Remembering who we are
Commentary
Object:
When Mahatma Gandhi traveled from his India homeland as a young man and studied for a time in England, he was curious about the religion of the British people. To learn more he bought a Bible and began to read it. He was amazed -- this was good stuff! Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) particularly intrigued him. This was a view of life that really made sense! Surely the Christian faith was a religion of great significance!
The next Sunday Gandhi dressed early for a visit to a nearby church. He wasn't sure what would take place in a Christian worship service, but he knew that he wanted to be part of it. According to his testimony, he had decided already that he wanted to become a Christian.
Unfortunately that worship service was one of the most awful events of his life. The singing was half-hearted; many people just stood with mouths closed or merely mumbled along in boredom. The sermon was a tedious explanation of some fine point of doctrine. It said so little and took so long to say it. Gandhi was glad to see that at least some people benefited from the service -- they slept through most of it.
Gandhi tried to be a fair person, so the next Sunday he went to a worship service at another church. He hoped, expectantly, for some of the power and significance that breathed through the Bible. Yet this congregation was little different from the last. The atmosphere among the people was that of sophisticated indifference, and Gandhi left with an empty heart. He tried a number of different churches for the next three months but never met more than a kind of middle-class churchianity.
Gandhi decided that the Christian church had nothing of value for him, and he returned to his Hindu religious practices. To his dying day, however, he continued to read Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. He also carried on a lifelong discussion with certain Christian leaders as to why their religion, built on such a magnificent foundation, seemed to make so little difference in people's lives.
How does the power go out of our religion and turn Christianity into complacent indifference? Someone once described the process in allegorical terms. There was a small community living along a rocky seacoast, he said. The shoreline was treacherous, and not a few ships foundered and crashed there on the rocks and reefs.
But the town had a caring disposition, and the people formed a rescue brigade to respond quickly to navigational disasters. Every time a ship crashed they sounded the alarm and raced to help those wrestling against hope in the waves. Sometimes a little cargo was rescued, and maybe a sailor or two. But most times the wreck was a total loss, and everyone on shore grieved.
The people of the community wanted to do more. They wanted to prevent the disasters from happening, so they organized a fire brigade. By day the fire brigade gathered wood from the forest, and every night they lit a fire that served to warn the ships at sea. Because of the signal fire tended every night by the fire brigade, fewer ships crashed and more lives were saved.
At the start everybody wanted to be a member of the fire brigade. After all, most of them had first come to the community through disasters at sea. They had been drawn from the wreckage by other hands, and now they wanted to do the same for those who were still at sea.
But the work was hard and most of it was by volunteers. The nights were long, and when it rained or stormed it was tough to take a turn at the post. After a while the fire brigade subtly began to change. First, some charter members of the fire brigade started hiring others to do the work for them, particularly during the snows of winter. Next, the leaders of the Brigade instituted a tax on all goods rescued from the sea. Out of these funds a warming house was erected where members of the fire brigade could sleep and eat in comfort.
Soon it was decided that fires at night were much too inefficient. A tower was raised, with a kerosene lamp at the top that shone far out to sea.
Of course, nobody had to gather wood anymore or tend the fires. The warming house became a meeting hall. Soon it was such a popular place to hold parties and dances that the community expanded it, adding rooms and catering services.
The old fire brigade renamed itself the lighthouse brigade, and it was the center of social life for miles around. A social coordinator and administrative team were hired to manage the Lighthouse Group properties. Others were brought in to plan the parties and develop corporate structures.
One night a terrific storm blew in. The light in the tower was extinguished by the gusts. Nobody in the luxurious Lighthouse Club hall below noticed. The music and dancing went on.
Three ships crashed on the rocks that night, and thousands of lives were lost. But the people of the lighthouse brigade never knew. And they didn't care.
This might be an allegory on all our lectionary readings today. The word of Yahweh through Jeremiah is that God's people have forgotten both who and whose they are. The writer of Hebrews works up an energetic passion as he calls for ethical behavior among Christians that aligns with their remembered identity in Jesus. And Jesus points to typical social attitudes in his day as a reminder for his disciples to live in new ways for better reasons.
