Lost Connection (Gen 2:4b-7, 15-17; 3:1-8)

The Loneliness Epidemic

One year ago, the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a warning that our nation is suffering gravely from a new epidemic. Not opioids. Not vaping. Not a particular substance or behavior. Something less visible and therefore all the more insidious: loneliness.

He tells the story of a patient who won the lottery. This man “had worked for years in the food industry with a modest salary and humble lifestyle. Then he won the lottery. Overnight, his life changed. He quit his job and moved into a large house in a gated community.”

But as he sat across from his doctor, “he sadly declared, ‘Winning the lottery was one of the worst things that ever happened to me.’ Wealthy but alone, this once vivacious, social man no longer knew his neighbors and had lost touch with his former co-workers. He soon developed high blood pressure and diabetes.”

I imagine this man as having become the king of a lonely kingdom, surrounded by every comfort and convenience, plugged into an array of virtual entertainment networks, having food delivered at the click of a button. Maybe that’s an exaggeration of what actually happened, but I imagine it captures the nature of his experience. Richer materially but poorer relationally. Connected to devices but disconnected from reality. Afforded every pleasure, but sick to the soul.

Of course very few of us will ever win the lottery. The loneliness epidemic is not a matter of suddenly coming into money but rather a gradual distortion that has permeated our society. Prophets have been warning us for years. Nearly four decades ago, Neil Postman published his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), a prescient analysis of how the television was turning politics and religion into show business, transforming our social discourse into a matter of personal entertainment, where the concern is not what makes us well but me happy. Fifteen years later, Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone struck a chord with many readers. Putnam’s research revealed a steady decline in community life. Whether we were bowling or dining or working, we were doing it—more and more—alone.

It is difficult to identify a single culprit responsible for our loneliness epidemic. Is it an unrelenting working culture, where relationships are sacrificed for advancement? Is it materialism, that is, a spirit of greed that misidentifies happiness with having things instead of being in relationship? Is it technology and the lure of control, the ability to point and click on a screen and get whatever we want, so that we all become little emperors of our own lonely empires?

Original Connection

“If you want to know where you’re going, you’ve got to know where you’ve come from.” So an old saying goes. To understand our loneliness epidemic and how we might live well in its midst, it may help to remember first wherever we’ve come from.

According to the creation story of Genesis 2, we are kin. Kin to the earth. Kin to other creatures. Kin to one another. Kin to God. This is perhaps more evident in the Hebrew. The first human, adam, is formed from the earth, adamah. Thus, a more faithful translation for “human” would be “earthling.” We are made from the earth. And we are made for the earth. God puts the human in the garden “to till it and keep it,” or more literally “to serve it and protect it” (Gen 2:15). The earth is not a resource to be used and discarded, but a close relation to be cared for, even as it cares already for us.

Similarly there is a linguistic link between humanity and the animal world. Both are referred to by the same Hebrew expression, nephesh chayyah, “living being” (Gen 2:7, 19). (Interestingly, most English translation make an artificial distinction between humans and animals by translating this one phrase as “living being” for human but “living creature” for animals.)

Man and woman are ish and ishah. (You can hear the connection.) While traditional interpretation holds that man came first (and some readers have taken this interpretation further to reflect man’s superiority), the ancient rabbis point out that the specific word for man, ish, only appears after the rib has been removed from the adam. In other words, at first there is a genderless adam, and only after the divine surgery do we get ish and ishah, “man” and “woman.” (And to put to rest the other argument for man’s superiority, namely that woman is created as a “helper” and is therefore somehow secondary, one need only look elsewhere in scripture to see that the same word for “helper” is also applied to God. In this light, the word “helper” would suggest, if anything, woman’s superiority.)

Of all humanity’s connections, our kinship to God may be the most neglected, the most forgotten. When we read in the gospels that Jesus hears a voice on the banks of the Jordan, declaring, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased,” our reflex is to think that this is a proclamation that sets him apart, when in fact it is part of the very gospel, the very good news, that he has come to proclaim. We are each and every one of us beloved sons and daughters of God, his breath within us, his favor upon us.

Genesis tells us that God’s creation is good. Every day, God looks upon God’s work and sees that it is good (cf. Gen 1). But there is one thing that is not good in God’s eyes. “It is not good,” the Lord God said, “that the man should be alone” (Gen 2:18). Even though this pronouncement is pointed toward the lack of a particular connection, namely that between two flesh-and-soul bonded persons, it suggests a basic principle of God’s creation. Isolation, or disconnection, is not good. We are deprived of life to the extent that we are disconnected. Whether from God, one another, our fellow animals, or the earth.

Sin as Epidemic

If creation is good, and its goodness has to do with connection, then “the Fall” tells the tragic story of disconnection. It all starts with the craftiest of animals, the serpent, who suggests to the woman that she may eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the one tree from which God has forbidden the humans to eat. (And let it be noted that the woman’s husband is standing passively beside her, equally complicit in whatever follows.)

