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23 Pentecost B: Swallowing it Whole

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“Ahava” – Hebrew version of Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture

In ancient Israel, and reportedly still today,
careful distinctions were made between people
who belonged and did not belong,
including between a “foreigner” and “sojourner.”
Both were aliens, most likely immigrants such as
Canaanites and Moabites.
But a sojourner referred
to someone from the outside
who settled down and made their home
among the Israelites.
Even though they were still not considered
an Israelite, sojourners
were treated as what we might call
“Green Card” holders or “DACA” kids.
“Foreigners” on the other hand,
were met with less graciousness.

It is amazing that Ruth became a book of the Bibl
because it is about a foreigner,
one held up as an icon of faithfulness, and who
became the great-grandmother of King David.
It is a story from a time after the Exodus
and before the monarchy,
but actually written centuries later.
It comes to us from after the Exile
and seems to have been written to argue with
the books of Ezra and Nehemiah
that opposed marriage to foreigners.

It is a great and fascinating story for sure,
with a woman as the hero — also uncharacteristic —
but it does nothing to hide how marginalized
and vulnerable
women were within a misogynistic
social caste system.
Nor does it advocate for something different.

The whole book
is like a page and a half or something,
so I suggest you go home and read it
and then tell people you just read
a whole book of the bible today.

Let’s turn the page to Mark and Mary —
Mary Oliver, that is.

Like you, I have many neighbors.
Some of them are people with whom
I share core political and economic values.

Some of them are people with whom
I share…some important values.

Some of them, I suspect, are people with whom
I hold little in common except cordialness
and shared geography.
Jesus wants me to love each of them.

Heck, I want to love each one of them…theoretically.
Actually, to the extent that I know them,
I do love them, at least intellectually.

But Jesus wants me to love each of them.

I want to begin with Mary Oliver
talking about Jesus and love:
“Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.”

This so-called “Great Commandment”
is one we like to argue and quibble about.
We like to smooth the corners
and see if we can make it fit reality —
to change its roundness
to fit into our squareness.
Unlike so much of Jesus —
which is often way too radical for us —
we can almost make it fit…almost.
But let’s not.

Let’s try treating this like Communion.
Let’s try not ‘thinking’ about
but experiencing it.
Let’s try swallowing it whole
and imagining how life would be different
were we able to do it —
or as Mary Oliver wrote,

“If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.”

Let’s receive the Great Commandment like the bread
and allow it to dissolve on our tongue
and not think about
whether it is the Body of Christ
or not.
Let’s just do it,
swallow it whole
and know we are better for it.

Okay, I know. I can’t do it either.

There is an interesting difference
between Matthew, Mark, and Luke
in how they frame this teaching.
In each of them,
it is generally surrounded by conflict —
the Pharisees and temple clergy
arguing with Jesus
or trying to trap him
into saying something that will get him arrested.
The lawyers nitpick
and push and prod.
The clergy sniff around
and act passive-aggressively.
The people wait to see what will happen.

But in Mark, with this particular teaching,
a scribe seems to ask about it sincerely,
and at the end,
is so authentic and open to it,
Jesus praises him.
”Yeah, you get it,” Jesus says with a smile.
”You are very close.”

But I am guessing,
you and I are not so close.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth
or thoughts in your brain,
but I think we get tripped up
on three things here.
We read them and hedge our bets
with a “Yes…But.”

First, we want “neighbor” defined
a little more narrowly.

Secondly, and ironically,
we want to keep the focus on loving our neighbor
rather than loving ourselves, because…
well, we don’t really want to go into that, because…
well, because our difficulty with loving ourselves
is personal.

And third, love God
with ALL our heart,
with ALL our soul,
with ALL our mind?
That seems a little extreme —
how will we love God like that and make money,
or more importantly, spend money?

I guess when we break it down like that
into its constituent parts,
we might have trouble with the whole thing.
We better go back to swallowing it whole
with mindless acceptance.

I know that there are people
you do not love.

I know that, because
I believe you and I are not too different
and for sure, there are
people I do not love.
There are some people
who do things
and espouse things
and contribute to things
I find repugnant.
I would have to cheat on the test
in order to say I love them.

Maybe you are different than me,
but I am guessing not many of you are.

