The Secret Chord: Leonard Cohen and the Ketuvim

For the first time in eight years, the master lyricist Leonard Cohen has released a new studio album. Six years ago, I wrote a paper comparing the lyrics of Leonard Cohen with the Ketuvim (the portion of the Tanakh including Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles). Cohen’s new album “Old Ideas” has inspired me to revisit my own old ideas about one of my all time favorite poets and musicians. I am thankful to Dr. John Goldingay at Fuller Theological Seminary for encouraging me and guiding me through this reflection back in 2006…

The Secret Chord: Leonard Cohen and the Ketuvim

As King David prepared Israel for the reign of his successor Solomon, he assembled four thousand cohenim “to offer praises to the LORD with musical instruments” (I Chronicles 23:5). About 3,000 years later, a descendant of the cohenim continues to offer his praises to the LORD with a transcendent poetry and a startling humanity reminiscent of the Hebrew Scripture’s ketuvim.[1]

The Canadian singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen has been called “a prophetic voice in music…[with an] almost biblical significance and authority.”[2] Influenced at an early age by the Hebrew Scriptures, which “would send shivers down [his] spine,”[3] L. Cohen’s lyrics hold a spiritual depth and sensuality not unlike that of the Hebrew ketuvim. His sultry voice and pleasantly simple tunes give his profound lyrics prominence in his music, thus making his spiritual message unmistakably present: that is, to be human is to attempt to revere G-d and love the other sincerely and sometimes sensually in the midst of our limitations, finitude and sexuality. With a message deeply indebted to and remarkably similar to the Hebrew Writings, Leonard Cohen invites his listeners to contemplate the wisdom found in his first muse: the ketuvim. In doing so, we listeners will find, in the Writings, a wisdom that, in turn, will challenge Cohen’s message and perhaps even our own spirituality and modus vivendi.

Perhaps his most famous song (thanks to Jeff Buckley’s heartbreaking rendition and other artist’s  interpretations), Hallelujah serves as a tour de force of Cohen’s poesy, commingling sex and the sacred, referencing Scripture and offering a ketuvim-like message.

The Secret Chord

            The song Hallelujah begins in the Psalter, where we are invited to sit and listen to the Psalmist play.[4] Leonard Cohen writes,

I’ve heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the Lord

But you don’t really care for music, do you?

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Cohen incites his listeners to peer into the Psalter to discover the secret chord that will please the LORD. Although we might not believe that sound can carry any sort of G-d-pleasing vibrations, Cohen and the Psalter both suggest that it is good and fitting to make music to the LORD. Yet the “secret chord” is so much more than a simple strum on a stringed instrument.

Though L. Cohen describes a basic chord progression of pop music in his lyrics (“It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth…”), he is also suggesting the elements that make up a LORD-pleasing prayer: reaching out to the divine for guidance, protection and salvation (the fourth, the fifth, the major lift) and yet also remaining profoundly and painfully aware of humanity, sin and finitude (the minor fall). The ketuvim are a medley of minor falls and major lifts, earthy pragmatics and transcendent pleas.

Psalm 51 serves as an example of this mixture, beginning on a clear note of petition: “Have mercy on me, O G-d, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” Then, the psalmist takes the petition a step further by asking G-d to give her a bath, believing that a divine wash would eradicate all her iniquity and sin.

After looking up to G-d for mercy and a bath, the psalmist looks upon herself and describes her sin in what Leonard Cohen calls the “minor fall”: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight…Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”

Then, the psalmist returns to the petition (the “major lift”): “Teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, wash me…”

L. Cohen completes the verse, “The baffled king composing, ‘Hallelujah’” and that is exactly what the psalmist promises to do after the final petition for mercy: “My tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance…my mouth will declare your praise” (14-15).

The Psalm then ends with a conclusion that might be the key note in what Leonard Cohen dubs the “secret chord”: “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (16-17).

The conclusion resonates with a chorus from another L. Cohen song called The Window,

Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack, a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.

Our broken spirit and our contrite, cracked selves perhaps prove more pleasing to G-d and useful than burnt offerings. Perhaps being wholly vulnerable and raw before the divine requires more trust and courage than offering a sacrifice at the temple.

