LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART I
Wendell Berry is an author, a poet, and what some have called a prophet of contemporary culture. In a book entitled, What Are People For? he writes, “We think it ordinary to spend twelve or sixteen or twenty years of a person’s life – and many thousands of public dollars – on education.” Yet we spend not one dime or give one thought to character. Does character matter? Could there be a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school?
Flannery O’Connor seemed to think so. Flannery O’Connor was a 20th century American writer. Her novels and short stories often reflected her own Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and character. In a book entitled, Everything That Rises Must Converge, we meet a young man who has returned home to die…or so he thinks. He is arrogant, pretentious, intellectually proud, and very well-educated. On his deathbed, he decides he wants to see a priest; but not just any priest. He pictures in his mind the dramatic content of his end-of-life conversations with an equally well-educated priest…a person of culture, as well as religion.
Much to his consternation, however…instead of encountering a worldly, sophisticated and slightly cynical Jesuit priest – the priest of his imagining – the priest who actually arrives at his bedside is nothing of the sort. He is short, he is portly, he is anything but sophisticated, and he arrives at the man’s bedside and introduces himself by saying, “I’m Fahther Finn – from Purrgatory.” And instead of responding to the dying young man’s questions about the literary merits of James Joyce – or the significance of mythology behind the world’s great religions – the priest insists upon asking questions of his own.
“So,” the priest asks him, “do you say your morning and your evening prayers? You don’t, eh? Well, you will never learn to be good unless you pray regularly. You cannot love Jesus unless you speak with him. Do you have trouble with purity? We all do, but you must pray to the Holy Ghost for it. Mind, heart, body, and soul. Nothing is overcome without prayer. Pray with your family. Do you pray with your family?”
By this time, the proud young intellectual is fit to be tied. He isn’t having the kind of conversation he imagined. And at the suggestion that he should pray with his family, he shouts, “God forbid! My mother doesn’t have time to pray, and my sister is an atheist!” The priest responds, “A shame. Then you must pray for them.”
The conversation only becomes more tense from here on out as the young man attempts to steer the priest toward the more comfortable shores of the arts by saying, “The artist prays by creating.” To which the old priest responds, “That’s not enough! If you do not pray daily you are neglecting your immortal soul. Do you know your catechism?”
Here the young man feels as though he is on firmer ground. He doesn’t need a catechism. He is an intellectual – an artist – free to experience the world and form his own opinions of it. “Certainly not!” he replies. “I do not know my catechism. I do not need my catechism.”
The priest moves on relentlessly – not justifying, not explaining – just walking through the catechism. “Who made you?” he asks. The young man replies, “Different people believe different things about that.” “God made you,” the priest says. “Now, who is God?”
The young man replies, “God is an idea created by man.” The priest responds as if he hadn’t even heard the young man’s answer. “God is a Spirit; infinitely perfect,” he says. “Now…why did God make you?” The young man tries to deny the premise but the priest cuts him off. “God made you to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next.”
Exasperated, the priest says at last, “If you don’t apply yourself to the catechism, how do you expect to know how to save your immortal soul?” “Listen,” the young man says, “I’m not a Roman Catholic.” “A poor excuse for not saying your prayers,” the old priest answers. “But I’m dying,” the young man says. “You’re not dead yet,” the priest retorts.
After a turn in the conversation in which the priest instructs the young man on how to receive the Holy Spirit, the old priest leaves. The last thing the young man hears the priest say, however, is a comment to his mother. “He is a good lad at heart,” the priest says, “but very ignorant.”
What strikes me most about this conversation is the confidence of the priest. He knows that the questions addressed in the catechism – fashionable or not – are the real questions at the heart of life. The old priest standing beside the young man’s bed, tenaciously asking questions that he callously brushes aside, reminds us of what faith looks like…and the contribution it can make to our character. Questions, like some of the great questions in the catechism, remind us that going deeper means asking very tried and true questions…whatever the preoccupation of contemporary culture may say about what matters most.
We think it ordinary to spend twelve or sixteen or twenty years of a person’s life and many thousands of public dollars on education. Yet we spend not one dime or give one thought to a person’s character. Does character matter? Is there a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school? I think the old priest in that Flannery O’Connor story would say that character does matter and that there is a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school. What do you think?
Consider the passage that I read from the gospel according to John. Jesus had been crucified on a Friday afternoon. Come Sunday morning, the disciples heard some wild reports from a few women who’d been to the tomb claiming that he was alive, but they were a bit unsure as to what to make of them. Then – suddenly – Jesus himself appeared to them. The only problem here was that Thomas – better known as Doubting Thomas – was not with them, and he refused to believe what the other disciples were telling him. “Unless I see the mark of the nails,” he said, “and put my finger in the mark of the nails…I will not believe.”