What do we do with this hard core
of resistance to Jesus
that hides inside of us?

Here is what: we keep swallowing his teachings —
crazy and absurd as they are —
keep swallowing them whole
right along with the Communion bread.

Look, let’s be real.
What do we have inside
if our religion is political ideology?
What do we have inside
if our religion is patriotism and nationalism?
What do we have inside
if our religion is racial and ethnic identity?
What do we have inside
if our religion is fidelity to an economic system?

What do we have inside
if our religion is the Self?
In every one of those religions,
love has boundaries;
love is transactional;
love is a zero-sum game.

Jesus is talking about love —
real love, as in loving God.

Jesus doesn’t prescribe niceness.
Jesus does not tell us we have to like people
who act like jerks.
Jesus does not tell us we have to allow ourselves
to be victimized by people who do not love us.

Jesus does tell us
we need to be about loving our neighbor
as ourselves —
and by the way, for all practical purposes,
that is also how we love God with our whole heart.

Loving our neighbor
means resisting the urge to hate.
Loving ourselves
means extending ourselves mercy
when we feel ashamed.
Loving our neighbor
means sharing what we have in abundance
with those who are in need, and no matter how they got in that need.
Loving ourselves
means accepting what we wish was different
with a heart of generosity.
Loving our neighbor
means accepting our differences
and celebrating them where we can.

Because love is a verb
what Jesus is poking us to do
is act in particular kinds of ways
that may or may not be reflective of how we feel.

We may feel repulsed and angry and offended
by someone’s political viewpoint,
but we can act in such a way
that respects their dignity
and embraces their humanity.

When we swallow Jesus whole — in the bread
or in his teachings — then we have him inside
agitating us
guiding us
and poking us
to resist our resistance
and act in love.
When we have Jesus’ Great Commandment
as our religion inside,
our neighbors might not be better
but we will be.

It is about how we act not how we feel;
it’s about how we treat ourselves and one another
not what we believe.

Easter Day, 2021: Sun

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Link to the poem, “The Sun” by Mary Oliver: http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_thesun.html

For the video version,  scroll down

I begin with that Mary Oliver poem:
“…and have you felt for anything
such wild love —
do you think there is anywhere, in any
language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the (son)
reaches out,
as (he) warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed…” – Mary Oliver, The Sun

Well, really,
Mark has met Mary Oliver
and raised her bid.
Mark ends his Gospel
at an empty tomb
from which his closest friends
run away shaking with dread —
and tell no one
”…for the were afraid.”

This is Mark’s answer to Mary Oliver’s question:
“do you think there is anywhere, in any
language,
a word billowing enough…”
to describe that experience?

Mary, Mary, and Salome – who
the Gospel of Thomas says were disciples –
have braved everything else
the men were too scared to withstand.
But this one thing,
this empty tomb,
was too much even for them.

Something so terrifying
they told no one.

I want to simply be present
to their fear
and respect Mark’s silence.
I want to recognize
there is no word or words
billowing enough
to hold the moment
we are pointing at.

I do not want to be one of those
preachers
who yammers on
about things he or she has no business
speculating about,
because they don’t know.

I do not want to be one of those
pastors
at the graveside
who tells the family
that God wanted
their son or daughter or spouse or parent
in an attempt to fill the terrible gap
and empty tomb
that all of us look into
more than once
in our lifetimes.

Instead, I want to be Mary Oliver
who recognizes
there is no word or words
billowing enough
to deliver anything sensible.

I want to be Mark
who understands the story never ends
and does not try to tie it altogether
and put a bow on it.

You may have a theory
about what this story is about,
and you may have a speculation
that fills in the gaps,
but I am going to be so bold as to say:
“You do not know.”
The archbishop don’t know.
The pope don’t know.
The Dali Lama don’t know.
The preacher
the teacher
the physicist
and the biologist – they don’t know.

Matthew, Luke, and John
were not content to leave off
where Mark does –
running away from the empty tomb
and telling no one,
for they were afraid.
But they didn’t know either.

What is our problem?
What is it about us
that we cannot stand in awe of mystery
and simply be present to it –
and have that be enough?

What is it about us
that we have to color in every box and shape
and leave nothing empty at the edges?

