Bearing Each Other's Burdens (Gal 6:1-5)

A Different Way Than the Empire’s Way

In the fourth century, Christianity went from being a persecuted faith to becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire. You would think that was a good thing. No more persecution, right? But curiously, this moment inspired a mass exodus of Christ-followers from the cities to the desert. At the very moment that the Roman Empire accepted Christianity, many Christ-followers rejected the Roman Empire and fled into the wilderness. Why? Because they could see that the empire’s way was not the way of Christ. If they lived as citizens of the empire, they would risk compromising their faith. Many early Christ-followers rejected the class system of Roman society, welcoming slaves and foreigners and the poor as equals, but as citizens they would be expected to honor the class system and uphold it. Many early Christ-followers rejected violence, but now they would be expected to enlist in the Roman army and take up the sword.

This mass exodus of Christ-followers to the wilderness resulted in a fascinating grassroots movement. Its participants developed such a reputation that they came to be known as “the Desert Fathers and Mothers.” The Desert Fathers and Mothers bore witness to the way of Christ in a revolutionary, countercultural manner. And although they aspired to holiness and the kingdom of God, they were anything but pretentious. Rather, they were humble, painstakingly honest about their condition, and often surprisingly humorous.

Ammonas Condemns the Accusers and Saves the Condemned

I was reminded of the Desert Fathers and Mothers when I read this week’s scripture, where Paul instructs the Galatians to restore sinners “in a spirit of gentleness.” I must confess, scriptures like this one make me anxious because they acknowledge the reality of confrontation. Generally, when I sense that someone else may be caught up in a particular sin, in something that is unhealthy to themselves or others, I would prefer to ignore the situation or to cast judgment on it safely from afar. In either case, I would prefer to keep my distance. The church has historically behaved in a similar manner. Today, we have only to open the newspaper to read the story of another cover-up, where a church was afraid of addressing situations of abuse, often perpetrated by its own leaders. On the other hand, the church has often exercised a heavy hand of judgment against its enemies, quick to blame and shame the people with whom it disagrees. In either case, it has kept a safe distance from the situation and avoided any genuine efforts at restoration.

Thankfully, though, there are followers of Christ who have actually put into practice the countercultural manner of confrontation and restoration that Paul is preaching here. There are examples for us to consider. The Desert Fathers and Mothers give us one of those examples. Ancient Rome had an honor-shame culture, much like our own today. It judged people according to the merit of their actions and punished them accordingly. But the Desert Fathers and Mothers followed Christ and exemplified another way. When the Desert Father Ammonas learned that a fellow monk “of evil reputation” had received a woman visitor for illicit purposes, he dropped in on him. Now, several others were already there, pointing the finger and accusing the monk of wrongdoing. Ammonas knew that their accusations were accurate. In fact, he could tell that the woman was in the room with the monk, but hiding in a large cask. The story goes that he kept this a secret “for the sake of God.” In fact, he sat on the cask and then commanded the rest of the room to be searched. When no woman was found, Ammonas reprimanded the accusers, saying, “May God forgive you!” After they left, however, he turned to his fellow monk, and said, “Brother, be on your guard.”[1]

Care, Not Condemnation

By the standards of our culture, Ammonas has it all backwards. He does not rebuke the man who is guilty of sexual sin. Instead, he rebukes the accusers—even though their accusation is correct! He condemns the self-righteous accusers and saves the condemned. Ammonas knows his fellow monk has done wrong, but he does not point the finger. He does not judge him or give him unsolicited advice. He only expresses concern for him: “Brother, be on your guard.”

One of the curiosities of today’s scripture is the way that Paul begins by talking about a “transgression” but later speaks in terms of “burdens.” In today’s culture, wrongdoing is understood fundamentally in terms of crime and punishment. You do the crime, you serve the time. But Paul says that when we detect a brother or sister in a transgression, we should “bear [their] burdens” (6:2). In other words, Paul understands wrongdoing as a burden, a wound, as an affliction. First and foremost, it requires care, not condemnation.

Care, Not Control

To bear a burden is simply to feel its weight. What is heavy for someone else, becomes heavy for us. Bearing a burden, however, does not mean controlling it or becoming personally responsible for it. When Paul says, “Take care that you yourselves are not tempted,” the context of the letter suggests that he is referring to the temptation to judge and manage someone else’s life. At the end of today’s scripture, Paul talks about taking responsibility for our “own work” and concludes by saying, “All must carry their own loads” (6:5). Here, again, Paul seems to be advising against our kneejerk instinct to manage other people’s lives for them. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that instinct. When someone else is uncomfortable or not doing well, I become uncomfortable too. I want to help them, but really it’s because I want to feel better myself. I want to be in control. But Paul says that when another person is lost and hurting, our responsibility is not to control them. It’s to care for them.

