All of us have
experienced, at some time in our life, being in crisis. The death of a loved
one, the discovery of serious illness, having the well-being of your family threatened,
an act of nature that turns your world upside down, a relationship you thought
you could trust in and suddenly that trust is broken, a way in which you
thought the world worked that doesn’t work anymore, or, like the man and the
woman in our Gospel reading who get left behind, feeling abandoned and alone.
When we are in such a
crisis, it is hard to see out of it. Sometimes we lash out at the nearest
person or thing to blame, or we turn the lash on ourselves and sink into
feelings of worthlessness and despair, and almost always we look for an easy
answer to set the world right again.
Blessedly, most of the
time something happens that causes us to look outside the moment we are in and
see the larger picture. Leonard Cohen, who died a couple weeks ago, describes
what often needs to happen, in a song he called simply “Anthem,” originally
from an album called appropriately for us this morning “The Future,” whose
cover features broken shackles.
The birds
they sang
At the break
of day
Start again
I heard them
say
Don’t dwell
on what
Has passed
away
Or what is
yet to be
Yeah the
wars they will
Be fought
again
The holy
dove
She will be
caught again
Bought and
sold
And bought
again
The dove is
never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
We asked for
signs
The signs
were sent
The birth
betrayed
The marriage
spent
Yeah the
widowhood
Of every
government
Signs for
all to see
I can’t run
no more
With that
lawless crowd
While the
killers in high places
Say their
prayers aloud
But they’ve
summoned, they’ve summoned
A thundercloud
And they’re
going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack, in
everything
That’s how the light gets in
You can add
up the parts
You won’t
have the sum
You can
strike up the march
There is no
drum
Every heart,
every heart to love will come
But like a
refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack, in
everything
That’s how the light gets in
Cohen has captured many
things in this song, but chief among them is knowing this tendency we have when
in crisis to accept only the perfect. That, he says, is the primary thing we
must give up. It causes a kind of blindness, this clinging to the perfect, that
does not allow us to see the light coming through the imperfection of the
moment, the crack, as he says, that lets the light in.
Our country is in a
crisis currently, but it is, as I see it, one of very long duration. It has
lasted at least all of my adult life. It seems acute now, revolving around a
particular personality, but this personality is the product of years of
cultural shift in which some have been demanding an end to their feeling left
behind, which is causing a whole other group of people to fear that they are
now the left behind ones. For the last fifty years and more a huge cultural
shift has taken place, and is still taking place, and some people are terrified
by it because the way they understood how the world worked is ending.
There are many ways in
which the election that just occurred was inevitable, especially given the rise
of the 24-hour news cycle and the dominance of social media, both of which
thrive on a sense of crisis continuing, and where the truth is what we want to
believe, not what is. And it does not look as if it will end, as different
approaches to issues, and different ways of interpreting what is happening to
us, and different experiences of what is happening to us, harden into barriers
that may not be crossed because on the other side of the barrier is not a
fellow citizen trying to get by and make some sense of things, but an enemy who
wants to destroy our way of life.
We have deepened our
crisis into an apocalyptic moment, when the future of our lives, our country,
our world, seems to be at stake.
Jesus told us we would
have days like these, and in the midst of the strange writing we call
apocalyptic in chapter 24 of Matthew’s Gospel (with similar chapters in Mark
and Luke), he is trying not to frighten us, but to give us ways to resist. He
says, in particular
- Don’t follow after someone who says he or she has it all figured out and can fix everything; that is, someone who talks like a messiah. In spiritual terms we would say, practice discernment. In practical terms we might say, do not go down every rabbit hole that is pointed out to you.
- When everything seems to be coming unglued, do not get caught up in anxiety. Keep Calm and Keep Loving. The temptation will be for your love to grow cold, he says.
- Third, in the part of chapter 24 we just heard, keep alert and be ready. This is such an important point that to emphasize it he tells two short parables at the end of chapter 24 and a long parable at the beginning of chapter 25 with the same message: Keep awake, stay alert, always be ready.
But ready for what? What is the antidote for getting
stuck in crisis, be it personal or communal?
The second parable in chapter 25 is that of the
talents. Be ready to use your gifts for the purposes of God is the message.
And then the climax of these two chapters, the parable
of the sheep and the goats with that great admonition, “As you did it to the
least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
The antidote to any crisis is to reach inside for your
own well of gifts, which includes strength for doing things you never imagined
you could do, and then use that strength to better the life of someone else,
because in doing so, Jesus says, you will find me. In Leonard Cohen’s words,
find the cracks in your own life and in the lives of those around you, forget
about perfection, and let the light shine through.
It’s Advent and we talk
of learning to wait for and watch for Jesus to come again. My image of Jesus
coming again is that one of these days enough of us will be serving enough
others of us, assuring one another’s justice, that somebody will suddenly
notice that the Lord of the universe is working right alongside of us.
Times of crisis come to
each one of us, and they come to us as a people, and sometimes they seem
never-ending. It is tempting to insist
that Jesus come back and get us out of this mess we have created for
ourselves. But I suspect Jesus has been
there all along, in the midst of us, as we have been working to bring God’s
kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, or weeping because we refuse to see the
cracks in everything that let his light, and ours, and those we might even
describe as enemies, shine through.
No comments:
Post a Comment