Without History, In What Sense Do We Exist? A Re-flection on Sebastian Barry's "The Secret Scripture"

I walked into my building yesterday and a student was venting about the stress not only of taking finals, but also the stress of what these finals and the subsequent grades might mean about his future. Mostly, I listened. It was an amusing rant, because his friends had just heard it and were laughing, which I took as cue to mostly listen, sometimes joke, and throw out just one or two challenges to his thoughts (like how it isn't the grades that get jobs and grad schools, it is properly using experiences gained and knowledge learned).

During his rant, he talked about his history class. He started off with one of those disclaimers that belie themselves: "I know history is important and you've got to know it." By this admission, I knew he didn't think history was truly important. He thought you need to know history simply so it doesn't repeat itself. Certainly that adage contains some truth, but implies there is some judge who knows which parts of history are "bad" and therefore need not be repeated.

"But nobody wants to know it," he continued. "We've got to be worried about the present and the future." Although I am comforted about what could be the passion of a young idealist, I am disheartened by his idea of history. Perhaps his history professor did fail him in the classroom. Sometimes history isn't just about teaching the facts, but also about "history appreciation," to borrow a common name for art classes in many schools' core curricula.

***

I just finished reading Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture. The novel's story is told through two different speakers: William Grene, a psychiatrist, and Roseanne Clear McNulty, a 100-year-old patient at the mental hospital where Dr. Grene works. Roseanne's voice is heard as she secretly writes her story, which includes details and her reflections on her past and present with a few mentions of her future. Dr. Grene's journal begins as a professional tool for reflection on the case of Roseanne, but permeates the boundaries between personal and professional as he reflects on Roseanne's past, present and future and his own, although most of the details on his life are the immediate past.

When Roseanne began to recount her story, her history, she began with her father, even in the novel's opening, mystical meditation: "The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to" (3). As she switches to details about her story, she begins with the life of her father, as if to say her story started before she was alive, as if to say we are all born before we live. When can a birth be said to have occurred? Penetration? Conception, as pro-life advocates are wont to reiterate? When the mother's water breaks? When the contractions start or dilation reaches a certain diameter? When the first body part breaches from the mother's body or when the last part emerges? When the umbilical cord is cut? 

Then, when can Roseanne say the world begins anew? Perhaps the world began/begins once with all personal beginnings, a confluence of all births into one that reverberates Genesis' "In the beginning" with every beginning. Indeed, Roseanne and her father suggest the world is not necessarily the planet Earth, but life as we know it, as the way we interpret the world from our perspective, as one's personal "world." And all of these worlds are interconnected, intwined, perhaps unified and atoned (in the sense of at-one-ment) by narratives, by history(ies) and her-story(ies) and scripture(s).

Even as the novel goes back and forth between past and present, between Roseanne and Dr. Grene, their stories become intwined and even conflated. Roseanne looked first to her father's story to understand herself and, in order to understand himself, Dr. Grene looked into Roseanne's story of herself and stories of Roseanne from others, piecing together yet another story of Roseanne in Dr. Grene's writings.

The novel borders on didactic when it brings the topic of history explicitly into question through Dr. Grene's journal: 

Well, I supposed all these things [about Roseanne and others]. It is not history. But I am beginning to wonder strongly what is the nature of history. Is it only memory in the decent sentences, and if so, how reliable is it? I would suggest, not very. And that therefore most truth and fact offered by these syntactical means is treacherous and unreliable. And yet I recognise [sic] that we live our lives, and even keep our sanity, by the lights of this treachery and this unreliability, just as we build our love of country on these paper worlds of misapprehension and untruth. Perhaps this is our nature, and perhaps unaccountably it is part of our glory as a creature, that we can build our best and most permanent buildings on foundations of utter dust. (293)

Personal history and corporate history of the sort my student disdains are one and the same, as the novel also portrays by continually referring to war, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the like. And history is not just how we maintain a semblance of sanity, as Dr. Grene says, it is who we are. Indeed, some of us cannot maintain sanity in history, as the novel brings into question the veracity or historicity of much history and also the sanity and clarity of the tellers, specifically Roseanne and Dr. Grene. But even as we question their sanity and their stories, we are prodded to consider our own history and sanity. Can we trust everything we've been told by family members? Would public records show something hidden? Where do our individual stories begin? Who could tell the most factual story of who we are, who could tell the most true story of who we are, and would those two stories sound the same? In what sense would we exist without any of these stories?

