Crazy Love (Lent 4C)

 

He Qi, The Prodigal Son 

Crazy Love
Lent 4C
31 March 2019 8:00 a.m. Said and 10 a.m. Sung Eucharist

The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Readings: Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Link to mp3 audio file of this homily found at the bottom of this page

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

In Luke chapter 15, Jesus gives three parables describing God.  The first sees God as a shepherd with 100 sheep.  When one gets lost, he leaves the 99 to fend for themselves, and seeks out the lost one.  He then brings it back on his shoulders, rejoicing, and is so excited that he throws a party (Luke 15:1-7).  Clearly the shepherd is a little wacky—he risks all his sheep and probably spends way more than he can afford on the party.

The second parable compares God to a slightly eccentric woman who has 10 silver coins.  When she loses one, she lights the lamp, sweeps the house, and, when she finds it, throws a party to celebrate with her friends (Luke 15: 8-10).  The party probably costs more than the coin’s value.

The third parable told is today’s gospel, often called “The Prodigal Son.”   If you listen to it carefully, though, you soon realize that it should probably be called “the Parable of the Loving Father with Two Lost Sons” or the “Parable of the Dysfunctional Family.”  It too is about a slightly crazy person, a father who ignores the conventions of good parenting in his society and who throws a party in his joy at the return of a wayward son.  In this parable, the coin and the sheep in the previous parables talk back in the persons of the eccentric father’s two sons. 

The family is clearly dysfunctional (as most families seem to be in some way, once you get to know them).   A younger son is impatient for his father to die off, and demands his share of his inheritance in cash, now.  The father is not a good father by the expectations of Jesus’ society:  he does not stand up to defend his own position, his own dignity, and does not defend the integrity of the family nest egg or put up anything even approaching an argument to dissuade the son.  He simply caves and gives the son what he wants.  The son goes off among hated and despised gentiles, and wastes all the money in pleasure seeking and immorality.  When the money runs out, as it always does, he is reduced to feeding the unclean pigs the gentiles raise for food and hits bottom when he realizes that the pigs are eating better than he is, and that slaves in his father house are better off than he is.  He resolves to go back and ask to be hired as a servant in his father’s house, knowing that there is no warrant at for him to be restored to anything close to his former status after the harm he has done his family.  But the father, again, does not meet even the minimum standards of decency and honor then expected of parents.  Not worrying about dignity, honor, or even fairness to the other son, he loses all semblance of acting as a “proper” father should and runs out to meet the boy as soon as he sees him in the distance.  He doesn’t even wait for the reprobate to come to him and beg forgiveness.  He welcomes him back, and throws a big party. 

At this point, the older son’s reaction takes center stage. He is the one most disadvantaged by his brother’s actions, and by his father’s lack of concern for his own duties and the family’s standing in the community.  “I’ve worked night and day my whole life to build our family’s security.  I’ve obeyed and honored you without question.  And now this son of yours [note he can’t even bring himself to call him his brother] comes back and you throw a big party for him.   You never threw a party for me.” 

The old man’s reply is touching.  “But we had to celebrate!  This whole place is yours, I know.  But this is your brother we’re talking about.  He was dead, and now he has come back to life!  We have to throw a party!”   The father seems genuinely bewildered at the cold, self-seeking calculation of the older brother.  He seems to vaguely recognize the validity of the older son’s demands for fairness—he says, “Yeah, yeah, everything I own is written over to you in the will.”  But he seems totally stunned by the older son’s contempt and anger, contempt perhaps even worse than that of the younger son when he ran off.  “He’s your brother.  He was dead, and now is back from the dead.  We have to throw a party.” 

Jesus here is saying that God is more than a little crazy when it comes to loving us.  In God, love trumps demands of dignity, of face, of justice, of purity, or even of fairness.  The calculus of God’s love is not a zero sum, but a geometric expansion.  This parable of a dysfunctional family has the same point as the parable of the bad personnel policy (the parable of the day laborers) found in Matthew (20:1-16).  There, laborers who work throughout a long hard day complain when latecomers hired in the last minutes of the day are paid the same wage as they.  There, the boss says, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Are you going to going to give me sour looks because I am generous?”  

