Sermon Preached November 30, 2008. Text: Mark 13:24-37
Did you know that if you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left? If you had invested that same $1,000 with Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left. With AIG, you would have less than $15 left. But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling refund, you would have $214 cash, and you would have enjoyed the beer. (Funny Times, December 2008, p. 10) By the way this story is told for illustrative purposes only, and no investment advice is to be inferred from it. You might say, however, that the story offers the lesson of the beer cans.
Jesus liked to use ordinary images in his teaching, common images to make a point. He was especially partial to images from nature. In today’s Scripture reading from Mark’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say, “from the fig tree learn its lesson.”
And what lesson was Jesus trying to convey? Keep alert. Keep awake. Just as you watch a fig tree to give you clues as to the change of seasons, so watch the world to see signs of the presence of God. Keep alert. Keep awake. Many of the early Christians, and maybe even Jesus himself had expectations that God was going to change the world dramatically in the near future, that the fullness of God’s dream for the world was going to become a reality. Even though the expectation was high, there remained a note of caution. “About that day or hour no one knows,” only God. So there would be no passive waiting around for this coming world-altering change. With waiting would come alertness and awakening – more active terms. The people were reminded that whatever might come, the teaching of Jesus would be part of that newer world – “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
Almost 2,000 years later, we still wait for the world to be made right. We still hunger for a world that is just and peaceful. We still yearn for a world where differences are celebrated as part of a rich tapestry, instead of used to divide – a world of reconciliation and forgiveness. We desire a world of joy and love, where the very creation itself is embraced. The headlines about economic crises, about terrorist attacks in India, about violence closer to home all tell us that the world is not yet God’s dream for it. So we wait.
But our waiting is not to be a passive waiting. The season of Advent which begins today, that season of four weeks until Christmas, is meant to remind us that we are to keep alert, keep awake – that we are to be people who continue to try and live out the words and Spirit of Jesus. Advent invites us to prepare our lives to receive the Christ in new and renewed ways. In the spirit of Jesus’ own teaching, I think we can be reminded of some of the lessons of Advent by learning the lesson of the pine tree. If Jesus were teaching in Northern Minnesota today, I’m not sure he would ever appeal to beer cans in his teaching, but I think he would encourage us to learn the lesson of the pine tree.
So what might we learn from the pine tree? We might learn something about being alive and vibrant in a variety of circumstances. Pine trees are evergreen, displaying their life in every season – winter, spring summer, fall. They exist in a variety of environments – the cold of northern Minnesota, the heights of the mountains – many of the trees on the tree lines are evergreens/pines. Different species of pine are found in climates from frosty to balmy. But this morning I want to focus on the pine cone and the lesson it teaches us about preparing anew for the Christ in our lives, about being awake and alert. The lesson of the pine tree and pine cone I want to develop is openness. We prepare ourselves for the renewed presence of the Christ by cultivating the openness of the pine in our lives.
Pine cones open to give to the world. I did some research for this sermon and discovered, or re-discovered, that pine cones are distinguishable between male and female. No, you can’t tell which is which by picking them up and looking underneath them. Male cones tend to exhibit less variety from species to species, while the female cones’ structures vary more markedly between species of pine. I don’t think I want to draw any lessons there! Both male and female pine cones are open in giving. The male cones produce pollen which fertilizes the seeds in the female cones. That seed is nurtured and then the female cone opens its scales to release the seeds into the world so that new evergreens can sprout and grow.
We open our lives in faith when we risk sharing our faith story with others. Many of us have deeply appreciated the faith stories we have heard shared during our stewardship moments these past few Sundays, and I have had a number of people tell me they would like to hear more of that more often. I agree. To share something about the joys and struggles of one’s faith is powerful. When that happens it helps us all, the ones sharing and the ones listening. When we hear how faith has helped someone in a difficult time, or when it has given meaning and direction to a life, we hear something of our own stories in that, and we can say “yes.” When we hear how sometimes other struggle with deep questions of faith we no longer have to pretend that faith in God and in Jesus Christ provides us simple answers for the complex questions of life. It helps, but the way of Jesus is not always easy or simple. That kind of honest sharing in faith is important for us all.
Sharing our faith story with others also helps us live our faith more consistently. When I was a young clergy person, one of the most challenging lessons I had to learn was to get comfortable with the fact that whenever you are in public, you are a clergy person. You never know who may be seeing you. It took some time for me to grow into being comfortable with that responsibility, but I honestly think it has helped me in some ways. I always want to present the best face for our church and for Christian faith. Like all of you, I can get impatient in traffic or standing in line. I get irritated sometimes, like Friday when the three older women in the mall parking lot seemed completely at a loss for where to park, and I was right behind them. It helps me to remember that I am the face of the church and need to let go of my impatience and irritation. That doesn’t mean I am perfect or less than myself – it means I have an extra incentive to be my better self. When we share our faith, we have an extra incentive to be our better selves.
We open our lives in faith when we sow seeds of love and joy, healing and justice in the world. This is a time of year when we often decry the excesses of our culture, and there is good reason to do so. After worship, the Sustainability Group is going to be distributing a guide to celebrating a simpler Christmas and we need to pay attention to that. For all of our excesses and missteps, though, I still appreciate this season of the year. I was reading the blog of a friend the other day and he was saying how he has really come to dislike Thanksgiving – we eat too much and too much of what is bad for us. The history of the holiday often masks the darker side of the relationship between Native Americans and European Americans. I agree with what he said, but I cannot dislike Thanksgiving and Christmas if for no other reason than that they seem to evoke in so many people the openness to sowing seeds of love and kindness, healing and justice. Make sure part of your celebration of the holidays this year involves giving yourself generously, sowing seeds of love and joy and healing and justice.
To learn the lesson of the pine cone, we also need to know that pine cones open to receive from the world. We prepare our lives for the renewed presence of the Christ when we open ourselves to the world around us, to receive its gifts.
One of my favorite prayers is the prayer that has come to be known as The Serenity Prayer. It is a staple of AA, but I prefer its original version, as written by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. God, grant me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed; the courage to change the things that should be changed; and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. I like this version of the prayer best because it is rooted in God’s grace. It is a prayer for grace – the grace of acceptance, the grace of serenity, the grace of courage, the grace of wisdom. When we seek to sow seeds of love, joy, justice and healing, we seek the grace of courage to change the world. This prayer asks us to be open to the world in giving. This prayer also asks us to be open to the world in receiving, and I often find that more difficult. God grant me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. I cannot change my height, I cannot change where and when and to whom I was born. I cannot change my DNA. I cannot change the fact that at 21 I was diagnosed with a chronic colon condition. I cannot change other people, at least not directly. I cannot change the past. There are more things in the world that cannot be changed than we sometimes like to admit – things wonderful and frightening, things beautiful and ugly, things that bless and things that curse. Part of the lesson of the pine is that we need to be open to receiving from the world as it is – from God, from others, from reality itself. We will want to change much, but I think change begins with an openness to things as they are.
In the most recent issue of Ode magazine, a woman named Hilary Hart wrote a piece on “receiving” in which she argues that one of the greatest gifts we can offer someone is “the willingness to receive fully and freely.” Giving and receiving are fundamental aspects of experience, connecting all life in an interdependent whole. Just as many of us long to experience moments of pure altruism, when we offer our hearts with no strings attached, we also long to receive deeply and freely, experiencing what it means to be given to – touched, nourished and even transformed by life. Some of her reflection was prompted by the receipt of a scarf from her mother – a gray cotton scarf with pink flowers – and Ms. Hart does not wear pink. So she mulls over what it means to be a good receiver – our longing for it, the difficulty of it. “Receiving isn’t easy. If it were, more of us would do it with grace and gratitude.” She is insightful about what makes receiving difficult – that it sometimes comes with strings attached (quid pro puo), that it sometimes seems to put us in a weaker position, e.g. the March of Dimes wants me to call everyone I’ve helped to see if they will give a donation to the March of Dimes for me. We are concerned about receiving because we are concerned that others may not be getting enough. Receiving is complicated, yet necessary for fullness of life. In Hart’s article a woman named Miriam Greenspan shares her insights and story. Life is a gift we receive each day, but the gift can be terrifying when we don’t get what we want or want what we get, when there is disappointment and even catastrophe. So we close down. And when we are close, it’s as though we are asleep to the gift of life. These might seem like nice sentiments, but coming from Miriam Greenspan they are more than that. Miriam Greenspan was born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany where she lived for four years after the Holocaust. Her first child was born with a brain injury and lived only 66 days. Her third child was born with complex physical and cognitive disabilities. The gift in grieving for our losses, for example, is deep gratitude. From fully experiencing despair we go on a journey for new meaning and find a more resilient faith in life. When we befriend our fear, we discover the joy of living fully.
