Essay
71 (4-30-05)
A STORY FROM THE HEART OF GOD
A remarkable thing about Holy Scripture is that it takes us into the
very heart of the stories it tells. We not only meet people face to face,
but we can feel their pain or joy, and sometimes sense their surprise or
wonder. We hear the conversations as if we were there in person. When
Jesus takes his closest disciples into the Mount of Transfiguration, we
get to go along. When our Lord steals away to pray in agony in Gethsemane,
we get to listen in as if we were there.
We can study the Bible through what I call "intimate imagination" – by
projecting ourselves personally into what is going on, a silent
participant in the drama. I’ve recently reread the dramatic story of Moses
before Pharaoh – the plagues, the king’s obstinacy, and the eventual
exodus. I injected myself into a forbidden scene – standing right there
with Moses and Pharaoh, an unseen witness to the drama.
I wasn’t surprised when Moses’ staff turned into a serpent, for the Lord
had so instructed him, but I was surprised when the Egyptian magicians did
the same thing. In fact I stepped back and gave wide berth to all the
snakes! But I applauded when "our" serpents swallowed up "their" serpents.
Do you follow me? I learn the story by becoming part of it – intimate
imagination.
I can even be present – of all places – in Pilate’s private chamber when
he interrogates Jesus. What drama! And I can stand alongside St. John the
Divine as he sees the heavens open and beholds the New Jerusalem coming
down out of heaven from God. I am awed! I feel unworthy to witness such
mystery and revelation. Should I bow down and hide my face? In any event,
I am there. That is what Scripture does for us.
But there is one story I have difficulty becoming part of, intimately
anyway. When Jesus says in Lk. 18:10: "Two men went up to the temple to
pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector," I have no problem
imagining myself going along with them. But as the story unfolds I find
myself uncomfortable as part of the scene.
I find myself backing away, still watching and listening, but not all that
involved. In biblical scenes like these I like to stand alongside the
participants – silent and unseen of course -- and share the experience
with them. But I am not comfortable, either with the Pharisee or the tax
collector. I stand back, chastened by what I see and hear.
The Pharisee is really a sick frog – poor chap – he supposes he is
righteous when he is really self-righteous. "I thank God that I am not
like others – extortioners, unjust, adulterers – or even as this tax
collector," he prayed – perhaps more to himself than to God. Then he tells
God – or himself – how good he is. "I fast twice a week, I give tithes of
all that I possess." All of which was probably true. A good church member.
The kind that pays the preacher so he can preach on the Pharisee and the
publican!
Am I like the Pharisee? I’m inclined to sit this one out.
The tax collector is also a sick frog, but, unlike the Pharisee, he
realizes his sickness. He is despised by his fellow Jews. Employed by a
foreign power to collect -- sometimes through brutal coercion --
oppressive taxes from his own people, he was seen as an exploiter and a
traitor. If anyone would walk away from a service at the temple justified
before God it certainly would not be an odious publican – as the Jews
would see it anyway.
Now we have one of those biblical "reversal of a reversal" in that it is
the despicable publican who, unlike the Pharisee who "prayed thus with
himself," appears to be actually talking to God. But he doesn’t say much.
Nothing about others. He seems unmindful of the Pharisee’s presence -– and
of course he can’t see me standing in the wings, mind-boggled over what
I’m witnessing. He doesn’t even approach the altar as did the Pharisee. He
rather stands back, disinclined even to lift his eyes heavenward as temple
visitors usually did. He even beats his breast in abject surrender.
His prayer is both riveting and disarming. He simply said, "God, be
merciful to me a sinner."
The translations do not get it quite right. He actually prayed, "God, be
merciful to me, the sinner" – as if he were the premier sinner, or the
only sinner.
Jesus concludes the story with an amazing statement – one that tells us
what religion is all about – "I tell you this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other." Justified! It is the word for salvation.
It was the irreligious, unchurched, sinful, despised tax collector who was
saved! The dutiful church member apparently wasn’t,
Jesus went on to say what is equally riveting: "Everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
I stand bowed and with hat in hand before this story. It is too much for
me. I cannot attain unto it. It is a story that says too much, far beyond
where most of us are. This is not simply grace, it is extravagant grace,
overwhelming grace, irrational grace. It is even irreligious. It could
never have been born in Rome, or Constantinople, or Westminster. It was
born in the heart of God, who is eager to show mercy.
As I write these lines Ouida is with our adopted daughter, now 50 and a
grandmother, in a Denton hospital, only a few miles from our home. She has
been in I.C.U. for three weeks. First with pneumonia, and now kidney
failure. She is on a respirator and undergoes dialysis.
I am with her in the mornings, Ouida in the afternoon. Her husband and son
have to work, but they are there as they can be, taking some days off.
One recent morning I was standing beside her, holding her hand -- thinking
of the cruel reversals of life – how she should be attending me at such a
time as this, not I her. Her lung specialist came in at that point, and
gave me a report. He keeps trying different antibiotics – stronger ones --
trying to stamp out the pneumonia. "She has an
uphill fight," he told me. Then he surprised me with, "You can talk to
her. She will understand. It will help her memory. Talk to her." And he
was off.
She and I have had a good relationship, even though – as is the case with
so many parents and children – she would take my money but not my
precepts. Ouida and I repeatedly urged her not to smoke, and now it was
threatening her life. We have stood by her in her troubled life. Her first
husband drowned after a few years of marriage. A few years later her
four-year old daughter also drowned, which devastated me as much as it did
her. Then there were health problems, financial problems, all kinds of
problems. But through it all we loved each other, and told each other that
we did.
I obeyed the doctor. I leaned close to her and talked softly about our
life together. How her mother flew her home from Kansas City when she was
but a week old, and I saw her for the first time. How she would come to my
office at MacMurray College in Illinois – we lived on campus – and call to
me under my upstairs window, when she was but five, "Daddy dear! Daddy
dear! breakfast!" And how one Saturday I walked her and her baby brother
to town, and pulled them home on a new sled through the snow.
She opened her eyes and looked at me. The doctor was right. She was
hearing me, and she knew who I was. Then I said, "My little girl, you can
say a prayer even now. You can think it in your heart. And I will say it
with you." She was looking at me, and I drew from a story right out of the
heart of God.
"God, be merciful to me a sinner."
[TOP].