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.
