone is searching for him, seeking him, trying to find him, wanting to touch him--in the passage before this, we hear that the whole city gathers outside the door of his house wanting healing--but Jesus leaves the busy world behind for a moment, and he goes up onto the mountain, alone, to pray. He makes time for prayer. There are many things he could be doing--a million wonderful things he could be doing to help people, like healing diseases or moving mountains--but he doesn't. He stops, and prays. And when he is done, he returns to the people.
And immediately, we read, a leper came to him, begging him: and kneeling, he said to him: "If you choose, you can make me clean."
Jesus has just barely finished praying, when someone comes and prays to him. And what a difference in prayer... can you imagine it? A leper, the most disgustingly unclean, hideously dirty, totally contagious untouchable alien outsider, breaking into the inner circle and talking to Jesus, the most pure, sanctified, anointed one, the Son of God, the Holy Messiah, the Christ, perfection?
I remember when I came into this chapel one evening, back in September, late in the day. Oh, I had to drop off some note for one of the organists, or some such errand. It had been a busy day. But when I entered the silence of this place, and had set the paper down on the organ, suddenly, out of the darkness, up from one of the front pews, a figure--a man--stood up from prayer. The calm of the room dispersed in a sudden flurry of movement and words.
"Sorry, sorry--" he apologized, looking down--"I didn't mean to frighten--"
"That's okay. It's okay," I said.
"Sorry," he muttered again, and hurried to leave.
"Do you want to talk about something," I asked him, but before I even finished my words he was past me, rushing as quickly as he could without positively running away, and he slipped out the door.
Just a flurry of feathers, as from a bird suddenly flushed out of a bush in the woods. It was over almost before it had begun; we were in the same place at the same time, just for an instant; and then he was gone.
A leper came to him, begging him; and kneeling, he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." And the leper *is* cleansed; and in a few short lines, he is gone.
So I try to figure out why that experience was so important to me. I put the scene back together again in my mind.
The leper was a pray-er, too. Holy prayer is one thing, in which we find ourselves serenely transported to a transcendent world. But there is also prayer that is necessary, urgent, and desperate, and that is what I think the leper is voicing. There is prayer that is quiet, alone time, in which we give God space to grow us. There is prayer that racks our bodies and souls and begs, on bended knee, for an answer: for finitude, for an ear, for Christ's sake. This is what pulls a stranger to fall on his knees in a darkened chapel. This is the prayer that comes out of our needs: to beg audience with a God who is great, holy, majestic, and yet still listens to prayer.
Our leper shows us how to beg when we need it. He kneels down--Luke adds, "with his face to the ground"--and begs Jesus. "If you choose, you can make me clean." What he means is, You can make my life whole. You can restore me to my community again. You see, leprosy in those days was an illness like no other. Everyone knew it was contagious: if you touched a leper, you could get leprosy. When this leper says, "You can make me clean," what he means is: "You can reunite me with my children. You can make it possible for my brothers and sisters to hug me. I could go back to work again--how I long to work again. You can make me *someone* once more...
I wonder what that man was praying about, when he came into the chapel. It was a snowy day, as they have all been recently. He didn't stumble here my accident, on a whim--though I wouldn't be surprised if he had hardly realized where he was going. I imagine that he was drawn to this place as a place where he could seek some healing, where he could ask for that true gift that only God can give. Lepers in the day of Jesus spent every day begging for things--for food, for money, for alms, or whatever might help day-to-day life--but the leper in our story, who goes to find Jesus, asks for something far beyond what can be bought or sold. He asks for healing. I imagine that it requests like that which draw people to this chapel, to this place.
There are so many ways in which we need healing. I have friends who have had some lawsuit filed with their name appearing on it. It doesn't matter where you are in that, the plaintiff or defendant--it changes your life. Or suddenly someone in your family needs full-time, round-the-clock care: all is upturned. Or a child, growing up, develops an illness, perhaps, or a learning disorder, or some behavioral or emotional problem, and suddenly that whole family's lives change. Maybe we are facing someone's death beside them. Maybe we are going through a divorce. Maybe someone is anorexic. Maybe someone is depressed. Thee are a million things that can draw us into prayer. There are so many times in our lives when we finally fall on our knees, having tried everything else, lepers at heart and begging for wholeness.
Begging him and kneeling, he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."
Is it such a huge stretch to imagine a link between a leper and a person like you or me? A leper is made an outcast, is forever different, forever feels untouchable and excluded from the community and made to be an outsider. We don't do that so literally, here in the U. S. of A: we're a Christian country, after all, founded on roots of equality though we forget them from time to time, and we make sure we don't *actually* shun those who are troubled. Lepers were forced to live in separate communities, to drink separate water, to never cross the boundaries, to stay with their own diseased kind. No one could even touch them. We don't do that today.
But if any of you have ever had a real trouble in your life, maybe you can still understand the kind of isolation this leper feels. Nobody quite understands what you are going through, do they? With preoccupation, our minds start to live in some other, sequestered world. We'll be sitting at the dinner table, conversations taking place all around us, but our minds are somewhere else. The old things we always used to enjoy, like sports or shopping or the new project downtown, seem suddenly shallow, miniscule, compared to what you are going through. Silly conversations! My mother is dying, and you want to talk about bargain prices? I am deeply depressed, even unto death--and you are talking about television?
When I saw that man in the chapel? Earlier that same day, one of the other ministers had been talking to a man who was considering taking his own life. Was it the same man? Is that what he was praying about so fervently? ...After he left here -- did he do it? I will never know. He didn't talk to me, and I was not the one hearing his prayer. But I wonder if he had people to turn to. I wonder, sometimes, if the desperation of his prayer came from the fact that in other places, when he was not in a chapel praying to God, he felt somehow completely isolated and alone.
So the leper comes before Jesus. The man needing prayer comes to the chapel. And the beautiful Jesus, and the peaceful chapel, welcome them. The truth is, brothers and sisters, that it is stories like this one, stories about how Jesus welcomed everyone, that have made Christian spaces the kind of spaces where people can come, no matter who they are, to bow and beseech God. Had Jesus refused upon even one of the many, many lepers, soldiers, women, sick, foreigners, sinners, troubled, oppressed people that came to him, we might have a very different faith to follow. But there is not one. Jesus welcomes them all, and brings the outside in. Let the children come to me, Jesus said. For I have come to save not the righteous, but sinners.
Chapels are good places for lepers. Chapels are good places to come when you are feeling outcast, different, unknown. God knows. Chapels are good places to come when you feel that you have a question to ask, or a trouble to work out, that not just anyone will have an answer for. God is a good place to turn when you have a prayer.
It would be remiss for us to think, even for a minute, that it is any less inappropriate for us to come before God than it was for that leper. Or for that late-night stranger in the chapel. We have gathered here, and it is daylight, and we think generally pretty well of ourselves, and why not. Which means that it seems as if all is right with the world that we are gathered here on a Sunday morning in this happy place and in the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to worship God. And yes, it is. It is truly right, and our greatest joy, to give God thanks and praise. But when we gather, we say a prayer of confession. And what we mean, when we say that, is: You can make me clean. You can make me whole; you can make me fit to be a part of your community again. For sin, in our days, is an illness like no other. It is contagious, and everyone has it: if you are human, you have touched it. When we confess, we are asking for restoration. You welcome me. You make it possible for my brothers and sisters to embrace me. You make me someone again. What we mean is, You call me beloved, a child of God.
And God brings the outside in.
Knowing this, we declare the assurance of pardon. Just as Jesus spoke to that leper that he chanced to meet on the street, that leper who knelt begging before him, and put his face to the ground, he speaks to us: I do choose. Be made clean.
It was the mission on earth of Jesus to speak words of blessing, hope and truth to a humanity that had fallen outside of God's plan. As far as that leper was from Jesus, so far were we from God. We were the unclean ones! We were that defiled, hopeless number: a people that had lied, killed, and broken promises, a people that had been in turmoil, whose first parents were exiles, whose first son was a murderer. We were the race to whom God reached out, to whom God offered a path through the storm. We were that humanity to whom God sent his only Son; and we were the people that could not bear his purity, and who killed him.
We were the lepers, the unclean ones. And still, despite it all, God gives us assurance of God's mercy and of our pardon: that as far as the East is from the West, so far has the Lord removed our sin from us (Psalm 103:12). That as often as I said, 'my foot has slipped,' your love, O Lord, upheld me (Psalm 94:18). That when we come begging before the throne of God, no matter what our uncleanness, those wonderful words will shine forth into our darkness: "I do choose. Be made clean."
