Seeing the World through the Heart

Daniel 10: 2-20a & Matthew 6: 22-23

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time/ 23^rd August 2009

 

    It's easy to skip right over these verses in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Coming after the Lord's Prayer, these verses are among Jesus' short aphorisms or sayings, quick teachings. They are embedded between the well-known warning against storing up treasures on earth and how a disciple cannot serve both God and wealth (6:19-21), followed by Jesus' invitation for us to consider the lilies of the field, how they neither toil or spin with anxiety, but grow trusting in the providence of a loving Father (6: 24-34). Wedged into between these admonitions is a two-verse teaching about sight, which is easy to miss and misunderstand, easy not to see. So let us look.

"The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness."

Now, if you're an ophthalmologist or optometrist, you probably would question this verse, because Jesus' description of how the eye works is biologically, clinically incorrect. Today, we understand the eye as a receptacle of light. The eye is a window that lets light in. Eyes are organs that detect light and send signals along the optic nerve to the brain. Sight is contingent upon the ability of light to get into the eye. That's why cataracts and other obstructions need to be removed in order to improve sight.

But how can the son of God who had a role in creating you and me not know how the eye works? There's obviously more going on here than meets the eye.

First of all, Jesus was merely reflecting the ancient understanding of how the eye actually works. They believed that the eye itself was a lamp, the actually source of light. There are several similar references in scripture, also within paganism. We find in Proverbs, "The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and good news refreshes the body (15:30)." The source of that light or lamp was deep within the self. The inner light that was mediated through the eyes and then projected out upon an object that accounts for seeing. The better the inner light meant the better the lamp of the eye, which meant the better one's view of the world.

Now if the inner light was bad or unsound the lamp of the eye would be unsound and dull, as well, which meant it would be difficult for you to really see the world with any clarity An unsound inner light results in confusion – because you can't see – and eventually darkness. This means that even in broad daylight, if your inner light was unsound or full of darkness, your perception of the would could still be distorted. Just imagine then how dark it would be if the inner lamp of your eye were dark, so that you could see, but not really see. You would have vision, but not sight or insight. Your entire world would be distorted, your perspective perverted. For it is possible to walk with vision, but not really see. From a theological perspective, it is possible to see, but really be blind.

Just before offering these words about seeing, Jesus says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (6:21)." To talk of one's heart was Jesus' way of describing the core of the self, the inner self or psyche or soul, who we really are. Jesus makes a connection between the inner light and heart; there is also a link between one's heart and one's ability to see. To put it another way, Jesus says the one who follows him in the kingdom sees with and through the heart. The Christian sees with the heart, through the heart.

When the heart is transformed by the grace of God we then look out with compassion upon the world. When hard, cold, indifferent hearts are warmed by God's love our outlook changes. When the human heart suffers and even breaks, we then look out and see the suffering and brokenness all around us to which formerly we were blind. When the heart has been quickened by a sense of the overwhelming mystery, majesty, and generosity of God, we then look out to the world struck by the sheer beauty and giftedness of life. The old world is renewed over and again by the renewing of our hearts. Everything is refigured and transfigured when we look at everything and everyone in the world with hearts rooted in God's love for us,

This is why Christians see the world differently from everyone else – it's what happens when we see with our hearts convicted by grace, seeing with the heart of God, so that God's concerns, God's heart, become the concerns of our hearts. For those in the Kingdom of God everything looks different. The Christian perceives the world with a unique kind of depth that has its origins deep within the heart renewed and renewing by Christ. And, the resurrection changes how we view everything. This morning we will close worship with an Easter hymn that speaks of the changed perspective the resurrection brings. Even our attitude toward money changes when hearts are transformed. All of life becomes aligned with the generosity of God and we see the abundance set before us.

Do you see the world with your heart, through your heart? Psychologists, since Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl Jung (1875-1961), have shown us that what we see or don't see – within us, in others, of reality – has to do with what's going on in our hearts and brains. Reality is malleable; it isn't fixed.

Contemporary physics is showing us that to a considerable degree the world becomes as we see it. There's a whole lot going on in front of our eyes but we cannot see it. We only see what we want to see. "This is because we only see what we believe is possible and what we deem possible is contingent upon patterns of learned behavior."

"For example, there is a story of what it was like when [Christopher] Columbus' [c.1451-1506] ships first arrived in the Caribbean. The people of the islands could not see the ships sitting out there on the horizon, because it was unlike anything they had ever seen before. There was no knowledge in their brain, [no framework,] no experience of what clipper ships looked like. The shaman, the religious leader, stood along the shore looking out at the horizon and noticed some ripples out in the ocean, but no ship. He didn't know the cause of the ripples. So he went out for several days and looked and looked and looked until eventually he began to see the ships. [The ships came into focus.] The shaman went and told others and because they placed their trust in him, they also began to see the ships." I learned about this account from watching the movie, "What the Bleep Do We Know," which if you haven't seen it, go and rent it (or buy it, which is what I did after renting it). It's full of similar examples.

