Not Blaming.

John 16:16ff.

February 26, 2016

I.

It is still the night before Jesus’ death, and he is still giving his disciples his final teaching and instruction.  “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me,” he says.  He means that he will be departing, but thereafter he will be coming back.  But the disciples don't get it.

Jesus, though does not refer to this as his death.  He says he is “going away to the Father.”  In fact, Jesus is in control of the whole process.  This is all part of his mission and plan.  He will say that Pontius Pilate, the man who is supposedly the world’s supreme agent, has no power over him at all.  Pilate thinks he is in charge, doling out execution, administering justice, and so on.  Jesus insists that this is not the case.  Pilate is just doing unwittingly what he is supposed to do, so that Jesus’ mission can be accomplished.

This is why it is not important that we assign blame accurately.  When we think that assigning blame accomplishes anything, we are still thinking in terms of deterrence, punishment, vengeance, and retribution.  We are still imagining  that we have to be very clear about who is responsible so that we don’t make that mistake and follow that path again.  The evil and destructive things that happen in the world are perpetrated ultimately by humans.  But they are really manifestations of falsehood.  And these manifestations of falsehood only have power and effectiveness when we by our thoughts and actions accord it to them.

I have always thought it to be really important that we examine historical disasters and identify the policies and attitudes and people that produced them.  But I am coming to realize that this doesn’t matter as much as I thought.  Because the problem is way deeper in the human soul than its manifestations in this particular economic, political, or social expression.  And the best response is always the same: to turn again to the truth of God’s love and the new world, which is really the true world, that God is causing to be born within and among us.  Rather than regurgitate how we got here and place blame, we make real progress when we imagine, envision, keep, and celebrate what is blessed and true and good as it emerges.

It reminds me of something I have learned about the practice of intercessory prayer.  Prayer is most effective when we focus on the healing, the integrity, the wholeness, the blessing, and the deliverance.  Those things are true, and we become healed when we resonate with and reflect and emerge within this reality.  What is less effective is when we spend our time in prayer paying attention to and talking about the cancer, or the heart disease, or the stroke, or whatever the brokenness and disorder is we are looking to see healed.  To some degree we do have to acknowledge what is happening; but the more energy we give to the disease, the more reality we give it… the more power it can have.  The key to healing is visualizing the person, without the disease, in their wholeness and blessing.

II.

That’s why, aside from the mention of Pontius Pilate in the creeds, the church almost never talks about or names the people who have done evil.  Christians have always lifted up the names of saints and cherished the memory of people who have served God faithfully in history.  But the names of people who did evil are barely mentioned in passing if at all.  Thus we remind ourselves about whom to emulate… while we don’t give much thought to those who perpetrated violence against God’s people.  We focus on saying whom we should imitate; but we don’t talk much about whom we should try not to be like.  We lift the good, which always overcomes the evil.

The Lord uses the example of childbirth.  Now, women do sometimes talk about the difficulty of labor; but correct me if I’m wrong: is not the love and joy a mother feels for a child far greater?  I have never heard a mother say to a child, “You are definitely not worth what I had to go through to get you here.”  (Except maybe on an exceptionally bad day, and even then they don’t really mean it….)

Here as well.  Jesus doesn’t dwell on the gory details of what he is going to go through the next day.  He doesn’t go into the humiliation and the pain; he doesn’t talk about the whips and the thorns and the nails and the agony of trying to breathe, and bleeding out.  He doesn’t even say that they will kill him tomorrow.  He says, “You’re not going to see me because I am going to the Father.”  This gospel doesn’t allow that anybody killed him at all; this is about the Lord willingly giving his life for the life of the world.  This is about the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world.  Jesus is the one with the initiative.

What I am talking about is not mere “positive thinking” or seeing the glass as half-full instead of half-empty.  It is an affirmation of a truth that is deeper than the facts, which are often based on and produced by lies.  It says, “You have convinced yourselves that the glass is empty, but we who trust in the Lord Jesus know that it is really overflowing!”

We do experience pain and grief.  The cross was not an illusion.  Jesus has a physical body that was pierced with nails.  Crucifixion is where we get the word “excruciating” from.  They may happen because of our addiction to falsehood, but bad things definitely do happen.  

That’s why Jesus talks about how the disciples will weep and mourn, and how they will experience pain.  He just also says that the pain will be overwhelmed by the consequent joy. 

This weeping and mourning will be aggravated and made far worse because they will have to watch the celebration and triumph of the world.  The rulers of the world will have their way, for a while.  They will kill him, and they will imagine that they have won.  They will assume that they have defeated Jesus and his movement forever, that they have driven a stake of fear into the hearts of such troublemakers.  So, the rulers of the world would have a party after Jesus dies (at least until sundown when the Sabbath begins). 

III.

But their joy is counterfeit and short-lived because it is a product of a lie and isn’t real.  Their joy, the joy of the world, is temporary.  It always needs to be restocked and re-energized by new experiences.  It has no depth or staying-power.  It dissipates in fear and anger, and requires ever new sacrifices to keep it going.

At the end of this passage, Jesus declares that he has “conquered the world.”   He means that the rulers, the ones with wealth and power in this world, are finished.  They are about to exhaust their violence on him, and he will emerge victorious.  They think they win… but he snatches his own victory from theirs.  Not only will he be unscathed, he will be fully revealed in his truest form in resurrection.  And is thereby reveals the truth of our deepest and truest humanity, as also ultimately immune from the machinations, manipulations, and violence of the world.

“Your pain,” he promises his disciples, will turn into joy.”  “I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.”  

My favorite image of this comes from Dr. Suess’ great book, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”  You all know the story, I think.  I always reflect on that part near the end, after the psycho-monster Grinch destroys the Who-people’s holiday by stealing all its outward expressions, leaving them bereft and violated.  And yet, as if nothing had happened, the people still gather in a circle around where the tree had stood, and sing together their little song of joy.

This is a deeply Christian outlook.  This is what the Lord is teaching his disciples.  What you think you have will be taken away.  The outward focus of your faith, will be removed.  Even I, myself, in my physical form, will be gone.  I am going away.  I am even going to appear to be destroyed in a gruesome spectacle, after which your enemies will gloat and laugh.  You are going to lose just about everything.

Sometimes this is what it feels like when we come again to church on Sunday morning.  Like we have emerged from a week of loss, and trial, and pain, and bad-news.  And we have all come again to gather around basically an empty space, because even what we thought we could depend on so often disappears from our midst.

And then we find it within ourselves to sing.  Because sometimes it is when we have lost everything on the outside that we become conscious of and rely on what is and always has been there on the inside.  And we will discover that the One we imagine we have lost, has really gone away to be with the Father.  And when he can be seen again, it is within us, in our hearts; and we realize that he was always there all along.  And that all the glitzy, shiny, and sparkly stuff on the outside was a projection of something infinitely more real and good and true and eternal on the inside.

IV.

This is the joy that no one can take from us.  It is always there.  It was placed in our hearts when the Creator breathed the universe into being and infused everything with love and joy.  Matter and energy is charged with this love and joy, and so therefore are we.  

And our job is to find that.  It is to find that joy, in our hearts.  Not in the things surrounding us, no matter how nice they are.  Not in that list of things that the Grinch steals, which Seuss lists at some length.  Not in any of our institutional stuff, or our buildings, our budgets, our status, or any of those things.

Our job is to find the living presence of Jesus Christ in our hearts.  That is when we are able to ask in his name, and have it given to us.  That is when we ask and we receive, because we have become Christ even as he became one of us.  That is when our joy is made complete.

+++++++