Rodin's Thinker Lifts His Heavy Head & Opens His Arms in Orans

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark on Trinity Sunday by the Very Rev. Tyler Doherty, Dean & Rector.

I remember when Rowan Williams was still Archbishop of Canterbury, he sat down with the Telegraph journalist Martin Beckford. It had all the makings of a “gotcha” interview--the purpose was not to get to know the person, but to catch him out on a controversial subject that they could turn into an all-caps headline, or a 10-second soundbyte. Sure enough, the headline appeared: “Hell is Being Alone For Ever” which quickly morphed into “Archbishop Denies Hell!” He also said that Genesis is a theological account of creation being dependent on God, and not to be read literally. He’s not a fan of those American theme parks where Adam and Eve share the Garden of Eden with the mastodon.

But what Williams actually said was, as usual, far more interesting than what the  headline trumpeted: “My concept of hell, I suppose, is being stuck with myself for ever and with no way out…. Whether anybody ever gets to that point I have no idea. But that it’s possible to be stuck with my selfish little ego for all eternity, that’s what I would regard as hell.” Hell, in Williams’ description, is self-enclosure. Being trapped in the confines of the self. Bricked in isolation from our true self, others, God’s good creation, and God in Godself. The Cask of Amontillado--a chilling tale in its own right--becomes all the more chilling when we realize that being bricked up in an airless crypt is not something someone else does to us--not Montresor sealing Fortunado behind row upon row of slowly rising bricks--but something we do ourselves. Contracted in on ourselves we slowly suffocate and wither. 

That’s why I’ve always found Rodin’s hunched Thinker far more terrifying than his Gates of Hell. While cherry blossoms bloom, taxis honk, and children plop their ice cream cones on the sidewalk, he sits frozen, chin on hand literally “lost” in thought. The very opposite of the childlike simplicity of being in the present moment--the only place we ever encounter God. When we come home to the present, we encounter and make space for the lived experience of  our belovedness--the steadfast trustworthiness of God in,with, for, and ahead of us no matter what, no matter where. Stepping out of the illusory world of the isolated self kept in place by thoughts, worries, preoccupations, and unexamined beliefs, we experience the reality of a loving God and connect with the suffering of others. 

Our theme for this 150th year is “Becoming the Beloved Community.” It’s not “Being the Beloved Community” because we’re not there yet. The Church is forever on the Road to Emmaus. Yes, we all love the community here at St. Mark’s. And after a year away from in-person worship, it’s a cause for much rejoicing just to be in this historic place where “prayer has been valid,” to hear the organ sing, glimpse a friend’s eyes over the brim of their mask behind fogged-up glasses and catch a glimmer there--the spark of recognition, encounter, true meeting like that of Mary and Elizabeth. Something indeed leaps within us, doesn’t it? 

But Becoming the Beloved Community is about far more than just seeing our friends again or “returning to normal.” Becoming the Beloved Community is premised on being present enough to experience God’s presence (God is always at home, it is us who away on errands as Eckhart says) and then, with eyes opened by in-breaking love asking that question I asked a few weeks back--”Who’s not at the table? Whose voice don’t we hear? Why is that? What gets in the way of that voice being heard, that beloved person having their rightful place in the Beloved Community? What systems, structures, and institutions hinder the Pentecost shedding abroad of the Holy Spirit to all people, races, and nations? What would Jesus have to say about that? What would action in his name empowered by the Spirit look like?”

The Beloved Community is not a human construct, or a human work. It’s God’s Dream for the world as revealed in Holy Scripture--to loose the bonds of oppression, undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free (Isaiah 58:6). Following Jesus on the highways and byways with listening ears and open hearts, living simply and sharing our possessions, dismantling structures that prevent the full flourishing of any human life--we practice daily the Way of Love as the path to manifest God’s Dream in the midst of what often appears to be a human-created nightmare. Like a lotus in muddy water. Limitless love swaddled in the muck and straw. The tiny mustard seed blooming to embrace the birds of the air, even birds of a different feather. Even here, Lord? Yes, even here.

