Today is a quiet, cold and increasingly grey day in the Berkshires: a portent of things to come as winter matures, yes? We were going to hike Mt. Greylock - the highest point in Massachusetts -but now we're headed to a more hospitable place: bookstores and art museums. As my blogging friend from Thunder Bay, Black Pete, has noted, winter has its own spiritual and physical rhythm that must be entered and embraced. Made me think of this poem by Louise Gluck minus that part about summer's deep sweetness:
Time to rest now; you have had enough excitement for the time being.
Twilight, then early evening. Fireflies in the room, flickering here and there, here and there, and summer's deep sweetness filling the open window.
Don't think of these things anymore. Listen to my breathing, your own breathing like the fireflies, each small breath a flare in which the world appears.
I've sun to you long enough in the summer night. I'll win you over in the end; the world can't give you this sustained vision.
You must be taught to love me. Human beings must be taught to love silence and darkness.
This tune by Rosanne Cash - with her late poppa Johnny - feels like this season to me: it is a unique and inward time, yes? A season for reflecting and taking stock of what is real and what is dross, what time is left and what amends still must be made. In that spirit, we went to a Mason Jennings show last Sunday night: it was freakin' brilliant! He is showcasing his new CD, "Blood of Man" which has a darker and harder edge to it... like this knock out song: "Ain't No Friend of Mine."(As it was rocking out, Dianne whispered to me: "Damn... this has got Good Friday all OVER it!")
Later this evening is the closing "Third Thursday" in town - a blast of jazz and street performers - that we'll check out (with the aid of long johns and fleece vests) to see what other blessings the day has in store for us. As the planet shifts - and winter ripens - and the rhythm of life takes on a new beat, I sense different spiritual questions beginning to rise to the surface. Louise Gluck captures this insight like this in "Matins."
NOTE:Here are my notes for this coming Sunday's message: October 18th, 2009. I will be away later in the week exploring some of the arts and music of this region. There is a jazz fest in town - and some great exhibits at MassMoca and the Clark - so I will be taking some time to see what they are saying to my soul. And then on Sunday, after worship, it is our second annual CROP Walk to End Hunger. Please go onlinewww.churchworldservice.org/site/TRpx=1295280&fr_id=4303&pg=personal to make a contribute to support my goal of $250. Also, if all goes well, we'll have a version of this week's song to post soon, too. Thanks for reading and supporting this ministry.
THIS WEEK'S TEXTS: + Job 38: 1-7/34-41 + Psalm 91 + Mark 10: 35-45
The late depth psychologist, Carl Jung, once observed that just as the Lord Jesus Christ called us to discover his presence in the world through the least of these my sisters and brothers – that is, within and among the hungry, tired, wounded and broken lives out there – he also invited us to discover God’s presence within our own hungry, tired and wounded places. It seems that simultaneously there are two realities when it comes to God’s kingdom:
• Out there – in the world – where we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
• And in here – within – where there are just as many hurting, angry, frightened, confused and broken places as there are out in the world.
The biblical text reads: “When did we see you, Lord and bring you comfort? Whenever you did so unto one of the least of these my sisters and brothers: for I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matthew 25) We’re talking about God’s kingdom within and among us, ok?
Today, in part two of our series, “Wrestling with God’s Absence,” I am going to share with you two touchstones that souls’ far wiser than I have discovered to be essential for guiding people through the darkness of life’s hard times. (Next week I’ll give you two more; I was going to try to get them all into this message but… it’s just too much.)
Now let me be clear: every journey with Christ to the Cross is unique and filled with surprises that no one can anticipate. So I am not talking about a one size fits all approach, ok? At the same time, there are often at least these two indispensable standards that can help us discover both the deeper meaning of our anguish when truth has been obscured and how to embrace it, too.
You see, when it comes to the dark night – or the way of Christ’s cross – there are no guarantees. Some people actually waste their time with the Cross. They distract themselves or deny the truth that is all around them, blaming others or self-medicating their pain until the worst has passed. And the sad fact is that while this breaks God’s heart, we are made with free will and if we choose to flee the wisdom of the Cross and our wounds, we will also miss the resurrection. St. Paul spoke of this with great clarity in Romans chapter one:
What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat God like God, refusing to worship the One who is Holy, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in her hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. At which point God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." And it wasn't long before people were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, inside and out… all because they traded the true God for a fake god and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us.
Did you hear that? We can choose to ignore God’s calling – which is always more of an invitation than a summons – and if we keep distracting ourselves and avoiding the wisdom of our wounds, then the One who is Holy seems to step back and say: “If this is truly how you want to live your life – acting always on your own terms without regard for my grace – ok – have it your way.”
• Not in penalizing or mean-spirited way – there are no divine thunder bolts of judgment here – just a broken-hearted Father or Mother letting their strong willed child experience the full consequence of their choices.
