Experiencing the Transforming Dimensions of our Faith
I believe the title of this forum represents
the most important aspects of our faith. Why? Because it is not our beliefs or
our morality that saves or transforms us: what transforms us is of a whole
other dimension. However, before we get there, it would be good to provide the
context for our discussion. It seems to me that there are two predominant
understandings of the Christian faith.
The first is that our faith is expressed in our
beliefs. The Nicene Creed defines our faith – we are the people who believe
these things. While the creeds are important, they have little to do with the
transforming dimensions of our faith. I remember well my freshman class in
philosophy. Our teaching assistant, Bob Wolfe, took us through two spectacular
proofs for the existence of God and then asked the class for a show of hands
for all who were satisfied with the proofs. All hands went up. He then asked
“How many of you, then, now believe in God?” I think a couple of others in the
class joined me in raising our hands. I think the issue here was, given the
substance of the god who was proved, so what?
That god was irrelevant to anything important in our lives.
Interestingly enough, some American denominations have shifted the emphasis in
their creeds to that of mission and witness instead of beliefs.
The second understanding of the
Christian faith has to do, primarily, with ethics or morality – a matter of
following a moral code or vision. Thus, “he doesn’t go to church, but he is a
good Christian (he obeys our moral laws).” I remember the first (but it was not
the last) time I heard a very moral Jewish man described as “a good Christian.”
And again, I believe that many parents bring their children to church for their
moral development.
When I was in Lawrence, Kansas, the
Women’s Group at Trinity Church invited 80 year old John Rosebaugh to speak to
them on the topic “What do we tell our children about God.” His response was
startling: “Don’t tell them anything about God, because if you do you will
preclude your children from discovering God on their own.” There is a truth in
those words that may reflect our own condition throughout our journey into the
heart of God.
For St. Paul the heart of the matter has to do
with our faith – and that faith is not set of beliefs, but a relationship which
has to do with trust, reliance, surrender.
One of the great novelists of our time was
Reynolds Price, who also produced what I consider the single best translation
of the Gospel of Mark and several significant segments from both Christian and
Jewish Scripture (they are in his book “A Palpable Gospel”). The English
translation of Mark reads exactly like the Greek reads, warts and all. In his
childhood he was treated for cancer of the spine – and while he was cured of
the cancer, the treatment left him paralyzed in both legs. As an adult, he
describes his Christian faith as a response to three different events in his
life, each disclosing the basis of his relationship to God. He writes that
those three events have sustained him throughout his life. He did not attend
church much, but the continuing recollection of the basis of his faith also
provided a continuing deepening of his response to what he knew.
There is something very important for us in
Reynold Price’s spiritual life. I believe it has something to do with the
nature of religious language. In what I believe is the best book on the
subject, Ian Ramsey’s “Religious Language,” it is clear that religious language
is that of metaphor, of disclosure of something beneath the surface of the
ordinary – the point of this language is, in Ramsey’s Britishism, when “the
penny drops” or at the point of our “Aha!” This is what we find in John’s
Gospel, in some poetry, for me in the writings of Frederick Buechner when we
are taken beneath the surface of life into a different and more compelling
reality.
I want to try to get us there with a
story. A true story. It was told by the great mystery writer, Erle Stanley
Gardner about his neighbor and a police officer (I think his name was Phil).
One day Phil was stationed outside of town near an intersection near the town’s
river. Mid-morning he recognized his neighbor’s car turning into the exit to
the river. He saw his neighbor take a bag out of his car and then doing
something with it before returning to his car. Upon inspection what Phil found
was the mother cat and five kittens that had belonged to his neighbor.
After putting the mother cat and the kittens in
the back of the squad car, Phil raced back to his neighbor’s house and
carefully put the little cat family on the front doorstep, to be discovered by
his neighbor when he returned home about ten minutes later. From that moment
on, said Phil, his neighbor continued to spend the rest of his life in a
perpetual state of wonder.
