“Seeing the Father’s Heart”
John 1:14-18
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Covenant Presbyterian Church,
John
1:14-18
14 And the Word
became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…
17The law indeed
was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18No one has
ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart,
who has made him known.
This is the word
of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
When
I arrived as a college freshman on a campus of 35,000,
it was my first opportunity to meet anyone
Jewish.
I can remember I envied the Jewish women
I met then.
And during college, I sometimes wished
I was Jewish too,
not a convert to Judaism but born
Jewish.
The Jewish women I knew arrived
at college with a confidence few others had.
I
am still fascinated with what it means to be Jewish.
It was long after college when I became
curious about Judaism for its own sake.
And later still when I became interested
in understanding Judaism as the parent of Christianity.
We
saw a recent Red Box movie recently with a lot of parenting worth discussing
and a lot to say about the
Judeo-Christian understanding of God.
A cinematography award winner and perhaps
an Oscar nominee,
it’s called “The Tree of
Life” and it’s a complex film.
Visually gorgeous, the light--on faces,
through sheer window curtains, through the trees—
is extraordinarily luminous.
Yet it was only briefly in theaters last
summer, a run of only a few weeks.
It
is an art film and one of the most spiritually intense works of art to come
along in years.
Art films often do not have wide
appeal.
The action is not sequential--this
one unfolds in anything but a linear timeline.
The dialogue is
minimal--this one often reveals its characters through whispered voiceovers.
The
story begins with the filmmaker’s image of the Holy Spirit,
a few seconds showing a strange vision fusing
light and flame,
silently undulating and pulsing against a
black background.
Then
one scene of the sunny girlhood of the
radiant woman (played by Jessica Chastain)
who
will become the young mother in the story.
At
maybe age 7 she is seen playing in a beautiful field.
And her adult self explains an either/or path
one must choose, an idea straight from the book of Proverbs.[1]
One path is “the way of nature” which
is a troubled, inwardly curved human nature,
a misplaced way of loving.[2]
The other path is “the way of grace.”
As
her 7 year old self plays, her adult voiceover says:
“The nuns taught us there are two ways,
the way of nature and the way of grace
and we have to choose.”
Grace
doesn’t try to please itself.
Grace accepts injuries and insults.
But nature only wants to please itself and get others to please it too,
likes
to lord it over them, to have its own way,
to find reasons to be unhappy
when
all the world is shining around it,
when love is smiling through all things.
They
taught us no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.
I
will be true to you [God] whatever comes.”
Here
the story is blatant because this young mother of three boys in 1950’s
personifies the way of grace
while her husband (played by Brad Pitt),
the Navy officer, engineer and breadwinner,
personifies the struggles of nature.
He will be the father both
tyrannical and tender.
And
it is as though the story of humankind is writ small, poured into this family’s
events,
its dreams and challenges, its holding
on and letting go,
its joys, conflicts and grief.[3]
Most
of the film takes place in the house and the yard during the childhood years of
the three boys
and centers on the consciousness of the
oldest son Jack,as he moves from innocence to awareness.
Often
the film will show a character’s inner thoughts through visual metaphors.
For example, the adult Jack (played by Sean
Penn) is haunted by the death of his brother.
In several scenes, Jack the executive is in
his skyscraper office.
The next moment, the same
business-suited Jack
is picking his way across pointy rocks in an endlessly
barren landscape.
The skyscraper is real but
the desert is a visual of his emotional life—parched, lonely and jagged.
One
particularly challenging visual metaphor, a 12 minute scene,
led some European reviewers to walk out of the
early screenings.
But I think it is rich with religious
meaning.
When the middle son dies, the mother’s
slow voiceover, in anguish, cries out to God saying:
“Why?”
“Was I false to You?”
“Where were You?”
“What are we to You?”
And
with that last question, the film flashes to the beginning of time, the glory
of Genesis,
the vivid colors and horizons of the galaxy, the
symphony of planets rising and spinning,
the majesty of the horsehead nebulae bathed
in starlight,
the Big Bang,
the new earth, alive with fire—lava glowing, flowing, moving, cooling,
steaming--
blue oceans roiling,
life
forming, translucent jellyfish floating, green kelp swaying,
then dinosaurs appearing, an asteroid ushering in the Ice Age….
then the creation drama, the
largest drama possible, vanishes
and the next scene returns
to the 1950s family drama in
The
film’s audacity in answering a grief-stricken woman with a beginning of time
spectacle
sent some movie reviewers groping for the
doors.
But for those of us in the
Judeo-Christian tradition, it’s worth staying seated.
Her broken-hearted whisper to God
was “What are we to You?”
And then, from
the beginning, the universe unfurled until it met her in time and space.
In
my study of Judaism, I’ve heard a folk tale.
The rabbis wanted to teach how to carry opposites,
the idea that each of us is but a blink and a speck
and each of us is important and beloved
of God.
And so the rabbis taught this:
Everyone must have two pockets,
each with a slip of paper.
In the one pocket it shall
read, “I am but dust and ashes.”
And in the
other pocket, “For me, the universe
was made.”
“What
are we to You?” was her broken-hearted whisper.
Then God’s wordless answer:
You are everything.
Since
the dawn of time, all was brought into existence so that you could exist.
For you, the universe was made.
Like
his mother, Jack speaks to God.
The
12 year old Jack, kneeling at his bed alone, says his prayers:
“Help me not to sass my dad.”
“Help me not to get dogs in
fights.”
“Help me be thankful for all
I’ve got.”
