The Rich Man (That’s Us)

A Sermon on Mark 10:17-27
Year B, 18 Pentecost, Proper 23

 

For thirty years Thomas Cannon was a postal worker. During that time rarely made more than $30,000 a year including overtime. What made Thomas Cannon unusual is the fact that over the last twenty-five of those years, he gave away $96,000 to various individuals and groups in need. Math has never been my forte, but I figure that comes to about $3,800 a year. On a salary of $30,000 a year!

Cannon said, "If people work hard to buy a Cadillac, nobody asks why. But if they give it to philanthropy, nobody understands."

In his entire life, Cannon, who died in 2005, never knew luxury. His preacher father died when Thomas was 3 years old. Although he received a degree in art education from Hampton Institute, Cannon opted for the steady salary of the post office to support his wife, Princetta, and their two sons. After serving in the Navy in World War II, Cannon settled into his post office job. The family lived in a tiny, kerosene-heated home in a neighborhood of Richmond that was poor even then and has since acquired a reputation as a drug marketplace. Cannon never gave a thought to luxuries: "We had food, we had clothes, we had all the basic necessities," he said. (Who needs $96,000?) Here was a man with a carefree and generous attitude toward money.

(From Parade Magazine, September 21, 1997, page 16)

Which brings us to this morning's gospel.A man ran up to Jesus and asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life? I've followed the commandments to a “T” and led a blameless life. Surely, that's enough." Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said, "You lack one thing. Go, sell what you own, give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me." In other words, “If you want heaven, if you want to start shaping your life in that direction now, if you want to point your heart toward your deepest joy; you lack one thing. Go, sell what you own, give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me."

As if that weren't bad enough, after the man refused his offer, Jesus said, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Ouch! It is one of those hard passages that begs to be played with so that it will say something other than what it seems to say. Surely Jesus didn't mean to say it is impossible for people with more than enough money to go to heaven. After all, that's you and me. We are the rich man. The rich people. Just by virtue of the fact that we live in the United States, let alone that we live in comfortable suburbs of a major city. By any standard, past or present, we are among the wealthy.

This gospel is hard for us to hear – and not for us only. The rich man was shocked. The disciples were perplexed and astonished. Ever since, people have found this a problematic text. Consequently, various ways have been proposed to interpret this passage in order to make it softer.

1) A particularly popular one is that the eye of the needle refers to a narrow gate in the city wall of Jerusalem. A camel, the story goes, could just squeeze through the gate after being relieved of its cargo. NO. There is no evidence of such a gate and the interpretation does not show up until the late middle ages when an imaginative monk put it in a commentary on the gospel.

2) The Greek word for camel is spelled like the Greek word for rope. A rope still won't fit through the eye of a needle, but it is less preposterous than a camel. NO. There is no evidence that the writer of the Gospel of Mark had a spelling problem or that Jesus did not pronounce his words clearly.

3) Jesus is only referring to those who trust in their money. NO. That’s not what it says. Look again. Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Someone who is rich. Period. John Wesley was probably right when he explained that, “[I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for those who have riches not to trust in them.”

There’s no getting around it. Jesus said what he said and meant what he said. He was a master of hyperbole, the exaggerated image. The absurd image of a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle drives home a point. And the point is that there is something perilous, spiritually, about wealth. Like anything in our lives, money and wealth can be used as a means to praise and serve God and neighbor. Or it can be used to hide and shield us from God and others. The problem is money and wealth have a particular and powerful tendency toward the latter. Jesus suggests that the best thing we can do with our wealth is give as much of it away as we can.

The burden of wealth offers us great opportunities and responsibilities. It might or might not be that being wealthy is, in and of itself, sinful. But wealth and money are particularly dangerous to the soul. Money, along with the things it can get for us, is not neutral such that it can be used just as easily for God's kingdom as for anything else. No, money has a power of its own. It takes a good deal of spiritual discipline to have much of it and not let it seduce our hearts or intoxicate us.

Money is a lot like wine that way. You can get drunk on it and destroy your relationship with God and your neighbor. And just as many alcoholics deny they have a drinking problem, few of us are willing to admit that we have a money problem, that we have an attachment to our money and belongings that is dangerous to our souls and separates us from God.

You can use wine to get drunk. You can also use it to make Eucharist. The Eucharist is the particular place where we enter into communion with God and one another. Perhaps we can learn to see money eucharistically so it can also become a means of communion. How do we use our money eucharistically?