What exactly is the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Some readers think its fruit confers the ability to distinguish between good and evil. (To my thinking, this would be a bit odd, as it would seem to suggest the humans are otherwise incapable of making the distinction. How then could they be held responsible for doing wrong, for eating from the tree?) I find more compelling the suggestion that “knowledge of good and evil” is really just a way to say “knowledge of everything.” In other words, just as the biblical writers say “heaven and earth” to refer to the breadth of the universe (heaven and earth and everything between), so they might say “good and evil” to refer to the breadth of human experience. In this view, the tree would simply promise its eaters more knowledge. And as we like to say, knowledge is power. Thus the real lure of the tree is to be in control—or as the serpent says, “to be like God” (Gen 3:5). (As shrewd a manipulator as the serpent is, I have to wonder if he hasn’t already eaten from the tree himself.)

If the exact nature of the tree is in any doubt, the consequences of eating from it certainly aren’t. There is hiding and shame. There is finger-pointing and blame. The man accuses the woman, and the woman accuses the serpent. And then there are the consequences that God soberly outlines, not—I would suggest—as arbitrary punishments but as the natural consequences of their chosen behavior. Their shame and blaming now manifests as antagonism: between man and woman, human and creature, even humans and the earth from which they came. They are now, in a word, disconnected.

It is common today to think of sin as an individual stain on our soul, tragically inherited from our most ancient ancestors. But as it is depicted in today’s story and throughout much of the Bible, sin is not a defining mark against an individual but an event of disconnection that has a domino effect on all the world around. Sin disconnects. It is not a pollution of the soul so much as it is of the waters in which we all swim. We might call sin an epidemic.

God’s Project of Reconnection

“If you want to know where you’re going, you’ve got to know where you’ve come from.” There are endless ways we could summarize the story of where we’ve come from, which is the story of creation and “the Fall.” In the midst of our loneliness epidemic, here’s how I would summarize it. God made us intimately connected with all creation and with God as well. It is good to be connected. But our lust for control disconnected us from all the goodness of God’s creation. 

And that story continues today. We ravage the earth for its limited resources. We fight others to get our way. We reach for the skies through our advancing technologies and forget the God whose breath dwells within us. When we prioritize control, we forfeit connection. What seems good to us, “a delight to the eyes” (Gen 3:6)—whether that’s money, power, or prestige, all of which promise control—ends up separating us from what is actually good. As the Surgeon General’s lonely patient lamented, “Winning the lottery was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Today marks the beginning of a year-long journey through the biblical story from creation to the kingdom of God, following the roadmap of the Narrative Lectionary. As we look back to where we’ve come from, we perhaps gain a clearer sense of where we’re going. Just as the story of the Fall is bigger than our individual soul, so too the story of salvation. If sin is indeed an epidemic of disconnection, then what else is salvation but a grand project of reconnection? Paul puts it like this: “Through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross” (Col 1:19-20). The salvation of Christ is the reconciliation—or reconnection—of all things. And we who are reconciled, who can appreciate this divine project of reconnection, we are invited to join in the work. God has given us, Paul says, “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18). 

If the prospect of universal reconciliation seems daunting or unlikely to us, it is possible that we are looking at things through the faulty lens of control, thinking reconnection is a result that must be carefully engineered. But the good news that we see in Christ is the opposite. We are not in control. We are not meant to lord it over others. Instead, we are already in God’s care. All that we are invited to do is to extend that care to others. As we will see next week in Abraham, God’s way of reconciliation is not calculating or grandiose. It’s quite simple. It happens one person at a time.

Prayer

Tender God, 

Whose reconciling embrace we know in Christ,

Calibrate our hearts to be like yours, 

To value peace more than understanding,

Love more than knowledge,

Connection more than control.

Make us ambassadors of your reconciliation,

In Christ, who makes peace, bearing the cross instead of the sword: Amen.

"The Beauty That Calls Us" (Song 2:8-13)

Sacred Sounds

In our world, some sounds are sacred.  Voices, notes, tones that set our hearts to leaping, that call us to self-abandonment.

The recess bell.   When it rings, the school shakes from inside.  Then the door nearly flies off its hinges and erupts with children.  They run this way and that, nearly losing it, kicking balls, playing chase, climbing the jungle gym, running to meet their friends in the shade of tall trees—all of them in love with life.

The dinner call.  Years ago, my mom opens the back door and calls out, “Dinner,” and my brother and I grab the soccer balls and scramble through the door and kick off our shoes still tied and run our hands through an obligatory ten seconds of water and soap and then take our seats, where glasses poured with cold milk and plates filled with food await us—and we are suddenly aware of our hunger.

The referee's whistle.  When its sharp ring pierces the waiting air of the playing field, the players lose their worries and then lose their breath—and before long, a fortunate few among them who are in that blessed place known as “the zone” will lose themselves completely. 

The ring tone.  When its familiar melody anonymously announces a caller, the young soul awakens from the tedium of the everyday and fumbles for the phone in anticipation, hoping against hope that the name on the screen will match the name of their love—and when they see the name, the day is suddenly filled with new life and possibility and adventure.

The recess bell, the dinner call, the whistle, the ring tone—just a few sacred sounds among many. They all cry practically the same invitation: “Arise!” They raise us up to new life. They call us out of ourselves.

The Greatest Song Ever: Love (or “God”)

The Song of Solomon (or by its Hebrew title, “The Song of Songs,” which really means “The Greatest Song Ever”) is a scandalous song.  Not once does it mention God by name.  (“The Greatest Song Ever” doesn't even mention God!) Instead it sings shamelessly about human love.  How it ever made it into the Bible is a mystery.  To this day, scholars debate the reasons that the ancient rabbis included this earthy love poem in their scriptures.

