rishi
Paradoxical Community
Posted on: 10/31/2010 17:50
Suzie was sitting by the pond in the park with her grandmother. It was a beautiful Fall day. They were watching the geese and the ducks swim. Two of the ducks paddled over to the edge of the pond, and began waddling over to them, or at least in their direction. These ducks were clearly very comfortable with humans; probably they were used to being fed. But Suzie and her grandmother didn't have anything to feed them. So grandma thought it best to “shoo” them away before they got too close... because the ducks in this park sometimes have a hard time taking “no” for an answer. But as grandma got up and began to “shoo” the two ducks away, little Suzie shouted out: “Oh... don't do that Grandma, whatever you do!” Puzzled by the seriousness and urgency of Suzie's tone, Grandma asked her: “Why not?” Suzie replied. “Didn't you hear, Grandma, last week in Church when the priest said that “In Christian life, when we come upon a pair of ducks, we don't try to make it go away .... we just explore the tensions that the pair of ducks create in us.” Realizing the error, Grandma said to little Suzie, “It's paradox honey; he wasn't talking about a pair of ducks.” But when Suzie looked thoroughly puzzled, Grandma realized that the only thing to do in this situation was to stand very still and, by the grace of God, explore the tensions that this pair of ducks which she had come upon was creating in her.
Today is All Saints day, and in celebration of that Feast, the theme that I would like to explore is this paradoxical community, of which we are a part, called the Communion of Saints.... that Mystical Body of all the followers of Christ, those on earth, those in heaven, and those somewhere in between. . . whose values are being transformed along the lines of the beatitudes, those bizarre attitudes, which Jesus describes in today's gospel text, (Luke 6:20-31).
I
Like all human beings, Jesus is very attentive to pairs of opposites. And he says certain things about these pairs of opposites that are paradoxical — that seem to defy common sense, but, in fact, convey to us a deeper truth, of a spiritual nature, about our lives on this earth.
If we think for a moment about these pairs of opposites that Jesus focuses on--poor /rich; hungry / full; weeping / laughing; hated / highly esteemed; excluded / accepted; the defamed / the famous.... we recognize that these are just a few of the many ups and downs that are a normal part of our human existence. We could easily add -- sickness & health; pain & pleasure; sorrow & joy; blame & praise; and so on & so forth. Life fluctuates. It's not just one way all the time. There is always an ebb and a flow, a hill and a valley, things we like very much, and things we like very little.
And the more we reflect on these pairs of opposites..... we recognize that the only reason that they ARE a normal part of our human existence is because we have no real control over their fluctuation. The fluctuation of these ups and the downs seems to be built into the very fabric of our existence.
Think about it: If you could choose between being poor, hungry, weeping, and hated, on the one hand, or being rich, full, laughing, and highly esteemed, on the other... which set of experiences do you think you might choose? (Oh... that's a real tough one...isn't it?!)
How about sickness, pain, and sorrow – /or/ — health, pleasure, and joy ?
Or...eternal youth and vigor –vs— aging, fatigue and death?
Now you might say: “Don't be ridiculous! Given the choice, who in their right mind would choose the uncomfortable over the comfortable?”
And, that is exactly the point I think: we really don't get to choose the kinds of experiences that make up this human existence, do we? We wish we could choose. We would like there to be a choice. We even turn it into a moral problem and say to ourselves that “If life were really as it should be, then only the pleasant things would happen.” As though, in our perfect world, we would get up in the morning and choose off of some menu what experiences we would have unfold that day. And, then, we would have our little “home on the range,” where the sky was not cloudy all day, and all would be well with the world.
In fact, at some level, we often have the fantasy that we are in control of the experiences that happen to us. Especially those of us who live in the so-called First World, where we have air conditioning in the Winter, bananas from South America in the Winter, and a few hundred kinds of breakfast cereal to choose from throughout the year.
We in the First World know what to do with these pairs of opposites that life presents us – we just get rid of the unpleasant half that we don't like, and then, we can have our own private little Eden-- life as it really should be. It can be quite compelling. And very naturally, having this kind of fantasy-control over our life experiences becomes our definition of living the good life, the blessed life.... until we can't imagine that it could be otherwise....
No paradox. No deeper truths that call our common sense into question. Just:
Blessed are the rich / Woe to the poor …
Blessed are the full / Woe to the hungry
Blessed are the laughing / Woe to the weeping
Blessed are the highly esteemed, accepted, and famous /
Woe to the hated, excluded, and defamed.
That's the popular philosophy of life that we find at Walmart, at Queens Park, even in our schools, colleges, and universities, even in the church. It's the philosophy that is embedded in our culture from top to bottom: Cling to the pleasant, destroy the unpleasant. Think no further. And all will be well.
Until the true nature of life, which is a mix of ups and downs, inevitably reasserts itself... and we hear the outraged cry, “Who the bl-a-n-k is in charge of this world anyway?” … Who gave that cloud permission to appear in our sky? How dare it! And so we double and triple our efforts to control and shape life into the way we imagine it should be. All gain, no loss. All pleasure, no pain. All praise, no blame. And so on....
II
Then, along comes Jesus, and throws a wrench into this perfect machine-world that we've created for ourselves...with his beatitudes, his bizarre attitudes, towards life's ups and downs...
Blessed are the poor / Woe to the rich...
Blessed are the hungry / Woe to the full
Blessed are the weeping / Woe to the laughing
Blessed are the hated, excluded, and defamed / Woe to the highly esteemed, accepted, and famous.
With a platform like that, how does he expect to get votes? Where on earth is he coming from? It's obviously a very different vantage point.
