It runs in our blood --Jacob & the family trade

“…Joseph recognized his brothers…” –Genesis 42:8

I am still reading Genesis (for a librarian –I am a very slow reader, though there is also the excuse of new kittens in the house).  And, of course, this is the eternal word of God, so what’s the hurry.

Having just reached the story of Joseph, it intrigues me that the “trickster” theme continues in this part of the Jacob narrative.  It is as if the family business were tricking people and we see that “trade” played out again and again in these stories here at the end of Genesis.  First Jacob takes advantage of his brother’s hunger and careless way with words to steal Esau’s birthright, then Rebekah and Jacob trick Isaac into blessing him (masquerading as Esau), then Laban (Jacob’s uncle) tricks Jacob into marrying the wrong daughter (Leah) before giving him (also) the one he was promised (Rachel). Then Jacob tricks Laban and Esau (again), and now we see Jacob’s children employing the family trade in their treatment of each other.  The brothers plot against Joseph –who is carried off to be sold in Egypt-- and then trick their father into thinking he’s been killed by a wild animal. And now, this morning I am reading that Joseph (the sweet and wonderful and miraculously wise and chaste Joseph) is playing tricks on his brothers.  It is as if the family cannot help themselves. It is in their DNA.  Trickering runs in their blood.

When the brothers come to Egypt seeking food (because of the great famine), Joseph recognizes them, but they don’t recognize him and thus begins the great trick that will end with the saving of Israel as Jacob/Israel and all his people move to Egypt to live with Joseph. And, of course, we know how that story ends… Charlton Heston comes to the rescue!

                But, what interests me here is this: what lesson is God teaching us through these stories?  What lesson are we to derive from the story of this trickster family who play a key part in God’s plan?  God seems to dearly love this family that lies and steals and manipulates each other.  And through them He founds His people?  What does that tell us about our relationship to God? And what does it tell us about His relationship to us?  I think this is something I will need to wrestle with for a long time.

More than many sparrows: a lesson in humor and humility

“…do not be afraid.  You are worth more than many sparrows.”
--Matthew 10:31

How reassuring it is to know that we are worth more than many sparrows. Sparrows, two of which could be purchased for a small coin (a penny); and yet Jesus assures us that we are worth more than many of these and so we don’t need to be afraid.  Is that an example of divine humor? Heavenly irony?  Or was that meant to be seriously reassuring to the apostles.  One has to wonder.

                What I hear in these words is, first: a comic reassurance, and second: a lesson in humility.  Hearing this, can’t you imagine Jesus nodding His head reassuringly, the turn of a sly grin curling the edges of His lips?  “You are worth more than many sparrows…” Yes, we are important to God, and yes God knows every hair on your head; and so, by golly, when things get rough, whether my world seems to be falling apart, or all my magnificent plans and efforts are crashing down around me, I just need to remember: Don’t be afraid. You’re worth more than many sparrows!!  

Of course, that begs the question: Oh, yeah!  How many? At 2 for a penny, we’d have to get up to fifty-one sparrows just to be worth more than a quarter! A hundred-and-one, to be worth more than a half dollar.  You can’t even ride Metro for a half dollar any more.  How is that for a lesson in humility?

Of course, I’m being silly here.  I think it would take at least 250 sparrows just to get from my house to I-10.  And if I needed a transfer –say to get downtown-- that would be another 200 sparrows.  Minimum. And that doesn’t cover return fare.  Plus, at this point, (450 sparrows; questions of aerodynamics arise…) with a harness and some twine you might be able to… never mind. 

Thinking about this passage, and the idea that Jesus might be employing a little humor, I began to realize another lesson we learn from Dante’s Divine Comedy.  The utter absence of humor among the damned.  It isn’t that the souls in Dante’s Hell have no time for humor, but that they make no place for it. The souls in The Inferno take their sin very seriously.  Dante never talks about this; he simply shows it.  As we read the poem and meet the different souls in Hell, what we meet are souls who have lost the ability to laugh at anything.  This is a situation I find myself in on occasion. I am dead set on some plan, some activity or some respite that I am claiming for my own. It is something I deserve. Or it is –for instance, becoming a deacon—my right. My vocation. God’s will for me! I want it and I deserve it.  When I am in that mindset, there is little chance of me laughing at anything that goes even slightly amiss. You might not hear me yell or see me punch the wall, but if my plans go awry, inside I will begin to stew and seethe. And I will be unable to laugh –not just at the situation, but at anything. I will refuse to.  And you know, having been in that situation before, I can tell you –it is Hell.  I grow hard and bitter inside and lose my way.  Because –and I think this is key—I am not important enough!  I want to be not just more important than… anything… at times like that, I want to be MOST important.  And that is exactly what we see lived out in Dante’s Hell.  The souls are all stuck wanting to be MOST important. And none of them can let go of their sin (their ego) long enough to laugh at themselves and their situation.  Sadly I have found myself living that Hell, too many times.  In fact, just now.  I am trying to write this. I want to write this. But, I am the only one awake and our two new kittens are begging for food. So, I stop and give them food. As I am setting it out for them our older cat comes looking for food, too. So, I put food out for him. Thinking, I will get right back to my writing.  But then I notice the kittens have knocked a tote bag on the flood and so I stoop to pick it up. Still thinking I am going right back to writing. But… as I pick it up I discover something is on the bag. One of these critters has peed on the bag and now cat pee is spilling everywhere.  And when I try to pour it into the trash the trash is overflowing and the pee spills down the side of the kitchen trash bin and now it is spread across the floor and over the side of the bin and maybe on the refrigerator and the tile floor to the washing machine and… and instead of getting bck to writing I am mopping the floor with paper towels and Windex.  And when my wonderful kind and always sweet daughter asks me what happened, instead of laughing at it all, I snap and murmur something bitter about cats and pee and tote bags and trash cans and laundry and...  So, yes! For me, this isn’t always easy.  Even when I am meditating on the Heavenly qualities of humility and humor, I can so quickly stumble and slip in the cat pee of my pridefulness, my need to feel MOST IMPORTANT.  And I think that is a very real kind of Hell.   

