To See the Face of God

Hear these words from the Gospel of Luke: 

44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”[e] When he had said this, he breathed his last.

47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

On April 8th, 2024, just 10 days from now, in the middle of the day, the sun will disappear. At least, for those of us who still happen to be on this part of the continent. And the sun won’t really disappear; rather, it will be hidden from view by the moon, hence the name “solar eclipse.” And it won’t entirely disappear unless you find yourself in the “path of totality,” which cuts through the heart of the United States, up through Erie, PA and beyond. If you’re in that path of totality, the day will turn to night, and you’ll have the eerie experience of darkness when darkness isn’t supposed to be. 

Now there are all kinds of warnings out there about the dangers of this particular day. People might be so amazed by this phenomenon that they forget that staring at the sun can have dire consequences. In fact, according to NASA, “Except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s bright face, it is not safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection for solar viewing. Viewing any part of the bright Sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.” There will be one moment, and just one moment, when it will be safe to look directly at the sun, and that is precisely when it is completely hidden by the moon. Other than that on moment, we risk serious damage to our eyes.

How strange that we’ll be able to look at the sun only as soon as its light is blocked out.

Now according to the Gospel of Luke, it is precisely when Jesus dies that “darkness came over the whole land” and the sun stops shining. Some folks say, that it is at this precise moment that the astronomical phenomena of a solar eclipse also happened, although historians and scientists have yet to prove that this was the case. Nonetheless, Luke records a strange occurrence where the sun just disappears, something has blocked it, something has ceased its shine, something has blotted it out, precisely at the moment of Jesus’s death on the cross. And, precisely at the moment of Jesus’s death, precisely when the sun is blotted out, the centurion sees and understands what has happened, responding with praise to God. And, precisely at the moment of Jesus’s death, precisely when the sun is blotted out, “all the people who gathered to witness this sight saw what took place.” And precisely at the moment of Jesus’s death, precisely when the sun is blotted out, “all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching,” seeing. 

How strange the people are able to see as soon as the lights are turned out.

This reminds me of the story of Moses in Exodus 33. Moses has these meetings with God at the appropriately named “tent of meeting,” but the Israelites don’t get to go near it. In fact, they can’t even see it, for God is hidden by a “pillar of cloud.” Now when Moses asks God to show him God’s glory, God responds, in part, with “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” God then arranges it so that Moses is able to see God’s back, but God’s face “must not be seen.” And so, like the sun, the face of God cannot be seen without some dire consequences.

Another story, involving Moses, is one we’ve talked about recently. It’s that strange story of the poisonous snakes in the desert, and all these people who are getting bit and dying. So Moses erects a bronze image of a snake, puts it up high on a pole, and anyone who has been bitten and looks up at that image is instantly healed. Later, in John 3, Jesus brings up that story, and says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” 

When the sun is blocked, it is then that we can look upon it.

When Jesus dies, it is then, in that darkness that we can see.

How strange it is that in order to find healing for ourselves, we must look upon the death of God. 

Can you hold all these stories together? Can you see the thread that connects them all?

When the sun’s rays are no longer seen, it is then that we can look upon it.

When the sun stops shining and Jesus dies, it is then that the centurion and the crowds and Jesus’s followers are able to see.

When God hides God’s face, revealing only God’s back, it is then that Moses can see a glimpse of who God is.

When we look upon the cross, when Jesus is lifted up, it is then that we can see eternal life.

It’s only in total darkness that we can bear to see the face of God.

This is what makes this Friday, “good.”

When we look upon the cross, we see the face of God.

In Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Prize winning masterpiece, Night, he tells the semi-autobiographic story of his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. He depicts horrific event after horrific event, almost to the point where you and the main character, become numb to them. The abuse is so terrible that you stop really seeing it. The stories are so horrifying that you must simply look away. Toward the end of the book, Wiesel is describing the hangings that would occur in the camp from time to time, often punishment for small infractions, but meant as a symbol to the rest of the prisoners of what happens when you do not toe the line. They would be be gathered into the courtyard for these hangings, forced to watch until the punished died, and then forced to line up and walk past their bodies as they hung from the gallows. One day, two men and one small boy were sentenced to death. The soldiers kicked out the chairs from under them, and the two men, being heavier, died within a few seconds. The boy, however, too light for the rope to fully snap his neck, hung there, struggling between life and death, for over a half an hour. As the prisoners marched in line to witness these deaths, one man calls out in despair, “Where is merciful God, where is he? For God’s sake, where is God?” And Eliezer looked to this small struggling boy and responds, “Where is he? Here he is. He is hanging here on the gallows.”

