Lester Start’s Works

1Facing Jerusalem: His and Ours

Lester Start

March 30, 1980

First Baptist Kalamazoo

The traditional picture of the Palm Sunday scene is a glorious one. With the triumphal entry, one can imagine a fanfare of trumpets mixed with the shouts of children. The waving palm branches that John mentions have always symbolized victory and triumph. Greeks used the palm as a token of victory. Hebrews used palm branches in the old feast of Tabernacles, the harvest celebration, in which arbors of Palms recalled the tents in which the children of Israel lived in the wilderness on their way to victory in the promised land. The palm symbolized fruitfulness because it was constantly green and flourishing. And so the Psalmist says “the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree.” It was a favorite decoration in the religious art of the Jews. And so Ezekiel sees the palm prominently in his vision of the new temple to be restored in Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. All along the walls are carved palm trees and cherubim, symbols of the power and victory of God’s promise. The Palm Sunday scene is a joyous picture of victory. We imagine the bright colors of the clothing of the people, sunlight sparkling over the first soft greens of springtime. This is the season of the resurrection of the springtime and the rebirth of new hope and joy in the human heart. It is the time when spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil. And joy is in the faces of the throngs who have come to pay homage to their Lord and King.

But, as we know, that Palm Sunday scene changed. Like the cherubim of Ezekiel’s vision, where there were two faces turned toward the Palm, one the face of a man, the other, that of a lion, there were two kinds of reception of Jesus, one of joy, the other of growing uneasiness, rejection and hate. Just as the bright golden warmth of a spring day is chilled as the shadow of a cloud obscures the landscape, so the warm joy of Palm Sunday is darkened as a shadow is cast over the scene - the shadow of the cross.

This is the note of somberness that dulls the bright colors of the Palm Sunday scene. We sometimes think the picture would be better if we could remove that shadow - happier somehow. And yet as we survey the whole drama of Passion Week, we know that without the shadow of the cross, the glory of the Resurrection would not be possible; without the stormy discord of that dark Friday when the earth trembled, the wondrous resolution of the angelic voice of Easter morn, saying, “He is risen” could not have occurred - without the cross there could have been no crown. And so with the eye of faith we take a deeper look at that Palm Sunday scene, and the going up to Jerusalem, the facing of Jerusalem, takes on a deeper meaning - not one of sheer joy and happiness, but one of strong and serene confidence in victory over evil. Facing Jerusalem reminds us that we march to the call of duty to God, not dance to the piping of amusements, that we live not to attain empty enjoyments, but rather to achieve goodness and enduring happiness. And so the colors of the scene take on a deeper hue, not so joyous, perhaps, but in a truer light.

As we view the scene again in the larger perspective, we are impressed with Jesus’ firm, adamant conviction that He must go to Jerusalem. He did not have to even to fulfill scripture - the choice was His to make. He was even advised not to go by Peter. It was in Caesarea Philippi that Jesus told his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer there many things by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and suffer death and rise again. And then when Peter said, “Heaven forbid Lord, this shall not happen to you,” remember what Jesus answered? “Away with you Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. You think as men think, not as God thinks.” This event shows plainly that it was not an easy decision for Jesus to make, to face Jerusalem and the suffering involved. The temptation must have been great to take another road - one north, perhaps, back home to the countryside of Galilee. To be sure no great works could be wrought there because of their unbelief in their local prophet, but there Jesus at any rate would be free from the cruel Roman power resident in Jerusalem. He could find refuge in the bosom of His family and enjoy old associations. But Jesus knew “you can’t go home again.” More important, He knew that one cannot avoid the tasks God sets before us. The temptation to do so must have been great. Why else would He scold Peter so severely as the tempter, Satan himself? - Peter who loved his Master so. And the later scene of Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane shows that this was indeed a terrible road for Jesus to travel as He looked forward to the suffering on the cross. But, as the Gospels tell us, Jesus resolutely, steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, refusing to avoid the hard road, the hard tasks ahead.

There is a lesson here for every follower of Jesus. Just as there was a Jerusalem in His life which He has the Son of God could not avoid, so there is a Jerusalem in the lives of each of us which we as children of God and heirs of Christ may not conscientiously avoid. We cannot avoid the Jerusalems in our lives. Following the Master does not mean avoiding them but facing them, not evading them but mastering them. The Palm Sunday lesson for us is - face your Jerusalem; steadfastly set your face to go up to Jerusalem in the firm confidence that the power of God through Christ in us can transform our Jerusalem from an arena of suffering and torment to a scene of victory and triumph.

There are those Jerusalems common to every life which we cannot avoid, which we must face. There is the Jerusalem of failure, of sickness, of death, of sorrow. When these come to us, the strong and courageous thing to do is to face them, endure them, as Jesus did his Jerusalem with patience and hope and faith - and in this faith gain a new strength and life and victory. We can try to refuse to face our Jerusalems, but we cannot really escape them, for in doing so, we find that they have overcome us, and we have not shared in the promise of Jesus in overcoming the world.

A cherished plan, for example, goes wrong; a dream of our lives is shattered, an effort honestly and sincerely made meets rebuff and failure. Two courses are open to us. We can in bitterness and recrimination turn aside from our goal only to find the cancer of disappointment gnawing at our spirits. Or we can face our Jerusalems - look to see why the plan went wrong, why the dream was broken, why our effort failed. And with the help of God we may see through the tragedy some measure of victory and triumph. Perhaps the plan was wrong to begin with, perhaps the dream of false one, the effort misplaced. God, by helping us measure our motives by the yardstick of His purposes, will help us to see the truth. Perhaps the failure was due to our own discouragement and feelings of inadequacy. God will show us the power of the Spirit upon which we can draw for a new and more confident effort. The point is - only by facing our Jerusalem, can we triumph over it.

The same is true when we face the Jerusalem of chronic illness, and the prospect and actuality of death in a loved one or ourselves. Again, we can try to turn aside from the hard teachings of patience and faith which these experiences offer. We can protest and lament to no avail - except to make ourselves more miserable. Or we can courageously face the Jerusalem before us and find even in the midst of these evils the occasion for the power, the grace, the love and mercy of God to shine through. Illness can be the occasion for learning new strengths and patience, and death itself something to be overcome by the power of faith in the love of God.

The lesson of Palm Sunday is that we must face our Jerusalem. When we try to avoid or evade it we are overcome by the threat of the evil event. But the promise of Palm Sunday is that the power of God works through the Jerusalem in our life to transform it and ourselves in the spirit of triumph and victory over evil. We need not be determined, conformed by the evil of the Jerusalem we face: rather we can be transformed through the overcoming of the evil - facing our Jerusalem.