Hilary Hart tries on the scarf her mother has sent and is surprised to see how good it looked.
This Advent season, let us learn the lesson of the pine cone. Let us learn that to be ever green and growing and full of life is to be open to giving – sharing our faith, sowing seeds of love, joy, healing and justice; and open to receiving – from others, from reality, from God. Advent reminds us that the Christ comes again and again and that we know this Christ in ever new ways as we give and as we receive. Amen.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
What'd I Say
Beginning with this entry, I plan to post the texts of my Sunday sermons on this web site. I will use my other blog for an eclectic collection of thoughts, musings, and the like. Thanks for reading.
This sermon was preached November 23. The Scripture text for the morning was Matthew 25:31-46
Someone sent me this bit of humor recently. A minister decided that his Sunday sermon could use a little something so he devised a visual demonstration. Four worms were placed in four jars at the beginning of the sermon: one in a jar of whiskey, one in a jar containing cigarette smoke, one in a jar of chocolate syrup, and one in a jar of good clean soil. At the conclusion of the sermon, the minister opened each jar and reported the following results. The worm in the whiskey jar – dead. The worm in the jar with cigarette smoke – dead. The worm in the chocolate syrup – dead (kind of a waste of good chocolate syrup, and I suppose you could say the same about the whiskey!). The worm in the good clean soil was alive and well.
So the minister asked the congregation what they learned from the demonstration. A parishoner, sitting near the back quickly raised a hand. “As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t have any worms!”
Keep those cards and letters coming.
All kinds of interesting things have happened to the stories Jesus told. Each Gospel writer told the story for his own reasons, told it in a way that he thought would help the Jesus community he was preparing the gospel for. We need to pay attention to that context. Since the gospels were put in print, the stories have been interpreted countless ways, and sometimes the wrong lessons have been drawn. I want to say a few words this morning about what the story Jesus tells, as it is recorded in Matthew 25, isn’t about.
It’s not about worms and whiskey, but you knew that already.
I don’t think this story is about hell, either, though some use it that way. I have mentioned recently my visit to the Vineyard Church national web site, where it says that after the final judgment the wicked will experience “eternal conscious punishment.” The Scripture reference they site is this story in Matthew 25. Without being too harsh, I think they have it wrong.
In Matthew’s gospel, this story comes as a part of a series of stories told by Jesus, all of which have to do with remaining faithful to the end, of not giving up on the way of Jesus, even in difficult and confusing times. You need to know that the times were difficult and confusing for Matthew’s audience. Matthew was probably writing for people who had come into the Jesus way from out of Judaism. Maybe a better way to say this is to say that they saw in the way of Jesus a needed and authentic reforming of their Jewish faith. There is often a lot of excitement at the beginning of a reform movement, but that excitement ebbs and flows. The Jesus movement was separated from the larger Jewish tradition. That was painful for Matthew’s community. The Temple, which has been such a powerful religious and national symbol for the Jewish people had been destroyed by Rome. Matthew’s Jesus community had every reason to lose heart, and so he retold stories told by Jesus to help his community keep the faith. More importantly with this story, he was reminding people that keeping the faith was more than just hanging on to the bitter end, more than isolating oneself to try and keep pure. To live the Jesus way was just the opposite of isolation from the world, it was engagement with the world – with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, those lacking clothing, the sick, the imprisoned. The final judgment metaphor is best understood as a way to emphasize in the strongest terms that when you pass by opportunitites to touch a sufering life, those opportunities are lost forever. It is a powerful metaphor, but its power is not the power of fear threatening us with eternal conscious punishment.
If this story is not about hell it is also not about ridding ourselves of religious and spiritual language and practice. Notice that both groups that come before the Son of Man as king address him as “lord.” Sometimes we are tempted to read this story and say that what it means to be a Christian is to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned. We are right in saying that this is what it means to be a Christian, but we would be wrong to say that it is all that it means to be a Christian. We would be helped to recall other words in Matthew, Matthew 7:21: Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Matthew is writing to a practicing faith community reminding them that the Jesus way, while not less than spiritual practices like prayer, like gathering in community, like worship, is always more than that – that it is justice, that it is compassion, that it is kindness. Absent these, you are missing the boat, but we don’t throw the other spiritual practices out of the boat either.
In sharing what this text isn’t about, I have begun to say what I think it is about, and I want to explore this further beginning with some helpful words from the theologian Robert Neville. Christianity first and foremost is about being kind…. Sometimes it is hard to tell in what kindness consists. Whether a social welfare system is ultimately kind if it creates a long-term dependent class of people is a debateable point at this stage, and how to amend it to make if more kind is also debatable. But some obvious and up-front meanings should be affirmed before stumbling on hard cases. These include being generous, sympathetic, willing to help those in immediate need, and ready to play roles for people on occasions of suffering, trouble, joy, celebration that might more naturally be played by family or close friends who are absent. (Neville, Symbols of Jesus, xviii).
The illuminating thing for me when I read Neville’s words and the words of Matthew 25 is that Christian faith, the Jesus way, is about doing good and about being different. We miss some of the power of Matthew 25 if we make it only a to do list. Christian faith, the Jesus way, is about what we do and about who we are. Generous people do certain things, and they also have a certain kind of heart, a certain inner orientation that is open to helping in a hurting world. Sympathetic people do certain things and they also have a certain kind of heart, a certain inner orientation which opens them to the suffering and pain of the world. The Jesus way in the world is about willingness and readiness and openness, as well as about doing. That is deeply embedded in the story Jesus told itself. None of those who are commended or condemned in the story realize what it is they have been doing – they just did it, it flowed out of their heart and soul. Christian faith, the Jesus way, is a way of being in the world that both transforms the world in the direction of kindness and transforms the self into a kinder heart. That is where traditional spiritual practices are especially significant. Our hearts, our souls, are transformed by prayer, by worship, by gathering in community. They are also transformed by doing good itself. All is needed.
A couple of weeks ago, I was running a late afternoon errand before returning to the church to help the Staff-Parish Relations Committee prepare for the Wednesday night meal. I went to a store to buy a couple of things, and I paid cash. When the cashier told me how much I owed, it seemed less than I had expected, but I had used a discount coupon, so I paid and walked out my car. I couldn’t help but think that somehow the store had been short-changed and so I looked at the receipt, and sure enough, the woman had not charged me for one item. Well it is nearly five o’clock, the time when I was supposed to be at the church, and it wasn’t my fault that the cashier had messed up, and I spend enough money at this store… I opened the car door, and put my package inside. But I couldn’t leave. Something inside of me told me that I needed to take the time to go and pay what I truly owed. I couldn’t help but smile at the potential irony of telling myself that I couldn’t go back into the store to correct the error because I was running late for church.
This is not a big deal. I am not bucking for sainthood here, but I know that at one time in my life I think I would have been capable of driving away, and now I am not. I continue to be formed on the inside and it continues to be expressed in doing good.
I think the most challenging part of the story Jesus told and Matthew retold is that the kind of heart, mind and soul that is encouraged is a heart, mind and soul open to the suffering of the world. We are invited on the Jesus way to cultivate a heart, a mind, a soul, that sees hunger and thirst, that sees lonliness and alienation, that sees deprivation and poverty, that sees sickness, that sees injustice and imprisonment, including some of the self-created prisons in our lives. We see, and we respond.
The kind of hearts and souls we are invited to develop pay attention to thoughts about poverty like those offered by Noble-prize winning economist Paul Krugman. Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain. Neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life. We cannot ignore that. We are called to care and to act. Neither can we ignore the kind of suffering that is less amenable to social remedy – the suffering of grief, the pain of loss and disappointment, the hurt of failed relationships. Sometimes the best we can do, and it is a lot, is to stand with people in their pain.
To have our hearts and minds transformed in this way is difficult. It means opening ourselves to a measure of sadness. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim writes, “an inescapable sadness is part of the life of any reflective person” (Freud and Man’s Soul, 111). I have for awhile appreciated this analysis of the heart and sadness offered by Elizabeth Lesser. Sadness is not the opposite of happiness. The opposite of happiness is a closed heart. Happiness is a heart so soft and so expansive that it can hold all of the emotions in a cradle of openness. A happy heart is one that is larger at all times than any one emotion. An open heart feels everything – including anger, grief and pain – and absorbs it into a bigger and wiser experience of reality…. We may think that by closing the heart we’ll protect ourselves from feeling the pain of the world, but instead we isolate ourselves even more from joy…. The opposite of happiness is a fearful, closed heart. Happiness is ours when we go through our anger, fear and pain, all the way to our sadness, and then slowly let sadness develop into tenderness. (The New American Spirituality, 180). That’s the Christian journey, too, though I would add that we necessarily need to let our tenderness flower into action to alleviate suffering in the world.
