Lent 3 2007 – Christ Church  “‘Lost Son’: Which One?”

            One of my favorite definitions of “home” comes from a book entitled Spirituality of Imperfection.  Here home is described as “that place we find the peace which comes from learning to live with the knowledge of our own imperfections, and from learning to accept the imperfections of others.”  I wonder if one of these—the imperfection of self, or learning to accept the limitations of others--is easier for you.  I also wonder where that sense of home is for you.  For some it’s in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or other support group, in a group of close friends, hopefully in one’s family of origin though that’s not the case for everyone; and, hopefully, in Church though there again—sadly—not  all people have this experience. 

            Some of my most gratifying work as chaplain of Cornell College is working with people who are in what I’ll call spiritual recovery; folks who haven’t had the best experience with organized religion, and are in search of healing but also meaning.  Some of these people will not choose to be part of Church because it’s so dang flawed.  Of course there isn’t a human being, family, or even secular institution or government which isn’t.  But you let that go, and simply listen because they are wanting to figure this out on their own.  And you love them into being, honoring their experience, wrestlings, and big questions as they are working out authenticity in their relationship with self, world, God, and the human condition.  Meanwhile it’s all so darn intriguing because a student or professor will be saying all of this, and telling me how they served God and the church divorce papers years ago—yet they are sitting in the chaplain’s rocking chair.  And that fascinates me.  I like to say, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in; chances are I’ll agree with you” and we go from there.  Even atheists sit in that chair for they too have spiritual lives, and we love and honor each other across the divides.  Frequently it has been through them that I have experienced the presence of Christ.   Then there are the prodigals like a young alum named David--people who don’t believe they are good enough to hear the message of God which says “You are accepted,” and arrive at an experience of home.   The other day a colleague in the art department told me David felt I was trying to convince him to believe in God.  “How is that possible?” I asked. “I don’t proseyltze.”  She said, “Because he felt you wanted him to believe that he is good.”

            As Kate Rose and Leslee Sandberg know, last year Bishop Scarfe participated in a Live Chess match on campus.  The group sponsoring the match asked if I wanted to play the role of a bishop, and as tempting as that may be I suggested they ask our bishop to play the part.  Many of these student are the counter cultural kids who didn’t fit in when in high school; the intelligent, creative kids many of whom dress in Goth black clothing and nail polish—a few with troubled pasts certainly not any more than athletes or other types of young adults I know.  They proceed to invite Bishop Scarfe, and I told Alan to be flattered that they invited him; that I’m honored when they trust me enough to invite me into their world and how, perhaps, it is a test of sorts; to see if I and the Church, and possibly God, think they matter.  Because society, or their insides, have often told them that they don’t.  And Alan came.  Mitre and all. And he loved them, and they were loved in return.  At Cornell much of the education happens outside the classroom as students learn to live and care for each other amid diversity and ideological difference; and I think we do that quite well. But even so, when I heard that a student whispered “freaks” as he walked past those students dressed in black, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him because from his perspective of superiority, he was missing out on well over a hundred students, faculty, staff, and a bishop having a really good time.   Besides, while others might see them as freaks, what they are wearing on the outside isn’t all that different from the freaky feelings he and many of us have had on our insides in one time or another in life; worries about being accepted; fear of rejection, or of failure, or longing to know that we’re unconditionally loved so we can come home.  Home to living with the knowledge of our own limitations and imperfections, and from learning to accept the limitations and imperfections of others.” 

            In Spirituality of Imperfection, the authors tell of a man looking for a church that could be his home.  He happened to enter one in which the congregation and minister were reading from a prayerbook saying, “Forgive us of the things we have done, and of those things we left undone.”  The man dropped into a seat and sighed with relief as he said to himself, “Thank God, I’ve found my crowd at last.”  Based on the words of that confessional prayer, my hope is that this guy was finding home in an Episcopal Church; and his relief is a reminder to us that confession and even this whole Lent business need not be some dower guilt filled annoyance but rather a liberaton from our expectations set too high leading to failure for not being as gods.  

            I think that is why Allee Chapel on Cornell’s campus is so packed on Ash Wednesdays.  Unlike g.p.a.s, grad school applications and resume building, on the start of Lent we can look around the sanctuary at each other’s forheads smudged with ash, and breathe a collective sigh of relief.  They even see this priest taking off the mask as we quietly admit the imperfections, frailities, overstriving, inordinate attachements and mess ups.  Together we relinquish all notions of earning our worth in the eyes of God, as if belovedness by God, as today’s parable points out, is something achieved according to our own accomplishments, cleverness, success, appearances, popularity, or approval by others.

            This Lent, as we continue to linger with Jesus in the wilderness which exposes our vulnerabilities—including the temptation to prove our selves--may we confess our weakness and ask God to help us disidentify with our little gods like perfectionism, prestige, power, or in my case overstriving.  Or maybe for some it’s that need to always be right and have the final word.  Or maybe your simply asking God for help to live beyond that old bitter tape you keep playing about how someone did you wrong—which enslaves you from living into resurrection this side of heaven.  May you and I both know relinquishment and freedom this Lent.  To become humble like that prodigal, though sometimes for some of us or those we love, it is an experience of shipwreck, or job loss, or hitting rock bottom on a binge, or a humiliation which brings us to this humbling, self-emptying place.   Whether it’s through that choiceless choice, or a Lenten practice, may you know this loosening of the grip of Ego this Lent--inviting it to move over, away from the center of things in your interior life.  To be moved over so that, as vessels of emptied of self, we are made ready to be filled by God’s presence. 

            St. John of the Cross would put it differently.  That late medieval Spanish mystic said that God already dwells in every soul, even in the greatest sinner; that union with God always exists.  But its when we cling to ego attachments, our little gods and own abilities, that we are less aware and disposed to this union.  Through relinquishment or surrender like the prodigal, St. John of the cross invites us into the process of sanctification:  Of wiping the film off the window of our souls so that the union of God which is already ours, can thrive.  So this union can be our resting place.  The place inside use where we know we are beloved.  So that you can glow as illumination from the radiance of the indwelling light and presence of Christ God implanted inside you, can shine forth, flooding the world with God’s beauty, goodness, wholeness, and serenity of peace which nothing can destroy. 

            As much as I, as a recovering overachiever, people pleaser, perfectionist resonates with the older brother in today’s parable,  I wonder if Jesus tells this story as means for suggesting the prodigal who is brought low is further along on the journey.  It’s that whole relinquishment, “in weakness is strength” thing Paul spoke of, and Jesus lived.  Of what he spoke of in the beatitudes, and Mary sung of when she said her soul magnifies the Lord who looked upon her in all her lowliness.  In that song she expressed her whole program of life: Not setting herself at the centre but leaving space in the soul for it to be totally pervaded by God.  It’s all the stuff of both Eastern and Western spiritual wisdom traditions, and twelve step programs likeAA.  It’s the notion that the journey toward wholeness begins when admitting weakness is not an obstacle to God or enlightenment, but as the first stepping stone.

            What’s true for healing in our individual lives is also true for healing in our families. Or as a church.  Or Anglican communion.  It’s the first step toward Home as “that place where we find the peace which comes from learning to live with the knowledge of our own imperfections, and from learning to accept the imperfections of others.”  As for the rest of the journey home, seems like the wisdom of  that old Richard Neibhur prayer so beloved by recovering alcoholics says it all: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”