1) Remember Jesus is present with you. He is your true wealth -not your job, not your income, not your house. He is your security. He is your hope for the future. Begin to see everything else as revolving around him. The more we attach ourselves to Jesus, the more we can lose our attachment to money and stuff.

2) Trust in the power of God working in you to release you from the grip of money and

possessions. Like all addictions, this one is hard to overcome. But, Jesus assured his disciples and us that, though it is impossible for mortals, for God all things are possible.

3) Learn to see it as not an end in itself but a means to serve and encounter God. Every time we give, especially when we give until we feel it, we make room in our hearts for God’s Spirit to move in our lives and to draw us deeper into his heart and to fill with his life. Giving can become prayer and praise.

4) 'Eucharist' means 'thanksgiving'. Give thanks for al you are given. But, constantly remind yourself from whom it all comes and to whom it ultimately belongs. When we present our offering to the altar we say, "All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee." We can learn receive it with thanksgiving and pass it on in gratitude. Giving becomes a way of giving thanks, of making Eucharist.

That was the man's problem in the gospel. He had allowed himself to be deceived into believing his wealth was his own. When the real owner showed up and told him what to do with it, he was not prepared.

What if we began to imagine, to really believe, think, and act as though everything we have was on loan? A gift? Not only what we give but what we have left after we give. It's all God’s, so we are accountable for how we use all of it. The real question is not how much of my money will I give for God, but how much of God’s money do I need to keep for myself? What would God have us do with it. What if we really believed we would be held accountable?

This is a troubling passage. It is good for us to be trouble by it. Maybe it will shake us loose a bit from our attachment to money and wealth. But it does not have to be onerous or a burden. If we learn to understand our money eucharistically, it can be a sort of game. For example:

[Paraphrase the story humble Zacharias who challenged God, "Let us see who surpasses the other --Thou in sending blessings or I in scattering them! For Thou, Lord, are clearly the source of our riches and the giver of our livelihood."]

What if we at St. Barnabas made such a deal with God. What if, unlike the rich man in the Gospel, but like Thomas Cannon and Zacharius, we dared God to bless us faster than we can pass the blessings on–we who have already been blessed with so much? What would he do with us? What would he do with us–except fill us with himself. And fill us with joy beyond imagining. And lead us to eternal life.

Blessings are for Scattering

A story from the early (7th century) church apropos of this Sunday's Gospel (Mark 10:17-31):

 

I, [Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis on the island of Cyprus] all unworthy as I am, came up to Alexandria to revere the holy and victorious martyrs, Cyrus and John, and to enjoy their succor. While I was in Alexandria, I met with certain pious Christian men, and as we were conversing about biblical and other edifying narratives, a stranger came up to us asking alms, for, said he, 'I have only just been rescued from my captivity under the Persians'.

Now it chanced that not one of us sitting there had either a large coin or even any small change with us. A servant of one of our company happened to be with his master, he was a hot-water carrier at the baths, who received only three nomismata [a small amount of money] a year, and had a wife and two children. When the beggar was going away this man followed him quietly, took off a small silver cross he was wearing, and gave it to him, saying that besides that he had only a sixpence in the world.

Thus by chance, or rather through the good purpose of the all-wise God, I was privileged to see what he did, and deeply moved, I forthwith recounted it to the man sitting next to me, one Menas by name, a virtuous, God-fearing man who was also treasurer of the most Holy Church in the time of the glorious and ever-blessed Patriarch John.

He, seeing me astonished and full of praise for the man who had done this deed of charity, said to me: 'Do not be surprised, for he practices that virtue by tradition and from instruction.'

I replied, 'How so? For pity's sake enlighten me!"

He answered: 'He was servant to our most saintly, thrice blessed Patriarch John, and like a true son he has inherited his father's virtue. For the holy man once said to him, 'Humble Zacharias, be charitable, for then you have a promise from God through me, a miserable sinner, that neither during my lifetime, nor after my death, will God desert you.'

And this promise He keeps to the present day. For God sends him many blessings and of these he spends nothing save that which he distributes forthwith to the poor, almost reducing his own household to want. Men have often heard him say to God in exultation, 'Verily, verily, let us see who surpasses the other–Thou in sending blessings or I in scattering them! For Thou, Lord, are clearly the source of our riches and the giver of our livelihood.'"

