James 24:7

(Fourth in a series of reflections on a story of the Desert Fathers)

The question posed to Jesus by the Rich Young Ruler intrigues me.  "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

The question intrigues me because of the issues it raises around the relationship between "doing" and "inheriting."   The young man's question links doing with inheriting and suggests that he believes that one earns "what's coming to him." 

One does not typically inherit something on the basis of what one does.  One inherits on the basis of who one is.  Usually,  children inherit their parents' estates by virtue of the relationship they bear to the parents.

While there are cases, perhaps many cases, of parents cutting children out of their wills because of something they did or failed to do, you do not often hear of someone inheriting something because he or she did X number of things to earn the inheritance.

It is possible.  However, I would suggest that even in the rare case where someone is put into the position of having to earn his inheritance that he or she usually bears some relation to the one setting the contingencies. For example, one could easily imagine a parent making the earning of a college degree a condition of inheritance for her child. 

However, at some point, one must determine when an inheritance is an inheritance and when it has become something other than an inheritance.  In other words, how much work must one do, how many conditions must one meet before one's inheritance becomes something on the order of a paycheck?

The question put to Jesus by the young prince is an intriguing question.  Until I am able to finish law school and plumb the depths of estate law, I will assume that his question is based upon the assumption of earning. 

What must I do...how many projects must I complete...how productive must I become...what principles must I follow so that I may inherit ( or deserve?) eternal life?  

Or, to put it another way, how can I put God in my debt?

I am not sure that Abba Lot wanted to put God in his debt.  However, he did seem to think of the spiritual life as a to-do list of tasks.   He enumerated to Abba Joseph the ways in which he dabbled in various spiritual practices and he asked: "What else can I do?"

His question is every bit as intriguing as the one posed by the Rich Young Ruler.

"What else can I do?" 

I imagine Abba Lot getting up one morning feeling rested.  I see him getting out his Day Planner (come on, he is old school!) and checking out the week ahead.  He sees that he has penciled in meditation for 9 a.m. and prayer for 9:30 a.m.   He notes that he is due to fast on the upcoming Thursday but only from 8 a.m. to noon since he has a luncheon at noon.

He looks up from his Day Planner and looks out of his window. "Hmmm...I live in the desert. Not much doing out here.  I think I have time for more practices but am just not sure which ones to add to my current list.  I know! I'll check by with Abba Joseph.  He'll know what other practices I might try."  

I see Abba Lot, this good and righteous man, studying his schedule, noting his "open spots" and seeking to fill in the blanks with even more spiritual practices in which to dabble.

"What else can I do?"

The  ever-doing "I" is at the center of his question. The "I" is the protagonist of his story, the center from which he operates, the point around which his spiritual world spins. 

Abba Lot sits in the center of himself, peruses the catalog of spiritual practices, checks the ones he will undertake and the ones to which he may return. He schedules his time. He makes his appointments with God.  He fits his practice into his self-perscribed agenda. As noted before, he makes his plan to undertake the spiritual life on his own terms.

"What else can I do?" 

 Abba Lot sees the spiritual life as a series of tasks to be undertaken and completed.  He seems to think that there is merit in the doing-for-the-sake-of-doing.  He seems to favor a check-list faith.

I do not see how his desires could be motivated by anything other than a desire to earn or to at least achieve.   Perhaps he thinks he can achieve wholeness through practice as practice.  Perhaps he thinks he must work to earn God's favor.  Perhaps he thinks that he needs to do more to keep up with (or surpass?) the hermit next door. 

His desire to add more or to do more is linked to some goal, some desire, some vision that promises some reward for effort rendered.

I know it is unfair of me to judge Abba Lot from this great distance but it does seem to me that Abba Lot thinks he can practice his way to God on his own terms.  He seems to believe that he, in himself, can reach wholeness by selecting the correct recipe of practices.

He seems to think that dabbling in the spiritual life is sufficient.  A little of this, a bit of that, a dash of the other.

He seems to think that the spiritual life is a matter of reaching a critical mass of practices.  I do this, I do that, now...what do I need to do next?

I may well be reading my character into his.  

But then...maybe that's the point of the story.

