"He Was Happy" (Luke 19:1-10)

Someone Who Believed in Me

I grew up with a soccer ball never too far from my feet. My dad made sure of that. He had taught at a high school in Nigeria for a couple of years, and while he was there he had fallen in love with soccer. My older brother took me under his wing when I was old enough to play. In our backyard, he taught me proper technique and all sorts of tricks. Entire afternoons would be lost as we played against one another. I was an attacker, he was a defender. Like iron sharpening iron, we made each other better. Because we never fell into the same age bracket, we never played on the same team. But he would show up at my games, and I would show up at his. His support meant a lot to me.

About seven years ago, I began to play in an adult recreational league. It was exhilarating to be playing soccer again, but it took a while to recover everything I had learned—in part because I was playing on a team of strangers, and it takes time to build relationships and earn the trust of your teammates. A couple years later, my brother, who had been living in Texas, returned to Virginia. (As some of you know, he’s pastor at Goochland Baptist Church.) I invited him to join my soccer team. For the first time in our lives, we would be playing on the same team. I remember vividly the first game we played together. I played better than I had in years. Usually, if I were lucky, I might score a single goal in a game. In that game, I scored four. Everything I tried came off. You know how sports players will sometimes point to the heavens after they accomplish a great feat, as if to say, that wasn’t all me? Well, that’s how I felt.

But I don’t believe that God above had preordained that I would have an amazing game that night. I believe the reason for my performance was much closer to the ground. That night, I was playing the game with someone who believed in me. My brother was shouting encouragement at every turn, urging me to shoot when I had a shot, celebrating when I scored a goal. The paradox is that what I did that night, was very much within my capabilities. My body knew all the right motions. Yet, it had never put them together like that before. It needed to be unlocked, unleashed. I think that is what my brother did, just by being there, just by believing in me.

I’m willing to bet that, if you consider your own life, you will find similar moments, when another person’s belief in you called forth from you something you did not know you had. Maybe it was a spouse’s support that inspired you in a difficult time, or a child’s love and trust that made you more responsible than you knew yourself to be.

“What Is Impossible for Mortals”

Nobody believed in Zacchaeus. We learn this in the middle of today’s scripture, when Luke tells us that everyone in the crowd grumbled about him that he was “a sinner” (19:7). Maybe this reputation is because he is a tax collector who takes more than his share. Or maybe he simply fails to live according to the moral standards of his Jewish community. In either case, his reputation precedes him. I remember as a child thinking that Jesus spoke Zacchaeus’ name as a demonstration of his divine knowledge. Now I think he spoke Zacchaeus’ name simply because he had already heard all the grumbling about Zacchaeus, this sinner of Jericho. Now I think that if Jesus’ address to Zacchaeus demonstrates any sort of divine power, it is not the power of knowing everything, but rather the power of love. Jesus believes in Zacchaeus.

Luke’s introduction of Zacchaeus—“he was a chief tax collector and was rich” (Luke 19:2)—draws a comparison between him and a rich man whom Jesus has only moments ago encountered. In the previous chapter, a rich man asks Jesus how he might receive the fullness of life. Jesus invites him to sell his possessions and follow him, but the rich man cannot let go of his riches. He walks away from Jesus sad, and Jesus laments, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” When the disciples ask, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus answers, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God” (18:18-26).

In other words, there are some things we cannot do by our own will. It takes something outside of us to unlock us. For me on the soccer field, that outside something was my brother’s belief in me. If you’re familiar with fairy tales, you might recall that very often what breaks the evil enchantment is not a person’s own magical power or intelligence. It is someone else’s kiss. Love breaks the shackles of the spell and liberates the enslaved person.

That is precisely what we see in Zacchaeus. Luke tells us that when Jesus invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ home, Zacchaeus is “happy”—or “joyful” is probably a better translation (19:6). Perhaps for the first time in years, Zacchaeus feels that someone else loves him and believes in him. Here is someone who does not judge him, someone who does not look at him with recrimination. Here is someone who, before anything else, desires to spend time with him. He scrambles quickly down the tree, and soon he does what the rich man was unable to do. He gives away half his possessions and pays back four times all his fraudulent profits (which may well account for the remaining half of his possessions). Jesus then pronounces, “Today salvation has come to this house” (19:9).

