“I came forth from the Father and am come into the world:
again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
The life of the resurrection is the life of the church. There is, however, the constant struggle to enter into its meaning; in short, to live it in our lives, especially in the face of hardships, sufferings and sorrows. At the very least, it means being called not only out of death as the defining reality of life, but also out of the ways of death which we know simply as sin, which is Paul’s point in this morning’s second lesson from Romans (6. 1-14).
The American spiritual writer, Annie Dillard, marvels at the complacency of Christians, especially in Church, and especially in the light of certain Scripture readings. Given the power of Biblical images, she advises that we should be wearing crash helmets and be given life-jackets and lashed to our pews! There is a kind of shock and awe quality to many a Scripture passage. We become anesthetized because of the calming beauty and order of the Liturgy and fail to be surprised by joy or shocked by fear. Some stories truly are amazing, even shocking, and yet they have so much to teach us. One such shocking and perplexing story, it seems to me, is there in our first lesson which is the story or, actually, the concluding part of a much longer story, known as the story of Balaam’s ass (Numbers 24).
Here is headline news: God makes dumb asses speak. In a way, that means me in the effort to speak God’s word clearly but also you, in terms of your lively participation in the service. The point is that God gives us words to say and think, words to live by and act upon in our lives. We need the shocking and difficult stories to awaken us to the grandeur of God’s engagement with our humanity without which we are dead in ourselves and therefore not alive to God. So what is the story?
Balak, the King of Moab, has seen what God has done through Israel to “Og the King of Bashan” and “Sihon, King of the Amorites”, those mighty kings whom he slew “because his mercy endureth for ever” as Psalm 136 so wonderfully yet disturbingly puts it. But in order to avoid a similar fate and be ousted from the land, Balak undertakes to hire the prophet Balaam to curse his enemies, namely Israel. In other words, Balak wants to employ God’s power for his own immediate political ends. And Balaam is to be his agent. Rent a prophet. Rent a priest. It is all the same. It runs completely counter to the fundamental insight that governs Judaism, Christianity and Islam; that is to say, it is a kind of idolatry which reflects a kind of atheism.
But the story of Balaam’s ass, confronts us with the principle of God as Absolute that defines the Judaic, Christian and Islam understanding in which both idolatry and atheism are strongly repudiated. The biblical story here is both complex and profound. It captures a certain moment, the problematic of making God subject to us rather than us subject to God.
In one way of reading the story, Balaam temporizes, at first, refusing to come to Balak and, then, agreeing to come, the implication being that he has succumbed to Balak’s repeated and forced demands. There are the strong temptations to conform to worldly expectations and demands; in short, to pervert the word of God to serve human ends and purposes, whether to curse what should not be cursed or to bless what should not be blessed; in short, to do what pleases people rather than what pleases God.
Balaam will indeed go to Balak but it will be after receiving a lesson from God about what he is to say, a lesson learned by way of his dumb ass who speaks to warn him about messing around with God’s word and way. “How can I curse whom God has not cursed,” says Balaam, “Must I not take heed to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”
Balaam has come out of the confusions and ambiguities of the prophetic ministry to learn the word and will of God which must condition his discourse. Our lesson is the oracle of Balaam, “the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, the oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down but having his eyes uncovered.” He has learned, we might say. He has become enlightened about the majesty and the truth and the power of God which cannot be manipulated, twisted and perverted to our imaginary goals and purposes. We deceive ourselves and we betray ourselves. God cannot be fooled. It is we who fool ourselves. The dumb ass is God’s agent that enlightens us about our folly. We are dumber than any dumb ass yet God can use the simplest things of creation to teach us about his grandeur, his wonder and his truth. He can even use me and you! But let us be clear. It is for our sake and for our good and for God’s glory.. In the long end of the day, only the truth can be known and loved; only truth and love triumph over human sin and presumption.
Today is known as Rogation Sunday. Rogation refers explicitly to prayer. Prayer is not about our groveling before God. Prayer is not about our whining. Prayer is not about our bargaining with God. Prayer is not about us simply. It is about our participation in the life of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Prayer, properly speaking, places us in the motion of the Son’s love for the Father in the Spirit. We take our part in prayer with the God who seeks our prayer. Prayer unites us to God.
It requires the constant purifying of our hearts and minds. In the rich Eucharistic gospel for this day (BCP, p. 197), Jesus lays out in the most wonderful and powerful way possible who he is and what he is for us and what it means for prayer. “In the world,” he says, “ye have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” In a way it simply means that we are not to be defined by the world, the place of passing fads and fantasies, the place of limitation and incompleteness, the place of machinations and agendas, such as Balak’s, not to mention the place of folly and wickedness. What is that overcoming of the world? It is the triumph of God’s grace restoring not destroying nature. It provides the meaning of prayer. Everything is gathered into the primary relationship of God with God in God signaled so perfectly in Christ’s words: “I came forth from the Father and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” Amazing words. Everything is gathered into that relationship, the divine relationship.
Prayer is about the intentional placing of ourselves and one another and our world with God. Rogation Sunday brings these elements before us with great clarity and wonder. “You never love the world aright,” the poet, Thomas Traherne, notes, “until you learn to love it in God.” And so with everything else. We never love aright until we love in prayer, placing ourselves, our friends and our world with God in prayer. But prayer here reaches out into every aspect of our lives. To pray is to live what we pray, or at least to attempt to do so, hence confession remains an ever present and necessary presence, itself a form of prayer and praise.
Balaam learned from a dumb ass whom God made to speak. Balaam learned that blessing (and cursing) can only arise from the heart that is with God in prayer. That means honouring God in his truth and majesty rather than taking God captive to our little schemes, whims and follies. Rogation Sunday is about the prayer that places everything with God in the love of the Son for the Father in the power of the Spirit. God is God and not simply what we want him to be for ourselves.
In the secular culture of North America, this is Mother’s Day. Quite apart from being the busiest day of the year for the floral industry and the phone companies, it reminds us of some home truths, or so it seems to me. Home truths like the fact that everyone is born of woman; home truths like the fact that mothers constitute the critical matrix through which children are born and nurtured in life. It is for more reasons than mere sentiment that we celebrate mothers. We honour them. And that is to place them with God in thanksgiving. Through their sacrifice and dedication, we have life, a life that is to be lived to God. Prayer is about our lives as lived for God with one another. Humanly speaking, in some real sense it starts with our mothers. We place them today with the God who has come to draw us back to himself. Such is the joy of redemption and the joy of God’s engagement with us in the work of salvation.
“I came forth from the Father and am come into the world:
again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
Fr. David Curry
Rogation Sunday, 2012