(Third in a series of reflections upon a story of the Desert Fathers)

Someone told me once about overhearing a woman complain to her friend about the reckless behavior of her unwed daughter: "If my daughter doesn't stop messin' around with that boyfriend of hers bad things are going to happen.  Why she almost got pregnant one time before!"

Even a statement that is an objective impossibility can display a certain truth.   We understand, even through our laughter, that the words point to a truth:  If that woman's daughter doesn't stop doing what she is doing she could get pregnant. 

The scripture contains many stories of the impossible almost:

I think of the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus only to end up "one last thing" short of discipleship.  (Matthew 19:16-26)

I remember King Agrippa whose admittedly ambiguous response to Paul's preaching suggested that he was "almost persuaded." (Acts 26:28)

I recall the church in Laodicea who was not quite cold and not quite hot but who was so far from "just right." (Revelation 3: 14 ff.)  

I ponder the meaning of Jesus' reply to the scribe who agreed with him concerning the greatest commandment: "you are not far from the kingdom of God." (Mark 12:34)

I  hear the words of Jesus about those who piled up words upon words as they prayed believing that they would be heard "for their much speaking." (Matthew 6:7)

I ruminate upon Paul's words that the day would come when there would be those who practice a form of godliness while denying the power of it.  (I Timothy 3:5)

I reach back to the prophets who castigated Israel for having fallen into the practice of offering sacrices of animals while neglecting works of justice and mercy. (Isaiah 1)

Abba Lot strikes me as a practitioner of the impossible almost.  While he did many good things, many right things, many appropriate things, his manner of doing them exemplified the impossible almost.   He embraced forms of godliness while missing the power behind them, above them, beneath them and within them.

This is evidenced by his words "I say my little office..." and "I fast a little..."  That propensity toward dabbling could be read into every practice he undertook.

I meditate a little...

I pray a little...

I can relate...a lot.

Maybe you can too.

Why might we play around the edges of faith like that?

I'll suggest some possibilities:

1. We might fear real transformative change.  What would happen if God did, as Annie Dillard put it, wake up and actually transform us?  How might that rattle our sense of identity?  How might it alter our plans, our schedules, our relationships?
2. We might be so committed to our ways of life that we are content to fit God in where we can.   We create these hectic lives of ours, one choice and one commitment at a time, and then find that we have so little room for God.  "Hmmm...Lord, I think I can pencil you in on Thursday...how does 3 p.m. sound?"
3. We might think that to genuinely encounter God and be transformed by the intimacy of that friendship is more than is necessary.  After all, some of us signed up as a quick and easy way to get our souls saved, gain some respectability and get the ticket for the glory train. 
4. We might think it all to be too much of a bother.  After all, why be "more religious" than is necessary?  Leave that for the monks and fanatics.
5. We might just lack the discipline.  After all, we may see we are not very disciplined about anything that doesn't just come naturally.  Chances are if we are not disciplined about diet and exercise and keeping a tidy space, we are probably not all that disciplined in matters of the Spirit.
6. We might just be bent that way.  Why is it that our resolutions do not work?  Why do we always fall back into our old ways of being?  Could it be that our falling back is an evidence of our fallenness?

So we dabble at it.  

A little prayer..

A bit of a devotional thought...

A little TV fast....

Abba Lot did not seem bothered by his dabbling.  He did not come to Abba Joseph perplexed over his dabbling.  No, he came to Abba Joseph to learn if there was anything else with which he could dabble.

The behaviorists remind us that we persist in that which pays.  If dabbling pays, we'll dabble.  A little prayer, a little devotional, a little meditation makes us feel that we are at least doing something, that we are at least trying, that we aren't all that bad and may be even a little better than most.  And, who knows, God is probably very pleased with us.

How interesting that we think God might be impressed by our impossible almosts when the scripture we love so much suggests otherwise.

(The second in my reflections on a story of the Desert Fathers...)

A Presbyterian friend and pastor and I were talking about how it seemed that some folks could "go to church" their whole lives and never be touched by the practice.  He paraphrased a quote from the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung to me: "People go to chuch to avoid the very thing they claim to go to church for." 

I have pondered that line for a long time.  I have witnessed its truth in others and in myself.  We content ourselves with ritual and religion and convince ourselves that such things are equivalent with God.  We content ourselves with the practices and substitute them for genuine intimacy with God.

