Who am I to you?

Periodically, in order to get a quick dose of news in the morning, I will turn on the Today show, which, with millions of daily viewers, has been the envy of television executives for years. It’s a strange mix of spots, which offers a uniquely American perspective – not only on the events it reports but, also, on how modern life itself can be understood. In their well-established format, hard news stories are followed by softer, common interest spots, and these, in turn, are complemented by various contests, demonstrations, and musical performances. What starts in earnest, two hours later, culminates in pleasantries. A diplomat might be interviewed about the latest tragedies of war, or a series of reporters might offer wrenching news of human disaster, but soon enough, before a half hour is finished, this is conveniently tempered by a pastiche of movie reviews, food tasting, product placement, celebrity gossip, personal makeovers, and fashion tips. All of this, then, is tied together by a personable team of hosts who casually banter among themselves and, at regular intervals, thrill the crowd gathered outside by engaging them in friendly chatter. It’s like a visit to a television mall, where viewers can saunter from store to store, popping in and stepping back out with ease, window-shopping – always with the implicit promise that, amid all that is offered, there will be plenty that is enticing and delightful. The harshness of life morphs into the ease of lifestyle. News shifts to entertainment. Even the strife of war is, eventually, soothed, perhaps by a guided tour through the great new gadgets for back to school shoppers. Horatio Alger is alive and well, dressed in the contemporary garb of a thousand possible diversions from the travails that others suffer.

Periodically, added to this, are surprises that come from the people who wait at Rockefeller Center, eager for a few moments of television fame. They stand for hours, ready for that passing instant when they can wave and cheer, or, if they are lucky, announce a birthday or send a message to friends back home. And sometimes, this tightly framed moment is used to do something dramatic, like offer a marriage proposal. In the imagination, this can be the perfect stage. The hosts are amiable, the crowd is giddy, everyone loves a wedding, and all the nation can share in an exciting burst of happiness. What could be better?.. Unless, of course, the proposal is not gladly received, and the invitation is refused. Then, what could be worse?

Several months ago, a young woman stood shocked and unprepared, and after several halting seconds, which seemed like an eternity, she managed to answer her friend’s question, “Will you marry me?” with only these painful words: “I don’t think so.”

It was excruciating to watch, not only because a very intimate interchange had gone so badly, but, all the more so, because a dreadful sense of seriousness had been interjected into a spot that was supposed to be sheer fun and joy. A refusal was inconceivable. This was New York. This was national television. This was Katie Couric with a microphone and a smile. This was supposed to be a fairy tale come true. But the only person who could answer was the one who had the gall to interrupt the dream, because, even under the sway of lights and cameras and media stars, a greater, sterner reality had to be recalled. This was about her life. This profoundly involved her actual future. The question posed had no effect on any others there. The hosts, the crowd, the viewers might have been able to swoon for a minute, until a commercial break gave them something else to think about. But for this young woman what was at issue was literally everything about her. And she had the integrity to know this and the courage to respond from the depth of that reality. When everyone thought she would be swept away, she firmly planted her feet. The resulting silence was terrible. The hosts were stymied. The director quickly cut away to an ad for delectable, frozen diet foods, which offered maximum decadence with minimum guilt. But the sting could not be erased – because it, above all else, revealed what was true and lasting and uncomfortable in its singular genuineness. It was awful, but it was, exactly in this hurt, a powerful reminder about what is wonderful when our words reflect our lives, when, by them, we know that everything is at stake.

The incident we have heard this morning from John’s Gospel bears similar import. It comes at the conclusion of a long series of events, wherein, initially Jesus attracts a large number of followers. Crowds pursue him because they believe he will make their lives easier. He will provide them what they need and what they want. He had showed that he could feed five thousand; he could therefore grant them anything else, whatever they dreamed.

But soon enough, he disappointed the crowds, for what he told them was that he himself was God’s promise – it was not what he could miraculously supply, goods that he brought or personal gain that he bestowed. He himself, and only he, was the fulfillment of the covenant. He was the manifestation of God’s intimacy with his creation, a sign of love that, in the cold light of day, to those who chased after him, suddenly looked a lot more like sacrifice than reward. And at this, the crowds fled. They were more inclined to find a different means to their dreams than to try to see how God was actually God in his compassion with their struggles.

