©Suzanne Grimmett
Is transformation of the human heart possible?
With the rise of fake news, disinformation and the division between people increased through the silos of social media, we might wonder if there is any possibility of people listening to one another again. The reading from the letter to the Ephesians describes the way for us to grow together in Christ as to ‘speak the truth in love’. This could well prompt us to ask in this age, “What is truth?” and at this time we may also wonder, “And where is love in its speaking?”
We also know that facts alone do not seem to have the power to correct untruths. If you have seen the two recent Four Corners episodes on the US election campaign, you would see plenty of examples (which I found terrifying), of more information being powerless to change opinion. Christian spirituality understands this deeply, with Jesus so often speaking about hearing without comprehending, seeing but never perceiving. We need a change of heart, not just of message. It is also why Jesus elsewhere speaks of such a transformation being a pearl beyond price or suggests selling everything we have to find that treasure hidden in the field- to have our whole way of seeing and hearing transformed is to make the world new again, breaking the power of evil and overcoming the separation that keeps us from each other and from God.
Addressing evil with the power of truth is what we find in the ongoing story of King David we hear today from 2 Samuel. And what an incredible narrative it is! We find the prophet Nathan, inspired by God to speak truth to the power of the king, but doing it in such a way that David, perhaps for the first time, sees the terrible truth of who he is and what he has done. Last week we heard the story of the rape of Bathsheba and then David’s murderous covering up of his deeds in sending her honourable husband to die on the front line of the battlefield. The prophet Nathan then comes to the king not with accusations, but with a story.
“There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor,” begins the prophet.
The poor man has a ewe lamb with whom he shared everything and loved like a daughter. The rich man, not wanting to rob his own flocks, takes instead the poor man’s lamb and kills it to feed a travelling guest.
King David is aghast at the tale. We might imagine him, full of sympathy for the poor man and the injustice and cruelty of the rich man’s actions. With his heart open, David has listened, he has heard and he has identified with the poor man in the story. With passion he cries out, “This man deserves to die!”
You have to love the drama here. Can you visualise the scene? The prophet Nathan… turning swiftly and suddenly in his robes, moving from story-teller to judge and pointing the shaking finger of justice at the horrified David and pronouncing, “You are the man!”
Why do you think this approach helped David to see when accusations alone may not have changed anything?
I think our hearts change when we really hear and identify with the pain of another. I think a story can take us away from our attachments to particular identities and ideologies and allow us to meet one another in that field beyond the place where we are right. I am reminded of the beautiful poem of that name by Yehuda Amichai;
The Place Where We Are Right
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.
Jesus used stories again and again to dig up that ground, taking us beyond binary thinking, disturbing our comfortable assumptions about ourselves and our easy judgement of others. I think the prophet Nathan comes like a mighty plough to David’s casual assumptions of his entitlement and self-interest. To really listen to another is to de-centre yourself, give up your need to be right and allow the perspective of the other to guide you into a different way of seeing. A current example of this is the listening process that informed the apology offered by our Synod to LGBTIQ people this year. Two years of hearing the stories of those who have been discriminated against and marginalised by the Church happened before the wording of this apology was brought back to Synod. During the notices I will share with you a video released this week of the Archbishop offering that apology on behalf of our Diocese.
But we may still be left with the central question raised earlier, “What is truth and what does it mean to speak this with love when there are so many different points of view?”
Here I believe our Ephesians passage could help us. I love that the lectionary pairs this reading with the story of Nathan’s blistering truth speaking to King David as sometimes this passage from Ephesians has been used to suppress the prophetic voice. The Anglican Communion can suffer at times from being full of nice people acting in nice ways, and the call to unity that we hear in this letter can be misheard as a call to never criticise anyone or any part of the church’s actions. But the command we hear from Jesus is not to be nice to everyone but to love one another. I find it curious that “niceness” can sometimes actually be related to less love and commitment. After all, we work hard with those we love to support them and to challenge them sometimes about their choices because we want to see them flourish. But why have that difficult conversation if you don’t believe someone is really part of the family? This Ephesians text would say that anything that would draw a line between us and another is to deny the truth of Christ indwelling creation and holding all in relationship. God in Christ has already unified the cosmos and our task as followers of Jesus’ way is to live into that already existing unity. This is the truth that the writer of Ephesians wants us to hear loudly and clearly, repeating the word “one” over and again; ‘one body and one Spirit… one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.’ As Thomas Merton said, “In one sense we are always travelling… in another sense we have already arrived.”[1] In a world which is divided and full of suffering, I find this a statement of great hope. Nothing can undo the victory of Christ in overcoming all separation and revealing the hidden wholeness of all creation.
The letter to the Ephesians does not suggest our task is easy nor deny the truth that we struggle to see evidence of that unity. But it does give us the assurance that we are ‘equipped’ already to be peace-bringers and love-makers in a world yet to live into the full dignity of every human being and honour of the whole creation. The word “equip” comes from the Greek meaning “the setting of a bone” and the verb “to restore”, “to reconcile”, “to create.” Perhaps as we grow up beyond “niceness” to deeper empathy, truth-telling and commitment, relying always on the grace which can help us begin again and again in love for one another, we may live into the unity which has been already prepared for us. Perhaps we may together dig up the ground that is hard and trampled, restoring relationship, being reconciled in love and creating the spaces and communities where the whispers of that hidden wholeness may be heard.
+Amen.
[1] Thomas Merton, A Thomas Merton Reader (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974),513.