(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
IN PROCESS IN PUBLIC Occasionally, I run into someone clearly wiser and more spiritually mature than me who says something like “I read all that you write.”
When I hear that, fear momentarily grips my heart.
Such people smile, and don’t judge. But if I can see my own foolishness in the recent past, such people can see it in my present condition. Being seen can be scary.
This poem is an attempt to deal with the embarrassment of being in process in public.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
KEEP THE LIGHT ON
[NOTE: Luke 8:4-18 has far more to it than I deal with in the following commentary. Also, one of my Facebook friends mentioned that she had dealt with the same passage, and largely come to the same conclusion as I did. You should read Laurie Mather’s well-written blog post.]
I didn’t always pay close attention in Sunday school. But if memory serves right, the “light under a bushel” motif was always taught either as a prod to keep witnessing, or as an encouragement to recognize and use our gifts and talents. It was all about what we can and should do with the good things we possess. They taught us a catchy little tune that probably did more damage than good.
Despite our Sunday school teachers’ excellent intentions, I currently doubt that they got Jesus’ meaning right, or that they understood how Luke uses the motif. Here’s what changed my thinking….
Recently, as I struggled through the Greek1 in Luke 8, a word kept popping up: ακούω. Hear! Listen! Luke points out that while telling the parable of the soils (that immediately precedes the “light under a bushel” illustration), Jesus interjected a word of urgency:
“As he said these things, he called out, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’”
Luke 8:8 ESV
Notice that “he called out.” That must have caught his listeners’ attention. It should catch ours as well. Let us hear.
Listening And Receptivity In Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the soils, some form of “listen” or “hear” is recurring. The characters in the parable hear the word with varying levels of receptivity.2 We’ve already seen that Jesus emphasized the need for his listeners to hear what he was saying.
After telling about the parable of the soils (Luke 8:4-15), Luke relates something Jesus said about lights, containers, beds, and lampstands (Luke 8:16-17). Given the way I had typically understood this “light under a bushel” motif, its use in these two verses struck me as a non-sequitur. That’s always a good sign that I’m missing the point. So I kept reading….
The form of the following verse suggests that the soils parable and the light under a bushel illustration were not disparate thoughts, but were supposed to be one cohesive section. Luke brings us to a logical conclusion of the section with verse 18 (notice my bolding):
“Take care thenhow you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”
Luke 8:18 ESV
In the concluding verse, we’re back to the matter of hearing, and a stern warning to those who aren’t listening well.
In “light” of this, how does the “light under a bushel” motif fit in Jesus’ flow of thought? Is he suddenly, inexplicably talking about witnessing or using our hidden talents?
My tentative conclusion is that Jesus has not interrupted himself. When he talks about lights and how they are either minimized or maximized, he’s still talking about receptivity. Our hearts, like various soils, can receive or reject God’s life-changing word. We need to LISTEN well. Similarly, when the light of God’s word is illuminating our hearts, we need to LOOK well. We need to receive—respond to—what we’re being shown.
Am I ready for God to shed light on my heart? Am I receptive to his correction? Am I prepared to remove the rocks and weeds that he reveals so that better things can grow?
Maybe that’s the flow of thought in Luke 8. I could be wrong. I’ll keep the light on.
ABOUT THE POEM The Luke 8 account has two settings: outside and inside. Outside, there’s the soils by the path; inside, there’s the room that’s being illumined. That’s one of two reasons why I used “without, within” in my poem. It’s also the case that some of our sin is externally obvious (rocks, weeds), and some is less obvious (like shallow soil).
Since I always doubt myself…. Here’s a question for future consideration: is the soils parable really about sinful responses?
1 I rarely ever admit to having any facility with Greek. Two reasons: 1) despite having studied Greek three years in seminary, I don’t consider myself anything above a “beginner” and 2) even if I were fluent, I wouldn’t mention it because my real goal is to encourage others to study the Bible in whatever their mother tongue might be. I don’t want anyone getting the impression that Greek is necessary. Frankly, the only reason it helps me at this point is that it slows my brain down enough to notice things. I could probably turn the text upside down and read it in a mirror and get the same benefit!
