FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: O Lord God, enliven and preserve your church with your perpetual mercy. Without your help, we mortals will fail; remove far from us everything that is harmful, and lead us toward all that gives life and salvation, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
and I will observe it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart.
Lead me in the path of your commandments,
for I delight in it.” Psalm 119:33-35.
Those who have the patience to read this 176 verse Psalm from beginning to end know that it is an extended prayer for deeper understanding of Torah. The entire Psalm revolves constantly around the Torah experienced by the psalmist as reliable guide, faithful companion, relentless judge, purifying fire and source of endless joy. It weaves together the life experiences of friendship and betrayal, triumph and tragedy, grief and joy, fear and faith, the challenges of youth and the approach of old age. The psalm paints a magnificent portrait of life woven into and shaped by Torah and the psalmist’s desire for an ever deeper understanding of it.
Much is lost in translation through the rendering of “Torah” as “law” in our English bibles. Torah is far more than a dry set of laws, statutes and ordinances. For Israel, Torah is the shape of the covenant; “the mode of God’s life giving presence.” Brueggemann, Walter, The Message of the Psalms, Augsburg Old Testament Studies (c. 1984 by Augsburg Publishing House), p. 40. It is “a launching pad form which to mount an ongoing conversation with God through daily experience.” Ibid. p. 41. Still, “[i]t is Yahweh who is the portion of the speaker (v. 57), not the Torah nor one’s keeping of the Torah.” Ibid. The psalm affirms Torah as the medium through which prayer is made possible. As a rabbi friend once remarked, “Torah is the rope in an extended tug-of-war. We continue to pull on it because we firmly believe there is One on the other end with whom we are in constant tension.”
The psalmist’s understanding of spiritual maturation through engagement with Torah runs counter to our American modernist aversion to rules, regulations and “formal ritual” as antithetical to true spirituality. “I’m spiritual, not religious,” a visitor to my church once told me-and she was hardy the first or only one I have met expressing that sentiment. Of course, that statement makes no rational sense on its face. If you are talking about spirit or spirituality, that is inescapably religions. So, too, what is religion about if not spirituality? I understand, of course, that many people seeking spiritual engagement have not been able to find it in the church. I also agree that faith and spiritual growth involve more than mere ascent to creedal and doctrinal formulae, rote recitation of liturgies and going through the actions of worship. You cannot swim in an Olympic sized rectangular depression if it doesn’t hold any water. On the other hand, 660,430 gallons of water dumped randomly on the ground is not likely to materialize as a working pool. If you are going to swim, you need both water and something to hold it, give it form, depth and direction.
This is where religious practices and disciplines come in. They are not, to be sure, ends in themselves. Think of them rather as well worn paths which generations have followed faithfully. They are maps revealing the lay of the land and giving us a sense of where we are. They are the means by which the “highways to Zion” are engraved upon our hearts through the recitation of liturgies, the singing of hymns, the reading of scriptures and faithful preaching. These practices are not static, remaining unchaged throughout history. Like a snowball rolling downhill, they accumulate richer and deeper meanings as they are contemplated and re-interpreted by each succeeding generation. Religious practices unite us with past generations and current members of our faith communities. They give us a language with which we can share, discuss, question and explore this ultimately inexplicable mystery we worship. When we engage in religious practices with our whole selves, they form in us the “mind of Christ” so that the “body of Christ” can become visible to the world.
The God we worship is as complex as the world God created. A lifetime is not long enough even to scratch the surface of that mystery we call God. For this reason, I am not particularly concerned that my congregation’s worship might not be intelligible to someone unfamiliar with our faith or that they might not be able “to relate to it” after attending one of our Sunday Eucharists. I would not expect such a person to understand us after little more than an hour. Our scriptures, creeds and liturgy are deep, layered and complex. Like everything else worth learning, becoming fluent in the language of faith takes time, patience and commitment. I don’t apologize for that. Physicists do not apologize for the complexity of the universe. Why should we apologize for the complexity of the One who made it? Language teachers do not apologize to their students because conjugating verbs and declining nouns is difficult and boring. Why should we apologize because understanding the language of faith requires the learning of narrative, poetry, song, symbol and ritual? If Christianity were something I could pick up after sitting through a single worship service, I wouldn’t be interested in it. Any faith that can be distilled on a bumper sticker isn’t worth giving up a peaceful Sunday morning with a good bagel, cup of coffee and the New York Times.
Here is a poem by Howard Nemerov about learning, the creative tension between study and experience that might reflect in some measure our psalmists dance with the Torah.
Learning the Trees
Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.
The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.
But best of all are the words that shape the leaves—
Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform—
And their venation—palmate and parallel—
And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate.
Sufficiently provided, you may now
Go forth to the forests and the shady streets
To see how the chaos of experience
Answers to catalogue and category.
Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree
May differ among themselves more than they do
From other species, so you have to find,
All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”
Example, the catalpa in the book
Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three
Around the stem; the one in front of you
But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;
Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.
It may be weeks before you see an elm
Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,
A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.
Still, pedetemtim as Lucretius says,
Little by little, you do start to learn;
And learn as well, maybe, what language does
And how it does it, cutting across the world
Not always at the joints, competing with
Experience while cooperating with
Experience, and keeping an obstinate
Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.
Think finally about the secret will
Pretending obedience to Nature, but
Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,
Dividing up the world to conquer it,
And think also how funny knowledge is:
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.
Source: The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (c. 1977 by Howard Nemerov, pub. by The University of Chicago Press). Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) was an American poet. He was twice Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. He also won the National Book Award for Poetry, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize. Nemerov was raised in New York City where he attended the Society for Ethical Culture’s Fieldston School. He later commenced studies at Harvard University where he earned his BA. During World War II he served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force as well as the United State Air Force. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Lieutenant and thereafter returned to New York to resume his writing career. Nemerov began teaching, first at Hamilton College and subsequently at Bennington College and Brandeis University. He ended his teaching career at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was elevated to Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence from 1969 until his death in 1991. Nemerov’s poems demonstrated a consistent emphasis on thought, the process of thinking and on ideas themselves. Nonetheless, his work always displayed the full range of human emotion and experience. You can find out more about Howard Nemerov and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 