The Palm Sunday seen is one of triumph and properly so. The King of Glory breaks through the world of history and enters in triumph. The scene becomes darkened, we know, as the shadow of the cross of Good Friday looms larger and larger. But we know too, that the cross itself is the occasion for the transforming power of God. This becomes luminous as the sign of the ultimate victory. “In the world,” says Jesus, “you will have tribulation - but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

Today we are celebrating the ordinance of baptism. It is an occasion to rejoice in the decisions for Christ that are about to be made, and also to reflect anew on our own commitments. Let us all remember in our faith as Christians that we are committed to trust in the redemptive power of God’s love. This does not mean we will never have to face Jerusalems anymore. It does mean that God’s love will enable us to transform them, and ourselves, from arenas of defeat, to scenes of victory, from anguish to serenity in the love of God, which passes all understanding.

Call to Worship

Lift up your heads, O ye gates

Yea lift them up, ye everlasting doors:

And the King of glory will come in.

Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts,

He is the King of glory

O God, we open with joy the gates of our souls to let the King come in. Not for a passing hour of triumph would we receive Him, to send Him hence with broken heart and frustrate purpose, but we welcome Him to abide forever as Lord and King. Save us from the hypocrisy that sings Hosanna in the temple, and cries “crucify him” in the marketplace. Save us from the sham that praises with the lips and betrays with the deed. When the palms have withered, may we find ourselves still with Thee.

1FACING JERUSALEM

Lester J. Start

March 30, 1980

First Baptist Kalamazoo

Ezekiel 41:15-20

Mark 11:1-11

Friday the thirteenth-an unlucky day, everyone says. It’s interesting to see why. First of all, Friday is considered an ill-starred day ever since that first Good Friday we remember this week during Holy Week, Good Friday - God’s Friday - the day Christ was crucified . . . a bad day. In jolly Old England it used to be the day for hangings. Could there be some connection with the felons hanging alongside Jesus? Some possible contact? Outreach of hope? As when suicides were buried under crossroads? Denied consecrated ground, at least they might have the sign of the cross?

Anyway, Friday has been considered a bad day. Even when we celebrate as in TGIF affairs, thank God it’s Friday, it is because Friday is over. Then there is 13. Thirteen has a long history of bad associations. But again, Holy Week offers a reason for its being bad. At that last supper of Jesus and His disciples, remember there were 12 disciples. You know who was number 13, odd man out, the one betrayed and crucified, and so 13 is unlucky. One doesn’t get a group of 13 together for a dinner party, even a simple supper. Friday the 13th is doubly bad.

This Sunday I chose the scripture to describe the scene and a text that anticipates the scene and whole drama of Holy Week. In Luke 9:51 we read, “When the time was come that He should be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” And He went, knowing what was in store for Him: the shouts of “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday to be followed later by cries of “Crucify Him!“; the prayer to be spared the bitter cup of suffering followed by the agony of the cross. But then the triumph of Easter, the victory over evil and death! What a drama of redemption! And what a basis for a homily on how we, following His example, must face the Jerusalem of our lives, the defeats, the sorrows, the failures, and with the power of the spirit bring about that which is good - that we, like Him should face our Jerusalem, and triumph.

But something about this text started me thinking about someone else. I was reminded of another, four centuries earlier in another culture, who steadfastly set his face to go not before the Sanhedrin or Herod, but an Athenian court, who was accused and convicted of un-Athenian activities, corrupting others and teaching strange gods, who, ignoring opportunities to flee, ultimately drank the bitter cup of hemlock poison, who died, who did not rise from the dead, but who became immortal through the gospel that Plato, his disciple, wrote. Somehow, one thinks of Socrates. How do we understand this wise old man of Athens, this Socrates, his life and martyr’s death in comparison with Jesus?

There are some interesting parallels. First, Socrates felt a vocation, a divine calling to the life he led. There was no baptism, no descending dove, though he spoke often of a kind of inner voice and would go into a kind of mystic trance on occasion. There was not the personal relation Jesus felt to a heavenly father. But a calling there was. Socrates explains it in a humorous way in his famous Apology, his speech of defense before the Athenian jury. A friend, he said, once asked the oracle at Delphi, “Who is the wisest man in all Greece?” The answer came, “Socrates.” The friend reported this to Socrates who expressed great surprise. But he said, “gods don’t lie ” - really a crack at the popular Homeric religion where, for example, one of the epithets of Athena can be translated “skilled in deceit.” So to obey the god, he felt compelled to go about inquiring of others who pretend to know, only to discover they did not know what they claimed. Somewhat like the way Jesus showed that the Pharisees, the conventionally righteous, were not as good as they claimed. And as Socrates said, people resented his showing them for what they were. And Jesus found the same. He was not hanged for telling people to love one another.

After such inquiry Socrates concluded that perhaps he was the wisest, because he is only one who knows he doesn’t know anything, while others think they know, but they don’t. So the god is vindicated. A funny story, we say. This explains Socrates’ habit of questioning people and refuting their claims to knowledge. But in the content of his speech and in keeping with Greek rhetorical style, Socrates moves from humor to a deadly seriousness; in effect saying “God has commanded me to make men examine their thoughts, and nothing, no threats from the court, can deter or dissuade me from this divine obligation. I shall continue to question as before. I shall never stop. Here I stand.” Here he clearly sets his face to go to his Jerusalem, to defy the Athenians who would silence him, and no matter what, to follow his calling even unto death.

But what of his teaching, we might ask. Surely the gadfly of Athens who claimed to know nothing had no message to compare with that of Jesus! What did he teach? The focus of his famous apology seems to be this: that the unexamined life is not worth living. And what does this mean? Not, I think, that one should spend one’s time arguing about ideas, and make a career of attacking and refuting others. One is mistaken, I think, if he imagines Socrates buttonholing people just to argue and refute their ideas. What he was doing is reflecting an ancient Greek concern expressed in the very ancient injunction, “Know thyself, “Gnothe, seauton.” He was concerned not so much with the validity of one’s idea, but the state of one’s soul. His message was not as many suggest - learn to argue, refute, question everything - but really examine your inner being and see if there be any wicked way within you.

That is why in this same speech he expressed his conviction that no evil can befall a good man either in this world or the next, and why he consistently taught that it is better to suffer evil and injustice than to perpetrate it, that one should turn the other cheek. And this is why his most earnest expressions of his values and concerns culminate in a vivid picture of a judgement of the souls of men - as in the Republic and the Phaedo where he talks about his own death and immortality.

These visions of judgement do not have the same spirit as New Testament eschatology. They have a Pythagorean quality and reflect the oriental concept of reincarnation. But the urgency is the same - repent, for judgement, if not the kingdom, is at hand - the wicked will suffer damnation and only the pure and good in heart may see the divine beauty and truth and goodness. Surely this is not unlike the teachings of Jesus.