A heart and soul open to the suffering of the world invites a certain sadness inside, a sadness at all the suffering there is, a sadness that the human community has not done more to alleviate preventable suffering, a sadness knowing that as a person, I cannot do something about every suffering I encounter. This is a difficult way, but the joy of this way is a tenacious and tough joy. It is a joy that can look at the worst the world has, and not give up in despair. It can look at the worst that the world has, and act hopefully. It can look at the worst that the world has, and not neglect the best and most beautiful.
The Christian faith, the Jesus way in Matthew 25 is a way of transforming the world and transforming the heart and soul. During the Nazi period in Germany, many Jews had to flee the country and leave their houses behind. If they were able to sell them at all, they received ridiculously low prices for them. Many Germans were happy to purchase a cheap Jewish villa. German theologian Dorothee Soelle tells the story of how in the town she grew up in a young teacher was offered one such empty house for a very cheap price. His response was, “I cannot move into such a house. Legally and morally it still belongs to the former owner.” The young teacher was disliked by the Nazis for this response. Shortly afterward he was sent to a concentration camp. (Not Just yes and amen, 12-13).
The invitation is there – to develop your heart and soul, to do good and to develop your heart and soul through doing good. How are you going to respond. What suffering will you open yourself up to this holiday season? What will you do about it? As a part of your journey of faith, I invite you to take advantage of some of the opportunities our church is offering you to respond to suffering and hurt in the world. Our Thanksgiving offering will be shared between the ministry of the church and with midwest flood relief. Our Christmas offering will be shared between the ministry of the church, Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank, and Harbor House Crisis Shelters. On Christmas Eve, CHUM will again organized a vigil in the civic center, collecting warm gloves, hats, boots, mittens, blankets – and if you can’t give any of these, just come to support that effort. I will be doing all these things, and will also be helping the March of Dimes, through their jail and bail event – if you would like to help with that, I would welcome your donations. I invite you who have heard this story and this sermon today to challenge yourselves to do something in the remaining month of this year to alleviate a little suffering in the world.
Christian faith is never just about what we say, whether we say it in prayer or song or in church. Christian faith, the Jesus way, is about what we do and about how our hearts and minds and souls are being changed. The way can be difficult, that’s one reason we are on the way together. The way can be difficult and it is the way of life. For this way and for the grace which opens this way to us, we are grateful. Amen.
This sermon was preached November 23. The Scripture text for the morning was Matthew 25:31-46
Someone sent me this bit of humor recently. A minister decided that his Sunday sermon could use a little something so he devised a visual demonstration. Four worms were placed in four jars at the beginning of the sermon: one in a jar of whiskey, one in a jar containing cigarette smoke, one in a jar of chocolate syrup, and one in a jar of good clean soil. At the conclusion of the sermon, the minister opened each jar and reported the following results. The worm in the whiskey jar – dead. The worm in the jar with cigarette smoke – dead. The worm in the chocolate syrup – dead (kind of a waste of good chocolate syrup, and I suppose you could say the same about the whiskey!). The worm in the good clean soil was alive and well.
So the minister asked the congregation what they learned from the demonstration. A parishoner, sitting near the back quickly raised a hand. “As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t have any worms!”
Keep those cards and letters coming.
All kinds of interesting things have happened to the stories Jesus told. Each Gospel writer told the story for his own reasons, told it in a way that he thought would help the Jesus community he was preparing the gospel for. We need to pay attention to that context. Since the gospels were put in print, the stories have been interpreted countless ways, and sometimes the wrong lessons have been drawn. I want to say a few words this morning about what the story Jesus tells, as it is recorded in Matthew 25, isn’t about.
It’s not about worms and whiskey, but you knew that already.
I don’t think this story is about hell, either, though some use it that way. I have mentioned recently my visit to the Vineyard Church national web site, where it says that after the final judgment the wicked will experience “eternal conscious punishment.” The Scripture reference they site is this story in Matthew 25. Without being too harsh, I think they have it wrong.
In Matthew’s gospel, this story comes as a part of a series of stories told by Jesus, all of which have to do with remaining faithful to the end, of not giving up on the way of Jesus, even in difficult and confusing times. You need to know that the times were difficult and confusing for Matthew’s audience. Matthew was probably writing for people who had come into the Jesus way from out of Judaism. Maybe a better way to say this is to say that they saw in the way of Jesus a needed and authentic reforming of their Jewish faith. There is often a lot of excitement at the beginning of a reform movement, but that excitement ebbs and flows. The Jesus movement was separated from the larger Jewish tradition. That was painful for Matthew’s community. The Temple, which has been such a powerful religious and national symbol for the Jewish people had been destroyed by Rome. Matthew’s Jesus community had every reason to lose heart, and so he retold stories told by Jesus to help his community keep the faith. More importantly with this story, he was reminding people that keeping the faith was more than just hanging on to the bitter end, more than isolating oneself to try and keep pure. To live the Jesus way was just the opposite of isolation from the world, it was engagement with the world – with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, those lacking clothing, the sick, the imprisoned. The final judgment metaphor is best understood as a way to emphasize in the strongest terms that when you pass by opportunitites to touch a sufering life, those opportunities are lost forever. It is a powerful metaphor, but its power is not the power of fear threatening us with eternal conscious punishment.
If this story is not about hell it is also not about ridding ourselves of religious and spiritual language and practice. Notice that both groups that come before the Son of Man as king address him as “lord.” Sometimes we are tempted to read this story and say that what it means to be a Christian is to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned. We are right in saying that this is what it means to be a Christian, but we would be wrong to say that it is all that it means to be a Christian. We would be helped to recall other words in Matthew, Matthew 7:21: Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Matthew is writing to a practicing faith community reminding them that the Jesus way, while not less than spiritual practices like prayer, like gathering in community, like worship, is always more than that – that it is justice, that it is compassion, that it is kindness. Absent these, you are missing the boat, but we don’t throw the other spiritual practices out of the boat either.
In sharing what this text isn’t about, I have begun to say what I think it is about, and I want to explore this further beginning with some helpful words from the theologian Robert Neville. Christianity first and foremost is about being kind…. Sometimes it is hard to tell in what kindness consists. Whether a social welfare system is ultimately kind if it creates a long-term dependent class of people is a debateable point at this stage, and how to amend it to make if more kind is also debatable. But some obvious and up-front meanings should be affirmed before stumbling on hard cases. These include being generous, sympathetic, willing to help those in immediate need, and ready to play roles for people on occasions of suffering, trouble, joy, celebration that might more naturally be played by family or close friends who are absent. (Neville, Symbols of Jesus, xviii).
The illuminating thing for me when I read Neville’s words and the words of Matthew 25 is that Christian faith, the Jesus way, is about doing good and about being different. We miss some of the power of Matthew 25 if we make it only a to do list. Christian faith, the Jesus way, is about what we do and about who we are. Generous people do certain things, and they also have a certain kind of heart, a certain inner orientation that is open to helping in a hurting world. Sympathetic people do certain things and they also have a certain kind of heart, a certain inner orientation which opens them to the suffering and pain of the world. The Jesus way in the world is about willingness and readiness and openness, as well as about doing. That is deeply embedded in the story Jesus told itself. None of those who are commended or condemned in the story realize what it is they have been doing – they just did it, it flowed out of their heart and soul. Christian faith, the Jesus way, is a way of being in the world that both transforms the world in the direction of kindness and transforms the self into a kinder heart. That is where traditional spiritual practices are especially significant. Our hearts, our souls, are transformed by prayer, by worship, by gathering in community. They are also transformed by doing good itself. All is needed.
A couple of weeks ago, I was running a late afternoon errand before returning to the church to help the Staff-Parish Relations Committee prepare for the Wednesday night meal. I went to a store to buy a couple of things, and I paid cash. When the cashier told me how much I owed, it seemed less than I had expected, but I had used a discount coupon, so I paid and walked out my car. I couldn’t help but think that somehow the store had been short-changed and so I looked at the receipt, and sure enough, the woman had not charged me for one item. Well it is nearly five o’clock, the time when I was supposed to be at the church, and it wasn’t my fault that the cashier had messed up, and I spend enough money at this store… I opened the car door, and put my package inside. But I couldn’t leave. Something inside of me told me that I needed to take the time to go and pay what I truly owed. I couldn’t help but smile at the potential irony of telling myself that I couldn’t go back into the store to correct the error because I was running late for church.
