Recognizing Christ

There is a Muslim legend about the psalm appointed for this week (24:7-10).  According to it, during the days is in which Jesus lay in the tomb, just prior to the resurrection, Satan devised a plan to enter the gates of heaven and overwhelm its angel guardians by pretending to be Christ returning in triumph.

As he approached on a white steed, Satan called to the angels on the ramparts in the words of the psalm.  “Lift up your heads, O gates; lift them high, O everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”

The angels were confused.  Following the psalm the angels asked the rider, “Who is the King of glory?”

Satan continued the antiphonal recitation.  “The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle.”  Still the angels were confused and the gates did not open.

Satan went on with the next verse.  “Lift up your heads, O gates; lift them high, O everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”

Again, the angels asked, “Who is he, this King of glory?”

And Satan answered.  “The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.”  The angels remained unsure and still the doors did not open.  Satan was perplexed.

One more he called to the angels.  “Lift up your heads, O gates; lift them high, O everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”

And once more the angels responded to Satan masquerading as Christ with their question, “Who is he, this King of glory?”

This time, having run out of the words of the psalm, Satan replaced them with his own.  “It is I.  I am the King of glory,” he proclaimed.  And as he did, he threw open his arms.  And when he threw open his arms, the angels could see plainly that the horse’s rider was unwounded from the cross, his hands free of the print of the nails.  And they knew it was a trick, and the rider, not the Christ but the deceiver. 

The Feast of the Presentation, which is Saturday, is about recognizing Christ among us (Lk. 2:22-40).  Simeon was an old man who had waited many years for God to fulfill the promise that he would not die before he was able to see God’s Messiah.  He recognized Jesus as the Messiah when the child’s parents brought him to the Temple to sacrifice and dedicate him to the Lord, as the law required.  The old man’s heart must have leapt with joy at the completion of his expectation, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

There was also an old woman named Anna within the Temple precincts that day, as she was every day, praying and fasting.  She, too, recognized the child for who he was and likewise gave thanks to God. 

It is a difficult thing to know the Messiah among us, even for the angels.  The Gospel of Luke tells us that Simeon and Anna were aided directly by the Holy Spirit.  It no doubt helped that their hearts were prepared to see by years of longing and waiting and watching.  It may also have helped that Mary and Joseph had brought the child to the Temple in an act of humility, dedicating him, as the law required of first born sons, to the Lord. 

Other times the pretenders reveal themselves in the opposite way, in an act of pride.  It is woundedness, though, or the willingness to be wounded, that is the guarantor of authenticity of the Messiah’s presence among us and within us.  The glory of God is in vulnerability and not in any sort of triumph in the normal sense of the word.

Peace,
+Stacy

I Have No Need of You

The epistle for next Sunday (1 Cor. 12:12-31a) is a beautiful passage about our importance to one another.  It is fundamentally about loving one another and comes immediately before Paul’s famous passage about what love is.  Paul wrote:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. . . .  If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many members, yet one body.  The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

So who am I to question with St. Paul?  Alas, it is not the first time.

Jesus used the same metaphor of the body to quite a different end.  He said: 
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.  (Mt. 5:29-30; see also 18:8-9) 

So what’s that about?  Well, of course, there is the issue of context.  Paul is addressing a different problem, which is the Corinthian church’s tendency to distinguish between its members based on irrelevant details of social status.  He makes the point at the very beginning noting that all are baptized into the same body—Jews or Greeks, slave or free.  He reinforces the point close to the end of the passage:  “But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.”  (vv. 24b-25)  Paul’s point has to do with radical equality within the Christian community.  That’s not the part I disagree with.

The part that causes me concern is the metaphor, which taken out of context, appears to say that the individual members of the body are dependent on one another.  One cannot say to another, “I have no need of you.”  Dependence, though, is not conducive to the body’s health. 

Jesus knew that.  Jesus was saying that the body cannot be dependent on any single member, that any individual member is expendable for the health of the whole.  He used the metaphor in a different, though certainly also radical, way.  Dependency poses such a danger, he said, that one must be prepared even to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand to avoid it.  And his words become an important corrective in understanding Paul.

One of the great dangers to a community’s wellbeing, now as always, is dependency.  Dependency is no healthier when it comes to one another than it is when it comes to chemicals.  It just looks sweeter when it does and somehow it seems vaguely Christian.  It isn’t.  It is admittedly a hard lesson to learn and even harder to practice.  So it is with a great many of the teachings of Jesus.  That is why being his disciple is a lifetime’s endeavor. 

We are made to love one another.  How to do that radically is what Paul was talking about.  But needing one another gets us into some very real and great danger.  That’s what Jesus was talking about.  Together they make a lot of sense.

Peace,
+Stacy

That God’s Works Might be Revealed

 I return today from a pilgrimage to Haiti.  A group of American Episcopalians has been visiting the church in Haiti since last Tuesday.  The Presiding Bishop was with us for part of the trip including a memorial service on the occasion of the third anniversary of the earthquake last Saturday.  Much progress has been made here.  The country is recovering.  The people remain resilient in the face of the unimaginable suffering that descended upon them three years ago.  There are many bright energetic young people here, some Haitians who have returned home following the earthquake to help rebuild their country.  As always, Haiti is filled with inspiring people living out inspiring stories.  Hope is amazingly pervasive.  As I have told many people, it is impossible to come to Haiti without meeting Jesus in the people here. 