Here, Cohen and the ketuvim seem to suggest a similar approach to revering and pleasing G-d: bring your finite and fragmented self to the LORD as an offering; come before his presence with your weakness, limitations and failures.

Femme Vitale

Cohen’s second verse of Hallelujah explores the femme fatale with his trademark technique of using biblical imagery to suggest sexual intimacy,

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to her kitchen chair

She broke your throne and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Intimately aware of the strange and overwhelming power that a woman can have over a man, L. Cohen borrows imagery from the Old Testament (particularly from the account of David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah), which certainly also affirms the power of femininity.

Women, in the ketuvim, are seen as forces to be reckoned with; a man, no matter how strong or powerful or spiritual, turns into a helpless babe in the presence of a woman.

The Writings overflow with stories of women gaining power and influence over men. In the story of Esther, a woman uses her beauty to influence a king and thus prevent genocide against her people. In the story of Ruth, a woman takes initiative with a man and thus saves herself and mother-in-law from shame and starvation. In the Song of Songs, a woman proves just as forceful and feisty in sexual intimacy as any man. Yet unlike Cohen, who seems to focus on the destruction women often bring, the ketuvim recount stories of women using their feminine wiles to prevent death and bring about life.

Of course, the Writings also recognize the reality of the femme fatale. In Proverbs, the student is advised to steer clear of the wayward woman, who will lure you into herself until you are trapped, broken, broke and powerless (Prov. 5:8-10). The woman serves as the personification of waywardness in order to convey how attractive unruliness can be and how easily one can fall into it. Women are not the personification of looseness because women are naturally wayward (certainly not!), but rather because women are so damn attractive and men desire them so passionately. At the same time, Proverbs uses a woman as the personification of wisdom, again suggesting how women’s feminine charm may also bring good.

With this comparison, we see Cohen and the ketuvim both agreeing on the power a woman holds over a man and the potential harm she can bring. However, the ketuvim also offers more positive perspectives on the woman as a femme vitale, as a woman using her power over men to bring life.

Lovers and Beautiful Losers

Another verse of Hallelujah again suggests sexual intimacy while remaining vague and ambiguous,

I did my best. It wasn’t much

I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch

I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you

These lines express an attempt to love sensually and sincerely. Cohen tries to be the best lover he can be, but he knows he has limitations. And he knows the importance of naked honesty in love and sexuality.

L. Cohen leads us to explore the Song of Songs where we discover a love that involves taking turns, giving and receiving, initiating and accepting, and sharing one another (2:16, 6:3). Hallelujah taps into this love that is not satisfied with merely receiving and taking love (“I couldn’t feel”), but desires to give and make love as well (“so I tried to touch”).

The second half of this sexually charged verse reads,

And even though it all went wrong

I’ll stand before the Lord of song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Here Cohen taps into a theme that plays out profoundly in the Writings: worshipping God in the midst of terrible loss and misery. Job, after losing all his possessions and children, exclaimed, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).[5]

In the book of Lamentations, a similar offering of praise is made amidst misery. After describing famished babies dying on the streets (2:11-12, 19, 4:4), groaning priests (1:4), raped women (5:11) and ravenous mothers eating their own children (2:20, 4:10), the lamenter reaches out to God in hope: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (3:19-23).

Offering praise in the midst of desolation not only reveals a deep faith in G-d, but also holds G-d accountable. Rolf Jacobson explains how praise can be used against G-d.[6] Holocaust survivor and best-selling author Elie Wiesel writes, in times of extreme injustice, “the only way to accuse God is by praising him.”[7] By praising G-d, we remind him of his goodness and steadfast love. When we see the world around us as everything but good and loving, we are in fact accusing G-d by praising him for something that we clearly cannot see. We are throwing theodicy in his face by saying, “G-d, you are loving and you are sovereign. I am suffering in a world that is out of control and not loving, but G-d, you are loving and you are sovereign.” Instead of asking G-d the question, “How can you be loving and sovereign when everything around me points to the contrary?” praise, instead, begs the question. Praise makes God ask the question. The author of Lamentations, Job and even Leonard Cohen might all be accusing G-d of injustice by praising his name, by singing, “Hallelujah.”