Jesus did teach that there was one situation where God’s love was not so obvious, where, in fact,  it looked more to its recipient  as anger, not love.   It is when God stands before a heart that because of its lack of gratitude itself has no love, no mercy.  There is the parable of the merciless servant-- whose own debt of millions is forgiven, but then who is unwilling to forgive a $200 debt from a coworker.  The boss is merciless on him when he hears.  In the story of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector Jesus tells the story of a “religious” man who goes to the Temple and prays, “Thank God I’m not like the sinners around me.” Beside him stands a traitor—a collaborator with the occupying Romans, a man who profits from the sufferings of God’s people. The traitor stands far off due to his shame. He won’t even lift up his eyes to God because he fears that God might give him what he deserves. “Have mercy on me, a sinner,” he prays. And Jesus says that the traitor went away right with God while the so-called religious man went away as stone-cold-hearted as he came (Luke 18:10-14).

The difference is the heart itself.  When I was a much younger man, for several years I went around with what I now see what an attitude of resentment.  “Why don’t people give me what I deserve?  Why doesn't God give me what I deserve?” I’d ask.  As long as I was this way, I caused a lot of damage to the people around me.  Finally, when I hit a bottom like the younger son looking at the pig’s food, I changed perspectives entirely.  I let go, and let God.  My attitude now was, “Thank God that God hasn't given me what I deserve!”  I was a lot easier on myself, and a lot easier on others.  Much of the previous damage was healed, and the past redeemed. 

Jesus’ point is that the basic, most fundamental nature of God is to love.  It is a love that is non-contingent.  It does not respond to requirements met, to expectations satisfied, to standards conformed to.  It is a love that actively creates gratitude and love in its recipient, and with this the ability to better meet expectations, standards, and requirements.   And it is not accountable to standards of fairness, justice, honor, or convention.  But it produces in the heart of a person who willingly accepts it such gratitude that that person, too, goes a little crazy and loves wildly. 

In Jesus’ parable picture of God’s love, it is always a little over-the-top, inappropriate, and, the truth be told, embarrassing.   For Jesus, that’s how God is, and that’s how we should be.

In our society, we like to praise the value of love, but we tend to deceive ourselves about what unconditional love actually means.  It means ignoring our deep-felt need to establish our own dignity and “save face.”  It means losing our ego.  It means losing our self-seeking, and pursuing mercy to the point of ignoring appeals to fairness on occasion.  It means forgiving the unforgivable, and welcoming not just those seen as outcast by others, but those who we ourselves think should be cast out.  

Being a little crazy in loving doesn’t mean being stupid.  Jesus does tell us to be as clever as snakes but harmless as doves.  But often we tart up our ego and fear and call it street smarts.   But the issue here is our hearts, not the pretty self-deceptions we are able to sell ourselves on. 

God is crazy about us.  God is crazy about you.  Let us be thankful, overwhelmingly so, and respond in kind. 

In the Name of God, Amen.  

Sensual Jesus (Midweek Message)

 Wedding at Cana, by Louis Kahan

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Sensual Jesus

March 27, 2019

In the “Questions and Opinions” section of the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber’s presentations last week in Ashland, the question was asked:  “What can you say about Jesus’ sexuality?”  Bolz-Weber’s wise response was a cautious, “I’m not sure we can say much about Jesus’ sexuality—too little information has been passed on to us, and that in ways subject to vastly different interpretations.  But we can say plenty about Jesus’ sensuality—on that, there’s a lot that has come down to us.”  She went on to list a few examples:  Jesus spending most of his time with sex workers and people of questionable piety, Jesus being accused of being a glutton and a drunk by his opponents, Jesus making 120 gallons of the finest, most intoxicating wine out of water at the wedding in Cana.  What becomes clear in all this is the point that Bolz-Weber was trying to make:  Jesus was no prude, and no despiser of the simple pleasures of life.  Jesus’ parables reflect a lot about his personality and many of these show a deep appreciation and even love for the beautiful and pleasurable in life: the joy of a woman finding a lost coin and then throwing a party to celebrate, the tastiness of salt on food, the glory of a room brightly lit by lamps on a stand, the pleasure of new wine in new wineskins, the comfort of old clothes properly mended with matching patches, the yeasty carb-loading strength of fresh bread eaten while warm, the comfort of finding a friend to take us in on a cold night.  Most of the parables tell a joke, and Jesus laughs regularly with his friends.  

