Proper 7 / Pentecost 5 / Ordinary Time 12
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Theme For The Day
At the very heart of the Christian life is an experience of death and rebirth, symbolically expressed in the sacrament of baptism.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 21:8-21
Hagar And Ishmael
Last week's Old Testament lesson ended on the joyous note of Isaac's birth, as a smiling Sarah declares, "God has brought laughter for me" (21:6). The contrast with this week's passage could not be more severe. Sarah's joy is Hagar's grief. Having submitted to her master's and mistress' wishes and borne Abraham a child, Hagar's fortunes have abruptly changed. Her son Ishmael has gone from being a child of promise to a family embarrassment. What makes the story so much more painful is the close, personal relationship between the principal characters. Ishmael and Isaac play together (v. 3). Sarah and Hagar work together, side by side. Abraham loves his firstborn son, causing him to feel "distress" when Sarah demands that he be sent away (v. 11). Yet, the Lord is clearly siding with Sarah in this dispute: there's no question but that Isaac is to be the heir (v. 12). The Lord promises to bless Ishmael with abundant descendants, anyway -- for he, too, is an heir to the covenant (v. 13). Yet, this does not happen without much grief and difficulty, as the episode of near-starvation in the wilderness bears witness (verses 15-19). The daily details of life in a polygamous family are complex and utterly unfamiliar to most churchgoers. Each child is loved by the patriarch, to be sure, but in some ways the bonds to the respective mothers (and the resulting maternal jealousies) are even more intense. It is important, in preaching this passage, not to get bogged down in these strange details, and not to soft-pedal the injustice of Hagar's plight, either -- but, rather, to emphasize the main point of this parallel story, which is the irresistible nature of God's covenant. Hagar's and Ishmael's situation in the wilderness is desperate, to be sure, but there is never any ultimate danger to them because they are heirs to the covenant.
Alternate Old Testament Lesson
Jeremiah 20:7-13
The Prophet's Inner Struggle
The opening words of this poem, "O Lord, you have enticed me," are not quite so shocking as some earlier translations, "O Lord, you have deceived me" -- but, still, they make this a difficult text. The context is that Jeremiah has just been beaten and put in the stocks. He is, at least for the moment, a broken man. This passage provides unparalleled insight into the prophetic personality. Jeremiah's inner life is troubled, his sense of commitment storm-tossed. The Lord is the focus of much love and devotion but is also a formidable adversary. Like Jacob at the Fords of the Jabbok, Jeremiah wrestles with God. In this passage, we can hear the grunts of pain and see the sheen of sweat on tired muscles. There is a powerful sense of compulsion about the prophetic vocation: "within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot" (v. 9). We get the impression, reading these words, that Jeremiah would have rather been anything else but a prophet; but ultimately he has no choice in the matter. He is a marked man. Yet, in the end, he knows he will not perish at the hands of his enemies for the Lord is beside him "like a dread warrior" (v. 11). The Lord tests the righteous, and the testing is not always pleasant (v. 12). Verse 13, interjecting a note of praise, seems out of place (especially since the next verse has Jeremiah cursing the day he was born). It is very possibly a later scribal addition. This bitter poem is not likely to make it into many seminary student-recruitment brochures, but it is brutally honest and psychologically true-to-life.
New Testament Lesson
Romans 6:1b-11
Death To Sin!
This passage reveals an ongoing struggle in the Roman church between an antinomian faction that wishes to dispense with all obedience to the law and a more traditional faction, which wishes to uphold some of the traditions of Israel. Some in this first faction have evidently misunderstood Paul's teaching about justification by grace through faith. They are calling for an end to all laws and restrictions, because these hamper the free flow of grace. Paul emphatically repudiates this viewpoint as a perversion of the gospel: "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means!" (verses 1-2a). Death to sin means just that -- death to sin. Sin no longer has dominion over followers of Jesus, who are called to "walk in newness of life" (v. 4). Entry into the Christian life implies total rebirth: the "old self" has been crucified along with Christ (v. 6). This death of the old self occurs at the moment of baptism (v. 4). On the other side of that crucifixion experience is a new, resurrected life (v. 8). There is no room in that new life for the old ways of sin.
