Listening and asking them questions... thoughts on the presence of God

 

“Where are you?”

--Genesis 3: 9

 

In the readings for Mass today we heard that profoundly important story of Adam and Eve and the Fall (Genesis 3: 9-15).  The reading begins just after the eating of the forbidden fruit.  God comes into the garden and calls out to Adam, who is hiding from Him.  There is so much that can be said about this simple and relatively brief story, so much truth to be discovered, so much insight into the psychology of sin, of shame, of scapegoating.  Adam hides because he is naked, because he is vulnerable to the view of another—because he is self-conscious and doesn’t want anyone to notice some aspect of his nature, his being (his sin).  When questioned, he tries to obfuscate: tries to deflect attention on himself by shifting it to God’s sudden appearance. “I heard you walking in the garden and hid because I was naked.” As if he has not always been naked, as if that is not the way he has always appeared before God.  Then when questioned further, he shifts the blame to Eve.  But it’s not only her fault; God is still to blame.  “The woman YOU put here with me...” (3:12) is the real problem! And then Eve, who was just thrown under the bus, turns and blames the serpent. It’s not my fault, it was that damned serpent! “The snake tempted me...” (3:14).  Ask yourself, isn’t that still the way sin works? We get tempted, we do something we’re ashamed of, and as soon as someone finds us out we start looking for someone, or something else to blame.  It’s not my fault. It’s the media, it’s the economy, it’s society, my parents, my husband, my wife... My fault (or sin) is never truly mine, but can always be explained away as the result of someone else’s choices or behavior.     

Anytime we are tempted to think of how backwards and unenlightened people used to be, how primitive they were; how they wouldn’t understand the complexities of life today, wouldn’t grasp the psychological or emotional or social ramifications of a particular action or choice---just pause and reread the first few chapters of Genesis.  It’s all there.  Modern psychology and morality have nothing to teach the ancient writers of the Hebrew Bible.

 

But there is one small aspect of this story that I want to ponder for a moment today: the way that God talks with Adam and Eve. It’s a series of questions. The first thing God does is look for Adam. Talk about a theologically profound image. Adam and Eve have disobeyed God’s command and fallen into sin, and instead of abandoning them, or smiting them, God goes looking for them.  Ponder that for a week or two.  But what caught my eye this morning was the questioning.  “Where are you?” God calls out, but why? God is omniscient and knows exactly where every hair on Adam’s head is at every moment, why does He need to ask? He doesn’t... And that, to my ear, is a clue to the reader. God doesn’t need to ask Adam where he is. God doesn’t need to ask who gave the fruit to Adam? God doesn’t even need to ask why Eve ate from the forbidden tree. God knows. So, why does God ask?  Because it is in the very nature of God to invite us into relationship. To ask us questions, and to listen to our answers.  God asks not for His benefit, but for ours. So that we can reveal ourselves to Him. So that we might freely open ourselves entirely to Him, to His love, and to His mercy.

 

Listening to this story today, I suddenly found myself thinking of another image of God asking questions and listening.  It is from the story of Jesus as a child getting lost in Jerusalem. When Mary and Joseph finally find Him, He is sitting among the elders in the temple, “Listening to them and asking questions...” (Luke 2:46).

 

This is how God reaches out to people. He asks questions, and He listens.

 

How much better would the world be today if we all acted the same?  If, instead of trying to blame someone, or shame someone, what if we acted a little more like Jesus? Instead of casting blame or shame, what if we—instead—each began asking more questions and listening to the answers?  

 

We may not agree with what we hear, but we may find that a door has been opened—both in us and in the person we listen to. And we may find that opening that door changes more than opinions, it changes the world.  Because that’s how God works.

 

What do you think?

Mornings on the Porch... God--sanctuary or stumbling block or both?

 

Mornings on the porch

 

“He will be a sanctuary,
a stumbling block...
a snare and a trap...
over which many will stumble
and be broken...”

--Isaiah 8:14-15

 

This is a fascinating image from early in Isaiah, and it seems oddly discordant. In context, it is part of the prophet’s marching orders—his message for Israel and the people of Jerusalem. But what does it mean? How can the same God be both a sanctuary and a stumbling block? A place of safety and a snare –a trap? And why?

 I’m wondering if this message has something to say to us of God’s love and our free will. Perhaps even something about how we might experience a blessing as a stumbling block...  For instance, this morning I woke early—before the sun—and after feeding the cats and setting out my leftover coffee from the night before, I went out to meet the sunrise. I had a wonderful breezy walk around the park, greeted a few neighbors, petted a couple of dogs, but the drifting clouds and the gray sky kept the sunrise hidden. Oh well... At home, I warmed up my coffee and went out on the porch with my record player and put on Ernest Tubb’s Greatest Hits. Listening to his plaintive voice promising to “get along somehow...” I thought about writing a poem or maybe I should be reading my morning Bible chapters or... and then I noticed all the leaves under my chair and around my feet and remembered my promise to my wife the night before that I would sweep the porch in the morning.