Again, the Beloved Community, God’s Dream for the World, is not just words, it's revealed to us in a life, the life of Jesus, in the life of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. “The Trinity,” as Miroslav Volf writes, “is our social program.” It’s not a mathematical equation. It’s not an abstract doctrine with little or no practical application. It’s not what Karen Blixen calls, “the most deadly dull of all male companies” (as funny as that is!). If you look at Andrei Rublev’s (ca. 1360-1430) icon of the Trinity titled, “The Hospitality of Abraham” you see in line, color, and contour, the shape love takes. You see unity in diversity and diversity in unity. You see that God is not a lonely, isolated, monarchical God, but a God who is always in relationship, in communion. Each figure--Father (gold), Son (blue), Holy Spirit (green) bows to the other, receives the other, in a circle dance (perichoresis) of giving, receiving, and sharing love. 

God in Godself is a model for sociality, a communion of persons each one totally open, receptive, utterly transparent to the other. Each person of the Trinity is turned in self-forgetful love toward the face of other. Each person of Trinity is an open place to receive the totality of the other. This  three personed God battering the heart is the Beloved Community we are called to become. The human person is realized in its fullness through relationship--relationship with our own belovedness, in communion others, in communion creation. Christ in the face of the stranger saves us from ourselves.

The great travesty of our individualistic, consumer-driven culture, is that it tricks us into thinking that self-sufficiency rather than relationship/dependence on God is the way to happiness, peace, and contentment. “Hell is other people,” as Sartre writes in No Exit, is the motto of such a social arrangement. But notice how counter that runs to the only prayer Jesus ever taught the disciples--the Lord’s Prayer. It’s not ‘me,’ but ‘us,’ not ‘my’ but ‘our.’ We discover who we are by breaking free of the prison of self-enclosure, by finding ourselves in relationship, in communion, in solidarity with others--all others and the good earth. Hell is not other people, but, “the suffering of no longer being able to love” as Elder Zosima writes in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother, and sister, and mother? Am I my brother’s keeper? The Trinity shows us that a life well-lived is one that flows with the grain of the universe, that dances towards the margins as the pulse and flow of love given, love received, and love shared prodigally with others. Solidarity with all as members of the One Body.

The Trinity is a reminder that so often in our lives we are the ones who cut ourselves off from others in a life of habitual, mechanical waking sleep. We refuse to relate out of fear, insulate ourselves against the suffering of others, go against the grain of the universe by insisting on a life of I, me, mine: My father who art in heaven hallowed by my name. My kingdom come, my will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give me this day my daily bread… One-click, same day delivery Cask of Amontillado carried to its logical, terrifying extreme. Not God’s Dream, but the self-centered dream. The alternative is to come home and be present to the present moment which is the only place we can encounter the dynamic dance of God’s loving presence. No one in history has thought their way into the Kingdom of heaven that is, even now, spread out upon the earth. The Trinity is not an idea, but an experience of love given, received, and shared. It’s available every time we step out of the virtual reality nightmare created by our thoughts and come home. When we leave the realm of seeing the world through our thoughts and simply be, love breaks through the fear, the shame, the blame, the isolation and lack and we know ourselves as the true person God created us to be--no longer separated, cut-off, sealed away in the world of our thinking but always already home, infinitely OK. That far-off God seated on a throne has come near. Nearer than near. God is the isness of everything! Now we call him Abba, papa, daddy. Imagine! Our work done to create a just, peaceful, and sustainable world is all a part of what it means to be the Beloved Community and it’s done  from an experience of love in the name of the IndwellingTrinity at the center of our being, in the Temple of the Heart.

Becoming the Beloved Community means losing our isolated life with only the paltry ego at the center, and finding our life in the dance of love, relationship, and solidarity with others. It means “being born from above” like Nicodemus by the Spirit that can’t be contained, controlled, predicted, or fit neatly into the neat little boxes of the conceptual mind. Becoming the Beloved Community means dismantling everything that prevents others from knowing themselves as members of the One Body--as loved, cherished children of God made in God’s image. 

If you look carefully at Rublev’s icon, you’ll see what looks like an empty seat. That’s your invitation to join the dance, participate in God’s very life right now and then make a space for whoever’s not yet at the table. Becoming the Beloved Community starts with heeding the invitation ourselves, continues with those right outside the great doors, and doesn’t stop until the whole world has heard the invitation--come and see, take and eat, come closer friend there’s a seat with your name on it right here. Rodin’s Thinker lifts his heavy head and opens his arms in orans. Chin on fist flowers into arms flung wide embracing it all.