• You want to live in my absence? Then go ahead… have it your way.
I think that is part of what is taking place in the lesson from Job today. At its core, I hear God is saying to Job: “Yes, you’ve suffered – and yes it is miserable – what’s more it makes perfect sense for you to be angry and bitter against me. So give me your best shot – I can take it all – I’m God. But don’t stop there: have you learned nothing from your sorrow? There is wisdom and depth to be gained from the hard times, too. So don’t for a moment think that you are greater or smarter than the very Source of Creation because I am in the darkness as well as the light!” Listen to the words of Job – they are brilliant:
Have you ever gotten to the true bottom of things, explored the labyrinthine caves of the deep ocean? Do you know the first thing about death? Do you have one clue regarding death's dark mysteries? And do you have any idea how large this earth is? Speak up if you have even the beginning of an answer. Do you know where Light comes from and where Darkness lives so you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get lost? Why, of course you know that. You've known them all your life, grown up in the same neighborhood with them!
Do you hear the irony – and challenge – in God’s questions to Job when this broken, wounded soul is at his lowest? This is rich territory, beloved, words that need to be mined deeply. For in this perplexing, honest and sometimes startling exchange between Job – a human being just like you and me – and God – the compassionate Creator who takes all of Job’s anger and questions seriously but also puts them into the context of their deepest significance – is an invitation to mystery.
• “Do you really think you understand the way life and death works better than… their Source? Go deeper, man! There is a power and truth greater than your ability to comprehend – there is a wisdom richer than your immature imagination – so work a little harder and remember: you are NOT the center of the universe.”
• And that is the first touchstone: coming to terms with the shock that our anguish and pain can be filled with mystery and insight that is rarely recognized at the onset of our woes. Simply stated: we don’t get what’s going on at the start of our troubles – it takes time.
Job couldn’t make any more sense out of his sorrow at first than the disciples could at the foot of the Cross. In the beginning, it all looks like tragedy – or a waste or something worse – because it takes time and careful discernment to discover God’s light in the darkness. God’s mysteries do not bear fruit as blessings overnight.
• Think of Good Friday: nothing good about it on Friday, right? But on Sunday – Easter – this same horrible mystery had become something very different and hope-filled, yes?
• Or consider Christ’s birth: the poetry of the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit overshadowed a young, frightened Palestinian peasant girl who didn’t understand anything that was happening at first but was open to God’s blessing so that eventually – nine months later – hope was born through her flesh. This stuff takes time to ripen.
Theologians talk about this as the wisdom of the Paschal Mystery: the hidden truth of God that takes on the rhythm revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It points to how God can take something bad and transform it into something good with time, grace and attention – and it is never obvious in the beginning. Again, St. Paul is the master in the book of Romans:
We believe that there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What’s more we know that in everything God works for good with those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose. (NOT that everything IS good, but that it can become good with God’s grace.) That is why we tell everyone that nothing – neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities or powers, nor things present or things to come, nor height, depth of anything else in all of creation – will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord… so even when we are beaten with troubles…we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
Touchstone number one tells us that in the beginning it is impossible for us to know that God can turn even death into the font of life. When the darkness first overcomes us, we feel helpless – abandoned – bereft and bewildered – because, you see, we’re supposed to. We are not the center of the universe. We have rarely cultivated gravitas. Hell, most of us are too busy – caught up in solving problems – to let the darkness teach us anything. So, at first, much like Job – or even James and John – we are mostly disorientated about the deeper truths. Thomas More, one of our generation’s wisest writers, makes this observation in his book, The Dark Night of the Soul:
You probably have learned more about the depths of your soul from those periods of pain and confusion than from times of comfort. Darkness and turmoil, you see, stimulate the imagination in a certain way. They allow you to see things you might ordinarily overlook. You become sensitive to a different spectrum of emotion and meaning… and perceive the ultraviolet extremes.
And that is touchstone number two: to discover the hidden presence of the Lord in our anguish, we have to cultivate our imagination. How does the Bible put it? Let those with ears to hear – and eyes to see – affirm what the Spirit is saying to the church? We’re talking a new language – a new way of seeing and living – and anything new takes time to ripen and develop roots.
• Have you ever learned a foreign language?
• As an adult? It is much harder, isn’t it?
Some of you know that over the summer, Dianne and I spent some time in Montreal – one of our favorite places in North America – and before we left we tried to upgrade our French vocabulary. We would practice different drill driving in the car – or when commercials came on the TV – and while I won’t say we got a whole lot better, we made some progress. So much so that we could go into a market or restaurant and say with authority, “Bonjour!” After that, however, it was a total crap shoot and more often than not we would have to plead: “Parlez-vous Anglais?”
Learning a new language isn’t automatic – it takes practice – and a whole lot of encouragement, too. Isn’t that what Jesus is teaching his disciples in today’s text: a new vocabulary of depth and imagination?