This is a powerful illustration. Even though light was getting into their eyes, they still couldn't see the ships. Maybe Jesus knew more about quantum physics and the physical make up of the world than he let on. There's more going on around us all the time. We see what we believe is possible. We live in a participative universe; to a remarkable degree, the world becomes exactly what we bring to it. Jesus brought and brings us a new vision. Jesus brught and brings something new to the world and he invites us to see what he sees.

How are we seeing the world? If the inner eye of the heart is dark, then the world becomes very dark indeed. How about us? What are we looking at, but not seeing? Is God's abundance and presence at work, right in front of you, yet invisible? Can you see in the person beside you? At work in this church? Is God's calls before us, but we fail to see it? Are the needs of suffering people all around, but we cannot see them? What prevents you from seeing? Like the natives trusting the shaman, we need to trust Jesus' vision of the world and live into it. He will help us to see – because we need help to see. We each have blind spots.

We need visionaries, and artists, and poets who give us more to see. We can be especially thankful for the sharp, discerning eye of the poet.

The Nobel laureate, Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) had a great eye. He was a Christian and looked out upon the world with such a view. He could find the ordinary as the occasion for extraordinary praise and wonder. Listen and "see" how he catches an ordinary street scene:

But a paraplegic in my street

Whom they move together with his chair

From shade to sunlight, sunlight to shade,

Looks at a cat, a leaf, the chrome on an auto,

And mumbles to himself, 'Beau temps, beau temps.' [Beautiful time.]

It is true. We have beautiful time

As long as time is time at all.
 

For the paraplegic every living thing is the occasion for praise – beau temps, beau temps. So beautiful, beautiful time that allows us to see. The paraplegic sees what most of us overlook and Milosz helps us to see the paraplegic, whom we might have missed. Like Jesus, he calls us to see.
 

And when we see – really see the kingdom before our eyes – we know it and everything changes with it. We finally see what we've been missing. Suddenly there is an illumination and what is illuminated is nothing less than shear beauty.
 

Ten years ago the provocative movie "American Beauty" was released, with a brilliant screenplay by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes. It's a disturbing film, provocative. It's certainly not for everyone and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. Yet, there are so many poignant and gripping scenes in that movie which wake you up and force you to see reality in a new way.
 

At one point one of the leading characters is murdered, shot. While looking at the life drain away from his body, we hear his voice floating over the images of the crime. He says: "I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time… For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars…And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined my street…Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper…And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird. [And the people I loved.] I guess I could be pretty [ticked] off about what happened to me…but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at the once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst…And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life…You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry…you will someday."
 

Have there been moments in your life when you have been so struck by the exquisitely heart-breaking beauty of this world, the beauty of people, the beauty of creation, even the beauty of the most mundane, ordinary thing – like an folding metal chair, a pen, a paper clip – so much beauty that it's just impossible to take it all in, that fills your heart ready to burst like a balloon?
 

It's through hearts that expand and then break with love and beauty – like Jesus' own heart and his heart in ours – that transforms the way we look out and see the world, a world with people living, and suffering, and dying, and yet always yearning for life and ever more life. Hearts that expand and then break with love and beauty – that changes everything.
 

Prayer: Jesus – give us more to see. Give us hearts that expand and break in compassion, that through our broken hearts we might see the world anew, discovering the needs of your people, and discovering in everyone and every blessed thing your beauty that transfigures all. Amen.

 

                        

Who is Your Neighbor?

Luke 10: 25-37
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time/ August 16, 2009

The story of the Good Samaritan is probably Jesus’ best-known parable. It’s often seen as a simple lesson in the virtue of reaching out to one’s neighbor. And yet its familiarity might be why this story often fails to have the impact it must originally have had. It was theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) who reminded us that whenever we read scripture we need to approach it as if we’re hearing it for the very first time. We shouldn’t read scripture assuming there’s only one lesson or meaning to get out of the text, and then assume we understand it. Scripture doesn’t work this way. We return to scripture again and again to mine its treasures in order to hear what God might be saying today to us anew through the text. Otherwise scripture runs the risk of becoming a dead text. If we think we know its meaning, then there’s no motive to listen for the Word of God.

This is not a dead text. Our familiarity with this story might lead us to assume that we know what Jesus is talking about. The idea of a “Good Samaritan” has certainly made its way into the secular vernacular. We read this text, hear this parable and think that Jesus is offering a lesson about the kind of lives we’re supposed to live, about how we’re expected to treat one another, especially the stranger, that person in need we come across. We might think it’s a nice story designed to make us nice people. But, this is more than a story. It’s a parable.