Clearly, this is a lesson Jesus is still trying to teach me: learn to laugh at yourself. A little humor and humility will go a long way in bringing about the Kingdom of God.  P.S. And –when you do the laundry, make sure to balance your load. Uh, oh. Time to check on that loud knocking coming from the washroom.      

Praying for hunger: Corpus Christi & the food of God

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.”
--John 6:53

 “Brothers and sisters: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not
a participation in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it
not a participation in the body of Christ?  Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”
--1 Corinthians 10:16-17

What does it mean to eat the flesh of the Son of Man? What does it mean to participate in the blood of Christ?  What does it mean to hunger after the body of Christ?

Here in the 21st century, as we struggle with all the issues of our day, how do we live out this calling? How do we truly participate in the blessing of His blood? His body? Those are questions that are key to the solemnity of Corpus Christi. We are called on this day to give special attention and adoration to the sacramental presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.  And the church has selected these two readings from Corinthians and John's Gospel to help us remember that we are called to participate in the blessing that is the body and blood of Christ.  And so, some churches will have processions and set aside time for adoration of the exposed Eucharist: the body of Christ. It is a call we must not ignore, because it is a call for us to grow not only in our faith but in our hunger for God.

The first reading for today's mass is the one that spoke to me today.  The Old Testament reading  from Deuteronomy. And especially this passage:

“…He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you
with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers…” (8:3)

In my New Jerusalem Bible, this verse reads:

"He humbled you, He made you feel hunger..."

I think that reading it I was reminded of poor Abram (in Genesis) being called out of his homeland and away from his kinsfolk and lead to a foreign land. Humbled and probably feeling a bit afflicted by God asking so much of him. And, of course we see the same kind of reaction from the Jews wandering in the desert for 40 years, complaining to Moses that He led them out of Egypt (where at least they had food and shelter) only to let them die of hunger in the desert.

  When God leads us away from the familiar and the safe, He leads us into a kind of hungering --and certainly it is  (as far as I can tell) always a humbling experience. God leads us out of our safe space and allows us to be afflicted with hunger, if not for actual food, then for safety and security, for friends and family, for comfort and reassurance.  And God lets us be afflicted by this hunger, not to test us or prove to us He's the boss, but in order that He might feed us with a bread unknown to us and to our parents. 

What is this bread that we do not know? This manna? That is my question?  And how do we get it? I think there is a clue in a famous scene in John’s Gospel.  When the apostles return to find Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, they offer Him something to eat, but Jesus tells them He has food to eat that they don’t know about.  And when they are puzzled by that, He explains:

“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete His work…”
–John 4:34

I wonder if that doesn’t tell us something about Heavenly food, about manna, and also about the importance and the work of prayer. We tend to think about prayer as a way of filling our tank. We go to God in prayer so He can fill our spiritual tank up for the work we have to do, or the world we have to face, etc. etc.  We go to God because we need grace and we have a spiritual longing for the divine.  I certainly don’t deny any of that.  But, I also wonder if the paradox of prayer is that instead of filling us up, the real work of prayer is to empty us out. And that by emptying us it prepares us to be filled by the real food of God’s blessing; the real manna; that food that Jesus is talking about.  We go to prayer not to be filled, but to be emptied, so we can be made hungry for  the will of God, the work of God.  To be made ready for this meal, we have to be humbled, and perhaps a sign of this humility, of the process of being humbled is a growing hunger, a longing for something we cannot achieve on our own; something we cannot even imagine for ourselves: a food unknown to us and to our parents.

