First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Mark 1

“Other Ancient Texts”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

February 15, 2009

The word “Gothic” comes from the Visigoths. I love the word “Visigoths.” The Visigoths were the horde of barbarians, unruly warriors that swept over the Roman Empire in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Eventually they would establish kingdoms in Italy, Spain, and France where the Roman Empire used to be. The Visigoths were considered the end of the classic era, the doom of the Greco-Roman culture. For with their victories the great empire would suffer a blow for which it would not recover. The empire would continue in some form for another 1000 years as Byzantium in the East, but the sense of order and space, the movement that created unparalleled roads, aqueducts, and amphitheaters, this would come to an end with the Visigoths.

In the mean time, after the vandals came and broke the empire, there was a new style or sensibility that flourished in art and architecture, theology and politics. Loosely, it is called “Romanesque.” This means cultural expression was a kind of remnant, an echo of Rome and its empire. Churches built during this time were heavy and solid and dimly lit. They were meant to be austere and strong. This was the style of construction for six hundred years. And then something changed.

No one is quite sure exactly what was the keystroke, the moment of departure, but many point to a watershed moment that happened just outside of Paris in a church called St. Denis. This was the time of small princes and feudal estates, when wars for territory and control of trade were common. In this instance it was a group of Germans and English who wanted to control Northern France. When their forces were ready to attack the French monarch went to St. Denis and prayed that the saint, Denis, the former bishop, now deceased for more than 1000 years, would intercede for them in heaven and somehow save them from what appeared to be a sure defeat. He added to his prayers a pledge for a great work to be done for the cathedral at St. Denis.

For some unknown reason, just as his prayers were rising, the enemies turned and headed home. It was at this moment that St. Denis became the patron saint of France, just as St. James is to Spain. It is also some might suggest the birth of the Gothic movement. For when the funds were in place to make good on the pledge for a great work for the cathedral, the edifice that emerged was not Romanesque. It was called at the time a “new order.”

The chief marker of this new order was its obsession with light. Where the churches of the “old order” were often shadowy and dark to exude a sense of mystery, the new order was trying to bring in as much light as possible. To achieve this the walls became soaring windows, and above the walls before the ceiling was a clearstory meant to capture even more.

For the abbot at St. Denis, a man named Suger, this was just the most obvious aspect of the new order. In addition to the light there was a belief, a theology really, about space. The cathedral of St. Denis was not only to be a place of worship, an image of power as the bishop’s seat, and a container for the most holy of relics (a thorn from the crown of thorns Jesus was made to wear as he was crucified), this cathedral was also be an image of heaven.

This summer we were fortunate to a walk through many churches in Paris that were gothic in style, and even one cathedral, Notre Dame. And if someone said these were supposed to be images of heaven I would have concurred in terms of its vertical orientation and grandeur. You are led to contemplate, to pray in such places. The story of salvation and the church are infused in stained glass. There is a sense of God’s transcendence commingled with his presence. Yet, this is not exactly what Abbot Suger and those who followed him meant by a “new order” embodying an image of heaven.

The new order was to be embodied in a proportionality, a harmony, a kind of celestial geometry. While not obvious to the physical eyes, it was meant to be seen by the eyes of the soul. The language of the building, its code as it were, the way it was put together was meant to free the soul to see what is eternal by ratios and rhythms and symmetry.

Gothic cathedrals and the great abbey churches that embodied this new order, this style from the twelfth to the sixteenth century are easily identified by the arched vaults, the flying buttresses, the massive rose windows, and the great “gates of heaven” that greet the pilgrim coming to pray. But what often eludes the visitor, what is not obvious, is the sustaining vision of the architects and builders and abbots and bishops and kings and peasants who sacrificed over the course of centuries to build these images of heaven crafted from stone ever embodying this celestial geometry.

