On the gift of Openess... a sermon
Who am I? is a poem written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer . Who am I, was written by Bonhoeffer, in 1944 as he sat in his prison cell at Flossenburg concentration camp. Bonhoeffer, one of the most influential theologian and moral theorist of our times, was imprisoned by the Nazi’s for his involvement in an attempt to assassinate Hitler, a crime for which he was ultimately executed, some seven days before the end of the war.
The poem, powerfully reveals Bonhoeffer’s own anguish and despair, his humanness in the middle of inhumanity of the concentration camps. One stanza reads,
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I?, not only reflects Bonhoeffer’s moment of great pain but also his inner turmoil between his public front of friendliness and clarity and his feelings of longing and despair. Bonhoeffer, the pastor felt the need to mask his feelings of brokenness and despair, to project an image of serenity as a beacon of hope to other that their struggles were not in vain. He writes,
Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.
The beauty of Bonhoeffer’s Who am I, whilst written in a one of the darkest period of history, is that it not only reveals the private pain of one of our faith greatest heroes, but speaks so strongly to this same need we all have, to mask and hide our pain, our struggles from the world. We like Bonhoeffer, too often feel the need to live out two separate lives. We are in public, the epitome of togetherness-- we live our lives, we go to work, we socialize, we preach at church without revealing- even for the slightest moment, our own struggles, and our flaws. We seem to bear our days of misfortune, smiling and proudly.
These hardships, these pains are lived out in the private sphere, away from the public gaze. This split personality tendency is no-where more evident then in our relationships with people in Church. We adopt a Sunday face- pretending to our brothers and sisters, to the rest of the congregation that we have it all together, that we are without struggle while the whole time secretly hiding the darkest pains of the soul. We like Bonhoeffer are powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance’
I opened this morning with a description of my own private pains- for a very specific reason- because it something that I find so difficult to do. When it comes to masking of personal pain from the outside world, to borrow a line from Paul I am the sinner of all sinners. I must admit this is perhaps the part of my life, the part of my relationship with others, my relationship with God that I struggle with the most. I find it hard, so hard to open up to others- to admit to the world that I sometimes don’t have it all together. That in the midst of life I feel the need to project an image of togetherness- that somehow I ride out the rough waves of life without the slightest sign of sea sickness.
In our gospel reading today, we see in the person of Jesus, the breaking of this distinction between the private and the public. In Mark 14:32 and throughout the entirety of the gospels, we see a Jesus unrestrained by the strangling constraints of social respectability.
We have a tendency, to constrain Jesus, to make Jesus become the embodiment of niceness of calmness. I know that I often have the image of a stoic Jesus, unmoved by challenge and controversy, calming seeking to do God’s will. This image can I suggest, has nothing to do with the historical Jesus presented to us in the gospel narratives.
By faith we believe Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. And when we examine closely the stories about the life of Jesus we begin to realize, just how fully human he was. Our Lord, our Savior in anger overturned tables, wept over Jerusalem and in an act almost incomprehensible love, gave his life for the rest of humanity. Jesus was not John Wayne, someone afraid to express his emotions- to show anger, to show fear, to show compassion. Jesus did not live in two separate worlds- he was not afraid to be open, honest with his emotions- to be fully human. And if we are to believe in divinity of Jesus we are to believe in a God, making itself so vulnerable as to humble itself into the form of a baby for the sake of humanity.
Our gospel reading today, is one of my personal favorite stories. In fact, Jesus in Gethsemane has appeared in a few of my sermons. For me it says so much about the person of Jesus and of God love for us in the midst of the darkest nights of our souls. And is displays clearly the openness of Christ in his moment of great crisis.