This story
brings us back to the mountaintop
where Moses crouched down
between the rocks
and watched as God passed by –
but only the backside of God
because to look upon the face
the Creator Of All That Is
would mean certain death.
We cannot look upon God.
We cannot not know God.
The part,
teeny and tiny as we are,

does not get to see
or know
or understand
the whole
of which it is only one small part.

We only get glimpses –
traces
a fragrance
a mere scent
or reverberation
of what has already passed by.
That is all we get,
and to have any more
is to disappear
into the holy ether.

So today we celebrate
the end of our story.
Isn’t that fantastic?!

We celebrate the end,
which is a brazen total mystery
pointing toward something that is infinite.

We live one day at a time
in the midst of the infinite.
Hold that for a moment.

We live one day at a time
with the infinite.
We live in a restricted zone,
unable to leave it
without dying first.
And all around us,
on every side
and in every moment
is the infinite
that cannot be restricted to any place
but which also moves through
our space
like a spring wind
carrying the hope of summer.

Well, that is the best I can do
at saying something
about such wild love
that there is nothing, in any language,
no word billowing enough
for the pleasure
of standing here, empty-handed…

2 Epiphany 2020: The Fish

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by Diliff

TEXTS For SERMON: Isaiah 9:2-4; “The Fish” by Mary Oliver; Matthew 4:12-23

There are so many times
a poem is better than a story
and this morning, I would prefer
to riff on Mary Oliver’s fish poem.

It is elegant and wise:
“…Out of pain
and pain, and more pain,
we feed this feverish plot, we are nourished
by the mystery.”

She is writing there, I think,
about eating the fish
and how then, the sea is in her
with the fish glittering inside her,
and she is now the fish
just as fish is her – “tangled,” she writes,
and both of them, “certain to fall back into the sea.”

It is an idea about the mystery of life,
and poetry gets to play with ideas
the way Lisa gets to play notes
on her way to music.

But someone who does not like to play with ideas
will come along, look at the dead fish
in that poem, and say,
“right, it was good for her
but bad for the fish.”
Without the poetry it is just a murder and a meal.

Without the poetry
Andrew and Peter were out of their minds
to drop everything and follow Jesus –
like impressionable children
falling under the spell of a cult leader
who we would go after
and bring home.

So let’s not tell this,
or any of these stories,
as if reading a newspaper account
or history textbook.

Let’s read this story like the story we are in –
a story without a script.
We don’t get to know everything in advance,
do we? Do we?

Sometimes we are able to sense
what kind of a down payment we will have to make
when embarking on an adventure
or continuing our way into a story.

Take Peter and Andrew for example.
Their adventure begins when Andrew
hears Rabbi Jesus talking to someone,
and suddenly…
he feels as if he has never,
ever in all his years,
heard anyone
make such utterly clear-and-certain sense.

That is the moment that Andrew can choose
to walk away with a nice experience;

He can go home with a short story
instead of an adventure.
He can make the whole incident
just an afternoon tale
he tells his family and friends,
OR he can run home,
get his brothersand insist on sharing
a spectacular experience with them.
We know that tension.

We can tell someone about a gorgeous sunset
that has just thrilled us, or we can drag them
outside or to the window to experience it with us.

From Peter’s place in the story,
he can listen to his brother
and enjoy the moment vicariously,
OR he can go and crawl into the story himself –
actually, become part of the story.
For reasons we will never know –
and let’s not pretend we do –

Andrew and Peter enter the adventure at that moment
and it changes their lives.
That is how it is with us, or how it isn’t.

That snippet of Isaiah’s poetry
has the same story behind it –
one that those listening to him can climb into
or just hear about with mild interest.

You see, for fifty years
the remnant of Israel
that had been carted off into exile, languished.
Exile hurts.
That is a grotesque understatement
for something akin to slavery,
imprisonment,
and economic bondage.
Those of us who have been listening
to the 1619 podcast about slavery in America
are sensing again the brutality of exile.

For Israel, exile
amounted to religious
and cultural disintegration.
Prior to exile
every hope and promise
of their relationship with God
was rooted in land.
A place.

