Proper 21C; September 30, 2007

Revised Common Lectionary

The Rev. Marion E. Kanour

Listen

 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”  -an excerpt from Luke 16:19-31

The author of Luke is writing his gospel about 45 years following the death of Jesus.  He knows there’s controversy in the early Christian faith communities concerning the resurrection.  Some folks in these communities believe the disciples and the women at the tomb saw the resurrected Christ and believe Jesus is the Messiah.  Others don’t believe in the resurrection but have formed small groups dedicated to following the teachings of Jesus.  Luke’s gospel is hoping to get everyone on the same page—living the values Jesus taught and believing he’s the risen Christ.  The gospel-writer wants to strengthen the fledgling faith communities by uniting their beliefs.  As history continues to unfold, these early Christians are persecuted for what they believe.  The persecutions serve to unite the communities of faith.  Several hundred years later, Christians are legally permitted to worship by the Roman Empire.  It’s then that the early Christian Church is officially formed and the Nicene Creed is proclaimed the uniting statement of faith for all who claim to be Christians. 

As we know from current developments within the Anglican Communion, creeds, gospels, laws and proclamations are subject to interpretation.  Reasonable people can and do disagree.   Ultimately, while a faith community is free to make its proclamations, each member must decide what personally rings true.  If, for example, the resurrection isn’t central to your own belief system, what is?  How do you decide what’s right for you, individually?  How much diversity of belief can a faith community tolerate?  How much should it tolerate?  These questions are as pertinent today as they were when the gospel of Luke was written.  In fact, all through Christian history, folks have been trying to figure out how to be faithful to God and self within the context of community.  The Protestant Reformation was launched when some folks believed they needed to leave the community in order to be faithful to God and self.  The Baptists, the Lutherans and the Presbyterians in this country have all had their own internal reformations, resulting in structural realignments within those faith communities.  Now it’s our turn to ask those same questions.  Some folks wish the controversy would just go away so we can get back to the business of praising God and following the teachings of Jesus.  Most of us have probably been alive long enough by now to know we have to learn to praise God, follow Jesus and live our lives within the context of ambiguity and perpetual change.  It’s just the way it is.  We can call each other names; we can pass laws to penalize those who disagree with us; we can ignore folks in the grocery store and take them off our Christmas card lists.  But, thanks be to God, we cannot fetter the human soul.  We would if we could, because it would make it so much easier just to silence the opposition.  Even in regimes of terror where opposition seems to be silenced, blessedly it only goes underground.  The human soul is free.  We come hard-wired that way.  The soul resurrects itself within us again and again and again.  We roll the stone away from the tomb every time we choose joy and love and hope.  The soul paces within us until we set it free.  It’s the still small voice within that whispers to us in the night, urging us to choose life.  No one—not a priest or a teacher or the author of the gospel of Luke or your mama—can tell you where your joy is.  That’s because it’s your joy.  It’s your place of resurrection and yours alone.   That’s the good and the bad news, as John Charles Ramey learned late in his life.

I met him shortly after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  When he became a patient of the Grady Hospice Unit in Atlanta (where I was working as chaplain), he was an angry man.  He was furious with God.  He told me in our first meeting that he was “done with God”.  He said he’d been a god-fearing, church-going, tithing believer all his life and now look at what God had gone and let happen to him.  What had all that righteous living gotten him, he wanted to know.  I suggested the promise of eternal life didn’t mean here on earth and that someday each of us would die regardless of church attendance and pledge amount.  This did not please Mr. Ramey.  He told me I didn’t need to come back to see him again.  Hospice protocol required me to offer to visit him each week.  Each week he declined my offer.  Until something changed inside the man and he agreed to see me.  He was an impatient, irritable man even in his compromised state—which is perhaps why I identified with him, seeing a bit of myself in his temperament.  But on this particular day I was allowed to see the man—the whole man—the man who had at last released his soul from the place where he’d held it captive.  He began, “I prayed last night for the first time in months.  I don’t know any more if God hears prayers.  It doesn’t really matter.  I heard my prayer.  I heard my soul.  I didn’t know….I didn’t know.”  Mr. Ramey began to cry.  He said his tears had been with him since the prayer and that it had worried his wife.  “But,” he said, “I can’t seem to explain to her what I see inside me.  It’s my soul.  It’s huge and alive and eternal.  I’m part of this enormous, living reality that I didn’t see until just last night.  I missed it all these years.  It was here inside me all along.”  Mr. Ramey said he was telling me so I could tell others about it at his funeral.  He said, “Everybody’s got this inside them because we’re all part of it.  It just makes my heart want to burst.  Things could be different, you know.”  Then he took a deep breath and smiled, and taking my hand said, “You’re young; you have time yet.  Don’t miss it.”

I’ve thought of his words many times since then.  There are moments when I know exactly what Mr. Ramey meant when he described the enormity living within.  It moves me to tears as well when I see it there and wonder again how to love rightly and to live joyfully. 

We’re at that kind of soul-beholding juncture in our faith tradition at the moment.  Decisions will be made and things eventually will quiet down.   Some will be glad when the quiet returns.  I’m equally grateful for the disquiet. It reminds us again to look within to see what God has placed there—the enormity that is the soul.  

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