Hertira: September 2012

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Dealing With One of Jesus' Hard Sayings

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off...And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off...And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out.”

When I visited a parish in Chester, England about 15 years ago, they were in the midst of a series of sermons, given by lay preachers, called “The Hard Sayings of Jesus”. I remember thinking how brave those folks were in tackling such a project. It’s hard to preach on such a saying as Mark records in today’s Gospel, much less to understand what in the world Jesus is really trying to say to us!

Paul Nuechterlein, who has served as senior pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Portage, MI, and is an expert on the ideas and theories of French historian, philosopher, and literary critic, René Girard, has a hunch that Jesus is actually employing some dark humor in the Gospel passages. There’s a terribly serious point which Jesus is making, to which we need to pay close attention. But his use of dark humor to make the point should also alert us to keep that in perspective. Just as a sidebar: one of the ideas which René Girard has developed is something called mimetic desire. Mimetic is related to the word mime or to imitate. The word desire is fairly understandable. So, mimetic desire would indicate that we imitate, we mime, the desiring of other people.

To understand how this connects to today’s Gospel (Mark 9:38-50), recall what Mark records in last Sunday’s Gospel: the disciples have a conversation on the way to Capernaum, about which Jesus confronts them later, only to find out that, as Mark says, “they had argued with one another who was the greatest...” As you’ll remember, Jesus reminded them that the “greatest” needs to become “last of all and servant of all.” In other words, Jesus reminds the disciples that many of our troubles arise from this very process of catching our desires from each other, learning to want the same things, and in the process, competing with one other, which generally leads to selfishiness and conflict, and even violence sometimes. Scripture uses the word covet, as in “You shall not covet your neighbor's things.” The focus is on our brothers/sisters, from whom we learn to desire.

Clergy often joke about a good sermon consisting of three points and a poem. I’ll spare you the poem today, but I will use an old Jules Pfeiffer cartoon to exemplify this idea of mimetic desire. It starts with a high school student standing there, saying: “Ever since I was a little kid, I didn't want to be me. I wanted to be Billy Wittleton. Billy Wittleton didn't even like me. I walked like he walked; I talked like he talked; I signed up for the high school he signed up for. Which was when Billy Wittleton changed. He began to hang around Herbie Vandeman. He walked like Herbie Vandeman; he talked like Herbie Vandeman. He mixed me up. I began to walk and talk like Billy Wittleton walking and talking like Herbie Vandeman. And then it dawned on me that Herbie Vandeman walked and talked like Joey Haverland. Joey Haverland walked and talked like Corky Savenson. So here I am walking and talking like Billy Wittleton's imitation of Herbie Vandeman's version of Joey Haverland's trying to walk and talk like Corky Savenson. And who do you think Corky Savenson is always walking and talking like? Of all people, dopey Kenny Wellington, that little pest who walks and talks like me.”

This is an example of thinking that we can’t find anything desirable unless we crave what others demonstrate to us to be desirable. It’s the same principle which is at work in Genesis 3: the story of the man and woman and the serpent in the garden of Eden. God tells the man and woman not to desire eating the tree in the middle of the garden, and they obey. But eventually, the fruit becomes more and more desirable, because the serpent shows the woman what to desire, and she, in turn, shows the man. Mimetic desire.

The Genesis story, however, is even more tragic. The most direct way to show the woman and man the desire would have been for the serpent to take a piece of the fruit himself, which the woman later actually does for the man, before handing it to him. The writer of Genesis, however, says that the serpent, the most subtle and crafty creature in the garden, makes the fruit desirable with a classic “Madison Avenue” technique: by “selling” the woman on believing that the most glamorous, powerful, trustworthy person in the world, namely God, finds the fruit desirable! “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God...”

The tragedy here is that instead of keeping their hearts set on God, trusting that God would provide all that they need, the man and the woman begin to doubt God. “Is God maybe holding out on us?” “Might God be keeping back the best fruit from us?” The man and woman now become rivals with God, competing with the Divine, and so they act on their desire. The result is that they can no longer remain with God in the Garden. As the story continues to play out, the ultimate fruit of their rivalry is an ongoing and growing resentment and anger, until one of their sons becomes a murderer. Brother kills brother. Resentment, anger, conflict, violence, death. It’s their story and the story of each one of us since then. Desire becomes distorted, and continually results in a repetitive process of rivalry, one-ups-man-ship, and eventually violence. Children catch it from their parents, and all end up stumbling and falling.

