Common Humanity

Proper19BPentecost16, Sullivan Park Care Center, September 13, 2015 by Annette Fricke

            When people sell real estate, a very common selling point for property is the location of what’s being sold.  The joke associated with that is that when someone believes something that makes them look incredibly naïve is this question, “Yes, and if you believe that, I’ve got some swamp land in Florida I’d like to sell you…”  Actually, if you want a place for alligator hunting, swamp land is a smart way to go.  It’s not just location that is important, but context.  For most people, buying swamp land is stupid because houses, gardens, and fields will never thrive there.  Whenever a person tells a story, the context is what makes the story a story.  Without it, there is no meaning to the narrative.  On September 11, just fourteen years ago, our nation was attacked by terrorists by flying planes through the world trade center towers in New York City.  The topic of conversation is bound at some point to recite where you were when that happened.  People tell you where they were and what they were doing and your response is to do likewise.  The same goes for other huge events in history, the first of which in my memory was the shooting of President Kennedy.  My mother didn’t think I was well that day, so I stayed home.  I saw it on TV and ran to tell Mom who didn’t believe me.  I wasn’t known for telling lies so I guess my credibility was in question due to my being only six years of age.  At any rate, because of the enormity of the situation, I remember the details probably as well as where I was on 9-11 even though JFK was shot and killed almost fifty-two years ago.  We tend to remember much if the extreme of violence is involved and the security of our nation is compromised.  We won’t forget because we remember as a community and the darned TV keeps running the footage over and over.  Just as sorrow and anger are heightened in events like this, I’ll bet the same detailed recall occurred for the disciples of Jesus when Jesus asked them, “Who do people say that I am?”  It’s a type of test and the anxiety is through the roof.  What do we tell Jesus is the answer?  Why is he asking this question at this time in this place?  What’s he trying to find out?  But what is most on the disciples’ minds is: is he then going to ask us a related question, who we think he is? After those queries follows the first prediction of Jesus’ suffering on the cross and resurrection.  Peter dares to think the burning question, “Why does Jesus have to suffer and die on the cross?”  Perhaps like Peter, it feels like someone took away our best friend just as we were getting to know him.  Jesus’ life was cut short at a very young age, so was JFK’s and so were the lives of the victims of 9-11.  It is a cruel lesson about reality that even children can comprehend.  We feel the way we do because even if we don’t know these people personally, we do know them because they are our fellow human beings with blood coursing  through their veins, skin that tears and bruises,  muscles, sinews, and bones.  Every year, it is the tradition at Trinity Lutheran Church in Tacoma, WA to have an alto and a tenor on Good Friday sing the hymn, “Were You There” when they crucified my Lord?  The hymn goes into the structure of details of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection for the sole purpose of evoking a sense of common humanity. It constantly re-asks the question, “Were you there?” in order to bring into the immediate present our shared kinship. This is what we feel even more painfully when someone we lived with and loved a great deal has died, leaving us behind.  Someone years ago saw the meditation on the passion of Jesus as being an especially effective subject bringing both substance and depth to a meditation process in order to feel closer to God. God is most fully in the passion narratives.  This is where God dwells most profoundly.  God dwells most profoundly here in suffering and death because it is where all of us have been if we have lived our lives as human beings.  Even if we somehow manage to escape suffering, we know those who suffer and all of us will inevitably see death.  That is the way of humanity.  Were you there?  Do you claim your connection with that person or persons?  Do you feel the agony of a love relationship being torn to its very core?  That, in my estimation is why Peter objected.  He’s practically saying out loud, “Why Jesus, do you too have to leave us and why must you suffer and die before salvation is accomplished?  Is there really no other way?  No, Jesus; I cannot bear the grief.” 

            Again, take note of the context.  First there is the question, “Who do people say that I am?”  Then, “Who do you say that I am?” and then, “I must suffer and die.  Next comes resurrection but in the context of suffering and death, it doesn’t seem like such a joyous occasion.  And then comes the climax, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Alas, the climax is not the resurrection and eternal life. Jesus tries to explain just a bit of what that entails.  This is the first time he talks about this, so the sordid details are missing.  But what it all boils down to is that our life, if we truly follow him as his disciples will resemble his.  In our deepest, darkest days ---and I believe we all have them, we feel a profound absence, a sort of haunting anxiety and sadness like our whole world has collapsed. The party is over.  The great celebratory feasting of the wedding is over.  The guests have gone home and it is 75+ years later.  Now what? We’re disappointed in life.  We listen to the promises of the political campaigns and sink into cynicism.  We’re going through that whole process again of electing a new president to run the country.  The more we are informed of how things really work or seem to work, the more we cry out for deliverance.  Is there no other way?  We don’t really want Jesus to resemble us because we don’t want to think about God in any way being weak.  We want to paint God as a super hero and to set everything right.  But what Jesus is trying over and over to tell the disciples is that God is not like that.  “Who do people say that I am?” is a question that needs to always also be turned around for self-reflection and self-examination.  Who do you and I say Jesus is and how do I live that out in my life; my poor, small, minuscule niche in life about as important as a baby ant in a very large ant hill?  Who am I among billions of people around the world?  What is this world compared to the vast universe and beyond into outer space?  Why does God consider humanity worth saving at all?  Why is God so big yet I feel so small?  Why must God suffer the same fate as I? Who is this God who sees and feels what I see and feel and yet appears to also see, feel, and perceive way beyond my most brilliant imaginations?

            It has been posed that perception is reality.  If that’s the case, that is how God can never be put into the box we so desperately want God in because that’s where we positively know where God is.  God is not in the box our minds draw but as Paul Tillich has said and written, God is as near as our breath, even in our most profound moments of emptiness when we feel God not.