 But what about my coffee? I just warmed it up... And what about that poem... If I don't write it, who will? Or all that reading I was wanting to do?  I could always sweep the porch afterwards; after I write or read or drink or make a fresh pot of coffee and a batch of muffins and turn the record over and listen to the other side and... And besides that, there will always be more leaves; didn’t the weather man say it’s supposed to be windy all weekend?  So many “good” reasons to put off that sweeping--at least for a while-- to wait until later...  But... I promised.

And so, instead, I found the broom and got to work—going at it with as much care and skill as a 65 year old poet/librarian can muster. As I worked I found two reactions tussling inside of me.  One was a faint sense of embitterment –fear really—that I was wasting valuable time. I should be doing something important, like writing! Or meditating! Or reading the Bible. Anything but sullenly sweeping up leaves that would only be blown back before lunch!

 But another voice inside me said: You promised. Keep your word. Sweep the porch and listen to the sound of the broom on the concrete and the cries of the birds and the singing of the Texas Troubadours. Let that be your meditation. Let that be your comfort and let it become your poem and your prayer...  Rest in it; in the work and in the peace that comes from doing it. Of being true to yourself and to the one you love. Rest in the grace that flows from serving another, the grace of God’s self-giving love. The love that flows through even the simplest work when done for the sake of another, flows not just out of us, but through us and flows from the original source (and sanctuary) of all Love...

When love calls us, it can be a sanctuary and a comfort, but it can also feel like a snare or a trap. The call of love to die to self, to give up your own plans for the sake of another doesn't change, but how we encounter it... That is up to us.  It’s a choice we all must make. 

To paraphrase Joshua 24... As for me and my porch, I know which one we will choose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fourth week of Lent--it's not too late to go to confession

 

“In those days, there was no king in Israel,

and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

--Judges 17:6

 

There are two excuses I hear Catholics use when it comes time to go to confession. First is the excuse that they cannot think of what to confess, as far as they can tell they haven’t committed any real sins; i.e. Nothing to see here, so what’s the point? This excuse implies either a willful blindness or a saint-like innocence.  Second is the somewhat more reasonable excuse: What’s the point? I’m just going to sin again.  I will go confess, get absolved, have a good day or two, then fall right back into my old habits. Again, what’s the point?

 

If you are like me and you find yourself falling into both of these camps, spend a little time this Lent reading the Book of Judges.  It is a book of sin and failing, a book of broken promises and wasted opportunities.  It is a book of God’s mercy and man’s repeated efforts to turn (even flee) from it. It is a disheartening book in many ways, but reading it in the midst of Lent it seems a bitter reminder that no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape the power of sin, the weakness of the flesh; that regardless of our efforts, and despite our best intentions, we will stumble and fall again, and again.

 

This is a truth sadly confirmed in my own life; blessed by the grace of God with friends, family, work that I love, a roof over my head, food on the table, a bed to sleep in, I still find myself envying others, still find my eye wandering, appraising, objectifying others—not only lusting in my heart, but envying their gifts, coveting their achievements, bearing false witness against them (at least in my imagination), desiring not only their homes and their lives but even their asses!! In general,  making of my own desires a false god and making of my own stomach an altar for his offerings... And sadly, this is on a good day!

 

Before lunch...

 

But the Book of Judges bears witness to the truth that this is part of the human condition. In Judges we get the story of how God’s chosen people kept straying from God’s will and losing the Promised Land. No matter how many times God rescued them, forgave them, brought them back... they kept turning away from the grace of God’s love and toward the desires of their hearts. We are a people born into a sinful world, and shaped by that world, even the best of us may find ourselves falling into the habit (the excuse) of “doing what is right in his own eyes.”

 

And that is the barrier behind that first excuse: nothing to confess. Many of us may feel we truly have nothing to confess, nothing to ask forgiveness for, because we were always only doing what seemed right at the time, at least in our eyes.  How often every day do we justify and rationalize our choices, for some of us we turn our every desire into a “need,” and our every need into a right. Until we find that we are owed everything we want. As a teenager, I stole a pair of sneakers from a store I worked at. I justified it by telling myself I wasn’t being paid enough. I wasn’t receiving a fair wage! They owed it to me. I convinced myself that stealing those shoes wasn’t a sin, it was my right.  I walked in those shoes for weeks thinking I had nothing to confess.  Because, in my eyes, I had only done what was right.  But clearly—I was wrong, and luckily when I bragged about it to a friend, he set me straight.

 

The other excuse, that going to confession could be pointless because regardless of my intentions ----I’m just going to sin again; that is the truth lurking beneath every chapter of Judges. No matter what God does for them, no matter how often God rescues them, the Israelites stumble into sin again and again.  They set up altars to false gods, they make alliances with pagan kings, they glorify themselves instead of God, celebrating their own power and cleverness and courage until something happens and they realize how helpless they are and once again cry out to God for mercy and help—for a savior.

 

They repent, they get saved, then—after a while—they fall back into their old ways, old habits, their sin.  For me, it is a quite familiar pattern, one I know all too well. And yes, there is some value in facing up to the truth of our story, patterns of behavior that seem to guide us through life—as if a kind of auto-pilot.  Yes, we should be honest about our habits and our weaknesses.  But we mustn’t let ourselves be discouraged. Though we stumble—again and again—we must never fall into despair. 