So: if you ever do get that free evening, and if you are able to make a moment for yourselves, I recommend spending some small part of it here in this place. It is rather tucked off to one side--a little diminutive, a little dark, a little bit intimate--but it is a beautiful place here, as that eternal sun winds its way down through the heavens. It pierces the darkness with its rays, and drapes each pew, one by one, with a myriad of colors as if God points to each one and says, This is beautiful, and That is good. As the sunset brightens outside, low in the West, the rose window burns with a fury of light, and I cannot stand here without looking up into its fiery brightness, as it trumpets out the words, "Lord, Teach Us to Pray..."
That is what that man has given me, that lonely pray-er who came here late one night. Because after he left, after the story was over and his tearful, begging words had been spoken into this listening silence, after the sudden arresting sight of a stranger appearing in one minute and disappearing in the next, I was struck by this place. I was transfixed, in fact, and I could not take myself away from the presence of this wonderful, loving, inviting God who brings the outside in. The light streamed in through the window, and another light shone down upon this Bible, lying before me not closed and forbidding but opened for me, waiting for me to come and take it in.
And on one of its pages, shining up, we read: "A leper came to him, begging him: and kneeling, he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said, "I do choose. Be made clean."
May it be illumined in our hearts, forever.
This chapel is a place, in the evenings, where we can come to be by ourselves, but not alone... where we can come to pray, and be at peace.
It helps me to imagine that picture of Jesus up on a high mountain, praying. Everyone is searching for him, seeking him, trying to find him, wanting to touch him--in the passage before this, we hear that the whole city gathers outside the door of his house wanting healing--but Jesus leaves the busy world behind for a moment, and he goes up onto the mountain, alone, to pray. He makes time for prayer. There are many things he could be doing--a million wonderful things he could be doing to help people, like healing diseases or moving mountains--but he doesn't. He stops, and prays. And when he is done, he returns to the people.
And immediately, we read, a leper came to him, begging him: and kneeling, he said to him: "If you choose, you can make me clean."
Jesus has just barely finished praying, when someone comes and prays to him. And what a difference in prayer... can you imagine it? A leper, the most disgustingly unclean, hideously dirty, totally contagious untouchable alien outsider, breaking into the inner circle and talking to Jesus, the most pure, sanctified, anointed one, the Son of God, the Holy Messiah, the Christ, perfection?
I remember when I came into this chapel one evening, back in September, late in the day. Oh, I had to drop off some note for one of the organists, or some such errand. It had been a busy day. But when I entered the silence of this place, and had set the paper down on the organ, suddenly, out of the darkness, up from one of the front pews, a figure--a man--stood up from prayer. The calm of the room dispersed in a sudden flurry of movement and words.
"Sorry, sorry--" he apologized, looking down--"I didn't mean to frighten--"
"That's okay. It's okay," I said.
"Sorry," he muttered again, and hurried to leave.
"Do you want to talk about something," I asked him, but before I even finished my words he was past me, rushing as quickly as he could without positively running away, and he slipped out the door.
Just a flurry of feathers, as from a bird suddenly flushed out of a bush in the woods. It was over almost before it had begun; we were in the same place at the same time, just for an instant; and then he was gone.
A leper came to him, begging him; and kneeling, he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." And the leper *is* cleansed; and in a few short lines, he is gone.
So I try to figure out why that experience was so important to me. I put the scene back together again in my mind.
The leper was a pray-er, too. Holy prayer is one thing, in which we find ourselves serenely transported to a transcendent world. But there is also prayer that is necessary, urgent, and desperate, and that is what I think the leper is voicing. There is prayer that is quiet, alone time, in which we give God space to grow us. There is prayer that racks our bodies and souls and begs, on bended knee, for an answer: for finitude, for an ear, for Christ's sake. This is what pulls a stranger to fall on his knees in a darkened chapel. This is the prayer that comes out of our needs: to beg audience with a God who is great, holy, majestic, and yet still listens to prayer.
Our leper shows us how to beg when we need it. He kneels down--Luke adds, "with his face to the ground"--and begs Jesus. "If you choose, you can make me clean." What he means is, You can make my life whole. You can restore me to my community again. You see, leprosy in those days was an illness like no other. Everyone knew it was contagious: if you touched a leper, you could get leprosy. When this leper says, "You can make me clean," what he means is: "You can reunite me with my children. You can make it possible for my brothers and sisters to hug me. I could go back to work again--how I long to work again. You can make me *someone* once more...
I wonder what that man was praying about, when he came into the chapel. It was a snowy day, as they have all been recently. He didn't stumble here my accident, on a whim--though I wouldn't be surprised if he had hardly realized where he was going. I imagine that he was drawn to this place as a place where he could seek some healing, where he could ask for that true gift that only God can give. Lepers in the day of Jesus spent every day begging for things--for food, for money, for alms, or whatever might help day-to-day life--but the leper in our story, who goes to find Jesus, asks for something far beyond what can be bought or sold. He asks for healing. I imagine that it requests like that which draw people to this chapel, to this place.
There are so many ways in which we need healing. I have friends who have had some lawsuit filed with their name appearing on it. It doesn't matter where you are in that, the plaintiff or defendant--it changes your life. Or suddenly someone in your family needs full-time, round-the-clock care: all is upturned. Or a child, growing up, develops an illness, perhaps, or a learning disorder, or some behavioral or emotional problem, and suddenly that whole family's lives change. Maybe we are facing someone's death beside them. Maybe we are going through a divorce. Maybe someone is anorexic. Maybe someone is depressed. Thee are a million things that can draw us into prayer. There are so many times in our lives when we finally fall on our knees, having tried everything else, lepers at heart and begging for wholeness.
Begging him and kneeling, he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."
Is it such a huge stretch to imagine a link between a leper and a person like you or me? A leper is made an outcast, is forever different, forever feels untouchable and excluded from the community and made to be an outsider. We don't do that so literally, here in the U. S. of A: we're a Christian country, after all, founded on roots of equality though we forget them from time to time, and we make sure we don't *actually* shun those who are troubled. Lepers were forced to live in separate communities, to drink separate water, to never cross the boundaries, to stay with their own diseased kind. No one could even touch them. We don't do that today.
But if any of you have ever had a real trouble in your life, maybe you can still understand the kind of isolation this leper feels. Nobody quite understands what you are going through, do they? With preoccupation, our minds start to live in some other, sequestered world. We'll be sitting at the dinner table, conversations taking place all around us, but our minds are somewhere else. The old things we always used to enjoy, like sports or shopping or the new project downtown, seem suddenly shallow, miniscule, compared to what you are going through. Silly conversations! My mother is dying, and you want to talk about bargain prices? I am deeply depressed, even unto death--and you are talking about television?
When I saw that man in the chapel? Earlier that same day, one of the other ministers had been talking to a man who was considering taking his own life. Was it the same man? Is that what he was praying about so fervently? ...After he left here -- did he do it? I will never know. He didn't talk to me, and I was not the one hearing his prayer. But I wonder if he had people to turn to. I wonder, sometimes, if the desperation of his prayer came from the fact that in other places, when he was not in a chapel praying to God, he felt somehow completely isolated and alone.
So the leper comes before Jesus. The man needing prayer comes to the chapel. And the beautiful Jesus, and the peaceful chapel, welcome them. The truth is, brothers and sisters, that it is stories like this one, stories about how Jesus welcomed everyone, that have made Christian spaces the kind of spaces where people can come, no matter who they are, to bow and beseech God. Had Jesus refused upon even one of the many, many lepers, soldiers, women, sick, foreigners, sinners, troubled, oppressed people that came to him, we might have a very different faith to follow. But there is not one. Jesus welcomes them all, and brings the outside in. Let the children come to me, Jesus said. For I have come to save not the righteous, but sinners.
Chapels are good places for lepers. Chapels are good places to come when you are feeling outcast, different, unknown. God knows. Chapels are good places to come when you feel that you have a question to ask, or a trouble to work out, that not just anyone will have an answer for. God is a good place to turn when you have a prayer.
It would be remiss for us to think, even for a minute, that it is any less inappropriate for us to come before God than it was for that leper. Or for that late-night stranger in the chapel. We have gathered here, and it is daylight, and we think generally pretty well of ourselves, and why not. Which means that it seems as if all is right with the world that we are gathered here on a Sunday morning in this happy place and in the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to worship God. And yes, it is. It is truly right, and our greatest joy, to give God thanks and praise. But when we gather, we say a prayer of confession. And what we mean, when we say that, is: You can make me clean. You can make me whole; you can make me fit to be a part of your community again. For sin, in our days, is an illness like no other. It is contagious, and everyone has it: if you are human, you have touched it. When we confess, we are asking for restoration. You welcome me. You make it possible for my brothers and sisters to embrace me. You make me someone again. What we mean is, You call me beloved, a child of God.
