I am no lover of pain. One night after dark in an unfamiliar place, I tripped and fell on a low concrete wall, cracking three ribs. Despite generous doses of pain-killer, for a few days and nights afterward I thought I would die. That was not as bad as the pain I endured a few years later when I fell off a chair while changing a light bulb, straining and spraining some ligaments in my upper arm and shoulder. Unwilling to take myself to the emergency room, I perspired in agony through every moment of the long night ahead. My whole torso felt as if it had been electrically wired and was short circuiting every second. Next day I survived about five minutes of physio-therapy before almost crying out in agony, begging the therapist to come up with a more civilized solution. For the record, I ended up with a Chinese acupuncturist.
My pain defied description. When I tried to tell the doctor how it felt, I discovered the limits of civilized language. It felt like a burning hot iron, a railroad spike in my torso and arm. Any description of pain requires imagination and a creative use of language.
While thinking back on these things, and doing a refresher course on the bible recently, I re-read the book of Job. He felt like he was set up for target practice, the 'arrows of the Almighty piercing him' and 'the terrors of God' rising up against him. His pain felt like being caught by the scruff of the neck and dashed to pieces against a rock. His skin turned black and fell off his body, his bones burning to a cinder with the heat of it. It was as if God had slashed open his kidneys and poured his gall on the ground.
Job was a holy pagan, not a Jew, and he felt he knew his God. He kept asking God why all this was happening to him. Satan hurt Job and hurt him hard, but with divine license - first by robbing him of all his livestock, then by causing a house to fall on his children, and finally by causing Job to be covered with festering boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. He didn't take all this lying down. Job let loose with quite a lot of rhetoric, cursing the day he was born and telling God to go pick on someone his own size!
He kept asking 'Why me?' That's all he wanted to know. His sufferings were unspeakable and he refused to shut up. He used every verbal tool in the dictionary to pound on God's door: curses, insolence, tears, sarcasm, humility, indignation, even reason. Job could make no meaning of what was happening to him.
My late friend and neighbor, Sister Nancy McLoughlin, told me her pain and suffering erased most of what she thought she knew about herself. Things she once did without thinking - rising, dressing, eating, walking - now took concerted effort, if not paid help. She would ask herself 'Who is this person who cannot do such simple things? Who is this person who cannot help anyone, not even me?'
I've seen tons of people suffer greatly. Long and deep suffering requires enormous trust in God. When Jesus said, 'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened,' he assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Christ. He had no romantic notion about pain and suffering. He knew that physical pain, the loss of loved ones, failure, loneliness, rejection, abandonment and betrayal would wither our spirits; that the day would come when faith would no longer offer any drive, reassurance or comfort; that prayer would lack any sense of reality or progress; that we would echo the famous cry of Teresa of Avila: 'Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!'
The next time you are in real pain, see how you feel about TV shows, new appliances, a clean house, or your resume. Chances are that none of these things will do anything for you. All that will do anything for you will be some cool water, held out by someone who has stopped everything else in order to look after you. An extra blanket might help, a dry pillow, the simple knowledge that there is someone in the house who might hear you if you cried.
Has pain any purpose? Plato once said that pain restores order to the soul, and Rumi, the Sufi mystic poet, said that it lops off the branches of indifference:' The throbbing vein / will take you further / than any thinking.' If you're interested in knowing something about this Rumi guy, try 'The Essential Rumi,' by Coleman Barks. Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century mystic, wrote that suffering begets self-knowledge, self-knowledge begets compassion for others, and compassion begets contemplative prayer. St. Paul said that our suffering makes up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
WAKING UP TO GOD
Since I began this blog last August, my weekly offerings have taken the form of reflections on the Sunday readings. I thought, beginning this Advent, I would diversify the portfolio. As we enter into the season of the Incarnation, I thought I might offer something on prayer.
I have dozens of books on prayer and countless notebooks full of notes from courses and workshops I have taken on prayer. I have kept lists of the names of people who have asked me for prayer over the years. I have spent half a century in daily prayer from scripture. I have preached on prayer, given retreats to contemplative nuns, and been spiritual director to people trying to navigate the labyrinthine ways of prayer.