Parables are not simply morality tales, providing guidelines for behavior. That’s not what parables are designed to do. Then what are they supposed to do? Parables are related to the Hebrew tradition of teaching through proverbs, riddles, and wise sayings. But as a form, they are utterly unique to the New Testament. Jesus is the first teacher to employ them and do so in remarkable ways. Parables are not simply illustrations or examples to help us understand complex theological ideas. They are short narrative fictions that always refer to some external symbol, they point to something else, designed to help us grasp something else. And that external symbol is the Kingdom or Realm of God. This is the filter through which we must hear Jesus’ words.

The parables are always intentionally shocking. They are designed to wake us up and turn us inside out. We return to them again and again in order for us to fathom the mysteries of God, so that the truths they contain might enfold us, encourage us, and penetrate our lives. Parables pack a powerful punch right to the gut of our complacency and dullness regarding the Kingdom of God. That’s what this parable does. And it packs a powerful punch – especially to the lawyer, the rabbinic scholar who tried to test Jesus by asking, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

First, this rabbinic scholar, this student of the Jewish Law, is asking this question not because he wants to know how to get into heaven. Indeed, that’s how you might have heard this text, that Jesus telling us if you want to get to heaven, then this is how you must behave. It’s not that simple. The lawyer is worried about the state of his soul. He wants to be assured that he is inheriting the fullness of life that comes with God’s covenant with the Hebrew people. For the lawyer, the way to the life of God is by following the Law (Torah) in every excruciating detail. He is obsessed with “getting it right,” obsessed with perfection, a cold, ethical exactitude, and is afraid of getting it wrong. We know that around this time there was a saying about the study of Torah that “the study of the Law is of higher rank than practicing it.” This guy knows the Law and his responses to Jesus are correct. But you can be technically observant, know all the answers, but be very far the intent of the law.

Jesus throws the question back at him, “You’re the expert, why are you asking me?” And, again, the lawyer’s response is scripturally correct. He pulls from Deuteronomy, he quotes the correct scripture. God has a claim over every aspect of our lives – heart, soul, strength, and mind. We are called to love God with the depth of who we are, with our innermost being, to love God with energy, strength, inner resolve and intellect. We are to withhold nothing back from God. The lawyer knows the answer. It’s in his head. He knows the Law. He knows the facts – but he is lost and far from the Kingdom of God, as far as Jesus is concerned. It’s not enough to simply know these things – we have to do them. Really do them.

But who is my neighbor? Ah, that’s the tricky part. Society during Jesus’ time was made up of strictly ordered boundaries – and you did not cross them. Society was hierarchical and patriarchal. There were Jews and then Gentiles – and Samaritans were in a class all by themselves. These were foreigners who were not expected to show sympathy to anyone. It was your religious duty as a Jew to maintain these boundaries all the time, because boundaries allowed groups to assert power over the other. Your “neighbor,” generally viewed, didn’t mean everyone, because there are limits. Your respect and care only extended to your particular group, you didn’t reach out to “those” people. Because many Jews at this time were anxious about whether they were keeping every aspect of the Law and because they were trying to maintain the strict boundaries of their society, they were also asking: What is the absolute limit required for me, what is the minimum I can get away with in order to fulfill the Law and no more? There was a reluctance to do anything more than the minimum.

The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho descends 3,300 feet over seventeen miles. It was a very dangerous place, full of bandits. This man, unidentified, is beaten, stripped, and left for dead. He has no identity, except need. The priest was expected to help – but he passed on the other side of the road. The Levite was the lay associate of the priest. Maybe he passed on the other side and maybe looked away because if this man was dead, the priest and Levite were obligated to bury him. And burying him would have made them ritually unclean for a time. It’s easier to just keep going.

Then Jesus knocks the lawyer in the gut. The next person who comes along is a Samaritan – and it is the Samaritan who does what the Law requires, indeed he does more than the minimum. He exceeds the Law and ignores the societal boundaries. Now it might be tough for us to see just how shocking it would have been for this lawyer to hear this story, but we must try. Jesus was being intentionally offensive in order to wake up this rabbinic scholar.

From a Jewish perspective, Samaritans were not good people. Only a non-Jew could see a Samaritan as good. They were pseudo-Jews, subhuman. They were a ritually unclean people, descendants of mixed marriages with people of Assyria (2 Kings 17: 6, 24). This account would have been earth-shattering, mind-blowing for the lawyer. It would have meant the collapse of his moral world order, the collapse of reality. It would have been offensive, shocking. He probably went away with a massive headache, dizzy, stunned, and in a daze. By depicting the hero as a Samaritan, Jesus was demolishing all the exclusionary boundary expectations of his time and dehumanized people – and calls us to do the same. Social position, categories – race, religion, region, gender – count for little. In a world where there were strict lines of insiders and outsiders, the Jesus movement sought to dissolve all these boundaries. It’s really quite extraordinary. So that after these categories are stripped away, what’s left is the individual, a person like you and me in need. The neighbor, then, becomes, as Kierkegaard (1813-1855) taught us, is the one who is standing before or beside you, no matter whom he or she might be. The neighbor is everyone. Breaking down the barriers that divide, you reach across them and you show mercy so that the one seen is thereby acknowledged as worthy of love and respect.

