"A Socketful of Miracles"

“My soul magnifies the Lord…. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.”

A young man, a lifetime of promise ahead of him. He has a run-in with the law and is unjustly punished. In the aftermath, he’s targeted as just another petty criminal who got what he deserved.

Headlines from Ferguson, Missouri?

Could be. But actually, you’re off by well over 5,000 miles and more than five centuries.

That’s because the place is Corfu, off the west coast of Greece. The time is 1530. The victim: a teen named Stephen, a native of Corfu, a Greek. The public face of the law? Simon “The Lion” Balbi, Governor of Corfu commanding the Venetian Republic’s forces of occupation.

All factors point to confrontation, but not your average police-blotter, rebel-without-a-cause dust-up. This is life-altering confrontation for Stephen, for Balbi, and for all involved in events scarred by unjustifiable violence.

Picture this: According to legend, en route from the nearby city back to his village, Stephen becomes an innocent party to a crime. Thugs he just happens to be walking beside ─ to his horror ─ rob at knife-point some other folks they accost on the road.

Loot-in-hand, the thieves hightail it. Their victims report the incident to the police. The police initiate a manhunt ─ a manhunt that comes up dry … except for nabbing Stephen, whom the victims ID as one of the perps. Guilt by association.

The police arrest Stephen and book him. In the ensuing interrogation, he vehemently protests his innocence, but to no avail. And he’s no more successful at his court appearance. The verdict? “Guilty as charged.”

Then it’s up to Governor Balbi to impose the sentence. He gives the accused a choice: “We can either gouge out your eyes or cut off your hands. Choose.”

Stephen ─ reluctantly ─ chooses the eye-gouging option. And, as is the custom in that part of the world, the sentence is carried out as a form of public entertainment. Lots and lots of people witness the whole gory business.

It’s up to Stephen’s mother to pick up the pieces. Completely unhinged by this sudden and violent turn of events, she stations Stephen outside the village church. And resorting to begging, they throw themselves upon the mercy of their neighbors. That proves to be a bust. No sympathy whatsoever. “Stephen’s a thief. He got what he deserved!”

Time for Plan B. Capitalizing on the anonymity bestowed by distance, the mother leads Stephen 18 miles away to the Church of the Theotokos in the village of Cassiope. “Theotokos.” Equals “God-Bearer,” or “Mother of God.” I think “The One who brought us God (in the form of Jesus Christ)” may be a mouthful, but is more accurate. Bottomline: Think of “Theotokos” as St. Mary the Virgin.

Now, each year at this time, I do a riff on one of the many icons of the Virgin Mary associated with popular piety: flying icons, talking icons, three-handed icons. So, wouldn’t you know, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Cassiope boasts an icon of Jesus and his mother that, like the other icons in this yearly series, is rumored to perform miracles.

That means: crowds of pilgrims flock to the miraculous icon in Cassiope now, as then. If you’re forced to rely on the kindness of strangers who are either seeking a favor from God or thankful that they got one, a place like Cassiope known for its wonder-working icon is the place to be.

Topping the upgraded panhandling outlook, a monk at the church takes pity on Stephen and his mother, and, recognizing that they’re essentially homeless, allows them to sleep in the church for a few nights until they can extract some capital from the pilgrims.

Night falls. Before you can say, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” the heavy-lidded mother is in Dreamland. But Stephen, eyeless and restless, the pain shooting from his scabrous sockets, tosses and turns until ─ semi-conscious ─ he senses gentle fingers pressing firmly into the empty spaces only the day before occupied by his eyes.

Coming-to out of his confusion, he bolts upright just in time to see a resplendent Lady-in-Blue ─ gleaming in blinding light ─ before his very eyes. His very eyes! The Lady vanishes in an instant.

Rattled by what he thinks might a waking dream, Stephen begins to scour the church. His eyes dart here, and there, and there. “Who lit all these candles and lamps? They’re hurting my eyes!” he screams, waking his mother. She beats up on him: “First you lose your eyes. Now you’re losing your mind!”