This is not a big deal. I am not bucking for sainthood here, but I know that at one time in my life I think I would have been capable of driving away, and now I am not. I continue to be formed on the inside and it continues to be expressed in doing good.
I think the most challenging part of the story Jesus told and Matthew retold is that the kind of heart, mind and soul that is encouraged is a heart, mind and soul open to the suffering of the world. We are invited on the Jesus way to cultivate a heart, a mind, a soul, that sees hunger and thirst, that sees lonliness and alienation, that sees deprivation and poverty, that sees sickness, that sees injustice and imprisonment, including some of the self-created prisons in our lives. We see, and we respond.
The kind of hearts and souls we are invited to develop pay attention to thoughts about poverty like those offered by Noble-prize winning economist Paul Krugman. Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain. Neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life. We cannot ignore that. We are called to care and to act. Neither can we ignore the kind of suffering that is less amenable to social remedy – the suffering of grief, the pain of loss and disappointment, the hurt of failed relationships. Sometimes the best we can do, and it is a lot, is to stand with people in their pain.
To have our hearts and minds transformed in this way is difficult. It means opening ourselves to a measure of sadness. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim writes, “an inescapable sadness is part of the life of any reflective person” (Freud and Man’s Soul, 111). I have for awhile appreciated this analysis of the heart and sadness offered by Elizabeth Lesser. Sadness is not the opposite of happiness. The opposite of happiness is a closed heart. Happiness is a heart so soft and so expansive that it can hold all of the emotions in a cradle of openness. A happy heart is one that is larger at all times than any one emotion. An open heart feels everything – including anger, grief and pain – and absorbs it into a bigger and wiser experience of reality…. We may think that by closing the heart we’ll protect ourselves from feeling the pain of the world, but instead we isolate ourselves even more from joy…. The opposite of happiness is a fearful, closed heart. Happiness is ours when we go through our anger, fear and pain, all the way to our sadness, and then slowly let sadness develop into tenderness. (The New American Spirituality, 180). That’s the Christian journey, too, though I would add that we necessarily need to let our tenderness flower into action to alleviate suffering in the world.
A heart and soul open to the suffering of the world invites a certain sadness inside, a sadness at all the suffering there is, a sadness that the human community has not done more to alleviate preventable suffering, a sadness knowing that as a person, I cannot do something about every suffering I encounter. This is a difficult way, but the joy of this way is a tenacious and tough joy. It is a joy that can look at the worst the world has, and not give up in despair. It can look at the worst that the world has, and act hopefully. It can look at the worst that the world has, and not neglect the best and most beautiful.
The Christian faith, the Jesus way in Matthew 25 is a way of transforming the world and transforming the heart and soul. During the Nazi period in Germany, many Jews had to flee the country and leave their houses behind. If they were able to sell them at all, they received ridiculously low prices for them. Many Germans were happy to purchase a cheap Jewish villa. German theologian Dorothee Soelle tells the story of how in the town she grew up in a young teacher was offered one such empty house for a very cheap price. His response was, “I cannot move into such a house. Legally and morally it still belongs to the former owner.” The young teacher was disliked by the Nazis for this response. Shortly afterward he was sent to a concentration camp. (Not Just yes and amen, 12-13).
The invitation is there – to develop your heart and soul, to do good and to develop your heart and soul through doing good. How are you going to respond. What suffering will you open yourself up to this holiday season? What will you do about it? As a part of your journey of faith, I invite you to take advantage of some of the opportunities our church is offering you to respond to suffering and hurt in the world. Our Thanksgiving offering will be shared between the ministry of the church and with midwest flood relief. Our Christmas offering will be shared between the ministry of the church, Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank, and Harbor House Crisis Shelters. On Christmas Eve, CHUM will again organized a vigil in the civic center, collecting warm gloves, hats, boots, mittens, blankets – and if you can’t give any of these, just come to support that effort. I will be doing all these things, and will also be helping the March of Dimes, through their jail and bail event – if you would like to help with that, I would welcome your donations. I invite you who have heard this story and this sermon today to challenge yourselves to do something in the remaining month of this year to alleviate a little suffering in the world.
Christian faith is never just about what we say, whether we say it in prayer or song or in church. Christian faith, the Jesus way, is about what we do and about how our hearts and minds and souls are being changed. The way can be difficult, that’s one reason we are on the way together. The way can be difficult and it is the way of life. For this way and for the grace which opens this way to us, we are grateful. Amen.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Sometimes
melancholy leaves me breathless.
Mary Oliver, “Sometimes” in Red Bird
As she so often does, Mary Oliver speaks truth, but why would anyone want to read such truth? I read it because it is good to know that one’s feelings of sadness are shared by others, that the melancholy which leaves me breathless also leaves others breathless – and yet we can create art out of it which then helps us move through the sadness. It is why I listen to the blues. In the blues we hear the sadness and the art made from sadness, an art which helps us negotiate it. It is why I love the Psalms, too.
Here is one of my attempts to create something out of sadness.
There are days
when the truest
statement in the
creed is:
He descended into hell,
and when the
first truth of
Buddhism appears
its most profound:
Life is suffering.
Both also promise
a way forward.
The eightfold path.
Resurrection.
Neither promises
that the way
is easy.
And the stay
in hell was
three days.
Trying to Create Beauty,
David
melancholy leaves me breathless.
Mary Oliver, “Sometimes” in Red Bird
As she so often does, Mary Oliver speaks truth, but why would anyone want to read such truth? I read it because it is good to know that one’s feelings of sadness are shared by others, that the melancholy which leaves me breathless also leaves others breathless – and yet we can create art out of it which then helps us move through the sadness. It is why I listen to the blues. In the blues we hear the sadness and the art made from sadness, an art which helps us negotiate it. It is why I love the Psalms, too.
Here is one of my attempts to create something out of sadness.
There are days
when the truest
statement in the
creed is:
He descended into hell,
and when the
first truth of
Buddhism appears
its most profound:
Life is suffering.
Both also promise
a way forward.
The eightfold path.
Resurrection.
Neither promises
that the way
is easy.
And the stay
in hell was
three days.
Trying to Create Beauty,
David
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Thich, Tillich and Dorothee, too
“Submission, obedience and other such terms have never been my favorite theological or spiritual concepts. Perhaps there is something of the spirit of Euripides in me. “The wisest men follow their own direction and listen to no prophet guiding them” (quoted by Anthony Storr in Feet of Clay). One of my favorite scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (a film I enjoy a lot) is the one where God tells King Arthur and the knights to “stop their groveling.”
Yet the notions of yielding, submitting, surrendering, obeying run throughout spiritual literature, especially theistic spiritual literature, including that of the Christian faith which is my tradition. Sometimes I ask myself if my resistance is little more than the spiritual recalcitrance of a rebellious soul who because of his stubbornness is missing out on some of the depths of relationship with God.
I struggle with the notions of obedience, submission, surrending, and yielding because of the abuse I have seen accompanying those concepts. Obedience to God seems to easily slide into obedience to God’s chosen leaders and history is rife with the horror stories of blind obedience. Think of the obedience given Adolph Hitler, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, David Koresh and others, and of the awful consequences of such blind following.
Surrender to God or to some abstract guiding principle is not only seductive but understandable and, in some instances, valuable. Surrender to a human guru is fraught with risk. Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay, 221-222.
Okay, so one can and should distinguish between obedience to God and obedience and submission to any human person. Christian faith even provides a solid foundation for resistance to blind obedience to any person as fully embodying the will of God. Even though this distinction is important and necessary, I confess that an uneasiness remains. Obedience, submission, yielding, surrender connote a complete self-abrogation to God. A God who demands utter, complete, blind obedience seems created in the image of emperors and dictators and I am uncomfortable with this.
This issue was recently raised for me again as I was listening to an audio CD of Thich Nhat Hahn – “Touching the Earth: meditations for compassion.” The CD was a free gift for subscribing to Ode magazine. The title sounds inviting enough, but Brother Thay discusses “the five prostrations,” “bowing down and surrendering to the earth.” That kind of language again brought to the fore these issues of obedience, submission, yielding, surrender. The five prostrations are: bowing in gratitude to ancestors in one’s family, to the ancestors in one’s spiritual family (and here Brother Thay included Buddha and Jesus), bowing in gratitude to the land and to all who helped make it available (including Chief Seattle, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King. Jr.), in gratitude and compassion bowing and pledging to transmit energy to those one loves, and, finally, in understanding and compassion bowing down to reconcile oneself with all those who have made one suffer. That is a lot of bowing and submitting and it sounds rather masochistic. Listening to Thich Nhat Hahn, though, a very different feeling came over me – not a closing off of self in order to submit to a power that was other but instead an awe, a reverence and an opening of the self. I had the feeling of openness to something that was part of me, though also other than me.
