Camino Musings

          On the Camino, you meet interesting people who share stories and themselves in the most intimate of ways, so as to take each of us to new depths of understanding, insight, faith and life. Such an encounter with an Irishman led to this.

          Frank (not his real name) crossed paths with us as we waited for a bus to take us to the Santiago airport to fly to Dublin. We would continue the next day to home in the US; Frank would arrive in his own land and take a several hour bus ride to his home in another Irish county.

          Since we had several hours to wait at the airport we spent the afternoon together, talking about why we had done the Camino and sharing our lives, ever so briefly. Frank described himself as Catholic but not practicing. He hadn’t been to Mass since he was nine, and he was now in his 60s. Oddly enough, he got into trouble with the church the one time he confessed honestly and truly, but that’s another story for another time. Nevertheless, there was much of Christ in him.

          A story or two or three (and one hilarious joke) stand out from our time together. In one he told of his sister’s grief of a mother, whose son was struck down one day by an aneurysm. He was rushed to hospital and while at first there was hope and expectation that all would be well, it was not to be. The aneurysm had sufficiently damaged her son’s brain that there was little or no activity and no prospect of change. A doctor came to visit her and confessed, “This is the hardest conversation you and I can ever have…” and initiated an invitation for her to give permission to donate her son’s organs to bring hope and life to others. Because he had a history of alcohol abuse, his liver could not be used, but there were other, more promising possibilities.

          “How long do I have to make such a decision?” the mother asked. “Not long,” came the reply. The mother, Frank’s sister, needed a day, and Frank and his other sister accompanied her on the deciding path, although it was hers alone to walk. As Frank told the story, there was such tenderness and love for his sister, and the awful choice laid on her. He did not tell her what to do, but helped her to see that her son was gone. There would be no more stories or conversations. No more shared memories or asking about each other’s day. What was, was what would be, now and always. To let him go was to let go of what had already departed, and to open a better possibility for others.

          It was not an easy conversation then, and the telling to us was still somber, quiet, reflective, alive with the memory of a mother’s grief and loss and generosity; and perhaps a hint of question about how he had done a good thing and if he had done it well enough.

          That called to mind a story I also could tell, of a friend who received a new heart from another son not unlike Frank’s nephew. Amber Donald (not her real name) had been living with her new heart for a year or more when circumstances brought her together with the mother of the dead son who was now making life possible for her. They met in a hotel gathering of donors and recipients, if I remember the story right,and when that mother met Amber, her first action was to draw close to Amber to lean her head against Amber’s chest and listen to the steady, strong beat of her son’s heart, pulsing with life in the body of another. The image is beautiful; the mother leaning in, ear pressed to chest, quiet, attentive and attuned, connected to her son once more in the life of another.

          That story seemed to be a gift to Frank, who found himself unexpectedly moved by the beauty of the generous unity of those lives entwined as one. Irishmen may not weep, but that afternoon one did. And because he was so struck by it, I was led to take another, deeper, metaphorical step.

          Our Catholic brothers and sisters are drawn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a devotional path. And now I find myself imagining another Parent whose Son’s death has brought life to me and to many, drawing close and leaning into my chest to listen if that Son’s living heart can be heard and felt in me, throbbing with His life in mine. Does His sacred heart send his life-giving flow of compassion and kindness, mercy and grace throughout and through me? Through His sacrificial death, does His life now live in me? Is His hospitality and care for the least and the last taking form in me? Will the steady beat of His commitment to the hungry poor, the stranger and imprisoned, the sick and the thirsty and the very heart of God be known and felt and heard as God leans in to listen? Has His life been transplanted into me, strong and resistant to sin’s infection, thriving and strong?

          O God, may it be so; may it be so.

          When that mother leaned into Amber and listened, there was joy, gratitude, wonder, awe, even holiness. May that be true for all, blessed to have received the heart of Christ.

There is a place of quiet rest,

Near to the heart of God.

A place where sin cannot molest,

Near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,

Sent from the heart of God,

Hold us, who wait before Thee,

Near to the heart of God.

-Cleland Boyd McAfee (1903)

How I Went to Church and Was Convicted of Being Disingenuous (and That Was a Good Thing)

     Yesterday I went to church and was blessed with an awareness of how I had been disingenuous with my children over the years; how easy it is to be seduced by the Siren songs of our culture; and how daunting it is to be the disciple you long to be. I suspect I am not alone in that.