The Gospel
Matthew 10:24-39
Facing Fears
This passage continues Jesus' instructions and admonitions to the disciples as they go forth to do ministry. As disciples, he tells them they are not above their teacher; they, too, will be subject to the same sort of abuse and persecution he will undergo (verses 24-25). Although the way ahead is arduous, he encourages them not to be afraid, for the final victory will be theirs. Their opponents may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul (v. 28). God sees all and knows all; the God who observes the humble sparrow's fall to earth will be so much more aware of the ordeals they are experiencing (verses 29-31). Not only that, but Jesus' followers will have none other than himself as their advocate. He will acknowledge them before God in heaven (verses 32-33). Troubled times are indeed ahead: "not peace, but a sword"; not family harmony, but sons against fathers, daughters against mothers (verses 34-36). Allegiance to Jesus is all (verses 37-39). These are difficult passages to interpret in our culture -- which, if not openly supportive of Christianity, is at least mildly congenial to it. Yet, discipleship does carry a cost. In this passage, Jesus totes up the numbers so his followers may not be surprised when dire events come to pass.
Preaching Possibilities
Have you ever heard the expression, "Control-Alt-Delete"? If you use an IBM-format computer -- especially if you grew up on that old computer language, "MS-DOS" -- you know what it means. "Control-Alt-Delete" is the sequence of keys you push when you have a problem you can't solve in any other way. It reboots -- or restarts -- the computer. Everything you've been working on that you haven't saved will be lost. But sometimes, it's the only way out.
Romans, chapter 6, talks about God's "Control-Alt-Delete" combination. Like the software operating-system designer, God has provided for us, in our lives, a sort of reset button -- an effective way to start over again, when all else fails.
It's called baptism. For some people, the rebirth comes in literally being baptized as adults; as they come to Christ for the very first time. But for the vast majority of us who were baptized as infants, it's the remembrance of baptism that's effective for rebirth. The taking up of the promises that were made for us long ago, by our parents, and renewing them -- making those promises our own.
When the apostle Paul tries to describe this life-changing experience, words fail him. The only expression he can come up with is one that, for most of us, is acutely uncomfortable to hear -- especially around babies. It's the image of baptism as death and rebirth.
"Do you not know," asks Paul, "that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?" This is pretty shocking stuff -- especially when you consider the way Jesus died. But Paul goes on, sticking his shovel right into the soil of the graveyard:
"Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." Now before you go thinking of Paul as a sort of first-century Stephen King, consider that he believes the death-and-rebirth images of baptism to be a blessing, not a curse. They are a blessing because, after the experience of spiritual death, there comes a resurrection: as you and I -- and all who call upon the name of Christ -- walk with him "in newness of life."
Sometimes it does happen that there's nothing left to do in life but reboot: to shut everything down, and start all over again. It is, in many ways, a fearsome step to take, but one we can take in confidence knowing that Christ has promised to save us.
Press "Control-Alt-Delete" on the computer, and a warning message pops up on the screen. "Are you sure you want to do this?" the computer genie asks. "You know, the consequence could be severe." But yes, we do want to do it. There's no other choice. We've exhausted every other alternative. Click on "Yes."
The screen goes blank. One deep breath while everything seems to hang for a moment on the fearsome decision we have made. But then, there comes the reassuring whir of the hard drive, and then the sight of the start-up routine as the computer begins its self-test. The data is still there. All is not lost. Death... and rebirth.
Hagar, in today's Old Testament lesson, has a similar sort of story. Not Hagar, that bumbling Viking in the comic strips, but Hagar, the Egyptian woman -- second wife of Abraham, in the book of Genesis.
