Of Fools and Idiots

Acts 2:1-21

I Corinthians 12:3-13

I have to admit that I have never had much enthusiasm for the observance of Pentecost. Perhaps my ambivalence stems from my earliest childhood memories of worshiping at Mifflin Presbyterian Church and being petrified at even the thought of finding myself alone in the sanctuary. It gave me the chills. I didn't want to run up against that "Holy Ghost" in whom we so dutifully professed our belief every Sunday morning. I was fine with the Father and had no problem with the Son, but a ghost? There was nothing in my admittedly limited experience to suggest that anything good could come of a meeting with this… this thing.

In the Reformed tradition we really don’t know what to do with the Holy Spirit (whom I have often referred to as the red-headed step-child of the Trinity).This is no fault of Calvin and Knox, of course, but mostly a tendency on the part of their successors, especially during the Enlightenment, to steer clear of anything – or, in this case, anyone – whose contours and character could not fit easily into some systematic equation. The spartan sanctity of Puritan sacred space, with its straight-backed pews and abundant right angles, is certainly an unlikely place to encounter the presence of God who, in this hypostasis at least, is so often spoken of through the metaphors of wind and flame. Whereas the Puritans may have been comfortable with the spiritual canvas of a Rembrandt or a Vermeer (and even this is a stretch), Pentecost seemed to throw them a Kandinsky-esque curve: too much color, too much movement, and not enough in the way of familiar form.

I think my interest in Pentecost was at its peak when I was in college, a time when questions of faith yearned for the kind of "gee whiz" answers that rushing winds and fire from heaven appeared to provide. I remember being especially enamored for a time with speaking in tongues. I had heard about it, but had never witnessed it, and with fears of damnation and eternal retribution swirling around in my head, I thought that if there were any fool-proof way to count myself among the chosen, glossolalia was it. I needed this Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to set my mind at ease. It as my ticket into heaven, so I was going to speak in tongues come hell or high water.

But it was not to be. I tried. I really tried. Even with no less a paragon than David Wilkerson of The Cross and the Switchblade fame praying over me – heavenly verbiage spewing forth from his lips like water over a dam – it just didn't take. I couldn't utter a word; struck dumb by tonguestipation. All of my friends who had braved the inevitable altar call seemed to pick right up on the gift and were chatting away gleefully in their own celestial idiom. But not me. There was nothing. Not a word. It was shortly after this all-too-apparent confirmation of my complete failure as a grace-filled child of God that I began seeking out the more proletarian spirits available to me through the cult of Bacchus, of which my college had several chapters. Thankfully, that didn't take either.

And so it is with a twinge of pain, not to mention some regret over my naïve spiritual exuberance, that I read our lectionary passages for this week. Over the last twenty years I've carried these texts around with me like a teenager with a condom tucked safely away in his wallet, because you just never know. It's always good to be prepared. Just in case those whose enthusiasm for their singular charism descend upon me once again like some unspeakable affliction. I Corinthians 12 has been my spiritual prophylactic.

OK, so I'm still a little bitter. But exclusion from the body of Christ and being shown the gates of hell, especially by those who possess such an obvious sign of God's favor, tend to have this effect on a person. I can certainly empathize with those in Corinth who experienced a similar kind of one-upmanship, and I can also imagine their relief upon reading Paul's first epistle to their struggling congregation. More than this, I can identify with the Apostle's frustration at even having to write his letter in the first place. Corinth must have been for him – in the beginning at least – the crown jewel of his missionary activity. What better place to demonstrate the reconciling work of the Spirit than among those who were drawn from the city's incredibly complex social strata? Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, rich and poor – everyone would finally be able to put aside their differences and make manifest the new egalitarian ethic of the Kingdom, all through the grace of God and the inspiring work of the Holy Spirit.

But division quickly ensued after Paul's departure from the fledgling congregation. Some were taken by the eloquent preaching of a man named Apollos and began to distinguish themselves from those who wanted to remain committed to the Apostle's example. Sexual immorality was a persistent problem, as one might expect in a port city like Corinth. The wealthy soon fell into their old habits of separating themselves from the baser elements of the church, refusing to share the Lord's Supper with the undesirables. Christians were suing each other in Roman courts. What a mess. And to top it all off, some in the community were becoming a little too impressed with their peculiar ability to bring down the house with their commanding capacity for tongues, the language of the Spirit.

It is not surprising that this problem was especially acute in Corinth given its Hellenic context. Mystery religions were abundant in this part of the Mediterranean world and there is little doubt that many of Paul's converts were intimately familiar with the cultic rituals of these groups, many of which involved possession by spirits and captivating ecstatic utterances on the part of the initiates. The worship of Cybele-Attis, for example, had been prolific in Greek culture from about 200 BCE. The rites of this cult were often extreme and included priests who could be aroused only by the cacophony of clashing cymbals and loud drums. Once stirred, they would dance in a frenzy of excitement that often included speaking in tongues. (Montanus, a second-century heretic who was no stranger to glossolalia, was at one time a priest of Cybele.) It is not difficult to see, then, how this peculiar gift of the spirit could become unruly among the members of the Corinthian church. Old habits die hard, especially with no one like Paul there to shepherd them through the transition.

To Paul's great credit, he does not dismiss the phenomenon that was causing such division among the faithful. He begins by affirming that all spiritual gifts have their origin in God, and he acknowledges their great variety (12:4-11). Exercising these charismata, however, must have one goal in mind: the benefit of the entire community (12:12-27). According to Paul, ecstatic utterances cannot of themselves achieve this purpose since they are addressed exclusively to God (14:2, 6, 9), and are spoken in such a way that human beings cannot understand them without an interpreter (14:27). The whole point of his argument is to emphasize a "still more perfect way," one that stands in contrast to the kinds of theatrics and acrobatics that the Corinthians had come to expect from their former cults: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (13:1).

Paul's message is clear. Unlike pagan ecstatic utterances, whose sole end is individual transcendence, glossolalia in the Corinthian church should have as its fundamental objective the edification of the body, koinonia. Anything short of this is just a lot of noise, a nuisance.

Given this situation, I have to wonder if Paul's traveling companion, Luke, may have tried to address the potentially divisive nature of glossolalia in his own way when writing the introductory chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. What at first glance appears to be a phenomenon quite similar to what had happened at Corinth nearly three decades earlier (assuming that Luke wrote his "history" of the early church around 85 CE) is upon closer inspection an alternative perspective on how the Spirit is made manifest in speech. In Acts 2:4 we are told that when the tongues of fire rested upon each individual, "they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (heterais glossais) as the Spirit gave them utterance." What may seem like an insignificant adjective (heterais) is in fact very important for a proper understanding of Luke's intent. In all other New Testament texts where reference is made to the gift of ecstatic speech the noun "tongues" (glossais) is simply used with no qualifier. Here, however, Luke makes a distinction: "other tongues."