What’s fascinating here is the order of events. Usually, in our world, repentance comes first, and forgiveness comes second. Forgiveness must be earned. “Tell me you’re sorry. Prove it to me.” But this course of action is often counter-productive. Shame does not unlock a person. It does not liberate us. If anything, it isolates a person and closes them off to the world. Shame shuts us down. Jesus shows us another way. He makes no demands on Zacchaeus other than that they eat together.[1] Zacchaeus’ joy suddenly unleashes a whole new person. This is what repentance means anyway—a change of mind. What this story suggests is that forgiveness comes before repentance, that forgiveness can help to change a person’s mind. Just as my brother unlocked certain abilities within me on the soccer field, just as a kiss awakens the sleeping beauty or transforms the toad prince, Jesus’ acceptance of Zacchaeus changes his mind. Trusting in his own goodness, he lives not out of fear and greed but out of love for others.

Jesus at Our Tables

Growing up in a church where we shared the Lord’s supper only once a month and in great solemnity, I understood the Lord’s table to be an almost magical, otherworldly fixture. The Lord’s table was the sacred property of the church; it had scripture printed on it and fine silver lying on its surface. It required silence and a recollection of my sin and shame.

But today’s scripture turns the tables on my old understanding. Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ table. He turns our tables into his own. The Lord’s table is not a heavenly table descended to earth, but an earthly table blessed with God’s love. It is not a table that requires our penance, but a table that declares we are accepted just as we are. The rest of the world might look upon such a table and say it’s folly. If you just accept people as they are, they’ll never change or grow! But Zacchaeus’ story suggests otherwise.

Remember the rich man who could not let go of his money and follow Jesus? If ever there was a picture of a model disciple, it would appear to be him. He says he has followed the commandments since his youth. And as if that weren’t enough, he wants to know what else to do. He’s the student every teacher dreams of. But when it comes down to it, he cannot learn. He cannot change and grow as Zacchaeus does. Why? Let me suggest an unconventional—even ridiculous—interpretation. It’s because he’s not happy. I’m not talking about superficial happiness, but about the deep joy that Zacchaeus feels when he learns that Jesus believes in him and accepts him as he is. The rich man is uneasy and unhappy; he does not believe that God accepts him as he is. For this reason, he feels compelled to secure his life by power and wealth. He cannot let go of it.

The good news of Zacchaeus is that we do not need to secure God’s love. It is already ours. Christ accepts us as we are and makes our broken tables his own. And his acceptance does what we could never do on our own. It is like the kiss that breaks the enchantment. It is like when someone’s belief in us unlocks unbelievable capabilities within ourselves. When we receive Christ’s acceptance, it makes us deeply happy; it changes our mind about who we are…and may transform us in ways we could never foresee.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You make our tables
Your own table.
Help us to know
The joy Zacchaeus felt.
Help us to feel your kiss on our lives,
Your steadfast belief in us.
…
Awaken us to a fuller life.
May salvation come to our houses today:
Amen.

---

[1] Scholars point out that the language in this text bears strong connotations of table hospitality.

Written on the Heart (Jer 31:27-34)

Is It All Over?

For the people of Judah, the Temple was not only a site of worship. It was a symbol of God’s presence and protection. Seeing the smoke rise from its daily sacrifices and smelling their pleasing odors would have assured the people of God’s nearness. Many people assumed that the Temple would stand forever. After all, God had promised King David that his kingdom would have no end (2 Sam 7:12-13). According to Jeremiah, the leaders of Judah encouraged this perception. They would say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” (7:4). Imagine a national parade in which flags are raised and glory is proclaimed and the nation’s demise is simply inconceivable. For many people, that feeling of triumph and eternity accompanied the Temple. As long as it was standing, they knew that God was on their side. And they believed it would always be standing.

But then one day, it wasn’t. When Babylon conquered Jerusalem in 587 BCE, it destroyed the Temple. Suddenly the people were thrown into doubt. The Temple’s destruction meant that maybe God was not on their side. It meant that maybe God had left them. They felt desolate and wondered if they had thrown it all away. They wondered if they had broken God’s covenant beyond repair.