Leonard Cohen’s verse also reminds me of a verse in Proverbs, which reads, “A man’s own folly wrecks his life, and then he bear a grudge against the Lord” (Prov. 19:3). This proverb suggests the stupidity in blaming G-d for our own mistakes. However, other books in the ketuvim, like Job, suggest that sometimes it is not our fault when it all goes wrong. This verse and this proverb force us to ask ourselves, “When all things do go wrong and when all my plans crumble before me, who do I blame?”

With this verse, we again see similarity between Hallelujah and the Writings. Cohen describes a give-and-take sensuality as seen in the Song of Songs and hope (or accusatory praise?) in the midst of horrible circumstances as seen in Job and Lamentations.

Another verse from Hallelujah begins,

Maybe there’s a God above

But as for me, all I’ve ever learned from love

Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you

            In the first line of this verse, we see Cohen and the ketuvim no longer holding hands. Although the ketuvim is full of doubts and questions, the question of God’s existence is never taken seriously. In fact, we do not see the question even asked.

And Leonard Cohen’s lessons from love are far more negative, depressing and vindictive than those suggested in the ketuvim. Although Cohen seems to tap into the love described in the Song of Songs in an earlier verse, we see here that Cohen has oversimplified love into a vengeful response to pain. Returning to the Song of Songs, we can see the ketuvim offering a much more complex, mysterious and paradoxical perspective of love.

Amidst luscious fragrances and pastoral imagery, we discover, in Song of Songs, a love that is better than wine (1:2, 3:10), that excites the deepest part of the soul (1:7), that arouses great delight (2:3) and generosity (2:4), that can be so potent that it will wear one out and make one faint (2:5, 5:8), that is to be treasured and held close (1:13), that involves searching, longing (3:1, 5:6) asking (3:3), and holding (3:4). It involves seeing beauty and even flawlessness in the beloved (4:7). It is ravishing (4:9), intoxicating (5:1) and enflamed by sexual desire (7:10). It involves seeing the other as a sexual object (7:10); yes, but not just as a sexual object, also as a friend (5:16) on whom to lean (8:5). Strong as death, fiercely passionate and an unquenchable fire (8:6-7), this love is worth more than one’s entire wealth (8:7).

Song of Songs also recognizes the danger and possible pain that love can bring. Throughout the song, a warning is given three times: do not awaken or arouse love before it is ready (2:7, 3:5, 8:4). The song remains silent or at least ambiguous about the “right time” to love and about the consequences of loving at the “wrong time.” Nonetheless, the warnings seem to encourage lovers to be patient and wait for their love to fully bloom, aware that sexual love in the wrong context can be profoundly damaging. Ironically, however, the song ends with a call to make haste (8:14). Perhaps the song calls the reader to live the paradox of patiently making haste when it comes to love.

If love is this complex then the lessons learned from it certainly go far beyond “shooting at someone who outdrew you.”

The rest of the verse reads,

It’s not a complaint you hear tonight

It’s not someone who’s seen the light

It’s a cold and a very lonely hallelujah

These lines follow directly after the lines above so the “It” remains somewhat ambiguous based on the context. “It” could be love or even God. Most likely, “it” refers to the “it” used in the What’s-it-all-about question: What is life all about? What is being human all about? According to Leonard Cohen, life is not about complaining and it’s not about mystical, life-changing experiences. Life is about being cold and lonely and learning to accept it. Life is about failing and learning to be content with the failure. Real life happens when “you abandon your masterpiece and you sink into the real masterpiece.”[8]

‘It’ is “being unable to fulfill [your mandated mission] and then coming to understand that the real mandate was not to fulfill it, that the deeper courage was to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself.”[9]

Leonard Cohen gives special attention to those who have failed, the man whose folly has wrecked his life (Prov. 19:3), the “beautiful loser.”[10] He seems to see this beautiful loser as one with a broken spirit and contrite heart, as one able to play the secret chord that will please the LORD. According to Leonard Cohen, this beautiful loser is more holy than the psalmist in a lament or even Job who has seen God in a stormy theophany.

“The cold and very lonely hallelujah” is so much more earthy and real and human to Cohen. He can relate to it. He can relate to saying, “I’m tired and lonely and G-d feels far away, but I will praise him anyway.”