Ignoring her, Stephen rushes over to the miraculous icon of the Mother of God ─ and I’m sure this will come as a complete surprise ─ the Madonna in the icon is the spitting image of the Lady-in-Blue who had just restored his eyes!

But here’s where the story takes a truly eye-popping turn. When Stephen’s mother finally settles down, she’s shocked to discover that his sockets are indeed now filled with new eyes and not just miraculous transplants of the originals.

How does she know? The eyes her son was born with ─ the eyes that were gouged out by the Governor’s executioner ─ were brown. Stephen’s new eyes are eyes befitting the Mother of God: blue eyes, the gift of the Lady-in-Blue.

But there’s an even better reason they’re blue. It has to do with proof.

Meaning: In their ecstasy, Stephen and his mother are making a general racket, shouting and clapping and dancing around the icon in praise of the Mother of God. The commotion rouses the monk, who’s at first quite put out ─ “How’s a guy supposed to get any sleep around here with you two carrying on!” ─ until he gets a gander at Stephen’s eyes. He doesn’t have to ask “Jeepers creepers! Where’d you get those peepers!” because he knows exactly where Stephen got them: the miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary.

Then he shifts gears to “monk on a mission.” He heads straight for the Governor’s palace and ─ demanding an immediate audience ─ denounces the Governor to his face. “You, Balbi, have punished the young man Stephen unjustly. But God has vindicated his innocence by giving him new eyes through the intercession of the Virgin Mary!”

The Governor ─ more skeptical than moved ─ makes a beeline with his retinue to the shrine to examine Stephen for himself. When he gets there ─ and seeing that Stephen has a genuine pair of working eyes ─ he charges the executioner with not gouging out Stephen’s eyes in the first place.

“You want proof I yanked his eyes from their sockets?” the executioner retorts. “Here!” Whereupon he produces the eyes ─ Stephen’s brown eyes ─ the originals ─ rolling around in the bucket into which the executioner had tossed them just the day before. (Why hold on to these things? Let’s not even go there.)

Does Balbi drop the matter there and then? No. Full of remorse, he begs the young man’s forgiveness for the injustice he had inflicted upon him. Moreover, the Governor makes good on his regret by showering Stephen with gifts and by becoming a surrogate father to him.

And a short time later, acknowledging the role of the Mother of God in the affair ─ and highlighting her agency as “Mary, Mirror of Justice” ─ Balbi does a make-over of the miracle-working shrine at Cassiope.

What a great story, a great story for a day like today … because justice ─ giving to people what they are owed as persons made in the image and likeness of God ─ is the founding principle of the life, ministry, and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, she who professed, “My soul magnifies the Lord…. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Consequently, as the Governor discovered, central to our observance of the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin is her clarion call to justice and our robust response to that call: for starters, righting imbalances of disadvantage by ─ like God ─ sending “the rich away empty.” For example, by means of nonviolent income- and opportunity-redistribution.

And, I’m thinking here particularly of the demands of justice triggered by events in Ferguson, Missouri, following the fatal police shooting of unarmed, 18 year-old Michael Brown … and the light that is now shining on the pervasive and rampant racism in that St. Louis County city … echoes of our own subliminal and overt racism. Fact is, Ferguson’s racism isn’t unique. It’s just more concentrated, but neither more nor less toxic than racism that hits closer to home.

Now, while it’s easy to take sides based on our own knee-jerk biases, I think it’s simplistic to be 100 percent for or against Michael Brown at this point … 100 percent for or against the officer who shot him, Darren Wilson.

And I think it would be inappropriate to litigate this tragedy from the pulpit (or from a blog, for that matter). The case for litigating this tragedy with finality in any venue at this point is inappropriate, because there are too many unanswered questions ─ questions that have absolutely nothing to do with Brown’s potential criminal involvement in stealing cheap cigars from a convenience store and roughing up the store clerk.

For example, questions raised by reporter Nick Wing of the Huffington Post:

How and why did Brown end up dead in the middle of the street?

