Peace and Justice/Just Us

Preached at Reedwood Friends, Jan. 6, 2013

Genesis 3, 4, 27, 32, 33

When Ken invited me to preach during Peace Month, he laid before me all the options—World Peace, the end of racism or sexism or prejudice of any kind,  or reconciliation between persons.  I actually believe all peace begins in the individual heart, that a heart at peace cannot hate or disparage or belittle or slander or badmouth another person, group of people, or nation.  So I chose the topic I think is most important, and also the one I am always working on.

As a child, like many or most children, I felt unjustly treated, shamed, bullied, and lied to.  As a result, I conceived a huge passion for justice.  My favorite Bible story was the sudden justice delivered to Ananias and Sapphira when they lied to the Holy Spirit and Peter and dropped dead.  But as I grew up and recognized some of my own unjust, shaming, bullying, and deceptive actions, I became more of a fan of mercy.  As GKChesterton wrote, “For children are innocent and love justice; while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy” (On Household Gods and Goblins, 1922).

As the wise writer Jeremiah wrote, “The human heart—i.e. “the seat of internal processes, including both feeling and thinking, as well as dreading, ruminating, aspiring, and so forth” (Dr. Joel Hoffman, “Five Bible Images You Probably Misunderstand,” Huffpo)—what we might more accurately call the self—is is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).  Or as Bob Dylan wrote, “Heart of mine, so malicious and so full of guile, Give you an inch and you’ll take a mile.” Or as Jesus pointed out, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile us, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile us” (Matthew 15:19-20).

There are two responses that will make the rest of this sermon hypothetical rather than useful.  One is resisting this point.  My self isn’t desperately wicked, my self isn’t malicious and full of guile, my self is not the seat of all those awful sins. I have some good qualities! But this is a serious problem in the way of a peaceful heart. If we have never noticed that a large part of our internal processes are self-justifying, we will not ever ask ourselves why we need to justify ourselves, and we will not ever see that we might at some time have done something despicable and harmful to another person. St. Paul writes to Timothy about those who speak lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron (2 Tim 1:3).  We can for a long time avoid an accurate self-understanding that includes our potential for evil.

Another unhelpful response is yes, I am a terrible person and there is no hope for me.  St. Paul writes to Titus about those whose conscience is defiled, which means it is unhelpful in sorting things out, and that lovable apostle St. John writes, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”  Sometimes our consciences are poorly trained and either let us off the hook too often or keep us on the hook too often.  Neither is helpful.  We need to submit our consciences to the guidance of Jesus, who promises to lead us into all truth, and who can retrain our consciences.

So the first step to a peaceful heart is an accurate self-understanding, which includes submitting our consciences to examination by Jesus and living into the repentance and discipline Jesus prescribes.  Let me encourage you to let down your guard and invite Jesus to examine your selves, your consciences, your hearts.  Then please be obedient to what he prescribes for you to do.

A second step toward peace is laying down our swords.  A vivid bad example of a heart not at peace is provided by the interpersonal conflict between Cain and Abel.  Here is the whole story from Genesis 4: Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground.  Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and bel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions.  And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.  So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.  The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.  Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.  When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

This conflict seems to have existed without Abel knowing about it.  Both brothers offered the fruits of their work to God, and God accepted only Abel’s. God tells Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” And, as the saying goes, the proof was in the pudding.  The reason why God accepted only Abel’s offering is made clear when Cain throws a fit.  Instead of looking inside himself to see what might have made his offering unacceptable, Cain solves the problem more primitively and eliminates the competition.

A question for us to consider is this:  Is there someone in my life who stands between me and my goals or hopes? Does the person who stands between me and what I want actually represent something inside me? A fear, a shame, an unwillingness to risk?

I recently had to confess to a close friend that I had blamed him for years for an action he took that I believed stood between me and my goals.  I had to admit that what really got in my way was my own ambivalence and fear.  It was much easier to blame someone else.

As a woman in a patriarchal culture, I have wanted to blame men in general and specific men in particular for the fact I have not achieved my dreams.  I was brought up short in this pattern by a young woman who said, “My real barriers are inside me.” 

