FROM THE BOUNDARY: Peniel’s progress
When evil stares us in the face, there’s no compromise. There’s no compromising with terrorists; no compromise with those who set out to kill in the name of God. But that’s not the end of it. As Gandhi reminds us, throughout history the forces of truth and love have always won in the end. Tyrants fall. The wicked fail.
Think, again, of the furnace of 9/11. Despite the carnage, the onslaught of cosmic evil, the four horsemen who carried death, there was hope: hope in the countless acts of bravery of firemen, priests and policemen; hope in the endurance of all manner of men and women; hope in the candles lit across the world in grief and prayer; hope in the silent beauty of flowers of remembrance in London and Moscow, in so many places; hope in the ringing of bells and church services for the dead across the continents; hope in the thought that in the end love and forgiveness will ever sanctify. The voice of God can never be silenced.
In the hours of darkness, pain and death we ordinary human beings, like the magi of old, can only follow the star of our faith. It’s a faith which proclaims that God will wipe the tears from our eyes, and that the lamb in the midst of the throne will ever be our shepherd (Rev 7:17). If, in 9/11, and so much other darkness, we were given a glimpse of the reign of hell, we’ve also seen, in so many ways, the work of the angels of light, who ultimately, in proclaiming truth and justice, right, reconciliation and love, will ever triumph no matter where or when the fiend rises, and no matter the form he takes. It can’t be any other way. It’s simply impossible.
The face of evil - contrast it with the face of Christ. Think of the evil things which happen in our poor world – for so we’ve made it. Could Christ have planned them – in the name of God? Could he have directed them, performed them – in the name of God? Would he then have slunk off to the hills, the blood of children and all innocents on his hands – in the name of God? Of course not. Very well, then what can we do in his name? What should we do?
Remember Jacob at Peniel? He wasn’t a saint, nor yet a fiend. Actually, he was a man much like you and me. His confrontation with the Angel of God is an allegory, a symbolic story, of the struggle between God’s will and man’s, God’s way and man’s. It’s a story about the subordination of our will, our belief that we can do everything, control and command everything, to God’s. Once it’s achieved, we’re truly empowered as God’s children. Jesus himself shared the same struggle at Gethsemane: “not my will but thine be done”. The struggle, this cosmic drama, face to face with God, is central to the religious mystery. Jacob’s story is that of every man – you and me. It’s the story of Moses in Exodus (33:11), in Numbers (14:14), in Deuteronomy (5:4), and in the story of Gideon in Judges (6:22). To Moses, He spoke as a man speaks to his friend. To Gideon, He spoke face to face as the Lord of Peace. And He speaks to us too in all the unexpected things which mark our passage, in the pillars of cloud and fire, on the mountain, or in the ruins of the great buildings of the world. Yes, God ever confronts us, is ever in the midst of His people, transcendent and infinite, yes, but ever close at hand.
And when, in the struggle between His will and ours, He puts His mark on us, the stamp of our vulnerability, the new man in us is born – the man humbled by suffering; the man who now understands the meaning of history; the man who shares himself with others, who responds to the needs of other men; the man who relies on God’s power; the man who conquers by mercy and love, as well by justice; the man of the Beatitudes. In wounding us, God draws out the best in us. The promised land is just a moment away if we but knew it.
Yes, we each carry our own scars, our different marks of God, who showed us His face from no darkened glass. Now we can love entirely, know a joy never previously known, a peace surpassing all earthly pleasure, and a hope far beyond the limits of our eyes. We can affirm it all to the children, the despairing, to those who weep and mourn, to the lepers, all the outcasts of our day. And yes, we can affirm it too to the face of evil, to those pitiful men who brought death and destruction to thousands, to those who, in our time, seek to divide and rubbish us so often in God’s name, who seek to maim our minds and stunt our love from armchair and pulpit, from the high thrones of our world. Don’t you understand yet? Like Jacob at Peniel, we’ve been wounded in the most glorious way – and lived.
Go safely, then – until the next time.
Peniel, from the boundary: “To love another person is to see the face of God” (Victor Hugo).