Can you repeat that?

Matthew 16 & 17

I believe in evolution.  In order for a thing to be complete, it has to change.   But before that happens, repetition does its good work.  It builds a steadiness, a pattern we can follow and gain confidence in.  This is true in art, music, poetry, in all things "created."

Anyone with kids can tell you that repetition is vital to their development.  Bedtime routines, repeating words  and rules, reading the same book over and over again.  The best example of this is the notorious toddler habit (generally with a large bucket of toys) of dump, retrieve, repeat.  Early childhood specialists will tell you all kinds of great skills they are learning in this process, but if they did this forever, it would be weird.  At some point they learn the principle and then move on to a new set of repetitions.  Right now, we're stuck on some and, thankfully, past others.  I think we've been telling Cael (7) not to suck on his fingers while he reads for at least 4 years now.  That's his thinking position: not the muscular, stoic pose of a man resting his chin on his fist, but a first grader engrossed in "Percy Jackson" and drooling all over the pointer finger jammed to his back molars. But he finally makes his bed without us asking every morning (check!).  I've coached Beck (4) numerous times on avoiding the combination of black dress socks and shorts or stripes and camouflage.  The days he dresses himself and we're not going anywhere, he's quite a sight.  But he finally learned not to bring his toy weapons to the dinner table (something that kind of makes me sad). And baby Cooper, after hearing us ask, "What's this?" hundreds of times, now says, "this"  (which is actually kind of brilliant because this is this - he's light years ahead of us.)  For me, I'm stuck in a negative set of repetitions.  Every week I commit to stop my daily intake of chocolate and start running more.  And every week I sneak chocolate chips, revel in dessert, and sleep in too much. (What can I say?  My kids are smarter than I am.)

Even Jesus's ministry and the telling of it is steeped in repetition.  Every page there's a healing.  The same phrases find their way into nearly every teaching: "the kingdom of heaven is like...,"  "blessed are...," "thy faith hath made thee whole."   The stories themselves are retold several times between the four gospels.  It couldn't be that they didn't have anything else to write about, since John himself says that what we don't know about Jesus could fill so many books the world wouldn't have room for them.  In other words, a lot.  So why the same stories over and over?

>>>>>

The first time we are introduced to Peter, he's fishing.  There is a real routine to fishing - throwing out the nets, retrieving, sorting, then starting the process all over again.  I imagine the weather gets repetitive, the seasons, the same pull and drag of the net.  But Peter has obviously learned something beyond just expert fishing, some basic principles that make him ripe for discipleship because, when Jesus bursts on the scene, he is ready to start a new life.  He just didn't bargain on everything that new life would bring.

In these chapters, Peter has figured things out.  He's read the signs and has added up what they mean.  At least, to some degree.  They mean that Jesus - this man he's broken bread with, slept near, walked with mile after mile -  is the one all the prophecies have been about.  And when Peter confesses this to Jesus, Jesus tells him he'll build his church on this kind of rock, meaning Peter (petros, "a small rock" in Greek), meaning he trusts Peter, enough to do the work when he's gone.  Later, Peter himself calls his own followers "lively stones."  They, like him, help build up the kingdom of God.  All of this sounds so comforting, so sure.

And then Peter goes on displaying some of the grossest errors of any of the disciples.  Sometimes in the reading, I see him as that well-intended guy who is (almost) always saying the wrong thing (because he's talking more than anyone), who's living with his heart out on his sleeve but who is awkward and unsure, the one who knows a lot and is quick to understand but who falters at those critical moments.  He seems to constantly leap out and then retreat.  When he contradicts Jesus about his imminent death (right after the exchange about being a rock), Jesus calls him Satan and says he is an offense to him.  When he can't keep walking on that water, Jesus says his faith is too weak.  And when they're on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter lapses into what I can't help but read as a nervous babbling.  Is he really all that interested in building tabernacles or is he just trying desperately to find something to say?  (I'd be scared too if I were on a mountain top with the Son of God and two dead prophets.  The air itself must have been electrifying.)  And if that isn't embarrassing enough, in the middle of his babbling, he gets interrupted.  Suddenly a bright cloud overshadows them and God speaks.  Talk about awkward timing.