To clarify his intent, Luke is also careful to mention the various Jews in Jerusalem who are witnesses to the events of Pentecost. The list (Acts 2:9-11) is quite extensive and is thought to represent the nations comprising the known world. What is important is the way that these global citizens, if you will, respond to the tongues they hear coming from the mouths of Galilean peasants: "How is it we hear, each of us in his own native language?" (Acts 2:8). The word that Luke uses in this instance, as well as in 2:6, gets to the very crux of what he is trying to say about the phenomenon that nearly rent asunder the Corinthian church a few decades prior to his writing. The Jews in Jerusalem on this day are hearing dialectos, a noun whose meaning is entirely distinct from "tongues" (glossais). A dialect is a language that facilitates communication, and this is what Luke takes great pains to emphasize; the tongues heard in Corinth, by contrast, are idiolects, peculiar to one person, and therefore incapable of fostering understanding.

Over the past several years I have become more convinced that what separates Americans from the rest of the world is the consumer lens through which we have come to interpret every transaction, every experience, as either valuable or unworthy of our time. Connected with this is our unrealistic desire – and perhaps it is more appropriate to call it a need – for the acquisition of goods and services at minimal expense (that's just good capitalism), and for these same goods and services to afford us an immediate gratification. Add to this a culture in which individual rights have all but eclipsed community responsibilities and you've got the perfect scenario for a contemporary version of what was happening in Corinth in the first century, only on a national scale. From this perspective, glossolalia is the perfect business transaction: there is an immediate eternal return on a relatively meager investment, and after all, isn't that what grace is all about?

But Paul knew well that what makes grace so amazing is the fact that the return actually precedes the investment – justification comes before sanctification. The work follows the pay-off, and the focus is less on the individual than it is on the community. This is the foolishness of the kingdom he preached. Luke only accentuates this alternative reality by introducing a subtle nuance to his text, suggesting that the miracle of tongues (glossais) can best be understood only when the "other" (heterais) is added to it. It is "the other" who affords us the opportunity for the reconciling work of Christ, and so it is to "the other" that our words must be addressed. This is especially urgent in the global context in which we now find ourselves. Division and strife – the perennial marks of the church – will persist as we keep falling back on business as usual, expecting those on the outside to do our bidding and to speak our language, whether literally or figuratively. This was not the practice of Paul, nor was it the orientation of the early church. Much less was it the perspective of Jesus himself.

We have become a culture, and a church, full of idiots, and our gospel – in the eyes of many at least – is increasingly perceived as so much sound and fury signifying nothing. The question we need to be asking at Pentecost this year, and every year hereafter, is whether our "tongue-speaking," our means of communicating the grace of God through Christ, is going to be a vehicle by which we as a church can move into the world with an attitude of liberation and reconciliation, or will it remain a symbol of exclusion and division, a sign distinguishing the insiders from the outsiders and the haves from the have-nots. Only one of these is truly worthy of the fool for Christ. The latter is simply the folly of an idiot.


Questions for Further Discussion

1. What are some of your earliest memories and experiences of Pentecost? Were you raised in a tradition that paid particular attention to its observance? What are some of the sights, sounds, colors, and smells that you associate with this liturgical season?

2. What has been your experience of glossolalia in the church? As you consider the role that your congregation currently plays in your community and in the world, do you see a way in which speaking in tongues serves or might serve the common good, as Paul suggests in I Corinthians 12:7? What form does this or might this take?

3. In I Corinthians 12 Paul discusses a number of gifts inlcuding prophecy, wisdom knowledge, and healing. What special gifts do members of your church community possess? What gifts does your church make manifest in the larger community of which you are a part?

Jesus, Judas, and the Blessing of Bread

Luke 24: 13-35
John 10:1-10
Acts 2: 42-47
There is a curious story told of Jesus in the recently translated Gospel of Judas. Near the end of the narrative, as the disciples are gathered at table and preparing to break bread, they offer thanks and ask for God's blessing. Judas tells us that upon witnessing this ritual Jesus' first response was to laugh. And it isn't just a chuckle. It's uproarious, a real belly-blaster. When they hear this the disciples are clearly offended and have a difficult time containing their anger. In his outburst Jesus was upbraiding them for their complete lack of understanding. Did they not know (as so many gnostics emphasized) that the creator of this world, Yahweh, was an imposter? After all this time, had they not learned that the bread they held in their hands, along with every other aspect of the material world, was not worthy of the true God's blessing? It was instead a stumbling block, a distraction preventing them from realizing their higher selves and achieving spiritual liberation.

Regardless of the excitement and sensationalism that the gnostic Gospel of Judas has generated over the last year, I think it is safe to say that we would not have lost much theologically had this manuscript remained obscured to history. Yes, it offers compelling questions about the life and teaching of Jesus, as well as new insights into the role that his presumed betrayer played in offering him up to the authorities. But honestly, the last thing we really need at this point in the life of the church is any suggestion that the material world – this good earth – is somehow at odds with an authentic spiritual existence. A subtle gnosticism has managed to creep into the body of Christ over the centuries, and it can be detected in the words and actions of Christians today. Many of us are not content it seems with simply accepting the value of what lies before us. We feel much more comfortable when we can be assured that the things of this world are somehow representative of "a higher truth" or contain a "deeper meaning." "A man's reach must exceed his grasp," as Browning wrote, "or else what is a heaven for?"

Last week we considered one of Jesus' more familiar resurrection appearances to two disciples walking the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). The men were crestfallen over the crucifixion just three days earlier of the one they believed would redeem all of Israel, and they were a little surprised that the chap who joined them had not even heard of the tragic event. Shortly after this the stranger began with Moses and all the prophets and "interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures" (24:27). But the disciples were kept from seeing that it was Jesus who accompanied them on their way. It was not until the three men were at table and the bread was broken that their eyes were opened. Only then did they behold, if for but a fleeting moment, the face of the risen Christ.

Some interpreters of this text are quick to point out that the emphasis here should be on the connection that the two disciples were able to make between their experience at Emmaus and the Eucharistic meal that took place on the final night of Jesus' life. The lesson to be learned is that the breaking of the communion bread, which happens in the presence of other believers, is where we encounter Christ most perfectly. We should then focus our attention in worship on the symbolism of the holy meal that is, through God's grace, placed before us, as well as on the elements that become, through the work of the Spirit, something more than what they appear to be. The bread and wine are not meant to nourish us physically, we are told, as much as they are meant to feed our souls.

And this is surely true. But I wonder if the point has been overstated. Is this all that we can take away from the text, or have we by accentuating the otherworldly nature of this meal committed our own form of gnostic heresy? Have we, in other words, sought some higher meaning to the events of this story to the exclusion of the actual stuff that lies so close at hand? Maybe this pericope is less about the Eucharist than it is about food, less about the broken body of Christ than about the bodily needs of believers. Perhaps sometimes, to take some liberty with Freud, a loaf of bread is just a loaf of bread.