Was Officer Wilson justified in shooting down Brown?

Did Brown really assault the officer in his vehicle and reach for his gun, as police claim?

Did Wilson fire the fatal shot while Brown had his hands up, as other eyewitnesses claim?

How does this incident play into the broader trend of police using excessive force on unarmed black males?

Now, I’ve drawn some parallels between the Stephen of legend and the reality of Michael Brown:

Stephen was unjustly accused. Stephen was unjustly punished. Stephen suffered unjustly. And yet, thanks to the Blessed Virgin Mary’s reversing a gross miscarriage of justice, not just Stephen’s eyesight but his eyes ─ or a pair of eyes not his own ─ designer eyes built according to the Virgin’s specs ─ were better than restored.

Michael Brown was ─ according to most witnesses ─ unjustly accused. Michael Brown was unjustly punished. Michael Brown, after once shot and pleading, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” suffered unjustly, gunned down by Darren Wilson.

But unlike Stephen’s eyes, Michael Brown has not had his life restored. Michael Brown is dead.

And we need answers. Michael Brown, Darren Wilson, the Ferguson community, all. All are owed answers. All are owed justice, the justice that is the Virgin Mary’s passion. Justice for persons accused, punished, and suffering unjustly. Justice: what, in God’s book, we are all owed.

Today, then, we ask the Mother of God to join her prayers with ours as we pray for justice in Ferguson … in Gaza … justice for Christians and Yazidis and all minorities in Iraq … justice for victims of Ebola in western Africa. We pray ─ with our Mother Mary ─ for justice that will bring an end to racism in our own communities and in our own hearts.

And may the Holy Mother of God ─ the Mirror of Justice ─ direct our prayers to the throne of God ─ God, who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.

Amen.

“This Is Not Who You Are!”

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “I have seen God face to face.”

Genesis 32:30a

The mirror doesn’t lie.

Or does it?

“Mirrors reveal truths you may not want to see,” writes journalist Natalie Angier. On the other hand, she suggests, “Give mirrors a little smoke and a house to call their own” ─ a carnival’s House of Mirrors ─ “and mirrors will tell you nothing but lies.”

Mirrors’ ability ─ under certain conditions ─ to trigger truth-telling or lying: It’s what makes them fascinating to researchers.

For example, subjects tested in a room with a mirror have been found to work harder, be more helpful, and less inclined to lie, cheat, and scheme compared with control groups performing the same exercises in a room without a mirror.

All you ‘Downton Abbey’ fans, think here Sarah O’Brien, Lady Grantham’s perennially-plotting maid. Spoiler alert! … Oh, wait a minute. This goes back to the finale of the First Season. If you haven’t caught it by now, what are the chances? Cancel spoiler alert.

In perhaps the most eye-rolling of the series’ stockpile of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding plot twists, a full 18 years after the birth of the last of her three daughters, Lady Grantham is pregnant … just after we’ve spent the entire season trying to marry off heir-apparent Lady Mary to keep the estate in the hands of the family. If the child turns out to be a male ─ meaning: male heir ─ fickle Lady Mary can rot in spinsterhood for all anyone cares.

But there’s a complication: Guaranteeing there will always be a tomorrow at Downton, O’Brien ─ bitter, bitter O’Brien ─ believing (erroneously, it turns out) she’s about to be given the pink slip, ensures that Lady Grantham will slip on a brick-of-a-bar of soap as she steps out of her bath. Intended result? Miscarriage.

But at the last minute, O’Brien passes a mirror. In it, she catches her own eye and weighs what she sees: “Sarah O’Brien, this is not who you are!” She rushes to avert the tragedy she herself has set in motion. There’s a scream, a thud. Too late.

But her eye-ball-to-eyeball interaction with her mirrored self? “Sarah O’Brien, this is not who you are!” In other words, “mirrors reveal truths you may not want to see.”

Proving that not only do everyday mirrors not lie, cheat, or scheme … they help us not to lie, cheat, or scheme.

That means, mirrors matter.