What I love most about Peter is how real he is.  At this point, things are in constant motion for him.  Just as soon as he gets his bearings in one thing, it changes.  And his flaws are on full display every time someone opens this book.  And yet, he was the right man for the job.  With all of his awkwardness, his "lack of faith" (who are we kidding? he left everything behind, he had loads of faith), his instinct to save his own skin when Jesus was arrested, he was still the stone Jesus said he'd build on.  He could be right for it while still being (glaringly) imperfect.  He was still evolving.

>>>>

I've always known I have a bit of a temper, but it hadn't shown itself much since that one time in my late teens when I got mad at my friends while we were all working in Yellowstone for the summer.  I don't remember what the issue was, but I do remember stomping into my bedroom in our cabin and throwing all of my shoes against the door as hard as I could, leaving little dents in the original wood that had been there since 1905.   Since then I'd congratulated myself on growing up and out of my anger.  And I was sure it was all behind me.
 
But, years later, there I was, sitting on my bed and sobbing (again) because I'd lost my temper (again) and yelled at my son (again).   No doubt it was for something totally normal in Kid Land (tracking in mud or spilling orange juice on the rug... or playing with his poop, then wiping it all over the side of the bathroom vanity... that's normal, right?), but I'd had it, and this awful rage just burst right out of me and scared both of us.  And as many times as I committed to stay patient, it never seemed to happen.  No wonder the cell phone lay in pieces on the floor.

Later that day I calmly entered the cell phone store and had an exchange with the single, childless, couldn't-be-older-than-20, male employee.  I had to explain that, knowing my old phone was on the fritz anyway and in a moment of frustration in the never-ending saga known as Potty Training, I had taken out my anger on the most helpless and feeble item in the room: my phone.  In fact, I'd thrown it against the wall, and it was now a pile of sad-looking debris in my hand.  After a look of horror (and fear) crossed his face, he tried to laugh a little (I wasn't joking, I said seriously), and showed me the display of other phones, keeping his distance until his co-worker came back from lunch break, and she took over.

I am deeply flawed in the parenting department.  While I don't have that kind of anger anymore (thankfully), I still lose it sometimes.  And the windows are open.  And I'm sure some of the neighbors hear.  (Lucky for us our neighbors on one side are elderly and can't hear very well.)  But that doesn't mean that I wasn't meant to be a parent.

We can be the right person for the job and still be clueless about how to do it.  We can screw up and embarrass ourselves over and over again and still be getting somewhere so long as we're learning.

It's not a coincidence that my anger happened mainly with my first son.  I was new at being a mother.  I'd never done this before.  Since then, I've learned, through the patterns of daily life as a mother (where everything is repetition), how to juggle things a little better, and how to lower the bar of my expectations until it practically touches the floor.

Maybe we can be kinder, more merciful to leaders and disciples and parents and even kids who've never been those before.  It's all pretty new.  Give them some time to get more of it down because most of the time, they do.  How many times do I have to read the story of Peter until I believe that?

Against the Commodified Jesus

            Matthew 15

I've never liked the term "Jesus freak."  Maybe because, aside from name-calling, it suggests that anyone who loves Jesus is automatically a fanatic.  At the same time, I get it.  If we're talking about a commercial production of Jesus, one that we wear or drive or chew loudly like so much stale gum, well, I don't like that either.

For a lot of society, Jesus is a commodity.  He takes the shape of whatever is convenient or trendy at the time, whatever we want him to be.  Hippie Jesus is heavy on the sandals and long hair.  Rebel Jesus revels in spitfire comebacks and, when he's not staging revolutions, spends his time as a loner in the mountains.  Peace Jesus just wants us all to love each other, hold hands, and sway to the music.  "Don't judge" Jesus doesn't want us to judge anyone.  Ever.  (Though I'm not sure how the "by their fruits ye shall know them" and "pearls before swine" comments factor in.  I guess they don't.)  Then there's the Jesus who is boiled down to almost slapstick one-liners paraded on church signs  ("2 nails + 2 boards = 4given" or "today's forecast: heavenly reign").   Bite-size Jesus hangs out on bumper stickers or bobbles from dashboards, an accessory next to mufflers or candy wrappers.  Funny Jesus is the butt of jokes but a good sport because, hey, he loved everybody.  There is, as always, the Jesus who offends.  My nephew was once talking about Jesus to his friend, a 9 year old whose parents have taught him to distrust religion.  My nephew innocently tried to explain why he likes church, but his friend curtly replied, "Jesus is creepy."  So, apparently there's even a Creepy Jesus.  (Okay, the images all over Google of Jesus with the flaming red heart on his chest.... those are kind of creepy.) 