I think, again, Ammonas provides a good example. He does not judge his fellow monk or exclude him or try to fix him. He has compassion for him, but he does not try to control him or change him. (My dad is fond of telling me that the only person you can change…is a person who wears diapers.) Ammonas merely invites his fellow monk to be honest with himself and with God—who is the only one who can truly heal and restore a person anyway.

What Is Healing Our World

Today’s scripture is an uncomfortable message for our world, and perhaps for that very reason a necessary one. Because our world gravitates to the comfort of two extremes. Either it takes a hands-off, laissez-faire approach to sin, letting people living their own lives and quietly suffer the consequences; or it takes a hands-on, judgmental approach, naming and blaming and shaming people, excluding them without any sympathy or effort toward restoration. Either way, it says, “Not my problem!”

What it would look like if we, as followers of Christ, bore witness to a different way? What if we saw the sin of the world as a deep wound? What if instead of condemning or trying to control all the wrong we saw, we got close enough to feel the wound ourselves and to show care for it? What if we, like Ammonas, gently guarded the dignity of others even as we pointed them to God? What if we trusted in the healing and restoring power of God’s love? What would that look like?

One of the healthiest spiritual traditions in the modern, western world that I know is the twelve-step tradition, and I think it gives us a helpful glimpse of this countercultural way of compassion. For on the one hand, it acknowledges the woundedness of our world. It understands that hurtful behavior is but the symptom of a spiritual disease, and it is quick to offer its sympathy and care. On the other hand, it discourages taking the moral inventory of anyone other than ourselves. It acknowledges that we are not the ultimate agents of healing. We are responsible to care for others, but not to control them.

For what is ultimately healing the world is not our condemnation or our control of crime or consequence, but God’s love. As Paul says in today’s scripture, by bearing each other’s burdens, we fulfill the law of Christ. And the law of Christ, which he cited in last week’s scripture, is simple: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (5:14).

Prayer

God who is rich in mercy,
Who cares for us
In whatever condition we are in—
Embolden us to bear witness
To your revolutionary manner of care
In our own relationships.
Where we see wrongdoing around us,
Help us to see more deeply the wounds
From which it springs.
. . .
Help us to bear others’ burdens
And make space for your healing love. In Christ, who bears our stripes. Amen.

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[1] Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 2003), 27-28.

Real Freedom (Gal 5:1, 13-25)

You Don’t Have to Do a Thing

I still remember a conversation I had with a stranger nearly two decades ago. I was working at a café in college, and a friendly customer had struck up a conversation. When he learned that I was a religious studies major, he immediately became concerned for my eternal salvation. I guess the fear is that too much study might lead a person to question their faith. (My experience has been the opposite, but that’s another story.) The man asked me, “Do you believe in the trinity? Do you believe that Jesus was the son of God and was God himself? Do you believe in the resurrection?” Suddenly my neck felt hot, and I couldn’t think straight. I certainly wasn’t thinking about my own firsthand experience of Christ. Instead I felt only the pressure to answer “correctly,” so that this man would approve and we could be on the same team.

Two thousand years ago, the Galatians had a similar experience. The Galatians were a community of gentiles—that is, non-Jewish people—who had become followers of Christ. Apparently when they first became followers of Christ, it had transformed their lives. Paul says earlier in his letter that they had been filled with the Spirit and witnessed wonderful deeds of power (Gal 3:4-5). But later, other Christians began to interrogate their faith. “Have you been circumcised? Do you keep kosher? Do you abide by the purity laws?” In other words, these other Christians criticized the Galatians for not becoming Jewish. After all, Jesus was Jewish and had followed the law. If a person wanted to enjoy the full embrace of God, they said, they first needed to become a part of the Jewish people, with whom God had already established an everlasting covenant. 

I imagine the Galatians felt uncomfortable—not unlike how I felt in the coffee shop years ago. I imagine they felt pressured to answer with the “correct” answers. They probably began to doubt their own experience of faith. This is why Paul writes them. Remember your original experience of Christ?—he asks earlier in his letter (cf. 3:2-5). You didn’t have to do a thing for that. Belonging to God is not a matter of what we do but a matter of what Christ has already done for us. In Christ, who loves us all, we already belong to God; it doesn’t matter if you’re Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (3:28).

“For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says in our scripture today (5:1). Faith is not tied up with doing the right things or having the right beliefs. We don’t have to pass a test. In Christ, we already belong to God. We don’t have to do a thing. “Stand firm, therefore,” Paul concludes, “and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” ( 5:1). If we become slaves to certain behaviors or beliefs, thinking those are what save us, then we have effectively unwrapped God’s arms from around us and left God’s unconditional embrace (cf. 5:4).