Maybe you know what this feels like. We all have little Temples of our own—people, places, possessions, achievements that somehow become the meaning of life for us. When these little Temples suddenly collapse, we are left wondering if it is all over. Maybe it is divorce, or the loss of a job, or serious financial trouble, or a relapse. Whatever it is, we are suddenly left feeling very alone and wondering if we blew it.

Getting Past Our Deeds to God’s Love

To a people who felt like they had blown it, Jeremiah announces a curious prophecy. On the one hand, the first thirty chapters or so of Jeremiah are precisely an announcement of having blown it. Jeremiah declares the unsavory truth that deeds have consequences. In the case of Judah, the people had violated God’s covenant so boldly and for so long, neglecting the poor and vulnerable and chasing after their own greed, that their society had become divided against itself and crumbled. God describes the consequences that Judah must endure in terms of a clearing out: God will “pluck up and break down,” “overthrow” and “destroy” (31:28). We might flinch to hear this terminology of judgment, particularly if we apply it to our own lives and those moments when our world has suddenly collapsed, but it may help to understand that God’s judgment here is not a matter of punishment or retribution. It is simply the consequence of our own deeds.

But if Jeremiah proclaims the difficult truth that deeds have consequences, he also proclaims an even deeper truth. Consequences do not define us. God’s love does. “As I have watched over them to pluck up and break down…so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord” (31:28). Earlier in the same chapter, God declares God’s motivation for restoration, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (31:3).

When our Temples collapse, the tendency is to think that we are done. We mistake our identity for what we have done—in particular what we have done wrong. We identify with our scars. We think they tell the whole story, a story of our failure and our not-enough-ness. (We might forget that when God first marked a human for his wrongdoing, it was not a mark of punishment, but a mark of protection. God marked Cain out of love, so that he would live.)

“I’m Gonna Tattoo That on My Heart”

Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention and rehabilitation program in Los Angeles. Today his ministry supports over 10,000 men and women who are escaping the vicious cycle of violence and incarceration. Greg explains that the gang members who enter into the program share one thing in common: they all have grown up in terribly deprived and hurtful settings. Early in their lives, they absorb the destructive message that they are not worth anything, which becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy as they embark on destructive gang careers. Degraded and abandoned as little children, they act out their perceived worthlessness on the streets.

One day, Greg was struggling with Sharkey, a “particularly exasperating homie.” (“Homie” is the affectionate name that the former gang members have for one another). Greg realized that he had been acting harshly toward Sharkey and expecting too much from him. So, he decided to switch his strategy and catch Sharkey in the act of doing something good. He praised him for his bravery. He pointed out that Sharkey’s old peers had a “hollow” bravery, acting violently but never trying to change their circumstances, whereas Sharkey had actually given up his old ways and was forging a new life for himself. He told Sharkey, “You are a giant among men. I mean it.” Suddenly, Sharkey grew silent and stared at him. Then he said, “[Dang], G…I’m gonna tattoo that on my heart.”[1]

Many of the homies whom Greg serves are covered in tattoos. In fact, one of the services his ministry provides is tattoo-removal. It can be a big help when a homie is looking for employment—as most employers steer away from people with hateful words and images etched prominently onto their faces or forearms. It strikes me that tattoo removal for these homies is more than simply erasing a piece of body art. It is liberating them from their old identity, promising them that they are not defined by their past deeds. They didn’t blow it. Their race is not run. What defines them is not the past tattooed on their skin, but the unconditional love that gives them new life—the unconditional love that Sharkey wanted to tattoo on his heart.

Covenant Re-understood

When God declares God’s love to the people of Judah and promises restoration, God also declares a new covenant that will be different from the old covenant. To hear God describe it, the difference is not so much the content of the covenant, which was and always will be God’s unconditional love for the people (cf. Deut 30:1-5); the difference is how the people understand the covenant. Earlier, God says, the people broke the covenant. They did not trust in it. They did not trust that God’s love would give them life, but instead sought life in the competitive realms of wealth and power and reputation. But this time, God says, they will trust in God and know God “for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (31:34). In other words, the difference between their first understanding of the covenant and this second, renewed understanding of the covenant, is what has happened in between. They have done all the wrong things, and God still loves them. They blew it, but God loves them just as much as ever. God cannot magically erase all the consequences of their past deeds, but God’s love can draw them beyond the past into new life.