The ketuvim affirms that sentiment, as we see in Job and Lamentations. However, the ketuvim sees more to love than shooting at someone who outdrew you. And according to the ketuvim, love and life do involve complaining and yes, sometimes even mystical, life-changing experiences, sometimes even the loud and audible voice of G-d.

The ketuvim affirms the beautiful loser’s hope and praise, but also invite us into genuine covenant interaction with G-d,[11] to stand up for ourselves with an “ego strength that is necessary for responsible faith,”[12] to rail against G-d and even to accuse G-d.

In conclusion, the Hebrew Writings prove to offer a wider, more inclusive and often more positive understanding of revering God and loving the other in the midst of our finitude. However, Leonard Cohen’s special attention to the broken, lonely, beautiful losers in the world who have lost everything, who have been destroyed by women and who still offer G-d praise remains, I believe, a key to the secret chord that is wholly pleasing to the LORD. The ketuvim, however, seems to see more notes on that chord.

Afterword

A major problem with my argument is that I am comparing all 12 books of the Writings to only one song of Leonard Cohen. So of course the ketuvim will include more variety. There are several very different books in the Writings and I am only looking at one tiny fragment of Leonard Cohen’s work.

My defense is that I wish I could have offered more lyrics, but I could not, due to limited time and space. I spent a great deal of time listening to Leonard Cohen’s music, reciting his poetry, reading his novels, and watching Lian Lunson’s wonderful new documentary. As a result, I believe I got a good grasp on Leonard Cohen and his message. I also believe that the song Hallelujah represents his message well.

Bibliography

1. Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Dir. Lian Lunson. Lionsgate and Sundance Channel, 2005

2. Jacobson, Rolf. The Costly Loss of Praise

3. Wiesel, Legends of our Time (New York: Avon, 1978)

4. Brueggemann, The Costly Loss of Praise

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[1] The Hebrew Writings: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, the Scrolls (Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Esther) Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles

[2]U2 guitarist the Edge says, “Leonard is this almost prophetic voice in music for me. He’s got this almost biblical significance and authority” in Lian Lunson’s video documentary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2005)

[3] From Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2005)

[4] Some suggest that David, “a man after G-d’s own heart,” wrote a majority of the Psalms while many others admit that the ambiguous evidence of authorship leaves us clueless about the actual authors. Either way, Cohen appears to be referencing the Psalms. (Although he could also be referencing Samuel, we will assume he is speaking of the Psalms for the sake of the paper.)

[5] According to the NIV, Job 13:15 reads, “Though he slay, yet will I trust him.”

[6] Jacobson, Rolf. The Costly Loss of Praise

[7] Wiesel, Legends of our Time (New York: Avon, 1978), 31-8.

[8] Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man documentary

[9] ibid.

[10] “Beautiful Losers” is the title of Leonard Cohen’s most popular novel

[11] Brueggemann, The Costly Loss of Lament, 60

[12] Brueggemann, 61

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Evangelizing in God’s First Language

Listen to sermon here: Evangelizing in God’s First Language

Readings for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm 62:6-14

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Mark 1:14-20

This sermon was preached at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley CA on January 22, 2012.

“For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.”

The great evangelist, Rev. Billy Graham tells of a time early in his career when he arrived in a small town to preach a sermon.  Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a young boy where the post office was. When the boy told him, Rev. Graham thanked him and said, “If you’ll come to the Baptist church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to Heaven.” The boy said, “I don’t think I’ll be there. You don’t even know your way to the post office.”

The story reminds me of times when I was a Youth Minister, speaking of lofty and spiritual things to the youth while almost getting us all lost on the way to mini-golf. Whenever we attempt to answer the call to evangelize (to share the Gospel), we are often brought face to face with our humanity and limitations. We need all the help we can get and the readings this morning actually offer some help by presenting us with a colorful variety of ways to evangelize or, as the Collect says, to answer readily the call of our Saviour and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation.[1]

