A Poem/Reflection for XX Pentecost Proper 25C St. Andrew’s, Nags Head, N.C.
October 27, 2019 Thomas E. Wilson, Supply
Looking At My
Brother During Prayers
Jesus is telling another story, this time about two men going to pray at the Temple. The Jerusalem Temple was considered an exceptionally Holy Space where one was closer to God. My theology says that it doesn’t matter where I am, God is as close as my breath. However, a quarter of a century ago, when Pat and I were studying at St. George’s College in Jerusalem during my Sabbatical, I got a sense of the Holy Space unexpectantly. The only part of the old Temple left accessible is the Western, or sometimes called the “Wailing”, Wall at the foot of the Temple Mount.
Jerusalem was originally a Jebusite City until it was conquered by David in the 11th Century BC. The early Canaanites used to set up Holy Shrines on the top of hills to worship their Gods like Baal and Ashtoreth. When David conquered the city, he brought in a portable shrine as a place of worship and left the Canaanite Shrines in place. His son Solomon built a bigger and more impressive place of worship, a Temple, next to, and overshadowing the hilltop shrines to the Canaanite Gods. Later, under Josiah, there was a period of reform where those hilltop Canaanite shrines were removed. However, the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC but rebuilt after the exile. It was not as grand as the old Temple, but it was adequate. When the Romans wanted to help the reign of their puppet, Herod the Great, they underwrote much of the cost of refurbishing the Temple with a massive Public Works Campaign. The Temple Religious authorities, the Pharisees and the Sadducees all liked the new Temple because it was a great complex because it fed their ego needs of “importance” and provided a good income stream.
Jesus had reservations about it because it did not help people get closer to God only closer to a religious ritual which had little to do with real life. One of the reasons that the religious authorities and the Romans wanted to crucify Jesus was that he did not appreciate the big, beautiful Temple sitting on the top of the Temple Mount and he disrupted the services. Jesus was only one of many of the troublemaker’s who spoke and demonstrated against the corrupt system. Thirty plus years later there was a revolt against the Roman Occupiers and in 70 AD the Roman Legions under Titus destroyed the Temple as many people remembered Jesus’ words about the Temple being destroyed. If you go to Rome you can see the Arch of Titus showing the looting of the Temple and the bringing of the Menorah back to Rome for the Triumph.
In 135 AD after another unsuccessful Jewish revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian expelled all Jews from Jerusalem and built a Temple to the Roman God Jupiter over the spot where the Jewish Temple had once been. In the 4th Century, after the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian, he tore down the Temple of Jupiter and built an octagonal shaped Christian church and shrine on that spot. In the 7th Century the Muslims conquered Jerusalem and tore down the Octagonal church and erected an octagonal shrine, the Dome of the Rock, and followed that with building the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which became the 3rd most Holy Muslim site. This last week a riot of a couple thousand Jewish settlers raided the Mosque to show their faith on a Jewish Holiday. Obviously, over the centuries people of many religions carried the conviction that one place is more Holy than another place.
On one of my Sabbaticals, I went to the Temple Mount and stood in line to go the wall to offer my prayers. There were pieces of paper you could write your concerns and then walk up to the wall and place the paper between the rocks. Access to the wall was divided with a small section off to the side where women could approach and pray. On the male section, I noticed that the devout Jewish men were weaving and bobbing in their prayers probably the remnants of ancient forgotten dance, all liturgy begins as a dance, but still alive in the preconscious of deep prayer. I found myself moving in my prayer. I slipped my prayers into the wall for some of my parishioners back in Virginia, separated from me by time zones, seas, oceans and thousands of miles away but as close as a breath of a prayer.
All meaningful prayer is meant to draw us closer to what we imagine is God and our neighbor. There is a scene in Hamlet when Hamlet’s Uncle/Stepfather is kneeling to pray. Hamlet thinks Claudius is in a state of Grace praying, so he plans his revenge for later. However, after Hamlet leaves, Claudius gets up and confesses: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts cannot to heaven go.” The inner conversation he was having was not with God but with himself.