***

I didn't share these musings with the student at the beginning of this story. He wanted to express himself, not listen to a lecture about history and identity. But he stirred something inside of me that I, too, wanted to express, something I often quote from Joan Didion's The White Album: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." We exist in narrative, in fiction, in history. By understanding them--the sacred scripture, gospel, and Christ inside each of them--we understand and are saved from and to ourselves as individuals and as an atoned species.

That Pearl of Great Price: Pluralism and Inter-Faith Dialogue

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-36; NRSV)

In both of these parables, the Jesus of Matthew portrays two people selling everything they have to buy something. 

The first is just some person who found a treasure. I imagine the character in this story was wandering, traveling, or working and stumbled upon something precious. This precious thing was unknown (or un/undervalued) by whoever owned the field. The main character wants legal rights to this treasure and therefore needs to own the land.

Either this person was poor or this land must have been expensive (perhaps the owner did know about the treasure). The character "sells all [...] and buys that field." I choose to see this language as hyperbole, exaggeration to prove a point. Would anyone really sell everything and then walk naked and homeless to purchase a field?

But the hyperbole prods the mind to wander: how much did this person sell? Land? Home? Livestock? Clothes? Family heirlooms? Food? Tools? Body? Children?

And what is this treasure? Does the person want the treasure to sell it bit by bit and make money or simply to own it? Treasure is like the cake you can't eat and have at the same time. Treasure is for possessing and to selling, but you can't have it and sell it at the same time. You have to do one or the other. If you have nothing, of course you are going to sell it.

The kingdom of heaven is like something for which you give up virtually everything and then sell so that you can have more stuff than you sold to get it.

Jesus's second comparison is similar, but involves a character with a little more depth: this person is a merchant. Merchants buy things in order to sell them. Certainly, this merchant could have been looking for pearls simply to possess, but then Jesus had no reason to mention this person's vocation. This merchant wanted to make money selling pearls. I feel confident in saying this scenario does picture someone selling everything with the intent of buying it and more back.

The comparison is different in each metaphor. In the first, the kingdom of heaven is like the hidden treasure and in the second, the kingdom of heaven is the merchant. In both, the treasure is valuable, because the person sold so much to get a legitimate claim to owning it. Then the person will become wealthier than before by selling this treasure. We all eventually eat the cake. Unlike cake, after using the hidden treasure, the person gains more treasure.

And the treasures gained are the treasures of others. Their money, their valuables in exchange for your valuables. The characters get the treasure and the pearl and it is mutually beneficial for them and those with whom they barter.

I imagine not only an exchange of valuables, but also an exchange of value; not only mutual benefit of economics, but of ideas and ethics. I see these parables allegorically, exchanging religious, political, social, and philosophical ideas. The kingdom of heaven is not just something you want to own exclusively, but something you want to share. The hidden treasure hoarded is not as valuable as the treasure shared and multiplied.

And the same meaning comes when the merchant is the kingdom of heave, because the kingdom of heaven is not a singularity, but something that gathers from the world, growing in complexity and always changing.

The pearls are like the hidden treasure and the kingdom of heaven makes room for those that are the most compelling, those of the greatest price. But even after giving up some ideas to make room for one, that idea, too, is critiqued and sold for others. The kingdom of heaven is one that is ever changing, ever becoming better, and ever searching the world over for pearls. 

All thought is to be critiqued and even one's most dear beliefs must sometimes be sold for other ones. I'm particularly reminded of Meister Eckhart's prayer: "I pray, God, to rid me of God." Or consider John Cobb, Jr.'s suggestion that christocentric belief is self-defeating, for faith in Christ means displacing Christ as the center. Following Christ means abandoning Christ as the only way, i.e., traditional Christianity, for pluralism and dialogue (both inter-faith and dialogue with those of no faith), which can be seen as no Christianity at all (Christ in a Pluralistic Age).