God describes this renewed understanding of covenant in the most intimate of terms. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it”—tattoo it?—“on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (31:33).

Greg Boyle tells another story about a homie named Miguel. As a little child, Miguel had been mistreated and abused by his family. Then one day they abandoned him. He grew up an orphan. Over a recent Thanksgiving holiday, he had no family to join, so he invited several other homies who were orphans like him over to his home. Later, he proudly told Greg that he had cooked a turkey. “How’d you do that?” Greg asked. “You know, ghetto-style,” he replied. When Greg shared that he wasn’t familiar with the recipe, Miguel explained, “Well, you just rub it with a gang a’ butter, throw a bunch a’ salt and pepper on it, squeeze a couple of limones over it and put it in the oven. It tasted proper.” Marveling over Miguel’s hospitality and kindness of heart, Greg asked him, “How do you do it? I mean, given all that you’ve been through—all the pain and stuff you’ve suffered—how are you like the way you are?” Miguel responded, “You know, I always suspected that there was something of goodness in me, but I just couldn’t find it. Until one day,”—he quieted a bit—“one day, I discovered it in here, in my heart. I found it…goodness. And ever since that day, I have always known who I was. And now, nothing can touch me.”[2]

Miguel had discovered the ancient, everlasting covenant of which Jeremiah spoke. Just like Sharkey before him, who gave us an updated translation of Jeremiah, “Dang, G…I’m gonna tattoo that on my heart.” This covenant written on our heart is not that our temples will stand forever and that we will be successful in all that we do. It’s deeper than that. It’s a covenant of God’s care, and it will be standing even when our temples collapse. (And for some of us, it may be only when our temples collapse that we become fully aware of it.) It’s a covenant that cannot be broken by the past or anything we’ve done or even death itself. When this covenant is written on our heart, when God’s love defines us, everything is transformed. It’s like we were in a prison of our own making, and suddenly we are free. Nothing can touch us because we know who we are. We are God’s beloved, and we are here to love.

Prayer

Tender father and mother of us all,
God of steadfast care—
Help us to accept
Our past,
Its difficult consequences,
And our responsibility
…
And help us to know
What defines us—
Not these things
But what is written on our heart:
Your love,
Which is making all things new.
In Christ, our brother: Amen.

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[1] Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (New York: Free, 2010), xiv.

[2] Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, 88-89.

Right Where You Are (Jer 29:1, 4-7)

“I Know the Plans I Have for You”

There’s a good chance you’ve read it on a piece of devotional paraphernalia, maybe a magnet or a bumper sticker or a card of encouragement. You may have heard it on television or the radio, spoken by someone promising good things just around the corner. If you grew up in the church, you may have memorized it at some point. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’”—Jeremiah 29:11.

But did you know that those words were spoken to a people who were doomed to live the rest of their lives in the land of their enemy? Did you know those words were spoken to a people whose future was learning a new language, scraping out a subsistence among strangers, and living under the suspicious eyes of their Babylonian conquerors?

When the people of Judah first went into exile, many of them hoped for a speedy return to their homeland. In fact, in the chapter before our scripture today, Jeremiah gets into a fierce debate with another prophet, Hananiah. Hananiah tells the people not to worry. He prophesies that they will return to their homeland in just a couple of years. Jeremiah disagrees. He prophesies that they will only return to their homeland after seventy years. If you’re like me, and you choose whichever weather forecast suits your plans best, then you can imagine which of these prophets was more popular among the people. 

“Make Your Homes There”

Yet it is the unpopular prophet, Jeremiah, the one who announces that they are in Babylon for the long haul, who declares God’s famous promise to prosper the people and not to harm them, to give them hope and a future. All of which begs the question: how does a lifetime of exile fit in with God’s promise of prospering?  Where is the hope in knowing that you and your children will spend most if not all of your lives living in the land of your enemy?