I think
that story is an important one. There is so much to learn from it – so hold
onto it while I tell you a second true story. Two weeks before Christmas I was
in Brooklyn to visit my youngest daughter, Joy, and to see for the first time
her and Jim’s eleven week old identical twin boys. From where I was staying it
was about a mile walk to their apartment and it was a walk I could only
do in the morning, because to get where I needed to go I had to walk between
two very dangerous tenement projects. Most of late afternoon and evening it was
pretty awful – dangerous and threatening guys all around and drug deals going
down on nearly every corner. But during the morning, I felt relatively safe.
My second day there I put new batteries into my
20 year old Walkman and for some reason, I listened not to my favorite jazz
musicians but to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, which is, I believe, the single most
powerful piece of music ever composed. The great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, said
that if anyone needed proof of God, all they had to do was to listen to Bach’s
Mass in B Minor. He also said that when the angels go about praising God they
sing only Bach.
As I made my way into the heart of the
tenements that morning, my earphones were flooding my whole being with Bach’s
Gloria in Excelsis. The music was completely transforming -- not for my sake,
but for what I realized. Almost step by step, I realized that here, in the midst of tenement squalor and hopelessness, side
by side with the dreams and striving of the young families, all living such
hard and unpredictable lives, there was the Holy.
Right in the middle of it all – their lives and
mine – the Holy. What some refer to as “mysterium tremendum.” That experience,
that reality was not an “It” but an encounter with“Thou.” And it was, and it is
. . not just as music, as real as anything else in existence, whether or not we
experience it at any point in time.
The Holy. What I heard on my headphones was not
the reality of the Holy, but it disclosed the Holy, allowing me to be struck
and overwhelmed by it. This, I thought, is what all those nativity stories are
about – in the cold and in the muck and the terrible fears about childbirth in
a stable . . . Glory! How can you talk about it? How can you possibly describe
it? it can’t be just with bare facts, but with story and legend and then hymns
and rituals. Just as at that manger scene, our lives are surrounded and
supported by “Thou,” by that mysterium
tremendum. That is so in all that we do, in all the ways we strive and
often stumble on our way to the light.
In the telling of the Christmas narratives
(this is important) there is no separation – no separation between heaven . .
and earth. We have the star and the shepherds and the baby, the miracle baby
probably bawling its little heart out, in a feeding trough. That’s what a
manger is. . . a feeding trough. It happened – and the words and the stories
and the legends and all the rest – they are not describing reality –
they are allowing us to experience reality, the really real. The Holy.
And it is the Holy in the most basic and common
setting of human life – in fact a setting much closer to the refugee camps in Jordan
and Turkey than to our homes in Albuquerque, Espanola, Santa Fe or the
tenements of Brooklyn, New York. One
person who knew this as well as anyone else was Bishop Dan Corrigan. I once
heard him talk about the incarnation. Actually, he talked about “God becoming critter.”
As he cupped his hands he said, “the reality and the fullness of God became so
small, so very small, we could hold him in our hands.” And do you know what
happened? We all rose from our seats to look to see what he was holding in his
hands, fully expecting something mysterious and grand to be there.
In the Nativity stories, not everyone was aware
of the shepherds falling all over one another as they ran towards the light. Not
everybody heard the angels, saw the star, had their breath taken away at the
sight of the baby. I think of the crackheads and the young mothers and the
tired old men in that tenement. As the music was being played, however softly,
on an old Walkman, they did what they did that morning, unawares. But if
they could only hear it . . .know its reality -- and sense that that Glory,
Holy, mysterium tremendum is there
all the time – as Our Father, our brother, our lover. They deserve to know that
– just as you and I deserve to know that.
But make no mistake about it: knowing, being
overcome by that Glory does not mean that things will change. We continue in
the dailyness of our lives and for those on either side that street, the
squalor continues, the struggles remain. It is true that nothing may change, at
least in our outward circumstance; but everything is different.