And what about his method to bring out his message? Here is where the famous Socratic method comes in. Socrates called it the skill of the mid-wife. By questioning he helped others give birth to their ideas and then to examine them. Big ideas - like justice, the right, truth, goodness, beauty, courage — in an attempt to get clearer and clearer their higher meanings in relation to us. (Admittedly, many would rather ignore these visions. They’re too unphilosophical, mystical, religious. Just as most histories of philosophy praise Thales, the first Greek philosopher, for saying everything comes from water. Another fragment - that all things are full of gods - is de-emphasized or ignored. Perhaps religion and philosophy are not to be so sharply distinguished, after all.)

A further clue to Socrates’ method can be found in an even earlier thinker in an even older culture, in Confucius. Confucius was concerned to teach the possibilities of a good society on the basis of people living by moral example. He, too, had a similar commitment to his message in spite of opposition, and he, too, faced his Jerusalem. When asked, “Where does one begin this task?”, his answer was, “with the rectification of names ” - which seems to mean the clarification and enhancement of moral principles. By way of explanation he said, “Let the ruler be a ruler; let the father be a father” - that is, live up to the ideal implicit in the term. Moral confusion rests on the intellectual confusion, but with the rectification of names comes the rectification of the self.

It seems that Socrates and Plato, with their theory of ideal forms that serve as the standards for our moral aspirations, involve the same kind of rectification of names. It shows some parallel with the injunction of Jesus: “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The ideal, not the average, is the standard. As for rectifying names, Jesus tended to clarify by parable. To the question, “Who is my neighbor?” he responded with the story of the good Samaritan. The whole focus, though, is similar. Goodness is a matter of inner rightness in tune with the ideal patterns, the will of God - not external conformity. “It has been said of old, thou shalt not kill; but I say unto you, whosoever nourishes hate in his heart is already guilty.” The good soul is not a whited sepulcher, fair without but foul rotting bones within. Only the pure in heart may see God.

And when we turn to the positive content of the purified spirit, the answer for Jesus is clearly love - love to God and love to one’s fellow man. And the judgement of the soul rests on whether or not one has it. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” says Jesus. “Feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these ye have done it unto me.”

The Confucian ideal, called Jen, is translated as human-heartedness, humaneness, great souled - but Confucius says simply it means to love one another; Confucius taught a principle that our early missionaries called, somewhat grudgingly, the silver rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.”

As for Socrates, we must never forget that great speech in praise of love in the Symposium. It describes what Augustine called a ladder of love leading the soul of man to God. Ever since, Platonists have had no trouble identifying the highest outreach of love toward the ideal of absolute truth, beauty, and goodness with the love of God.

We find then, parallels in message and method, in concern and commitment. But surely there is a difference between the drama of Holy Week and the martyr’s death of Socrates, or the struggles of a Confucius. And indeed there is. Plato immortalizes Socrates, but there is no saving religion built around his person. We venerate Socrates for his commitment to follow truth wherever it might lead, even to death. He faced his Jerusalem with a calm and confidence in the ultimate goodness of things.

But the best that the spirit of Socrates produces is a kind of faith in some overall good rational order, and the ethics of patient Stoic endurance. And Confucianism seemed to require the aesthetic natural mysticism of Taoism to provide a confidence in the faithful order of nature as a basis for its hope for the good life. But when Jesus steadfastly faced that week in Jerusalem, a transformation occurred. For the Christian, for the sober historian for that matter, something happened after that first Holy Week long ago to change the cross from a symbol of defeat to one of victory.

And ever since, for the Christian in the spirit of Jesus, when called upon to face the Jerusalem of life — suffering, failure, loss, disappointment — there is a new note of hope, an assurance that the best we aspire to is not destroyed by the worst we fear, that the redemptive power of God is at hand and is able, that love does conquer after all.

1FACING JERUSALEM

L. .J. Start

03/30/80

First Baptist Kalamazoo

Friday, the thirteenth — an unlucky day, everyone says. It’s interesting to see why. First of all, Friday is considered an ill-starred day ever since that Good Friday we remember this week during Holy Week. Good Friday — God’s Friday — the day Christ was crucified. A bad day. In jolly Old England it used to be the day for hangings. Could there be some connection with the felons hanging alongside Jesus? Some possible contact? Outreach of hope? As when suicides were buried under crossroads? Denied consecrated ground, at least they might have the sign of the cross?

Anyway, Friday has been considered a bad day. Even when we celebrate as in TGIF affairs, thank God it’s Friday, it is because Friday is over.

Then there is 13. Thirteen has a long history of bad associations. But again Holy Week offers a reason for its being bad. At that last supper of Jesus and His disciples, remember there were 12 disciples. You know who was number 13, odd man out, the one betrayed and crucified, and so 13 is unlucky. One doesn’t get a group of 13 together for a dinner party, even a simple supper. Friday the 13th is doubly bad.

This Sunday I chose the scripture to describe the scene and a text that anticipates the scene and whole drama of Holy Week. In Luke 9:51 we read “when the time was come that He should be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem”. And He went, knowing what was in store for Him: the shouts of hosanna on Palm Sunday to be followed later by cries of “Crucify Him!”; the prayer to be spared the bitter cup of suffering followed by the agony of the cross. But then the triumph of Easter, the victory over evil and death! What a drama of redemption! And what a basis for a homily on how we, following His example, must face the Jerusalems of our lives, the defeats, the sorrows, the failures, and with the power of the spirit bring about that which is good — that we, like Him, should face our Jerusalems, and triumph.

But something about this text started me thinking about someone else. I was reminded of another, four centuries earlier in another culture, who steadfastly set his face to go not before the Sanhedrin or Herod, but an Athenian court, who was accused and convicted of un-Athenian activities, corrupting others and teaching strange gods, who, ignoring opportunities to flee, ultimately drank the bitter cup of hemlock poison, who died, who did not rise from the dead, but who became immortal through the gospel that Plato, his disciple, wrote. Somehow one thinks of Socrates. How do we understand this wise old man of Athens, this Socrates, his life and martyr’s death in comparison with Jesus?

There are some interesting parallels. First, Socrates felt a vocation, a divine calling to the life he led. There was no baptism, no descending dove, though he spoke often of a kind of inner voice and would go into a kind of mystic trance on occasion. There was not the personal relation Jesus felt to a heavenly father. But a calling there was. Socrates explains it in a humorous way in his famous Apology, his speech of defense before the Athenian jury. A friend, he said, once asked the oracle at Delphi, “Who is the wisest man in all Greece?” The answer came, “Socrates.” The friend reported this to Socrates who expressed great surprise. But, he said, “gods don’t lie” — really a crack at the popular Homeric religion where, for example, one of the epithets of Athena can be translated “skilled in deceit”. So to obey the god he felt compelled to go about inquiring of others who pretend to know only to discover they did not know what they claimed. Somewhat like the way Jesus showed that the Pharisees, the conventionally righteous, were not as good as they claimed. And, as Socrates said, people resented his showing them for what they were. And Jesus found the same. He was not hanged for telling people to love one another.