 

From Three Byzantine Saints, Elizabeth Dawes and Norman H. Baynes, 208-209, (St. Vladimir's Press, 1948)

 

Francis and the Restoration of Creation

Today is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). Francis is well-known for preaching to birds and other creatures. He famously ‘converted’ a wolf that was terrorizing a community (see If necessary, Use Words). There are stories of his tender regard for lambs, rabbits, and even carp. According to the stories, that tenderness and respect was returned. At the time of his death, Larks flew into his room to sing their praises and laments.
 

St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) proclaimed,

The meekness which is necessary, we should learn from St. Francis. For his was an extraordinary meekness, not only toward other people, but also toward animals. He called all animals ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ and we read in the story of his life how even wild animals came running to him as their friend and companion.

And Francis’ attention went beyond animals. According to another legend:

One day Francis was filled with joy because he was beginning to enjoy God in all creatures. He went through the streets singing and inviting everyone to sing along with him. Then he came upon an almond tree, and he said, ‘Brother Almond, speak to me of God,’ And the almond tree blossomed.

These are wonderful stories. But we need to be careful not to romanticize or sentimentalize Francis. His message and his life were shaped by a joyous but austere devotion to Jesus Christ and the way of the cross. And his regard for all God’s creation was rooted in the hope found in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
 

Further, we should note that the stories of Francis’ appreciation for creation are not just quaint embroidery. They are theologically significant. Nor are they unique in the Christian tradition. There are similar stories through the Church’s history.
 

Here are some examples from the Desert Fathers:

Abba Theon ate vegetables, but only those that did not need to be cooked. They say that he used to go out of his cell at night and stay in the company of the wild animals, giving them drink from the water he had. Certainly one could see the tracks of antelopes and wild asses and gazelles and other animals near his hermitage. These creatures always gave him pleasure.

Another account from the desert:

We came near to a tree, led by our kindly host, and there we stumbled upon a lion. At the sight of him my guide and I quaked, but the saintly old man went unfaltering on and we followed him. The wild beast – you would say it was at the command of God – modestly withdrew a little way and sat down, while the old man plucked the fruit from the lower branches. He held out his hand, full of dates; and up the creature ran and took them as frankly as any tame animal about the house; and when it had finished eating, it went away. We stood watching and trembling; reflecting as well we might what valor of faith was in him and what poverty of spirit in us.

 

And another:

While Abba Macarius (295-392) was praying in his cave in the desert, a hyena suddenly appeared and began to lick his feet and taking him gently by the hem of his tunic, she drew him towards her own cave. He followed her, saying, "I wonder what this animal wants me to do?" When she had led him to her cave, she went in and brought her cubs which had been born blind. He prayed over them and returned them to the hyena with their sight healed. She in turn, by way of thank offering, brought the man the huge skin of a ram and laid it at his feet. He smiled at her as if at a kind person and taking the skin spread it under him.

There are similar stories from some of the Celtic saints:
 

Kevin of Glendulough (d. 618), is said to have had a vision in which an angel appeared to him, telling him to build a large monastery. The angel said that, to prepare the way, he was going to level a nearby small mountain. Kevin thought about it and told the angel, "No, thank you. There are creatures who live on that mountain. That is the habitat and the home of many of God’s creatures and to destroy it – even for something as good and noble as a monastery – would be to make them homeless."
 

Cuthbert (634-687), Bishop of Lindisfarne, was said to have gone out at night to pray on the shore of the ocean. As you can imagine, it is cold on the shore at night in north-eastern England. The story goes that as Cuthbert prayed otters would come out of the water and wrap themselves around his naked feet to keep them warm.
 

And then there is the Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833), who has sometimes been referred to as the Russian St. Francis given his humble way of life and unusual relationship with wild animals. For years, he lived in an isolated hermitage where only the birds and the wild beasts visited him, and he dwelt with them as Adam did in Paradise. They came at midnight and waited for him to complete his Rule of prayer. Then he would feed bears, lynxes, foxes, rabbits, and even wolves with bread from his hand. There was also a bear which would obey Seraphim and run errands for the saint.
 

Fanciful as these stories are they have important theological meaning:
 

1. They remind us that the idea that humans are somehow fundamentally separate from the rest of creation is not a Christian idea. Classically, Christians have understood themselves to be part of an enchanted cosmos and part of a co-inherent web of enchanted relations with the rest of creation.

