The Disturbing Power of a Believer

A thought about Acts 6:8-15

First century Christianity is amazing.  The power that has belonged to the mysterious, invisible God of Moses has now been seen working in Jesus.  Jesus’ followers eventually understand the mind-blowing truth: Jesus IS God.   Jews of the first century who do not accept this revelation understandably think this is blasphemous.  No one is God except God alone.  There is one God and this God is too holy to even name, too holy to see without dying.  By definition, Jesus can’t be God.  Yet the signs are there: miracles that show nature’s submission and healing that shows power over death.  And the wisdom is there; Jesus is able to teach and explain things beyond the natural apprehension of people of his day.

As if that weren’t pushing the inconceivable enough, Jesus gives his Holy Spirit to the believers who then discover they themselves also have this same power.  That’s where Stephen is in Acts 6.  Stephen, filled with grace and power, was working great wonders and signs among the people.  And we have testimonies about other disciples doing similar things.  At Lystra, Paul heals a crippled man.  Peter heals the lame man outside the Temple.  It is the end of human suffering.  We can heal.  We can understand.  And we know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is real, has great, personal love for us and we are not, ultimately alone nor subject to eternal death.  What greater news could there possibly be?

But there is something in me that balks at this boldness.  Part of me can’t take something that wonderful.  It must be fake.  It must be corrupt.  It must be a trick, because if it’s real, then my whole view of the world is wrong.  I will wonder out loud at whether or not there are errors being made.  This will create the basis for doubt.  Others will agree with me and we can discredit this delusional nut.  It’s better to doubt a person like this, a person so ridiculously invested in magical thinking.  It’s better to doubt that human beings are raised up to participate in the saving work of God.  Who do we think we are, anyway?

In the end it’s not about how important Stephen is.  It’s not about whether or not I have this miraculous power within me.  It’s about how important God is, God for whom Stephen would give and lose everything.  It’s about whether or not I believe God has this power.  And it’s about putting aside my own magical thinking, my desire for power, and my fear of judgment and making myself available to God.  Then, hopefully, God can love the world a little bit through me.

(For the literally curious, here’s the text that started this rambling: Acts 6:8-15

Stephen, filled with grace and power,
was working great wonders and signs among the people.
Certain members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen,
Cyreneans, and Alexandrians,
and people from Cilicia and Asia,
came forward and debated with Stephen,
but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.
Then they instigated some men to say,
"We have heard him speaking blasphemous words
against Moses and God."
They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes,
accosted him, seized him,
and brought him before the Sanhedrin.
They presented false witnesses who testified,
"This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law.
For we have heard him claim
that this Jesus the Nazorean will destroy this place
and change the customs that Moses handed down to us."
All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him
and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.)

Chewing on Heads of Grain

While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath,
his disciples were picking the heads of grain,
rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.
Some Pharisees said,
"Why are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?"
Jesus said to them in reply,
"Have you not read what David did
when he and those who were with him were hungry?
How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering,
which only the priests could lawfully eat,
ate of it, and shared it with his companions?"
Then he said to them, "The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath." 

One of the best things about Jesus is that he is in touch with his natural freedom.  With Jesus being both human and divine, sometimes I disqualify myself from trying to imitate him because the divinity just trumps my abilities.  Then I remember he was not just human, but fully human.  So on saner days I make it my goal to work on being human, more fully human.

Not so concerned with being human are the Pharisees, seen in their typical mode of correction in this passage from Luke (6:1-5).  The Pharisees had a lot in common with the older brother in the Prodigal Son story.  They are such experts of convention.  This is the only way we do things; this is not the way.  These are the rules; any other behavior is breaking the rules.  Be careful not to break rules.  Following the well-trod path is the only sure way to God and the way to show respect for our sacred tradition.

What a constricted way to live!  The Pharisees forget that life is meant to be lived!  That’s why they need to meet Jesus, who said, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full.” Like the older son in the Prodigal Son story, the Pharisees never see themselves as co-owners of the farm.  They don’t take in Genesis’ charge to “have dominion” seriously.   Really dominion is taking care of things, like God does.

What is so frustrating to me about the Pharisees is  that they crush creativity.  Back to Genesis again, what does God give to humans?  God’s image.  What is included in the image of God?  By reading the beginning verses of Genesis I’d have to say creativity is a big part of the image of God.  Creativity, among other things, is being able to move beyond convention.  Sometimes, on bad days, I confuse convention with moral goodness. 

