Overflow of the Heart

As we approach Holy Week, I find myself reflective upon this season of Lent. Part of me wonders if I even tried at all to engage with Jesus as our local church has defined Lent. I at least set up a goal for myself, to study and practice the speech ethics of Jesus. To aid me in this I have been reading Eugene Peterson's book Tell it Slant, a study of Jesus' parables as he travels through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem and to the cross. In many ways, this season of Lent has mirrored that journey, as I've walked with Jesus through a foreign land. I wish that I had the same flare for the dramatic as Jesus, that I could interpret people's spiritual situations into well-crafted metaphors that people would be repeating two thousand years later, that I could set aside my agenda to be well-liked and to merely speak words that give life. Yet in my quest to see my tongue changed, I found God working on a very different part of me, my heart. Its often like this, I think, with God, we simply want to change our behaviors but He seems to care far more about who we are at our core. I found that to speak like Jesus did not mean learning smooth rhetoric but to be changed by his words.

And so as Jesus is preparing for his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem he tells a story about the life he is bringing us into. He tells of a master who entrusts ten servants with some investments, talents. When the master returns a King, he surveys how his tenants spent their talents. One especially daring servant risked his in high-stakes investments and doubled the King's returns. Another held tightly to his, afraid of losing it and is scolded by the master who subsequently takes the servant's little and gives it to the daring one. In this story Jesus is illustrating what it means to live in and move in his coming Kingdom. We are to throw caution to the wind and risk all.  He has given us tools to use and what he most desires is for us to go to work, without fear and with great hope.

So often I find myself like the last servant, keeping my talents to myself out of fear. I am so often afraid of failure that I fail to act at all, a failure in and of itself. Yet I see Jesus telling me that anything worth anything is going to take risk. He knew this keenly as he rode that donkey into the death trap that was Jerusalem. He knew what was on the line and he risked it all, even his life for his dream, for our dreams. He died and in that act of bravery he freed us all to do likewise. This season of Lent has challenged my heart at the basic level: I am coward, yet Jesus looks deep into my eyes and sees far beneath and proclaims that my name is "Courageous" and "Victorious." He bids me, and perhaps us all, to follow in his steps of daring even if it costs me my life, for the reward is doubly, even infinitely, greater.

Covered in Manure

One of my favorite movies scenes occurs near the beginning of Les Miserables. The main character, Jean Valjean, a convict, steals from and attacks the bishop who offered his home to the wandering stranger. When the authorities catch Valjean and bring him back to the bishop, the bishop actually testifies that he gave Valjean everything and insists that he take the silver candlesticks as well. Valjean is undone in this totally unrequested act of forgiveness. In his confusion he looks at the bishop and asks why he is doing this. The bishop responds, "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I've bought your soul. I’ve ransomed you from fear and hatred. And now I give you back to God."

In this season of Lent, I have both failed miserably and yet also seen moderate success in my attempts to speak with a good tongue. So much of what I am learning is found not in specific commands but in the everyday language of Jesus as he travels to Jerusalem. Just as Jesus is preparing for the events of the Passion week, I too am preparing. Jesus has taught me the humility and community-creating power of asking questions and being silent, the commonality in which we are to approach our God in prayer, and the freedom found in not boasting. Most of this has been seen in his stories, his parables. These illustrious stories often cause deep reflection and even shock despite their simple garb. One such parable is found in Luke 13:6-9:

Then he told them a story: "A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren't any.He said to his gardener, 'What's going on here? For three years now I've come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?'"The gardener said, 'Let's give it another year. I'll dig around it and fertilize,and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn't, then chop it down.'"

Here Jesus is teaching us to not do something. So much of what Jesus commands involves action and this appeals to us, it feeds our sense of control and power, but here Jesus is teaching us that patience and waiting should define our relationships with those who "waste good ground." A recent book has come out by a prominent pastor that before it even reached publication caused some to decry him a heretic and to bid him farewell from the community of God. Yet despite the validity of these claims, Jesus seems to warn against our swift judgments, even against judgments based on years of observance. We are to not be so swift to chop it down, chop him down, chop each other down. The gardener's response "let it be" is the same Greek word Jesus uses when he himself is chopped down and nailed to a cross, "forgive them." Too often in life we desire the role of judge, jury, and even executioner. We leave little room for God, let alone forgiveness. Perhaps we should heed the gardener's advise and give it a year, spread it with manure. It is hard work, undesirable work, but desperately needed work. In the process we cover each other in manure, in forgiveness. 

