The Courage to Will and to Persevere

 

When my son Etienne was a pre-teen, he fell in love with the card game, “Magic—the Gathering.” Maybe some of you here have played Magic? My young son was obsessed with it, and he would regularly beg me to play with him. While I really wanted to be a cool Mom and connect with my teen, I just couldn’t deal with all the rules in Magic.  That game is just a maze of intricate, complex rules! I actually googled the official rule book this week, and I learned that Magic has 905.6 rules. No wonder I couldn’t catch on!

          I’m afraid that we human beings sometimes look at religion—and at life--as a bunch of rules to follow, as well. In the complex and baffling game of life, we want to know which cards to play when, which moves will give us extra lives, and which moves are powerful enough to destroy the monsters. We think that, by following and enforcing all the rules, we can more easily triumph. And then sometimes, after trying to play by all the rules, we get overwhelmed, shrug our shoulders in defeat, and refuse to play the convoluted “religion” game at all.

          The Law, the Torah of Judaism, can appear to us Christians, especially, as a convoluted list of do’s and don'ts, just like that long list of Magic card rules. How many of you have tried to read through the Bible from the beginning, only to give up somewhere in the wearying complexities of Leviticus? We must remember, though, that all these laws are meant only to provide a path to right relationship with God and with one another. They aren’t so much to be seen like rules of a game, as they are a guide for living in God’s holy presence and for caring for one another in community.

In today’s Gospel, the lawyer seems to have forgotten the true purpose of the Law. He’s definitely trying to defeat Jesus, playing a game of winners and losers. He’s trying to test Jesus’ knowledge of the rules, wielding the 613 Laws of Judaism like a gamer would use the 905.6 Magic rules. Jesus’ brilliant answer, however, is meant to transform rules into relationships. Jesus shows him—and us—that the Law is really all about love.

          Ah yes, we Episcopalians love to talk about love, don’t we? I wonder if really understand what kind of love we’re advocating, though. And given the news this week, I have to ask: What do we say about love, when violence fills the world? When people are murdered playing corn-hole, eating, and hanging out to bowl? When assault weapons are valued more than human lives? When politics is reduced to threats and insults? When innocent women and children in the Middle East (and around the world) live and die amidst exploding hatred and despair? Today, what do we say about love to young Bodie and Campbell, our newest members of Christ’s Body of compassion? How do we teach them to love in the midst of so much hate? How do we lift up love when it seems in such short supply?

          I was drawn this week to the prayer that we will pray for Bodie and Campbell right after their baptism. We will pray that God’s Spirit might sustain them, that God might grant them, “the courage to will and to persevere.” I once baptized a baby who was crying so loudly during this prayer that I could barely be heard over his protests. As he flailed and arched his back, I remember thinking wryly to myself, “Well, this one doesn’t have any trouble with the willing or the persevering part!” But today, it’s this prayer that speaks to me of the Good News of love.

Christian love, you see, isn’t some soft, squishy feeling in pastel colors and rainbows. Love is a strong, death-defeating power. Love is the fuel of right relationship, the source of everlasting life.  In our Gospel lesson, Jesus doesn’t just pull these two commandments to love out of thin air. The first one is from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the other from Leviticus 19:18. In neither of these passages is love tied to heart-warming emotion. Rather, both Deuteronomy and Leviticus tie love to commitment, to something that can be willed.

Deuteronomy 6:5 is part of the shema, the important creed recited morning and evening by devout Jews. Jesus and his listeners would have recognized it right away: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” This is the verse that God’s people must place on their doorposts and recite to their children and bind on hand and forehead. The love that God is asking here from the people of Israel is an unwavering commitment to choose God above all other gods and to walk daily in God’s ways. Put in human terms, it is like the commitment to remain faithful to a spouse, both when we feel close and head over heels in love … and in the times when we wonder what we see in them at all. It’s a love that wills and perseveres.

          In the same way, the love for our neighbor required in Leviticus 19 is also a commitment to take the needs of our neighbor seriously. In Leviticus, to love a neighbor is to avoid stealing from him, to refuse to defraud him, to resist taking advantage of him when he is weak. To love a neighbor is to show mercy, justice, and faithfulness in our dealings with him, whether that neighbor be rich or poor, a community member or a foreigner, old or young. The exact verse that Jesus quotes reads, “Don’t seek revenge or carry a grudge against any of your people. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am God.” The commandment to love is about the difficult work of justice, compassion, and forgiveness. It’s the work of a lifetime, a lifetime of willing and persevering, one small step, one day at a time.