Why? Not because if you live this way – behave this way, being simply nice and civil – you get to go to heaven. Not because this is what God expects from us and therefore we have to do it, as if it were our duty. This is about more than merely ethical duty. If you hear this parable as only a command, as a law to be followed then you’re not hearing it. It’s more than a command. It would be cruel for Jesus to set this up as an ethical ideal knowing full well that no one can fulfill it and then judge us for failing. The gospel is good news precisely because it does not offer us an ethical legalism, does not offer us one more list of do’s and don’t’s, does not offer us yet one more empty strategy to improve our lives in quick, easy steps that we can master in a few weeks.

This parable packs a punch because it allows us to fathom the divine mystery and tells us something about God, the God who reaches out across the great divide that separates us from God and shows mercy. Ultimately, this parable is not a moral lesson for us, as much as it is for us a profound theological disclosure into the very depths of God’s being, of God’s nature. Jesus says, This is God. Through this parable Jesus seems to be saying, You’re far from God because your imaginations need to be re-ignited. You have to be open to the unimaginable. If you want to take part in the life of God, then you must rethink how you envision God. If you want to take part in eternity, then you have give up the ways you have thought about God. If you want to realize the promises of being a child of God (which is eternal life), then give up childish ways of looking at God, then think of God in this way.

God is like that Samaritan who reaches out for the victim and cares for the one left for dead along the side of the road. For Jesus to use this image, this metaphor would have been extremely offensive, scandalous – which is the point. God is like a Samaritan who will not walk on the other side of the road to avoid us. This is who God is – Yahweh, like the Samaritan, is not limited by destructive boundaries, nor does Yahweh act with a calculating heart, but is rich in mercy and free to show mercy. That’s who God is. God is rich in mercy.

When we know that God is merciful – that’s when we know how to be merciful. It cannot be taught, it has to be experienced, received. Loving our neighbor must not be divorced from the wider mercy of God. Our love for our neighbor is an expression of the love God has for us already. Those who show mercy (and receive mercy) are living in the Kingdom. We don’t worry about rewards. We don’t get the Kingdom if we’re merciful. We get to live in the Kingdom, when we know God is merciful.

When mercy is shown, we discover that the Kingdom is nowhere other than here. It’s the quality of life we receive when we know God’s mercy and with hearts that are generous and good, we reach out toward each other. We see our neighbor. We at times stop along the highways of our lives and notice people – really see people, hold them with high regard, not as an it, but as a thou, as Kierkegaard said, and struggle for what’s best for them and reach out to them, our neighbors. We see our neighbors as thou – the drivers that drive us nuts on the beltway, the person at work who drives you crazy, the person behind the check-out register at Safeway, fellow travelers (I had to remind myself of this while traveling over the last two weeks, encountering all kinds of people in many different airports. I was losing my patience.), the people we meet along the way who are usually invisible to you. They are all thou-s. And we treat them as such, not because we have to; but because we want to. This makes all the difference in the world. This is the difference, of whether we are near or far from the Kingdom.

Having More Than Enough

John 6: 1-21

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time/ 26^th July 2009

What do we do with a text like this? In a postmodern, hyper-rationalist, hyper-skeptical age, what do we do with this miracle story? Do we even believe in miracles? What is a miracle? Do we just accept this text at face-value – “The Bible said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me.” Is that good enough? Maybe. It’s not enough for many who hear a story like this, knowing that miracles like this don’t happen every day (if ever), exactly as they are described here. Yes, I believe Jesus was a worker of miracles. Yes, I believe that miracles still occur. But what does this text mean, where is the kernel of good news in this story in our day when resources are scarce, the multitudes are still hungry, and people are walking away from the church in Europe and North America feeling not fed, not satisfied, but empty? What do we do with a text like this?

Apart from trying to explain the miracle, at the very least we can say there’s a direct connection in Jesus’ ministry with God and food. There’s a link between spirituality and food, between our hearts and our stomachs. How we prepare food, eat food, share food all have theological dimensions. Think of the kosher dietary laws within Judaism. Think of the presence of a table at the center of Christian worship space. Within Christianity, we generally don’t have dietary laws (we love our potluck suppers too much). Some Christians promote vegetarianism. Many Roman Catholics won’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Although, even this rule was subject to change several years ago when the feast day of St. Patrick fell on a Friday during Lent. Several Catholic bishops suspended the rule for just March 17 so that the Irish could celebrate with corned beef and a pint of Guinness.

