"Will She or Won't She?"

Homily for the Third Sunday after Pentecost       10 June 2018
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

“Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”                                                                                                               Mark 3:35

The Case of Mrs. Bergmeier. An as-yet-to-be-released episode of ‘Sherlock’? Not quite. The Case of Mrs. Bergmeier. A classic in the annals of decision-making … moral decision-making.

Beware: The Case of Mrs. Bergmeier just might keep you up at night.

Picture this. Nazi Germany. Mrs. Bergmeier, as you might gather from her name, is married. She has two young children. Her husband’s health is patchy, at best. She’s behind bars, serving out a six-year sentence without parole. Her crime? Helping her Jewish neighbors avoid detection, arrest by the Nazis, and, ultimately, deportation to a death camp.

After months of imprisonment, Mrs. Bergmeier learns that her husband’s health is deteriorating — fast — aggravated by his having to care solo for the children. She hears that the children are malnourished and unkempt.

But Mrs. Bergmeier learns something else. Due to overcrowding, the prison has been releasing pregnant inmates held for lesser crimes, like hers.

And then, there’s the guard — the leering guard — who hits on Mrs. Bergmeier relentlessly. It’s prison. It happens. It shouldn’t.

For Mrs. Bergmeier — a deeply religious woman, deeply devoted to her husband — it’s a quandary: Stay faithful to her husband, honor her marriage vows, and stand by, helpless to prevent the destruction of her family.

Or — to secure early release — submit to the guard, get pregnant by him, and save her family.

If you were Mrs. Bergmeier, what would you do?

What did Mrs. Bergmeier do? She chose to give in to the guard’s advances.

Outcome? Three months later, Mrs. Bergmeier — pregnant — gains her freedom. She returns to her home to care once more for her husband and children.

Before all that, however, what do you suppose the will of God is in the Case of Mrs. Bergmeier?

Because that is what Jesus is asking us to consider — using the language of family — when he tells everyone within earshot, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

So, what is the will of God? Or, in a fraught situation like Mrs. Bergmeier’s — or perhaps the not-quite-as-weighty dilemmas we face — we might be tempted to ask, “WWJD”?  Yes, it was overly trendy for a time and probably passé now. What would Jesus do?

Problem: That’s the wrong question. At least, it’s not the best question.

Meaning: Sure, we could all stand to be more like Jesus. But when you look at Jesus’ interactions with people, they’re about choices emanating from his character … about the sort of person he is and consequently the impact he has on others, his neighbor … what he’s open to seeing, what he cares about, how he responds. And how he clones that seeing, caring, and responding. How he wills it.

And in so doing, extending that “will” to each of us and how we negotiate our challenges and opportunities to grow, strive, and move into God’s future of loving more and loving better.

Truth-in-advertising: It’s not easy. Hard work reorienting all of our life in God not into “What would Jesus Do?” Not even “What should I do?” But rather, because Jesus is in the character-building business, answering in all honesty three questions posed by the practice of Virtue Ethics:

First, “Who am I?” For example, how just am I? To what extent do I ensure that I give my neighbors what they are owed as members of the human race? And what are they owed? The assurance and the experience that their lives matter.

Then, because life in God as Jesus crafts it is about striving and geared to the shape of things to come: “Who ought I to become?” That is, am I becoming a better person? What would it look like if I got better at ensuring that my neighbors’ lives matter? Going from merely caring to boldly intervening, marching, lobbying, and resisting.

And third, “How ought I to get there?” If the future is the engine, how do I get more aware of my neighbors’ needs now? What skills and habits do I need to acquire and practice to get better and better at impacting their lives for the good … and for good?

Now, there was an added layer of complexity for Mrs. Bergmeier. Remember, she was caught in a dilemma. In answer to “Who am I?” she concluded she was a wife, committed — in all fidelity — to her husband.

And yet, she also understood herself to be a caring person. Proof: Look at how she tried to protect her Jewish neighbors (making her a just person as well). Moreover, she saw herself as a caring woman charged with the welfare of her family.