Despite all that, I am a monumental failure at prayer. When people ask me about my prayer life, I feel like a bulimic must feel when asked about his favorite dish. I scramble for ways to hide my problem. I say things that I hope will make me sound like a prayerful person. I try to say things about prayer so there can be no doubt about how important I think it is. I ask the other person to tell me instead about his or her prayer life, hoping they will not notice that I have changed the subject. I would rather be stripped and patted down at the airport, or confess that I fear that I am overly fond of a good Cabernet than admit that I am a prayer-weakling. To say that I love God but I do not pray much is like saying that I love life but I do not breathe much. I have managed to survive my shame with the hope that some of what I actually do in my life may constitute genuine prayer.
Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast wrote a useful book called 'Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer' (Paulist, 1984) which Henri Nouwen, the late erudite spiritual writer, required in his courses at Yale Divinity School. Unlike many books on prayer, this one is not complicated. Even Brother David said it could be summarized in two words: Wake up! Borrowing the words of the poet Kabir, he explained on page 7 what he meant: 'If you have a body, go out and walk in the rain! If you are in love, then why are you asleep? Wake up, wake up! You have slept millions and millions of years. Why not wake up this morning?'
I have discovered over the years that prayer is not the same thing as prayers. Prayers are important. I have found that praying psalms in the morning is a good way to head into the day. So is going to weekday morning Mass. Still, prayer is more than saying prayers at set times. David Steindl-Rast says that prayer is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. I like that. It means that prayer happens when I am fully alert to whoever or whatever is right in front of me; when I am electrically aware of the terrific gift of being alive; when I am able to give myself wholly to the moment I am in. In such situations prayer is happening, and it is not necessarily something that I am doing. In a sense, God is happening in me.
Nicholas Herman, onetime soldier and footman to the treasurer of the king of France, became a Carmelite friar in Paris when he was thirty-eight years old. He worked as 'a servant of the servants of God' in the friary kitchen for the rest of his life. Better known as Brother Lawrence, he left a cache of notes and letters behind that the Carmelites published in book form after his death in 1691. He would have been too embarrassed to have them seen by anybody during his lifetime.
'The Practice of the Presence of God' is a spiritual classic. The irony is that Brother Lawrence readily admitted that books on the spiritual life served only to confuse him. He was also no good at set prayers. While he dutifully completed the three hours of prayer and meditation required of the friars in his community each day, he confessed that afterward he could not have said what it had been all about. His prayer was both simple and stubborn: he focused on God no matter what he was doing, and joyfully resolved 'out of love for Him to renounce everything that was not Himself' - p. 7.
Fortunately for the brethren he served, this did not mean renouncing the pancakes that he made for them, the wine he bought for them, or the shoes he cobbled for them! He recognized the face of God hidden in the daily chores he carefully accomplished for his brother friars. He also experienced the aches and pains of the human condition, including sciatica, gout, and pleurisy. He knew as much about the sorrowful mysteries of God as he did about the joyful ones. He would have understood what Brother David meant when he wrote some three centuries later, 'pain is a small price to pay for freedom from self-deception.'
This Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, our annual call to wake up to the great adventure of recognizing who and where God is in our midst. Check this space next week. Enjoy Thanksgiving.
PASTOR EMERITUS
I have dozens of books on prayer and countless notebooks full of notes from courses and workshops I have taken on prayer. I have kept lists of the names of people who have asked me for prayer over the years. I have spent half a century in daily prayer from scripture. I have preached on prayer, given retreats to contemplative nuns, and been spiritual director to people trying to navigate the labyrinthine ways of prayer.