Even people who have read his words over and over again, who have tried to live his teachings, who have taught other people his sermons and parables, still misunderstand Jesus and, without realizing it, try to fit him into a mold that has grown comfortable and comforting.  I know because I've been one of them.  For two weeks I've been mulling over something that happens in this chapter that is surprising to me each time I read it because I'm not sure where it "fits."

A woman comes to Jesus begging him to heal her daughter of an evil spirit.  This seems almost run-of-the-mill by now in the record of his ministry.  But this woman is a Canaanite, and rather than turning to her and saying any one of his now famous lines of forgiveness and healing, Jesus says nothing to her.  In fact, when she persists, he explains that she isn't one of the people he is sent to teach.  She's a Gentile.  His mission is to work with "the lost sheep of the House of Israel."  He's not being cruel, but that's his calling, and he's obedient to it.  The Gentiles will get the gospel later.  But right now, Jesus is teaching and healing his people, the ones who've had all those prophecies about him and who are supposed to accept him and tell the world about it.  And yet, this woman will not take "no" for an answer.  She continues to plead with him.  And when she says, "Lord, help me," he replies with a metaphor that almost stings.  He tells her "it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs."

That this woman has been compared to a dog is not lost on her, or me.  For years this response has shocked me.  Where's the love, Jesus?  How can you say something like this?  Up to now, these kinds of comments have been reserved for the "hypocrites" who tout the Law of Moses like bling in public and then patently disregard it in private.  The guys who, at the beginning of this chapter, get after Jesus because his disciples aren't washing their hands before they eat bread.  The guys who are so jealous of Jesus and his disciples -  healing, casting out evil spirits, drawing out thousands into the desert -  that their childish defense is to nitpick everything they do. So, logically, Jesus puts them in their place.

But this woman is begging, and there is no indication that her purpose is anything but selfless and loving and faithful.  Particularly so because she isn't even Jewish.  And above all of that, she isn't offended.  Instead, she agrees with him and says, "yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."   In other words, she'll take what she can get, even if she's not "worthy."

I could easily write about this woman's humility, how she is a perfect example of not being offended at the word.  In the end, she got what she wanted.  Her faith was so great that her daughter was healed immediately.  I could write about how Jesus had a mission, how his life was organized (teach Jews, not Gentiles) and how he was obedient to that but also compassionate.  He did heal her daughter.

But what draws me to this is the conversation itself.  It is intimate and ironic.  It is surprising and emotional.  It's almost as if you can hear them talking to each other, see them turn and face one another and recognize one another for who they are.  It is an encounter between two people who are as real and as individual as anyone.

And when Jesus says to her "O woman, great is thy faith," there is a profound sense of respect there that is both mutual and divine.  "Lord," she says to him. And he replies, "O woman."  She worships him, and he understands her.

I can't say I understand everything Jesus said and did.  He is a god, the Son of God, and what he does might not always make perfect sense to me.  But I can honestly say I prefer that living, breathing, honest, complex and still surprising Jesus over any two-dimensional representation of him.  Maybe that's why, in Isaiah and all those prophecies that celebrate him, he has dozens of names.  He is many things.  Not the least of which, he's real.






