prudence

by Rev. Mark J.T. Caggiano, February 14, 2010

Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

Moses came down from Mount Sinai, shining. He had been given the Ten Commandments, the written manifestation of the divine covenant between the people of Israel and God. Moses is rather unusual because he was said to have frequently spoken directly with God. His communications were direct and he carried forth a glow from having been in the presence of the most holy. One might be envious of Moses, until you realize that he gave up being a prince of Egypt to wander and wander in the desert in search of the Promised Land. He then died at the border, denied even this one moment of closure to his long journey away from a comfortable life of wealth and privilege. The blessing of speaking with God is often paired with the difficult obligation of carrying these words forward. The light that shone forth from Moses was not for his benefit, for he was barely even aware of it. This luminescence was for the people. Moses became their light, their beacon. Moses became their sign of hope.

We also heard of the Transfiguration, the moment when Jesus stood praying on the mountain and became dazzlingly white. The disciples looked and saw Moses and Elijah standing with Jesus. The three men, these prophets of God, stood in glory. In glory, or in gloria, is a specific Biblical term. Imagine a cloudy day. Imagine the sun breaks through and beams of light fall upon the Earth. Darkness subsides in that moment, darkness gives way to light. That is what was meant by standing in glory.

The disciples saw the sky darken. From those threatening clouds they heard, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" The prophets, Moses and Elijah, were the light against the darkness of the world. Jesus was the light of all lights. And we certainly need a light against the darkness. We certainly need the light of hope.

Hope is the last of the Seven Virtues in my sermon series. It is the last of the three great virtues along with faith and love. Recall that a virtue is a good habit leading us toward good actions. Hope is particularly interesting as a form of virtue because it always arise from the same moment. Hope requires a current condition of dissatisfaction or concern. Why else would there be a need for hope? Bear in mind that this is more than hoping that there is ice cream for dessert. Hope rises up from a state of unease or adversity, carrying our minds and spirits beyond a dark moment with thoughts of deliverance or an expectation of change. Hope as a virtue seeks more than the meeting of our every want; it strengthens us in our time of desperate need. It is the sun after the storm, the morning daybreak dispelling the darkest night.

When thinking of the virtues, I often tried in my mind to pair them off against the Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath, Pride, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Envy and Greed. But these do not line up well topically against the virtues. This disjunction has something to do with too many monastic cooks spoiling the soup. Over time, the virtues and sins have been revised and revisited to reflect changes in theological thinking and even social convention. You may be surprised to learn that historically hope would have been considered in opposition to the sin of sloth. This does not seem to make any sense at first glance. Sloth is slowness and laziness, lethargy and even procrastination. How does this stand against hope?

The evolution of the idea of sloth as a sin is rather intriguing. Originally, sloth was known by another familiar name: depression. Saint Thomas Aquinas referred to sloth as “a sluggishness of the mind which neglects…being good.” Sloth halts our progress, it stymies our efforts to be virtuous people as circumstances require. Place yourself in a slothful mindset: Who can be bothered? Who cares? Who really needs to act when inaction is so much easier? But beyond the immediate behavior of sloth, its winding roots are much deeper and more problematic. For the opposite of hope is not truly depression in our current sense of the word; it is despair.

Despair is a reaction to the fundamental condition of life, while depression is now considered to be a life condition. In the 21 st century, despair is existential angst, depression is pharmacological imbalance. Or at least that is what the commercials tell us. Some rather sad looking person dressed in a dull gray sweatshirt and poorly combed hair takes a few pills and suddenly bursts forth in a bright yellow golf shirt and a hundred dollar hair cut. This is like the moment when the librarian takes off her glasses and becomes staggeringly beautiful, except in this case emotionally. These are amusing cinematic conventions, but when used to sell prescription drugs they can become cheap tricks promising false hope.