A few clues in Luke's narrative – from the gospel and from the Acts of the Apostles – make me wonder if the church historically has been too quick to spiritualize what took place at Emmaus. First, it does not state in the resurrection story that these two disciples – only one of whom, Cleopas, is worthy of naming – were even present at the exclusive meal that took place in the upper room. If this is the case, then what was it in the stranger's actions that sparked the fire of memory within them so that even their hearts burned when they recalled his earlier words? Where else might they have seen Jesus share a meal in this way?

It is worthy of note that the only pre-resurrection miracle story that all four evangelists considered essential for inclusion in their gospels is the feeding of the five thousand, an occasion on which Jesus was able to meet the actual flesh and blood needs of those who came to hear him speak. This was an instance in which the breaking and distribution of bread was indeed a miraculous occurrence, one that would not soon be forgotten by those present. The leftovers alone could have fed a large family, and all this from a few loaves and fishes! Does it not seem more likely that the Emmaus disciples – Cleopas and what's-his-name – were present at this extraordinary event and it was this recollection, when added to the visual cue of bread broken by the stranger's hand, that brought Jesus' presence fully into view? If so, then are we going too far -- or, more appropriately, not far enough -- by reading only Eucharistic symbolism into the Emmaus narrative?

Second, when we eventually catch up with the disciples in Jerusalem we find them engaged in the kind of ministry that we would expect from followers of a Jewish messiah reputed to have fed multitudes. As Luke relates the story,

All who believed were together and held all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the Temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people (Acts 2:44-47).

In contrast to what we know about Jesus' attitude toward the stuff of this world in the Gospel of Judas, the apostles in Jerusalem are profoundly this-wordly. They are feeding people and sharing goods, all with an attitude of generosity and blessing. Isn't it interesting that with the advent of the Spirit at Pentecost Jesus' disciples are not drawn up out of this earthly sphere with hopes of attaining some transcendent truth. Rather, their feet are planted ever more firmly in the urban context of the holy city, and their attentions are directed toward meeting the very real and earthly needs of those who had suffered long under both Roman and Jewish injustices. Certainly the Spirit gave them the gift of tongues, but how remarkable that amidst such a miraculous phenomenon they never lost sight of their original calling: feed my sheep. Feed my sheep – not only with the body and blood of Christ, but also, if not especially, with simple bread and wine, the sacraments of fellowship and hospitality. Feed my lambs with the blessed staff of life.

It is difficult at Easter not to focus on the extraordinary accounts of Jesus' resurrection and ascension, but even in the midst of these intimations of the eternal we are reminded continuously of our need to stay grounded, to claim our place among the vulnerable and suffering men, women, and children whose very being Jesus came to share through the incarnation. It is surely this same broken humanity that persuades us at times to seek out truths beyond what we can grasp, and there is nothing wrong with this. The trouble arises when we feel the need to let go of this world entirely as we try to latch on to some spiritual reality that lies beyond it. It is then that we listen too intently to the voice of one who enters the sheepfold not through the Gate, but by some other way (John 10:1). But the great paradox of the early church lies in the fact that it was precisely God's heavenly Spirit that inspired the apostles to achieve a very earthly task: feeding the multitudes and preaching the gospel in response to the shepherd's call. There in the Temple precincts these followers of Jesus realized, no less than Cleopas and what's-his-name at Emmaus, that in breaking bread with strangers we might truly encounter, if for but a fleeting moment, the face of the risen Christ.

The church needs to keep this insight ever in mind, especially as it continues to pander to the needs of so many these days who prefer to think of themselves as "spiritual but not religious." While the human spirit is prone to fly off in search of cosmic vistas and nether realms, it is our religion – our disciplined endeavors in seeking always through God's grace to make the gospel incarnate through our actions – that keeps us perpetually grounded. And the need is no less urgent now than it was in the first century, as even a cursory glance at U.S. hunger statistics demonstrates.

Consider the work that lies before us:

• According to the USDA, an estimated 12.6 million children lived in food insecure households in 2006.

• 3.4 million older Americans – 9.4% of the elderly – live below the poverty line.

• A report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that in 2002 more than 25% of working American families were classified as low income, with incomes at 200% of the federal poverty level. This translates into 9.2 million families.

• In 2006, nearly 37 million people (12.3%) were in poverty.

• Further statistics are available at America's Second Harvest.

The easy way out, of course, is to assure the homeless and the destitute that a better world awaits them in the by and by, that they should focus their attention as best they can on the "things of the spirit," and God bless. Those who know the shepherd's voice, however, are well aware that these careless words of hope have no place in the bread-blessing, body-affirming, creation-centered Gospel of Christ. Rather, they sound more like the lifeless tones featured throughout a text whose extreme otherworldliness was recognized early on as a voice entering not through the Gate, but by some other way: the gnostic Gospel of Judas.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. In the Gospel of John, Jesus refers to "the voice of one who enters not through the Gate, but by some other way." What does this voice sound like to you? Where do you hear it or see it working most clearly in your context?

2. In what ways does your church model the work and commitments of the apostles in Jerusalem? What ever happened to "holding all things in common" or "selling possessions and goods and distributing the proceeds to all"? Did the apostles just go a little nutty for a while, only to regain their senses later?

3. Is there a healthy balance in the life of your congregation between faithful observance of the Eucharist and committed service to the hungry? How does each of these illumine the meaning and necessity of the other? How have you encountered the face of Christ in each?

4. Where do you see the greatest food insecurity needs in your community and how and by whom are these being addressed?

5. Does your church have a community garden? If so, are you "planting a row for the hungry"? Please see the link below.

Links of Interest

America's Second Harvest

Bread for the World

Plant a Row for the Hungry

Hearing the Language of the Spirit

John 20:19-31

The following is excerpted from chapter 6 of Learning the Language of the Fields: Tilling and Keeping as Christian Vocation (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2006).

Readers of the New Testament might be led to believe that any discussion of the Holy Spirit must begin with the promise that Jesus gave to his disciples at his ascension, a hope that came to fulfillment on the day of Pentecost. As Luke describes the event, the disciples were all gathered in Jerusalem, praying in one place, when

suddenly from heaven came the sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability (Acts 2:2-4).

So begins the story of "the dispensation of the Spirit," as it has been referred to in some circles. And there is a certain appeal to the narrative, filled as it is with supernatural occurrences and the implied promise that this same power of God can still work in similar ways among the faithful today. But what is often overlooked in many discussions of the Holy Spirit is the fact that this sometimes neglected person of the Trinity is by no means a latecomer on the scene of salvation history. On the contrary, the Spirit (ruah) of God was present in the very beginning of time, hovering over the face of the waters, brooding, as it were, like a mother hen over her chicks. It was this divine breath that formed the command "let there be," calling forth order and light out of the murky depths of chaos.