The January 12, 2010 earthquake is one of those events that, like the Kennedy assassination and 9/11, I can remember vividly where I was and what I was doing when I heard what had happened.  I have been remembering those days while I have been in Haiti.  In particular I have found myself remembering some of the religious commentary immediately after the earthquake, in light of what has happened in Haiti since. 

I have found myself thinking about what Pat Robertson of all people said.  His interpretation was that the death toll of over 300,000 in Haiti, the devastation of the earthquake, and the intractable poverty of this hemisphere’s poorest country were the result of a pact with the devil.  This is what Pat Robertson, former presidential candidate, evangelical minister, and host of the “700 Club” said:  “They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’  True story.  And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’  And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free.  But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.” 

Now, frankly, it would be laughable if it were not for the facts that (1) so many people suffered so horribly and still do, (2) so many people believe this kind of ignorance masquerading as biblical and invest millions of dollars every year in it, and (3) it is such a distortion, blasphemy really, of God, who is love, and the Gospel of Christ, who is love incarnate.

Once Jesus was walking along and “he saw a man blind from birth.”  His disciples asked a question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  The disciples, you see, had been watching the “700 Club.”  It is a very old tendency, seeing human suffering as God’s punishment for human transgressions.  It is a coward’s way of looking at the world, an utter denial of the response God would hope for, the sort of response so evident in the Haitian people themselves.

Jesus did not think this way.  He replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  It isn’t about sin at all.  It isn’t about the devil at all.  It is about the opportunity to love.  It is about the opportunity to reveal God’s works in the world.  It is about the opportunity presented by human suffering to show forth the compassion of God.  Jesus went on.  “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”  (See John 9:1-4.) 

I don’t think for a minute that God inflicts suffering for any purpose.  I think God may allow suffering, either as the consequence of our choices or because for some mysterious reason that is how things work with nature.  I do not put much stock in pacts with the devil either.  For one thing, I don’t think the devil can ever, ever defeat God, God’s love, God’s purposes, God’s people, or God’s church. 

What I do think is that “who sinned” is simply the wrong question to ask.  Pacts with the devil are simply not terribly interesting from God’s point of view.  What does matter is what we do about suffering and need when we find it. 

That is ultimately why we have been in Haiti this week.  We have been here to see God’s works revealed.  And we have been here to see how we might fit into the continuing revelation of God’s unfolding dream for humanity, not least in Haiti.  What suffering and need present is not a question of fault; it is a question of opportunity to do something about it. 

The opportunity before us is the very same one Jesus placed before the disciples, “that God’s works might be revealed.”  What has happened in Haiti doesn’t really say anything at all about God.  But what we do about it does.  God’s work is now in our hands.  Whether the works of God will be revealed is up to us.

Peace,
+Stacy

Who We Are

With the end of the Christmas season and the passing of Epiphany, we move from the birth of Jesus to the first appearance of Jesus as an adult in the Gospel narrative (Lk. 3:15-17, 21-22) for next Sunday, the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.  It is a story about identity, about who John is, about who Jesus is, and ultimately about who we are.

The story begins with identity confusion.  I think it is perhaps the greatest of all spiritual dangers.  The people are confused as to who John might be, wondering if he might be the Messiah.  Amidst the confusion, though, John himself is clear:  “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”   

It is easy to let our identities be determined by those around us.  That is the challenge of adolescence in our culture, to find out who one is, and it brings with it many temptations to let others determine that, particularly parents and peers.  Negotiating a path between the two is no small accomplishment.  And the temptation recurs throughout life in one way or another, often seductively.  One of its manifestations comes in the form of avoiding conflict, being who someone else thinks we should be in order to keep the peace. 

John seems to have figured this out.  When those around him projected on him an alluring identity, that he might be the Messiah, he did not fall into the trap.  John, someone Jesus described as the greatest among people, knows who he is.  Those around him may not.  But he does.  That is all that matters.

It is something John has in common with his cousin Jesus.  Luke makes exactly this point in an interesting way.

Luke tells the story of the Baptism just a little bit differently than the way Matthew does.  In both Matthew and Luke there is a voice from heaven proclaiming the identity of Jesus as Jesus comes up from the water.  In Matthew, the voice says, “This is my Son.”  It speaks to the crowd.  In Luke, the voice says, “You are my Son.”  It speaks only to Jesus. 

What matters, at least at this point in the story, is not what anyone else may think about who Jesus is.  That comes later.  What matters here at the point at which Jesus’ public ministry is inaugurated is who Jesus thinks he is.  What matters is not whether or not anyone else at all hears the voice from heaven.  The text does not suggest that anyone did.  What matters is that Jesus hears it.  “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  The most important thing here is that Jesus knows who he is, no one else. And that is what carries him through to the end of the story.

It was the same with John.  And it is the same with us.  The thing that matters most, and maybe the only thing that really matters at all, is that we know who we are.  It is really nobody else’s business.  It is something nobody can take away.  It is, in the end, all there is. 

The point of our baptisms, I think, is precisely the same as the Baptism of Jesus.  That is why, no doubt, this is one of the preferred days for baptisms in the church year.  It is to teach us our fundamental identity, or to remind us of it, that we too are God’s children, God’s beloved.  “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.”  And in that we receive “an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”  (BCP, p. 308)

Nothing can change that.  Nothing can change who we are.  Nothing can change who we are born to be.  It is possible, of course, to forget it.  But even that does not change it.

Peace,

+Stacy