The Whole Catastrophe

(Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33)

                The hardest point in my life was the time when I was suspended from ministry and divorced from my wife of over 20 years.  It was not something that just “happened” to me. It was something for which I was fully responsible in my own selfish irresponsibility.  There is rarely a week that goes by that I don’t have some pang of guilt or regret about those events.

                And yet without those events I would not have learned that I could survive outside the womb of the Church.  I would never have discovered gifts for working with people with mental illness, or been put into a position where those gifts directly and positively helped transform people’s lives.  I would never have known my current wife, Molly, whom I love and who loves me, just as I am, more than anyone has in my life.  I would not have had three grandsons whose lives I can give much to that they other wise would not have, who come to me and hug me and say “I love you Opa.”  I would never have come to be priest at Saint James, and I’ve been here longer now than anyone in its ministerial history except Father McGowan, and I believe I have contributed positively through my position here in many ways.

                So, if it hadn’t of been for the things that I most regret in life I never would have experienced some of the things I most treasure in life

                Joseph, with his brother Benjamin the youngest, was his father’s favorite.  They were the sons of Jacob’s beloved Rachel.  In the reading today we get a sense of Joseph’s relationship with his brothers when we read about him reported to their father all about their misdeed.  Even more you clue into Joseph when you read about his preening about with his “coat of many colors” that his father had given him, or hear about his tell of his dream where the sheaves of grain of his brothers bowed down to his sheaf of grain, and another dream where the sun and the moon and 11 planets all bowed down to him.  He was a pretty obnoxious kid.  But the plan here is fratricide, not some retributive practical joke, and it was only mitigated a little when they sold him into slavery and told his father he was dead.

                Jacob’s hope and expectation for Joseph had been for him to prosper in Canaan in the steps of his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, the Promised Land that Jacob himself has prospered in after wrestling with God for a blessing.  But that’s not the way it happened.  God, apparently, had other plans.

                At the very heart of our faith is the unexpected tragedy of the cross…the death of the one who was meant to bring life…the death of God.  So clearly life doesn’t go the way we want it to go.

                And I don’t think it’s possible for us to live lives that are different from the ones we are living.  It’s not that I believe in pre-destination exactly.  I just think life unfolds in ways that we can’t control or influence or really even understand very much.  All the factors influencing our decisions are already in place by the time we make the decisions.  By the time we see the icebergs it’s too late to turn the ship.

                I  also see things differently in that I don’t think I “have” a life (as I’m sure I’ve said before).  I think I “am” a life.  There is no Jeff who didn’t get suspended and divorced.  There is no Jeff who didn’t come to this place.  I mean…maybe there are lives like that off in some alternate universe, but they’re not me.  Each of us is only who we are in our wholeness and completeness, down to each thought or tiny sip of water.

                That’s the most helpful thing I’ve been able to say to those who are grieving in one way or another, when the timing is right.  No one really ever “dies young.”  They live their whole life, however many years or days or breaths those lives entail.  We may have fantasized about them living longer.  I may have imagined my nephew being 70 before his death from AIDS at age 35, but that was my thought, not his life.  To cling to those fantasies with excessive denial and grief is to prefer our thoughts over the real person in front of us.

And that’s true for things like marriage relationships, work relationships, childrearing, and others.  We first need to accept the person who’s really there as they really are in their wholeness.  We can share our wisdom and experience with them in the hope that they may grow and learn, but we can’t pick and choose…”I like this,”  “I don’t like that,” and still call it love. That would be treating someone like a Mr. Potato Head rather than a person made in the image of God.

Christian life does not require us to discern what’s “right,” by reading the Bible or looking up the rules of the Church and then acting accordingly.  It requires us to discern what is, life as it’s given, and accept it as a gift.  It’s not the question of judgment or moral behavior that its often portrayed as being.  It’s a process of insight, acceptance, forgiveness, thanksgiving, and love.  We see what is: our own failures, the full panoply of life, the “whole catastrophe,” as Zorba the Greek put it.

And then we forgive…forgive it, forgive them, forgive ourselves, no matter what it is that they or we have done.  When we arm ourselves in defense, and resent or reject, or get all caught up in self-righteous indignation then we just harden our hearts and stay stuck in the nightmare instead of living the dream forward.

Beyond acceptance and forgiveness we need to come to thanksgiving.  This is what an old Cursillitsta from Morgan Hill used to call “red light blessing.”  When we’re in a hurry we usually get irritated if we come to a red light.  But if we think about it, that red light may have saved us from an accident in the next block or the next mile or later that afternoon.  So instead of cursing the red light, we need to be thankful for the gifts it brings us, which are mostly unknown, since at least have of them consist of things that didn’t happen.  Maybe all that money that we lost in the stock market last week or in the last few years would have just spoiled our great-great-granddaughter. Maybe, if our parents could have afforded to go out more often we wouldn’t have been born.  I always end my sermons by saying “thanks be to God.”  And that’s how I plan to end my life as well.

The Jesus tells us that love caps it all.  We accept life as it comes, forgive the unpleasant parts, give thanks for it all…but, we ultimately just love it, and all that is in it.  I mean, this all is so miraculous!  It’s more miraculous than walking on water…just being here…just being at all!  Love overcomes the separation between us, between us and everything else in creation, the separation between subject and object.  When I accept you, when I forgive you, when I’m thankful for you, then there’s still me and you.  When I love you I come to recognize that we are one, as Jesus and the Father are one.  Without you there is no me.  Without me there is no you.  Without all the pains and cruelties and horrors of life there is not life.  But there is.

Thanks be to God.