And in the story of Jacob wrestling with a shifty stranger, there’s a mirror hiding in plain sight. And it matters.

To see why, let’s recap: Jacob ─ on-the-lam, tricky Jacob ─ is tricked himself into marrying Leah, a woman not at the top of his dance card. Chalk this trickery up to Laban, Jacob’s uncle and Leah’s slippery father ─ every bit Jacob’s equal in the no-good-scoundrel department.

But after some heavy-handed negotiating, Jacob also gets to marry his heart-throb ― Rachel ― Leah’s younger and infinitely more attractive sister.

Now, here’s new data: Over the next few years, Jacob fathers 11 children with his two wives … and their maids. (It’s a complex family by our standards.) And in one episode after another, Laban’s already tenuous relationship with ethical behavior gets so shaky he’s beginning to give indicted former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife a run for their money. Well, actually the money in question isn’t theirs … and that’s the problem!

At any rate, Jacob decides it’s time to uproot his family and return to his roots. He sends advance word back home: "I'm on my way!"

But there’s a problem brewing at the old homestead: Esau, Jacob’s older twin. And the twins aren’t only yin and yang ― Jacob got the brains, Esau got the brawn ― but 20 years before, Jacob cheated Esau out of his mega-bucks inheritance. And Esau ─ who took a contract out on Jacob back then … has an impeccable memory now.

And yet, to his credit, Jacob attempts to hit the reset button by softening up his brother with extravagant gifts of livestock. Picture the outer perimeter of Esau’s territory: Breaking the distant horizon, one herd after another advances. Esau’s outer guard to the first oncoming herdsman: “Whose herd is this?” “Why it’s Esau’s, courtesy of his brother Jacob.” It passes by. A little while later, another herd approaches. “Whose herd is this?”  “Why it’s Esau’s, courtesy of his brother Jacob.”  It passes by. And another appears. Over and over again this happens. Very Lawrence of Arabia.

Problem: As Jacob takes the bribery route, the beefy brother with a beef plans a family reunion ― a reunion that involves 400 of his crackerjack, jack-booted “security advisors.”

And that’s why, on the eve of his meeting with Esau, Jacob sends his family just ahead of him over the border (the River Jabbok), deploying them as human shields: a cease-fire buffer between him and Esau’s armed militia.

That brings us to an episode that leaves just about everyone in head-scratching mode: Night falls. Jacob is alone. But not for long.

À la Harry Potter, a mysterious stranger apparates out of the darkness. Not an angel ─ at least in the Genesis telling of the story. And for reasons that aren’t entirely clear ─ for reasons that aren’t clear at all ─ Jacob and the stranger begin to wrestle. And they wrestle. And they wrestle. All night they wrestle.

Just as the match appears to be tilting in sweaty Jacob’s favor, the stranger ― with a mere touch! ― dislocates Jacob’s hip. Foul!

It’s only then that Jacob begins to suspect there’s more to this stranger than meets the eye. So he keeps him in a head-lock, employing his legendary grip.

The dawn’s rays pierce the sky. Beads of sweat course through the stranger’s grimace. Jacob refuses to let go until his adversary gives him a blessing.

But instead of a blessing, the stranger barely manages a question: “What’s your name?”

Answer? ‘Jacob.’ In some quarters: ‘Cheat.’

The stranger changes the subject. And in the spirit of “what kind of a name is Cheat?” he gives Jacob new name: ‘Israel’ (read: ‘Struggled with God’) “because,” the stranger says ― and here’s what they call in theater the “recognition scene” ─ “you have striven with God (God!) and with humans and have prevailed.”

OMG! The cheating stranger is none other than … God!

What a story ― a story Old Testament scholar Hermann Gunkel said was “worthy of a Rembrandt” ― and Rembrandt did indeed paint a picture of Jacob wrestling … with an angel ― but as “enigmatic as Mona Lisa.”

“Enigmatic” because the story raises more questions than it answers, the principal one being: Who won? That’s unclear.

But even more important: How seriously can you take the story?