The Enslavement of the Flesh

Right after Paul celebrates our freedom in Christ, he does a curious thing. He warns us about our freedom in Christ. We are only one step away from disaster, he says. If we put the emphasis on freedom and forget to live in Christ, we may end up thinking we have license to do whatever we want. For this reason, Paul begs the Galatians, “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence” (5:13). He proceeds to explain the dangers of this self-indulgence, which he calls living in the “flesh.” The flesh is just Paul’s shorthand for our shortsighted, impulsive way of living. Living in the flesh is doing whatever promises instant gratification. It’s eating a slice of cake disregarding the fact you’ve just had a full meal and you’re not really that hungry. It’s winning an argument at the cost of a friendship.

The “flesh” is a good word for what Paul’s talking about, because our selfish desires generally originate in the body, such as desires for food, comfort, and especially the security of being in control. (Doesn’t it feel good to be in control?) Traditionally readers have assumed that the word “flesh” refers to sexual sins, but in today’s scripture, only two of “the works of the flesh” clearly refer to sexual immorality (5:19). Most of the words refer to competition and conflict: “jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy” (5:20-21). I would playfully suggest that the key to Paul’s list is actually the word that seems the least relevant to us today: “sorcery.” I used to think that sorcery was a biblical idea that we have outgrown in the modern world. We know better than the ancients, right? Spells, magic wands—those things don’t actually work. What I have learned, however, is that the fundamental biblical concern with sorcery is not some outdated belief that sorcerers could actually change reality. The problem with sorcery is not that a person might actually succeed in their magical incantations. The problem is what’s in their heart and how it influences their behavior. Engaging in sorcery is saying to God, “My will, not yours. My kingdom come. We’re doing things my way.” Sorcery is telling God what to do.

At its heart, sorcery is like every other item on Paul’s list. It’s about control and getting our way. Paul is adamant that, while living this way may promise satisfaction, it actually results in profound disappointment. Doing whatever we want looks like freedom, but it is actually enslavement. Addiction, or what the spiritual traditions call “attachment,” is a stark example of this truth. Our attachments are in fact heavy shackles on our souls. They keep us, Paul says, from living in the kingdom of God (5:21).

The Parable of the Successful CEO

What, then, does real freedom look like—if it’s not being in control, if it’s not the pursuit of happiness? Paul’s answer is actually quite simple. You could say it in a single word. But first I’d like to try to say it in a story. Let me share with you a parable about a man who was enslaved by the works of the flesh, who was attached to getting his way—but whom Christ visited in a very unassuming manner, offering him freedom.

Once upon a time, there lived a very successful CEO. At work, he was ruthless. And people respected him for it. He was a master of manipulation, a man who knew how to get what he wanted and prosper his business. He knew how to work the press. He knew how to advertise and shape the hearts of consumers. He knew how to outwit his competitors. He knew how to quietly remove employees who were more trouble than they were worth. Occasionally his selfish desires resulted in certain “indiscretions,” but he knew how to cover those up and maintain the look of innocence. As if by some sorcery, he always came out on top.

But being successful was exhausting work for our CEO. He was always competing, always grasping, always seeking more control. Only when he returned home late at night did he know peace. At home, he was almost a different person—and for one reason: his dog. His dog was his one joy. He could not resist his dog’s earnest eyes, his wagging tail, his faithful presence. Toward his dog, our successful CEO was patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle—all the things he was not at work. He indulged his dog with treats. He readily forgave him his canine blunders. It is not an exaggeration to say he loved his dog.

Sometimes at night, after our CEO had turned off his lights but before he had fallen asleep, he found himself dreading the next day and wishing he could live a different life—a life more like the one he shared with his dog.

Freedom Is Like Fruit

Real freedom, Paul says, is love. We find it first when we discover God loves us unconditionally—sort of like a dog loves us. Christ reveals to us that we don’t have to do a thing to belong to God. We belong to God just as we are. That is liberating news.

But that’s not the full picture, Paul says. Being loved naturally flows into loving others. And this love is freedom because it does not need to be in control. The freedom of love, Paul says, is like fruit. Fruit, of course, is not something we can control. We can plough, we can sow, we can reap, but we do not grow the fruit itself.  When Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a seed, he explains, “The seed sprouts and grows, the [farmer] knows not how” (Mark 4:28).  Fruit is not about control, but about love and faithfulness.

Our successful CEO knew the freedom of love—when he was with his dog. He did not control his dog but rather delighted in him, giving him treats, forgiving him, just enjoying his company. The irony is that at nights he wished for a life he already had. The lesson is one we could all learn, I think. The love of Christ, which sets us free, has to start somewhere. It could be something as small as a pet, or birds at the birdfeeder, or family or a friend—whatever primes the pump. But to know the full freedom of Christ is to celebrate this love and to allow it to flow into the rest of our lives.

