Sunday, April 02, 2006
Of Things Divine: Suffering Our Way to Obedience, Lent 5-B
There are three verses that are integral to understanding the lessons of this weekend’s liturgy.
I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts
Son though he was, he learned obedience through suffering
Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit
Too many people, even today, tend towards the belief that Jesus is like a bar of Ivory soap: 99.4% pure. That is, they believe that Jesus is more than 99% divine or God and less that 1% human. Listen to the songs heard at praise and worship services or on contemporary Christian CD’s like those in the W.O.W. series. The song “I Can only Imagine” (one of my favorites) comes immediately to my mind.
I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk by your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When your face is before me.
I can only imagine.
Surrounded by your glory,
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus,
Or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing Hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all.
I can only imagine.
I can only imagine.
I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself standing In the Son.
I can only imagine
When all I do
is forever
Forever worship you.
I can only imagine.
I can only imagine.
It’s as if Jesus never really had to suffer because his humanity is either overpowered by his divinity or merely forgotten. This understanding of Jesus draws dangerously close to a heresy known as Docetism, which denies the humanity of Jesus and the need for God to even become man for the forgiveness of sins.
But, Jesus did become of us. God really did take on flesh and breathe air and feel pain. And, he had to learn something along the way. He had to learn obedience, and he had to learn it through his suffering. Before he became flesh, the Word of God certainly knew how to define obedience, but his experience in the flesh taught him what it meant to have the law of God written in his heart. There were temptations to be held at bay. There was conflict on the Mount of Olives before there was Jesus’ submission to the Father’s will
When God spoke through Jeremiah and said that he would place his law within them and write it upon their hearts, he was speaking of a stiff-necked people who had embraced his laws but they did as they pleased according to their rationalizations. They got disoriented and thought that obedience was following a litany of rules. They forgot that true obedience is nothing more than to desire the same things God desires, and that the cornerstone of such desire is love.
It takes suffering to understand that.
An old Yiddish folk story tells of a well-to-do gentleman of leisure much interested in the Hebrew Scriptures. He visited a wise rabbi to ask a question. He said: “I think I grasp the sense and meaning of these writings except for one thing. I cannot understand how we can be expected to give God thanks for our troubles.” The rabbi knew instantly that he could not explain this with mere words. He said to the gentleman: “If you want to understand this, you will have to visit Isaac the water-carrier.” The gentleman was mystified by this, but knowing the rabbi to be wise, crossed to a poor section of the settlement and came upon Isaac the water-carrier, an old man who had been engaged in mean, lowly, backbreaking labor for some fifty years.The gentleman explained the reason for his visit. Isaac paused from his labors. Finally, after several minutes of silence, looking baffled, he spoke: “I know that the rabbi is the wisest of men. But I cannot understand why he would send you to me with that question. I can’t answer it because I’ve had nothing but wonderful things happen to me. I thank God every morning and night for all his many blessings on me and my family.”That story contains a great truth. That old man, as hard as his life was, understood what so many of us do not: God is there in our suffering.
The most essential part of obedience is to take what comes our way and to find God’s blessing in that so that we are free to love God in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I have learned this lesson well in these last two years. I could well have cried, “Why me?” but came to the understanding that the proper question was “Why not me?” If the real Jesus had to suffer and do it in submission to the Father’s will, could I not find God in my trials, discomforts and inconveniences?
Learning to find God where we are and in the circumstances we find ourselves is a blessing in itself. It frees us to enjoy the people that come in and out of our lives fro who they are and the blessings of God that they bring to us. This is dying to our “selves.” It is losing our life while finding real life.
We see the fruit of such dying to self all around us:
Children with parents who know how to nurture and rear them in the ways of love without intimidation or fear of authority;
Spouses who understand that their purpose is to complete the other member of a marriage and not compete with that member for affection and household chores;
Championships that are built on teammates who know that they are just single spokes in the same wheel.
The Three Musketeers had a slogan that echoed this very sense of dying to self-interest and living for the greater good: One for all and all for one. Of course, their “one” was the King of France. Our “one” is God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Jesus foreshadowed his death with the words he speaks in today’s Gospel passage and the images of his obedient suffering readily come to mind when we hear him speak of dying. But we, too, are called to die if we are to have a lasting effect on the advancement of the world toward the kingdom of God. Only when we suffer through the process of turning our own wants and desires away from ourselves and to the glory of God will we see new life sprouting about us. Only when our wants and desires are the same as God’s can we truly say that God’s law is within us and written on our hearts. Only then can we be called obedient servants of God.
