U Turns Allowed
The Very Reverend Harry H. Pritchett, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, GA
March 12, 2006
One of the feelings that I hate most to have is the feeling of being stuck. It can come when I am waiting in a long line at the supermarket or in backup of traffic on the interstate. Or sometimes just in day-today relationships with people. It’s as though I arrive at a place, and there is simply no moving. I don’t seem to have any control over the situation, and it is very frustrating indeed.
Sometimes I feel that way with ideas or positions on issues. I get to a place in my thinking and then I don’t see any other way to change or move from my previously held point of view. And that can really make me stuck indeed when trying to relate to somebody else who has a different position.
On the other hand there are some times I really get very comfortable being stuck – at least it’s familiar territory, and I understand the context, the ground on which I stand. Yet more often than not, I am looking for ways to free myself and to get some relief. While visiting my son in Virginia last month, I found myself on a busy four-lane highway and discovered suddenly that I was going in the wrong direction. I don’t mean on the wrong side of the road, but I had simply taken the wrong road heading in the opposite way than where I intended to go. I really was stuck and would probably have had to continue for miles and miles. But I got lucky and up ahead I caught sight of a blessed road sign that read, “U-turns permitted” -- and for the moment that feeling of being stuck disappeared.
“U-turns permitted” is good news for harried drivers, but today I want to declare that it is good news for all people and especially for those who have dealings with God.
Simon Peter may be the quintessential U-turn taker. In today’s gospel Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him for saying that the Messiah must be a suffering servant, not a benevolent emperor. And then Jesus gives him the devil. “Get behind me, you Satan,” he says. But Peter, far from being impudent, is expressing what he considers a righteous position. He is saying what he has been taught as a good son of Israel – what he learned in bar mitzvah class as a faithful Jew. The messiah would be in David’s lineage and would instigate an imperial rule of peace and justice.
But no… it was not to be. Jesus had other profound ideas. Later on when the public opposition to Jesus escalates, Peter seems to keep going along in the same old way. He denies his relationship with Jesus three times! And then the rooster crows and the Sunday morning sun rises and surprise, low and behold it is Peter of all people, who is the first disciple to discover and proclaim the new day of resurrection for the world. It was a major U-turn…an about face… an enthusiastic and bold move in a new direction.
The problem with us humans is that u-turns or changes of direction are seen by some as a minor vice and being stuck, or at least consistent, is seen by many as a virtue. Maybe we get this idea nowadays from watching too many interview shows on television, when the interviewer says to the interviewee, who is squirming in his seat, “Sir, you once said….”And the guest begins to search his mind and see if he can recall when and where or if he said that years ago.
There was a story going around recently about Mike Wallace that in the life to come, he would sit down in the presence of Almighty God and say, “Sir, you once said in Genesis…. But later you said…….”
The implication behind this line of questioning is that anyone worth her or his salt intellectually ought to be consistent. But I question that assumption. Should what one said 10 years ago (or 10,000 years ago) be as true now as it was then? The need for consistency itself can often make me stuck, can immobilize me. When consistency becomes more of a virtue than truth or change, I often find myself stuck with old ideas and burned out concepts.
Several years ago I read a fascinating biography called Lyndon. The author has combined statements made by Lyndon Johnson with impressions from those who knew him intimately, and then added some interpretive comments of his own. In l967, after he left office, Johnson reflected on his handling of the Vietnam crisis. He is quoted as saying, “I never felt I had the luxury of re-examining my basic assumptions. Once the decision to commit military force was made, all our energies were turned to vindicating that choice and finding a way somehow to make it work.” And the author comments, “Therein lies the tragedy of Vietnam in a nut shell” Lyndon Johnson, you see, never knew that u-turns were permitted.
But the Bible, it seems to me, over and over again proclaims that u-turns are not only allowed, but in fact they are encouraged. One of the great virtues of faithful people is that they are able to change directions. That’s what repentance is all about. Repentance means the movement of a person toward God and that means turning around, facing in a different direction – taking different bearings. You might say that the Bible is a story book of people who change their orientation and their ways of life and begin to look in new directions when they encounter God. And when one is dealing with God one has to be prepared for such surprises, for changing our minds, for being inconsistent, for making u-turns.
And so, just maybe, in that very long and full silent place between Jesus’ confrontational interchange with Peter in today’s gospel and the excited, disciple Peter of Easter morning, something like that happened. New evidence was presented to him that enabled him to see beyond the old reality. He reversed his position and made one of the great professions of faith.
So... let us say hooray for Simon Peter. Let us say hooray for those saints through the years and even today, who in the presence of new revelation are able to encompass and see God leading in new directions. Many of us are not big enough to make that kind of about face. Many of us believe that what has been said at one point much be normative for all time. Some of us, I believe, confuse consistency with keeping the traditions of the church. Many of us are not ready to deal with any new evidence. Many of us refuse to look at new possibilities, particularly when we have made up our minds ahead of time.
I believe all of this is true for you because I know sometimes it is true with me. I personally find that what I thought was immovable last year turns out to be only a current position. What I thought about God was true only because all the facts were not in yet, and with God all the facts are never in. As Paul says, “Now we see though a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face.” That is our hope and that is why Simon Peter becomes such an important role model for us who wish to keep growing and moving in our faith toward deeper and deeper fecundity.
I believe this deadly “stuck ness” has happened in the sad politics of our foreign policy – a refusal in some ways to re-examine new evidence and only to maintain the old way of an eye for an eye, “tit for tat” ultimatums and consistency at all costs, as we barrel down the ancient highway of violence with no u-turn allowed. Just think how marvelous it would have been if Lyndon Johnson could have assumed u-turns were allowed. The history of our nation and the world just might have been different.
There is a story about another person in a position of national leadership. I’m talking about Mahatma Gandhi. One day one of his disillusioned followers came up to him and said, “You have no integrity. Last week I heard you say one thing, and today you’re saying something different. How do you justify such a vacillation?” Gandhi quickly answered, “It is simple, really, my son. I have learned something since last week.”
And so, my fellow sojourners in faith may we learn something more – day by day- week by week- about the risen Christ. In the time to come, may we be willing to make a thousand u-turns in our knowledge of God. Because it is only by turning around over and over again that we grow, more and more, until we come to God’s everlasting kingdom. Amen.
Comments? Contact Dean Pritchett at: HPritchett@stphilipscathedral.org