What is Saving Your Life?

Peter Gomes died this week at the age of 68. As the chaplain of the Memorial Church at Harvard University, he managed to combine being both a committed Christian and an intelligent modern person - which is what a lot of people do, really, but they don't make the spotlight as often as those who are only one or the other and even they don't get attention as often as those who are neither.  

In the academic world of Cambridge MA, Gomes was in the spotlight or on the podium whenever some big event took place at Harvard. Being the ceremonial Holy Man is one of those ministerial duties that I neither enjoy or do well, and therefore I admire those who can pull it off. Asked to bless a traditional academic gathering, Gomes once said, "I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's seventh husband on his wedding night. I know what to do, but I'm not sure how to make it interesting."  

But those ceremonial duties also got him up close to some of the world's most interesting people, including Nelson Mandela who was honored by Harvard with a rare outdoor convocation. The kind of thing the University did for George Washington, Winston Churchill and very few others in over 300 years. Gomes was impressed with the crowd Mandela drew. Skeptical faculty and students with very short attention spans sat transfixed as the leader of South Africa's peaceful transition from minority white to majority black rule spoke to them.  

Gomes said "Mandela was not an explicitly religious figure; he preached no sermon and made no moral claims, but he didn't have to, for he made the ordinary and the politically extraordinary seem holy, even sacred. We saw transcendence in him, and it was powerful  because it was not a matter of piety, which would have allowed the secular to write it off." 

One student, reflecting on the college's experience that day said: "It wasn't about us, and it wasn't about him; it was about what he believed in that had saved his life, and saved his country." (Gomes, The Good Life: Truths that Last in Times of Need. HarperSanFranciso 2002 p.274).  

In her book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about being invited to speak at a large church in the Midwest. When she asked what she would be expected to talk about, her host said, "Just come and tell us about what is saving your life right now".  

What is saving your life right now?  

What is saving the lives of the people around you? A lot of them probably don't look like they need anything to save them.  We are all pretty good at putting up a front that says, "Everything's fine here!"  A friend who is going through a hard time right now described another friend of hers who "has it all together". What I didn't say, but wish I had, is that she herself looks like she has it all together, too. That's appropriate I think. We don't all need to bleed all over each other all the time.  

But there are some things you can't hide.  

Mandela couldn't hide the fact that he spent half his adult life in prison - most of it in Robben Island's notorious Block D and then managed to lead his nation away from the bloodbath that everyone predicted would happen someday.  

The mother who has lost a child but keeps on caring for her other children can't hide that fact. The once-vigorous woman who can't make her feet move more than a few inches at a time can't hide the fact that she is suffering from a degenerative disease.  The guy who has been out of work for months can't hide the fact that he has to get up every day and put in another application for another job that a hundred other people have also applied for. You know some of these people. What is saving their lives?   

In Matthew 17, Jesus and Peter, James and John climb a mountain and, at the top, Jesus is transfigured - meaning his face shines and his disciples see him talking with Moses and Elijah, who were already legendary figures before the Old Testament was written down.  Whether you want to take this encounter literally or not, the important thing about it is that Jesus was connecting with "The Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah)". There are many summaries of all that Moses and Elijah stand for including the one Jesus gave: "Love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself". But it is more than piety and ethical action. It is also about hope - hope in the One who sets prisoners free and bends history toward justice and causes nations that have fought each other for months, years, or even centuries to finally beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  

What saves your life right now? It may not be easy to summarize and it may not sound very religious, but my guess is that you may be fighting a harder battle than it looks to those on the outside. Or you may be looking at what life is throwing at people around you and in your heart you know that it could throw that same stuff at you and you wonder what would save your life if you had to deal with the grief or the pain or the uncertainty that haunts people you know. What saves your life? You may want to ask that question of a prisoner who became a president or of the best oldest person you know, or of a young mom who is juggling a job and kids or of a guy nailed to a cross.