     Now rest assured, this insightful moment of conviction did not lead me to feel an overbearing load of guilt, or beat me down with a sense of being an utter screw-up. It was a grace-filled experience in which I could accept the truth of what I heard, acknowledge my failure to live into that truth, and experience the mystery of divine acceptance, nevertheless, providing hope that I can move on and be more honest and truthful in days to come.

     Moments like these again confirm for me why I need to be engaged in worship, prayer, scripture study, and Christian community on an ongoing basis, as I hear truth through the community and its means of grace I will not hear otherwise. There is a generous acceptance, and offer of ongoing transformation and sanctification that I would not necessarily believe, if I did not continue to hear of such things in such practices and among others who also are on this journey with me.

     When our children were little and restless in worship, I would often lean over and whisper to them, “Trust me; you get a better dad at the end of this time than the one you brought with you.” I don’t think that at their young age they had any idea what I was talking about, but it was true. At its best, Christian worship is an occasion for truth-telling, conviction, conversion, gratitude and joy for the offer of such gifts.  

     Yesterday was a day for such gifts to be offered. As is often the case, yesterday brought me to Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, which provides a service of Eucharist each Wednesday. Typically the focus of the Word proclaimed is on a saint of the church whose feast day falls on or near a particular Wednesday. Yesterday’s gospel text was one of the tellings of Jesus’ teaching that if we want to gain our life, we must lose it by taking up our cross and following in the Jesus Way; it included the compelling question, “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul? And what can they give to buy it back?” Or as the New English Bible puts it, “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their true self? And what can they give to buy back their true self?”

     The priest told us that this particular text is often used for the feast days of martyrs throughout the liturgical year, and said that the saints are those who show in their lives what it is to live self-sacrificially. And then he spoke the truth that convicted me in a profoundly deep and compelling way.

     I cannot quote him exactly; preaching is such an in the moment, aural experience. But this is what I remember: the saints give the lie to what culture tells us about how to live well. We are told life’s goal is happiness, and we tell our children that all we want is for them to be happy.

     But in reality, he said,what we want for them is to be good and to enter into the life of God. And I thought, “Yes, that is true.”

     That is what I have ever wanted for myself when I have been my best self and most honest. And to be good, to participate in the true and beautiful, is to enter into the life of God who alone is true, good, beautiful, all-together right, just and merciful. At my best and and most honest, that is who I want to be. It is not something I can achieve on my own. It is not always an easy route and is not always a source of happiness. But to participate in that reality is to experience joy and fullness of life.

     Happiness is so ephemeral, fleeting, and transitory. What promises to give happiness today will be passé tomorrow, and a new source of happiness will be offered that also will soon fade away. I am persuaded that I can always be joyful, even in the most horrible of circumstances; but perpetual happiness is an illusion, and the quest for it as a permanent feature of life even is perhaps something unhealthy and foolish.        On more than one occasion I have told my children that all I wanted for them was for them to be happy. But as the preacher said yesterday, what I really wanted for them was that they would be good, and participate in the life of God.

     And what I mean by “being good” is not a bourgeoisie goodness that entails being nice, obedient, compliant with authority, and adhering to the rules of society. By goodness I mean a life characterized by the goodness of God, which includes mercy, grace, hospitality, humility, forgiveness, compassion for the poor and weak, advocacy for those demeaned or mocked or marginalized, a life of integrity and commitment to the well-being of all, even if that requires self-sacrifice. Such goodness produces a sense of wholeness and harmony of life that is seen in the wholeness and harmony of the Triune God known in the Christian tradition, and embodied in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Christ.

     And participating in the life of God is grander and broader than simply participating in the life of the church, as useful (and as maddening) as that may be. It is a good thing, a means to the greater end, but in and of itself ultimately it is not enough. Life in God is so much more. Our culture whispers that true happiness is found through self-actualization. Be the best you you can be, do whatever brings you contentment, whatever works for you. The problem is that such promises put me at the center of my life, and prioritizes my happiness above all other things, including what is good and life-giving for you and others who also inhabit this village we inhabit.

