10-9-18 - The Look of Love

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Our internal soundtracks can be irreverent sometimes. As I read this familiar passage, a Dionne Warwick song started up in my head. It was that thing about “Jesus looked at him with love” that did it. Here we have a man who’s come to Jesus asking “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” After establishing that he knows and keeps the commandments:

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

The man is shocked and dismayed by this message – as most of us would be. But it’s not given in a vacuum. It is a message grounded in great love, delivered to someone who is already close to God. If only the love had rung louder for him than the audacity of the demand. But all the love in the world cannot redirect us if we cannot let it in, and for whatever reason, that man’s love for his wealth and goods, and maybe the security they afforded him, blocked out the love Jesus directed to him.

What keeps God’s great love from infiltrating and transforming our interior landscapes? Sometimes it is blocked by alternate messages we’ve received from the world, family, school, careers, or by a self-sufficiency which comes hardwired in members of deeply individualistic cultures. The lure of worldly success and short-term gain can also impede the flow of that love to us.

And what can help us to lower our barriers and let it in? Sometimes we need to see how short that short-term gain really is before we’re ready to open ourselves up to something deeper, less immediately accessible. And sometimes it is because someone comes along and insists on loving us despite our barriers. Jesus invited that man to part from all his wealth and success and follow him so he could offer him transformative love in relationship. That’s the offer he makes us, too – the invitation to follow and draw near, love and be loved in a way that changes us.

Would it be easier if Jesus was standing right in front of us and we could feel his gaze of love? Maybe Jesus sends representatives to bear his love to us, and we’re missing the offer. We cannot fail to miss the needs around us – that can be another way God invites us to release our grip on our wealth and supposed security. But only out of love. In love.

The gospel writers never tell us what became of this man. Did he reconsider Jesus’ offer and take him up on it at a later time? Did it change his relationship to his wealth and power? I imagine that could only happen if he was able to take in the love Jesus offered him in that look. Only that look of love can change our hearts. Only that love can change the world. It already has.

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10-8-18 - A Good Person

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

When I was in elementary school, I loved the SRA reading mastery system. This was a set of reading materials through which children could move at their own pace. You’d read a selection, answer the questions about it, and if you were correct, move on to the next story or harder category. It was a perfect system for over-achievers – a clear path to success, with an almost unlimited number of steps to complete.

That’s what the man in this week’s gospel story reminds me of – someone doing the spiritual equivalent of SRA. This fellow who ran up to Jesus was a good and serious man, meticulous in following God’s commandments, humble and faithful. Even so he is unsure of his ultimate future.  So he comes to find Jesus: As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

Jesus asks why he calls him “good teacher,” telling him that only God is fully good. He reminds him of the Law – living according to God’s commandments is the way to demonstrate your goodness. The man assures Jesus he has kept these all his life. Then Jesus adds a twist.

But wait - before we look at that, let’s stop and wonder at this man. He has kept all the commandments his whole life? That’s amazing! What kind of person is this? A person who can say, “I’m a good person,” is both admirable and deeply saddening. Saddening, because those who locate their righteousness in their own ability to follow the rules often find it harder to open themselves to God's love.

There are two approaches to holiness. One is the “SRA,” rung-climbing, rule-following, sometimes teeth-gritting way of “Give me the directions; I can do it myself.” The other is to be clear-eyed about our weaknesses as well as strengths, willing to be repentant and vulnerable, compassionate toward self and others. I believe that the first approach leaves us little room to grow, while the second allows infinite space for maturing in faith and love. There is nothing wrong with “good people.” It’s just that so often those who say “I’m a good person” say it defensively, explaining why they don’t bother much with God or religious life.

Do you know anyone in that category? I don't wish to sound judgmental – I just don’t think it works. It’s like saying, “I’ve arrived. There is nothing more I need.” Now, this man talking to Jesus wasn’t quite that way – he figured there must be something more he needed to do, more rungs on that ladder to heaven. That’s the trap for the “good person,” thinking we can “do” our way into the Kingdom of Life, when Jesus said it is a gift we need to receive. The last thing this man needed was another spiritual task (though Jesus gave him a whopper...). He needed to submit himself to Love.

“I’m a good person,” is a conversation stopper. What do you say to that? “Good for you?” “No, you’re not?” I think the next time someone says that to me, I will smile and say, “Great. Are you a loved person?” That’s what matters.

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10-5-18 - As A Child

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

There are training exercises for care-givers, to help them better understand the experience of given populations. People working with the sight-impaired don light-proof blindfolds and try to get around; people who serve the infirm are told to navigate spaces with canes or wheelchairs.

How would we design such an exercise to better understand the world as a child experiences it, to recover that way of seeing we all once had? Certainly we’d have to get several feet closer to the floor, and maybe be told to regard every object as a potential plaything, and be encouraged to ask every question that comes to our mind.