And God brings the outside in.
Knowing this, we declare the assurance of pardon. Just as Jesus spoke to that leper that he chanced to meet on the street, that leper who knelt begging before him, and put his face to the ground, he speaks to us: I do choose. Be made clean.
It was the mission on earth of Jesus to speak words of blessing, hope and truth to a humanity that had fallen outside of God's plan. As far as that leper was from Jesus, so far were we from God. We were the unclean ones! We were that defiled, hopeless number: a people that had lied, killed, and broken promises, a people that had been in turmoil, whose first parents were exiles, whose first son was a murderer. We were the race to whom God reached out, to whom God offered a path through the storm. We were that humanity to whom God sent his only Son; and we were the people that could not bear his purity, and who killed him.
We were the lepers, the unclean ones. And still, despite it all, God gives us assurance of God's mercy and of our pardon: that as far as the East is from the West, so far has the Lord removed our sin from us (Psalm 103:12). That as often as I said, 'my foot has slipped,' your love, O Lord, upheld me (Psalm 94:18). That when we come begging before the throne of God, no matter what our uncleanness, those wonderful words will shine forth into our darkness: "I do choose. Be made clean."
So: if you ever do get that free evening, and if you are able to make a moment for yourselves, I recommend spending some small part of it here in this place. It is rather tucked off to one side--a little diminutive, a little dark, a little bit intimate--but it is a beautiful place here, as that eternal sun winds its way down through the heavens. It pierces the darkness with its rays, and drapes each pew, one by one, with a myriad of colors as if God points to each one and says, This is beautiful, and That is good. As the sunset brightens outside, low in the West, the rose window burns with a fury of light, and I cannot stand here without looking up into its fiery brightness, as it trumpets out the words, "Lord, Teach Us to Pray..."
That is what that man has given me, that lonely pray-er who came here late one night. Because after he left, after the story was over and his tearful, begging words had been spoken into this listening silence, after the sudden arresting sight of a stranger appearing in one minute and disappearing in the next, I was struck by this place. I was transfixed, in fact, and I could not take myself away from the presence of this wonderful, loving, inviting God who brings the outside in. The light streamed in through the window, and another light shone down upon this Bible, lying before me not closed and forbidding but opened for me, waiting for me to come and take it in.
And on one of its pages, shining up, we read: "A leper came to him, begging him: and kneeling, he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said, "I do choose. Be made clean."
May it be illumined in our hearts, forever.
Prayers of the People, a sample.
O God who gives us the hope of heaven,
set its beauty before our eyes.
Now, in this moment, eyes shut,
help us to see your kingdom and its light.
For we see not only with our eyes, but with our spirit;
and we hear your word, not only with our ears, but with our souls;
and we pray to you, not only with our minds, but from our hearts.
We refuse to ignore the sorrows and the hurts of the world.
We refuse to look away and pretend that pain does not exist;
for there is no help found when problems are dismissed,
and there is no relief from illnesses that are not treated.
But with courage, we face life:
we lift up our world to you, O God, and we pray.
We pray for the sick. Around our earth there are those at this moment who are dying; who are in pain; who are facing the end of their days; whose face grave unknowns. We pray for those in hospitals, whether wealthy and well-cared-for, or simple, with others attending, or poor, in rooms without electricity, in heat and humidity, unsterile. We pray for those who suffer at home. We pray for those whose pain is lived with every day; who walk about and live on, keeping their pain within, bearing up beneath their load.
We pray for those who are in turmoil. Some of us cannot let go of the things that hold us back; some cannot wrench free from their problems. Some return to the same broken places in their minds, time and again, and are tired of it. Some cannot find peace within their thoughts. Some are racked by traumas: of war, of tragedy, of family, of loss. God, penetrate the darkness in which they live. Help them find this same light behind closed eyes that we now experience. Massage us with soft words, until we let go of the tenseness with which we grip our trouble. Show us the reality of hope, the truth of resting in your love.
O God, our Maker: you hold the world in your hands. Keep us each in your love and care, and we look to the day when we shall see your love in the flesh, and shall adore and praise you face to face. Amen.
set its beauty before our eyes.
Now, in this moment, eyes shut,
help us to see your kingdom and its light.
For we see not only with our eyes, but with our spirit;
and we hear your word, not only with our ears, but with our souls;
and we pray to you, not only with our minds, but from our hearts.
We refuse to ignore the sorrows and the hurts of the world.
We refuse to look away and pretend that pain does not exist;
for there is no help found when problems are dismissed,
and there is no relief from illnesses that are not treated.
But with courage, we face life:
we lift up our world to you, O God, and we pray.
We pray for the sick. Around our earth there are those at this moment who are dying; who are in pain; who are facing the end of their days; whose face grave unknowns. We pray for those in hospitals, whether wealthy and well-cared-for, or simple, with others attending, or poor, in rooms without electricity, in heat and humidity, unsterile. We pray for those who suffer at home. We pray for those whose pain is lived with every day; who walk about and live on, keeping their pain within, bearing up beneath their load.
We pray for those who are in turmoil. Some of us cannot let go of the things that hold us back; some cannot wrench free from their problems. Some return to the same broken places in their minds, time and again, and are tired of it. Some cannot find peace within their thoughts. Some are racked by traumas: of war, of tragedy, of family, of loss. God, penetrate the darkness in which they live. Help them find this same light behind closed eyes that we now experience. Massage us with soft words, until we let go of the tenseness with which we grip our trouble. Show us the reality of hope, the truth of resting in your love.
O God, our Maker: you hold the world in your hands. Keep us each in your love and care, and we look to the day when we shall see your love in the flesh, and shall adore and praise you face to face. Amen.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Good Friday Meditation: Luke 23:39-43.
From the cross, these words: "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
In all the sadness of Good Friday, shrouded by this veil of not just death but great, long suffering--on this solemn and funereal day--we are asked to consider a word of grace and blessing. It is a relief, in its way: a horrible thing is happening before our eyes, and all earth seems evil. If humanity was not condemned when Adam sinned, or when Cain killed Abel, surely we are condemned now: we have crucified our Lord; we have convicted the only one who was innocent; we have taken the holiness of God, and made it a mockery before all.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, hangs dying on the cross... and this is the pulpit from which God offers us heaven. "Truly, I tell you: today, you will be with me in paradise."
It is almost too beautiful, too benevolent, what he says. There is a museum in New York City, a northern extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, called the Cloisters. Its stone rooms and cold monastic walkways are filled with medieval art: reliquaries, paintings, carvings, and the unicorn tapestries. In one room, in a corner beneath a high shaft of light, stands an old 12th-century wood carving of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding his body after the crucifixion. His body is small on her lap; there was a popular story in the church in those days that when Mary held Jesus' dead body, she went wild with grief and thought he was again an infant in her arms. This statue is so beautiful--its carving done with such care, the wood underneath so rich, the folds of the draped cloth so perfect and pleasing--it is so beautiful that it seems too beautiful, almost, for its subject. Here lies Jesus, a dead body. Here sits his mother, in unknowable grief, bending over him. A pieta, we call it: pity.
In that same way, these words that Jesus speaks seem too beautiful for their setting, for Good Friday or for the cross. "Truly, I tell you," he says: "Today you will be with me in paradise."
These words are the end of a short conversation he has been having. The interchange begins in mockery. One of the thieves with whom Jesus is crucified mocks him: "Aren't you the Christ? Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself, and us!" It is only what everyone has been saying. The leaders who mocked him on the cross said, "He saved others; let him save himself." The soldiers said, too: "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" Even the crowds, welcoming him into Jerusalem, shouted: "Hosanna!" "Save us." Last week, on Palm Sunday, it was a joyful cry. Now, in the crucifixion, it is a jab, a taunt. Everyone is saying, to this man whose very name means "He saves," "Save."