Listening, I also thought again of Paul Tillich, a theologian I encountered early in my seminary days and one with whose thought I have continued to engage fruitfully. Years ago, Tillich’s categories of theonomy, autonomy and heteronomy helped me deal with the language of obedience, submission, surrender and yielding - - - helped me incorporate that language into my own spiritual life in productive ways, though not without continuing unease. I often have to translate these ideas into other concepts.
Without getting into all the subtleties of Tillich’s theology, heteronomy implies a power from outside one, or outside of a cultural creation, that seeks to denigrate or even destroy the autonomy of that self or creation. Autonomy represents freedom from tradition and can again be applied to persons and to cultural creations. Theonomy “is the directedness of the self-creation of life under the dimension of the Spirit toward the ultimate in being and meaning” (Systematic Theology, III, p. 249). Tillich applies these concepts most consistently to culture. The original theonomous union is left behind by the rise of autonomous trends which necessarily lead to a reaction of the heteronomous element. Without the liberation of autonomy from the bondage to an “archaic,” mythologically founded theonomy, the culture could not develop its potentialities. Only after their liberation from the uniting myth and the theonomous state of consciousness can philosophy and the sciences, poetry and the other arts, appear. But if they achieve independence, they lose their transcendent foundation which gave them depth, unity, and ultimate meaning; and therefore, the reaction of heteronomy starts: the experience of the ultimate, as expressed in the religious tradition, reacts against the creations of an empty autonomy. (Systematic Theology, III, 251-252). I guess I am getting into the complexities of Tillich more than initially intended. The basic idea is that the Spirit can be experienced as a setting free (autonomy), and sometimes as a check against an empty autonomy (heteronomy), but is most fully present in a theonomy that encourages freedom and connection to the ultimate in being and meaning at the same time. That ultimate in being and meaning is not separate from one’s own being, though it is more than oneself. In simpler terms, I take all this to mean that God is not completely other and God desires and wills the human good in community, which includes my good. Not all my thoughts, desires, whims are the movement of God’s Spirit within me, but the movement of God’s Spirit within me is not completely different from my deepest hopes and dreams. This helps me understand why the language of obedience, submission, surrender and yielding does not come easy, and yet may still have a place, especially if I understand yielding to mean something more like openness to life and to reality.
Cracking open Tillich’s Systematic Theology, reminded me, too, of another influential theologian from my seminary days, Dorothee Soelle, and of her book, Beyond Mere Obedience. Soelle describes her book as “an attempt to work through the oppressive aspects of traditions of obedience I inherited in my national, religious, and sexual identity. Being a German, a Christian, and a woman I was brought up with three kinds of traditions that demanded obedience” (ix). Soelle makes good use of Erich Fromm’s helpful distinction between authoritarian religion and humanitarian religion. In authoritarian religion “God’s love and righteousness are less important than God’s power” (xiii). Humanitarian religion “operates with a force which springs from the inner life of the spirit. There is one creative power in God as well as in people.” (xii-xiii). Soelle poses a critical question. “Why do people worship a God whose supreme quality is power, not justice; whose interest lies in subjection, not in mutuality; who fears equality?” (xiv-xv). Soelle’s work is rich and thought-provoking. Here are some other helpful passages.
Selflessness is possible only where a particular level of self-awareness has been achieved. A person whose own capacity to love has been awakened, who has experienced so much happiness that it radiates from her, who has discovered her own identity; such a person is actually capable of acting sacrificially in particular situations. (38)
The conventional picture of Jesus has always placed his obedience and his self-denial in the foreground. But that phantasy which is born of fulfillment is a far better description of his life…. Should one consider the death of Jesus from the point of view of obedience alone, one would overlook the fact that selflessness and a readiness to live sacrificially are possible only when a person has come to himself and has reached the fullest level of personal freedom. (56, 57)
For Jesus “God” meant liberation, the unchaining of all powers which lie imprisoned in each of us, powers with which we too can perform miracles which are no less significant than those we are told Jesus himself performed. (64)
At the end of all this reflection I can again affirm that the language of spiritual teachers about obedience, submission, surrender and yielding has value, but only if critically appropriated. For me, that critical appropriation leads me away from these words themselves and toward the language of radical openness, an openness to God as Spirit at work in the world. When I am more open to that Spiritual Presence, I also find God’s Spirit at work in me, in my soul and spirit. This language of radical openness, coming through a critical process is also self-critical, for I know there are other voices contending inside of me, not just the voice of the Spirit and it is to those better angels of my nature that I need to pay attention and to yield.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
Yet the notions of yielding, submitting, surrendering, obeying run throughout spiritual literature, especially theistic spiritual literature, including that of the Christian faith which is my tradition. Sometimes I ask myself if my resistance is little more than the spiritual recalcitrance of a rebellious soul who because of his stubbornness is missing out on some of the depths of relationship with God.
I struggle with the notions of obedience, submission, surrending, and yielding because of the abuse I have seen accompanying those concepts. Obedience to God seems to easily slide into obedience to God’s chosen leaders and history is rife with the horror stories of blind obedience. Think of the obedience given Adolph Hitler, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, David Koresh and others, and of the awful consequences of such blind following.
Surrender to God or to some abstract guiding principle is not only seductive but understandable and, in some instances, valuable. Surrender to a human guru is fraught with risk. Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay, 221-222.
Okay, so one can and should distinguish between obedience to God and obedience and submission to any human person. Christian faith even provides a solid foundation for resistance to blind obedience to any person as fully embodying the will of God. Even though this distinction is important and necessary, I confess that an uneasiness remains. Obedience, submission, yielding, surrender connote a complete self-abrogation to God. A God who demands utter, complete, blind obedience seems created in the image of emperors and dictators and I am uncomfortable with this.
This issue was recently raised for me again as I was listening to an audio CD of Thich Nhat Hahn – “Touching the Earth: meditations for compassion.” The CD was a free gift for subscribing to Ode magazine. The title sounds inviting enough, but Brother Thay discusses “the five prostrations,” “bowing down and surrendering to the earth.” That kind of language again brought to the fore these issues of obedience, submission, yielding, surrender. The five prostrations are: bowing in gratitude to ancestors in one’s family, to the ancestors in one’s spiritual family (and here Brother Thay included Buddha and Jesus), bowing in gratitude to the land and to all who helped make it available (including Chief Seattle, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King. Jr.), in gratitude and compassion bowing and pledging to transmit energy to those one loves, and, finally, in understanding and compassion bowing down to reconcile oneself with all those who have made one suffer. That is a lot of bowing and submitting and it sounds rather masochistic. Listening to Thich Nhat Hahn, though, a very different feeling came over me – not a closing off of self in order to submit to a power that was other but instead an awe, a reverence and an opening of the self. I had the feeling of openness to something that was part of me, though also other than me.
Listening, I also thought again of Paul Tillich, a theologian I encountered early in my seminary days and one with whose thought I have continued to engage fruitfully. Years ago, Tillich’s categories of theonomy, autonomy and heteronomy helped me deal with the language of obedience, submission, surrender and yielding - - - helped me incorporate that language into my own spiritual life in productive ways, though not without continuing unease. I often have to translate these ideas into other concepts.
Without getting into all the subtleties of Tillich’s theology, heteronomy implies a power from outside one, or outside of a cultural creation, that seeks to denigrate or even destroy the autonomy of that self or creation. Autonomy represents freedom from tradition and can again be applied to persons and to cultural creations. Theonomy “is the directedness of the self-creation of life under the dimension of the Spirit toward the ultimate in being and meaning” (Systematic Theology, III, p. 249). Tillich applies these concepts most consistently to culture. The original theonomous union is left behind by the rise of autonomous trends which necessarily lead to a reaction of the heteronomous element. Without the liberation of autonomy from the bondage to an “archaic,” mythologically founded theonomy, the culture could not develop its potentialities. Only after their liberation from the uniting myth and the theonomous state of consciousness can philosophy and the sciences, poetry and the other arts, appear. But if they achieve independence, they lose their transcendent foundation which gave them depth, unity, and ultimate meaning; and therefore, the reaction of heteronomy starts: the experience of the ultimate, as expressed in the religious tradition, reacts against the creations of an empty autonomy. (Systematic Theology, III, 251-252). I guess I am getting into the complexities of Tillich more than initially intended. The basic idea is that the Spirit can be experienced as a setting free (autonomy), and sometimes as a check against an empty autonomy (heteronomy), but is most fully present in a theonomy that encourages freedom and connection to the ultimate in being and meaning at the same time. That ultimate in being and meaning is not separate from one’s own being, though it is more than oneself. In simpler terms, I take all this to mean that God is not completely other and God desires and wills the human good in community, which includes my good. Not all my thoughts, desires, whims are the movement of God’s Spirit within me, but the movement of God’s Spirit within me is not completely different from my deepest hopes and dreams. This helps me understand why the language of obedience, submission, surrender and yielding does not come easy, and yet may still have a place, especially if I understand yielding to mean something more like openness to life and to reality.
