ALL SAINTS CHURCH

I have to admit I like certain stupid stories, like the one about the boy who couldn’t or wouldn’t speak.  His parents took him to all sorts of specialists, but still, no words.  One morning the father walked down the stairs and his heretofore-silent son calmly uttered, “The cereal’s cold.” To which his father replied, “Son, you can talk, all these years and you finally can speak!” And then he asked, “Why didn’t you ever speak before?”  And the son replied, “Well, up until now, everything has been ok.”  Behind the obvious and ridiculous nature of the story is the less obvious, but symbolic message about finding our voices.  

Another story I once heard expressed a similar idea.  “This big guy started harassing my girlfriend, (pause, twitch, twitch) and I got so angry, (pause, pause) I almost did something!”   There he was at the precipice of action, yet frozen.

What does it take to find our voice?  What does it take for us to speak up and speak out?  What are the powers that suppress our free and authentic expression?

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.”  Do you speaking the truth about your life?  Has everything been OK up until now?  Are there things that are impinging on your personhood that you accept because of fear of consequences?

My suspicion is that there is a simple equation that usually provides an answer.  Simply put, when the inside pain outweighs the pain of external consequences; people act, move and speak.  Jesus says blessed are those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness etc.  I think he means blessed are those who have such inner sensitivity that they don’t wait 12 years to speak. These blessed ones realize that their sense of sin, as well as the injustice and corruption of the world are so real that they must be addressed, (spoken to and acted upon) even at the risk of great personal expense.

Of course there is much more to be said here and it is a sunny weekend, but I pray that each of us is able to exercise our God-given voice and agency, so that we might realize the joy of our sacred identities and make a difference in our part of the world.   

On Wednesday night at the Eucharist one of the readings spoke about the good news.  In the church we are used to translating good news as gospel, literally a good message.  As we were discussing things, it occurred to us that the idea of good news always requires a context.  Without a context, there can be no good news; instead you just get new information or another situation, a change from what was before.  News implies change, but good news means that the change is for the better, that is, an answer to a difficult situation, a solution to a problem, something that is pertinent and meaningful.

Our discussion then proceeded to ask the reflexive question, “What would good news be for us?”  With what would it contrast and what question or problem would it address in our lives? 

We are not a 12-step program.  People are not so quick to share private details in public. Maybe it would be better if we did.  But one could almost feel the gears turning as each of us pondered what good news would address in our lives.  One could almost hear in the silence, “Ah, wouldn’t that be great!”

When we do church-think , I imagine so many of us think of faded Sunday School pictures of a handsome, blue-eyed anachronistic Jesus and dusty bibles, known more for the occasion received than for their content.  Questions of sin and salvation seem like so many academic concerns, addressed with the academic parts of our brains, if at all.

But when we think of good news and the real problems they address in our real lives, and real world are imaginations light up.  One of the real purposes of religion is to light up, and expand our imagination.  Unless you receive the Kingdom as a child would receive it, you won’t receive it at all.  So frequently our religion acts as a soporific or sedative, our real lives. 

The wonder of Jesus was that he took ancient stories and understood and proclaimed that they applied to real life here and now.  The Kingdom is at hand, it is here, he proclaimed.  If we could just make the leap from gospel to good news, from ancient stories of miracles to existential experience of transformation and liberation, maybe we could begin to imagine springs of living water gushing up from our inner-most being and over-flowing us with the eternal waters that constantly give life refreshment to every fiber of our being and corner of our world.  That would begin to feel like good news to me.

Show business.  We all are careful to put on our show each day.  We know the axiom “The suit makes the man” and it is essentially true in our culture.  Part of the essence of a show is the suspension of suspicion.  If the actors are good enough and the dialog is good enough and the sets and costumes are good enough, we forget we are in a theater or on our couches and that these are just people who have memorized lines.  But at least in the theater and on certain shows of quality, the writing represents the deeper truths of the human condition.  Good writing and good acting can be a window into a world that we find otherwise occluded.  The shows that most of us put on are a curious mixture.  Maybe like the old burlesque shows, they allow people to see exactly what we want them to see, when we want them to see it.  Of course every now and then there is a Jackson-esque “wardrobe malfunction.”  People see what we don’t want them to see.  Or perhaps like at the infamous 1969 Doors performance in Miami, people think they see something that they in fact didn’t see.  

Jesus was very aware of the world of show and reality.  He talked about not being like hypocrites who practice their piety for public approval.  He counseled that to avoid living a life for show only, that we go into a closet where our real selves would be open to the real God.  

Of course there is a real part of us that we choose to hide from public view.  But sometimes we hide it so well that we forget where we placed it.  Perhaps there are hints of this real self (soul) that are expressed in our clothing and in our behaviors.  Perhaps other people see the signs of this reality in ways that we don’t even see it ourselves.  Perhaps this true self is withering in the darkness of our shadows, because we are so afraid to look at it ourselves.

Our Church calls itself a sacramental church.  The classic definition of a sacrament is the outward and visible expression of an inward and invisible truth.  What we do in our liturgy is to acknowledge and indeed celebrate the existence of this inward reality.  We practice symbolic ways of making that hidden reality, visible.

It may be impossible to always be transparent.  We ourselves don’t really know what’s in our depths.  But the goal of our journey of faith, is to assume that the image of the divine is within us and to endeavor to bring that image into awareness.  Only then can we begin to find a congruity between our outward and inward selves.  Only then do we show the world the reality of grace that we hear about in church.  According to scripture, God helps us in this search for the truth that is deep within us.