Faith Venture

Thoughts on listening to Itzak Perlman play Mozart.

At the conclusion of a chamber concert by a famous concert pianist, an admiring woman rushed forward to greet her. “I’d give anything to play like that,” she gushed.

The pianist replied, “No, you wouldn’t.”

The woman was taken aback by the apparently rude comment. The pianist continued, “You could, maybe, but you would have to take lessons, study, practice playing scales for hours every day, prepare performances. There is much work and discipline behind the ability to play.”

It’s the same in spiritual life. You’re not going to reach John Climacus’s last four steps without going through the previous 26. You can’t skip the practice involved between wanting to and achieving.

Peter in his second sermon recorded in Acts told the people to develop four spiritual disciplines at the beginning of their spiritual journey–study the teaching of the apostles, meet together in small groups, pray, and participate in communion (the Eucharist).

My guitar sits in a corner of my office. Sometimes I pick it up and practice. Often I’m too busy. Oops, not too busy. Rather, deciding to do something else rather than practice daily. I’m only one short step ahead of the woman. I would love to play like Perlman, but I know I never will. I don’t devote myself to the discipline.

On the other hand, I do devote myself to other disciplines. How about you? If you are not, why not? Why not discipline yourself to become spiritually wise?

Picture a geeky, skinny, freshman engineering student. Freshman Comp class. Climax of the quarter was to write a “research” paper. At least x number of references. I forget how long, but probably as long as the magazine articles I wrote every month for years.

I had been doing some oddball reading on a topic in physical chemistry (I never read what you were supposed to be reading). Teacher said, oh, no, you must write on one of the things we read during class.

Rats.

So, I chose to write on Henrik Ibsen’s concept of truth gleaned from Peer Gynt.

That was a long time ago. I still remember. And I remember the embarrassment of my five-minute oral presentation to the class–my first ever speech.

I lived through it all. And I liked philosophy as much as science even then.

Truth?

According to Ibsen, it was a creative response to life.

Think on it. Life presents a continuous series of challenges. Maybe not as dramatic as Peer Gynt and the Mountain King. But today I rise, prepare for the day, and who knows what I might face?

Later, Viktor Frankl talked about how we can choose our response to what life throws at us.

We determine the rest of our life by the choices we make today.

Do we face every opportunity with the choice that springs from love of God and neighbor? Or do we respond with fear, anger, hate, or pride?

Don’t be like Indiana Jones’ nemesis in The Last Crusade, when the Crusader said of him as he chose a chalice, “He chose poorly.”

“For the Lord lives in patience, while the devil lives in an angry temper.”

I’m reading in another very early Christian text, The Shepherd of Hermas. This teaching talks about how one substance can corrupt another. And how unfortunate it is for a person to have patience but also allow anger to also live within.

How do we apply this?

I’m working on a project. It involves dealing with about 200 people on one side and many teams and schools on the other. It’s my annual job of assigning referees to soccer games.

There are as many variables as there are personalities.

This year I had 65 openings one week into the season. Thanks to storms rolling through at inopportune times, people deciding not to certify at the last minute, injuries, and more, two weeks into the season I now have 75 openings.

Someone calls and can’t make it to a game. I have two choices. I could become angry. Or, I could suck it up and add it to the list of project tasks.

Another application. I look at the project. It appears insurmountable. How do I tackle it? One game at a time.

How do I accomplish any project? How can you accomplish any project?

Remember, the Lord lives in patience. One step at a time. Then you look up, and you’re there.

Two of my favorite mentors from history are St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. They were contemplatives–and reformers. Contemporaries in the chaotic times of the 16th century.

The life of a reformer is always difficult. There is so much underlying resistance to change. Even if the flow of tradition is corrupt or based upon fallacies.

I often contemplate the lives of the early Christians.

They gathered together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Without that central fact, they had no religion, no hope.

But they were well known, in the times when it wouldn’t cost them their lives to be well known, as people who lived differently from the way society around them was arranged.

There was just something different, better, in the way they treated each other and their neighbors.

We, on the contrary, get so wrapped up in gathering with our kind and giving out names to others not our kind. Homosexuality just hit the headlines again. A significant group of people who call themselves Christians call these people sinners and outcasts.

Putting aside other arguments, let’s just pause a moment. To whom did Jesus minister? Whom did he love? Whom did he dine and party with?

Read the gospels and the answer is clear. Sinners and outcasts.

The irony would be amusing were it not so hurtful. For we are taught that everyone, even us within the organizations, are sinners. To try to classify two types of people sinners and us (implied not sinners) is simply wrong. We’re all caught in a trap. But we can get out. (Sorry Elvis.)