"I went to church today and, thank God, nothing happened!"

Such self-deception reminds me of a line you hear sometimes:

"Let's go take a walk!"

"Let's not but say we did!"

"Let us enter into a genuine encounter with God!"

"Let's not but say we did!"

I don't know whether our problem is that we just don't know how to encounter God or whether we are simply afraid to do so.  When it comes to intimacy with God, we err on the side of caution.

Annie Dillard noted this in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk:

"Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us to where we can never return.” (pp. 40-41)

I wonder if the real problem is what Annie D. suggests in that last phrase.  Perhaps we fear where the waking God may draw us, that place from which we may never return.

Abba Lot, the fellow in our story, the one who seems so much like me, comes across as a practitioner of caution.  While he might be commended for the fact of his practice he cannot be commended for the manner of his practice.   The manner of his practice is an obstacle to his realizing the fruit of his practice.  Or, to use the Jung paraphrase, he engages in spiritual practice in such a way as to avoid the very thing he practices for.

This difficulty is displayed in the phrase "as far as I can", a phrase he utters twice in two sentences but a phrase which underlies every practice he undertakes. 

"As far as I can..."

The phrase reveals two facets of his character.   First, "as far as I can" suggests that although Abba Lot engages in spiritual practices he does so as from a position of self-reliance.  "As far as I can..." suggests that even though he does practice certain disciplines he does so from his own personal center.

For me, that is at the core of his "ironic character."  It is as if he tries to surrender himself by holding on to himself; as if he lets go by grasping.   He seems to be saying: "I do the practices but I never lose sight of the fact that I am the one who selects the practices, who engages them, who schedules them, who delimits them in terms of time and place."  I, I, I...

Second, "as far as I can" suggests that he knows at some deep level that though he carries out these practices  he is limited in terms of how far he, in himself, can go.  "As far as I can..."

"As far as..." suggests that he knows that while his practice can take him some distance, perhaps even some great distance, it cannot take him all the way.  "As far as..." 

It is if he is saying: "I know I have a certain amount of discipline, a certain amount of desire, a certain amount of tenacity but I also know my limits; I also know that 'as far as I can' is not far enough!"

I know a full tank of gasoline can take me a long way but a full tank of gasoline cannot take me all the way.

I try but I can only do so much.

I think here we get into one of the great paradoxes of Christian spiritual practice.  We are to engage in practices like prayer and meditation and fasting but we know in our heart of hearts that doing so, at least from our side, will only take us so far.

We know the limits of our discipline, our focus, our tenacity.  We also know that practices while necessary are not sufficient. We sense, even if we do not fully know, that this matter of coming into the fullness of God cannot be something we achieve on our own, even if we are attempting to do so through all of the prescribed and appropriate means.

We seem to know that there are two sides to this relationship with God: we know there is our practice and that we must engage in it but we also know that there must also be grace.

I cannot transform myself if for no other reason than the fact that it would still be the me-needing-to-be-transformed who is doing the transforming.  

Abba Lot is a good man and well-intentioned.  However, he seems to be blind to the impossibility of his journey.  He cannot, even through good spiritual practice, hoist himself into the place he wants to be.

When it comes to intimacy with God, one cannot enter cautiously or on one's own terms.

(I will be reflecting on a story for the next several posts...)

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

That is one of my favorite stories from the Desert Fathers.   I think about it and let my mind run with the question of what it might mean to become "all flame."   The story invites each reader to contemplate its meaning in light of his or her situation and struggle.  It asks us to identify with its two characters.  Like all parables, it is more than a fantastic story, it is a mirror. I thought I would share some of my thinking about the story as a way to help others think about it too.

The story gives us a glimpse into the character of Abba Lot.   He is a righteous man, one who wants to grow in the spiritual life.  He engages in Christian spiritual practices and he wants to add more practices to his regimen.

However, at the risk of reading myself into his character, I suggest that the brief story reveals an ironic character.  This ironic character is displayed in three ways.

First, Abba Lot seeks God from a position of self-reliance.  The phrase "as far as I can" appears twice in the two sentences he utters.  "As far as I can I read my little office..."  "...As far as I can I purify my thoughts."