If you started this blog hoping for an exegesis, you have likely been disappointed. I have read myself into and out of these parables. You might say I have been caught in the net of the text, reading something old and finding something new, that is, finding me (cf. Matthew 13:47-52).

Really, it is no wonder that I see in both of these parables something I purport to do: to have no sacred cows in my ideology, no treasure or pearl that I wouldn't give up if need be. I think we all find bits of ourselves in the Bible and art in general, partly because of eisegesis and partly because the pursuit of God, meaning, or Truth is the pursuit of the self, of identity--of ipseity, which is another process involving the bartering of hidden treasures and pricey pearls.

Different "Feels" of Christianity & the Delicate Balance of Theology

John Piper recently "conclude[d] that God has given Christianity a masculine feel," citing such biblical images as God the king, God the father, God the son, giving people a masculine name (like in common English where "man" can mean "humanity," the Hebrew and Greek languages use a masculine word to refer to people), the penis-requirement for priests, the twelve apostles were male, and that men are the head in marriage (as Christ is the head of the church [see this post for more on Piper's recent conclusion]).

I, too, want to join this concluision-drawing game.

1. God has given Christianity an anti-contraceptive feel due to the overwhelming times where sex is portrayed as only for children, not for pleasure (think about Onan in Genesis 38).

2. God has given Christianity a gay feel. In the Bible, male homosexual acts are talked about significantly more than female homosexual acts. Plus men are asked to be the bride of Christ and read Song of Songs as if they are the woman and God the man. David, the man after God's own heart, had an interesting relationship with his "friend" Jonathan. Christ is the head of the church just as men are the head in marriage. Christ's relationship is with men and men are to understand it through sexual imagery. Christianity has a gay feel. (John of the Cross got it right in his homoerotic poem about the Dark Night of the Soul.)

3. God has given Christianity a pro-choice feel based on the value God puts on human and animal life. People apparently didn't eat animals in "the beginning" (Genesis 9). After that, God requires all kinds of animals in sacrifices and offerings. Then in Jonah, the King of Nineveh has animals repenting and wearing sackcloth, which pleases God enough to not destroy the place. And yet this whole time, God's eye is on the sparrow (Matthew 10:26). God knows when sparrows fall, but God also wants them offered up for sacrifices. God wants life saved eternally, but doesn't care about life on this earth, which is why we'll always have the poor for us (Matthew 26:11) and why God asked Abraham to offer his son for a sacrifice (Genesis 22), wanted the Hebrew people to commit ethnocide (Joshua), and would kill a man and a woman for lying about money (Acts 5). No wonder so many Christians don't care about the environment. We, like God, should care about souls, not life.

Theology is a delicate balance of searching for God and reality while navel gazing. When men control the reading and writing of the Bible, then of course Christianity is going to have a masculine feel. No wonder Christianity had a very anti-Jewish feel when read and controlled by the Nazis. No wonder Christianity had a very white feel when interpreted by US Americans through the 1960s.

Christianity and God will tend to "feel" less like one thing or another when we read the Bible and reality truly in community, community that includes everyone and does not prefer one over the other. Then in community--as the body of God--we will begin to truly experience God and know God face-to-face in each other, not as if in a mirror (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Alter Ego Versus an Ego on the Altar

In this post, I am responding to a reading assignment and discussion from some of my classmates.

After Moses' spoke with God, he wore a veil to hide the fading brightness of his face. Moses wore this veil, this mask to create a distance between himself and the homeless, wandering Hebrews. The fading brightness of his face shows how people can change, how their ideals, their zeal, and their passion can fade overtime. Moses opted to be more constant and wore a veil.

In this event, we can see Moses an example of one who creates an alter ego (I am using Moses more as an illustration than I am actually saying what happened in the story). There was the Moses behind the veil and the Moses before the veil, who is the Moses people saw and with whom they interacted. The Moses behind the veil is the person Moses showed to God. But Moses spent more time with the people than with God. His alter ego became the ego. Eventually, Moses removed the veil, because of this change. The brightness left and the real Moses changed. The Moses behind the veil became the fake Moses, which is the person offered to God.