The spiritual discipline of worship (implied that you’d be gathering with your friends) must inevitably lead to the spiritual discipline of service–loving sinners and outcasts. Which is why I love mentors like John and Teresa.

There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways.

So begins The Didache (The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles–pronounce did-a-key), a very early Christian document teaching about discipleship.

“Now this is the way of life: First, you shall love God, who made you. Second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself; but whatever you do not wish to happen to you, do not do to another.”

The teaching continues by describing a person who is humble, not angry; giving not covetous; speaks truthfully; peaceful.

“But the way of death is this: first of all, it is evil and completely cursed; murders, adulteries, lusts, sexual immoralities, thefts, idolatries, magic arts, sorceries, robberies, false testimonies, hypocrisies, duplicity, deceit, pride, malice, stubbornness, greed, abusive language, jealousy, audacity, arrogance, boastfulness.”

And he is just getting started.

Just as when I read John Climacus originally expecting to learn about how to experience God through meditation and learned about overcoming all my evil desires and emotions and how to cultivate the good ones, here I read the teachings about Jesus by the twelve apostles and learn (just as from reading the four Gospels) how to live my life beginning with love–first love God. Not belief. Lots of people believe all manner of things. It’s love. And then spreads from love to everyone we meet along the way.

Is that the missing ingredient in your life?

The first, second, and even third century Christians lived in such a way that people from the outside community at large were attracted to the Way.

They were attracted despite the periodic oppression by civil authorities that could lead to anything from penal servitude to (literally) being fed to the lions.

Reading the Didache, perhaps the oldest teaching document we have aside from the New Testament, which begins with the first commandment–love God and love your neighbor. Then it talks about giving gifts. And how to live a humble life.

Then in the fourth century the church became legal and by the fifth century Christianity became a “church” religion where most people were expected to go and listen to priests.

A question for us in the twenty-first century, especially in America–are we living in a way that attracts people or repulses people? Are we attracting people by our love or repulsing away the undesirable sinners? Or spending time trying to enact laws to force people to behave the way we think they should?

It’s all about the attitude of our heart. Our discipline is to practice prayer, meditation, study to open us to people rather than to fence us in to keep people we don’t like out.

When Luke described Jesus as “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” and also “Prince of Peace”, he borrowed the phrase. He took an existing title and applied it in an entirely new and different way.

The title was used by the reigning head of state, the emperor of Rome, Augustus.

But early Christians took the bold step of saying there exists a Lord (the person who decides for us, the Master in a relationship) above the lords of the secular state. The Jews asked for dispensation from certain Roman worship rules based upon ethnic identity. Early Christians asked for the same dispensation, but not by ethnic identity but by a common community based upon faith in God and the resurrection of Jesus.

We are in danger of reading the New Testament overlooking the immense power of Rome and how Jesus turned everything Rome stood for on its head.

We forget at our own peril that Jesus was a different sort of lord. A different sort of ruler. Not one who demanded “lip service.” After all, he said, “Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father.” No, he wants your heart to be changed.

Jesus said his kingdom was a different kind of kingdom and he was a different kind of Lord. If we live there, then we’ll live a different sort of life. We will spread peace and justice wherever we go rather than discord and divisiveness.

Jesus turned Rome on its head. It’s not all about power; it’s all about love.

There’s a guy proclaiming some political opinions. Another guy disagrees. OK, so far, normal American discourse.

Then the second guy offers his opinion of the speaker’s IQ number–otherwise known as “flipping the bird” or “giving him the finger.” For sowing his opinion, he reaps a punch in the face.

Not liking that result, he complains. About getting punched. That’s what made it to national news. And I’m going like, “Dude!!! What did you expect? You engage in a vulgar and offensive gesture to a person and expect him to, like, change his mind and love you? I don’t think so.”

We’ve probably all been there. “What were you thinking?”

In my reading this morning, I was reminded of the little book from Brother Lawrence, The Practice of God’s Presence.

What if, instead of these hateful reactions to people’s comments and opinions, we actually practiced God’s presence.

After all, we are taught, if we but have eyes to see and ears to hear, that God is present everywhere.

What if we acted as if we are in the presence of God? What if we practiced bringing the temperature of the situation down–maybe to something like “you have an opinion, I have an opinion, I know yours, you know mine, now let’s go have a beer and discuss higher matters like how are the Red Sox winning so many games or like how do we practice the presence of God”?

Instead of sowing hate, maybe we sow peace?