It is really only in the modern era that Christians, shaped by secular ways of thinking, have accepted the reduction of creation to mere objects more or less useful for our own selfish ends. Along with this we have allowed our imaginations to be diminished such that we have come to see creation as mere background, more or less unimportant to God’s ultimate plan.
 

2. But these stories about Francis and others point to a hope and a desire that was deep in the church and is deep in the gospel. That desire, that hope, is for a creation healed and restored in harmony. Certainly, we desire harmony among people. God’s vision is for each of us to be reconciled to him. His vision is for humans to be reconciled to one another. But God’s vision is bigger than that. God’s vision and God’s intention is for all creation to be caught up in the divine love and peace. Our hope is not to escape this world, bur that this world and we in it will be healed and transformed.
 

These saints believed that Christ was the first fruits of the new creation, was the first fruits of that peace and harmony that is God’s desire. Their stories point to the hope that one can begin now to live a holy life of anticipation of the peaceable kingdom that Isaiah envisioned – the promise of creation in total harmony:
 

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
 

Infants will play near the hole of the cobra;

young children will put their hands into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).

Apparently, Francis and others took that seriously, or at least the stories about them take it seriously. And perhaps we should to. They wanted to begin living into it now. Christians need to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our imaginations to see again that we are part of an enchanted web of relation and that God’s splendor is present in it all. Thus all creation is worthy of reverence. And we need to reclaim the comprehensive hope that all creation will be healed, restored, and transformed by God’s resurrection power. And as those who live that hope, Christians might just reclaim the holy task of beginning now to participate in the healing of all that harms or destroys God’s holy creation and the creatures in whom God delights. There is nothing sentimental about that. But, there is much joy.

Collect for the Feast of St. Francis:
Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world; that, following the way of blessed Francis, we may for love of you delight in your whole creation with perfectness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Vehicles of the Eternal Charity

The fully Christian life is a Eucharistic life: that is, a natural life conformed to the pattern of Jesus, given in its wholeness to God,laid on his altar as a sacrifice of love, and consequently transformed by his inpouring life, to be used to give life and food to other souls. It will be according to its measure and special call, adoring, declaratory, intercessory and redemptive: but always the vehicle of the Supernatural. The creative spirit of God is a redemptive and cherishing love; and and it is as friends and fellow-workers with the spirit, tools of the divine redemptive action, that Christians are required to live. 'You are the body of Christ,' said St. Augustine to his communicants. That is to say, in you and through you the method and work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are meant to incarnate in your life the theme of your adoration. You are to be taken, consecrated, broken and made means of grace; vehicles of the Eternal Charity.

– Evelyn Underhill

Why I am an Episcopalian – Liturgy

Every Christian communicant volunteers for translation into the supernatural order, and is self-offered for the supernatural purposes of God. The Liturgy leads us out toward Eternity, by way of the acts in which [we] express [our] need of God and relation to God. It commits every worshipper to the adventure of holiness, and has no meaning apart from that.

         – Evelyn Underhill
 

As has been the case with many others, one of the things that drew me into the Episcopal Church and the Anglican tradition was the liturgy.

I was taken with the beauty of the poetry and drama of it all. Here was worship in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2).

 

There was a sense of majesty and mystery. There was room for wonder. There was a sense of being caught up in the glory of God who was transcendent yet incomprehensibly near.

Though I had grown up going to church and have much to be thankful for in that heritage, I remember feeling like I was worshiping for the first time.

The liturgy directed my attention away from myself – including my obsessive questioning – and focused it on the mystery and wonder of God. It wasn't about my felt needs or conscious concerns. It was about my need to get out of and beyond myself and into 'the bracing atmosphere of God' (Evelyn Underhill).

Related is the way the liturgy emphasized the communal over the individual. For one thing, it wasn't about whatever the pastor or worship team cooked up for a given Sunday, but something more enduring. Even more, it was about common worship–the people gathered together to offer petitions, thanksgiving, confession, and worship. I remember being struck by how different were the prayers of the people which called on the participation of the people from the pastor-centered prayers I had grown up with.

And because the liturgy is less pastor/preacher centered, there were multiple avenues for the Holy Spirit to get my attention. The sermon might be good or bad, the hymns might be wonderful or just OK, the receiving of Communion might be more or less profound, but generally the Spirit would break through somewhere. Or it might be at the recitation of the Creed, or the Confession/absolution, the passing of the peace, or some phrase or idea in the Eucharistic Prayer. Certainly, now that I am a regular preacher and celebrant, it is freeing to know that it doesn't all hang on whether I am 'on' as a preacher on any given Sunday.