(Note, I am only giving one interpretation of this event and have no intention of calling Moses a bad person, a bad leader, or give him any other negative connotations than to say Moses was a human being like the rest of us. The following does not represent supersessionism or anti-judaism in my mind. Sorry if I unintentionally imply it.)

In Mark and other gospels, a veil in the temple is reportedly rent in two at Jesus' death. The rending of this veil can symbolize a similar rending of separate identities. As in the classic episode of the Twilight Zone, the longer we wear a mask, the more chances we have of becoming the person before the mask, the person people see in the mask.

The splitting of the veil can signify how our attempts at inauthenticity create an unintended authenticity. If I distance myself from my congregation, I am a different person with them, creating an alter ego. I give them a person who is not me. In time, however, I identify myself as a minister and I become the minister, the alter ego. Then person I give to my friends, family and God is less real. I will lead a split life. To me, this veiling and perceived distance can create more hurt and hinder more ministry than it will actually help.

But if I tear the veil recommended by some ministers, I create an intended authenticity. I become real with my congregations. Only when giving myself to my congregation can "I" actually be their minister. Instead of creating an alter ego, I create an ego on the altar, giving myself fully to God by giving myself fully to them.

I understand this stance can have downsides. Even our best decisions have "negative" side effects. After all, Jesus was mocked, excessively hurt, ostracized, and crucified. In not wearing a veil, Jesus even rent the veil that many perceived standing between humanity and God, a space many in power rented for themselves. Similarly, if we do not rend the space between the minister and those to whom we minister by becoming real, by becoming one of them, by deconstructing our role as different, then we rent out a space that is not ours, standing in between people and God.

Perhaps, as James Kay said, we might not always be "able to fulfill that role [of minister] for them, the very role which brought us together in the first place." Perhaps our inability to fulfill that role could be a blessing in itself, bringing the parishioner and the pastor face-to-face with God, instead of face-to-face with us.

Why I'm (Not) Emerging/Emergent, But Support the Movement

I have been really excited about emergent/emerging Christian communities. Some people tell me a difference exists between "emergent" and "emerging," while others use the terms interchangeably. I don't know if a difference exists between the two and, frankly, I don't think I care all that much. I'm not trying to offend anyone's attempt to create an us/them binary, to put massive groups of people into a box, or to understand with good intentions other people by committing the aforementioned crimes; I just don't currently see an importance in the distinction due to my ignorance of it.

In case you missed it, I opened the last paragraph with "I have been." Those three words could imply continuance with the past or a breaking with the past, either, "I have been and still am," or, "I have been but am not longer." I am looking for a little bit of both connotations.

I am still really excited about emergent/emerging Christian communities and the conversations surrounding them. They are doing wonderful things and making some changes I enthusiastically support. Down with hierarchy, up with co-servanthood. Down with marketing and flattery, up with relationships. Down with isolation, up with intentional living communities. Down with monostructure, up with variety.

Did you notice I just said "they." It seems nearly impossible to analyze and communicate without creating us/them binaries, or, worse, I/them or I/it binaries.

I do not associate myself with any emergent/emerging Christian movement or group any more than I associate myself with any Christian denominational movement or entity. I am just as much Presbyterian as I am emergent as I am Protestant as I am Christian heretic as I am Christian apostate as I am Christian liberal or postliberal or postmodern or post-postmodern as I am Christian deconstructionist and process Christian and agnostic.

Alongside all those other words I just listed, "emergent" and "emerging" are labels promoting identity. Identities build walls. Identities build those us/them binaries. Derrida suggests working towards identification, not identity, a slight and genius play on words.

Identity is one thing; identification isn't one thing. Identity settles for conformity; identification is a dynamic, exciting, frightening, never-settling process. It doesn't involve getting rid of all our lovely identifiers like "emergent," "emerging," and "Christian." We keep those words and recognize they have no denotation and contradictory connotations--they are words, intrinsically meaninglessness words that continually take shape in conversation.