Who knows? Maybe one day our CEO will wake up and recognize the face of Christ not only in his dog. . .but in his employees, in his competitors, in his customers. Perhaps at nights he will stop dreading the next day. Perhaps he would not be as successful. . .but perhaps he would be at peace—and free indeed.

Prayer

God of tiny seeds,
Whose kingdom is growing in our hearts
And in our world—
Awaken us to where we are shackled
By selfish, short-sighted desires.
And awaken us to where we are alive and free
In the love of Christ.
. . .
May the fruit of your Spirit
Be the feast we most desire.
In Christ: Amen.

The Bigger Picture (Gen 45:3-11, 15)

 

The Pits

Today’s scripture tells the most celebrated moment in the Joseph story.  Twenty-two years after Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery hundreds of miles away, they reconcile.  The sheer time and distance of their separation makes the moment remarkable.  But the backstory makes it miraculous.

Let’s rewind twenty-two years.  We find ourselves with a teenage Joseph, who is his father’s favorite, and also a bit of a brat.  He tattles on his brothers (37:2).  He repeatedly dreams that in the future they will bow down to him (37:5-11).  One day, his brothers cannot take it any longer.  They throw him into a pit in the wilderness.  For the next thirteen years, Joseph’s life is the pits.  Literally!  After his brothers throw him into a pit, they sell him into slavery, where the wife of his new master falsely accuses him of making an advance on her, with the result that he is thrown into prison—or in the Hebrew, another “pit.”  When Joseph helps a fellow prisoner who happens to be Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer, he asks to be remembered.  But the cupbearer does not remember Joseph when he gets out of prison.  So, there Joseph is.  Forgotten.  In a foreign land.  In another pit.  Thirteen years after his brothers waylaid him in the wilderness, not much has changed.

But suddenly things do change, and rather significantly.  Through a surprising twist of events, Joseph becomes the Pharaoh’s right-hand man.  He is given command over all the kingdom.  Having foreseen a great famine, he gathers and stores up the extra crop from the harvest.  When the famine finally hits, he is prepared.  Everyone comes to Egypt seeking help.  Including his brothers.

Same Old Story

The stage is set for a miraculous reunion.  But at first there’s no miracle.  Instead, it’s just the same old story that has afflicted our world for centuries.  It’s the story of settling scores, getting even, an eye for an eye.  Joseph’s first impulse is not to embrace his brothers and let bygones be bygones.  His first impulse is to give them a taste of what he has suffered the last twenty-two years.  He speaks spitefully to them as they once had to him (37:4; 42:7).  He imprisons them for a few days (and one of them for longer), just as he had been imprisoned for years (39:20; 42:14-17).  He plants riches on them and accuses them of stealing, just as he had been falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife (39:16-18; 44:1-5).  

What Joseph does to his brothers is nothing new.  It’s a story we know all too well from our own lives.  It’s a story that plays out every day, whether we’re nursing a grudge against a friend, trying to teach a coworker a lesson, or leaving the dishes in the sink because someone else has left the clothes in the laundry basket.  It’s the story of our world, a story as old as Cain and Abel, or Jacob and Esau, stories in which one brother felt he did not get his due and made up for the lack in his life with an attempt on his brother’s.  It’s a story of opposition and competition and rivalry, a story of payback and evening the score. 

Unsatisfied

But a funny thing happens when Joseph gets his payback.  At the very time that his debt is satisfied, he himself is left profoundly unsatisfied.  Moments before today’s scripture, Joseph listens as his brother Judah breaks down in front of him (Gen 44:18-34).  He hears about his father’s suffering and his brothers’ suffering.  And suddenly he breaks down too.  Scripture says that he “could no longer control himself,” that he sent everyone else away and then “wept so loudly” that everyone could hear him anyway (Gen 45:1-2). 

There is a rich tradition in the history of our faith that identifies tears with divine encounter.  When we cry, our eyes are opened to the reality that neither we nor the world around us are as we thought.  We see clearly our helplessness and our need for God and for each other.  When Joseph weeps, he suddenly sees clearly what he really desires.  He thought he desired revenge, but really he desires relationship.  He realizes that his family’s suffering is in fact his own suffering, that the more he hurts them, the more he hurts himself.  

The Real Miracle

Joseph’s breakdown is how God breaks in to the story.  In the clarity of his tears, Joseph sees the bigger picture.  He sees the eleven men in front of him not as bullies but as his brothers.  He sees not only his own wounds but theirs too.  And so he is moved to declare that the sins of the past are nothing in comparison to the opportunity of the present.  Twice he acknowledges, “You sold me,” but three times he insists, “But God sent me” (Gen 45:4-5, 7-8).  You sold me, but God sent me.  That is a big picture.  I’ll admit it, that is a much bigger picture than I usually see.  Usually, I get as far as an accusation, “You did such-and-such…” and then stop.  I don’t see what God sees.  I don’t see the possibilities for redemption.