 

 

Receiving the bread into my outstretched hands and sipping wine–wine!– from a common cup reinforced all of this. And wine. I remember feeling it infusing my chest as I swallowed. So different from the shot glass of communion grape juice I had grown up with. There was an awareness of its potency. And, indeed, the idea that Christ was somehow really present in the bread and wine was potent indeed. The mystery of God was made mysteriously tangible. The weekly Eucharist became and remains a central and essential aspect of my piety.

I appreciated the weekly recitation of the story of salvation contained in the Eucharistic Prayer.

I was moved by the history represented and the sense of worshiping with the Church of the ages.

I was also moved by the full-sensory aspect of worship which included sight, sound, smell, and taste.

 

Kneeling for confession and the Eucharist were profoundly instructive.

 

So was adopting the sign of the cross. Thomas Howard wrote, “By making the sign of the cross, on our head, breast, and shoulders, we acknowledge ourselves to be crucified with Christ, in our thinking, our affections, and our actions.”  I came to think of it as a sort of physical “Amen.” 

Liturgy does not guarantee holiness or spiritual vibrancy. Certainly one can find Episcopal churches (or Roman Catholic, Orthodox or Lutheran) that, on the surface at least, give little evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit. And it would be misleading to claim that every time I participate in liturgical worship I am aware of a profound spiritual experience. But, then, the liturgy reminds me that it is not really about my experience anyway. I do know that over time I have been formed and transformed by participation in the liturgy.

Why I am an Episcopalian – Mentors

Anglican Comprehensiveness

Anglican Values

Why I am an Episcopalian – Mentors

In an earlier post, I mentioned Anglicanism's classic comprehensiveness as one of the things that attracted me to that tradition. The last couple of posts (here and here) with thoughts from C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams have reminded me of another. My understanding of God, the world, and humanity has been formed and my imagination – which is another way of saying my capacity for faith, love, and wonder – has been expanded by several representatives of the Anglican way. Besides Lewis and Williams, and in no particular order, some others are:

Dorothy Sayers (greatly influenced by C. Williams and a friend of Lewis)
Charles Gore (who I recently learned was an influence on C. Williams)
Evelyn Underhill
William Temple
Austin Farrer (theologian who preached at Lewis' funeral)
E. L. Mascall
Madeleine L'Engle
Michael Ramsey
N. T. Wright
Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury who has recently written a book about Lewis' Narnia Chronicles)

To that list of mostly 20th century authors I would add these classic Anglican worthies:

Richard Hooker
Lancelot Andrewes
John Donne
George Herbert
Jeremy Taylor
Thomas Traherne
F. D. Maurice
Phillips Brooke

I have been inspired and informed by representatives from other traditions, but I feel most at home with these.

Each of them exhibits a commitment to what I've identified elsewhere as basic Anglican Values.

One way or another reading each of these authors evokes Christmas for me which is one of my basic tests for whether or not someone is onto something. They bear witness to the hope that now that Christmas has arrived in the coming of Jesus Christ there is the promise that we might be overcome by Christmas any time, any place even in the midst of whatever winters we endure as we await the final Advent of the King.

There is more to this sense of Christmas. There is in the writing of each an emphasis on the centrality of the Incarnation. The Incarnation, of course, includes the way of the cross and the crucifixion. But the Incarnation has rich purpose, meaning , and wonder in itself.

To varying degrees they each emphasize what Charles Williams calls the 'Way of Affirmation' which bears witness to the goodness of being human in the midst of the splendor of God's good creation. As Hooker wrote, "All things are of God (and only sin is not) have God in them and he them in himself likewise." There is goodness and beauty in humans and the all creation because God is Good and Beautiful.

Consequently, they tend to hold to a sacramental appreciation of all created reality as having the potential of mediating the divine Presence.

At the same time they do not minimize the deep reality of sin and our need of salvation.

Thus, in each is a serious engagement with spiritual disciplines that make for sanctification in the context of God's grace.

Each is more or less an exponent of what Evelyn Underhill called 'practical mysticism':

Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe that the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception–this 'ordinary contemplation', as the specialist call it,–is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly alive. It is a natural human activity.

Nearly all of them represent a high church, catholic way of seeing things that draws abundantly from the deep well of Christian thought, practice, and worship.