We need to be able to get back into our “child mind” if we want to be serious about our faith journey, at least according to Jesus: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 

This comment may have shocked the serious adults to whom he addressed it. His own disciples had been shooing away the children who were crowding around Jesus, and he told them to let the children come. But to go further and say we must emulate them if we want to be part of the kingdom of God – that’s a radical notion.

It means we need to embrace dependency instead of going it alone. It means we need to be able to believe in things that we cannot see – and come to see them, as our faith vision develops. It means we expect joy and playfulness, and expand our capacity for wonder. It means we ask our questions, and cry when we're sad, and act silly, and sit down for stories that capture our fancy. And we share these good things with each other.

How much of that applies to your experience of church and Christian community? How might we adapt our circumstances to cultivate this way of being? How might our worship become a holy play space, where we “make believe?,” enacting our most central stories over and over, as children do?

I’ve been talking about how we might perceive the Kingdom as children do. But Jesus didn’t say “perceive,” he said “receive.” We must become receptors if we are to truly accept God’s gifts, even God’s calls to action. When working and giving outweigh the receiving, we find ourselves stuck outside the threshold of God-Life, yearning to get in.

That’s where those children were, who wanted to get close to Jesus. And here’s what he did: 

 He took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
When we come to Jesus like that, he will offer us no less.

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10-4-18 - Owners of the Kingdom

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

The handlers were getting edgy. The candidate was on a tight schedule, with influential people to meet, speeches to give, a movement to advance. There was no time for kissing babies and picking up kids. Security risk, germ risk, not to mention the danger of being upstaged… “Keep the kids away!” they muttered into their walkie-talkies. But the candidate had other ideas:

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."

I can imagine this is how Jesus’ disciples might be depicted if we updated this story to today. (Such things do occur during Pope Francis’ appearances... here is a similar moment, and another here). It does make for great copy – the high and exalted stooping to the lowly and insignificant.

But Jesus was up to something much bigger than a photo op. He did not only say to let the children come – he said that they, far from being insignificant, have the highest status of all: to them belongs the Kingdom of God. That makes them owners, these little ones who by law could own nothing, earn nothing, achieve nothing, who were completely dependent upon others. These are the owners of the Kingdom.

What does that say about other insignificant kinds of people? Is Jesus saying the Kingdom also belongs to the destitute, the diseased, the depressed, the disowned - and us, on our worst days? Or is there something peculiar to children that elevates them to this status? Is it in fact their very dependence that makes them so important?

Is Jesus inviting us to lay down all our products and projects so that our hands are open to receive the whole thing, the fullness of God-Life? Is that why he wants us to relinquish all the things we think we own, which keep us from being fully open to owning the whole Realm of God? Jesus told a little parable about that, and counseled a wealthy man…

It is one of Jesus’ most difficult challenges to us, this call to lay down something in order to receive everything. We spend our lives living into that work, so that when we come face to face with Love in its purest form, our hands are open and empty, ready to receive it.

Our children already know this; if we could only keep them from unlearning it as they grow up, they might lead us into the joy and unanxious wonder of God-Life.

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10-3-18 - Law/Grace

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

What’s the quickest way to take the focus off God’s grace? Bring up a “life-style” issue. It even happened around Jesus. In his remarks on marriage, divorce and adultery, he emphasizes the Law more strenuously than with many other teachings. He says that the Torah, the Law of Moses, provided a way for men to divorce their wives, but implies that this “out” was only given because of they were so incapable of love. Talking to his disciples in the privacy of the house, he does not offer any wiggle room:

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

To which we might respond, “Yeah, well, he wasn’t married, was he?”

No, we don’t get to play that card. Jesus knew the human condition well enough, and no doubt had enough married friends to understand how challenging it is for two people to put their lives together for a lifetime. Yet he offers little grace in his teaching on divorce, he who was so forgiving to people who squandered their gifts in loose living, and even those who hoarded wealth and cheated others.

It is never advisable to “proof text,” to find one passage of scripture to back up a position. Chances are another passage will contradict it or provide a broader context in which multiple interpretations can thrive. There is a reason Jesus said these things to his disciples in private rather than to the general public (though in Matthew’s gospel, these teachings are part of the Sermon on the Mount, a more public event). Perhaps he was holding up for those who were leaders, who represented his movement, an ideal standard which he knew people less committed to God-Life might not manage.

That’s a big, wild guess, of course. I don’t know why Jesus said these things. What I do know is that the Law is God-given and beautiful – and can crush the life out of us if misused. The Law (at least in abstract) is God’s pure gift, given to impure human vessels who cannot live it fully. This puts us in rather a bind, as Paul wrote about so movingly in Romans 7 (you might read 7 and 8 in full...)

Realizing we cannot meet the demands of God's Law can inspire different responses:

• We can give up, and toss it out altogether, living by our own instincts and reason.
• We can bear down harder, trying to legislate and control what the heart seems incapable of doing willingly.
• We can carry its standards in tension with the forgiveness of the loving and merciful God we’ve been taught to worship, and invite the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to help us live into it.

Gee, which one do you think I favor?