For many readers, the paradoxical claim—“You sold me, but God sent me”—evokes the image of a divine puppeteer hidden behind the clouds, imperceptibly directing the drama toward survival.  Everything that has happened—the father’s lopsided love, Joseph’s self-important dreams, the brothers’ hate, and Joseph’s rags-to-riches glory in Egypt—all of this has been invisibly choreographed by a divine director.  God orchestrated Joseph’s roller-coaster journey so that he would end up as governor of Egypt, where he could then provide food for his famine-stricken family.  That, according to many readers, is the miracle in Joseph’s story.

But I’m suspicious of interpretations that absolve the characters of any responsibility.  If Joseph had not broken down and opened himself up to God, if he had instead contented himself with getting even and not forgiven his brothers, then God could have pulled every string possible and we would still be left with the same old story of an eye for an eye.  Imagine for a moment that Joseph didn’t make himself known, but instead simply sent his brothers on their way after putting them through the wringer.  They would have returned home to a father still grieving the mysterious loss of his son.  They would have returned home conflicted with themselves, restless with the guilt of their past.  And Joseph would have remained in Egypt, confused and unsatisfied.  It would have been an unremarkable story.  It would have said nothing new, at least not to me.  I know all about having the last word only to feel the victory hollow, or shutting someone out only to feel disconnected, or putting someone in their place only to feel small and petty myself.  I know all about getting even and feeling unsatisfied. 

For me, the real miracle is when Joseph breaks down and lets God break in.  The real miracle is not fate, but a forgiveness that alters fate.  The bigger picture that Joseph sees is not a God who masterminds everyone and everything, like a programmer coldly typing code into a computer.  The bigger picture that Joseph sees is a love that can break any heart and change any story, even the age-old story of getting even.

Prayer

Merciful God,
Who sees redemption everywhere,
Help us out of the pit
Of the same old story.
Help us to be aware of the moments
Where we seek to get even or make our point.
…
Open our eyes to see the bigger picture,
To know the hollowness of control
And the fullness of relationship,
That we might break down
And your love might break in.
Through Christ: Amen.

The Shock of God (Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11)

The Comfort of the Familiar

I don’t know about you, but I like the comfort of familiar rituals.  I like knowing that every day will begin with a freshly ground dark-roast coffee and a warm bowl of oatmeal garnished with fresh fruit.  I like knowing that every evening will end with getting under the flannel sheets and opening a book.  I like knowing that every Friday I will go to the park with my nephews. 

I don’t know about you, but for me church can be a comforting ritual too.  There I am greeted by familiar faces and casual conversation about shared interests.  I find my favorite seat and get comfortable in it the way I might burrow into the couch before my favorite TV show.  There’s quiet, calming music in the background.  Perhaps it is meant to invite me into an empty space where I might encounter something or someone other than myself—but usually I listen to it more like I listen to lounge music in a hotel lobby, as a pleasant backdrop to my own thoughts.  As the chatter dies away and I focus my attention on the front, as though it were a stage and I were its audience, there is before me the most comforting element of the whole ritual.  The idea of God.  The idea that I am not alone, that the creator of the universe is sympathetic to me, to my struggles and to my desires.  Oh, it is a comforting idea indeed.  I wouldn’t admit it to anybody, but truth is, this imagined God looks quite a bit like me.  Votes like me, thinks like me, condemns the same people that I do.

In short, this church experience is a comfort because it conforms to me and my interests.  There are no surprises, and I am always reassured.

A Shock to the Self

Isaiah, however, had a very different experience of worship.  In today’s first scripture, he imagines himself in the temple—and it is anything but comfortable.  I imagine Isaiah was like you and me, someone who went to worship regularly, prayed regularly, tried to do the right thing in life.  I imagine he had his own idea of God that regularly brought him comfort.  But in this vision of the temple, God shatters through all the familiarity.  God shatters through his very idea of God.  At the end, he does not cheerfully remark, “What a lovely service,” before wandering off to a full meal and an afternoon nap.  Quite the opposite: “Woe is me!  I am lost, for…my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa 6:5).  Peter says almost the same thing by the sea of Galilee, when his net suddenly becomes full of fish, and he suddenly realizes that he is standing in the presence of God.  “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8).

Isaiah and Peter both exclaim their brokenness.  “Woe is me!  I am lost,” says one; “I am a sinful man,” says the other.  It is as though when they see God, who is love unfailing, they also see themselves in a mirror for who they really are.  They see the feebleness and fragility of their lives, their failures in the way of love.  They feel it viscerally in their body, this distance between themselves and God.

