Letter from (p)aul to the Lydians

Paul Thorson is a member of the St. Lydia’s community.  This week, he’s moving from New York back to his hometown of Minneapolis, MN to pursue ordination in the ELCA.  He preached this sermon last Sunday, May 29, on the text of John 21:15-25.

This is a letter from (p)aul to the Lydian’s:

It saddens me to think of us not together but soon I will see you in my mind and that, that will bring joy to my heart.  It’ll be like this exchange between Winnie the Pooh and Piglet:

“Pooh,” Piglet said.
“Yes, Piglet, what is it?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

It goes without saying that when I am in Minnesota, I will want to be sure of you; to know that you are gathered together on Sunday nights sharing a meal, a story, and yes, a bit of work as well.

These interactions between Peter and Jesus seem somewhat tense. Jesus’ message is, yet again, a challenging one and Peter, well it seems Peter doesn’t always like a good challenge. I hear Jesus telling Peter that loving and following Jesus means Peter’s well-being and existence will be tied to those of Jesus’ sheep.  Peter values privilege.  He wants to be well thought of, and more than that, he wants to be thought of as special, raised up, important.  Tying his becoming to others, to Jesus’ lambs, goes against his deeply rooted values, everything he’s been taught and seen modeled throughout his life before meeting Jesus.

The text makes me think of call, of being called.  Jesus speaks personally to Peter and says, “Follow me.”  How scary it is leave what you know and enter in to something unfamiliar.  Jesus’ very presence in the story makes it clear, though, that we are not alone.  He doesn’t say, “I am with you.”  He IS with him.

This reminds me of the beautiful yet simple song we sometimes sing before and after prayers: What we need is here.  Simple enough: 5 words, very direct and yet if the words are to have meaning, they must be interpreted.

What is need?

Where is here?

All of a sudden, it seems we need Camus or Nietzsche to sing our simple song.  But, we don’t.  We’ve already said that what we need is here.  We don’t need to look outside of ourselves, to other people, to other things; at least not in comparison to ourselves the way Peter does towards the end of our text.

In Jesus’ world, all will be well. All manner of things and all people.  Jesus explains to Peter that he needn’t worry about John, that…regardless of what Jesus or God wills for others, we are to concern ourselves with what Jesus wills for us.  In this story, Peter becomes for us an example of what can happen when we seek to be understood more than to understand; to be comforted than to comfort, basically the opposite of what St. Francis recommends.  How can St. Lydia’s seek to comfort rather than be comfortable, to understand rather than be understood?

When we sing “What we need is here,” we’re not so much saying we don’t need what isn’t here as we are singing there’s more here than meets our eye.  We don’t know everything that is here…for we do need others if we claim to love Jesus and Jesus’s presence means even things we can’t see are with us.

As we discern our affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, St. Lydia’s might identify with Peter in this story. The questions Jesus asks Peter deal with freedom and trust. Freedom and trust are two words, that…well, they are two words.  Words mean a lot to me.  St. Lydia’s enjoys a measure of freedom in our becoming.  That measure may be far greater than we’d enjoy if we were to affiliate with any institution, let alone the ELCA.  Then again it may not.  Without a conscious effort on our part to participate in disturbing things, we are bound to our own ideals as if we somehow know what it is we need.  We know, at least kind of, what we want, but we frequently want what we don’t need and what we truly need,  we often want nothing to do with.  Jesus says to Peter, “But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”

Hmmm.

Free from our own wants and desires/free to be a disciple/free to be saved/ but…bound to something? Not really. Freedom to become always feels submissive because it requires our engagement with disturbance.  Isn’t a step away from difference, a step towards towards remaining the same?

I’ll never forget the first time I heard someone pray to be disturbed.  Like other prayers for strength, this woman said, “Disturb us O God…”  Disturb us?  Disturb us?!  I didn’t come here to be disturbed. I came here to be comforted, right?!  I—we—will be taken where we do not wish to go.

About a year ago, I was on my way to St. Lydia’s with a professor of mine, Dorothy Bass.  As is usually the case, my life was up in the air. I was graduating Union and considering what next.  I was drawn to the Catholic Worker but they had no room.  The people there recommended I stay upstate at the farm until something opened up.  I wasn’t crazy about this idea.  Professor Bass, in her wisdom, probably sensed my lack of excitement. “Maybe,” she said, “you don’t get to be where you want to be to do what you’re called to do.” Damn you! I thought. “You’re…right.” I said with a smile, defeated nonetheless.

For me to live out God’s will, I have to get rid of all the photographs of me; photographs that haven’t been taken yet but somehow I’ve already developed, in a dark room, complete with airbrushed aesthetics that become for me a deportment of sorts that I perpetually think I have to uphold.

These photographs are me putting on my own belt, dressing myself as it were, and as you can imagine, I have photographs like this of the whole world.  They portray a world I want to see and keep me from seeing the disturbing and beautiful images of the world as it really is.

We are not alone.  We have what we need. All will be well.  Think of well in terms of not worrying rather than paradise.  We are free to depend on something beyond us and this something makes how we fare in relation to others inconsequential.

My love for Jesus will take me places I do not wish to go…it already has.  It is also taking me from places I do not wish to leave.