BE VERY CAREFUL

 

Fortunate are the merciful, for they shall experience mercy in return.

Makarioi hoi eleèmones, hoti autoi eleèthèsontai.

 

The Greek text translates with eleos the Hebrew chesèd (ch as in ‘loch’), one of the three words that could become English ‘mercy’. In one sense it can mean ‘kindness’, but not, like praios, as a character trait but rather as a form of action. Chesed is taking care of someone else’s need: Jonathan protects David from Saul in an act of chesed. It is always seen as reciprocal: someone who receives chesed from another is expected to return it. 

 

So this Beatitude does not really introduce something new or unexpected, but rather reminds the audience of the way conventional relationships ought to be. It is really a form of ‘do as you would be done by’. And yet it goes beyond that also. God shows chesed to his people, both collectively, as the people of Israel whom he feeds in the wilderness, and individually in persons such as Abraham, Jacob, David and Job. For human beings it is of course impossible to return this to the Father himself; but He expects them in return to show it to others. So there may well also in this Beatitude be a sense that those who are merciful to others may receive the mercy of the Father, just as in the Lord’s Prayer those who forgive others’ debts to them may receive the forgiveness of their own debts to the Father.

 

In Psalm 85/86:11, ‘Mercy and truth are met together’, it is chesed that is joined to emet; and the ‘truth’ that is also characteristic of the Father is not so much ‘truth’ in the sense of conformity to a factual norm as ‘truth’ in the sense of faithfulness, of being ‘true’ to a loved one, one’s lord, or one’s country. So if that is joined to chesed, it means that Fidelity is joined to Care. 

 

It is both interesting and useful to pursue these words a little, because the English word ‘mercy’ has a connotation of opposition to ‘justice’ which in this case is not present. Our ‘mercy’ is usually closer to ‘compassion’, which translates the Hebrew racham/rachamim. The latter is word that does not imply as much reciprocity as does chesed: its root is linked to the Hebrew word for ‘womb’, hence the otherwise curious English term ‘the bowels of compassion’. So in the case of the fifth Beatitude, one might almost translate the text as ‘Fortunate are those who care, for they shall experience care in return’. And one should always remember that this does not refer merely, or even especially, to human interactions only, but to the very real Care and aid we children receive from our Father in heaven, and which we must pass on.  

NOT SO TEMPTING

Oscar Wilde said “I can resist anything except temptation.”

In composing the universal prayer he would later teach his disciples, Yeshua had dealt with forgiveness; now he came to closure. Should he let the prayer trail away with just one more petition, reinforcing a downward movement from the grandeur of the Name? Or should he let it climb to a final and different height, a second peak? The daily bread petition was about trust; the forgiveness petition created a parallel of responsibility. Where now? What was the line?

He decided not to pursue the “as we forgive” implication but to continue the theme of trust and need. The opening grandly affirms God’s power; the petitions show our corresponding weakness and our dependence on the gifts of his love. We need, and trust him to provide from day to day, the basics of our life; we need forgiveness, as well as the capacity to forgive. What else do we need?

And suddenly, Abraham swam into his mind. Not the one who welcomed angels; not the Friend of God; the Abraham who was told to cut his only son’s throat and obeyed, up to the very end. Yeshua shivered, as always when he thought of that trial. And look at Job: there the Father himself had allowed Shaitan, the eternal Adversary, by way of a test of faith to have his way with a favoured human almost beyond bearing. There were giants in those days, he thought.

Looking at his brothers, at Ya’akov, Yosef, Yehuda and young Shimon, he knew that they could not stand up to such commands; and the next petition wrote itself. “Do not,” he prayed with great intensity, “force us – little ones, no patriarchs or Jobs -- into [such a] trial”, and almost automatically there followed, “but deliver us from the Adversary”. For ever since Job, it had been he, the fallen angel, who subjects men to the unbearable; he it had been who crows and rejoices when they fall, and receives them gleefully with outstretched claws. His dream of revenge is never-ending; his understanding is cosmic and his wiles devastating. Merely obeying God’s commandments and praying does not put men beyond his reach: only the Father himself, by an active intervention, can deliver the wretched human race from that vile intelligence.