Second, Abba Lot undertakes a way of life through dabbling.  The word "little" appears twice in the two sentences he utters.  "I say my little office..."  "I fast a little..."

Third, Abba Lot undertakes a way of life as a list of tasks.  He asks the older Abba Joseph what else he can do as if the goal was to create a spiritual to-do list.

I doubt that Abba Loth expected the response he got from Abba Joseph.  He may not have been prepared for Joseph to extend his hands toward the heavens while each finger burst into flames.  And I doubt that Abba Lot was prepared for Abba Joseph's reply:

"If you will, you can become all flame!"

I have no way of knowing for sure but I think Joseph was trying to create a shift in Lot's thinking. I think he was trying to create a little mental crisis that would disorder Lot's thinking in the service of assisting him toward a higher/deeper/broader way of understanding. 

The shift that Abba Joseph sought was around four themes:

First, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from a way of "doing" to a way of  "being".  Lot was thinking in terms of one more thing he could do, while Joseph suggested that there was one thing than Lot could become. 

Second, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from a controlled way of being to a non-controlled way of being. Lot was not in the market for a total transformation.  Lot wanted to continue with his usual way of going about his life.  He was a man who did spiritual things.  All he wanted was one more thing to do. 

Joseph completely bypassed Lot's question and, rather than give him one more spiritual thing to do, he suggested he go on and become just one thing... "all flame."  

Third, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from  from dabbling to burning. Joseph did not want Lot to stop at Joseph's fire-finger display.  Joseph invited Lot to become "all flame."  

All...flame.

Fourth, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from distance to intimacy.  Lot could continue his efforts to find  just one more dead thing to do or he could actually experience something lively and alive. 

The shift that Joseph invited Lot to was a shift from doing to being, from maintaining control to surrendering control, from dabbling to combusting, from distancing to experiencing.

The Bible is filled with these kinds of stories.  

A couple of weeks ago I preached about Thomas and how he said, after Jesus had told the apostles that he was going away and that they knew how to get where he was going, "Lord, how can we know the way if we don't know where you are going?"

I likened Thomas to an engineer, a strategist, a goal-setter.  A Tell-me-where-you-want-to-go-and-then-I-can-figure-out-how-to-get-there kind of guy.  Jesus didn't say, "I'm going to X and you can get there by taking your first left and then your next right..." 

Jesus said, "I AM the way..." Jesus was saying something like, "I AM GOD and GOD is the WAY to GOD."

Thomas sought the cool predictability of directions.  Jesus offered the hot wildness of relationship.

I think of the Rich Young Ruler and how he came to Jesus seeking to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life. (Strange and revealing question since one inherits by virtue of who one is rather than what one does!)  After running through the commandments with him and hearing the young man claim he had done and did do all of that, Jesus said, in effect: "Well, brother, why don't you just go on and burst into flames?  Why don't you sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come on and follow me!"

He was sorry but he just couldn't do it.  I'm convinced that the problem was not his wealth per se as much as it was his desire to continue to live life on his own terms.  To live life under his own control, to embrace the life he knew rather than the Life that knew him.

I read lines from one of Paul's prayers:

"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3: 17b-19)

I hear it as an invitation to enter into the joy of experiencing the inexpressable and inexhaustable love of God to the point that we are filled with the very fullness of God.

I hear that prayer as an invitation to become "...all flame."

My friend John did the quick calculation and let me know that a car travelling 70 mph covers 102.7 feet per second.  So, as to the problem of multitasking while driving, ask yourself: "Would I be willing to black out for one second while driving 70 mph?"

I'm going to try to stop my cell phone conversations while driving.   "Try"...ha!  I say that and hear myself say: "Jim.  Put your hand on the table.  Lift your hand. Put your hand back on the table.  Now, "try" to lift your hand.  Which is "trying" like: lifting it or not lifting it?"

Okay...today I will not talk on the cell phone while driving.  You are all safe to come out now.

*****

One of the downsides to my confessional way of writing (and preaching) is that I get people who volunteer to fix me. 

I may say, "I struggle with X" and mean that as a way to get readers/ hearers to think about their own struggles with "X".    Instead I get suggestions about my struggle with "X".

e.g.

I say:

"I share too much personal information with my dog."

