When We Can't Bear Any More

 

At the prayer service at the Cathedral yesterday, we listened to name after name being read. All of the names, dozens and dozens of them, were just a sampling of all the children and adults who have died in mass shootings in this country in the last twenty years. Several times the prayers had to stop, as we all waited for a reader to choke back tears. Outside the Cathedral, at the March for our Lives, Coloradans of all ages stood in the blistering 100-degree sunshine to listen to teens and young adults testify about their terrifying experience of school shootings. Most people held up signs that expressed in no uncertain terms that they are fed up with the status quo. How much more can we bear? Indeed, gun violence, Covid, insurrection, war, fire, more gun violence, more Covid …. It seems like we are now closely touched by things that we never imagined dealing with twenty years ago. As suffering piles upon suffering, it’s hard not to let the news of it beat us down, as relentlessly as Saturday’s sun beat down on the protestors. How much more can we bear?

  I read years ago about an interesting scientific study concerning learned responses to suffering. Scientists put four monkeys in a cage with a pole in the middle. At the top of the pole, they hung a bunch of bananas. All of the monkeys learned how to climb up that pole and grab a treat. Then the scientists added a pail of water above the pole. When a monkey started to climb the pole, the researcher would douse him with a big bucketful of cold water before he could get to the bananas. Eventually, all four of the monkeys stopped trying to climb the pole, even after the scientists removed the pail of water. At this point, the scientists added a new monkey to the cage. This monkey, of course, went straight for those bananas. Can you guess what happened? One of the other monkeys would yank him down, every time, trying to save him from suffering from the cold water, even though there was no pail! As the scientists gradually replaced all of the monkeys with new ones, through several generations, even the new monkeys stopped trying to get the bananas. Those monkeys lost hope in reaching what they desired, and that lack of hope was passed down from generation to generation.[1]

Have the suffering and tragedy that surround us, the pain that pierces our own lives, taken away our desire to climb the pole? If we look around at our half-empty churches, at our general malaise and despair, it certainly seems that we have given up. When everything is so hard, why try? When children are dying, who cares about a committee meeting? When our lives and our country are so fractured, who wants to get up on a Sunday morning and sit in a pew? When there are so many problems begging for solutions, do we really want to hear a sermon on the Trinity? Has suffering robbed us of the hope that once led us to God? Are we gulping air, longing for a Feast that we have forgotten how to find? Kevin Ford draws a conclusion for us Christians in the church from the monkey experiment. Ford writes, “We preach and teach about bananas [that is, about hope, about God’s love for us, about Good News.] We cast a vision for eating bananas. We develop pole-climbing training programs … We read lots of books about bananas… We argue over which side of the pole the bananas should be on…But no matter what we do, nobody ever seems to get around to eating the bananas.”[2]

          Let’s see today if our readings can help us bite into any bananas. At first, St. Paul doesn’t seem helpful at all. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul advises us to “boast” or to “rejoice” in our suffering: “We … boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Hmmmm. Really, Paul? Would I write a letter to Marshall Fire survivors and tell them to be happy that their homes are destroyed and their finances ruined? Would I tell the parents of children in Uvalde that they have been given a test of endurance that will give them character?

          No, St. Paul, I wouldn’t say these things. But neither does Paul, really. Paul isn’t expressing some simple formula for mixing hope out of the ingredients of suffering. He isn’t offering us a mathematical equation to get to the bananas. Paul is like the theologians who try to describe God as Trinity. He is trying to express the inexpressible. Hope, for Paul, is a way of perceiving events based on a faith in God’s hidden presence and power among us. Hope isn’t wishful thinking. It’s what allows us to move into the future because of the reality of God’s presence right now.[3] As Paul writes later in his letter, using another image: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[4] Paul’s own personal experience has convinced him that God climbs the pole with us, even when the water comes crashing down on our heads.

          I was struck by Jesus’ words, too, in today’s Gospel. Jesus’ disciples, when confronted with the reality of his approaching crucifixion, can also bear no more. The death of their Lord is unacceptable, a crushing blow to their faith. Yet Jesus doesn’t roll his eyes or shake his finger at them for their lack of fortitude and comprehension. Jesus understands them. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” Jesus tenderly offers. One scholar explains that Jesus “didn’t burden their frightened, skittish, saturated souls … Instead, he promised them the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of ongoing revelation.  That Spirit would slowly guide the disciples — and by extension, all of us — into a fuller knowledge and comprehension of everything Jesus left unsaid.”[5] I think that we, too, can relax into the loving arms of a God who understands, a Triune God who is relationship. We can rest our weary minds and bodies, taking the food that God gives us, the food of his own body and blood, a food sweeter than the ripest banana.