2 The fact that “believe” and “be saved” are used in Jesus’ explanation of the soils parable may seem to limit its meaning or application to evangelism. I suspect that’s too narrow, that the parable applies at any point in the run up to producing good fruit. [This begs for exploration: the relationship of being fruitful and salvation, or of not being fruitful and needing salvation. Helpfully, the cursing of the fruitless fig tree may challenge, deepen, and expand our understanding]
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)
Commentary
This is a dark thought. It compares our occupations with those of the rats that occasionally make noises in my attic. They don’t do anything useful for me, the homeowner. Rather, I always fear that they’re doing damage.
But the poem is also based in part on the hope of an awakening. More and more, I see people asking, “Why this infernal, fruitless gnawing? Is there not something better to do with life?”
Obviously, part of the problem this poem reflects on is a lack of community. Isolated from others, we are hard-pressed to find our purpose.
I’m not going to say this is an easy poem. I wrote it, but am still trying to understand it! This may be a clue: I suspect that what my sister likes about the beach is what I like about the alpine trail: a vista — a perspective — that heightens or broadens our hope for godliness.
Here’s another way of expressing the longing:
Won’t it be fine When refining’s done, When what we love And what He loves At last are one!
–Brad Hepp, 3/6/2022
Reality This may be a simplistic view of religious hermits…. They live out the wish expressed in this poem. Removed from the irritations and challenges of society, they may think that they are being holy. But they are just living a fantasy. It is in dealing with irritations and challenges that God refines us and in our response that we are privileged to bring Him glory.
Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth’s smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence,—a paradox Which comforts while it mocks,— Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.
from Robert Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” The first stanza was my Dad’s favorite; the second is my favorite
A friend encouraged me to pay close attention to the deep emotion I feel whenever I encounter certain stories. One of those stories is what Luke tells about the — presumably — aged Simeon. When Joseph and Mary encounter Simeon in the temple, they let him hold their baby, Jesus. Simeon says,
Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.
Luke 2:29-32
Why does that passage get to me every time I read it? Simeon seems to be satisfied. Everything’s great, right?
No.
More than once, I have been listening through Luke while walking at the lake. When I get to this passage, I tear up so much that anyone crossing paths with me would know something’s “wrong.” Simeon is satisfied, but I am…. What? Dissatisfied? I infer from the passage that Simeon will soon die, and his impending death figures into my response. Simeon is ready for death because he knows now that all will eventually be right in his world: the Messiah has come. Why does that satisfy him, but not me?
Different Story, Similar Feeling Today, I heard a story that brought the same feeling, though with a little less intensity. The story was about a shy Irish composer named Ina Boyle (1889-1967). Ms. Boyle’s compositions were rarely played during her lifetime, but have been rediscovered fifty years after her death, and are now being played by orchestras.
When I hear a story like Ina Boyle’s or Simeon’s an image looms large in my mind: a great gulf, a void, a chasm separating promise and fulfillment. It’s death. Death and the time that has passed — and will pass — until the Resurrection.
This Poem: Somehow Remembrance… So, today, when the great gulf came to mind, I asked myself, “What spans that gulf?” The picture that came to mind is strange: a refrigerator door, call it God’s refrigerator door. There he affixes the precious artwork of His children. Time passes, but He doesn’t forget our bright hopes and expectations, our responses to His obvious goodness. Somehow, God’s remembrance answers — will answer — the sadness I feel about mortality, the vapor which is our current state.
Pat Answers? I could throw pat answers at myself all day long. Don’t even bother. One of my jobs as a poet is to be a spokesman for the feelings in search of truth.
In explaining this poem to one of my sons, I put it this way…. I’m an Elder, and so there are people that I will someday have to answer for. I’m not sure how that will be. I picture the Lord asking what I did to help these people survive their spiritual battles. I may answer, “Well, I tried, but You know… they didn’t want help.” And then the questions I dread: “Did YOU want my help? Did you ASK for my help?”
Silent battles rage around me. People I love, people for whom I must answer to God, are taking fire. The one most effective way for me to protect them is prayer. Instead, I find passive, unhelpful ways to fill my time.
As I wrote in one lament, “I scroll, I stroll, I scrawl.” I do anything but engage in the intense duty of intercession. My son could identify with that mindless, unthreatening hamster wheel of social media and other time-wasters. Can you identify?