For the most part they each express an expansive orthodoxy – solidly orthodox with an appreciative engagement with non-Christian ways of thinking and being (which is not the same thing as unChristian ways of thinking and being, though they are not shy about challenging those as well both within and without the church).

Each also holds to a typically Anglican reticence which is wary of claiming to know overmuch about God or God's ways. They accept that God has been revealed in Jesus Christ and the scriptures that bear witness to him, but each retains a posture of humility and awe in the presence of the untamed, wild God at the heart of it all who is, as Lewis says of Aslan, "Good, but not safe."

No doubt we could name other common themes, but these are the ones that occur to me at the moment. In any event, their themes and presentation of Christian faith resonate deeply and inspire me. I am an Episcopalian partly because of these 'Glorious Companions'.
 

Engaging Enemies (and other opponents) with Humility

I read this piece from Stanley Hauwewas which reminded me of this letter of C. S Lewis' written to his brother on September 10, 1939 at the beginning of World War 2:

In the Litany this morning we had some extra petitions, one of which was, ‘Prosper, oh Lord, our righteous cause’. Assuming that it was the work of the bishop or someone higher up, when I met Bleiben [the vicar] in the porch, I ventured to protest against the audacity of informing God that our cause was righteous – a point on which he has his own views . . . I hope it is quite like ours, of course, but one never knows with him.

The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2

And that reminded me of this by Charles Williams also written in the midst of WW2 (1942):

The conversion, where it is demanded, of the wild justice of revenge to the civil justice of the Divine City is the precise operation of the Holy Spirit towards Christ. All we need to do is attend to the goodwill, to the civility; the justice (in the personal relation) can be left to Christ. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord.’ It is perhaps desirable to notice that the repayment is not limited to our enemy. We shall be unfortunate if we forget the trespasses, the debts, which our enemies desire to repay with their wild justice and are content to leave to his promise. It is important that we should be ready to forgive the Germans; it is not unimportant to recognize that many Germans (including Herr Hitler? Possibly; we do not very well know) may feel that they have much to forgive us. Many reconciliations have unfortunately broken down because both parties have come prepared to forgive but unprepared to be forgiven. Instruction is as badly needed in this as in many other less vital things; that holy light which we call humility has an exact power of illumination all its own.

The Forgiveness of Sins, p. 113

Can you imagine such things being said in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? Who in America dared to suggest that Osama bin Laden and al-Quaeda might have much to forgive us? That the attacks, however inexcusable, might be understood as an act of 'the wild justice of revenge'? Or, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, that God might have his own ideas about the righteousness of our cause? Would we be willing to say such things today about Afghanistan? Pakistan? Iran? China? Russia?

A couple of things strike me in the above quotes. Both Lewis and Williams refuse to get caught up in nationalistic rhetoric that assumes that 'God is with us' or that their country is particularly blessed by God. Even in the midst of war, they were compelled by their Christian convictions to accept the possibility that their nation was wrong and that their enemies might well have grievances of their own. If that is the faithful Christian attitude in the midst of war how much more so in times of (relative) peace? It raises questions about the ease with which Americans blend God-talk and patriotism which smacks of syncretism. It raises questions about the rhetoric of American exceptionalism.

I am also struck with the fundamental humility expressed by Lewis and Williams. Both demonstrate an admirable reticence to claim to know overmuch about God's mind or to assume their side is necessarily God's. Both recognize that all humans are fundamentally bound to one another in a relational web and all humans are caught in the sin that infects that web. We should thus be wary of presuming our own innocence or consigning blame to others – both are awe-full things to contemplate if we recognize that we are all live under the awesome gaze of God's love and judgment.

If all this could be said in the midst of WW 2 where the right and wrong seemed so clear, might such things be said in other contexts? For example, might it change our perspective if Episcopalians acknowledged that those who have left the Episcopal Church to form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) have 'much to forgive us' and their leaving represents a sort of 'wild justice'? And what if members of ACNA acknowledged that God might indeed have his own opinions about the issues over which they have left the Episcopal Church and whether those issues warranted schism? In the secular setting, if we adopted Lewis' and Williams' attitude would we engage our political opponents differently? What about in work, school, family, or other personal contexts? Are we willing to acknowledge that those who irritate or frustrate us might have as much or more cause for grievance against us?

I know enough of both Lewis and Williams to know that neither would advocate anything like a posture of moral equivalency. But, what both do seem to advocate is a deep humility and reticence to blame. And I find both refreshing.