Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
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He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
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A father is knocking on his son’s door in the morning. “Jaime,” he says, “Wake up!” Jaime answers, “I don’t want to get up, Dad.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” Jaime says, “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not?” asks the father. “Three reasons,” says Jaime. “First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.” And the father says, “Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old; and third, because you are the principal.”[i]
Father Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest, gathered and shared wisdom stories collected from various parts of the global village. He shared this joke as he was speaking on spirituality in his book – Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality. “Spirituality,” Father de Mello says, “means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep…and (they) don’t want to wake up…”[ii]
Many religions stress that “waking up” is the key in perceiving and understanding the “whole” and “full” realities of oneself and one’s surroundings. Buddhism talks of enlightenment. Islam talks about “extinguishing the fire within.” Being awake is to be at peace with oneself. It means that one is content with herself or himself.
Listening to the words of Jesus from today’s passage in Luke is very difficult. Jesus is very harsh when he speaks to those who came to hear him. He is on the way to Jerusalem, the centre of the universe for Jews – the place where God resides in the temple and where the political and economic powers of the region also reside.
Jesus is chiding his listeners. “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” He is challenging his listeners to read the signs of the times – signs of God’s time. According to Joseph Fitzmyer, a Biblical scholar, Jesus is not saying that his listeners are unable to read the signs of the times but that they are unwilling to read the signs of the times and unwilling to do something about it.[iii] I hear Jesus challenging his listeners to “wake up” from their slumber and see where they are and who they are in relation to God.
Waking up is often unpleasant. It is not easy waking up to the realities. Even more difficult is facing our own selves. Life seems to bring so many complications and we feel that we get blindsided by too many people and events in life.
A couple of weeks ago Kim and I went to see the movie, The Bourne Ultimatum. Some of you might have also seen it or heard about it. It’s the third of a trilogy of movies about a character named Jason Bourne who is trying to regain his memory. Brainwashed to forget who he was before his memory was wiped out, Jason Bourne struggles to wake up to who he really is. All he knows is that the merciless killer he was trained to become and the man named Jason Bourne that so many others keep trying to assassinate may not be who he really is.
The waking up to himself is painful as Bourne is constantly on the move, fighting for his life, and visited by hazy and violent flashbacks. Even the movie theatre audience participates in the pain of his virtual awakening. The handheld camera angles were so jerky that Kim started getting motion sick when she was watching the movie.
· How do we wake up?
· How do we face reality?
· How do we discern who we are?
· Where do we start?
Looking into ourselves as individuals and as societies, I believe, is a good place to start. It takes great courage to look within us and acknowledge the wounded person within. It takes a tremendous effort to embrace that wounded person within us. It is a courageous undertaking to interpret the signs within our societies which will provide strength and energy to envision new and different ways of being who we really are.
Anthony de Mello says that waking up is a painful experience. He says,
“When you are beginning to awaken, you experience a great deal of pain. It’s painful to see your illusions being shattered. Everything that you thought you had built up crumbles -- and that’s painful. That’s what repentance is all about; that’s what waking up is all about.”[iv]
The initial pain of facing the realities of where we are and who we have become are the reason why so many of us have difficulty “turning around” – what repentance means in Greek – from slumber and waking up in our life. There are many who would rather live in a state of anger or despair – another aspect of anger – than to wake up and embrace the life filled with wonders. After all, it is better to deal with the devil you know, as the saying goes.
Quite often what we want when we encounter problems in life is relief rather than healing. We simply want relief from pain since healing would take so much more pain and involve too much of ourselves.
On the way to Jerusalem, on the way to confronting the powers that corrupt and set individuals against one another and from God, Jesus challenges those who are willing to hear his words to wake up and turn around toward one another and to God.
Each one of us today is still being challenged by these words of Jesus. Challenged to awaken from a slumber where we think it is fine for us to be isolated from God. To awaken from a slumber where spirituality is used as an opiate for people to believe that everything is OK as long as I am OK. To awaken from a slumber where the notion of the common good is just a pipe dream.
Sometimes the appearance of the present is disguised as reality. Sometimes the real present is a very different reality.
A scholar was reading a book and dozed off. He dreamt that he was a butterfly. When he woke up he began to wonder, “Am I a human who dreamt that I was a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a human?” “Which is the reality?” was the question posed by a Chinese philosopher more than 1,000 years ago.
This is our struggle in life. This is our struggle with our faith. The struggle to wake up to the real presence of God. To know what is real. To be real. To interpret the signs of God’s time that acknowledges that each one of us is created to be loved, that we are interrelated in God’s community, and that each one of matters.
God’s signs are all around us. May we be awake each moment and each day to God’s real time. May we have the wisdom and courage to be in God’s present.
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[i] Anthony de Mello, Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality, (Doubleday: New York, 1992), 5.
[ii] Ibid., 5.
[iii] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, The Anchor Bible, (Doubleday: News York, 1985), 1000.
[iv] De Mello, 45.
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