Of course, ever since its inclusion, rabbis and priests both have done their best to censor this love song by making it into a metaphor.  This song is really about God and Israel, they say, or about Christ and the church.  Certainly the song can be read that way.  But I wonder if it’s not even stronger when we read it simply as it is.  Perhaps it need not sing God’s name when everything it sings is intimately a part of God. Didn't John say, centuries later, “God is love”? The entire song, then, is about God. Perhaps naming God – stating the obvious – robs the song of its allusive power. Perhaps just as explaining a joke ruins the punchline, stopping to theologize the experience of love kills the mood. Rather than name God, the Greatest Song Ever simply looks God in the eye and says, “You are beautiful.”

More than Romance

But is love only a matter of romance? Certainly romance is the focus of the Song of Solomon. The entire book is a back-and-forth dialogue between two lovers. In the catalogue of ancient love songs, the Song of Solomon is unique in this, in giving both participants an equal voice.

I wonder, though, whether romance is the central meaning of the song or just the vehicle for expressing the wonders of a love that is even bigger than romance. What strikes me about the song is that the two lovers are not just enamored with each other but with the world. In the six verses that we read today, all five senses are engaged. Sight – the flowers appearing on the earth. Taste – the fig tree putting forth its figs. Smell – the vines giving forth fragrance. Sound – the voice of turtledove singing in the land. Touch – the rain over and gone, fresh air awaiting the lovers outdoors.

I'm reminded of a poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez, in which love is described not as a collapsing into the other person but as an opening up to all the world:

I unpetalled you, like a rose, 

to see your soul, 

and I didn’t see it. 

But everything around

 —horizons of lands and of seas—, 

everything, out to the infinite, 

was filled with a fragrance, 

enormous and alive.

Today’s scripture begins with an incomplete sentence, a sort of surprised exclamation: “The voice of my beloved!” the woman proclaims.  Moments later, she shares with us what her beloved says: “Arise, my love…and come away.” 

Isn't this the call of love, whether the love is romance or a playground friendship or a parent-child bond or teammates sacrificing for each other?  Isn't love a call that excites us and raises us up and entices us to abandon ourselves and to go away into the world, into the infinite, which is filled with a fragrance, enormous and alive?  Isn’t it part of what is heard in that sacred recess bell or ring tone or referee's whistle?  

Three Beautiful Places Where We Are Called

And don’t we all hear this call?  Maybe for us it’s no longer as obvious or immediate as a particular sound that sets our hearts to leaping, that throws us into self-abandonment, like a bell or a whistle or a ring tone.  Maybe we hear the call in the lower, subtler registers of a particular place or a certain situation.

In the Greek, the word for beauty, kalon, appears to have come from the word for call, kaleo.  In other words, the ancients believed that beauty is what calls us.  If we reflect for a moment on where we are drawn most deeply to in this world, on what sets our hearts to leaping and leads us into self-abandonment, I imagine that we might find ourselves thinking about matters of deep beauty and joy. 

Of course, it is easy to miss the call of beauty.  Caught up in our own plans and programs, our thinking in terms of business and this-for-that and what’s most effective, we sometimes miss the beauty right before our eyes—a sunset, a child’s smile, a gratuitous gesture of compassion.  

Here, I find some help from the church. There are three places where people at church seem most alive to me, most joy-filled, most connected. Tables. Small groups. And time shared with the needful. I suspect that in these places can be heard the same cry we hear in our scripture: “Arise…and come away” into the wide and wonderful world.

Tables, small groups, and the needful. Here is where the church encounters its calling, a deep beauty and joy.  I am not talking about the superficial kind of excitement that we might compare to a romantic crush or obsession, which is an excitement more often than not selfish in its nature. I am talking about a deep and abiding joy that draws us out of ourselves, a breathless sense that we have happened upon the most precious thing in the world, what matters most.  This is the beauty of the bed-ridden holding a hand and praying tearfully with someone who cares, knowing that they are not alone.  It’s the beauty of multiple voices becoming one, whether in the sharing of honest experience or the singing of songs that express what no lesson or lecture ever could.  It’s the beauty of difference, even disagreement, gathering around the same table in peace and love.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

And is it any surprise?  These three places are where Christ promises us he will be.  The table, where he says “Remember me” and “I will meet you again here” (Luke 22:16-18); small groups “where two or three are gathered” (Matt 18:20); and the needful, for “as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me” (Matt 25:40).

Jesuit priest and poet Gerald Manley Hopkins once wrote that “Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.”  Perhaps this is another way of saying that these three Christ-haunted places are everywhere, that there is no limit to the ways that we hear the call of the beautiful, “Arise, my love…and come away.”  

I wonder where you hear the call of beauty. Where Christ calls to you, “Arise…and come away!” Having grown up in a religious environment, I sometimes have trouble hearing the call myself. Instead I hear all of the oughts and shoulds – pious expectations instead of God's unique call to my heart. I fear that following them is fruitless in the end if I'm being false to the person God has called me to be. My suspicion is that while the actual call of beauty and joy may seem to be quite trivial – maybe it's “just” toward your back garden or the dog staring up at you – it contains within it a pathway into all the world, which if followed faithfully leads us into the abundant love and life of God's kingdom. 