A lot of people in the church have this confusion.  To be holy is to be conventional.  Lots of times this confusion plays out in the way we pray.  Sometimes it seems like our prayer practice is an addiction to pattern, to traditions.  Many people think it’s the primary job of catechesis to teach people Catholic prayer traditions: mass, traditional hymns (from exactly which period of Catholic history? 1950’s?  9^th century?) formulaic prayers (rosary, novenas, divine office, exposition with benediction). 

If that's our primary goal in sharing "the faith" then prayer as a relationship with God takes a back seat to these patterned external practices.  Where’s the uniqueness of each believer’s relationship with God?  Surely God has a unique way of reaching each one of us.  God communicates with the believer in the language the believer knows best.  An extravert might come to know God through some powerful experience of community.  A scientist would bump into God through her discovery and pursuit of truth.  An artist would meet the Lord in what develops on the canvas in front of his eyes, as he opens himself to the creative process.  A naturalist would bump into the presence of God while attentively meandering in the woods.  Any seeker or believer can connect with her maker by reveling in the surf at Popham Beach, by appreciating a terrible storm, and by loneliness giving way to the relief of friendship.  By fully throwing myself into these moments I say “thank you” with my whole self.

We Catholics do have the reality of an inherited pattern in our prayer.  We have embraced the mass as the height of communal prayer.  It is the one prayer we all pray.  It’s possible for mass to remain an external practice of merely patterned behavior, but it’s also possible for me to pray it involving my whole self.  To let the word “I” in the prayer truly mean me.  To listen to scripture as if it’s truly directed to me, and my community.  To feel the music as I sing it.  To receive the Eucharist as an act of intimacy with God, expecting my own transformation, my liberation from selfishness, to follow.

Beyond the mass there are no required forms of prayer for Catholics.  We are not obligated to practice some checklist of conventional prayers.  We are free to pray as the Spirit inspires: with pen on paper, with camera in hand, with the music turned up, naked in the bathtub surrounded by candles and tending the seedlings in the garden.  Or, as Mary Oliver put it in Wild Geese:

     You do not have to be good.
     You do not have to walk on your knees
     For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
     You only have to let the soft animal of your body
     love what it loves.

A Withered Hand at Worship

On a certain Sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught,
and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.
The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely . . .

“Stretch out your hand.” He did so and his hand was restored.
But they became enraged and discussed together what they might do to Jesus. (Lk 6:6-11)

I know it was the Sabbath and they were all angry at Jesus breaking the letter of the Sabbath law.  But I think there is something else going on here.  They weren’t just thinking in a kind of letter-of-the-law way. They were enraged.  Another translation says they were filled with fury.  This is hugely emotional.  What could cause them to get so hot?

I was in church the other day and I found myself distracted by a mother and her son who were sitting across the church, behind the glass wall, in the blessed sacrament chapel.  Mass was going on.  The son was a young adult, severely handicapped and sitting in a wheelchair.  The mother was extremely attentive to her son.  His chair was part of the normal row of chairs and she pulled a chair next to him, in the aisle.  He had a perfect view of the altar from his seat.  Her love for him was as unabashed as a flashing billboard in Times Square.  Her love was a powerful judgment for every mom who had been impatient with her own children.

During the readings the mom reached into her purse and took something out.  I was too far away to see exactly what it was.  Then I knew; she began to give her son a manicure.  She trimmed his fingernails with a clipper and cleaned under them with a nail file.  She was gentle and efficient.

I found myself getting annoyed with her.  Couldn’t she find a better time for a manicure?  Doesn’t she understand what mass is all about?  I bet she missed the entire first reading.  Maybe the second one too.  Maybe she was distracting her son from the readings.

And there I was, a character in the scriptures: the scribes and the Pharisees watched her closely. 

I love my parish.  One of the things is that I do see people with profound handicaps at mass.  I’m glad their families feel welcome here.  It makes the community more complete.  I need the witness of parents who have this big love.

So let the manicures continue.  Let the special sons and daughters moan or mutter or wander.  Let it be like the scene from Brother Sun, Sister Moon when mass happens outdoors with the animals milling around with the people.  Let people come together any way they can and belong together, sit together, sing together and be fed.  And let the Pharisees and scribes relax and put compassion before orthodoxy.