Friday, September 1, 2017

Turning Aside to Look and See - Reflection and Poem for 3 September 2017


A Reflection for XIII Pentecost All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC September 3, 2017 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Turning Aside to Look and See

The question for meditation for today was to reflect on a time when you turned aside to look and see. In our lives we tend to rush through our own agendas and plans without noticing anything that doesn’t fit with the program. In the lessons for today, we have three situations where the people involved do turn aside, look, and see. 
 
I want to add another dimension to your thinking, and that is on the nature of being a jerk. I was reading an article by Eric Schwitzgebel, a professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside, called A Theory of Jerks. His definition of a “jerk” is of one who thinks him/herself important as “a pleasantly self-gratifying excuse for disregarding the interests and desires of others.” He says: “I submit that the unifying core, the essence of jerkitude in the moral sense, is this: the jerk culpably fails to appreciate the perspectives of others around him, treating them as tools to be manipulated or idiots to be dealt with rather than as moral and epistemic peers”.

You remember last week we began the Moses saga. There was a Pharaoh who was heading up a nationalist and racist program to make Egypt great again by trying to control all those who did not fit into the profile of belonging in that country by either driving them out of the country by making their lives miserable or making those who stayed into slaves. In essence the Pharaoh was a jerk creating a nation dedicated to jerkitude where the needs and desires of those who get in the way are ignored or undermined. 
 
Moses was the child of a Hebrew family but had been raised in comfort as the tame Hebrew pet in the house of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was tolerated in that house even if the Egyptians did not consider him a full human being. Life seemed easy and he had nothing to complain about as long as he remembered his place. Otherwise all toleration for him would disappear and he would have to work as a slave. So what he does is live in the palace, keep his head down, and ignore what is happening. This is the development of a good jerk - one who doesn’t turn aside, look, and see -for they are the center of their own universe, it is all about them.

Except, one day Moses sees an cruel overseer abusing a Hebrew laborer, and he violates his agenda and turns aside, sees, and looks. He attempts to intervene. Sure of his own pampered place in life, he probably says something like, “I say, my good man, is all that violence really necessary?” The overseer sees an uppity Hebrew who thinks that he has the effrontery to address the master race and starts taking the whip to Moses for forgetting his place. Moses fights back in his fury, killing the overseer and hiding the body to avoid any legal trouble. He becomes a jerk in order to fight a jerk.

Moses goes home troubled knowing that, if the deed is found out, he will lose his place of belonging. The next day he sees two Hebrew slaves fighting among themselves, and as he tries to break up the fight, one of the slaves bitterly asks Moses who does he think he is kidding? He is just a pet of the Egyptians and not their leader. Is Moses going to kill him as he killed the Egyptian? Moses flees from Egypt in fear of Pharaoh’s justice and because he knows that he does not belong anywhere, not as a Hebrew, not as an Egyptian. He ends up in Midian and hides there, keeping his head down trying to forget the past and just focus on his own desires and needs. Years will pass before he makes the opportunity to turn aside, look, and see. 
 
Moses keeps to himself and starts to raise a family, but one day he sees a bush blazing with fire and the bush is not consumed. This physical impossibility gets his attention and he turns from his agenda and listens to God. God invites Moses, an alien in an alien land, a man who belongs nowhere, to return to the fire in Egypt that awaits him. He is like the bush that the fire will not consume, to lead the Hebrew people, his people, and to tell old Pharaoh to set his people free. Moses turns aside to look and see, hearing the pain of the people he wanted to ignore. From that moment on, he stops being a jerk for he has compassion for his people and his enemies. He sees that there will be troubles. He sees that it is an uphill battle and he sees that God is walking with him, providing the fire for lighting the way.

In the Romans passage, Paul, who had once been obsessed with persecuting Christians in the name of religion, is what we will call a religious jerk, someone who is so concerned with their own salvation that he is willing to kill people as “a pleasantly self-gratifying excuse for disregarding the interests and desires of others.” On his way to Damascus his attention is called by a bright light which lets him know his own blindness to others. He hears the Risen Christ call him into a new relationship with God, not based on self-righteousness but on love. Paul turns from his own agenda, looks and sees the energy that burns without consuming in the new relationship with God. Paul turns his life around because he sees a whole new way of living, which he outlines in his letter to the Romans. Paul turns aside to look and see. He will have a hard time in his new way of living but he sees the hope and he begins living that new life by word and deed. He will walk with the fire of love to light his way.

In the Gospel lesson from Matthew, Jesus, who had a ministry of preaching and healing in the Galilee area, has stopped from rushing around from town to town to pray, and he understands that the new path will lead him to Jerusalem where he will run the risk of death and heartbreak and betrayal. He turns aside and looks and sees. He sees the abuse. He sees the kiss that will betray him. He sees the cross. He responds in hope knowing only that God will be with him each day in this new life. He claims the energy that burns but does not consume to set his people free. He will walk with the fire of love to light his way.

I remember when I first met Pat thirty-three years ago in the summer of 1984. I had my head down as a newly-minted clergy type with my own agenda. I met her and decided that I needed to have nothing to do with her because my agenda was to be the best gol-darn Priest in the Episcopal Church. I dismissed her as not worthy of my time and she spotted me as a religious jerk, and I was. Our mutual dislike continued for the next four years. In my arrogance, I “culpably fail[ed] to appreciate the perspectives of others around [me], treating them as tools to be manipulated or idiots to be dealt with rather than as moral and epistemic peers”. I was successful as a preacher, liturgist, and church leader, but a failure in my marriage and in being a parson. It was only when I saw the wreckage around me that I was able to turn aside, look and see. I was lucky, and after, we treated each other as human beings and worked together as equals. There was, and is, an energy within her, greater than herself that burns and does not consume, and she was there for me to help pick up some pieces. Later she agreed to accept my proposal of marriage and to keep me honest 28 years ago today. On a regular basis we have to turn aside, look and see and hear God calling us from being jerks to each other and to walk with the fire of love to light our way..

Turn aside, look and see; what have you got to lose?

Turning Aside to Look and See
For first couple years, he’d seen enough
to not waste more time, but just dismiss,
for life’s too short to deal with all of this,
on his plate to chew is stuff really tough.
Yet here’s something beneath a surface,
an energy, deep beyond comprehending
drawing him to marvel at the fire tending
warming compassion for a new purpose.
An energy, not for rehashing an old past
but a hope for future bright with promise
once he’s able to see with an eye honest
enough to meet demands a future asked.
It is time to make a commitment to risk
have heart broken beginning with a kiss.


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