  

Puritans, Calvinists, and fundamentalists have always accused us Episcopalians/ Anglicans and more down-to-earth members of their own sects of being too worldly for our own good.  But one should never confuse a hearty thankfulness for the good creations of God with selfish or God-despising inordinate attachment to mere parts of creation.  What others call our worldliness is actually an integral part of our spirituality and passionate desire to follow Jesus.   

 John O’Donahue summed it up well in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings in his blessing “For the Senses”: 

May the touch of your skin

Register the beauty
Of the otherness
That surrounds you.

May your listening be attuned
To the deeper silence
Where sound is honed
To bring distance home.

May the fragrance
Of a breathing meadow
Refresh your heart
And remind you you are
A child of the earth.

And when you partake
Of food and drink,
May your taste quicken
To the gift and sweetness
That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye
See through the surfaces
And glean the real presence
Of everything that meets you.

May your soul beautify
The desire of your eyes
That you might glimpse
The infinity that hides
In the simple sights
That seem worn
To your usual eyes.

Grace and Peace. 

Fr. Tony+

Ambiguous but Obvious (Lent 3C)

Ambiguous but Obvious

Lent 3C
24 March 2019 8:00 a.m. Said and 10 a.m. Sung Eucharist

The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

 

 God, give us grace to feel and love. 

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

The unjust death of people at prayer is a shocking and horrible thing: the racist murder of black Christians at Mother Emmanuel Church Charleston SC four years ago, the anti-Semitic murder of Jews in a Pittsburgh Synagogue last year, the 40,000 death toll of Catholics in the Lisbon Cathedral by the 1755 All Saints Day earthquake, or the Muslims last week at Friday prayers in Christchurch New Zealand.   Death is horrible,  unexpected death at prayer doubly so.    

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is asked about people at worship who die horribly.  “Did you hear that the Romans massacred those countrymen of yours who were worshiping in the Temple?  Their own blood was mixed with that of the animals they were sacrificing!  What evil did they do that that God punished them this way?” 

When faced with unexplainable horror, people often resort to the trope “God is punishing me” or “God is punishing them.”  Back in Spring 2010 a devastating earthquake struck Haiti.  Television Evangelist Pat Robertson quickly said that this was God’s punishment for the traditional animism practiced by many of its people, Voodoo.   Jerry Falwell blamed the 9-11 attacks in 2001 on homosexuals and women who sought abortions:  God was punishing America by knocking down the symbols of our pride, the Trade center and the Pentagon.    

But as much as such thinking may appear to explain the unexplainable, it leaves us with an ugly image:  God the Tester and God the Punisher.  Not a pretty picture.

This question posed to Jesus has hefty scriptural authority behind it. The Book of Deuteronomy and all the books from Joshua through 2 Kings teach that if you do what is right, God will bless you and prosper your way.  If you do what is wrong, God will punish you and bring calamity upon you.   1-2 Chronicles take the idea further: if something bad happens to you, you clearly have done something wrong,  God is punishing you.”

But Jesus says no—God is not like that.   He replies:  “Those people did nothing any worse than anyone else.  And what about those countrymen of yours who died in the Tower of Siloam when it collapsed?  They were no worse than anyone else.  The lesson we should take here is not that they were particularly bad, but that we all need to be better” (Luke 13:1-5).  

Jesus says that God is mystery, hard sometimes to figure out. But despite this ambiguity in God, there is certainty also:  the one thing we can be sure about is that God is compassionate. 

Jesus too is following scripture in this view.

The Book of Job tells of a man “perfect in all his ways,” yet who suffers horror.  Job’s friends urge him to confess whatever hidden sin he has committed that God is so obviously punishing him for.  But Job just can’t agree: what he has suffered just is not fair.  He won’t let God off the hook.  But he does not “curse God and die.”  When God at long last speaks to him from “out of the whirlwind,” it is all so overwhelming that all Job can do is mourn and sorrow, and yet bless God for his mysterious goodness.  