Watching this, Jesus then turned to the twelve who he had chosen, and he asked a stinging question, made sharper by his own despair. It is a question of probing seriousness. “And what about you,” he asked, “Do you also wish to go away?” It is a proposal of sorts, an investigation of commitment. The fairy tales had been disposed of. All the fantasies that trailed behind Jesus had been eliminated. He had deflated them all. He stood alone, being himself, alone, the gift of God, and he wondered then whether this was enough for them, whether his closest disciples would choose this reality.

It was a point of great decision, that allowed no drift, no diversion, no blithe smile or shrug of ambiguity. In this question, everything was at stake. And Peter’s response returned unwaveringly. He met this inquiry with matching directness. “Lord,” he said, “To whom then shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” It was a deeply human response, which, in just a few words, disclosed all the complexity that commitment involves. There was no waffling in his reply, but there was no boastfulness either. He was certain about his connection to Jesus, but he had no sense of its ultimate consequences. There was no magic conferred, no advantage gained in this. The tone of Peter’s answer almost sounds like resignation, rather than boisterous gladness. Yet he acknowledged what was pertinent, which is that in Jesus he saw God being God. He saw the integrity of this and its absolute genuineness. It was the one true thing that trumped all else. So he stayed.

Hearing this story, Jesus’ question is also turned toward us, and it is timely, for the great impetus of our culture is to make faithfulness and religion a matter of dreams and desires, a realm where anyone’s opinion about God has just as much legitimacy as anyone else’s. Different paths are different paths, but everyone is walking: so it is said. Each is as good as the other. One dreams, another imagines, and so we spin religious fantasies that seem good and fitting and helpful. It would be so nice, some contend, if only we all learned to play along and allowed God to be all things to all people, and thus a personal convenience and, like so much else, a pleasant diversion when you have the spare time.

But the question posed is direct and scandalously personal. “Who am I to you?” Jesus asks, “and, touching the reality of God, seeing fulfillment actually standing before you, do you also wish to go away?” Play is so much easier than decision. But is it true and does it endure?

In our lives we are free to choose what we believe, but this does not necessarily mean that we are free to choose whatever we want, however it seems to fit, randomly picking up this and discarding that, treating religion as a vast wardrobe of clothes that come in and go out of fashion. For then God is just a costume – and is not God. Which makes everything false.

The freedom that is true is the opportunity to plant one’s feet, not triumphantly, but, recognizing the singular vulnerability of the questioner, to reply with humility and an honesty that encompasses your whole life. “Look at me,” said Jesus. “Now… do you wish to go away.” This isn’t fanciful. It’s the inquiry of one person standing before us… and, as such, it’s everything, with awful, wonderful consequence. And what words, then, in reply, reflect your life?

The lining of the world

As he was approaching his eightieth year, the poet Czeslaw Milosz sat down at his desk and wrote this line: “When I die, I will see the lining of the world.” It’s a beautiful thought and such a lovely hope, that beneath all the noise and scattered intentions of human events there remains the unshaken assurance of a lasting consummation, so subtly expressed as “the lining of the world.”

In the span of his life, Milosz had witnessed much. Born in Poland, he endured the Nazi occupation and was one of the few who survived the brutal suppression of the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto. He watched as many of his young friends and colleagues were marched away, or beaten or summarily shot. After the war, he joined the ranks of the millions of displaced. Central Europe was shattered, so he moved first to France and then, after several years, to California. And he spent his time, thereafter, examining the world with words, mining its riches with his eyes and his pen, marking its wonders, its mysteries and tragedies. The measure he took was rarely expressed in sweeps of vast generalities and themes. He chose, rather, to look intently at what was right at hand. This always proved enough, whatever it was, to invite his careful exploration and then his poetic caress. He lived, thus, in such a way that he these words would have meaning and integrity: “--- When I die, I will see the lining of the world.”

This single line continued into a full verse, and Milosz added these expectations:
[I will see then] the other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
The true meaning, ready to be decoded.
What never added up will add up,
And whatever was incomprehensible will be comprehended.