You want to see the face of God and live? You must enter the darkness. You must let your heart break. You must be taken to the edge of your faith. You must wait until the day turns into night before you can see. It’s only in total darkness that we can bear to see the face of God. Come to the cross. Enter the darkness. 

Today we are in the path of totality. 

Look directly at the Son. 

Thanks be to God. 

At the Feet of the Disciples

 

John 13:1-35

Matthew’s were full of calluses. His feet were hardened by the Galilean roads, the flimsy sandals he wore, the miles and miles he walked with them. When I washed his feet, after the initial shock, he relaxed into the experience, a pedicure, a day at the spa. I rubbed right under his instep, trying to soothe all those places he held his fear. 

Andrew’s toes cracked loudly when I washed his feet. He stretched them out as if he’d been wearing too tight shoes for too long. He was embarrassed by the sound, and the other disciples laughed. They’d all been holding so much in. I’d taken them on quite a journey. And now it was almost over. 

John’s feet were thin and swift, nails short-clipped, he had high arches and a strong heel. He was our runner, he could walk for miles without getting tired, he never complained. 

James’s feet were dry and cracked and brittle. He always looked as if he were on the brink of tears. I was gentle, dabbing the cloth rather than wiping, so as not to tear his tender skin. 

Thomas’s feet had been severely neglected. He was our wanderer. We’d lose track of him for hours, and then somehow he’d show up right at mealtimes, usually with a new mouth to feed or a sweet pastry to share. His feet were crooked with bunions, from trying to force his feet into shoes that didn’t fit. I gently pulled on his toes, stretched out his ligaments, tried to tell him that he belonged. 

Peter, well, Peter took me awhile. I could hear everyone’s eyes rolling as he argued with me. They were ready for dinner. But Peter had pulled his robe taut over this legs, trying to hide the feet below, as if he were trying to convince me that he had no feet at all. He wouldn’t let me near them at first. I think he was ashamed of the state of his feet, the dirt under his nails, the corn on his heel, the mud in all the little cracks and wrinkles of his sole. So silly. Doesn’t he know that everyone’s feet get dirty? But when Peter is passionate about something, he dives right in, all the way, and neglects everything else around him, including his feet. So of course, when I insisted, when I told him that I must wash his feet in order for him to have any part of me, he went in whole hog, he wanted his whole body cleaned as well. Easy there, Peter. You’re clean, you’re fine, just as you are. There is such thing as moderation, you know. 

Finally, I came to Judas. His feet were blackened by the tar in the roads, bruised from pacing and worry. I washed his feet too. I started in back, with his heel, the one that would turn against me. I dipped the towel into the basin, let the water seep into its folds. I wrapped the towel around his heel, felt his achilles tendon contract at the touch. It’s ok, I tried to tell him. I know what these feet must do. But still I tried to scrub them clean. They were such strong, willing feet. Earnest feet. Feet ready to change the world. I thought about his father’s smile the first time his feet carried him to his arms. About the giggles that would erupt when his mother tickled and kissed his toes. About all the roads his feet had seen. All the roads we’d walked together. I rinsed out the towel in the basin, rung out the excess, and as I worked down over his tibia, the ligaments in his instep, I thought about the first day we met, how I loved him immediately, without hesitation. And about how I loved him still. Even though he was breaking my heart. 

They say that there is a connection between each part of the foot and every part of the body. The eyes are connected to the third metatarsal, the stomach, pancreas, and kidney to the arch, the sciatic nerve to the line that follows the achilles tendon. Just to the outside of the ball of the foot, they say, is the connection to the heart. I worked that spot hard, willing it to be clean, knowing it couldn’t be, loving it anyway. He was too much in his toes, where his brain and ears, neck and spine were kept. Again and again I wordlessly begged him with each swipe of the towel not to do this, to find another path, to walk a different road. Some tears mixed in with the dirty basin water. Maybe if I cleaned them really well, these feet would not walk out on me. Maybe if I paid closer attention to his arthritis, if I listened better to his heel spurs, massaged the tendonitis, he’d change his mind, he’d take a step back. But like a ballerina in her first pair of pointe shoes, he was all on his toes, all in his head, wrapping and fortifying his feet around so his toes could bear the weight. 