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Israel's prophets often appear, at first glance, to be strange creatures. A number of them harangue with seemingly incessant tirades (e.g., Amos), making us uncomfortable to spend too much time with such grumpy old men. Some are constant political gadflies (e.g., Jeremiah), always taking positions opposite of those in power. Others veer off into strange visions that are worlds removed from our everyday life (e.g., Zechariah), chafing readers with their oddness. There are even a few who have very compromised personal lives (e.g., Hosea), leading us to suspect more than a little psychologizing in their soap opera-ish theology.
Still, there is an inherent consistency of message and focus among all of these diverse religious ruminations and rantings. First of all, as Jeremiah notes in the historic perspective of today's passage, the prophetic sermons are invariably rooted in the web of relationships created by the Sinai covenant. Israel belongs to Yahweh, and her lifestyle must be shaped by the stipulations of that suzerain-vassal treaty. Obedience to Yahweh triggers the blessings of the Sinai covenant, while disobedience is the first reason for Israel's experiences of its curses -- drought, war, famine, enemy occupation, destruction of cities and fields, deportation, and so forth. For this reason the prophetic writings are laced with moral diatribes that carry a strong emphasis on social ethics.
This is not to say that Israel was held to a different behavioral standard than would otherwise be expected among the nations of the earth. Rather, through Israel's lifestyle was to flow a witness to its neighbors of the unique splendor of its God, and the character of life when experienced in harmony with the forgotten Creator of all. For this reason the public actions of the nation were crucial to its covenant existence.
Second, the function and message of prophecy was very political. For Israel to come under the domination of other nations was always seen as a divine scourge resulting from the application of the covenant curses because of Israel's disobedience. How Israel handled its international relations showed plainly whether she trusted Yahweh, or had otherwise become enamored with power and politics rooted in lesser gods. Constantly the prophets asked whether Israel was Yahweh's witnessing people, or if she was merely another nation with no particular mission or divine purpose. Israel's self-understanding was thus always very religious, and at the same time very political.
It is in this light that the typical prophetic litany against the nations surrounding Israel must be read. These other social and political entities were assessed for public moral behavior by Yahweh alongside Israel, because Yahweh was the Creator of all and continued to be Lord of the nations. All countries were chided for their own internal social sins as well as for their inappropriate aggressions toward one another, including and especially for their treatment of Israel. While they may be used by Yahweh as a temporary tool of chastisement, punishing Israel according to the covenant curses, they might never presume to hold dominance over either Israel or her God. This typical hubris of nations was regularly condemned as idolatrous by the prophets, and any society afflicted by it would receive divine retribution in its own turn.
Third, as the epochs of Israel's political fortunes unfolded, the message of the prophets became increasingly apocalyptic. There was a growing sense that because things had not gone the way they should have, producing heartfelt and ongoing national repentance and covenant restoration, Yahweh will have to intervene directly again, in a manner similar to that which happened during the time of Moses. When Yahweh interrupts human history the next time, however, along with judgments on the wickedness of the nations of the world, Israel will also fall heavily under divine punishment. But because Yahweh is on a mission to restore the fallen world, this next major divine intervention will be paired with a focus also on establishing a new world order, even as the old is falling away under the conflagration. In this coming messianic age, everything in society and the natural realm will finally function in the manner the Creator had intended in the beginning. Furthermore, because Yahweh is faithful to promises made, Israel will not be forgotten, and a remnant of God's servant nation will be at the center of all this renewal and restoration and great joy.
This increasingly forward-looking thrust of prophecy leads some to think of it as primarily foretelling, a kind of crystal ball gaze into the future. In reality, however, the nature of prophecy in ancient Israel is more forth-telling, declaring again the meaning of the ancient Sinai covenant, explaining the mission of Yahweh as witness to the world, and describing the implications of the morality envisioned by the suzerain-vassal treaty stipulations. Included in this forth-telling is the anticipation of how things will look when everything is renewed. This becomes the basis for the "new covenant" that Jeremiah will express in vivid detail in chapter 31.