 

For me, going to confession, isn’t a quick-fix solution to a lifetime of bad habits and half-hearted struggles with sin; it is more like the forming of a new habit.  A habit that will—I hope—one day replace the old ones. A habit of contemplating my choices, my patterns of behavior not with judgment and finger waving, but with honesty and compassion.  Am I addicted to certain pleasures? Have I been self-centered or prideful? Mean-spirited or cold-hearted? How can I change those patterns? Well, the first thing I need to do, the first step in any twelve-step program, is admitting that I need help. And for me, that is what confession is—a chance to come before God and admit that I need help.  That the same sins of lust and avarice and envy and pride that I struggled with in college are still with me.  That fear of want still drives me to dreams of gluttony and greed... And those fears too often drive my every decision.  Bless me Father, for I have sinned... Hello, my name is Herman and I am a sinner...

 

One last word here: the other day, sitting in mass, I looked up for the first time and noticed that the pew we were in was right next to the sixth Station of the Cross: Jesus falls a second time.  Looking at that image, I realized something I had never noticed before: that He fell a second time.  Think of that:  Jesus on His way to the cross, stumbled and fell a second time.  That means He had already fallen once before.  And that He fell again.  And, He got back up again.  He took up His cross and continued on the way to Calvary.  And, I realized something else, that He would fall again. Tradition has it that Jesus fell three times on the way to His death.  Sitting there at the edge of the pew, looking up at that image, I had a kind of epiphany.  Jesus fell a second time. He had already fallen once before and He knew He would fall again.  But He still got back up, took up His cross and, even knowing how it would end, He kept going.

 

The next time you are thinking –what’s the point of going to confession? I’m just going to make the same mistakes, I’m just going to fall again.  Think about that image of Christ, falling under the weight of our sin, a second time... Meditate on that image, and ask yourself if it isn’t time to get back up and try again. 

 

Because we do have a King, a King who took the form of a slave and died on a cross--for us.  Confession is a way of asking myself: What do my choices look like through His eyes?

On becoming a star--It's in your job description--Just ask John the Baptist

 

Advent 2023

 

“A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him. 
He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.”
–John 1: 6-8

 

 

Sitting on my front porch, reading the Gospel of John, I was struck by this familiar verse. I heard something new this morning hat I had not heard before: a job description!  This is John the Baptist’s job description.  His job was to testify to the light.  To tell the world what he knew to be true, so that all might believe. Very simple, very straightforward; no complex language about quotas or expectations, no official title, no qualifications, no list of duties—and no terms of severance.  Just the simple and straightforward, open-ended call to testify to the light, with the goal that “all” might believe.

 

Basically John’s job was to be a Burma-Shave sign (a Buc-ees sign for you youngsters out there). He was called to be a road sign pointing the way to The Light. That’s it.  And it occurred to me that his job description doesn’t just apply to John the Baptist.  Doesn’t it actually apply to all of us? Isn’t that the job description of every Christian? We are all called to be a testimony to the Light—to the love of God, to the saving grace of Christ. How we do it isn’t described, isn’t spelled out. Some people may do it through words, others through fasting and prayers, and still others through lives of sacrifice and service.  But the plain truth is we are all called to testify to the light—to live as a sign for others, that they might believe.

 

For most of us, our testimony may go unseen by the vast majority of the world around us.  Our testimony is one of patience and kindness to a stranger: standing in line at the pharmacy, we smile and speak a gentle word to the young mother struggling with her fussing child, or we speak a word of encouragement and cheer to the UPS delivery guy putting packages at our door. Maybe your testimony is to get up at 3 in the morning and walk with a crying baby so that your spouse can sleep. Maybe your testimony is not just to give a $20 bill to the homeless person asking for money, but to also ask his or her name, and to give them your name. Maybe even shake hands and let them know that you will pray for them.  Let them know they are seen, they matter.  

 

For so many of us, our testimony will never make it into a book or even be remembered much beyond the moment, but it will be a testimony, and it will plant a seed, and it may be that when we are all gathered together into that Light, into the Kingdom we call Heaven—you will be greeted by someone you don’t remember, but they will remember you, and that one little act of kindness that lit a spark in their soul... that testimony of love.

 

There is one more thing this little passage reminds me of, especially at Christmas time. And that is a certain star. We see it on so many Christmas cards, but do we ever ponder what it means? It is shining there, above a stable, above a manger, showing us the way.  For the wise-men, that star was a kind of testimony, a road sign, guiding them on their journey.  But even with all its splendor and glory, it wasn’t the actual goal, it was just a sign—a flashing neon testimony to something far greater: a homeless, cold, and exhausted child sleeping in a manger. As we unwrap presents and prepare our holiday tables, let us remember that; the true gift of Christmas is God come to us in the form of a helpless child. Remembering that, pondering it, living it... it will give your life a radiance that will shine for others. It may not get you mentioned at the next Academy Awards or Music Awards, but it can definitely make you a star.  Just ask John the Baptist.