Thus the advent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is merely a continuation of her creative and sustaining work as attested throughout the pages of the Hebrew Bible. There the Spirit is seen as divine power and authority coming to rest on the anointed kings of Israel, a sign of God’s good pleasure in God’s chosen. The prophets also describe occasions on which they are seized by this same spirit and compelled to bring the Creator’s will to presence through their poetic utterances and acts. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," writes Third Isaiah, "because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed..." (Isaiah 61:1). But God’s immanence in the world is also affirmed in much less dramatic ways, particularly in those scriptural books and other writings that comprise the Wisdom Tradition. Here the creative and sustaining spirit of God is celebrated as working, even playing, in and through all things. The Psalmist makes it clear that there is indeed a language to be learned here, and words to be heard, as the spirit of the Holy One of Israel whispers, dances, and sings in every facet of the created world.

The heavens are telling the glory
of God;
and the firmament proclaims
his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there
words; their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through
all the earth,
And their words to the end of
the world (19:1-4a).

Let those who have ears to hear, the Psalmist seems to say, acknowledge the presence of God’s spirit in all things, whether human or nonhuman, animate or inanimate.

Having said this, it is important to recall Martin Buber’s assertion that the Eternal You can be encountered in every aspect of the natural world, but only in a way that is "beneath language." This does not mean, however, that what is being communicated by the nonhuman world – whether in the firmament, or much closer to home in the eyes of a dappled mare – is altogether beyond the pale of our comprehension. Rather, it is one of the fundamental responsibilities of each and every one of us to bring our admittedly rare encounters with the Eternal You to presence through our creative acts, and this for the good of the community yearning for a word of hope, for a sense of connectedness.

We are called, in other words, to give voice to the unheard voices. Our creations toward this end – our poetry, visual art, music – become the lenses through which our human community comes to recognize and understand value and meaning in its particular place, the means by which we acknowledge ourselves as characters in an ecologically enacted narrative.

What has been tragically forgotten over the millennia is that one of the most integral aspects of our human vocation is the careful listening required for perceiving these voices "going out through all the earth and to the end of the world." Simply put, the integrity of the body of Christ relies on the willingness and ability of its human members to affirm their most basic calling as tillers and keepers, imagers of God, by engaging in this new form of liberating "tongue-speaking." We must endeavor to know and proclaim faithfully the language of the fields coming to us from the depths our place.

Though much has been made of the "pouring out" of God’s Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it is instructive for us to consider a less conspicuous account of a similar event recorded in the Gospel of John. Here the Holy Spirit is bestowed on the followers of Jesus, not from the heavens above with surging winds and descending tongues of fire, but in a manner vaguely reminiscent of the Yahwist’s creation narrative (Gen. 2:4ff). Here the Spirit comes to the disciples intimately, from the very mouth of the risen Lord himself, who greets them face to face and offers a word of hope. As John relates the tradition,

When it was evening on... the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:19-22).

Read in the light of the Yahwist narrative, we cannot help but draw parallels here between the old Adam and this "new creation," these believers, the body of Christ, whose vocation in the world is exactly that of their primal predecessor. The difference, however, is that here God’s creative and redemptive presence – God's sustaining breath – awakens and inspires the disciples in a much more dynamic way. The same spirit (ruah) who hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning, who invigorated the prophets of old and for millennia set creation to dance, now also quickens the body of the faithful, broken and inadequate though they are, and provides a renewed understanding of their most fundamental calling. The curse of the garden is reversed and the connection with the earth is renewed. This is the very event for which the creation has been waiting with eager longing, groaning in travail until the children of God would once again be revealed (Rom. 8:19).

Before his ascension, Jesus, like Yahweh in the garden before him, creates the conditions for the possibility of a radically new Kingdom on earth: he breathes the breath of life into the "new Adam," the church, and grants them peace, not so much as a parting blessing, but as a charge to the commencement of their liberating work in the world.

It is this same breath of God, rising from the depths of the Eternal You through the body of Christ – that is, through the human community living in relationship with our ecological context – who continues to energize and inspire us today. The Eternal You, who is intimated in the darkness of every aspect of our place, can be encountered and communicated by and to those who share our life-world, and this through the creative movement of the Spirit herself. But the breath of God will not illuminate us in the same manner in every time and place, so our "tongue-speaking," the creations of our hearts and minds that bring the eternal to presence in this place, will also be as varied as the bioregions that make up our planet.

There is, then, no single language of the fields to be learned; to suggest as much, as some creation theologians seem to do, is to fall victim to the very global thinking that is one of the sources of our ecological embarrassments today. The spirit of the Eternal You, breathed through the body of Christ in its various ecological incarnations, creates a melody that can be heard in different tones and keys in each bioregion across the world. It is our calling as God’s "imagers" first to hear the music, and then to keep the song alive, to sustain the unique character – the integrity – of our biotic community, and thus affirm the liberating movement of the Spirit there.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. Marc Chagall's painting above, entitled I and the Village (1910), represents his experience of his boyhood community in Russia. If you were to paint an image of the way the Spirit lives and breathes in your own community, what would it look like? What would be some of the essential features of your painting?

2. Reflect on the juxtaposition in this pericope of the two "bodies of Christ," i.e., Jesus and the disciples who have just received the Spirit of God. What is the significance of Thomas -- a member of the latter body -- reaching out to touch Jesus' wounds?

3. I have often told my students that the Holy Spirit is "the red-headed step-child of the Holy Trinity," by which I mean that she has been sorely overlooked in the history of Christian theology, at least in comparison to the Father and the Son. How is the Holy Spirit represented and perceived in your theological tradition or in your church parish?

4. Does it offend you when pastors and theologians (like me) refer to the Holy Spirit as "she." Do you think this is justified?

And the Flesh Became Word

John 20:1-18

Hastings, Nebraska, doesn't offer much to the incidental traveler passing through on her way to Denver or Omaha, but if we have anything approaching a tourist season in this part of the country, the middle of March is it. It is usually around this time that the Sandhill Cranes are at the peak of their northward migration, and their presence on the landscape is enough to warrant a kind of ornithological holy week. There are thousands of them. They fly in such numbers that their flocks on the distant horizon can easily be mistaken for wispy clouds rolling in slowly from the south. They descend on the barren fields that border about a fifty-mile stretch of the Platte River and spend the next several weeks pecking at the stray kernels of grain left behind by September's combines. Soon they'll leave for the Alaskan tundra where nature will call them to attend to their procreative duties, but if certainty has any claim on the staggeringly capricious cycle of the Great Plains it lies in this: the cranes will return.