Jonah, fresh out of the belly of a big fish, uses a very terse, fire-and-brimstone method, saying simply to the Ninevites, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be no more” (In Hebrew, its only five words: “Od arbaim yom, ynineveh nehpachet”).[2] In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, there is an urgent exhortation to let go of what is familiar in order to embrace what is to come, even if that means sexual abstinence within marriage. And in the Gospel, Jesus proclaims good news, saying “The time is now. The kingdom is near”; and then, with concise imperatives: “Repent. Believe. Follow me,” he incites immediate responses from his listeners, who leave even familial attachments to follow him. All these methods may have their place in evangelism: fire-and brimstone preaching, urgent exhortations and the proclamation of news so good that it demands leaving even our family. But the evangelistic method that I want to explore and advocate this morning is one described in the Psalm, which reads, “For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.” Evangelizing through patient silence. Using patient silence before, after and during our proclamation of the good news.

All major world religions uphold the sacred power of silence and its necessity for spiritual growth and our Christian tradition is certainly no exception. The great theologian Meister Eckhart said, “Nothing in creation is so like God as silence” and Saint John of the Cross said, “Silence is God’s first language.”

The Bible suggests practicing patient silence before proclaiming God’s message. We cannot speak words of truth, much less proclaim the Gospel, unless we first listen. And it is in intentional silence that we can truly listen to ourselves, to others and to God.  By practicing patient silence as a regular spiritual discipline, we grow more attuned to the message that God has for us and the message that God wants to speak through us to others. Silence and solitude are absolutely integral to Christian spirituality as well as essential to effective evangelism. Although this can be seen clearly in the lives of saints throughout church history, we only have to look again at today’s readings to see the necessity for patient silence prior to evangelism. Jonah preached only after three days and three nights of silence and dark solitude in the belly of a great fish.[3] And although Paul started preaching and evangelizing immediately after his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, his initial evangelism was not successful. Paul’s evangelism and missionary activity did not really take off until 14 years later, after his conversion and baptism and after a decade and a half of preparation. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues that Paul actually travelled to Mt. Sinai during this preparation period and remained there for a substantial amount of time, meditating in silence and solitude.[4] And of course, even Jesus did not proclaim the good news until after spending 40 days in the silence and solitude of the Palestinian deserts. The verse immediately preceding our Gospel passage today reads, “[Jesus] was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts.” (Mark 1:13). Jonah, Paul, and Jesus proclaimed a message that was forged out of silence and solitude, and that silence and solitude clearly held enormous challenges for all of them: the belly of a fish, wild beasts, desert aridity, satanic temptations.

Clearly, intentional silence and solitude are very difficult for us to practice because it is in silence that we often face our own wild beasts and dark shadows. French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “All of man’s troubles stem from his inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room.” Silence is hard, but in order to evangelize without pushing our own agendas or projecting our own problems onto others, we need to practice intentional silence. Otherwise, our evangelism can easily cause more damage than good and desecrate the name of Christ rather than boldly proclaim his good news. By practicing patient silence, we can learn to say the right thing at the right time to the right person.[5]

When we make attempts to evangelize, forged in silence or not, the invitation to patient silence remains, even after we proclaim the good news. The Bible suggests practicing patient silence after proclaiming God’s message. The first sermon I preached at my home parish was on the parable of the mustard seed. At the time, I was a Youth Minister and the parable really encouraged me as I was “planting seeds” in the souls of young people. Although I tried to speak a message to the youth, forged out of my own discipline of silence, I still found it very hard to see fruits of my labor. The youth were not always very responsive or even present. And when they were, they mostly just wanted to play dodge ball or video games, which fortunately I also loved to do. Sometimes I would try to experiment with what is called “contemplative youth ministry” and invite us to practice brief moments of silence together. It worked some times with the older kids, but trying to keep silence with junior highers for more than 10 seconds was like trying to fit Jonah’s big fish into a ziplock bag. It was not very possible, especially with this particular group of junior highers.

A few months ago, however, I visited my home parish and had the chance to see some of the youth that I once ministered to. I saw that one of those “mustard seeds” that I had planted years ago had turned into a tree, and I mean that in more ways than one because he is almost a foot taller than me now. This particular kid, named Christian, was always the most rowdy and out-of-control during youth group. We had kept in touch through facebook and I could see by his updates that he continued to remain pretty rowdy and out-of-control. But after catching up, we walked over to a nearby meditation hall with another friend and there we decided to sit in prayerful silence for 10 minutes, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. And 10 minutes is a long time for anyone to sit in intentional silence. So you can imagine how encouraged I was to see Christian, who two years ago couldn’t be silent for more than 10 seconds, remain present to the silence for 10 minutes!