Despite all that, I am a monumental failure at prayer. When people ask me about my prayer life, I feel like a bulimic must feel when asked about his favorite dish. I scramble for ways to hide my problem. I say things that I hope will make me sound like a prayerful person. I try to say things about prayer so there can be no doubt about how important I think it is. I ask the other person to tell me instead about his or her prayer life, hoping they will not notice that I have changed the subject. I would rather be stripped and patted down at the airport, or confess that I fear that I am overly fond of a good Cabernet than admit that I am a prayer-weakling. To say that I love God but I do not pray much is like saying that I love life but I do not breathe much. I have managed to survive my shame with the hope that some of what I actually do in my life may constitute genuine prayer.
Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast wrote a useful book called 'Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer' (Paulist, 1984) which Henri Nouwen, the late erudite spiritual writer, required in his courses at Yale Divinity School. Unlike many books on prayer, this one is not complicated. Even Brother David said it could be summarized in two words: Wake up! Borrowing the words of the poet Kabir, he explained on page 7 what he meant: 'If you have a body, go out and walk in the rain! If you are in love, then why are you asleep? Wake up, wake up! You have slept millions and millions of years. Why not wake up this morning?'
I have discovered over the years that prayer is not the same thing as prayers. Prayers are important. I have found that praying psalms in the morning is a good way to head into the day. So is going to weekday morning Mass. Still, prayer is more than saying prayers at set times. David Steindl-Rast says that prayer is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. I like that. It means that prayer happens when I am fully alert to whoever or whatever is right in front of me; when I am electrically aware of the terrific gift of being alive; when I am able to give myself wholly to the moment I am in. In such situations prayer is happening, and it is not necessarily something that I am doing. In a sense, God is happening in me.
Nicholas Herman, onetime soldier and footman to the treasurer of the king of France, became a Carmelite friar in Paris when he was thirty-eight years old. He worked as 'a servant of the servants of God' in the friary kitchen for the rest of his life. Better known as Brother Lawrence, he left a cache of notes and letters behind that the Carmelites published in book form after his death in 1691. He would have been too embarrassed to have them seen by anybody during his lifetime.
'The Practice of the Presence of God' is a spiritual classic. The irony is that Brother Lawrence readily admitted that books on the spiritual life served only to confuse him. He was also no good at set prayers. While he dutifully completed the three hours of prayer and meditation required of the friars in his community each day, he confessed that afterward he could not have said what it had been all about. His prayer was both simple and stubborn: he focused on God no matter what he was doing, and joyfully resolved 'out of love for Him to renounce everything that was not Himself' - p. 7.
Fortunately for the brethren he served, this did not mean renouncing the pancakes that he made for them, the wine he bought for them, or the shoes he cobbled for them! He recognized the face of God hidden in the daily chores he carefully accomplished for his brother friars. He also experienced the aches and pains of the human condition, including sciatica, gout, and pleurisy. He knew as much about the sorrowful mysteries of God as he did about the joyful ones. He would have understood what Brother David meant when he wrote some three centuries later, 'pain is a small price to pay for freedom from self-deception.'
This Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, our annual call to wake up to the great adventure of recognizing who and where God is in our midst. Check this space next week. Enjoy Thanksgiving.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Thursday, November 18, 2010
CHRIST THE KING
To many people, this feast of Christ the King feels out of date and triumphalist. Nobody is interested in kings anymore. Royal families belong to the past. Why does the Church still have a feast with a name like Christ the King? And why does it arrive like a grand climax at the end of the Church's year? Having done a refresher course on the Old Testament in Berkeley this Fall, I see the feast in a better light.
The first Christians read Jesus Christ in terms of the Old Testament. They searched and scanned the scriptures for figures that would remind them of him and help them understand his mission. After Abraham and Moses, they would have identified King David as the most important figure in the Old Testament. They must have found in the kingship of David, a thousand years earlier, significant material that threw light on the reign of the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ. They delved into this history in order to understand Jesus better and their following of him. The New Testament is so peppered with references to the Old Testament that those early followers of Jesus saw their history as giving meaning to Christ and the kingdom he preached and promised.