Mystery.  Ambiguity.  In today’s reading from Exodus, God is the one who is and brings all into being, the “I am” (Ehyeh) who “brings into being” (Yahweh).   God remains always somewhat hidden from us, speaking from a bush that burns, yet is not consumed.   The God whose name should not be said aloud is being itself that brings all things into existence.   This should cause us to stand in awe, and remove the shoes from our feet. 

Jesus says that you can’t explain the bad things in the world by chalking them up to God the Punisher.   Jesus invites us instead to keep confidence in God’s love and justice and embrace mystery.  He knows that throughout Hebrew Scripture, God is described as loving, compassionate, and patient.  So you have to focus on God’s goodness and love, not on God’s justice, or, worse, what feels like God’s anger when you are not right with God.  Bad things happen even to good people.  Sometimes, the wicked prosper.  But God still loves us.  God is Ambiguous as an explanation, but Obvious as love.  Embrace ambiguity.  Take off your shoes before the burning but unconsumed bush.  And keep your confidence in the love of God, despite things that go bad for us.

Accepting ambiguity is hard.  But it is easier when we focus on the things we are sure of.  Thus we can keep trying to be faithful to the tradition, continue to learn from the stories that have been handed down, and actually find them newly empowered to do better things for us than we were getting from the exact way we received them.    Again, the key is focusing on what we truly know. 

The gospel stories of Jesus healing the sick tell us that the ultimate purpose of God does not include disease, suffering, and death. Jesus’ announcing the reign of God focused in large part in healing physical and mental suffering. This tells us that God doesn’t intend horror and disappointment for those he has made. 

When asked why a man had been born blind, “was it his parents’ sin or his?” he replied, “Neither, it wasn’t punishment for anything, but so that I would have the chance to heal him” (John 9:2-3).  They ask him why, on account of what, and he answers why, for what purpose.   Jesus’ shift between the two different kinds of ‘why’ is essential.   It forces us to turn away from the fruitless questioning of mystery that makes us lose sight of God’s love and instead look for opportunities to serve and help bring the ultimate loving intentions of God closer to what we see before us. 

The basic act of removing our shoes before the Holy is necessary if we are to keep faith and hope.  Embracing mystery means learning to live with uncertainty and ambiguity in an ongoing act of creativity and imagination, and doing so not reluctantly or because we are forced to by facts, but joyfully.  Incarnational acts showing God’s love to those in need and humble prayer that listens to God more than it asks of God—all these are the basic practices of such creativity in the presence of ambiguity.   

After the Indonesian tsunami of 2004, theologian David Hart wrote:  “As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy.”  William Pike, writing on the Haiti earthquake, said that he had been reminded of the story of Elijah’s flight to Mount Horeb in 1 Kings 19, where God spoke to Elijah not out of an earthquake, whirlwind, or fire, but out of the whispering of the still breeze.  Against Pat Robertson’s God the Punisher, Pike remembers the text’s words, “The Lord was not in the earthquake.” 

As Mister Rogers used to say, when faced with bad things in the world, always look for the helpers.  They show God’s intention and meaning better than the bad stuff itself.    And when it comes to trying to see God at work in the world about us, the popular internet meme says it well:  Don’t interpret love in light of scripture, but rather, interpret scripture in the light of love. 

Jesus showed us God. God is love. God is forgiveness.   A prayer Book Collect (p. 831) says it all: “O merciful Father, you have taught us in your holy Word that you do not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men:  Look with pity upon the sorrows of [us] your servant[s]… Remember [us] O Lord in mercy, nourish [our] soul with patience, (and notice this especially!)  comfort [us] with a sense of your goodness.  Lift up your countenance upon [us] and give [us] peace.”

God is a healer, not a punisher.  And so we too must be healers, helpers.   Not backseat drivers, or Monday morning quarterbacks ready to dish out blame by gladly trumpeting ugly pictures of God.   This is why we must, with Jesus, focus on the “for what purpose” why rather than the “on what account” why.  In this season of Lent, this means we look at our failings not so we can explain them away or beat ourselves up with them, but rather see them as occasions for seeking amendment of life. 