We read elsewhere in scripture that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, God’s ways not our ways (Isa 55:8-9). This situation is a perfect example. The typical human response to a difficult or uncomfortable situation is fight, flight, or freeze and appease. First, the people of Judah had fought the Babylonians. Now that they are defeated, some of them are hoping for a speedy flight from their exile, a quick return to their homeland. Others of them are frozen in fear. They are playing dead, so to speak; they are considering putting their Israelite identity to death in order to become as Babylonian as possible, to appease their new lords and make their lives easier in the land.

But God has a different plan than fight, flight, or freeze and appease. We hear it in our scripture today, which is actually part of the same scripture from which we get that famous promise to prosper the people and to give them hope and a future. To all the exiles in Babylon, God says, “Make your homes there. Grow your families there. Seek the peace of the enemy among whom you live, and pray for them. Their peace is your peace” (29:5-7).

I’m going to go out on a limb and say, this is not what the people of Judah wanted to hear. No more than Jesus’ disciples would have wanted to hear him say, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:27-28). This way of living does not come naturally to us. It is counterintuitive. God is effectively saying, “The good life is right where you are. Live it there!” (Excuse me, God, have you seen where I’m living?)

Fight, flight, and freeze and appease, are all responses that look for life somewhere else: in the future or in a different place. They all presuppose that the present time and place is somehow lacking and needs to be changed. They either try to change it themselves by force, or they wait for the change to happen. By contrast, God invites the people to make their home in the present and to bless it. We see this in other Bible stories of exile, such as the stories of Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These young Hebrew men neither fought the Babylonian empire nor fled from it nor tried to appease it. Instead, they made their home there. They even served in its high court. They lived, however, not as citizens of Babylon, but as followers of God. In all their life—from what they ate to how they worshipped—they bore witness to God’s care.

From Daniel in Babylon to Dan in America

Dan Nanamkin is a Native American of the Colville Reservation in Washington state. Like the people to whom Jeremiah prophesied, Dan and his people are living in a sort of exile themselves. They will never be able to return to the life that their ancestors once enjoyed. Many of them fought the changes to their land a long time ago. Now many of them flee from it; the rates of addiction among Native Americans are disproportionately high. Some of them have relinquished their cultural heritage in an attempt to assimilate. But Dan has chosen a different response. He has dedicated his life to sharing the sacred stories of his tradition and seeking the welfare of the land and the people who dwell on it.

Several years ago, Dan showed up at Standing Rock, where many Native Americans and others were pleading against the construction of an oil pipeline through reservation territory. The threat to the land had brought together a diverse company, as more and more people came to share a concern for the land. Dan’s appearance made for quite a scene. On the one side of the blockade was a massive armed force, which occasionally resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets. On the other side, was Dan, in full regalia, and always singing. His presence was magnetic and made a particular impression on one reporter, who identified him as “one of the most prayerful, peaceful people” there.[1]

Crushed Into the Ground…As Seeds

Dan’s story inspires me. It is like the story of Judah in Babylon. It is like the story of Jesus in our world. All of these stories show us the way of God. It is the way of God to make a home right where you are and to bless those around you. To meet the sword with a song. There is a Oaxacan saying that captures this way of God beautifully, “You crushed us into the ground, but you didn’t know we were seeds.” That’s it. We are seeds. Right where we are.

These stories invite me to ask, “What is my hope?” Is it that God will make things the way that I want them to be? If that’s the case, I may well be disappointed. If, as Paul suggests, hope is about what I cannot possibly see or foresee (Rom 8;24; cf. Heb 11:1), then perhaps I need to relinquish what I wish for in my mind’s eye. I wonder: what would the people of Judah have hoped for, marooned among their enemies? What does Dan hope for, living amid an empire that threatens his people’s land? What did Jesus hope for, as he made his way toward Jerusalem and the cross? Perhaps their hope all has less to do with certain results, which are out of our hands anyway, and more to do with their witness and the way that they lived. Perhaps they are simply hoping for the strength to make their home right where they are and to bless the world around them.

What results from making our home right where we are and blessing the world around us, is not for us to say. But God does indicate in Jeremiah’s prophecy that it may take a surprising shape. “In their welfare (shalom) will be your welfare (shalom)” (29:7; my trans.). In other words, what first seemed like an irredeemably hostile situation may turn into a new community of friends.