Another step toward peace is laying down our shields. Another vivid bad example of hearts not at peace comes from Genesis 3.  Just after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God comes to visit them as usual.  They are hiding in the trees and have become afraid because they are naked, as Adam says.  When God asks Adam, “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat,” Adam answers: “The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”  Adam manages in this statement to admit what he did but blame both Eve and God for his disobedience.  When God asks Eve, “What is this that you have done?”, she replies, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” She also admits what she did, but she passes the blame on to the serpent.  The serpent is speechless. 

More questions: Is there someone in my life I blame for the fact I have made mistakes or strayed from the right path? Does the blame I place on another person allow me to avoid confronting my own contribution to the conflict? Does blaming someone else help me to avoid shame?

It is possible to work for years to come to terms with admitting what I contributed to an estrangement—what I did wrong, in other words.  I can pray for justice, work to forgive, apologize for what I can see I did wrong, and still feel that the other person blames me for everything, and this is not fair or just. I have to admit that I am still more interested in being heard than in listening, that I want to explain why it isn’t my fault, or at least isn’t all my fault, and I want the other person to admit his or her errors of judgment and behavior also.  Can I move into actual reconciliation?  Not with my shields up.

I knew a married couple who fought bitterly over their understanding of the grace of God. The first accused the second of believing she was saved by good works and the second accused the first of believing that once he was saved, he could behave any old way.  Underneath this theological argument were two people disappointed in each other and disappointed in their marriage who were fighting each other to avoid admitting any disappointment with themselves. Failing to be a good spouse was too shameful to be looked at squarely. After years, their hearts softened and with the help of a counselor, they could lay down their swords and shields, accept grace from God and each other, and extend grace to each other.  Their essential characters are not changed, but their demeanor toward each other is so vastly different it is like a miracle. 

More questions: Is there someone in my life who has failed to measure up to what he or she should be or believe or do? Is it possible that my disappointment with this person masks some sort of disappointment with myself?

And now, a good example of brothers laying down their swords and shields that starts off, of course, bad.

Genesis 27, 32 and 33 tell the story of twin brothers, Esau and Jacob.  They were nothing alike, and seemed to be struggling for top dog status even in the womb.  Esau is famous for trading his rights as first born to Jacob for a bowl of soup, and Jacob is famous for cheating Esau out of his blessing as first born by deceiving their blind father Isaac.  Add into all this the fact that the dad favored Esau and the mom favored Jacob. And that Esau was a man’s man while Jacob could hardly grow a beard. Trouble everywhere. 

Esau’s original response to Jacob was this, “Soon my father will die and then I will kill my brother Jacob.” Esau felt like Cain, that if he could simply remove the competition, he would regain all he had lost of God’s blessing and his first-born rights.  He blamed Jacob for all he had lost, even though to an outside observer, he seemed pretty careless with his birthright and maybe should have partly blamed himself. 

Their mother heard of Esau’s threat, called Jacob in and warned him.  “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.  Flee to your uncle’s and stay awhile until your brother’s fury lessens, until his anger turns away and he forgets what you have done to him.”  So Jacob took off.   Jacob’s essential trickster character remained constant through his time with his uncle, and he became rich at his uncle’s expense.  God told him to go home, and he and his wives and children and servants and animals took all his property and started for home. 

As he neared home, he began sending messengers to Esau, announcing his arrival and reporting back to him how Esau took the news.  They told him, “Esau is coming to meet you with four hundred men.”  Jacob was scared. It sounded to him like a fighting force.  He split up his wealth so that at worst he would lose only half.  He sent presents ahead to Esau of herd after herd of livestock with space in between.  He prayed for God to protect him from his brother, and in that prayer he said to God, “I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant.”  This prayer reveals that at long last, Jacob is telling the truth about himself to God, a truth that he may have been avoiding his whole life by clawing his way to wealth and position through hard dealing and deceitfulness.

That night, Jacob wrestled bodily with God.  Symbolically, this is the same wrestling match that he had been engaged in his whole life.  When the Spirit he was wrestling puts his hip out of joint, laming him for life, this was the same limp he had been covering for his whole life.  God blessed him with a change in name, symbolizing a new view of himself, a change from “Cheater” or “Supplanter” to “One who strives with God” –a change from “low-life” to “full human being.”

In the morning, Jacob saw Esau approaching.  He knew he had done Esau wrong, and he approached him as a supplicant, bowing seven times.  And here is the surprise.  Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.   

