Faith, Doubt and the Via Negativa...

NOTE: Here are this week's sermon notes for the Sunday we know as Christ the King or the Reign of Christ Sunday. Join us at 10:30 am if you are in town.

The late Bill Coffin, preacher at the Riverside Church in New York City, used to tell his flock that at the end of time – and that could mean simply our time in this realm or all time in creation – we would find ourselves standing before the Creator, asked to give an accounting for our lives. It will be a test, Coffin said. And then with that incredibly sly and loving smile of his he added, “But it’s an open book test – and Jesus has already given us the answer – if we’re paying attention.”

+ As is too often the case in largely progressive congregations who are sometimes bible-study-phobic, a hush would fall on the church when he said this and then paused for effect: what was this guy talking about?

+ And then he would say: Jesus has already given us the answer to our final exam – you can find it very clearly in Matthew 25 – for the accounting of our life that matters to God has nothing to do with what denomination we belong to, it has nothing to do with what translation of the Bible we use. What’s more, the correct answer to the final exam of our lives is not whether we are Christians or Jews or Muslims, whether we’re gay or straight, rich or poor, faithful or doubters.

No the right answer is: “When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, Lord, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to visit you?' And God will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored – the least of your sisters and brothers – that was me—you did it to me.'”

I think Coffin is right. And what he is saying needs constant repeating: God is to be found most clearly not in our doctrine and theology – as helpful and insightful as they can be – not in our denominations or traditions – as lovely and comforting as they can be – and not in even in the words of Scripture or prayer books and hymns – as energizing and precious as they might be. God is most often to be encountered in our dealings with those who are wounded, in need of love or crying out for compassion. Think about this with me:

+ In Matthew 12 there is a curious story about the time when Christ’s mother grew worried about her son and asked his brothers to go and bring him home. Frankly, she was concerned that all this God talk had gone to his head and that maybe Jesus was a little mentally ill. Mother’s are like that…

+ Do you recall that story? Jesus is preaching and teaching to a crowd when someone tells him that his family is waiting outside the circle and wants to see him. And… what does Jesus say in reply? Do you remember?

+ “Who is my mother – and who are my brothers (and sisters)?” And pointing to his disciples – his students and followers – he said, “Here is my mother and family for whoever does the will of our Creator in heaven is brother and sister and kin to me.”

Do you have any thoughts or reactions? What’s going on inside you as you consider this truth? Let’s be clear: I’m not suggesting that insight and intellectual precision are not important – they are and have their place – and I’m not denigrating tradition or any discrete religious tradition either because they all posses great beauty and power. No, what I am trying to say is that in the end only kindness matters as we take the words of our faith and help them become flesh within and among us.

Do you know the words of NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof? I enjoy reading both liberal Tom Friedman and conservative David Brooks – I don’t really like Gail Collins or Maureen Dowd because of their penchant for sarcasm – but Kristof is a man of heart and compassion. Not long ago he wrote about Somaly Mam, a young woman from Cambodia who escaped the world of sex slavery and now fights the greed and brutalization that condemns so many young girls to a living hell. Back in September he wrote that he was shocked to learn that Somaly had survived after three years of doing battle with the sex slave captains: “The gangsters who run the brothels have held a gun to her head, and seeing that they could not intimidate Somaly with their threats, they found another way to hurt her: They kidnapped and brutalized her 14-year-old daughter.”

Three years ago, I wrote from Cambodia about a raid Somaly organized on the Chai Hour II brothel where more than 200 girls had been imprisoned. Girls rescued from the brothel were taken to Somaly’s shelter, but the next day gangsters raided the shelter, kidnapped the girls and took them right back to the brothel. Yet Somaly continued her fight, and, with the help of many others, she has registered real progress. Today, she says, the Chai Hour II brothel is shuttered. In large part, so is the Svay Pak brothel area where 12-year-old girls were openly for sale on my first visit. “If you want to buy a virgin, it’s not easy now,” notes Somaly, speaking in English — her fifth language. Somaly’s shelters — where the youngest girl rescued is 4 years old — provide an education and job skills. More important, Somaly applies public and international pressure to push the police to crack down on the worst brothels, and takes brothel owners to court. The idea is to undermine the sex-trafficking business model. (NY Times, 9/24/2008)

It didn’t matter to those children what religion Somaly was – whether she was a conservative evangelical, a lapsed Catholic, a Buddhist, a Hindu or a Jain – because when she was able to bring them out of hell into the land of the living, Somaly was living into the presence of God. In fact, she was all the God they knew – and it was her kindness and compassion that mattered more than anything else.

And here’s where the reality of doubt comes in for me: often it takes a lot of time – and a tremendous about of reflection and hindsight – before we can discern the presence of God in our lives, don’t you think? I mean often in the midst of life – joys or sorrows, clarity or confusion, struggle or even boredom – I’m not at all sure where God is in the midst of things. It is usually only afterwards that I have one of those “aha moments…” and I get a clue.

Bible scholar and pastor, Brian Stoffregen, has written that the Greek word, metanoeo, which we usually translate as repentance or even a change of mind probably miss the deeper truth. Because, he says, the primary meaning of the prefix “meta” is “afterwards.”