You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage. (Mark 10)
The first shall be last – the leader is a servant – the way to find eternal life is to die to your self? What is that but poetry, my friends, imagination talk – the upside down wisdom of the arts – that takes words and symbols, sounds and stories as well as movement and images and teaches us to explore the extraordinary presence of God at a deeper level in our ordinary experience?
• Are you with me? To go deeper, you see – to explore the mystery of our dark times on the way of the Cross – requires new tools. And the second insight or touchstone is that only the creative arts can help here.
• Therapeutic or clinical language – let alone our obsession with engineering – won’t help on the way of the Cross. Most of our ordinary words talk about curing and fixing things – solving problems in a literal sense – but the dark time of suffering is not a problem or a disease… it is a journey.
So we need new ways of sharing and exploring what this journey might mean – and on this all the spiritual masters all agree: the only way to go deeper and gain insight in the darkness is with the imagination. “In your darkness,” Thomas More observes, “the truth can only be expressed aesthetically – in story, picture, film, music or dance. Only when ideas are poetic do they reach the depths and express our new reality.”
That’s why I keep insisting that we bring contemporary music and poetry and art and film into to our sacred conversations: it is the only language that can help us unlock part of the mystery – and – help us share our experience with others, too.
• Here’s what I mean: I can teach you all day long and all night, too, about God’s radical grace. I can give you countless biblical and theological examples of how God aches for us to be nourished and comforted. What’s more I can make a pretty convincing case that the best thing we can do for the Lord is incarnate God’s love through radical acts of hospitality.
• And at the end of our time together you will have retained a little information and maybe a few insights. But, if I share with you a song that is tender and true, a tune that evokes these same truths but through the mystery language of music, then you will feel in your heart – and know in your soul – what is really at stake.
So that’s what I’m going to do along with my colleagues in mystery.
I can tell by the way you're walking
That you don't want company I'll let you alone and I'll let you walk on And in your own good time you'll be Back where the sun can find you
Under the wise wishing tree And with all of them made
We'll lie under the shade And call it a jubilee
And I can tell by the way you're talking
That the past isn't letting you go But there's only so long you can take it all on And then the wrong's gotta be on its own And when you're ready to leave it behind you You'll look back, and all that you'll see Is the wreckage and rust that you left in the dust On your way to the jubilee
And I can tell by the way you're listening That you're still expecting to hear Your name being called like a summons to all Who have failed to account for their doubts and their fears They can't add up to much without you
And so if it were just up to me I'd take hold of your hand,
Saying come hear the band Play your song at the jubilee
And I can tell by the way you're searching For something you can't even name That you haven't been able to come to the table Simply glad that you came And when you feel like this try to imagine That we're all like frail boats on the sea Just scanning the night for that great guiding light Announcing the jubilee
And I can tell by the way you're standing With your eyes filling with tears That it's habit alone keeps you turning for home Even though your home is right here Where the people who love you are gathered Under the wise wishing tree May we all be considered
Then straight on delivered
Down to the jubilee 'Cause the people who love you are waiting And they'll wait just as long as need be When we look back and say
Those were halcyon days We're talking 'bout jubilee
This song is our prayer – it is part of the new and sacred vocabulary of the heart – and it seeks to speak to that place within us that still aches for God’s presence and comfort. Oh Lord, give us ears to hear what you are saying the church. Amen.
For the next few weeks I will be speaking and teaching about what the experience of God's "absence" might mean for us as people of faith. I am drawn, of course, to Peter Rollins' insights about the gap between empirical knowledge and our encounter with the divine. He makes it clear (to me) that while we can't prove the reality of a healing and loving God, he is deeply drawn towards the heart of God.
(When) ‘belief’ takes on the idea of a wholehearted commitment and ‘God’ becomes connected with the idea of generosity, love and grace... (when) the ideas that God should be described as love and that belief in God is intimately connected to how we treat our neighbor... (then there is a new relationship) but these are, of course, deeply heretical and one must be wary of even suggesting them. They are incendiary ideas that are unlikely to find a home in any institution where Christian belief is disfigured into gnosticism (where belief is about accepting certain knowledge claims). So the question remains… as a Christian, do I believe in God? Well, while I am drawn to the idea that there is a Supreme Being I must confess that I don’t believe in God, at least most of the time. But if you ask me whether I aspire to believing in God then, with all of my being I say yes, yes and again yes… (http://peterrollins.net/blog/) I have also been influenced by Moltmann's "crucified God," the writings of John Douglas Hall, Thomas More as well as the insights of poet Scott Cairns where he considers the role of being shocked or awakened by anguish to a new awareness. Here is one part of my on-going reflection...
Man did I have a ball in worship today: our new music director rocked the house with sweet Taize tunes, the crowd was focused and attentive and... our band had the chance to debut this sweet, sweet song by Mindy Smith.