Imagine believing that the world has such wholeness and that, ultimately, that completeness will be given us to see and appreciate. It’s an old world vision, evocative of a far country and a distant time, before cell phones and multimedia and the disparate chatter of our present age, when life was not so much about pleasure but destiny, when people yearned not so much for adventure but for fulfillment.

But we should make no mistake, Milosz was a modern man too. He was well aware of the disenchantment that has often come alongside our progress, how it has become increasingly difficult in the profusion of global diversity to perceive something more than randomness or envision a single purpose that literally holds everything together. His first verse, so compelling, was matched by a second opposite verse, equally unflinching. But this one, in stoic resignation, set forth a flurry of spiraling questions:
--- And if there is no lining to the world? [he wondered]
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on a branch? If night and day
Make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?
What then? What if there is no more to life than just exactly what we see, with nothing lying hidden, waiting beneath: no definite form, no hope for resolution, no conclusion that reconciles all things, but only the constant passing away of happenstance, within which we tumble about, for better or worse? Is this, in truth, all there is? It’s a view that is fast becoming the general assumption of our current century, ranging from the fleeting mottos of pop culture to the hardened axioms of evolutionary psychology. Carpe diem.

Milosz, however, answered his own questions with an equally immediate third and final verse. He answered with neither the certainty of his first verse, nor the resignation of the second, but, splitting the difference between both possibilities, he suggested that we live always somewhere in-between. We live in-between glorious promise and simple acquiescence to the passing of time. And being thus situated, our central role in life, he claimed, is to see what is blithely taken as profane with eyes that can imagine all the world to be sacred. This is his conclusion:
[Even if there is no lining to the world] there will remain
A word wakened by lips that perish,
A tireless messenger who runs and runs
Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,
And calls out…

Our unique responsibility as human beings is this blessed task, to lend wisdom to the world, naming what we see, lifting it up for observation, and hallowing every small thing as intrinsic to God’s kingdom, which, waiting fruition, is still being revealed in part every day, in thrush and mountain, moon and stars. Wisdom ties together and makes whole, and this capacity has been given to us, to look at all that happens and, with confidence, to envision all the variation and contradiction subsumed within God’s redemption. This work isn’t fanciful; it’s imperative. It’s necessary to soul and life. It’s the work by which we are both human and humane. It’s our participation in the image of God.

Each of the readings we have heard this morning asks of us this diligence. The writer of Proverbs urges that we move beyond simplicity, by which he meant our merely falling in line with the base commerce of the world, the endless ebb and flow of bickering and trading that naturally fills so much of our time. Paul warns against the foolishness of life that never achieves any depth, when everything is flattened by personal indulgence, in pursuits that have no lasting effect. His instructions, that we sing hymns and give thanks from the heart, prompt us to continually draw out something enduring, something of the eternal in all our interactions. And Jesus draws this all the closer, declaring that God’s kingdom is not an infinite abstraction. It is, rather, his complete devotion given to each and all persons, in himself, broken and divided, so that we may be reconciled.

Such wisdom is not cleverness or ingenuity or even, as we so esteem it today, sheer intellect. It is intimacy without borders, our positioning of ourselves between the hope of heaven and the great array of our experiences with such trust and insight that God’s glory may be made evident in us, by our own manifestation of God’s gathering together of all the world’s disparate fragments.

Wisdom is a rare commodity today. The world news shows daily how we have been caught up once more in the fractious hostilities of competing ideologies. And in ways small and great, we have learned to be more intent on expediency than patience; we are more inclined to be pragmatic than prayerful.

Nonetheless, we, the church, meet. We gather together, not merely by happenstance, but, explicitly, as a communion, as people bound sacramentally, across every real and imaginable divide. We give voice here to such faith that strangers should be welcomed and even enemies should be loved. We offer common prayer. We share a common cup. This worship is the exercise of wisdom, in a world that desperately needs this witness. This may seem mundane – one more habit among many, one more obligation, one more Sunday morning spent – but in truth, what we do and say and attest to here is both radical and profound… For we touch upon the lining of the world, and as Czeslaw Milosz so eloquently understood, this wisdom colors everything with eternal meaning.