One week later, Thomas got his wish. Jesus appeared to them again and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not be faithless, Thomas, but believe.” Thomas immediately blurted out, “My Lord and my God!” And Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.”
Now after this event, the author of the gospel of John lays out the purpose of his book. He writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written…so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God; and that through believing, you may have life in his name.”
Here’s the quandary. What does it mean to have life in his name? Our Americanized gospel has come to interpret life in his name to mean eternal life, and that’s true. But it means a whole lot more than that. The Greek word translated “life” here is zoane. It literally means life in the physical sense...of the supernatural life believers will receive in the future, as well as that which they enjoy in the here and now. Ladies and gentlemen, listen closely. Life in Jesus’ name has to do with eternal life. But it also has to do with life in the here and now...a life of grace and peace and beauty and holiness. This is what the old priest was trying to tell the dying young man. The question for us now, I suppose, is this: “How do we get there?” How do we attain a life of grace and peace and beauty and holiness ourselves?
I encountered a startling story in a book by Eugene Peterson entitled, Practice Resurrection. There was a woman who grew up in poverty in Arkansas in a harsh fundamentalist atmosphere and abusive circumstances. When she was eighteen-years-old, she escaped her home town and her family and fled to California. It wasn’t long before she became pregnant. She was ecstatic about this new life growing inside of her. She had never felt more “herself.” She had meaning; she had joy; she felt for the very first time as if she was taking part in the mystery of life. While she was no longer religious in any conventional sense, she was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had created and given this life that was within her.
She gave birth to the baby. It was sheer ecstasy, beauty and goodness. And then, a few weeks later, she fell apart. She knew nothing about life. She didn’t know what to do. She was confused, bewildered, and without bearings. She had no idea what to do with a baby...and no visible means to support one. She started drinking and became an alcoholic. She went on to use cocaine and became an addict. It wasn’t long before she turned to prostitution. She spent the next twenty years on the streets of San Francisco, trying to keep herself and her son afloat.
And then one day, she wandered into a church. The church was empty, so she sat down and prayed. And then it happened. She didn’t know exactly how or why, but she knew that it had happened. She had become a Christian. Then it turned out that she was pregnant again. This time around, she knew that she knew nothing about living…but she also knew that this time around there wasn’t going to be any hand-to-mouth existence on alcohol, drugs and prostitution. After poking around a bit, she discovered and embraced the Christian faith, and gave herself up entirely to Jesus Christ.
But do you know what she found most difficult from that point on? American churches. It’s not that she wasn’t welcomed. She was. In fact, she was something of a prize to the church. She was one who had been plucked from the underbelly of the world, and had been transformed, literally. What she found, however, was that these American churches seemed to know a lot about being born again in Jesus’ name. The problem was that they seemed neither interested nor competent in matters pertaining to spiritual growth. They knew a lot about the life of Christ, but they weren’t very good at navigating life in Christ. The people of the church were unable to help her as she struggled to live this side of the cross. She was drowning in a sea of chaos, and there was no one there to toss her a lifeline.
What do you think about that story? Should the members of the church have been able to help her in matters pertaining to spiritual growth, or is that something that’s pretty much the responsibility of the individual? Should the members of the church have been able to help her to live this side of the cross, or are we pretty much on our own when it comes to such things? What it all comes down to is this: People are bobbing in a sea of chaos all around us. Are we equipped, as Christians, to toss them a lifeline? Or are we willing to simply let them drown?
At our Lake Erie Presbytery meeting last Tuesday night, a minister friend of mine by the name of Harry Johns addressed the presbytery. He said, “The church is one generation from death.” He said that when he used to make that statement as a young preacher he didn’t really believe it. But now, as a retired veteran of fifty years of ministry, he sees it as a distinct possibility. The church is one generation from death.
Jesus transformed the world with but eleven disciples. Judas, of course, betrayed him and was no longer counted among the twelve. The way I like to look at that is this: Even Jesus could only keep eleven out of twelve happy. That gives me consolation when people get upset with me. Ladies and gentlemen, we have nearly 1000 members on our rolls. Don’t you think we could make a difference in the name of Jesus Christ in our community…if we only knew how?
The sermon series we begin today is entitled, “Living This Side of the Cross.” It has to do with spiritual growth. As Howie read a moment ago from the book of Ephesians, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head...into Christ Jesus our Lord.” Join me over the course of the next few weeks. We’re going to spend a little time exploring spiritual growth. We’re going to spend a little time learning how to throw a lifeline. We’re going to spend a little time...developing character. Don’t you think it’s high time we did? Amen.
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