It’s a feeling that we’ve all had before.  God is not a privileged experience.  Some of us have encountered God looking into a child’s eyes and feeling the infinite, unbearable weight of responsibility and the certainty of our failure.  Some of us have encountered God waking up in a sweat in the middle of the night, suddenly aware that our days are numbered and we will not live forever and we’ve already wasted so much time.  Some of us have encountered God in the haunting suspicion that we have not been true to ourselves, that in the pursuit of some goal we have lost ourselves and begun living a lie.  Some of us have encountered God at rock bottom, when our eyes are opened to the reality that we cannot manage our own lives.  However we have encountered God—that infinite distance between unfailing love and our mortal and misguided expressions of it—the experience is the same as Isaiah and Peter’s.  We see clearly and suddenly that we are not, nor is the world, as we thought.

Avoiding God Until We Can’t Help but Cry

The only difference between Isaiah and Peter and us is that, oftentimes, we do not recognize God in these uncomfortable moments.  At least, I do not.  I usually run away from these moments.  I try to find ways to cover them up.  I think most of us do.  We have phones in our hands to fill up every empty moment and to keep us from ever having to feel deeply or think about what really matters.  We live for cheap thrills that keep us distracted, like the weekend or the next television series or the newest household comfort or convenience.  Even church can become an escape from God.  Methodist theologian Will Willimon quips, “No wonder we tiptoe around this Presence, turn our churches into carpeted bedrooms, fearful that we might awaken this One.  Note how we often chatter, nervously, before the music begins, the way people chatter when they’re scared of what might come next.  We transform our worship into the backslapping conviviality of a Kiwanis Club meeting; everybody smiling, reassuring one another that this is only church, only Sunday, only God, nothing over which to be alarmed.”[1]

Yet try as we may to avoid God, God breaks through.  Maybe not at church.  Instead, it is usually in our weakest moments when we cannot help but cry.  There is, in fact, a rich tradition in the history of our faith that identifies divine encounter with the experience of tears.[2]  When we weep, our eyes are opened to the uncomfortable truth of our mortality and our mistakes, our weakness and our need for help.  Tears clear our vision.  We see the reality of who we are.  With Isaiah and Peter, we finally cry out the truth we have been trying to avoid, “Woe is me!  I am lost….”  “I am a sinful person.”

An Even Greater Shock

But this painful truth of our stumbling, sinful selves that we spend so much of our lives avoiding, is not the whole truth.  These tears that we desperately try to suppress are not the end of the story.  They may be a necessary beginning, but they are not the fullness or finale of our faith. 

If at first God is a shock to Isaiah and Peter, to their self-centered, shortsighted way of life, then they are in store for an even greater shock when God responds to them.  Peter cries, “Go away from me.”  But Jesus draws nearer.  Isaiah cries, “I am lost,” but God is looking for him to help in the world.  “Whom shall I send?”  Isaiah isn’t lost, he’s found.

There are two shocking truths in the story, then, a small truth and a big truth.  And to get to the big truth, we must go through the small truth.  The small truth is that we are indeed imperfect and broken.  Or in church lingo, “sinful.”  We judge, we condemn, we exclude, we fight for control, we put up walls, we put ourselves in front of others.  We bear a flawed image of our loving creator.  In the clarity of our tears, however, we see the big truth that Isaiah and Peter see.  Despite our protests of unworthiness, despite our cries to be left alone, God draws even nearer.  Why?  Because that is the way of love.  Does a mother leave her child for falling down?  Does a lover renounce his love when his beloved is at fault? 

This big truth of God’s love, the shockwaves of which could turn our world upside down, transforms us whenever we accept it.  No longer bound by striving to be this or that and inevitably failing, no longer bound by pride and shame, we are free to be ourselves, which is the greatest gift we can give others.  And so it is that Isaiah cries out, “Here I am; send me!” (Isa 6:8).  And Peter and the others, we are told, “left everything and followed him” (Luke 5:11). 

Prayer

Loving God,
Who is always drawing near to us—
Help us not to run away
From our tears
And the shock of our brokenness.
…
For it is here, shockingly,
That we are nearest to you
And your love,
Which leads us into life.
Through Christ: Amen.

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[1] William Willimon, “Depart from Me,” Sermon for Duke University Chapel on February 9, 1986, accessed on January 31, 2022, https://repository.duke.edu/dc/dukechapel/dcrst003219.

[2] Alan Jones, Soul Making: The Desert Way of Spirituality (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 82-106.  Simeon of Byzantine in the tenth century referred to tears as “the second baptism” and an essential stage of a person’s spiritual growth.  Ephrem of Syrian in the third century said that our tears are actually God’s tears for us, shed that such a lovely image of goodness should be lost.

an easter haiku

sun in the room through
the gauzy closed curtain.  it
warms my back slowly.

the maimed (mk 9:42-48)

the kingdom of God is filled
with the maimed—
one hand, one foot, one eye...
humbled people
who have been through hell,
who would rather live with others
than for themselves,
who are slow and quiet
and laughing,
because they know
life is right here.

