Between Two Abysses
Reflections on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost
Ezech. 3:1-11; Rom. 9:1-5; Matt. 12:30-42
About 25 years ago an artist-theologian wrote that Christians walk a path at the intersection of two dark and unfathomable abysses. Particularly artists and iconographers come to understand how and why we are mediators between the two. There is the abyss of the world’s rejection of God. And there is the vast abyss of the mystery of God.
Jesus was the great mediator and bridge to help us pass over between them. He repeatedly quotes the radical message of the ancient prophets, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” In fact he did as Ezekiel wrote, “Son of man, eat this scroll: swallow it so it becomes a part of you. Speak it out.”
For example he would not accept a law that insisted someone should suffer one moment longer than necessary, even without immediate danger to life. He did not hesitate to heal someone right then and there. This disturbed the inertia of the institutions and formulas of his time for divine salvation. He gave heart, courage and spirit to people manipulated and paralyzed by fear and a need for security.
And so in Jesus humanity was crossing into a new reality. As we heard today, authorities of those times who were invested in political and religious control, when faced with the phenomenon of Jesus, seemed to fall on the side of something ungodly and evil. So he turned the tables on them: “don’t ask for proofs you won’t accept. If you are not for me then you are against me.” Even we can use this classic phrase to examine our own hearts.
On the other hand when the disciples saw strangers using Jesus name to heal, he said something very different, “if they are not against me then they are for me.” We ourselves can apply this standard to anyone who is doing what is right and good: there is no good reason to stop them even when they are not followers of Christ. Who are we to put a fence around the abyss of the love of God?
Our own inner sense of recognition and knowing what is right and good is often prompted by the Holy Spirit, a voice within us no louder than a whisper. In our Christian journey part of the practice is listening to this wisdom that often conflicts with what we may be used to thinking or doing.
By ignoring it, we fall prey to the fears and arguments that lead us by the nose into the abyss of the un-knowledge of God. Then we might not be able to recognize goodness, truth and beauty in unfamiliar garb even when we do try to be skeptical and discerning. We make some really thoughtless, compulsive or harmful choices. We mess up and may end up in a kind of hell. Somehow with help we need to move from this dark rut onto the other side, the so-called abyss of the embrace of God, which we can call forgiveness since words cannot fully describe the love of God. How often can we afford to ignore, make excuses, or put off the learning and training we need to hear the call within us or assess a situation around us?
An opposite example Jesus mentioned, as we heard, were the Ninevites, who were unrelated to Israel, but they still responded positively when the prophet Jonah brought them the warning of imminent disaster.
The gospel antagonists were neither responsive nor innocent. They refused to recognize God walking right in front of them and talking to them! They insisted without question on retaining their own narrow logical outlook and ended up siding with evil! Is this what that strange old phrase blasphemy or sin against the Holy Spirit really means? Those authorized teachers thought they had cleaned house and side-stepped any wrong-doing. But they were only empty shells without any engagement with the fullness of love, and so even worse things than before made a home in them.
When we clean our inner house or clean up our act, we also need to review what it means to listen and move into a deeper kind of love. It may seem we have to deny our love of life, and the effort can make us feel like we are dying; it is so hard … because we actually have to do it; it may even seem that God’s will is for us to be a puppet of God. Not at all! We are only asked to put aside all the running about and apparent liberties that children enjoy. Some people have to eat their own foolish words, not a happy experience. But we are asked to eat and digest the Word being given to us, and in this case it turns out to be a toast to life and as Ezekiel says it will taste like nectar. This is the Pascha or Passover journey from apparent life to apparent death. It is a bridge to the real life we see in the saints and other people we admire.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, for example: “The Muses love the woods, and I have come hither to court the awful Powers in this sober solitude. Whatsoever is highest, wisest, best: favor me! I will listen and then speak.” Trust in the mystery of God brings maturity and a depth of love and life that lasts through thick and thin. It can open us and expose us to the wonderful and terrifying universe of millions of possibilities that coax and bid us to follow and create, to incarnate the divine love in our own unique way whether or not we are artists. Emerson also noted that “In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through man, in spite of real sorrows.”
In Jesus, God entered our tragedies and pain and our darkest, most constricted and powerless places. Like with him, that mysterious affirmation from the abyss of love can enable us to bear even the deepest sorrows and defeat, with profound courage and strength of will. Christ is in our midst!