Jesus said to him, “You have answered rightly. Do this and you shall live.”
The lawyer, who had answered correctly, wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
And Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. He made it brutally clear that those who would have been expected to help the wounded man, the priest and the Levite, did not. Instead, it was a Samaritan, a Samaritan again, the last person one would have expected to be the “good guy” in the story.
He told a story about two brothers who were asked by their father to go and do some work for him. One brother said, “Of course, Father,” but did not go. The other brother said, “I won’t,” but then went and did what the father asked.
He told them of a rich man who gathered all his riches together and planned to enjoy a life of ease and luxury. But God said, “This night your soul is required of you, and then where will all your riches be?” God is our riches. God is our treasure. Be aware always that God may come at any time. “Blessed are those servants whom the Master finds awake when he comes.”
He told pointed stories of banquets to which those who had been invited did not come, and in all three synoptic Gospels he urged his followers to take up their crosses and follow him. The shadow of the cross darkened against the brilliant sunlight. The parables have become overfamiliar, so often have we heard them preached, so often have we read them, the Prodigal Son, the Foolish Virgins, Dives and Lazarus, emphasizing the hardness of the human heart versus the love of God. When Jesus heals ten lepers he asks sadly, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” A Samaritan, once again.
Jesus made his points plainly, often exaggerating to be certain he was understood. And when he was still not understood he was angry and surprised. His message was clear. It came directly from the Father. It was obvious. How could people not get it? How could they be so obtuse? But his anger was tempered with compassion, and tenderness for all the little ones, the outcasts, those who knew their brokenness and searched for truth. He was offended by the legalism that does not allow healing on the Sabbath; for Jesus, love was always more important than law. So, despite constant misunderstanding, he healed, he taught, he wore himself out. It is not easy for God to take on “mortal vesture,” as the ancient French hymn phrases it.
Exhausted, Jesus stopped off to refresh himself at the house of his friends in Bethany, but shortly he was on the road again, preaching, telling stories, promising his listeners that God hears and answers their prayers. But then, because of the jealousy of the religious rulers, he warned them of their pride and arrogance. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He was ruthless in his condemnation of pride and hardness of heart, of arrogance and legalism, and he must have known how angry this was going to make them.
Why was he such a threat to the religious rulers? They were heavy, and he was lighthearted. They fasted and he feasted with his friends. They represented the power of the religious establishment, and he represented God’s vulnerability.
He continued on his way and met a young man to whom he was so drawn that he asked him to join him. But the young man, despite his immediate love of Jesus, could not give up his riches. Then came Jesus’ famous remark, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
They asked him, “Then who can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With us it is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God.”
I don’t want the camel and the eye of the needle explained. The point is not that there may have been a city gate called the Needle’s Eye, but that it is a marvelous metaphor, and Jesus loved metaphors.
* * *
—
The divine aspect of Jesus must have understood that there is no such thing as failure in God’s plan. The human aspect must have been exhausted and saddened as his disciples understood less and less, his friends dwindled away, and people demanded constant signs and miracles. Even his disciples put pride of place before God’s love. If they had heard his stories about taking the lowest seat at the banquet, or the last being first and the first being last, they appeared to have forgotten them.
How much worse was Judas’s betrayal than the disciples’ prideful pushing for power?
Judas. How are we to understand Judas? A friend of mine in Juneau, Alaska, told me that she had recently preached about Judas.
I asked her, “What did you say?”
She told me that when Judas scolded Jesus for allowing the woman to anoint his feet with expensive oil, spending money on the oil which could have been used for the poor, that was not the worst fault because we, like Judas, often fail to understand. Even when Judas contracted with the Pharisees to take money for delivering Jesus to them, that was not the worst fault, because we all do terrible things for money. Even when he betrayed Jesus by kissing him, that was still not the worst fault because one way or another we all betray our friends. But when Judas hanged himself, that was the ultimate fault, because it put a limit to the mercy of God, and we cannot do that.
But we do. We project our own limitations of mercy onto God and so, unwittingly, we join Judas in betrayal.
And why did the authorities need Judas? As Jesus pointed out, he preached daily in the temple. They could have arrested him at any time. So why did they wait, taking him deviously at night?
* * *
—
Even though Jesus knew that the authorities were seeking a way to condemn him to death, he continued his travels through the cities and villages, preaching the Good News of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were still faithfully with him, and a group of women, including Mary and Martha of Bethany, Joanna, Susannah, Mary of Magdala. There is nothing in Scripture to indicate that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute. She was one of the broken who came to him for healing. She had seven demons and he cleansed her of them, and then this remarkable woman became one of his followers, his friend, and one of the women who provided for Jesus and the disciples out of their own means.