We use these words only when appropriate, not all the time. I'm never always emergent/emerging. Instead, I can identify with an idea or practice I associate with others who self-describe them and this idea or practice within an emergent/emerging movement. Alongside my emergent/emerging leanings, I have a tendency to find myself in Presbyterian (PC-USA) and Baptist circles, although I still have a preference for some theology I have always associated with Advent Christian circles.

With all this identification, I am never placed in a box, because no one will expect me to be the (nonexistent) definition of emergent, emerging, Christian, Protestant, evangelical, Presbyterian, or even "Presbymergent."

I include you in this identification, too. Whether you accept it or not, I don't think you have an identity, as much as I might sinfully judge you to have a few (I often try to put you in a box. Sorry.). With the process of identification, us/them shatters to I/Thou, to, more simply, "We." We are a community. We have commonalities and differences. I am different from and the same as you. We are never completely opposite, because on some level I am not me and you are not you, because we are both we.

I just took some notes on a book I read this winter: An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, with chapters by Brian McLaren and Samir Selmanovic.

I've read books by Brain McLaren. He talks about Christians having "a generous orthodoxy," which attempts to maintain the idea of right belief within what he calls wide margins. Really, he is just promoting one orthodoxy to replace other, previous, "narrower" orthodoxies. He doesn't skirt around the many problems orthodoxy has as an identifier and creator of oppressive us/them binaries. Although saying great things about emergent/emerging, in A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren simply and unfortunately touts another orthodoxy.

I haven't read any books by Samir Selmanovic, but I met him and listened to a presentation he made called "Learning to Love the Other in God, Self, and Society." Whereas McLaren wants to create a Christian community that accepts more people as "us," Selmanovic seems more concerned about becoming yourself, which you can only do in community with the Other. Selmanovic acknowledges the unavoidability of us/them and instead of creating a larger "us," like McLaren, he decides to engage with as many "Thous" as he can in order to be himself. In that presentation, Selmanovic spent more time on I/Thou than us/them.

Both of these men were present at the "Transform" conference I attended in Washington, DC this past April. So was Peter Rollins of Ireland. I don't think Rollins had a version of emerging/emergent like the other two. I think Rollins could even care less about being called Christian. Instead, he wanted to lose himself in order to find himself, to give up identity for the process of identification that could one day be resurrected with Christ. (You might call Rollins a fan of deconstruction.)

All three of these men were at the same conference, in some way associating with the emergent/emerging identifier. McLaren touts that label frequently. I know little of how often Selmanovic uses it, but I know he engages with an interfaith community. Rollins is often associated with Christianity and emergent/emerging, but he apparently spends a lot of time pointing out the deconstruction in those terms.

And yet, they were all enjoying each other's community. I love that part of the emerging/emergent movement. But I resist large parts of the emergent/emerging movement that are obsessed with being emergent/emerging. I don't like oppressive binaries and I saw those binaries hailed at Transform as many had a general distaste for education, certain ways of reading the Bible, and the institutionalized churches. Yes, many based this distaste on hurt, but hurt transformed into an oppressive us/them binary is not deconstruction, but rather entering into the alterity that hurt you and pushing that hurt back on those who hurt you.

I associate with much of what emergent/emerging people are doing--experimenting with faith and trying to get closer to God based on individual communities, not finding one way for everyone to do it in different situations.

And I associate with the tendency to not associate, which is why I have been and continue to be excited about the emerging/emergent church and why I am not now nor will ever be an emergent/emerging Christian, although I hope to be involved in such a definition-defying community one day, either an existent one or one I start.

Perhaps I am part of one or more right now.

It's Just the Beginning

Before I get too far into my sermon, I thought you might want to know who is talking with you, which is easier said than done. I am giving you a first impression of sorts. Sure, some of you have already met me and, now that I am standing up here, all of you have either seen my face or heard my voice--or both. Now I have the opportunity to say what I want you to think about me.