Like Abram, lead to a strange land, when we kneel in prayer we are emptied of all our earthly resources, all our powers and glories and achievements; humbled; we are emptied so that God can fill us with grace and make of us a blessing to the world –That is how we participate in the work of God. We pray not to be filled up, but to be emptied, so we can be fed by the work of God.
Want to know what work God has for you? Empty yourself in prayer. Let God afflict you with hunger through prayer. And then let God feed you with the food that Christ spoke of: the Work of God. 

Are you listening, Mr. Sutter?  Put down those chips and that bowl of dip, something better awaits you.

Condemned already: Making our own Hell

“Whoever believes in Him is not condemned,

but whoever does not believe is condemned already …”

--John 3: 16-18

I’ve been think about Dante again.  The Divine Comedy is always on my mind, it seems. The wisdom and the beauty of that great poem do feel truly “divine” sometimes, and the lessons I have learned by reading and rereading it have scarred my life. I say that only half-jokingly, because my experience of Dante now colors almost everything I read or do or learn. His poem seems to be (for me) a kind of guide or spiritual master that teaches me not only about the beauty of language and poetry and reason, but also how to read and finally how to live.

In the poem, Dante travels through the three zones or stages of the afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.  Guided for most of his journey by the poet Virgil, Dante is given the chance to see the eternal state of souls (damned and blessed) as a way of saving his own. While he is travelling through Hell, one of the many souls Dante meets is Bertran de Born, a man who carries his own head before him as if it were a lantern.  Like many of the souls Dante meets, Bertran de Born is based on an actual person; in life he was a warrior and poet who advised the son of a king to go to war against his father. For that reason (dividing things that should be united) the poet depicts him walking through Hell with his head divided from his body.  This sounds like “poetic justice,” and in Dante it receives the name “contrapasso.”  But the key to Dante isn’t found in the words of a damned soul.  It isn’t even found coming from the mouth of Virgil, the poem’s seemingly timeless voice of reason who guides Dante down through the levels of Hell and then up the mountain of Purgatory. Virgil is the voice of God's justice. He explains to Dante the legalese of eternal damnation. And for so many readers of Dante there is a willingness to trust Virgil's explanation of everything. Because Virgil makes Hell seem so reasonable.  However, the problem with Virgil as Dante's guide to God's eternal judgment is that Virgil doesn't understand God's love, God's grace.  Because God's grace is beyond reason.  So, we look again at this passage from John's Gospel and we pay careful attention to not just what it seems to say, but what it actually says:

“…whoever does not believe is condemned already …”

Whoever does not believe is already condemned already.  Harsh words, it seems.  We don’t like to hear of condemnation –it sounds judgmental and merciless to our modern ear.  But, consider for a moment what it might mean that the non believer might be condemned already.  What could that mean? Does that mean they are beyond God's mercy? But what if that person started believing next month or next week or tomorrow morning? Would they still be condemned?  That doesn't make sense? And it doesn't fit with what we see of Jesus in the gospels. Jesus calls people to conversion and change and redemption.  And no one seems beyond His mercy and love. Think about the tax collectors and sinners Jesus has dinner with, or the centurion with the sick slave, or the woman caught in adultery... Jesus tells us Himself that He didn't come to call the righteous, but the sinners (Mark 2: 17).  So what does He mean when He says those who don't believe are condemned already?

I think we can see a powerful depiction of this condemnation in Dante's vision of Hell.  The souls in Dante’s Hell (his Inferno) are not depicted as simply suffering some horrible --yet poetically apt-- punishment for their sins, but as still (and eternally) pursuing them.  The lustful are seen eternally caught in the wild winds of desire, the gluttons are eternally wallowing in the excess of their appetite, the wrathful eternally enraged, the thieves continue to steal, gossips to gossip, traitors to betray, etc etc.  I think what Dante is depicting for us is the fact that sin is Hell; sin doesn’t just bring condemnation, it is its own condemnation. Looking at Dante in this light, I begin to understand that quite possibly Hell isn’t a place; it is a state of being.  It is a choice we make.  It is found in who we become. When we choose selfishness over generosity, when we choose cruelty over kindness, when we choose coldness and isolation over vulnerability and a willingness to reach out to others we choose sin; and when we choose sin we choose unbelief; and when we do that we condemn ourselves to a Hell of our own making. Because despite what Mr. Sartre said, Hell isn’t found in "other people," it’s found in how we respond to them. Every time we turn away from someone who needs us, our hearts grow a little bit harder, a little bit colder.  And if you happen to read Dante, you will understand that a cold cold hard heart corresponds exactly with what the poet finds at the very core of Hell.  Despite what reason might tell us, our condemnation isn’t a punishment imposed upon us to satisfy some eternal justice; our condemnation (or not) is a choice we make every day. We can open our hearts, go forth, share the gifts God has given us and become a blessing, or we can... cling to our safety and security and treasures and make our own private Hell.  That’s what I find depicted in that beautiful strange poem written by that oddly prescient Italian poet from the 13^th century.  And that’s what I hear Christ telling us today.