They say:

"Jim, maybe you should start a journal."

I say:

"I am addicted to Vanilla Wafers."

They say:

"Perhaps you should join a 12 Step Program..."

Digress to imagination:

"I'm Jim."

Hi Jim!

"I got the wafer on my back..."

"Maybe you could stop lying in the wafers..."

Back from digression...

Maybe it would be better if they would say:

"I feel your pain.  I don't struggle with Vanilla Wafers but I do struggle with the Cheese Doodles."

So I could say: "Ah, yeah...the doodles...wow.  They can be cagey..."

:0)

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Recently I have been reading several books on the brain.  Specifically, I have been reading about "neuroplasticity"...how our thoughts, feelings and actions actually help to shape the inter-connections between neurons and neuronal networks.  (i.e. apparently the mind, the so-called "ghost in the machine", can actually tinker with the connections...or to riff on every mother's advice: "Don't think like that...You're brain will get stuck like that!")

Most brain researchers I have been reading lately say that you cannot multi-task.  You can think that you can multi-task (e.g. attend to several things at once) but the truth seems to be that you just serial-task very rapidly.  In other words, you attend to "this" and then to "that" and then to the "other" so quickly that it feels like you are doing it all at once. 

You aren't.  This, then that, then the other.

This is why you cannot both attend to your driving and your cell phone conversation.  You think you can...you can't.   What we actually do is take our minds off our driving for a second and then put our minds back on our driving.  (Hmmm...how much territory does a car going 70 mph travel in one second?) 

These findings on multi-tasking set me to thinking about Peter's little walk on the water.  You remember: Jesus came walking by on the water and Peter called out to him, 'Lord, if it is you bid me come out!"  And Jesus, using that great Greek phrase that so often is translated "I AM" replied: "I AM!"

So, Peter got out of the boat and headed toward the I AM.  However, he didn't get the word about multi-tasking.  In his journey, he thought he could keep an eye on Christ and an eye on the "wind and the waves."

Nope...he serial tasked that little trek.  Look at Jesus.  Look at the waves.  Look at Jesus.  Look at the waves.

How long do you think he had to look at the waves before he "began to sink?"  Well...how long does it take you to "begin to sink" when you step out on water?

This morning I have been reading about Jesus and watching the stock market.

Jesus.  Dow Jones.  Jesus.  Dow Jones.

I thought I was "multi-tasking." 

I wasn't.

I was sinking.

I remember Johnny.

How could I forget him?

For three or four years in elementary school Johnny haunted my very movement.

Johnny was the meanest person I have ever met.  I say that in my late 50s...  Johnny was the meanest person I have ever met.

Johnny had a prison tattoo by the sixth grade.  His older brother gave it to him.

I saw Johnny almost beat one of my classmates to death.

Johnny almost sent me to the ER once because I had the nerve to laugh at him when the wind blew his well-oiled hair.

Johnny was anti-social and greasy.

He struck fear into the heart of every 4th, 5th and 6th grade boy I knew.

You would have thought Johnny and I were best friends...the way I shadowed Johnny.

Fear can do some strange things to you. Fear can make you do some strange things.  

Dr. Freud would have had a field day with me.   He probably would have called it a "reaction formation."   In a reaction formation, which was one of Dr. Freud's classic defenses against anxiety, you do things that are polar opposite to how you really feel: the child porn politician champions laws against child pornography ...the preacher who visits prostitutes rails against adultery...The kid who fears the anti-social bully embraces him.

When Ahaz saw Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, outside the walls of Jerusalem flanked by their armies and intent on toppling his throne, his heart and the heart of his people "shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind."  (Isaiah 7:2)

God sent the prophet to him to tell him that the Kings Rezin and Pekah did not amount to a sneeze.  He encouraged Ahaz and told him to pay attention, keep quiet, resist fear, keep on keeping on.

God would fight for him.  God would take care of him.

But young Ahaz was afraid and, like I said, fear can make you do some strange things.

He was also hard-headed, stubborn and intent on "doing his own thing."  As the history book tells us, "He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God...He...made his son pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. He sacriced and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree." (II Kings 16:3-4)

Ahaz did not follow the way of the Lord from the get-go.  He did some abominable things.  He was ill-prepared to deal with the threats of Rezin and Pekah.