     

There Is No Scoreboard

      Matthew 14

In this week's chapter, Herod celebrates his birthday, and over the past week we have celebrated the birthdays of two of our sons: one who just turned 1, and the other, 7.  I can tell you that the birthday parties we threw were nothing like Herod's.  In fact, I've never been to a birthday party that resembles anything like Herod's. Birthdays in our world are largely full of balloons, homemade cakes that match the birthday theme (I do my best, but they are still so obviously homemade ), and a gathering of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and our elderly neighbors who love to dote on my sons.  Stuffed into our tiny front room, we laugh, hug, and chatter, and do our best not to spill cake in the process.  Bright wrapping paper and bows peek out of a garbage bag, and the kids are off playing with all the new toys.  It's the essence of innocence.  So it struck me more than ever this time, that, in verse 6 when it reads "But when Herod's birthday was kept..." (that word "birthday" sitting there on the page like a bright balloon), I am still not fully prepared for the sinister and awful plots that ensue.

John, on the other hand, has to know what's coming.  At least to some degree.  For the last several chapters he's been locked in prison, awaiting his fate at the hands of someone he knows is merciless.  Someone who has slaughtered all the babies in Israel is certainly not going to bat an eye at killing one man.

And while he is there, alone, sitting in the cold dark, John knows that Jesus is out there, preaching and doing miracles and drawing out multitudes.  Many of them the same people who used to follow him.  They are calling Jesus's name and worshiping him.  What John spent his life working for - the coming of Jesus - is now unfolding.  But he is not there to see it.  And yet, by all records, there is not one note of jealousy or resentment from John. In fact, he sends his own followers to Jesus to confirm he is the Christ, and then, it would seem, admonishes them to follow him.

I spend my days taking care of my three sons.  If I'm not feeding, changing or tracking down the 1 year old (Cooper) and checking his mouth for tiny wads of wet paper (he has an affinity for paper and carpet, but, apparently, not for most fruit), I'm feeding, reading to or cleaning up after my 4 year old (Beck).   The 7 year old (Cael) is getting more independent and now does almost everything for himself.  The problem is that he doesn't do it very well yet (spilled food, globs of toothpaste, piles of books in every room abound) so, in some ways, he's like a 1 year old, he just eats more and has bigger clothes.  On top of that, laundry, carpooling to school, meals, and my part-time job mean that I am running all day long.  Some days I forget to even eat lunch, and most nights I go to bed so tired that my husband has to literally prop me back up into kneeling position as I'm saying my prayers.  I wake up early to write, but my poetry manuscript (10 + years in the writing) is coming along at a snail's pace, and I often feel so behind in my writing that I am embarrassed to tell anyone I do it.

In the meantime, one of my dear friends from graduate school just saw her first book of poetry published.  She's had wonderful success doing public readings and collaborations with other artists.  She's enjoyed the kind of attention that I've always felt she deserved.  Having exchanged poems and manuscripts with her now for almost 10 years, I know the quality of writing she produces and the talent she has. And I am genuinely happy for her.

And yet, there are days when I think of her success and wonder if it will ever happen to me.  I sit in this freezing cold, unfinished basement, surrounded by toys and laundry, trying hard to focus on my own writing, and I wonder if I'm kidding myself.  What if I'm just doomed to live a life of hopeless mediocrity?   Do I embarrass myself by even trying?  What if all of my chances are passing me by, right now?  And loudest and worst of all: What if I am, at the core, just a loser?

It's not as if this only happens in the adult arena either.  Friday night Cael went to a friend's birthday party at a family fun center.  On the way back home, when I asked how the party was, he grew quiet for a minute and then choked out, "I hate laser tag!"  When I asked why, he said, "I'm no good at it!"  And when I tried to help him brush it off, I realized there was something deeper going on.  He recounted for me how embarrassing it was that he was the only one who raised his hand when they asked who had never played before, how even though they suited him up, they didn't explain the rules very well, and how he spent the entire game confused and frustrated.  Then he ended by saying, "At the very end, they showed the scoreboard in front of everybody.  Everyone's name was listed and they had, like, 100 thousand points.  But 'Cael' was at the bottom and it had a big zero next to it."  Then these big tears fell down his cheeks and he covered his face with his hands and sobbed.

It was almost more than I could bear.  While I know that my son is extremely bright, articulate, funny, and talented, I have no doubts that that single experience at that moment was louder to him than anything else.  It told him he was a loser and that he was the only one who wasn't good enough.  I tried to explain to him that it didn't matter, that all the other things he's good at do matter, and that if he practiced laser tag he was sure to get better, but that bright scoreboard loomed large all night.