On Mount Zion,
upon which Jerusalem was built.
In Judah, the Promise Land
bordered by the Jordan River.
Take away that place –
the temple
the city
the land
the river –
and there was no religion.
Exile brought with it the terrifying question
of whether there had ever been a God named Yahweh.
In short,
to live in exile
was brutal and painful and hazardous,
but to live without hope
in the midst of exile,
was an intolerable suffering.
That is when the prophet Isaiah’s poetry
was most brilliant.

He was a poet of hope.
Isaiah’s poetry kept hope alive
during Israel’s exile in Babylon –
and it kept the religion and culture alive too.
In the same way African tribal cultures
were nursed and nurtured secretly
throughout American slavery,
the religion and culture of Israel
was kept burning in exile by poets like Isaiah.
When there is no hope for a conquered people,
total assimilation into the foreign culture
and the beliefs of their captors,
is a hazard.
But Isaiah just kept telling people
that God could
and God would
do a new thing.
After fifty years, God did.
Persia defeated Babylon
and the King of Persia
not only allowed people to go home to Judah,
he actually gave them money
to help rebuild the temple on Mount Zion.

That was the point at which the exiles
had to decide if their story was an armchair story
or an adventure they would enter into –
were they living the last chapter of Israel
or writing a new chapter?

The 2ndSunday of Epiphany
is my fourth anniversary at Trinity,
and the Sunday I first preached up there
at 520 S. Main Street.
So this sermon is as much about what we have done
these last four years, as it is some fine theological point.

I want to do something I don’t think
I have ever done before –
read you part of the sermon I preached that day.
Now, please do not think it is because I THINK
that sermon was so fine
that it merits quoting myself.
I re-read it this week
and I found it tremendously helpful
as a kind of poem
with which to see the last four years –
to remember where we were that day
and to see where we are this day.
For those who entered into the adventure
with your own bizarre and crazy reasons
somewhere between then and now,
it may also offer a useful snapshot.
Since this is our Annual Meeting, it seemed right to do.
So here is a lengthy quote from January 2016.

“At this particular time in your history,
when you are uncertain as to what your future is,
I am, for reasons still not totally clear to me,
a priest embarked on a future with no script…
or at least none that I’ve seen.

Here is what I have come to know
as a result of where I have been the last thirty-six years
and from the people I have been with in that time.
If you and I walk into our future together
with an openness of heart and mind,
having the courage to affirm what we hear,
and respond with acceptance and courage
to what we see – whether or not we like it –
then we will be transformed.
That transformation won’t be like water turned into wine – that’s down right magic,
something that takes one thing
and turns it into something altogether different.
The kind of transformation I can imagine,
the kind of transformation I have seen and experienced,
is more like health where there was illness;
hope where there was despair;
resilience where there was rigidity;
and the nascent spirit of a community
becoming its defining presence.

I come to you with no pre-disposed ideas
about what Trinity’s future should be or look like;
and I come asking, and maybe even agitating,
for your bare-chested openness too.
I liken our situation
to that of the exiles who returned to Jerusalem
after captivity in Babylon,
and to whom Isaiah was cooing
in that reading we heard this morning.

Their situation was grim.

Actually, according to Isaiah,
it wasn’t grim at all
but they could NOT see or imagine the future
because what was happening all around them
was not what they had expected.
Their situation was not what they had wanted
and even though God had an amazing transformation
in mind, and already in play,
they could not see it
or participate in it
because it wasn’t what they expected or wanted.

In my personal experience, in my own life and work,
whenever I know what is supposed to happen
and I have the barrels of my intention
loaded with ideas and plans,
that is exactly when I cannot see or hear or sense
the presence of God
that is surrounding and infusing us.
In my experience of Church,
every time we know exactly what the problem is
and have a sure-fired solution to it –
one we declare comes with the blessings
from the Kingdom of God –
we are about to fall on our collective face.
There is never, and I emphasize never,
one solution,
one source of blame,
one answer,
one hero,
one action,
one direction,
one person,
one path,
not even one vision
to bring forth God’s best dream for us.
It is never so easy and never so simple
and never so direct.

I do not know why it couldn’t be easier
to uncover and pursue God’s best dream for us,
but I know it isn’t.

And what is worse,
I don’t think we really get to know how we did
or if we followed God’s best dream
until afterward,
and we look back
and things pop out of our experience
that confirm we did or did not.