God indeed is not in the earthquake, not in the horror.  He is not in towers falling, massacres of people in places of worship, or sickness and suffering. These things show us how far the world is from God's intention, not God’s will.   Rather, God is in the efforts of people trying to help the victims of such things.  He, or should I say She, is a nurturer.  She is in reconciliation and service.  He is in efforts to build justice and peace, in caregiving.

And that is where we should be as well. 

Thanks be to God. Amen. 

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Juggling and Spirituality (midweek)

Maurice Lalau illustration for “The Juggler of Notre Dame,” by Anatole France

Juggling and Spirituality

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

March 20, 2019  

A few years ago, Elena and I were introduced to a great program to help at risk urban youth in Hong Kong.  One of the surprising elements of the program was a focus on public performance as a means of building self-esteem and confidence.  The performance art of choice for most of the kids was, of all things, juggling.  This counter-intuitive choice was explained to me by a program alumnus, who had entered the program as an off-the-rails 14-year-old, had finished it successfully and them, after successful college study, had become a business leader and leading financial contributor to the program and one of its board members:

“The problem with most of us was lack of confidence and poor self-esteem.  We wanted to fit into a group whose standards appeared to be low enough to accept us and cover for us. That’s what was getting us into trouble at school and with the law.  We practiced juggling because no one was good at it and everyone looked silly and uncoordinated.  No one made fun of the others because we were clearly all as inept as the next person.  As as we practiced, we got better.  But most important, we learned that in public juggling, it was inevitable that we would at some point drop the ball or pin.  The key was quickly picking it up and then continuing as if nothing had happened.  If we stopped, or got flummoxed, the show disintegrated into apology and embarrassment.  If we kept on going, no one acted as if they had noticed.  Perhaps they didn’t notice.  We learned that fear of condemnation or criticism was our greatest enemy, not the failures that juggling by its very nature entailed.  We learned that what other people thought of us was really none our business and important only as a way to help us improve.  When dropping the ball, we needed to just pick it up, ignore the failure, and keep on going with renewed passion.” 

I have found the same truth in harp playing:  I practice, to be sure, but need regular performance in front of others so that I can learn gracefully to cover the inevitable flubs I will make.  I began to study harp 15 years ago as a meditative practice.  When I practice to the point where my muscle memory lets the harp play itself is when I am most “in the zone,” in the thin-veiled place I sought when I began harp playing.  Being focused and on task leaves little room for self-absorption or fears about how others view us. 

In Lent, when we focus on our shortcomings, what is important is amendment of life, not self-absorbed mea culpas.  When faced with a failure, it is important to pause, pull up our socks, and get back on task, not worrying about how we look to others, but rather how we can make things right.  Proper focus means not having stage fright or performance anxiety, but rather willingness to improve without crippling remorse. 

To be sure, some things cannot be set right, whether because of time lapsed, or the enormity of the harm caused.  But that is why we talk about Jesus being our redeemer, and why “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3) is the first affirmation of the core apostolic preaching.  Even things that cannot be fixed can be forgiven, and can be put to rest.  Even truly broken people can find healing and balm in Jesus.  Living in Christ means living without fear, or its distracting step-child, crippling remorse. 

Our bishop, Michael Hanley, is a juggler.  He does it for fun, for relaxation, and perhaps even as a meditative practice: kind of like my harp playing.   The principle in juggling of picking up the ball and keeping on, not worrying too much about how others may judge us, makes me think that it is not too much of a stretch to say that juggling at heart is a spiritual practice. 

Grace and peace,

Fr. Tony+

A REMINDER:  Best-selling author and radically unconventional founding pastor of Denver’s House for All Sinners and Saints Nadia Bolz Weber will speak at Ashland’s United Methodist Church:

Friday March 22, 7:00 p.m. “Christianity and Sexuality: New Views on Old Prejudices” (exploring themes from her new book, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation)

Saturday March 23 9:00 a.m. “Is it too Stuffy in Here?  Liberating Church from Rigid Cultural Expectations”

Tickets are still available.  Call Carol Harvey or Phyllis Reynolds, or plan on purchasing them at the door.  This program has been organized by Evolving Congregations Ashland. 

Trusting upon God's Faith

Trusting upon God’s Faith

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

March 13, 2019

People calling themselves Evangelicals often quote the epistle reading from last Sunday’s Lectionary and label it as “the heart of the Gospel”:    

“‘The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (Romans 10:8b-13). 