When the right foot didn’t seem to work, when I couldn’t get it clean, I tried again on his left, dipping the towel, wringing out the towel, unfolding the towel, the water splashing out if its bowl. I washed around the bottom, base and edge, around his heel and arch, past the ball, over his thick cuticles and between his toes. He almost laughed, a little smirk, when I reached his toes. Did he remember, then, his mother’s loving touch? 

Did he remember the first times his heart was broken, when his father didn’t return, when the kids laughed at school, when his mother cried herself to sleep every night? Did he recall all the times it cracked in two, again and again, from the disappointment, the broken relationship, the hope deferred? 

Did he remember all the hearts he’s broken since?

Did any of these disciples, my dear friends, recall the moment when they never thought they’d recover from the spurned love, the foreclosure on the house, the illness, the accident, the child who ran away? 

Do they remember the hearts they’ve broken, the mistakes they’ve made, the poor choices chosen? 

There is more to come. Soon, my broken heart will break theirs, and somehow they will have to find a way to keep going, to keep walking, to keep stepping forward. Somehow they will have to take their broken hearts and wash the feet of those who have broken them. They will have to find a way to let someone, whose heart they’ve broken, wash their own feet to healing. These are the only steps forward.

They are going to break each other’s hearts. 

Their hearts will all be broken. 

But, I wonder, will they wash their feet anyway, will they let their feet be washed? 

This is the only way. 

Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives these broken hearts receives me. And whoever receives my broken heart, receives the heart of God. 

Thanks be to God.

Choose Your Gate Adventure

 

John 12:12-19

So come with me to early Spring, circa AD 33. It’s been a dry winter in Judea, and you’ve been preparing the fields for planting. It’s hard work, ploughing the fields with rudimentary tools, and you are exhausted from day. They’re not your fields, of course; they belong to a rich overseer, who, once he has been paid, will sometimes condescend to throw you a few pennies in return for your toil. And, since you work for a “kind and benevolent" landowner, you are getting a few days off soon, so that you may celebrate the most sacred days in the Jewish calendar, Passover. You’re not sure how you will afford the offering necessary from all Jews in good standing, but this year, like all the years before, you are relying on God to somehow make this possible. Maybe there will be a sale on unblemished lambs at the monopoly grocery store down the road. Or maybe the road will be too dangerous altogether, what with all the rowdy insurrectionist groups popping up to protest throughout Galilee. It’s been pretty wild lately, what with the demonstrations and the angry mobs organizing and gathering momentum. It’s a tinderbox out there. One small disruption and the whole place will go up in flames. You know that it’s your faithful duty, but you are tempted to sit this Passover out, just this one time. Things are tense out there, politically, economically, and socially. You just want to keep your head down and survive.

But today, at the end of the day, for once, you come home from the fields and, as your wife is adding more water to the soup, and as you’re sorting through the mail, separating the junk mail ads, from the bills you have no idea how you’ll pay, from the past due tax notices, you find something different — an invitation from the Temple priests in Jerusalem.

You are cordially invited to the yearly celebration of independence, called Passover. This is a weeklong feast, with prayers to God, delicious food, singing, dancing, and connecting with extended family members from miles around. You’re invited to this year’s family reunion, where you will connect and celebrate with hundreds of people who share your language, your lineage, your customs, and your stories. Come. Wear your finest robes. Bring a dish to share. Invite your neighbors. The more, the merrier. This is the day the Jews gather in Jerusalem to celebrate their freedom from the slavery and oppression of the Egyptians. It’s the biggest party of the year. Imagine boy bands and parades with floats and character balloons, a giant illuminated ball that will drop from the sky as we count down the final moments to freedom. This is our Fourth of July, a celebration from the tyranny of imperial rule, a proclamation of Jewish freedom, a time to rejoice and, perhaps, ignore the fact that you are still under imperial rule. Your oppressors have simply changed names, if not tactics — once they were Egyptians, then they were Babylonians, and today they’re the Romans, and two thousand years later, they’ll be the giant corporations that make unprecedented profits that they hoard for themselves at the expense of the working poor. But for now, you’re invited to ignore all that for the sake of remembering that, even though you’re still oppressed from every side, you’re no longer being oppressed by folks named Egyptians.

When you arrive at Jerusalem, you will need to come in to the city from one of two gates. There’s a front door, and a back door. 