Of all the posts I've done so far, this one has been the timeliest.  John the Baptist taught me this week something I desperately needed to remember, something I need to be better at teaching my children: one person's success is not another's failure.  Our own good work stands alone and is not countered by anyone else's good work.  Or talents. Or time to shine.  In life, really, there is no scoreboard.  Things ebb and flow for us just like everyone else.  It just doesn't look like that sometimes.

It's easy to get caught in that moment when things are going extraordinarily well for other people and not so well for us and feel like we are nothing and that it's all been a waste.  But that's unwise and short-sighted.  Maybe the key to this, aside from John's perfect example, lies in the very things I say to my kids every day: "You can't both have the exact same things all the time.  It's not possible."  "Just be happy for each other." "It's his turn."




 

Dolly Parton and the Kingdom of Heaven

 Matthew 13

In the parable of the sower, Jesus tells a story of a man who sowed seeds into different ground, but only one of those kinds of grounds actually received the seed and produced something.  He tells the story to "great multitudes" who gather on the shore while he speaks to them from a ship.  Just after he tells this story, his disciples enter and ask what he's doing, and the rest of the chapter appears to be an in-depth explanation of his doctrine, one that is meant strictly for these disciples.  He tells them it's because they get to know "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," but the rest of the population doesn't. 

This could sound pretty biased and exclusive.  Only a fraction of the people who hear him get to know what he's really saying?  But when he tells them the meaning of the parable of the sower, it becomes evident why. 

First, he goes through what each kind of ground represents: people who never really understand and are easily deceived, people who are happy to find truth  but have "no root" in themselves (they can't stick it out) and get offended, people who care more about worldliness.  Last is the good ground, and the only real distinction Jesus makes between this ground and the rest is that, not only do these people hear the word, they understand it.  That's it.  Once that happens, they bear fruit.  But they also bear different amounts of fruit; the amount itself doesn't seem to matter so much as that fruit happens.  That's the object of sowing seeds, after all. 

For the last month I've been listening to a book on tape called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  It's an account of her family's year-long goal to only eat food they have either grown or raised themselves or that has been grown or raised in their community by someone they know personally.  It's inspiring, and I think about how beautiful her descriptions of tomatoes are as I eat my peanut butter and honey sandwich made out of store-bought bread, mass-produced peanut butter and (okay, I did one thing right) my cousin's homemade honey.  Then I wash that down with store-bought, pasturized, 1% milk and a delicious processed chocolate bar.  I love the idea of eating the way Kingsolver does.  I even do a lot of the things she suggests.  But when it comes down to it, to eat exactly the way she does, well, that's a kind of devotion I'm just not ready to fully embrace. I believe in it, but I feel daunted by the task of changing my everyday habits.  Maybe I just don't fully understand  yet.

Kingsolver is a terrific example of someone who knows what sowing seeds and using good ground means because, in this one-year experiment of hers, that's her life.  So far, nearly half the book has just been her planting and reporting how her seeds are doing and how delicious those fruits are when they come. She watches the process unfold from that tiny tomato seed to the full, robust, hearty Dolly Parton tomato whose seductive shape speaks for itself.  She gives so much care to her garden, so much thought to planning out what to plant and when, how to avoid frost, how to keep out the weeds, that when that fruit finally shows up you can hear thehallelujah! in her voice. 

I'm happy to say that I do know what that feels like.  Every year we plant a garden.  Instead of a 40 acre garden like Kingsolver's, it's a tiny kitchen garden (just outside our kitchen window) that provides the perfect herbs and basic vegetables for me to run out just before dinner in the summer and gather whatever is ripe and plentiful, wash it, chop it up, steam, sautee or toss it in a salad, and enjoy its fresh flavor while my kids pull faces and beg to be excused from the table. That fruit sustains us through a good part of the summer, and those that don't get eaten immediately float in their glass jars on the shelves of the storage room until we gobble them all up in due time. 