I had been holding him and the other youth of the church in my own prayerful silences throughout the years and by doing so, I was giving God the space to grow the seeds that I had planted. And I had the great opportunity to see God’s fruit in him. By waiting patiently in silence for God to work and grow in Christian, I was able to sit in that same patient silence with him, where both of us could listen to God’s message to us as well as to the message that God wanted to speak through us.

So we evangelize through silence, by practicing silence and solitude before we proclaim the good news so that our message is inspired by God and not by our own agendas. And we practice silence after we proclaim the good news in order to give God the space to grow the seeds we planted. Finally, we use patient silence during evangelism to the point that our patient silence is our evangelism. We evangelize through silence by simply listening to others, listening empathetically to their stories, their joys and sorrows and thus embody Christ by emptying ourselves and simply offering a listening ear and a silent mouth. St. Francis understood the power of evangelism through silence when he said, “Preach the Gospel always, use words only when necessary.” By practicing silence before, after and during evangelism, we give God the space to speak through us to say the right thing at the right time to the right person, even if what we say involves no words.[6]

And so I encourage us all to continue to respond to the call to evangelize, not necessarily through fire-and-brimstone preaching, but by practicing intentional silence, and remaining open in that silence to God’s message for us and to the message that God wants to speak through us. I invite us all (certainly including myself) to practice just 10 minutes of intentional silence each day this week. Although ten minutes might not sound like a lot of time, it is really not easy; it is actually a very challenging invitation. And in that silence, I invite us to remain open to God’s message for us and to the message that God wants to speak through us. Pascal, who said, “All of man’s troubles stem from his inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room,” implies the difficulty of silence as do today’s readings: “[Jesus] was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Although we may face our own wild beasts and dark shadows and temptations in our silence, the angels will attend to us and God will speak to us, maybe not in words, but in his first language, which accordin g to St. John of the Cross, is silence. “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” Amen.

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[1] The word evangelism comes from the Greek euaggellion which means “good news” or the “Gospel.” To “evangelize” means to “proclaim the Gospel,” so in a sense, we Episcopalians “evangelize” every Sunday when we read and proclaim the Gospel, as which we just did. I’m using the word “evangelize” here more as what we are doing when we respond to the Great Commission to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:19-20)

[2] Although Jonah predates the Gospel of Jesus Christ (euaggellion) and therefore cannot be “evangelizing,” he is still proclaiming God’s message to a people.

[3] Although it actually might not have been all that silent in the fish’s belly, Jonah was still forced to sit alone and face himself.

[4] Wright, N.T. “Paul, Arabi and Elijah (Galatian 1:17)” in Journal of Biblical Literature vol. 115, 683–692.

[5] At the same time, God will still use our attempts at evangelism for good, even if they are not forged out of habitual silence and solitude. More than a decade ago, I used to engage in sidewalk evangelism in upstate New York, passing out little Christian tracts with my brother, explaining the four spiritual laws to people walking by. Although I don’t do that anymore (and if I did, the Episcopal Church would probably disown me), I’d like to think that God still used those attempts at evangelism for some good.

[6] I have to admit that I’ve actually never heard a sermon on evangelism in any Episcopal Church, except for last Sunday, when Rev. Bruce encouraged us to invite others to “Come and see.” I have noticed a lack of anxiety about evangelizing in the Episcopal Church. And, ironically, that is part of what drew me to the church, probably because I came from a church that made me worried that I wasn’t evangelizing enough. Episcopalians won me over with their general silence on evangelism. Some might say that Episcopalians don’t evangelize, but I believe they do, in more subtle and silent ways.

God’s Resolution to Us

Readings for the First Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 147

Galatians 3:23-25. 4:4-7

John 1:1-18

This sermon was preached at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley CA on January 1, 2012. (Watch a vlog of this sermon here)

Happy New Year! This morning is the first morning of 2012. And I can’t think of a better way to welcome the new year than to gather together, hear the Word of God, give thanks for His many blessings and pray for His continual guidance and protection.