I could introduce myself like I did during the Eco-Stewards program with a "credo," a few short statements of belief:

I believe that humans are a diverse community that can end all forms of oppression by the art, grace, and love of God.
I believe everyone is beautiful and carries the image of God in them.
I believe love and life are fun, which are best expressed in puns.

Or I suppose I could give you my geographic history: I was born and raised on the coast of Maine in a little town called Friendship. From there I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida for college. After receiving my bachelor's degree, I matriculated at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, NC, which is about one hour west of Charlotte. Given this geography, I think the mountains are beautiful and the ocean is sublime.

But what do you know about me from these introductions? You don't know I have a heart for the economically oppressed. You don't know if I am Presbyterian or not. You don't know why I am not wearing a tie or why my ears pierced. You don't know that I have spent over a year working on my thesis for my MA in English or that my thesis examines deconstruction in the orthodoxy/heresy binaries in the theological arguments surrounding the council of Nicaea and Willaim Paul Young's The Shack. You don't know if I've read the whole Bible and, if I have, how many times I've read it. In fact, you don't know me at all.

So how do I introduce myself? There is so much about myself I want you to know and, conversely, so much I don't want you to know. No matter what I say, you won't get an adequate picture of what I want you to know and whatever I want you to know is itself an inaccurate picture of me. If I introduce myself, you get only a persona, which is a word that literally refers to a mask or character played by an actor.

Sometimes the best way to get past the masks is to hear stories. Statements about someone cannot really sum up their being. I can tell you I believe love and life are fun, but until you see me enjoying life, that statement carries little to no meaning. And if I tell you a story about when my favorite seminary professor died suddenly at the age of 40 last year, then you might not believe I think love and life are all that fun.

No matter how well thought out a statement might be, it cannot accurately reflect the reality of who I am. The only way you can know me or anyone else is to get to know them through experience and story.

The gospels are a good example of this theory about story and identity. Whereas people like Paul makes statements about Jesus, the gospel writers want to tell about Jesus in carefully crafted and arranged stories. I can barely read Mark's gospel without thinking about the interactions between identity and story.

In Mark and the other Gospels, Jesus is often known by who is father is. But unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not start with a genealogy or a birth narrative, which would bring Jesus' identity into question in first-century Israelite culture, where your identity is closely to your ancestry. Instead of a genealogy or birth narrative, the gospel begins: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

To begin with, Jesus is introduced in a statement, but one that needs more information. What does "the good news of Jesus" mean? Why is Jesus the Christ? What kind of Christ is he? What significance is there in Jesus being the son of God? Other parts of the Bible call lots of people the children of God, why would it be special for Jesus to be the son of God? Mark apparently places a lot of significance on this son-of-God title. Before the first chapter is over, he tells the story of Jesus' baptism where a voice from heaven says in what I can only imagine sounding like Charleton Heston, John Earl Jones, or Morgan Freeman: "You are my beloved son, in you I am well-pleased."

What really confuses me though, is that Jesus constantly refers to himself as something quite contrary; Jesus is always talking about the son of man. What is the big deal in being the son of man? Who isn't the child of a man and the child of a woman? And why does Jesus refer to himself as the son of man while Mark and some unclean spirits call Jesus the son of God?

And so we have stories about Jesus to give us a little more into the persona of Jesus presented in Mark. These stories mix Jesus' dual sonship to God and humanity. Amidst this confusion of sonship and all these stories, the disciples don't completely know what is going on either. Peter understands Jesus is the Christ, but he doesn't understand what Christ means. He misunderstands so much that Jesus calls him Satan. In response to Peter's misunderstanding, Jesus tells a crowd to deny themselves and lose their lives. Jesus asks them to give up their identities and personae.

Jesus embodies this command. It is a command to be like Jesus who "emptied himself" and allowed his identity as Christ to be crucified--not what anyone expected a messiah to be. It was only in offering his identity to God that Jesus created his own identity (cf. Philippians 2:5-11). The reality of Jesus Christ subverted the definition of messiah. And Jesus didn't simply go against the norm when he crucified his identity, he experienced the pain of giving up his selfhood. In the garden of Gethsemane he prayed for things to change. On the cross he cried out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Jesus gave up his identity on the cross and felt alone, forsaken by God and humanity. He felt like the son of no one, let alone God.

