“Rejoice with me”
Repentance leads to joy. There is something powerful in that idea. It is splendidly illustrated for us in the second lesson this morning in the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
Repentance is redire ad principium, a kind of circling back to the truth from which we have turned. The idea of turning back to the truth in the awareness of the ways in which we so easily turn away from it, is one of the recurring lessons of the Scriptures. It is an important part of the good news, the good news that results in rejoicing actually.
Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Jesu Ben Sirach, is one of the Books of the Apocrypha. It belongs to an ancient tradition of “wisdom literature” and, indeed, offers many a profound instruction on moral and spiritual ideas. In this morning’s first lesson, we are reminded about the destructive effects of anger and wrath. They are “abominations.” They are possessed by the sinful man and woman and they possess us. The desire for vengeance arises from anger and wrath and is set in explicit opposition to the idea and concept of forgiveness and healing. Ecclesiasticus would recall us to the commandments of God, to their positive force for the good that redeems us from our rage to lash out and destroy.
These are profound lessons and show something of the wisdom of the wisdom literature and how important a place they have in the reading and thinking life of the Church. In many ways, the Books of the Apocrypha, books written between the time of the writing down of the Old Testament and the emergence of the New Testament, anticipate some of the central themes of the Christian Gospel, especially in terms of moral instruction. In this case, the themes of forgiveness and joy are juxtaposed with the destructive forces of anger and wrath.
In calling us to be true to the commandments, Ecclesiasticus hints at an important insight. What is our anger and our wrath really about? In the developed Christian moral teaching that is built upon this tradition as well as upon the moral reflections of pagan antiquity, anger and wrath are really sins against God that wreak havoc in our souls and in the community of souls. Why sins against God? Simply because we are angry that things are not the way we want them to be. We want to be in control. We want to be God. All sin, after all, comes down to pride.
Wrath is simply ‘Anger Plus’. Plus what? More irrationality. We jettison any sense of rational restraint. Our frustrations about what we perceive to be an obstacle in our way is expressed in the mindlessness of destruction. Smashing something or someone is our way of expressing our desire for power and control. Foolishly contradictory, of course, but only too common. We all know this in one way or another.
The ancient Epic of Gilgamesh deals with how the hero comes to be the hero of the ancient Sumerian world and in particular with how he begins to become wise. A life-long lesson in a world of utter uncertainties where chaos just might be a far more powerful force than order, the illustrations of Gilgamesh’s education are intriguing and profound and speak, paradoxically, to the sophisticated barbarisms of our all-too-violent contemporary culture.
Dismayed and in despair at the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh goes on a quest for wisdom as distinct from the adventures of great deeds and derring-do by which heroes make a name for themselves anciently (and modernly!). He goes to the ends of the world and beyond to question Utnapishtim “concerning life and death.” In the garden of the gods, he meets Siduri, the wine-women. Her advice to him is simply “to eat, drink and be merry.” As another book of wisdom, one of the canonical texts of the Jewish Scriptures or the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes (not to be confused with Ecclesiasticus), puts it: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die.” The same thing is here in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Siduri’s advice is to embrace the philosophy of hedonism, the philosophy of pleasure, pleasure in the moment because there is nothing else worth living for. It is a kind of fatalism, both ancient and modern, dare I say.
It is to Gilgamesh’s credit that he rejects her advice. He will persist in his pursuit of wisdom. Yet, in his soul, as in ours, perhaps, there lurks the very inclinations and tendencies that get in the way of our learning. Siduri tells him that to cross the waters of ocean and the waters of death he needs to see Utnaphistim’s ferryman, Urshanabi, to see if it is even possible for him to get to where Utnaphistim is in the land of Dilmun. But the very idea that there might be an obstacle to his desire sends Gilgamesh into a rage and a tantrum in which he destroys the tackle of the boat, the very means that would have conveyed him on his quest across the waters of ocean and death. Anger and wrath are self-destructive and illustrate the contradictions in our souls. This is the wisdom, too, of Ecclesiasticus. The counter is a more reflective view about ourselves and one another. “Remember the covenant of the Most High and overlook ignorance,” Ecclesiasticus advises.