Our first instinct is perhaps to want to draw a line between ourselves and these people. We are those who believe, who love him still here and now. Perhaps these others, these mockers, are those who do not believe as we can. Maybe there are those who simply cannot make the leap from possibility, or consideration, to faith. But when the thief derided him--when he said, "Aren't you the Christ? Save us!"--was there not some part of him that wanted it to be true? Wasn't there some glimmer of home in his heart, that it might just happen that way--that this fellow near him might, in fact, suddenly exercise amazing power, and spring down from the cross? If he were the Messiah, the Savior, surely he would save! Some part of him must have wanted it to be true. Some part of all those who mocked him--the leaders, the soldiers, the priests and passers-by--some part of everyone wants it to be the truth that there is a savior, and that salvation has been brought to us. Everyone, at some point in life, hopes to be saved.
The question we are faced with is never, could you believe; it is, Do you?
The question is not: if you were faced with an amazing miracle, before your very eyes--if suddenly you saw some horrible thing supernaturally prevented, or the course of the world was shaken by an external hand in some impossible way--if you were shown a sign, not when God chose to send it, but exactly when and how you asked for it, and whenever you asked for it so that you could test it and tempt it to fail again and again, yet the miracle were always instantly accomplished--the question is not if, under those circumstances, you could believe. Of course you could. Everyone has some capacity for belief, and some understanding of what and who God is. Even this thief has an idea of what God can do. But God is no circus performer, to gratify our amazement.
The question is, instead, much harder. The question we are given, for our lives, is: if your Savior is hung upon the cross, do you still believe? If your Savior hangs there and no miracle takes place, but he promises that this is the beginning and the gateway to salvation, and that this moment will conquer death--do you still have the strength to believe when all evidence seems to tell you to give up? Not can you trust, as though you are simply talented that way, but do you trust, no matter what? Will you still trust God if Jesus Christ dies on the cross? Will you have faith, and patience, to wade through this thick darkness on Good Friday, until the first day of the week arises in us again?
For faith, Paul tells us, is the assurance of things hoped for--the conviction of things not seen.
Jesus says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." But it is a long, long day, and there are many hours to endure first. He is not offering an easy release from trial, or a quick end to suffering.
In the meanwhile, God is with us in the darkness. God is with us in all suffering. This is the response of the second thief: "Do you not fear God," he asks, "since you are under the same sentence with him?" God, Jesus, is with them in their own moment of darkness. This second thief has that strength, which is so hard to find, which enables us to be humble, even when we recognize how fallen we are. For most of the time, when we feel small, or belittled, or when we are faced with what we have done wrong, we don't want to admit it. We want to hide from it, and we hide by concealing ourselves in a false greatness. But the second thief speaks with a rare strength, because he sees himself honestly. He knows that his condemnation is just. He does not blow himself up to be great; but he acknowledges that God alone is great. "Do you not fear God," he asks the other?
It is a liminal conversation. Luke writes it almost as if he could see into people's minds and hearts. In this second thief's heart, there is no hiding. There is no bombast or buffoonery, there is no blustering and there are no boasts. But as he waits through these three hours, as he takes an account of his life and of his deeds, and as he looks to the one who remains beside him through it all in compassion and understanding, he decides that the question he must answer is not: can Jesus save him, but does he.
So he registers a petition to the Lord, saying:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
And so Jesus responds, with those words that are almost too beautiful for Good Friday:
"Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
His answer, his faithful answer, is Yes.
But today is a long, long day. There are many hours to endure first, and tomorrow lies fallow and silent, like the tomb.
In the meantime, let God be with us, beside us, in this silence.
In all the sadness of Good Friday, shrouded by this veil of not just death but great, long suffering--on this solemn and funereal day--we are asked to consider a word of grace and blessing. It is a relief, in its way: a horrible thing is happening before our eyes, and all earth seems evil. If humanity was not condemned when Adam sinned, or when Cain killed Abel, surely we are condemned now: we have crucified our Lord; we have convicted the only one who was innocent; we have taken the holiness of God, and made it a mockery before all.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, hangs dying on the cross... and this is the pulpit from which God offers us heaven. "Truly, I tell you: today, you will be with me in paradise."
It is almost too beautiful, too benevolent, what he says. There is a museum in New York City, a northern extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, called the Cloisters. Its stone rooms and cold monastic walkways are filled with medieval art: reliquaries, paintings, carvings, and the unicorn tapestries. In one room, in a corner beneath a high shaft of light, stands an old 12th-century wood carving of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding his body after the crucifixion. His body is small on her lap; there was a popular story in the church in those days that when Mary held Jesus' dead body, she went wild with grief and thought he was again an infant in her arms. This statue is so beautiful--its carving done with such care, the wood underneath so rich, the folds of the draped cloth so perfect and pleasing--it is so beautiful that it seems too beautiful, almost, for its subject. Here lies Jesus, a dead body. Here sits his mother, in unknowable grief, bending over him. A pieta, we call it: pity.
In that same way, these words that Jesus speaks seem too beautiful for their setting, for Good Friday or for the cross. "Truly, I tell you," he says: "Today you will be with me in paradise."
These words are the end of a short conversation he has been having. The interchange begins in mockery. One of the thieves with whom Jesus is crucified mocks him: "Aren't you the Christ? Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself, and us!" It is only what everyone has been saying. The leaders who mocked him on the cross said, "He saved others; let him save himself." The soldiers said, too: "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" Even the crowds, welcoming him into Jerusalem, shouted: "Hosanna!" "Save us." Last week, on Palm Sunday, it was a joyful cry. Now, in the crucifixion, it is a jab, a taunt. Everyone is saying, to this man whose very name means "He saves," "Save."
Our first instinct is perhaps to want to draw a line between ourselves and these people. We are those who believe, who love him still here and now. Perhaps these others, these mockers, are those who do not believe as we can. Maybe there are those who simply cannot make the leap from possibility, or consideration, to faith. But when the thief derided him--when he said, "Aren't you the Christ? Save us!"--was there not some part of him that wanted it to be true? Wasn't there some glimmer of home in his heart, that it might just happen that way--that this fellow near him might, in fact, suddenly exercise amazing power, and spring down from the cross? If he were the Messiah, the Savior, surely he would save! Some part of him must have wanted it to be true. Some part of all those who mocked him--the leaders, the soldiers, the priests and passers-by--some part of everyone wants it to be the truth that there is a savior, and that salvation has been brought to us. Everyone, at some point in life, hopes to be saved.
The question we are faced with is never, could you believe; it is, Do you?
The question is not: if you were faced with an amazing miracle, before your very eyes--if suddenly you saw some horrible thing supernaturally prevented, or the course of the world was shaken by an external hand in some impossible way--if you were shown a sign, not when God chose to send it, but exactly when and how you asked for it, and whenever you asked for it so that you could test it and tempt it to fail again and again, yet the miracle were always instantly accomplished--the question is not if, under those circumstances, you could believe. Of course you could. Everyone has some capacity for belief, and some understanding of what and who God is. Even this thief has an idea of what God can do. But God is no circus performer, to gratify our amazement.
The question is, instead, much harder. The question we are given, for our lives, is: if your Savior is hung upon the cross, do you still believe? If your Savior hangs there and no miracle takes place, but he promises that this is the beginning and the gateway to salvation, and that this moment will conquer death--do you still have the strength to believe when all evidence seems to tell you to give up? Not can you trust, as though you are simply talented that way, but do you trust, no matter what? Will you still trust God if Jesus Christ dies on the cross? Will you have faith, and patience, to wade through this thick darkness on Good Friday, until the first day of the week arises in us again?
For faith, Paul tells us, is the assurance of things hoped for--the conviction of things not seen.
Jesus says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." But it is a long, long day, and there are many hours to endure first. He is not offering an easy release from trial, or a quick end to suffering.
In the meanwhile, God is with us in the darkness. God is with us in all suffering. This is the response of the second thief: "Do you not fear God," he asks, "since you are under the same sentence with him?" God, Jesus, is with them in their own moment of darkness. This second thief has that strength, which is so hard to find, which enables us to be humble, even when we recognize how fallen we are. For most of the time, when we feel small, or belittled, or when we are faced with what we have done wrong, we don't want to admit it. We want to hide from it, and we hide by concealing ourselves in a false greatness. But the second thief speaks with a rare strength, because he sees himself honestly. He knows that his condemnation is just. He does not blow himself up to be great; but he acknowledges that God alone is great. "Do you not fear God," he asks the other?
It is a liminal conversation. Luke writes it almost as if he could see into people's minds and hearts. In this second thief's heart, there is no hiding. There is no bombast or buffoonery, there is no blustering and there are no boasts. But as he waits through these three hours, as he takes an account of his life and of his deeds, and as he looks to the one who remains beside him through it all in compassion and understanding, he decides that the question he must answer is not: can Jesus save him, but does he.
