John 11:32-44 (CEB)
When Mary arrived where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying also, he was deeply disturbed and troubled. He asked, “Where have you laid him?”
They replied, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus began to cry. The Jews said, “See how much he loved him!” But some of them said, “He healed the eyes of the man born blind. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus was deeply disturbed again when he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone covered the entrance. Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”
Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “Lord, the smell will be awful! He’s been dead four days.”
Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?” So they removed the stone. Jesus looked up and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. I know you always hear me. I say this for the benefit of the crowd standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.” Having said this, Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his feet bound and his hands tied, and his face covered with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
I always figure I am connecting when I get comments both praising my sermon series and others “concerned about it.”
It is clear that many of you have connected because you have your own questions --- as I have posed mine and my willingness to wrestle with God.
But I have also been told that sharing doubts makes some people uncomfortable because people prefer to follow those who are strong and confident.
I will tell you --- I am strong and confident in my doubts . . .
And from my very first Sunday with you, I have tried to be as open and honest with you about my faith, my struggles, and the direction I believe God is calling Meridian Church to go in.
I can assure that I don’t suffer from what theologian Peter Enns calls: The Sin of Certainty.
My life, and my faith are lived in shades of gray.
But I know that even though I have lots of questions --- I don’t walk this path alone.
As the Psalmist says:
The Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
He lets me rest in grassy meadows;
he leads me to restful waters;
he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths
for the sake of his good name.
Even when I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff—
they protect me.
We have walked through three of the four stages of faith as identified by Brian McLaren in his book, Faith After Doubt.
Simplicity
Complexity
Perplexity
Today we will look at the fourth stage
McLaren writes:
When I first began developing this four-stage schema, I called this final stage Humility. The name seemed fitting because for me, Stage Four involved a sense of embarrassment about my earlier arrogance and naivete. But it seemed even more arrogant and naïve to say one had reached a stage of Humility. I toyed with calling it Maturity . . . Commitment . . . Solidarity, Integrity and . . . Second Simplicity. In the end, though, Harmony felt like the right name, primarily because it resonated with the new dimension of non-discriminatory love that became possible at this stage.
If you are familiar with Father Richard Rohr, you know that in his book Falling Upward, he describes the second half of life, in which we focus on filling up the container we created in the first half of life --- with meaning --- he too calls this Harmony.
For Rohr, there are two stages of life ---
Rohr suggests that the most significant difference between the two stages is that in the second half of life we become capable of non-dual seeing and thinking --- which is the way that contemplatives and mystics encounter the world.
We learn to hold binaries in larger unities,
to gather paradox and tension in a larger embrace,
to welcome diversity without division,
to hear difference without dissonance.
Dualistic thinking is the necessary work of Stage One – Simplicity
Good --- Bad
Like --- Dislike
Right --- Wrong
Male --- Female
Us --- Them
As we move into Stage Two --- Complexity --- we retain our dualistic thought process --- but we make it more complex
While there is absolute good and bad there are also variations of the two
60/40 30/70 etc.
We struggle trying to understand the shades of gray
In Stage Three we see so much complexity that we begin to question if there was any reality to the dualism of stage one simplicity.
We begin to recognize that those who taught us dualist thought often had an agenda
The tragedy of it all is those dualisms can be used to bring harm
Dehumanization
Violence
Genocide
Destruction of God’s creation --- the earth
McLaren writes:
Finding ourselves deep in Perplexity, and feeling disillusioned with our naïve dualisms and pragmatisms, we face a stark and terrifying choice. Will we become cynical nihilists, seeing through everything with our x-ray eyes so that meaning, purpose, value, reverence, and wonder become increasingly, then utterly, invisible? For many people, the cynicism is the only intellectually honest opinion they’re aware of, so they surrender the search for meaning and they surrender to perpetual Perplexity, all dressed up in critical thinking with nowhere to go.
But for many of us that is not enough
Somehow, we become convinced that there has to be more than the perplexity of Stage Three thinking.
Whether it is through mystics or saints
Wise teachers
Poets
Pilgrimage or mystical experience
“In one way or another, [we] catch a scent, a faint music, a hint of an undiscovered country beyond Perplexity.”
McLaren used that term “undiscovered country” which comes from a scene in Hamlet, and in that scene it refers to death.