Today's first reading from the second Book of Samuel shows David being democratically chosen by all twelve tribes of Israel and anointed as their king. David, after a long series of battles, had finally overcome the enemies of Israel. And now something spiritual and special was taking place. It was hoped that his kingdom would be one of peace and prosperity, a magnet to outsiders, and a witness to the world of the way to God. Under David, the kingdom finally took off and became strong. Then sin raised its head, first in the person of David himself when he ordered the death of a man so he could take his wife, then in the person of his son and heir, Solomon, who fell into major idolatry. The kingdom eventually split in two and lost its divine purpose.
Prophets came and said a new David would arise, one who would gather the lost tribes and fashion them into a new and better kingdom. More and more, people began to long for a new David figure, a new Messiah. The first Christians would have been reminded of all this history if they had heard today's first reading at Mass. 'You shall shepherd my people Israel and shall be commander of Israel...and they anointed you king of Israel.'
Flashing forward almost a thousand years to the gospel for this Sunday and Jesus dying on the cross, we see references to his being the Anointed (Messiah / Christ) of God, King of the Jews, and coming into his kingdom. We have seen many references this past year in Luke's Gospel to Jesus as walking in David's footsteps: he was born in David's village; Luke's genealogy shows Jesus as descended from David; he is called a king as he enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. How was Jesus like David? Both reached out to the lost sheep of Israel - e.g. the Samaritan woman at the well in John's Gospel, the blind beggar of Jericho etc..
Most telling of Jesus' symbolic actions is his final meal with the twelve, who symbolized the twelve lost tribes that gathered around David and made him king. The gospels show Jesus eating at table with saints and sinners alike, symbolized by David making peace with his erstwhile enemies. We see Jesus on the cross making friends with a common convicted criminal.
Luke shows us Jesus doing battle in the desert with the devil - symbol of the enemies of the kingdom - and calling for reform. The battle reached its climax with Jesus confronting the chief priests and the Jerusalem leaders as he and his followers ejected the buyers and sellers from the temple. Opposition to him developed swiftly; he was arrested and put on trial in the dead of night. As David's life was marked by one battle after another, Jesus' public ministry was one long struggle against the powers of evil around him.
Unlike David who used the sword in battle, Jesus used the weapons of forgiveness and non-violence to deal with his enemies. Pilate, who asked what is truth, never uttered a truer statement than when he gave the order for an inscription to be hung on the cross with Jesus, which read, 'This is the King of the Jews.' Pilate's order had an uncanny likeness to the elders in our first reading who came to Hebron and declared David to be king.
David was a warrior king. Jesus engaged in mortal struggle with the enemies of God's kingdom. On his own admission, he came to cast fire on the earth and to disturb those who accommodate the powers of evil in the world. Jesus was, and is a warrior king, but not a king of worldly pomp and splendor. Happy feast of Christ the King!
PASTOR EMERITUS
The first Christians read Jesus Christ in terms of the Old Testament. They searched and scanned the scriptures for figures that would remind them of him and help them understand his mission. After Abraham and Moses, they would have identified King David as the most important figure in the Old Testament. They must have found in the kingship of David, a thousand years earlier, significant material that threw light on the reign of the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ. They delved into this history in order to understand Jesus better and their following of him. The New Testament is so peppered with references to the Old Testament that those early followers of Jesus saw their history as giving meaning to Christ and the kingdom he preached and promised.
Today's first reading from the second Book of Samuel shows David being democratically chosen by all twelve tribes of Israel and anointed as their king. David, after a long series of battles, had finally overcome the enemies of Israel. And now something spiritual and special was taking place. It was hoped that his kingdom would be one of peace and prosperity, a magnet to outsiders, and a witness to the world of the way to God. Under David, the kingdom finally took off and became strong. Then sin raised its head, first in the person of David himself when he ordered the death of a man so he could take his wife, then in the person of his son and heir, Solomon, who fell into major idolatry. The kingdom eventually split in two and lost its divine purpose.
