Lent IV

 

As a native of the Boston area, it will probably not surprise any of you to learn that Fenway Park is one of my favorite places on earth. It is layered with a lifetime of memories—most of them joyful, and all of them, in their own way, wondrous. It has been called by many the “Taj Mahal of baseball,” having been around almost as long as professional baseball itself. Yet if you have ever been there, you know that it is a rather strange building.

The legendary pitcher Roger Clemens once spoke about the first time he visited the park ahead of his rookie season. He remarked that Fenway looked like an old warehouse. And in many ways, it certainly does. From the outside, it is a 114-year-old structure of brick and steel, wedged into a congested neighborhood right beside the Massachusetts Turnpike. There is nothing especially impressive about the exterior. In fact, it can appear rather plain—almost industrial.

But when you pass through those turnstiles and emerge from the subterranean concourse beneath the stands, the experience is altogether different. Suddenly everything opens up before you. The writer John Updike—a Pennsylvanian transplant to New England—once described it this way: “Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg.” For me, it remains one of the most beautiful sights on earth.

In this morning’s lesson from First Book of Samuel, we hear the story of David’s call and anointing as king. David was the last person anyone expected. He was the youngest—the overlooked son in a family of strong and capable young men. His father, Jesse, did not even bother to bring him to the initial meeting with the prophet Samuel. David was out in the fields tending sheep while his brothers were presented one by one.

But when David was finally summoned from the fields, God made clear to Samuel what everyone else had missed:
“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

David was then anointed as king over Israel, and the text tells us that “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.”

Despite his many flaws—and the Scriptures do not hide them—David became the Bible’s archetypal king. When later generations looked back to imagine what a faithful and righteous ruler should look like, it was David to whom they turned. He was, as Scripture tells us, “a man after God’s own heart.” It was not his outward strength or visible competence that made him great. Rather, it was the depth and sincerity of his inner life—his constant turning toward God, even in the midst of his failures. In the end, David’s greatness lay in one simple thing: he was faithful.

God does not expect perfection from us; God asks for faithfulness. God asks that we cling to him through the shifting circumstances and uncertainties of life. He asks for a humble heart, open to the possibility of grace. God is not impressed by outward strength, beauty, or success. He does not care what college name sits at the top of our diploma, or how large the number is in our bank account. He does not care whether we say all the right things in order to win the approval of others. What God cares about is what is happening within us—within the hidden chambers of the heart.

We may look, from the outside, like an old brick warehouse. But inside, we are called to something altogether different—to something like the lush green field of Fenway Park that suddenly opens up when you step through those gates. And in many ways, this is what the season of Lent is about.

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus opens the eyes of a man who was born blind. Of course, it is a miracle. But like all of Jesus’ miracles, it points beyond itself to something greater—the coming of God’s kingdom. In Christ, our own eyes are opened. Without the eyes of faith, the realities of God’s kingdom remain invisible to us. But with Christ, we begin to see differently.

With Jesus, we see hope where the world sees only despair.
We see peace even in the midst of anxiety.
We see resurrection even in the shadow of death.

In him, sisters and brothers, we begin to see things as they truly are, and a vast interior world is opened before us.

Lent, then, is about simplifying our exterior lives so that we may better attend to our interior ones. It is about clearing away the noise, the distractions, and the clutter so that we can hear again the quiet voice of God speaking in the heart. For that is where God has always been looking—not at the outward appearance, but at the heart.

I close this morning by the poet and priest, George Herbert: 

 Teach me, my God and King,

         In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in anything

         To do it as for Thee.

         Not rudely, as a beast,

         To run into an action;

But still to make Thee prepossest,

         And give it his perfection.

         A man that looks on glass,

         On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

         And then the heav'n espy.

         All may of Thee partake:

         Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture—"for Thy sake"—

         Will not grow bright and clean.

         A servant with this clause

         Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,

         Makes that and th' action fine.

         This is the famous stone

         That turneth all to gold;

For that which God doth touch and own

         Cannot for less be told.