Food matters to God. How and what people eat matter to God. Food helps to proclaim God’s love in the kingdom. Some of the foods we eat have a religious background. To this day, the bulk of the fish hauled out of the Sea of Galilee are called St. Peter’s Fish – otherwise known as tilapia. One Presbyterian minister named Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), invented one of the first health foods – you know where this is going – a cracker for his congregation to eat, a Graham cracker in 1829. There was a sect of Christians known as the Millerites, who believed that Jesus would return in 1843. They waited and waited their way into what was called “the Great Disappointment.” Some believed that Jesus had in fact returned, but it was a spiritual, that is invisible advent. These Christians believed they were living in the already-present millennial kingdom; these Adventists came to believe that as part of their new identity they should invent alternative foods, signs of not being in the world. Peanut butter was later invented in this tradition, as well as a variety of cold breakfast cereals, including something called a “corn flake.” The corn flake was perfected by Adventist devotee John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) in a spiritual community known as the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Michigan. Food can be spiritual.

Crowds of people follow Jesus around the Sea of Galilee, hungry for his teaching and preaching. Jesus also knew that he (along with the disciples) had a responsibility to care for them. You can’t just feed the soul without also feeding the stomach; spirit and body have to be held together. To tend to one’s spirit one must also attend to the body; care for the body must include care for the spirit. In God’s kingdom, in God’s vision for this world, the two are never separated. They are inextricably linked.

John tells us, “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’” So, what is this sign? Is it the relationship between spirituality and food? Is it the linking of body and spirit? Not really. Every Jew would have assumed such things. Was the miracle the sign? Yes, but how do we hear – or see the sign – how do we hear this text as good news and food for our hungry souls. What is the miracle, what is the sign?

Yes, turning five loaves and two fish into enough food to feed 5,000. Yes, providing so much food that each was able to eat as much as he or she wanted. When they were “satisfied” – satisfied – they gathered up fragments, “so that nothing may be lost,” and filled twelve baskets of bread left over. There’s more leftover after the meal than before. Presumably, the leftovers were for the ones who served.

How did they go from Philip’s statement, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little,” to Jesus’ directive, “Gather up the fragments, so that nothing may be lost”? This seems to be the critical question for us, the heart of the text. How did they go from a skeptical response to Jesus’ statement, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” to having twelve baskets of bread leftover? How does this shift take place within the heart of God’s people? How does this turn, this move occur? For, that’s the amazing thing here. Yes, the actual feeding of the multitudes is significant. The fact of the miracle is important. But perhaps the more profound miracle here, easily overlooked, is the changed perspective. A transformation of perspectives among disciples, from their focus on the seemingly impossible, overwhelmed by the burdens of moment which averts their focus upon God and thus limits what we think God can do, to seeing what God can do.

The real miracle is a changed perspective. Whenever our perspectives change and we discover what God can do in us and through us, that’s a miracle – because all of us are so set in our ways and sometimes so stubborn, skeptical, and suspicious that it’s well nigh impossible for God to do anything through us. It has to with perspective.

Is the glass half-empty or half-full? It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? Yes, there are optimists and there are pessimists. The glass metaphor goes deeper than that. If it’s half- empty, then one must be sure to conserve what’s left because soon it will be all gone. The focus concentrates around absence and there’s anxiety around having nothing. If it’s half-full, then the assumption is on fullness, sufficiency, there’s something left to share.

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus said. “He said this to test” Philip. The question operates like a Buddhist koan. How we answer the question says something about our perspective. Philip clearly sees that there’s not enough. Andrew, on the other hand, tries to answer in the realm of the possible, “There is a boy here,” he says, “who have five barley loaves and two fish.” I want to say, “Yeah, Andrew, good answer! You get it. That’s the attitude.” He answers correctly. Then it fizzles out, “But,” he adds, “what are they among so many people?” That infernal, “But.”

Will there be enough? That’s what so many ask every day. I know that question and the emotions that go with it. My parents weren’t wealthy. Going out for dinner at McDonald’s or Burger King on Thursdays, payday, was a big treat. We never went without, but there was always anxiety around not having enough. My grandmother, being the thrifty Scot that she was, was always looking for ways to cut corners, to pinch pennies, to save, to conserve energy. I grew up with a perspective of scarcity, the glass as always half-empty. In the ways of the world – save, conserve – are noble and necessary ways to live. In a culture driven by economical impulses, fiscal responsibility is essential. We can’t be foolish. We need to be practical. In this economy, we have to prepare for the rainy day.

It was only much later did I realize that while this save and conserve philosophy might have served my financial well-being, it did not serve me well. It did not serve me when it came to the well-being of my soul and in matters of the heart. To act as if there’s not enough leads one to conserve and then ultimately to constrict the living of the heart. Very often the emotions underneath this way of being are full of fear and anxiety. While this save and conserve philosophy has served my financial well-being, it has not served me well when it comes to my understanding of God’s love for me and the world – it could not teach me about the abundance and extravagance of God’s love. The kind of love that conquers fear and helps to ease our anxiety, the love of God that gives and gives and pours forth, like a “fountain of all goodness,” as Calvin (1509-1564) liked to say. To act as if there’s enough – more than enough – leads us, in matters of the heart, to do the opposite of conserve, not to hoard but to share, not to constrict but to open up the flow of love. Matters of the heart ultimately overflow and shape what we do with our financial resources and our time and gifts. They’re all connected in God’s perspective.