…And if you're still wondering where you hear the call of Christ, which is the call of beauty, and you need a clue to point you in the right direction, I would wager it's not too far from a table, or a small, honest gathering, or a person or creature in need.  

Prayer

Beautiful Christ,

Whose call to us 

Raises us to new life

And draws us into the world:

As bells and whistles

Rouse the hearts and bodies

Of children,

So may your voice

Excite and entice us

To take the risk of faith—

To rise and go away

On your risky adventure of love.  Amen.

"Hear in Heaven" (1 Kgs 8:22-30, 41-43)

Gaps in Our World

Pause your life. Freeze it. Take your remote and stop everything for a minute. Inside you is a world. A world of plans. After church, you will eat lunch. You’ll catch up on errands you didn’t have time for in the week. Inside you is a world of expectations. In fall, the leaves will change color and the temperatures will drop. As school begins, you’ll be called upon less to watch the grandkids, and you’ll get a bit of your life back. Inside you is a world of decisions to make. What kind of care do mom and dad need? Who’s going to host Thanksgiving this year?

Inside you is a world. What you think. What you anticipate. What decisions you’re deliberating.

This world inside you is closed. Finished. Whole. Complete. If you took the remote and resumed play and everything ran according to plan, then the future would really only be a foregone conclusion: a natural unfolding of the present, a foreseeable development, a potential eventually to be realized. At the beginning of the 20th century, as industrial and scientific revolutions promised a society of comfort and convenience, many people understood the world in just this way. The future, they thought, was already written. They boldly predicted and planned for a century of peace and pleasure.

After two world wars, multiple genocides, continued struggles with hunger, and an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, we’ve conceded that maybe there was more to the world than we could see or know. As the world inside us began to play out, there were shocks and surprises. Things we did not foresee. Things we could not plan for. Our world, it appeared, had gaps and cracks unaccounted for. 

God on High

I must confess that I have a hard time with the traditional imagery of God on high, of heaven as God’s dwelling place. Which is exactly what we find in our scripture today, where King Solomon dedicates his newly built temple to God. Twice in our scripture, and twice more in the surrounding verses that are not included, Solomon prays to God with this address: “Hear in heaven your dwelling place” (1 Kings 8:30, 39, 43, 49). 

The imagery doesn’t resonate with me because it sits at odds with my faith experience. I have only ever encountered God on the ground level. From the moment I was born, when as a helpless infant I was held close and loved in the flesh by the people around me. As I grew up, when I was given more second chances by my parents and teachers and coaches and friends than I can count. As I meet with you each Sunday, when we gather around this Table and share not only bread and cup but our trust in a life that is greater than death. In all these things, I have encountered God on my level. 

Or as we’ll say around Christmas time, “Emmanuel”—God is with us. Or as Christ said, “Where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them” (Matt 18:20) or, “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Matt 25:40). Or as Paul says, “You are the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27).

Heaven is God’s dwelling place?  My faith and my hope are that all the world is God’s dwelling place. Emmanuel. God is with us.

Heaven as the Gaps in Our World

But maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe like the expressions “lamb of God” or “bread of life,” God “in heaven” is metaphor. After all, what would it even mean that God dwells on high in the heavens?  Where exactly?  If everyone on earth pointed up, we’d all be pointing in different directions. 

I wonder if our own expressions about the heavens don’t point us in the right direction, toward what this metaphor really means. Expressions like “Heaven knows,” which really means I don’t. Or “Heaven help me,” which really means I can’t do it myself. Or “It fell straight from heaven,” which really means it came out of nowhere, out of God-knows-where.

All these expressions suggest our inability and our ignorance. Heaven is shorthand for I don’t know everything, I can’t do this on my own, I didn’t see that happening. Heaven is the opposite of the world that is inside us, the world that we know and plan for and anticipate, the world that is closed and complete. Heaven is in the gaps and cracks in our world.

Which if we are honest, are our only real hope of salvation. I think the reason that Solomon keeps praying to God in heaven—and the reason that Jesus keeps talking about the flesh needing something else, needing spirit—is that they know that the world inside us, the world that we know and prepare for and expect and plan for, is actually small and shortsighted. Just ask the hopeful who predicted paradise at the start of the twentieth century. What we know, what already exists, what we can see coming—these things won’t save us. It’s what we don’t know, what doesn’t exist, what we can’t see coming—it’s God, in a word, or “heaven,” if you like, that will save us. It’s through the gaps and cracks of our own world.

Death…and Resurrection

If you’ve ever held onto a grudge, or hidden a lie, or simply hogged what you could have been sharing, you know just how important “heaven”—the gaps and cracks in our world—is. Because holding onto a grudge is holding onto the world inside us, the world that we know, the world where we’re right and the other person is wrong. And hiding a lie is preserving the world inside us, the world that we want, the world where we are accomplished and admired and accepted. And hogging what we could be sharing is protecting the world inside us, our world of plans and possibilities, the world where we’ve worked hard and earned it and deserve whatever we can afford.

In each case, we are clinging to the world that we know. But then there are cracks and gaps, thank God. Have you ever held onto a grudge only to have your opponent give you the nicest compliment?  And it destroys your world…before opening up a new one where you have one more friend than before. Or have you ever hidden a lie only to have it exposed?  And for that split second it feels unbearable…but then all of the sudden you can breathe and the weight of the lie is lifted and then in this truth it feels like you’ve been set free. Or have you ever hogged something only then to share a little bit begrudgingly?  And at first maybe it feels like your world is lost…but then you enter into a new world richer and fuller and friendlier than before.