I Have Come to Proclaim the Good News (Luke 4:16-30)

(Sermon for Goochland Baptist Church's Worship on December 1, 2019, Advent I)

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An Unexpected Knock

Curt, Erin, and I had all just arrived at my parents’ home for a family dinner together, and we could smell them at the door: my mom’s Christmas sugar cookies, a much beloved holiday tradition.  Some of them would have cream cheese frosting and sprinkles on top, some of them would be plain.  All of them would be delicious.  Suddenly dinner seemed like an obstacle.

Halfway through dinner—halfway en route to those sugar cookies—we heard voices at the front door.  Singing voices.  It took us a moment to register that these were carolers!  Someone asked, “Do we invite them in?”  I caught my brother’s eyes, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing: “If we do that, what will happen to the cookies?  How many will there be left?”  Neither one of us dared speak this covetous thought aloud, but we were worried.  In the end, our fears were relieved.  In fact, the singers had reversed the age-old caroling tradition.  The moment we opened the front door, two children ran up the front steps and shoved a plateful of cookies into our hands and then they were off to the next home.  Talk about a double blessing!

Caroling and its ritualized act of hospitality reminds me of another Advent tradition.  Las Posadas, which originated in Mexico, also dramatizes the act of hospitality.  But Las Posadas gives the act of hospitality teeth.  It gives it muscle.  Las Posadas is what caroling wants to be when it grows up.  It pushes the act of hospitality to the limit.  In Las Posadas, two youth dress up as Joseph and Mary, and on the ninth day before Christmas they make a surprise visit to one of the families in the church.  They knock on the front door, and when the family opens up, the youth make their plea: “Excuse me, we have traveled a long way and we have no place to stay and my wife is expecting any day now.  May we stay with you?” 

Now in caroling, the host may invite the carolers inside the front door for a minute to enjoy a cookie or a treat.  But Las Posadas models itself after the Christmas story, where the drama is not simply giving God a minute of our time and a cookie but actually opening our heart and our home so that God may be born there.  In Las Posadas, Christ is seeking a place to be born.  Christ comes unexpected, as a knock in the night, as strangers at the door, as a call to open our homes and offer our hands.  According to tradition, the family should invite the two youth into their home and share dinner with them.  Oftentimes the event snowballs into a feast and other families from church stop by and join the celebration, eating, singing songs, and sharing fellowship together. 

What a witness to the spirit of Advent, to welcoming God in the unexpected.  I think back to how my brother and I feared for our freshly baked sugar cookies, and I realize how small our hearts and our homes can be.  We were hardly prepared to welcome the unexpected knock at the door. 

And how else does God come?

God’s Deliverance—in an Unexpected Way

We all know well the stories of Joseph and Mary, how they received the unexpected call from God on high, how they made room in their lives for the birth of Christ.  Less well known is how the public first received Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.  Today’s scripture in Luke gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ first reception.  According to Luke, the first public appearance of Jesus when he begins his ministry takes place in his hometown synagogue.  There he reveals his mission: the good news.  His first words make this clear: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news” (4:18).  In fact, Jesus is reading from scripture, from a celebrated prophecy of Isaiah, a prophecy that envisions the day of God’s deliverance.  For a people who have lived centuries under the thumb of oppressive foreign rule, this prophecy is good news indeed.  I imagine that for a Jewish person in the first century, this prophecy was tinged with comfort and joy in the same way that the Christmas story is for us.  You know the feeling you get at a Christmas pageant, or at a Lessons & Carols, when you hear those hallowed words, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed” (Luke 2:1)?  I imagine that’s how the Israelites felt, hearing Jesus read Isaiah’s prophecy.  Yes, they thought, that is the story we all have come to hear.  The story of God’s deliverance.  That is what we all hope for.  God has delivered us before, and we know God will deliver us again.

So Jesus has read this good news, and everyone’s feeling good, and he ups the ante.  He makes a bold claim.  He declares that today this beloved scripture has come true.  He claims to be ushering in God’s deliverance.  And his hometown audience loves it, Luke says.  They turn their heads to one another and ask, “Isn’t this Joseph’s boy?  The carpenter’s son?  Isn’t this one of our own?  And he’s leading the charge, he’s taking it up against Rome for our deliverance.  What a day to be alive!”  They’re practically glowing with pride.