Ahaz turned to "Johnny"...the ruthless warrior king of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser.  He even offered sacrifices in the presence of Tiglath-pileser and gave him the silver and gold from the house of the Lord. (II Kings 16:8ff.) 

In his stubborness, faithlessness and fear, Ahaz rejected the promise of God and sidled up to Satan.

Such "leadership" led to destruction.

When Isaiah came to Ahaz and offered him a sign to confirm the faithfulness of God, Ahaz refused him.  Feigning piety, Ahaz said he did not want to test or trouble the Lord.

And... he did not want to change his well-laid plans.

What irony!

In a fire we grasp at straws.  In the face of threat, we forget the God of our fathers and mothers, make our own plans and sometimes sidle up to Satan.

"If I stand close enough, if I feign friendship, if I become one of them, if I join-'em-because-I-can't-beat''em, if I can't quit shaking any other way...."

We often fall when we take our stand...our stand....our stand

During Advent we hear the promise of a son..a son...A Son...whose name shall be called "God with us."

God with us.

God with us.

God with us.

But in our fear we do not wait. We tremble and make our plans...the best laid plans of mice...

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

"I will not ask and I will not put the Lord to the test." (Isaiah 7:12)

The words sound good.  So righteous.  So pious.  So noble.

They belong to Ahaz, the young king of Judah (8th century B.C.)  Ahaz is in the midst of a political storm.  Assyria is a threat to the north.  The kings of Israel (the northern kingdom) and Aram have approached him to join an alliance against Assyria.  If he refuses to join them, they threaten to topple his kingdom and set up a puppet king who will do their bidding.

Isaiah, the prophet, has promised Ahaz that God will shield him from the two "smoking firebrands."  He has assured him that the kingdom will stand if he, Ahaz, resists the temptation to take matters into his own hands and puts his faith in God.

Isaiah even offers the guarantee of a sign: "Ask of the Lord anything you want, Ahaz.  Ask for a sign in the highest heavens or even in the depths of Sheol.  The Lord wants you to know beyond all doubt that He is faithful to you.  All he wants is for you to be faithful to Him."

That's when Ahaz replies that he will not test God in that way, that he will not ask for a sign.

So noble.  So pious.  So righteous. 

The truth is that Ahaz does not want assurances from God.  Ahaz does not want a demonstration of God's faithfulness.  Ahaz does not want to "risk" faith when he has already decided what he will do.

Why place your faith in the unseen God when you can trust your own abilities, your own plans, your own agenda?

Ahaz has already plotted to join the king of Assyria against the kings of Israel and Aram.  (II Kings 16)  Ahaz already knows what he wants and what he will do.

We might think that Ahaz is a fool.  Why any one of us- when given the option of trusting God or trusting ourselves- would trust God...wouldn't we? 

Well...wouldn't we?

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

"When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?'" (Mt. 11: 2-3)

We do not know why John asked sent his disciples to ask the question of Jesus.  Matthew does not tell us.  Indeed, Matthew doesn't even seem interested in knowing. 

However, that does not stop us from wondering and speculating.  As a teacher once told me: "We believe in the maxim 'where the Bible speaks we speak and where the Bible is silent we are silent.'  However, we also apparently believe in the maxim 'where the Bible speaks we are silent and where the Bible is silent we speak.'"

I know my own doubts and uncertainties.  And, as a pastor, I often hear others express theirs as well.  Sometimes life can be so hard that doubting is the best we can do. I read this text with those doubts rolling through the back of my mind.

I do not know whether John doubted or not.  I do not know whether uncertainty crept into his dank cell or not.   It may have been that John saw his destiny written on the prison wall and sent his disciples as a way to quell their doubts about the identity of Jesus.  Perhaps John was engaged in a bit of "succession planning."

Whether it was because of his own doubts or because of the questions of his disciples, John did send them to Jesus with that question: "Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?"

My guess is that it is very hard to see the inbreaking reign of God from within the walls of a damp prison or as you are perched precariously atop a three-legged stool and straining to peer through a tiny, barred-up window.

I recognize the dangers of going beyond the text.  Anything I say about John's motives in asking that question would be "arguing from silence."