The story that Jesus is telling is about two men who are in the Holy Place and both look like they are praying. The Pharisee is not in conversation with God but stays in his own ego as he sneers to himself about the deficiencies of the sinner. He does the outward form of the prayer, but his thoughts remain below. The other man, the sinner, is in a conversation with God and listening to hear the love of God come through, even though he is a sinner. He is part of a Holy Dialogue.
A couple weeks ago I looked in the closet of the
Rector’s office and I found a bunch of pictures in frames. Since I knew that
some candidates might be coming to look over the place, I decided to bring them
out and put them on the wall to give an impression of an inviting space instead
of an empty room. One of the pictures was a copy of the Icon, The
Hospitality of Abraham, by Russian Orthodox Painter, and Saint, Andrei
Rublev which he did in 1411. On the surface it depicts the three strangers whom
Abraham invited to dinner. However, as the story goes on in Genesis, the three
men are a depiction of God bringing the good news of the child to be born for
Abraham. The Christian understanding of the Three Visitors is the Trinity;
Father, Son and Holy Spirit sitting at the table in dialogue with each other.
Henri Nouwen wrote about this Icon:
The more we look at this holy
image with the eyes of faith, the more we come to realize that it is painted
not as a lovely decoration for a convent church, nor as a helpful explanation
of a difficult doctrine, but as a holy place to enter and stay within.
As we place ourselves in front
of the icon in prayer, we come to experience a gentle invitation to participate
in the intimate conversation that is taking place among the three divine angels
and to join them around the table. The movement from the Father toward
the Son and the movement of both Son and Spirit toward the Father become a
movement in which the one who prays is lifted up and held secure…
We come to see with our inner
eyes that all engagements in this world can bear fruit only when they take
place within this divine circle… the house of perfect love (Behold the
Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons, p. 20-22).
As I started preparing for this reflection and Poem I tried to remember when I was first made aware during the time when I was supposed to be Praying when in the presence of someone else. A memory came to me of when I was about 8 years old. My older (by one year and four days) brother and I were sharing a bedroom and were kneeling at the side of our beds. My Father was there putting us to bed after singing a couple songs which we loved. One was often the “Wreck of Old 97”, which for some strange reason we loved even though one of the verses ended, “He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle, scalded to death by the steam.” But as Paul was praying before it was my turn; I was aware of how jealous I was of my big brother. I wanted to stop and point out to my father all of Paul’s faults so my Father would take my side. I was desperately thinking like the Pharisee in this story that Jesus tells: “I am better than that one over there!” Somehow, I think it was the grace of God, I kept on script and did my “lay me down to sleep” without giving my fragile ego a chance to feel better at someone else’s expense.
This was not the last time I would have this opportunity. I am almost 73 years old now and this happened when I was 8; so, it has been about an average of 80 times a year for the last 65 years- you do the math – I’ve got my shoes on.
Over the years I have had to learn a new way of dealing when an uninvited person comes into my prayer and meditation time. Before I pass judgment, I have learned to ask this uninvited person inside my imagination, “Why are you here?” Sometimes the person who comes in is my projection of all the things I have in my shadow that I don’t want to admit but have dumped on to this poor soul. Like I was doing with Paul. I have come to realize that often it is God’s part of the conversation to invite me to not go back to empty ritual where “my words fly up but my thoughts remain below” ritual; but God is placing this person there for me to pray for, forgive or care for a fellow child of God, my brother or sister, born from another DNA with whom I need to get into a Holy Conversation at this Holy Place.
How goes it with your prayers? As Stewards of your conversations with God your Father, Christ your brother and the Holy Spirit holding you together, how are you dealing with the uninvited guests in your prayers?
Looking At My Brother During Prayers
I wanted to tell my father about my brother
of all the shortcomings Paul had within him,
how Dad should look at him with eyes grim,
and he’d look at me, bragging to my mother.
Didn’t want to tell him I wanted to be like Paul,
his being handsome with that ease and charm,
which I so envied but could only do as smarm,
then a retreat that was less a walk than a crawl.
Years later, Paul and Dad are dead, but not gone,
for their love for me was not based on approval
of which one of us God considered more useful
based on the hard lines my jealousy had drawn.
My father saw us both as his sons, beloved both
because each of us were cut out of the same cloth.
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