Silent battles rage around me. But I choose to be distracted by other things, even news of noisy battles raging elsewhere: foreign wars.
“Here is your duty, man.” I can almost hear the Spirit say. “Here, not there.” But the news distracts; it almost drowns out the Spirit’s intense, insistent, discomforting voice.
I think most people have at one time or another experienced pain that feels strangely pleasant. For instance, when you find a way — perhaps with a friend’s help — to apply pressure to that knot in your back. For some, there is pleasure in the pain of a red-hot pepper. Well, recently, I have noticed that I am strangely drawn to sadness, and feel a certain pleasure in its presence.
In one of my recent poems, I depicted sadness as a lady who has me sabbath in her house. She feeds me and urges me to “rest and weep.” In the commentary for that poem, I suggested that the process I am in is one of becoming more compassionate. I’m pretty sure that’s fundamentally true.
But in the poem above, I ask if the reason for this phase (I guess it’s a phase) is that I need to fully recognize and steel myself against Satan’s lies. The emotion of sadness helps me better comprehend what I’m looking at in a fallen world. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be, no matter what anyone might say.
When I contemplate oppression, poverty, and death, it’s hard to imagine a future world where these are eradicated. It seems that everywhere I look in this current world, wealth is amassed at someone else’s expense. In a generally prosperous culture, that’s not always easy to see, but I’m learning to connect the dots.
How could it work any other way? I believe it will some day, but how? That’s what the last stanza of my poem addresses. When the all-powerful Creator has restored the world to its original design, then my questions will be answered.
February 26, 2023 Additional Comments:
[This part I barely understand, so bear with me. If it’s too dense, skip to the last paragraph]
In “The Crucifixion,” Fleming Rutledge writes about a “PARADOX: THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN AS JOYFUL GOOD NEWS.” It’s a startling claim, but Rutledge makes a good case for it. Later in that chapter, she writes the following: “The action of God’s grace precedes our consciousness of sin, so that we perceive the depth of our own participation in sin’s bondage, simultaneously with the recognition of the unconditional love of Christ, which is perfect freedom. We recognize that love, moreover, not from the depths of the hell we were bent on creating for ourselves, but from the perspective of the heaven that God is preparing for us.”
Over the last few years, I have increasingly felt this strange pleasure at recognizing what a wretch I am, not only on the basis of my own sinfulness, but also on the basis of my being PART of a sinful humanity. This strange sensation is something I tried to explain with the attached poem, which I wrote exactly one year ago. The reason that I offered then was surely right in part. But it didn’t fully account for the pleasant sadness.
So, Rutledge—and other wise souls—are helping me understand the pleasant sadness.
[This part may be easier to understand, as it relies on imagination more than on theology.]
I picture myself on a long hike with Jesus. Naturally, the trail we’re on is along the sides of some mountain in the Rockies. We can see forever. Conversation turns to why Jesus had to die for me. It was my sin. He goes into detail. But we keep walking. He’s with me on the trail because he loves me. It’s obvious. He’s telling me these things because he loves me. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. He wants me to know that he knows fully well what kind of rotten friend I am. Amazingly, it doesn’t feel like scolding. Through talking with me about my sin, Jesus produces in me a pleasant sadness. He reassures me I need not fear his rejection some day when the truth comes out. He took care of everything. Everything.
Recently, one of my ongoing projects has been peeling back layers of personal, church, and world history in order to better comprehend this world’s fallenness. I felt a certain compulsion about it. I needed to feel sadness about the many insults to God’s purpose and His image in man. I needed to feel sorrow about ways that I participate in those insults.
On a recent Sunday evening, I hit pause on the project. I thought, “Enough of this for now. I’m not feeling the compulsion.”
Was I done with exploring sadness? I don’t think so. It was just a rest. My heart still has chambers of ungodly anger that must be flooded instead with compassion. Like the Pharisees who despised the Lord of the Sabbath, I look for fault with His followers. I treasure offense at His disciples’ trespasses. Like the Pharisees, I need to understand what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (see Matthew 12). Then, perhaps, I will not be so quick to condemn.
SO, WEEP SOME MORE I had just finished writing this poem (and was pretty broken up by the process of writing it) when Susan came in and told me that an old friend — a GOOD and brilliant man — now has Alzheimer’s. My sadness turned to sobbing.