Lawlessness leads to highly subjective ethics, and often to licentiousness and heartache.
Legalism distorts God’s gift and focuses us on penalties, and then we lose sight of the Spirit and often find ourselves trying to control other people’s behavior more than our own.

Living in the light of God’s amazing grace leads to freedom, fostering an environment of love and forgiveness in which people can find themselves, find God, and move toward wholeness. It is only in relationship with God that we are enabled to live the Law as God intended.

If the Law of the Lord is to revive the soul, as the Psalmist wrote, it must be leavened with Grace, described here by Bono, a modern-day psalmist. Where do you want to spend your time?

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10-2-18 - Holy Matrimony

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

When Jesus is asked whether or not divorce is permissible for the faithful, he goes to the Scriptures, quoting Genesis: But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh."

Sounds simple enough. It’s the ideal of what marriage is. Much more than a change of life status and condition, marriage in the Judeo-Christian view is the creation of a new person, if you will, an entity borne of the union of two partners. It’s a beautiful ideal, and maddeningly difficult to live into, especially in a culture that understands marriage as the consummation of romantic love. And to the question of whether only people of different gender can become “one flesh,” the bible is silent, as it is on abortion, medical ethics, labor laws, and so many other issues that vex us today.

What Jesus is not silent on is the sanctity of the union once made. He answers the Pharisees in a fairly general way – “…Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” But Mark tells us that in private he has a fuller answer for his disciples: Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Harsh words. Of course, Jesus also said that a man who lusts after a woman commits adultery in his heart, and those who harbor hate effectively commit murder… He did not want his followers to be complacent about sin, but to recognize their need for forgiveness and a return to God’s embrace.

I don’t know why this teaching makes no mention of situations like abuse, infidelity or neglect that might warrant dissolving a marriage. And how are we to interpret it in our era, in which so many marriages suffer estrangement, unfaithfulness and often break down completely? This is one reason we can’t “cherry-pick” verses out of the bible, and must look at each part in the context of the whole. That whole speaks of forgiveness, overwhelming love and a God whose mercies are new every morning. Every morning.

In the Episcopal wedding liturgy, the congregation is asked, after the two parties have declared their intent, whether they will do all in their power to support these two persons in their life in Christ. This is where we have a chance to enhance the “holy” in matrimony. Whether or not we are present when a couple made their vows, we can pray for them, talk with them, tangibly support their ongoing emotional and spiritual connection. And we can counter the cultural messages about marriage with the Christian narrative – that God has made out of two distinct persons a new creation in order that they reveal Love in the world. That new creation is fragile and vulnerable – it needs nurturing and protecting.

It is not up to each couple to save their marriage – it is up to their community to support and to love them, even when they fail to stay together. If we want to see marriage upheld as holy, let’s pray and support the couples we know, for the holy comes from God, through God's people.

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10-1-18 - Culture Wars

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

We land smack dab in the middle of it this week: marriage and children. Jesus weighs in – not on marriage equality, which was beyond possibility in that time – but on divorce, a topic on which many vocal opponents of same-gender marriage are silent, perhaps because divorce is so prevalent in our times, even among Christian evangelicals.

How and why did Jesus come to comment on this at all? Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you."

Jesus does not bring this subject up himself. His teachings focus on how we can better understand God’s love and activity in our world, and how we are to treat the poor, the infirm, the elderly, the young, the alien, and those with whom we have conflict. Jesus seems little interested in laying down the law on marriage or any of the topics that claim so much time and energy in American Christianity.

But here come the Pharisees, trying to bait him again, this time on whether or not divorce is permissible. Jesus is, as always, cagey in his response. He does not answer the question, but points them back to the Law of Moses, “What did Moses command you?” They answer that the Law allows a man to divorce his wife. Jesus replies that this “out” is provided to allow for “hardness of heart,” not because it is godly. (More tomorrow on what else he says …)

My question is: what does this have to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? What does this have to do with “the kingdom of God has come among you,” “The Word became flesh and dwelt among you full of grace and truth?” It was then, and is now, a distraction from the fullness of Jesus’ message. Yes, how we live, and the honor with which we do and do not regard the people in our lives, is definitely connected to that Good News of wholeness restored. I just don’t believe that’s where we are to dwell. When we focus on human behavior, we stop looking at Jesus and proclaiming him as Lord.

I try hard not to get too drawn into “culture war” debates. They so massively distort what the Christian enterprise is and is meant to be. They obscure the power of love and healing with which the Church has been entrusted, and trumpet legalism instead of love, law to the detriment of grace. All God's revelation is important, but when the debate about these matters drowns out the Great Commandment to love God with heart, soul and mind – and your neighbor as yourself – we have a problem.

One of the religious organizations I follow has as its tagline: “Love your neighbor. No exceptions.” When somebody asks what you think about marriage, sexuality, or any other social issue of the day, you might just “pull a Jesus” and ask in return: How can we best love our neighbor on this question?

That will change the quality of the conversation and invite Jesus to be smack dab in the middle of it.

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