Cracking open Tillich’s Systematic Theology, reminded me, too, of another influential theologian from my seminary days, Dorothee Soelle, and of her book, Beyond Mere Obedience. Soelle describes her book as “an attempt to work through the oppressive aspects of traditions of obedience I inherited in my national, religious, and sexual identity. Being a German, a Christian, and a woman I was brought up with three kinds of traditions that demanded obedience” (ix). Soelle makes good use of Erich Fromm’s helpful distinction between authoritarian religion and humanitarian religion. In authoritarian religion “God’s love and righteousness are less important than God’s power” (xiii). Humanitarian religion “operates with a force which springs from the inner life of the spirit. There is one creative power in God as well as in people.” (xii-xiii). Soelle poses a critical question. “Why do people worship a God whose supreme quality is power, not justice; whose interest lies in subjection, not in mutuality; who fears equality?” (xiv-xv). Soelle’s work is rich and thought-provoking. Here are some other helpful passages.
Selflessness is possible only where a particular level of self-awareness has been achieved. A person whose own capacity to love has been awakened, who has experienced so much happiness that it radiates from her, who has discovered her own identity; such a person is actually capable of acting sacrificially in particular situations. (38)
The conventional picture of Jesus has always placed his obedience and his self-denial in the foreground. But that phantasy which is born of fulfillment is a far better description of his life…. Should one consider the death of Jesus from the point of view of obedience alone, one would overlook the fact that selflessness and a readiness to live sacrificially are possible only when a person has come to himself and has reached the fullest level of personal freedom. (56, 57)
For Jesus “God” meant liberation, the unchaining of all powers which lie imprisoned in each of us, powers with which we too can perform miracles which are no less significant than those we are told Jesus himself performed. (64)
At the end of all this reflection I can again affirm that the language of spiritual teachers about obedience, submission, surrender and yielding has value, but only if critically appropriated. For me, that critical appropriation leads me away from these words themselves and toward the language of radical openness, an openness to God as Spirit at work in the world. When I am more open to that Spiritual Presence, I also find God’s Spirit at work in me, in my soul and spirit. This language of radical openness, coming through a critical process is also self-critical, for I know there are other voices contending inside of me, not just the voice of the Spirit and it is to those better angels of my nature that I need to pay attention and to yield.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
Monday, October 27, 2008
Was Jesus a Buddhist?
Of course not!
There are some who speculate that Jesus was influenced directly by Buddhist thought, either through the work of Buddhists traveling west to spread the word or through Jesus traveling east in the missing years of his twenties. I don’t think there is evidence to support either of these claims. Having said that I would also say that my more recent engagement with Buddhist thought has brought “mindfulness” to my attention (pun intended), and I can’t help but think that Jesus exhibits mindfulness to a remarkable degree.
What is mindfulness? Sylvia Boorstein, in her book It’s Easier Than You Think writes that mindfulness is “the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience” (60). Daniel Goleman expands on that a bit. In the most recent issue of Greater Good he writes that it is “a moment-by-moment awareness of one’s internal state and external environment” (11). It has to do with paying attention, calming oneself and being attuned to the feelings of others. Thich Nhat Hanh writes: Right Mindfulness is the energy that brings us back to the present moment. To cultivate mindfulness in ourselves is to cultivate the Buddha within, to cultivate the Holy Spirit. (The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 64) Daniel Goleman’s spouse, Tara Bennett-Goleman offers the most expansive notion of mindfulness in her book Emotional Alchemy. Mindfulness entails “harmony and simplicity, a mind alert but at rest, clear attention to the moment” (26). She goes on to write: Just as quieting our tumultuous thoughts offers one such tool for sorting out the jumble in our mind, other qualities of mindfulness provide powerful means for exploring our emotional lives. Among them are spacious clarity, calmness and equanimity, freedom from self-judgment, confidence and courage, intuition and trust, freshness and flexibility. Perhaps most important for emotional alchemy is a sustained investigative awareness, the ability to inquire with openness into an emotion until its meaning is revealed (29).
When reading many New Testament stories through the lens of some traditional Christological categories, one often assumes that Jesus knows things because of his divine nature. At least that is how I often read such stories. Then I got to thinking – however Jesus was divine, he was fully human and his prescience can be attributed to awareness, sensitivity, openness – in short, to mindfulness. “But Jesus, aware of their malice…” (Matthew 22:18) – the question about paying taxes. In the story of the paralytic man healed by Jesus, Jesus first offers forgiveness. Yes, the story really is more about Jesus having the authority to forgive, but might it also be about Jesus mindfully discerning that what this person needed as much as anything was forgiveness? Perhaps my favorite example is the story of the woman who touches Jesus in the crowd. In Luke’s telling (Luke 8:42-48), Jesus is in the midst of a crowd, and is responding to one man’s plea for help when a woman touches him. He knows it, but the disciples don’t understand his degree of mindfulness. He senses that he is being touched and senses the deep need of the one who touched him.
In Jesus we encounter a person of deep mindfulness. To nurture Christlikeness may include nurturing mindfulness. I happen to think it does. I also think we can learn something from the Buddhists about how to do this.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
There are some who speculate that Jesus was influenced directly by Buddhist thought, either through the work of Buddhists traveling west to spread the word or through Jesus traveling east in the missing years of his twenties. I don’t think there is evidence to support either of these claims. Having said that I would also say that my more recent engagement with Buddhist thought has brought “mindfulness” to my attention (pun intended), and I can’t help but think that Jesus exhibits mindfulness to a remarkable degree.
What is mindfulness? Sylvia Boorstein, in her book It’s Easier Than You Think writes that mindfulness is “the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience” (60). Daniel Goleman expands on that a bit. In the most recent issue of Greater Good he writes that it is “a moment-by-moment awareness of one’s internal state and external environment” (11). It has to do with paying attention, calming oneself and being attuned to the feelings of others. Thich Nhat Hanh writes: Right Mindfulness is the energy that brings us back to the present moment. To cultivate mindfulness in ourselves is to cultivate the Buddha within, to cultivate the Holy Spirit. (The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 64) Daniel Goleman’s spouse, Tara Bennett-Goleman offers the most expansive notion of mindfulness in her book Emotional Alchemy. Mindfulness entails “harmony and simplicity, a mind alert but at rest, clear attention to the moment” (26). She goes on to write: Just as quieting our tumultuous thoughts offers one such tool for sorting out the jumble in our mind, other qualities of mindfulness provide powerful means for exploring our emotional lives. Among them are spacious clarity, calmness and equanimity, freedom from self-judgment, confidence and courage, intuition and trust, freshness and flexibility. Perhaps most important for emotional alchemy is a sustained investigative awareness, the ability to inquire with openness into an emotion until its meaning is revealed (29).
When reading many New Testament stories through the lens of some traditional Christological categories, one often assumes that Jesus knows things because of his divine nature. At least that is how I often read such stories. Then I got to thinking – however Jesus was divine, he was fully human and his prescience can be attributed to awareness, sensitivity, openness – in short, to mindfulness. “But Jesus, aware of their malice…” (Matthew 22:18) – the question about paying taxes. In the story of the paralytic man healed by Jesus, Jesus first offers forgiveness. Yes, the story really is more about Jesus having the authority to forgive, but might it also be about Jesus mindfully discerning that what this person needed as much as anything was forgiveness? Perhaps my favorite example is the story of the woman who touches Jesus in the crowd. In Luke’s telling (Luke 8:42-48), Jesus is in the midst of a crowd, and is responding to one man’s plea for help when a woman touches him. He knows it, but the disciples don’t understand his degree of mindfulness. He senses that he is being touched and senses the deep need of the one who touched him.
In Jesus we encounter a person of deep mindfulness. To nurture Christlikeness may include nurturing mindfulness. I happen to think it does. I also think we can learn something from the Buddhists about how to do this.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
Friday, October 3, 2008
SPIRITUAL TYPE AND SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
In an episode of MASH, one of my favorite television shows, a shamanistic Korean wedding is arranged over the objections of some of the camp personnel – Majors Burns and Houlihan primarily. When Capt. Hawkeye Pearce asks the camp chaplain, Father Mulkahey what he plans to do, the priest tells Hawkeye, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Hawkeye replies, “You spiritual thrill-seeker you.”