I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts
Son though he was, he learned obedience through suffering
Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit
Too many people, even today, tend towards the belief that Jesus is like a bar of Ivory soap: 99.4% pure. That is, they believe that Jesus is more than 99% divine or God and less that 1% human. Listen to the songs heard at praise and worship services or on contemporary Christian CD’s like those in the W.O.W. series. The song “I Can only Imagine” (one of my favorites) comes immediately to my mind.
I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk by your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When your face is before me.
I can only imagine.
Surrounded by your glory,
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus,
Or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing Hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all.
I can only imagine.
I can only imagine.
I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself standing In the Son.
I can only imagine
When all I do
is forever
Forever worship you.
I can only imagine.
I can only imagine.
It’s as if Jesus never really had to suffer because his humanity is either overpowered by his divinity or merely forgotten. This understanding of Jesus draws dangerously close to a heresy known as Docetism, which denies the humanity of Jesus and the need for God to even become man for the forgiveness of sins.
But, Jesus did become of us. God really did take on flesh and breathe air and feel pain. And, he had to learn something along the way. He had to learn obedience, and he had to learn it through his suffering. Before he became flesh, the Word of God certainly knew how to define obedience, but his experience in the flesh taught him what it meant to have the law of God written in his heart. There were temptations to be held at bay. There was conflict on the Mount of Olives before there was Jesus’ submission to the Father’s will
When God spoke through Jeremiah and said that he would place his law within them and write it upon their hearts, he was speaking of a stiff-necked people who had embraced his laws but they did as they pleased according to their rationalizations. They got disoriented and thought that obedience was following a litany of rules. They forgot that true obedience is nothing more than to desire the same things God desires, and that the cornerstone of such desire is love.
It takes suffering to understand that.
An old Yiddish folk story tells of a well-to-do gentleman of leisure much interested in the Hebrew Scriptures. He visited a wise rabbi to ask a question. He said: “I think I grasp the sense and meaning of these writings except for one thing. I cannot understand how we can be expected to give God thanks for our troubles.” The rabbi knew instantly that he could not explain this with mere words. He said to the gentleman: “If you want to understand this, you will have to visit Isaac the water-carrier.” The gentleman was mystified by this, but knowing the rabbi to be wise, crossed to a poor section of the settlement and came upon Isaac the water-carrier, an old man who had been engaged in mean, lowly, backbreaking labor for some fifty years.The gentleman explained the reason for his visit. Isaac paused from his labors. Finally, after several minutes of silence, looking baffled, he spoke: “I know that the rabbi is the wisest of men. But I cannot understand why he would send you to me with that question. I can’t answer it because I’ve had nothing but wonderful things happen to me. I thank God every morning and night for all his many blessings on me and my family.”That story contains a great truth. That old man, as hard as his life was, understood what so many of us do not: God is there in our suffering.
The most essential part of obedience is to take what comes our way and to find God’s blessing in that so that we are free to love God in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I have learned this lesson well in these last two years. I could well have cried, “Why me?” but came to the understanding that the proper question was “Why not me?” If the real Jesus had to suffer and do it in submission to the Father’s will, could I not find God in my trials, discomforts and inconveniences?
Learning to find God where we are and in the circumstances we find ourselves is a blessing in itself. It frees us to enjoy the people that come in and out of our lives fro who they are and the blessings of God that they bring to us. This is dying to our “selves.” It is losing our life while finding real life.
We see the fruit of such dying to self all around us:
Children with parents who know how to nurture and rear them in the ways of love without intimidation or fear of authority;
Spouses who understand that their purpose is to complete the other member of a marriage and not compete with that member for affection and household chores;
Championships that are built on teammates who know that they are just single spokes in the same wheel.
The Three Musketeers had a slogan that echoed this very sense of dying to self-interest and living for the greater good: One for all and all for one. Of course, their “one” was the King of France. Our “one” is God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Jesus foreshadowed his death with the words he speaks in today’s Gospel passage and the images of his obedient suffering readily come to mind when we hear him speak of dying. But we, too, are called to die if we are to have a lasting effect on the advancement of the world toward the kingdom of God. Only when we suffer through the process of turning our own wants and desires away from ourselves and to the glory of God will we see new life sprouting about us. Only when our wants and desires are the same as God’s can we truly say that God’s law is within us and written on our hearts. Only then can we be called obedient servants of God.