Everything.
Early in our Gospels So John the Baptizer is
standing probably knee deep in the
river, with the water smelling like who knows what and his voice raspy from
yelling and preaching all day when a young man stands in front of him. Somehow
the air stills and John hears the music of this man’s heart and he knows he is
standing in the wake of Glory, the Holy. It’s like he can reach out and touch
it. Which he does. And as he does so (in Mark’s gospel it happens twice – once
here and once at the moment of Jesus’ death), the heavens SPLIT open (the Greek
word Mark uses is “schizomeno,” the root of “schizophrenia”) and there is no
separation . .between the heavens and earth. There is no separation between the
Holy and the muddy waters in which they stand.
And those words “You are my beloved. . .”
whether spoken or unspoken, both John and Jesus knew the truth of them. And,
maybe they both knew – then -- that the sign of the heavens parting and of
those words or non-words of absolute and certain blessing of Jesus. . . and
John . . and Benjamin and Mary . . and .
. . would be in the water, washing over our heads, as John in his successors
baptize us. Truly.
Now nothing has been the same after our
baptisms. Well, that’s not true. Maybe we should say that nothing has changed.
But that’s not true, either. It all depends, in some sense, on knowing about
the music, that unseen reality. I remember my favorite Easter sermon – it was
based on a fantasy that I had had in my head. It was about questions. Like, as
Jesus emerged from the tomb, what was the first thing he saw – the green and the brown splotches of color
surrounding him, or the detritus of what was left by the mourners a couple of days
before? What was the first thing he saw?
And what was the first sound he heard? Was it
the guard, just a few yards away,
snoring away, the wind in the trees, or the sound of the breaking of a twig
beneath his foot? What was the first sound he heard?
And what was his first breath like? Was it hesitant
or shallow as in dealing with shock or surprise - or was it more like gulping
in lungsful of the Spring air?
Nothing had changed -- but everything, everything was
different, everything had changed. And the heart of the Gospel is that we walk
in that same reality as Jesus did that morning – we walk in that same reality whether
or not at any given time, we are aware or unaware of it. For me, that is the
great impetus for evangelism: what a difference it would make in the lives of
those tenement dwellers, in the lives of our neighbors, in the lives of our
children. . to know.
And for me, that is the great impetus for
weekly worship – it is to remember, to recall, to know that we are, in effect, standing
next to John the Baptist as he holds our hand and the voice comes from the
heavens, “You are my beloved.” No ought, no should, no conditions whatsoever. Just
like those words to us from Jesus “You are the light of the world” - no oughts,
no should, no conditions whatsoever.
So how is that transforming? I think that
depends on something like recollection. My guess is that we all have had
something like the experiences Reynolds Price remembers. I sure remember the first
time I felt really, completely loved . . .lovable. And the first time I felt
forgiven, the first time I really understood the meaning and power of the
Cross. And it was at, of all places, the Esalen Institute at Big Sur,
California, that I first experienced a New Testament-like miracle in front of
me.
And the same is true, I’m sure, with
our earlier experiences or apprehensions with the Holy or with the sure
presence of Jesus Christ in one form or another. We are pushed down, beneath
the surface of our lives where the Holy encounters us. But we lose our
connection with those moments, those events. They get lost in the details of
our lives. What could have the same power over our lives as finding that cat
and her kittens on one’s doorstep is, instead, a distant memory.
Sometimes we are able to access that
dimension through events or insights or struggles. For me that sometimes
happens through certain poems or short stories. Not too long ago I heard for
the first time Ernest Hemmingway’s six word short story:
For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never
Worn.
All of a
sudden I was there, pushed beneath the surface of my life, vulnerable and open
to being met by the mysterium tremendum. The same happens for me often with the
poetry of Anne Sexton, Vassar Miller and Robert Creeley. It is a time, as in
the hymn, to “let all mortal flesh keep silence. . .”