By the time the seventh century BC rolled around, the prophets were rarely welcome in the royal palaces, even though all that was left of once proud and expansive Israel was the tiny mountainous territory of Judah. During the 600s, although Assyria kept threatening Jerusalem, it was increasingly occupied in defending itself against its rebellious eastern province of Babylon. It was during these years that Jeremiah developed his gloomy diatribes in the heart of capital city. Today's passage is, unfortunately, typical of the message that Yahweh has to send through this lonely and embattled prophet, living at the end of what will become the first temple period in Israel's history.
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Some years ago a major research firm conducted a survey to determine what people would be willing to do for $10 million. The results were astounding. Three percent would put their children up for adoption. Seven percent would kill a stranger. Ten percent would lie in court to set a murderer free, 16% would divorce their spouses, and 23% said they would become prostitutes for a week or longer.
Most astonishing was the category at the top of the list. One fourth of all surveyed said that they would leave their families for $10 million.
Everyone has a selling price at which he or she will step over a line of conduct and allow someone else to dictate the terms of behavior. It might be $10 million or it might only be one more bottle of wine. It might be a night in the spotlight or a night in bed. In Shusaku Endo's powerful novel Silence, the missionary priest Rodriguez steps over the line when torture exceeds what his soul can bear, and he desecrates an image of Jesus. We all have our selling price.
Our selling price is linked to our identity, as today's passage from Hebrews reminds us. The stronger our sense of who we are, the higher our selling price and the deeper our character. There are, however, several identities that each of us wear.
The first is the identity we receive from others. We get our looks and temperament from our parents. We garner our tastes and styles from our culture. There is even something mystical about us that we receive as a gift from God, unique to our personalities. In today's reading, this is the meaning of the quotations from Deuteronomy and Psalms.
Poet John Masefield understood that when he reflected on how it was that he started writing and rhyming. One day he picked up a volume of Geoffrey Chaucer's works and was gripped by the art of the lines. Masefield couldn't put the book down. That night he read until a whole new world opened for him. By the time morning broke, said Masefield, he had finished the entire book, set it down, looked at the dawning day and quietly said, "I too am a poet." And so he was.
A second identity we have in life is the one we make. In the drama The Rainmaker the main character is a con artist who calls himself Starbuck. He travels from town to town during the Dirty '30s scheming to get people to pay him to bring the rains for their parched fields.
Young Lizzie Curry catches his eye and they spar with building passion. But Lizzie is no fool, and she challenges him to come clean with her about his true name. It can't really be Starbuck, she knows.
Starbuck admits that he was born a "Smith," but asks, "What kind of name is that for a fellow like me? I needed a name that had the whole sky in it! And the power of a man! Starbuck! Now there's a name -- and it's mine!"
Lizzie tries to contradict him, telling him he has no right choosing his own name and giving up his family heritage. Yet he will not capitulate quickly. "You're wrong, Lizzie," he says. "The name you choose for yourself is more your own name than the name you were born with!"
Starbuck is on to something. Much of what we see in people around us has to do with what they have made of themselves. When an English nobleman named Roberts was having his portrait painted, the artist asked him if he would like the lines and creases in his face smoothed over.
"Certainly not!" he objected. "Make sure you put them all in. I earned every single wrinkle on my face!"
He was a man who knew the identity he had made.
There is also a third and deeper human identity. It is the identity that transforms us from what we were to what we are becoming. The poet saw a friend clearly when he wrote:
And there were three men went down the road
As down the road went he:
The man they saw, the man he was,
And the man he wanted to be.
The person we each want to be when we find our truest selves in God is larger than either the identity we have received from others or the one we try to create. This is the thought that the writer of Hebrews hopes to encourage in his close association of faith and ethics, of religion and behavior. Anything that sullies us by trying to define us on terms less than God's grace limits our best self.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
While we would all commend "considerateness" as valuable social grace, it is interesting that Jesus elevates it to the level of divine hospitality. What makes it so?