That story came back to me recently as I continued to ponder a sermon I delivered a few weeks ago. The sermon was about spiritual types, and the typology I used was based on the work of Corinne Ware. The essential idea is that you can have two continuums – one that runs from “thinking/head” to “feeling/heart” and one that runs from “katophatic/concrete/known” to “apophatic/abstract/mystery.” Ware asserts that people tend to prefer certain forms of the spiritual life based on the four quadrants.
Quadrant I (head/katophatic) people function with a head spirituality that focuses on feeding the intellect, on tangible and intellectually compelling images for God, on ordered worship. Words are very important. Quadrant II (heart/katophatic) people function with a heart spirituality. They, too, like tangible and concrete images for God, but not to stimulate their thinking but rather to warm their hearts. Personal spiritual renewal tends to be important. Spontaneity in worship, experience in worship and prayer are important. Quadrant III (heart/apophatic)people operate with a predominantly mystic spirituality. They are interested in experiencing God, but see God in mystery and silence. Meditative prayer is attractive, and worship should have moments for quiet and silence. Quardrant IV (head/apophatic) people have an activist orientation to the spiritual life. They want worship to inspire them to change the world. Justice is prominent in their spirituality, and they may think that action should be the essence of prayer.
These are broad categories and like any typology, it can be misleading and misused. At its best, it reminds us that we are not all alike, that different things may feed our souls and spirits, and that we need to be open to being stretched.
When I first took this inventory, I ended up with almost equal numbers in each quadrant. That’s not all that surprising given my background. I grew up in a United Methodist Church, but my dad’s family was catholic and we attended a number of Catholic weddings. I was frankly fascinated by some of the worship, the hand movements, they mystery. In junior high school I had a heart-warming Christian experience which I understood in fairly traditional Christian terms. When I was in junior high school, I also discovered that I had a talent for logical thought. I have a deep appreciation for meditative practices and have used meditative prayer with some frequency. I believe God’s dream for the world goes beyond individual transformation to include transformation of the world toward more justice, toward reconciliation, toward peace. I now find that my soul is fed by high church liturgy and by the simple ringing of a meditation bell and silence. I am more of a feeling person – higher F than T on the Myers-Briggs inventory, but I love to discuss ideas. I have marched for justice and peace and reconciliation and visited my legislator with the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, and have meditated in silence on a zafu.
For me, then, this typology is a way I have of describing my own spiritual journey. In one way, it began in quadrant III, with they mystery of grace embracing me in baptism before words. My conscious spiritual journey began, though, in quadrant II – my heart-felt experience of God’s love in Jesus Christ when I was in eighth grade. I became a part of a local Jesus people church in the months following – a heart spirituality. Frankly, I drifted for a time in late high school, but this God, this spiritual journey would not leave me alone. In later high school and college, I engaged in a deep intellectual search. I majored in philosophy and psychology, and these intellectual endeavors were part of my spiritual journey. When I entered seminary after college, it was as much to continue my spiritual journey as to move toward ordained ministy, though that calling came along the way. I loved theology – Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Rudolph Bultmann, H. Richard Niebuhr, Dorothee Soelle, John Cobb and process theology. Quadrant I became more like home. But some of the best theology recognizes its limits, the limits of language when discussing the Divine. During my time of searching, I had spent some time getting to know other religious traditions and was especially drawn to Zen Buddhism – which was, as I understood it, an interesting combination of intellectual work and heart work. Along with my study of theology, I began to find resources within the Christian tradition that included meditative prayer, a place for mystery and silence. Another discovery in seminary was the whole tradition of Christian social concern, a social gospel. While in college, I had become politically interested and active, and now I began to integrate this into my Christian faith journey.
So here I am, open in many ways to the movement of God’s Spirit. Maybe this is a sign of some kind of spiritual attention deficit disorder. Maybe I am a spiritual thrill seeker of some sort. I rather like having this kind of multi-faceted spirituality, and I know I need to tend to each side if I am to continue growing. I can get stuck in one quadrant or another for too long. At best, I will continue to mine the richness of the spiritual life in these diverse ways while appreciating the differing ways others are spiritually nourished.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
Coming to With Faith and With Feathers, thoughts on Paul Newman
In an episode of MASH, one of my favorite television shows, a shamanistic Korean wedding is arranged over the objections of some of the camp personnel – Majors Burns and Houlihan primarily. When Capt. Hawkeye Pearce asks the camp chaplain, Father Mulkahey what he plans to do, the priest tells Hawkeye, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Hawkeye replies, “You spiritual thrill-seeker you.”
That story came back to me recently as I continued to ponder a sermon I delivered a few weeks ago. The sermon was about spiritual types, and the typology I used was based on the work of Corinne Ware. The essential idea is that you can have two continuums – one that runs from “thinking/head” to “feeling/heart” and one that runs from “katophatic/concrete/known” to “apophatic/abstract/mystery.” Ware asserts that people tend to prefer certain forms of the spiritual life based on the four quadrants.
Quadrant I (head/katophatic) people function with a head spirituality that focuses on feeding the intellect, on tangible and intellectually compelling images for God, on ordered worship. Words are very important. Quadrant II (heart/katophatic) people function with a heart spirituality. They, too, like tangible and concrete images for God, but not to stimulate their thinking but rather to warm their hearts. Personal spiritual renewal tends to be important. Spontaneity in worship, experience in worship and prayer are important. Quadrant III (heart/apophatic)people operate with a predominantly mystic spirituality. They are interested in experiencing God, but see God in mystery and silence. Meditative prayer is attractive, and worship should have moments for quiet and silence. Quardrant IV (head/apophatic) people have an activist orientation to the spiritual life. They want worship to inspire them to change the world. Justice is prominent in their spirituality, and they may think that action should be the essence of prayer.
These are broad categories and like any typology, it can be misleading and misused. At its best, it reminds us that we are not all alike, that different things may feed our souls and spirits, and that we need to be open to being stretched.
When I first took this inventory, I ended up with almost equal numbers in each quadrant. That’s not all that surprising given my background. I grew up in a United Methodist Church, but my dad’s family was catholic and we attended a number of Catholic weddings. I was frankly fascinated by some of the worship, the hand movements, they mystery. In junior high school I had a heart-warming Christian experience which I understood in fairly traditional Christian terms. When I was in junior high school, I also discovered that I had a talent for logical thought. I have a deep appreciation for meditative practices and have used meditative prayer with some frequency. I believe God’s dream for the world goes beyond individual transformation to include transformation of the world toward more justice, toward reconciliation, toward peace. I now find that my soul is fed by high church liturgy and by the simple ringing of a meditation bell and silence. I am more of a feeling person – higher F than T on the Myers-Briggs inventory, but I love to discuss ideas. I have marched for justice and peace and reconciliation and visited my legislator with the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, and have meditated in silence on a zafu.
For me, then, this typology is a way I have of describing my own spiritual journey. In one way, it began in quadrant III, with they mystery of grace embracing me in baptism before words. My conscious spiritual journey began, though, in quadrant II – my heart-felt experience of God’s love in Jesus Christ when I was in eighth grade. I became a part of a local Jesus people church in the months following – a heart spirituality. Frankly, I drifted for a time in late high school, but this God, this spiritual journey would not leave me alone. In later high school and college, I engaged in a deep intellectual search. I majored in philosophy and psychology, and these intellectual endeavors were part of my spiritual journey. When I entered seminary after college, it was as much to continue my spiritual journey as to move toward ordained ministy, though that calling came along the way. I loved theology – Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Rudolph Bultmann, H. Richard Niebuhr, Dorothee Soelle, John Cobb and process theology. Quadrant I became more like home. But some of the best theology recognizes its limits, the limits of language when discussing the Divine. During my time of searching, I had spent some time getting to know other religious traditions and was especially drawn to Zen Buddhism – which was, as I understood it, an interesting combination of intellectual work and heart work. Along with my study of theology, I began to find resources within the Christian tradition that included meditative prayer, a place for mystery and silence. Another discovery in seminary was the whole tradition of Christian social concern, a social gospel. While in college, I had become politically interested and active, and now I began to integrate this into my Christian faith journey.