And... we might well wonder: What's wrong with Jesus? Is the God he represents some kind of sadist, just looking for people to exploit? Encouraging them to embrace poverty and weeping and rejection as “good”..? what's that all about? ….
It's not that hard to see how a paradoxical message like this might easily be perverted in that way, as it often has been historically, with visions of trembling, tormented sinners in the hand of an angry God. But that malignant take on religion works to destroy the human spirit, rather than to help it flourish. And that's not Jesus.
The reason Jesus offers these bizarre teachings, which are such an affront to common sense... is because he has a radically different way of relating to life's ups and downs. He is the New Adam. He is not seeking to cling to the pleasant, to destroy the unpleasant, and to think no further. Oh, no.... He is not under the illusion that, in the good life, everything is the way he likes and wishes it to be. He is not at war with the unwanted experiences of his human existence. And so... he is not all twisted up inside by questions like “Who in the b-l-a-n-k is in charge of this world?” …...... Because he knows. ...
He is supremely conscious of how loved he is by the One he calls 'Father.' And that makes His vantage point very different from the average person. He is already standing in that sacred space that he calls “the Kingdom of God.” And his standing there... changes how he relates to the ups and downs of his life and the lives of others. It allows him to experience that deeper kind of happiness which is not destroyed by physical illness, because it doesn't depend on always being physically well and comfortable. That deeper sort of happiness that does not dissolve in the tears of mourning, because it doesn't depend on never experiencing loss. The kind of happiness that isn't spoiled by being disliked, even hated, because it doesn't depend on always receiving approval. Jesus experiences true joy. And he is at peace in the midst of life's ups and downs.
He is familiar with the more ordinary kind of happiness that depends on carefully controlling all of these fluctuating ups and downs, but that is not where he lives; that is not where his identity is grounded. That is the ordinary space that we most often inhabit, the kingdom of this world. But the space he inhabits is that extraordinary space he calls the Kingdom of God. His sense of who he is is rooted in another world, another plane of consciousness, where he abides, in the sure knowledge of the steadfast love of the One he calls Father....
It is in that confidence of the Father's Love, which never dies, that his joy is made complete, and he is enabled to stand upright in this world and bear the tensions of its ups and downs.
That joyful knowledge that he is God's Beloved... gives him the power to resist the temptation to destroy, or run away from, the many life experiences that make him feel vulnerable and unpleasant....
He doesn't need to be always wealthy and never poor, always healthy and never sick, always popular and never rejected, because he knows (1) that difficult experiences are inevitable and (2) that they in no way diminish the Father's love for him.
And so, unlike the First Adam, Jesus grows up spiritually. He becomes capable of genuine sacrifice in relation to the things of this world; capable of giving himself away... all without losing what matters most. Because he knows he can't lose.... the Father's love.... andwithin that sure knowledge he becomes capable of relating to the person in front of him — however obnoxious or smelly or unconventional that person may be— as a Thou, as a person worth fully attending to, and respecting and caring for — rather than as an It, just an object that can be ignored or exploited or disposed of, as we see fit.
It is all of these profound inner (and transcendental) developments in Jesus that give him the very unusual perspective, which is not of this world... and which lead him to teach the kinds of paradoxical things that we hear in today's gospel reading... like “blessed are the poor; woe to the rich.”
He is turning things upside down, but not just to be clever rhetorically, but because he has come to understand that the people in this world who are spiritually at “high risk,” are the ones who imagine that they are EXTRA-SPECIAL because they have succeeded in maintaining the illusion that they have control over life's ups & downs.... so that it appears that only the things that they want to happen... happen.... kind of like they are little gods in their own private Disneyland. A world of all pleasure and no pain. All gain and no loss. All praise and no blame. Throughout the gospels Jesus is continually warning us to be careful of and not to imitate the ones who have succeeded in managing their outer circumstances, their bodies, and their inner worlds in such a way that their lives become a kind of virtual paradise. Because these are the folks, who are so out of touch with the spiritual nature of life, that they will work night and day to build and maintain cultures that disable rather than enable human flourishing. And they won't even perceive the evil of what they're doing. In contrast, it is the ones who are failures by the standards of such a false world, that Jesus calls truly blessed.
III
And it is here that we begin to see how, in the vision of Jesus, another world is possible. As these paradoxical values are transmitted, from one person to another and another, a new world is created. As it happened in the life of Jesus, so it happens in our lives. Just as Jesus – standing in this sacred space, where he is supremely aware of the reality of God's transforming love – is able to bear the extreme ups and downs, gains and losses, that his life presented him... so are we enabled. Just as Jesus is able to stand in solidarity with others in the reality of their life experiences, so are we. How that works... our tradition tells us... is beyond common sense and quite mysterious:
How it works is that: Even now Jesus is standing with us in our real life experiences, in our real struggles, helping “the eyes of our hearts become enlightened” as we heard in today's epistle (Ephesians 1:8b-10,11-23), so that we too can discover the strange joy and peace of the Kingdom of God which can coexist with all the unpleasant aspects of life, even our own dying, without being spoiled.
How it works is that: Even now All The Saints are gathering with us, one Supportive Communion, around the One True Head & Heart of the Church, Jesus Christ, so that together we can receive from Him the same paradoxical values that He receives from the Father. That transmission will surely make us stand out in this world, as Saints always have. And standing out always has its consequences. It's not easy being a paradoxical community.
But, we can be quite sure that no matter where we turn, we are not alone.... that the Kingdom of God is right here, right now, in our midst. And so, we can always know to Whom we belong... and that makes all the difference.
Thanks be to God.
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