The idea is that professing faith in Christ is the defining act of being saved.  This is why Evangelicals are so concerned in asking “when were you saved,” meaning, “when did you make a profession of belief that Jesus is your Savior?”  Often part of theology that argues for “salvation by faith, not by works,” this use of these verses often practically means, “if you do NOT confess with your lips and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will NOT be saved.”  But this makes the profession of faith an act, a work through which salvation comes, supposedly.  It thus is a contradiction of salvation by faith, not works. 

This understanding of these verses is a terrible distortion of what Paul is arguing here.  When Paul makes a distinction between works of the Mosaic Law and faith in Christ, he does not deny the importance of one’s deeds, but rather affirms the greater importance of where you place your heart.  Deeds follow the heart, while deeds without the heart, without proper intention, tend to be corrupted and remain on the outskirts of our beings. 

The Greek word usually translated as “believe” or “faith,” actually means trusting, just as “faithful” can mean “trustworthy.” 

Key here is verse 11, a citation of Isaiah 28:16:  “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”  This is a mistranslation that profoundly distorts the meaning:  “believe in him” sounds like what is demanded is signing up to a program of belief, and particular affirmation, meaning something like “believe that he is son of God.”    But again, “believe” here is best translated by “trust.”  Had Paul wanted to say “believe in him” he would have used a particular construction that had “him” as in indirect object of the verb “believe, or trust.”  Rather, he uses a prepositional form “upon him” describing not the object of the verb, but rather its ground and cause.  The line is best translated, “No one who trusts based on him will be put to shame.” 

We trust God because God is trustworthy.  We trust others because our trust is rooted in the reliability of Jesus.  “The faith of Christ” that Paul talks about so often is thus not “belief about Jesus,” but rather “the trust that Christ has and elicits from us.” 

This is why Paul elsewhere talks at length about being alive “in Christ.”  Christ is the ground and source of our trust and faith, not merely the object of some kind of required propositional affirmation.   

Reducing Jesus to an article of some Creed and demanding submission to this article as the quintessential act of salvation is at heart an idolatry where we put doctrines about Christ before Christ himself, and the work of signing up to a party platform before the almost irresistible response of trust evoked in us by Christ’s trustworthiness. 

Grace and Peace.  Fr. Tony+  

The Heart of Temptation (Lent 1C)

Christ in the Wilderness-- the Scorpion, oil painiting by Stanley Spencer

The Heart of Temptation

First Sunday of Lent (Year C)
10 March 2019; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.  

Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-13

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from [being baptized at] the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1).

We know this story, told by the three synoptic gospels. 

Mark’s version is short and sweet: after Jesus is baptized, he hears God’s voice, “You are my son, this day I have fathered you.” Immediately, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where he remains for forty days, tempted by Satan, living with the wild beasts, though “angels ministered to him.”  That’s it. 

Matthew and Luke, drawing from their shared sayings source, expand this story into a fuller narrative presenting three temptations, together with Jesus’ answers to the tempter’s arguments.  Matthew and Luke have the same three temptations, though they disagree on the order of the second and third.  All question the voice Jesus heard at baptism: “You are my son:” 

“If you are the Son of God, do not suffer hunger.  God says he will give food to his chosen in the desert.  Command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

“If you are the Son of God, why aren’t you in charge?  It is I who control all the power and money in the world. Bow down to me and I will make you king of the world as befits a Son of God.” 

“If you are the Son of God, prove it so all may know.  Scripture says God will protect and defend his chosen.  Throw yourself from the 10-story high spire of the Temple, so that all the devout may see God save you and follow you.” 

The story of the temptation in the wilderness does not appear in John’s Gospel.  But interestingly, in John 6-7, Jesus encounters and declines the same temptations in his day to day ministry.  Here, they are pushed on Jesus not by an evil spirit in the desert, but by the people around him: 

In 6:31, the people ask Jesus to miraculously make bread for them.

In 6:15, the people try to make Jesus King before he has to flee from them.

In 7:3, Jesus brothers try to convince Jesus to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to show his power out in the open. 