Who knows what process Esau went through to move from wanting to kill Jacob to welcoming him home like the father welcomes home the prodigal son in the parable told by Jesus.  It is clear that Esau no longer feels himself held down by Jacob’s tricksy manipulations.  The yoke of anger and hatred has been broken off his neck.  He is forgiving, even to the point of allowing Jacob to try to make things right by giving him gifts.  As my daughter Liz pointed out to me, Esau is the first example of an outright forgiveness in the Bible.

More questions:  Is there someone in my life who makes me feel inferior?  Is my conflict with that person standing in for admitting my own sense of worthlessness, my shame at somehow not measuring up? If I just admit the truth about myself to God, what does God say to me?

Here are the signs that my heart is not at peace:  I am competing for attention, blaming others, judging and criticizing others, and cheating to get ahead. 

To have a heart at peace means that I no longer am acting in my own defense. I have wrestled with God, admitted to God my worst stuff, accepted that God values our relationship because God values me, not my innocence, not my perfection, not my achievements, not my rightness, not my religious devotion.  God values you and me, knowing full well how easily we make mistakes, how easily we slip into self-justifying and blaming others, how easily we try to cover up for ourselves.  God values us and loves it when we get honest and open and accept God’s love without trying to earn it.  God loves us because God is love.  And there is enough love for all.

Pray for justice when you are in conflict with another person.  If you pray for justice, God will be help you be just, which involves seeing both the other and yourself more clearly.  And then lean into the help Jesus gives to repent and forgive.  

Revealing the Glory of God

John 5 and John 9

Preached at Friends Committee on National Legislation closing worship, November 18, 2012

These two stories from the Gospel of John have some important similarities.  Both involve a person with a long-standing disability—one with 38 years of paralysis, the other with lifelong blindness.

Both meetings and healings occurred on Sabbath; both involved actions that violated current understandings of Sabbath laws. So both set off confrontations with the religious establishment, a group highly invested in enforcing compliance with the Sabbath law so that God would bless the Jews and send the Messiah.

Both were “stealth” healings—neither person knew who Jesus was at the time of the healing, and they found out who he was only later. In both cases, Jesus asked them to do something as part of the healing; their obedience reveals two things, their desperation and his authority, which must have filled them with enough hope to try to obey him, even going so far as to violate Sabbath laws.

These stories also have very different endings.  Jesus warns the healed paralytic against continuing to sin; he reports Jesus to the religious authorities after their second meeting. The healed blind man defies these authorities to insist that Jesus is a prophet from God, based only on their first meeting, and they throw him out of the religion; when Jesus finds him again,  the healed man worships him on the basis of finding out that he is God’s son. 

John 5—The Paralyzed Man

Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a festival.  He passed through the Sheep Gate where there was a pool called Bethesda.  Five porches surrounded it, sheltering many invalids—blind, lame, paralyzed. They were all waiting for the waters to be stirred up, as they believed, by an angel of the Lord, and when that happened, whoever was first into the pool was healed.  

One man had been there 38 years.  Jesus saw this man and recognized that he had been lying there a long time.  He asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” [This question is all by itself intriguing.  Did he want to be made well?] The sick man answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and someone always beats me into the water.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.” At once, the man was well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

As it happened, that particular day was Sabbath.  The Jewish authorities told the man who had been healed, “It is against Moses’s law for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” The former paralytic did not know who had healed him, and Jesus had quickly disappeared into the crowd.

Later Jesus found him again in the temple and said to him. “See, you are healed! Do not sin any longer and invite something worse than paralysis to happen to you.”

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.  They therefore began hounding Jesus because he was doing such things on Sabbath.  Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” This made them even angrier, because Jesus was breaking Sabbath AND calling God his Father, making himself equal with God.  They looked for a way to kill him.

John 9—The Man Born Blind

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Teacher, who sinned so that this man was born blind? Was it this man himself who sinned, or was it his parents?” Jesus answered, “Neither his sin nor his parents’ sin made him blind. But he is blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him. I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who knew him as a blind man, said, “Isn’t this he who sat and begged?”  “Yes, he’s the one.” “No, he just looks like him.” The man said, “I am he.”  So they asked him, “How were your eyes opened?”