So here I am, open in many ways to the movement of God’s Spirit. Maybe this is a sign of some kind of spiritual attention deficit disorder. Maybe I am a spiritual thrill seeker of some sort. I rather like having this kind of multi-faceted spirituality, and I know I need to tend to each side if I am to continue growing. I can get stuck in one quadrant or another for too long. At best, I will continue to mine the richness of the spiritual life in these diverse ways while appreciating the differing ways others are spiritually nourished.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
Coming to With Faith and With Feathers, thoughts on Paul Newman
Saturday, September 6, 2008
VISION
In recent years, the concept of “vision” has come to be seen as the magic elixir for leaders and organizations, the holy grail for leadership and organizational renewal.
Well, that may be a bit strong, but there are countless articles and books about the importance of vision for leaders and for organizations – and make no mistake about it, vision is vitally important. The words of the writer of Proverbs ring with truth – where there is no vision, the people perish (29:18, KJV). But what is vision all about as related to organizations and leadership? I have not always found discussions of vision and leadership fully adequate. As I have read and pondered, I have pulled together some thoughts to come up with what I consider a more adequate sense of the meaning of “vision.” You may not find this one fully adequate, either, but I find it helpful.
One of the most helpful pieces I have read on vision, leadership and organizations was written by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras and included in the paperback edition of their book Built to Last. Collins and Porras argue that vision for an organization or group consists of two major components: core ideology and an envision future. The core ideology of an organization is comprised of its core purpose, some might call this the mission statement, and core values. An envisioned future is just what it says it is, a vision of where you want to be down the road. It is often this envisioned future that people talk about when they speak about “vision,” but I think Collins and Porras are more helpful to include the core purpose and core values in an understanding of vision. For Collins and Porras, an envision future should be comprised of goals – big, hairy, audacious goals vividly described.
What I find lacking in this extremely helpful understanding of the concept of vision is a sense that a certain part of a vision should be beyond reach. Goals are target to aim for and hopefully accomplish. Disappointment is the typical response when one fails to accomplish one’s goals, even big, hairy, audacious goals. Is there room in the concept of vision for the even larger horizon, the hoped for future that may be beyond long-range goals? To my mind the concept of vision should include that slightly ethereal "out there" that calls us into the future.
Not long ago, I came across someone who agrees with me on this. Max DePree, in his book Leading Without Power writes: Part of an organization’s vision can be an ideal toward which we always strive without ever reaching it. Part of a vision must be attainable, lest the group lose hope. A good idea does not a vision make. Without some risk, with some promise of change, with a touch of the unattainable, a good idea may just become the vision for a group. Visions are liable to fail. A vision can never be guaranteed, no matter what the price or source. (117) DePree argues that even though visions can fail, they are critical. Organizations without a view of reality may stumble along for a while but will never succeed. Organizations with vision remain mere organizations, surviving but not living, hitting temporary targets but not moving toward potential…. We can teach ourselves to see things the way they are. Only with vision can we begin to see things the way they can be. (116-117)
So maybe vision needs to include what theologians might call “an eschatological dimension,” that larger horizon which informs our core values, core purpose, and our envisioned future, but which remains a long-term yearning of the soul for a better world.
Such talk risks cutting vision loose from a mooring in reality, and that makes me think that we need one further dimension of vision, sight. DePree contrasts “sight” and “vision,” but he is also the person who wrote in an earlier book, the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality (Leadership is an Art, 11). A comprehensive vision for an organization needs to include some sense of the world in which it functions – how its core purpose matters, how its core values add something to the culture, even as they provide a critique of some part of the surrounding culture, how its goals would change the current state of the world. If we want to get from here to there, we need to have both a sense of here and of there – and I think both can be included in a vision.
To my mind, then, vision for an organization includes: (1) core purpose/mission and core values; (2) an envisioned future; (3) a larger horizon which calls the group forward even beyond its goals; and (4) a sense of the context in which the organization strives to live out its purpose, values and goals, a sense of the way the world is and of what will be needed to get from the present to the envisioned future.
Visionary leadership has primary responsibility for articulating vision, and especially for painting the picture of the envisioned future which is consistent with the core purpose and values, with the larger horizon, and which is sufficiently grounded in a sense of the present reality so as not to appear “impossible.” Depending on where an organization is in its life, visionary leaders may have different foci – sometimes they need to work to articulate core purpose and values, and sometimes they need to paint the vivid picture of the envisioned future (I am convinced that leaders can’t take people places they don’t want to go, but they can help people imagine a place they had never dreamed about going and help them get there). Sometimes visionary leaders need to remind people of the “way the world is” and sometime they need to remind them of the larger horizon which calls us into the future. Visionary leaders paint pictures and work with others to build the road that gets a group from here to there. Visionary leaders need to be able to lay some bricks for the road as well. Visionary leaders work cooperatively with others in all their endeavors.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
Well, that may be a bit strong, but there are countless articles and books about the importance of vision for leaders and for organizations – and make no mistake about it, vision is vitally important. The words of the writer of Proverbs ring with truth – where there is no vision, the people perish (29:18, KJV). But what is vision all about as related to organizations and leadership? I have not always found discussions of vision and leadership fully adequate. As I have read and pondered, I have pulled together some thoughts to come up with what I consider a more adequate sense of the meaning of “vision.” You may not find this one fully adequate, either, but I find it helpful.
One of the most helpful pieces I have read on vision, leadership and organizations was written by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras and included in the paperback edition of their book Built to Last. Collins and Porras argue that vision for an organization or group consists of two major components: core ideology and an envision future. The core ideology of an organization is comprised of its core purpose, some might call this the mission statement, and core values. An envisioned future is just what it says it is, a vision of where you want to be down the road. It is often this envisioned future that people talk about when they speak about “vision,” but I think Collins and Porras are more helpful to include the core purpose and core values in an understanding of vision. For Collins and Porras, an envision future should be comprised of goals – big, hairy, audacious goals vividly described.
What I find lacking in this extremely helpful understanding of the concept of vision is a sense that a certain part of a vision should be beyond reach. Goals are target to aim for and hopefully accomplish. Disappointment is the typical response when one fails to accomplish one’s goals, even big, hairy, audacious goals. Is there room in the concept of vision for the even larger horizon, the hoped for future that may be beyond long-range goals? To my mind the concept of vision should include that slightly ethereal "out there" that calls us into the future.
Not long ago, I came across someone who agrees with me on this. Max DePree, in his book Leading Without Power writes: Part of an organization’s vision can be an ideal toward which we always strive without ever reaching it. Part of a vision must be attainable, lest the group lose hope. A good idea does not a vision make. Without some risk, with some promise of change, with a touch of the unattainable, a good idea may just become the vision for a group. Visions are liable to fail. A vision can never be guaranteed, no matter what the price or source. (117) DePree argues that even though visions can fail, they are critical. Organizations without a view of reality may stumble along for a while but will never succeed. Organizations with vision remain mere organizations, surviving but not living, hitting temporary targets but not moving toward potential…. We can teach ourselves to see things the way they are. Only with vision can we begin to see things the way they can be. (116-117)
So maybe vision needs to include what theologians might call “an eschatological dimension,” that larger horizon which informs our core values, core purpose, and our envisioned future, but which remains a long-term yearning of the soul for a better world.
Such talk risks cutting vision loose from a mooring in reality, and that makes me think that we need one further dimension of vision, sight. DePree contrasts “sight” and “vision,” but he is also the person who wrote in an earlier book, the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality (Leadership is an Art, 11). A comprehensive vision for an organization needs to include some sense of the world in which it functions – how its core purpose matters, how its core values add something to the culture, even as they provide a critique of some part of the surrounding culture, how its goals would change the current state of the world. If we want to get from here to there, we need to have both a sense of here and of there – and I think both can be included in a vision.
To my mind, then, vision for an organization includes: (1) core purpose/mission and core values; (2) an envisioned future; (3) a larger horizon which calls the group forward even beyond its goals; and (4) a sense of the context in which the organization strives to live out its purpose, values and goals, a sense of the way the world is and of what will be needed to get from the present to the envisioned future.
Visionary leadership has primary responsibility for articulating vision, and especially for painting the picture of the envisioned future which is consistent with the core purpose and values, with the larger horizon, and which is sufficiently grounded in a sense of the present reality so as not to appear “impossible.” Depending on where an organization is in its life, visionary leaders may have different foci – sometimes they need to work to articulate core purpose and values, and sometimes they need to paint the vivid picture of the envisioned future (I am convinced that leaders can’t take people places they don’t want to go, but they can help people imagine a place they had never dreamed about going and help them get there). Sometimes visionary leaders need to remind people of the “way the world is” and sometime they need to remind them of the larger horizon which calls us into the future. Visionary leaders paint pictures and work with others to build the road that gets a group from here to there. Visionary leaders need to be able to lay some bricks for the road as well. Visionary leaders work cooperatively with others in all their endeavors.
Trying To Create Beauty,
David
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