Gospel reading: Luke 19.1-10
(Click HERE for last Sunday's readings)
My brother recently told me to Google the name of one of my college roomates. When I did, I was surprised to find a good deal of national press coverage of a fairly sordid extramarital affair he had been involved in. The national interest had to do with the company his mistress worked for and what favors his favors might have earned him.
Mercifully, I don't remember many of the details, but one line caught in my memory. "I can't believe you're from here," said the woman. By 'here' she meant Arkansas, of course. And her incredulity was meant as a high complement.
Now I'm not fiercely patriotic about my home state. But the line, which probably didn't mean much to the reporter, struck me as particularly telling. Sometimes we want nothing more than to have someone to tell us that we're somebody else.
Kathleen Norris says that religion might be an antidote to the banal assurance we receive each year from Miss America that we can be anything we want to be. "What we were raised in" has something to do with who we are.
Such a reminder sounds like bad news. Until we consider the alternatives. In one of his stories C.S. Lewis described hell not as the place where we don't get anything we want. Hell is where we get exactly what we want instantly. And from high above, hell doesn't look like a single blazing lake of fire, but thousands of lonely, individual houselights.
Lewis's imagined hell worked like this. Since everyone gets exactly what they want, when a neighbor or a family member becomes a nuisance or inconvenience people just move apart. Separation is easy and instant so the lights of the houses grow more and more isolated. He told of Napoleon rattling around in an empty castle, a sad image of the loneliness we could make in a world in which anything is possible.
Another word for limits is definition. Most of the world is made up of what you're not. Which helps me a great deal in recognizing you. We may wish that the end of our noses or our waists were there rather than here, but we need the particular and unique set of limits we call a body in order to be a person.
And so it is with faith. Delving into the faith tradition that formed us is an act of self definition. We might say the work has a way of limiting our options for the future. But that's also called focus. If there's no me to begin with, I'm sadly 'free' to choose from all the possible selves in the world and a few more that exist only in my imagination. Perfect freedom turns out to be perfect disorientation.
In our gospel reading from Sunday Jesus tells Zacchaeus that salvation has come to his house because he too is a son of Abraham. An interesting comment since Zacchaeus had just promised to pay back anyone he had defrauded and give of his ill gotten wealth to the poor. I think Jesus was telling Zacchaeus that his change of life was really about finding his truest self. He wasn't just anywhere. He was somewhere. A particular person in a particular religious tradition. And from this vantage point he could finally see the life giving choices that really were before him.
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3 comments:
When I was growing up, religious tradition and family history were inextricably intertwined. I was very young when I was told the story of how our ancestors had fled England in the 1630's because they were percecuted by the C of E. They sailed to America on a ship called the "Griffin", and settled in the Massachusettes Bay Colony, and were some of the founders of a town called Andover. It was clear to me as a child that who we were was shaped by who those people were way back then.
We were Presbyterians, and Presbyterians "proof text," that is, look for verses of Scripture that prove a point. I am told that we Anglicans don't do so much of that, but that is the way I was raised none the less. Gen. 50:20 is the end of the story of Joseph, whose brothers had sold him into slavery, an event which put him in a position years later to save his brothers when they needed his help. In concluding the story, the writer has Joseph say, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today." As Calvinist proof texting goes, this pretty much proves that the writer of Genisis thought that God had a plan for Joseph's life that included his being sold into slavery, only to save the children of Abraham many years later. Hmmm.
In the Psalms, 139:16, the writer has David say, "In Thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." I was taught that this echoes the message in Genesis about God having a plan. Writers of Scripture have Jefemiah saying it again in Jer. 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Paul takes up this idea in the eighth chapter of his letter to the Romans. (Rom. 8:28-30) If I were a proof texting Calvinist, I could pretty much rest my case there, after piling on a few more verses perhaps.
This semester in school, I am taking Biological Anthropology. We have read about gentics, evolution and the physical inheritance that we all get from our parents. We have watched films of primate behavior and compared that to the development of human babies. It is pretty clear from the content of this course, that many of the choices we make, including whether to go to church, and which church to go to, are shaped by our biology and early childhood development. One wonders whether choices are "choices" at all, or sets of responses to a thousand causes set into motion, throughout the history of human evolution. When Zachariah Symmes sailed on the "Griffin" in 1635, did that influence my spiritual journey? When the first ancient cave dweller arranged a careful burial cerimony for a dead loved one, did that predispose me to seek a spiritual experience? When Mary Craig introduced to my future friend and Rector, did that get me in the peww at Christ Church?
I agree with Kathleen Norris that what we were raised in has something to do with who we are. I suppose its a question of degree. The writers of Genesis, The Psalms, Jeremiah and Paul's Letter to the Romans, seem to have thought God had a hand in that. Having studied a little of genetics and early childhood development, I agree with those who think, based on the evidence, that many of our choices are predetermined. And I am truly grateful for the assertion in Luke, that Jesus taught that "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham." Inheritance. Perhaps Calvin was right when he said "Grace alone" is responsible for our salvation. Inheritance. Maybe the reason I can't stay away from church today is more a response than a choice. Maybe, "...all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (Rom. 8:28) Oops, I did it again. Damned proof texting!
Given where I came from and where I am today, I find the last two paragraphs particularly meaningful.
I was raised in a very strict Southern Baptist home and I am very happy to have "come home" to the Episcopal church.
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