Maybe it has to do with the fact that a considerate person takes thought of others. Will Durant, the famous philosopher and historian, was asked for advice by one of his grandchildren. He summarized all his wisdom in "ten commandments." At the heart of them is this advice: "Do not speak while another is speaking. Discuss, do not dispute. Absorb and acknowledge whatever truth you can find in opinions different from your own. Be courteous and considerate to all, especially to those who oppose you."
We would all like to have friends like that. Certainly we expect God to treat us that way.
But maybe "considerateness" is more than just thoughtfulness. Stan Wiersma, writing under his pen name "SietzeBuning," explored the religious roots of being considerate in his collection of folk poetry titled Style and Class (Middleburg Press, 1982). Much of what we display in life, said SietzeBuning, has to do with "style" -- we watch how others dress or act and then we try to imitate those we admire. But "class" is living out of the nobility of your inner character, said Sietze.
He tells this little story to illustrate what he means:
Queen Wilhelmina was entertaining the
Frisian Cattle Breeders' Association at dinner.
The Frisian farmers didn't know what to make of their finger bowls.
They drank them down.
The stylish courtiers from the Hague nudged each other,
and pointed, and laughed at such lack of style.
Until the queen herself, without a smile, raised her finger bowl and drained it, obliging all the courtiers to follow suit, without a smile. (p. 17)
SietzeBuning ends with this note of judgment:
The courtiers had style, but Queen Wilhelmina had class.
While that makes for good storytelling, SietzeBuning takes it one surprising step further. He links style to the wisdom of the world and class to the wisdom of heaven. The former tries to get us to fit in with the right crowd, looking the right way and eating the right foods while driving the right vehicles. That's style.
But class -- real class -- happens to us when we realize that we are children of God. If God is king, we are nobility -- princesses and princes in the realm of the great ruler!
Children of the king do not need to prove themselves, nor do they need to flaunt their status. If they have learned well at home the true worth of their lives, they can treat others with courtesy and respect. They can be considerate. It is a religious thing, just as Jesus said.
Application
Someone has suggested a powerfully illuminating analogy. When a ship is built, he said, each part has a little voice of its own. As seamen walk the passageways on her maiden voyage they can hear the creaking whispers of separate identities: "I'm a rivet!" "I'm a sheet of steel!" "I'm a propeller!" "I'm a beam!" For a while these little voices sing their individual songs, proudly independent and fiercely self-protective.
But then a storm blows in on the high seas and the waves toss, the gales hurl, and the rain beats. If the parts of the ship try to withstand the pummeling independent from one another, each would be lost. On the bridge, however, stands the captain. He issues orders that take all of the little voices and bring them together for a larger purpose. By the time the vessel has weathered the storm, sailors hear a new and deeper song echoing from stem to stern: "I am a ship!"
It is the captain's call that creates the deeper identity. So too in our lives, according to today's lectionary passage. Minor stars in a world of glamour try to sing siren songs pulling bits and pieces of us from the voyage of our lives. Those who hear the captain's call are able to sail true and straight.
An Alternative Application
Luke 14:1, 7-14. Cecil Rhodes, the 19th century expansionist South African statesman and financier, was known for his precise manners and impeccable dress code. Yet he wore his social correctness with a considerate heart. For example, when Rhodes was hosting a formal dinner at his Kimberley home, one of the guests was unable to arrive until the very moment of seating. He had no time to change his travel-stained and rumpled clothes.
The young man's obvious discomfort in this company of glittering women and dapper gentlemen was made more acute because Rhodes, usually so punctual, delayed his appearance at the table. The dusty fellow felt like pig in a henhouse, surrounded by clucking criticism.
But when Rhodes finally entered the room to greet his guests and begin the meal, they were taken aback. Rather than sporting formal attire, he was clad in a shabby old blue suit! Now it was the young man's turn to feel at ease while the others wondered at their being overdressed.
Only the household servants ever knew the whole story. Rhodes had been descending the stairs as the last guest arrived. Noting his travel-weary look, Rhodes had returned to his dressing room, removed his black tuxedo, and quickly slipped into the sorriest suit he could find in his closet. It was his way of politely declaring the misfit to be welcome at his table.