The illusion is somewhat fitting here, too, because there is indeed a kind of dying involved with passing through Perplexity into Harmony. You might call it a death to ego or pride, as we relinquish our right to judge, to know, and to control. You might call it a death to privilege, superiority, or supremacy, as we realize that all of us ultimately share in the human condition, and anyone who claims otherwise is either naïve or hypocritical. (McLaren p.96)
If you were to try and describe faith in this stage of Harmony --- it would be:
a humble reverent openness to mystery that expresses itself in non-discriminatory love.
In this stage of spiritual growth --- we begin to look at the world differently.
We begin to see things without the obsessive dualistic judgments of Simplicity
Without the pragmatic analysis that is almost compulsive in Complexity
Without the deconstructing suspicions of Perplexity
If I was to describe the first three stages --- in a nutshell --- it would be using the tools at our disposal to try and be in control over what we know.
As we began to wrestle with Perplexity --- we began to doubt our own cynicism --- which is such an important hallmark of Perplexity.
We doubt our own doubts
McLaren puts it this way:
Our naïve certainty, excessive confidence, and obsessive deconstruction began to burn away in a self-consuming blast furnace. We finally descended to a point so low that instead of looking down on everything, we had to look up at it from a humbled position of under-standing, you might say, and in do doing, we became capable of encountering something without needing to control it. Rather we were able simply to see it, and perhaps even to see it with love.
One of my early experiences with Harmony was forced on my a few years following 9/11.
I was reading John Updike’s book Terrorist and simultaneously working with an interfaith group that sent medical supplies throughout the world.
I was in many ways --- through Updike’s novel --- forced to confront my xenophobia, and I began to be able to see, particularly my Muslim neighbor as a neighbor and not as a threat.
I was able to work through all the labels and prejudices that were a part of my character
Now before I sound good and self-righteous --- It didn’t last
But it gave me a glimpse of what was possible
But when I am honest with myself --- there was another glimpse of Harmony that happened even earlier.
Sometime around 1995 I participated in a mission trip to the non-touristy areas of Jamaica --- we were working, helping to restore a church in the Southern foothills of the mountains that run across Jamaica
One evening, and I do not remember how or why --- I went for a hike away from the home that we were staying in --- and trekked up one of the hillsides by myself.
Over the years I have often be told that I don’t have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders --- it is a problem I have had my entire life --- even as a teenager.
I was always that “serious kid”
That night --- I especially felt the weight of the world --- I am sure that is why I went off by myself.
I have never really seriously wrestled with my call --- what I have wrestled with is “am I living out my call as I am supposed to?”
That night --- I was wrestling.
I felt I was at one of those crossroads in my life.
As I sat there, off in the distance --- way up on the Mocha Mountains --- I could see massive conveyor systems moving large quantities of bauxite from the hillsides to the plants.
I had never seen anything like it in my life
The conveyor belt was all lit up
It was a huge operation
I have to tell you I was mesmerized by it --- and must have gazed at it for a long – long time as I asked God --- what did God want of me?
But at some point --- my gaze shifted skyward --- and being out in the middle of nowhere --- with almost no ambient light (the bauxite mines were a long way off) --- the heavens opened up to me.
The milky way filled the sky and I was suddenly very small
Small in relationship to the mines I saw off in the distance
Even smaller in relation to creation
And I heard God speak to me
Not an answer
But that same reality I feel when I read the 23rd Psalm
The Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing.
He guides me in proper paths
for the sake of his good name.
Even when I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger because you are with me.
Harmony
I am not there yet --- I am still becoming,
But the strengths and weaknesses I have worked though on my spiritual journey have prepared me for learning to live in Harmony.
I chose this scripture, today, because it speaks to me of this journey of faith that we are on.
The simplicity of believing that if Jesus had been there --- Lazarus would never had died.
The complexity and perplexity of seeking pragmatic explanations for his death and current predicament.
And the love --- the radical love that Jesus demonstrates.
In two weeks, I am going to finish this series (at least for now) and help you to glimpse what this radical love looks like it.
And most importantly --- how we can live that love.
McLaren writes:
Doubt is the doorway to love . . .Doubt prepares the way for a new kind of faith after (and with) doubt, a humbled and harmonious faith, a faith that expresses itself in love.
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