He told the story, and then they asked him who had put the mud on his eyes and where he was, and the man said, “I don’t know.” They brought him in to see the Pharisees, the Jewish authorities. 

As it happened, Jesus made the mud and opened the blind man’s eyes on Sabbath. The Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight, so he told them the story. Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God because he doesn’t keep Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” They argued.

So they asked the blind man again, “What do you say about him? After all, he opened your eyes.” The man said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews refused to believe he had been born blind, so they called in his parents. They said, “This is our son; he was born blind; we don’t know anything about how it is that he now sees.  He’s adult, ask him; he will speak for himself.”  They were afraid of the consequences if they said that Jesus had done this and might be the Messiah.  

So they called the formerly blind man back and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner.”

He responded, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: that though I was blind, now I see.” They grilled him again on how Jesus had done this, and he answered, “I told you already, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t also want to become his disciples, do you?” They raged at him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t know that God speaks to this guy or even where he comes from.”

The man answered, “How is it possible that you don’t know anything about him? No one since time began has ever opened the eyes of someone born blind. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone worships God, and obeys God, God listens to that person.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

The authorities answered him, “You were altogether born in sins, and do you teach us?” and they threw him out.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, found him, and said, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?” “You have seen him and are talking with him right now.”

The man said, “Lord, I believe!” and he worshiped him.

Jesus said, “I came into the world as a judgment, so that those who don’t see may see and those who see may become blind.” The Pharisees heard him and asked him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.”

There are three points of view both stories share, and thus three lessons we can learn from comparing the stories.

The Religious Authorities

These folks were invested in the system of religious laws.  They themselves were highly observant, and they believed that if Sabbath were properly kept, Messiah would come.  One rabbinical text says, “If Israel keeps one Sabbath as it should be kept, the Messiah will come.” Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah singled out Sabbath-breaking as the reason for the Jewish nation’s collapse and exile, and called Jews back to keeping Sabbath.

No wonder the authorities are so angry when Jesus breaks Sabbath and leads others to do so also.  No wonder they don’t recognize him as a prophet, let alone as Messiah.

This causes me to rethink my normal condemnation of the religious authorities and get in touch with my inner Pharisee.

1^st lesson:  What is my version of Sabbath-keeping? What are other people doing that I believe is preventing the coming of God’s kingdom among us? Does this blind me to seeing the movement of the Spirit of God?

The Needy

The paralyzed man had waited for help for 38 years, invisible, hoping to win the healing lottery.  The blind man had begged for a living and had never known anything but darkness, had to sit by while people debated about whether he was blind because of his own or his parents’ sin.

Jesus asks the paralytic, “Do you want to be made well?” Then he challenges the man to stand up, pick up his mat and walk.  On the second meeting, he challenges him to stop sinning, to get a better aim at the target, to get on the path, to step into God’s light.  If he keeps on sinning, he will put himself in a worse state than paralysis.  And he immediately turns Jesus in, preferring staying safe to the risk of walking freely. 

In the gospels there are at least two connections between sin—missing the mark, straying away from path, preferring darkness to light—and paralysis. In the other case (Matthew 9:2), Jesus meets a paralyzed man with the words, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” If we see these as acted out parables, we can see how living in error or willfully doing what we know is wrong will paralyze us to do good if we do not step into God’s light, see ourselves by it, and change as God wants us to change.

The blind man overheard Jesus say that his blindness was so that the works of God might be revealed in him.  Without resisting, he sits while Jesus daubs mud on his eyes, he obediently rises and feels his way to the designated pool, and when he washes, he sees.  It is tempting to identify the miracle as the way he reveals the works of God, but I think it is when he stands up before the authorities for the truth that God is the author of good and that the person who did this good to him is from God.  This is where the glory of God shows up. The works of God are that he prefers light to darkness, accuracy to error, risky truth to the status quo.  He believes Jesus is the light of the world.  It costs him his occupation and his religion.

This causes me to ask myself about whether I actually want to be healed when that means everything may change.

2^nd lesson:  With which of these do I identify? What am I willing to risk in order to walk freely and see clearly?

Jesus

Before and after these stories, Jesus tells us his point of view.

I tell you, I do nothing on my own but only what I see the Father doing.

My Father is always working, and I too must work.