All of which is to say
we need to be courageous
in our openness to God’s best dream for us.
We need to be radically brave
as we open ourselves
not knowing whether it will be a hernia operation
or a heart transplant.

Along with that bravery
must come trust so radical
that we are willing to free-fall with our eyes closed
into the arms of God.
Really, it is just that radical.
And believe me,
at my size and weight,
I have never liked trust falls!

But that is where we are,
you and me,
together. (I am still quoting from that sermon).
We do not get to hedge our bets.
We do not get to second-guess ourselves.
We do not get to hem and haw.
Once we have a strong inkling about God’s best dream
for Trinity Church Geneva,
we probably only get one chance to live into it.
So this is our time – yours and mine together.
I know some of you have imagined the future,
have pieces of a scenario that might make sense
and that you wish would come true.
Let it go. Give it up.
Stop imagining. Stop wishing.
Stop pretending to know the way
and open yourselves to any and all possibilities
as God leads us into that best dream.
If (what I am saying)
does not sound like what you expected me to say,
then we are already defying expectations!”

END OF OLD SERMON, and here is the end of this one:

We are still in that story,
the last chapter has not been written – that we know of.
Re-reading that sermon
helped me look back and say, “Hell yes.
I think we done good together.”

 

1 Christmas C, 2018: A Definite Maybe

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This sermon should be entitled,
“What’s wrong with maybe?”

“You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen,” Mary Oliver writes,
and she tells us the world is wider
than the “rigid house of orderly reason and proofs.”

“What’s wrong with maybe?”

I like to imagine the nexus between
that rigid house
of reason and proofs
and the loose-leaf binder of “maybe.”
I like to walk along the border
between these two regions
and allow them to talk back and forth –
or at least imagine
the words I would hear
if indeed they spoke to one another.
Let’s visit there now.
We start in the house of reason and proofs.

It takes four days
for the impregnated cell to reach the uterus,
and then multiply from one cell,
to eight,
to 100.

In two weeks, those cells will multiply
and become layered in concentric circles
like a tiny internal labyrinth:
the inside layer
will become the respiratory
and digestive systems – breath and nutrients;
the next layer
becomes the thyroid for balancing
the body’s chemicals;
the middle layer
will become the heart and circulatory system
and the skeleton;
finally the outer layer
will form the nervous system, and our lovely skin
with all its luscious accoutrements like hair.

By the end of the third week
the brain and spine
have begun to form,
and the little shape forming within the womb
takes on that curved look.

By day thirty
that little bud of life
will sprout shoots
that eventually become arms and legs,
and now, after a month,
what is only a little hope
is the size of a grain of rice.

Two months
from that fertilized egg
and the embryo has become a fetus
and all the internal organs
are in place.

Three and half months pass
and the fingers form a fist
and everything is ready to grow
into its birth size – and in fact,
the fetus will double in size
in just that one week – week fourteen.

At seven months
the eyes begin to open and close,
and what started out as a single cell
now fills the womb inside,
pushing and flailing to make room for itself.

There is no ‘maybe’
in this course of development of human life
because we’ve measured it, and
photographed it, and videoed it,
and we can trace its journeys and resting places
from a single cell to a human life in full bloom.

But until we see it born,
hold it,
hear it breathe,
and see the heartbeat
rise and fall within its chest,
we don’t believe it.
Until then it remains ‘a maybe.’
Even after,
vulnerable as it is –
vulnerable as we are –
a human life remains ‘a maybe’
until it has come and gone.

But we know a tiny single cell
can become one whole human life.
It is not even a maybe.
We also know that one cell –
sometime, somewhere
in that warm shallow ocean roiling and broiling
over the face of the planet millions of years ago –
duplicated…
multiplied,
became a single-celled life
that eventually,
later more than sooner,
evolved into other life –
bigger life,
more complex life.
It was not a maybe
because we are the result
of that beginning.

In the beginning
was warm water and a single cell.
No maybe –
no maybe in the beginning of the world
nor in the beginning of us,
you and me.

This is what we know.

We know all life,
even all spiritual life,
begins in a darkened quiet
and grows with furious tenacity
even as it is concealed and hidden
in the old body
that spawns and surrounds it.

