April 26, 2007
Plainly
Easter 4C / Jn 10.22-30
John tells the story that the Jews were standing around there in the Temple marveling at this Jesus, and that they said to him, maybe even with a tinge of disdain, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
What I’d like to suggest is that this may be and probably is the question being asked of the church today by anyone who cares enough to ask it, consciously or unconsciously or both. It may not always be asked this way, but it seems it is always asked with that intent. Tell us plainly, and tell us without all the exclusive, judgmental religious gingerbread and internecine squabble.
Today, the Fourth Sunday after Easter, is also April 29th, a personally important day for me. April 29th gives me the pleasant opportunity of remembering and being grateful for two birthdays. One is for my son Scott, the other, for Duke Ellington. I think of the Duke whom I admire so deeply not only because he taught us all so much about creativity and jazz, but because I like to recall his famous parting greeting. It was almost a kind of blessing. He would say to all within earshot, briefly and plainly, “Love you madly. Love you madly.” And I think of one my fondest memories of my son. He was barely five or so, and when coming in from play, he would stand in the doorway, look about, and seeing no one, he would shout, “Hey, somebody, I love you.”
Plain words. Indiscriminate, unconditional, inclusive, no-strings-attached words. “I love you, madly… ” whoever you are. “Hey, somebody, I love you… ” wherever you are. The kind of plain words that not only communicate, but also nourish, especially in our time, those of us who starve for them.
The Jews were marveling at this Jesus, and they really wanted to know for whatever reason who he was. “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
The trouble, their trouble and perhaps ours, was that they could not or would not see and hear the answer which was as plain as could be. It was too plain, too simple. Jesus’s answer to the Jews in John’s accounting was simply to point to the evidence that bore witness to him. It was in his stories and in his acts.
He suggested neither creed nor catechism. He told stories. “My sheep hear my voice… ” he said, and the sheep and I are instantly in business. It’s like this. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”
Listen and watch, pay attention, he said. Out of this pour the blessings. Unconditionally. Inclusively. How dearly does the world and the church need to be so assured in this way in these times. By the stories we tell. By the acts we do. By the attention we pay to the simple, the obvious, by how stewardly we are, for example, not only with our spiritual goods, but with our material goods, as well.
Perhaps it’s too simple. Like God’s living conditions for our forebears in the Garden of Eden, perhaps they just seemed too obvious to be taken seriously. Then, as now, for our human relations, for our own environmental stewardship, we just have to make things more complicated ever than necessary.
Simplicity is always simple, simply too simple, too plain to be true, to be respected. And besides, it just doesn’t look much like you’re doing anything. When people come to 12-step programs with any intention and enthusiasm at all, any will to confess and to recover from their addictions, the first thing they want to know is What to do. What must I do to recover from this malady? They want a formula, a mantra, a routine. And they want it immediately… a quick fix. Like the Jews confronting Jesus, they want to be, indeed, often demand to be told plainly.
Not altogether coincidentally, “Keep it simple” is the first and most frequent counsel for the newly-recovering addict, and “Keep it simple” is the second hardest thing to do after the initial abstinence, the last drink or whatever. It’s apparently so much easier to complicate life. And we addicts, like many of us who speak for the church, can complicate life — and even the simple 12-step program — with the very best of them.
A nun who was a recovering alcoholic spoke in a meeting about how difficult it was for her to take the Third Step. You know the one. It’s when we are asked to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand God. But this Sister, with all her vows and her theological skills, her disciplined prayer life, her commitment, and her truly exemplary ministry, even with her currently successful abstinence, she simply could not do it, she could not “take” that Third Step.
Until one day, as she told her story, she realized that out of all the complicated creeds and catechisms, devotions and liturgies of her religious life which had served her so well to be where she was, she was letting them get in her way to taking the Third Step.
Naturally, she was trying to turn her will and her life over, like the step said, to God, to God as she understood God. What else? Who wouldn’t? One might say, in her case, that she had a pretty impressive understanding of God in anybody’s league. But the Step had never quite “worked” for her. And to hear her tell it, it sure wasn’t working now.
Then, in a very simple, but maybe not all that obvious turn of phrase, she realized why. She was pounding at the gates of her understanding of God, at her definitions, at her descriptions of God as they had come down to her through her long and devoted training, but all limited to how she understood them.
Yet, all the while, the gates of the God who transcended her understanding, but was not limited by it, the God who gave her and all else in her life meaning, who made all her skills and her freedom possible, these gates of this God were swung wide open. It was very simple and oh, so very profound. God, you might say, was standing there, waiting to say to her plainly and without condition…
“Hey, Somebody. I love you.” Or maybe, like the Duke, “Love you madly.”
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