Tag: seeing

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Imaginary Things

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Proper 17 (22) | Mark 7:1-23

Imaginary Things

Lectionary Project—Part of an ongoing three year project of weekly posts based on the Gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary. A study in practical theology.

Rules are simple things. By means of rules we divide the universe into halves, and we set one against the other. One obeys a rule, or one does not. One is right or wrong, in or out. There is only light and dark, black and white, and by means of such a mental contrivance we simplify our world.

There is only one problem. Rules are imaginary things.

Our world is probably not imaginary, or if it is, we are part of the same dream. Imagination is not what we see: imagination is how we see it.

The same beautiful lorikeet as elsewhere on this page, but in black and white. Look at what is lost. (Photo taken at the Lorikeet Landing at the NC Aquarium in Ft Fisher.)
The same beautiful lorikeet as elsewhere on this page, but in black and white. Look at what is lost. (Photo taken at the Lorikeet Landing at the NC Aquarium in Ft Fisher.)

Take the creation stories of Genesis. They help us to imagine the coming into being of the world—so far so good. When we take those stories and set them against the explanations of science, we have ourselves performed an act of creation—we have created a duality that does not exist, pitting science against faith. If science discovers a truth that contradicts a tenet of faith, as Galileo did, then it is our theology that is flawed.

It is a bit like describing death to a child. An explanation of the biological process, while scientific, may be useful on some levels, but such an explanation will not assuage her grief. A non-scientific story, even a mythical or fanciful one, illustrating the wheel or cycle of life may be more helpful in addressing her feelings, the human pain of loss. The two approaches are different, but they are not in opposition. Each is helpful in the right setting. Yet there is something in humanity that wants to hold to a single view, a single explanation of the world, as though the mind were a hand too small to grasp two strings at once.

It is the easy way.

The religious folk in the passage from Mark are no different. Beginning with the notion of living a life of faith, they developed rules. Having developed the rules, they began to follow their rules instead of their faith.

Rules define things. One either follows them or one does not; one is therefore considered faithful by the other religious folk or one is not. Rules eliminate the gray areas on the face of our moral compass. Tithing replaces generosity. Obedience replaces faith. Rules replace thought. Religion replaces love.

Some modern Christians are tempted to label the people in this Gospel story as ‘Old Testament’ thinkers—people of the rules—as opposed to the opposite notion of ‘New Testament’ thinkers—people of grace. That kind of thinking only works if you forget that 700 years before Christ was born, the prophet Micah had already gotten there:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.IMG_2389
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
—Micah 6:8 (NIV)

Long before Jesus dealt with the rule followers, their own prophets had already rejected sacrifice and ritual and rules. It seems some of them weren’t listening. Centuries later, some of the people around Jesus were still more concerned about ritual, rules, and conformity than about love.

In all of scripture, it was never written that God preferred rules, or governance, or even religion. The prophets told us that God is love, that God is light.

Sin is never about failing to follow rules. Sin is always about failing to act in love.

No matter how well we follow the rules, if we act without love, we have failed. If we forget all the rules, but treat ourselves and one another with love, we are people after God’s own heart.

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I See You

Second Sunday After the Epiphany  |  John 1:43-51

I See You

Lectionary Project

Nathanael was a dreamer. There is nothing wrong with that. There is much that is very right about sitting under a fig tree and watching the world around you. It doesn’t even have to be a fig tree, or a tree at all. A park bench will do. A curb. A quiet corner.

In some ways dreaming must have been easier in Nathanael’s day—fewer distractions. On the other hand, where did he find the spare time? Life in general was more difficult then, or so we think as we busy ourselves with our gadgets and conveniences. We have traded the joy of a meal for the convenience of fast food, and our lives are the less for it.

InATreePerhaps that is what Nathanael was doing when Jesus spotted him—having a meal. There are worse places to have lunch than under a tree. Of course, he may have been taking a nap, or waiting for a friend.