     What culture offers is an inversion or perversion of the truth told by the faith community. That truth is that I find myself by losing my self in the life of God so that, as St. Paul puts it, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me.” I may be able to reflect such life and goodness in my own life; that is what grace enables. But apart from a deep, intimate, and ongoing connection with God, in which God’s life continues to flow through me and nourish the goodness within, it will soon wither and fade, like a cut flower. As Jesus put it, “I am vine, you are the branches. Abide in me, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

     That’s really what I want for myself and my children: life abundant, i.e., living in God and being shaped and formed in that divine image and likeness. Happiness through self-actualization, as offered by the world, is a poor substitute for such glory. I believe true happiness and deep and abiding joy are possible in the Way lived by Jesus. I was convicted yesterday that I simply have been disingenuous and have not always told this entire truth to those dearest to me (ironically because I did not want to turn them away from this hidden joy); I pretended that I knew less than I really did.

     By God’s grace, I strive to be better; such blessing is priceless and too valuable not to speak with all truthfully, humbly and with grace, including those who are especially most precious. 

For a Week Like This: Sermon Based on Matthew 14:22-33; Romans 10:5-15

For the scripture texts, go here: http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Romans+10%3A5-15&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

and here: http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+14%3A22-33&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

          For decades the best news many heard each week was from Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average.” I bet many would’ve been thrilled this past week if our biggest news was that there were too many tomatoes in people’s gardens. Instead we’ve had a steady diet of bellicose bombast from US and North Korean leaders and updates from Charlottesville about the most recent protest by KKK members, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists, and news of subsequent deaths and injuries. If we ever needed to hear different news, especially the odd and radically different good news of the Gospel, this would be it.

          But at such a time, today’s assigned texts seem irrelevant, even ludicrous. Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans is part of a larger, three chapter long soul-searching struggle: if Jesus really is God’s main man for setting things right between God and us and showing us how to live truly with one another, why haven’t Christ’s own people and Paul’s faith family bought in? If Jesus really is true, why don’t God’s chosen and favored people, the Jews, see the light?

          This isn’t a little mind game for Paul; it causes him anguish, grief. The Jews are God’s uniquely chosen and adopted; they experience God’s glory and presence in a matchless relationship of worship and commitment; he says, “to them belong the promises, the favored faith ancestors; from them has come the chosen Messiah who is over all, God blessed forever.”

          How did things go wrong? A few verses before our reading Paul affirms that his fellow Jews have real love and devotion for God. The problem is that they don’t truly get who God is or how to be in a right relationship with God. The truth is that often we don’t get it, either.

          Paul says there are two ways to be right with God and each other. One is to keep the rules, cross all the t’s, dot all the i’s. In other words, prove we’re worthy of God’s love and deserve special favor and treatment. Paul writes, “Moses writes about the righteousness that comes from the law, that the person who does these things will live by them;’” or as another translation puts it, “a person can become acceptable to God by obeying God’s Law in scripture; if you want to live you must do all that the Law commands.”

          At my age I go to lots of funerals; I often hear about how great and good a person was, so there’s no question: they’ve earned their heavenly reward. On the other hand, many young folks believe in so-called moralistic therapeutic deism: there is a God who created everything and watches over us but isn’t too involved in life, except when we need help with a problem; this God wants us to be good, nice, play fair, be happy and feel good about ourselves; and if we do that we’ll go to heaven when we die. Truth be told, many learned that in Sunday School and in countless children’s sermons. And in between youth and age, it’s tempting to believe we’re God’s favorites because we work hard, or get the best grades or the most Instagram likes, or live in the right area or are the right color or gender or live in the best nation or chose the right religion; we even believe that people are poor because they deserve it, which means I deserve being well off. I’ve earned it, by God. We create a world of winners and losers, them and us, insiders and outsiders, chosen and rejected. But it’s life on a very shaky foundation. If we’re not always and everywhere the absolute best bringing our A Game, then confidence and entitlement evaporate. What if we’re not good enough, smart enough, hard working enough? There’s no rest or real joy; we only have disquiet, stress, fear as we anxiously look over the shoulder at who’s catching up. There’s no real community of care because you’ re a competing threat; we can live glibly together, but in a crunch you can soon become my enemy. It’s a helluva way to live.

          But God intends another truer way, a more blessed way. In Romans Paul describes another righteousness that comes from faith, trust, and confidence in God, not in ourselves. The God met in Christ loves us, is for us, cherishes us simply because we are, is always at work for the good of all of us, and simply will not leave us or forsake us or abandon us to fend for ourselves. Your pastor got it right in his Easter sermon this spring: there’s absolutely nothing you can do to keep God from loving you. This is the faith of Jesus; he lived his life all the way to the cross and beyond, trusting in God and God’s loving care above all else. And God said “Yes!” to that kind of trusting faith and blessed it as the right way to live by raising Christ from the dead. The Risen Christ is alive in our midst and not far off. And the great good news is that I am most alive when I learn by heart to live trusting in that God, too. Best of all, Paul says that blessed better way is for all: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; everyone: Jew and Gentile, American and North Korean; white and person of color; anyone will be saved who trusts and believes that God loves and forgives and accepts and shows mercy toward all and wants abundant life for every last one of us.