Sarah, the first wife, jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael, talks her husband into sending them both away, casting them off into the wilderness. Reluctantly, Abraham does so -- surely not his finest hour as a family man, but those were harsh times.
Hagar tries to fend for herself in the desert, but soon she and Ishmael run out of water. They're dying of thirst, and of the two of them, Ishmael is the worst off. He can walk no further. With sadness and an infinite tenderness, Hagar lays her delirious son down under a bush and walks off a short distance. There she squats down, rocking back and forth in a mother's keening lament. "Do not let me look on the death of the child," she prays to God through her tears. A more forlorn or desperate prayer would be hard to imagine.
God hears her cry and also the cry of the boy. God sends an angel to show Hagar the way to a nearby well. "I will make a great nation of him," God promises, referring to Ishmael -- the same promise God has spoken to Abraham, concerning his other son, Isaac.
The promise of God is big enough, it seems, to embrace all of Abraham's children -- even the one his brutal society considers illegitimate. Yet Hagar and Ishmael might never have discovered that blessing -- might never have known the abundant grace of God flowing forth as surely as a spring in the desert -- had they remained ensconced safely back in camp.
Baptism is like that bubbling fountain -- "a spring of water gushing up to eternal life," in the words of Jesus himself. Now, the strong and independent among us may imagine they have no need of that desert spring saying, "We can pack enough water ourselves, thank you." Yet, if we are so bold (or so foolish) as to set off into the wilderness with that arrogant attitude, experience will, in time, prove us wrong.
Far better to trust the man who went to his death on a cross, then was raised to new life to the glory of God! The mark of his followers is baptism, and the meaning of baptism is death and rebirth.
That meaning is inevitably lost on the infants we bring to the font: They're of course too young to understand it. It's also lost on a great many adults who get caught up in the cuteness of the occasion -- but, the meaning is there. It runs under the desert sands of life like some great, underground stream. It becomes suddenly real, bubbling up for you or me, in those moments of crisis when there's nothing else to do but trust the risky promises of Jesus Christ.
"Life is not lost by dying!" writes the poet, Stephen Vincent Benet...
Life is lost minute by minute,
day by dragging day,
in all the thousand, small, uncaring ways.
Do not lose your life in "the thousand, small, uncaring ways." Lose it once and for all in Jesus Christ. Lose it in him, and you will gain everything!
Prayer For The Day
Lord,
we acknowledge and confess
that, sometimes, we love this life
and its familiar surroundings
too well.
Fearfully we hold onto the past,
reluctant to trust your future.
In those crossroads moments,
when hard decisions are before us,
we ask for such confidence in our promises
that we will be able to let go of the old
and embrace the new. Amen.
To Illustrate
A reporter once asked the great war novelist, James Jones, how it is that soldiers manage to keep on fighting amidst the confusion and horror of battle.
Jones replied bluntly, "What you do is you decide that you are dead. Right. Every soldier I knew, in the horrors of war, just decides, 'I'm dead.' That enables you to live. You go ahead and die, so you can be surprised when, at the end of the battle, you're still alive."
Death and rebirth. It sounds paradoxical, to be sure. But that's the spiritual truth of it.
***
Did you hear the one about the three engineers traveling in a car? Each one has a different specialty: one's a mechanical engineer, one's an electrical engineer, and the third's a software engineer.
Well, the car breaks down, and the mechanical engineer asks to have a look under the hood. "I see the problem!" he says, with authority. "The carburetor's broken." Whereupon he takes a paper clip out of his pocket and fashions an ingenious little device that makes the carburetor work again.
No sooner do they get back on the road, than the car breaks down again. The electrical engineer looks under the hood this time, and says, "I see the problem! There's a faulty connection to the battery." Whereupon she takes a piece of wire out of her pocket and fixes the short, and the trio are on their way again.
Wouldn't you know it, but the car breaks down a third time. The software engineer doesn't even ask to look under the hood. "Gee," he says, cluelessly, "I don't know what to do. Maybe we should all get out and close the doors, then open them again."