Image: Laurent de la Hyre, "Abraham Sacrificing Isaac" (1650)

PRAYING FOR ANASTASIA, OR, FISH-HOOKS REVISITED

"Human freedom is an essential, aspect of God's creation and as such [J.R.] Lucas argues that there must be an infinity of possible plans. He likens God's providence to the Persian rugmakers who start at one end of a carpet while their children start at the other: the skill of the father is able to accommodate the children's work to create a rug of great beauty." (James Wood, "The Theology of Prayer and Intercession")

 I have written earlier on what to me is the perennial problem of intercessory and petitionary prayer: what can one properly ask for, and what is the meaning of praying for others? The answer to the second question must depend on the way the first is answered; and both, as Lee Rayfield suggests, depend on one’s concept of, and one’s relation to, God. Several theologians have pointed out that early in the Old Testament, petitions to God played out in the language of commerce, of the market-place: the great example is the irresistible story of Abraham’s bargaining with God for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha. (What is sometimes left out is the sequel: even though God acceded to Abraham’s final request to be merciful if even ten just men were found there, the cities did end up being destroyed. Clearly there was no minyan. But more relevant is the fact that Abraham did stop at ten, and did leave the decision up to God.)

            Since the coming of Jesus, however, the language of petition has been the language of love. Jesus taught us to call God Abba, Father: not obvious, when you think of Him as the Creator of the entire universe now revealed by Hubble. He taught us how to pray, how to ask, and suggested we do it as simply as a child asks its father for a bun. He also told us that if and when we ask, and ask insistently, we will receive (though he did not go into detail about what and how we will receive). Moreover, he showed us how he himself prayed: and, as one theologian pointed out, the most relevant of his prayers for this question is in Gethsemane, when he prayed God to let the cup of the Cross pass from him – “yet not as I will but as Thou wilt”.

            Which, of course, leads us to micro-management, and to Huck Finn’s fish-hooks. Does God micro-manage the world? In one sense I don’t think so. Jesus tells us that He sees the fall of every sparrow; but He doesn’t prevent it. Magic may stop the arrow dead in its flight; but God does not. On the other hand, I don’t think God stays aloof from the beautiful watch He has made and wound up. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and theologian, has reminded us that the Deist (and sometimes atheist) view of God is based on a mechanistic universe, and that in a quantum universe, where uncertainty plays a major role, a far more dynamic and subtle view of God is possible.

            We do not, usually, receive fish-hooks if we pray for them, though sometimes we do – which should make us think seriously about the relation between petitionary prayer and thanksgiving. But what interests me more today is prayer of intercession for others. We pray for a sick acquaintance. What do we pray? The simplest version is, “God, heal Anastasia (or Mrs X) and make her well again.” This may or may not happen. If it does, we give thanks, usually without questioning what that implies. If it doesn’t, there are several explanations: our faith wasn’t strong enough; or her healing at this time was not part of God’s will for her. The former, though in some places Jesus seems to sanction it,  almost reduces prayer to magic. The latter is very hard for us, with our love for the patient, to understand.  Some theologians solve the problem by saying that God’s sense of time is not ours; others, that God moves in mysterious ways.

            Yes, well, did we think we would grasp God and His ways? Does the child understand all its father’s circumstances and considerations? We are told that the great theological virtues are Faith, Hope, and Love. So why not apply those to our prayer of intercession? We pray that she may be healed. In that prayer, we do not attempt to bind God’s Will. We do apply Faith – we trust in God’s love, we trust Him to act out of the love He has for her. We do apply hope – the true Hope, which is itself a form of faith, a faith that points to a future, to an outcome. And we do apply Love, for the very fact of our praying for her is a putting into motion of the energy of Love. And that is enough. We cannot do more; we need not do more. As my mother, old and deep into Alzheimer’s, said to me one night before going to sleep, when I asked her what she thought about death and after: “I don’t think we’re meant to know, or to think about that. That’s what faith is for. You go into the dark, trusting.”

            But we have a restless and a questing mind, and some things I think we are allowed, indeed encouraged, to think about. If intercessory prayer “works,” how does it work? If a hundred people pray for Anastasia, what happens? And a couple of things I read recently gave me an idea about that. First, a sermon I heard said that God’s love for us is poured out constantly – not only at certain times of His choosing or our asking. It pours down upon us like the sun’s light. And if it does not efficaciously reach us, it is because we are blocking it. So what we can and should pray for is help to stop blocking God’s love. My second reading was the interview with Jean Vanier, and his insistence that we regard those unregarded by everyone else or the world in general.