So he registers a petition to the Lord, saying:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
And so Jesus responds, with those words that are almost too beautiful for Good Friday:
"Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
His answer, his faithful answer, is Yes.
But today is a long, long day. There are many hours to endure first, and tomorrow lies fallow and silent, like the tomb.
In the meantime, let God be with us, beside us, in this silence.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
A prayer at a wedding.
O Holy God,
the one who is called Love itself:
bind these people together in love, as family -
that in your unity of Spirit we might find unity;
that in your peace we might never see discord;
that all life brings them might be overcome by joy, in your promise.
You are the one who makes our lives, and calls them good.
You are the creator of all things, great and small,
of relationships and children,
of guidance and purpose.
Help us to root ourselves in the foundation of your love,
that our joy may be secure, and our souls complete.
You are completion itself:
the fulfillment of long waiting,
the answer to our hearts,
and the law for which we long.
You are our strength to live responsibly.
You are our guide to right duty.
You are the Way.
In Jesus' name, we commend this love to you.
Bless it, and nurture it,
and may time see it grow,
from this day forth and forevermore.
Your word is a lamp to our hearts.
Your word teaches us how we should pray,
as your family, we who are children of God--
so we pray, each in our own words, the prayer your Son taught us to pray,
saying... Our Father.
the one who is called Love itself:
bind these people together in love, as family -
that in your unity of Spirit we might find unity;
that in your peace we might never see discord;
that all life brings them might be overcome by joy, in your promise.
You are the one who makes our lives, and calls them good.
You are the creator of all things, great and small,
of relationships and children,
of guidance and purpose.
Help us to root ourselves in the foundation of your love,
that our joy may be secure, and our souls complete.
You are completion itself:
the fulfillment of long waiting,
the answer to our hearts,
and the law for which we long.
You are our strength to live responsibly.
You are our guide to right duty.
You are the Way.
In Jesus' name, we commend this love to you.
Bless it, and nurture it,
and may time see it grow,
from this day forth and forevermore.
Your word is a lamp to our hearts.
Your word teaches us how we should pray,
as your family, we who are children of God--
so we pray, each in our own words, the prayer your Son taught us to pray,
saying... Our Father.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Christmas Eve Family Service
Now our story tonight is a new one, I bet.
I would wager that none of you ever has yet
heard the story of Christmastime, told by a SHEEP!
For they're not the most clever of beasts that you've met,
and their thinking is not universally deep...
so most authors forget them. Perhaps you did, too.
(I just can't think of one classic heroine ewe!)
And our little lamb Davy was no great exception.
He did not, in his studies, achieve near-perfection.
He missed lots of homework, was never poetic,
did not dream of being a prof or a medic...
No: Davy was Davy. Not Sir, Duke, or Doc.
Not grand, and not special; just one of the flock.
That's the way that sheep like it. One hundred percent.
I just wish we could all be so fully content.
Little Davy was hanging out, munching on stuff
with his group, when he happened to chomp on a tough
little strand of alfalfa. So, nursing his gums
and wishing he'd thought to pack up a few Tums,
he decided to head back to one little pasture
they'd been to that morning, that had the best mums.
If he ran all the way, he'd be back so much faster
that no one would notice a thing, until after.
And so, with this settled inside his small noggin,
when no one was lookin', then off he went joggin'!
At first, all was well. For the day was quite pretty.
The sparrows were chirping a cute little ditty.
The squirrels chattered busily from every tree,
and grasshoppers whirred with a chee-chipee-chee.
The sun was so warm, and the grass was so green,
and it all added up to be such a nice scene,
that perhaps Davy didn't, completely, exactly,
know just where he was, speaking matter-of-factly.
Now I might have mentioned this already once:
that most sheep are less genius than they are dunce.
Poor Davy--the nicest of lambs you could meet,
with impeccable manners, and ever so sweet--
hadn't hatched a good plan. He just hadn't been thinking.
And suddenly, he started having a sinking
suspicion that maybe, he might be alone.
He looked up... looked around... and he saw not a one.
You know how that feels: How at first, you keep peering
around, thinking maybe they're all simply joking,
and then you shout! Someone must be within hearing,
but when they don't answer, you kind of start choking...
and then you start running back toward where you were,
but you really aren't sure, 'cause your thoughts are a blur,
and you might get more lost... so you don't even try,
and not trying at all makes you break down and cry.
That's how Davy felt. He started to bleat,
and he choked, and he sobbed, and lay down in defeat.
It was not too much later the sun started setting.
Poor Davy's kind shepherd had just started getting
all ready to lead the sheep back for the night
to their warm barnyard home in the last of the light,
when he noticed that Davy was not where he should be.
He started to look every place that he could be:
he looked toward the woods, and he looked all around,
and he searched for his tracks in the soft, loamy ground,
and he stopped and he listened for cries being made
by a poor little lamb who was lost and afraid...
...but heard nothing. So, taking a moment to mind
that his flock would be safe, he then set off to find
his lost sheep. (That's what good shepherds always will do.
It has happened to me, and it will to you, too.)
Now where Davy lay down he had fallen asleep:
a small clump of white fluff in a sad little heap
on a round, grassy knoll. As the shadows grew long,
and the evening grew cold, and the night-wind grew strong,
Davy started to stir. He awoke with a start.
He could feel a dread pounding inside of his heart.
His body was aching and cold from the ground,
and his ears were afraid of the tiniest sound.
He heard a twig snap near the edge of the wood.
Was a wolf over there? Was she up to no good?
Would she come through the darkness, all ghoulish and drooling?
Or was he just scared--was his mind only fooling?
Davy looked, but saw darkness. His terror kept growing.
The terrible part was not seeing, not knowing.
I have found this to be true in my life, as well:
where it seems like everything goes great for a spell...
I grow lax, or get lazy, and think to myself:
"I can store up my faith in a box on a shelf.
"I can keep it for later, and not bother now.
"I'm too busy to pray much these days anyhow."
And, guess what? Before long, I don't know where I am.
My days remain full, but my life is a sham.
I get busier, crazier: everything needs me,
but none of it means much and none of it feeds me.
And then, when the fear of aloneness comes on me,
I look for my God. And then prayer is upon me.
Good shepherd, stay near us! I need you beside me.
Your voice is my comfort; your presence will guide me.
So, when I am close, then, especially, teach me.
I won't get so lost, if I let your Word reach me.
Well, Davy's good shepherd was in the dark, hunting.
And Davy was facing his fears, and confronting
the worst he could think... when a strange thing occurred.
(I'm not sure you'll believe me, but please take my word.)
For there, in the sky, came a glorious sight.
Just behind some dark trees came a strange, silver light.
It appeared to be dancing: small fires, all swirling,
and draped with great tendrils that seemed to be curling...
and music was playing--or these lights were singing?--
as though they were glad for some news they were bringing.
Small Davy came running! Perhaps it was only
the thought of just feeling a little less lonely,
but somehow that light shining just past a hill
gave a small frightened sheep just a little more will.
It was help; it was hope. Davy's thin legs ran fleet,
up the hill, and then over... and ...who should he meet?
Maybe some of you smart ones have already guessed.
I suppose I don't need to recount all the rest!
How the shepherds were there, where the angels were humming,
and how they rejoiced when they saw Davy coming!
How his heart filled with joy and his feet felt so light,
and his very own shepherd-friend hugged him so tight.
The hilltop on which this reunion was placed
was so full of their love and their care, it was graced
so it still seemed to glow when the angels had gone...
and after a moment, they all hurried on.
For the angels had told them: The child is coming!
The trees are all clapping, and saplings are thrumming!
The grasses are waving, and rivers are swaying,
and even the stones are immobile with praying!
The sheep finds a home, all the lost reunited,
each valley raised up, and all loving requited.
The stars are alive, and the mountaintop thunders!
Have you not perceived all these marvelous wonders?
They followed as told, and they came to the place
where they saw this new child, like God face-to-face...
and his mother was there, and she looked with delight
as though even she couldn't quite fathom the sight...
For indeed, there was power and love in his eyes,
which were sad, but were clear like the clearest of skies.
And his hands were so small, but they seemed still to hold
all the cares of the world in their little enfold.
And his mouth opened up, and his cry was a call
to come, love him, and follow, whatever befall...
(for they each had the thought, though they pushed it away,
that his life would be heard, and his suffering great.
But that is a story for some other day...)
For right now, we are gathered--we sheep!--on this night,
in this safe and good place, with the room full of light,
with the candles aglow, hemmed with bright red and green,
and we lambs all feel hushed and feel awed by the scene.
