The Last Deception

Late at night, late in the '80s, I was in the middle of an armed robbery. There were guns and shouting and a strange, surreal sense of time where things moved very slowly as they transpired very quickly. I remember, distinctly, the silver pistol that was pointed at me and then I watched the thief, one of three, strike my co-worker with the same gun in the next moment. He hit her with butt of the gun. And then it was over. The three, armed men ran from the store, money in hand, and sped away in a waiting car. It was probably the longest five minutes of my life.

During the following months I identified two of the men who robbed the store in a line up. Just like on tv. I was in a room behind the mirrored glass and someone said, "do you recognize anyone?" I said, "number two and number five." Whoever was in the room with me was quite impressed. Kathy was not impressed with my recollection as this identification would now bring charges against members of the Crypts gang.
In the end, the men who were identified in the robbery were not put on trial because they gave up someone who was more important. This is the closest I've ever come to war or combat or deadly force. Certainly, my chance experience is nothing compared to someone who stormed the beaches of Normandy or suffered from decades of violence from a spouse. But there is a strange moment, a feeling of otherness, and solidarity, when I remember the night, the gun, the violence. It is as if I was thrown in with the folks who needed to be brave.

I wasn't brave, but I was not a coward either. Things just seemed to happen. Knowing the other alternatives, all involved in the robbery were lucky to be alive. Could have gone the other way. The police arrived seconds after the robbery was over with their guns drawn. I frightened the man with the silver handgun; I came running out of nowhere because I heard shouting in the store; he spun and pointed the gun at me in surprise. He could have pulled the trigger.
I wasn't brave and I wasn't a coward.

When I think of bravery or courage, I start with iconic moments, big moments where Confederate soldiers charged Little Round Top leaving the safety of the Devil's Den; I see mothers standing, marching, in silence in Santiago, Chile; freedom riders are conjured who rode South. I think of Martin Luther King Jr. writing from the Birmingham jail or Dietrich Bonhoeffer returning to Germany when he could have stayed in New York; I think of doctors risking their life to save women now without a choice or doctors in Gaza right now who chose to be there.

These iconic moments are important. We draw strength from example and greatness. We do. After the icon though I go to the small, subtle, almost invisible moments of courage. For the most part stepping forward, standing up, speaking out, being willing to wade into good trouble, is not really the stuff of martyrs or guns or tyrants. Most of what we experience of courage are small steps of daring, a confession, a deep breath, a kind of patience yielding honesty. Most courage is about a job, a spouse, something true about yourself no one knows. Most courage is a small step we take over and over again—a skill, a habit. It's not magic. Real courage is small, delicate, subtle, often nearly invisible to all concerned.

There are two great demands of Christianity according to the Gospel of Matthew. The first is the demand of humility; you must be humble to abide in the Kingdom of God. Think mustard seeds and being last to be first. This is the lesson of Galilee and the Sermon on the Mount. The second great demand of Christianity is courage. You must be brave to follow Jesus. He told his would-be-followers such again and again. He seemed to infer, being brave is not a matter of bravado. The need to have courage is the lesson of Jerusalem and the suffering of Jesus.

Humility and courage; Galilee and Jerusalem; the Sermon on the Mount and the cross. It is as if the Gospel of Matthew is meant to walk us through both; lead us to see the demands of each.

I have a theory about this, the demand of humility and courage. It is only a theory, but it seems to make sense. The theory is how our life seems to have four parts or four seasons. We seem to live our lives in four parts. About every 20 or 25 years we enter a new one. The theory is that each state or season, part comes with a different demand of humility and courage. How we need to be humble, where we need to be courageous changes, becomes something altogether new. And here is the strange part of the theory it is as if we start anew, begin again, each time.

During the first year of the pandemic, there were a lot of funerals and burials. There was one stretch where I did as many committals in three months than I would have normally done in a year or more. And they were all terrible. People could not gather to each other; people who needed to embrace were kept apart.
At some point, I don't remember when, and I don't remember the circumstance creating this, but at some point, for some reason during the pandemic, I told Jonathan to leave a shovel by the grave when there was a committal of cremains, ashes. And, again, I am not sure why, but I began to tell families that we can fill in the opening, bury the urn, or they can if they want to.