Pastor Nuechterlein suspects that in today’s passage, Jesus is trying to take a somewhat humorous, perhaps even tongue-in-cheek, approach to these terrible images of hell fire, using an example of mimetic desire and rivalry. The disciples, who have previously struck out in their attempts to drive out demons, had come upon someone else who’d obviously had better luck at casting out demons in Jesus' name. That didn’t go down well with them at all: “...we tried to stop him...” Obviously jealous and envious, they couldn’t stand the success of this other person “because he was not following us...”

Nuechterlein envisions that the disciples’ reaction struck Jesus as so pathetic that he had to laugh! Which could explain why Jesus continued by demonstrating what they were doing, but in a darkly humorous way: i.e., the stuff about making little ones stumble and having a millstone around your neck; about your hand or foot or eye making you stumble, so you cut it off. It’s definitely dark humor because it indicates how serious things really are. It helps us appreciate the seriousness involved in making a sister/brother stumble and fall; and even more so in sometimes setting examples as adults which lead our own children to stumble and fall. The consequences of all this stumbling into sin, Jesus hints, are the fires of violence. Mark’s Greek word, géenna, Gehenna, which we translate as hell, refers to the "valley of Hinnom", a place where, in ancient Israel, child sacrifice, the burning children on an altar, had been practiced. The fires of violence, Jesus hints, isn’t a place that God has created for us, but rather what we create for ourselves. The fire of our own human cravings and competitiveness and even violence, our desire and selfishness to have what others have, our willingness to do anything to get that, even if it means depriving another or cutting off another, or causing a brother/sister to stumble: that is the hell we create. Jesus says that we might as well cut off our hand or foot, or cut out our eye, if that's where we're going to end up, because that would be a more humane sacrifice than putting “one of these little ones” on an altar and burning them.

Could it also be that Jesus uses these words of dark humor, not to be taken literally but, perhaps with a grain of salt, so that he could offer us another way out, a totally different kind of sacrifice. Jesus, in dying on the cross, allows himself be cut off from us and from God, to be thrown into the sacrificial fires of our violence. Jesus trusted and hoped enough that God wouldn't let him stay cut off, and rightfully so. Jesus, one-d as he was in faith to God's self, became the way in which you and I could become reconnected, one-ed again with God. "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned." (John 15:5-6)

Notice the same image for the consequences of not being connected with God through Jesus: being gathered up and thrown into the fires of our own violence. The Good News is that in being connected, one-ed, to the true vine who is Christ, we finally experience God's loving desire coming to fruition. This is our way out of the stumbling block of our distorted mimetic desire, out of our passing this along to our children and to others.

The great 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, in her Revelations of Love, speaks eloquently about our human situation of constantly rising and falling, and of our being one-ed in Jesus by his great mercy. Towards the end of her books she says:

“If there is any such one alive on earth who is constantly kept from

falling, I know it not, for it was not shown me.

But this was shown:

that whether in falling or in rising

we are ever preciously protected in one love.

In the sight of God we do not fall;

in the sight of self, we do not stand --

and both of these are true as I see it, but the way our Lord God

sees it is the highest truth...

But our good Lord wills always that we see ourselves more from the

point of view of the higher

(but not give up knowledge of the lower)

until the time that we are brought up above,

where we shall have our Lord Jesus for our reward,

and will be filled full of joy and bliss without end...”

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Who Is Really "The Greatest"?

Fr. Daniel Harrington, a Catholic priest/professor at Boston College’s School for Theology and Ministry, has said: “When I hear about the sufferings of just people, I am challenged to reflect on their courage and to wonder how I would cope in such a situation. But more important than my self-doubt is the recognition that I belong to a heroic people and a heroic tradition for which principle has often been more significant than any other consideration. I am proud to stand in the tradition of...the anonymous just man of [the book of] Wisdom, Jesus, the early martyrs...and all those who suffer this day for their faith.” I’m not sure how comforting a message that is to us who, in fact, live in and are influenced by a largely non-believing, self-reliant American culture which espouses and promotes the principle: “Nice people finish last.”