Theirs is a dance that has gone on for as many as nine million years, and for as often as I have witnessed the spectacle, it never fails to overwhelm me. But the sight of their vast numbers is not what captivates my imagination. Rather, it is their ancient guttural call, a woody trill whose slightest intimation in the skies above – not to mention a chorus of thousands below – reaches so deeply into my genetic memory that I am transported back in time to the barren grasslands of the early Pleistocene. That's why I feel a little sorry for the roadside ecologists who seem content simply to observe these beguiling creatures from the climate-controlled comfort of their mini-vans, because when it comes to cranes, hearing – not seeing – is what transforms your perspective and makes you a believer.

It is the need to remain attentive not only to what is seen but also to what is heard that lies at the heart of our lectionary text for Easter. Though it is not an especially evident motif in the gospel of John, it is nevertheless certain that the evangelist wants to make one point very clear with respect to Jesus: as the "Word become flesh" (John 1:4) his truth lay well hidden beneath his appearance, and those who choose to base their understanding of him solely upon what they see will surely miss the mark. Jesus' disciples need also to listen and respond in faith to the voice of the Good Shepherd who calls his own (10:2-4). For John, the aural rounds out the visual and gives it meaning. It takes apparently commonplace people and events and furnishes them with new dimensions. As Mary Magdalene discovers amidst her grief and bewilderment in the garden, recognition of "the Word become flesh" involves remaining open to the possibility that, through the grace of God, the flesh is equally capable of becoming Word, of reaching into our hearts and allowing our eyes to perceive with new understanding what had actually been there all along. When Word issues forth from flesh, Spirit from substance, all things are brought clearly into focus.

Mary's faithfulness to Jesus is accentuated in this account by the fact that she arrives at the tomb well before dawn. Since the body had already been prepared for burial (19:40), we can only conclude that she comes early on the first day to lament the loss of her beloved. Mourning is women's work; the men apparently have better things to do – that is, until they hear the awful news. "They have taken the Lord away from the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him" (John 20:4). Hereupon ensues an interesting little footrace between Peter and "the other disciple," complete with the kind of one-upmanship that we have now come to expect from this crew. But in this case, the first actually does become last – it is the fleet-footed apostle who allows the fisherman the honor of entering the tomb to confirm Mary's claim. What they both eventually discover is perplexing indeed. All the evidence suggests that the body has not been stolen, but they simply do not know what to make of the scene. For Peter and the beloved disciple, what they behold with their eyes is not sufficient to evoke in them any firm conviction about the resurrection of Jesus, "for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead" (20:9).

So they go home, simple as that.

But Mary stays. Her love is of a different sort. She yearns for the body of her beloved with a special devotion. Her lingering at the tomb recalls in many ways the erotic imagery of the Song of Solomon:

"I will rise now and go about the city,
In the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves."
I sought him, but I found him not (3:2).

Mary is a little less inclined it seems to jump to any quick conclusions. Perhaps in grief, or in hope, or bewilderment, or just sheer exhaustion – but certainly in love – she chooses to wait, to watch, and to listen. In such unusual and frightening circumstances her senses must have been completely heightened and attuned to her surroundings: the empty tomb, the discarded strips of cloth, and angels no less! It is all the more surprising then when she fails to recognize the one whom she seeks so earnestly, believing him to be the gardener. What her eyes behold is not sufficient to bring her fully into the presence of her Teacher, until the one who stands before her in the flesh calls her forth from her limited perception: "Mary."

I have always wondered why many commentators on this text generally ignore the one reference that nearly screams out for attention. I suppose it makes sense that Mary in her confusion could mistake Jesus, her Lord and Rabbi, for "the gardener." But the darkness had passed, the day had dawned. What was the problem? I think John is drawing on one of his customary devices in this pericope to make a theological point: as the shades of night begin to dissolve into morning, Mary, like so many who encountered Jesus before her, experiences a gradual awakening that blossoms into epiphany only when the Word is added to flesh, when Jesus calls her forth into new understanding and insight. It is only then that she can see clearly that the gardener and her rabbi are one and the same.

She sees everything else anew as well. The word produces in Mary an immediate realization that she had not been weeping in just any garden that morning, and the one who confronted her was not just any gardener. At the sound of her name, she experiences a touch of eternity in the present: kairos. She was in Eden, and a witness to God's ongoing creation. Here was the Gardener, the one whose spirit hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning and called forth creation: "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:2). Here was the one who had fashioned Adam from the earth itself, who had called Abram out of Chaldea, and instructed Moses from the burning bush. His was the still small voice that Elijah encountered on Horeb, as well as the source of new life for the woman at the well, and Lazarus at the tomb. And now he was calling her to break free from the fetters of appearances so that she might also perceive, in this single moment, the sound of the light that lies at the heart of all things. Then she could run and tell the others what her eyes had heard.

And so the church is fashioned from the dust of the ground, outside a tomb in Jerusalem, as the flesh of the Gardener is made Word in the sight and hearing of the one who waited, watched, and listened. Mary was the first to be "called out" (ecclesia) toward a new vision, a way of seeing with her ears, and hers is the example that we must also follow. Our task, more urgent now than ever, is to perceive in faith the Word that lies at the depths of all creation, to hear the heart that beats almost imperceptibly in what our eyes behold, and to make it known to those in our midst.

"The heavens are proclaiming the glory of God," the Psalmist assures us, "and the firmament his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). Yet their voice is not heard – until now. It pleased God in the fullness of time that the Word would become flesh and, literally, "pitch his tent" among us. Now, however, it is the vocation of the church – the offspring of Magdalene – to become itself the resurrected body of Christ and bear witness to the fact that the flesh might also become Word. This is the miracle of Easter, and it needs to be affirmed not only on this one Sunday that concludes the season of Lent, but every day throughout the year. For believing in the resurrection alone is not a sufficient mark of our Christian faith; we must also practice it.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. Have you had experiences, like Mary's, where the visual was "rounded out" by the aural, where new insight was attained by "seeing with your ears"?

2. Reflect on the following statement: "While we affirm that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos), we too often fail to recognize that Mary Magdalene is the mother of the church." Do you agree or disagree with this claim?

3. In the synoptic gospels, Mary Magdalene is accompanied in her visit to the tomb by several other women. Why do you suppose John has her arriving alone at the garden?

4. Is it significant, or just a throw-away reference, that Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener? Why do you think John included this apparently incidental comment?

God Save Us

Matthew 21:1-11

I will make this caveat before I begin so that many of you can move on to sweeter pastures: what I have to say about this Sunday's lectionary passage will not preach well, at least not from some pulpits in the United States. Many good Bible-believing Christians will not be at all happy with what has occupied my heart and mind over the last few days, despite the fact that I simply want to tell the "old, old story." But there were several recent events that conspired to pick me up by the lapels and give me a good shaking – and all, it seems, with an eye toward persuading me to write what needs to be written, now more than ever

As my week began I was alarmed to hear in an interview with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz projections for what the Iraq War will eventually cost American tax-payers. I say eventually because, unless I have my facts wrong, the majority of the funds that have already been spent on what was supposed to be just a little dust-up in the Middle East were borrowed, placed on the national credit card as it were. And this makes George W. Bush the first American president ever to pull this rabbit out of his top hat of tricks, leading the country into a very costly and protracted war while simultaneously cutting taxes. All told, if the research of Stiglitz and others is on the mark, we are looking at a three trillion-dollar price tag. I think it's pretty safe to say that, despite the president's triumphal assurance from the deck of a naval carrier on May 1, 2003, the mission has not been accomplished.