Fruit, in the literal sense, takes a long time to develop.  Asparagus, one of the slowest growers, can take three years after it's been planted to finally show signs of life, but once it does, it becomes a perennial crop for up to 20 years.  (It's grown from "crowns" - the bulbs of one-year plants -  instead of seeds, but the ground is still a prime participant since it's got to be babied all that time in just the right drainage and mulch.)  In the meantime, the gardener goes by faith that, after all her best and continued efforts, something will come of it.  I'm guessing that fruits, in the context of the parable, are not simply actions then, but the results of those actions, whatever develops from them. And maybe, like the asparagus, they keep developing a long time after those actions.

Jesus essentially says that people who do not use the word (the seed) are unfruitful.  And this is when it sounds really radical to me.  They don't produce any fruit?  Understanding has nothing to do with talent or wealth, and certainly nothing to do with intellect.  For all the rewards we give people who embody those attributes, Jesus doesn't think much of them (on their own) in the end.  Understanding suggests a sincere desire to "get it."  It means we take something into ourselves and are changed by it.  In this way, Jesus's definitions of plentiful and barren are vastly different than the world's.

A pile of dirt (like our garden spot is from late October to early April) can become almost tropical, a maze of green with bulbous, bright yellows and reds hanging from their stems like cheerful holiday lights.  In a few weeks we'll start that process again.  We'll churn the dirt with our new tiller, open it with our trowels and gloved hands and drop in our heirloom seeds, one by one.  We'll water, and wait. 

Job Description

   Matthew 9 & 10

Maybe this week I feel a little more empathy for that writer whose remarks spurred this response, this blog.  There is plenty in the Bible that is terrifying and strange. The New Testament is full of seeming contradictions, confusions, betrayals, jealousies, and a full display of all of the weaknesses of humankind.  And that's just the disciples.  You'd think these twelve men whom Jesus hand-picked would turn out to be the saintliest of men, but anyone who knows the whole story knows that looming in those chapters only a dozen or so pages away wait 30 pieces of silver and a cock who crows three times.  

There are bleak moments in this story.  But in order to understand the men better, to be fair to them, it helps to remember how it all started.  Here's a recap of how they got recruited: they were at work.  Some were fishing.  One was tax collecting.  They were punching the time card or filing papers at the office or whatever example parallels your job now.  This man comes by and tells them to follow him.  And they do.  And then suddenly (because the accounts in this book are so brief that it sounds as if everything happens instantaneously) they find themselves in the middle of miracles and controversy.  And just as they are all gathered, probably still getting their bearings, maybe scratching their heads a little, this man finally discloses to them exactly what it is they are supposed to do.  Here's the job description:

1) Teach the Jews, nobody else.

2) Tell them "the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

3) Heal the sick. Even bring the dead back to life.  

4) Pack lightly.  You'll earn your keep.

5) When people reject your message, leave peacefully.

6) Be wise and harmless.

Aside from #3, these sound like simple principles from the Jewish do-gooder handbook.  #3 is daunting, but to be given the power to do that would be amazing.  Maybe at this point their mission sounded a little refreshing, even exciting.  But then come the occupational hazards:

1) You're going to make people angry.  Really angry.  

2) They'll take you to their leaders, both political and religious.

3) When that happens, don't even think about what you're going to say to these guys.  God will put the words in your mouth.  

In other words, instead of being a superstar, you'll be bullied and held captive.  You also cannot rely on your own intellect to get you out of it.

And then the description grows increasingly more troubling.

4) People are going to put each other to death over what you teach them.  You will break up families.  

5) Everybody's going to hate you.

6) When you have to run for your life, just go to another town, and start this process all over again.  

7) Whatever awful things they do to me (Jesus), they'll do to you, BUT

8) Don't be afraid.   

(That last one actually made me laugh last night because, really, the hardest thing of all of those would be to not be afraid.)  And then Jesus outlines for them his job:

1) Stand up for people who stand up for me.

2) Bring "a sword" instead of peace because I will   

      3) divide families because 

              a) anyone who loves even family members more than me isn't worthy of me, and

                     b) whoever isn't willing to suffer the way I do is also not worthy of me.

Of course, along the way Jesus has said that they'll be rewarded for this work.  They'll be "saved."  They'll be doing God's work and God is aware of them, even of the hairs on their head.  