Even now,
even in you,
even in me –
even in the most hardened
cynical,
angry,
and resistant disbeliever among us –
it grows…and
it is growing.

Few of us ever get to know
when a hapless cell minding its own business,
headed for the normal destruction
which awaits most potential,
is suddenly fertilized.
We never see it coming.

It happens and we never know it.
It begins,
and multiplies
and grows from nothing
into something
and whenever know,
at least not in the beginning.
It is hidden from us.

All life,
even all spiritual life,
begins in the dark,
in the quiet,
concealed from our hasty decisions
and too small vision
that might otherwise end it prematurely.

A blade of grass,
a tiny purple crocus
an oak tree –
each one begins below the surface
in the dark
quiet
soil of potential.

A river,
a pond,
a lake –
each begin underneath
in the dark
quiet aquifer
that bleeds against gravity
on the way to the surface.

The dream
forming now inside of you –
God’s dream, God’s best dream for your life –
began long ago
with the division of a cell
into concentric circles.

At the very center of your life and mine,
God’s best dream
is rippling outward.

This is ‘a maybe,’
something we cannot prove
and that wiggles restlessly to get free
inside the house of reason and proof.
But it lives,
even though it is ‘a maybe.’
God has a dream for your life
that began in the beginning
way back before anyone knew
your life had begun.

It has been growing,
forming
fighting through resistance
and bringing you back
from wrong turns
all along the way.

God’s best hope,
God’s dream for us,
is there at the center of our lives.
It is our life’s work to discern that dream,
and eventually, if we can,
little by little,
haltingly and off and on,
learn to live in concert with it.
It is the very best “maybe” of our lives.

And with that, I’ll say “Amen”
and invite us into prayer.

 

6 Epiphany 2017: We don’t have to be “good”

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Anser_caerulescens_CT8
Link to a Liturgical Poem for 6 Epiphany: http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/geese/geese.html

Link to Lectionary texts for 6 Epiphany: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=18

The reading from Matthew this morning
begs for a foil,
someone or something
to stand in the middle of the road
and risk being run over
by the steamroller coming through.

Mary Oliver volunteered.

We do not have to be good.

Let me say it again,
even though I know it contradicts
everything we think we know from Scripture,
and especially from what we heard today:
We do not have to be good.

So let us dig a little deeper
than the categorical thinking we meet
on the surface of Matthew.
As hard as Matthew works to disguise it,
Jesus is actually quite compassionate and progressive
on divorce.

First of all, I want to just put it out there
in no uncertain terms:
the position of the Roman Catholic Church on divorce
is not rooted in Jesus.
Nor, by the way, was or is
the common understanding of divorce
in The Episcopal Church.

Again, let’s dig deeper.
Jesus’ teaching on divorce
is treated slightly differently
in the three gospels in which it appears:
Mark, Matthew and Luke.
So I am going to talk specifically
about what Jesus says according to Mark,
because Mark was the first Gospel
and both Matthew and Luke were poured from its mold.

As is true with anything we read or encounter
from ancient times – or more recent ones, for that matter –
to fully understand Jesus’ teaching on divorce
we have to know what is in the background.

So first of all,
Jesus is not merely being questioned
about his opinion on divorce;
the question has a very specific context.
The audience wants to know,
which of the great rabbis Jesus agrees with:
Rabbi Hillel or Rabbi Shammai?

In fact, a great many of the
parables and proverbial sayings of Jesus
are either from one of these two great rabbis
or a variation on what one or both of them taught.
Jesus did not just appear out of the clear blue sky,
like Superman from Krypton,
but was raised and influenced
by his time and place just as we are.

Jesus was born
and lived in the shadow
of these two great teachers and scholars,
Hillel and Shammai.
As if a grand theological “Point-Counter-Point,”
Hillel was what we might call the liberal
and Shammai the conservative –
although those modern categories
do not really work for the ancient text.

In the background of almost every question
a lawyer, Pharisee, or scribe poses to Jesus,
stand the hulking figures of Hillel and Shammai.
“Whose side are you on?” they ask Jesus.

Every bit as much
as they want to know Jesus’ opinion about divorce,
Jesus is actually being asked,
which authority he follows.
Not surprisingly, rather than taking sides,
Jesus does an unexpected dance
between the two great rabbis.