Many of us try to embrace this opportunity for a new beginning by making new year resolutions. Personally, I think this a great endeavor. It was the power of a new year resolution that helped me quit smoking as I know it has helped many others quit unhealthy habits and replace them with more life-giving practices. At the same time, new year resolutions, as we all know, can be very frustrating as they tend to reveal our lack of resolve come February or March or January 2^nd. The short term of resolutions has become so apparent that we actually wish good fortune for one another by saying, “May all your troubles last as long as your New Year resolutions (!)”

I heard a person share how his resolutions changed from 2008 to 2011 in light of their short term. In 2008, his resolution was: “I will get my weight down below 180 pounds.” After that unsuccessful resolution, in 2009, he said, “I will follow my diet religiously until I get below 200 pounds.” After that didn’t go too well, in 2010, he said, “I will work out 3 days a week.” And finally, in 2011, he said, “I will try to drive past a gym at least once a week.” I don’t know what his resolution is for 2012, but I’d like to think he was successful with that last one and maybe feels ready to raise the bar a little bit this year. Yet his progression or regression sounds a lot like most of my resolutions through the years (especially when it comes to diet and exercise). Oscar Wilde quipped, “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.” Resolutions often (painfully) reveal our bankruptcy in the area of tenacity and stick-to-it-ive-ness (and for those whose resolution is to learn a new word each day, “Stick-to-it-ive-ness” is actually a real word in the dictionary).

Although resolutions reveal our finitude and tendency to fail, the Gospel for today offers a helpful perspective that I hope will empower and encourage us this New Year. The Gospel today proclaims God’s dogged resolution to us; a resolution with which He will never fail to follow through.

The poetic prologue in John introduces us intimately to the Word of God. However, our appreciation of the Word deepens as we come to understand the literary and philosophical context. Before the Cappadocian understanding of the Trinity in the fourth century and the Chalcedonian understanding of Christ as fully human and fully divine in the fifth century, there was a Jewish understanding of a divine mediator as part of the Godhead. Rabbinic Judaism eventually rejected this idea as heresy probably in reaction to emerging Christianity.[1] But when the Gospel of John was written, the idea of a divine mediator between heaven and earth was well known and was able to fit within Jewish monotheism. We see this in the book of Proverbs, where the Wisdom of God (Sophia), personified as a woman, exists before Creation and is active during creation and continually calls out in the streets, eager to share her many blessings with humanity.[2] Sophia can be understood as a divine entity who is part of the one God. We also see this divine mediator in the works of Philo, a Jewish mystic of the early first century, who explained that the wisdom of God is the logos of God[3] and writes, “This Logos of God pleads with the immortal as suppliant for afflicted mortality and acts as ambassador of the ruler to the subject.”[4] When the author of John wrote his prologue, he brilliantly synthesized the Wisdom of God in Proverbs with the Logos of God in Philo to describe the Word of God in the Gospel, who became flesh and dwelt among us.

When first century Jewish readers heard the Word of God in John, they would have thought of a divine mediator, of one who “pleads with the immortal” on our behalf, and of one who calls out to us, eager to share heavenly blessings. The sad tragedy is that the world, according to the prologue, did not know him and his own people did not accept him. In fact, the world rejected him and murdered him. The same world that the fourth Gospel says God so loved.[5]

But here’s what’s so amazing to me about the Gospel, the good news. The Word of God, the divine mediator, came into the world and even while the world rejected him and murdered him, he still “pleaded” with God on our behalf and offered us grace. Before the name of Jesus is even mentioned in the Gospel, he is already rejected by the world. And furthermore, he has already responded to the world’s rejection with grace. There is a beautiful verse that I often overlook in the prologue, which reads: “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace” (1:16). And this verse comes after the world has rejected him.

This is God’s resolution to us. He is committed to us. He has committed to love us like a Father loves his children; and to open our eyes, to enlighten us (as the Gospel says, “to enlighten everyone” v.9) to the awesome power that is inherent in being the children of God. No matter how many resolutions we break this year, God’s resolution to love us and to empower us as his children remains firm and unyielding. And that is really good news.