As if this news weren't bad enough, last night I watched a documentary film called No End in Sight. It basically picks up on the war story where the president left off, with the US army rolling into Baghdad, toppling the Saddam regime and then doing nothing for the next several months while looters of all kinds – men, women, and children -- took to the streets and destroyed the city. Perhaps most tragic of all were the priceless historical treasures, some as much as 7000 years old, that were removed from the Iraqi national museum. Then came a series of blunders that could only have issued from a cabal of men and women with little else on their minds than unbridled greed: de-Ba'athification, the dismantling of the Iraqi army (which left thousands of heavily armed men unemployed – not a good plan), the indiscriminate round-up and imprisonment of suspected terrorists (think Abu Ghraib), and the precipitous descent into violence between religious factions that has now left the country in ruins.

I was left to contemplate all these things while spending time meditating on the Lenten passage for the week: Matthew's account of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Here Jesus makes his way into the holy city in high prophetic fashion, offering a marked contrast to the Roman Empire whose chains could be heard rattling, whose soldiers could be heard jeering, whose crucified could be heard dying, as the Messiah came riding his little parable into town. "Look," says Zechariah in apparent anticipation of the event, "your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Matt. 21:5).

Actually, Zechariah doesn't say this exactly, but Matthew preferred his own redaction to the actual words of the prophet. What Matthew excises from Zechariah's text is what should give us pause for reflection: "…your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey…" (Zech. 9:9). Funny, isn't it – especially in light of Matthew's careful treatment of the original – how we still insist on calling this Jesus' "triumphal entry"? How easy it is to get it all wrong if we are the least bit careless in our interpretation.

To understand the import of Matthew's omission it is helpful to back up a bit and recall the events that directly precede this final phase in Jesus' messianic career. Remember that the mother of James and John had just come to Jesus with a very special request: "Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom" (Matt. 20:21). To this Jesus simply replied that she did not know what she was asking. The sons of Zebedee would have to drink from the same cup as he, and no mother would ever wish this upon her children. This woman – along with her two boys it seems – was on the wrong side of empire, unaware of the kind of kingdom that Jesus had come to proclaim. No doubt she was among those who shouted their Hosannas to the messiah on his way into town, placing palm branches at his feet, assured that her mighty deliverer had truly come. "God save us."

But two people did see the messiah for who he truly was, or so it would seem by Matthew's placement of their story just prior to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Leaving Jericho and followed by a large crowd, Jesus is hailed by two blind men who call out, "Son of David, have mercy on us" (Matt. 20:30). When Jesus asks what they would have him do, we are offered a telling preface to the events that are about to ensue. "Lord, let our eyes be opened." Filled with compassion, Jesus heals them, and in doing so seems to tell his followers, "your eyes too will be opened… like it or not." It would not be the so-called "sons of thunder" who would sit on his left and right in a new empire of triumph and victory. Rather, it would be the likes of these "sons of light," these two who could now see, who would accompany Jesus into a kingdom of humility and compassion. And Matthew does all he can to make sure that future readers of his narrative do not lose sight of this one essential point, misquoting the well-known text of the prophet and drawing attention to his glaring omission: "Look, your king is coming to you, [OK, let's leave this 'triumphant and victorious' part out], humble and riding on a donkey."

Apparently we in the 21st century didn't get this memo – and it appears that we missed it in practically every other century as well. Is it really so difficult to discern from Jesus' ministry what side of victory and triumph – as they are classically and militarily defined at least – he and his kingdom ultimately come down on? For all our careful reading of the text, and all our deep respect for the authority of scripture, how is it that we keep on missing this one? How many US soldiers who rumbled and bombed their way into Baghdad nearly five years ago sported crosses around their necks as they entered that city in triumph and victory? Who, at Abu Ghraib, photographed the cruciform shape of a hooded man without making any evident connection with the one who had been similarly humiliated nearly two thousand years before? And perhaps the most disturbing question of all: By what twist of logic did history's most notable victim of empire – Jesus of Nazareth – eventually become one of its most established icons?

I have to wonder how many sermons this Sunday will note the bitter irony of professing with our mouths a steadfast faith in Jesus and his peaceable kingdom, while at the same time declaring with our actions that our real trust lies in the very machinations of triumph and victory that drove this man finally to the cross.

Hosanna was the cry that greeted Jesus as he rode his way slowly into the holy city of Jerusalem: "God save us." Hosanna is also the word that we most need to hear at this lamentable point in our history. God save us, now more than ever. God save us, because we've certainly made a mess of things trying to do it ourselves.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. How many bake sales do you suppose it would take to raise three trillion dollars for our American public school system?

2. Some might say that addressing the issue of the Iraq War on Palm Sunday is entirely inappropriate -- politics doesn't belong in the pulpit. At the same time, however, we affirm that Jesus is making a very obvious political statement with his ride into Jerusalem. How do we reconcile this? Is the church a political entity? If so, what topics are appropriate or inappropriate for it to address?

3. What is the theological difference between "empire" and "kingdom."

Dead Man Walking

John 11:1-45

The sole surviving painting of the 15th-century German artist Albert Van Outwater is a depiction of this week's gospel lesson: the raising of Lazarus. Though set in the context of a Romanesque church with its distinctive arches and customary burials in the nave of the sanctuary, Outwater's painting is still able to capture the drama and conflict of John's story. The artist even adds a bit of his own interpretive nuance with the apostle Peter – here represented in the monastic garb of the Middle Ages – trying to negotiate some form of understanding between "the Jews" (as the text refers to them) on the right, and Jesus and his friends on the left. And there in the bottom center, looking perhaps a little pastier than usual but none worse for the wear, is Lazarus himself. He's ready to venture out into the world as a new man.

But "new man" is really misleading here because it is not an accurate reading of the text, and this is what has given me pause for reflection. The commentaries I have consulted seem not to have noticed what I have, or not to have cared. It's always a little disconcerting when the experts regard your personal interest as unworthy of their consideration. But what I want to know is this: Why, when Jesus calls his beloved friend Lazarus forth from the grave, does John insist that "the dead man (ho tethnekos) came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth…" (John 11:44a)? Though some translations try to smooth this over a bit – referring, for example, to "the one who had been dead" – the Greek text is quite clear on the matter. We're dealing here with a dead man walking.

