Getting Small
Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
16 January 2005
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany – Year A
We were just standing there. We were ready to go, but no one moved. I could feel the cold creep into my fingers and toes, but it didn’t seem to matter. We had finally gotten to the beginning, but no one seemed quite ready to start. No one was talking. We were just staring out over the Grand Canyon, and it seemed to be staring back.
The beauty of the canyon was penetrating. It was a revealing beauty that confused my senses. I felt as if I could taste what I saw and touch what I smelled. Time stopped. And I wanted to take it all in. I didn’t want to miss anything.
The rock in the canyon looked like a many-layered cake. The rim was a band of white limestone. A band of red limestone came next. It looked like it was on fire in the early morning light. Then came a band of yellow sandstone, followed by one of greenish shale and then one of dark brown sandstone. At the bottom of the gorge, lay nearly black schist and granite.
These formations told a story. Some had been formed at the bottom of a great sea and were still clutching the fossils of small marine animals. Others were formed in the desert after the sea retreated. Many that were once standing up were now lying down. And all bore the marks of their struggle against the wind, rain and sun.
Soon it became too much for me. I just couldn’t process it all. I kept remembering what I had read. If you took the age of the earth and expressed it as a calendar year, then the first hominids did not appear until 4:45 p.m. in the afternoon on December 31. We have been here for only a little more than seven hours!
I began to experience a sort of spiritual vertigo. Somehow, going deeper into the canyon made it appear bigger. And the bigger it got, the smaller I felt. I could feel my self-importance melting away inside of me. It all seemed like such a gift. I remember becoming extremely conscious of not wanting to disturb anything, and promising myself that I would bring my children here to see this.
John the Baptist appears to have his own story about getting small in the desert. John was a prophet on the rise. It was John who was created through a miraculous birth to elderly parents. It was John who had been sent by God to speak to his people. It was John who had convinced many of those people to repent.
John must have known how big he was becoming. He must have felt a nagging feeling of self-righteousness. I think we all have that instinct to be first somewhere deep down inside of us. We want the attention. We think we will be free if only we could be first. We think we will be loved if only we could be first.
You can almost hear the voices of the more politically savvy disciples in the background. Don’t forget that the angel Gabriel said that you were filled with the power and spirit of Elijah. You should talk more about that in your next speech. Don’t forget that you have been chosen to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. You should not be too specific about when that will be. Don’t forget that your cousin Jesus is gaining support. You should move to the middle and let him run as the radical one.
But, John ignored those voices. John knew who he was. He was not the light. He was the one who came to bear witness to the light. (John 1:8) John knew what he had seen. He had seen God’s Spirit descend in the form of a dove and rest on Jesus. (John 1:32) John knew what he had to do. He had to identify Jesus as God’ chosen one, and send his disciples to follow Jesus. (John 1:33, 34) And John knew what would happen. He would get smaller and Jesus would grow larger in the minds of the people. (John 3:30)
John allowed himself to be made small, I think, because he had a sense of God’s presence in his life – a sense that allowed him to discern and graciously accept the truth. He had received the self-giving love of God and was thankful enough to respond by giving of himself to other people. By telling others about the God that he had seen disclosed in Jesus, John was making Jesus real for them. The people did not come to know Jesus because of a voice from heaven, they came to know Jesus because of the witness of John.
Sometimes, of course, we are made small not by joy, but by pain and suffering. I served as a chaplain in a hospital one summer during seminary. We spent the first weeks of the summer learning what to do. We learned how to listen actively. We learned how to explore what a patient might really be feeling. We learned how to sit and talk in ways that were the most likely to make patients comfortable. Our task was simple. We were just to ask, “What are you going through?” and then create enough space for the patients to answer.
But, we quickly ran into problems. We kept getting in our own way. Some of us offered to pray too quickly or jumped at the first chance to leave the room when a patient’s story told of suffering that was uncomfortably similar to our own. Some of us listened so actively that we ended up conducting a spiritual interview in which we controlled the conversation with the patient for the entire visit.
Several of us eventually found ourselves drawn into the suffering of a patient that made us small in spite of ourselves. A student of the holocaust found himself comforting a holocaust survivor who was dying of lung cancer. A right to life activist found himself comforting a teenage mother who had made decisions that he would not have made. A father found himself comforting a man whose only son had been murdered on Father’s Day. In each case, we clearly saw the soul of another person laid bare by their own suffering and recognized ourselves in them. Once we began to truly see the souls of our patients, we were able to discern whether our actions built up or broke down the life of that soul. We realized that we did not have to make God present. All we had to do was get small enough to become aware of God’s presence.
Becoming aware of God’s presence, however, does not always mean that our lives will become easier. If a deepening capacity for gratitude helps us see things for the way they are, then making Jesus real for others will require us not only to deal with our desire to be first, but also to challenge those things that do not build up the lives of others. Getting small, in other words, does not mean being quiet. But, it does mean speaking up only in ways that make things better. And this can be dangerous.
In his favorite sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct,” Martin Luther King talked about the desire to be first. He claimed that we all have the desire to be out front leading the band. But, he called us to use this instinct creatively. He called us to be first in love, to be first in moral excellence and to be first in generosity. He warned us against allowing this instinct to become destructive. He warned us against allowing this instinct to make us feel a need to feel superior to others.
“Power at its best,” he said, “is love implementing the demands of justice; justice at its best, is love correcting everything that stands against love.” And he took his own advice on so many occasions. We know them by heart -- the Montgomery Bus Boycott, his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” his “I Have a Dream” speech and his Noble Peace Prize.
But, it was what he did when his family was at risk that has always impressed me the most. Early in his public ministry, King rushed home one night after learning that his house had been bombed. An angry crowd of armed blacks began to form around the white policemen that were there. After making sure that his wife and daughter had not been injured, King walked onto his front porch, raised his hand and quieted the crowd. He told them to go home and put down their weapons. He told them that they could not solve their problems by meeting hatred with hatred. He told them that they had to meet hate with love, and violence with non-violence. This was the law of King’s life.
We are often shocked, I think, into an awareness of God’s presence in our lives. Sometimes the shock is one of joy at the beauty of our surroundings. Sometimes the shock is one of suffering with the pain of our neighbors. In either case, the shock sometimes awakens us to our dependence on the gratuitous love of God. It is a gift. And gratitude is the only real response we can offer. It is our surrender to gratitude that allows us to discern the truth about the way things are. It is our surrender to gratitude that allows us to make creative use of our instinct to be first. It is our surrender to gratitude that allows us to stand for those things that build up life in others and stand against those things that break down the lives of others.
It is gratitude that brings us closer to God and allows us to bring God closer to others.
Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org