When I pause to think about it…that looks and sounds a lot like the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed.

Prayer

Courageous Christ,
Whose way leads
To the cross and beyond—
In your tender care,
Disarm us of our selfish hopes
…
Help us to make our home
Right where we are,
And to bear witness to your love,
By which we and others may together know peace. 

Amen.

 

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[1] Camille Seaman, “A Native American Faces Teargas, Baton Charges and Rubber Bullets,” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/may/04/standing-rock-pipeline-protest-native-american-tear-gas-batons-rubber-bullets-camille-seamans-best-photograph, accessed October 4, 2022.

"Salvation in the Earth" (Ps 74:1-17)

A Lesson in Honesty

This World Communion Sunday, we’re taking a small break from Jeremiah. Our scripture today is instead from the Psalms. But Psalm 74 is not very far from Jeremiah. It is written in the same circumstances, in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest—after the temple has been destroyed and desecrated and the people have been exiled to a strange land.

The Psalms have long served as models for prayer in both Jewish and Christian traditions. Which is fascinating, because their prayers are sometimes scandalously unorthodox, wishing vengeance on their opponents and death on their enemies. Rabbis and priests have long pointed out that the psalms actually contain some “bad” theology. That is, they do not always portray God in an even-handed way. Yet for whatever they might get wrong, they get the first thing right: honesty. Honesty is the first step in any prayer, just as it is in any real relationship. If we are always pretending, always wearing a mask, always guarding ourselves, then the relationship will never reach our heart. We will never grow. We will never heal.

As we read our scripture this morning, notice the psalmist’s honest feelings. Notice his accusations against God. Notice his doubts and fears. And then, notice how his tone changes. Notice how after he has opened his heart, hope enters in. Notice how his feelings do not give way to despair but are transformed, as though by some quiet whisper from God.

[Read scripture.]

A Hymn of Creation

“Why have you left us, God? Do you see what they have done to us—to you? Why do you keep silent?” These are the honest questions that plague the psalmist, and so the psalmist gives voice to them. The truth, as we have explored in the past weeks, is not so much that God has left Judah, but that Judah had long ago left God. But the psalmist is not completely wrong. Feelings never tell the whole truth, but they usually contain a kernel of it. The psalmist’s feeling of alienation is accurate. It feels like God is missing. Where is God?

After the psalmist bears their heart, there is a pregnant pause and then a different voice seems to speak. “Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth” (Ps 74:12). Who is this hopeful voice? The psalmist still? Many scholars believe that here the psalmist is actually reciting an ancient hymn. It is as though in the quiet of their heart, a song of faith, perhaps one from their childhood, stirs and reminds them where God is and where God works salvation. God “work[s] salvation in the earth.” The ancient hymn recounts how God created the earth: how God tamed the chaos of the sea; how God arranged the various water ways so that they would nourish the dry land; how God choreographed the dance of the sun and the moon and the stars so that there would be daylight in which to work and darkness in which to rest; how God orchestrated the weather and the seasons from summer to winter so that a healthy rhythm of life could be established.

This ancient hymn views life through the wide lens of faith rather than the narrow lens of the psalmist’s feelings. It’s like moving from an iPhone screen to an IMAX screen. This is not to say that the psalmist’s feelings are wrong. It is, rather, to say that only by being honest about their feelings are they able to move authentically through them and beyond them. Only by first feeling God’s absence are they able to consider a response to their feelings, something bigger and more real than their feelings. Something about this ancient hymn of creation rings true with the psalmist, and that’s why they sing it. We might reimagine the psalmist’s inner dialogue as something like this: “It feels like God is absent now that the temple is destroyed and the land is lost…. But surely God is bigger than any temple or any plot of land. God’s care is still evident in all of creation, isn’t it? In the sun that keeps coming up, the rains that keep falling, the seasons and the soil that yields the harvest in due time….These are echoes of God’s salvation.”

A Second-Rate Salvation?