          In the book that we’re reading in adult formation, How We Learn to Be Brave, author Mariann Budde quotes a story originally told by preacher Peter Gomes. Gomes recounts the true story of American prisoners in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in World War II. When these men were first captured, they turned to their Christian faith to keep them going. They read their Bibles, sang hymns, and prayed aloud together all the time. They hoped that God would reward them by sending someone to rescue them, or at least by giving them strength. Time went by, though, and none of those things happened. Life in the prison camp was dismal and hard, and the men began to get sick and die one after the other. The group gave up on God and quit their singing and praying.

          But they continued to care for the needs of their fellow prisoners. They protected one another, sacrificed for one another, loved one another. As they did this, day after day, through the hardship, they began to notice God’s presence mysteriously among them. They discovered, writes Gomes, “’that faith was not what you believed but what you did for others when it seemed you could do nothing at all.’” Faith in God returned to them as the result of their love for one another, and as they felt God with them in that love, their capacity to love grew even greater.[1]

          It works this way in our world, too, when we’re caught in a web of pain and violence.  It’s amazing what blessings can be found in a strong-willed, persevering commitment to small acts of justice, compassion, and self-giving love. Budde tells one of my favorite stories by Rachel Remen in her book, as well. When Rachel was five, her beloved grandfather gave her a cup of dirt and told her to put a little bit of water on it every day. He hinted that something special might happen if she did. Rachel watered her dirt cup for awhile, but she soon grew tired of this fruitless task. She almost quit. But because she loved and respected her grandfather, she kept at it. When some little green leaves started poking out of the soil, little Rachel was delighted. She ran to her grandfather to tell him about this miracle. He explained to her that “life is everywhere, and blessings are everywhere, hidden in the most … unlikely places.

‘And all it needs is water, Grandpa?’ Rachel asked. ‘No,’ he said ‘All it needs is your faithfulness.’”[2]

          The world doesn’t need more rules, more judgment, more intricate games with cheat-codes, weapons, winners and losers. The world needs more faithful, persistent compassion. May Bodie and Campbell and each one of us grow to discover God in beloved community, as we will and persevere, persistently pouring the mighty water of love in all the barren places.

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[1] Mariann Budde, How We Learn to be Brave (New York: Avery Press, 2023), 175-76.

[2] Budde, 179.

Does God Have a Dress Code?

 

I bet I’m not alone in having that recurring nightmare where I show up to class or to work dressed in something completely ridiculous. Has anybody else had that dream? As a priest, I now have nightmares where it’s time for the church service to start, and I can’t find my vestments. I come tearing down the aisle at the last minute in some grungy street clothes, with my alb hanging half-way off and my stole and microphone trailing the ground. Everyone else, of course, looks like they’re processing into Westminster Abbey.

          Having been raised in Houston by southern parents, the dress-code was always a big deal in our family. I’m constantly amazed by the relaxed attitude toward clothing here in Colorado! When I was a child, there were strict do’s and don’ts about what to wear: nothing white before Easter or after Labor Day; dress shoes and “church clothes” on Sunday. For my mother, the ultimate “sin” was to over-dress or under-dress—both of which earned you the shameful epithet, “tacky.” Even in college at Sewanee in the early ‘80’s, women had to wear dresses to class, and men had to wear coats and ties!

In dream language, of course, the fear of not being properly dressed probably comes from our fear of not fitting-in, of breaking society’s rules, of showing that we don’t really belong. The dream-fear of showing up naked, also likely reflects our feelings of shame and inadequacy—our feelings that underneath, deep-down, we’re somehow not good enough. This common human fear even turns up in scripture.  Remember Adam and Eve, eyes-opened from eating the forbidden fruit, hiding from God in the bushes? They realize that they’re naked, and they cover themselves with leaves. Do you remember how God responds? Even though Adam and Eve’s disobedience has consequences, God doesn’t boot them from the garden vulnerably naked, alone in their shame. God makes clothes for them out of skins, sending them out of Eden with some protection.

The rest of the Bible, too, is full of stories of humans being clothed lovingly by and even with God. In the book of Revelation, our human story ends with the saints clothed in white robes, made clean in the blood of the Lamb. There’s also St. Paul’s image of Christians being clothed with Christ himself in baptism, of Christians wearing Christ, being shaped by that clothing into the image of Jesus. Paul writes about how God’s clothing removes human distinctions between slave and free, male and female, making us all equally beloved in God.

Given these beautiful, comforting biblical images of being clothed with and by God, where on earth does today’s terrible parable come from?! And why does the poor guy with the wrong clothes get thrown out into the darkness with wailing and gnashing of teeth?!

First, it helps to know that this banquet story appears in three different forms in Luke, Matthew, and in the Gospel of Thomas, a book that didn’t make it into our Bible. It’s very likely that each of these authors interpreted the original words of Jesus differently, to fit their own context. Jesus’ original parable was probably quite simple: a powerful man throws a great feast, as powerful men do. Normally, a powerful host expects to increase in honor by identifying himself with the famous dignitaries he would invite to his banquet. But Jesus describes a host who invites the poor and outcast, instead of the powerful and wealthy. Jesus’ host invites people who will give him no honor in return. Jesus’ host’s greatness is found in a reversal of the ways of the world; in Jesus’ original story, the last become first, and the first become last. The honored guests are truly the poor and marginalized, just like the scrubby mustard bush takes the place of the majestic cedar of Lebanon in that well-known parable.[1] Now a story like this one sounds like Jesus, doesn’t it?

