“Who Are You?” said the Caterpillar
By Rev. Daniel Smith
March 21, 2010
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Lessons: John 12: 1-8
Though I have yet to see the current blockbuster version of Alice in Wonderland in 3D, the recent ads for it have reminded me of a scene at the beginning of the book’s chapter 5, where Alice is talking to the Caterpillar. See if you can remember it too.
“The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. Who are YOU? said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.
What do you mean by that? said the Caterpillar sternly. Explain yourself!
I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir, said Alice, because I'm not myself, you see.
I don't see, said the Caterpillar.
I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly, Alice replied very politely, for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
Alice and the Caterpillar start to bicker back and forth a bit. Eventually the Caterpillar says to her:
So you think you're changed, do you?
I'm afraid I am, sir, said Alice; I can't remember things as I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!
Whether you can remember this story or not, who here among us, caterpillars included, can’t relate? Surely we all have days like this, where strange events make us feel either taller or smaller or otherwise out of proportion. We know moments when we say, “I’m just not myself.” We know times when we can barely remember who we are. Chances are that these moments arise for us most when we are in the midst of some change, be it great or small. It could be a period of grief, a career change or a pending retirement. Or perhaps it’s while expecting a child, or during a move to a new place, or perhaps even some big change to a system we’ve come to depend on, like our calling a new minister. During all of these so-called “transitions,” it’s easy to lose sight of who we are. That was Alice’s problem, right? She struggled to answer the question of who she was because she was constantly changing! And so it is with each of us. Later in the chapter, Alice eventually stutters out in the most heartbreaking of ways, “I … I’m a little girl.” We all know for how long that will last! Not very!
From the magical wonderland of Alice to the mystical wilderness of the Israelites, we can find in these and other great stories an underlying message about one of life’s most fundamental paradoxes between the need for change on the on hand and continuity on the other. The writer William Bridges puts it this way in his book The Way of Transition: “To achieve continuity, we have to be willing to change! Change is, in fact, the only way to protect whatever exists, for without continuous readjustment the present cannot continue …A marriage, a career, a dream for the future, even a picture of the past: each of these things is being primed for destruction if it does not change over time!”
Believe it or not, like it or not, we know this is true. And it’s not just continuity that requires change! It’s our very sense of identity as well -- our sense of who we are. The question before Alice, before the Israelites in our passage and before all of us is this: How do we know and remember who we are in the face of constant, relentless, often-heartbreaking change?
Our passage from Isaiah suggests at least two pieces of sage advice, and it does this indirectly so bear with me as I unpack them. One piece at first sounds puzzling. It comes when ‘thus says the Lord’ to the Israelites in vs. 18. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old! I am about to do a new thing, and now it springs forth! Do you not perceive it?” At first glance, this business of not remembering former things sounds like a recipe for denial. If God was a therapist here, this “get over it and move on” approach might be grounds for malpractice! What does God mean by these words?
Let’s set them in context. It’s clear in this passage that Isaiah is foretelling a time of great change for the people. Fair enough. It was the latter half of the sixth century BCE. They had been living for decades in exile. They’ve lost their land, their homes, their livelihoods and their families. Like the rabbit hole that carries Alice to grow into entirely new dimensions of her being, God is ready to spring forth a river in the desert that will carry people to places of new life and new hope well beyond their current imagination. For the Israelites, this was the promise of a new exodus, and this time not from slavery in Egypt, but from exile in Babylon. This new path that God was making through the mighty waters, through watercourses in the desert, would lead the people of Israel home to Zion. “Do they perceive it,” God asks? Or, like their ancestors, do they think they had it better when they were slaves? Would they wonder, “going home is great and all, but do we really have to get our feet wet? This whole river in the desert thing is pretty cool but what if the water is cold?”
God speaks to this anticipated reaction a word of truth that at first may ring false. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old!” And yet, the story intentionally echoes that of the great exodus from Egypt. The image of water in the wilderness comes straight out of Exodus 15, just before God sends down the manna from heaven! These traditions of the past are even here a reference point to inspire faith and hope in God’s promises for a new future! Let’s be clear: God is not saying to them to forget their past, or their ancestors. Instead, God says “do not remember the former things, the things of old” so that they don’t get stuck there! God is warning them to hold their past gently, to not hang on too tight, to be able to let it go such that they are not still trying to live in that past but that they are ready to live into God’s present and future! There’s a whole new way ahead -- a new way of walking, talking, living, loving and being, but how can you get there if you haven’t let go of what was! What’s more, in order to let go, one needs to name these former things, and so God does just this. A more helpful translation might be “Remember, but do not remember the former things.” “Consider, but do not consider the things of old. Do you not perceive.” It’s like one of the last lines of Toni Morrison’s famous novel Beloved, about a mother and daughter trying to rebuild their lives after escaping from slavery. She writes in the coda and with intended irony “This is not a story to pass on!” Yet this is precisely what she has done, and only in so doing, does she allow a new thing to emerge.
How do we remember who we are in the midst of constant change? One step is to find a healthy and perhaps even ongoing way to lift up and name what you once were! And, then when the time comes, be willing to loosen the grip, to let it go, and let God do a new thing in your life! The only way to move ahead is to name what must be left behind. As most of us know, this process can take awhile.
