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The Scandal of This Supper
Sermon by Cynthia A. Jarvis September 10, 2006, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Philippians 2:1-11 Luke 22:14-20
As we gather for worship on the day before this nation, five years later, remembers the events of September 11th, I cannot shake out of my mind the question Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked in an essay entitled “After Ten Years”. “Are we still,” he asked, “of any use?” The essay was his Christmas gift in 1942 to his family and to his co-conspirators in the German Resistance Movement, particularly Eberhard Bethge to whom he wrote the letters from prison; and also Hans Oster and Hans von Dohnanyi, both executed on the same day in April of 1945 as Bonhoeffer. In the essay, Bonhoeffer writes of himself and his friends, “We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched in many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?” What have these five years wrought in us, what persons have we allowed ourselves to become, and as witnesses to Him who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, are we still of any use? In this week’s New Yorker, Hendrick Hertzberg remembers, as I think we all do, “a single source of solace [that] emerged amid the dread and grief [five short years ago, five long years ago]:a solidarity that took humble forms. Strangers connected as friends; volunteers appeared from everywhere; political and civic leaders of all parties and persuasions stood together, united in sorrow and defiance.” The intensity of this fellow-feeling both at home and abroad, of course, would not last. The reason is easily laid at the doorstep of power politics, but in this place we must also confess that our human capacity, as Paul put it, “to be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind, doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regarding other as better than ourselves” is limited, to say the least…our track record for sustaining mutuality is, well, in a word, grim. In point of fact, Nancy Gibbs, writing about “What We’ve Learned” mourns as well “the loss of that transcendent unity, global good will, common purpose born of righteous anger that wrapped us like a bandage those first months after the attacks” but then goes on to say, “We saw back then what we were capable of at our best, and now find ourselves just moving on, willing to listen to our leaders but not necessarily believe them, supporting our troops but disputing their mission, waiting, more resigned than resolved, for the next twist in the plot.” But I would say more. For while “it was natural to hope that…divisions would prove less rancorous in the face of the common danger, and that international frictions could be minimized in a struggle against what almost every responsible leader in the world claimed to recognize as an assault on civilization itself…what few expected,” says Hertzberg, “was how comprehensively this initial spirit would be” lost, how deeply divided we would become as a nation, how alienated from one another as a species we would grow to be on this planet some five short years, some five long years later. Why? If we push beyond the partisan politics and the ethnic divisions fueled by our fears, I would venture to say that the very moral clarity we have longed to claim in order to justify ourselves to ourselves has become the crucible on which our own ethical character has been tested. Are we still of any use? Again writes Bonhoeffer of his times: “The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.” The evil masquerade of terrorism surely is the subject of that sentence, we think, for such a time as this: the ubiquitous bombs not dropped on combatants but exploded in restaurants, employment lines, neighborhood streets where children once played, all in the name of those whose take on Islam is deemed to be truer than those who are perishing. Surely this is the masquerade of evil. But when Bonhoeffer goes on to describe moral fanaticism, honesty requires we take a step back and look in the mirror as well. “The fanatic,” he writes, “thinks that his single-minded principles qualify him to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull he rushes at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; he exhausts himself and is beaten.” As was the case shortly after September 11th, so it is now that we miss the turn in the road or wrongly interpret the twist in the plot if we do not ask after the darker side of our own single-minded principles that surely have qualified us, we say with confidence, to do battle with the powers of evil. Yet how inconceivable is the fanaticism of our own single-minded principles! “For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts” Bonhoeffer writes, reminding us that moral fanaticism cuts both ways! That is to say, our fear of losing the better way of life we once blithely and righteously lived two oceans away from world wars and ethnic divisions has found us, out of fear, justifying a way of being in the world and at home that makes us unrecognizable to ourselves. Therefore we clothe our actions in the language of light, charity, historical necessity and social justice—true in a relative sense, we rightly reason--all the while knowing that the admonition to look not to our own interests but to the interests of others just may have been left in the dust of fallen towers. So it is, five years later, we come to this table as those who have been silent witnesses of evil deeds…have been drenched in many storms…have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience, we confess, has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use, we ask our host? “Take, eat,” he says of his body about to be broken for the sake of those who will betray him, “in remembrance of me.” Five years later, counter to our cultural memory, what must we remember of Him? In the first place, we must remember the people with whom he dined, for still he invites the other whom we fear to this table. Therefore it is not according to our moral capacity for being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind that matters here, but rather it is by his gracious invitation to all sinners that in him we become one. Indeed, short of remembering how it is in him that the divisions and distinctions born of our single-minded principles are erased by a mercy none deserve, I tell you we will be of no use to him in such a time as this. In the second place, as we take and eat in remembrance of him, we remember his assumption of our humanity with nothing and no one left out. So we commune, communicare, communicate around this table and in so doing, through him, we put on, we take into outselves, the humanity of the other. It is what Martin Luther called the “miracle of authentic transubstantiation”: not that, in this meal, the bread and the wine are being changed literally into Christ’s body and blood, but that we are “through love being changed into each other.” Through love being changed into each other: meaning taking on the life of the other…assuming the burdens of the other…standing in the place of the shame of the other…accepting the utter difference of the other as one’s own; meaning whether the other be poor or rich, male or female, leaping or lame, sighted or blind, gay or straight, Arab or Jew, Christian or Muslim, black or white, free or imprisoned, in Christ we are being changed into the very one we might never know or notice, the very one whom we have learned to fear, the very one we have chosen to turn our backs upon. Therefore, said John Calvin of the community gathered and fed at Christ’s table, “It is impossible for us to wound, despise, reject, injure or in any way offend one of our [brothers or our sisters] but we, at the same time, wound, despise, reject, injure and offend Christ in him,” in her. Then finally five years later around this table, what we remember of him is the height of heaven he quit for the depth of love that could only be revealed in him who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. Or in Bonhoeffer’s words, we remember in him what it is to view human existence “from below”. I think we glimpsed this during those vulnerable days immediately following September 11th, buoyed as we were by the great upswelling of simple solidarity before our single-minded principles took hold of history. Clearly Bonhoeffer and his co-conspirators knew the same. “There remains an experience of incomparable value,” Bonhoeffer concludes “After Ten Years”. “We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled—in short from the perspective of those who suffer. The important thing is that neither bitterness nor envy should have gnawed at the heart during this time, that we should have come to look with new eyes at matters great and small, sorrow and joy, strength and weakness, that our perception of generosity, humanity, justice and mercy should have become clearer, freer, less corruptible. We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune. This perspective from below must not become the partisan possession of those who are eternally dissatisfied; rather, we must do justice to life in all its dimensions from a higher satisfaction, whose foundation is beyond any talk of ‘from below’ or ‘from above’. This is the way in which we may affirm it,” Bonhoeffer ended…or began. And perhaps, by God’s grace five years hence, remembering Him who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, we still may be of use. Thanks be to God. |