"Don't just stand there; do something!"
That's what my brain says every time I get a new toy or tool or piece of equipment. I rip open the box, dump everything on whatever surface is handy, and immediately start doing things...whether they are the right things or not.
Brian, my brother, on the other hand, sits down and reads the instructions first. Then he lays out the pieces just like in the picture, and slowly, deliberately does what the manual says. When he's done, he cleans up the packaging and actually files the instructions in a folder and puts it in the filing cabinet. He drives me nuts!
I guess I'm more like Peter. Peter essentially barks out “Don't just stand there; do something!” when he sees Jesus there on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, not to mention his glowing transfiguration. Overwhelmed and awed by the whole event, Peter did what I think I would do: carpe diem! Seize the day! Gotta get crackin'! Let's make some dwellings; let's make it a Kodak moment. Let's get to work! C'mon, guys, we're off to Lowe's—we need boards, hammers, nails. James, John, don't just stand there with your mouths hanging open! Get busy! Do something!
It remind me of a Taoist tale of a carpenter and his apprentice:
A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: "Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?" The apprentice looked at his master and said: "No . . . why?" "Well," the carpenter said, "because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax."
It's built into the very fabric of our culture, even our religion--the Protestant work ethic and all that, to keep doing, to keep moving, to keep being useful. And yet, what I hear from parishioners and friends and my own little brain is this: We're tired, but if we don't accomplish anything, then we don't know who we are. Our doing is who we are. So Peter's insistence on doing something is completely natural; but God's voice from heaven interrupts his chatter with, "Hush! This is my son, the beloved! Listen to him!" Did you get that, Peter? Did you get that Steve? Quit chattering and doing, and for once in your life, simply pay attention. Listen!
Sure, Christ's call to discipleship requires all sorts of doing: love God, love our neighbor, go make disciples, baptize, preach the gospel, help, comfort, heal. But all those activities are responses to what we say we are. And it's the focusing on who we ARE that I think this reading is asking us to do. And I worry sometimes that we – or at least me – have forgotten simply how to “be.”
So often we stay busy often because we need to justify our lives to God and to each other and to ourselves. I have a desk calendar, a calendar on my phone, a calendar on my computer, and a calendar on my wall. I will bring people into my office and show off my already full annual calendar that we all know will get even fuller as each month closes in. I'm so proud of how busy I am. I even pencil in the Catos for appointed times when we can hang out and relax.
Just Friday afternoon, Brooks asked me what I had done on my day off. “Nothing,” I said. “I just cleaned the kitchen, made a couple dozen non-flour tortillas to freeze, vacuumed sealed the tamales Paula gave you, set up my new computer, took care of the cheeses I'm making, watered the plants, did some laundry, went to the grocery store, answered some emails and voicemails, swung by Chase, and paid some bills.” He just laughed at me and said, “I hung out on the couch with the dogs.”
Y'all, I actually schedule time to play with those pups. How pathetic is that?
I wonder if I stay busy because if I ever let up, if I ever get quiet and contemplate where God is moving in my life and what God might be calling me to do, then I might have to deal with that, and it might not be exactly what I want, what I have planned. It might be something calling me outside of my comfort zone. Maybe I stay busy to fill the time and space, not just to serve God, but sometimes to avoid God. I'm not afraid that in the stillness that God won't speak to me. No, I'm afraid that God will speak to me.
And so we have Peter there on that mountain. He wants to get busy with his own agenda because he probably is skittish when he hears Jesus' agenda that he just introduced with the whole "take up your cross" thing. Maybe if we do this thing, we won't have to do that thing. So, let's get busy on this thing. But the voice from heaven persists: "This is my son, the beloved...listen to him!"-- the same voice that beckons us to silence, to listen, as we stand on the verge of this journey into the season of Lent.
Lent, which begins this coming Wednesday, calls us to rediscover our spirituality, to be, to quit our frantic babbling, and to pay attention, to consider who we are as dust apart from whose we are in our baptism, God's beloved children, forgiven, loved, held. And it is only from that identity of who we are called to BE that we are called and sent to do God's work in the world. If we don't get the "being" part down, then the doing part will only be crazy, frustrated attempts at self-definition, grounded in fear and stripped of joy.
If all our doing seems madness and pointless, then now is the time to learn again to behold the mystery, to enter a quiet place of awe. There will be more than enough time for living out our call to discipleship, for tending to our Lenten disciplines, to taking up the cross. But in order to be able to do any of that, at least for a while, maybe just for a day, an hour, or a minute, don't just do something! Sit there!
Amen.