The road to the front gate will be decorated with flags and paraments, with parapets towering above you on either side. This is the gate that most will enter. If you decide to enter through this gate, you’ll get to watch as Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, parades into the city on a majestic white horse. He’ll be wearing a polished helmet with feathered plumes jutting out from the top. He’ll be wearing his full armor, and leading a regiment of troops marching behind him. Security will be tight. After all, this is a celebration of our freedom, and Rome would hate for us to get too carried away. We might start demanding freedom from them, and not just from the Egyptians of old. So Pontius Pilate will be coming in to keep the peace, to keep people in line, and to quash any hints of insurrection by any means necessary. That’s why, if you enter through the front gate, you’ll see the gleaming metal of swords and spears, shields and daggers. Behind this brigade will come the religious leaders, who cooperate and collaborate with the Roman Empire so that they, too, can keep their roles as the powerful elite. They are here to keep you safe. They are here to keep the peace. They are here to maintain order and the status quo. They are here to decide what is best for you. They are here to remind you who is in charge. They are here to enforce the laws and to brook no conspiracies, demonstrations, or protests. Going through the front gate is definitely the safest option. If you’re lucky, they’ll toss you a couple of coins in exchange for your “authentic” enthusiasm. You just need to celebrate freedom from Egyptian rule, all the while celebrating Roman rule. Come through the front gate, and you will come to Jerusalem under the protection and ever present eye of the Roman Empire, upon which the sun never goes down. You’ll be searched at the gate, you’ll pay the proper entrance fee and any outstanding taxes, the soldiers may take your temple offerings for themselves, and you’ll have to swear allegiance to the empire, but hey, it’s safe and guaranteed and legal. Most folks decide to enter Jerusalem this way.

There is one other option, although I don’t recommend it. But hey, you do you. It’s to enter Jerusalem through the back door. This is definitely the more dangerous route to take. If you enter through the back door, you won’t find a powerful military leader on the back of a majestic steed; rather, you’ll probably encounter a peasant man, riding a donkey, in mockery of all the pomp and circumstance going on out front. The road to the back gate will be lined with hoodlums and revolutionaries, delusional protesters who believe that through nonviolent resistance, they have a hope of toppling this powerful regime. Rome doesn’t pay much attention to them, and when they do, they will stamp out any fires of rebellion with a couple of token crucifixions just out of town. This road is lined with a parade of folks in rags, the sick, the poor, the smelly, the mentally ill, the lame, the lazy. They’ll be waving sticks and branches that they’ve torn off the trees, and they’ll be shouting Hosanna! Save Us! At the unarmed, defenseless man on the donkey. If, by chance, you get close enough to get a good look at him, you might notice his sad but resolute expression as he slowly heads toward the back gate. He knows what he’s getting himself in to. This is his “triumphal entry” that will not be a triumph at all. He is marching to his death, and this is his one last feeble attempt at a prophetic symbol, at mocking the Roman Empire, at demonstrating against the Imperial powers that hold us captive, that decide our fates, that keep us from living our fullest lives. 

Anyway, if you go through the back gate, you’ll probably lose everything, if you had anything in the first place, and you’ll figure out first hand what happens to those who stand up against the tyrants and dictators who oppress them. But, you’ll start to question the dirty, rotten system you’ve been living under, you’ll start to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and you’ll probably start to imagine what life might look like if wars ended, if everybody was fed and housed and cared for, and if God were the one put in charge for once. Through the back gate you’ll find a completely different way of life, one without guarantees or luxuries or stock options. You’ll have a different kind of king, who has totally different values from the rest of this world. You’ll probably stick out like a sore thumb. You’ll probably start doing weird things like search for impossible solutions to impossible problems, and you’ll be hopeful despite the facts, and you’ll refuse to give up. If you go through the back gate, you’ll start to question authority, and you’ll ask “why” a lot. You’ll start feeling connected to every living thing.  And that means that your heart will probably be broken. Probably a lot. But you’ll be seen and loved and treasured. And you’ll learn how to see, and love, and treasure. For as long as you’re here, anyway.

You are invited. Please RSVP as soon as possible, indicating your choice of chicken or fish, and your desire to enter either the front or back gates. We will plan accordingly. If you enter through the front gate, you’re guaranteed to have a nice time, to get home safely, and to keep living your life as you always have. If you decide to go through the back gate, I’m not sure what will happen, but just know that your life will be changed forever.

Thanks be to God. 