It is not uncommon for Christians to identify salvation as the afterlife, as something that happens later. But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out, the biblical story presents salvation as this-worldly, as something that happens in the here and now. In the Old Testament, God’s salvation for the Israelites is freedom from slavery and oppression; it is water and manna when they are hungry and thirsty; it is homes and fields and vineyards for the landless poor. As our psalm puts it today, God works salvation “in the earth.” In the New Testament, Jesus declares the good news that God’s kingdom is at hand, and even that it’s already here. On the few occasions when Jesus tells stories that envision a reality after death (such as the rich man in Hades, or the people separated as sheep and goats), these stories always serve to invite his listeners into a fuller life now, one that is rooted and grounded in God’s ever-present love. Jesus doesn’t glorify an otherworldly afterlife, where streets are paved with gold and you have everything you could ever want. He glorifies the stuff of this life—the serenity of birds, the beauty of wild flowers, the sun and the rain that fall on us all; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts. All of these things sing God’s love, which is salvation for us now (and of course salvation for us later too!).

If Christians have sometimes been guilty of treating this-worldly salvation as second-rate compared to whatever may happen later—instead of treating everything as the single, continuous reality of God’s love for us—then the example of Francis of Assisi from the thirteenth century shows us it doesn’t have to be that way. Included in your bulletin is an excerpt from Francis’ famous “Canticle of Creation,” a song of praise which is not unlike what we find in the ancient hymn of creation in Psalm 74. In it, Francis praises God through the many elements of creation, including sun, moon, and stars, wind and weather, earth and its produce. Addressing each element intimately as brother or sister, he celebrates how it contributes to the full flourishing of life. Such is the depth of his appreciation, that he seems to be living fully in the presence of God already. One of his acquaintances remarked: “We who were with him saw him always in such joy, inwardly and outwardly, over all creatures, touching and looking at them, so that it seemed that his spirit was no longer on earth but in heaven.”^[1]

Safe and at Home in the World:

God in All Things

Francis lived in such close communion with creation, that he could not help but feel close to the Creator. Francis felt at home on this earth. He felt safe. (Which is the root meaning of salvation.) He felt God’s love in all things. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to feel that way. I’d like to look at creation and have a deep sense, along with the psalmist and with Francis, that God’s love is in all things.

I heard the story once of a man who taught his children reverence for the bugs that made it into their house, even the dangerous ones. When a wasp intruded, he would wait until it stopped frantically bumping against the windowpane; then he would place a glass on it and slowly slide a thick piece of paper under the glass. His children would come close and study the wasp as it cautiously explored its new temporary home. He would then gently take the glass outside and remove the paper, and the children would watch as the rescued wasp slowly walked to the edge of the glass, spread its wings, and flew off into the garden.

One day, as a neighbor was visiting in their yard, the man’s youngest son suddenly exclaimed, “Look, Daddy! What’s that?” He looked and replied, “A beetle.” The son was fascinated with the iridescent colors of its shell. The neighbor, completely oblivious, lifted his shoe and stomped on the insect. “That ought to do it,” he laughed. The boy looked up to his father, waiting for an explanation. But his father didn’t want to embarrass their neighbor. That night, as the father was turning out his son’s lights, the son whispered, “I liked that beetle, Daddy.” The father whispered back, “I did too.”[2]

Strangely, this story fills me with sadness and hope at the same time. Sadness for the boy’s innocence and sense of loss. But hope to be reminded that such hearts still beat in our world, and hope that mine might become one too. For the spirit here seems to me to be the spirit of Francis, who was at home in our world, who felt safe because he sensed God’s presence and love in all of life—in wasps and beetles, in sun and rain, at day and at night. He even sensed God’s presence and love in death (or as he called her, Sister Death). He grasped the same good news that our psalmist grasped, a good news that is bigger than any of our feelings, whatever kernel of truth they contain. Creation—reality—the here and hereafter—is God’s work of salvation, a labor of love.

Prayer

Tender God,
Whose love finds fullest expression
In flesh and flora and fauna—
When we honestly cannot see you,
Help us to say so,
And to listen
…
Lead us from our feelings
To a faith that is older than time,
That senses your work of salvation
In all of creation. In Christ, who takes flesh and dwells among us: Amen.

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[1] Richard Rohr, “A Cosmic Mutuality,” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-cosmic-mutuality-2020-10-06/, accessed September 26, 2022.

[2] Paraphrased from Christopher De Vinck, The Power of the Powerless (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 4-5.