After such inquiry Socrates concluded that perhaps he was the wisest, because he is the only one who knows he doesn’t know anything, while others think they know, but they don’t. So the god is vindicated. A funny story, we say. This explains Socrates’ habit of questioning people and refuting their claims to knowledge. But in the content of his speech and in keeping with Greek rhetorical style, Socrates moves from humor to a deadly seriousness; in effect saying God has commanded me to make men examine their thoughts, and nothing, no threats from the court, can deter or dissuade me from this divine obligation. I shall continue to question as before. I shall never stop. Here I stand. Here he clearly sets his face to go to his Jerusalem, to defy the Athenians who would silence him, and no matter what, to follow his calling even unto death.

But what of his teaching? we might ask. Surely the gadfly of Athens who claimed to know nothing had no message to compare with that of Jesus! What did he teach? The focus of his famous apology seems to be this: that the unexamined life is not worth living. And what does this mean? Not, I think, that one should spend one’s time arguing about ideas, and make a career of attacking and refuting others. One is mistaken, I think, if he imagines Socrates buttonholing people just to argue and refute their ideas. What he was doing is reflecting an ancient Greek concern expressed in the very ancient injunction, Know thyself, “Gnothe, seauton”. He was concerned not so much with the validity of one’s idea, but the state of one’s soul. His message was not as many suggest — learn to argue, refute, question everything — but really examine your inner being and see if there be any wicked way within you.

That is why in this same speech he expressed his conviction that no evil can befall a good man either in this world or the next, and why he consistently taught that it is better to suffer evil and injustice than to perpetrate it, that one should turn the other cheek. And this is why his most earnest expressions of his values and concerns culminate in a vivid picture of a judgment of the souls of men — as in the Republic and the Phaedo where he talks about his own death and immortality.

These visions of judgment do not have the same spirit as New Testament eschatology. They have a Pythagorean quality and reflect the oriental concept of reincarnation. But the urgency is the same — repent, for judgment, if not the kingdom, is at hand — the wicked will suffer damnation and only the pure and good in heart may see the divine beauty and truth and goodness. Surely this is not unlike the teachings of Jesus.

And what about his method to bring out his message? Here is where the famous Socratic method comes in. Socrates called it the skill of the mid-wife. By questioning he helped others give birth to their ideas and then to examine them. Big ideas — like justice, the right, truth, goodness, beauty, courage — in an attempt to get clearer and clearer their higher meanings in relation to us.

So the long discussion of justice in the Republic does not focus on themes like rights and duties — rather it culminates in a doctrine of the nature of the healthy, good, and just soul. And the analysis ends with a vision of judgment — what happens to the just and unjust soul.

(Admittedly, many would rather ignore these visions. They’re too unphilosophical, mystical, religious. Just as most histories of philosophy praise Thales, the first Greek philosopher, for saying everything comes from water. Another fragment — that all things are full of gods is de-emphasized or ignored. Perhaps religion and philosophy are not to be so sharply distinguished, after all.)

A further clue to Socrates’ method can be found in an even earlier thinker in an even older culture, in Confucius. Confucius was concerned to teach the possibilities of a good society on the basis of people living by moral example. He, too, had a similar commitment to his message in spite of opposition, and he, too, faced his Jerusalem. When asked, “Where does one begin this task?”, his answer was “with the rectification of names” — which seems to mean the clarification and enhancement of moral principles. By way of explanation he said, “Let the ruler be a ruler; let the father be a father” — that is, live up to the ideal implicit in the term. Moral confusion rests on the intellectual confusion, but with the rectification of names comes the rectification of the self.

It seems that Socrates and Plato, with their theory of ideal forms that serve as the standards for our moral aspirations, involve the same kind of rectification of names. It shows some parallel with the injunction of Jesus: “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The ideal, not the average, is the standard. As for rectifying names, Jesus tended to clarify by parable. To the question, “Who is my neighbor?” he responded with the story of the good Samaritan. The whole focus, though, is similar. Goodness is a matter of inner rightness in tune with the ideal patterns, the will of God — not external conformity. “It has been said of old, thou shalt not kill; but I say unto you, whosoever nourishes hate in his heart is already guilty.” The good soul is not a whited sepulchre, fair without but foul rotting bones within. Only the pure in heart may see God.

And when we turn to the positive content of the purified spirit, the answer for Jesus is clearly love — love to God and love to one’s fellow man. And the judgment of the soul rests on whether or not one has it. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” says Jesus. “Feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these ye have done it unto me.”

The Confucian ideal, called jen, is translated as human-heartedness, humaneness, great souled — but Confucius says simply it means to love one another; Confucius taught a principle that our early missionaries called, somewhat grudgingly, the silver rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.”

As for Socrates, we must never forget that great speech in praise of love in the Symposium. It describes what Augustine called a ladder of love leading the soul of man to God. Ever since, Platonists have had no trouble identifying the highest outreach of love toward the ideal of absolute truth, beauty, and goodness with the love of God.

We find, then, parallels in message and method, in concern and commitment. But surely there is a difference between the drama of Holy Week and the martyr’s death of Socrates, or the struggles of a Confucius. And indeed there is. Plato immortalizes Socrates, but there is no saving religion built around his person. We venerate Socrates for his commitment to follow truth wherever it might lead, even to death. He faced his Jerusalem with a calm and confidence in the ultimate goodness of things.

But the best that the spirit of Socrates produces is a kind of faith in some overall good rational order, and the ethics of patient Stoic endurance. And Confucianism seemed to require the aesthetic natural mysticism of Taoism to provide a confidence in the faithful order of nature as a basis for its hope for the good life.

But when Jesus steadfastly faced that week in Jerusalem, a transformation occurred. For the Christian, for the sober historian for that matter, something happened after that first Holy Week long ago to change the cross from a symbol of defeat to one of victory.

And ever since, for the Christian in the spirit of Jesus, when called upon to face the Jerusalems of life — suffering, failure, loss, disappointment — there is a new note of hope, an assurance that the best we aspire to is not destroyed by the worst we fear, that the redemptive power of God is at hand and is able, that love does conquer after all.