Jesus saw something in this young man, not that we even know how old Nathanael was. He could have been quite old. He may have sat under that same tree with a loaf of bread and a little wine every day for forty years, for all we know. Maybe he was famous for sitting and day dreaming, the sort of old man who feeds the birds with scraps from his lunch.

Jesus spotted him as an honest man. Maybe there was something open and inviting in the way Nathanael looked out at the world, expecting something to happen or someone to call him to join an adventure.

He certainly got one.

Jesus promised Nathanael that he would see “…heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.” That would be something, heaven opened to our view, and angels coming and going. I wonder whether Nathanael ever got to see it. If so, the gospels fail to mention it. If Nathanael wrote a gospel himself, it’s been lost. We may never know whether he saw those angels. We do know that he saw plenty after that day under the fig tree. He saw enough.

He was amazed that Jesus had seen him and known what sort of man he was, just from looking at him. It must have been a simple thing for Jesus, like a circus announcer knowing at a glance whether a child will prefer the tigers and elephants or the clowns. Whether the insight Jesus had was human or from God, Nathanael was amazed.

You ain’t seen nothing yet, Jesus told him.

According to the Gospel stories, Nathanael saw sick people healed, blind given their sight, and the dead raised back to life. He heard some of the most profound teaching that has ever been spoken on the planet. He listened as one man challenged the practices of an ancient religion and belief systems stretching beyond the Roman empire. Perhaps even more amazing, more spellbinding, was watching a man walking willfully and purposefully toward his own end for a higher purpose.

We are mesmerized by computers and video screens. We are astonished by government waste and abuse. We are fascinated by the failures of the famous, enthralled by the excesses of the rich, captivated by the atrocities of terrorists, evil regimes and unlikely lunatics. Why are we amazed at these things?

We walk past children and flowers as though they were commonplace throughout the universe. They aren’t. A fig tree doesn’t get a second glance, even if it got a first one, and nobody wastes time standing around under the thing. Viruses replicate, stars flame, and water dances within and around us, pouring through our veins, falling from the sky, dancing as ice crystals and clouds, and we either take no notice or complain. We move in bodies made of stardust, and we have forgotten the wonder of it.

There is so much in our lives that should astound us, so much that should settle or shake our faith. We are amazed when we stumble upon the things we did not see but that were there all along.

Hearing a kind word when we did not know we were seen. Disregard from people we love. Love from someone we had not noticed. The laughter of children, the love of dogs, and the toleration of cats. The ability of human beings to get out of bed when the day before has taken everything from them. Sunlight. Starlight. The vivid elasticity of memory. The power of dreams. A changing heart. The brevity of our years.

We should stop to look, stop to be seen. Breathe the air, watch the light, look for what is in plain sight that we have not noticed. Hurrying is not the best use of our time. Being busy is not the same as being alive. Talking about God is not the same as being touched by God.

Nathanael professed faith in Jesus as soon as they met. It was not because of what Nathanael saw in Jesus. It was because of what Jesus had seen in him.

We are surrounded by people, captured on cameras, pulled into roles that fill the minutes of every day, and still we often feel that we are unseen, unknown, strangers to one another, moving so very alone and invisible through crowds of people like ourselves. We realize that the people who do not see us are themselves also unseen, that each of them is as surrounded and as alone as we. And we do not see them, because we are lost in our own solitary way through the crowd. We tell ourselves that we value our anonymity, that it is safe.

When you were under the fig tree, I saw you, Jesus said. I noticed. I saw you standing there, unseen by everyone but me.

It is amazing what being seen, really seen, by another human being can do.

Imagine being seen, really seen, by God.

That is what faith is all about—simply believing that God sees us, even when we cannot see God.

Hubble Images a Swarm of Ancient Stars

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What We Miss

What We Miss  |  Matthew 14:22-33

They weren’t meant to see. At least that is what Mark claimed in his Gospel, and he told the story first — “He intended to pass them by.” (Mark 6:48b)

Standing in Surf 2 4x6The tale of Jesus walking on the water is told in Mark, Matthew and John. Luke skipped it, who knows why. Mark plainly says that Jesus was not performing for the benefit of the group in the boat. He intended to pass them by. They weren’t even meant to see.