And all of this sounds eerily similar to what I am reading in the paper these days.  Only it occurred to me that everything has its counterfeit.  If this whole story is true, if Jesus really did come from God and teach absolute truth, then some twisted version of this same story will surface.  And look really convincing.  And if it's successful, it will surface over and over again.

Counterfeit money imitates vast sums, not pennies or nickles.  It's not worth someone's time to imitate what is barely valuable but to imitate what is of most value.  

The biggest difference I can detect here is that, instead of being violent himself, Jesus predicts that the reaction to his message will be violence.  His followers are, if anything, supposed to be completely peaceable. (Remember the healing part?  Even bringing people back from the dead.  That's a mercy many people would give anything to have.)  He himself is peaceable save for saying things that really upset people.  But if his doctrine is proof enough, if the works we are supposed to judge people by are so obviously good in his case (ridiculously good, for how many healing stories do we have to read before we start getting that picture?), then why shouldn't we love him more than anyone else?  

Because that requires a kind of faith that seems almost impossible to muster.  And yet, we know that, for all of their failings, a small group of men did.  They went out and did what he asked of them.  They left behind families and comforts.  And safety.  They made mistakes, some grievous, but they devoted the rest of their lives to this work.  And many of them died for it.  They didn't explode themselves or fly their aircraft into buildings or, so far as we know, even lay a hand on anyone but to heal them.  Instead they died at the hands of people who just couldn't stand what they were saying.  And that distaste for their message has lived a long, long life. 

A Motley Crew

  Matthew 8

Recently the world celebrated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  In one of the news articles that ran, one woman who survived that camp said that what got her through it was the fact that 1) she was imprisoned with her mother and childhood friends, and 2) they helped her remember herself so that, rather than losing her identity in the number on her arm, she kept alive within herself her own story: that she has a name and a family, memories and feelings and experiences that are entirely her own.  She feels that generalizations or groupings are not useful.  She even dislikes being called "a survivor" because there are many different things people have survived, and each experience is different.  She sees the world as a world of individual stories.

All through the gospels, Jesus meets individuals.  He must have met hundreds, probably thousands of people, but we only know of a few dozen, and we know them through their stories.  A woman with an issue of blood.  The demoniac of the Gadarenes.  The daughter of Jairus.  Zacchaeus, the short publican.  And my favorite this week, the centurion with a paralyzed servant. Each of these is healed or taught (and used to teach others) in a totally unique way.

In Matthew Chapter 8, the centurion takes up a total of 9 verses, but he leaves his mark.  He lives in Capernaum.  He comes seeking Jesus.  He's not worthy for Jesus to come to his house, but, as a man of authority himself, he understands the power Jesus holds.  He knows Jesus can simply tell his servants (the elements,  unclean spirits, even the bodies of other people) what to do and they'll do it.  He knows Jesus can heal this servant just by saying the words miles away.  His faith is so strong that it says, "Jesus marvelled" and says "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."  And then Jesus does a curious thing.  He considers this guy - Roman, a non-Jew, a military leader - and teaches his followers a critical point: it's the personal faith that matters.  It's the individual, not the group.  He sees this man wholly and clearly for who he is.  And for the reasons that really matter.  And he says to his followers, "many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."  You can almost see him holding his hand out toward this man to say, "Like him."

I can't help but imagine what the kingdom of heaven will look like.  Pretty eclectic from the sound of it.

And this is the message I get from this week's reading: 1) God sees us as distinct individuals.  We see ourselves that way.  God sees and judges us that way.  He sees far deeper than, say, our race or occupation or even the religion we happen to belong to.  Not that these things do not matter.  They all matter because they inform our lives and shape our stories, but they are never the ultimate distinction.  The ultimate distinction is what we believe and whether or not we believe in him.  Because if keeping our identity alive for ourselves (I have a name, I have a family) means we can overcome the most horrific of experiences in this life, what about keeping alive a deeper identity?  We belong to a broad and holy family.  God has called himself our Father for a reason.