In one of the most stunning sermons
I’ve heard over the years was preached by one of my seminary professors, Norman
Pittenger. He was speaking to the seminary community shortly before our
Christmas break. What changed my religious understanding were his words, “I do
not wish you a Merry Christmas. My wish for you is that you have a very
Un-Merry Christmas, because only then will you be able to hear and to know the
real meaning of what we celebrate.”
One of the functions of liturgy
should be honor this dimension which exists beneath the surface of our lives,
but our Sunday liturgies seem to get trapped in the ordinary, in preaching
about our faith instead of appearing to hold the pearl of great price, the mystery
of the Holy in the cupped hands of a Dan Corrigan. Sometimes we do make the connection through
receiving holy communion – for me it is when I remember that the consecrated
bread and wine are not static gifts from God. Those elements feed my DNA, the
Christ, the Holy One lives not only in, but through me.
One of the ways we can experience the
transforming dimensions of our faith is through mindfulness. That might mean
remembering that we receive the Holy only with open hands. Open hands are an
ancient sign that we are unarmed, defenseless, vulnerable. Kneeling at a
stream, we cannot bring the water to our mouths with clenched fists, only with
cupped, open hands. And then there is that matter of the DNA of Jesus Christ
not demanding that we become like him, as he is being incarnated in our
essence, our being, our utterly unique DNA.
The same is true, I think, with developing our
own mantras. Some people work hard at the Jesus Prayer, saying it over and over
and over again until it comes subconsciously with every breath. Other
possibilities include the words “You are my beloved. . .” heard being spoken to
us over and over and over again (they are hard words for us to believe). I
think also of those words at the beginning of the Beatitudes, “You are the
light of the world.” And my own favorite, from the Prologue to John’s Gospel,
“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome
it.” That is so close in meaning to the
words within the twenty-third Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of
the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil. . .” It is not “if” and it is
“through.”
One mantra that has saved hundreds of thousands
of lives is the Serenity Prayer, written by the theologian Rheinhold Neibuhr.
One does not have to be in recovery to benefit from it. I remember a time of
deep confusion and disorientation in my adult life when I must have said it
twenty or thirty times a day:
God
grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living
one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
The important thing in all this is
remembering. And the world in all its allure, all its distractions and shifting
priorities is not a place where remembering comes easily. But we need to know deep in our bones who we
are and who’s we are. As a model I always go back to one of the fantasy stories
of Jesus in the book written by A. J. Langguth, “Jesus Christs.” Langguth is
writing about the boyhood of Jesus. His fantasy about
Jesus has its own reality in the imago Dei that is each of us.
“Jesus opened his notebook on the
study hall desk. Using the ruler from his geometry class, he drew a ledger's
line down the center of one page. At the top of the left hand column he wrote
‘ASSETS.’ and over the other, ‘LIABILITIES.’ Under ‘LIABILITIES,’ he printed in
block letters, "IMPATIENT." Shielding the page from the girl across
the aisle, he added:
DEMANDING
SELF-RIGHTEOUS
PROUD
MOODY
SUSPICIOUS
FILLED WITH
DOUBT
TEND TOWARD
ARROGANCE
With some dismay he counted the entries and began to
contemplate the "ASSETS" column. With another look to be sure the
girl couldn't see the page, he wrote, "SON OF GOD." In better spirits,
he closed the notebook and started on the next day's translation of Cicero.”
Despite all our liabilities,
confusion and the dailyness of our lives, you and I have been chosen by a God
who, for some strange reason, delights in us. It is so important to remember
the left hand column: we must never allow it to be taken away from us.
ADDITIONAL
RESOURCES
Where is the Holy and how can we come into its presence?
Karl Heim
(see below) argues for a dimension of the holy. That dimension is always and
everywhere present – even though we have no way of our own of comprehending or
understanding it. His argument in brief is:
a
point cannot comprehend a line
a
line cannot comprehend a three dimensional object,
a
three dimensional object cannot comprehend the holy.
