Learning to Speak Christian. Stanley Hauerwas
god let bad things happen to good people?” Such a people cannot imagine what kind of people would write and sing the Psalms.
Learning to say “God” requires that I learn to acknowledge that I am a “dependent rational animal.”6 It may be possible to acknowledge that we are rational dependent animals without learning to say “God,” but to learn to say I am dependent without regret at least creates the space the practice of prayer can occupy. To be human is to be an animal that has learned to pray. Prayer often comes only when we have no alternatives left, but prayer may also be the joy that comes from the acknowledgment of the sheer beauty, the absolute contingency, of existence.
So this kitchen sink of a book hopefully provides examples of my writing, my work, and, in particular, my attempt to work on myself so that I might be a more adequate Christian speaker. I do not intend to make a long book longer by “explaining” why I have included this or that essay or sermon. This is a collection, not a book, though I am not sure I know how to control that distinction. What is here is here because it is my work. I make no apologies.
I have followed the good suggestions of Father Nathaniel Lee about how the essays might be grouped, but I am sure many readers may think after they have read the book that they know better than me how I should have organized the book. If you do come to such a judgment all I ask is you let me know. God knows I need all the help I can get.
I do ask, however, that readers remember that this is a collection and that there is a rationale for the grouping of the essays. For example, the essays and sermons in the first section of the book try to address questions of learning to say “God.” The essays and sermons in the middle section, “The Language of Love,” can be characterized as those that deal with more “normative” matters. The last section of the book is about people and movements (Methodism and Roman Catholic Social Encyclicals) that have taught me how to do theology.
I have included the Appendix, “On Learning to See Red Wheel Barrows,” because Carole Baker recently discovered a way to reclaim it from the misbegotten attempt to make the Journal of the American Academy of Religion an online journal. I have been asked so many times for a copy of the essay, a copy I did not have, I thought I would include it so that those determined to read what I write, a category of human beings for whom I am very grateful, would finally have it in an accessible form.
I confess that I have included a number of the essays in Learning to Speak Christian because I hope they might counter some of the mischaracterizations of my work. You would think by now that I would recognize that the more I publish, the more misunderstandings I encourage, but I am a stubborn person. It is my fondest hope that by making these essays and sermons available some may find by reading them that they have learned better how to speak Christian.
Acknowledgments
As usual I need to thank Carole Baker for all that she has done to make this book possible. She has not only worked with the individual essays but she’s also made important suggestions for the overall book. I am also indebted to Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee for his help in bringing together these essays. I would like to thank Charlie Collier and the wonderful people at Cascade Books for not only publishing this book but for the many fine books they publish in Christian theology. Timothy Kimbrough became dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, Tennessee, after having served Church of the Holy Family for twenty-one years. I was privileged to be asked by the vestry to serve on the search committee for a new rector for Holy Family. I’ve never been around a more remarkable group of people. They never asked who I liked, but rather prayed to be able to discern who God was sending Holy Family. I am convinced prayer makes all the difference in any search.
I. Learning Christian: To See and to Speak
1
Look at It and Live
A Sermon for Goodson Chapel
Duke Divinity School
March 26, 2009
Numbers 21:4–9
Psalm 107:1–3, 17–22
Ephesians 2:1–10
John 3:14–21
How odd of God to save this way. The people of Israel were very unhappy and so, as was their habit, they began complaining: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Things weren’t good; the people of Israel discovered, however, that things could get worse. Miserable food is one thing, but how would they survive the threat of snake bites?
The Lord had sent the poisonous serpents because the people were complaining not only about Moses, but this time we are told they even “spoke against God.” Not confident in their ability to intercede with God, they begged Moses to ask the Lord to take the serpents away. Moses did as he was asked, praying that God would save those he had led through the wilderness. We do not know the content of Moses’ prayer, but one assumes he asked God to get rid of the serpents. But God did not take the serpents away. Instead he told Moses to make a replica of a poisonous serpent, set it on a pole, and if anyone bitten by a serpent looked upon Moses’ snake they would live.
Moses did as he was told. He made a serpent of bronze, put it on a pole, and those who had been bitten by a serpent were saved by looking on Moses’ creation. How odd of God to save this way. Surely it would have made more sense to do what the people of Israel asked, that is, just get rid of the serpents! God let Patrick drive the snakes out of Ireland, so it is possible to get rid of the snakes. I have never understood why God could not have seen fit to send a Patrick to Texas. But then, even Texans know that they are not God’s promised people.
It remains a mystery, at least it remains a mystery for me, why God choose to save those who were bitten by the snakes by having them look at the bronze serpent. Even though it is usually not a good idea to second-guess God, I cannot help but wonder why God would save those bitten by the poisonous serpents this way. Why should the people of Israel look at this inanimate object for their salvation?
To look, to see, to really see, is never easy. In particular it is never easy to see death. You cannot help but be sympathetic with the people of Israel. They are being asked to look on, to see, that which threatens their very existence. To live they must look on death itself: “Look on death and live.”
Philosophers have often reflected on the seeming paradox that we only come to life through the acknowledgment of death. Montaigne even entitled one of his essays, “To do philosophy is to learn to die.” I suspect there is much to be learned from philosophers about the significance of death, as well as how to die, but I do not think God’s command to Moses to make the serpent was meant to make the people of Israel more philosophical. Rather it was a reminder of what it means to be chosen by God.
To be called by God is serious business. To be God’s people is a life-and-death matter. God would not have his people, his promised people, presume that by being his chosen they are free of danger. We are all individually and collectively going to die. “Dust you are and to dust you shall return.” But the death Israel faces is not just any death; it is a death determined by her being God’s beloved. The story of Israel is the story of her training to become a people whose survival depends on learning to trust God in a snake-infested world.
How odd of God to save this way. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus will be lifted up, but he is first lifted high on the cross. We are told he must die in this way because by being “lifted up from the earth” he will draw all people to him (John 12:32–33). Just as Israel had to look on the serpent to live, so now it seems we must look on this man’s death if we are to have life.
Yet we cannot help but think that Jesus on the cross is surely of a different order than Moses’ serpent. Jesus was lifted high on the cross, but the cross could not hold him. He will be raised from the dead to ascend