Parker J. Palmer is one of the wisest men I know in our age. I don’t know him personally, but wish I did. His writings have been a companion to me for decades. He pretty much sums up the point of this “sign” or “miracle” here when he wrote, “The quality of our active lives depends heavily on whether we assume a world of scarcity or a world of abundance. Do we inhabit a universe where the basic things that people need – from food and shelter to a sense of competence and of being loved [and I would add healthcare] – are ample in nature? Or is this a universe where such goods are in short supply, available to those who have the power to beat everyone else to the store? The nature of our actions will be heavily conditioned by the way we answer those bedrock questions.”[1] This is what’s behind, I think, Jesus’ test question. Is there enough bread? Which is it: scarcity or abundance? Answering one way leads to the kingdom, the other way leads to exile. “In a universe of scarcity,” Palmer explains, “only people who know the arts of competing, even of making war, will be able to survive. But in a universe of abundance, acts of generosity and community become not only possible but fruitful as well.”[2]

Tragically, “every time we act on the scarcity assumption, we help create a world in which scarcity becomes a cruel reality.” It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the story of the loaves and fishes, “Jesus makes a dramatic attempt to break people of the scarcity habit by revealing the reality of abundance.” And the gospel of John is all about the abundance of God – whether it’s Jesus turning water into wine, that’s 180 gallons of water into the finest wine (John 2: 1-10); or telling us there are many dwelling places in the Father’s house (John 14:10), or feeding the multitudes. Jesus, speaking for God, embodying the love and presence, the very life of God, says to us, “I came that [you] might have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10).” “Abundantly” here, from the Greek perissón, means “superfluous,” or, in other words, “more than is really necessary.”[3]

In his Commentary on John 6, John Calvin said, “Christ plainly showed that he not only bestows spiritual life on the world, but that his Father commanded him also to nourish the body. For abundance of all blessings is committed to his hand, that, as a channel, he may convey them to us; though I speak incorrectly by calling [Jesus] a channel, for he is rather the living fountain flowing from the eternal Father.”[4]

This is where I need to be, where I want to live, with this mindset, claiming this truth, reminded of God’s abundance, receiving from God’s abundance, and free to make decisions living my life from that perspective. Yet, so often, our faith mirrors that of Philip and Andrew, who could not see past the present and what we don’t have. We tend to base our living on our own scarcity or even on our own fears of insufficiency. So we hoard and save and worry and end up living life in safe, but small measures. “We pull back when we should push forward. We give in to our fear of a shortfall rather than exercising faith in God’s abundance. But Christians are constantly on the call to go places where we have never been, to do things that we have never attempted and to be things we have never envisioned.”[5]

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Where? From out of the abundance of God. For Jesus knew, with God there’s always more than enough. So the crowd sits down on the tall grass. He takes loaves – takes what is available. He offers it up to God and gives thanks. The multiplication follows thanksgiving. Then he shares it, from out of his assumption of abundance. And after everyone is satisfied, there’s plenty leftover. That’s what God’s kingdom is like. That’s the kind of good news we hunger for. It’s the kind of miracle we can experience. It all depends upon our perspective.

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[1] Parker J. Palmer, The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 124.

[2] Palmer, 125.

[3] Cleon L. Rogers, Jr. & Cleon L. Rogers III, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 206. The same word is used in John 6: 12 to describe the leftovers.

[4] John Calvin, Commentary on John, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, www. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom34.xii.i.html

[5] Charles Hoffman, “More Than Enough,” The Christian Century, July 25, 2006, 18.

Image: Mosaic on the church floor in Tabgha, the site associated with Jesus' feeding of the multitudes, situated on the northern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee.

Finding Rest for the Soul

Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56
16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time/ 19^th July 2009

“Come away to a deserted place,” Jesus said, “all by yourselves and rest awhile. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”

Come away. Rest awhile. That was his command; but we often don’t hear the text as a command, as an imperative, do we? We know of Jesus’ other imperatives: “Follow me (Mk 1:17).” “Love one another (Jn 13:34).” “Let the children come to me (Mk 10:13).” “Forgive, if you have anything against anyone(Mk 11: 25).” But, “Come away. Rest awhile,” we don’t hear this as a command – or even good advice – meant for our souls. We hear it as an option, or a luxury if we can find the time. We don’t have time to break away, we think, to rest, because we’re too busy, there’s too much to do.

You can sense the frenetic activity in this text. The disciples have just returned to Jesus, eagerly reporting on their mission activity. Jesus sent them out to the villages, two by two, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. They were “coming and going,” Mark tells us, that “they had no leisure even to eat.”