Cecil Rhodes had class. In spite of many other flaws of his character and social perspectives, at least in this table service he had learned well the mind of Jesus.
The next Sunday Gandhi dressed early for a visit to a nearby church. He wasn't sure what would take place in a Christian worship service, but he knew that he wanted to be part of it. According to his testimony, he had decided already that he wanted to become a Christian.
Unfortunately that worship service was one of the most awful events of his life. The singing was half-hearted; many people just stood with mouths closed or merely mumbled along in boredom. The sermon was a tedious explanation of some fine point of doctrine. It said so little and took so long to say it. Gandhi was glad to see that at least some people benefited from the service -- they slept through most of it.
Gandhi tried to be a fair person, so the next Sunday he went to a worship service at another church. He hoped, expectantly, for some of the power and significance that breathed through the Bible. Yet this congregation was little different from the last. The atmosphere among the people was that of sophisticated indifference, and Gandhi left with an empty heart. He tried a number of different churches for the next three months but never met more than a kind of middle-class churchianity.
Gandhi decided that the Christian church had nothing of value for him, and he returned to his Hindu religious practices. To his dying day, however, he continued to read Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. He also carried on a lifelong discussion with certain Christian leaders as to why their religion, built on such a magnificent foundation, seemed to make so little difference in people's lives.
How does the power go out of our religion and turn Christianity into complacent indifference? Someone once described the process in allegorical terms. There was a small community living along a rocky seacoast, he said. The shoreline was treacherous, and not a few ships foundered and crashed there on the rocks and reefs.
But the town had a caring disposition, and the people formed a rescue brigade to respond quickly to navigational disasters. Every time a ship crashed they sounded the alarm and raced to help those wrestling against hope in the waves. Sometimes a little cargo was rescued, and maybe a sailor or two. But most times the wreck was a total loss, and everyone on shore grieved.
The people of the community wanted to do more. They wanted to prevent the disasters from happening, so they organized a fire brigade. By day the fire brigade gathered wood from the forest, and every night they lit a fire that served to warn the ships at sea. Because of the signal fire tended every night by the fire brigade, fewer ships crashed and more lives were saved.
At the start everybody wanted to be a member of the fire brigade. After all, most of them had first come to the community through disasters at sea. They had been drawn from the wreckage by other hands, and now they wanted to do the same for those who were still at sea.
But the work was hard and most of it was by volunteers. The nights were long, and when it rained or stormed it was tough to take a turn at the post. After a while the fire brigade subtly began to change. First, some charter members of the fire brigade started hiring others to do the work for them, particularly during the snows of winter. Next, the leaders of the Brigade instituted a tax on all goods rescued from the sea. Out of these funds a warming house was erected where members of the fire brigade could sleep and eat in comfort.
Soon it was decided that fires at night were much too inefficient. A tower was raised, with a kerosene lamp at the top that shone far out to sea.
Of course, nobody had to gather wood anymore or tend the fires. The warming house became a meeting hall. Soon it was such a popular place to hold parties and dances that the community expanded it, adding rooms and catering services.
The old fire brigade renamed itself the lighthouse brigade, and it was the center of social life for miles around. A social coordinator and administrative team were hired to manage the Lighthouse Group properties. Others were brought in to plan the parties and develop corporate structures.
One night a terrific storm blew in. The light in the tower was extinguished by the gusts. Nobody in the luxurious Lighthouse Club hall below noticed. The music and dancing went on.
Three ships crashed on the rocks that night, and thousands of lives were lost. But the people of the lighthouse brigade never knew. And they didn't care.
This might be an allegory on all our lectionary readings today. The word of Yahweh through Jeremiah is that God's people have forgotten both who and whose they are. The writer of Hebrews works up an energetic passion as he calls for ethical behavior among Christians that aligns with their remembered identity in Jesus. And Jesus points to typical social attitudes in his day as a reminder for his disciples to live in new ways for better reasons.