Thus it appears that the Synoptics’ desert temptation story is a narrative artifice to sum up in a single scene multiple themes that repeated again and again in Jesus’ life and ministry. 

The trope “If you are the Son of God” on the Tempter’s lips reveals, I think, the heart of what these temptations, and what all temptations, are about.  It echoes the tempter’s words in Genesis 3:  “Was it really God who said don’t eat of that fruit?  If you disregard that voice, you will be like God, with an awareness of good and bad.”  This is the “if” of practical atheism, repeated several times in the passion story: Those mocking Jesus say, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”  One of the bandits at Jesus’ side says almost desperately, “If you are the Messiah, save us along with you!”  If,  if.  The point is—act as if there is no God above you, no one whom you can trust wholly, even in the midst of pain. 

If, if.  Do not act on the basis of trust and love in God.  Rather, try to control God, and stage manage things.   Rather than accept that God is in charge and does things as he sees fit, try to be in charge.  Make those stones bread.  Cozy up to real powers-that-be.  Force God’s hand and make him do what you want on your schedule.    Do what you need to do to be a winner. 

It might not sound like atheism, but at its heart, it denies the nature, if not the existence, of God. 

I once had a spiritual director who told me that the heart of healthy emotional life and all spiritual growth is the two affirmations:  There is a God.  And I’m not him.  You can’t have one without the other.  The practical application of this was the aphorism, “Let go, let God.” 

Jesus answers each temptation in the desert—one to satisfy physical cravings, one to pursue the wealth and power of the world by honoring the Wicked One controlling them, and one to force God to prove that Jesus is Beloved—by quoting scripture back at the Tempter.  When we see that sin is what alienates us from God—this God who loves us—and alienates us from each other, these scriptures take on broader meanings: 

“Do not live by bread alone, but by every word spoken by God”:  We have needs of which we are not even aware, given our imperfections and limits.  We thus need to trust God’s judgment in this, not our own.”

“Worship God alone and serve only God”: Do not try to set up idols in the place of God, objects or people whom we can control, and manage.   

  

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  Don’t try to manipulate or control God.  In the degree that you do, it is not God we are talking about.  

We have all sorts of ways of spinning things to convince ourselves that the “if, if” is not atheism.  “God helps those who help themselves” is one.  Another is “God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked.  I need to follow these rules so that I can get God in my debt so he will give me what I desire. I need to punish the sins of others so that God will hear me.”   How far away from “forgive so that you can be forgiven” and “not as I will, but as you will.”   

When Jesus says, “Lose you self so you can find it,” he is not saying that self is bad.  He is saying “lose your false self,” the self you think is you when you change “There is a God and I’m not it” into “There is a God and I am he!” or “There is no God so I am all there is.” 

The temptations—“If  you are the beloved of God, then take charge!”, “If you are beloved of God pursue your own will,” or “If you are beloved, force God to prove his love”—all involve a rejection of our own true nature.  I am not talking about Augustine’s Original Sin or Calvin’s Depravity of fallen humanity but rather the opposite of these:  I am talking about being beloved of God.  There is a God, and I’m not it.  God is love, and I am loved.  And because of this, I can love.  Denying this, or confusing it with cheap imitations of power and love, again is practical atheism. 

For in fact, we are beloved of God, regardless of our disabilities and failings.  Henri Nouwen writes, 

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My false self says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”

The heart of all temptation is the desire to take charge, take the place of God.  This might be by setting up false idols like money and power, or pleasure and satisfaction of our urges in the place of God, or by constantly figuring out new ways we think we can manage or control God.  It might be simply by despairing and resigning ourselves to a life without hope or true joy.  However manifested, the heart of all temptation is our pursuit of self and hoping against hope, clinging onto things the way we want them. 

That is why George MacDonald wrote,

“With every morn my life afresh must break
The crust of self, gathered about me fresh;
That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake
The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh
The spider-devils spin out of the flesh-
Eager to net the soul before it wake,
That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake.”