Interestingly enough, in both of these examples, the one being forgiven has done little if nothing at all to deserve it. The tree is barren and, if a tree could be such a thing, unrepentant. Jesus prays for us all as our horrible choices and voices were responsible for his death. It is our very ignorance of our error that gives the cause to Jesus' pronouncement of grace, "forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Perhaps it is not the ones I encounter day-to-day that need forgiveness so much as it is me. I am precise in my judgments on another, quick to tell anyone who will listen of the wrongs I have been wrought. What if I had the audacity, the patience, the grace to keep my mouth shut or better yet, to pronounce forgiveness. What if I was just as quick to tell the listening ear of my forgiveness, not in a boasting way but in a sincere and vulnerable way.

"I forgive you."

And in the midst of these simple words perhaps lives will change. Forgiveness not only frees the offender from the burden of his debt but also the victim from the burden of his own debt, hatred and pain. Forgiveness brings healing in a way no drug could hope to duplicate. Jean Valjean leaves that Bishop's presence a new man, given to God. He changes the lives of those around him sacrificing much for not only the noble but prostitutes and their daughters and ultimately it is his unceasing capacity for grace that breaks the hardest heart of all. Jesus looks out from his bloody brow and whispers a prayer that will and has changed us all. The one who will himself wipe away all of our tears, cries himself not for his pain but for our's. He is ever patient with us and is quick to tell anyone who will listen: "I forgive you, now go and do likewise."

Sounds good to me.

Questions of Silence

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. -Abraham Lincoln

I was born to talk. 

My dad, when he had enough of my rambling, would say to me, "you could talk the ears off a brass monkey." I'm not sure I knew exactly what that meant but I knew it was his way of telling me to shut up. I spent so much time in the principal's office for talking in class that the principal from the local high school where my mom taught thought I was the office assistant at the elementary. As I've grown older, I have learned that I am a verbal processor, that I have to talk things out to understand them better. This often looks like a spew of unrelated mutterings and apologizes as I chase rabbits only to realize that everything I was trying to say made no sense at all. See, processing.  And yet, it is in the act of speaking that I find myself most fully connected with others and even with God. This deep connection has forced me to contemplate how I use my words, to dig into the meaning and power of speech. One of the scriptures primary lessons on on how to speak is to not do it. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes warns that we are human and thus our words before God must be few. Jesus' brother James also commands us to be slow to utter a word, but instead to speed to listen. Jesus himself warns that merely calling someone a fool can bring fiery judgment upon us. But, as one born to talk, learning to be silent is rather hard. 

Jesus showed excellent skill in public speaking. His proclamation of ministry intent at the synagogue, the sermon on the mount, the sermon on the plain, the pronouncement of woes against hypocrisy, and his various parables all exemplify a person who not only had something rather valuable to say but also wielded the power to say it well. Yet there are these times when Jesus is oddly silent, especially before the Sanhedrin. With his life on the line, he offers no great rhetoric to prove his divinity or even his innocence but merely remains silent, save a few choice words. Even though I know the ending, that He must die, I still read that story and just want him to stand up and tell them off, but he remains silent. He had the wisdom to know that no matter what he said, the end would remain the same and so he used his silence as a witness.

But this scenario is not likely for my daily encounters. How did Jesus speak in his day-to-day conversations? One great example is found in Luke 10:

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life? 

He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" 

He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence-and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 

"Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." 

Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" 

Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead.Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side.Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man."A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him.He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable.In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill-I'll pay you on my way back.' 

"What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" 

"The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

Here we see a conversation dominated by questions. These are not integrating questions but ways of opening up, disarming one another. I recently watched a movie in which a teenage boy and girl try to get to know each other better and they play a game where they can only ask questions. The interesting thing is that it works, the questions spoke of a desire to not promote oneself but to know the other. Jesus here knows that the religious scholar wants to know what he's about and Jesus turns the question right back. Jesus seems less concerned about "preaching" the truth here as he is about connecting with this man. Even though Jesus speaks the most in this encounter, He never makes any commands other than supporting the conclusions the religious leader makes himself.  Jesus could have simply explained all this without the use of leading questions and story, but by doing so, He let himself be silent and listened to the answer that was already inside this man, and inside us all. 

In our conversations we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. And in so doing we may find less and less need to defend ourselves and our beliefs but to nurture the truth that is already in those around us. And just maybe, the act of listening will nurture the truth within us as well. The religious scholar challenged Jesus to find justification for how he treated his neighbor but in listening to Jesus' story he finds no defense of his definition of who his neighbor is, only a plea to be a neighbor. He finds not the answer to his question but the answer to a much more important one. And perhaps, he finds what he asked about in the beginning, eternal life.

What, I wonder, will we find?