I feel so good reading this myself—I’m so happy for Jesus and his hometown—that it almost hurts to read what comes next.  Jesus knows just what’s going on in the townspeople’s hearts, and he calls them on it.  Doubtless, he says, you’ll be saying to me soon, “Doctor, cure yourself!”—which was an ancient proverb, meaning something like, Don’t neglect your own when you’re doing good things.  Cure yourself means something like take care of your own; when you’re off doing great things, don’t forget where you came from, don’t neglect us.

Which is a very natural thing for the townspeople to be saying.  Tomorrow morning when Curt and Erin board their airplane to return to Richmond, they’ll hear the steward tell them that in the case of a loss of cabin pressure, masks will drop from overhead, and that they should secure their own before assisting their neighbor.  Cure yourself.  It’s the logic of our world.  Look out for number one.  Treat yourself first.

But Jesus makes it clear that the good news is much bigger than the townspeople desire, much greater than they expect.  In quick succession, he rattles off two stories about Israelite prophets, one who ministered to a foreign widow, another who ministered to a foreign leper.  There were widows and lepers in Israel, Jesus said, but these prophets tended not to them but to the foreigners. 

And in an instant, the parochial goodwill that had welled up in the hearts of the Nazarenes vanishes.  That good feeling they all had—similar to when we hear the Christmas story read—that good feeling is capsized into bitterness and anger. 

As Much as a Threat as a Promise

So while Mary and Joseph show us the right way to receive the unexpected word of God, visited upon us without warning, the synagogue in Nazareth shows us the opposite.  It shows us what kind of welcome Jesus got from the first religious crowd he addressed.

It’s an instructive story and one that we see play out time and again in the gospel.  Those religious folks in Nazareth are not the only ones to reject Jesus.  You might remember the story of the rich, young ruler, who turns away saddened because he loves his money more than the good news.  You might remember Jesus’ confrontation with some of the Pharisees.  (And Pharisees, to be clear, are not the bad guys we sometimes think they are.  In fact, the Pharisees were like the model churchgoers of the ancient world.  They knew their scripture backwards and forwards, went to synagogue in the middle of the week, and were models of faith.)  But some of the Pharisees reject Jesus because they love their religious truth more than the good news.  You might remember Jesus’ encounter with the authorities of his day, both religious and Roman.  They reject Jesus because they love power more than the good news.

The common thread becomes clear.  Jesus has come with the good news, but in fact the good news is a threat as much as a promise for many who hear it.  This good news is not what they expected: it’s not military victory for the nation of Israel, it’s not righteous vindication for the pious, it’s not the prosperity gospel.  No, this good news is bigger than these expectations.  It’s good news for the poor.  The rest of the world might write them off as lazy or foolish, but God loves them and desires that they share abundant life with the community of God.  This good news is freedom for the captive and the oppressed.  The rest of the world might say they deserve it, they did the crime and have to pay the time, or that their behavior invited the tough consequences, but God loves them and desires that they share abundant life with the community of God.  The good news is for the widow and the unclean and the foreigner, for all of those who have no claim to status or favor with God.  God loves them, Jesus says, and desires that they share abundant life in the beloved community of God.

Hope Cannot See

The good news is so much bigger than sugar cookies.  It’s so much bigger than the little town of Nazareth had envisioned.  What today’s scripture reveals to us, is that quite often we confuse selfish desire or expectation with hope.  According to Paul in Romans, “hope that is seen is not hope” (Rom 8:24).  What we foresee for ourselves is not quite the same thing as hope, because hope cannot see what it hopes for.  Hope is too big for our vision.  It’s beyond what we can see.

There’s a funny old mystic theologian from the 14^th century, Meister Eckhart, who liked to say that Christians often love God the same way a farmer loves his cow—for the milk!  In other words, our faith is often hijacked by our ego, by the desire for personal gain or benefit. 

The invitation and challenge of Advent is to relinquish this selfish desire that passes itself off as hope, because the truth is that with this counterfeit hope, we may in fact miss Christ when he comes.  So it was for that synagogue in Nazareth, and for the rich, young ruler, and for the religious folks who grasped after purity and power. 

They all knew the beloved scripture from Isaiah that Jesus read, the scripture that gave them that good feeling of comfort and joy, just like we know and love the Christmas story beginning with the decree from Caesar Augustus.  We all hear in these scriptures our own deliverance.  But the good news may be bigger than we bargained for.  Indeed, that is what genuine hope is all about.  A good news that we can’t see coming.  An unexpected knock in the night, strangers at the door, a call that is uncalled for.  

Christ overturning our world.  And dwelling with us, if we would welcome him.

Prayer

God of deliverance,

Whose good news

Is bigger than our expectation:

Purify our hope this Advent

That we might not

Expect too narrowly,

Too selfishly,

And so miss your coming;

Instead expand our hope

To beyond what we can see,

That we might be ready to embrace

Your unimaginably good news,

Come in the most unexpected ways.

In Christ, who comes as one unknown.  Amen.