My deep thanks to bandmates Dianne De Mott, Jenna Kyle O'Brien and Eva Perri - and my friend and soul partner, Steve Forfa, for recording all of this. It feels heavenly to have the band back in action and soon my other guitar man, Brian Staubach, will be back in the groove, too.
I have such deep love and respect for my two daughters: they are each unique and blessed. Yesterday we spent the afternoon and evening with daughter number two who lives in South County of the Berkshires. She is a writer/editor who LOVES the gentle, rolling country of Western Massachusetts and caring for the land. Currently she is writing for NOFA: Northeast Organic Farming Association(www.nofamass.org/index.php)
We had hoped to hike with these two sweet young adults in the autumn hills, but it was raining. So, we walked through the farm, visited sows who had just birthed litters of 13 piglets each, went to the chicken coop (for fresh eggs) and strolled through the dirt road surrounded by alfalfa. Back in their little cottage - toasty warm with a wood stove - they treated us to great pork chops, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and apple crisp (all from their garden.) And as the evening came to a close, we swaped a few tunes on the guitar... which brought back memories of singing my babies to sleep to this song:
Beng a father to two adult women has been a blessing - not always easy and I have only gotten it right some of the time - but it has always been a blessing. And now I get to savor life with two wise young women... maybe someday I'll get to play with grandchildren, too! As the day came to an end, Mary Oliver's poem spoke to me:
Imagine the shock - and let's not forget the awe - to awaken to the news that Barrack Obama had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I sense that at least two realities are at work in this bold award:
+ First, the Nobel Prize Committee is recognizing the radical shift that has taken place throughout the world as a result of Obama's work towards reconciliation and understanding. To be sure, there is a tremendous amount of work yet to be accomplished from the Middle East and North Korea to North/South relations and global warming. Nevertheless, because Obama represents such a definitive break from the arrogance and bluster of the Bush regime, many understand that now is the time to marshall support for his efforts.
Clearly, the ground breaking initiative begun with Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo is central to being given the Nobel Peace Prize, but so is the way he has finessed Iran to the international bargaining table. And let's not forget his brilliant re-framing of America's original sin - slavery - and the way he was able to discern common ground amidst our ugly and still unresolved past. What's more, despite the Republican carping about Obama's commitment to apologizing for past US actions all over the world, the rest of creation seems to be listening - and grateful. It is all too obvious that given the limits of the office, this president is still going to do things in a new way.
As a Christian realist in the spirit of Reinhold Niebuhr, Obama is keenly aware that often the United States has committed horrible crimes against humanity for the noblest of reasons. Conversely, we have shared wonderful blessings, too, clearly out of self-interest. Such is the irony of American politics. So when Obama asks for forgiveness and embraces the wounds the United States has created, it goes a long way towards healing. There is a balance to be discerned, a pathway that utilizes power and humility, lest our hubris continue to blind us and wreak havoc upon the innocent. Niebuhr put it like this at the start of the Cold War:
"The first element of irony... is the fact that our nation has, without particularly seeking it, acquired a greater degree of power than any other nation of history" and we "have created a 'global' political situation in which the responsible use of this power has become a condition of survival of the free world... But the second element of irony lies in the fact that a strong America is less completely master of its own destiny than was a comparatively weak America, rocking in the cradle of its continental security and serene in its infant innocence. The same strength which has extended our power beyond a continent has also interwoven our destiny with the destiny of many peoples and brought us into a vast web of history in which other wills, running in oblique or contrasting directions to our own, inevitably hinder or contradict what we most fervently desire. We cannot simply have our way, not even when we believe our way to have the 'happiness of mankind' as its promise."
Often - and now - the critiques of Obama from the Left are grounded in the smug refusal to appreciate the complexities of wielding great power in an inter-dependent context. From the wars in the Middle East to the debate of health care, American progressives tend to be "know nothings" who are certain that ideological purity is more important that results. In all too many ways, however, they are simply the shadow voice of the mean-spirited Right who operate out of fear and insecurity. It is true that America is an incredibly "utilitarian" nation a la Dewey, but our impatience and lack of nuance often chokes to death any chance of working cooperatively with others. Thankfully, the International Peace Prize Committee can see "the eagle in the egg."
+ Second, this prize is equally about rendering judgement on the Bush administration and all their belligerent naivete: from Kyoto to "mission accomplished" and "bring it on," the Bush team regularly ignored results for ideology. And their ideology was often driven by a reckless innocence that usually left the earth and its people scorched in its wake. They yearned to rebuild the world - the neo-con agenda since 1980 has been built upon the assumption that America could change culture and nations to support a free market in addition to birthing Western style democracy - and tried to live into their vision. Apart from the incredible arrogance of this vision, however, is the simple fact that they wanted to renew American empire on the cheap. As Robert Bellah observed after the start of the Iraq war, the United States was embarking on a naked quest to consolidate empire at the same time the Bush administration came to power on a platform of limitted governement and reduced spending. This clash of commitments - to say nothing of world events - could never be reconciled and eventually undercut their plans time and again.