All you need is a dollar and a dream

The New York State Lottery used to run a series of radio ads, all of which ended with a voiceover that casually suggested that life might just be this easy: “All you need,” we were encouraged, “is a dollar and a dream.”

It’s a masterful line, one that could make anyone imagine for a moment that winning is within reach of everyone. Who doesn’t have a dollar? Who doesn’t have a dream?

The nasty little problem with this, however, is that the relationship between money and dreams is a lot more complicated than we usually suppose. When we buy the ticket, the dream is hitting the jackpot, spending a dollar to get several million more. But after the pro forma photographs are taken, when winners stand, a bit stupefied, holding an oversized check, a huge project of translation then begins. Checks are meant to be cashed, and all that fresh, crisp currency is soon enough put to use acquiring all the other things that our dreams include – houses and cars and boats and trips, a great stream of toys, and perhaps, best of all, the sudden attentions of a really dreamy person who, before, showed no interest whatsoever. It sounds so simple.

What several decades of statistics reveal, though, is that for the large majority of winners, their winnings don’t buy them their dreams. In actuality, what they obtain is not fulfillment, but stuff – mountains of it – and with this, unexpected headaches, recurrent problems, surprising debt, and a predictable entourage of connivers looking for crafty ways to get a sizable portion of the jackpot for themselves. For some winners, life’s hassles don’t change much. The scales just adjust. For others, what they find they have won looks much more like a very real nightmare.

This gives us reason to pause. Most of our dreams come and go without ever being tested. We simply enjoy them, without seriously scrutinizing their legitimacy. That’s what makes them so pleasant. We don’t stop midway, to carefully draw out all their consequences or match them up, point by point, with the many details of our lives. We spin them freely and loosely. They float about in our minds, never really tempered by what their realization would mean. And in those cases when they do indeed come true, often, what we experience ceases to look like what we dreamt at all. Our dreams made real can seem as mundane and entangling as the rest of life, much to our chagrin.

The whole book of Deuteronomy is a treatise on precisely this issue. After forty years wandering through the Sinai desert, the people of Israel are on the verge of realizing their most central dream. They are about to cross the Jordan river into the promised land. They themselves are about to become the fulfillment of the covenant that God had made, many generations before, to Abraham. And at this historic moment, as they lean intently forward, Moses forces them all to pause, and he delivers a lengthy sermon, 33 chapters, which is his own emphatic warning that what they will gain, in wonderful riches, may well, still, disappoint their expectations. What they had long dreamt, spinning fantasies while trudging through the inhospitable wilderness, may not, in reality, seem so dreamy. The land may fall short of their hopes, and if they are not assiduously mindful of this, Moses said, all their joy may collapse into the same old daily routine of anxiety, desire, greed and violence. Wanting more, wanting better, wanting all that they can imagine and imagining that this is what they deserve: this form of dreaming, he says, leads only to grumbling, dissent, struggle and bitterness.

Foreseeing this, at the most critical time, as the people of Israel are salivating at the prospects before them, Moses tries valiantly to turn them around to see something more impressive and foundational. What is more important is not what lies ahead, he declares, it is what lies behind, in what they have actually experienced and lived. The fulfillment of their dream is not primary. What takes precedence is the care that they, in fact, received all throughout the time of their wandering. God was not absent then. Having no food, God provided manna. Finding no water, God produced water from solid rock. Now, as they are poised to enter a land of springs and fountains, of milk and honey, Moses cautions that, having much, they will be at risk of forgetting what they had been given all along, and, having much, they will dream, then, all the more, only of having more. They will forget how they had been sustained, and, awash in affluence, they will slip into the habit of continuously pining for whatever yet remains unacquired. Such forgetfulness imposes a sense of scarcity even when we are inundated with goods – with all the stuff that, in our dreams, we presume will make us secure and happy. Against this, Moses instructs that hope means nothing apart from memory, that gratitude accomplishes more than desire, and, most significantly, that it is more important to pray than it is to dream – for prayer works completely oppositely.

