Thursday, May 2, 2024
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More tales of two cities
When God tests me, do I react by testing God? No! But I realize that often I don’t even know what I’m doing. Peter had something to say to his new Christian brothers about this:
My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the Holy Spirit just as he did us. With no distinction between us and them, by faith God purified their hearts.
This should not be a problem, but just as we sometimes feel like protecting our tribe or encounter others who practice closed Communion (for example), spending our time with only the few and the chosen, the Jews were unsure about how to relate to their new Greek brothers and sisters.
Peter has a question for them.
Why are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke? What’s more, a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
Peter was beginning to understand the freedom all of them had from the Law, now that Jesus had come and replaced the old yoke of sacrifices with his own crucifixion and resurrection. Please, do not put that yoke back on our necks. As Jesus said so clearly, “MY yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I need not test God. He is beyond any test I devise, although I think sometimes he tolerates my disbelief. Alfred Hitchcock in his film I Confess, rakes a Canadian priest through the coals of accusation and contempt because the priest refuses to reveal the confession of a murderer. When the murderer frames the priest for that same murder, the priest maintains his silence. Because of this the movie is inspiring, in spite of the relentless selfishness of the very bad guy. For once, in this film redemptive violence is refused. Fragrant flowers sprout from the darkened soil, and we are uplifted.
Charles Dickens explored an alternative to redemptive violence in A Tale of Two Cities. In his books he forced his characters to make choices, some selfish and some not. They sought revenge, or they did not. A Tale of Two Cities begins:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …
We need not test God as we decide which way we are going. Will I seek revenge of one kind or another when I am wronged? Or will I look long enough to find a better path? In Dickens’ book, Sydney Carton found one. The book comes to a very satifying conclusion with his soliloquy as he stands on the platform of the guillotine. His words end this way:
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
Annie Dillard, who won a Pulitzer Prize at age 29, wrote about writing: “Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.” Dillard herself, and Dickens, and so many choose to sit on the floor of that meeting place, waiting for words. God provides them to those he loves.
Which has always been and will always be all of us.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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