When heaven breaks through the gaps and cracks in our world, it often feels like this, doesn’t it?  A little bit like death…and then resurrection.

Salvation from Outside

Emmanuel. God is with us. But we can ignore God just as easily as we can ignore our neighbor. 

For this reason, I think, King Solomon prayed, “Hear us in heaven!”  For this reason, we say, “Heaven knows!”, “Heaven help me!”  Heaven is our way of confessing I don’t know everything, I can’t do this on my own, I didn’t see that happening. Heaven is our way of inviting what we can’t see coming, of celebrating the gaps and cracks in our world. Heaven is our way of praying for a world bigger than our grudges, freer than our fictions, rich beyond our riches. Heaven is our highest prayer—not as an escape from earth, but as redemption for earth: “On earth as it is in heaven.” It is this salvation from outside, Jesus says, that actually gives us life. “The flesh is useless”—“it is the spirit that gives life” (John 6:63). Patience, gentleness, forgiveness—these fruits of the spirit come not through our willpower and determination, not through the world we plan for and expect, but through our surrender to something beyond us, something that comes through the gaps and cracks of our world. God, in a word—or “heaven,” if you’d like.   

Prayer

God of the gaps,

Who breaks into our world

In the openings

Of nonexistence,

In what we cannot see coming,

In what we do not know—

Hear us in heaven

And save us.

Lead us beyond

The world we cling to.

Lead us in the way

Of death and resurrection.

In the name of him whose spirit gives life, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

"Only a Little Child" (1 Kgs 2:10-12; 3:3-14)

“What Would You Wish For?” 

“If a genie in a bottle granted you three wishes, what would you wish for?” This was the question du jour in third grade while shooting the breeze at the bus stop or chewing the cud in the cafeteria. Disney’s animated version of Aladdin had just come out. I imagine that’s where the question originated.

The conventional wisdom was, of course, to ask for more wishes—that is, to maximize your return, to get everything you wanted.

A Lesson from His Father

Solomon does not follow the conventional wisdom at this point in his life. When God invites him to make a request, he does not seek to maximize his return. Part of me wonders if this is because he remembers the experience of his father. David usually got what he wanted, but the result was often trouble. Bathsheba here is the prime example. But more generally, David’s success comes at the cost of making more enemies.

Perhaps Solomon can see that getting what you want is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Where Solomon’s Wisdom Comes From

Solomon is a legendary figure in the Bible. He is especially famous for one thing. His wisdom. Which strikes me as a little bit ironic. His fame is for something for which he does nothing. His wisdom is not a special ability he’s been born with or a skill he’s developed or knowledge he’s acquired. It is not the result of any effort or merit on his part. It is a gift from God.

And I don’t know—perhaps that is still reason enough for fame. To be the special recipient of an extraordinary gift. Except…I wonder if he’s meant to be an exclusive recipient and if the gift is meant to be extraordinary. In other words, I wonder if his wisdom is meant to be not an outrageous, otherworldly ability that we envy and admire but rather a very practical example that we imitate. 

The Wisdom of a Child’s Heart

To reiterate: for Solomon to receive God’s gift, it is not a matter of doing anything. It is only a matter of orientation, attitude. “I am only a little child,” he prays. “I do not know how to go out or come in” (1 Kgs 3:7). “Going out and coming in” is a Hebrew expression for a person’s daily activities. The image that Solomon’s prayer conjures in my mind is my nephews, who still need help tying their shoes before they go out, who still need help taking a bath at the end of the day when they come back in. Yes, they can do many things on their own. For instance, they both recently demonstrated mastery of the monkey bars on the playground. But even when they’re doing things like this on their own, they’re never alone. The love from their parents is in their hearts. The behaviors their parents have taught them are in their body. And their parents are never too far away when they cry out. And, perhaps crucially, they’re not afraid to cry out.

I do not think it’s a coincidence that Jesus says that to receive the kingdom of God, we must become like little children. Little children are supreme examples of what it means to know our need and to trust in a loving higher power.

Solomon’s prayer fleshes out a further dimension of a child’s wisdom. Our NRSV translation says he asks God for “an understanding mind” (1 Kgs 3:9). But the Hebrew, I think, is more profound. Lev shome‘a literally means “a listening heart.” (Lev, “heart,” is the word used in the scripture, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…” [e.g., Deut 6:5].) “An understanding mind” suggests mastery. It suggests a grownup who’s been around the block and knows what is what and how to do things. “A listening heart” suggests attention. It suggests a child who knows there’s always more to the world than they know, who is curious and open.

My nephews have a listening heart (at least some of the time!). They are little sponges. When they see something for the first time, like when they saw deer on the edge of the woods, or when they hear something for the first time, like when I gently explained what a hurricane is, they are rapt with attention. You can see the fascination in their eyes,  the little wheels turning in their mind, their heart open wide.

I wonder if Solomon’s wisdom is as legendary as we have made it out to be or if it’s not, as his own prayer would suggest, as universal as childhood. To be needful, trusting, and attentive to a loving higher power.