1THE GALILEAN ACCENT

03/16/80

L. J. START

First Baptist Kalamazoo

The story of Peter’s denial of Christ told in the Scripture reading (Matt. 26:69-end) is one of the most vivid accounts in all of the New Testament. All four gospels contain the incident. It is vividly described in Mark, and according to tradition Mark is essentially the preaching of Peter — at least it draws heavily on the recollections of Peter for events in the ministry of Jesus. The interesting point about this is that we have the story of Peter’s denial, because Peter himself seems to have told it to others. One might think that a story of this kind which puts a leading apostle in a less than shining light might have been hushed up. But Peter’s martyrdom in Rome at about the same time as Paul’s would be ample testimony to the church of Peter’s ultimate faithfulness that more than redeemed this action of apparent denial.

What an honest story this is! Peter earlier at the Last Supper had assured Jesus that he would never deny Him, or fall away from Him even if all the others were to fall away, even if, says Peter, “I were to die with you”. But Jesus had said, “This very night before the cock crow, you shall betray me three times.”

Then after supper Jesus went into the garden of Gethsemane with Peter and two other disciples, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. He asked them to watch with Him as He prayed with a troubled soul and grieving heart that the bitter cup of suffering might pass Him by. But after a bit He found them asleep and He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

And Jesus went off to pray a second time, and prayed, “Father, if this cup will not go away unless I drink it, then Thy will be done.” And He came again, and found them asleep again. And as Matthew tells us, Jesus went off a third time, praying the same words, and came back to find His disciples still asleep, and said, “You may as well sleep on — the time has come for the Son of Man to be betrayed. Get up, let us be going. He that is to betray me is coming.”

In this vivid scene in the garden attention is usually drawn to the agonized prayers of Jesus and His final sense of being reconciled to the will of God. But at the same time we have a vivid symbol of the falling away of Peter and the others when danger threatened and the chips were down. Three times Jesus asks them to watch and pray — and three times He comes to find Peter and the two others asleep, indifferent to His agony. In a sense, before the cock crowed even once, before the first of the four night watches was over, Peter had already denied his master three times in turning a deaf ear to His plea to watch and pray. And a sermon could be preached on the tragedy of sleeping, indifference, when another is in agony.

But this is not yet a direct denial, nor is it a betrayal. It is Judas who comes to betray Jesus to His accusers by his kiss of death. And yet even here there are persuasive arguments that Judas, the Zealot, of the revolutionary party, may by his action have meant to force Jesus’ hand, to compel Him at last to take strong action against the authorities, to proclaim His rightful place as the Messiah, and to usher in the new kingdom.

It seems inconceivable that one who had been an intimate of Jesus would betray him because of greed for 30 pieces of silver or hatred because Jesus was not the military Messiah he hoped to see. The betrayal would compel Jesus to assert His authority — so Judas may well have thought. He’d never let the soldiers take him, Jesus said. We can imagine Judas’ horror, then, when this did not happen, when he saw he really had betrayed Jesus to His enemies. This would explain the utter despair which led him to hang himself.

Peter’s reaction was not this kind of betrayal, clearly. What was it? When Jesus is led off by His captors, after one of them has been wounded, John says it was Peter who drew a sword and cut off the ear of the servant Malchus; we are told by Mark and Matthew that then all the disciples deserted Him and fled. But then we are told, Peter followed Jesus afar off, trailed Him until He was taken into the house of the high priest. Now why? Certainly not to betray Jesus. The damage was done — his master taken. Everyone had deserted Him — but Peter followed from afar. And then he goes into the very courtyard of the palace of the high priest. This would be a central open area with rooms all around. He would have gone into the very center of the enemy’s stronghold. This is not the act of a cowardly man. What did he intend to do?

It looks as if he went there to see things to the end, to see what he could find out. What are they going to do to Jesus? What can be done? What can I find out? These may well have been questions in Peter’s mind. There is every reason to believe Peter was acting the role of spy.

But as he stood around the fire in the courtyard, someone threw some thorns on the fire, the light blazed up and a maid recognized Peter, and said, “This man was with Jesus”. What was he to do? His cover was blown. And Peter denied it in the face of them all. He then went to the gateway where another girl identified him. Now he was getting excited. He began to swear he never knew the man. And then some bystanders insisted, “Surely you are one of them, one of those Galileans. Your accent gives you away.” And Peter with more cursing insisted, “I do not know the man.” Then came the cock-crow, probably a trumpet call announcing the changing of the guard at the beginning of the fourth watch, 3 am. Gallicinium was the military term for trumpet call; it meant cock -crow, too. And Peter remembering what Jesus had said about his disowning Him, went outside and wept bitterly.

We do not know what happened next. Peter does not tell us through Mark. We can imagine his unhappiness, his frustration, his self-condemnation, his feeling of foolishness, failure, defeat — and his grief.

To think it was his accent that gave him away! The Galileans had a burr in their speech — and they stressed the gutteral sounds. It sounded odd in the ears of the Judeans. It is as if a Scotsman from the north found himself in a group of hostile Londoners, ans when one says, “Blimey, if ‘e hain’t one of them, too” responds, “Ye dinna ken what you’re ta’ken aboot.”

This is the literal meaning of the Galilean accent, of course. But with Peter, it takes on a symbolic meaning as well. The Galilean accent is the expression of the love of Christ that seems to affect all those who came to know the Galilean well, in their encounters with Christ. And if we read the gospels sympathetically, we can find that Peter expresses that accent in the spirit of his heart and not just with the sound of his voice.

This man Peter was indeed a remarkable figure among the disciples and in the early history of the church. He seems to be neglected in a way, to fall in the shadow of the beloved disciple John, for example, and the activist apostle, Paul. Yet early on he seemed to catch the symbolic Galilean accent from Jesus and remained all his life a leader in spite of that dramatic and painful episode in the courtyard of the high priest. He is the first of the disciples to be chosen. According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus found Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea of Galilee, and He invited them to come with Him to be fishers of men. It is later that Jesus calls Simon Peter.

Simon is the same as Cephas or Petros in the Greek — which means Rock. Jesus calls him the Rock when Peter is the first of all the disciples to recognize Jesus as the Christ. Strange term, for Peter was not at all rock-like in his stability or dependability, as we have seen. When Jesus calls him to follow him and to be a fisher of men, Peter replies, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” And yet he becomes a kind of spokesman and leader of the disciples. There is more than one reference to them, as Peter and the others.

He seems to be energetic rather than serene, enthusiastic and volatile, not calmly stable. He vacillates between confidence –over-confidence sometimes — and a sense of failure. He is the one disciple who when they see Jesus walking on the water, strikes out to do the same himself, only to lose heart, and cry out to Jesus to save him. And yet he is called the Rock by Jesus and Jesus promises that he will be a foundation of the church. It is Peter who protests when Jesus openly tells His disciples about His future trials and death, and Jesus rebukes him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan. You do not know the things that are of God.” It is Peter who denies his Lord as we have seen. Yet when we turn to the Acts of the Apostles we learn that it is Peter who rallies the disciples; both Luke and Paul report that he is the first witness of the Resurrection. It is Peter who is a rock of strength in the growing community of believers — until he is eventually martyred in Rome, choosing to be crucified upside down, saying he was unworthy to die as his master did.