The reading from Wisdom today (1:16-2:1; 12-22) spells out such a philosophy of life, which ultimately is one of death. It details the contrast between fools, which Scriptural wisdom literature also calls “the wicked”, and the wise. This is a favorite theme of the Psalms: the way of the foolish compared with the way of the righteous. The fool’s orientation is to oneself and to one’s own preferences and pleasures.

James, in the Epistle (3:13-4:3; 7-8a), dares to identify the source of such a way of life by the almost quaint phrase “your passions”, “your cravings”. From the fool’s perspective, nice people always finish last because they don’t get the fact that the aim of life here is basically to have, to possess things: good and costly things; to feel good and to have fun, to endlessly pursue whatever “high” is available; and to be somebody important. The weak, the wimp, the “righteous” person deserves to be pushed aside as irrelevant. “...Let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.”

Following Jesus the Christ, as he bids us, is a hazardous enterprise! A person who does that, you see, is “inconvenient”; she/he is a reproach, just by who she/he is, an obstacle, an accusation. That kind of person is a constant reminder, a reproof, a burden “because his[/her] manner of life is unlike that of others, and his[/her] ways are strange.”

St. James sets in contrast to such jealousy and selfish ambition the true image of one who is genuinely wise and righteous. That one, he says, is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. In the Gospel (Mark 9:30-37) Jesus gives us an idea of what that might look like: “If anyone would be first, that one must be last of all and”, more than that, “servant of all.” (For “servant” Mark uses the Greek word diakonos literally = one who runs errands; is an attendant, a waiter. We call that a “deacon”!) Jesus asks nothing more of you and me than he asks of himself: “I came not to be served, but to serve.”

Then, unconcerned about rank or status, he does a truly counter-cultural thing by sitting down and gathering a small child into his arms. In our culture a little child is, for the most part, irresistible, endearing, someone to whom we’re naturally drawn. That wasn’t so in Jesus’ time. Adults were consumed with earning honor, above all else. Honor was a socially acknowledged claim to worth. A grown person might do the ethically correct thing, but if he/she didn’t earn other people’s respect and honor, or wasn’t acknowledged for whatever reason, that person was a nobody. There were various ways to earn honor: to show bravery, be a brilliant speaker, become a well-respected teacher, or give gifts away: in other words, buy your honor. To serve others was considered the work of slaves. When Jesus was later crucified, for example, that was considered not only an extreme loss of honor: it was the ultimate disgrace. Notice in the Gospel how Jesus catches the disciples off-guard as they arrive at Capernaum. He quizzes them on what they were wrangling about on the way there. “Oh! That...!” Mark’s little aside to his readers blows their secret: “...they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest...”

Getting back to the child, in the Greco-Roman world a child was utterly powerless, totally dependent, without legal rights, completely subject to the authority of the head of the household, lacking any social standing at all. By his action Jesus says that the man or woman who welcomes and accepts an utterly defenseless person, one with no legal rights or claims to anyone’s compassion, one who can’t offer money, who has no prestige, privilege, and therefore power: that man or woman is truly righteous and wise before God. And, in his book, “nice” people always finish first, because in welcoming the needy person, he/she welcomes Jesus as well as the Father who sent him. That means much more than that it’s “nice” to stick up for the underdog. What Jesus is really saying is that it’s exactly there where you take the risk of offering your compassion to a defenseless, powerless one that you will look into the eyes of Jesus himself.

But, you see, the fools and the unwise don’t get this, because their passions, their cravings get in the way. Why do people deliberately cheat and steal, and cause misery in millions of lives when the stock market crashes?? Why do people con others into drug or alcohol addiction or child prostitution, and into all the other miseries associated with that?? Because at the root of every one of these is a passion, a desire, a craving for what I want, when I want it, and how I want it, to put me before everyone else. St. Augustine, himself a self-willed, long-time student in the school for selfishness, eloquently reflects on it all in his famous Confessions, written when he was between 43 and 46 years old, about thirty years before he died. His conclusion is this: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

In a society in which politicians can casually blow off almost half of a struggling population as worthless moochers, trying to convince “nice” people that, in emulating the kind of philosophy which Jesus taught, they’ll end up last, the Eucharist which we share convinces us otherwise. When we celebrate together in Word and Sacrament, we learn through Jesus’ example of giving himself completely to us how to be servants, “deacons”. Through the challenging and strange irony of choosing to be last of all and servant of all for his sake, we find ourselves being “the greatest”: first in the lives of the ones we serve, in our own lives, and before God.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

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Friday, September 21, 2012

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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Chosen. Period.