A Lesson for Us from Solomon

If Solomon’s prayer demonstrates the attitude by which a person receives God’s gift of wisdom, then it seems to me, tragically, that Solomon gradually forfeits this attitude and God’s wisdom over the remaining years of his life. Many readers have observed that, as King Solomon completes numerous impressive building projects and enlarges Israel’s wealth and reputation, he also begins to recreate the very same conditions of oppression under which Israel suffered in Egypt. Forced labor, heavy taxes, conscription.… Solomon effectively becomes a new Pharaoh. It is no surprise, then, that when he dies, “all the assembly of Israel” comes to his successor, Rehoboam, and says, “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us” (1 Kgs 12:3-4).

If Solomon begins his reign as an example for us all, bearing a child’s heart that is needful, trusting, and open to a loving higher power, then he ends his reign demonstrating the antithesis of a child’s wisdom. He has come to resemble the self-reliant, controlling king about which Samuel had long ago warned the people of Israel  (cf. 1 Sam 8).

The apparent lesson in Solomon’s negative development is that wisdom is not a static quality. It is not something that is achieved or secured once and for all. It is, rather, a daily disposition. It is why Jesus prays to his father for his “daily bread.” Wisdom is the opposite of mastery. It is daily becoming only a beginner, “only a little child.” It is daily acknowledging our need, living in trust, and paying attention to the God who loves us.

My Prayer for You

Sometimes in scripture Paul shares with the church to whom he is writing his prayer for them. This morning, I would like to share my prayer for you—for us. This is very personal for me. We all have different prayer styles. I have always envied people who have the gift of extemporaneous prayer, who can pray on the spot with just the words that are called for. That is not my gift. Instead I usually pray words that have assembled themselves together over a period of time as I have listened to my heart and what it is trying to say. And so every morning, I pray roughly the same prayer for my loved ones, which includes you. I pray that God would open us up to his goodness and the goodness of his creation.

I’ve heard that prayer really boils down to three basic expressions: thanks, help, and wow! My humble addition to that catalogue would be: “Open me (us) up!”

As I read today’s scripture, I think I understand my own prayer a little more clearly. When I pray that God would open us up, I am really praying that God would make us like little children (again), knowing our need, living in trust, and paying attention.

This opening up—what we might call the wisdom of a little child—we see most clearly in Christ. Paul says that it is foolishness to the world. He says that the world looks at Christ’s opening up and sees weakness. The world's wisdom is self-reliance and control. It is to wall up. The wisdom of Christ, which is the wisdom of a little child, is to open up. And for followers of Christ, it is the power of God. It is our salvation (cf. 1 Cor 1).

In closing today, I would like to share a little more of my prayer with you.

Prayer

Loving God,
Bless this day
And be with my Trinity family and our loved ones.
Open us up to your goodness
And the goodness of your creation.

Open us up:
To trust in your love and to walk with courage in its way;
To receive Christ in every encounter;
And to give thanks in all things.
May your love nourish us, guide us, and give us the strength to live well.

And grant us the peace of being comfortable in our own skin,
That we might be a blessing to others
And that we might grow in love and wisdom.
In Christ, whom we follow: Amen.

The Trouble with Anger (2 Sam 18:5-9, 15, 31-33)

Payback

It was the first day of second grade. Keith found the desk with his nametag and sat down. Immediately he knew something was not right. As the boy next to him began to snigger and several heads in front of him turned around and stared, he could feel that his seat was wet. Terrified, he stood up and saw a puddle. The boy sitting next to him, whose name was Jack, must have put water on his seat before he arrived. He hadn’t seen it when he sat down.

His face red with embarrassment, Keith dried his seat and sat down again. But that was not the end. Jack was speaking to the teacher now, “I think the boy next to me has had an accident.”  All the class looked at Keith. The teacher came over and discreetly asked if he needed a change of clothes. No, he shook his head, the seat just had some water in it. He gave Jack a smoldering look.

Keith never forgot that first day. In time, he would make Jack pay. One day Jack got to lunch and discovered that everything in his lunchbox was soaked.  There was a hole in his juice pouch. Another day, Jack opened his pencil box and found all his pens and pencils and crayons stuck together, caked in glue. Before long, these petty pranks had escalated into an outright battle. Every offense was remembered. None was left unaccounted. Whenever one boy struck, the other struck back.

The Cycle of Anger

Anger has a way of keeping itself in circulation.

This is no less true in the world of second grade than in our homes and in our workplaces and in the tournament of nations. We see it everywhere. One person gets angry and then gets even. But rather than stopping the anger, getting even only spreads it. The other person gets angry and retaliates. Once the cycle starts, it is hard to stop. Anger has a way of keeping itself in circulation.

It is not an accident that King David looks out across the field one day and prepares to go to war with his own son, Absalom. This day has been about ten years in the making. It all began when Amnon, David’s son from another wife, raped Absalom’s sister, Tamar. Absalom channeled his anger into cold revenge. Saying nothing, he waited for two years. Then he threw a feast and invited his family, including his half-brother Amnon. When the heart of Amnon was merry with wine, Absalom gave the signal, and his servants killed him. The news deeply distresses his father David, filling him with a bitter mix of grief and anger. For five years, Absalom is not welcomed in his father’s house. Finally David receives him, and the two reconcile. Or at least they appear to. But anger has a way of keeping itself in circulation. Absalom has not forgotten the length of time that he was not welcome at home. In his smoldering resentment, Absalom conspires for the next four years to usurp his own father’s throne. Finally his plan comes to fruition. He takes his father’s throne, and David flees the city with the warriors that remain faithful to him.