What then do we make of Peter, so full of contradictions — strength and weakness, loyalty and denial, timidity and courage, an overconfidence that made him swear he would never desert or disown his Lord, and the ignominious failure which he made no effort to excuse or deny.

What we find in Peter, I think, is what we find in every true disciple or follower of Jesus, in any encounter with Christ — the receptive response to the spirit of God’s love through Christ. Peter, in spite of his instability, his volatility, his moods of self-accusation and his feelings of inadequacy, truly loved Jesus. It was the spirit of love that opened his eyes to see Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the redemptive love of God made flesh. It was love which inspired him to leave his nets and follow Jesus; it was love that encouraged him to follow Jesus even to the attempt to walk on the water. It was love that made him follow Jesus when all the others had fled, which drew him to the very heart of the enemy camp to see what he could see, to hear what he could hear, about the fate of his beloved master. And it was love frustrated in its attempt to do something that made him dissolve in the bitterness of tears. We must not forget it was the courage born of love which made him go into the courtyard in the first place, to remain there doggedly even when he was recognized. It was love which made him remember Jesus’ words as the trumpet sounded. It was love that sent him out into the night to weep his tears of frustration. And it is love which covers a multitude of sins.

When we take the whole gospel tradition into account, we find a beautiful expression of Jesus’ recognition of this love of Peter. It is the passage from John read in the scripture lesson. Jesus has just appeared to His disciples after His resurrection. This is the third appearance by the sea of Tiberias — Jesus had told the disciples who were fishing to cast their nets on the right hand side of the ship, and they made a great catch. When they had breakfasted, Jesus asked Peter the question, “Simon Peter, do you love me?” He asked the question three times — a clear parallel to the three times that Peter denied knowing Jesus. Jesus in His forgiveness gives Peter the opportunity to wipe out his three-fold denial. There is no question about Peter’s love now. “You know that I love you,” says Peter.

But now it is clear what loving Christ entails. It brings the task of being a shepherd to His flock. We show we love Christ only by loving others. Love is a privilege, a joy, a triumph, but it is also a responsibility — and the most basic of God’s commands.

It is interesting that John records this incident to show Peter as the shepherd of the sheep, Christ’s people. Perhaps comparisons were made in the early church as now. Some might admire the lofty thought of John, others the heroic missionary work of Paul. Perhaps Peter, the fisherman, could not write or think like John; he did not voyage or adventure like Paul; but he is given the honor here, and the task, of being the shepherd of the sheep.

And this is what Christian love is all about, and how we can follow Peter. The important thing to remember — we don’t have to be perfect in wisdom, solid in faith, absolutely serene and righteous in manner to follow Christ or to join His church. Peter wasn’t, certainly. What is required is a love of God as revealed in Jesus. And with this love, like Peter, we become a new person, empowered by the creative love that inspires us to love one another, to help one another, and at the same time to see ourselves as children of God. As Peter shows us: love covers a multitude of sins; love redeems us all. We need to be, like Peter, receptive to the love of God in Christ and so in our own way represent the Galilean accent. May we, inspired by the love of Jesus, learn that Galilean accent, and speak and live with the accent of Christ.

1THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

Lester J. Start

March 10, 1980

Genesis 33:12-20

John 4:3-26

The story of the woman at the well and her encounter with Christ appears only in the Gospel of John. But it gives a very dramatic and vivid picture of Jesus. John had introduced his gospel about the Son of God, not with any manger scene of a baby born of Mary and Joseph, but with the dramatic announcement that in the beginning was the Word, the pattern of God’s order and purpose which existed before Creation, was made flesh in Christ and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. No gospel gives a more awesome picture of Christ’s divine descent - his authority and power. And yet we find Him in this story fully human, resting by a well at about the sixth hour, noon-time, tired and hot and thirsty, asking for a drink from a woman who had come to the well to draw water for herself.

The background of the story is important. Palestine, was, is, a small country, we forget this when we consider the great tradition of religious history that has come out of it - the nation of Israel today. Palestine is only about 120 miles long from north to south, and in Jesus’ day, it was like Caesar’s Gaul, divided into there parts - in the north was Galilee; in the south was Judea. And in between lay Samaria. But there was a centuries old feud between the Jews and Samaritans. John suggests that Jesus didn’t want to get into a controversy about baptism in the area where John the Baptist had been at work in Judea, and so he left to work in Galilee.

The direct route took Him through Samaria; to avoid it by crossing the Jordan would take twice as long, about a week. So Jesus went into Samaria and near the town of Sychar He came to a fork in the road where still today there is a deep well known as Jacob’s well. Many Jewish memories were centered here. According to Genesis, Jacob bought a parcel of land here, and the same authority says Jacob on his deathbed gave the land to Joseph. Joshua reports that when Joseph died in Egypt, his body was brought back and buried here. Interestingly enough, there is no mention of Jacob’s well anywhere in the Old Testament. But the existence of the ancient deep well was well known.

At any rate, Jesus is resting by the well, according to the story. His disciples had gone into town to buy food. And when the Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus asked her for a drink. She turned, astonished, and said, “1 am a Samaritan. You are a Jew. How is it that you ask br a drink from me?” And the scripture explains that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Or as the New English Bible puts it, Jews and Samaritans don’t use vessels in common. Clearly they aren’t on terms of friendly familiarity. Now why?

The feud had a long history. Way back in about 720 B.C., the Assyrians in conquering Israel captured the northern part of Samaria. They transported most of the population to Media and brought in other peoples from Babylon and other places. What happened eventually was that those who were left in Samaria intermarried with the new foreign populations and lost their purity. Most of those taken away as captives never came back. They were assimilated in foreign lands. They are the lost tribes of Israel. Those who were left intermarried with the incoming foreigners and so lost their right to be called Jews at all.

At least, this is what the Jews of the southern kingdom thought, whose capital was Jerusalem. And when they suffered a similar fate and lost out in the political squeeze of trying to play politics with Egypt against Babylon - when they were overwhelmed by Babylon, their temple destroyed, and were transported to Babylon themselves, somehow they kept their identity and remained stubbornly Jewish. The situation may have been different. Babylonians may have respected their ethnic and religious uniqueness more than the Assyrians earlier. They seem to have been kept separate as an ethnic curiosity. There is that deeply moving 137th Psalm that describes the situation.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps on the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that captured us required of us mirth saying Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

How poignant this is. But then there follows the steel-hard vow: “If I forget you, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand wither away, if 1 do not remember you.” And the bitter memory of Jerusalem’s fall when the enemy shouted, “Down with it, down with it to the very foundations”. And the bitter wish for vengeance, “0 Babylon, the destroyer; happy the man who repays you for all you did to us. Happy is he who shall take your little ones and dash them against the stones.”