Finding Our Octopus: When Dying Brings Us to Life

 

John 12:20-33

At the beginning of the 2020 documentary, “My Octopus Teacher,” filmmaker Craig Foster tells the story of how he had lost his love for life. He’d sort of lost who he was. Burned out from his work that had taken him all around the world, and deeply depressed, he goes back to his South African home to try to reconnect with what really matters in his life. He couldn’t find it. To try to shake himself out of his mental and emotional stupor, he went out into the cold and unforgiving waters of the Atlantic, where he would free dive, holding his breath for minutes at a time, diving deeper and deeper into the kelp forest, blocking out everything else in his life that he simply couldn’t fix, until one day, he met an octopus. 

Somewhere around the year 2020, I was tasked with bringing a dead congregation back to life. Peters Creek United Presbyterian Church had experienced a deep schism about thirteen years prior, and had been undergoing years of litigation since. Half the congregation left the Presbyterian church and felt like they had a right to the building and all of the congregation’s assets. The remaining congregation had dug their heels in, refusing to let go of any of it without a fight. Needless to say, after years of meetings with lawyers, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, trials, retrials, and appeals, the congregation had dwindled to about five faithful members, a small group of stubborn Presbyterians who loved their church and held out hope for a timely resurrection in their midst. After all, if Jesus could feed five thousand with five loaves of bread and a couple of fish, what could he do with five dedicated, and did I mention stubborn, Presbyterians who were ready to do anything it took to bring new life to this neighborhood church? I was ready to give it my all, my everything. I was going to try all the experiments and make all the connections and work and work and work until I figured out what worked. I was going to give my best sermons and be my most exuberant self and draw in the crowds with my quirky, yet bubbly, personality. And then, of course, Covid hit.

At first, Craig kept his distance from the octopus, only wanting to observe her from afar so as not to disturb her way of life. Thinking that she was fearful of him, but still curious about this strange marine animal, he left his camera at the bottom of the sea floor, and rose to the surface for some air. Curious, the octopus creeped out of her cave to explore the strange object. The camera records her using the suckers on her tentacles to feel out what this oddity might be. When Craig returned to fetch his camera, he was surprised to find her nearby, watching him, seemingly without fear. Day after day he went searching for the octopus, learning about the intricate details of the animals of the kelp forest, and the signs they left behind. He saw how mollusks leave delicate tracks in the sand, how the pajama sharks gather together to feed, how the fish seem to school where the kelp grows thicker. And then, one day, he saw her. He saw her again, and began to follow her. He left all his cares behind. He forgot about his depression and anxiety, the mistakes he’d made in his marriage and with his son, and simply single-mindedly pursued this strange creature that was so unlike himself. 

Lots of folks told me that I had been hired to do the impossible. They told me that I needed to be kind to myself when I didn’t see growth in the church, that I needed to be patient, and maybe even a little bit resigned to the fate of this already dead church. And what with Covid, it wasn’t like I could go knocking on doors to invite them back to church, I couldn’t throw a big tent revival to bring the neighborhood back together, there just wasn’t much I could do but watch, and pray, and wait. My anxiety was through the roof. How on earth was I going to save this church? Time - and money - was running out. But all I could do was take some online courses, read some books, I started some spiritual direction, I sat alone in my office and watched the deer yank crabapples from the tree in the churchyard. And my world got smaller. I did one thing at a time. After all, what else could I do? I felt completely useless. 

The octopus got used to Craig’s presence. She grew curious, and floated closer and closer to discover more about his strange appendages, the weird mask over his eyes, the odd way he would swim to the surface and then come back down again. He reached his hand out to her and she wrapped her tentacles around him, both of them exploring this strange other. He watched her hunt, watched her play games with the fish, watched her change colors and fit herself into the tiniest cracks to protect herself from predators. Deep under water, he became single minded, and as the waves and his life crashed above him, he let himself go down into this strange otherworld, watching and waiting for this one common octopus to arrive, to teach him something new. 

As soon as this pandemic was over, I’d be able to get back to work. I’d be able to fix this church. I’d gather all the people and preach my little heart out and wrestle this little church from the ashes. As soon as we got through this, I’d really get to work. Until then, I’d started putting out seed for the birds in my front yard. I’d watch the sparrows hop between the feeders, quarreling over the best perches and the tastiest kernels. I saw the piles of discarded sunflower hulls accumulate on the ground. Meanwhile, I preached to five people in a church that once held hundreds, Sunday after Sunday. I learned how to be quiet. How to watch. How to wait.