Commenting on Mark’s Gospel (8:27-38), Tod O.L. Mundo offers this reflection:

“Are we able to recognize the people through whom God is working in the world? God worked in the person of a tiny Yugoslavian nun ministering to the poor in Calcutta. God inspired a nominal member of the Nazi party in Germany to save the lives of 1,300 Jews in the heart of the Third Reich. God sent a German doctor, religion scholar, and musician to set up hospitals in the heart of Africa. God inspired former slaves and other abolitionists to set up the underground railroad to help Southern slaves reach the freedom of the North. There are many, many others who are not as well-known who have also obeyed the voice of God and transformed the world around them. Peter recognized in Jesus a man who was more than just a prophet, someone who had been anointed by God. But despite his discernment of God's guidance, he was unprepared for the full mission of Jesus. ‘What do you mean you have to die? That's crazy!’ Peter saw God at work, and rather than fall in step with God's divine plan, he succumbed to the temptation to try to manipulate God's will to match his own. Perhaps Peter dreamed of a revived nation of Israel, free from the Romans...’You don't understand,’ Jesus said. ‘Following me is not about what you get, it's about what you give.’ ...Jesus told his followers they would have to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow him. Because of Jesus' death on the cross, the image of the cross has been central to Christian theology from the very beginning of the church, but imagine the impact Jesus' statement would have had on people prior to his crucifixion. "What did he mean," the disciples might have asked one another, 'take up your cross'? Surely he was speaking metaphorically!’ Well, yes and no. Jesus was speaking of a life of self-sacrifice, a life of service, a life of demonstrating mercy, and these are all figurative examples of taking up one's cross. According to church tradition, however, all the original disciples, except for John (and Judas Iscariot), suffered violent deaths on behalf of the faith, many on crosses, so the metaphorical sometimes became literal. If following Jesus has the potential for such pain, what are the rewards? ‘Those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’ There is no life that is more meaningful than one that is dedicated to God and to doing God's will. What God did through Mother Teresa, Oskar Schindler, Albert Schweitzer, and Harriet Tubman, God is doing today through many people around the world. Do we have the discernment to recognize God at work? Do we have the courage to join the struggle to bring about the kingdom of God?” (Tod O. L. Mundo, The Saturday Night Theologian, 2009)

Isaiah’s passage (50:4-9a), the third of the so-called Songs of the Suffering Servant of God, might better be seen as the “Servant’s Song of Confidence in God”: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word...he wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.” Living a life dedicated to “the struggle to bring about the kingdom of God” begins first with recognizing that God has chosen me, then freely opening myself and allowing myself to be taught, shaped, formed as God wants, enabling me to speak words, which, sustained by God, lead to actions touching the lives of another for good.

This is a passage, along with today’s other Scriptures, about one called to be God’s disciple, about the spirit in which one answers that call, and about what it is which enables one to follow through and do what God asks. It’s a statement, really, about faith, an unshakeable setting of one’s heart on God who alone is the Sustainer and Enabler of everything we say and do. Such faith is persistent, radical and obedient. It’s belief which sets God, like an unmovable rock, at the center of one’s life; which brings us to sit at Jesus’ feet and let ourselves be taught; a faith willing to stand with Jesus, in his power alone, when the confrontation, contention, and shame come, as surely they will to ever true servant of God.

James, in the second reading (3:1-12), makes us aware of the difficulty of being chosen servants of God, and just how fragile our faith can be. Perhaps our greatest struggle is carrying out what we pray for in the Prayer after Communion in Holy Eucharist, Rite II: “Send us...into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart.” James cautions us of the dangers of double-mindedness.

He impresses on us the tremendous responsibility of being given “the tongue of a teacher... to sustain the weary with a word”. He acknowledges that all of us make mistakes, that it’s a rare person who can control “the whole body”, particularly by the human tongue. He uses several images of guidance: mouth bits and bridles to guide horses; and small rudders navigating large ships through strong winds.

The tongue, it seems, though a small member, has immense power: for good, certainly, but also for immense evil and harm. “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell...no one can tame the tongue -- a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” With the same organ of speech we bless and praise the living God, and with the very same tongue we disrespect, demean, even, at times, curse our sisters or brothers who are made in God’s image and likeness! This election season 2012 is probably the ideal time to tune in and experience the reality of what James means! And we all stand at least somewhat guilty, I suspect. “My brothers and sisters,” James says, “this ought not to be so.”