Some opinion makers have even gone so far as to question the existence of depression. This so-called disorder is simply an invented notion. It was designed to justify the sales of Valium in the last century and Prozac in the current one. I recall back in college, in my distant days of studying psychology, that one school of thought was that mental illness was merely a difference of opinion over life views. You say tomato, I say tomato. You say depression, I say divergent thinking.

I am all for intellectual exercises and frequently draw you into them on Sunday mornings. Depression has over the years been kicked around in so many directions, it is often hard to understand what it is any more. In decades past, it was a failure of character, a melancholy nature. It was a weakness of will similar to the ideas of Aquinas. Currently and quite differently, it is a biochemical imbalance, a momentary lack of serotonin and other neurotransmitters that can be buffed up with a dash of Zoloft. Like many problems, however, depression is not so simple to locate on that historical spectrum.

Depression can most certainly be a crippling condition. Medications can be the saving grace for people suffering from its effects. Yet, these chemical saviors have become the only response. At times, the circumstances of our lives can induce a state of depression – in other words, your life stinks. It is like a country song: your wife runs off with your best friend and you run over your dog with the pickup truck. There are times when depression springs from the stories of our lives rather than the synapses of our brains. Yet, the only help seemingly available in our society comes from the drug store. No one talks any more.

There is the old stereotype of the neurotic patient endlessly on a couch. He is talking to a bearded man who has an uncomfortable habit of asking questions about one’s mother. But this is a faded joke, for there is little time for talking these days. We are busy, busy people. We have miles to go before we sleep. And now, we have the answer. We are not weak, we have a disease. We need mental penicillin to zap those mental illness germs. Who has time to be upset or sad or confused? What a waste of our precious time.

My recurring social commentary is that one of the great weaknesses in our current society is social isolation. We spend hours per day in front of computers and televisions. We wall ourselves off with IPods and IPhones. Is it no wonder these begin with the letter “I”? We spend so much time focusing on “I” this and “I” that, there is little time for us.

We are social beings. We learn from the arch of an eyebrow, the curl of a smile. We drink in laughter and devour good stories. Even a good book is little compared to a good friend. With all the noise and bother around us, we are the loneliest people on the planet. Who has time for others? Who has time for friends? Who has time for God?

This Thursday, I was being sociable, having lunch with some colleagues at a local temple. The rabbi who was hosting us was explaining how he spent his week: he was studying. You might ask yourself: he did not get enough of that already? After all the years that members of the clergy have spent in school to become rabbis, priests and ministers, wouldn’t it be about time to put the books down and get to work? It does not work that way. School was just the stretching exercise before the marathon.

We study. We pray. We study some more. We as a profession contemplate how the words of scripture and the stories we hold dear might be of use in this complicated society. Study provides a moment to mull over what men and women have found fascinating in the scriptures over the centuries. Study is also a religious discipline, a critical component in amplifying one’s relationship to the divine. As this rabbi explained, when we pray, we talk to God. And when we study, God talks to us.

When we study, God talks to us.

Has there ever been a moment in your life when you wanted to speak directly with God? Perhaps some momentous decision was at hand, a choice that might alter your life forever. Perhaps some tragedy had befallen you or someone you love. Perhaps you were experiencing a time of great sadness or adversity. Yet, we generally do not get the response we seek, an immediate answer delivered on angel wings. We do not spy in the distance a neon sign guiding us right and true to the best course of action. We want to know the most profitable or easy way out of our current predicament and we want to know it now.

When we pray to God for answers, they rarely come in the same conversation. But this is like speaking on the telephone with your hand over the earpiece. We talk but do not wait and listen. We are at times too preoccupied with our sense of anxiety, the deafening stress of a life out of control. We need to step back from it all for some perspective, out from the raging torrent around to see how the white water courses through the river of our belabored existence. How do we do that?

When we study, God talks to us.

Please do not take this as a homework assignment. I do not mean to suggest that you all need to go home and study the next fifty pages of the Book of Exodus. And do not forget the 500 word essay on the significance of milk and honey in the Bible. Spelling counts.

