Second Sunday of Advent
Simone Weil lived in France in the early 20th century. She was a Russian Jew by ancestry, a communist and activist by conviction, and – at least in her early years – a strident atheist. And yet, over time, she became a profound philosophical and mystical follower of Jesus. But her posture of faith was unlike that of most. She fostered a radical spirit of solidarity with those who were poor and overlooked and on the margins of society. And because she chose to remain with them in the margins, she chose also never to be baptized, to remain outside the church, even as her heart was given more and more fully to Christ.
As a spiritual writer, she become known only in the years after her death when her friend, a Catholic priest, took the letters she had written to him and compiled them into a book. And it was then that the world became astonished by this hidden, unbaptized “saint” who had been in their midst, but never known.
And, over the years, I’ve joined in that astonishment. I remember once reading something she wrote about atheists that completely changed the way I perceived them and myself. She said to the effect, “I find it very easy to relate to atheists, because the God they don’t believe in – the God they are rejecting – is a God I don’t believe in either; it’s a notion of God that I also reject.” She recognized that they weren’t actually rejecting God, but rather, a false view of God. They’re rejecting the Petty and Vindictive god who stands at the center of so much religion and evangelism. They’re rejecting the Racist god, or the Remotely Philosophical god, or the Prudish god, or the Feeble god, or the Political god, or all the other unholy gods peddled throughout the church and religions of this world. From Simone Weil’s perspective, what the atheists are actually doing is rejecting heresy, which – in some ways – makes them the lone voices still holding out for a holier God than the mediocre version embraced by so many of the faithful.
And part of the “ah-ha moment” for me that came out of her insight was the recognition that all of us – atheists and believers alike – are responding or reacting to an understanding of God that lies somewhere between “Outright Wrong” (at its worst) or (at its best) “Rather Incomplete.” Right? Which of us has a faith actually rooted in a first-hand experience of God Almighty, fully and completely revealed before us? No one. Obviously. Which means even the wisest and most mature among us has an understanding of God that is distorted and incomplete, because our knowledge of God can only come through our own particular experience of life, in this world, formed as it is by brokenness and fear, of churches full of sinners like you and me, of parents who did their best to raise us, even though that “best” often came with false messages of who God is and who we are.
And, grievously, this distorted view of God – especially as it’s been enshrined by the church – has led to an extraordinary amount of pain in the world. The church has caused much pain, directly. And, by consequence this “anti-gospel” has taught the world to stop looking in our direction to offer any real message of hope – a hope that we do all belong, that there is a God who cherishes us all, equally, for all are God’s offspring and all are God’s beloved. Indeed, the gospel Christ proclaimed was most clear – that the one who hurts most, is the one most in need of love.
Earlier this week, I was talking with a gay, atheist friend of mine whose language hit me with the force of a prophet. “Eric,” he said, “watching religion from the outside is almost indescribable. And those [of you] on the inside don’t believe us…You probably don’t realize this, but American life is an endless stream of ‘You don’t belong here’ to non-Christians. Dozens of times a day, you get reminded that you don’t belong. And the delusion,” he said, “that churches and priests maintain by fear and ignorance is pervasive and immutable.” And this is the part that broke my heart: “[The church] ruined almost every one of my gay friends.”
Ruined.
Such an anti-gospel.
So what a paradox is ours today, 2,000 years into Christian history, that the prophets whose voice we may most need to hear is the atheists, whose rejection of “god,” may just be the witness that can draw us forward in recovering a purer hope of the god who yet may be.
For the human spirit yearns for something more – something better – something, in a word, truer. As Isaiah concludes in his tantalizing image of the new creation, “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).
It will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
That’s what we want. Because that’s what we’re missing.
What is it that will allow the wolf to live peaceably with the lamb? How shall the nursing child play safely over the hole of the asp? When we are full of the knowledge of the Lord. When our misconceptions of God are made void, then shall we learn how to live at peace with one another: Peace within families, peace between races and nations, peace with the earth and all our fellow creatures that dwell herein.
For inasmuch as we believe God to be vindictive, so are we free to be cruel ourselves.
Inasmuch as we believe God to be prefer the human species over the rest of creation, so are we free to pillage creation with no regard for its demise.
Inasmuch as we believe God to be perpetually disappointed in us, so are we free to harbor disappointments and disapproval of one another.
Inasmuch as we believe God to be distant and unconcerned, so are we free to disregard our neighbor.
Though we be image bearers of God, our behavior indicates just what kind of God we believe ourselves to be reflecting.
This world is a hurting place – full of people like you and me who have yet to be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
But we need not despair. For the Lord has been seen in this world in a way that is true and in a way that we humans can perceive: and that is in the person of Christ. What is God like? Look to Jesus. What does it mean to be human – in the truest sense of the word? Look to Jesus again.
We haven’t known him and interacted with him as the disciples did. We haven’t had that privilege. But we and this world have the testimony of his life – of his teaching, of his obedience, of his healings, of his compassion, of his sacrifice, of his resurrection. It is a testimony like none other. And throughout the centuries people of all cultures have been captivated by this witness. Say what you like of the church, we’re a soiled beast indeed. But of our Christ, what can be said, but that he is stunning and the truest vision of what we could hope for ourselves.
That is why we’ve created our parish mission as we have. What better aspiration could we pursue than to Be Like Jesus?
There’s no shame in such a mission. We don’t claim to be more than we are. But we do claim this as our objective. And, over the years, we’ve added other phrases that make sense about who we are as a church, and what we desire. We want to “meet people where they are.” And we want to “choose love.” And whatever tomorrow may bring, we want to choose love again.
I was visiting a parishioner this week. She’s 85 years old, has been faithfully following Jesus her whole life. And, as a testament to the worth and reality of lifelong discipleship, she said, “Eric, in the past few years, it’s just all starting to make so much sense. I just want to love everyone, without distinction. I’m done caring about what they do or don’t do; what they believe or don’t believe. I just want to love them. The gospel suddenly makes so much more sense. And it is so freeing.” And she was radiant. The way of Christ was settling in her…and radiating from her. “I came here to love you!” I told her. “But here you are, loving me.”
This journey of becoming like Jesus – it never ends. It remains before us, always, as an always-welcome invitation. Have you been a lousy Christian most your life? Okay. Welcome to the club. There’s a lot of us here. It’s like we say at the invitation to communion at the evening service:
This is the table, not of the church, but of our God.
It is made ready for those who love God,
and for those who want to love more.
So come, you who have much faith, and you who have little;
you who have been here often,
and you who have not been here long;
you who have tried to follow, and you who have failed.
Come, because it is God who invites you,
whose will it is that those who want God should meet God here.
As Isaiah wrote:
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its roots.
The tree of your life may have been cut down. For all I know, you may have hacked it off yourself. But your roots are alive. Like the dogwood in front of St. John’s that died after the construction project several years ago: a year later, it began sending out new shoots. It’s ten feet tall now. I expect it may bloom next spring. So may it be true of you: that shoot will be Christ and that shoot will be you, because this is our hope of the Peaceable Kingdom. Christ is in us and we are in Christ and the life that can grow will be that mingling of your spirit with the spirit of God – not only for your redemption – but so that you can become as one with Christ, that the compassion he shows you would become a compassion of your own, so that through you and God together, the wolf shall die down with the lamb.
Who knows? Perhaps that wolf in Isaiah’s vision is you. And the lamb is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.