“Now rest, and weep, And rest, and weep, And rest, and weep Some more.”
I can’t help but think that this season in the house of Sadness is what I should expect as a follower of Jesus. It’s on the path to becoming compassionate, like He is compassionate.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
This poem is about the “end” or purpose of life, and whether or not we can achieve that purpose when our numbered days are few.
We are not Jesus Christ. But God invites us to identify with Him very, very deeply. I suppose He’s pleased for us to compare ourselves with Jesus when pondering the very little time that remains to any of us.
Jesus began His public ministry around age 30, and lived another 3 or so years. So, he began his public ministry ten-elevenths through his earthly life. Imagine all the ways Jesus could have faithfully reflected God the Father, all the healing, preaching, and loving he could have done with a few more years! But I have to assume that three was enough.
How About Me? The amount of character development and spiritual growth that I have experienced over the last three years astounds me. That’s not bragging. In fact, it seems more a sad admission of how many decades I have wasted than anything else! This development leaves me suspecting–or hoping–that God has something surprising for me to do with the time that remains in my life. How could that be? How could anything a 61-year old man (62 this summer) do that matters in Eternity?
I don’t know. He loves me deeply. He wants the best for me. As old as I am, He’s still my older brother. He says that in one of my favorite passages:
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.
Hebrews 2:10-12
The Background Photo For several years now, my most profound thinking has happened while I was on long hikes, largely near or around White Rock Lake. The other day, I was thinking about what I have written in the poem just as my hike reached the area pictured in the background photo. I took the photo initially thinking of using it to say this:
Here’s the path That I in former days, On longer walks, Often saw And wondered ’bout.
It’s more familiar now Than what I knew When time and strength Had bound me To my former ways.
But then I wrote a better(?) poem about “The End of Life,” and needed a background photo!
This poem came to mind as I listened to a performance of “Benedictus” by 2Cellos. I had heard the tune many times in the past, but never paid attention to its title.
This time was different. I was starting into a nap, being soothed by beautiful music. I had just returned from a public event where I felt horribly alienated. Frankly, a friendless freak.
As the tune started playing through my ear buds, I literally heard a slow faint beat, not of drums, but perhaps of cello bows changing direction as they sustained and grew the opening strain. Perhaps it was the bows, or perhaps it was the pulse in my ears from elevated blood pressure. I’ll have to listen with good speakers to figure that out. In any case, my heart was attuned to the playing of the cellos.
What is “Benedictus”? Since I was listening on my smart phone, I did a quick search for what this Latin word might reference. There were two answers, both from excruciatingly beautiful passages in the Gospels. The first is from Zechariah’s words “Blessed be…” when Zechariah was moved by the birth of his son, John. We know him as “John the Baptist,” who prepared the way for Jesus:
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David…
Luke 1:68-69
Such high expectations!
The next “benedictus” is from Matthew 21, where the story is told of Jesus’ “triumphal entry” to Jerusalem, just as his Passion Week began:
And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Matthew 21:9
Such high expectations!
The Meantime Jesus’ first coming was full of hope, both at its beginning, and at its end. But he ascended to the Father, and has not finished putting things in order, restoring His creation. Now, as we await his second coming, we are in the meantime. Someone has referred to it as the “in-between time.” I thought of using that phrase in the title, but opted for “meantime.” This is a time in-between, but it is also a time of meanness, a very mean time. Even those whom Jesus has brought into his family can feel rejected and lonely. As George MacDonald said somewhere, “The end of the Maker’s dream is not this.”
The final line of this poem is intentionally ambiguous. First, it could serve as an excuse: given the amount of “work” we have to do, there is little time for the leisurely activity of “considering” things like flowers. Second, it could — and does — serve as an indictment: the “work” most of us really have to do is work on our own hearts, being more obedient to God. He instructs us to be reflective, but we often are not. We’re too busy to take a few hours of the week — much less a whole day — to cease from labor and gain new perspective. You see?
So, have you ever stopped to consider the lilies? Do it! Look not only at how they bloom, but how they grow, and how they prepare for new growth when the bloom is spent. Pick off a spent blossom and untwist the drying petals. Ask yourself why they twisted. Are they protecting something precious? Or is ugliness all you can see?
