Cave of Complacency

In the novel, The Second Coming, by Walker Percy, the leading character is a lawyer named Will Barrett.  Will Barrett is retired from a law practice on Wall Street.  He resides in comfortable surroundings in North Carolina.  By all outward appearance Will Barrett has all the necessities and ingredients for a good and happy life.  However, he has a problem.  He finds himself strangely depressed and alienated from his daughter and his golf partners because his life has become so ordinary, so routine and monotonous.  He feels estranged, so much so that he goes down into a cave to wait for a sign of God's existence.

Do you ever feel this way?  I guess retirement can be like this for some people, but it certainly isn’t a retirement I know.  Life may not always be routine or monotonous, but sometimes, just by watching the news on or reading the newspaper with its wrenching stories of violence, murder and degradation, the feeling is one of such overwhelming weight that hiding in a cave seems to be the only way to cope.  Where is there a sign of God's existence?

For Will Barrett it was a strange but seemingly unavoidable behavior.  Eventually, however, Will is driven from the cave by a severe toothache, and he stumbles into a neighboring greenhouse owned by Allison Huger.  Allison left a mental hospital and is making a new life for herself in a greenhouse.  With Allie he gradually learns to be open to another person as well as to himself.  And in his new-found openness Will also inadvertently finds God.  He begins to transform the world with Allie.  In a great comedy of restoration the two of them make plans to renovate her greenhouse and to provide work and meaning for a number of sedentary and lifeless nursing-home residents.  Their openness even transforms their normal down-time of late afternoon into a time of grace and joy.

The Second Coming is a zany, tragic and comic novel.  From the depths of despair and alienation Will searched for God existence and ended up finding much more.  It is one of Walker Percy’s best novels, and it is about God’s love.

I thought about this as I read the passage we heard from the Song of Solomon.  The Song of Solomon is sometimes referred to as the Song of Songs because it is the greatest of all songs, and it is about love.  It is a joyful and glorious passage often read at weddings because it is so romantic:  “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”  Its meaning is about God’s love for all creation. Love is about God; it is the very nature of God, and it is to be enjoyed and valued. 

Will Barrett found God’s love in his relationship with Allie.  Together they exemplify what Jesus proclaimed: having an honest relationship with God and not deceiving oneself are the keys to a healthy balance in life.  Accepting one’s self as authentic and genuine in its own right spills over to all the relationships that form the network of life.  If Will Barrett remained as he was down in a cave, and if we remain less than who we are and handicap ourselves in relating to others, we invite frustration because we cannot offer others a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Our reading from the Letter of James ties in to all of this because it is about bringing forth the fruit of good works.  When confronted with worldly anxieties filled with all the trials and tribulations of life, where economic inequality, poverty and unemployment prevail, the Letter of James is about being “doers of the word.” 

“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like…. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

The point James is making is that those who persevere in searching for God will hear the good news, and when they understand what they are hearing will be moved to do the work and ministry that Jesus modeled in his life.

James addressed those who were given "birth by the word of truth." He bid his readers to "welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls."  In other words, salvation is a given, but, here is the catch, one must be a doer of the word as well as one who simply hears it.

There are so many issues and needs that command our attention.  The situations that cry for a just resolution are many and complex: the nuclear treaty with Iran, the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel, acts of terrorism, the huge number of refugees in the world, environmental problems and energy sources, violence and the lack of adequate gun control, abusive relationships, the continuing need for affordable and universal health care, capital punishment, poverty and hunger, and high quality public education.  I am sure I have left something out. Every day the media report about a few of these issues and it becomes tiring and overwhelming because so little seems to change for the better.

Perhaps like Will Barrett we need as a society to be driven out of our cave of complacency and learn how to reshape the public policies that have sustained inequality.  Let us work as those born by the word of truth to be doers of the word, followers of Jesus and ministers of God’s love for those in need.  Amen.