What I see happening in this new peace prize is the stinging repudiation of all such ugly ideology: the Nobel Peace Prize chastises any sense of American exceptionalism. That is part of what brought the prize to Al Gore during the days when the Bush doctrine was at its height and that is part of what has happened now.
Like another African-American Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama grasps the complexity of this moment in time. He is imperfect and sometimes overly cautious, but given the abandon of the past this is a welcome alternative. Dr. King once said:
Any nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. (At the same time) all progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
So I celebrate the awarding of the Peace Prize to Mr. Obama - and pray he grow into its promise.
Today I spent most of my time doing what small town pastors have done for millenia: sharing time, conversation and prayer with ordinary people. I know some clergy hate pastoral visits - and many young people are too busy for a leisurely and mostly unplanned conversation with their minister - but I am convinced it grounds me in reality. It builds trust with those in the congregation, too. What's more, the rhythm of these visits keeps me sane.
Not a lot happens - mostly we talk about one another's health - I do most of the listening. Over time, small truths are shared: my loved one took his life... my oldest son is gay and I've never told anyone... she died of AIDS and her family never visited... there's so much joy in my heart because my honey still loves me! My mentor in ministry, Ray Swartzback, used to tell me: spend at LEAST a few hours every week visiting your people or you'll never nourish trust. Many of these visits are only 45 minutes or less - but almost always they are blessings.
When I finished my last call, I stopped on our back porch and read this poem by Mary Oliver:
I do not live happily or comfortably with the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, the news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, having felt something more wonderful than all the electricity of New York City.
I get Ms. Oliver's wisdom on day's like this... and give thanks to God for insights, too.
About a year ago, my wife started talking about a singer/song writer she had come to like:Mason Jennings. And as is often the case, I was curious but too busy with something else to get into his groove. So, like as is also often the case, she kept liking him and ignored my preoccupations until I caught up to her insights. I have - and we're going to see Jennings this Sunday night in Troy, New York at the Revolution Hall. (www.revolutionhall.com)
Rolling Stone and others have been calling him the "best new artist you've never heard of..." so we're going to check out his live show. One review by Mark Kemp puts it like this:
What makes Mason Jennings one of the best acoustic-based singer-songwriters you’ve never heard of is his ragged, intimate voice and simple ruminations on God, war, hope and gratitude. On his best album yet, Jennings goes much darker, with chilling tales of addiction, madness and loss, all wrapped up in fuzzy electric guitars, feedback and raw, distorted vocals. “Pittsburgh” is a straightforward, Lou Reed-ish story-song about a teenage breakdown, and “The Field”, with its primal scream on the line “I don’t want no victory, I just want you back,” may be the most moving anti-war song ever written from a parent’s perspective.
I am particularly knocked out by his "Some Say I'm Not" from the Boneclouds CD (check itout here: http://www.masonjennings.com/music) We had a GREAT band practice last night - working on tunes by Mindy Smith, Wailin' Jennys and Mary Chapin Carpenter - it is going to be a GREAT fall in the north land of Massachusetts.
NOTE:Once again I am posting my sermon notes for Sunday, October 11, 2009. This is part one of two part series re: encountering the "absence" of God in our lives. Next week I'll be writing about the way faith communities can help us profit from our "empty" times. Come and join us if you are in town at 10:30 am.
“Religions are our human attempts to get God on our side and to do something for us.” Bible scholar and pastor Brian Stoffregen said that – and I think he is right. “Some religions,” he continues:
… stress saying the proper words, reciting the correct creed or proper confessions of faith. Some religions stress worshiping the right way and following the correct rituals. While some religions stress doing or living in a certain way. Whether it is "creed, cult, or conduct" (terms borrowed from Robert Capon), or all three, religions are still our human attempts to get God on our side and to get God to do what we desire. Exegetical Notes at Crossmarks.com
Today I want to talk with you about what happens when our religion runs out of gas. What do we do when we come face to face with God’s absence – a real spiritual emptiness in our lives – or an encounter with suffering like that of Job or Christ on the Cross? For you see, not only is it guaranteed that most of us will come upon this emptiness at least once in our adult lives, some of us will experience it over and over again. And, unless I miss the mark completely, I suspect that some of us here today are in that place even as I speak, right?
The book of Job puts it bluntly:
God has no right to treat me like this— it isn't fair! If I knew where on earth to find him, I’d go straight to him. I'd lay my case before him face-to-face, give him all my arguments firsthand. I’d find out exactly what he's thinking, discover what's going on in his head. Do you think he'd dismiss me or bully me? No, he'd take me seriously. He'd see a straight-living man standing before him; my Judge would acquit me for good of all charges. (But)… I travel East looking for him—and find no one; then West, but not a trace; I go North, but he's hidden his tracks and then South, but not even a glimpse. Job in Peterson’s The Message, 23: 2-9
This is adult talk for children of God who are ready to grow up, ok?