 Scholars also believe that Matthew’s parable is a mash-up of two separate stories. Originally, Jesus would have told the banquet parable I just described. Another time, he also would have told a parable about a man refusing the robes that he’s offered. Matthew likely strung the two parables together to tell the story that he believed his readers needed to hear—a story adapted to speak to Jewish-Christians living in a Palestine divided over religion (sound familiar?)  Matthew wrote his Gospel about thirty years after the traumatic destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by Roman soldiers. He wrote at a time when Jews and Christians were at odds with one another.

Matthew was trying to explain the destruction of the Temple and the animosity between the new Christians and their roots in Judaism. Matthew took Jesus’ weird little upside-down parable and made an allegory out of it, where “this” always equals “that.” Matthew tells his readers an allegory in which the King is God. At his banquet, God judges the Jews for killing God’s prophets and rejecting God’s Son. As punishment, God allows their city-- Jerusalem and the Holy Temple--to be destroyed by the Romans. Once the Jews are judged, Matthew focuses God’s judgment on the Christians in his community who don’t follow the rules. He sticks in the parable of the man without a wedding garment. Matthew’s banquet hall, the church, is full of both wheat and weeds, good folks and bad ones. The Divine King takes care to remove the weeds, throwing out the bad guy who doesn’t belong in the new Christian community. [2]

Yes, we humans do like stories in which there are logical reasons for disasters, and in which we clearly see the bad guys getting what’s coming to them. I’m sure that there are people right now around the world who are using all kinds of allegories to explain why either the Jews or the Palestinians are clearly all in the wrong and why God is going to punish one side or the other. But black and white stories of punishment and vengeance don’t preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

That’s why, today, it’s the last part of Matthew’s tale that interests me, this weird part about the guy who’s not wearing the wedding garment to the feast. Remember, if this used to be a separate parable, this guy wasn’t necessarily invited in off the street, without time to change his clothes. He’s not set up for failure by the King. If he had been invited earlier, he would have had plenty of time to change before the party. In showing up to the party in his old clothes, then, he is more than “tacky.” He’s a hypocrite! He's accepting the invitation without appreciating it enough to change. He’s like the people who call out to Jesus, “Lord, Lord” but don’t wear the garments of Christ. Jesus always has trouble with hypocrites. Their lives don’t reflect their words. I love how Tom Long describes this ungrateful guest: “He was in the banquet hall of the king ... The table was set with the finest food; the best wine flowed from regal chalices. He is the recipient of massive grace. ... Where is his regard for generosity? [Here] he is, bellying up to the punch bowl, stuffing his mouth with fig preserves, and wiping his hands on his T-shirt.”[3]

St. Paul writes in Ephesians, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self ... to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”[4] At baptism, Christ gives us his own self as our clothing. Who are we to refuse to wear it? Priest and scholar Lauren Winner has a whole book called, Wearing God. She meditates on what it means to be clothed in God. She writes, “I need to let Jesus, my clothing, affect the way I move. I need to let Jesus affect the way I interact, the way I shape affection, the means by which I negotiate others’ opinions of me ... What if I could say “My body interacts and changes places with Jesus as I wear Him?”[5]

We are indeed naked and vulnerable creatures who often show up half-dressed to the feast, hurrying and thoughtlessly stumbling over our own robes. The thing is, we’re not invited because we have it together, or because we are good and honorable, or because we have fancy clothes. We’re not invited to bestow honor on the king. All of us naked and vulnerable creatures of this world are invited to God’s feast, because God loves us. God wants to feed us and transform us all into the one Body of Christ. We are all lovingly offered the robes of God’s own Son to wear. All we have to do is to wear them in gratitude: To let them mold us and change us, to let them form us into people who act in love. As one poem puts it, the response that God longs to hear from us is this: “My life is naked longing, flesh and blood/ so dress me in your grace. You are my God.”[6]

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[1]Bernard B. Scott, Hear Then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 173-4.

[2] Richard Lischer, Reading the Parables (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 54-55.

[3] Thomas Long, Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 248.

[4] David Wenham, The Parables of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic Press, 1989), 136.

[5] Lauren Winner, Wearing God (New York: Harper Collins, 2015), 53.

[6] Ylva Eggehorn, 1992. Translation by Gracia Grindal, 1997. Quoted in Gracia Grindal, “Dress Code,” The Christian Century, September 25, 2002.