Monday, June 16, 2008

“The only grace you can have is the grace you can imagine.” –Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility

In his book, The Art of Possibilty, Benjamin Zander re-tells “The Monk’s Story.”

A monastery has fallen on hard times. It was once part of a great order which, as a result of religious persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lost all its branches. It was decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the mother house: the Abbot and four others, all of whom were over seventy. Clearly it was a dying order.

Deep in the woods surrounding the monastery was a little hut that the Rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. One day, it occurred to the Abbot to visit the hermitage to see if the Rabbi could offer any advice that might save the monastery. The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot and commiserated. “I know how it is,” he said, “the spirit has gone out of people. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old Rabbi and the old Abbot wept together, and they read parts of the Torah and spoke quietly of deep things.

The time came when the Abbot had to leave. They embraced. “It has been wonderful being with you,” said the Abbot, “but I have failed in my purpose for coming. Have you no piece of advice that might save the monastery?” “No, I am sorry,” the Rabbi responded, “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

When the other monks heard the Rabbi’s words, they wondered what possible significance they might have. “The Messiah is one of us? One of us, here, at the monastery? Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Of course—it must be the Abbot, who has been our leader for so long. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas, who is certainly a holy man. Or could he have meant Brother Elrod, who is so crotchety? But then Elrod is very wise. Surely, he could not have meant Brother Phillip—he’s too passive. But then, magically, he’s always there when you need him. Of course he didn’t mean me—yet supposing he did? Oh Lord, not me! I couldn’t mean that much to you, could I?”

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one of them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, people occasionally came to visit the monastery, to picnic or to wander along the old paths, most of which led to the dilapidated chapel. They sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that surrounded the five old monks, permeating the atmosphere. They began to come more frequently, bringing their friends, and their friends brought friends. Some of the younger men who came to visit began to engage in conversation with the monks. After a while, one asked if he might join. Then another, and another. Within a few years, the monastery became once again a thriving order, and—thanks to the Rabbi’s gift—a vibrant, authentic community of light and love for the whole realm.


“One of you is the messiah…”

In Matthew 9:35-10:8, Jesus invites his disciples to start doing what he’s been doing. He’s been telling people about God’s powerful love, now it’s their turn to go out and do it, too. He’s been curing sick people, now it’s they will give it a try. He’s been raising the dead to new life, now it’s their turn to visit the people whom death has touched. He’s been cleansing lepers and he’s been casting out demons, now they will cleanse and cast out, too.

I wonder what was going through their minds as he sent them out into the world for this? I wonder what we might think if he asked us to do the same things?

In the end, I think this is less a lesson about the number of sick people you cure, dead people you raise, lepers you cleanse, or demons you cast out, and more a lesson about what happens when you venture out into uncertain and even dangerous territory for God. I think this is a lesson about what happens to twelve people who have already abandoned their former lives as fishermen, tax collectors, and whatever else they may have been before, and now are asked to abandon the values of the world and begin to live God’s values. I think it’s a lesson about what happens to these twelve people and what happens to the sick, the people who mourn the death of loved ones, the lepers, and the afflicted people they meet when they go out because of Jesus’ command.

I think this story is about what happens to us when we believe that God is with us.
When you believe that God is with you, you may have the courage to go out and try to do the impossible. When you believe that God is with you, you may find that you’ve lost your fear of the unknown. When you believe that God is with you, you just might make a difference in someone else’s life.

Jesus did it all first. In chapters 8 and 9 of Matthew’s gospel alone, he does it all: tells people about God’s love, cures the sick, raises the dead, cleanses the lepers, and casts out the demons. He does it, because he is the Messiah. He is the compassionate Son of God who was sent to change the world. He does it also, I think, because he can’t help but believe. In fact, he knows every moment of every day that God is with him. It gives him courage in the face of fearful things, it gives him confidence in the face of criticism, and it gives him the perseverance to keep going, living and telling the world that God is here.

Even when it looks to all who stand and watch, as if he were wrong about it all. Even when the cross blocks sight of anything that would ever seem to come from God. Even when death silences his voice, Jesus is reminding us that God is with him. We are saved, in the end, because Jesus kept going. No matter how much suffering he saw, no matter how much suffering he experienced, he kept going on believing every moment that God is with us.

The dying monastery, in the end, was saved because they reclaimed a sense of awe at the presence of God among them. When they thought each day that God could be just an arm’s length away: across the dinner table, sitting next to you during a prayer, working alongside you out in the garden, then they began to look at their world, and the people around them very differently.

How would your life change this week if you believed that God was with you? In the car next to you on the highway as you drove to work? Across the table from you as you sat down to breakfast? Sitting at the desk just in front of you in the classroom? Would your thoughts about life change? Would your actions in life change? Would the things that make you impatient and angry seem as important to you as they do right now? Would the things that bring you joy somehow seem even better?

Imagine the sick person, who the world had abandoned for fear of contagiousness, when Bartholomew and Philip arrived, took her hand, looked into her eyes and prayed for their health. Imagine the leper who no one dared to touch because his condition was interpreted as a punishment from God. What did he think when James and John knelt down with him in the street and bathed his sores? Imagine the family who mourned the loss of a child when Thomas and Matthew came by to sit and talk about the child’s life and remind her parents that God loved their daughter. Imagine the person whose life is in total chaos, who struggles with even the simplest tasks, and because of this he has lost every friend, and his family won’t even return his calls. Imagine what might happen when Peter knocks on the door and says: “God sent me, how can I help you?”

Who are the nearby people in your life that God would have you call, whose door God would have you knock on, whose wounds God would have you attend to? If you believed that God was with you every step of the way would you go, would you call, would you knock, would you reach out? And if you did, how might your life, and theirs, change?

1 comment:

Mike said...

Pastor, thanks for the website. Very insightful and certainly timely. I pray that all who hear and read this will get your message. As we have learned in our Stephens Ministry program God does walk with us and before us!!