In the Baptismal Covenant, which we repeat several times a year, we give our pledge to believe in God the Father, in Jesus Christ, and in God the Holy Spirit. We commit ourselves anew each time to “persevere in resisting evil...[to] repent and return to the Lord”. We promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”, no exceptions, just as we do for ourselves; to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being”. If we’re serious about this Covenant, we understand that what we’ve been chosen for by Christ is to do exactly what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel: set aside our own preferences, take up the cross which falls to our lot every day, and follow Jesus in trust, wherever he leads us. In a symbolic, but very real way, we agree to lose our life for Jesus‘ sake and the sake of the Gospel, in order to possess the fulness of life which he offers us. “...who do you say that I am?” and “what are you willing to do?” in light of that.

In a similar, though no less real way than the Servant of God in Isaiah and the disciples in the Gospel, you and I have been chosen in Baptism to be God’s faithful servants, taught of God that we “may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” It may be, probably is, uncomfortable for us. We may even resent it, fight it, pretend that it’s not true, or run away from it. It doesn’t matter. You and I are chosen. Samuel K. Davis puts it this way:

“Think your way back now,
to when you were no longer little,
and not yet grown up --
to when you were in between.

Time after time,
back then,
you heard that word
choose.
Choose partners --
Choose captains --
Choose up sides.

Sooner or later
that innocent little word
became painful
and humiliating.

Remember not being chosen?

-- or being chosen last?
Everyone waited
for the other side
to take you first.

Everyone politely
pretended
that it didn’t matter.
But there was a
certainty
in your heart
that it did.

They were picked;
you weren’t;
and that mattered
and that hurt.

The story of Jesus
says something very simple.
It says
the simplest,
plainest,
clearest thing
that anyone can ever say
or ever hear.

It says
you are chosen.

Now and always,
whoever you are,
whatever you are like,
wherever you go.
You are chosen.

Not chosen
Instead of someone else,
or in front of someone else.
And not chosen
because you are better
or stronger
or wiser.

You are simply
chosen,
period.

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Saturday, September 15, 2012

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows

Today I ran across this wonderfully fresh translation of the hymn Stabat Mater. A notable number of scholars point to Jacapone da Todi as author, since two 14th century codices and the 1495 edition of the sequence attribute the hymn's authorship to him. The composition's general tone and sensitivity undeniably parallel that of da Todi's poems, yet strictly stylistic comparisons yield uncertain and even disputable results. Recent scholars L. Russo and M. Cassella aren't convinced by the arguments in favor of Jacopone's authorship. The Stabat Mater has two qualities that most scholars date from the 12th century: an intricate rhyme scheme and a regular meter (usually trochaic). The translation, done by Dr. Tom Barber in 2010, appears on:

http://frtim.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/stabat-mater-a-new-translation/.

His Mother Wept

His mother wept. She stood

beside the cross. Upon its wood

hung the body of her Son.

Her spirit moaned

with sadness, pained

and punctured.

How grieved and lost,

and yet how blessed,

childless and alone

In sadness,

trembling, witness

to His despair.

Who would not ache

to see such pain?

Christ’s mother –

Imagine any mother –

the loss of any other

mother’s love…

She beheld his torment,

Punishment –

for us, for sins. There

She stayed. She was there

in that place where

he gave his spirit up.

Mother, source of love,

join me when I grieve –

mourn with me.

Make my heart strong

in love of Christ. I long

to please.

Holy Mother, help me understand

the meaning of the wounds.

Help me to believe

All injuries,

all penalties

are His, for me.

Let me ever share

the weight you bear,

the crucifixion.

Let me also stand

beside the cross, in

witness to His passion.

Woman among women,

mother, also virgin,

please be kind.

Let me also know His death,

hear with you his parting breath,

healed, no longer blind.

Scales lifted from my eyes,

mind open, alive

for His love’s sake.

Spread light, sow love,

Virgin, lift me up

in my last days.

Let the cross protect

by faith, in life and death,

with grace.

And when my body dies

grant me paradise!

A new beginning, not an end.

Amen.

Amen forever, Amen.

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