          Now that’s not me just saying the right thing or having the right feeling in my heart. To say Jesus is Lord means no one or nothing else has first place in my life: not my race or nation or a political leader or ideology or tax bracket or anything else. And believing that in my heart is not cozy warm fuzzy feeling. If I confess from the heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, that means I stake everything on trusting that is the way to live and commit body and soul to doing so. I will not be ashamed to live like that. No matter what, I will give myself to living that way, come what may. That is the Jesus Way. The world’s dying to see us live like that’s true and real. What a blessing to lay down the burden of proving our worth; to experience joy and live lighter. It is God’s gift to us.

          I’ll spend my whole life learning to receive and trust the gift fully. I’m like Peter in today’s gospel story. I want to trust that Christ is near and step out in faith even in the dark; sometimes I actually do so. But when life’s storms threaten or fears batter I quickly can sink in doubt. Thank God, Christ still reaches out today to save me and help me walk in faith and trust again.

          Today while the governments of North Korea and the US play a cosmic size game of chicken, Christians in both North and South Korea are united in praying, as they do every August, for the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula. Those prayers from the hearts of countless Koreans north and south, on both sides of he Demilitarized Zone, are being joined by many other Christians connected globally through the World Council of Churches, the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Evangelical Alliance. Jesus people trust it is more holy to live from mercy and grace than fire and fury; we know the Lord of all is generous to all who call to him.

          This week a friend asked prayers for her nephew Jason Kessler, the young man at the heart of yesterday’s Unite the Right event in Charlottesville. She’s pained that Jason’s alienated from his whole family, angry and hate-filled. They were all worried, disheartened and concerned for his safety. Jason’s aunt reported something remarkable: First United Methodist Church was Ground Zero for people of faith to gather to bear witness against hate, and one of the pastors at the church reached out to Jason to offer sanctuary if he felt threatened in any way. It is that odd way of Jesus, to trust that God wants life for all.

          In yesterday’s chaos and anger there I saw Christ as clergy and other people of faith stood between protesters and counter-protesters. In a photo they were linked arm in arm in an alternating pattern so they faced both sides as if, through them, God was calling all to turn and live and be saved. Tragically someone spurned his invitation; a life was lost and others maimed, by a hate-driven guided missile of a car. All the more reason for us to continue to bear witness to the truth we know in Christ.

          Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace it’s because we’ve forgotten that we belong to each other.” Our wounded woebegone world aches to hear our good news. How beautiful our feet when we bring it, our mouths when we tell it, our lives when we live it. Amen.

-David M. Hindman, 2017, soli Deo gloria.

I Don’t Drink, and I Don’t Chew…

“I don’t drink and I don’t chew, and I don’t date girls who do.”  I learned that little ditty from a Baptist friend who, in an earlier season of life, saw that as an apt and simple definition of sin and what to avoid on the way to becoming a good person.

It’s not too far from how I understood goodness and righteousness as a young person.  To be good was to adhere to certain rules and behaviors: don’t drink or smoke; don’t cuss or go to the movies on Sundays; remain a virgin until marriage; be a good boy and play by the rules.  It was a “works righteousness” understanding of Christianity, pure and simple; the correlative understanding of “sin” was limited to specific “bad” actions and behaviors.

What resulted?  On good days, an arrogant sense of moral superiority, and a quick willingness to judge and condemn others in their actions.  On bad ones, a load of self-accusatory guilt and condemnation, a “lowly worm” mentality, and a sense that I just needed to try harder to achieve goodness.   In all days, I lived with a narrow sense of right and wrong that saw sin as the avoidance of actions that were alluring, guilty pleasures.  Goodness and righteousness were negatively reinforced goals that seemed to take all the fun out of life but had an ultimate pay-off of some future, eternal reward.  The Christian life was largely a list of “Don’t do this, don’t do that, and for heaven’s sake never, ever do that!”