How was it that Craig found himself by observing and relating to a creature so unlike himself? How was it that he’d reach this intense focus each time he dove under the water, where time stood still, and he became singularly passionate about simply watching this strange cephalopod go about the rhythms of her life? By focusing on this one creature, this one strange thing, this completely Other creature, by giving his whole presence to it, he entered what psychologists call a “flow state,” where he, himself, disappeared, and all that exists is what is right now, a small octopus in a kelp forest just off the South African coast. Had he, somehow, shed his distractions, his self-definitions, his accolades and achievements, his laurels and masks, and simplified himself down to this one thing - just one man watching one octopus, day after day after day.

When people enter this “flow state,” they don’t experience many thoughts about themselves or about their performance. In some ways, they sort of “disappear” into the fullness of what they’re doing. They lose track of time. They forget where they are. They lose their egos and identities. They lose themselves. The hull cracks open. The shell falls away. The seed dies. We are so fully ourselves that all our masks disappear, our scales flake off, and we are just here in the present moment, where we’ve sloughed off ourselves to the extent that we’ve just disappeared, and all we have left is nothing more or less than exactly who we’ve been created to be. Craig Foster calls this connection through otherness “remembering that we are wild.” It doesn’t happen all the time, and when it does, it’s only for the briefest of moments, but it’s this place where we let expectations and distractions and labels and our egos fall away and we realize that we are connected to the great Source itself: God - that unifying intelligence that keeps us alive from one moment to the next. Craig experienced a kind of death to himself, a re-wilding, a singular focus on something so completely other than himself that through it he found himself. 

“Anyone who loves their life will lose it. And anyone who lets go of their life, for my sake, will keep it for eternal life.” 

The church did die. The congregation dismantled. My job was dissolved. I’d failed. The seed fell to the ground and died. And even today we’re still waiting for the fruit to come of all this brokenness and hurt and pain and death of a church. But there are still those sparrows that come to my bird feeder. There’s still the quiet I’d learned to hear. There were five dear presbyters that I’d learned to love. And maybe, most importantly, there was the death of my self that thought that saving the church was all up to me. There was this seed of myself that fell to the ground and died, that seed that thought I had the power to control outcomes and resurrect communities if I just worked hard enough, if I just believed more, if I just gave more of myself to it. 

After 304 days straight of visiting this octopus, Craig Foster watched her slowly dissolve her life in to the thousands of fertilized eggs that would be her only legacy. It took everything she had left to bring these new lives into the world, and of the thousands, only a few would survive. She’d given her life for life, and when she was done, she let go. She floated along with the current until a shark snatched her away. And that was it. Craig swam home. And he began to write the whole heartbreaking, life-giving story. A simple story of an octopus who, simply by living, helped a man lose his life to find it again. 

“Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single seed, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And what is hidden in the fruit? More seeds. More seeds to fall to the ground and die, more seeds to bear much fruit. Dying seeds become fruiting plants that form seeds and fall to the ground and die again. And around and around it goes. 

Craig Foster takes his son out for dives now. He teaches his son what the octopus taught him. One day, just under the surface of the water, they found a tiny octopus, who curiously, wrapped its tentacles around their fingers. A tiny octopus who looked curiously familiar.

There is a flow we all enter, a kind of self-less energy that overwhelms us, and all that is not us — all the expectations and assumptions and shame and regrets — falls away, we’re cracked open like a seed, and that is where we find ourselves again. This is the invitation of Jesus. It’s not an invitation to work more or try harder, it’s not an invitation to hate ourselves, it’s not an invitation to martyrdom or self-immolation, or to make ourselves so small that no one can see us or hear us or know that we’re there. It’s not even primarily and invitation to escape this world for some better reality up in the clouds. It’s an invitation to dive deeper into ourselves, to watch, to wait, and to love so fiercely that we can be nothing outside of what we love. It’s an invitation to enter the flow, that place where we lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. Our truest selves. The selves that are cracked open, broken open, loved open, and opened up to be exactly who God has created us to be. 

Where is your octopus? That one thing that calls to you, that brings you so much to life that you can’t help but forget about your life, you can’t help but forget about your self so you can give your whole self to it that it might live? Remember when you had that? Remember what it felt like? You, being so very you, that you forgot about…you.  It’s time to swim into the deep waters to find it again. It’s time to swim into the deep waters to lose, and to find, yourself again. This is the call of Christ. 

Thanks be to God. 