Be wise, only so, might you also be happy or not. Luke’s great parables of redemption, the lost sheep and the lost coin, lead us to the parable of the lost son, the parable of the prodigal son. We are recalled to the house of wisdom, to the recollection of our souls in the father’s love. There is rejoicing because what was lost is found. We are found. This is the greater wisdom of the Gospel. Far more precious than a coin or even a sheep are our souls. Wisdom would recall us to truth. Repentance is about our turning to the truth, the truth revealed in the witness of the Scriptures to the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. In him we find our beginning and our end. Only through repentance can we hope for rejoicing. It is found in the one who turns to us and who seeks us out when we are lost and gone. Against our anger and wrath, he calls us to repentance and to rejoice.
“Rejoice with me”
Fr. David Curry
Trinity XXIV, ‘2010, MP 10:30am
2 thoughts on “Sermon for the 24th Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am service”
I think that you have misinterpreted the Epic of Gilgamesh in some respects.
Gilgamesh does not so much search for ‘wisdom’ as for immortality after the death of Enkidu. Wisdom is something that he only obtains inadvertently after he finally realises the futility of his quest. The text is very clear about the hero’s motivations. Gilgamesh roams the wild in search of Utnapishtim because of grief, and his consequent fear of death. Shamash, Shiduri (in the Old Babylonian versions), and Utnapishtim all state that Gilgamesh is searching for “life”, not wisdom. Yes, Gilgamesh does plan to question Utnapishtim about “life and death”, but the question he actually asks makes it very clear what this means: How did you find eternal life? (11:5)
Suggesting that Shiduri (the tavern keeper) recommends ‘hedonism’ to Gilgamesh is also a little off the mark. Rather she is advocating enjoyment of the simple things in life, including children and family. The parallel text in Ecclestiasties is 9:7-9, not 8:15 – which, incidentally, does not include the words “tomorrow we die” (Isa 22:13). Rather, it is Gilgamesh who behaves in a hedonistic, excessive and self-interested manner throughout the epic. Shiduri is suggesting that being content with simple pleasures is better than embarking on selfish and futile quests for eternal life. As Utnapishtim hints a little further on: Gilgamesh is behaving like a fool.
PS. Dilmun is never mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Thanks for your comments and for your correction about the source of “tomorrow you die”. I have in mind Peter Kreeft’s analysis of Ecclesiastes.
In one of the brief redactions of the Epic, Dilmun is mentioned (Penguin Classics – N.K. Sanders translation).
At the beginning of the Forest Journey, Gilgamesh learns his destiny. It is kingship but not everlasting life. In that adventure he is not afraid of death. In his later journey, he wants to question Utnapishtim concerning life and death. He is having to come to terms with his mortality and the purpose of life. I think Siduri’s advice, while it seems about excepting limits and not striving for anything more, whether you conceive that to be everlasting life or an understanding of life, can be described philosophically as hedonism and as embodying a kind of despair of knowing which in Ecclesiastes is about the limits of what the Summum Bonum is “under the sun”. Pleasure is tried and is found wanting, there.
In the Epic, especially in the prologue, Gilgamesh is celebrated as hero not just for what he does – his great deeds – but for his wisdom. I take the story to be about how he becomes what he is for the culture. His immaturity is, to be sure, part of the story. In the scene with Utnapishtim and his wife about the loaves, I take that to be a way of describing how Gilgamesh has to come to recognise actual evidence over against the mere assertion of his will.
In the Epic, order is a fragile concept, Chaos seems much stronger but there is a desire to move in the direction of order. Even the gods, reprove Enlil about the flood, arguing that the sinner should be held accountable for his sin rather than random destruction because the gods are annoyed at the insignificant little noisy twits that the humans are. In a way, the Epic of Gilgamesh story of the Flood ends with the moral principle that the Genesis story begins with.
The contrasts are intriguing as are some of the comparisons. For me, they help to illumine certain features of the Scriptural view.
Again, thank you for your comments.
David Curry