Often when viewing works of art like Outwater's, I like to practice my own variation of lectio divina by engaging in a close and meditative reading of the image before me. As in traditional lectio, my objective is some sort of spiritual insight that I can take away from the experience. One of the questions I like to ask – and usually with less than admirable results – is where I find myself most at ease in the painting. With what group of people do I most identify and why? I wish I could report in this instance that I was right there with Martha or Mary as they professed their faith in Christ. I wish I could say that I resonated with both their frustration at Jesus' late arrival and the renewed hope that came with his presence among them. But I'm not there. If I had a flare for the sensational I'm sure I could report that the image of Lazarus is what most speaks to me – Lazarus who died, like many Christians after him, in the hopes that his savior would soon come and deliver him from his frightening predicament. But that's not me. I'm no Lazarus.

So here is my confession. I am ashamed to admit it for what it reveals about my deep-seeded psychological and physiological insecurities, but when I'm honest – really honest – I find myself among those nay-sayers and gawkers on the right side of this painting. In fact, I'm the guy in the funky hat holding a rag over his nose. I'm the one who in this situation would have exclaimed incredulously – and I like to think I would have done so in the King's most eloquent English – "Sir, by this time he stinketh!" (John 11:39, KJV).

This passage marks an important transition in John's gospel, for it is here that Jesus effectively trades his own life for that of his friend. In the pericope that follows, "the Jews" begin conspiring against him, plotting to kill him for "the good of the nation." Better to kill one man for his indiscretion, reasons Caiaphas, than to bring the wrath of the Romans down upon Jerusalem (John 11:50). So as Lazarus ventures forth into the unexpected hope of a longer life, Jesus turns his thoughts toward the place of the skull, Golgotha, and the realization that his time on earth is growing shorter with each passing hour. It is no wonder then that he weeps; the drama of his friend's passing, the sorrow of Mary and Martha, the stench of death in the air, and the certain knowledge that a darker road now lay ahead, must have been altogether overwhelming. Before his followers could know that he is indeed the resurrection and the life, Jesus would have to endure his own crucifixion and death.

And this brings me once again to the dead man walking, and the suspicion that when all is said and done, this passage is less about resurrection than about the need, even as life slips from our grasp, to affirm our experience as bodily beings. In first-century Palestine there were a number of beliefs concerning what happened to a person after he or she died. The older, more conservative view saw death merely as a separation from God, and Sheol as that place where everyone – the wicked and the just – persisted as mere shades of their former selves. Others, influenced most likely by Plato and the Greeks, hoped for the release of the soul from the tomb of the body and liberation into the eternal, spiritual realm. Many Jews, however, the Pharisees among them, believed that in the final days God would resurrect all who had died and judge them according to their deeds on earth. Christianity, of course, adopted the latter perspective, though you'd never know it to speak with many in the church today who profess that upon death their "souls will go to heaven" to live forever with God. Whatever happened to the Creeds: "I believe in the resurrection of the body"?

At the risk of exposing myself as a heretic I will make another confession: I have a very difficult time getting my head around the resurrection of the body. It just leaves me with so many unanswered questions. Paul says that on that day we will have "spiritual bodies," but this really doesn't tell me much. I guess I can look forward to not having to endure Crohn's Disease as I have my entire life, or my bad knee, or that annoying bald spot on the back of my head. But what kind of body will a spiritual body be? Will I eat? Will I drink? Go to the bathroom? What about sex?

The questions are overwhelming if I let myself get drawn down this path. But then I consider another possibility: perhaps our affirmation of the resurrection isn't so much about our mode of existence after death, but about the goodness of the body that accompanies and in some ways defines us throughout this earthly life. I do not inhabit a throw-away vessel, though there is much in our "culture of cleanliness" that encourages me to think this way. The illusion is that we can all live very neat, very ordered and fulfilling lives if we can only tap into our "true spiritual nature." Of course, this pursuit requires that we eliminate the unsightly distractions that challenge us along the way. So we hide away the anomalies. We place our elderly in assisted living facilities and pay other such undesirables a pittance to clean up after them and keep them company. We enable the disabled with the proper legislation hoping that their marginalization can at least be made a little easier for them, and a lot more efficient for us. With respect to end-of-life issues, our medical professionals pursue the ideal of life at all costs, but at the expense of a meaningful death welcomed ritually in the context of a caring human community. In such a somaphobic society it is no wonder that so many of us aspire to some unencumbered, purely spiritual existence in the great hereafter. It seems that in all we do we attest along with Plato that our bodies are just burdensome tombs for our souls.

But the blessed reality that lies at the heart of the gospel reading this week is this: though we do our best to deny it, we are all "dead men walking." We may not identify immediately with his image in the painting above, but we are all Lazarus. Our hoped-for culture of clean is just a pipe dream, for we all stinketh.

And yet Jesus still calls us forth.

We bear the marks of our immortality within us, and this is as it should be. We like to think that the work of Christ somehow saves us from our deaths, but this is not entirely true; it saves us only from the finality of death. We must then do what we can always to honor the earthly end to which we will one day come, as well as the often frustrating and sometimes repulsive bodies that will accompany us along the way. How easily we forget that it was into such a state that God became incarnate as a living being. "The Word became flesh," John tells us. "He took on the form of a slave," Paul elsewhere confesses -- a slave (dare I say it) who didst stinketh.

I do not know what my resurrected frame will look like in the life to come, and I'm not going to spend much time worrying about it. Thankfully, the story of Lazarus has helped me instead to focus my attention on the here and now. It is enough to know that the body I now bear – with all its smells and unsightly imperfections – is the very one that was baptized and welcomed into the church, the body of Christ, all those years ago. And it is Christ himself who is continually calling me forward, like Lazarus, to touch, to smell, to taste, to hear, to see – to serve – so many other bodily beings in my midst.

"Welcome all as Christ," St. Benedict admonished his fifth-century monks. I'd like to think that John might encourage us also to "welcome all as Lazarus," as "dead ones walking" as it were, and even to do so in gratitude, from the very core of our fragile and vulnerable humanity, as if stepping forth from the darkness of our own tombs into the light of the world. And don't be surprised if at some point along the way you, like Jesus, have occasion to weep, for it is in our empathy, our "suffering with," that Word touches flesh, and Christ is made manifest among us.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. With what person or group in Outwater's painting above do you most identify, and why?

2. Do you agree that we live in a somaphobic (body-fearing) society? What evidence can you offer in support of this? Are there instances that you can think of where bodies are glorified? If so, what kind of bodies do they often tend to be?

3. Does Paul help or hinder us by speaking of "setting the mind on the flesh (sarx)" in contrast to "setting the mind on the spirit (pneuma)" (Romans 8:6)? Do we tend to confuse his theological references to "the flesh" with our understanding of the body? Is there a difference between the two, sarx and soma? If so, what is it?

