Detachment
“Detachment”
Jeremiah 20:7-13 Matthew 10:24-39
Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, June 21, 2020
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Andrew Kennaly, Pastor
The prophet Jeremiah was facing rough times. He was living through the political turmoil of the end of the Assyrian Empire and the beginning of the Babylonian Empire, while during this his country of Judah was destroyed. The prophet knows he’s called by God. He reflects on how thoroughly God is infused into his life, how he has given over everything to God. Yet he is complaining, he’s annoyed, frustrated that God would put him in such a spot at such a time.
In prophetic ways, Jeremiah critiques his world. There are tough times taking place. Old patterns are coming down, even as new patterns emerge. As God places new perspectives on his heart, shows him new ways of looking at things, the prophet notices things that even his closest friends just can’t see, or don’t want to admit. He points out their hypocrisy, their stupidity, crying out such things as “violence and destruction.” Yet the more he shares the truth he’s experiencing, the harder his life becomes. He’s not happy about it, he’s unsettled.
He tries to withdraw, to not make a big deal about things, to overlook what his prophet’s heart is experiencing, what his soul is revealing, and the tragic pain of living through a world unravelling. But the more he holds in it, the stronger it burns, “something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary holding it in, and I cannot.” He shows us, once you know, you can’t not know, and you’ve got to do something to express what it is you’ve discovered, what been revealed.
His close friends are waiting for his type of faith to fail, denouncing what he has to say, trying to entice him back to status quo faith, to the party line; but he won’t have it. They try and entice him, try to talk sense to him, strategize how they can take revenge on him. But God has already enticed him. God’s Wisdom has already relativized his thoughts on what once made sense. God prevails. Jeremiah knows he’s called as a prophet, even though the path is strewn with struggle.
Jeremiah knows in his heart and soul that he is on the right path, that even his closest friends are mistaken, and there’s really nothing they can do or say that will shake his confidence in God’s presence and leading. Jeremiah knows God sees the heart and the mind, and he’s committed his cause to God. He praises God Almighty for he knows his life is in God’s care no matter what evil may befall him.
Friends, this is the contemplative journey, this is mystical faith, experientially trusting God’s presence, seeing with the eyes of the heart as a tool of spiritual perception, staying grounded in God even while moved to respond with action, knowing it likely involves suffering yet, like Jesus says before his crucifixion, “Not my will, but Thy will, O God.”
We see Jesus sharing a teaching with his disciples, today we read the middle part, half way through the larger discourse. Jesus reminds them that people are calling him evil, and if they call him evil, then his followers will also experience tough times because they should expect to be treated in similar ways. But he also reminds them not to live in fear, being afraid of what people might think or do to them, but to trust God even more deeply.
There are some cultural things in this passage, of course. Like when it says, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light.” Matthew’s writing to his church, and because this is a largely Jewish audience struggling as new believers following Jesus don’t fit into their traditional Jewish practices, they’ve had to make adjustments. There is struggle, and some of these Christians have had to choose between their faith or their family. The tension is so high that when the Christians gather, they come together at night, under the cover of darkness. They share with one another the word of the Lord, in the dark, the word is whispered because it’s a dangerous time. Yet they are encouraged to live each day by that very word and trust that God is with them, holding them in God’s care.
Lots of people find encouragement by trusting God in the midst of struggle, challenge, and suffering. Matthew is reminding the new Christians that Jesus is like an arbitrator, in front of God the judge showing evidence that people are worthy, and the more that Jesus is acknowledged, the better the testimony, and the more people keep the faith through suffering, the more God will receive them, just as God receives Jesus. (This is one interpretation, helpful to a point).
Wendell Berry once said something to the effect of how yesterday’s victims become tomorrows oppressors. It seems this is the way of most revolutions. Like Jeremiah living through the transition from one empire to another. The domination of egoic thinking doesn’t really bring lasting change from the dynamics of power and control, the use of violence to force one’s will upon another.