Prophets came and said a new David would arise, one who would gather the lost tribes and fashion them into a new and better kingdom. More and more, people began to long for a new David figure, a new Messiah. The first Christians would have been reminded of all this history if they had heard today's first reading at Mass. 'You shall shepherd my people Israel and shall be commander of Israel...and they anointed you king of Israel.'
Flashing forward almost a thousand years to the gospel for this Sunday and Jesus dying on the cross, we see references to his being the Anointed (Messiah / Christ) of God, King of the Jews, and coming into his kingdom. We have seen many references this past year in Luke's Gospel to Jesus as walking in David's footsteps: he was born in David's village; Luke's genealogy shows Jesus as descended from David; he is called a king as he enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. How was Jesus like David? Both reached out to the lost sheep of Israel - e.g. the Samaritan woman at the well in John's Gospel, the blind beggar of Jericho etc..
Most telling of Jesus' symbolic actions is his final meal with the twelve, who symbolized the twelve lost tribes that gathered around David and made him king. The gospels show Jesus eating at table with saints and sinners alike, symbolized by David making peace with his erstwhile enemies. We see Jesus on the cross making friends with a common convicted criminal.
Luke shows us Jesus doing battle in the desert with the devil - symbol of the enemies of the kingdom - and calling for reform. The battle reached its climax with Jesus confronting the chief priests and the Jerusalem leaders as he and his followers ejected the buyers and sellers from the temple. Opposition to him developed swiftly; he was arrested and put on trial in the dead of night. As David's life was marked by one battle after another, Jesus' public ministry was one long struggle against the powers of evil around him.
Unlike David who used the sword in battle, Jesus used the weapons of forgiveness and non-violence to deal with his enemies. Pilate, who asked what is truth, never uttered a truer statement than when he gave the order for an inscription to be hung on the cross with Jesus, which read, 'This is the King of the Jews.' Pilate's order had an uncanny likeness to the elders in our first reading who came to Hebron and declared David to be king.
David was a warrior king. Jesus engaged in mortal struggle with the enemies of God's kingdom. On his own admission, he came to cast fire on the earth and to disturb those who accommodate the powers of evil in the world. Jesus was, and is a warrior king, but not a king of worldly pomp and splendor. Happy feast of Christ the King!
PASTOR EMERITUS
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
THE END?
Predictions about the end of the world have a fascination for many people. Hal Lindsay's, 'The Late Great Planet Earth,' was a best seller and gave rise to crowds of people packing their earthly belongings en route to the 'Rapture.' His later book, 'The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon,' predicted that the world would destroy itself before the end of that decade. Hasn't happened yet! Do you think it'll come anytime soon? The scripture readings for this Sunday take a harsh look at the signs of the end. 'Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven...' 'There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues...awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the skies.'
What do these warnings, and others like them in the scriptures, mean? We remember the October earthquake of 1989 when the Bay Bridge almost collapsed here in San Francisco, and people were drowned and crushed to death. People in the Marina wanted to get back into their homes, the foundations of which had been undermined by the quake and its aftershocks. Some of the damaged buildings looked okay from the outside and people found it hard to believe they could not go back and continue to live safely in them.
Matthew's gospel speaks of an earthquake the moment Jesus died. Simultaneously, the great veil of the temple ripped apart, rocks were split, tombs opened, the dead got up and came into town, walking about the streets of Jerusalem! Without denying that anything like this actually happened on that first Good Friday, the early commentators on Matthew's gospel understood these things in a symbolic way: Jesus' life, death and resurrection was like an earthquake bringing a new world order to birth.
Major earthquakes have a way of getting our attention. Jesus Christ came on earth to get our attention. Some evangelical preachers, leather-bound bible in hand, work themselves into a frenzy in their efforts to draw their congregants' attention to Christ. If you visit a black American Catholic church on Sunday morning, the place will be rocking and rolling with enthusiasm, and you'll leave feeling you've been through some huge spiritual seismic event. Try Our Lady of Lourdes in San Francisco or St. Columba in Oakland some Sunday morning! Long ago, Jesus had that kind of effect on his followers.