***
For some people, life only seems to begin after they've been through one of those rebirthing experiences. Columnist Gary Wills tells of how the philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, was knocked unconscious by a dog, as a young man. When he came to, the story goes, Rousseau found himself free of all worldly concerns. He was able to see "the big picture." Later on, he observed that he never truly came to his senses until after he'd been knocked senseless.
At the age of 36, Count Leo Tolstoy was thrown from his horse while hunting. When he came round, a thought entered his mind that he just couldn't get rid of. "I am a writer!" he told himself. Soon after, Tolstoy did begin writing. Eventually, the great War and Peace came from his pen.
Harriet Tubman's name is famous in American history. Once a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland, she escaped to the North, but returned again and again to lead other slaves to freedom. Harriet's life as a liberator began one day in her teenage years when she stepped between her master and another slave he was savagely beating. Harriet was struck on the head and fell to the ground, her skull fractured. For weeks she lay comatose but finally recovered. For the rest of her life, she would suffer epileptic fits because of that injury.
Yet that injury was also Harriet Tubman's liberation. "The blow that cracked Tubman's skull," her biographer wrote, "struck off her psychic chains. She had already died once; she had nothing to lose."
***
One character from literature who's not afraid to risk starting over again is Little John from the Robin Hood stories. Robin Hood first meets Little John on a narrow footbridge. John's going one way, Robin the other. Neither man's willing to yield.
A contest of strength and skill ensues with quarterstaffs the weapon. Finally, Robin knocks Little John off the bridge, right into the stream and, ever after, John follows him. He does so out of respect for Robin's character and also because Robin's the only man with strength and cunning enough to best him.
***
Faith means being grasped by a power that is greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us, and transforms and heals us. Surrender to this power is faith.
-- Paul Tillich
***
It is God's nature to make something out of nothing. That is why God cannot make anything out of [one] who is not yet nothing.
-- Martin Luther
At the very heart of the Christian life is an experience of death and rebirth, symbolically expressed in the sacrament of baptism.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 21:8-21
Hagar And Ishmael
Last week's Old Testament lesson ended on the joyous note of Isaac's birth, as a smiling Sarah declares, "God has brought laughter for me" (21:6). The contrast with this week's passage could not be more severe. Sarah's joy is Hagar's grief. Having submitted to her master's and mistress' wishes and borne Abraham a child, Hagar's fortunes have abruptly changed. Her son Ishmael has gone from being a child of promise to a family embarrassment. What makes the story so much more painful is the close, personal relationship between the principal characters. Ishmael and Isaac play together (v. 3). Sarah and Hagar work together, side by side. Abraham loves his firstborn son, causing him to feel "distress" when Sarah demands that he be sent away (v. 11). Yet, the Lord is clearly siding with Sarah in this dispute: there's no question but that Isaac is to be the heir (v. 12). The Lord promises to bless Ishmael with abundant descendants, anyway -- for he, too, is an heir to the covenant (v. 13). Yet, this does not happen without much grief and difficulty, as the episode of near-starvation in the wilderness bears witness (verses 15-19). The daily details of life in a polygamous family are complex and utterly unfamiliar to most churchgoers. Each child is loved by the patriarch, to be sure, but in some ways the bonds to the respective mothers (and the resulting maternal jealousies) are even more intense. It is important, in preaching this passage, not to get bogged down in these strange details, and not to soft-pedal the injustice of Hagar's plight, either -- but, rather, to emphasize the main point of this parallel story, which is the irresistible nature of God's covenant. Hagar's and Ishmael's situation in the wilderness is desperate, to be sure, but there is never any ultimate danger to them because they are heirs to the covenant.
