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Getting Into Trouble

The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
10 June 2007

Second Sunday after Pentecost  – Year C

I’ve been thinking.  Things are working out for me, by and large.  So, I’ve decided not to change anymore.  Don’t worry.  I’m still happy to tell you when and how you need to change.  But, I’ve decided that I’ve changed enough.  Unless, of course, I need to change back. 

Sometimes, though, I have trouble holding on to my resolve.  I remember coming home one day and finding my wife, Sally, at the door.  This was not her normal practice.  She stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her.  “Hello dear,” she said, “you won’t believe what happened at the pet store today.”  Then, I heard the conspiratorial giggling of children and the muffled yelps of a rescued puppy coming from behind the door.

This is not the first time that my family has opted for forgiveness rather than permission.  We already had two dogs.  And, one of the two was a Jack Russell terrier – whom, I might add, we acquired under similar circumstances.  If you know anything about Jack Russell terriers, you know that we already had plenty of dog!

But, the Boxer that Sally rescued looks almost exactly like another dog she loved who had died several years before.  And, the kids were so excited about their new pet.  My daughter, Jessie, named the dog “Montana” after the state where Sally’s other dog died.    

This is what trouble looks like.  You love your family, so you change your life. You begin to feel what they feel -- to take delight in their happiness -- and, whether you have what Sally calls the “dog gene” or not, you learn to love yet another dog.  

I get a similar sense of impending trouble whenever I hear the word “prophet” in a scripture reading.  I immediately wish we had read something else.  Something safer.  Something more pastoral.  Maybe one of the creation stories, or any of the many promises of forgiveness, or a poetic description of love.

Sometimes we think of prophets as just predicting the future, or challenging injustice.  Things that in and of themselves may seem safe enough.  But, if you look closer, you will see that they are trying to show us a different way to be.  And, once we see it, they are expecting us to do something about it.   
 
Think of the old stories.  The people are not paying attention to something.  There is some inconsistency between what they’re saying and what they’re doing.  It has gotten to the point where the prophet can’t take it anymore.  So, she exposes it.  She pulls back the curtain and reveals the little man who is behind the big voice and all of that smoke.  As the illusion dies, so does the power of the wizard.  Everybody is going to have to learn to approach things in a new way if they are going to get home.

There is something in these stories that transcends their particular facts and circumstances.   You can see it most clearly, I think, at the point where the prophets can’t take it anymore.  They can’t take it anymore, because they are feeling what others are feeling.  They are internalizing the pain and suffering that they see, and then reacting to what is happening to others as if it were happening to them.  They are acting, in other words, out of a knowing heart. 

Our word for a knowing heart is compassion.  Compassion means literally to suffer with someone else – not in your head, but in your guts!  This is not a feeling you live with until it passes.  This is a feeling that you have to do something about.  This is a feeling that compels you to give up your own comfort to help someone else.     

Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about the kind of empathy that so often justifies not doing anything.  I’m not talking about sensitivity to how others feel that means you can’t do anything that might upset someone else.  This is not prophetic compassion.  It’s just a disguise for anxiety or an excuse for a failure of nerve.  Did the prophets ever seem to worry about upsetting anybody?  More times than not, they wandered into town, shouted out what they had to say so that everyone could hear and then ran out of town just two steps ahead of a lynch mob!

No.  I’m talking about the kind of feeling that a mother has for her child.  A mother is often particularly attuned to the cry of her own child.  It’s as if she learns to feel what he feels so that she will be able to give him what he needs when he needs it. 

Couples who have been together a long time sometimes stimulate the same kind of caretaking impulse in each other.  They have spent so much time reading each other that they start to look a little alike.  After years of laughing the same way and crying the same way, their faces actually begin to resemble each other.   

Finding these feelings in ourselves is, I think, the first step toward entering the radical new community that Christ came to create.  I don’t believe that he came to establish an institution, or just to tell us about an afterlife; I believe he came to teach us how to find God by living with and for each other.  This is the truth that caused people to hail him as a prophet!

Can you see now why I can sense trouble coming whenever I hear the word “prophet” in a scripture reading?

The more I listen to their stories, the more I realize that things aren’t working out for me as well as I thought.  If I allow myself to really feel the pain and suffering of others, I begin to realize that my life isn’t ever going to completely work out for me until their lives get better.  And, in many cases, their lives can’t really get any better until I change how I’m living mine.   

This is what trouble looks like.    

How, for example, would I feel about the war, if I thought of the children who are dying every day in Baghdad as my children?

How would I feel about raising taxes to pay for entitlement programs, if I thought of the people being supported by those programs as my parents?

How would I feel about immigration reform, if I thought of the people streaming over our southern borders every night as my brothers?

I don’t know how to answer questions, yet.  But, I’m afraid that they are going to challenge my resolve not to change anymore.  I try to keep remembering our dogs.  You just haven’t lived until you have watched our “wait-and-see” Boxer try to mimic all of the behaviors of our “shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later” Jack Russell terrier!  I can’t even imagine my life without them.  But, I would never have known that joy, if I had refused to change what I thought and failed to follow the feelings of my family that I was able to internalize.   

Listening to the prophets is dangerous business.  They will take you where you don’t want to go, and make you do things that you don’t want to do.  And, all they promise you in return is eternal life!

Amen

Comments? Contact The Rev. George Maxwell at: gmaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org

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