The Eternal Now

 

John 3:14-21

Ok. Two wild passages for today. Two passages about snakes and lifting up and poison and healing and eternal life. I love these passages. And I don’t understand them at all. First, we have a bunch of folks wandering the wilderness who are complaining about the food they say they don’t have. And when a bunch of poisonous snakes attack and Moses intercedes, in what, I assume is Samuel L. Jackson’s voice, God tells him to make a bronze image of one of these treacherous snakes, raise it high up on a pole, and everyone who is bitten and looks upon the snake is healed. Fast forward seven hundred odd years later, and it’s not a snake on a pole that saves, but Jesus, on a cross, lifted high. Fast forward two thousand years from there, and we’ve turned this passage into a middle school girl’s note passed around in math class. Do you like Jesus? Circle ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and voila, your eternal destination is determined. 

We’ve turned John 3:16 into such a cliche. We see it painted on bedsheets at football games, we slap bumper stickers with this verse onto the trunks of our cars, we use it as a scripture bomb to lob over to someone who doesn’t believe the same way we do so that we can somehow prove that our way is the best and only way. It’s become our get-out-of-jail-free card, our hall pass to get us out of the hell of first period wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

Just agree to this verse, logically assent to the series of propositions that it presents, and voila, instant heaven. That’s it. All of your worries about your regrets and your fears about what happens after we die, are, poof, gone. Simply agree to the veracity of this verse, and that’s it, you’re done; you’re heaven bound. Now you just have to suffer through the inconveniences of this life until you get to the end and then you cross over the rainbow bridge where everything is peace and light and perfection and halos and harps and angel wings. 

See, I think we maybe get it a little bit wrong, or we miss something important, when we cast this very important verse solely into the realm of where we’re going to end up when we die. Does it bring you comfort about what comes after this life? Excellent. Do you hope for a heavenly state where you are reunited with loved ones and pain has ceased and you’re singing the praises of your savior until the end of time? Awesome. Hold on to that. Don’t give that up. God says important things about salvation after our physical deaths.

But. Or, rather, and. 

There is an eternal life that is right here, right now, that we so often miss because we’re so occupied with the regrets of the past, or we’re so obsessed with escaping into the future. We don’t know where to turn. We lose our focus on what’s important, and each time, God gives us something to focus on. For the wandering Israelites, he gave them a bronze snake. A symbol to remind them that it is God who saves. For the first century Christians, it was Jesus, lifted high on a cross. And for us, it’s still Jesus, lifted high on a cross, but not just as a get-out-of-hell-free coupon, or as “fire-insurance,” but to show us that it is God’s work, both in and out of time, that saves. God cares about our eternal future, absolutely, but I also think that God cares about our eternal now. This requires us to play in the philosophical sandbox for a minute. But don’t worry if you feel like you’re getting buried in the sand at first. Let’s just play around with time for a little bit. It’ll be fun. 

Paul Tillich calls this the “eternal now.” 

He says our existence is defined by time. We have a beginning and we will have an end. There was a time before we existed. And there will be a time after. And some day, even time will end. Just as the darkness was separated from the light and the earth was formed and the soil created and time began, so will the soil disappear, and the earth will fall away, and darkness collapse back into the light. There is a beginning. And there is an end. But, he says, the God who enters time is also the God who is also outside of time. Time will end, but there is an “eternity above time,” there is an “eternal as the ultimate point in our past.” And, likewise, there is an eternal as the ultimate point in our future. Or, stated a little more simply, time is just a construct, as we have just illustrated today when we somehow “lost” an hour of sleep last night and suddenly the sun will stay out an hour “longer” tonight. 

There is something even beyond time, outside of time, that isn’t defined by a past or a future, but that just is. We call this reality, “God.” God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And just as we believe that God became flesh and entered into the temporal now of human existence, Tillich says that God enters into our own temporal nows, our own “right here”s. A sort of incarnational two-way bridge is formed, where the incarnated, fleshy, earthly, timely world of human existence reveals the ethereal, transcendent, timeless, eternal ultimate love of God. When this happens, the “temporal” now, and the “eternal” now overlap, and we encounter God. He says, “Not everybody, and nobody all the time, is aware of this ‘eternal now’ in the temporal ‘now.’ But sometimes it breaks powerfully into our consciousness and gives us the certainty of the eternal, of a dimension of time which cuts into time and gives us our time.” 

