Rest a while

This Sunday’s first reading invites me, quite literally, to return to the “very beginning” as Julie Andrews invites me/us as she sings in the ‘Sound of Music’.

I am on the second page of my Bible, reading from the second chapter of the first book, the Book of Genesis.

It is worth quoting a portion of our reading (Gen. 2:18 – 24)

‘The Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone.


I will make a suitable partner for him.”


So the Lord God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
 whatever the man called each of them would be its name. 


The man gave names to all the cattle,
 all the birds of the air, and all wild animals;
 but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.’

Two things caught my attention: firstly, the partners formed for the human named Adam were formed from the same ‘dust of the ground’ as was the human Adam, “So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air.” (The name Adam comes from the Hebrew word adamah meaning “earth,” )

These first partners were ‘various wild animals and birds of the air.’

The second aspect that caught my attention was that the Creator brings these. to Adam to name and the name Adam gives them is accepted by the Creator, “whatever the man called each of them would be its name.”

We read in the Book of Job, Chapter 12: 7 – 10 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
  the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,
 and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
 Who among all these does not know
 that the hand of the Lord has done this?
 In his hand is the life of every living thing
 and the breath of every human being.

The importance of this narrative is not just about humans: it is also about the animal kingdom and the plants and the water and the sky and everything else.

Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical “Laudato Si” ‘“The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, God’s boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is a caress of God.” (Laudato Si’, 84).

The illustration is from the Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library, Univ Lib. MS 24) is a 12th-century English illuminated manuscript.

{A bestiary is a book from the medieval era with pictures and stories of animals. Bestiaries includes real animals as well as mythical animals such as unicorns.}

 

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

There once was an old woman who, every single day, would walk down to the river with two buckets attached to a long pole over her shoulders. One of the buckets was brand new, without a flaw, and the other one was very old with a large crack in it. Each time the woman returned home from her long walk with heavy buckets, the bucket with the crack in it was only half full of water.

This went on for many years, until finally the old bucket asked the woman why she still used him. “You work so hard every single day to carry water home, and each time I am only half full. I feel so inadequate and useless. Why don’t you just throw me out and get a new bucket?”

The old woman told the bucket to look at the path they walk each day. “You’ll notice one side of the path is bare and empty, and the other side is filled with beautiful flowers. I knew of your flaw, so purposely planted seeds on your side of the path, so that each time we walked home, the seeds would be watered. Without the crack in your side we would not have these beautiful flowers.” (Ancient Buddhist Story)

In today’s Gospel John is complaining “John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me”

John’s complaint, I suggest, has its origin in pride.

The question ought not be, “Who is feeding them?”

Rather, the question is, “Are they being fed?

‘Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.’ (vv. 33 – 34)
Imagine a room:

In the first corner there is a powerful dictator who rules a country.

His word commands armies and his shifting moods intimidate subordinates. He wields a brutal power.

In the second corner sits a gifted athlete at the peak of her physical prowess, a woman whose quickness and strength have few equals.

Her skills are a graceful power for which she is much admired and envied.

The third corner holds a rock star whose music and charisma can electrify an audience and fill a room with a soulful energy.

Her face is on billboards, and she is a household name. That’s still another kind of power.

Finally, we have too in the room a newborn, a baby, lying in its bassinet/crib, seemingly without any power or strength whatsoever, unable to even ask for what it needs.

Which of these is ultimately the most powerful?

The irony is that the baby ultimately wields the greatest power.

The athlete could crush it, the dictator could kill it, and the rock star could out-glow it in sheer dynamism, but the baby has a different kind of power.
We have a language we only use around babies (usually unintelligible to anyone!)

The radio and TV volume are dependent on the sleep pattern of the newborn, as is the time to start up the motor mower.

The baby can touch hearts in a way that a dictator, an athlete, or a rock star cannot.

Its innocent, wordless presence, without physical strength, can transform a room and a heart in a way that guns, muscle, and charisma cannot.

We watch our language and actions around a baby, less so around athletes and rock stars.

The powerlessness of a baby touches us at a deeper moral place.

And this is the way we find and experience God’s power here on earth, sometimes to our great frustration, and this is the way that Jesus was deemed powerful during his lifetime.

Jesus, standing wordless before Pilate might be the most power-filled moment in the entire Gospel story.

The entire Gospels make this clear, from beginning to end.

Jesus was born as a baby, powerless, and he died hanging helplessly on a cross with bystanders mocking his powerlessness.

Yet both his birth and his death manifest the kind of power upon which we can ultimately build our lives.

They are two moments which are still celebrated the world over.

The world stops at Christmas and Good Friday. Most shops are shut, public transport changes it schedules, usually meaning fewer services, and, maybe ironically, our Churches are most full!

When the Gospels speak of Jesus as “having great power” they use the Greek word, exousia, which might be best rendered as vulnerability.

Jesus’ real power was rooted in a certain vulnerability, like the powerlessness of a child.

The Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926) has a fascinating little book titled, Letters to a Young Poet.

At the heart of the book is an aspiring young poet’s request to Rilke to let him know whether he ought to be a poet or not.

The young poet is insistent, sending copies of poems he has written.

At one point Rilke writes

“ . . . .  I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it – but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.”

Perhaps Rilke’s advice is advantageous for us, given the question in today’s Gospel (Mk. 8: 27 – 35)

“Who do you say I am?” (Mk. 8:29)

‘Try to love the question’ – who do you say I am?

‘Live the question’ – who do you say I am?

And live along some distant day into the answer.

Rilke’s final words of advice to the young man, perhaps had been written for us “and after all I do want to advise you to keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your innermost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”

Keep growing quietly and seriously.

Don’t look outside for answers to questions “that only your innermost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”