And there’s nothing sentimental, sweet or sanitized about it – just the real deal about what it feels like to be abandoned or deserted by God – so that all we know is hard anguish or intense emptiness. I think the psalm for today gets it just about right:
God, it seems you've been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, long before you brought earth itself to birth – from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"—you have been God. So please don't return us to mud, saying, "Back to where you came from!" I understand that you've got all the time in the world—whether a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to you… but that’s not how life feels to me! Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass that springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought? We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), and what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard. Who can make sense of such rage, such anger against the very ones who fear you?
No wonder some call this the psalm for the middle aged, right? It is a personal prayer profoundly attuned to the shortness of life. The poet cries out to God for both wisdom and intimacy – she aches for a connection to the heart of compassion she has known since the beginning of time – and fears that life will only descend into a darker bleakness. This is a terrifying encounter – one that many of us have known – the journey from once upon a time to thy kingdom come you have been my God but now… nothing.
I’ve been in that hell – maybe you have, too. It is a place that most of God’s loved ones visit – even our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember his weeping in the garden or his agony from the Cross? “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”
So let’s take some time to talk about what God’s absence from our hearts might mean for us as well as what Christ’s way encourages us to do in those hard times. Because you see, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Part two of Psalm 90 is a clue: Teach us to live well, O Lord! Teach us to live wisely and well… that the loveliness of your presence might rest upon us again and confirm your love within our hearts.
Now, our tradition tells us that the way to live well – that is, the way to live into the wisdom and the rhythm of the Living God – is neither a secret nor a prize to be purchased or won. Rather, the way of living well in Christ is grounded in the Cross. Mark’s gospel makes this clear by calling those who follow Jesus “people of the way,” because we have chosen to accompany Christ on a journey to the Cross: sometimes this leads us to suffering and fear but it also leads to resurrection and renewal, too.
You see in Greek the word for the way, hodos, literally means “a road” or “the path” – that’s how this morning’s text from Mark begins: As Jesus went out into the street – the hodos—he began another leg of the journey on the way.
+ But in time hodos took on a symbolic meaning, too, denoting those who followed the way – those who belonged to the way – those who walked in the way of Jesus and the Cross.
+ And Mark underscores this repeatedly: his story begins with the call to “prepare the way” of the Lord, it continues with Jesus teaching his disciples that the Messiah must be on the way to Jerusalem – which meant the agony of the Cross – and it concludes with Jesus walking the way of the Cross as he carries it on his shoulders towards his own crucifixion.
So, given this commitment to the way of the Cross, let me suggest to you that the first insight about what God’s absence might mean is this: if it is really grounded in the Cross, it will never make sense to us in our ordinary understanding of the word. The cross of Jesus, you see, isn’t logical. Remember what St. Paul said about the way of the Cross: it is folly and scandal? For those trying to comprehend the way of the Lord, the Cross offends; and for those trying to practice a spirituality of the being good, the way of the Cross is a pain-filled insult.
+ What do you mean the way to authenticity and real meaning in life has to do with dying to self?
+ What are you talking about: those who are first shall be last and the poor in spirit are really the beloved of God?
The logic and order of the real world is clear: if you want to get ahead, you have to compete and work hard. After all, God helps those who help themselves, right? So what is Jesus talking about when he tells us: If you want eternal life – that is meaning and satisfaction right now and blessing with God forever – then go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. Then, come follow me?
That just doesn’t make sense – which is my first insight about living well and practicing the way of Jesus – it should shock and offend and even frighten you because it is totally counter-cultural. I have been emphasizing the upside down aspects of this way for most of the summer and fall; and if I sound like a broken record, I’m sorry but the hard truth is clear: the heart of Christ’s grace and gratitude is all about dying to our self.
+ The way of Jesus and his Cross have NOTHINGto do with getting our own way; it’s all about embracing God’s way – a way and a life that has almost nothing to do with creed, cult or conduct and everything to do with letting go.
+ And in a world obsessed – maybe even addicted – to possessions, talking about letting go and becoming as empty and vulnerable as a child sounds… insane and offensive.
But that’s what the way of Jesus means: letting go. Listen to the most famous summary of Christ’s way as stated in Matthew 5:
You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and God’s kingdom. You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One who is most dear to you. You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought. You're blessed when you care for at t the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for. And you're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right for then you can see God in the outside world.