It is hard for us today to think of architecture meant to open a vision of heaven. Our focus today, our artistic vision and our theological one for that matter, is earth not heaven. Today the order of windows, their proportion and number, the symmetry of a sanctuary is more designed for multipurpose use than a mystical unfolding of your soul. Concerts and midweek basketball games are the goal of architects more than the hope of blinding the believers’ eyes so the soul can view God as a spirit. The very idea should strike us as odd.

What is even more odd is that two centuries after the great cathedrals were built when yet another way of viewing order was emerging, a rebirth of Greece and Rome, the architects and historians and philosophers would look at the style and symmetry of the middle ages and call it Gothic. The medievals never called themselves Gothic. For in doing so they would have been calling their vision barbaric. Gothic means the absence of style, sophistication, refinement. It is a strange notion that you could walk through the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and suggest it has a barbaric style, that it lacks sophistication, let alone, that it is not refined. But that is what was intended by calling it Gothic.

In the century after Jesus there were competing versions of Jesus’ life, different visions so to speak. The two main competitors were often called orthodox and Gnostic. Orthodoxy can be seen in the four gospels we have in our scriptures today. These stories and images of Jesus, while each has a particular vantage, all tell a very similar story. The Gnostic gospels tell different stories. Jesus is much more of a spiritual guide, a spirit meant to guide you in intellectual enlightenment and fulfillment. Over the course of three centuries the Gnostic gospels gained less and less favor until finally at the council of Nicea they were determined to be unfit for the church.

Although there were detractors and sides taken from the beginning, the church didn’t truly come to a conclusion for centuries and then was only motivated to do so because of Constantine’s conversion and his request to know what it was that he actually believed. This is important when you are emperor. Whenever this topic comes up there is always the delighted skeptic who enjoys suggesting the Bible is then a kind of capricious decision of councils and far from a kind of gift that just fell from heaven. Yet, the real picture is actually far from the case. When you actually look at the number and sources of texts that we have, the picture is not a random one, but a very clear and consistent one.

One of the greatest accomplishments of the Gothic cathedral is that it achieved its main intent, to be an image of heaven based upon a consistent order that conjures vision for the soul, that such a vision was sustained through the centuries it took to create the cathedral is close to unfathomable. After all that time and change it remained steadfast in its expression. Our gospels are very much the same. In the centuries it took to reach Nicea it is shocking that we don’t have a first draft of Mark, a middle Mark, and late Mark. We have Mark. With all the gospels we have a remarkable consistency, and even more so, the inconsistencies are minor at best. They are, that is, except for our passage today.

In our passage today there are competing visions of Jesus. Some ancient source read, Jesus was moved to pity when the leper came and begged him to heal; and other sources read, Jesus was angry about the man’s request. Our “official” text takes the safe route- pity. To say that Jesus was moved to pity someone who suffered from leprosy needs no explanation. It is easy to understand. The man was suffering; Jesus was able to heal; he chose to help because of pity. But to suggest that hearing the man ask for healing, Jesus was mad, creates at the very least a moment of confusion- even a conundrum. And that is why I prefer the latter. Not because anger is better than pity, but because anger creates a question where pity offers only consent.

What would have made him angry with the leper becomes the question of the text. Some scholars suggest it was the fact that he knew the man was going to disobey and thus make it more difficult to move about. Other suggest it was a demon speaking and thus taunting Jesus to heal the man as an act of kindness that would be hard to explain if he refused- again a kind of taunting. Yet the one explanation that sits best with me is how there is no mention of faith, no sense of spirit, no vision beyond what God can do. This act was not about faith, nor even Jesus’ care for the man. In anger it becomes a moment of how little we can see the order, the structure of the kingdom of God. The man can see what God can do, but in no way do we get a sense that man sees what this means in his life, or in his soul.

The healings were not the point, the object of Jesus being the messiah: this is made clear in all four gospels. Jesus came to offer a message of hope, the gift of faith, a spiritual vision, not a physical one. The miracles were meant only to prove his words were true. In this way I think anger, if tempered a bit to frustration or consternation or kind of weariness that doesn’t want to argue, makes a lot of sense. The man says you can heal me if you choose. He doesn’t say anything about his belief, his faith, his repentance; and when given a charge to obey he fails. Jesus says, tell no one and go and wash and by our text it suggests he didn’t follow either direction at all.

