New Covenant—26 May 2024 (from 31 May 2015)
Matthew 13
10 Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11 He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets[a] of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 13 The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ 14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’
16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.
Okay, prepare to have your minds blown: trailers used to come AFTER the movie. I know, it’s a lot to take in. Somehow, the trailers moved to before the picture, and in doing so pushed out newsreels, cartoons, The Little Rascals, and anything else that added some variety to the experience. But worry not, because most of this content was repackaged for Saturday-morning television, giving parents a handful of hours relief—while we learned that a falling anvil is mostly harmless and a portable hole can solve nearly any problem.
I long puzzled over the quality of these cartoons: the stories, the music, the allusions to high culture—until I learned that many were crafted for “the big screen,” and constituted a key part of the draw. From the 30s to the 60s, studios produced content that highlighted their work and promoted longer features. By the 70s, all this content shifted to television, and theatres were left with trailers that no longer trailed.
Now that your minds have drifted to Saturday morning, I want to say a word about these animated films. At the risk of offending people in a state dominated by The Mouse, I want to share with you my list of the best cartoons in the ‘short comedy’ genre:
“Operation: Rabbit” (1952) where Wile E. Coyote introduces himself as a genius and Bugs proves otherwise.
“Mad as a Mars Hare” (1963) starring Marvin the Martian who shows us he is “very very angry.”
“Rabbit of Seville” (1950) proving that kids love Rossini as much as adults.
“What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957) a Wagnarian treat that had kids everywhere singing “Kill the Wabbit.”
And finally, “One Froggy Evening” (1955), selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress for being the “Citizen Kane” of cartoons.
And, of course, it’s “One Froggy Evening” that’s generated much scholarly debate. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? And if it’s a tragedy, is it actually a double-tragedy, pushing the literary envelope even further? And what about Michigan J. Frog himself? Is he just a singing frog, or is a symbol of something else?
“One Froggy Evening” begins, of course, with a demolished building and a singing frog that emerges from the cornerstone. He sings ragtime standards, and the man who finds him immediately dreams of vast riches. But the frog won’t sing, neither to a talent agent nor to a crowded theatre. Eventually the frog ends up in another cornerstone, and the story repeats.
I share all this because I’ve spent 35 years waiting to sing “Hello Ma Baby” from the pulpit, and because I want to use the story to explore an idea I’m working on—one that brings together Michigan J. Frog and the call of Isaiah.
The thesis/idea is this: Faith should be something that if you try to explain to people, they will struggle to understand. Like the singing frog, faith should be something that we experience but may not be able to share with others, at least not without considerable effort—an effort that may ultimately fail.
So we begin with a book most likely written in exile, that period of literal and figurative dislocation when the elite of Judean society are carried off the Babylon. In searching for reasons, they turn to the prophet Isaiah, an eighth-century prophet who predicted with some accuracy what would some day befall Judah. Isaiah believed that the disobedience of the people led to their exile, and he spends thirty-nine chapters being specific.
But the passage we heard this morning takes us back to the beginning, to the call of Isaiah. It’s a rich visual moment: when call and response evoke the wonder of this God who needs prophets to express God’s worldview and will. The moment begins with a vision of complex creatures with wings and various covered parts singing some of the most familiar words in scripture:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might;
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
In my tradition, we call this passage the Sanctus (in the context of communion) before we pray a part of Psalm 118—familiar as the words shared on Palm Sunday, “Hosanna in the highest: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
In some ways, the liturgical churches who use these words have domesticated them. Back in context, they’re actually quite frightening, with a young Isaiah crying out “Woe to me!” as multi-winged seraphim fly toward him. Convinced he is going to die (he saw the Lord) he confesses that he has unclean lips and comes from a people with unclean lips. At this, the narrative shifts: the Seraphim touch his lips with coal from the fire, and his sin is forgiven. If only that was the end of the story, but it is not:
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
The obvious contrast here is to the call of Samuel, that extended dialogue between old Eli and young Samuel. It’s a humorous call, meant to delight:
Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.” And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But Eli said, “I didn’t call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down. Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I didn’t call; go back and lie down.”
You get the picture. Eventually Eli understands that this is a call story, and sends the lad back to truly answer the call. It’s light, it involves a loving relationship between young and old, and it’s about as far from the frightening call of Isaiah as you can get.
Some of you are still wondering about the frog, so I won’t torment you any longer. The double-tragedy of “One Froggy Evening” is that the man cannot realize his dream of sharing the remarkable thing he has discovered—and the frog ends up back in the box. Yes, his motive is crass, but he sincerely believes that the world will gain from the experience of a singing frog, something he is unable to share.
Isaiah, like a new Moses, has met God face-to-face and lived, a tale worthy of telling of ever there was one, but he is unable to share the complex majesty of the moment. Instead, God says ‘share this’:
‘You will be ever hearing,
but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing,
but never perceiving.’
This people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
And that’s the gentle beginning, before God gets really mad. Eventually forgiveness will follow, much in the way the coal touched the lips of Isaiah, but until then God will speak through the prophet and share a message that would fit just as well today as then. Here’s Isaiah 10:
Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people.
Perhaps you recall a story I shared last year, about the Methodist minister who quoted these words in the newspaper and was arrested for seditious libel. Back to my thesis, here we have another example of faith being something that if we try to explain it to people, they might struggle to understand. Seems in 1919 at least, this kind of faith might even get you arrested. Nonetheless, it is the expression of our faith in the public realm that may puzzle (and offend) precisely because God may call us to deliver an unpopular message to a people ill-disposed to accept it.