Alternate Old Testament Lesson
Jeremiah 20:7-13
The Prophet's Inner Struggle
The opening words of this poem, "O Lord, you have enticed me," are not quite so shocking as some earlier translations, "O Lord, you have deceived me" -- but, still, they make this a difficult text. The context is that Jeremiah has just been beaten and put in the stocks. He is, at least for the moment, a broken man. This passage provides unparalleled insight into the prophetic personality. Jeremiah's inner life is troubled, his sense of commitment storm-tossed. The Lord is the focus of much love and devotion but is also a formidable adversary. Like Jacob at the Fords of the Jabbok, Jeremiah wrestles with God. In this passage, we can hear the grunts of pain and see the sheen of sweat on tired muscles. There is a powerful sense of compulsion about the prophetic vocation: "within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot" (v. 9). We get the impression, reading these words, that Jeremiah would have rather been anything else but a prophet; but ultimately he has no choice in the matter. He is a marked man. Yet, in the end, he knows he will not perish at the hands of his enemies for the Lord is beside him "like a dread warrior" (v. 11). The Lord tests the righteous, and the testing is not always pleasant (v. 12). Verse 13, interjecting a note of praise, seems out of place (especially since the next verse has Jeremiah cursing the day he was born). It is very possibly a later scribal addition. This bitter poem is not likely to make it into many seminary student-recruitment brochures, but it is brutally honest and psychologically true-to-life.
New Testament Lesson
Romans 6:1b-11
Death To Sin!
This passage reveals an ongoing struggle in the Roman church between an antinomian faction that wishes to dispense with all obedience to the law and a more traditional faction, which wishes to uphold some of the traditions of Israel. Some in this first faction have evidently misunderstood Paul's teaching about justification by grace through faith. They are calling for an end to all laws and restrictions, because these hamper the free flow of grace. Paul emphatically repudiates this viewpoint as a perversion of the gospel: "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means!" (verses 1-2a). Death to sin means just that -- death to sin. Sin no longer has dominion over followers of Jesus, who are called to "walk in newness of life" (v. 4). Entry into the Christian life implies total rebirth: the "old self" has been crucified along with Christ (v. 6). This death of the old self occurs at the moment of baptism (v. 4). On the other side of that crucifixion experience is a new, resurrected life (v. 8). There is no room in that new life for the old ways of sin.
The Gospel
Matthew 10:24-39
Facing Fears
This passage continues Jesus' instructions and admonitions to the disciples as they go forth to do ministry. As disciples, he tells them they are not above their teacher; they, too, will be subject to the same sort of abuse and persecution he will undergo (verses 24-25). Although the way ahead is arduous, he encourages them not to be afraid, for the final victory will be theirs. Their opponents may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul (v. 28). God sees all and knows all; the God who observes the humble sparrow's fall to earth will be so much more aware of the ordeals they are experiencing (verses 29-31). Not only that, but Jesus' followers will have none other than himself as their advocate. He will acknowledge them before God in heaven (verses 32-33). Troubled times are indeed ahead: "not peace, but a sword"; not family harmony, but sons against fathers, daughters against mothers (verses 34-36). Allegiance to Jesus is all (verses 37-39). These are difficult passages to interpret in our culture -- which, if not openly supportive of Christianity, is at least mildly congenial to it. Yet, discipleship does carry a cost. In this passage, Jesus totes up the numbers so his followers may not be surprised when dire events come to pass.
Preaching Possibilities
Have you ever heard the expression, "Control-Alt-Delete"? If you use an IBM-format computer -- especially if you grew up on that old computer language, "MS-DOS" -- you know what it means. "Control-Alt-Delete" is the sequence of keys you push when you have a problem you can't solve in any other way. It reboots -- or restarts -- the computer. Everything you've been working on that you haven't saved will be lost. But sometimes, it's the only way out.
Romans, chapter 6, talks about God's "Control-Alt-Delete" combination. Like the software operating-system designer, God has provided for us, in our lives, a sort of reset button -- an effective way to start over again, when all else fails.