          Last but not least, I think that it is helpful to remember the Wisdom of Wisdom herself. In today’s reading from Proverbs, God’s Wisdom speaks in a voice that we Christians identify with the Holy Spirit, even with Christ himself. Verses 29-31 can also be translated, “I was [God’s] delight day by day, playing before him in every moment, playing in his inhabited world, my delighting in the offspring of [humankind.]” Yes, God is at play with God, at play with Creation! God delights in the mutuality of play. Play holds “Creator and creation together, through the common bond of delight.”[6] When we can bear no more sadness, can we open our hearts in wonder to a God who plays? When we had evacuated our house during the Marshall Fire, we took refuge with my daughter’s family in Denver. Playing with my toddler granddaughter did more to free me from stress than anything else.  I wonder what would it be like to let God approach me in the same way?

We’re in a relationship with a God who can withstand anything, including our own despair. We aren’t monkeys, doomed to unthinking conditioning from our environment. We have a choice, a choice to seek a relationship with God, who will train us once again to take and eat the food that fulfills. We can find solace in crying out to God in anger, resentment, or pain. We can choose to invest in practices of prayer and gratitude and even holy play. Will our choices look like foolishness in the eyes of the world, like gullibility in the eyes of the unbeliever? Undoubtedly. But what will we not give to taste the Love for which we long? God in Christ gave His very life for that Love. When despair beats you down into the pavement like a hot summer sun, melt into the dance of mutual delight that is our Triune God. Play, rest, and feast with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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[1] Quoted in L. Gregory Jones, “Monkey Business,” in The Christian Century, September 9, 2008, 39.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2001), 85.

[4] Romans 8:38.

[5] Debie Thomas, “The Trinity—So What?” https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2251-the-trinity-so-what

[6] William Brown, Wisdom’s Wonder: Character, Creation, and Crisis in the Bible’s Wisdom Literature, (Grand Rapids:  William B. Eerdmans. 2014), 51.

Building with the Spirit

 

I used to teach fifth grade “Biblical Foundations” at a secular school. The idea was to teach a common culture of Bible stories so that un-churched children would understand biblical references in Western art, poetry, and music. Every year, when the story of the Tower of Babel would come up, I would try the same lesson plan. And every year, it would fail. Here’s how it would go: When the small group of 10-year-olds had read the story of the Tower of Babel, I would haul out my big bin of Legos. The students couldn’t believe their eyes. “We get to play with Legos in class?!” they would gasp in wonder.
          “Yes,” I explained. “You are going to work together for 10 minutes to build the tallest, most amazing tower that you can. But here’s the catch: There will be no talking! You may make noises. You may gesture. You may even speak a language that others don’t know, but you may NOT speak one word of English. I want you to feel like those folks in Babel who have to work together while no longer understanding one another's speech.”

          After some grumbling, the wide-eyed students would dig into the blocks. Invariably, they would start out working together, using gibberish and directing one another with pokes and pantomime. Invariably, half of the students would quickly give up. They would find more pleasure in pulling out interesting bits of Lego than in trying to communicate with the others. Instead of a common tower rising high in the air, several small, individual creations would start to pop up around the table.

Invariably, one or two of the students would decide that this wouldn’t do. Not allowed to talk, the self-appointed leaders would start using physical violence to convince their classmates to cooperate. They would try to smash the individual creations, or to slap away wayward hands, or to snatch all of the pieces for themselves. And then I would have to intervene.

This part of the assignment worked as expected. Lack of communication had confounded the unity of the group. I would snap a photo of their work.

          Then I would move on to the counterexample. “That was hard, wasn’t it?” I would affirm. We’re going to build again, but this time you are going to be able to talk to one another,” I explained. The students would cheer and wiggle with excitement. “Let’s see what happens. Ready, set, go!”

          This is the part of the lesson that would fail every time.

          Invariably, they would start out working together, talking merrily and planning great things. Invariably, half of the students would get distracted, mining for cool pieces in the pile of Legos and doing their own thing. Invariably, the self-appointed leaders would get annoyed. They’d try to gain the attention and obedience of the creative-types. They’d cajole and insult in turn. When their wayward classmates wouldn’t listen, they’d abandon words and start to grab, destroy, and snatch. And then I’d have to intervene. When I would snap a photo of the second “tower,” it was never much higher or grander than the first one.

          Every year, the children proved that the Tower of Babel story is not as simple as we often make it out to be. It’s about more than language.

God has told humankind after the Flood to spread out and start over with a new kind of world. “Scatter, multiply, fill the empty land with my beloved children. Create, plant, harvest, care for my land,” God cries. And instead, what do the people do? They stop in the land of Shinar and settle there. They stop exploring. They stop listening to God’s desire for them. Unity becomes an excuse for the powerful to take control. “Make those bricks, or else,” the strong ones bellow, just like the Egyptian lords to their Hebrew slaves. “More straw, more bricks, faster, faster! Babel must be Number One.”  And like a teacher watching her lesson plan go awry, God has to intervene.  God confuses and scatters the proud in their conceit. God sends the cautious and fearful sprawling over the face of all the earth, ready or not.