Going back to the presentation, this argument makes sense
of Mark’s two instances of schizomeno, when the fourth dimension (the Holy) is
fully present to humans at the baptism and at the death of Jesus. The same case
would be made for the Transfiguration – and this is a wonderful way of
conceptualizing and grounding our Sacramental theology.
VASSAR MILLER spent her
life struggling with her cerebral palsy – and often the struggles took place
within her strong Episcopalian faith. She taught at the University of Texas
until her death a few years ago. This is my favorite of her poems – and I don’t
know of another reflection on Holy Communion with this kind of grace and power.
Thanksgiving After Communion
You come to me like a bird
lighting upon my palm,
nesting upon my tongue,
flying through the branches of my being
into the forest of my darkness.
Your wings have troubled my atoms,
set intangibles striking
together in crystal music
as the light flowers out of my body
as my body bloomed from the light.
Vassar Miller.
In T. S. ELIOT’s play, “The Cocktail Party,” Julia could
be speaking to any of us as we have struggled with a crisis involving our
living a life alienated from being fully human:
All we could do
was to give them the chance
And now, when they are stripped naked to their
souls
And can choose, whether to put on proper
costumes
Or huddle quickly into new disguises,
They have, for the first time, somewhere to
start from.
T. S. Eliot
HERB GARDNER’S character, Murray, in “A Thousand Clowns,” understands well the cost of getting lost in the world.
Because Murray has been a pretty
unconventional guardian for his young nephew, a social worker has come to see
about taking the boy away. At one point,
the social worker speaks sharply to Murray, saying "Murray, you've got to
come back to reality!"
Murray responds, "O.K., but only as a
tourist."
Some
time ago I used that line of Murray’s in a class I was teaching at Oberlin. In
the class was a young man who had been a member of the cast of "A Thousand
Clowns" at Kent State University.
He said that the play was about to go on stage when the terrible
killings took place on that campus as the students and others protested some of
the worst of the Viet Nam War and the invasion of Cambodia. The university was closed in the aftermath of
the killings, but when the university re-opened, the director and cast had to
make the decision of whether or not to put on the play. The decision was to stage it. My student told us that when Murray voiced
his line, "...but only as a tourist," there was sustained applause --
long sustained applause which eventually gave way to tears and then to stunned
silence.
TBW
REFERENCES
:
Frederick Buechner – is probably best
known for the collections of his sermons, especially “The Magnificent Defeat”
and “The Hungering Dark,” and his short books which combine humor and stunning
insights, including “Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who,” “Wishful
Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC,” and his brilliant “Telling the Truth: The Gospel as
Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale.” You can find many of his books at the Public
Library and St. Bede’s library.
Herb Gardner’s “A Thousand Clowns” was
first a play, then a movie with Jason Robards as Murray. You can find some of
the same strains of “A Thousand Clowns” in Peter Sellers’ movie, “Heavens
Above,” which is a must see for understanding the heart of our faith. Norman Pittenger, quoted above, believed that
the only adequate way of understanding a saint is through the image of the
clown/fool. These two movies fit the bill.
REYNOLDS PRICE: I love his translations
in “A Palpable Gospel,” but he is best known for his novels, several of which
deal with the lives of young men in their peculiar struggles. It is in his
book, “Letter to a Man in the Fire: Does God Exist and Does He Care?” that he
talks about his own faith in writing to a young man who is suffering as he did
as a child.
The two books which speak to me most
powerfully about the Holy are Martin Buber’s classic “I and Thou” and “The
Christian Faith and Natural Science” by physicist Karl Heim (which should be
required reading for all seminary students). Heim makes sense of so much of our
riddles about the miracles, the efficacy of prayer, the presence of the
Holy. For a broader discussion of the
worlds of the Holy and everyday life, you will do well to get St. Bede’s’ Scott
Andrus’ paperback book “Meaning, Being and Breath.” It is a definite WOW.
