Now is the Time to Do Nothing
Reflections on the Readings for the Third Sunday after Epiphany
Well, after two years, I’ve finally succumbed to the virus. I tested positive over the weekend. I’m not feeling terribly good so I’m going to jot out a few admittedly-even-more-scattered-than-usual thoughts on the assigned texts rather than doing a recording.
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
What does it mean to read Nehemiah right now, under these present circumstances? I’m referring to the pandemic, of course, which seems yet again to be worsening, but also the broader movements of “deconstruction” happening to/for so many. This does not seem like a time to build or even to think about building, to say the least.
There is something in the way Ezra and Nehemiah go about their reforming work that does not sit well with me—especially now (it never has, in fact). The formal reading of the book of Moses, the book of the Law, feels, at least to me, “religious” in the worst sense—oppressively legalistic and clericalist, even self-flagellating. The peoples’ response is telling, is it not? And what sense does it make to tell the people not to be grieved? How can Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Levites, given what they’ve lived through as exiles and pilgrims, expect people beaten down by guilt and shame—and unsettled by the dread that always animates guilt and shame—to will themselves to joy? Isn’t this a clear case of the self-imposed piety and severe self-harm that Paul says has nothing more than a show of wisdom, lacking all truly life-transfiguring power (see Col. 2.20-23)? Aren’t these the very kinds of abuses (and that is the right word, I think, even if they’re not intended to do harm) that have left so many of us so deeply wounded and driven so many of our friends and loved ones from our churches?
I’ve learned over time to pay attention to my responses when reading texts like these. And I’ve come to believe those responses are intended by the text. Or, more to the point, that they are being awakened by the Spirit who makes the text a gift for us. Perhaps we’re supposed to be put off by what Ezra and Nehemiah are doing? If so, what is it that the text wants to teach us? Or perhaps they’re not in fact manipulating people in the way it first appears? Perhaps in saying “Go your way” they’re realizing their own mistake and releasing the people from the religiosity that threatens to crush them? That’s at least one way of hearing it.
In any case, I know this is true: the joy I have in the Lord is the joy I have from the Lord; and the joy I have from the Lord, the joy that is my strength, is the Lord’s delight in me as the Beloved. My strength, in other words, is his, because I am his and he is mine. “The joy of the Lord” is not some feeling I drum up in myself—anything but that. The joy of the Lord simply is the Holy Spirit: God’s own delight in being God for us and with us; God’s own delight in us being ourselves. The joy of the Lord is mine umbilically: I am in Christ as Christ was in his mother, fed by what nourishes him.
I know this, too: once we realize that, then we can see “deconstruction”—and the “reconstruction” that sooner or later must be done—differently, gracefully. For now, at least for many of us, I think the Word of the Lord is neither for us to build nor for us to tear down but simply for us to go our way! This, at least for many of us, is a moment to let God be God, to leave room for God’s work in us to work without us attempting to work it.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
It’s certainly possible read this passage in the bad religious sense, as if we’re being told to “just get along,” required to live in “unity.” But in fact Paul is simply stating the case: we are Christ’s body, and Christ’s body is whole. The only thing we need to be striving for is the good of our neighbor, their being “built up” in faith so they came alive in the joy God has in them. And that striving is mostly about what we do not do, the impulses we refuse to let drive us to act.
I find great solace in this, too: “we have all been made to drink of one Spirit.” The work of God is something that happens to us, something done for us. Again, I’m brought back to the image of the child: we are all of us babes at Jesus’ breast, drinking the milk of his Spirit. And again I’m reminded that this is not a time to “try harder,” to seek to “get it right.” This is a time to rest, to quiet down, to allow God’s nearness to soothe our feelings. The hand of the body of Christ is not clinched and it does not clutch!
This is good news: my future does not depend on my perfections—even less so yours or the church’s! I am no more and no less than a member of Christ’s body. He is the one doing the work! And the work he is doing is almost always entirely hidden from my view. Not only the work he’s doing in me, but also the work he’s doing with me. The best good I do for others and receive from others I will remain more or less totally unaware of. This is why I need to pray to be cleansed of my secret faults and presumptuous sins (as in the day’s Psalm). Because it is always those unconscious, purposeful but unintentional resistances to God’s goodness in my life and yours that quench and grieve the Spirit.
All to say, this is my primary responsibility right now: to notice the sufferings and joys of others, and to let myself suffer and rejoice with them as best as I can—unspectacularly, and without trying to fix anything; not stirring up feelings of empathy, but simply being there with them in the experience, ready to offer what help I can—mostly by making sure they have the stuff they need to enjoy day-to-day life, praying on their behalf, and biting my tongue any time I feel I have some advice to offer. Paradoxically, I am most like Christ for my neighbors when I’m being the least '“religious” toward them. I’m bringing God’s salvation to bear in their lives only inasmuch I’m not allowing myself to pretend even for a moment that I’m in any sense their savior.
Luke 4:14-21
And that brings me to the Gospel: Jesus has come to us in the power of the Spirit! He has come to do what only he can do, and what he alone can do is free us from all the illusions we have about what we can and should do. In this time, the last thing we need is to feel pressured—or to pressure others—toward certain outcomes, which we’ve been convinced are not only desirable but necessary. The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit who takes all the pressures off, who frees us from religious and political fervors awakened by the worldly and churchly powers that want to use our guilt and shame for their own ends, to advance their own causes. The future, no less than the past, is God’s. I don’t have to try to make it what I’ve been told it needs to be. And the future God wants for you and for me—and more importantly the future God wants for those we’re constantly overlooking or taking advantage of—can come only as we relinquish the future we’ve been convinced by religious and political authorities that we want.
So, the coming of Jesus is good news for the poor—only the poor: those who know they can do nothing and are happy about it.
I made it as long as you, minus a few weeks. Still recovering. Chronic fatigue.
I’ll be praying for you and your family. Blessings.
Chris, feel better soon. Thinking of you with love. Thank you for all that you that you do. Bless you.