It's called baptism. For some people, the rebirth comes in literally being baptized as adults; as they come to Christ for the very first time. But for the vast majority of us who were baptized as infants, it's the remembrance of baptism that's effective for rebirth. The taking up of the promises that were made for us long ago, by our parents, and renewing them -- making those promises our own.
When the apostle Paul tries to describe this life-changing experience, words fail him. The only expression he can come up with is one that, for most of us, is acutely uncomfortable to hear -- especially around babies. It's the image of baptism as death and rebirth.
"Do you not know," asks Paul, "that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?" This is pretty shocking stuff -- especially when you consider the way Jesus died. But Paul goes on, sticking his shovel right into the soil of the graveyard:
"Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." Now before you go thinking of Paul as a sort of first-century Stephen King, consider that he believes the death-and-rebirth images of baptism to be a blessing, not a curse. They are a blessing because, after the experience of spiritual death, there comes a resurrection: as you and I -- and all who call upon the name of Christ -- walk with him "in newness of life."
Sometimes it does happen that there's nothing left to do in life but reboot: to shut everything down, and start all over again. It is, in many ways, a fearsome step to take, but one we can take in confidence knowing that Christ has promised to save us.
Press "Control-Alt-Delete" on the computer, and a warning message pops up on the screen. "Are you sure you want to do this?" the computer genie asks. "You know, the consequence could be severe." But yes, we do want to do it. There's no other choice. We've exhausted every other alternative. Click on "Yes."
The screen goes blank. One deep breath while everything seems to hang for a moment on the fearsome decision we have made. But then, there comes the reassuring whir of the hard drive, and then the sight of the start-up routine as the computer begins its self-test. The data is still there. All is not lost. Death... and rebirth.
Hagar, in today's Old Testament lesson, has a similar sort of story. Not Hagar, that bumbling Viking in the comic strips, but Hagar, the Egyptian woman -- second wife of Abraham, in the book of Genesis.
Sarah, the first wife, jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael, talks her husband into sending them both away, casting them off into the wilderness. Reluctantly, Abraham does so -- surely not his finest hour as a family man, but those were harsh times.
Hagar tries to fend for herself in the desert, but soon she and Ishmael run out of water. They're dying of thirst, and of the two of them, Ishmael is the worst off. He can walk no further. With sadness and an infinite tenderness, Hagar lays her delirious son down under a bush and walks off a short distance. There she squats down, rocking back and forth in a mother's keening lament. "Do not let me look on the death of the child," she prays to God through her tears. A more forlorn or desperate prayer would be hard to imagine.
God hears her cry and also the cry of the boy. God sends an angel to show Hagar the way to a nearby well. "I will make a great nation of him," God promises, referring to Ishmael -- the same promise God has spoken to Abraham, concerning his other son, Isaac.
The promise of God is big enough, it seems, to embrace all of Abraham's children -- even the one his brutal society considers illegitimate. Yet Hagar and Ishmael might never have discovered that blessing -- might never have known the abundant grace of God flowing forth as surely as a spring in the desert -- had they remained ensconced safely back in camp.
Baptism is like that bubbling fountain -- "a spring of water gushing up to eternal life," in the words of Jesus himself. Now, the strong and independent among us may imagine they have no need of that desert spring saying, "We can pack enough water ourselves, thank you." Yet, if we are so bold (or so foolish) as to set off into the wilderness with that arrogant attitude, experience will, in time, prove us wrong.
Far better to trust the man who went to his death on a cross, then was raised to new life to the glory of God! The mark of his followers is baptism, and the meaning of baptism is death and rebirth.
That meaning is inevitably lost on the infants we bring to the font: They're of course too young to understand it. It's also lost on a great many adults who get caught up in the cuteness of the occasion -- but, the meaning is there. It runs under the desert sands of life like some great, underground stream. It becomes suddenly real, bubbling up for you or me, in those moments of crisis when there's nothing else to do but trust the risky promises of Jesus Christ.