He needed his friends. The tide was beginning to turn. He was even accused of casting out demons by demonic powers.
As usual, he turned away a harsh accusation with a soft answer, reminding people with his merry laugh that if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?
But when people want to believe evil of someone, they do not listen to reason.
* * *
—
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, a gesture of faith and friendship which Jesus accepted. A woman in the city who, according to Luke, was a sinner, came to the Pharisee’s house as soon as she heard that Jesus was there. She brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and began to weep, and to bathe his feet with her tears, and dry them with her hair. In accepting her ministrations, Jesus was again breaking taboos. Women, good women, were not supposed to display their hair, but to cover their heads, lest the sight of their hair awaken lustful desire in men. Good Orthodox Jewish women today are still required to cover their heads. And here was this woman, obviously not a good woman, flaunting her hair as she dried Jesus’ feet. In John’s Gospel the woman is named as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, and this implies that this was not an ordinary, good, middle-class family. Mary not only sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to him, something else women were not supposed to do, she displayed her hair. Shocking.
Today we hear a lot about the loss of family, and the need for the return of family values. As I thought about Mary and Martha and Lazarus I began to wonder what Jesus said about family and family values, and there is not a great deal in Scripture. None of the three, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, is mentioned as being married. Were they very young? There is no mention of parents.
We hear of Peter’s mother-in-law,
John’s and Peter’s parents, but little else of the family among the disciples. We hear of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, but usually that they didn’t understand him. We know that Jesus did not like the way women were treated. We know that Jesus and the disciples were dependent on the women who cared for them. What we think of as family is most closely represented with Jairus and his wife and daughter.
Are we limiting our thoughts? Mother, father, two or three children? Weren’t Mary, Martha, and Lazarus a family? In my young to middle years I was part of what is considered a traditional family, wife, husband, three children. For a while after my husband died, my family was my two college-age granddaughters: Charlotte lived with me for seven wonderful years, and Léna was in and out. Now it is Bara, my apartment mate, who stays with me two or three nights a week. My family is my prayer group, my writers’ workshops. It is my children and grandchildren and godchildren. What is family?
We are family or not largely because of the way we treat each other. We hear too much about families where there is abuse, abuse of bodies, of alcohol, of spirit. We hear of families where cheating is the highest value and the kids congregate on the street in gangs who become their families. We hear of families where things, all the things that money can buy, TVs, telephones, toys, are what matter.
I am grateful for my family, all my families.
My friend Tallis said that the Trinity is our icon of family, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Earth Maker, Pain Bearer, Life Giver. In a true family we honor each other. We do not control, dominate, manipulate. Power is not a family value.
Family can be a movable feast. It can be a group of friends sitting around the dining table for an evening. It can be one or two people coming to stay with me for a few nights or a few weeks. It should be the church, and I am grateful that my church is a small church. Whenever there’s talk of needing a larger space, I say, sadly, that there are lots of churches in New York with large spaces. We’re unique as we are. I’ll be sorry if we fall into the bigger-is-better syndrome, and I’ll be leaving. We have other visions for our church—helping another small but struggling church, for instance.
Family can be our house churches, our Bible study groups, our prayer groups.
Family ultimately means commitment. I am deeply committed to my family, with all its brokenness and fallenness. I am deeply committed to my friends, some of whom have been in my heart since I was a teenager, some who have come more recently. It is the commitment which makes family. The people we eat with, around the altar, or around the dining table at home.
Jesus was committed to his disciples, even when they totally failed to understand, even when they remained hung up on power, even when they abandoned him when he needed them most.
Do we sometimes run away? Do we refuse to go to the sick bed, the hospital, because it’s just too hard? We’re human, like the disciples.
Family forgives, as Jesus forgave.
Can we forgive the Peter or the Judas in ourselves? Jesus will. So must we.
11
I WAS BLIND, AND NOW I SEE
During his human ministry Jesus continued to heal, to shock, to tell stories, such as the story of the sower who sowed seed. Some of it fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it. Some fell on rock and was withered by the hot sun. Some fell on thorns, and the thorns choked it. “And some fell on good soil and brought forth grain, and yielded a great crop.” And then he added, “Whoever has ears, listen,” for already he was aware of how few people heard what he said, or understood what he meant, and this must have been grief to him.
He told his listeners that the parables were like lights, not to be hidden, but to be put on a stand to give light to all. And he told his friends that they were to be lights, lights not to be hidden but to give light to the world.
Jesus was light, the Light of the world, and he gave light. He opened the eyes of a man blind from birth, and again, he did this on the Sabbath day (was this deliberate?), as usual antagonizing the Pharisees, who pronounced that Jesus was a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath. This perverse legalism is still around today.