What seems to have come is a powerful, poignant moment of courage, a cathartic act of beauty in spite of sadness. To take the shovel and cover the urn, there is a strange honesty? Maybe. Few weeks ago, after all the family had a turn with the shovel, a son went and found the patch of grass, the sod, that had been removed to dig the grave. He found the grass and put it back in place as well. He tended to it, made it look right. He was brave in the moment.

During the different seasons of life what it means to be brave and what it means to be humble change. In the coming years, during the first season of his life, you will guide Nathan unto what this means. You will very likely tell him, "you need to be brave." This is part of being a parent. And if he is like most children, you will need to help him not get ahead of skis or become too big for his britches. You will love him unto humility and courage, the great demands of Christianity, and, well, life.

Then it will all change. A whole new set of questions in need of being answered will arise. Nathan will need to find humility and courage as a young adult. That is what happened to you; and that is what will happen again, and again.

Something I have observed, a strange truth, is that the last season of life, the fourth quarter, is more confusing, more demanding than the others. What it means to find courage, to be brave, when you are six, is different than when you are sixty. And here is the difference I have observed. When you are six, it is as if the whole world knows and awaits your discovery; everyone trusts that you need to find this, learn humility, learn courage. In fact we send children to school and put them into sports and give them music lessons, all on purpose, to help them navigate the great demands of life. Yet, in the last quarter, the last season of life, somehow, quite often, we believe this is just supposed to happen.

This to me is the last deception. We live as if we have found our answers, found our self, found our way in life. In the last part it is simply moving forward, keeping to the path, persisting. We can deceive ourselves here. We can convince ourselves that the questions and answers we need to find to meet the great demands of Christianty, what it means to be humble, what it means to be brave, we convince ourselves that the answers we have found before will somehow work in the last season of life. We can deceive ourselves into believing we are no longer working through what is required.

I heard the opposite one Sunday morning when Peggy, a woman in her eighties, body falling apart, seated next to her husband, Allen, whose body was even worse, I heard Peggy exclaim after a Sunday School class about Kierkegaard, she said, "oh I love this. My mind is growing, stretching. There is so much to learn here." Peggy would not go gently into the goodnight. I will never forget that moment because of the surprise. Here she was in the last part of her life living it as if it was all new again.

Perhaps the greatest example of the last deception though was Henri Nouwen. Nouwen was a theology professor at Harvard, famous author, someone held in esteem by his peers. And at the very moment of great success, he slipped into a sense of malaise, a funk, the resignation the last deception can provide. What saved Nouwen was that he gave it all up. He took a position as a pastor in a community for people with learning and cognitive disabilities, people whose lives were as far from Harvard as one could get.

Entering this community and living there with honesty allowed him to ask the question of humility and the question of courage as if he didn't know the answers. He was born anew as it were; he overcame the last deception.

The last deception is very tempting. One would think or suppose that if you have lived life to a certain point, lived enough life and seen the rise and fall, the ebb and the flow, that you could predict the tide. At the beginning of my time as a pastor, I asked an older pastor who was retiring after a long career, I asked when he reached a point in his ministry where he had a good idea about how things worked, what to expect. He said, "I never saw that day." I remember thinking, that must be what made your ministry so successful.
It's tempting to think I have done my time, served my time, did the hard work, now is a season of rest, a season of ease, where life just moves forward, flows. The last deception is very tempting.

Just recently we lost one of our eldest members, Millie Reeder. Millie was in her 90s. As I sat with her daughters and talked about Millie's life, they cleared up a great mystery for me. We were seated in Millie's apartment, her apartment on the second floor, her home was entered after a long steep set of stairs. Her daughters told me that Millie had the choice of being on the ground floor or the second floor. She chose the second to keep her active. What courage.

Whatever season of life you are in, remember, what it means to be humble and what it means to be brave must become altogether new if you live it well, if you meet the great demands of Christianity. And if you are looking into the fourth quarter, if this is at hand or approaching, think of Peggy, think of Henri Nouwen, think of Millie and do not be deceived. Life begins anew. You and me, we are just like young Nathan here. Amen.