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Israel's prophets often appear, at first glance, to be strange creatures. A number of them harangue with seemingly incessant tirades (e.g., Amos), making us uncomfortable to spend too much time with such grumpy old men. Some are constant political gadflies (e.g., Jeremiah), always taking positions opposite of those in power. Others veer off into strange visions that are worlds removed from our everyday life (e.g., Zechariah), chafing readers with their oddness. There are even a few who have very compromised personal lives (e.g., Hosea), leading us to suspect more than a little psychologizing in their soap opera-ish theology.
Still, there is an inherent consistency of message and focus among all of these diverse religious ruminations and rantings. First of all, as Jeremiah notes in the historic perspective of today's passage, the prophetic sermons are invariably rooted in the web of relationships created by the Sinai covenant. Israel belongs to Yahweh, and her lifestyle must be shaped by the stipulations of that suzerain-vassal treaty. Obedience to Yahweh triggers the blessings of the Sinai covenant, while disobedience is the first reason for Israel's experiences of its curses -- drought, war, famine, enemy occupation, destruction of cities and fields, deportation, and so forth. For this reason the prophetic writings are laced with moral diatribes that carry a strong emphasis on social ethics.
This is not to say that Israel was held to a different behavioral standard than would otherwise be expected among the nations of the earth. Rather, through Israel's lifestyle was to flow a witness to its neighbors of the unique splendor of its God, and the character of life when experienced in harmony with the forgotten Creator of all. For this reason the public actions of the nation were crucial to its covenant existence.
Second, the function and message of prophecy was very political. For Israel to come under the domination of other nations was always seen as a divine scourge resulting from the application of the covenant curses because of Israel's disobedience. How Israel handled its international relations showed plainly whether she trusted Yahweh, or had otherwise become enamored with power and politics rooted in lesser gods. Constantly the prophets asked whether Israel was Yahweh's witnessing people, or if she was merely another nation with no particular mission or divine purpose. Israel's self-understanding was thus always very religious, and at the same time very political.
It is in this light that the typical prophetic litany against the nations surrounding Israel must be read. These other social and political entities were assessed for public moral behavior by Yahweh alongside Israel, because Yahweh was the Creator of all and continued to be Lord of the nations. All countries were chided for their own internal social sins as well as for their inappropriate aggressions toward one another, including and especially for their treatment of Israel. While they may be used by Yahweh as a temporary tool of chastisement, punishing Israel according to the covenant curses, they might never presume to hold dominance over either Israel or her God. This typical hubris of nations was regularly condemned as idolatrous by the prophets, and any society afflicted by it would receive divine retribution in its own turn.
Third, as the epochs of Israel's political fortunes unfolded, the message of the prophets became increasingly apocalyptic. There was a growing sense that because things had not gone the way they should have, producing heartfelt and ongoing national repentance and covenant restoration, Yahweh will have to intervene directly again, in a manner similar to that which happened during the time of Moses. When Yahweh interrupts human history the next time, however, along with judgments on the wickedness of the nations of the world, Israel will also fall heavily under divine punishment. But because Yahweh is on a mission to restore the fallen world, this next major divine intervention will be paired with a focus also on establishing a new world order, even as the old is falling away under the conflagration. In this coming messianic age, everything in society and the natural realm will finally function in the manner the Creator had intended in the beginning. Furthermore, because Yahweh is faithful to promises made, Israel will not be forgotten, and a remnant of God's servant nation will be at the center of all this renewal and restoration and great joy.
This increasingly forward-looking thrust of prophecy leads some to think of it as primarily foretelling, a kind of crystal ball gaze into the future. In reality, however, the nature of prophecy in ancient Israel is more forth-telling, declaring again the meaning of the ancient Sinai covenant, explaining the mission of Yahweh as witness to the world, and describing the implications of the morality envisioned by the suzerain-vassal treaty stipulations. Included in this forth-telling is the anticipation of how things will look when everything is renewed. This becomes the basis for the "new covenant" that Jeremiah will express in vivid detail in chapter 31.