Coming and going; forgetting to eat. No time for leisure. Sounds like our lives, doesn’t it? We’re coming and going, 24/7, and not all of it kingdom work. In our age we’re coming and going and coming and going and at times not even sure where we’re going or why or for what purpose. The frenzied, feverish pace of our frenetic lives is one of the deep illnesses of our age. People are working more and more. Even with our wealth and technological advances, we’re still pushing ourselves harder than ever. “Time-off” or “down time,” or “leisure time” are becoming increasingly more difficult to find – and enjoy. And when we do take the time, we soon discover it’s not enough.

Do we work too much as Americans? Are we too obsessed with work? When do we take the time to rest? Most Europeans, for example, have about thirty days of vacation each year: six weeks in Switzerland, twenty-five days in France; thirty days in Germany, plus holidays. They might not have the same standard of living as most Americans. They might not have as much as we do. From my time in Europe, it seems that they have a quality of life and approach to life, a far healthier balance between work and leisure, that we Americans could learn a lot from.

Thanks to the formation of unions in America – “the people who brought you weekends” – most Americans don’t have a 10- or 12- hour work day or a six day work week (although those in upper management in corporate America certainly do). Since 1850, the average work week has been reduced by 31 hours. During the Depression in the 1930s there was a move to shorten daily work hours. Henry Ford (1863-1947) believed that shorting the work day workers would then consumer more in their free time. Today, vacations, time off for maternity (and paternity), and even “family leave,” are standards parts of a benefits package. With all this free time, why are we busier than ever?

The amenities of modern life don’t necessarily enhance our experience of leisure. A community of Amish people were once offered a television set. Do you how they responded? “If we were to add television to our lives, what would we take away? Conversation with our children? Reading? Praying?” They graciously declined.[1]

The average American works closer to 50 hours per week. But it’s really higher. Add to this figure that many carry more than one job, have longer commutes (sometimes an hour or more in each direction), and then add the ubiquitous phenomenon of email and text messaging and Blackberries following us around, many are working even when away from the office. People are always in work mode, it seems, rarely, truly detached or distracted from work. It’s always there.

This means there’s even more pressure to make the use of “free time.” Eight hours for work; eight hours for sleep; eight hours for recreation. That’s how Robert Owen (1771-1858), social reformer and early founder of Socialism, hoped to carve out the day for those who lived in his social communal experiment in New Lanark (near Glasgow), Scotland – back in 1817. In 1836, crowds were marching in the streets of the U.S. demanding an eight hour work day (which didn’t come until much later). For many today it’s ten hours for work; six hours for sleep; maybe eight hours for everything else – shopping, chores, transportation, answering emails, helping children with homework, meals, reading the newspaper (if we even get to the paper), visiting the doctor, going to church, prayer – the list just grows. It’s not surprising that people have stopped going to worship on Sunday because, as I hear (and at some level, understand), “It’s the only day I can really rest.” Saturdays are filled with chores; Sunday is the only day to sleep in, I hear.

Even prayer gets shortchanged because we feel we have to make the most of the “free time” we have, we have to be productive. Sometimes prayer seems like an inefficient use of one’s time – for how can one judge its effectiveness? We have to be productive.

Even when we do take time for play or for leisure, it’s rarely an end in itself. We’re driven by results. When we’re exercising at the gym is it for the sheer joy of exercising or are we doing it only because we want to lower our heart rate or bad cholesterol count?

We can blame our Puritan forbears for this. “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” We can blame our Scots-Presbyterian forebears too. In his classic text on economics, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1725-1790), born in Scotland, known as the father of economics, and a staunch Presbyterian, believed that “activity is only truly productive if it takes raw material and makes it into something useful; the idle produce nothing.”[2]

When we are idle or engaged in activity that doesn’t produce measurable results – like prayer, meditation, or thinking, or contemplating, or worshipping or sleeping – then we soon feel guilty.

And so we work more and more – sometimes because we really love our work, but more often than not we work hard because we are driven, we have to, to improve our standard of living, to increase our wealth, to get out of debt, to provide for our families, to pay college tuition, or o prove to others or ourselves what we are really capable of. But at what cost?

Sleep deprivation is pandemic in our society. An article in Psychiatric Times entitled, “Sleep Deprivation, Psychosis and Mental Efficiency,” Dr. Stanley Coren, head of the Human Neuropsychology and Perception Laboratory at the University of British Columbia, writes that insufficient sleep takes a considerable toll on our bodies, on our mental health, and is potentially disastrous for others. The invention of the light bulb is partially to blame for this. In 1910, before the electric light bulb, the average person slept nine hours each night. In addition to the problem of financial debt in our society today, we’re also dealing with sleep debt. Coren found “our societal sleep debt is so great that simply losing one additional hour of sleep due to the spring shift of daylight savings times can increase traffic accident rates by 7 % and death rates due to all accidents by 6.5%.”[3]

“Come away,” Jesus said. “Rest awhile.” Into the frenetic, crazed rush of our lives come these words, this gracious imperative:

STOP!