For we all have been lost in our tempests and madness,
our schedule-making and crammed-in-routining.
We've lost our companions: our joy and our gladness,
our prayer and thanksgiving and families and meaning.
Now, at last, we are Davy: how tired we've been!--
but tonight, we are rescued. We're safe and serene.
We're surrounded completely by people who care.
They have seen what we've seen. They, like us, are aware
of the beauty of what we most deeply adore,
and the hope for us all God is holding in store.
We are found. We are known, reunited and stilled.
We are sheep of his pasture. May your night be filled
with this wonder, this baby, this child of glory;
the reason we tell this magnificent story.
The story is timeless. God speaks it again.
Christ is here! Christ is born. Alleluia, Amen!
I would wager that none of you ever has yet
heard the story of Christmastime, told by a SHEEP!
For they're not the most clever of beasts that you've met,
and their thinking is not universally deep...
so most authors forget them. Perhaps you did, too.
(I just can't think of one classic heroine ewe!)
And our little lamb Davy was no great exception.
He did not, in his studies, achieve near-perfection.
He missed lots of homework, was never poetic,
did not dream of being a prof or a medic...
No: Davy was Davy. Not Sir, Duke, or Doc.
Not grand, and not special; just one of the flock.
That's the way that sheep like it. One hundred percent.
I just wish we could all be so fully content.
Little Davy was hanging out, munching on stuff
with his group, when he happened to chomp on a tough
little strand of alfalfa. So, nursing his gums
and wishing he'd thought to pack up a few Tums,
he decided to head back to one little pasture
they'd been to that morning, that had the best mums.
If he ran all the way, he'd be back so much faster
that no one would notice a thing, until after.
And so, with this settled inside his small noggin,
when no one was lookin', then off he went joggin'!
At first, all was well. For the day was quite pretty.
The sparrows were chirping a cute little ditty.
The squirrels chattered busily from every tree,
and grasshoppers whirred with a chee-chipee-chee.
The sun was so warm, and the grass was so green,
and it all added up to be such a nice scene,
that perhaps Davy didn't, completely, exactly,
know just where he was, speaking matter-of-factly.
Now I might have mentioned this already once:
that most sheep are less genius than they are dunce.
Poor Davy--the nicest of lambs you could meet,
with impeccable manners, and ever so sweet--
hadn't hatched a good plan. He just hadn't been thinking.
And suddenly, he started having a sinking
suspicion that maybe, he might be alone.
He looked up... looked around... and he saw not a one.
You know how that feels: How at first, you keep peering
around, thinking maybe they're all simply joking,
and then you shout! Someone must be within hearing,
but when they don't answer, you kind of start choking...
and then you start running back toward where you were,
but you really aren't sure, 'cause your thoughts are a blur,
and you might get more lost... so you don't even try,
and not trying at all makes you break down and cry.
That's how Davy felt. He started to bleat,
and he choked, and he sobbed, and lay down in defeat.
It was not too much later the sun started setting.
Poor Davy's kind shepherd had just started getting
all ready to lead the sheep back for the night
to their warm barnyard home in the last of the light,
when he noticed that Davy was not where he should be.
He started to look every place that he could be:
he looked toward the woods, and he looked all around,
and he searched for his tracks in the soft, loamy ground,
and he stopped and he listened for cries being made
by a poor little lamb who was lost and afraid...
...but heard nothing. So, taking a moment to mind
that his flock would be safe, he then set off to find
his lost sheep. (That's what good shepherds always will do.
It has happened to me, and it will to you, too.)
Now where Davy lay down he had fallen asleep:
a small clump of white fluff in a sad little heap
on a round, grassy knoll. As the shadows grew long,
and the evening grew cold, and the night-wind grew strong,
Davy started to stir. He awoke with a start.
He could feel a dread pounding inside of his heart.
His body was aching and cold from the ground,
and his ears were afraid of the tiniest sound.
He heard a twig snap near the edge of the wood.
Was a wolf over there? Was she up to no good?
Would she come through the darkness, all ghoulish and drooling?
Or was he just scared--was his mind only fooling?
Davy looked, but saw darkness. His terror kept growing.
The terrible part was not seeing, not knowing.
I have found this to be true in my life, as well:
where it seems like everything goes great for a spell...
I grow lax, or get lazy, and think to myself:
"I can store up my faith in a box on a shelf.
"I can keep it for later, and not bother now.
"I'm too busy to pray much these days anyhow."
And, guess what? Before long, I don't know where I am.
My days remain full, but my life is a sham.
I get busier, crazier: everything needs me,
but none of it means much and none of it feeds me.
And then, when the fear of aloneness comes on me,
I look for my God. And then prayer is upon me.
Good shepherd, stay near us! I need you beside me.
Your voice is my comfort; your presence will guide me.
So, when I am close, then, especially, teach me.
I won't get so lost, if I let your Word reach me.
Well, Davy's good shepherd was in the dark, hunting.
And Davy was facing his fears, and confronting
the worst he could think... when a strange thing occurred.
(I'm not sure you'll believe me, but please take my word.)
For there, in the sky, came a glorious sight.
Just behind some dark trees came a strange, silver light.
It appeared to be dancing: small fires, all swirling,
and draped with great tendrils that seemed to be curling...
and music was playing--or these lights were singing?--
as though they were glad for some news they were bringing.
Small Davy came running! Perhaps it was only
the thought of just feeling a little less lonely,
but somehow that light shining just past a hill
gave a small frightened sheep just a little more will.
It was help; it was hope. Davy's thin legs ran fleet,
up the hill, and then over... and ...who should he meet?
Maybe some of you smart ones have already guessed.
I suppose I don't need to recount all the rest!
How the shepherds were there, where the angels were humming,
and how they rejoiced when they saw Davy coming!
How his heart filled with joy and his feet felt so light,
and his very own shepherd-friend hugged him so tight.
The hilltop on which this reunion was placed
was so full of their love and their care, it was graced
so it still seemed to glow when the angels had gone...
and after a moment, they all hurried on.
For the angels had told them: The child is coming!
The trees are all clapping, and saplings are thrumming!
The grasses are waving, and rivers are swaying,
and even the stones are immobile with praying!
The sheep finds a home, all the lost reunited,
each valley raised up, and all loving requited.
The stars are alive, and the mountaintop thunders!
Have you not perceived all these marvelous wonders?
They followed as told, and they came to the place
where they saw this new child, like God face-to-face...
and his mother was there, and she looked with delight
as though even she couldn't quite fathom the sight...
For indeed, there was power and love in his eyes,
which were sad, but were clear like the clearest of skies.
And his hands were so small, but they seemed still to hold
all the cares of the world in their little enfold.
And his mouth opened up, and his cry was a call
to come, love him, and follow, whatever befall...
(for they each had the thought, though they pushed it away,
that his life would be heard, and his suffering great.
But that is a story for some other day...)
For right now, we are gathered--we sheep!--on this night,
in this safe and good place, with the room full of light,
with the candles aglow, hemmed with bright red and green,
and we lambs all feel hushed and feel awed by the scene.
For we all have been lost in our tempests and madness,
our schedule-making and crammed-in-routining.
We've lost our companions: our joy and our gladness,
our prayer and thanksgiving and families and meaning.
Now, at last, we are Davy: how tired we've been!--
but tonight, we are rescued. We're safe and serene.
We're surrounded completely by people who care.
They have seen what we've seen. They, like us, are aware
of the beauty of what we most deeply adore,
and the hope for us all God is holding in store.
We are found. We are known, reunited and stilled.
We are sheep of his pasture. May your night be filled
with this wonder, this baby, this child of glory;
the reason we tell this magnificent story.
The story is timeless. God speaks it again.
Christ is here! Christ is born. Alleluia, Amen!
Friday, March 14, 2014
On Human Perfection.
Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle:
"A Portrait of the Magnanimous Man.
The magnanimous man does not take petty risks, nor does he court danger, because there are few things he values highly; but he takes great risks, and when he faces danger he is unsparing of his own life, because to him there are some circumstances in which it is not worth living. He is disposed to confer benefits, but he is ashamed to accept them, because the one is the act of a superior, and the other that of an inferior. When he repays a service, he does so with interest, because in this way the original benefactor will become his debtor and beneficiary. People of this kind are thought to remember the benefits they have conferred, but not those they have received (because the beneficiary is inferior to the benefactor, and the magnanimous man wants to be superior) - and to enjoy being reminded of the former, but not of the latter. Another mark of the magnanimous man is that he never, or only reluctantly, makes a request, whereas he is eager to help others. He cannot bear to live in dependence upon somebody else, except a friend, because such conduct is servile. He is not prone to express admiration, because nothing is great in his eyes."