If Jesus is moved with pity and the man just disobeys the direction we have an image of a God healing the broken, but us not experiencing a sense of gratitude becoming obedience. And that message is fine. We should be thankful for everything God has done, and this gratitude should become a clear sense of obedience. But I wouldn’t need to talk about cathedrals and Visigoths and Gnostics to say that.

I do need them to say that we tend to look at life as what God chooses to do and what we choose to do and the two are not in any way one. I don’t need Visigoths to suggest that there is an order to life and it should be followed. But I do need a gothic cathedral to suggest there is another way of looking at life, another way of looking at vision and order and the potential of harmony. There is a tendency that is deeply engrained in our hearts that if we bring problems to God’s attention they will get better and if try hard enough we will make our life better. We can read this story in the official version of our reading from Mark. But we cannot read it from the unofficial source.

In the Gothic cathedral there is a belief that God has created an order, a structure, a harmony of heaven and earth. This order cannot be seen with our eyes, but with the soul, a spiritual vision. Into the walls they tried to encode these proportions and ratios and sense of balance. Again, not as a riddle to be figured out; but as a place to enter and see what it is that God has chosen. In the unofficial reading this is what the leper embodies. He understands there is an order, a power in God, but in the physical healing he cannot see how life is to be lived in relationship to it.

I am always reluctant to bring up the medievals. Their vision is so profoundly other. And we are so convinced that we can see the truth before us, that we can figure it out with reason, that we fail to see how the architects and theologians and peasants of the middle ages understood it as a self-revelation of God, a choice he makes to become manifest. We are so much closer to the leper who implies a kind of obligation on behalf of Jesus to heal. God was there to fix it.

In the gothic cathedral the truth wasn’t there by obligation but an emerging presence that is all about us and if allowed, reveals how much our life is compliment of or not in harmony with, out of sync with, the truth. Jesus being angry creates this moment like a cathedral does.

And even more so I find comfort in the idea that Jesus was frustrated, much more than I would if I believed he was moved to pity. I can fully understand the idea of God just being completely at wits end with me. But that God would pity me and as part of this pity condone my misdirection, my foolishness? That just doesn’t play right.

Our daughter Laura is in France right now. She is spending a semester abroad. When she suggested this was her intent, I offered in a rather catty way, why would a religious studies major spend a semester in the most irreligious country in the world? She made references to the current tension with the Muslim populations, but then confessed it had much more to do with cheese and art than religion. And that is fine with me. Cheese has a great power.

Between moments of learning French and navigating the wiles of cheese made of goat or cow milk, what I truly hope for her as she rambles about cathedrals is that she will see the “new order”, the heart of the architect as he sought to embody the heart of the Gospel. It is there. It is still there carved in stone. Will this insure her sanctification? No. But it is there as an ever ready possibility.

There is an order and structure, a harmony and ratio, a balance and symmetry to God’s truth. Our life is to be lived in balance and compliment to this celestial geometry. That Jesus would grow frustrated by how little people see this is far more human in my heart than pity.

A part of this order is God’s readiness to love and to restore if he chooses. Yet another part is that real healing is when we choose to live in this harmony, this ratio. That he chose to heal and the man chose to disobey must have proved frustrating at best.

In our life we live in harmony with the celestial geometry when we choose to worship, to pray, to give, to go forth in faith, to hope. When we choose to live in these proportions then our soul is healed. The leper’s body was healed, but there is no sense that his soul was healed as well.

Along the path of our life we may encounter physical maladies, diseases, even destruction. These can neither be avoided nor eliminated by faith. But that we can live this life so far from the intent, the order, the sensibility of the one who created even our freedom is paradoxically our choice. We can choose to live out of sync with God’s word. That we would continue to do this must be maddening, frustrating to say the least- and such is suggested by other ancient texts. Amen.