Limps and Blessings

There is a vivid story from the Hebrew Scriptures about a man, named Jacob, who wrestled with an angel through the night. He was to cross a river in the morning to reconcile with his brother on the other side. Having acted shamefully in his past, he was anxious about how the encounter might go. The angel awakened Jacob and they wrestled throughout the night. Once Jacob recognized his opponent as an angel,  he refused to let go until he received a blessing.  When it was given, his name was changed to “Israel,” which means one who wrestles with God. He was also given an injury which causes him to limp for the rest of his life.

I remember sitting up in church when the story of Jacob's late-night wrestling match was read. The action and drama were tonics to the boredom I felt sitting in church.  It wasn’t until many years later that I felt drawn to the truth underneath all the action and drama. It wasn’t until I had wrestled with an angel and been given a limp of my own that I began to understand how much more there was to this entertaining story.

Last week, one of my children asked to meet with me. I could tell it was serious, and we talked for over an hour about what in AA they call “the wreckage of my past.” She wanted to ask questions about things I’d done and express her feelings about them. It was a difficult, painful conversation, but we wrestled through, and, as I sat there in my discomfort, I prayed she would receive the blessing that comes from saying what she needed to say. I, however, limped home.

The next morning, I sat in a circle of recovering alcoholics. A newcomer shared a difficult conversation she’d had with her mother. Like the one with my daughter, things were said about her past and she was left struggling to walk through another day without picking up a drink. The group surrounded her with what experience, strength, and hope we had as we limped together down the happy road of destiny.

To finish the week off, my wife and I attended a number of large social gatherings where people welcomed Spring rambunctiously. Standing with my bottled water, I listened and participated in the lively conversations until the others began to slur. Walking home at night, I thought back to my life on the other side of the river. I was tempted to romanticize the way I once walked, but an email waiting for me at home from a long-ago friend asking for help with his drinking problem reminded me not only of my limp I received , but also the blessing I was given. 

Climbing Down the Stairs

Princeton Univerity Chapel. 

Whenever our babysitter was with us on weekends, she took us to the Princeton University Chapel for church. It was a radical change from our usual parish and ignited a passion for Gothic architecture that remains. I remember the way it felt to sit under the vaulted ceiling, with colors from the stained-glass windows glancing my hands and pant legs. It was a magic place, one that made me feel small, and God big. In other words, it was a perfect church.

Half way through the service, as we sang a hymn, the minister would stand and climb the many stairs up into the pulpit. For me, the pageantry said as much as the sermon, and I remember thinking, “I’d like to do that one day.” While my friends were thinking about being famous hockey players, or accomplished surgeons, I wanted to climb the stairs and preach sermons. Although I’ve never climbed those particular stairs, except when no one was looking one Saturday afternoon, I have climbed many others and delivered a fair number of sermons. What I didn’t know then was that climbing up the stairs was easier than climbing down.

To climb up the stairs, all you need is a desire, some additional education, something to say, and a bit of skill. The hard part is climbing down, because when you reach the bottom of the stairs you need to live out what it is you just said. It’s a challenge that’s not unique to ministers, but somehow it seems more pronounced. Suddenly what we do is measured by the faith we profess, and, for me anyway, that has proven the greatest challenge of my life.

It’s much easier to talk about God, than to talk to God, to talk about caring for others, than it is to lend a hand, to talk of forgiveness, than to forgive, to talk about the wonders of creation, than it is to care for the earth, to talk about being a Christian, than voting like one.

It’s all about living our faith “not only with our lips, but in our lives,” as they say in the Episcopal tradition. There are two journeys we need to make, to climb up and say what we believe, and climb down and live it out. If you’re like me, you’ll find the journey down the stairs is much harder than the one up.

What about Judas?

What about Judas?

With all the Easter bonnets put away, and the joyful hymns a distant echo, I find myself wrestling with the darker side of the Easter story. The evening of shadows in the garden was made all the darker when Judas arrived and kissed Jesus. He’d turned him over, betrayed him, and that it was done with a kiss only made it worse. Later, after all that happened happened, and the disciples were scared and huddled beside one another in the upper room, they must have been seething when they thought about Judas. “How could he,” and “Wait till I get my hands on him,” must have been the kind of things they said. Soon, they would learn the rest of the story, see the miracle of Easter, and, over time, comprehend the power and magnitude of God’s love.  

But, what about Judas?

“Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man” Jesus’ humanity declared, and yet I wonder if Judas wasn’t the first fruit of God’s uncontained love. If Christ died for all people, then do we have any business dividing, or picking and choosing, just who “all people” are? It’s easy to include Peter with his unharnessed passion, Thomas with his doubts, but Judas? Really? Shouldn’t he be the one exception? Maybe we should have a loop hole for people like Judas, Hitler, … Oh wait, if you do that, where do you stop?

I confess, I have my Judas, a person I think shouldn’t make the cut. Jesus might love all people, but if there’s an exception, this person would be that exception. If I’m honest, I’m sure I’m someone’s Judas as well. So, I come back to my original question, what about Judas?

I can only pray God is bigger than I, that God’s grace is far more abundant than what the church offers. I read somewhere that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. I wonder if Easter isn’t the most spectacular illustration of that. The darkness of the garden losses out to the brightness of the morning, the hatred that killed one man was destroyed by a love that saved (and continues to save) all people, including Judas, you and me.