Well, the Babylonians soon fell to the Medes, the Persians and Cyrus the king liberated the Jews and sent them back to Judea where, under Ezra and Nehemiah, the city and temple were rebuilt. The Samaritans came to help but were told no thank you - this was a sacred task for Jews - Samaritans had lost their right to share in the rebuilding of the house of God. Repulsed, the Samaritans bitterly turned to their own ways. This was about 450 B.C., but the quarrel continued to Jesus’ days. Samaritans built their own rival temple on Mt. Gerizim which was sacked later by a Jewish general in the Maccabean days. So an embittered hatred flourished. No wonder the Samaritan woman was astonished that Jesus, a Jew, would speak to her, a Samaritan.

There is much that is astonishing in the story. Here is Christ, the Son of God, the Word Incarnate, stopping by a well because he was weary, hot and thirsty. The Gospel writer who stresses most the divine nature of Jesus also shows His humanity to the full. And no matter how familiar we are with our religious tradition, it seems sometimes difficult to think of the cosmic, creative powers we associate with God in the form of a person, somehow vulnerable to the same weariness and difficulties that plague us. Perhaps it is easier to think of impersonal powers, as the cosmic order of nature and the laws of energy than the creative love which finds its home and center of activity in the vulnerable nature of man.

I think sometimes it is hardest of all for those of us in the liberal tradition. The personal gracious calling of our Lord in the form of one like us, yet not like us, is hard to connect with the cosmic forces of the universe we associate with the order of God. Yet this is precisely the image we have of God in Christ in the Gospel of John. He breaks through the barrier of the impersonal logos, to sit at the well curb even as you and I, ready to meet the friend or the stranger on their terms. The revelation of the light shines through the creative love that everyone who knew Jesus sensed in His person. So God breaks through the barrier of cosmic power to reveal Himself in the spirit of Love.

And the next astonishing thing to note is how this Samaritan woman responds to this spirit. There must have been a long conversation. Afterwards, the woman reported in the city, “Come see a man who has told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? Through the compassionate spirit of Jesus, she gained a new insight into who she was, and what she might be as a child of God. Her notorious reputation, her domestic tangles all are seen in a new context. They are no longer past sins barring a better future. The barrier is broken and a new spirit, a new conviction move her and inspire her to bring others to the light of God in Christ. It is interesting to note, too, that the disciples have already learned much from Jesus - after all, in buying food, they were dealing with the woman at the well. No one said, “Why are you talking with her?”

The old enmity between Samaritan and Jew is forgotten as a thing of the past. Jesus never could respect political, economic, social barriers - any barrier that would cut someone off from the love of God. And there is another barrier that he casually breaks through, too; and that is the sexist one that regards women as secondary in importance, and not to be treated as equals or even as deserving the same attention as men. Given the cultural tradition of the Middle East and the Jewish Patriarchical pattern, Jesus’ frequent concern for and attention to women - particularly women who have been rejected for their sins - Jesus’ loving concern is indeed remarkable.

So this is what must have sounded to Jewish ears as an astonishing story. Here is Jesus as the Messiah breaking through the image of a transcendent power to appear as a man, tired, weary, thirsty. Here is the Holy Son of God breaking through to pay attention to the troubles of a sinner. Here is Christ destroying the old political and religious barriers that separated Jew and Samaritan. Here is the Son of God showing loving concern and respect for a woman and welcoming her to the loving care of God.

And the new spirit of breaking the barriers separating man from God is beautifully expressed by the symbol of the water. The woman is drawing water from the deep and ancient well of Jacob. The water is still; it seeps in the bottom, and requires a leather bucket and long cord to draw it out. And so the Samaritans, (and the Jews, too, for that matter), drew their religious convictions from the Jacob’s wells of tradition — old laws, old histories whose living spirit had been lost. And so Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is asking you for a drink you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” Now living water means running water; it suggests a pure bubbling spring, and this is always preferable to a well which may become stagnant or foul. And so the woman seems puzzled at this suggestion. “How can you furnish living, running water? Are you greater than Jacob? After all, the well was the best he could do.”

But somehow the symbol of the water begins to take on another meaning for her when

Jesus says, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whosoever drinks of the water I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a
well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The living water Jesus is speaking of now is not running bubbling water - it is the living water of the spirit.

And there is a whole Biblical tradition upon which His symbol of the water of the Spirit rests. The Psalmist speaks of how the soul thirsts, pants actually, after God. The people spoke of quenching the soul’s thirst with living water. The developed symbolism is best found in Revelation where it is promised, “To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life.” Isaiah speaks of the “wells of salvation” and gives God’s promise to pour water on the thirsty land. Isaiah gives the invitation: “Ho everyone that thirsts, come to the waters”, and the water of life is understood, that which makes the land flourish as a garden, and that which, spiritually understood, in the soul springs up into everlasting life. Jeremiah complained that the people had forsaken the God who was the fountain of living waters to hew broken cisterns which would hold no water. Ezekiel had his vision of a river of life.

Jesus then was alluding to an old wish, an ancient promise, but His clear announcement that He was the source of the living water was a clear Messianic claim. The promise of Isaiah for the age to come was, “They shall not hunger or thirst”. As the Psalmist sang, “With thee is the fountain of life.” The living water is the creative spirit of God’s love which works within the heart of man to enable him to blossom forth in acts of creative love. There is a difference between a well and a living spring. From a well one ladles out spiritual nourishment. But a living spring of water that becomes within one a source of creative energy - this is something else, and this is what Jesus promises.

This is the spirit of God’s love in which we live and move and have our being. God has planted eternity in our hearts, and, as Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. There is a spiritual thirst for the eternal - and Jesus Christ is the source of that living water of life which alone can satisfy, which becomes in us a spring welling up into eternal life.

1HOW TO HEAR A SERMON

03/02/80

L. J. START

First Baptist Kalamazoo

A short time ago I read a summary of an article entitled “How to Survive a Sermon”. The article was written by the Warden of the College of Preachers at Washington Cathedral, a man whose job requires that he listen to hundreds of sermons every year. Because of this perhaps, the article had a tone of jaundiced humor and long-suffering patience but was really short on practical advice. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about the problem we all share — after all, I’ve spent most of my years in the pews on Sunday morning, not the pulpit — and I want to talk to you today on the subject - not how to survive a sermon: that prejudges the issue in a prejudicial way; but rather how to hear a sermon creatively. I think what I have to say can apply also to other situations — college lectures, for example — when you find yourself part of a quasi-captive audience on an occasion that may not be your first choice of a way to spend your time.

So here are some principles you might use to learn the skill of listening creatively: how to hear a sermon.

