Isaiah – Peculiar Faith

Unbound and Unbinding

The energy and anticipation were palpable yesterday morning as the choir rehearsed and the liturgical ministers began to vest. We gathered on a hill overlooking the Kalamazoo River, that leads into Lake Michigan, that great inland sea. We gathered as All Saints’ Parish for the 156^th celebration of All Saints’ Day.

We celebrated a rich history of prayer and service on that shoreline hill, a legacy we prayerfully seek to honor by the way we live today and the witness we bear to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have recently been using the image of the “good road” to describe this journey we are on together as a parish, and that road is both inspiring and challenging.

All Saints’ Day marks the beginning of Native American Heritage Month, for example, a November observance in this country that started back in 1990. Modern Western society needs to retrieve at least part of this truly rich heritage of indigenous peoples for the sake of ecological healing in a world of climate chaos and for a healthier relationship with the land.

At the same time, we have started recently to confront more directly another part of this heritage, both as a country and as The Episcopal Church. I mean the painful legacy of residential boarding schools for indigenous children—this isn’t only part of our distant past; some of these schools just closed in our lifetimes.

Stories from these schools were in the news just a week ago when President Biden formally apologized for the government’s role in creating them. The collusion between church and state represented by these schools—this collaboration to erase the cultural traditions of an entire people—this is a gut-wrenching chapter in American religious history, our history.

Telling the truth and hearing the truth about this history is the only way to begin healing the trauma of that history. That kind of truth-telling is part of what it means to travel together on “Creator’s good road,” especially with the healing power of love.

Speaking the truth in love has always been the saintly work of God’s people. In John’s Gospel alone, this vital significance of the truth is mentioned no fewer than twenty-one times. Jesus is the “Word made flesh,” John says, “full of grace and truth” (1:14).

John’s Jesus himself declares that he is the “way, the truth, and the life” (14:6) and promises to send the “Spirit of truth” who will guide us into all truth (16:13) Because, John’s Jesus says, when you know the truth, the “truth will make you free” (8:32).

This healing and liberating power of God is on dramatic display in the familiar story from John assigned for the celebration of All Saints’ Day (11:32-44). Lazarus, a dear friend of Jesus, has died. Lazarus may well have been the closest friend Jesus had, and he was part of an intimate circle of friends that included the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, and a wider circle still of the village of Bethany, where they lived, just outside of Jerusalem.

So this family of friends, this village, gathers to grieve the loss of Lazarus. Jesus himself is so deeply moved that he begins to weep. Mary speaks some hard truth: If you had been here, she says to Jesus, Lazarus would not have died.

As many will recall, Jesus responded by raising Lazarus from the dead. But what many of us don’t often remember is that this moment is not the end of the story, perhaps not even the climax; notice what happens next. The dead man came out of the tomb, John says, and his hands and feet were bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus then said to them—to that family of friends, to that village—“Unbind him, and let him go.”

What a strange moment in this already dramatic story! It’s as if being raised from the dead is not enough, somehow not sufficient for embracing new life. Indeed, as he is walking out of his own tomb, John still refers to him as “the dead man.”

Unbind him, Jesus says, and let him go.

Lazarus is wrapped in a burial shroud—tightly wrapped. That’s how they embalmed a dead body in that society, securely bound by heavily spiced linens soaked in aromatic ointments.

I think John is imagining more here than only the burial shroud of a first-century Judean. John is likely urging his readers to consider that we—all of us—might still be clinging to death even in the midst of life; that we—all of us—might still be in death’s enchanting thrall even as we hope for life; that we human beings have trouble, often deadly trouble in letting go of death.

Whatever keeps us attached to a violent system, whatever binds us to hateful speech or traps us in spirals of bodily shame, whenever we are entangled or enticed by bitter resentments—even a burial shroud can seem appealing when soaked in sweet-smelling herbs—whatever prevents us from the fullness of life needs to fall away.

Unbind him, Jesus says, and let him go.

That is the moment of love’s healing power in this story, and that’s always the work of all the saints, to unbind—to release and to liberate, to let the captives go free from whatever form of death shackles them to the past.

“See,” God says, “I am making all things new.”