This is shocking and offensive stuff – or it should be – which is my second insight into embracing the way of Christ in God’s absence: most of us will never feel ready to let go and trust God deeply without… a shock. We live in a safe and secure place where most have enough to eat and we rarely fret about a roof over our heads. In fact, our lives are so grounded in working hard and purchasing what we believe we have earned that we can’t comprehend what it might mean to fully trust God and not ourselves. For most of… we need a shock.
That’s what Jesus is doing when he tells the rich young man that he has to give up his wealth before he can follow: it is NOTthat his money is bad. But this soul has so much of everything he needs that doesn’t know how to be vulnerable. So Jesus shocked him – turned him away – and told him there were just some things that his money couldn’t buy.
This was deliberate, you see: maybe a disappointment could become a catalyst for change. He needed to have his heart opened – so Jesus knocked him on his behind – much like a shock to our health awakens us to the shortness and vulnerability to life and prayed that this good soul might be awakened.
Over the years, I have come to trust that shock and even suffering has been built into the fabric of reality by God so that from time to time we are awakened from our selfishness. Not that God is waiting to zap us – that would be cruel. Rather, I sense that God has constructed our lives in such a way that periodically we can be shocked and rattled out of our false sense of security. The poet, Scott Cairns, put it like this in his most recent essay, The End of Suffering:
Most of the pain and agony in our lives hold the possibility of becoming a “wake up call” for us to grab our attention: “I’m thinking that this is what most, if not all, of our afflictions are inclined to do… They grab our attention. They shake us up and, by thus rattling the bars of our various cages, they serve to shake us – blinking all the while – awake.” Quoting Simone Weil, he goes further: “Affliction compels us to recognize as real what we do not think possible… our afflictions drag us – more or less kicking – into a fresh and vivid awareness that we are not in control of our circumstances, that we are not quite whole, that our days are salted with affliction.” (Cairns, pp.6-7)
We tend to avoid our wounds – those inflicted by our harsh encounters with real life as well as those that are self-inflicted – so that we are rarely fully awakened. And without this awakening we remain too full of ourselves – saturated in sensations but empty of insight. But if “we take care to acknowledge the truths (brought to us by pain), and are canny enough to attend to them, faithful enough to lean into them, then the particular ache of that waking can initiate a response that the Greeks were wont to call kenosis – an emptying, an efficacious hollowing” that can lead also to a hallowing of life as well. (Cairns, p. 8)
Did you get that? The way of the Cross both shocks and awakens us to our vulnerability – we feel it and ache with it –and want to fix it or run away from it because usually it hurts like hell. But if we are willing to journey with it – trust that even our affliction is part of the hodos – the way – then a little of our selfishness dies and there is little more room for God’s compassion within us.
Mother Teresa used to say that God breaks our hearts with the pain of the world because that’s the only way our hearts can get bigger – and I think she’s on to something. The third insight is that our suffering and experience of God’s absence is designed to help us reach out and trust God more profoundly than ever before: our longing and emptiness, you see, push us to cry out like a child. And most of us hate this – we want to be in control - we hate to cry out… but as long as we act like we’re God, then God lets us get what we’ve asked for… the ugly, empty illusion of control.
Now left to ourselves we’re likely to end up bitter and angry and small hearted – you’ve met people who have been shrunken by their anguish – folks just beaten to a pulp by suffering or locked into their bitterness.
+ Anguish can do that to us if left alone – that is why God calls us into community – so that we can learn how to live well and grow up in the way of the Cross.
+ It isn’t automatic, Christian friends, nor is it intuitive. That’s why the psalmist prays: Teach us to live well, O Lord! Teach us to live wisely and well… that the loveliness of your presence might rest upon us again and confirm your love within our hearts.
To learn from our suffering and make sense of God’s absence in the way of Jesus requires a place to practice the way of the Cross and learn from those who have been nourished by God’s upside down kingdom – and that is what we’ll consider next week – how to practice and learn together in community.
For now let me simply remind you that Jesus told us that all of this is impossible by ourselves – you have NO chance at all if you think you can pull this off by yourself – but if you rely on God, then the odds get a whole lot better. Such is the good news for those who have ears to hear…
This week marks the Fifth Pittsfield City Jazz Festival - with Dave Brubeck playing the town on Saturday at 7:30 pm. It is the 50th anniversary of his classic "Time Out" album which features the ground breaking hit "Take 5." Along with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Brubeck helped popularize "cool" jazz - a genre bending mixture of white musicians and black bebop artists who called New York home after WWII. Eventually their "cool" style took up residence on the West Coast and emphasized sweet tones and an understated emotion as opposed to the aggressive sound of bebop.
Brubeck - as well as all five of his musician children - have worked with young artists for decades and still do their part with students in 2009. Part of the Pittsfield Festival will include the "Jazz in the Schools" work of our local jazz man: Andy Kelly. Interestingly, after being drafted into WWII, Brubeck came to faith after wrestling with the conflict between war and the call of love and justice in the Christian scriptures. He has written a setting for the Eucharist and continues to use his music to promote understanding and peace concerns. No wonder it felt so right a few years ago to greet the season of Advent with an improv based on his "Take 5" that eventually morphed into "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."