Here is the basic argument about divorce
that forms the context in which Jesus is asked the question. (And by the way, his answer on divorce,
is an example of how Jesus moves through polarities
rather than hanging out on any single pole).

Hillel and Shammai
argued about how the law on divorce,
in the Book of Deuteronomy,
should be interpreted.

Every argument at the time
hinged on that Deuteronomic law.

Deuteronomy grants permission for divorce
but only if a clear and specific regulation is followed.
Divorce was allowed for the man, not the woman.
But a man could not simply abandon his wife;
he had to follow a procedure called, “the bill of divorce”.
It was intended, in Deuteronomy,
as progressive for its time –
insuring more humane treatment of women and children
than the previous practice,
which was to simply abandon a wife
that was no longer wanted.

We need to remember that in Jesus’ day,
polygamy was still allowed,
and so this argument
was never about multiple marriages.
In fact, it is interesting to contemplate what adultery
might mean in a polygamous society,
rather than in one based upon the premise of monogamy.
But I’m not going to go there today.

So Hillel argued
that almost anything
could be a legitimate grounds for divorce –
bad cooking as much as infidelity.

Shammai said, no,
only infidelity is a legitimate ground for divorce.

It is in that context,
between those two positions, someone asks,
“Hey Jesus, what do you think?”

Jesus takes an abrupt and stunning turn
away from Deuteronomy,
and instead roots his argument
in another scripture altogether:
The Book of Genesis.

Jesus says, “remember how God created us male and female,
and how we were joined together (quoting from Genesis)?
Well, what God has joined together
no one can separate.”
Jesus is pointing to the human reality
of painful separation, loss, and abandonment
rather than to some fine point in the law.

From what I have been told
by those who have been through divorce,
it is in fact, more amputation than separation.

Even though the person we were enjoined with
is no longer present,
and even though a piece of paper
says we are no longer joined,
the phantom pain and memory
of a lost limb is still there.
After divorce,
so I have been told,
a piece of us is gone,
just as if a spouse had died.

For one thing,
most people get married with hopes and dreams
about the future.
The loss of hopes and dreams is a grief all of its own.

Even when the divorce is a long time in coming,
and there is no ambivalence
about it being the right and necessary thing to do,
the memories can be like
the phantom sense of a severed limb – still there,
and always a piece of us.
As therapists and counselors can attest,
no one who has been divorced,
or in any kind of profoundly intimate relationship,
ever goes into the next relationship
without bringing their former spouse or partners
right along with them.
That is just a fact of life for us,
just like we bring our mom and dad and sisters and brothers
into our relationships with us as well.

So Jesus does not make a case against the legality of divorce.
The legality of divorce
was never a question in Jesus’ day.

Nor for that matter, was the legality of polygamy.
Jesus does not say that divorce should be illegal,
which is what he would have said
if he were making that case.
Instead, he simply says,
that those who were once joined together by God
no one and nothing
can unjoin.
And we know, from our own experiences, that is very true.

So you see, the question about divorce
is not whether it is legal or not.
The question about divorce
has to do with the personal,
spiritual, and psychological truth
that people who have been joined
at that level of intimacy
are not separated
simply by a legal process or document.
It does everyone involved a disservice to pretend otherwise.

“Whose side are you on, Jesus, Hillel or Shammai?”
Jesus responds: “That’s the wrong question.”

What I imagine Jesus might say to us today,
is that the thing we should be talking about
is not the legality of divorce,
that is a given.
Rather, we should be talking about healing
when and after
a divorce takes place.

Let’s not jabberjaw with legalistic arguments, Jesus might say,
when there is real hurt and pain to deal with.

That’s what I imagine the meaning of his argument implied
to those standing around him.

In other words, Jesus might as well have said,
Let’s realize that when people have shared their
love,
dreams,
home,
their bodies,
and children,
no law will heal the amputation.
So stop with the silly either/or arguments already,
and let’s focus on how to nurture healing.

It seems to me that is what Jesus
was saying with his Genesis rebuttal
to the Deuteronomy argument.

But now, let’s go back to Mary Oliver
and where we began:
We do not have to be good.