So goes Aristotle's great ethical teaching. He has described what is to him the most perfect human being ever: one who practices perfect virtue. One who is in every way great. One who is noble, one who acts with distinction in every situation, one who never makes the wrong decision, or speaks out of turn, or gets something on their chin, or dresses inappropriately for the weather. One who always seems to have it all together. A pillar of the community. The Magnanimous Human.
When I first heard this quote read, it was by my High School English teacher. I sat there in class, and--I have to admit, that for a high school student such as I was, essentially a parcel of insecurities wrapped in a very biodegradable sense of identity--the magnanimous man sounded like exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to be liked and respected very highly. I wanted to be looked up to for my greatness. I wanted to be superior to everyone else in every way... and I'd bet that just about everyone else in that class wanted to be superior to me, too.
And there *is* something that feels very superior about Aristotle's portrait. Aristotle's fame has lasted a long time... I wouldn't be surprised if there were many people who find his description to be alluring.
Now you may wonder what all this has to do with 1 Corinthians 13. Here is a beautiful passage by Paul about love, probably one of the most famous of the Bible. Usually we read it at weddings, as a description of the most wonderful thing in our lives, a text which reminds us of the amazing love we have experienced with and for one another. We read it at these weddings as a kind of foretaste of what is to come--this couple's love will be so patient, and so kind, envying nothing. We confer this text upon a couple like a blessing on their united lives, and as a confirmation of the lifestyles of all those who hear it. For we imagine that as we read it, recognizing all its truth and beauty, God looks down upon us and smiles a beneficent smile, and says, "Yes."
When Calvin read this passage, here's what he wrote about it. He said, "I have no doubt that Paul intended this passage to reprimand the Corinthians in an indirect way, by confronting them with a situation quite the reverse of their own, so that they might recognize their own faults by contrast with what they saw."
That is to say, in Calvin's understanding, we read this passage--and God looks down upon us, and smiles a beneficent smile, and says... "Keep trying."
If we want to read this passage as Calvin did, perhaps Aristotle can be of some help to us. Because as I read his description of the Magnanimous Human, there really is some part of me that thinks: "How wonderful to be that person!" and "How wonderful to be so high, and so morally superior!" But to the extent that we chase after Aristotle's vision of respect and superiority, we fall away from Paul's description of Christian love.
Listen to some of the differences, as I place some of these phrases side-by-side.
When I hold these two descriptions against each other, I can feel the difference between them--and I can understand what Calvin is talking about, too. Because Paul's words sound beautiful, so wonderful... but I probably live more of my life based on Aristotle. I probably spend more time counting my favors, giving so that I get back, balancing out my debts and my gifts with the people around me. When I read Paul now, I can really feel the difference between what I usually do--which I thought was okay--and how I am actually called to live.
The great talent of philosophers is that they are able to describe us, as humans: how it is that we are naturally inclined to think. They tell us what our human nature is; they put into words the things that we have all been thinking and feeling anyway. But the difference between that and a theologian is that a theologian is most concerned with telling us what God wants us to be--and what God wants may have very little to do with our natural, everyday habits. What God wants may not be the easiest way of living. But our reading from Paul began, "set your mind on the higher gifts."
If, in this instance, we wanted to boil down the difference between Aristotle and Paul, it might well all be condensed in that word "gift."
Aristotle's image of perfection is a person who always gives more and better than she receives... and makes it a point of pride to do so. Paul writes about a person who loves to give, yes--but whose giving is entirely dependent upon a gift that was first received.
It would seem, then, that if we are to practice Christianity, instead of Philosophy, one thing we might do to grow closer to God would be to cultivate the talent of receiving gracefully. How can we learn to receive more gracefully?
If you think this is a silly question, all you have to do is go into a restaurant, wait until the bill comes, and then watch people argue over who is going to pick up the tab. A furtive hand will sneak across the table. "Oh, no you don't," the other one says, catching a glimpse of this out of the corner of their eye. They take it and pull it towards themselves. "You got the last one. This one is mine."
"No, I asked you here. Please, let me."
"No, really," the second says more gently now: "I owe you."
"Well, then... you'll let me get the next one," the loser finally concedes, and begins instantly to scan his mental calendar for dates when the other might be free for a dinner of some extravagance. "When he repays a service, he does so with interest," Aristotle is whispering somewhere in their heads.
I'm not saying this repartee is a bad thing at all. It's mostly playful--I engage in it myself. But I do think that it points out this general reluctance we feel, either as a culture or as a society or simply as human beings, to accept gifts gracefully. Which is not necessarily a problem, at all times, except for this: I don't believe that it is possible to be a Christian unless one can, on some level, receive a gift that it is impossible to repay.
I just recently visited a friend of mine in Sri Lanka. His parents worked in the civil service, in low-level administration jobs. But they wanted him to get the best education money could buy. So they mortgaged their house to send him to an elite international prep school. And eventually, they lost their home and moved into a small apartment. And in his Senior year--Upper Sixth Form in the British system--he got straight A's on his Advanced Level tests and he got into Cambridge University in England--the Harvard of the UK. But he got only a partial scholarship. So he couldn't go. And his family's educational dreams were, in a sense, over.
He never told me exactly why, but from that time onward he and his parents never really got along. I don't know if they didn't know how to give a gift, or if he didn't know how to receive one, or if there was some other thing going on between them. But I wonder, to myself, if we couldn't find Aristotle lurking in some corner of the story. When a noble person receives a gift, he repays it with interest. When he cannot, he is ashamed.
So his love for his parents erodes.
But Paul tells us to strive for the higher gifts--strive to receive the best gifts of all.
Get rid of Aristotle! Let go of that philosophy, and with it the part of you that is afraid of being inferior. Let go of the pride of believing that you can be self-sufficient, dependent on nothing. It is not possible to be a Christian unless we can each, on some level, in some way, begin to accept the greatest of gifts, which cannot ever be repaid.
"Strive for the higher gifts," Paul says: "and I will show you a still more excellent way."
What is the most excellent gift? Christian love. Christ's love for us--freely offered. We cannot repay it, and we cannot send it back. So what can we do? How can we receive such a gift? All we can do, the best we can do, the highest response we can offer in return is to accept it, allow it, welcome it, remember it, and USE it... and love Jesus, with all our hearts and all God's grace, for it.
That's essentially what worship is, and what we are all doing here. We gather as a community, thanking God. We sing songs of praise, and are light in heart. Flying in the face of Aristotle, we choose to live in dependence upon God; we see no burden in accepting this gift, and no shame--but we believe there is something greater than ourselves, and we express admiration for it in every way we know how, and we love God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. Because when given a gift that is this great, the Excellent Christian celebrates and rejoices. And this is a noble calling indeed.
I don't know how your pew Bibles entitle this passage, but with a nod to Aristotle I want to suggest that you think of 1 Corinthians 13 as A Portrait of the Excellent Christian. And if you are someday sitting at church, or in a Bible Study, or at a wedding--sitting there, as we are now, imperfect things and full of insecurities--and if you hear these words read, I hope they will have as much of an impact upon you as Aristotle once did upon me. And I hope that when you hear them, they take root in some corner of your heart, and you find yourself nodding, and wanting to live in that kind of love, and aching to dwell in that kind of peace, and thinking about striving for the higher gifts. For no matter where we are in our lives, Paul speaks to show us a still more excellent way:
A Portrait of the Excellent Christian:
Though I speak with the tongues of humans or of angels, but have not love, I am nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious, or boastful, or arrogant, or rude.
It does not insist on its own way, but it rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
When I was a child, I believed like a child... but now that I am grown, I have put away childish things.
For now we see as in a glass, dimly--
but then, we shall see face to face.
"A Portrait of the Magnanimous Man.
The magnanimous man does not take petty risks, nor does he court danger, because there are few things he values highly; but he takes great risks, and when he faces danger he is unsparing of his own life, because to him there are some circumstances in which it is not worth living. He is disposed to confer benefits, but he is ashamed to accept them, because the one is the act of a superior, and the other that of an inferior. When he repays a service, he does so with interest, because in this way the original benefactor will become his debtor and beneficiary. People of this kind are thought to remember the benefits they have conferred, but not those they have received (because the beneficiary is inferior to the benefactor, and the magnanimous man wants to be superior) - and to enjoy being reminded of the former, but not of the latter. Another mark of the magnanimous man is that he never, or only reluctantly, makes a request, whereas he is eager to help others. He cannot bear to live in dependence upon somebody else, except a friend, because such conduct is servile. He is not prone to express admiration, because nothing is great in his eyes."