I must keep on doing the work of God who sent me.

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me does not walk in the dark but has the light of life.

You are the light of the world (Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6).

This causes me to think about the example Jesus set of listening and obeying his Father every day.

3^rd lesson: How do I depend on the Spirit to know what to do?  How do I myself live in the light?

May the light of God’s Spirit inhabit our lives and guide our actions. Amen

Respect for the Body

1 Corinthians 6:19, 20

Preached at Newberg Friends Church, October 21, 2012

When a person dies, we can tell that something crucial is gone that we had counted on being there.  The body looks just like the person we know but the animating spirit is gone.  In physical terms, all the electrical energy that circulated through the nerves and brain and kept the lungs breathing and kept the heart pumping simply stops. Though the body is not equal to the person, yet without the body, we would never know each other.  Our bodies are not all we are, but through them we relate to each other and to God and it matters to God what we do in and with our bodies.

Our mind and spirit, we are pretty sure, depend on our bodies for their beginnings.  One of my daughters asked me when she was 2 or 3 where she had been before she was born.  I wasn’t sure which answer to give, so I gave the philosophical Idealist answer: “You were in the mind of God,” I said.  She took that in and then some time later came up with this comment about the dog: “When Dusty was in the minda God…” (I will have to add that my other daughter told me that when she was in heaven before she was born, she picked our family out as the one she wanted to come to.  This is sweet, but it creates more questions than it answers.)

Though God has known us from before time, we have not known ourselves without our bodies. But we do start to know our bodies very early, and one of the joys of grandparenting and parenting is watching babies learn to live into their bodies and their minds. And somewhere, we watch babies act in ways contrary to their best interest and contrary to what their parents tell them to do, and they learn they have their own separate will.

I may be making this too simple, but the entire rest of human life is learning to use that separate will.  And we exercise our will in how we use our bodies.

The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being….Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” …So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man….And the man and the woman were both naked, and were not ashamed.

The story of sin’s entry into human experience is in part a story of becoming ashamed of being human, and particularly ashamed of the body.  The exact form of the temptation to disobey was to become like God.  Adam and Eve rejected their status and limitations as human beings. After Adam and Eve disobeyed the one rule God gave them, their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked,  They knew as God knows just how far from being godlike they were.  Therefore, they covered themselves with clothing made of leaves because they were ashamed and afraid of being human.

However, Jesus never depicts the body as despicable or its vulnerabilities or imperfections as shameful. Remember the many times Jesus touched the sick and disabled, the lepers and the other unclean.  Remember that Jesus said that the man born blind was not born that way because of sin, either his own (from before birth!) or his parents’ sin.  Instead, he was born blind so that the glory of God could show up in him. I think the glory of God is not the healing, but the condition of his heart which was ready to meet Jesus. His good heart is revealed by the healing and he stands up for Jesus the son of God.  (In contrast, the man by the pool turns Jesus in to the religious leaders after he figures out who he is.)

God wants us to live fully into our humanity. And Jesus came to show us how to live fully into our humanity: namely, to live in mindful listening and consistent obedience to God.

Personally, I have persisted in a course of action that in my gut (note the body’s usefulness) I knew was unwise or downright wrong.  I ignored the warning signs from my body—the physical symptoms of heartburn, stomach ache, tight muscles, headache, and so on.  Our bodies are one of the ways God talks to us:  you’re putting yourself in danger, our stomachs tell us; you’re still angry, insomnia tells us; you’re making your job too important, our ulcers remark. One way we misuse our will is to ignore the truth we can learn from our bodies.

The body has its own wisdom, instinctive, intuitive.  We need to listen to what it says.  The listening is done with our minds, of course, our imaginations, but the attitude we preserve is one of respect.  Otherwise, we can pervert our common sense, logic, all kinds of useful thinking skills to justify a course of action that our intuition, based more than we like to admit on the body, rebels against.

Jesus calls us to account for our tendency to blame our sin on the body in Matthew 5:29-30. Jesus knows that the source of sin is the will, not the body.  People sin because they choose to. To those who blame the body because they lust, Jesus said, “Cut off whatever causes you to sin.” Just how much of the body will one have to remove in order to quit lusting after what God does not will for us to have? My opinion is that cutting off parts of my body to prevent my sinning will work only if I cut off my head.

