"Woman, Here Is Your Son"

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her [at the cross], he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19:26-27)

As the notes in my HarperCollins Study Bible tell me, “Many suggestions have been made for a symbolic meaning for this incident.” Catholic theologians, for instance, have said that Jesus is designating Mary as the mother of us all. That’s a comforting thought: everyone needs a mother now and then.

Today, however, I’m seeing the story differently. Appropriately for a tale about Jesus, it describes something both profoundly human and profoundly divine.

Focusing just on the details, we see a person on his proverbial deathbed, setting his affairs in order. He worries about who will care for his widowed mother—no small matter in a patriarchal society—so he entrusts her to a friend whom he loves. The friend accepts the charge and adopts her into his family. It is a touching display of attention to small but important details that gets played out at deathbeds everywhere.

And because Jesus is doing it, we see how completely he entered into, and embraced, the human experience.

What makes this act divine is the context. Jesus does all this in a state of unimaginable pain. He has been mercilessly beaten. He has faced angry crowds screaming for his death. He has carried a heavy crossbar through the streets of Jerusalem. He has been nailed to a wooden cross and is slowly suffocating.

And he still can look beyond himself to take care of those he loves.

If God is love, there is no more poignant example of the God-nature than a son tending to his mother with his last few breaths.

Through our connection with the Holy Spirit, we can do the same: enter deeply into the human experience and care for others with the ineffable divine love. It is hard to imagine a higher calling.

Things to Learn While You’re Sick

For the last week, a severe head cold/chest cold/whatever has taken over my body and commanded attention. Symptoms include a profound loss of energy and, even worse, sinus pressure that has dropped my IQ by 50 points.

This sort of thing always upends my life, especially the part you might call “spiritual.” Saying Morning Prayer is more rote than substance. Silent prayer is impossible. I couldn’t give a rip about serving other people. You get the idea.

From this and previous illnesses, I’m learning at least two things about life in God. Both may seem obvious, but maybe they’ll give you hope when you get this bug.

1. I used to become terribly anxious about losing my grip on my “spiritual life” when sick. I’d try reeeallly hard to focus, castigate myself for letting my mind wander, etc. The lesson, it seemed, was always to let go and meet God “just as I am”—even if “just as I am” meant with no discernible thought of God at all.

This time around, miracle of miracles, I seem to be getting it. If I say Morning Prayer, or wait till Noonday Prayer, or just skip it and mumble something short at bedtime…if I skip the scriptures to read Dick Francis because that’s all my mind can take…it’s all good. And I know it.

In other words, I’ve actually learned something and moved forward. We humans can make progress. Who’d a thunk it?

2. The second lesson has to do with the reason our brainlessness doesn’t derail our prayer: we don’t do this alone. That may seem laughably obvious. Of course God’s there, we think. Of course it’s a two-way street. But how often do we give that idea lip service? Somewhere during my life, I picked up the notion that if something had to be done, I had to do it. So if prayer and devotion were to be successful—whatever that means—it was up to me. The thought of letting God shoulder the load is totally alien.
   

And yet…how utterly essential is it to do just that? I suspect Jesus had this in mind when he said, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). My experience with the contemplative life testifies to that: out of the stillness in my soul, where God dwells, comes a great deal of growth.

Maybe these lessons have a broader application too. It’s not just me making progress; it’s the whole human race. Look at the grand sweep of history: how far, for instance, we’ve come since crucifixion and slavery and the absolute rule of kings. We still have overwhelming problems—and make horrific steps backward (like the Holocaust)—but slowly, haltingly, clumsily, the race seems to move forward.*

And what would happen if more of us could take the Other in this God-relationship seriously? If we could find a way to let go, to “rest in the everlasting arms,” according to the old hymn? How much more good would flow from our lives—and our life together?

*A tip of the hat to my father-in-law for this astute observation.

What Do We Have to Believe? And Why?

Belief (be and lyan, to hold dear). That state of the mind by which it assents to propositions, not by reason of their intrinsic evidence, but because of authority.

Creed (Latin credo, I believe). In general, a form of belief…the entire body of beliefs held by the adherents of a given religion.

—The Catholic Encyclopedia

I’m nearly finished my tour of two gospels—Matthew and John—and their two vastly different approaches to the Christian faith. Matthew is all about inner transformation and the practical living out of God’s kingdom; John focuses on believing in Jesus as Messiah.

What really amazes me, though, is what I haven’t seen: a requirement to “assent to propositions.” So why does the church require it?

Church leaders have spent millennia defining “legitimate” belief and rooting out variations of thought that fell outside its bounds. In many churches, we recite the creeds that sprang from this process. Some Christian traditions require assent not only to those creeds, but to a fairly specific list of propositions. In contrast, one of the towering strengths of the Anglican/Episcopal tradition—a strength that is very much in peril right now—is the latitude it gives to living the questions; we’re asked to believe the creeds, and everything else is open for discussion.

But why have creeds at all?

I suppose there’s a point at which, for purposes of sheer institutional cohesion, we all have to be on the same page. It might be difficult to build a functioning community in which one of us worships Jesus, another Vishnu, still another prays to the bodhisattvas, etc. Moreover, it may be that there’s a certain depth of wisdom in each faith tradition that can only be plumbed by communities of people in that tradition. So, although all faith traditions deserve respect and honor, there’s a place in the universe for communities of like-minded people.

But how like-minded do you really have to be in order to build community?

Perhaps I’ll find some mention of this in St. Paul or another biblical writer. But the thought that God actually cares about “getting the doctrine right” doesn’t square with the God I have come to know: a God whose very essence is love.