Bringing in the sheaves --some thoughts on the exile of a bad muffin

 I’ve been thinking about the psalm this week.

 

“Although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown,

They shall come back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves.”

(Psalm 126)

 

For me, so often, the psalm is like a brief interlude in the middle of Mass. As if the readings (Old Testament, Epistle, Gospel) were what really mattered. Too often, as the psalm is being sung, I either get caught up in the melody or so focused on remembering the refrain that I forget what the to listen to the words. But, this week, I have found myself drawn not to the gospel or the reading from Jeremiah as much as to that beautiful ending of the psalm –even just that final wonderful old familiar, yet strange word: sheaves. Which is a not part of our normal suburban vocabulary. And yet most of us probably know wat it is anyway: a gathering of wheat or grain stems bound together.

 

So many of us probably hear the word and think of someone (usually a preacher or a woman in a bonnet) singing the old hymn,  Bringing in the sheaves.

 

And caught by that single word, I began looking again at the readings for this Sunday, especially  rereading the psalm.  The psalm itself is about returning from exile; it is a psalm extolling the great thing God has done for Israel. But what I found most interesting, most curious, and most ponderable is that sorrowful image of the exile itself, that image of a sower weeping as he goes forth carrying seed to be sown.  And I have been meditating on that image most this week.  And even wondering how it might speak to the other readings.

 

There is an explicit connection to the reading from Jeremiah 31 which speaks of Israel’s return from exile, and even echoes the psalms image of departing in tears.  And a clear metaphorical connection to the Gospel of Mark with its’ story of Bartimeus the blind man crying out for help. Bartimeus is exiled from the world of the seeing by his lack of eyesight.  And when he is healed by Jesus, he follows Him—rejoicing as he walks literally in the presence of God.

 

And then there is that middle reading from the letter to the Hebrews (5:1-6). It tells of a different kind of exile—the exile of being a high priest. The author reminds us that “No one takes this honor upon himself, but only when called by God…” (cf. 5:4), so, in a sense, the high priest is set apart, exiled by the will of God. And yet, this is not a geographical exile, but a spiritual one. The high priest remains in the presence of the community, but is spiritually set apart to offer sacrifice for sins (both theirs and his own).   

 

And all of it calls me back to that image of the mournful sower and his seeds.  And I keep asking myself: why? Why that image? And what about those seeds? 

 

Historically there are tales of enslaved peoples actually carrying seeds with them into exile, as a source of food, or livelihood (woven into their hair or the clothes they wore). But, even that historical fact is ripe for metaphor: though they were dragged from their homes and their lives, a piece of it still came with them; wherever they were taken, they carried a piece of their homeland, and their way of life with them. 

 

But still… that image of the sower and those seeds. It haunts me.  And I keep asking myself why.

 

And I think part of it is this: To be exiled is to be sent somewhere unfamiliar, unknown—not our home, our safe place. To be sent into exile is to become vulnerable, dependent on the grace of God and the kindness of strangers. In exile, I must always ask for help, for permission, for assistance, for mercy. In exile we become kind of like the blind Bartimaeus: vulnerable to the thoughtless or cruel, and dependent on the kind. We become—in a sense—like one of those seeds. Cared for, we could take root and grow, possibly even thrive, but mistreated or cast aside we could just shrivel up, or be ground down and trampled to dust.  But, what does that mean to us today? What might it mean for our daily life?

 

Let me tell a brief story from my week. I have been baking a lot of muffins lately. And some come out perfect and moist and delicious, and others not quite so well; they are dense or not sweet enough, too dry… Well, last week I baked a batch of orange cranberry pecan muffins that just didn’t seem quite up to snuff. They were fine, but disappointing after the previous batch, which a friend referred to as “Herman’s magic muffins.”  And then I baked another… and again—not as good. No magic! In fact, their texture and the blandness of their taste left me feeling kind of depressed. I thought I had done everything the same, thought I had done it all right, but they just weren’t as good. Maybe those magic muffins were just an accident.  And the reality was these: too bland and a little dense, kind of like me.

 

Anyway, I tried again but went back to my basic raisin walnut recipe and those were a little better.  So I bagged a few up to take with me to work (as breakfast for the week) and discovered that I still had some failed cranberry orange muffins leftover in the faculty kitchen.  Why did the sight of those muffins make me so sad? Somehow they seemed a sign of my own frailty, my own failure. I started to throw them away, but realized how wasteful that would be –so I set them out on a plate for others.  Not a selfless act as much as one of desperation—I would say. I needed to be set free from the failure of those muffins! They haunted me—like missing a last second field goal or striking out with bases loaded in the final inning of the world series.

 

Let me remind you—these were not poisoned or tainted in any way, except by my own knowledge that they could have been better! So I put them out for anyone to take, and went off to open the library. Less than an hour later one of our theology teachers came in the library—a man who is fastidious in fashion and food, famous for his own cajun cooking—and as he was passing by he asked me:  Those muffins in the kitchen. Did you bake those?

And I confessed that I did, awaiting what I expected would be a sarcastic comment about nutmeg or molasses or something, but instead he thanked me for them, saying he hadn’t had time for breakfast, adding: Those are delicious.