"Life is not lost by dying!" writes the poet, Stephen Vincent Benet...
Life is lost minute by minute,
day by dragging day,
in all the thousand, small, uncaring ways.
Do not lose your life in "the thousand, small, uncaring ways." Lose it once and for all in Jesus Christ. Lose it in him, and you will gain everything!
Prayer For The Day
Lord,
we acknowledge and confess
that, sometimes, we love this life
and its familiar surroundings
too well.
Fearfully we hold onto the past,
reluctant to trust your future.
In those crossroads moments,
when hard decisions are before us,
we ask for such confidence in our promises
that we will be able to let go of the old
and embrace the new. Amen.
To Illustrate
A reporter once asked the great war novelist, James Jones, how it is that soldiers manage to keep on fighting amidst the confusion and horror of battle.
Jones replied bluntly, "What you do is you decide that you are dead. Right. Every soldier I knew, in the horrors of war, just decides, 'I'm dead.' That enables you to live. You go ahead and die, so you can be surprised when, at the end of the battle, you're still alive."
Death and rebirth. It sounds paradoxical, to be sure. But that's the spiritual truth of it.
***
Did you hear the one about the three engineers traveling in a car? Each one has a different specialty: one's a mechanical engineer, one's an electrical engineer, and the third's a software engineer.
Well, the car breaks down, and the mechanical engineer asks to have a look under the hood. "I see the problem!" he says, with authority. "The carburetor's broken." Whereupon he takes a paper clip out of his pocket and fashions an ingenious little device that makes the carburetor work again.
No sooner do they get back on the road, than the car breaks down again. The electrical engineer looks under the hood this time, and says, "I see the problem! There's a faulty connection to the battery." Whereupon she takes a piece of wire out of her pocket and fixes the short, and the trio are on their way again.
Wouldn't you know it, but the car breaks down a third time. The software engineer doesn't even ask to look under the hood. "Gee," he says, cluelessly, "I don't know what to do. Maybe we should all get out and close the doors, then open them again."
***
For some people, life only seems to begin after they've been through one of those rebirthing experiences. Columnist Gary Wills tells of how the philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, was knocked unconscious by a dog, as a young man. When he came to, the story goes, Rousseau found himself free of all worldly concerns. He was able to see "the big picture." Later on, he observed that he never truly came to his senses until after he'd been knocked senseless.
At the age of 36, Count Leo Tolstoy was thrown from his horse while hunting. When he came round, a thought entered his mind that he just couldn't get rid of. "I am a writer!" he told himself. Soon after, Tolstoy did begin writing. Eventually, the great War and Peace came from his pen.
Harriet Tubman's name is famous in American history. Once a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland, she escaped to the North, but returned again and again to lead other slaves to freedom. Harriet's life as a liberator began one day in her teenage years when she stepped between her master and another slave he was savagely beating. Harriet was struck on the head and fell to the ground, her skull fractured. For weeks she lay comatose but finally recovered. For the rest of her life, she would suffer epileptic fits because of that injury.
Yet that injury was also Harriet Tubman's liberation. "The blow that cracked Tubman's skull," her biographer wrote, "struck off her psychic chains. She had already died once; she had nothing to lose."
***
One character from literature who's not afraid to risk starting over again is Little John from the Robin Hood stories. Robin Hood first meets Little John on a narrow footbridge. John's going one way, Robin the other. Neither man's willing to yield.
A contest of strength and skill ensues with quarterstaffs the weapon. Finally, Robin knocks Little John off the bridge, right into the stream and, ever after, John follows him. He does so out of respect for Robin's character and also because Robin's the only man with strength and cunning enough to best him.
***
Faith means being grasped by a power that is greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us, and transforms and heals us. Surrender to this power is faith.
-- Paul Tillich
***
It is God's nature to make something out of nothing. That is why God cannot make anything out of [one] who is not yet nothing.
-- Martin Luther