Mark left out the part about Peter nearly drowning. If tradition is correct and Mark was Peter’s disciple, writing from the recollections of that elder disciple, then we may well understand why Peter’s plunge into the water was left out.

Matthew gives us Peter in all his failure, but he doesn’t point out that Jesus never intended any of them to see him. Perhaps it is better to put it another way and say that Jesus was not trying to get their attention. If they saw him, then they saw him. If not, they would be missing a fine show.

Not everything God does is for our benefit. The universe does not center on us. If Shakespeare was right and the world’s a stage, then we might remember that we are in the play, not the audience. It is a fine show, but we are just part of it.

Worship is not entertainment. This is not the God Show, or if it is, we are only peeking around the curtains. We are not ushered to front row seats and given popcorn.

Nobody is.

We might want to keep our eyes open, though. Even if God is not performing for our entertainment, there are still amazing things on this stage. There are people who surprise us, sunsets and turkeys and squirrels and rain. There are children who tell us the truth. There are adults who might be more polite, or afraid, or disinterested, and who refrain from doing so.

Every day is full of things we do not expect to see, and will not, if we do not open our eyes. There is what we hear and see, and there are the things we know in our hearts. All of them require a certain amount of attention.

Otherwise we are like that bunch of disciples sitting in the boat. All they saw in the night was the storm and the sea and the water filling the bottom of the boat. They never saw what God was doing until they lifted their eyes to look.

They could have missed it. God, who is funny that way, would have let them.

On the other hand, Jesus didn’t really have to go walking out there on the water in the first place, did he? With all of the astonishing things these men and women who followed Jesus did see, it makes us wonder what else they might have missed.

It makes me wonder what we may be missing.

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What We Do Not See

Sixth Sunday of Easter  |  John 14:15-21

Growing up in the countryside of eastern North Carolina, it is important to learn certain skills. When I was a boy, my father called me over to a pile of pine straw and fallen leaves and asked me what I saw. I knew there was a trick to it, because all I saw was leaves and pine straw.

Wild orchid 021“Step closer,” he said, and I did. I still saw nothing but pine straw.

“Step a little closer, and kneel down,” he said. Pine straw and leaves. Nothing else.

“Now lean forward, and stay there until you see something,” my father said. I did. I looked at the pile of pine straw and wondered what was there that I was not seeing.

That’s when I saw it.

Right in front of me, coiled, unmoving, perfectly blending with the pine straw and the leaves, staring back at me, was a snake, a copperhead. As you might imagine, it formed a powerful childhood memory.

More importantly, having seen that snake for myself that day, I can Green Snakesee them now, even when they are camouflaged in the straw, without having anyone point them out. My mind found the pattern of the snake, and that the pattern was burned into my memory.

As I said, being able to recognize poisonous snakes is a valuable thing when you live near the rivers and swamps of eastern North Carolina, and my father was an excellent teacher. A little scary, perhaps, but good. (Imagine what my childhood would have been like in Australia.)

In this part of the world, the snakes are always there. You may not see them, but they are there, and they can certainly find you.

I am not saying that God is like a snake. It is just that sometimes we notice only the things that we expect to see: sunlight, television shows, the faults of other people, the faults in ourselves. Sometimes we do not see the things that we are not expecting, even when they are right in front of us: a flower on a cactus, the love of a friend, the kindness of a coworker, our own abilities and gifts.

The gospel of John portrays Jesus saying that the world does not receive the Spirit of God because the world does not see God, does not even expect to see God. Those who know God do see the Spirit of God around them, within them, because they are watching. They know for whom they are looking. Having looked for God, they also receive the presence of God.

Maybe that is what the beatitudes mean—blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Maybe a pure heart is simply an expectant one. We see only when we are looking. And we see only what we expect to see.

Faith is sometimes simply a matter of seeing things that we did not expect and of expecting the things that we do not see. It is that simple.

Lean in. Keep looking until you can see it.