No, I certainly do not mean anything of the sort. In Bible study on Thursdays, it is a banner morning if we get through a half dozen verses. This does not cheapen the conversation, for we speak of many things in life, in society and in the world. These are not always great and grand, but it is almost always worthwhile. It is an achievement to read the Bible from cover to cover. But it is a milestone to grasp even one of the lessons of Jesus.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus at times points out the limited perceptiveness of the disciples – in other words, he pretty much calls them blockheads. I often feel like I am the dunce stumbling around in the theological darkness. The simplicity of Jesus’ message belies the complexity of its meaning. The dazzling light of his transfiguration pales next to the intense light of his simple truths. Study helps.

And the significance of study is not merely a scriptural undertaking. Study can be about the Bible, to be sure, or even great literature. It can be about not so great literature. It can be the study of words upon a page or the faces of those around us. It can be an examination of great art or the pageantry of the everyday. It can be and should be about the study of life.

You can garner much wisdom from the world around you, provided that you are willing to study; to look and to listen with care. For we all stumble around at times, we all strive to figure out the next thing to do. We need to make study a habit, a good habit leading us to good actions. Again this is not mandatory homework; consider it extra credit.

What does any of this have to do with hope? Recall that hope begins from a point of incompleteness, of dissatisfaction. I am here and need to be there. I am lost and need to be found. I am desperate and alone, depressed and afraid. I cannot see the way forward; I cannot see at all.

Depression and despair were considered sins because they suggest that one does not accept the transcendent love and kindness of God. Sloth means despairing of action, despairing that there is no point in moving one more step. Hope is the light beckoning us forward. Hope is the inward warmth we feel against the cold loneliness of the world. And hope comes from God. But hope is impossible without one of the other virtues. That virtue is love.

Jesus asks us to love one another. We are to love the sick and the poor, the meek and the suffering. Love helps lifts them up through their illness and poverty, their helplessness and adversity. For virtue is a two sided coin: when we act in the world out of love, we become the light of hope for those we comfort. Love transforms the world through this feeling of hope. Hope in turn strengthens and enriches those who were unable to love. It encourages new love and this love generates new hope. It is a good and endless cycle of growth making us better people as we make a better society - hopefully.

I was on the phone the other day with a friend. This person was having a hard time and, knowing quite a bit of the circumstances involved, it was no wonder. Money was tight, tempers were flaring and communication had broken down completely. The pressures of life were growing and growing and growing. My friend and I spoke on the phone for a while. We talked and talked and talked. Afterwards, I asked if the conversation had helped. And it had. The problems were still there, and there were no easy fixes available. That conversation was the first break away from all that discord, the first moment of stepping back for some long needed perspective.

Like that conversation, hope does not make the bad things go away. Hope reminds us that it is possible to get through the pain. It gives us the strength to move forward and some bearings for the hard journey ahead. Hope is not a magic wand yet its effects can be miraculous.

For seven Sundays, we have been talking about virtue, leading up to this week. For this week is the beginning of Lent. It is a season in anticipation of Easter, the commemoration of the death of Jesus upon the cross and the hope of salvation through his resurrection. It is forty days in length, symbolizing the forty days of fasting, prayer and contemplation of Jesus leading to his eventual journey to Jerusalem. Some people make it a habit of giving something up for Lent, to at least symbolically share in Jesus’ sacrifice.

I was wondering what I might forgo these coming weeks. I was thinking about giving up worrying for Lent. As Lenten observances go, this would be difficult. I would have to step back to understand that worrying never solved a problem or completed a task. I would have to recognize that anxiety steals away my energy to fix the problems inducing the anxiety in the first place. I would have to look past the darkness of the moment toward the light in the distance, just as the sun in all its glory breaks through the clouds. How might I do all this?

Prudence will have to guide my steps. Temperance and justice will have to guide my actions. Courage will have to guide my mind, faith will have to guide my soul and love will have to guide my heart. At least, this is what I hope.

Our sermon is ended.