C. S. Lewis said in his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy that his body never led him very far astray by itself.  It was his imagination that got him into serious trouble.  By imagination, he meant the whole human capability of imagining circumstances different from reality and choosing to prefer that illusion.  The first illusion depicted in Genesis is imagining being like God, or being God.  When we place our will in the place of God’s will, what we want is more important than what God wants.  This, put simply, is idolatry. 

Matthew 15:10-20

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles….Do you not see that whatever a person eats enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what a person says arises from the mind, the will, the character of that person, and this is what pollutes a person. As a result, out of the inner self come evil or distorted thoughts and arguments, murder, adultery, illicit sexual intercourse, theft, false witness, speech that destroys another’s reputation or misrepresents God. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” The sin that pollutes us starts in the will, not in the body.

Jesus said to Nicodemus that a human must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God.  That new birth includes both spirit (the same word as breath) and body.  We may be entirely wrong to think that spirit exists separate from body.

In a letter to an early church, Paul calls the body “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (I Cor. 6:19-20).  Christians talk about God living in their hearts, which is clearly a metaphor; but what if this temple phrase is literally true?  What if God dwells in our bodies?  That makes them holy places, inside and outside.  We can’t put God out of our minds and do irresponsible or wicked things with our bodies or with the bodies of other people.  I think of this when I worry about how workers in other countries or even in our own are treated.  I don’t want my wardrobe to be made by mistreated factory workers.  I think about the body’s holiness when I evaluate addictions.  I don’t want to destroy my body by using food, exercise, or chemicals that excite or soothe my mind at the expense of my body.  I think about the body’s holiness when I am confronted with abusiveness.  Violating another person’s body is violating a holy dwelling where God lives. (As an acquaintance once said about the practice of female circumcision, “I can’t make moral space for that.”) God comes with us wherever we go and whatever we do, and God inhabits those we meet as well. 

Romans 12 helps us recognize that because of what Jesus has already accomplished through identifying with our humanity, our sin, and our death, and through prefiguring the resurrection we all hope for, we are free to offer our whole selves, body and spirit, to the service of God. We don’t have to be pawns of the forces that dominate our social world. As we obey God with our bodies, we worship God in spirit and in truth. God renews our minds so we can see clearly the good, acceptable, complete actions that are the will of God for us.

Jesus consistently locates sin in the will and diagnoses a sinful will by looking at what people do with their bodies.  Matthew 25:31-46

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Just as you did it to one of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me. My Father blesses you. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Just as you did not do it unto one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment. In John 5:28, 29, Jesus adds that when the dead hear his voice they will come out and those who have done good will be resurrected into life.  So it really does matter how we treat other people, how we treat other people’s bodies.

Jesus rewards kindness to other human beings in their bodies. Kindness has in its heart the recognition that others are the same kind as we; and the Golden Rule and the law of love pertain.  How do we want to be treated when we are hungry, thirsty, homeless, defenseless against the elements, sick, imprisoned?  What can we do by means of our own bodies to make another’s life more bearable?

So if I were to modify the Northwest Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice statement about respect for the body in any way, I would add to it the emphasis that we respect the bodies of others as temples of God, also.

In Genesis, God breathed into human bodies the breath of life. When Jesus appeared to the disciples in his resurrected body, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit of God now lives inside our bodies, as intimately as the air we breathe.  

Christians live in a mystery; we do not earn the grace of God by being good or by doing good deeds.  Rather, by believing what Jesus has taught us about God by Jesus’s own life, death, and resurrection, and by trusting that Jesus has brought us through death into new life, we are free to live as Jesus did, in complete confidence that God is good and loving toward us.  The Holy Spirit breathes in us and guides us daily into knowing and doing good. 

Paul teaches what Jesus teaches:  food is for the belly, the belly is for food, both will come to an end in death; however, the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body.  We are the limbs of Jesus, the members of His body.  Therefore, what we do with our bodies makes a difference.  In John 9, Jesus says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” And in Matthew 5, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world; let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and glorify our Father in heaven.” 