By now the pain has seared into his innermost being. He can barely make coherent thoughts. All he wonders is where God is in the midst of his suffering. Although he cried aloud, he couldn't speak well from the pain and the dryness of his mouth. Some of the people near by thought he said "Elijah," not "Eloi." "How gravely humorous," these people must have thought. They thought Jesus was a nutcase, especially when he called out for a prophet who had been dead for centuries. Wanting to prolong this sick humor of theirs, they decided to satisfy Jesus' thirst. If they wet his throat a little, then he could cry out to Elijah and they might understand him better. So they soaked a sponge in sour wine, which is all the better for ridicule. He would want the liquid, but the sourness would just make things worse.

After, Jesus just yelled. "AH!" The cry might have been a knee-jerk reaction to the sour wine. It might have included a tinge of anger or annoyance at the people. A touch of desperation and tiredness was likely mixed in to that last note. I imagine Jesus was ready to just be done and die.

And Jesus' physical suffering ended. After that cry, his identity was completely a thing of the past, for he was dead. He was no longer the son of anyone except the grave. So much for a long awaited messiah. That hope could be put to rest with Jesus' body.

According to Mark's telling of the story, a curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom about this time. There were a number of curtains in the temple and Mark doesn't exactly specify which one is rent in two--torn like Jesus' flesh, torn even like the distinction between being a son of God and a son of humanity. After Jesus dies, a centurion makes a confession much like Peter's: "Truly this man was the son of God."

In this confession, it turns out to be a child of humanity is to be a child of God. The centurion says Jesus was the son of God, but he was also a man, which means he must be a son of humanity. And Jesus goes on to do something no human does who is not embracing his or her humanity and godliness: he is raised from the dead.

After he is raised, two women go to anoint the body, but instead of Jesus, they find a man who asks them to spread the word of resurrection. But the women are surprised and afraid. Mark says they don't tell anyone, because of their fright and astonishment (16:8).

And the gospel ends with their silence. Sure, your Bible probably has 10 or more verses after, but you will probably also notice a note saying everything after 16:8 is not in the oldest copies of Mark's gospel, which isn't to say the added endings aren't proper for teaching or inclusion in the Bible. But, it can be healthy to look at the book without the added parts.

Listen to the ending: "They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." It isn't much of an ending at all, and it is nothing like the other gospels' endings. It is quite likely the additions were added to tidy up this gospel a bit and give it a "proper" ending.

But I don't think it is supposed to have a neat ending. It isn't supposed to end at all. According to the first verse, the whole book is only the beginning of the good news about Jesus. Verse 1 isn't an introduction to the book, it is a summary of the book, which is why the book doesn't end. We read the last part of the book and we know eventually the women say something, contrary to the gospel's pseudo-ending. If they never said anything, that part of the story couldn't have been in the book, thus the women's continuing story is invited to be part of Jesus' continuing good news.

And so we are invited to become part of Jesus' continuing good news as we are to be Jesus' body here on earth.

We are to give up our identity, to crucify it with Jesus in all the pain and suffering he incurs. And we are to be resurrected without any identity other than our continual attempts to try and be Godly. We are to be children of God while we are children of men and women. The veil between us and Christ, between us and God is to be torn so that people can remember us and say, "Truly, those people are children of God."

I wish I could give you more specifics of what it looks like to crucify your identity and be a child of God and a child of humanity--to be Jesus on this earth, to continue in word and deed the good news he was spreading. If I tried, I would only be giving abstract statements like Micah 6:8: "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Certainly we should do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, but we need stories and experiences to know what that statement means. The gospel of Jesus is just beginning to explicate that statement in narrative. Church, what will we do to continue it, to give life to abstract statements like the one from Micah? What will we say and do in place of the silence of Mark's non-ending story?