However, I also recognize what happens to us when we are cut off from the world, imprisoned (if only for a time) in the darkness of doubt, shackled in the chains of despair, and fettered by fears.   What seemed so clearly the case in the carefree daylight is lost in the shadow of the terrifying moment.

"Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?"

John had heard what Jesus was doing.  (Note: Matthew says that John heard what the Messiah was doing!) But John heard about it in prison.

Perhaps from his own vantage "what Messiah was doing" was not what John thought the Messiah would or should be doing.  Given his wilderness sermons, John may have imagined something more...earth shattering.  After all, John had drawn terrifying word pictures of the ax being laid the roots and of days of wrath coming over the horizon.

Jesus did not say "I AM the ONE" to John's disciples.  Jesus appealed to the words of the prophets, to the images of Jubilee and to the songs of Israel: 

"Tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them." (vs. 4-5; NRSV)

Tell John that miracles abound but also tell him who the recipients of those graces are: the blind, the deaf, the dead, and the poor.  The overlooked, the outcast, the forgotten are being seen, brought close and remembered.

And all of them...these poor...are hearing good news.

God is at work-perhaps in unexpected ways -but working nonetheless.  Look closely and listen...you are locked for a time in your cell of despair but your experience is not the breadth and depth and height of God's working.  The kingdom is breaking through and things spoken of by prophets, indeed the words of John are coming to pass...the world is being turned upside down as the kingdom of God breaks through in Jesus.

We don't know what the disciples of John did after that.  We don't know whether they returned to John or not.  We don't know whether John was satisfied by the reply of Jesus.

However, I cannot help but wonder: Did it cross John's mind what Jesus did not say? Did it strike him that Jesus did not say, "and the prisoners are set free"?

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For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

I am often put off by some of the Christmas songs because they are so sentimental, so romantic and so not-my- experience.

Sometimes I feel as if I am going to blow if I hear one more song about holiday cheer, faces all aglow, happy shoppers on their way down glistening, snow covered city sidewalks.

I live in the Atlanta area.  The last time we had snow at Christmas was around the time the Magna Carta was being signed.  And as for happy faces all aglow....ha!...I say, "Ha!"

I see harried faces (even hairy faces!), distracted faces and most of them anything but "all aglow." 

I live in the suburbs.  You see tail lights all aglow.  You see strip malls.  You see enough concrete and black top to cover Rhode Island.  You see power cable, telephone lines and litter.

To many Christmas songs I say, "Bah!"

Unless....unless I hear those lyrics not as descriptions of what is but as yearnings of what could be.

Maybe there could be a day- even here in the 'burbs of HOTlanta"- when there is snow on the ground, happy people scurrying here and there with nothing more than a "Merry Christmas" on their breath.

Hearing those songs in that way may just rescue me from my humbuggery.

Reading the Isaiah texts in the Revised Common Lectionary is really what has rescued me from another season of singing, "Bah, bah, bah, bah, baaaah.." instead of "Fa la la la laaaa."

Listen to these words about the coming the Day of Lord...

"He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn more any more." (2:4)

Or read these words and just imagine...

"The wolf shall sleep with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze together, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adder's den.  They will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (11:6-9 NRSV)

I suspect there were those who first heard Isaiah's words with a "bah" and a "humbug."  They read the paper like everyone else; they watched the evening news.  They worked in the sweatshops and traversed the market places.

No more war?  No more studying war?  No more tragedies?  No more "nature red in tooth and claw."

Bah!

All those folks are gone.  However, the words of Isaiah still stand and give their hope.

Isaiah expresses a vision.  However...and this is important...Isaiah's vision is not simply the poetic expression of wishful thinking or overwrought romanticism.  Isaiah is not Mel Torme sitting at a piano in California in the heat of summer writing about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Isaiah speaks to human yearning, yes.

But the word Isaiah speaks, the vision that Isaiah describes is not Isaiah's word and not Isaiah's vision.  His word and vision are not simply the yearnings of one man or the whole people. 

This is the word and the vision of the God who is faithful and who will do what God promises. 

Advent is the time of yearning...ours and God's! 

Advent is the time when we are reminded that our deepest longings, the ones we offer up to heaven, will be met (and then some) by the God who never leaves us nor forsakes us!