First of all, listen expectantly. There is every reason to believe that somewhere something worthwhile will be said. Often the preacher gets in the way of the word of God; and often the professor gets in the way of his subject. And have you ever noticed how the obvious points tend to be carefully explained, but the really hard conclusions, difficult transitions, or mysterious concepts are somehow hastily, sometimes slickly, made without a convincing argument or appeal? Both preachers and professors tend to do this — get in the way of the subject, or explain the obvious and neglect the difficult points.

But if one is patient and listens expectantly, some truths will break through. In a sermon it is often when the preacher turns to his texts in the Bible. In a lecture it is often when the professor quotes the thinker or expert he is talking about. And remember, preachers and professors are only human: they do what you do; explain carefully what you understand clearly, but slip hastily over the knotty points that you still somehow believe must be as you feel they ought to be.

And remember: there is a truth to be discovered, some revelation to help our ignorance, some insight to save us from our error or sin. As the preacher, Ecclesiastes, Koheleth said — and I’m sure you agree — “Of the making of many books, there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh, (but) let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” The task of the preacher is to teach the people this knowledge. Says Ecclesiastes, “The preacher ought to find out acceptable words, upright words of truth.” And Paul who is concerned that the people hear the saving word of the gospel, the good news, asks, “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”

The first rule then, is to listen expectantly. There wouldn’t be the occasion of the sermon, or lecture, unless it was expected that some truth is there to be proclaimed. And if the preacher or professor sometimes gets in the way, remember you, the hearer, get in the way of the truth if you do not listen expectantly when it is proclaimed clearly. This is the problem of the preacher, the teacher, the prophet. And so Isaiah asked, “Who has believed our report?”, for not everyone hears, listens to, the good news. The first rule then is to listen, to hearken, to listen expectantly — eager and willing to learn.

There is a second principle to follow, especially if you find following the first one is not working out fruitfully. And that is to listen actively. By this, I mean to react to what you hear, consider it actively, examine what it means and see how it fits into the context of your beliefs and convictions. Perhaps you don’t think that what is being said is being said well. Then one should consider how it might be done better to be faithful to the word of God — or (and this still applies to lectures) to the subject matter being presented. I once knew a fine old gentleman who faithfully attended a country church every Sunday even though his advanced age made it increasingly difficult to do so. I asked him why he kept coming. “Well,” he said, “first of all I like to think I set an example for younger ones. Then, too, I always get something out of a sermon, even if it is only seeing how not to do it.” He really meant this not in an unkind way. What he really meant was that the sermon was an occasion to proclaim or reaffirm religious truths, and if it was not being done well, he supplied ideas for improvement in his own mind. He responded actively even to a bad sermon, supplying himself ideas about how the truth could be made more clear, so that he could really say when leaving the church, “It was a good sermon.” His creative listening had made it so.

And one can listen creatively to a bad lecture, looking for the truth that is being clouded by a bad presentation and supplying for the sake of that truth sympathetic ideas that could help clarify it in your own mind.

In a lecture you can always ask a question for clarification of a point, or to express disagreement. One can do this in a Sunday School class, and should. One should feel free to do this with a preacher, if one is listening actively. Sometimes classes are held after a sermon to formalize this kind of activity. But this isn’t necessary to express some kind of reaction.

For example, a week ago Friday I preached at Stetson Chapel a sermon entitled “Be Not Anxious”. You College Singers heard it and many of this congregation heard something like it last fall, the same sermon in another form. After the sermon, a colleague called me and said it was a very good sermon, but — (repeat) “but I don’t agree with your third point that anxiety is Unchristian, irreligious, a failure of faith”. Now he was not concerned to refute me; his disagreement was occasioned by an honest question about how one could suffer anxiety and still be a Christian. The point I was trying to make was not that religion would protect one from anxiety — even Paul cited his anxiety about the churches as a daily occasion for suffering — but that Christian faith gives hope for overcoming it, so that one need not rest in anxiety. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation, anxiety — but I have overcome the world.” This was an example of creative, active listening and it gave us both an opportunity to clarify a point of faith, a spiritual truth.

The same creative, active listening should be used in the classroom or church school. And I think it is, at K College anyway, for the most part. But again it works best as a collaborative effort to get at the truth, and not as a narrow attempt to react against a view, or refute a point. And this can be misunderstood. Again, one of my colleagues came to me early this Quarter asking about one of my freshman counselees. He reported that she was hostile in class. I said, “Nonsense. I know her. She just wants to get things clear. If she pushes hard, that’s why. It’s not hostility.” His reply was, “You’re a kind man, but I know hostility.” I would like to think I am kind, but I was speaking truth and my colleague was indeed wrong, and he later found out he was. I am pleased to report that she is now rated as one of the best students in that class. Obviously they began to agree on the subject matter of the class and to see differing views as collaborative attempts, not hostile opposition.

This principle of listening actively is, of course, simply the rule of Protestant Christianity. It is the principle that the pastor as a teacher does not have a corner on the truth; he does not hand it down from on high; but rather, the whole congregation is involved in understanding the revelation of God and is trying to see how the example of Christ operates to guide our lives here and now — in seeing actively how the eternal truths of revealed religion apply today. And, I might add, this is a principle and ideal shared by Judaism and liberal Catholicism.

One final principle — listen expectantly, listen actively, but listen reverently, for there is an impressive, fundamental truth to be heard, a spirit to be encountered — namely, the truth that one is a creature of God, part of a larger spirit, and that very spirit can be encountered in worship. The classroom parallel is not exact, but reverence for learning, respect for truth, commitment to truth, is the academic counterpart of the religious commitment to God as the creator and sustainer of our being. The teaching is that learning should be reverenced for its own sake. It is the spirit of wonder that Aristotle pointed to when he said all men by nature desire to know. It is this desire turned to the source, the Creator, the first principle of our being, which is the religious impulse seeking the spirit, the presence of God. The church service should give opportunity for seeking this spirit. Periods of silence help. Quaker silent worship has much to recommend it. But there are opportunities to seek or explore the presence of the Spirit in meditative moments of quiet music — or to sense the splendor of God’s creation in the stirring, full sound of music, or the spirit of silent prayer.

And in almost every form of Biblical worship service, there is some ceremony — quiet, reverent, aimed at communion with that spirit of God. For the Christian, it is the presence of God through Christ in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We are about to celebrate this service. All fellow Christians are invited to participate. But if this service is unfamiliar or foreign to your experience, pass the elements on but use the service as an occasion to meditate on your own approach to the Highest in quiet prayer.

How to hear a sermon? Listen expectantly. Listen actively. But above, listen reverently. Try to sense the presence of the spirit of God, beyond the words, beneath the ceremonies, outside the symbols — within us all if we but hearken: the still small voice of God.