As Matthew describes Christians facing the intensity of struggle to the point where even their families cannot relate to them anymore, we come alongside Jeremiah and Jesus and looking through a contemplative lens, we see the struggle Christian mystics face in a world of egocentric dualistic thinking. As Jesus says, “Those who find their life will lose it,” this is a critique of the values of the world, things like violence, destruction, racism, wealth inequality, materialism, militarism, and many other ‘isms.’ Even our own opinions, thoughts, and attitudes. All these things fall away, don’t have any eternity to them, and lead the heart away from it’s own depths and deeper truths. They are false narratives and misguided myths. They may work for a while, but eventually the mind reaches its limit and they break down as culture continues to evolve and humanity grows closer to taking evolutionary leaps into deeper wisdom and expanded heart.
“Those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
This is kenosis, the path of descent, the art of letting go. This is the mystical path, the contemplative journey, and the gift of awareness that the only thing in life that really satisfies is the eternal presence of God. Our soul will not rest until it finds its center in Christ, who is it’s center. But touching the Christ center, opening your heart to God Almighty brings everything else into the open and changes the perspective as one experiences, mindfully, heart centered, the living presence of God.
Looking at Matthew, as Jesus says that those who acknowledge him before others, he will also acknowledge before the Father in heaven; and that those who don’t acknowledge won’t be acknowledged, as if God is some sort of judge that needs proof of your worthiness; this is another way of saying that awareness of Christ in you is important. If you deny your own divinity, it’s like turning your back on your Creator. But the struggle comes through the kenosis, letting go of ourselves, moving from ego-centric to Christ-centered. This is a painful process, and yet Christ calls us to follow this very path, and once you start it’s going to affect everything. Not only that, but people who are not aware or awakened to Christ within them will no longer accept you because you don’t fit in the way they’ve structured their world. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” is just another way of acknowledging what Jeremiah was experiencing, that the mystical journey involves suffering, that it’s deeply personal and not even your closest family or friends can help your heart as you shed your false self, only God.
God’s love helps, helps us persevere deeper into love, teaching the letting go, the shedding our false self. Our True Self in Christ is revealed, following Jesus. This is also known as “detachment.”
Like St. Augustine in the fourth century saying,
“The soul has a secret entry into the divine nature when all things become nothing to it.”
Meister Eckhart, in the thirteenth century reflects on this, saying,
“This entry here on this earth is nothing other than pure detachment. […] Nowhere is there complete rest, except only in the heart that has found detachment. […] A heart that has pure detachment is free of all created things, and so it is wholly submitted to God, and so it achieves the highest uniformity with God, and is most susceptible to the divine inflowing. […] Detachment purifies the soul and cleanses the conscience and enkindles the heart and awakens the spirit and stimulates our longings and shows us where God is and separates us from created things and unites itself with God.”
Then Meister Eckhart really kicks it home, coming alongside Jeremiah, coming alongside Jesus, as he says the same thing they’re saying and experiencing.
He says, “Now, all you reasonable people, take heed!”
‘Reasonable people’! People stuck in their reasoning, by the mind’s limitations, the ego’s disdain for mystery.
He says, “The fastest beast that will carry you to your perfection is suffering, for no one will enjoy more eternal sweetness than those who endure with Christ in the greatest bitterness. There is nothing more gall-bitter than suffering, and nothing more honey-sweet than to have suffered; nothing disfigures the body more than suffering, and nothing more adorns the soul in the sight of God than to have suffered.”
Then he says this, which is at the heart of why the mystical journey is not a popular route for most folks:
“The firmest foundation on which this perfection can stand is humility, […] for love brings sorrow, and sorrow brings love. And therefore, whoever longs to attain perfect detachment, let him struggle for perfect humility, and so he will come close to the divinity.” (Meister Eckhart, Selections from His Essential Writings, Harper One Publishers, 1981, John O’Donohue’s Forward added in 2005, New York, pages 114-118).
As we resist humility, as we struggle toward detachment, may we be graced with courage to not fear, but be filled with awe and wonder as our hearts turn to God. As the living Christ reveals deeper unity, may the dialectics and dualisms and all other isms lose their hold on us as we let go of things that cannot satisfy our soul’s desire for fullness and the divinity of Love.
May contemplative practices help us learn the art of letting go, and may Christian community support us in the struggles and painful journey of dying to self, which is the biggest and most difficult revolution of all. As we die and rise with Christ, and are marked as Christ’s own forever, may the humble, vulnerable love of God be with us, NOW, even as forever. Amen.