So goes Aristotle's great ethical teaching. He has described what is to him the most perfect human being ever: one who practices perfect virtue. One who is in every way great. One who is noble, one who acts with distinction in every situation, one who never makes the wrong decision, or speaks out of turn, or gets something on their chin, or dresses inappropriately for the weather. One who always seems to have it all together. A pillar of the community. The Magnanimous Human.
When I first heard this quote read, it was by my High School English teacher. I sat there in class, and--I have to admit, that for a high school student such as I was, essentially a parcel of insecurities wrapped in a very biodegradable sense of identity--the magnanimous man sounded like exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to be liked and respected very highly. I wanted to be looked up to for my greatness. I wanted to be superior to everyone else in every way... and I'd bet that just about everyone else in that class wanted to be superior to me, too.
And there *is* something that feels very superior about Aristotle's portrait. Aristotle's fame has lasted a long time... I wouldn't be surprised if there were many people who find his description to be alluring.
Now you may wonder what all this has to do with 1 Corinthians 13. Here is a beautiful passage by Paul about love, probably one of the most famous of the Bible. Usually we read it at weddings, as a description of the most wonderful thing in our lives, a text which reminds us of the amazing love we have experienced with and for one another. We read it at these weddings as a kind of foretaste of what is to come--this couple's love will be so patient, and so kind, envying nothing. We confer this text upon a couple like a blessing on their united lives, and as a confirmation of the lifestyles of all those who hear it. For we imagine that as we read it, recognizing all its truth and beauty, God looks down upon us and smiles a beneficent smile, and says, "Yes."
When Calvin read this passage, here's what he wrote about it. He said, "I have no doubt that Paul intended this passage to reprimand the Corinthians in an indirect way, by confronting them with a situation quite the reverse of their own, so that they might recognize their own faults by contrast with what they saw."
That is to say, in Calvin's understanding, we read this passage--and God looks down upon us, and smiles a beneficent smile, and says... "Keep trying."
If we want to read this passage as Calvin did, perhaps Aristotle can be of some help to us. Because as I read his description of the Magnanimous Human, there really is some part of me that thinks: "How wonderful to be that person!" and "How wonderful to be so high, and so morally superior!" But to the extent that we chase after Aristotle's vision of respect and superiority, we fall away from Paul's description of Christian love.
Listen to some of the differences, as I place some of these phrases side-by-side.
- Aristotle writes, "the Magnanimous Man wants to be superior." Paul writes, "Love does not seek its own advantage."
- Aristotle says the Magnanimous Man is "disposed to confer benefits, but is ashamed to accept them." Paul says, "Love is never jealous, nor boastful, nor conceited."
- Aristotle writes, "The Magnanimous Man is not prone to express admiration, because nothing is great in his eyes." Paul says, "We know only imperfectly... and the greatest of all things is love."
- Aristotle says, "When he repays a service, he does so with interest." Paul says that I can give everything I own, even my own body--but if I do not do it in love, it is worth nothing.
When I hold these two descriptions against each other, I can feel the difference between them--and I can understand what Calvin is talking about, too. Because Paul's words sound beautiful, so wonderful... but I probably live more of my life based on Aristotle. I probably spend more time counting my favors, giving so that I get back, balancing out my debts and my gifts with the people around me. When I read Paul now, I can really feel the difference between what I usually do--which I thought was okay--and how I am actually called to live.
The great talent of philosophers is that they are able to describe us, as humans: how it is that we are naturally inclined to think. They tell us what our human nature is; they put into words the things that we have all been thinking and feeling anyway. But the difference between that and a theologian is that a theologian is most concerned with telling us what God wants us to be--and what God wants may have very little to do with our natural, everyday habits. What God wants may not be the easiest way of living. But our reading from Paul began, "set your mind on the higher gifts."
If, in this instance, we wanted to boil down the difference between Aristotle and Paul, it might well all be condensed in that word "gift."
Aristotle's image of perfection is a person who always gives more and better than she receives... and makes it a point of pride to do so. Paul writes about a person who loves to give, yes--but whose giving is entirely dependent upon a gift that was first received.
It would seem, then, that if we are to practice Christianity, instead of Philosophy, one thing we might do to grow closer to God would be to cultivate the talent of receiving gracefully. How can we learn to receive more gracefully?
If you think this is a silly question, all you have to do is go into a restaurant, wait until the bill comes, and then watch people argue over who is going to pick up the tab. A furtive hand will sneak across the table. "Oh, no you don't," the other one says, catching a glimpse of this out of the corner of their eye. They take it and pull it towards themselves. "You got the last one. This one is mine."
"No, I asked you here. Please, let me."
"No, really," the second says more gently now: "I owe you."
"Well, then... you'll let me get the next one," the loser finally concedes, and begins instantly to scan his mental calendar for dates when the other might be free for a dinner of some extravagance. "When he repays a service, he does so with interest," Aristotle is whispering somewhere in their heads.
I'm not saying this repartee is a bad thing at all. It's mostly playful--I engage in it myself. But I do think that it points out this general reluctance we feel, either as a culture or as a society or simply as human beings, to accept gifts gracefully. Which is not necessarily a problem, at all times, except for this: I don't believe that it is possible to be a Christian unless one can, on some level, receive a gift that it is impossible to repay.
I just recently visited a friend of mine in Sri Lanka. His parents worked in the civil service, in low-level administration jobs. But they wanted him to get the best education money could buy. So they mortgaged their house to send him to an elite international prep school. And eventually, they lost their home and moved into a small apartment. And in his Senior year--Upper Sixth Form in the British system--he got straight A's on his Advanced Level tests and he got into Cambridge University in England--the Harvard of the UK. But he got only a partial scholarship. So he couldn't go. And his family's educational dreams were, in a sense, over.
He never told me exactly why, but from that time onward he and his parents never really got along. I don't know if they didn't know how to give a gift, or if he didn't know how to receive one, or if there was some other thing going on between them. But I wonder, to myself, if we couldn't find Aristotle lurking in some corner of the story. When a noble person receives a gift, he repays it with interest. When he cannot, he is ashamed.
So his love for his parents erodes.
But Paul tells us to strive for the higher gifts--strive to receive the best gifts of all.
Get rid of Aristotle! Let go of that philosophy, and with it the part of you that is afraid of being inferior. Let go of the pride of believing that you can be self-sufficient, dependent on nothing. It is not possible to be a Christian unless we can each, on some level, in some way, begin to accept the greatest of gifts, which cannot ever be repaid.
"Strive for the higher gifts," Paul says: "and I will show you a still more excellent way."
What is the most excellent gift? Christian love. Christ's love for us--freely offered. We cannot repay it, and we cannot send it back. So what can we do? How can we receive such a gift? All we can do, the best we can do, the highest response we can offer in return is to accept it, allow it, welcome it, remember it, and USE it... and love Jesus, with all our hearts and all God's grace, for it.
That's essentially what worship is, and what we are all doing here. We gather as a community, thanking God. We sing songs of praise, and are light in heart. Flying in the face of Aristotle, we choose to live in dependence upon God; we see no burden in accepting this gift, and no shame--but we believe there is something greater than ourselves, and we express admiration for it in every way we know how, and we love God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. Because when given a gift that is this great, the Excellent Christian celebrates and rejoices. And this is a noble calling indeed.
I don't know how your pew Bibles entitle this passage, but with a nod to Aristotle I want to suggest that you think of 1 Corinthians 13 as A Portrait of the Excellent Christian. And if you are someday sitting at church, or in a Bible Study, or at a wedding--sitting there, as we are now, imperfect things and full of insecurities--and if you hear these words read, I hope they will have as much of an impact upon you as Aristotle once did upon me. And I hope that when you hear them, they take root in some corner of your heart, and you find yourself nodding, and wanting to live in that kind of love, and aching to dwell in that kind of peace, and thinking about striving for the higher gifts. For no matter where we are in our lives, Paul speaks to show us a still more excellent way:
A Portrait of the Excellent Christian:
Though I speak with the tongues of humans or of angels, but have not love, I am nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious, or boastful, or arrogant, or rude.
It does not insist on its own way, but it rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
When I was a child, I believed like a child... but now that I am grown, I have put away childish things.
For now we see as in a glass, dimly--
but then, we shall see face to face.
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