Which brings us back to today—to David looking out across the field and preparing to go to war with his own son. Twelve years before, the scene would have been unimaginable. But that was before anger began its vicious cycle of vengeance.

Even so, David keeps perspective. Before the battle begins, he gives careful instruction to his army not to kill his son, Absalom. David wants out of the cycle. He keeps alive the hope of one day reconciling with his son.

But by this point in time, the anger has grown beyond his control. David’s wishes are too feeble in the face of anger’s outsized demand. When Absalom finds himself stuck in the trees, hanging helplessly above the ground, anger licks its chops. This is too good to be true. David’s commander, Joab, who heard very well David’s instruction, thrusts three spears into Absalom. Why?  He is the surrogate of anger, possessed by its demand, driven by the betrayal his king has suffered and the need for vengeance. Absalom must pay.

Anger as a Parasite

I’m fascinated by the way we talk about anger. We commonly refer to nurturing anger and satisfying our anger. I wonder if there’s more truth in these words than we realize. Our expressions suggest that anger is a reality and a power distinct from us. When we nurture anger, we are not nurtured. Anger is. When we satisfy anger, we are not satisfied. Anger is. In my mind, this paints the picture of anger as a parasite. It feeds off us. We might think that payback will make us feel good, but really it will make the parasite feel good even as it drains us of life.

That’s what happened rather literally in the story of King David. At each turn in the road, someone kept the anger alive. Seeking to get even, to settle the score, someone kept the anger in circulation. And each time the anger was satisfied, it left someone dissatisfied. It deprived its hosts of life. The anger grew and grew until one day it literally took life. Not only Absalom’s, but also a part of David’s.  Who can hear his anguished cry and not hear the death of part of his soul? “Would I have died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam 18:33).

Letting Go of Anger

The trouble with anger is what to do with it. If it’s hard enough to stop the cycle in second grade, what do we do when it comes to the tragic realities of our own world?  Because what we see in Absalom’s story, we see also in our own world. Sexual abuse. Rape. Murder. War.

In response to evils like these, it is tempting to jump ahead and look for an answer, a solution, a fix. But if we are not careful, the answer or solution will simply become a vehicle for anger, keeping it in circulation and draining us of life at the same time. In today’s epistle reading, Paul paraphrases Christ on the importance of starting where we are and acknowledging anger: “Be angry,” Paul says, “but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26; cf. Matt 5:21-26).

Words like these cannot even begin to address the horrors of something like rape or murder. They are not meant to. They are meant to address another horror, one that promises satisfaction but only deprives us further of life. Words like these would not have restored the honor of Absalom’s sister, Tamar. They wouldn’t have brought David’s son, Amnon, back to life. They cannot change what has happened. But they can stop the cycle.

“Do not let the sun go down on your anger” promises neither a restoration of what was lost, nor the offender’s repentance, nor a future reconciliation. The only thing it promises is a stop to the cycle.

Its power is not in what it accomplishes but in what it makes possible. Like much of God’s power, it is a possibilizing power. It is the same power of the cross. Proclaiming forgiveness instead of vengeance, returning after death with a word of peace instead of retribution, Christ makes possible an entirely different way of life, one where violence is not kept in circulation, where life is no longer lost in the quest to get even, where anger is just a feeling and not a parasitic power that holds us in its crippling grip.

To let go of anger is perhaps the most powerless thing to do in the world. It accomplishes very little in itself. And yet—the life that it makes possible!  That, according to Jesus, is worth dying for.

Prayer

Tenderhearted Christ,
Instead of nurturing grudges,
You nurtured us—
Liberate us
From the ruinous grasp of anger;
Teach us your way
Of feeling anger
And letting it go;
Train us in that powerless power
That makes possible
The world of which you dream,
The kingdom of God. Amen.

"You're the One" (2 Sam 11:26-12:13a)

David in Denial

How clever is Nathan. If he just plainly declares to David, “I know what you did,” he risks ending up on the wrong side of a sharp blade, as many of David’s naysayers already have. Generally speaking, Israelite prophets who dare to criticize the king…they have a pretty poor track record.

By telling a story, Nathan approaches the matter indirectly. He does not immediately accuse David or even let on that he knows what David has done, so there’s no reason for David to become defensive. Nathan’s indirect approach also allows him to gauge the king’s moral compass. Can the king perceive the injustice suffered by the poor man who loses his lamb?

He most certainly can. David’s “anger [is] greatly kindled” on the poor man’s behalf (2 Sam 12:5). For the audience who knows the design of Nathan’s story, the irony of David’s indignation is painful, or delicious, or perhaps both. We know that whatever verdict David delivers against the rich man, he is really delivering against himself. He is tying his own noose, so to speak.

But as much credit as Nathan deserves for his clever ploy, the fact remains that if he hadn’t eventually spoken directly and told David the meaning of the story, David would have remained oblivious to the obvious parallels between Nathan’s story and his own. Which is really just to say: David is in denial. His moral compass is not out of whack. He knows what is right and wrong. That’s the thing about denial. It’s not a malfunction of our morality. It’s just a blind spot. The self is the hardest thing to see.