All of that sounds outmoded, antiquated, and archaic; but I suspect many of us live out of a “works righteousness” mentality whether we are part of a faith community or not.  What constitutes being “a good person” may vary, but the idea remains the same: goodness and respectability are our achievements and the result of our determined, hard work,  rooted in avoiding specific behaviors and attitudes while embracing others.  There still remains the concept among some that doing some things and avoiding others is the right way to live, even though those practices are considered by others to be prudish, conservative, old-fashioned.  On the other hand the “good” life may be defined by others as never making judgments about the actions and attitudes of others, or being “politically correct” in language and behavior, or always being on the “enlightened and progressive” side of issues.  Regardless of the measuring rod, the result can be a life marked by rules and boundaries that limit life instead of enhancing it, and all of it reduced to some superficial, shallow measurement of what truly matters.

Contrast this with Thomas Merton’s definition of sin as presented in Life and Holiness (Image Books, 1962):

Sin is the refusal of spiritual life, the rejection of the inner order and peace that come from our union with the divine will.  In other words, sin is the refusal of God’s will and His love. It is not only a refusal to “do” this or that thing willed by God, or a determination to do what He forbids.  It is more radically a refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our mysterious, contingent, spiritual reality hidden in the very mystery of God.  Sin is our refusal to be what we were created to be – sons of God, images of God.  Ultimately sin, while seeming to be an assertion of freedom, is a flight from the freedom and responsibility of divine sonship.”   (Holiness of Life, 12-13)

Merton goes on to write:

The Fathers of the Church, particularly Clement of Alexandria (150-215 A.D.), believed that the “light” in man is his divine sonship, the Word living in him.  They therefore taught that the whole of the Christian life was summed up in a service of God which was not only a matter of outward worship, but a “cherishing that which is divine in ourselves by means of unremitting charity” (Stromata, Book 7, Chapter 1). (Holiness of Life, 16)

Divine Deep Peace (even in the midst of conflict).  Stability.  Coherence. Integrity. Meaning and Purpose.  Connection.  Communion.  Wholeness of life.  All these and more are contained in Merton’s “inner order and peace that come from union with the divine will.”    This seems to me to be a measure of life and sin that is infinitely richer, deeper, and more profound.  By Merton’s definition, sin is an intentional turning from deep life, true life, divine life; it is turning our back on the gift, promise, and possibility of being our most authentic and best selves known most deeply by the One who offers to reveal our true selves to us as we live in intimate connection and communion with God.

When I was copying Merton’s quotations, I was initially tempted to modify his words to be more inclusive (and politically correct?) by changing “sons of God” into “sons (and daughters) of God,” or “children of God.”  Similarly I nearly changed Merton’s “divine sonship” to “holy relationship.”  In the end I thought better of it and kept his original wording.

Why?  I think something would have been lost in translation.  There is something powerful and personally appealing in linking the mystery of our “divine sonship” with the Divine Sonship of Christ Jesus, who is “the exact image and likeness of God” (Colossians 1).  To be “sons of God” is to realize a mystery:  Jesus, the Son of God, is the model, form and frame for our own lives.  As Irenaeus (130-202 AD) simply put it, “God became human so we might become divine.”  Sin then is the refusal to become like Christ; it is an orientation and life direction away from Christ and our true, divine selves; sin is a turning from the promise and possibility that I can, by God’s gracious Spirit, become all that I see in Christ.

Through this lens we see sin as the rejection of the offer to real life and the possibility of being authentically, truly , and divinely human.  In Genesis 1, we are created in God’s image; by that light we see that Jesus is simply and marvelously who we all are at our truest.  Sin then is declining the invitation to be fully and completely human at our best, and deepest, and most complete.

Here is the great mystery, simply put: Jesus so completely knit his human life into the life of God that the Divine Life became indistinguishable from his own. He offers to teach that Way to any who hunger and thirst to learn such wonders. In the School of Jesus, turning from sin is turning to studying and becoming proficient in this living, true Divine Way learned from this Master Teacher.  Here we learn the habits of His Heart; in the words of a 20th century hymn, in the School of Jesus “we practice (God’s) acceptance until we know by heart the table of forgiveness and laughter’s healing art.”

When I think about that offer, sin loses its attraction and I see it for what it truly is – a barrier and obstacle standing in the way of a precious gift and a prized opportunity, and a cherished blessing only a fool would ignore or refuse.   In that light, learning the Way of Jesus becomes no longer a gloomy death march of misery but a joyous adventure leading to life that really is Life.