Our festival starts on Wednesday, Oct. 7, with a free concert by the Royal Hartigan group, blood drum spirit, at the Berkshire Athenaeum. Local jazz acts will perform in clubs and restaurants throughout the city during our Jazz About Town program Columbus Day weekend (Oct. 9-11). The headline event of Pittsfield’s Third Thursday Oct. 15 will be the Industrial Jazz Group, from California, in a free outdoor performance on Pittsfield’s mobile sound stage. For more information:www.berkshiresjazz.org/about
It is clear to me - and a variety of others - the artists often help us both encounter something of the sacred and express our own spiritual experiences, too. As someone from IAM (International Arts Movement) once said: the church - and people of faith - need to be in the business of helping shape culture - and you can't do that inside the church. You have to get out and be with the real artists who are struggling to make it real while making a living.
I look forward to stopping by a variety of the local venues just to hear - and encourage - our local jazz men and women. Who knows where the spirit will blow us once we make a connection?
Mako Fujimura - founder of IAM (International Arts Movement) - continues to help me find a language for exploring both the arts from within my faith experience as well a way of encouraging other artists to go deeper, too. This short clip of his thought and art is worth the effort...
One of the things that always fills me with joy and hope and so much more is watching a true artist deepen their creation. I've seen it with dancers and musicians and poets: sometimes an orchestra can almost reinvent a classic composition while a jazz ensemble can take the basics and find a new way to play it every night. And what the cubists did with traditional still life in art... fascinating.
When it comes to reinterpreting a song, one of the masters is Bruce Springsteen. His live performances almost always find a way to take a few old songs and lift them into something transcendent. At the same time these same songs also evoke a bit of our common humanity and feet of clay. Take his rendering of "Backstreets" from the 1975 classic album, "Born to Run." When Springsteen wrote this 34 years ago, he was a 26 year old punk poet from Jersey who had broken into stardom in the nick of time just before his record company dumped him. He was wild and innocent and fully aware of what it meant to grieve a heart broken.
In 1975 this song was a romantic ode to the tragedy of lost love. Griel Marcus spoke of the opening instrumental as "music so stately that it sounds like the rock'n'roll Iliad." And in the middle of the tune - as he does from time to time - the Boss would improvise stories and singing that evoked loss better than anyone this side of Otis Redding. Here's what it used to sound like in the old romantic days...
Jump ahead 34 years and all of us have lived through so much more loss, pain and tragedy both personally and as a community, yes? Springsteen just turned 60 years old and we're still fighting many of the same stupid, worn-out battles for dignity and hope we thought we might win back then. So you can't sing this old song the same old romantic way... it has to mature and resonate with the truths of THIS moment in time. Many of us can't stand to hear the old anthems sung in same old ways... so he reworked "Backstreets" for his most recent show at Giants Stadium in New Jersey and simply grieves what has been lost. No words - just his anguished moans - and in that instant he tell us something important about struggle and abiding faith. Very, very different from the street poet days, yet equally true and powerful.
To me, this new version sounds like the opening of Ecclesiastes where Qohelet the preacher reminds us that not only is there nothing NEW under the sun, but that most of what we give our time and talent to amounts to nothing but dust and ashes and smoke.
There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke. What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes—it's business as usual for old planet earth. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, then does it again, and again—the same old round. The wind blows south, the wind blows north. Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind. All the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never fills up. The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again. Everything's boring, utterly boring— no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear. What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing.
The challenge for Springsteen - and for all people of faith - is finding the community and spiritual depth to face this smoke and ash with courage and honesty. To be sure, as the preacher says later in the same book, "to everything there is a season... a time to grieve and a time to dance and sing... and refrain from it all, too." I am regularly nourished by the way Springsteen - as wisdom preacher and shaman - helps ground me in the truth while urging me towards community.
were going to hike Mt. Greylock - the highest point in Massachusetts -but now we're headed to a more hospitable place: bookstores and art museums. As my blogging friend from Thunder Bay, Black Pete, has noted, winter has its own spiritual and physical rhythm that must be entered and embraced. Made me think of this poem by Louise Gluck minus that part about summer's deep sweetness:
out (with the aid of long johns and fleece vests) to see what other blessings the day has in store for us. As the planet shifts - and winter ripens - and the rhythm of life takes on a new beat, I sense different spiritual questions beginning to rise to the surface. Louise Gluck captures this insight like this in "Matins."
out (with the aid of long johns and fleece vests) to see what other blessings the day has in store for us. As the planet shifts - and winter ripens - and the rhythm of life takes on a new beat, I sense different spiritual questions beginning to rise to the surface. Louise Gluck captures this insight like this in "Matins."
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