Paul refers to the body as a tent (II Cor. 4:18-5:1, 4). Thinking of it as a tent, we recognize its temporary status.  We are always camping out in it. We can repair it, we can take good care of it, but we can’t keep it from wearing out, blowing away in a storm, or collapsing.  Gravity holds it on the earth, but it also drags it down, given enough time. Practically, this means that we have to do maintenance—reasonable exercise, healthy diet, occasional patching (I heard a woman once say that after forty, it’s patch, patch, patch), but it also means we don’t expect it to look new forever.  Christians believe that the tent is not finally transcended in death; instead, it is replaced by a more permanent house, a new body.

We need to pay the right kind of attention to the body, our own and others’. We neither worship the body nor dismiss it.  We recognize that the body is how we stay connected with this planet and other people. God’s presence in each human being gives each body eternal value. We take appropriate care of the body, both our own and others’, preserving the body’s wholeness and holiness, and we listen to the body when it helps us recognize truth.   We use our bodies now to obey the Holy Spirit of God who lives in us, and we look forward to joining Jesus in the resurrection.

God the Gardener, IV: Pruning and Weeding

John 15

Every branch that bears fruit he prunes so that it will bear more fruit.

The Word I have spoken to you                  Pruning branches

                                                                                    Cut off fruitless

Cut back fruitful

The pruning instrument in the parable is the Word Jesus spoke to his disciples.  What this means to me is that Jesus and his teachings are how we understand what God wants from us, how God views us, and how we are to view God.  I think of how translators of the Bible tend to start with a Gospel, often Mark, believing that Jesus is in fact the central story and interpretive principle for those becoming Christians and all who are Christian already.  When we allow what Jesus said to reshape our actions and hearts, we will be ready to interpret the rest of the Bible well.

These next parables are from the Old Testament. They suggest that when God stops pruning, God is ready to turn the vines over to natural forces and consequences.  So we’re glad for pruning that helps us become useful and healthful producers of fruit for the good of other people—just dealings and right actions toward others.

Isaiah 5:3-6

You who live in Jerusalem, you members of Judah, judge now between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done to my vineyard than I did?  Why, when I looked for grapes, did it produce only stinkberries? Now listen; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove the hedge around it and animals will eat it up; I will break down the wall around it and animals will walk over it; and I will destroy it. I will not prune the vines, nor dig around them.  I will let briers and thorns grow up in it.  I will also command the clouds not to rain on it.  For my vineyard, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, is the house of Israel; the members of Judah were my pleasant plant.  I looked to them for just dealings and I found bloodshed and oppression; I looked for justice and right actions and found cries of distress.

Joel 1:12

The vine is dried up, and the fig tree droops; the pomegranate, the palm, the apple, all the trees of the field are withered, because joy has dried up among the children of Adam.

Joel 2:12-13, 22

Therefore also now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning; tear your hearts and not your clothes, and return to the Lord your God, who is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, greatly kind, who himself laments the harm done…Do not be afraid, animals of the field; the grasslands do spring, the tree bears fruit, the fig tree and the vine contribute their plenty. 

What can we learn from these pruning parables? 

The pruner is God.  The pruning is done because of God’s love for us and desire for our good. And refusing to be pruned has negative natural consequences.

Therefore, we can ask ourselves these questions: What makes an event in our lives a “pruning” event? It’s hard to imagine a pruning event that doesn’t have some sense of an avenue of behavior or thought cut off.  We won’t or can’t do something we might otherwise have done.  What makes this pruning rather than vandalism in our lives, I think, lies in our attitude toward the event. 

How can we lean into God’s intention for us in these events? I think turning toward God and moving in closer to God is the first step.  Even if we are angry about the pruning, communicating honestly and frequently with God keeps us close.  I remember clearly a time when I was deeply disappointed and angry with God. I sat in church with my head down, reminding God of how angry I was and how unfair God was.  I felt in my heart (and it was nearly audible) God saying, “Lift up your head and look at me.” I wouldn’t do it, just like an angry child.  I felt that God lifted my chin, and said, “Look in my eyes. What do you see there?”  I could see only love.  “I see only love,” I said. This changed everything in my attitude and heart to this day.  I want everyone to have the same experience of God—look into God’s eyes and you will see love.

How will we know the pruning has been helpful? My observation is that pruning is helpful when we end up trusting God more, listening to God and others more before acting, and doing the good God tells us to do more readily.

Here’s another parable, this one about weeding.

Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus told them another parable (right after Sower)

The Kingdom of heaven is like this:

A man sowed good seed in his field. One night, while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. When the plants grew and the heads and grain began to form, then the weeds showed up. The man’s servants came to him and said, “Sir, it was good seed you sowed in your field; where did the weeds come from?”

“It was some enemy who did this,” he answered.

“Do you want us to go pull up the weeds?” they asked him.

“No,” he answered, “because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them. Let the weeds and the wheat both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.”

Matthew 13:36-43

When Jesus had left the crowd and gone indoors, his disciples came to him and said, “Tell us what the parable about the weeds in the field means.” Jesus answered:

“Good sower=Son of Man (Jesus)

Field=world

Good seed= people who belong to the Kingdom

Weeds=people who belong to the evil one

Bad sower=devil

Harvest=end of age

Workers=angels.

“The Son of Man will send out his angels to gather up out of his Kingdom all those who cause people to sin and all others who do evil things. Then God’s people will shine like the sun.”

The Old Testament provides a context for this parable in Leviticus 19:19: You shall keep my statutes. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed.

These are part of the purity laws for the ancient Israelites; many believe one purpose of these laws was to separate the Israelites from all other peoples who did not follow Israel’s God. If the Israelites were concerned to be pure, they must have spent a lot of time removing weeds.  It would indeed be seen as the act of an enemy to deliberately sow another kind of seeds in a field meant to be pure. 

So the Levitical context explains their energy to remove the weeds in the parable, the “mingled” seeds, but the owner says no, let it wait until later.

What we can learn about the Kingdom of God from this parable is that Jesus is not a worrier. He does what God says to do, and he knows there will be a time to set all things right.  In the mean time, we can let people grow and see how they turn out.

For the Jews, this was likely a warning similar to the new wine in new wineskins—that the Kingdom of God was not a continuation of the system of Judaism but a fulfilling and completing of the law, which Jesus summed up as loving God wholly and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  The day of the Kingdom dawned with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Another possibility is that Jesus is not surprised or stymied by the messiness of the church, universal or particular.  Jesus knows that weeds are also growing, that within the church community are those who do not bear fruit, do not do the things Jesus said and says to do.  Jesus gives them time and reminds us to let Jesus do the judging.  My own denomination has frequently disowned folks who were “weedy” in the denomination’s perspective—people who performed music, people who joined the military, people who married non-Quakers.  It’s not one of our best sides, and it reflects the zeal for purity that uproots the good with the bad. Clearly, we need to tell people who harm others (or themselves) to stop it, and we need to take steps to protect the vulnerable.  However, it takes time to see whether people are moving toward God or away from God, and telling people to stop harmful behavior is not the same as judging the condition of their hearts with regard to God.

Personally, I have thought that I often don’t even know what needs to be weeded or pruned. Some of the aspects of myself that I think of as liabilities may in fact be seen differently by God; same with what I think of as my strengths. It is a great comfort to have Jesus in charge of these things.  My main energy can be spent listening and doing what I’m told.  When I do this, I lean into Jesus, follow close behind him, and he can help me become who he wants.

Matthew 6:28-34, Luke 12:27-31

And why worry about what you will wear?  Look how the wild flowers grow. They do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.  It is God who clothes the wild grass—grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven.  Won’t he be all the more sure to clothe you?  What little faith you have! So do not worry…Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what God requires of you, and God will provide you with all these other things.

Matthew 24:32-35, Mark 13:28-31

Let the fig tree teach you a lesson. When its branches become green and tender and it starts putting out leaves, you know summer is near.  In the same way, when you see all these things, you will know that the time is near, ready to begin—you will know that the Kingdom of heaven is about to come.

The Kingdom of Heaven is where God is King.  God’s will is to bring reconciliation between the whole earth, including humanity, and God’s own self.  Jesus came to make this clear to us and to show us how it looks to live in harmony with God our Father.  God gives us the beauty of flowers, the clothes that show we are in the right place in our spirits.  So we do not need to worry, we need not to worry.  Live into the promise here that Jesus gives—small beginnings signal great awakenings.

To sum up:  Abide in Jesus, seek first God’s kingdom, don’t fear, do what God says to do.  That’s the secret to God’s gardening.