When the dust had settled and the implications of Jesus' life and death finally dawned on them, the apostles went about enthusiastically preaching a new and attractive world order where the poor, the widow and the orphan were taken care of, where people shared joyfully with those who were in need, where the sick and those in prison were comforted and visited, where swords were turned into plowshares, and forgiveness was the order of the day. Eventually the gospels were written in which Jesus is portrayed as teaching, and symbolically bringing about though his miracles, a whole new value system. This system was meant to enable Christians to replace the old order of things where deception, exploitation, injustice and violence were par for the course.
We live today in a twilight zone, an 'interim' or in-between time, where the new order and the old co-exist. Jesus offers in this week's gospel a few things to be on our guard against. The first is false prophets, messiah figures of compelling charisma who claim to have all the answers. Our world has had a plethora of them: Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to mention a few from the 20th century. To whom do we lend our ears and give our allegiance - to the gurus of DC and TV or to Jesus Christ? Next, Jesus warns us not to think the end is near with every war and insurrection. The constant struggle of nation against nation are the powers of darkness and injustice resisting justice and truth. Before we can claim to follow Christ, false values in our hearts need to be exposed and defeated. Finally, Jesus warns his followers to expect rejection and persecution. From the day Christ died his followers have been hounded, seized and persecuted. Nobody, whether earthly king or media mogul, likes giving up power. These values and authorities in our lives will, like cornered animals, fight to the bitter end.
What did the people of the San Francisco Marina district do after the Loma Prieta quake? They rebuilt and capitalized on the new situation. If this Sunday's scripture has a message it is this: Christ promises to be with us as we struggle from day to day along the rocky road of life's journey. And if the bible is to be believed, God doesn’t break promises. There's hope.
Pastor Emeritus
What do these warnings, and others like them in the scriptures, mean? We remember the October earthquake of 1989 when the Bay Bridge almost collapsed here in San Francisco, and people were drowned and crushed to death. People in the Marina wanted to get back into their homes, the foundations of which had been undermined by the quake and its aftershocks. Some of the damaged buildings looked okay from the outside and people found it hard to believe they could not go back and continue to live safely in them.
Matthew's gospel speaks of an earthquake the moment Jesus died. Simultaneously, the great veil of the temple ripped apart, rocks were split, tombs opened, the dead got up and came into town, walking about the streets of Jerusalem! Without denying that anything like this actually happened on that first Good Friday, the early commentators on Matthew's gospel understood these things in a symbolic way: Jesus' life, death and resurrection was like an earthquake bringing a new world order to birth.
Major earthquakes have a way of getting our attention. Jesus Christ came on earth to get our attention. Some evangelical preachers, leather-bound bible in hand, work themselves into a frenzy in their efforts to draw their congregants' attention to Christ. If you visit a black American Catholic church on Sunday morning, the place will be rocking and rolling with enthusiasm, and you'll leave feeling you've been through some huge spiritual seismic event. Try Our Lady of Lourdes in San Francisco or St. Columba in Oakland some Sunday morning! Long ago, Jesus had that kind of effect on his followers.
When the dust had settled and the implications of Jesus' life and death finally dawned on them, the apostles went about enthusiastically preaching a new and attractive world order where the poor, the widow and the orphan were taken care of, where people shared joyfully with those who were in need, where the sick and those in prison were comforted and visited, where swords were turned into plowshares, and forgiveness was the order of the day. Eventually the gospels were written in which Jesus is portrayed as teaching, and symbolically bringing about though his miracles, a whole new value system. This system was meant to enable Christians to replace the old order of things where deception, exploitation, injustice and violence were par for the course.