Fitting God’s Word to Our World

David is not unique in his denial. It has always been this way. I think of how Christians have used the Bible to sanction things like genocide and slavery. While it may be easier to vilify our ancestors who have done these things, to label them as somehow morally deficient, the truth is that many of them read their Bibles just like us and tried to live good lives. But they had blind spots. And when they read the Bible, they tailored its meaning to fit their own view of the world, including their blind spots.

This tendency toward confirmation bias, toward seeing in the Bible an endorsement of our own values and beliefs, explains how two opposing groups can use the same Bible in support of their cause. How priests in Russia can bless the aggression against Ukraine and priests in Ukraine can sanctify their resistance with the same Bible. Or how advocates of hierarchical gender roles can validate their claims and supporters of egalitarian gender roles can make their own case with the same Bible.

If it suddenly feels like we’re standing on shaky ground, like nothing can be known for certain when we’re all reading through the faulty lens of our own biases and blind spots…well, perhaps that’s not an unhelpful feeling. Perhaps this feeling is something akin to “the fear of God,” the awe and humility of recognizing that we are not God. The gospel of Luke indicates on more than one occasion that the final stumbling block to faith for some religious persons is that they want to justify themselves (Luke 10:29; 16:15). They assume and want to prove that God is on their side. They try to make God’s word fit their world rather than to make their world fit God’s word.

Judge or Judged?

Imagine with me for a moment two friends who go to the Museum of Modern Art to see Van Gogh’s classic painting, “Starry Night.” One friend is an art critic. He immediately identifies the style of the painting and the various techniques Van Gogh used. He talks about the location depicted in the painting and speculates on its significance for Van Gogh. He goes on and on. A true art critic, he clearly knows all about the painting. Meanwhile, his friend stands in silent awe before the painting. There are tears forming in his eyes. Oblivious to his friend going on and on, he is transfixed by the waves of light in the night sky. How much light there is in the night sky! He feels himself lifted up, buoyed by the waves of light. He begins to hear the melody of “O Holy Night” in his imagination. “The stars are brightly shining…” In a word, he feels hope. This painting hanging on a wall has changed his world.

When David hears Nathan’s parable, he judges it. He stands before it as the master of its meaning, pointing out the injustice, issuing a verdict. He is like the art critic, who talks about the painting, but never stops to let the painting talk to him. But that’s what the painting wants to do. The friend who finds himself in tears stands before the painting not as a critic—not even as its audience. He finds himself standing before “Starry Night” as a disciple. The painting has told him the truth about the world, and he leaves changed.

When David pronounces judgment on the rich man in the story, Nathan finally intervenes. “You are the man!” he declares (2 Sam 12:7). Which is to say, “You are not the judge of this story; it is the judge of you!”

With Hunger

There’s plenty more that could be said about the tragic finale to the David and Bathsheba episode, but I’d like to conclude instead with some pondering on what it means to read the Bible (or indeed any sacred text or symbol or experience). It is only natural to approach the Bible with questions. Questions about its history, about gaps in the story, about the culture and the ideas from which the text drew its meaning. “Why did David stay in Jerusalem when his army went out to battle? Did Nathan know about David’s sin through divine revelation or because there’d been some loose chatter among David’s servants?” As children of the Enlightenment, we approach life with a relatively scientific mind, asking questions, testing hypotheses, securing knowledge. Much good fruit has been born of this approach. One need only think of the medical advances of the last few centuries.

But there’s a danger as well to this approach. You know the saying, “Knowledge is power”? Well, that’s the danger. The temptation of our rational, scientific approach to things is control of our environment, mastery over every problem that we confront. And so we are tempted to approach texts, including the Bible, as masters bent on determining the meaning. We are tempted to try to stay objective, to keep a safe distance.

But God’s word does not want us to keep a safe distance. “You are the one!” it declares. It’s talking not only about David and Nathan and Bathsheba and Uriah, it’s talking about us. It’s talking not only about Matthew and Peter and James and John, it’s talking about us. God’s word does not want to be determined by us, but to determine us, change us. And lest today’s scripture cast a dark or ominous shade on God’s word, as though it is only ever judgment, we would do well to remember that it is also and ultimately meant for liberating and building up and giving life. “You are the one!” echoes very differently in the case of the parable of the prodigal son. What good news to feel in our bones, to know in our gut, that we are that one! Embraced by the father without question, welcomed home with joy, celebrated for our unconditional worth in his eyes.

All of this to say, if it is only natural for us to begin as critics of the text, to come with questions and observations, then it is also imperative that we let our guard down and become not only the audience of God’s word but—like the friend tearing up in front of “Starry Night”—its disciples. In today’s gospel lectionary text, Jesus declares that he is the bread of life (John 6:35). It stands as a helpful reminder, perhaps, of how to approach the Bible. With hunger. With awareness of our needs, our limits, our failures. Or as David puts it in Psalm 51, after he has finally been convicted by God’s word, “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps 51:17).

To hear God’s word is not to make its meaning, but for us ourselves to be made new.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Who is the bread of life,
We are hungry—
But sometimes we are like David,
Out of touch with our hunger.
…
Give us pause
Of body and mind
That we might know our heart,
Broken and needful.
May your word challenge and comfort,
According to our need,
That we might be filled with your love
And be made new.
Amen.