Moving Out of the Easy Chair

 When you go to someone’s house and are invited into their living room to sit down, how do you choose where to sit?  Do you choose the easy chair – that’s the winged-back, often reclining, upholstered chair? Do you go to the chesterfield? Or do you choose a hard surfaced chair – perhaps a rocking chair like the one I am sitting in?

Before sitting down, I make an effort to determine which seat is the most used by my host; I don’t sit there. I want my host to be comfortable. Then I scan for a chair that is an ideal talking distance from that seat. Third, I choose a seat that is hard and straight; having experienced being swallowed by a chair, or getting covered in pet hair, or not being able to reach my teacup or pass communion.  The hard chair suits my needs.  

In one of the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore, the headmaster at Hogwarts School of Magic says, “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”

Today we reflect on the choices that we make --- if we take stock of our choices, it is surprising to see to how many one could apply the principal question, ‘am I choosing what is easy or what is right?’

What I appreciate about Dumbledore’s saying, is that the making of choices is reframed. Humans have a tendency to judge a choice or decision through their understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Determining and judging right from wrong can be tricky when so often choices are muddied and not so straightforward. Our concepts of right and wrong determine how it is that we articulate and perceive sin. We look at sin by judging what is right and what is wrong. We can say and believe that murder, stealing, and adultery are sin. Yet, there are times when there are caveats; it is not murder if it is self-defence. Determining sin gets tricky, especially in relation to sins outside of a simple view of the Ten Commandments. From my experience sin is more nuanced in our everyday living, and includes things done and left undone; sins of omission. Everyday sin falls into a spectrum of a choice between what is easy and what is right. The easy choice is not necessarily wrong – but isn’t fully life-giving either.

 

As always, the scriptures for today are placed on our path, to upend our thinking. God declares in Isaiah, My ways are not your ways, my thoughts not your thoughts. This passage draws on a deep concept that is repeated over and over in Hebrew scripture. God, described as abundantly merciful, calls, and waits for people to choose to turn, return, to the abundance of mercy.

In biblical texts ‘what is right’ is written in the word, ‘righteous’ or ‘righteousness.’  Readers and hearers have mistakenly understood righteousness as religious piety, something attainable by faithful people, however in the Hebrew scripture there are clues for a different understanding – God’s upending of our thinking.

Righteousness, tzadiyq, in Hebrew is often used in connection with word yasher meaning upright; upright being the core value of righteousness.  When the righteous are compared to the wicked, the Hebrew word used for wicked is connected to the verb to depart; if one is wicked, they have chosen to depart from relationship with God, each other, creation; suggesting that the polar action of depart --- to come, to return, applies to the definition of righteous. Righteousness can be defined as returning to relationship, following the path (the way) of God, which is described by Isaiah as abundantly merciful.

 

Jesus’ parable of the fig tree draws on this understanding of righteous and righteousness. As humans do, the landowner judges the lack of productivity and the lack of fruit on the tree as failure and cause for destruction/annihilation. The hands-off landowner comes to the vineyard to see the fig tree; there is no touching the tree or having any kind of relationship with it, yet despite not paying it any attention the landowner is expectant of receiving great things.

The gardener -God – has a different tact.  Getting hands dirty, being in relationship to the fig tree, the gardener tempers the human judgement of the landowner with a call to patience that includes a plea for further tending and cultivation. The gardener sees potential, promise, and growth. The gardener will wait through the fig trees long juvenile period (the 3-5 years) before it begins to bear fruit; in that time there is learning and growing. As the fig tree matures there is movement – in human beings the movement to maturity is one of making choices that shift from what is easy to what is right.

 

Following the way is an ever-continuing journey of making choices, continually seeking to move away from what is easy. On Ash Wednesday the congregation made confession; there was much on the list of confessions.  One of the confessions was an admission of “our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people:”

Reflecting on the journey of Christian maturity – on fruit bearing – lets use a simple example related to self-indulgent appetites and the exploitation of other people.

Consider the buying of a coat.  It is easy to go buy a coat. It is a harder choice – more mature- to leave the coat on the rack if you already have a coat; to keep wearing a coat that may be out of style and not yet thread bare for the sake of the environment.  If you need a coat, it is easy to buy a coat, yet there is a choice to be in relationship with the environment and buy second hand; there is choice to be in relationship with the earth by selecting natural fabrics; there is choice to be in relationship with the makers of the coat supporting non-sweat shop producers and to be willing to pay more for that coat; there is a choice to proclaim to others the finding of ethically made products; there is a choice to be in relationship with neighbours embracing homemade and locally made coats; there is a choice to be in relationship with God by following the way -covenant love- seeing the need around you and addressing the need by buying a coat for a stranger; there is a choice to be relationship with the stranger so rather than dropping the coat at a service agency you personally give the coat and sit down and talk with stranger; there is a choice to be in relationship with the stranger by taking them shopping and letting them choose their own coat; there is a choice to be in relationship with the stranger by inviting them to join you for dinner after shopping; or to go together to church, sit together, introduce them to the community.

There is always a choice that is a step farther away from easy and closer to what is right. This simple example of buying a coat is easy, maturity of relationship with the gardener – with God, determines where ‘what is right’ leads us.

Buying a coat is not about being right or wrong – it is an ever-maturing path of bearing fruit and making decisions that move away from easy. Moving away from easy, returns us to following the way.

 

May you in all your choices take pause…

Consider, these are dark times, and we must choose between what is easy and what is right.

Blessings as you mature through the patient tending and abundant mercy of the gardener; as you follow the way produce fruit for the healing of the world.