As history, you can take it with a grain of salt. Because it’s not history. It’s a folk tale. It has all the trappings of folk tales about tricksters and cheats: all the way from Ulysses tricking the Cyclops to any number of scallywags trapping a leprechaun ― with a little bit of Dracula thrown in. I mean, God afraid of the dawn? What is this? A Bela Lugosi restrospective?

Well, yes, sort of. That’s because the story is reverse-engineering. It attempts to explain the time-honored name of a place: Peniel (meaning ‘God! Face-to-Face’). It’s like Scratchy Bottom in the UK. Why? Why ─ of all possible names and combinations of letters and words ─ why Scratchy Bottom? There’s got to be a story.

Same here. That is, pre-dating Jacob’s nocturnal adventure, the more ancient story-behind-the-story of Peniel likely involved a god ─ or dawn-dreading demon ─ guarding the river and challenging anyone who wished to cross (a hero!) to a grunting, face-to-face wrestling match. And it’s recycled here to fit into a story about a hero-founder of the people who would take his name: Israel. Only now, the seams between the lost-in-the-mists-of-time myth and the legend of Jacob are beginning to show.

But that doesn’t matter. The sheer illogic of it confirms that it’s a legend. And if you go to a legend like ‘Jacob’s Wrestling Match with God’ looking for theology, well, you've come to the wrong place. Because not everything in the Bible ― and not much in this story! ― is about theology.

For example:

Here, God appears as a human-in-the-flesh. Why, then, do we need Jesus, as in “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’ incarnate Deity”? Kiss ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ ─ kiss Christmas ─ good-bye!

Here, God can’t quite seem to break free of a run-of-the-mill wrestler’s headlock. Whatever happened to the ‘Lord God Almighty’? Sure, the Lord-God-Almighty meme raises all sorts of questions about human freedom, but God caught in a headlock?

Here God is so weak ─ and so weaselly ─ God resorts to cheating. Really, why on earth would you believe in a God who cheats?

So, it’s not great theology. It’s not theology at all!

But it is a great folk tale … because it showcases how the budding hero Jacob  learns something about himself: sleaze.

It’s a whack up the side of his head: “Wake up! Look in the mirror!”

And that mirror appears the moment Jacob and his opponent (God!) are gridlocked: face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, heaving breath colliding with heaving breath. And God does exactly what Jacob has always done when he can only get by stealth what he can’t come by honestly, and that is: cheat!

At that moment ― when, with the lightest touch, God dislocates Jacob’s hip ― at that very moment ─ in his shock and pain, Jacob sees not the face of God as we have come to know it in the face of Jesus Christ … but Jacob’s own cheating face ― the face that has prevented others (especially his brother) from receiving what by right is theirs, otherwise known as ‘justice.’

That is the most shocking “recognition scene” of all. A mirror of mistakes. Mistakes: what James Joyce called “portals of discovery.”

But that’s good news. Because it gives Jacob a portal of discovery, a mirror that doesn’t lie.

And there’s more good news. Jacob survives to live what he’s learned. “I have seen God face to face,” he says, “and yet my life is preserved!”

This most improbable folk tale, then, is our invitation to wrestle with God. Truth-in-advertising: it’s a dicey match. Just at the point you expect to encounter the face of God, you’re likely to confront your own face in a mirror.

And what you see may not be pretty: what you’ve done to prevent neighbors different from you from receiving what by right is theirs … those neighbors, like you, made in the very image of God.

It may be quite a whack up the side of the head! “This is not who you are!”

That’s good news, too, because it’s not the end of our story.

And it’s not the end of Jacob’s story either. What happens next?

The wrestling match ends. The dawn breaks. The tension mounts. The brothers meet. And Jacob presents himself to Esau not as ‘Cheat’, but as ‘Struggled with God’ ─ Israel.

And in an instant, 20 long years of estrangement give way to love, a love so strong that Jacob sees a new face in the mirror now before him. For he says to his twin Esau ― and the way Genesis puts it is as moving as you’re ever likely to see ― “Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God!”

Amen.