          Our Christian Pentecost is often cast as the undoing of the scattering and confusion at Babel. If so, it too must be about more than language. All of those Judeans gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Pentecost were Jews. They might have been born—or had ancestors who were born—in far-flung regions of the Mediterranean world. But they already shared a common identity—and language. Like the disciples, many of them likely understood both Aramaic and Greek. Aramaic and Greek were common languages learned throughout the region for the purpose of trade and commerce. Gathered on Pentecost in Jerusalem, the disciples could have just spoken Aramaic to the crowd, and all of those Phrygians and Cappadocians would have understood them--no big deal. If the problem that day were one of mere comprehension, there was no need for a miracle.

 While they could understand Greek and Aramaic, however, these Jews would also have had “birth languages” that they spoke at home with family and friends. It’s these “birth languages” that they heard coming from the lips of the disciples. My daughter learned about the importance of “birth languages" when she spent her junior year abroad in Senegal. She went over there thinking that everyone would be speaking French, the “official language” imposed by the French colonizers and inscribed on the brochures. What she learned was that, while many people understood French, they hated speaking it. To them, French rang out in tones of oppression and fear. In order to join the conversation, my daughter had to quickly learn Wolof, the birth language of the people in her region. Only in Wolof would the people share their deepest identity and bare their souls.

When the Judeans in Jerusalem began to hear and to speak God’s word in all of their various birth languages, God was speaking to their inmost being. God didn’t act like the many Christian missionaries who went over to Africa saying, “You had better learn our language and follow our cultural patterns if you want to know God.” Instead, the Holy Spirit was bringing the Good News to each small group, celebrating and amplifying their diversity by using their birth languages. After the miracle at Pentecost, the identity of Parthians, Arabs, and Cappadocians didn’t depend on their ability to speak Greek or to share one culture; instead, it was based on the Spirit gathering them as a diverse Christian people under the Lordship of Jesus.

What matters at Pentecost then is the spiritual transformation. What matters are changed hearts and emboldened souls: hearts and souls ready to go out to spread the hope and promise of new life to all the nations of the earth. Suddenly, Jesus’ fearful disciples are no longer hiding in an upper room for fear of persecution. Suddenly, they’re empowered to shout the Good News of hope and freedom in Christ. Suddenly, the downtrodden Judeans are no longer unified only as a conquered people speaking an imposed tongue. Now they are free to hear the Good News in their God-given diversity.

An interesting fact in our lesson from Acts is that Luke’s list is not historically accurate. The Medes and Elamites no longer existed as nations in Luke’s day. They were ancient peoples of the region who had disappeared way before Jesus was even born. By including these ancient peoples, Luke shows us that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit can’t be bound by time or place. If Luke can place the long-ago past in the presence of the Spirit, couldn’t present-day Episcopalians, present-day St. Ambrosians, be there, too?

Our world, especially our nation, is in chaos these days. Just last month, there was an article in The Atlantic called “After Babel: How Social Media Dissolved the Mortar of Society and Made America Stupid.” The author compares our society with the chaos after the fall of the Tower of Babel. For us, it is a fall precipitated by the destructive power of communication through social media: by a lack of shared social capital, strong institutions, and shared stories.[1] The article makes a lot of sense. The Powers and Principalities that oppress and control seem to grow bolder every day. Our common language is interwoven with misinformation and threats. Some birth languages are ridiculed and denied. Social media continues to carve us into small groups that don’t understand one another. Community dies. Loneliness spreads. Violence surges. Even the Church shrinks and huddles, too afraid of dying truly to live.

But today, yes, today and every day, the Holy Spirit takes a giant bucket of Hope and Promise and pours it out in our huddled midst like Legos on a table. [Pour out Legos.] “Whoosh,” fall the pieces, bouncing and crashing and stirring up dust. Flames flicker and bulletins rattle and little children shout, “Hurray! Something new!”

 “Build,” God says, “build my Community of Love! Carry it out into the world and scatter it among all people.” The Spirit whispers to me, to you, in our birth languages, encouraging the diversity of our gifts. “It’s OK to paw through here to find the pieces that speak to your heart,” She encourages. “Find them and hold them up for all to see. But don’t hoard them. Build with them. Join them with what others have found. Go on—I am with you. The power of Love holds you up on all sides.”

Will we build together? Or will some withdraw, while others try to maintain control? Are we ready to join together in dreaming God’s active dream of Love for the whole world? Thankfully, the Spirit is stubborn. Like my lesson plan, the Spirit’s question will just keep on coming, again and again. [Instruct people to pick up a piece of Lego at Communion. Invite them to take it to the back of the church after the service and add it to a common creation, saying, “I am called to build for X”

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[1] Jonathan Haidt, “After Babel: How Social Media Dissolved the Mortar of Society and Made America Stupid.” The Atlantic, May 2022, 56-57.