Another example would be the complexity and majesty of an encounter with God. Much ink has been spilled trying to understand the number of wings possessed by the seraphim, what the wings cover, and how this relates to the architecture of the Temple itself. And that’s just three verses of the hundreds that describe an encounter with God.
Fast-forward to the New Testament, and we meet God in Jesus Christ, and the encounter becomes more complex still. For every “I am” statement that tries to make plain our relationship to God in Jesus, there is another that leaves us shaking our heads. Treasure in a field, a dishonest steward, the fish with a drachma in its mouth—surely the Kingdom of God doesn’t need to be this complex?
By Matthew 13 the disciples have had enough. They ask, “Jesus, why do you speak to them in parables,’ meaning ‘we don’t have a hot clue what you’re saying.’ Jesus says, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them” and they likely did that wide-eyed thing people do when they are truly speechless. Then Jesus quoted the passage from Isaiah 6:
‘You will be ever hearing,
but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing,
but never perceiving.’
Thanks Jesus, thanks a lot. Faith should be something that if you try to explain to people, they will struggle to understand. The faith wasn’t terribly clear to the disciples, and they were there the whole time—right there. How much more will we struggle to describe a relationship and a set of beliefs and ultimately fail.
So this idea—that faith is something that if you try to explain it people will struggle to understand—often comes down to worldview. Consider the seraphim, who speak and begin to commission Isaiah by cleansing him with a hot coal from the purifying fire: “See,” they say, “this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
We begin each service with words of regret and concession—we concede who we are and what we tend to do. This reminds us first, that we have sins, and second, that our sins are forgiven. The parables of Jesus might be a confusing mess, but the message “your sins are forgiven” couldn’t be clearer. And Jesus’ need to remind people has an obsessive quality to it, because it’s God’s key theme too.
But the world struggles to understand this obsession. And by the time the self-esteem movement took hold, we struggled to understand it too. ‘That’s a real downer’ people said, or my favourite—’I didn’t do anything wrong this week.’ Really? A full week without a negative thought toward anyone? Were you in a coma?
Faith should be something that if you try to explain it, people will struggle to understand. And that includes faith in a God who is complex and mysterious, a God who stands with the poor and the oppressed (thank you Isaiah), and a God who forgives us even when we forget we need forgiveness. God is all these things and more, yet we struggle to express our faith—so what to do?
When I was in my late teens I became a Christian—and joined a tradition where 99% of new members arrive with nine months notice. Obviously I didn’t know the rules, and I struggled to describe this new thing that entered my life. Always being a “deep end of the pool” kinda person, I was invited to participate in a national gathering of youth, and prepared to set off with a lively mix of excitement and ignorance.
My minister at the time, Rev. Camilla, tried her very best to explain what was ahead, and the kind of experience I could expect. And then she gave me some of the best advice I’ve received: when you come back, don’t try to express what it felt like, because people won’t get it. Tell us instead what you learned, because this is something people may understand.
Back to explaining our faith—which by now I’ve convinced you is impossible—we might do well to focus on what we’ve learned rather than trying to explain the gift of faith. Faith (at its heart) is an experience, not a set of beliefs. It’s something you feel rather than reason out, thus making it difficult to share. Back to the wise Reverend: don’t try to express what it feels like, because people won’t get it. Instead, tell them what you’ve learned—something people might understand. And in telling them what you’ve learned, you just might tap into some experience of God they’ve already had, maybe part of a puzzle they’ve long tried to solve. Some examples:
I’ve learned that a sense of awe is the gateway to something more. Some have said (rather dismissively) that anyone can find God in a sunset (which may be true), but awe is everywhere if you look for it. Children, grandchildren, the miracle of good friends, stories of the past that fill the heart with wonder: all these can prompt awe. When something moves us to tears, we are tapping into a larger pool of awe that has sustained people of faith for generations.
I’ve learned that compassion forms invisible connections between us and others, between us and people we may never meet, and even between us and the earth itself. When we open ourselves to compassion—walking with others, understanding their story—we become as one. And this oneness, this ability to collapse the differences that divide us, allows us to enter a new way of being—God’s way of being.
I’ve learned that forgiveness is a practice: right up there with flossing and checking your blindspot. Done frequently enough, it almost feels easy. But it never is. We’re wired to remember slights and errors, so we don’t stumble into the same situation again. But life with others is messy, and we need forgiveness as frequently as we extend forgiveness, putting it at the centre of every relationship. That, of course, includes our relationship with God, who I think also forgives without overthinking it, and thank God for that.
With that in mind, I’ve learned that grace is at the heart of everything, an invisible force that gives forgiveness meaning, that transforms everything we receive into a gift, and reminds us that the unconditional still exists in a heavily conditional world. There are few things as satisfying as doing something that is met with the question “why are you doing this?” This is best met with a smile or a shrug, or a shrug-smile and let God do the rest.
Finally, I’ve learned that all of this is best expressed in community. For some, this means church, but there are countless forms of community, from the people you live with (or live near) to everyone who’s in the store with you when you’re buying milk. Awe, compassion, forgiveness, and grace feed community, and make it work, blessed by the very God we struggle to describe.
In the end, explaining what we’ve learned, or what we’re hoping to learn, or what we’re struggling to learn, is just another way of saying “Here I am, Lord. Send me!” God says “whom shall I send” into this messy, needy, love-deprived world, and we get to give our best shrug-smile and raise our hand. Amen.
posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 12:27 PM
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