Come away. Rest awhile. Even the Lord of the universe, heaven-bent on the work of the kingdom, who commissioned his people to work, to serve, to follow, knows that in order for us to do the work God calls us to do, in order to be fully human – as Jesus was fully human – we need to step away from it all and rest.

Chart Jesus’ movement through the gospel of Mark and you’ll find a gracious rhythm here: work, then rest, in order to work, in order to rest. The rest wasn’t doing nothing, because included it was a time to pray and to worship. In compassion, Jesus is saying to his over-worked followers, “Come away.” You need to get away from the crowds and the endless expectations of others to a lonely place, a deserted place, or, literally, a private place.

There’s some resistance on their part, they seem be extra-earnest in their endeavors. Read the text carefully. “Come away to a deserted place – all by yourselves – and rest a while.” “All by yourselves.” In other words, Jesus says to them, “Yo, I mean you.” I’m talking to you, not to them, not to the crowds pressing in. You need to rest. The literal meaning of “rest” here means, “to cease.” STOP. But implied in it is to cease, to rest in order to gain strength. The word was used of soldiers resting and of land being allowed to rest, so that work, so that the bearing of fruit can take place at a later time and place.[4]

If you noticed, the lectionary reading skipped about twenty verses. In these verses, Jesus fed at least at least 5,000 people, and walked on water (!), and then in verse 53, healed the sick; wherever he went, people begged him for healing, eager just to get a touch of his cloak. Jesus packed a lot into a day. Even though he commands the disciples to rest here – and they had some time away together – the work of God continued, the work of compassion continues. Even though Jesus doesn’t rest much here, we know he took time away to rest, to pray, to reconnect with God, to be grounded. Without that connection, that grounding Jesus, too, would have been consumed by the needs of the people, he would have succumbed to compassion fatigue. If Jesus took rest seriously, then we have to all the more. The needs of God’s people are enormous and never ending; we have to be prepared.

We have to carve out time to rest – to sleep, to care for our bodies, but also to pray, to worship, to do those things that feed our souls, that open up and bring joy to the heart, that ground us, that remind us who we are and whose we are – and who we aren’t and whose we aren’t. We have to do this, because no one else is going to do it for us.

The psychiatrist, Carl Jung (1875-1961) was right, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.” Why? Because hurry takes us away from the things that matter and distracts us from the things of the heart – it takes us away from God. It’s difficult to listen to God when we’re on the go all the time. “How can we shoulder life’s burdens if we have no contact with [Christ] who is the Lord of all good life? How can we do God’s work unless in God’s strength? And how can we receive that strength unless we seek in quietness and in loneliness the presence of God?”[5]

Hurried lives usually point to hurried hearts. I think contemporary pastor and writer, John Ortberg, is on to something when he makes this crucial connection, “Hurry is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart.”[6] We all suffer from a chronic condition that plagues us from time to time: Hurry Sickness. And the “most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love. Love and hurry,” Ortberg writes, “are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have.” If we’re hurried, sleep deprived, in need of rest – when we’re “cranky, whiny, angry,” and even “sad” – it’s very difficult to be compassionate, loving, and caring of the people who are right in front of us, around us, it’s difficult loving God, loving ourselves.[7]

Come away. Rest. It’s not a luxury in God’s kingdom; it’s a command. It’s required. Like keeping the sabbath, it’s a law designed to give us life. It’s a word of wisdom and grace for our souls. If only we can hear it as such. Jesus knows what’s best for us. Stop. Cease. Slow down. Rest. Eliminate hurry. There’s no indication in scripture that Jesus ever hurried. He knew the proper rhythm of life. And he invites us to do the same – “because, by definition, we can’t move faster than the one we are following.” And – sometimes, just sometimes – the single most spiritual thing we can do – is sleep.[8]

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[1] Story told by Jim Rice, “Why Play: Contemplation, freedom, and the spirit of leisure,” Sojourners Magazine, January-February 1997. Rice’s extremely insightful article provides the contemporary social context for my reading of the Mark text.

[2] Rice’s summary of Adams. The complete title of this text, the first modern work of economics was, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published on 9^th March 1776 in Edinburgh.

[3] Stanley Coren, “Sleep Deprivation, Psychosis, and Mental Efficiency,” Psychiatric Times (March 1, 1998), Vol. 15, No. 3. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54471

[4] Cleon L. Rogers, Jr. and Clean L. Rogers III, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 80.

[5] William Barclay’s questions that emerge from his reading of this text, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelpia: Westminster Press, 1956), 156-157.

[6] John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 84.

[7] “We get cranky,” “whiny,” “angry,” and “sad” – answers given by the children during the Children’s Message, when asked, “What happens when you don’t get enough sleep or rest?”

[8] Ortberg, 88.

Photo: Carving in a prayer bench in the cloister of Iona Abbey, Iona, Scotland (www.flickr.com).