That’s a powerful declaration from the Revelation to John, which the lectionary assigned as well for our saintly celebration (21:1-6a). And it’s tempting to hear it as a moment of erasure, of wiping the slate clean, as if God is simply starting over and beginning entirely from scratch.

But no, our history matters. Our history that made us who we are and shaped our families and built our communities matters, and it’s not just simply thrown away.

And the indigenous history of the people we tried to erase on this continent—that history matters just as much as ours. Our shared history with them is not erased in John’s vision—it is remade with the healing power of God’s love.

That’s the good road to travel as God’s people, and yes, this road includes difficult, even heartbreaking moments of truth-telling. But this is not the road to nowhere; it actually does go somewhere, and the selection from the prophet Isaiah for All Saints’ Day says where exactly it leads (25:6-9).

The road leads, Isaiah says, to God’s “holy mountain,” a mountain where the burial shroud cast over all people is lifted, and where God—God!—wipes away the tears from every face—including, surely, the tears from the face of Jesus himself when he wept for his friend Lazarus.

Both Isaiah and John offer a remarkable vision of ever-widening circles of who counts as “God’s people”—an ever-expanding “Communion of Saints.” For both of these ancient writers, tears are wiped from all faces; no one is left out.

Personally, I needed that biblical reassurance this week, especially as the anxiety is running high about the election tomorrow. But here’s the thing: regardless of what happens, no matter who wins and what kind of future we think we might be facing in this country, the shared ministry of God’s people remains the same. As the Book of Common Prayer succinctly frames it, our work is always to promote justice, peace, and love—and that will not change.

In the historic carpenter gothic sanctuary on the corner of Grand and Hoffman Streets in Saugatuck, Michigan, we will continue that holy work and we will extend our Eucharistic fellowship outward, in ever-widening circles of God’s healing love.

And we will keep on doing this work together for another 156 years—or for however long God calls us to do it along this good road.

And what a wonderful day it was yesterday—to recall with song and flowers and food—that we are not alone on that road but accompanied by a vast communion of companion saints.

Breaking the Fourth Wall—for Life

In the world of theatrical productions—whether live theater, film, or television—there is a concept known as the “fourth wall.”

It’s probably easiest to grasp this concept in a traditional proscenium theater: the “fourth wall” is where the stage ends and the audience begins. The “proscenium” is the arched frame around that invisible line and it marks a boundary between the actors on stage (or screen) and the audience in their seats.

Most theatrical productions respect the integrity of that fourth wall as a matter of principle. Performers act as if the audience is not there and they resist addressing the audience directly. Some believe this separation—which makes the audience a collection of “observers”—creates the conditions for a more “realistic” performance, convincing audience members that they are witnessing something from “real life” and not just on a stage.

Breaking that fourth wall, by contrast, can feel disorienting or even rude, as if an unspoken contract had been violated. Audience members are suddenly no longer merely observers but in some way participants in the action—whether they like it or not.

Ancient Greek plays toyed with that wall with the convention of a “chorus,” that collection of voices that would sometimes narrate the action for the benefit of the audience. Shakespeare did this more directly (with Hamlet, for example, and also Puck in A Mid-Summer’s Night Dream).

Twentieth-century directors of both stage and film began breaking that fourth wall more intentionally and regularly as a way to invite viewers more deeply into an unfolding story, as if they themselves were characters in the plot. (The 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a classic example of this when Matthew Broderick’s character talks directly to the camera/audience. The more recent television sitcom Modern Family does this when one or more of the characters occasionally reflects on a plot point in a given episode by talking directly to the camera.)

Yesterday’s lectionary for Trinity Sunday gave us a classic story from Isaiah (6:1-8) that now strikes me as a wonderful example of God breaking the “fourth wall.” The story begins quite routinely, with Isaiah in the temple for worship. The temple—just like almost every church—is a carefully designed space; holy things are kept separate from most of the human beings in the configuration of all the religious furniture.

But on that one particular day, and much to Isaiah’s surprise, the invisible wall of separation crumbles. Suddenly the presence of God is filling the whole temple; Heaven itself is spilling over its banks, flooding past its borders. Angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim fill the skies, and their voices shake the very foundations of the Universe as they declare how God’s glory fills the whole Earth.