By the time the seventh century BC rolled around, the prophets were rarely welcome in the royal palaces, even though all that was left of once proud and expansive Israel was the tiny mountainous territory of Judah. During the 600s, although Assyria kept threatening Jerusalem, it was increasingly occupied in defending itself against its rebellious eastern province of Babylon. It was during these years that Jeremiah developed his gloomy diatribes in the heart of capital city. Today's passage is, unfortunately, typical of the message that Yahweh has to send through this lonely and embattled prophet, living at the end of what will become the first temple period in Israel's history.
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Some years ago a major research firm conducted a survey to determine what people would be willing to do for $10 million. The results were astounding. Three percent would put their children up for adoption. Seven percent would kill a stranger. Ten percent would lie in court to set a murderer free, 16% would divorce their spouses, and 23% said they would become prostitutes for a week or longer.
Most astonishing was the category at the top of the list. One fourth of all surveyed said that they would leave their families for $10 million.
Everyone has a selling price at which he or she will step over a line of conduct and allow someone else to dictate the terms of behavior. It might be $10 million or it might only be one more bottle of wine. It might be a night in the spotlight or a night in bed. In Shusaku Endo's powerful novel Silence, the missionary priest Rodriguez steps over the line when torture exceeds what his soul can bear, and he desecrates an image of Jesus. We all have our selling price.
Our selling price is linked to our identity, as today's passage from Hebrews reminds us. The stronger our sense of who we are, the higher our selling price and the deeper our character. There are, however, several identities that each of us wear.
The first is the identity we receive from others. We get our looks and temperament from our parents. We garner our tastes and styles from our culture. There is even something mystical about us that we receive as a gift from God, unique to our personalities. In today's reading, this is the meaning of the quotations from Deuteronomy and Psalms.
Poet John Masefield understood that when he reflected on how it was that he started writing and rhyming. One day he picked up a volume of Geoffrey Chaucer's works and was gripped by the art of the lines. Masefield couldn't put the book down. That night he read until a whole new world opened for him. By the time morning broke, said Masefield, he had finished the entire book, set it down, looked at the dawning day and quietly said, "I too am a poet." And so he was.
A second identity we have in life is the one we make. In the drama The Rainmaker the main character is a con artist who calls himself Starbuck. He travels from town to town during the Dirty '30s scheming to get people to pay him to bring the rains for their parched fields.
Young Lizzie Curry catches his eye and they spar with building passion. But Lizzie is no fool, and she challenges him to come clean with her about his true name. It can't really be Starbuck, she knows.
Starbuck admits that he was born a "Smith," but asks, "What kind of name is that for a fellow like me? I needed a name that had the whole sky in it! And the power of a man! Starbuck! Now there's a name -- and it's mine!"
Lizzie tries to contradict him, telling him he has no right choosing his own name and giving up his family heritage. Yet he will not capitulate quickly. "You're wrong, Lizzie," he says. "The name you choose for yourself is more your own name than the name you were born with!"
Starbuck is on to something. Much of what we see in people around us has to do with what they have made of themselves. When an English nobleman named Roberts was having his portrait painted, the artist asked him if he would like the lines and creases in his face smoothed over.
"Certainly not!" he objected. "Make sure you put them all in. I earned every single wrinkle on my face!"
He was a man who knew the identity he had made.
There is also a third and deeper human identity. It is the identity that transforms us from what we were to what we are becoming. The poet saw a friend clearly when he wrote:
And there were three men went down the road
As down the road went he:
The man they saw, the man he was,
And the man he wanted to be.
The person we each want to be when we find our truest selves in God is larger than either the identity we have received from others or the one we try to create. This is the thought that the writer of Hebrews hopes to encourage in his close association of faith and ethics, of religion and behavior. Anything that sullies us by trying to define us on terms less than God's grace limits our best self.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
While we would all commend "considerateness" as valuable social grace, it is interesting that Jesus elevates it to the level of divine hospitality. What makes it so?
Maybe it has to do with the fact that a considerate person takes thought of others. Will Durant, the famous philosopher and historian, was asked for advice by one of his grandchildren. He summarized all his wisdom in "ten commandments." At the heart of them is this advice: "Do not speak while another is speaking. Discuss, do not dispute. Absorb and acknowledge whatever truth you can find in opinions different from your own. Be courteous and considerate to all, especially to those who oppose you."