            Those two ideas produced, in my mind, a third: that apart from my blocking the flow of God’s love for me, there may be more general and/or objective blocks that prevent that love from reaching me – or you, or Anastasia. And that praying for her, by one person but especially by more persons, may create a metaphysical energy that helps dissipate those blocks. What sort of blocks might they be? Well, as Vanier says, in a class, look at, regard, the kid everyone else makes fun of. Or, he mentions a 40-year-old paraplegic who has always so far been treated like something thrown out with the garbage. So one block might be the world in general, a person’s environment. Or a person’s circumstances. Or, indeed and startlingly often, a person’s own nature and its idiosyncrasies. I know several elderly women living alone, of varying prosperity but none of them poor. All of them have the physical problems that come with age. Three of them live rich, satisfying lives; two are profoundly and enduringly miserable, in spite of intelligence, education and talent. 

            Intercessory prayer for such people may create or fuel and augment an energy, deeply pleasing to a loving God, that helps to remove the screens blocking His love from pouring into their hearts and souls. We can only ever pray that He may lead them to the knowledge and love of Him, and that His will be done; but we are asked to do that often and insistently and also, I believe, smilingly (on His part) allowed to wonder, and ponder, how.

UNIMAGINABLE?

I was away in Germany on Trinity Sunday, so my (first) post  on this sublime mystery is a few days late. Last year, I simply reproduced Andrei Rublev's famous icon, made in the monastery of the Trinity and St Sergius between 1408 and 1425, and now preserved in Moscow's Tretiakov Gallery. This year, the admirable French daily La Croix published a very fine commented reproduction of it. I haven't been able to make the arrows work, but the explanation is quite clear.

The three persons are set in a circle (which I've added here), with the central person’s hand as the centre. The circle,  with neither beginning nor end, symbolises eternity and places the three persons within one and the same reality. Their faces are identical (identity of nature of the three Persons of the Trinity) but their clothes are different, though all contain the blue of divinity. The wings emphasise their spiritual nature.

The left-hand person signifies the Father: it is on him that the others’ regard is turned, and they bow to him (he is the origin and principle of all); the colour of his raiment is indeterminate for he is indescribable. Behind him, the house is Abraham's tent, and “the Father’s house”.

The central person is the Son: in the purple, gold-embroidered tunic of Christus Pantocrator, he bows his head as in the Crucifixion icons. He presides over the table, and his hand blesses the cup that contains a lamb’s head: the cup of the New Alliance. The tree behinid him is the Oak of Mamre and also prefigures the Cross.

The right-hand person symbolizes the Holy Spirit: dressed in green (colour of youth), for “he makes all things new”. Behind him, the rock symbolizes his role as Defender: “my rock and my fortress art Thou” (ps.18)

One thing to remember is that these three persons are also the three persons (men? angels?) who visit Abraham and Sarah at Mamre (Genesis 18) and are fed by them. Which brings us back to the extraordinary saying of Jesus that if we will keep his commandments, he and his Father (and, evidently, the Holy Spirit) will come and dwell with us. 

The Trinity is the deepest mystery of Christianity. As one commentator said, it is not just a theological or philosophical concept, but of perfect topicality in the world: I and You and the Holy Spirit that unites us in love, are called to be living icons of God's deepest nature. Vertiginous! 

ANYTHING BUT TEMPTATION

 

In November of last year, I wrote about the expression in the Lord's Prayer that had always worried me, and that clearly worries the committees who keep updating the translations: "Lead us not into temptation". The thought of the Father leading us deliberately into temptation, then punishing us for having given in, is repellent; so the modern French version has "Do not let us enter into temptation." But taking a look at the Greek helps. To put it a little colloquially, "Do not put us to the test, but deliver us from bad stuff" is essentially what Jesus said when he taught the disciples to pray. The link of the "but" makes most sense when one stresses "deliver". Peirasmos is a trial, une épreuve as the French say, as in "the times that try men's souls". The implication, as I said back then, seems to be that we ask not to be put to the really hairy tests, like Abraham with Isaac, or Job, or Jacob who wrestled all night long with an angel. We aren't up to that sort of thing. We pray to the Father to deliver us from the ponèron, bad things, the real horror, the evil: that is not something we can do for ourselves.

It is a kindness in Jesus to propose this sentence in the exemplary Prayer: he recognises that we are ordinary folk, and that perhaps the Father may need to be reminded of this before, as in Job, giving in to the provocation of Shaitan, the Adversary.

It is in any case worth while to forget "temptation", a word that, encouraged by Oscar Wilde, needs a long rest. This is serious stuff: it is not the "temptation" of chocolate, or even of perfumed silks, of the "temptress" or the péché mignon: it is the knife at Isaac's throat, it is Exodus 4:24 "in a lodging-place by the way, the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him", it is the Lord wagering with Lucifer that Job will stand the test. Ouch. Do not, Father, make us go there. Save us from the Horror. Phew. By the skin of our teeth.

 

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