Jewish studies professor Daniel Boyarin at Cal argues that John’s prologue is in fact midrash on the first Creation account in Genesis. Midrash is a Jewish mode of interpreting Scripture which uses creative imagination and other biblical texts in order to plumb the deeper meaning of the Torah.[6] Boyarin sees the author of John employing this method in the prologue, which elaborates on the word that God spoke into the darkness at creation, when He said, “Let there be light.” So the same divine mediator, the same one committed to us no matter what, was present at Creation as the very word of God that brought all things into being.

The same Word permeates all throughout the Scriptures and other Jewish midrash elaborate on its quality as the divine mediator committed to humanity no matter what. One midrash describes the Word that spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. The rabbis share answers as to why the burning bush was a thorn bush. (They think it was a thorn bush because the Hebrew implies it with the word “Seneh” a dis legomenon which means “thorn” elsewhere). One creative answer explains that when a hand goes into a thorn bush it does not get cut because the thorns face down, but when the hand tries to pull out of the thorn bush, it goes against the direction of the thorns and gets cut. So when you put your hand into a thorn bush, you’re making a real commitment to say there, unless you want to get sliced. In the same way, the Word of God made a serious commitment to stay with us when he entered into the thorny bush of our world. This Jewish midrash pulses with meaning in light of the Christian doctrine of Incarnation and the Passion of the Christ who enters into a world that rejects him and crowns him with thorns, thus symbolizing his commitment to us, no matter how painful.[7]  And even when Jesus, the Word of God, is on the cross dying, he continues to play the role of divine mediator, praying for humanity even as humanity crucifies him, saying, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

The Word of God has resolved to commit himself to us no matter what. And this Word of the Lord is present to us, reminding us of God’s resolution to us, every time we hear the Scriptures, which are replete with proof of God’s commitment. That is why we have the Liturgy of the Word and that is why every time we hear the Scriptures read, we acknowledge, “The Word of the Lord” and respond “Thanks be to God.” Thanks be to God that our power and identity as children of God is not dependent on our own tenacity and ability to keep our resolutions. Our power and identity as children of God depends fully on the Word’s resolute commitment to us, on God’s stick-to-it-ive-ness.

Paul says, “You are no longer a slave but a child.” We are no longer slaves to our own finitude and failures. We are children beloved by God who remains committed to us no matter how many times we fail, no matter how many times we complain, no matter how many times we hurt ourselves or others or God. God responds with “grace upon grace” to the darkest parts of our hearts, the violence within each of us, our anger and our hate; because even while humanity crucified Christ, he remained committed to loving us and praying for us. That is a profound resolution.

So this year I hope we can keep our resolutions. But more than that, my hope is that we can relax into God’s resolution to us as his beloved children. And by allowing God’s loving commitment to us to transform our hearts, perhaps we can learn the power of what it means to be a child of God and maybe learn to show that same loving commitment to others not because we think we have the drive to really do it this year but because we are loved so tenaciously by God. Amen.

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[1] The heresy is called “Two Powers in Heaven” b. Hag. 15a

[2] For more on Sophia see http://deforestlondon.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/she-who-is-sophia-summary-of-the-mystery-of-god-in-feminist-theological-discourse/

[3] Allegorical Interpretation 1:65

[4] Who is the Heir of Divine Things, 205-206.

[5] Our participation in oppression, marginalization and violence (whether direct in the form of actual violence or indirect by being part of or benefiting from a system that is violent) is our participation in the murder of Christ. It is our rejection of the Word and Wisdom of God. And it is very hard for any of us to claim innocence in this regard. I’m not talking about us as totally depraved sinners as the Calvinists claim. I’m talking about us as beautiful people made in the image of God who live in a violent world and get caught up in this violence (whether we see it or not) and end up desecrating the image of God in others and in ourselves. And in so doing, we wound Christ in each of us.

[6] “One of the most characteristic forms of Midrash is a homily on a scriptural passage from the Pentateuch that invokes… texts from either the Prophets or the [Wisdom literature like the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, etc.] as the framework of ideas and language that is used to interpret and expand the Pentateuchal text being preached” (Boyarin, 548)

[7] Midrash Yalkut Shimoni 169