BLOG 2/11/15. CAN SEAMUS HEANEY TEACH THE CHURCH SOMETHING?
From time to time I mention Seamus Heaney, the much loved Irish poet who died a couple of years ago. I was so impressed that one of the major Irish newspapers described the universal appreciation of him by the Irish people with four words: warmth, humor, courtesy, and caring. What a beautiful combination of adjectives. I think of that often as a writer in the field of the church’s mission—like, what is it that makes the church a contagious and leavening reality within the human community?
I also often say that God doesn’t communicate his unimaginable love for us by sending a ‘religious’ person, or some disembodied theological treatise, or a sterile ‘evangelistic’ invitation. No, he actually sent his Son, … who in turn sends his church to be the very embodiment in flesh and blood of that same love, and grace, and humility, and caring, and sensitivity to the individual needs of every person.
Did you even notice that those who followed Jesus found something so compelling in him, and what he was saying and doing, … were not especially spiritual or religious. They were an interesting disparate assortment of personalities, ages, ordinary working guys—sometimes unlikely—who were not into all of the religion stuff that the temple folk required of Jews by way of observances, if they were to be acceptable.
Jesus didn’t even launch an evangelistic crusade at the temple, … rather he just began to walk, somewhat hidden, the back roads of Palestine and engage folk in conversation, and … admittedly to make outrageous claims about who he was and what his Father-God had sent him to do, … but then he backed up his words with his life and works and caring for the helpless and poor, the sick and helpless, and the morally questionable folk he encountered. Jesus grew on them the longer they encountered him. He was unbelievably believable and approachable, and authentic, and engaging.
His parables, or stories, which he used to illustrate were laced with humor, but were understandable. He was not put-off by those on the margins, whom the ‘religious’ considered off-limits, like: a Roman centurion, or a Syro-Phoenician mother, or women of questionable morals, and other shady characters. He cared. There was nothing pompous or aloof or religious, or super-spiritual about Jesus, … and yet people were attracted to him.
So I come back to Seamus Heaney: warmth, caring, courtesy and caring. Those of us who profess to be the colonies of God’s New Humanity in Christ could use a good dose of such responses to those we encounter day by day. They are not looking for ‘church activities,’ or some prestigious religious society to join, … but they are looking for those demonstrations of caring, of humor, of warmth, and of sensitivity to their persons. They’re looking for good news, for their heart’s true home.
The church’s contagious growth, its leaven-like growth over two millennia has been a person-to-person communication of God’s love and grace and reconciling work in warm and authentic demonstrations. G. K. Chesterton once noted that those public figures who need to be great are fools, but those who are truly great are mostly those who operate quietly and out of sight.
Often it is the churchy-types, the outspokenly religious, and the ecclesiastical poseurs, and, yes, also the rigidly orthodox … who are so off-putting, and turn the spiritually lost and hungry folk away. It is those who are gentle and humorous and caring and courteous and are the authentic demonstrations of the life and teachings of Jesus on the margins of daily life who attract those who are lost, hungry and thirsty—the motherless children of our acquaintance, whom Jesus came “to seek and to save.”
Amen!