“Where do You live?”
“Help me not to tell
lies.”
“Are You watching me?”
“I want to know what You are.”
And
it doesn’t give away too much to say the last scene is identical to the first,
the Holy Spirit as a living light,
unconsumed like the burning bush,
alive like an eternal flame.
But
here’s what’s absent in this stunning and spiritual film.
It’s more Judeo than Christian.
It’s not that the characters are Jewish, the
Yet the film’s spirituality is Old
Testament-based.
The
Old Testament books begin with God the creator
and the Old Testament includes a few mentions of the mysterious Holy
Spirit.
In the film, God is traced
through the beauty of sky, water and trees
and God reaches one human
through another.
The adult Jack’s voiceover says to God: “Mother, brother, they led me to Your
door.”
The themes are
from the Old Testament including Proverbs and Job.
Even the title
“The Tree of Life’ is from Genesis, the name from the garden of Eden.
Yet
in the film, except for one stained glass window, there is no Jesus.
Jack
prays to God: “I want to know what You
are.”
But as Pastor Melanie would say, here’s the
thing.
To be a Christian is to claim Jesus is how
we know what God is, Jesus is how we know who God is.
To be a Christian is to turn to the gospel
of John which we read today:
“No
one has ever seen God.
It is God the only Son, who is close to the
Father’s heart who has made him known.”
“The
Tree of Life” film does a masterful job of trying to see God—try it if it
sounds good to you.
And there are other spiritually imaginative
works which could also engage us.
In
the modern imagination, sometimes we see Jesus.
In the recent novel, The Shack,[4]the
strength of the book is the imagining of the Trinity as three persons.
The
view of Jesus is fresh and compelling.
He is a plaid-shirted carpenter in
the
at home in a lakeshore cabin,
eagerly stretching out on the dock at night to marvel at the stars.
He
befriends the grieving character named Mack.
This Jesus is devoted to the
person imagined as God whom he calls Papa.
Jesus is wise, loving,
laughing and glad to help in the kitchen.
In this book, even the Holy Spirit is a
person,
she
is a shimmering young Asian woman who fades in and out like the Cheshire cat.
In
the modern imagination, sometimes we see Jesus.
In
2006, NBC had a short-lived series whose 8 episodes are saved on www.youtube.com.
The show was called “The Book of Daniel”
featuring actor Aidan Quinn as an
Episcopal priest named Daniel Webster.
Set in 2005 in a wealthy suburb of
Daniel’s situation is like all
modern controversy writ small, poured into one family’s events.
Daniel’s marriage is often troubled.
He has rocky relationships with
this three children—
one gay, one promiscuous and
one dealing drugs.
His mother has
Alzheimer’s.
His father, an
Episcopal bishop, is having an extramarital affair.
Daniel’s wife really
likes her martinis.
And Daniel seems
to be addicted to painkillers.
This
is not great art or required viewing.
What
is worthwhile, even in this melodrama, is that Jesus keeps showing up, always
to Daniel alone.
Like
this scene.
Daniel, driving alone in his car, fumbling in
the glove box, reaches what looks like a prescription vial.
Glancing up, Jesus appears sitting in the
passenger seat, seat belted in.
Jesus:
Hey, I thought you were cutting back on those.
Daniel:
I only need them today because I have a golf game. Could you be more judgmental?
Jesus:
(Smiling) As a matter of fact, I could.
Daniel: (Sighing, admitting the real reason for the
painkillers)
I don’t know what to do
about my daughter.
Jesus: She’s almost an adult, talk to her like one.
Daniel: (Sighing) And that bank error, can you tell
me about that?
Jesus: (Patiently) We’ve been over this before, I’m
not a fortune teller. Just let it play
out.
Spend more time
with your daughter.
Daniel: (Vulnerable) I’ve been
meaning to ask this. Have I been chosen?
Jesus: (Eyes smiling) No.
Daniel: Well, why do you talk to me?
Jesus: I talk to everybody.
Daniel: (Slightly huffy) Well, few mention it.
Jesus: (Undefensive) Few hear
me. They tell me what they want. Most don’t listen.
(looking through the windshield) You’re tailgating again.[5]
I
have yet to meet a single person who has found a nourishing faith arrived
entirely through logic.
One of my favorite Catholic writers claims,
faith is trans-rational, more than rational.
Faith
also rushes in through some other portal—more emotional, more artistic and more
imaginative.
If
there is one thing I wish for myself and also for you this new year,
it’s to be haunted by a faith-filled
imagination, a scripturally-informed imagination.
To have a mind that spins with spiritual
wonder like an autumn breeze making a little tornado of dry leaves.
To have an imagination that, even
through tears,
hopes again for the day when love is smiling
through all things.
To have an imagination that feels Jesus
alongside—
befriending, encouraging, counseling, challenging and consoling.
This is what I recommend for me and for you.
Everyone must have two pockets, each with a
slip of paper.
In the one pocket it shall read, “I am but dust and ashes.”
And in the other pocket, “For me, Jesus comes, again and again, to show
the love of God’s heart.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son and
the Holy Spirit,
One
God in three expressions.
Now and forever.
Amen.
[1]Proverbs 4.13-23
[2] Inward curve traces back to Augustine, see http://www.thegospelmatters.com/2012/01/speaking-of-sin-luther-augustine-and-the-inward-curv/
[3]http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-06/tree-life
[4]THE
SHACK by Wm. Paul Young, 2007.
[5] Episode 1 of The Book of Daniel, http://www.youtube.com