BCP - Lent 1 C - 25 February 2007

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Joseph Brown, n/OHC
BCP - Lent 1 C - 25 February 2007

Deuteronomy 26:(1-4)5-11
Romans 10:(5-8a)8b-13
Luke 4:1-13


I was 3 or 4 years old, and sitting on my grandmother’s ample warm lap. She had the softest skin imaginable and she always smelled faintly of lilacs. Now she also “dipped snuff” and spit into a Dixie cup, so banish any kind of sweet little Victorian images right away.

As I sat there, probably drinking sweet tea and having a homemade sugar cookie, Granny was telling me about all the stories in the big illustrated family bible. But what really got my attention was the pictures! As more pages were turned and as I was being lulled into a drowsy little stupor from too much sugar and Granny’s soft voice, I saw IT. Now I didn’t know I saw IT, and the realization of how this picture would mark my conscience was almost 40 more years down the road, but when that page turned I know I opened my eyes wide and took in a deep breath.

There was a picture of Jesus, in a white robe, with a blue sash standing on a cliff, but what got me was what Jesus was looking up at: A being whose skin was red. All around him was a swirling pattern of red cloth and big black wings. He had little horns, cloven feet, black fingernails and he was flying! Just like Superman, but with the much cooler costume of Batman. He had super-powers! He looked so much more powerful and stronger than the man on the cliff. I don’t remember a single picture after that. Not the good shepherd, not the crucifixion, not the standard rising from the tomb. All I remember are wings, flying, swirling and power, and judging from my grandmother’s reaction to my excitement, something totally forbidden. Jesus didn’t have a chance. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. And it wasn’t human. At that age I didn’t know anything about evil, or what Satan really was. I just knew I wanted to fly, to have powers, and that he didn’t look like he could be hurt. He looked like a god.

That is quite a set-up and to linger so long on something so personal is quite un-Episcopalian, but I wanted to give some context.

I know that it is the season of Lent, but contrary to the liturgical calendar, on Friday at our novitiate bible study I had an epiphany. It is embarrassing to admit, but I realized that I completely missed a basic tenet of our religion. Jesus was human. I have read a lot of Christology, theology, ecclesiology and catechisms. My brothers here know I wrestle with some pretty obscure (and really useless) details. I realized that I really do not know what it meant when it said Jesus was divine and human. Divine, yes. Human? Well sure, in an abstract kind of way.

The devil’s question to Jesus is “If you are the Son of God…” But Jesus heard God’s question to him “Do you dare to be human?” Do you dare to accept all the limitations that humans have: hunger, weakness and pain? Do you dare to accept the glory that is human: made in the image and likeness of God? Do you dare to be divine and human?

It is humbling to admit that until this last Friday, I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t know, and every one of my little preconceptions are rocked to the foundations. Do I dare to be human? Do I dare allow myself to finally enter the human race after trying to be a dark superhero all my life and share in its fragility and absurdity and its grandeur? It seems the height of arrogance to even ask that question, as if somehow I have been a separate species. I know that am not, but most of the time I act as if I was.

I act as if I had superpowers. I act as if I can read minds and hearts. I act as if sharp comments and little hurts bounce off like bullets on Superman’s chest of steel. I am trying to be the all-powerful, super-doer. The one that is relied on, and doesn’t have to rely on anyone else. I act as if anything short of superman, super novice, super monk is not enough, and in my arrogance, I think that I can be those things in the first place. Not needing others, not needing love. Not human.

And that takes me off the hook. By denying Christ humanity I place him in a different category. By doing that, then I don’t have to do what he did. He was the Divine Human, and if I deny his humanity then he is not really available. The gulf between myself and God has not been bridged. I am left horribly alone, and powerless to overcome the temptation.

The heart of the Christian mystery is to be really human, and all that implies. I am able to be really human because Jesus Christ was really human. He was vulnerable to those around him. He got hungry, he got angry, he got frustrated. His disciples infuriated him. Many of the leaders of his own religion were hard of heart and blind, even while miracles of healing were being worked around them, and no matter what he did, their hearts got harder. He was and is God, but his full divinity is somehow tied into, and inseparable from, his humanity. So is mine. I don’t know how, but it is.

For just a moment, I have seen through a door to a mystery. I have heard a temptation for what it is. A lie. The power of the red guy with the big bat wings is a lie. Satan tells me I can be like a god, Jesus calls me to be more than that- a human who shares in the life of the God. Hildegaard of Bingen said “The worst thing the devil can say to you is “Human! you do not know what you are!” After Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension we are now full participants in the divine. As humans. And I shall spend the rest of eternity grasping this fact. God is not only here with us, God is in us, as we are in the body of Christ. As Christ’s body, we must do what Christ does. And if that is true, then this life is not a game. This monastery, our powerful liturgies, our ministry means nothing if does not mean that we are at war with evil, as Christ was at war with evil. Not evil in the abstract, but real evil: Hatred, violence, oppression, slavery, murder and death. The war is between good and evil, Satan and God, in my soul and in the world. The temptation set before us every day is “Who’s side are you on? Under who’s banner will you fight?” And to win this war God called God’s very best to fight- Us. Humans. To God, in a mystery beyond all my comprehension, there could be no other way.

I pray this Lent, that God may give me a glimpse into what this means. I pray this Lent I might begin to see that in being truly human we are never closer to being truly divine in Christ. I pray this Lent, I might put away the wings and the cape, give up the super powers, and enter into the mystery of a God who is so powerful, that he became fully human.

*****

(c) 2007 - Order of the Holy Cross