It’s in this eternal now, in this present moment that surpasses all moments, that we experience forgiveness, “belief”- whatever that is - and light in the darkness. It’s in the eternal now that God is present and “lives” and meets us where we are. But it’s not some escape, some other place, where we can leave behind the messiness of our lives. In the eternal now, the facts cannot be changed, what has happened has happened, but the meaning of what has happened can change, and when the meaning surpasses the pain of the past, that is forgiveness. The meaning of the past is changed, and that makes all the difference for our future. But that only happens in the time that we actually have, and the only time that we actually have is right now, in the present. The past is gone. The future’s not here. We just have right now. And it’s so fleeting, that the second that I say “right now” the present is gone, poof, never to be seen or experienced again. But there are those moments that seem to last longer, that seem to be more real, that seem to transcend time, and those moments are “eternal now” moments, those moments are encounters with God, and in those moments, we are saved. In those moments we are not perishing, but we have eternal life. 

Ok. I’m sure I’ve lost you with all this existential philosophizing. I apologize. I get all excited and I just can’t help it, and it’s really cozy and comfortable for me in the world of theory and thought and the hypothetical. But what I’m trying to say is that John 3:16 is so much easier to handle if we just project it into our futures and make it all about an afterlife. John 3:16 is so much easier to handle if we keep it at arms length and simply say that it’s about belief and unbelief, or assenting to the right creed, or marking the “yes” or “no” box on the “Who gets in to heaven list." But, more and more, as I experience the healing force of being in the present, of being in the now, of being centered and mindful of what is right here, right in front of us, I am starting to believe that John 3:16 is more than a litmus test for believers; it is an experience of something more, of something eternal, even as it is a present “here-ness.” God so love the world that God entered into limited bounded realm of time so that everyone who believes may not perish in the right here, in the right now, but have eternal life.

This is all I really want to say to you today. God is with us, right here, in this eternal moment. This is eternal life. That’s the eternal life we can tap in to. Not some distant, far off, nebulous vision of us reaching the pearly gates and checking our names on the John 3:16 list, and forgetting about all the hurt we’ve caused and the pain we’ve suffered, but in the right here, in the right now, God, incarnate, present in this presence, in meaning-making forgiveness that God offers. It’s what we should focus on.

My spiritual director has been trying to get me out of my “head” for months now. Every time I try to experience God or have some kind of an encounter with God, every time I try to pray or meditate or try some contemplation technique, I jump into my logical mind. I end up asking all kinds of questions, I want to know the Greek, and I want to know the Ancient Near East Palestinian context and I have this sudden urge to dig out the commentaries and talk to scholars and head to the library. I want to check the boxes to make sure I don’t miss anything. I want to get it right so that I don’t need the forgiveness in the first place. 

But “no,” she says, "don’t do that. Stick with the image. Take the risk. Use your imagination. Focus on the now. Experience what God is trying to say to you today.” Well, one day we were supposed to connect with Jesus in his childhood. We were supposed to listen and watch and explore Jesus as a young child. And as many of you know, we don’t get a whole lot about Jesus’s childhood in the Gospels. It’s all left up to our imaginations. Ugh. There’s not a lot to ask about when there’s nothing there, and I didn’t have any Greek to look up or context to fill in, there was just this vast expanse of time that nobody really knows anything about. So, instead of giving up, and instead of looking for another reference book, I took Jesus to my own childhood, to my own backyard, and to the overgrown lot next door. To when I was eight or so. And I was also 42. And I showed Jesus the best climbing trees and all the times we started building a treehouse but never finished. I showed him where we buried a time capsule full of Pepsi clear and a box of Runts and Lisa Frank stickers and a picture of Molly Ringwald. I showed him my swing set and the thin row of grass where I tried to plant a garden but the rhubarb was the only thing that survived and only Dad liked rhubarb. 

I told him about the time I fell off the neighbor’s shed and another time when I jabbed my elbow into the window well and needed rows and rows of stitches. We ate mulberries right off the branches. And then night came. And the fireflies started glowing. And we sat together on my front step. And we watched. I was listening hard for God to speak to me. But, we just sat. We just waited together. We weren’t even sure what we were waiting for. And I swear. I promise. For half a second. For a split moment that was beyond moments. For the briefest of time that was truly outside time, in the remembering of a hot summer night in the late 1980s, I swear, in that present moment, in my 42 year old body that is now my 45 year old self, in that eternal now, I looked all around at this incarnated world lifted high, and I could hear the cicadas singing.

Thanks be to God.