4. In what ways might the church be more body-affirming in its worship and ministry?

The Mud of the Lamb

John 9:1-41

A story is told of the Buddha who when asked by one of his disciples to describe the human condition likened it to a man walking through the forest who is struck by an arrow. Too often, the Buddha cautioned, we indulge ourselves in the kinds of questions that are irrelevant to the situation at hand. An observer of this tragedy has the luxury of wandering down rabbit trails: I wonder who shot this arrow? Why was he so careless in his aim? How far did it have to travel to reach its unlikely destination? If you are the man writhing in pain, however, all of these abstractions are quite beside the point, for there is only one pertinent question: How can I remove this object from my body and relieve my misery? Human beings, the Buddha concluded, frequently delude themselves into thinking that they are merely observers of their world, and thus they ask all the wrong questions. But in reality, each of us is like the man languishing in the forest, and as such we really don't have time for idle speculation. Instead, we need to focus our attention on the urgency of our predicament.

I can imagine that Jesus must have felt some of the Buddha's frustration when his disciples began posing their observer's questions about the man who had been blind from birth. No doubt the situation was a conundrum, especially for those who no longer believed that God was "a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of their parents…" (Ex. 20:5). It was Ezekiel who first painted Yahweh in a new light as a Creator who deals with each person according to his or her sins, and not as some vindictive old man who can't get over a grudge (Ezek. 18:20). But if this is the case, then how can we begin to explain congenital blindness? Despite Job, many during Jesus' day would have recognized the disability as a certain punishment from God. Some sin must have been committed, but when, and by whom? Were his parents to blame? Apparently not, unless you wanted to take up the matter with the likes of Ezekiel. Therefore, it must have been the man himself who was responsible. But could this transgression have happened in the womb? What a wonderful opportunity for a ponderous theological discussion, the disciples must have thought. Jesus could probably hold forth on this one for hours!

But Jesus had other plans. Like the Buddha, he knew that this was no time for philosophical tourism; it was a time for getting his hands dirty. His immediate response, however, appears to leave us with an unfortunate theodicy: "he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him" (9:3). Wonderful. Just when we thought we were past the image of God as some grumpy old man we're now confronted with an even less appealing possibility: God as manipulative deity who allows, if not causes, the lifelong suffering of an innocent person so that God might eventually be glorified.

This is a little hard to swallow. Indeed, it was such a facile explanation of the afflictions of our world that led the iconoclastic Ivan, in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, to reject the Christian faith and its worldview altogether. "If the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings that was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price" (ch. 35). Thankfully the New Testament scholar Craig R. Koester helps us to breathe a little easier with an alternative translation. "A better way to approach this passage," he writes, "is to follow the Greek wording, recognizing that the sentence begins in 9:3 and continues in the next verse: 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but in order that (all' hina) the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day'" (9:3-4a) (Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, Second Edition [Fortress Press, 2003], p. 105). In other words, Jesus' act in relieving the man's suffering is not the long-awaited denouement of some divine plan, but rather a symbolic instance of its inauguration. Jesus was announcing in word and in deed the beginning of a new creation: "Let there be light."

And so he begins, in a manner not unfamiliar to those who have read the Yahwist account of creation in Genesis 2. The symbolism of Jesus' use of clay was not lost on Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century. For him it was an affirmation that the same hand that had formed Adam from the dust of the ground was now supplying openly what nature had neglected to provide in the womb (Against Heresies 5.15.2). Jesus did not simply heal the man's eyes but, in a manner of speaking, fashioned new ones from the earth itself. It was Origen, however, who helped early Christians understand the connection between this miracle and the process of their own spiritual growth. Whereas in the past Israel's kings were affirmed as "sons of God" (Ps. 2:7) through an anointing with oil, this apparent sinner was now acknowledged as one of God's own by means of a much more elemental ritual. He was anointed in the mud of the lamb. Thus begins his awakening -- his enlightenment -- a gradual understanding of the nature and power of God's grace in his life. But as Origen informed his readers, the clay in Jesus' hands was only the penultimate phase of the man's faith journey. It was "the beginning of the rudiments of the oracles of God, according to which we as babies are fed with milk. But when the childish things are done away with and we eat solid food, we wipe away the clay so that we may return to Jesus as one who sees" (Fragment 63 on the Gospel of John).

It is very easy to overlook a seemingly insignificant statement made by the one who, after washing his eyes in the pool of Siloam, was graced with the gift of sight. When asked by his neighbors if he is in fact the same person they once knew as a helpless beggar, his response is a noteworthy echo of Jesus' original proclamation to the woman at the well (John 4:5-41): "I am the man!" Now, having been made one with Christ through his baptism in living water, this man is able to testify to the Messiah most intimately by a profession of God's holy name, which is at once an affirmation of the new life that has been created in him: "I am."

It is no coincidence that early depictions of this miracle are prominent in the art of the Christian catacombs, found as often as nine times on the walls of these underground sanctuaries. It is not difficult to conceive how this gospel lesson might have been interpreted in this subterranean context, where the dust of the earth surrounded the faithful on all sides and darkness swallowed up the thin luminosity of their oil lamps. The rite of baptism in this environment must have been accompanied by a profound first-hand experience of arising from the depths as the believer ascended from the tombs of the dead and awakened to the light of day, assured in faith that she was now alive in Christ.

In an earlier reflection I spoke about the importance of Lent as Adam's season, a time for wearing the ashes of creation on my forehead and affirming the weaknesses and vulnerabilities I share with my most ancient of ancestors. I now know, through my ruminations on the lectionary texts over the last three weeks, that I too have been engaged all along in a kind of personal journey of creation, of being called forth slowly from the earth, my home. With twenty days of Lent behind me and twenty more that lie ahead, it seems appropriate at this point to shift my focus and begin reflecting on my own gradual ascent toward the light, from the tomb of my small ego toward the great "I am" whose spirit I bear through my baptism.

But if Lent teaches us anything it is the need to stay grounded, connected with the earth and the vicissitudes of our day-to-day existence. We are not simply observers of this short life but full participants in the groaning of creation and the suffering of humanity. We should therefore not pursue our idle speculations at the expense of the innumerable opportunities we have before us to really dig in deeply and get our hands dirty. For the way of enlightenment, of waking up and seeing the world as if for the first time, is by no means a straight road to glory but a crooked path of paradox, as both Jesus and the Buddha knew so well. As we near the second half of this liturgical season, John is encouraging us in this story to ponder one of his most elemental of insights -- that even before we can be refreshed by the waters of life we must first be renewed by the mud of the lamb.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. What aspects of this complex story most intrigue you?

2. Have you had any personal experiences where features of your world were brought more clearly into focus? If so, what were the means by which you were able to see things as if for the first time?

3. Do idle speculation and "observer's questions" (like those of both the disciples and the Pharisees in this text) often prevent you from digging in deeply and getting your hands dirty in the realities of your day-to-day existence?

4. Can you think of any contemporary parallels to this story?