Whether we like it or not, we are continuing the story Mark started. Sometimes we follow characterizations we learned from Mark's stories about Jesus. Sometimes our stories give a new glimpse of Jesus through the innovative movements of the Spirit and other times we miss the mark a little, basking instead in the forgiveness and mercy of God.

Since I cannot give you specifics, consider a story from my life, which will serve as a continuing the introduction I began:

This winter I worked at a homeless shelter for men in North Carolina. I worked Christmas Eve through much of Christmas day at the shelter. On Christmas morning I gave the normal 6-am wake-up call, because some of the men rely on that wake-up call like an alarm clock. I didn't ask them to get out of like I would on a normal day, though. I just let them know it was 6 am, in case anyone needed to be anywhere.

Around half of the guys got out of bed, two of whom came by the office where I was and asked to have a moment of my time. The men would come talk to me often, but they seldom prefaced it by asking for some of my time. I figured something was awry and I started to tense up, wondering if someone was hurt, if something had been stolen, or if these guys were going to rat someone out for having drugs or alcohol. And all this, on Christmas morning.

One of them asked me: "How did you get conned into working from 7 pm Christmas Eve through 2 pm Christmas day?" As the tension left my body, I couldn't help but smile, even though that question was enough to make me cry. These two men thought someone would have to be conned into spending that much time with them during the holidays. I don't remember exactly what I told them, probably something crass about how I didn't have anywhere else to be, since all of my family was in Maine. Or maybe I told them there was nowhere I would rather be, which was the truth.

The shelter provided Christmas gifts for everyone and I had the honor of passing out the gifts. A few weeks prior, each man filled out a piece of paper requesting two gifts of $15 or less. A few of the men complained, because they didn't get what they wanted, while others were very grateful, thanking me over and over, even though I had nothing to do with the purchasing or wrapping--I just handed things out. One of the guys told me he shed a few tears of joy, being overwhelmed by the gifts. He said he didn't expect to get so much. He got the same thing every other man got--a garbage bag with two or three large-ish gifts and then miscellaneous items like socks, gloves, and whatnot. I doubt the contents of the bag were worth more than $50, if that.

Around 8 o'clock that morning, a church group came by to serve a breakfast feast. They had biscuits and gravy, an egg casserole, coffee, and juice--all of it was hot, too, except the juice, of course. They brought in a radio to play music and they handed out small gift bags with lotion, chapstick, and a few other hygiene items. I told one of the ladies they did a great thing. Not only did they bring the breakfast, but they also visited with the men. Not only did the men get normal hygiene items like soap and deodorant, but also special items like lotion and chapstick, those not-so-necessary items so many of us take for granted.

None of the gifts or fellowship had strings attached. Usually we give gifts on Christmas to those who also give gifts to us, which is especially true with Christmas cards. If we don't receive a card from someone to whom we sent one, they come off of next year's Christmas card list. That church group that came into the shelter Christmas morning expected nothing in return from the men. A gift that expects a gift in return is not a gift, it is more like a payment or an exchange of goods. That church group gave to those who could not give back to them--they truly gave gifts, asking for nothing in return and with no ulterior motive. They just gave.

They didn't announce to the men they were from such-and-such a church. They didn't say they were giving because they felt guilty if they didn't. They didn't say they were serving because Jesus told them to. They forwent their identity in order to give themselves fully to the moment of service, justice, and love. The saddest thing about that Christmas morning was knowing how little attention the men would get when the holidays were over.

That story is just one of the many stories of the gospel today, one I am so glad I got to witness. If you listen hard enough, Xhurch, I'm sure you'll hear the gospel all over the place, perhaps in places you never thought you would. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan, emphasizing how the gospel will be found in unexpected places. Even Jesus was surprised where he found the gospel once when he found it in a centurion who asked for Jesus to heal his slave from afar.

Listen for it. Live it. Let us leave those around us with an impression of who we are and an impression of who God is, and let us give that impression in narratives, not propositions.

As for who I am, I hope this sermon was good introduction. There is still a lot you don't know about who I am and who I am becoming. If you're curious, I guess you'll have to ask questions and observe, looking and listening for stories.

It's just the beginning.