The Jewish leaders asked the man’s parents, “Is this really your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
The parents did not want to upset the religious leaders, so they told him they didn’t know. “He is of age. Ask him.”
And the young man said simply, “All I know is that I was blind, and now I see.”
And we are left wondering, who was blind? The man blind from birth, or the Pharisees? Jesus leaves us little doubt.
* * *
—
It’s important to remember that not all the religious leaders distrusted and hated Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Jairus, leaders of the synagogue, all men who were important in the religious establishment, were drawn to Jesus. Their respect for him must have carried some weight, but not enough.
It is hard to understand how Jesus must have felt as he moved through the last difficult weeks, nevertheless knowing that he came from God and would return to God. Even his closeness to the Father could not take away the loneliness and seeming failure. He had to die, to be killed by those he had come to rejoice with.
So we, too, have to accept the consequences of our choices. I believe that Jesus is calling us to choose freedom with all its responsibility. It would be easier to live in a predetermined universe, where everything has already been chosen by God. Freedom is not an easy choice.
I don’t think I could love a master puppeteer as I love the Holy Trinity, the Earth Maker, the Pain Bearer, the Life Giver—the Holy Spirit, the Comforter Jesus sent to be with us.
I trust that Spirit, even when the winds blow wildly. When I have a decision to make I usually ask myself what I think Jesus would do, and what Jesus would want me to do, and I do not always know the answer. I ask for the guidance of the Spirit, and I believe that it is always given, but sometimes I do not hear as I should. But I know that I am loved, even when I am not able to recognize and accept that love.
Sometimes I am given my most wondrous glimpses of Jesus in the small or unexpected things, from a friend pouring a cup of tea to looking up at the evening sky and seeing the tiny sliver of a moon and staying to watch the stars come out. I am filled with joy at the wonder of God’s leaving all that glory and coming to the poor fallen thing that has become of his glorious little planet, peopled by creatures who have the ability to choose right and wrong, and who so often choose wrong. Why does this give me hope rather than despair?
I suppose it gives me hope because there is nothing that happens, nothing, that is not part of God’s concern, part of that love which expressed itself completely in the Incarnation. Our wrong choices are ours, not God’s. The terrible things that happen are usually because of our wrong choices.
* * *
—
A friend comes to tea, asking, “You mean it was not part of God’s plan for Cathleen to be killed in an automobile accident?”
“No!” I exclaim. “Cathleen was killed because a drunken driver crossed the median and ran into her car. God did not make that driver drink too much.” It was, once again, a human creature who had done wrong, causing pain and great anguish. God does not plan our sin and error!
“Why didn’t God stop him?”
“Because God made us with free will, and that means God does not go around waving magic wands.”
“But what does God do?”
“God is in it with us. That’s the affirmation of the Incarnation.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I don’t, either. But I do know that I’d like a totally preplanned universe even less.”
What does this kind of insistence on God’s omnipotence actually do to God’s loving and creative potency?
Nothing. It takes more power than I can imagine to give up power.
* * *
—
Perhaps this kind of thinking should change the way I pray, but it doesn’t, maybe because I pray in so many different ways. I am often anxiously demanding. Fix it. Do something. Save. Help.
God isn’t just sitting back watching the universe unfold. God does not interfere with free will, and yet God is the Creator of the great dance of being, participating, loving. Sometimes the paradox makes sense to me only as I hold out my hands for the bread and wine.
Do I believe in miracles, then? Of course I do. I have seen miracles, participated in miracles, and I don’t want them explained away. Nor do I try to reconcile these miracles with God’s precious gift of free will.
Jesus said, “Anything you ask in my Name I will give you.”
A family in my church prayed faithfully and with complete trust as they watched their daughter die of cancer, a young woman who was a physician working among the poorest of the poor, who had given her life to good. What did Jesus mean? Not that he would always answer yes, but what did he mean? When he gave that promise, what did he mean?
We had no answer.
Does it have something to do with eternity, rather than time? Is it that their daughter was a holy person and reconciled to her death, and ready for it, but they were not? Jesus does not break promises, but we may not yet be able to understand the way he keeps them.
Cathleen. A two-year-old baby with leukemia. A brilliant young doctor. It is beyond our comprehension. We want to understand, and it is difficult to accept that we cannot, because we used to be able to say, “It is God’s will.” But healing is God’s will. If we could understand everything we would have absolute power, and that is not what Jesus came to give us.
God gives each of us our own way to be part of the suffering of the world, and part of the joy of the world, too.
Bright Evening Star Page 12