What, then, in terms of striving and becoming, would it look like for Mrs. Bergmeier to be a more faithful wife? I suppose that would mean: continue fending off — more adamantly — the guard’s advances, survive somehow six years of incarceration … but, in the end, likely lose her family.

And to be a more caring person? Do the unthinkable and live free once more to care for husband and children, including — let’s not forget — the child fathered by the repugnant prison guard. That alone — even absent increasingly difficult circumstances brought on by the war — will be a stretch. That will require character: courage, forgiveness, patience all around in order to flourish, to grow.

To flourish and to grow. This, then — for Mrs. Bergmeier and each of us — is doing the will of God.

Sidebar: Framing the will of God in terms of flourishing and growing — or character formation — may mean a re-calibration for those, like myself, brought up in an evangelical culture. In that tradition, the “will of God” is often cast as “God’s will for your life,” phrased more ominously as “God’s plan for your life.”

According to this off-kilter understanding of God’s will, God has mapped out your life in minute detail. Your job is to read God’s mind. For example, this scheme proposes that, before the foundation of the world, God picked out for you the perfect mate. You just have to find that person, obviously — because we’re talking evangelical culture here — that special person of the opposite sex. That’s where it kind of all came to a screeching halt in my case.

But that mind-reading task also extends to other choices, both momentous and mundane: college, career, house, car, supper, Netflix. And, believe me, you get all tied up in knots, with God micromanaging like that. Think job security for therapists.

And if you don’t pick God’s choice? Is God going to punish you with a bad marriage … or a messy divorce … until the next round of mind-reading begins?

God is just not like that. Why would anyone of sound mind choose to follow a god like that?

That’s because the will of God, as Jesus frames it, is “to learn more, to understand the needs of ourselves and our neighbor better, and to search for ways to make the lives of all people (including ourselves) better.” That’s how my seminary professor James F. Keenan puts it.

The decision-making process starts when we choose to be open to God and neighbor.

For example, Jesus — miraculously, the evangelist Matthew tells us — feeds 5,000 people in one sitting. Starting point? Jesus is the sort of person who tosses and turns at night, troubled by the fact that people go to bed hungry. Hence the “miracle” from five loaves and two fishes.

In turn, Jesus organizes his disciples to share the bounty. And to collect the leftovers for people to take home and share, in turn, with their underfed neighbors.

The point: Just ask Jesus. It is God’s will that all — absolutely everybody, no one left out — be fed. It can be done. We’ve got the data.

Another example: Jesus heals people. A lot. From lepers to paralytics to people with severe psychological problems. Jesus is the sort of person who is aware of people who need healing. And he heals them so they can flourish and grow, earn a living, engage in the world.

Read: It is God’s will that all have access to affordable healthcare. It can be done. We have the data. Do we have the political will? That’s the question.

And Jesus teaches. He’s the sort of person who cares enough that people not settle for what they’ve got trapped in their brains. Jesus thinks. And he shows us how to be thinking people. Take his interaction with critics in this morning’s Gospel. They lambaste him for casting out satanic demons. How? Through the power of Satan, they charge.

Jesus’ counter? He goes all-Spock. “Illogical. Why would Satan want to abolish all things satanic? Think!” Jesus says in exasperation. “Use the brain God gave you!” That’s Jesus: the sort of person who values and pursues and shows how to do wisdom, logic, facts, critical thinking so that others might value and engage in the rut-crushing enterprise of brain expansion.

Pushing us to ask, “Would Jesus make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple?” We know Ruth Bader Ginsburg would. But Jesus? I think initially — culturally — that would be a stretch for him. But, as Jesus shows time and time again, it’s the will of God that we stretch in ways that are more just, more loving, more caring.

So, yes — riffing on a Facebook feed this past week — I think Jesus would bake the damn cake. And throw in a blender. And dance at the reception. Dance up a storm. With Mrs. Bergmeier!

To prove once more — in full, rainbow-sequined fabulosity — “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Amen.