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| Lloyd "Jay" Butler |
Now
there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a
vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Get
up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a
man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a
vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might
regain his sight.’ But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about
this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he
has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ But the
Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my
name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will
show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ –
Acts 9:10-16
Saul – who would become St. Paul the Apostle – had a vision
of the Risen Lord and was struck blind. He
is waiting for Ananias to come and restore his sight. Previously, Saul persecuted the followers of
Jesus, so Ananias is none too happy to receive this particular assignment. In fact, he is afraid. Saul’s reputation as a brutal enforcer of
Jewish orthodoxy preceded him. But the
Lord assures Ananias that the one who, in his blindness, caused so much
suffering to those who invoked the Name, will himself experience much suffering
for the sake of the Name.
At first blush, this sounds like the usual tit-for-tat. Saul did a lot of bad things to people, and
now he is going to get what is coming to him!
But that is not why Saul suffers.
This isn’t a matter of retributive justice, but rather of
conversion. Saul suffers in the process
of becoming Paul, someone much more and much different than he could possibly
have imagined. He suffers for the sake
of the Name.
“Suffering for the sake of the Name” had a very specific
reference for 1st Century Jews.
In the religion of Israel, the High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple wore
a crown that was engraved with the Holy Name.
Only the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies, where the
Presence of God dwelt, and only on the Day of Atonement.
The ritual of the Day of Atonement involved the sacrifice of
two goats. The first goat was killed and
its blood, which represented the life force, was used as a substitute for the
High Priest’s life. The High Priest
would take the blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle it on the kapporet, the place of the presence of
God, and then sprinkled the blood in the other parts of the Temple. This ritual act symbolically renewed the
world, embodying the movement of grace from heaven to the rest of
creation. In his person, the high priest
represented the presence of God with the people.
When the high priest emerged from the Temple, he placed his
hands on the second goat, transferring the sins of the people to it and then
driving it into the desert. The High
Priest symbolically carried the sin of the people in order to remove it, so
that they, too, could participate in the renewal of the world. In the Letter
to the Hebrews and in Paul’s own writings, Jesus is described as the
sin-bearer who renews the world, the High Priest par excellence. He suffers for the sake of the Name. He
enters into the reality of human experience and embodies the presence of God
with us, removing the barriers that prevent us from receiving this Presence. Ananias is told that Saul/Paul, will
similarly suffer for the sake of the Name.
What is true for St. Paul is true for all those who have
been baptized into the Holy Name of the Trinity, sealed by the Holy Spirit and
marked as Christ’s own forever. We are
invited to suffer: to undergo an immersion into the reality of the world, to
carry the joys and sorrows of others, and to embody the presence of God for
them. In this sense, “to suffer” is not
only to experience pain, but to willingly and consciously enter fully into
human experience. It is certainly not
to suffer pain for the sake of pain, or as a form of punishment, but rather as
an act of compassionate solidarity for the sake of healing and renewal.
What are we willing to suffer – to undergo – for the sake of
the Name, in order to be bearers of the presence of God and renew the world?
Like Ananias, we are often afraid to enter into the
experience of others, especially when that experience is painful. We resist reality, preferring to edit out the
parts we don’t like or that make us uncomfortable. The invitation to spiritual maturity is an
invitation to accept reality in all its manifestations. In this sense, conversion is a movement from
a self-centered and limited ego consciousness into a wide open awareness and
acceptance of all of our experience. It
is a movement from “small mind” into “big mind” that embraces suffering in the
service of a larger wholeness.
-----------------------
I do not know how my step-father experienced his dying. I do know that, near the end, Jay accepted
death, even welcomed it. “I’m done,” he
said. “I want out of this prison.” His
body had become a prison. Jay was
diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis some 18 years ago. Eventually, he lost the use of both legs and
his right arm. Swallowing food had
become impossible.
About a year before he died, the disease began to affect him
cognitively as well. Short-term memory
was hit and miss. His personality also
changed. Jay was always a gentleman, never
speaking ill of anyone, kind, generous, and self-deprecating. As his world became smaller and the disease
process took its toll, Jay became angrier and more fearful.
Fortunately, my mother is a retired nurse and was able to
care for Jay at home. In the final months
of his life, Jay and Mom benefited from home hospice care as well. I was able to spend the final month of his
life with them, leaving just five days before he died.
I do not know how my step-father experienced his dying. I do know how I experienced it. It was painful to watch someone I loved
suffer so much. It was awful to see how Mom
became a prisoner in her own home as Jay became a prisoner of his body. I was angry and resentful that their lives
had come to this place.
What was most surprising, however, was discovering the
expectations I carried about how someone is “supposed” to die. My ideal was that dying should be a fully
conscious process, entered into with courage, trust, and even curiosity. One should be grateful for the care one
receives and avoid becoming a burden as much as possible. The closer one comes to death, the more
transparent to God one should become, a window into an abyss of love. We do not have to be afraid of death.
I have witnessed people die this way. The possibility is a matter of faith, and I
still have hope for such an end. In
being open to Jay’s dying, I had to accept, however, that we are not in control
of how we die, much less how other people die!
This is, perhaps, the ultimate experience of powerlessness. We all must undergo dying – our own as well
as those we love.
Jay was not in control of even his response to his
dying. The disease process robbed him of
that privilege. The only thing left to
him was resistance or surrender. In the
end, he chose surrender and entrusted himself to God.
What I came to realize was that in his powerlessness and
absolute vulnerability, Jay’s suffering was not meaningless. He suffered for the sake of the Name. He became transparent to God in spite of his disease. It was precisely with respect to what he
could not control that he surrendered to love; Mom’s love, my love, the love of
friends and family, the church’s love, God’s love. MS robbed him of everything until nothing was
left but love.
Jay was so much more than his disease. I remember the whole arc of the nearly 30
years I was privileged to know him. He
underwent so much more for the sake of the Name than just MS, and not all of it
was painful by a long shot. He
experienced joy for the sake of the Name too.
What Jay taught me in his dying, however, was that we can trust what we
cannot control. We can be open to
reality as it presents itself to us, moment by moment, and discover God there
at work to make the whole creation new.
How much can we suffer for the sake of the Name? Everything.
We can be open to the full range of human experience. Ananias could overcome his fear and
resistance to God’s reconciling work.
Saul could even become Paul. No
matter how blind to reality we become, we can begin to see again. And accept.
And heal. And, finally, surrender
to Love.
Thank you, Jay, for being my Ananias, for releasing me from
a blindness I didn’t even know I had.
Thank you for this final gift, and all the others you’ve given me.
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