January 30, 2011

Clay Nelson

Epiphany 4     
Matthew 5:1-12

It was the Christmas I was eight I learned an important truth about being human. We are mythmakers. I had a great auntie who never let facts get in the way of a good story. (Perhaps you have an auntie or uncle like that. Perhaps you are that auntie or uncle.) She gave me a Scrabble game she assured me in hushed tones, “was very valuable because all the tiles are made of ivory.” I bought it hook, line and sinker. Even assurances from my parents that my aunt had a good imagination, even if she wasn’t familiar with ever telling the truth, could not diminish the value of that Scrabble game to me. Those plastic tiles are still ivory in my memory.

My parents, in spite of their scepticism about my aunt’s myths, were pretty good at mythmaking as well or, at the least, in passing them on. Their stories about our family ancestors have not been borne out by my genealogical research. But their myth about our being direct descendants of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, is much more interesting than the truth that we are a family of farmers and labourers.

But myths don’t have to be factual to have an impact. They shape how we see the world and our beliefs and are often impervious to facts. There are still Americans who believe African Americans are better boxers because they must have thicker skulls than whites. That means, of course, their brains must be smaller. It is a myth that justified slavery and later segregation and which allowed the US Constitution to consider slaves as 3/5 of a person before being amended to abolish slavery. It is not much different than our Aussie cousins once considering Aboriginal peoples to be wildlife suitable for hunting and slaughter.

But myths also inspire and liberate us. They give us a vision to aspire to. They also serve the purpose of filling in the gaps that facts leave out. But, in fact it is good to remember that facts are often myths themselves or, at least, create myths. In his book, A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe, Marcel Gleiser observes:

It became clear to me that scientists and seekers of perfection from all walks of life have been courting the wrong muse. It is not symmetry and perfection that should be our guiding principle, as it has been for millennia.... The science we create is just that, our creation. Wonderful as it is, it is always limited; it is always constrained by what we know of the world.... We may search for unified descriptions of natural phenomena, and we may find some partial unifications along the way. But we must remember that a final unification is forever beyond our reach.... The human understanding of the world is forever a work in progress. That we have learned so much, speaks well of our creativity. That we want to know more, speaks well of our drive. That we think we can know all, speaks only of our folly.

What is true in the world of science is equally true in the world of religion. Creativity and imagination are an important component in the stories and myths that make up all religions. And like in science, myths can lead us to our better selves or to folly. They are best when they inspire our imagination and creativity.

Biblical scholar Amos J. Wilder observed decades ago, “Jesus’ speech had the character not of instruction and ideas but of compelling imagination, of spell, of mythical shock and transformation.” [i] Perhaps only on an intuitive level, Jesus knew he could not teach a higher consciousness and a more loving ethic. He could only prepare the ground and plant the seeds for it. Our creativity and imagination must do the rest.

There is a story about a woman who went into a marketplace, looked around, and saw a sign that read: ‘God’s Fruit Stand.’ “Thank goodness. It’s about time,” she said to herself.

She went inside and she said, “I would like a perfect banana, a perfect cantaloupe, a perfect peach and six perfect strawberries.”

God, who was behind the counter, shrugged and said, “I’m sorry. I sell only seeds.” [ii]

Today’s Gospel reading is a seed packet.

The packet containing the seeds is a myth — the myth is that Jesus gave a sermon on a mount. At the northern end of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum is a hill said to be the very spot Jesus gave that sermon. Mussolini, of all people, believed it and built an ornate Italian chapel there to commemorate it. I’ve been there, and while I agree with the majority of biblical scholars that the sermon is a myth invented by the author of Matthew’s Gospel to show Jesus as the new Moses going up his own mount and bringing down a new law, I still found the place a holy myth.

What scholars believe is that Matthew took some of the things people remembered Jesus saying and constructed them into a single sermon. We know of only one occasion where Jesus is said to have ever used the written word. Remember when the woman caught in adultery was about to be stoned? Jesus knelt down and wrote words in the dust until the crowd disbursed.

In poetic terms we could say Jesus spoke as the birds sing, “oblivious of any concern for transcription” or written record. Jesus was: “a voice not a penman, a herald not a scribe.” [iii]

It has been observed that, “we can say that Jesus’ use of the spoken word alone has its own theological significance. For writing things down has about it a sense of permanence. It presupposes continuity and a future. But the spoken word is temporary. The words are gone as they are spoken.” [iv] In my mind that makes them better seeds. They are better suited to sparking our creativity and enlivening our imagination. What the hearers of those words hear and what they do with them are the fruit. 

For instance, if you read that the beatitudes as a new law written for the ages it will bear one kind of fruit where imagination is not required to consume it. If you hear them as Jesus spoke them, temporal and in the moment, it bears another kind of fruit that stirs our imagination and creativity. First his words break the old myth that led to folly. The one that says those oppressed by the state and religion -- the poor, the grieving; the imprisoned -- somehow are lesser beings who deserve their divinely ordained lot. Second, he creates a new myth that invites new life and hope.

The new myth offers possibility where none existed before. His words call us to look at the world we now live in and ask how we might be seeds for such possibilities. They remind us that creativity is of God. When our creativity brings new life and liberation for others and ourselves we are one with that divine force. Yes, harsh realities still surround us, but Jesus’ new myth reminds us that it does not have to stay this way and asks us what we are going to do about it?

When we plant his words in our heart we become God’s Fruit Stand: seeds that grow and ripen making the world a little less harsh; a little more hopeful. Not perfect but less imperfect. The myth says it will happen if we stay in the moment and every moment that follows.

[i] Wilder, A. N. 1964/71. Early Christian rhetoric. The language of the gospel. MA: Cambridge. Harvard University Press. p 53

[ii] Shea, J. 1997. The legend of the bells and other tales: Stories of the human spirit. IL: Chicago. ACTA Publications.

[iii] Ops cite. p 13

[iv] Hunt, Rex. 2002 Epiphany 4 sermon