I asked Nancy yesterday if she could remember a time when I resisted change. It took her all of about 5 seconds to remind me of a late night I had with some of the guys in the backyard of our Somerville apartment. It was summer, the windows were open and we were being loud, drinking long into the night around a fire pit. If I’d been upstairs with Nancy in bed, and these noisy folks had been the neighbors keeping us up, we would have been saying, “Don’t these people realize there are kids sleeping nearby?!” Instead, my friends and I were those loud neighbors, and Nancy was fuming upstairs. We were barely married. It was clear to her that I was still hanging on to my old bachelor self, that I had not yet opened myself to this strange new stepfamily thing that God was doing in my life. It took a few good sessions with a marriage counselor to set me straight and to get me to name the pain of what I was leaving behind in order to move on. And that’s a relatively easy example! You and I both have far more wrenching stories that are not stories to pass on but that may continue to grip our lives and leave our hearts and spirit tight-fisted around what was, and so all-closed-up to the new thing that God may already be doing in our lives! Do you not perceive this?
This is not easy work, especially when change feels new and you aren’t feeling like yourself! It can drive people to all kinds of unhealthy patterns of denial. But, naming ‘the former things’ can also lead us into profound rituals of honest dialogue and transformative healing. I dare say that we’ve been doing a good amount this work here at First Church throughout this time of change in the life of our community. When we say the name of Allen Happe, or when we say the name Mary Luti, when we say the names of those who have come before and who are still on our hearts, whether out loud during prayers or at meetings, in worship on All Saints Sunday or in healing services, we are at one and the same time remembering our past even as we are releasing ourselves for a new thing. The same can be said of career changes, and moves. We need to name that which we are leaving behind, go through a wilderness and wonderland of an in-between time, literally packing and unpacking our very lives that we may eventually be open for what comes next.
If the latter half of our passage cues up the fact that God is always in the midst of those big changes of our lives, then the first few lines offer us an anchor of continuity. It is here we find a second piece of wisdom that also has to do with saying names! “For now thus say the Lord God who created you, O Jacob, the Lord who formed you, O Israel. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you! I have called you by name! You are mine!” Here is an amazingly good and true answer to the Caterpillar’s questions that works in all places and times, and all shapes and sizes!
It continues ‘when you pass through the waters of change, I will be with you, and through the rivers of tears, they will not overwhelm you, through fire of your greatest fears, you will not be burned.” Trust me! I am your God! And you are my beloved! As if that’s not enough, hear what is says in verse 4. And “you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you!” Talk about remembering who we are!
Those of you who have been reading the UCC daily devotions online will have come across one this week based on these first lines of Chapter 43 written by the Seattle-based UCC minister, Anthony Robinson. In the reflection, he recalls a retreat he once attended during a hard stretch in his life when we was feeling especially lost. He writes:
“By some odd grace I found my way to a place called "The Spiritual Life Center" run by an older Maryknoll nun. Sister Katherine explained the drill. My job was to pray the Scriptures. She would give me two a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, vitamins for my soul. ‘And,’ she said, with a gentle smile, ‘If you fall asleep, it's okay; you're probably exhausted.’ My Scriptural vitamin for that first morning was this very passage, Isaiah 43: 1 - 7. As I headed off, Sr. Katherine called, ‘Oh, and you might try putting your name in where it says 'Jacob' and 'Israel.' ’ I did that. I did it once, then again, three times and more, praying the words over and over. As I did, voices of accusation and anger gave way to a balm in Gilead. Love was poured out upon me like precious oil.”
Let’s try it…
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you [place your name here]. When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, [Alice], for I am the Lord your God, [Richard] and you are precious in my sight, [Peter]." You are precious in my sight and honored, Allen and Judy and Mary Luti and Karin Case!”
Robinson continues, “for the first time in a long time, I felt as if I could breathe again. No clear way forward had been revealed, no ready answer had been given, none but this: ‘You are precious in my sight, honored, and I love you,’ and that was enough. Enough to open the road out of exile toward home.”
Well put, brother Anthony. Well put, brother Isaiah! When you find yourselves in the midst of a strange new wonderland, when you meet a caterpillar who asks “who are you?” and you barely have a clue because you’re just not feeling like yourself, remember these words from the great Prophet, and by all means, insert your name! Thus say the Lord, God who created you, person-whose-name-we-cannot-yet-speak-but-but-who-we-will-meet-next week, do not fear for I have called you by name to a new thing, and to a new future and you are mine!
Friends, if we’re not sure just who we are or where we are going, chances are we are on the right track. It might just mean that we are open and waiting for a new thing! It’s time like these when we need to share those stories that are not stories to pass on, when we need to say each others names, and the names of all those who are precious to us! In times likes these, we can trust and know that God will be with us through waters, rivers and flames and that will be ready to do a new thing when we come to the other side. As with the Israelites, God is already making a way to a promised land of reconciliation, healing, freedom, and abundant love in which we can all be secure in who we are and in faith sing out “This is a day of New Beginnings.” Amen.