Exodus 17:1-7, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32
The classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (New York: Harper Books, 1990) teaches us about being consistent between our beliefs and our actions, about standing up for what we believe in, about living life with integrity, about being true to our beliefs. The story is set in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Atticus Finch is a white man, a lawyer assigned to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of attacking a young, white woman. Atticus has two children, Scout and Jem. They have a housekeeper named Calpurnia. Many people in the town of Maycomb believe a black man does not deserve to be defended. Scout hears the talk about town and asks Atticus why he is defending a black man. “Atticus sighed. ‘I’m simply defending a Negro—his name’s Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump. He’s a member of Calpurnia’s church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they’re clean-living folks. Scout, you aren’t old enough to understand some things yet, but there’s been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn’t do much about defending this man. It’s a peculiar case—it won’t come to trial until summer session. John Taylor was kind enough to give us a postponement…’ ‘If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doin’ it?’ asked Scout. ‘For a number of reasons,’ said Atticus. ‘The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.’ ‘You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to mind you any more?’ ‘That’s about right.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change…it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.’ ‘Atticus, are we going to win it?’ ‘No, honey.’ ‘Then why--’ ‘Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,’ Atticus said” (pgs. 75-76). Scout brings up the subject of the town folk again: “‘Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong….’ ‘They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,’ said Atticus, ‘but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience’” (p. 105). Atticus knows himself, knows what he believes in, and stands true to himself.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus teaches us about living true to our beliefs. Jesus asks the chief priests and the elders, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” The chief priests and elders consider possible responses, but are concerned about the consequences. “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” They are afraid to stand up for their beliefs, to be true to themselves. Jesus takes the lesson a step further. He tells the story about a man and his two sons and the sons’ willingness to work in the vineyard. The first son says he will not work, but later changes his mind and goes to work. The second son says he will work, but does not go to work. The chief priests say that the first son did the will of his father. The first son learns a lesson, so to speak. He changes his mind and goes to work. Jesus relates this son to the tax collectors and prostitutes who heard John the Baptist and believed. And, Jesus clarifies for the chief priests that they heard the message from John the Baptist and, yet, they do not believe. We are called to be true to ourselves. And, we are called to understand ourselves, to learn, to grow, to evolve, that we might live truthfully.
I recall an experience I had while on a retreat with St. Augustine’s Church, where our family attended before we came to Christ Church. For several years, the church planned a family weekend retreat held somewhere within a reasonable driving distance from Wilmette. Each year, the retreat was planned around a theme with a guest speaker. One year, the theme was the works of C. S. Lewis. The children’s activities were planned around The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the guest speaker focused his presentation to the adults on The Screwtape Letters. During the presentation, the guest speaker said something about God’s Creation. I can not remember the exact statement. I simply remember a startling moment in my life in which the words I had heard since childhood, “God created the world”, suddenly held new meaning for me. Something clicked in my being – I think I even gasped. No longer was God a part of my world. Rather, I was a part of God’s world. I remember thinking I need to reconsider my whole life, rethink how I view life, how I view love and family and relationships and societal issues and global issues—how this new understanding of God’s Creation plays itself out throughout life. Consistency is not easy. I see inconsistencies in how I live my life. I imagine there are more I don’t recognize. But, I do believe we are called to reflect on who we are, to grow in our understanding of self and our understanding of life, and then to strive to live truthfully – a lifelong process foundational to being human.
I return to one of my current favorite books, Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). Gilbert writes about her year of travel in search of renewal after a difficult divorce. She has this to say about growing into ourselves: “My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which grows into the tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few can recognize that there is another force operating here as well—the future tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding the evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born” (p. 329). Gilbert continues, “I think about the woman I have become lately, about the life that I am now living, and about how much I always wanted to be this person and live this life, liberated from the farce of pretending to be anyone other than myself. I think of everything I endured before getting here and wonder if it was me—I mean, this happy and balanced me…—who pulled the other, younger, more confused and more struggling me forward during all those hard years. The younger me was the acorn full of potential, but it was the older me, the already-existent oak, who was saying the whole time: ‘Yes—grow! Change! Evolve! Come and meet me here, where I already exist in wholeness and maturity! I need you to grow into me!’ (p. 329-30).
Gilbert is writing a sequel to this book which I am anxious to read, at least in part, because though we hit milestones, growth is a lifelong process. I want to know what is happening to Gilbert now, how she continues to grow into herself. And, that is what we are called to do, to grow into ourselves, to listen and to learn from one another, to evolve, to integrate new understanding into our beliefs and into our actions. We are becoming all we can be, growing into the truth of life, living life most fully, living into Christ, living with God. Amen.