 

I think that moment was a kind of annunciation moment for me. I had been feeling downhearted, not simply because of the muffins—but because they had become a kind of metaphor for my failure in so many other ways. Failure as a husband, as a father, as a son, as a brother and as a friend.  Failure as a poet, and failure as a person; I was feeling exiled and helpless. Blind to my own worth and perhaps even to my own sin.  And suddenly a figure stands before me announcing that what I thought was my failure, was instead food for his journey. And, that he found it “delicious.”

 

You see—like the Bible so memorably says: The muffin the baker rejected has become the theology teacher’s breakfast!

 

 What I thought was my failure, my worthless offering, a sign of my own fading value, was like a seed that fell to the ground—unnoticed. And yet, unless a seed fall to the earth and die, it remains alone, but if it dies—it will bear much fruit. 

 

Israel, dragged into exile bore the seeds –but not in their hair, not sewn into the garments the exiled people wore –No. In their flesh. They were the seeds. Chosen by God. Scattered and sown in exile, and as they returned they came bearing fruit, bearing the sheaves of God’s blessing.

 

But, we still have that final question: how on earth can we see exile as a kind of blessing? 

 

First, we have to stop thinking of a blessing as something that makes life easier, or more comfortable. What if we started thinking of a blessing as a chance to serve God? As a chance to bear witness to God’s presence, perhaps even allowing ourselves the vulnerability of becoming like Bartimaeus, who –in his exile—is a seed of grace.  The blind Bartimaeus is an opportunity for others, for those who encounter him to serve God, but even more to encounter Him… because as Jesus warns us:

“Whatever you did for the least of these, that you did unto Me.”

 

Feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, clothe the naked, help the sick… The people, the individuals, are the seed. The blessing of exile is found in that seed—not in their suffering, but in the chance that suffering gives to others –to us—to offer help, compassion, love. It isn’t that the cruelties of exile, homelessness, prison, illness, poverty are goods, or even blessings in themselves, but that they are perhaps the soil in which the seed is planted.   

 

And of course most of us will never suffer the kind of exile the psalmist spoke of. And if we are lucky, most of us will never experience the exile of blindness, like Bartimaeus. Our exiles (at least for most of us here in the US) will look more like loneliness, feeling unwanted or unneeded, or a failure, losing our place in a friend group or losing a job, or even losing our favorite pew at church…

 

Like me, your exile may not involve a great deal of discomfort, like me it could even be self-inflicted… in fact it may be as simple as having a bad day, or a bad week, or baking a bad muffin.  But whatever it is, trust that God is nearby—in fact He is right there with you, waiting to use it as an opportunity to reveal the blessing of His love.

Isaiah and the Lord's crushing pleasure

“It was the Lord’s good pleasure

to crush him with pain;

If he gives his life as a sin offering,

he will see his offspring

and prolong his life,

and through him

the Lord’s good pleasure will be done.”
–Isaiah 53:10

“It was the Lord’s good pleasure to crush him…” What a hard thing to read.  And yet, do many of us not feel a kind of crushing weight upon us even in our comfortable houses and relatively safe lives.  The weight of waiting and of not knowing. Perhaps even the weight of all that new-found quiet.  It is strange and sometimes must feel hard to be so “isolated,” and uncertain.

As Christians, we read this passage and immediately hear an allusion to Jesus and His cross, the suffering servant who gives His life as a sing offering for the sake of others.  But, reading it the other morning I wondered: what did Isaiah’s audience make of it? What did it mean to them? This image is from what is often referred to as “Second-Isaiah.” Scholars believe chapters 40-55, were written by a later prophet (perhaps a follower of the first) and were possibly written 150 years after chapters 1-39.  Second-Isaiah is believed to have been written during the Babylonian exile, so the audience for this book was themselves in exile, dragged off into slavery. They must have felt the true sting of these words. Were they struck by their God with this affliction? Certainly they were helpless, despised, crushed, a people of constant sorrow led to the slaughter. Did they believe that this truly was God’s pleasure? Or did they begin to suspect something even worse… that it was a sign, proof that there was no God, no Yahweh who loved and delighted in His chosen people. 

Had their whole history been nothing but a fantasy?  Were they just some minor tribe who had been lucky for a while, found a nice piece of fertile land, settled it and enjoyed a little success under a couple of minor kings, but of no real importance to the world or history? Easily knocked over by other larger and more powerful tribes or nations when the time was ripe…

Truly, how could a loving God take pleasure in crushing anyone? What on earth could these words have meant to 5^th century Israelites living in exile?  And what does it mean to us today, living in our own strange “self-isolated” exile?  I know that when I read these words I am struck by the brutal sound of them, the spiritual weight of such an image.  And I want to quickly find some nicer way to understand it. I want to find some way to tame it, make it sound not so frightful, but gentle and sweet. I want to find a way to fit it on a Hallmark card.

But you can’t. Not if you face it. Face the actual words themselves. Don’t hide behind theological interpretations, but ask yourself this:  What is God saying here? What is the truth God is revealing to us through this fearful image? Even today?