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return (Ash Wednesday)

 

Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return

Ash Wednesday
6 March 2019; 12:00 noon and 7:00 p.m. Said Mass

With Imposition of Ashes
Homily Delivered at the Parish Church of Trinity Ashland, Oregon

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Isaiah 58:1-12; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21; Psalm 103:8-14

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

“Remember that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

These are the words God speaks in Genesis when casting out the Man and Woman from the Garden of Delight after they turn from God.  They are the words spoken when we impose ashes on the foreheads of those invited to observe a holy Lent.  They call us, in the words of the Latin phrase, to remember our death: “memento mori.”

The great stoic philosopher Epictetus, writing in Greek and living in first century Rome, permanently crippled from abuse he suffered from one of his masters when he was a slave, believed that the key to balance and even authentic moments of joy in life without being overwhelmed by despair when loss occurs comes from being absolutely honest about the nature of things in our life. 

“When it comes to anything that delights you, is useful to you, or of which you are fond, just remember to keep telling yourself what kind of thing it is, starting with the most insignificant. If you’re fond of a jug, say, ‘This is a jug that I’m fond of,’ and then, if it gets broken, you won’t be too upset. If you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you’re kissing; and then, if one of them should die, you won’t be undone emotionally.”  (Epictetus, Enchiridion, 3)

That sounds harsh, doesn’t it? But he is not saying never love, never rejoice.  He is saying that even in the midst of our joy, we must not lose sight of our true nature.  We must not deceive ourselves into thinking that joy lasts forever, or that our lives last forever.   Remembering that we are mortal, seeing the ever-present specter of death in our lives, this for Epictetus is at the heart of a balance in life that allows us to truly enjoy the good things while not being overwhelmed by the nasty bits.  This, because of the bottom line fact that we are mortal, and none of us gets out of here alive. 

That may strike you as deeply wrong, coming from the mouth of a Christian minister.  After all, doesn’t Jesus offer us life everlasting and joys forever more? 

But denial of death, self-delusion about our mortality and frail nature, is at the heart of most abuses of religious faith, whether Christian or otherwise.  Our society tries to hide death from us, especially from the children, and so most of us grow up thinking that somehow we and our loved ones are immune, and that death is an abnormality, an aberration, a stranger that we simply do not want ever to meet.  Our funerary practices put this denial of death onto steroids:  when we have caskets, we rarely have them open before the funeral, and more and more we have the sanitized and clean process of cremation and small, tidy urns.  I am not saying we sholdn't do this; Elena and I are planning to have our ashes immured in the Trinity Garden Columbarium.  All I am saying is that the tidiness of all this comes at a cost of losing our connection to death as a part of our natural process.  

And even though the words are in our Prayer Book rites, we more and more rarely cast dirt onto the remains as we bury them and say “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  For many, even the idea of a funeral is just too damn depressing:  better, we think, to have a happy, glad “celebration of life,” perhaps with copious alcohol in the park, rather than a rite that acknowledges that death has occurred and admits grief  at our loss.   The goal seems to be to deny that death has occurred.  But denial of death by its very nature is also a denial of life honestly lived. 

I prefer our Prayer Book rite, with its hope for the resurrection coupled with honest grief and sorrow at our loss.  The words of the commendation of the soul to God says it all:  “Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of humankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth and unto earth shall we return.  For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying:  Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.’ All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song” and we say this in funerals even in the middle of Lent—“‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’”

Remembering that we are mortal is part of recognizing our true natures.  Epictetus also taught, “If you want to be a good person, start out by admitting you are wicked.”  He is not saying beat up on yourself and say “mea culpa” even though you haven’t done all that much bad.  He is saying, “be honest about your good and your bad tendencies and actions.”  This is why those words “dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return” appear that Genesis story about human defection from God.  It is why they appear not only in our funeral rite, but also in the Ash Wednesday rite, when we are invited to observe a holy Lent by examining our lives, forsaking our misdoings, and making amends for the wrongs we have done. 

One of the great blessings I enjoy serving as a parish priest here in Ashland is that I am called upon to help many people through hospice care and end of life, and lead their funerals.   It has helped me to accept my own mortality, and the frailty of those whom I love.   And that not by way of morbid gothic death-fascination, but by way of authentic joy and hope, even in the midst of death and failing.  As the Rite I funeral service says, “in the midst of life, we are in death” and “if we live, we live unto the Lord, and if we die, we die unto the Lord.”

In the name of Christ, Amen.