In fact, we do not always recognize
what is good
over what is bad, or even evil.
There are many times in our lives,
both personally and historically,
that we do not have enough information
in the moment of decision,
to know whether we are making
a “good” or “bad” decision.
Does that make us “bad” if we choose poorly –
I don’t think so.

The truth is,
if our eyes are open
and our minds receptive,
we understand that qualifiers
such as good and bad,
moral and immoral,
true and false…
are almost always gradations or continuums,
rather than stationary positions
that never move
and are always the same.

My life has not been very long compared so some of you,
but I cannot remember a time since the 1960’s
when we had such a wide-spread,
social mental illness
as we do right now.

It is not just ‘out there’ in the world either,
but right here in this congregation –
around us,
and among us,
and within us.

I am of course referring to the categorization,
the bitter bifurcation, and alienation,
between Trump and Not-Trump;
between left, right, and center;
between black lives matter and all lives matter;
and every other categorical separation
we have, and are creating.

This polarization makes the world,
and our every action and thought a categorical polemic
between black and white,
right and wrong,
straight and crooked,
good and bad.
There is no in-between,
no gradation,
no gray,
no ambiguity,
no situational particularity.

It is a common adolescent worldview
in the literature of human development theory.
Except, when we are fully grown adults
and adolescent thinking is still raging in our minds,
it becomes more of a mental illness.

When adults try to live in a thoroughly polarized world,
it creates the same whirlwind,
rollercoaster ride of emotion
that is characteristic of a teenager.

I would go so far as to suggest
such categorical, polarized thinking
contributes to all manner of social ill
from substance abuse to infidelity,
and from segregation to violence.

In our more sane moments,
we recognize our world
as far more nuanced
than the one characterized by the current
political, theatrical, and news media Rorschach.

We know we live on a continuum between the poles,
and rarely, if ever,
do we actually stand on one
or the other extreme.

Our real world,
THE real world,
calls for much more consultation with others
than pole-sitting at the extremes allow us.

True community,
true spiritual community,
includes sharing our hearts and minds
with one another,
and with sages and professionals,
both ancient and contemporary,
who offer guidance for better ways of living.

We do not have to be good
because we cannot be good
in any absolute sense.
Being “good” in absolute terms
is not one of our choices.

We get to be
good AND bad,
lucky AND sad,
right AND wrong,
up AND down,
in AND out,
and bounced on bumps all along those continuums
like a stagecoach on a dirt road.

That is where we live…all the time.

And in order to live there
with a modicum of happiness and joy,
we have to be able to
“…let the soft animal of our body love what it loves.”
We …do not have to walk on our knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

Instead, we have to listen
for …the world (to) offer itself to our imagination,
call(ing) to (us) like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing our place
in the family of things.

What I hope we hear in all of this
is that we are not supposed to live in a straightjacket
between absolute right and absolute wrong,
but within the world
and the life
that is ours to live.
It is a world in which the wild geese
call our name
and announce our place
in the midst of a living world,
rather than a brutally idealized world
of false categories.

Sometimes, and this is one of those times,
the task of the preacher
is not to proclaim the Scripture
but to hammer it to see what’s in there.
The poles are fire and ice
and we need to move away from them, not toward them.

We do not have to be good,
because that is not one of our choices.

Now when you go home and someone asks,
“What did that guy preach about this time?”
Please don’t say, “Oh, he said we don’t have to be good.”
Instead, though it’s a little more complicated,
say that he said, we need to live as faithfully as we know how
in whichever moment we are in,
with the choices we are given –
AND, like Jesus,
by creating more choices if possible,
than the ones others have given us.

Trinity Place

 Trinity Place, An Open Space for Growth, Wellness, Healing, & the Arts

“Open Space” means open and inclusive, welcoming the Geneva and FLX community to use our space, and to partner with us in building an inclusive community for spiritual inquiry and wellness. 

“Growth, Wellness, Healing, & the Arts” means we are pointed toward a particular dimension of life, specifically that which strengthens the relationship of body, mind, and spirit. 

Trinity is a Christian community of worship and spiritual practice welcoming all, and an Episcopal Church in particular. However, we welcome all spiritual traditions and those who have no particular spiritual background but are engaged in a mission consistent with ours. We are looking for partners in mission not members (although we love to welcome new members too).

 

 

 

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