Needless to say, Isaiah is overwhelmed by this, and his first response is to feel unworthy even to be there. But when God asks whether anyone will step up and do what needs to be done—“who will go for us?”—Isaiah immediately volunteers. His “Yes” is enthusiastic even though he doesn’t even know what the mission is yet!

This vision of God is life-changing for Isaiah, which is not usually how most people think about worship. It’s much more common to imagine a “fourth wall” remaining firmly, if invisibly in place in our houses of worship, as if we are attending something like a formal concert: we watch, we listen, we observe from a safe distance.

Karl Marx once famously described religion as the “opiate of the people”; whatever he may have meant by that critique, it deserves careful scrutiny. Do religious practices merely keep us passive and acquiescent to the cultural status quo?

Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum analyzes a similar dynamic in politics. In her new book about the rise of authoritarian regimes, she suggests that dictators thrive on the apathy of their societies. In a world that is already as good as we can make it, there’s no point in agitating for change; apathy and cynicism are the cultivated virtues of controlled masses.

In rather stark contrast to sacred segregation and distant deities, John’s Jesus reveals the very essence of God as self-giving love. It’s so easy to take such words for granted, especially when they come from the overly-familiar third chapter of John’s account of the Gospel: “for God so loved the world that God gave…” (John 3:1-17).

But here’s at least one reason to pay close attention to familiar claims: rather than making us merely passive observers, encountering the self-giving God in worship should engage us, involve us, and change us.

So here’s the thing, strange as it may sound: I think the doctrine of the Holy Trinity emerged in Christian traditions for exactly that world-changing purpose. If that’s not how most people think of worship, they certainly don’t think of religious doctrine that way. But even though the purposes of doctrine are often obscured or distorted, it’s worth pondering why they might still matter.

Perhaps the doctrinal notion of God as Trinity matters like this: The self-giving God breaks the fourth wall, drawing us into God’s very own endless life of deathless love. This matters (sometimes dramatically) when we can no longer keep God isolated behind that protective “fourth wall” and when we ourselves are no longer merely observers of some distant divinity starring in a heavenly play.

The God of Isaiah and the God of Jesus is the God who is with us and among us, the God who is for us and also ahead of us, who is inviting us ever deeper into that great drama of creating and redeeming and sustaining the wonders of God’s whole wide world of life.

Clearly, this is not how most people speak in a Trinitarian way about God. Like most people, even lifelong Christians, I was surprised to learn some years ago that Christian traditions offer more than just one way to name the Trinitarian character of God. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is the most familiar way to name the Trinity but there are others.

St. Augustine in the fifth century proposed a whole sheaf of ways to name God, including this: the “Lover, the Beloved, and Love itself.” In my own life of prayer and occasionally in the liturgy produced at All Saints’ Parish, I am fond of yet another way: God as “the Source of Life, the Incarnate Word, and the Abiding Spirit of Love.”

We could also draw more directly from the performing arts: the Holy Trinity as the divine dance of grace; the Trinitarian God as the sacred song of hope; the Triune God as a troupe of improvisers, who tell fantastical stories inspired by the wild and wooly creatures they relish making.

None of these ways of speaking about God is perfect, and each has its own problems. I mean, of course they do; we cannot possibly speak “correctly” about the infinite mystery of the living God. But let’s make sure our theological language is always wildly expansive and thoroughly inviting, recalling above all else that God is not a solo performer alone on stage. What we mean by the word “God” is always and forever an ensemble, urging, luring, and drawing us ever deeper into God’s own life.

Worship matters, as beloved Isaiah discovered, and the way we worship can make a difference in how we live, which is John’s point throughout his account of the Gospel. Our liturgical life is not a spectator sport; it’s supposed to change us so that we can change the world.

All of this is why I embrace life in the Church as a performance, but never with a “fourth wall.” The whole world is the stage, and we are performing together—with God—for a better world.

The world Christian worship invites us to imagine is a world in which every performance is directed by love, produced by grace, and every actor is committed to peace with justice for the flourishing of every creature of God.

Worship not only invites us to imagine such a world; worship equips us to build it.