We live today in a twilight zone, an 'interim' or in-between time, where the new order and the old co-exist. Jesus offers in this week's gospel a few things to be on our guard against. The first is false prophets, messiah figures of compelling charisma who claim to have all the answers. Our world has had a plethora of them: Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to mention a few from the 20th century. To whom do we lend our ears and give our allegiance - to the gurus of DC and TV or to Jesus Christ? Next, Jesus warns us not to think the end is near with every war and insurrection. The constant struggle of nation against nation are the powers of darkness and injustice resisting justice and truth. Before we can claim to follow Christ, false values in our hearts need to be exposed and defeated. Finally, Jesus warns his followers to expect rejection and persecution. From the day Christ died his followers have been hounded, seized and persecuted. Nobody, whether earthly king or media mogul, likes giving up power. These values and authorities in our lives will, like cornered animals, fight to the bitter end.
What did the people of the San Francisco Marina district do after the Loma Prieta quake? They rebuilt and capitalized on the new situation. If this Sunday's scripture has a message it is this: Christ promises to be with us as we struggle from day to day along the rocky road of life's journey. And if the bible is to be believed, God doesn’t break promises. There's hope.
Pastor Emeritus
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
A CONUNDRUM FOR JESUS
Clint Eastwood's movie, 'Hereafter,' currently in the theaters, has Psychic Matt Damon trying to contact a couple of people who have died. The Sadducees in this Sunday's gospel throw a curve ball to Jesus about the nature of the hereafter: If a woman has had seven husbands, at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?' Jesus' reply must have flummoxed them. 'The children of this age marry and remarry; but those worthy to attain... to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage....'
The Sadducees were well heeled folk who took a cynical stance about religion in general. They would correspond to our present day materialists. The Pharisees were those who believed in some kind of resurrection from the dead. As for me, I sense that life in this world is not the only life there is. And I'm not talking about the possibility of life on some distant star. Even though we have no direct experience of what we call 'heaven,' I believe our instincts tell us that when life in this world comes to an end there must be another life afterward. As Christians, we have faith in a God whom we cannot imagine abandoning us at the end of our earthly lives.
Our bodies, through the five senses, are our means of communication and interaction with each other. In this life, we are wired to communicate and interact meaningfully with only a limited number of people at a time. And most people are wired to be married to only one person at a time, like the woman in the gospel who was married to seven brothers, but only to one at a time. I believe that in the hereafter our resurrected bodies will be even better than our earthly bodies, richer and more powerful. 'They can no longer die,' said Jesus. They will be different, as Jesus resurrected body was different when he appeared after his death and resurrection.
Will our transformed and transfigured bodies be powerful enough as to be in an intense relationship with everybody 'up there' at once? Will we be more bodily than we are now? Will our capacity for love be richer and more powerful than it is now? Will there be room or need for the exclusive relationship we call marriage? These are just some of the intriguing questions that Sunday's gospel provokes. Sometimes questions are more important, even revealing, than answers. What do you think, good reader of blogs?
PASTOR EMERITUS
The Sadducees were well heeled folk who took a cynical stance about religion in general. They would correspond to our present day materialists. The Pharisees were those who believed in some kind of resurrection from the dead. As for me, I sense that life in this world is not the only life there is. And I'm not talking about the possibility of life on some distant star. Even though we have no direct experience of what we call 'heaven,' I believe our instincts tell us that when life in this world comes to an end there must be another life afterward. As Christians, we have faith in a God whom we cannot imagine abandoning us at the end of our earthly lives.
Our bodies, through the five senses, are our means of communication and interaction with each other. In this life, we are wired to communicate and interact meaningfully with only a limited number of people at a time. And most people are wired to be married to only one person at a time, like the woman in the gospel who was married to seven brothers, but only to one at a time. I believe that in the hereafter our resurrected bodies will be even better than our earthly bodies, richer and more powerful. 'They can no longer die,' said Jesus. They will be different, as Jesus resurrected body was different when he appeared after his death and resurrection.
Will our transformed and transfigured bodies be powerful enough as to be in an intense relationship with everybody 'up there' at once? Will we be more bodily than we are now? Will our capacity for love be richer and more powerful than it is now? Will there be room or need for the exclusive relationship we call marriage? These are just some of the intriguing questions that Sunday's gospel provokes. Sometimes questions are more important, even revealing, than answers. What do you think, good reader of blogs?
PASTOR EMERITUS
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