2)  We do last.  Maybe our life as it is doesn't last (we see the changes around us, the minutia shifting or dying, or we live through the world turned upside down), but we do.  That is why the kingdom of heaven is there, couched in future tense and glimmering with the faces of the biblical fathers.  They are waiting for us to bring our selves to the table, to pull up a chair.

Gentle, Bearded Men

Matthew 7

By the time he was 11 years old, John Muir had the New Testament memorized.  Not purely out of interest (though he loved and used the language), but because his over-zealous father punished him if he didn't.  But the language stuck with him.  You can hear it, this undercurrent, in everything he writes.  He said, "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places we can play in and pray in."  He's this bearded 19th Century prophet ambling through wilderness and writing sermons about Yosemite and the water ouzel.  Besides founding the Sierra Club (and helping Yosemite become a National Park), his most famous work is petitioning to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a valley technically part of Yosemite Park that, by his estimation, was the prettiest site in the park, and, as it just so happened, the favored spot for San Francisco city to dam and use as a water source for its growing population.  He wrote letters, garnered a group of supporters, employed the newspapers to publish his plea.  If they did this, the flora, fauna, geography of the place would never be the same.  It would be unrecoverable.  Besides, there were other places they could use instead, places that would hold more water and do less damage.  He was a famous writer already, so I'd guess a lot of people listened.  But, then, the city wanted this place.  Politicians got involved.  They were hungry (okay, thirsty) for it.  And they claimed it wouldn't hurt anything.  Everything else would be left intact.

Centuries before Muir lived another tender-hearted, bearded man.  Incidentally, he was also a great writer, and he too loved nature and celebrated simplicity.  I read Thomas More for the first time about three years ago, when I was forcing my English 2010 students to read an excerpt from "Utopia," and what surprised me the most was how much I laughed.  He had a quick answer for everything, but he wasn't malicious, and he was honest in a way that would make most people uncomfortable.  Fashion: "those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned into anything better than a sheep."  Excessive "pleasures" (getting drunk.etc.) that become addictions: "...if you think that sort of thing will make you happy, you'll have to admit that your idea of perfect felicity would be a life consisting entirely of hunger, thirst, itching, eating, drinking, rubbing, and scratching - which would obviously be most unpleasant as well as quite disgusting."  He was known to be not only highly intelligent but also kind, gentle, and loyal.  But, then, he didn't agree with his friend Henry VIII's decision to marry Anne Boleyn and create his own church.  As Lord Chancellor to the King, he had to take a stand somewhere.

I was sitting in the bathtub thinking of this week's reading, how Jesus says we shouldn't give that which is holy to the dogs or cast our pearls before swine.  How many good causes are thwarted.  How many people - innocent, gifted, vulnerable - find a sad end.  Of course, life is life, you can say.  It has to have the good and the bad.  I get that.  But sometimes seeing what is precious fall into the hands of people who are mercenary at best and totally unconscionable at worst wears on you.

Maybe I'm taking this more personally because on Saturday I went to the funeral of my friend Diana, who I wrote about a few weeks ago.  It was always sad that she had health problems, but to add to it, just when her health was starting to decline, just when she needed family and friends the most, she was whisked away to live in another state in social isolation by her older sister, the sister she had never liked, the sister who had given her so much anxiety that she would get physically sick when she came to visit.  The same sister who has sued or alienated nearly every relative (save her own mother).  This is who oversaw the care of my sweet friend.

Yes, "the end" is not really the end, if this whole story of the New Testament is true.  But the end in this life can still be hard to face.  Hetch Hetchy was dammed.  Thomas More was beheaded.  Diana passed away peacefully but thousands of miles away from most of her family, who never got a chance to say goodbye.

When he's standing in front of Pilate for questioning, Jesus doesn't talk much.  I always figured it was because he knew Pilate wasn't ready to hear the truth.  But looking over the general workings of the world, there are other ways that pearls are cast before swine, every day.  Maybe what Jesus gave wasn't just good advice (we should avoid doing it if we ever can), but a chance to spare us the intense pain that inevitably accompanies such an error.

In context, that advice comes just as Jesus is telling us how to judge wisely.  By their fruits, he says.  A park.  A book.  A life.  That's a good place to start looking.