Prayer is essentially the exercise of acute remembrance. As such, it is the way we may repeatedly discover how God has provided what we have needed well before and well beyond our asking. It is the way we learn that thanksgiving waits for nothing and requires no excuse. If we look at where we are and where we have been – if we look intently enough and are not immediately diverted by the restless press of ever-spawning new wishes – we may see that, in a scope beyond words, God’s grace precedes our every request for what we imagine we still lack. Prayer opens reality in its fullness, God’s infinite generosity, by which, then, we may claim in our own lives, at all times, the legitimacy of satisfaction, of trust, of confidence, satiation, and peace.

As the people of Israel were tipping on the edge of unprecedented prosperity, Moses redirected their sights. He knew that if they forgot God’s faithfulness to them in the wilderness, then achieving the promised land would serve only to fan the flames of wanting more and unleash ambitions, greed, corruption, and attempted conquest without end. And, as much of the rest of the Old Testament attests, Moses was not particularly successful. Soon enough, what Israel received wasn’t enough, and endless battles followed, chronicled in the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the prophets. Today, at this very moment, in Lebanon and Israel, these ancient dreams among ancient people continue to inflict new wounds, in a conflict that seems as intractable as God is eternal, in hatred and violence that, after thousands of years, still has no apparent solution.

Deuteronomy is a sermon that must be regularly preached.

We should listen to Moses’ address, intently, and strive then to confirm among ourselves that, indeed, praying is more important than dreaming... Now I am deeply aware that this sounds like a typically religious admonition, utterly predictable and entirely too pious for progressive, enlightened, educated, professional, protestant Episcopalians in the modern world. But this is because we are saddled with a terribly erroneous vision of what prayer is and does. We have warped it into the idea that it is our way of twisting God’s arm and, thus, enlisting God’s supernatural power on behalf of the dreams we voice. This, however, is only a supreme form of idolatry, the remaking God in our own image – when prayer should be the disciplined work of realizing that we don’t need our dreams to be happy or fulfilled, if we but pause to see how thoroughly we have already been gifted, even in what seems to be wilderness to us.

How much do you dream? How much do you pray? What do we gain by dreaming? What can prayer accomplish? Our world is intensely driven. Dreams abound, with hard edges, pushing us toward dubious promise while instilling clear anxiety. It may be that what we need most is the capacity to look in the opposite direction, not forward and away but back and in, in order to grasp hold of what is real and sure and marvelous, that, miraculously, without our demanding it, has been given – more than we can calculate. This is the first manner of the presence of God. And when we understand this, which is true peace, to the point where we can live it and model it, then, as Christians, we will be the catalyst that powerfully contributes the possibility of liberation from the vast problems of the world.

Not to dream but to pray.

They have methodically discovered the souls of one another, which, once disclosed, shows where love lies

Over the course of some years in ministry, I have had many occasions to speak with couples as they prepare for marriage. It provides me the opportunity to ask, in many different ways and modes, why they would want to do such a thing. And I can report that the overwhelming response I have received has been some measure of the attraction that each sees in the other. They share the same interests and hobbies, they say. They feel that they have the same goals. Amid the churning circles of social engagements and evenings spent clubbing, meeting and greeting, sizing up and figuring out, someone appears who, serendipitously, seems broadly compatible. She’s beautiful. He’s dependable. They both love the water. So it goes, back and forth, weaving a narrative of lovely coincidence and convenience.

There are, of course, exceptions to this chorus. But, more often, it is extraordinarily difficult to get couples to talk directly about one another. They talk, instead, about what they are pursuing, the style of life that they hope to have, the plans they have made for work and play, the ideas they have for what would make them happy. Only rarely, very rarely, do they drop all these intervening matters in order to look yearningly at one another, to declare that, in fact, none of these issues are primary, because it is their love for each other that alone is important – a pronouncement against which all else pales.

I must admit that I can’t blame anyone for this. In the reality of our present time, even after several years cohabitating, it is certainly possible for couples not to know one another. We are not a culture inclined toward personal reflection or the expression of intimacy. Life is doing things, getting things, adventuring. How could we reasonably expect, then, that couples in their prime years of conquest should be any different. They are openly enamored of one another…
But love is harder to find, usually buried beneath multiple layers of ulterior hopes.