It seems to me, that –in fact-- this bleak vision is one of assurance and encouragement.  It assures us the same way I think it was intended to assure the enslaved in Babylon. It speaks not just of abuse and punishment, but of the real pleasure of God: self-giving.  To the 5^th century Israelites it may have said, their disfiguring abuse under the Babylonians, their seeming destruction, was in fact an unexpected kind of proof, a proof of God’s love. His true pleasure. And, thereby it speaks also of His presence right there with them, even in their hour of exile and destruction.

What a hard teaching this is.  Even for us today, in the shadow of the cross and the echo of the empty tomb, this is still a hard teaching. To find God’s pleasure, God’s love, God’s presence in our time of anxiety and suffering is very hard.  When things get rough, we tend to go into defense mode, and our shields go up—a kind of psychological and emotional self-isolating. No one wants to be mistreated, wants to be seen as a failure, wants to be disfigured by life and loss. Those moments make us feel completely abandoned, as if God has forgotten us. 

And yet this passage seems to say: Don’t be afraid. This is what you were made for.  Give your life to God and witness the pleasure of God’s will being done, in you and through you.

Even if it means becoming God’s suffering servant, we are being called to give our lives to Him, each and every day.  This isn’t just a memo for the time of pandemics and coronas, it is a call we need to listen for every single day.   

In Colossians, Paul writes of “making up” in his own suffering what is “lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (1:24).  Is that the opportunity that Isaiah is speaking of here?  

When the world feels like it is crushing us, when the sacrifices (even if it is just staying home and self-isolating) seem beyond our ability, perhaps that is the time for us not to turn away and hide.  But a time to surrender to the will of God.

A time to pray: 

Help me Lord, surrender to Your will, Your pleasure;
Help me surrender to the fullness of Your presence, Your tender love.

Like Your son, I pray: Not my will, but Yours be done.
My God, I give my life to you.

Struggling with strange passages: Reading with four-fold eyes

“But the Lord made Pharaoh stubborn,

And he refused to let them [Israel] go.”

–Exodus 10:27

When dealing with difficult scripture passages, one of the approaches that has been used since almost the beginning of Christianity is to read it in what is sometimes called the four-fold method.  This method seeks meaning in scripture on more than one level. It looks at a passage and seeks one (or more) of four different meanings in the passage: literal, allegorical, moral & anagogical.  Here is a clear demonstration of this method offered by Dante (in a letter describing how his Divine Comedy should be read).

“A first sense derives from the letters themselves, and a second from the things signified by the letters. We call the first sense "literal" sense, the second the "allegorical", or "moral" or "anagogical". To clarify this method of treatment, consider this verse: When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion (Psalm 113). Now if we examine the letters alone, the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses is signified; in the allegory, our redemption accomplished through Christ; in the moral sense, the conversion of the soul from the grief and misery of sin to the state of grace; in the anagogical sense, the exodus of the holy soul from slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal glory. they can all be called allegorical.”

With this in mind, I was wondering: how would this method help me in my reading of Exodus? Especially those troubling passages about God and Pharaoh; i.e. how does Pharaoh’s hardened heart look when read through this lens?

“But the Lord made Pharaoh stubborn,

And he refused to let them [Israel] go.”

–Exodus 10:27

How would one apply the four-fold method to reading this passage?  Literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical? 

So –let’s put it to the test:

                Literally, the Pharaoh was obstinate and would not let the Israelites leave –but what is the lesson we are to learn from this literal reading?  Is it that God bestows his mercy and love as He will and thus Pharaoh –in his sinfulness and ignorance—became even more obstinate simply because God’s grace did not or was not opened to him? Possibly because Pharaoh wasn’t open to it, or possibly because God chose not to open Pharaoh’s heart. However, a lesson we might learn from this literal reading is this: we cannot know God’s will or God’s plan and so perhaps we shouldn’t be judging anyone; not even the Pharaoh or his hardened heart.

Allegorically, Pharaoh is sin and sin often becomes even more obstinate when confronted. Thus we might read into this scene a vision of the Israelites lost in sin (Egypt) and under the control of sin (Pharaoh)— and when God sends help and sin is confronted by God’s message the sinful heart hardens; it grows more obstinate and the sinner appears to fall even more powerfully under sin’s control.

Morally, we see perhaps this: when we confront our sin (or confront sinners), sin may become more emboldened and obstinate; temptations and sinful behaviors may become more present and feel more powerfully in control –refusing to let us go.  And we, slaves to sin, may feel more helpless and unable to escape. But, we must not lose hope. This too may be part of God’s plan.

Anagogical: We are completely in God’s hands –at His mercy—and must put our hope in Him –in His mercy –even when our sin refuses to leave us, even when we feel unable to escape its hold—we must put our hope, our faith, our trust in the mercy of God.  That is our only way –that is the only road out of Egypt, and it  passes right through Calvary.

Yes—for me this is a troubling passage. But troubling isn’t bad. Most of the time, I’m learning, troubling means God is asking me to slow down and pay a little more attention.