Good News from the Surgeon--May 21, 2021

Good News from the Surgeon--May 21, 2021

"Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creation is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account." [Hebrews 4:12-13]

Well, that certainly all sounds very intense--all this sword business and the talk of being laid bare before the unblinking eyes of God.  Sounds pretty intimidating, doesn't it?  I'll grant that--and, yes, we'll need to talk about what it means that the word of God is so sharp it can pare away all the defenses and pretenses, all the smoke screens and walls we put up in our lives... and yes, we'll need to talk about what it means that God sees us with terrible clarity that is never clouded by illusions.

But first... let us remember these two truths: for one thing, a surgeon uses a scalpel that is sharper than a sword, for the purpose of healing; and for another thing, nakedness is not inherently bad, wicked, or shameful--the question is whether the person who sees us in our nakedness brings shame on our bodies, or loves us in them, like a parent holding a newborn.

Let's just sit here for a moment and consider that even the sharpness of God's word might just be good news, and the notion of being naked in God's sign might be a beautiful thing, too, rather than something to be afraid of.  Let's start with that image of a blade--how God's word is "sharper than any two-edged sword."  It's worth noting that the writer of Hebrews doesn't say that God's word (by the way, that's the word "Logos," which is also a title for Christ Jesus himself) actually IS a sword, or any other kind of weapon, but rather than it is sharper than one.  God's not holding a weapon to try and cut us open as punishment for our sins, in this picture--rather, just the opposite:  God is like a surgeon whose steady hand holds a well-sharpened scalpel in order to cut out what is killing us from the inside, in order to make us whole and well and more fully alive.  It may not be fun for the moment to bear the pain of an incision, but it might just save your life.

And we do, indeed, need a God who is willing to be honest enough with us to show us--and then to cut out of us--the things that keep us from loving God and neighbor rightly.  Nobody stuck in the denial of their addiction wants to have someone come and tell them they are trapped in a downward spiral, but sometimes that's what is necessary so that the substances they're abusing can be cut out of their lives.  Nobody whose heart has become infected with the casual racism of our era (that tries to hide itself in innocuous language of "heritage" or "color-blindness") wants to have to see the way their words and actions and even thought patterns are entangled in something sinful, but facing those uncomfortable entanglements is the way we can be freed from them to start over in a new way that connects me to my neighbors as God would have us be.  Nobody wants to own up to the ways we let money and our consumeristic drive for "more" become our gods, and we really don't want to have to acknowledge the ways we try and baptize greed to make it sound like a virtue in our culture--but we need a word from God that can show us that truth about ourselves, too.

All of that is to say that we don't need to fear a warrior god with a battle ax or a broadsword, but that we do need the steady hand of a healing God who bears a scalpel with focus and tenderness to remove the cancerous rot (like hatred, greed, or indifference) inside us that will otherwise metastasize in us.

The same is true, it turns out, with the image of a God who sees us naked.  We have these hang-ups about nakedness, but that's more because of the shame we bring to the idea of being fully seen, not because there is something inherently bad about the human body, in all its infinite varieties.  Babies are naked, and they have no shame about it.  Lovers, too, know what it feels like to be seen completely and fully and to know they are cherished as they are, rather than thinking they need to hide or change or cover themselves.  It's only when nakedness becomes a way of objectifying someone or shaming them that it becomes a problem (of course, we humans are so terribly inventive at coming up with new ways to objectify and shame each other that sometimes we almost forget that).  

But to say that God sees us all laid bare means that nobody can fool God.  There's no need for me to try to hide behind fancy clothes and expensive cars, performative piety and religious ritual, or any other false self we construct to hide our truest, most vulnerable selves.  There's a line in the movie, V for Vendetta, where the one character says, "You wear a mask for so long, you forget what you were like underneath."  And that's exactly why it is good news to hear that God sees past the masks we put on and hide behind, so that we can know, deep in our bones, that we are loved as we really are.  The idea that we're all naked before God is scary news if I've built my life on projecting some false self to hide the real me; but if I know that God looks on me with the delight of a lover, or the adoration of a parent looking at a newborn child, then I do not have to be afraid of that kind of vulnerability.  In fact, it can be become a way of knowing I am safe in God's care.  Even the surgeon whose scalpel cuts out a tumor sees our naked bodies without shame, but with the clarity that allows them to know what to remove and what to preserve.  

It turns out we need the Logos of God to be sharp enough to cut away what is killing us from the inside without causing worse damage from a blunt blade.  An we need the eyesight of God to be utterly clear so that we can know there is no need to try and put on a show or put up a smokescreen with God for fear of being rejected--we are seen completely as we are, and we are loved... enough for God to tell us the truth about ourselves and to be real with us.

Lord God, here we are--see us completely, for you are the God who sees.  Wield your word's sharp edge on us, for you are the God who heals like a surgeon.