Sermon Archive
Readings for 24 June 2007
Proper 7
Year C
Zechariah 12:8-10;13:1
"On the day of the siege against Jerusalem," says the Lord, "I will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD, at their head. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
"On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity."
Galatians 3:23-29
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Luke 9:18-24
Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God." He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.
Sermon
The Rev. Jack V. Zamboni
The Human One must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes and be killed – and on the third day, be raised. Then he said, “If any want to be my followers …let them take up their cross daily and follow me.”
Recently, I have found myself haunted by this line from the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke: Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love. Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love.
What might Rilke mean? There are many terrible things in the world: violence, war, hatred, poverty, injustice -- and the nations, sects, tribes and people who perpetrate these terrors. There are many terrible things in our personal lives: physical illness, emotional pain, tragic loss, betrayal, conflicted relationships, troubled people. There are many terrible things within ourselves: pride, resentment, jealousy, selfishness, rage, fear and more. How could it be that these terrible things need our love? They are terrible precisely because they are destructive of the good in human life – why in the world should we love such destructive forces? On the surface, it seems wrong to love such terrible things.
Rilke, however, invites us to look beyond the surface: Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love. Below the destructive surface of terrible things there is something in great need –
a wounded animal whose suffering has turned it violent;
a bereaved heart whose loss makes it lash out in anger;
a pained spirit that knows only how to inflict pain;
a violated society that does not know how to live in peace;
a betrayed people that can no longer trust;
a traumatized nation which cannot heal itself.
If it such as these that are at the heart of the terrible things in the world and in ourselves, then Rilke’s words begin to make sense. Perhaps in the deepest being of everything terrible is something wounded that needs love in order to heal; something hurting that needs to be comforted; something broken that needs compassion to become whole.
A variant version of Rilke’s words that I found online suggests this very thing: Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants help from us. I don’t know which is the more accurate translation of the original German, but I’m not sure it greatly matters. The idea is the same: that at the deepest heart of all that is terrible lie wounded, hurting, broken beings, helpless to heal themselves, that need love if they are to cease to be terrible.
To recognize this truth and to live it, however, are two different things. Knowing that the deepest being of what is terrible needs love is not too difficult. Actually giving that love can be very difficult. The terrible surface that covers the wounded depths makes it hard to offer love where it is most needed. If what we encounter in something or someone terrible is angry, violent, dishonest or destructive, we naturally want to keep our distance. We find such behavior off-putting, disturbing, frightening. It can stir up terrible feelings in ourselves, and leads us to may act in terrible ways that we know we will later regret. Yet hard as it can be, giving love to what is terrible is what we are called to do – because the wounded heart of the terrible cannot heal itself.
I think this is part of what it means, as Jesus says in the Gospel today, to take up our cross daily and follow him. We are familiar with the common expression drawn from this Gospel passage -- when people say that some difficult, perhaps terrible circumstance or person that in their life is their cross to bear. Said in that way, the words imply that the suffering the terrible person or circumstance causes is itself the cross -- to be borne as best as possible, yet almost as a kind of curse. This is hardly the paradoxical source of life that Jesus says that the cross is to be.
If the terrible things of life are to become the life-giving cross that Jesus speaks of, we need to understand this image in a seemingly small but vitally different way. The cross Jesus says we are to take up – notice that “take up” means we are making a choice in what we do and how we act -- The cross we are to take up is to choose as best we can with God’s help not merely to bear suffering from the terrible in our lives, but to love whatever needs loving in the deepest being of the terrible. The cost of this cross is to set ourselves aside enough – to deny ourselves, as Jesus, says, -- is to set ourselves aside enough to have space in our hearts to love the broken depths of whatever is terrible in our lives.
So, for instance, if you have the care of an aging loved one whose disability, illness, or mental confusion has made them act in terrible or terrifying ways, to take up your cross might mean not simply to put up with them and to provide for their basic needs, but to love the hurting, frightened, wounded person who lives somewhere beneath the terrible, exasperating surface. So, too, with the difficult co-worker who gets on your nerves; the challenging child who wears down your patience; that terrible politician whom you love to hate; the awful war that has no end in sight. We are not merely to bear, to tolerate, to put up with the terrible, but to love what is broken and in need of healing in its deepest being.
How to love the wounded depths in these terrible things will, of course, be different in each case. Br. Curtis Almquist, SSJE, says that “Most people, if left alone cannot see, much less respect their own dignity, without help, without our help.”i So in some cases, loving the wounded heart might mean “recognizing them, remembering them, thanking them, speaking to them of the beauty of their person, the difference their presence makes [or has made in your life.]” ii
More challengingly, love might be the generous patience that lets the terrible be what it is, waiting for the storm to pass and the hurting being beneath to calm enough to receive an embrace of forgiveness. Or love might mean trying to see what you have in common with that politician or co-worker whom you think is your worst enemy – and to love that God-given humanity you share.
If you’ve ever tied to do this – and I suspect we all have – you know that it is not easy. Even when we know that everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love, living that truth is a real challenge. That’s why it is part of taking up our cross daily. The patience, generosity of spirit and calmness of heart such love requires is not easily sustained, even though we know it is how we should be and how we want to be.
This means, of course, such love must be a matter of prayer: prayer for the terrible whom we seek to love – that God will give us the insight to see what needs what is wounded and broken in them and needs to be loved; prayer, too, for ourselves that to our hearts may be moved to compassion and we may be given the help we need to love when love is not easy; last, and not least, prayer that we may know that all this broken, wounded, hurting world – including ourselves -- are loved by God in our own terribleness.
Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love. If anyone knows the truth of Rilke’s words, it is God. God knows that this world, so often terrible, desperately needs love. So God came in Jesus, the Human One, and underwent terrible things at human hands: rejection, torture, death – and yet kept loving us. Jesus loved and loves this terrible world because he can see and have compassion on the brokenness in our deepest being which makes us terrible to one another -- terrible even to God. Jesus loves us, terrible, as we often are, to heal what is broken and wounded in our deepest being.
When Jesus calls us to take up our cross by loving the terrible, he is calling us to follow him – to do what he has done and is doing: loving what is wounded and broken in the deepest being of all that is terrible – including ourselves when we do not love as we know we should. Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love. The more we receive the love God has for us, even at our most terrible, the more we will be able to take up our cross and love the terrible in our lives -- as Jesus loves us.
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i Ibid.
ii Curtis Almquist, SSJE, A Word of Encouragement June 12, 2007 http://web.mac.com/ssje/iWeb/SSJEListenOnLine/SSJE%20Listen%20Online/SSJE%20Listen%20Online.html
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