We would all like to have friends like that. Certainly we expect God to treat us that way.
But maybe "considerateness" is more than just thoughtfulness. Stan Wiersma, writing under his pen name "SietzeBuning," explored the religious roots of being considerate in his collection of folk poetry titled Style and Class (Middleburg Press, 1982). Much of what we display in life, said SietzeBuning, has to do with "style" -- we watch how others dress or act and then we try to imitate those we admire. But "class" is living out of the nobility of your inner character, said Sietze.
He tells this little story to illustrate what he means:
Queen Wilhelmina was entertaining the
Frisian Cattle Breeders' Association at dinner.
The Frisian farmers didn't know what to make of their finger bowls.
They drank them down.
The stylish courtiers from the Hague nudged each other,
and pointed, and laughed at such lack of style.
Until the queen herself, without a smile, raised her finger bowl and drained it, obliging all the courtiers to follow suit, without a smile. (p. 17)
SietzeBuning ends with this note of judgment:
The courtiers had style, but Queen Wilhelmina had class.
While that makes for good storytelling, SietzeBuning takes it one surprising step further. He links style to the wisdom of the world and class to the wisdom of heaven. The former tries to get us to fit in with the right crowd, looking the right way and eating the right foods while driving the right vehicles. That's style.
But class -- real class -- happens to us when we realize that we are children of God. If God is king, we are nobility -- princesses and princes in the realm of the great ruler!
Children of the king do not need to prove themselves, nor do they need to flaunt their status. If they have learned well at home the true worth of their lives, they can treat others with courtesy and respect. They can be considerate. It is a religious thing, just as Jesus said.
Application
Someone has suggested a powerfully illuminating analogy. When a ship is built, he said, each part has a little voice of its own. As seamen walk the passageways on her maiden voyage they can hear the creaking whispers of separate identities: "I'm a rivet!" "I'm a sheet of steel!" "I'm a propeller!" "I'm a beam!" For a while these little voices sing their individual songs, proudly independent and fiercely self-protective.
But then a storm blows in on the high seas and the waves toss, the gales hurl, and the rain beats. If the parts of the ship try to withstand the pummeling independent from one another, each would be lost. On the bridge, however, stands the captain. He issues orders that take all of the little voices and bring them together for a larger purpose. By the time the vessel has weathered the storm, sailors hear a new and deeper song echoing from stem to stern: "I am a ship!"
It is the captain's call that creates the deeper identity. So too in our lives, according to today's lectionary passage. Minor stars in a world of glamour try to sing siren songs pulling bits and pieces of us from the voyage of our lives. Those who hear the captain's call are able to sail true and straight.
An Alternative Application
Luke 14:1, 7-14. Cecil Rhodes, the 19th century expansionist South African statesman and financier, was known for his precise manners and impeccable dress code. Yet he wore his social correctness with a considerate heart. For example, when Rhodes was hosting a formal dinner at his Kimberley home, one of the guests was unable to arrive until the very moment of seating. He had no time to change his travel-stained and rumpled clothes.
The young man's obvious discomfort in this company of glittering women and dapper gentlemen was made more acute because Rhodes, usually so punctual, delayed his appearance at the table. The dusty fellow felt like pig in a henhouse, surrounded by clucking criticism.
But when Rhodes finally entered the room to greet his guests and begin the meal, they were taken aback. Rather than sporting formal attire, he was clad in a shabby old blue suit! Now it was the young man's turn to feel at ease while the others wondered at their being overdressed.
Only the household servants ever knew the whole story. Rhodes had been descending the stairs as the last guest arrived. Noting his travel-weary look, Rhodes had returned to his dressing room, removed his black tuxedo, and quickly slipped into the sorriest suit he could find in his closet. It was his way of politely declaring the misfit to be welcome at his table.
Cecil Rhodes had class. In spite of many other flaws of his character and social perspectives, at least in this table service he had learned well the mind of Jesus.