So metanoeo as "after-thought" might be equivalent to "hindsight" – looking back and re-evaluating what has happened – discovering that God was present in the situation and then our re-thinking could lead to prayers of thanksgiving. Or, the re-thinking might lead us to discover that what I had thought was a good and righteous act was really a selfish deed which leads to prayers of confession – in which case God is using the deed for God's purpose of confession and forgiveness.

Are you with me on this? Do you see where I’m going? Our times without clarity – our times of doubt – are often seasons when God is at work within and among us but we don’t grasp it. I think that is why the depth psychologist, Carl Jung, used to ask people to recall that these words of Christ about feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, clothing the naked and sharing mercy are just as important to do on the inside – within ourselves – as they are in the outer world, right?

Within most of us – I would say all but I’ve been told that some crusty old New Englanders raised on a steady diet of self-reliance and stoicism would question me on this – there is a place that is naked and cold, alone and afraid, doubting and uncertain. Jung asked us to invite the love of God into those places, too, so that the kingdom of God might bring healing to all.

Because all of us – crusty old New Englanders and rock and roll preachers from the Southwest alike – have doubts and fears and wounds. Most of my life, you see, I have been blessed with the gift of faith – and it is a gift – a blessing shared with me from God. And I know it is a gift because one day about eight years ago, it dried up. It took me a few months to realize and own it but the joy and patience, the hope and happiness that I have known most of my life was gone. I was empty. Alone. Not hurting just dried up and… dead inside.

+ Have you been there? It’s a hard place – especially when most of your life you have been on fire and filled with the gift of faith – and I have to tell you that when I took stock of my inner emptiness, I didn’t know what to do.

+ For a while I tried to figure it out by myself – and as St. Bruce Springsteen has said when it’s you you’re trying to lose, you can do some sad and hurtful things to the ones you love – just ask Dianne – she’s seen living proof.

And I’m talking mean and hurtful things not just sad and empty. Eventually I found my way into some serious and tough spiritual counseling and direction with a tender but very demanding man who kicked me in the butt enough to face myself and my empty, ugly wounds long enough and honestly enough so that one day, sitting by myself watching the sun come up in New Mexico I sensed the dryness start to lift. Not all at once – and I didn’t find my way back into a renewed sense of faith for a while either – but it began to lift.

Now all the while I was in this place of doubt and dryness – my own wandering in the inner wilderness – I kept praying the words of Martin Luther. When Luther was besieged on all sides by princes and politicians out to get him – as well as his own inner demons – he cried, “I have been baptized!” And that was the only prayer I could muster: “I have been baptized.”

+ I have been given to God in the grace of Christ – I have been embraced by the Creator with a love that will set me free and bring me back from the dead even though I don’t believe it – for I have been baptized.

+ This was one of the greatest blessings in my life – a time of authentic healing and cleansing – but I only know that in hindsight. Man, in the midst of it, it was Hell and I hated it and hated everything about myself, my God and my world.

But then, as today’s scripture suggests, God’s grace visited me in my prison and my hunger and my emptiness… and when it was the fullness of time I inherited a taste of the kingdom. I didn’t earn it – I didn’t deserve it – and I certainly didn’t do anything to create it: I just inherited it. It came to me as a gift again and slowly I was filled from the inside out.

This emptiness – or absence – or even darkness is known in the spiritual world as “the via negativa.” Western Christianity and Americans in general are rarely aware or comfortable with this path of spiritual maturity because we tend to believe we have to make our own way and that everything should turn out happy. And even when we know that isn’t true – like when someone dies way too early of cancer or we come face to face with evil or injustice – we still act like creation is all about happy endings. In a word, we favor the “via positiva” – the positive path of spirituality – where there are clear answers and lots of justice to say nothing of an abundance of faith, hope and love.

But just as you cannot have light without the darkness – or hope without despair – you really can’t know the depth of God’s grace with only one way into the kingdom. Doubt and emptiness, spiritual dryness and searching, the inner desert and wilderness is all about the other path into God’s love: the via negativa. The prophet Ezekiel tells us that God comes looking for us as a shepherd – a Good Shepherd – in search of a lost flock:

From now on, I myself am the shepherd. I'm going looking for them. As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I'm going after my sheep. I'll rescue them from all the places they've been scattered to in the storms. I'll bring them back from foreign peoples, gather them from foreign countries, and bring them back to their home country. I'll feed them on the mountains of Israel, along the streams, among their own people. I'll lead them into lush pasture so they can roam the mountain pastures of Israel, graze at leisure, feed in the rich pastures on the mountains of Israel. And I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make sure they get plenty of rest. I'll go after the lost, I'll collect the strays, I'll doctor the injured, I'll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they're not exploited.

I believe this is true. In fact, like Mark Twain said when asked about whether he believed in infant baptism or not – believe it, man, I’ve seen it – well, I have too in my own heart and life. But I also know that for many of us it doesn’t happen as much in the light as religion likes to pretend. No, more often than not we discover God’s coming to us with healing and light in the darkness – through hindsight – from the reality of our doubt.

And because this is true, beloved, I have come to trust that even our doubts are part of the good news. So let those who have ears to hear, hear.