September 14, 2021… A friend told me today that his friend, Dr. Carisa Ash, had passed away at a young age. I didn’t know her, so I looked her up, and found this video. Carisa got it. I look forward to meeting her.
This poem comes out of struggling with what constitutes love for the Creator. Is it only fixation on signs of his return? Will we even recognize his voice then if we cannot recognize it now?
[NOTE: the following may be gobbledygook. Perhaps I’ll wake up early tomorrow morning and do major edits to the post, or even take it offline. That occasionally happens. Let’s just say for now that I’m “thinking out loud.” I’m trying to put words to something I sense more than understand]
Not Just an Expression
Nature expresses the majesty of the Creator. King David spoke of that in Psalm 19:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky displays his handiwork. 2 Day after day it speaks out; night after night it reveals his greatness. 3 There is no actual speech or word, nor is its voice literally heard. 4 Yet its voice echoes throughout the earth; its words carry to the distant horizon.
Creation and the Creator are not the same thing. That would be pantheism. HOWEVER, let me suggest that creation bears the same relationship to God as the soundwaves of speech bear to the speaker: they are his expression. When a child hears her father say, “I love you,” she doesn’t look around and say, “How curious… sound waves emanated from somewhere and landed in my ears.” If she separates the sound waves from the speaker at all, it’s only to say, “Those sound waves tell me that Daddy loves me.”
Nature expresses the majesty of our loving Father. Perhaps it would be better to say that in creating the universe, our Father spoke to us, He expressed his glory (intelligence, kindness, power, beauty, love), and creation is the “sound waves” of His voice.
Are we impressed by what He has expressed? That’s not an idle question.
“They’re Just Flowers”
Long ago and far away, I accompanied two friends on a long hike. Our path entered and followed an arroyo. At one place the walls of the arroyo were covered with tropical flowers. “How beautiful!” said one friend. I agreed. “They’re just flowers!” said the other friend. To this day, I think of that second friend’s response with pain and sadness. God’s beauty was there speaking to us in those flowers, expressing His powerful love. But the second friend was not impressed. He seemed to make no connection between creation and the Creator, between the expression — the “words” — and the Speaker. For him, it seems, Daddy wasn’t saying “I love you.” It was just flowers, random sound waves from who knows where.
My son Joshua helped illustrate this poem. Let me first clarify that his artwork (and this style in general) is NOT the problem addressed by the poem. In fact, the process of drawing such a complex design can afford time and mental space to be contemplative, to “listen, feel, and face.”
Here’s how I tentatively explained the poem to Joshua (you may notice that I’m still struggling to understand this poem myself)….
“a tendency divine” God designed us to relate to Himself, with creativity, a desire to work and build. But as with so many other things, we pervert those qualities. We abuse the qualities. Instead of finding a balance of work and rest, we work all the time. God offers a Sabbath, promising that He’ll supply what we would have produced in that period of rest. Instead, we work straight through. We also let the qualities draw attention to the creation instead of to the Creator. While we could stop to enjoy the complexity of His creations, we instead busy ourselves building and admiring our own creations. In a hundred other ways, we say to God, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m kind of busy supplying for myself, expressing myself, making sure that others recognize how great I am. Catch you later, pal.”
“To fill each void” Jesus wasn’t impressed with the elaborate prayers of religious would-be leaders. He taught his disciples to pray simple prayers of dependence. He wasn’t impressed with the self-satisfied, self-righteous, and judgmental religion of many grown ups, so He taught his discples they’d better come to Him with the simple dependance and delight that characterize children.
“We fear” Why do we blow off the opportunity to breathe, to take it easy with our Heavenly Father? One reason may be that we don’t trust Him to prevent catastrophe. We think our security depends on us. Approaching the rim of a Grand Canyon, we doubt that He’ll hold our hand, and so we run back to the safety of the Visitor Center. There, surrounded by gee-gaws of plastic, we need not fear the hardness of rocks in the chasm below.
“In time, the power fails” But God is a good Father. One way or another, He’ll take us to the rim. It may be when a storm damages the electrical grid. It may be when age, disease, or exhaustion leave us dependant on Him.
Grand Canyon photo by “Pexels” on Pixabay. I personally have never been to the Grand Canyon. It seems like a vast depression to me. Perhaps someday….