Marriage a scandalous thing, and it’s time that we break it from the leaden shackles of its legal and institutional conformity. We have long lost the sense that marriage is really ludicrous. We have made it mundane. Yet if you listen with even half an ear to the vows, it is clear that its promises are outrageous and they are impossible to guarantee. For better or worse, for richer for poorer: if weddings weren’t so awash in sentimentality, they would be offensive, because no one who stands and repeats these words can know what they will demand. For the past several years, furious debates have been raging about gender and marriage. But, if we were at all attentive to what is actually said in this service, between any two persons, this central scandal is far more legitimately controversial. Why do we sanction marriage at all? Why do we trust that we can make such promises sincerely?

We do because there are some who, in time, generally after thirty or forty or fifty years, obtain the capacity to show what marital love truly is. They can look at one another and mark with breathtaking immediacy how all the other details of their lives may be nice or interesting, but their devotion is reserved purely for the spouse they love. They may have enjoyed much or suffered much. They may have had years of delirious happiness or long stretches when they struggled with suspicion or bewilderment or alienation. But in and through these experiences they have methodically discovered the souls of one another, which, once disclosed, shows where love lies. By the look in their eyes, by the touch of their hands, by a few words that need no explaining they can say, “I have realized that it is you that I love. It is you – without qualification, without any other accompaniments. You are my life.”

And, in them, no one doubts that this is true; in them, every word of the vows of marriage is vindicated. And we are humbled by the experience of seeing such adoration.

If we are to understand the reading we have heard this morning from John’s Gospel, it is helpful to see how it works along very similar lines.

The crowds are scurrying after Jesus, and he tells them that he knows they are following him principally for what they expect to receive: free bread, more than enough, party favors, any number of desirable benefits. This is, after all, what God as God is supposed to do. Without constraints himself, he is supposed to break down the constraints we suffer – if we plead sincerely enough. It’s a presumption modeled very effectively in the phenomenon of today’s megachurches, that, following suit, promise whatever you’d like: light shows, stacks of donuts, hymns sung to your favorite rock tunes, a liturgy that feels like shopping, a church built to look like a mall. The key is to be attractive in a plethora of ways, and, thus, having provided the extravaganza, a way might be found to mention that God is in some way relevant to all the excitement.

But God, says Jesus, does not seek a relation built on this kind of exchange (Thanks for all the stuff!) His desire is more intimate.

The people then ask Jesus for some other sign by which he can prove that he fairly represents God. If God’s not going to provide bread, maybe he can do something more remarkable, something miraculous and incredible – something that outdoes what God did through Moses. And this, too, is still the refrain of many today, both within the church and from outside. God must be fabulous, evident in supernatural intervention. And living into this expectation some people loudly attest here and there: “Look at this! Look what God did!” While others claim with sadness and, sometimes, derision, “I’m looking for anything and finding nothing.”

What Jesus asks, however, is much more direct and daring: “Don’t look to me,” he said. “Look at me. Look at me because I am myself the word by which God says irrevocably, ‘It is you that I love.’ My life is in your hands, and your life is my whole passion.”

Jesus is God’s most intimate adoration of us, the word that came only after generations of struggle, for better and for worse, for richer for poorer. And in him, every word of covenant is vindicated, and the soul of God is revealed.

This remains the hardest and rarest of discoveries, especially in an age not inclined to reflection, when we can easily blather on that God must be infinite, and therefore, he must be more removed than close. But Christian faith is scandalous too; not because it is irrational, believing something for which there is no evidence, but because it dares to see how God himself is deeply present to us in his own infinite faith. Well below the surface play of our wants and desires, well below the lists of all possible attractions, well below the fractures and wounds of our own unfaithfulness, the unfaithfulness that erupts in the brutality of war and the ravages of suspicion, God pleads that we search through our own blindness to see just him. God is not just a third party provider. Our challenge is to realize the intensity of his closeness – in all the glory of nature, in the stubbornness of his reconciliation, in the beauty of his Son, who stood among and before us – so that a similar cry of adoration might come from our hearts. And we might say in return, with absolute truth, that we do indeed find our lives in God.

And finding our lives in God, no one, seeing us, will doubt that this is so.

This is the invitation of the Gospel.