The story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane opens with Jesus asking the disciples, his companions on the road for the past few years, to wait while he prays to God. We find Jesus at this point in Mark’s narrative, at his greatest period of crisis- his actions in bringing good news to the poor, and freedom for the oppressed have made him enemies both amongst the occupying Roman army and the corrupt temple authorities. He has been forced to go underground with his small group of disciples, fleeing from and fearing persecution. Jesus is aware that he is going to die, he is aware perhaps that he must. And he knows that as the pressure begins to build, the members of the fledgling Christian community will one by one abandon him, and he will be left alone to face the might of the empire.
Understandably struggling under this burden, Jesus seeks comfort from God. As Jesus moves towards a place of solitude we are told that he is deeply distressed and troubled. In Chapter 14 verse 33, the Greek properly translated reads that Jesus is shuddering in distress and anguish. Quoting Psalm 42, Jesus then admits to his disciples that he is shaken to the core; The New English Bibles has Jesus saying that his heart is ready to break with grief. Requesting that the disciples remain and stay awake, Jesus goes to make his famous partition that the cup be passed.
What Jesus did in this dark period, how he choose to respond to his pain- speaks so strongly to the reaction we should have to our own struggles. As we see, Jesus in his time of peril, of distress, did not adopt a public face, seeking to hide his suffering, his pain, behind a veneer of togetherness. Rather, he was the epitome of emotional honesty. In the midst of his pain, Jesus sought comfort from God and of his disciples.
This same comfort is open to as when we admit to others and to ourselves our deepest struggles, when we drop this mask of togetherness and admit our brokenness and our humanity. We worship a truly amazing God, a God that transcends our greatest of limitations. By faith we believe in a God of grace, a God that truly loves us for who we are. To often we seek to place boundaries on this love- seek to contain it- seek to restrict it on the basis of belief, on the basis of our social standing. But the amazing, the non-sensical thing is this- that God loves us for whom we are. Let’s think about that for a moment. That in the midst of my brokenness, my smallness, that the force of love and logic behind the universe loves me. And intimately, beautifully, when we begin to accept that grace, we begin to allow the love of God to shape our understandings of ourselves- our hurts, our struggles our pains begin to be healed.
And we see glimpses of that love in our relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters. Just as Jesus sought comfort in the midst of his greatest hurt- so must we- opening up ourselves to experience the healing that comes through dropping all masks and admitting our struggles and failures. One of my favourite songs by Bob Dylan is Shelter from the Storm, which speaks of the unexpected acceptance he found in the church during a period of great suffering in his life. Just as when we turn to God, when we drop these masks and be real with the people who love and care for us we begin to experience healing- through the love and support of others we become free from the trauma of past hurts- through care and concern we begin to find comfort for our anxieties and our insecurities- we find shelter from our own private Storms.
I know that for many of us, we keep up appearances and deny others entry into our pain because we fear rejection. We fear that the love and respect of our peers, of our loves ones, of people in the church is dependent on us holding it all together- of never vocalizing our deepest hurts, our greatest struggles, our fears. When we look at our reading in Mark again, we see that Jesus, does in fact experience this very rejection. We recall Jesus revelation of his great distress, his ability to communicate to those around him his deep pain and fear. Jesus asks his disciples to remain awake for him, to be there for him in the midst of his suffering. Yet three times, the disciples fail Jesus- they fall asleep during the hour of his greatest need. The strength of the betrayal Jesus feels at the disciple’s lack of support is evident. He ask calls Peter, Simon his name before he became a disciple of Christ and asks him ‘Did you not have the strength to stay awake one hour?
This image of rejection, of falling asleep, of refusing to be there for people in their greatest period of need, is something we as a community and as individuals must be wary of. In order for others, in order for us, to feel able to drop these masks, to feel comfortable enough to breach the private and public distinction we as church unlike the disciples, need to be attune to those who are attempting to be honest/ those who are attempting to reveal their pain and distress to us. We must become a congregation that is welcoming and accepting- we must begin to recognise the call of Christ for us to love all peoples regardless of their present struggles and weakness. We must have the strength to stay awake for people in their hours of struggle.
What do think?