Theological Journal – June 17 It’s Not Better Sermons and Teaching We Need (We’ve Got Plenty of Both)

Walker Percy writes a memorable scene in his novel The Thanatos Syndrome with this truth at its heart. It is a conversation between Dr. Tom More and a presumably mad priest, Father Smith. The old priest is now a fire-spotter for the park service and the conversation takes place in the tower he lives in. We pick up the conversation with Father Smith speaking:

“Words are signs, aren’t they?”

“You could say so.”

“But unlike the signs out there (the trees on fire), words have been evacuated, haven’t they.?”

“Evacuated?”

“They don’t signify anymore.”

“How do you mean?” . . .

The two proceed to spar verbally until Father Smith proposes a word association exercise.

“Let me turn the tables on you and give you a couple of word signs and you give me your free associations.”

“Fine.”

“Clouds.”

“Sky, fleecy, puffy, floating, white –“

“Okay. Irish.”

“Bogs, Notre Dame, Pat O’Brien, begorra –“

“Okay. Blacks.”

“Blacks.”

“Negroes.”

“Blacks, Africa, niggers, minority, civil rights –“

“Okay. Jew.”

“Israel, Bible, Max, Sam, Julius, Hebrew, Hebe, Ben –“

“Right! You see!” . . .

Stop reading here! Do not continue until you “see” the old priest’s point or have exhausted your best effort at getting it.

“See what!”

“Jews!”

“What about Jews?” I say after a moment.

“Precisely!”

“Precisely what?”

“What do you mean?”

“What about Jews?”

“What do you think about Jews?” he asks, cocking an eye.

“Nothing much one way or the other.”

“May I continue my demonstration, Doctor?” . . .

“May I ask who Max, Sam, Julius, and Ben are?”

“Max Gottlieb is my closest friend and personal physician. Sam Aronson was my roommate in medical school. Julius Freund was my training analyst at Hopkins. Ben Solomon was my fellow detainee and cellmate at Fort Pelham, Alabama.”

“Very interesting.”

“How’s that?”

“Don’t you see?”

“No.”

“Unlike the other test words, what you associated with the word Jew was Jews, Jews you have known. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Yes,” I say, pursing my mouth in a show of interest.

“What you associated with the word sign Irish were certain connotations, stereotypical Irish stuff in your head. Same for Negro. If I had said Spanish, you’d have said something like guitar, castanets, bullfights, and such. I have done the test on dozens. Thus, these word signs have been evacuated, deprived of meaning something real. Real persons. Not so with Jews” . . .

“That’s the only sign of God which has not been evacuated by an evacuator,” he says, moving his shoulders.

“What sign is that?”

“Jews.”

“Jews?”

“You got it, Doc” . . .

He leans close, eyes alight, “The Jews – cannot-be-subsumed.”

“Can’t be what?”

“Subsumed.”

“I see.”

“Since the Jews were the original chosen people of God, a tribe of people who are still here, they are a sign of God’s presence which cannot be evacuated. Try to find a hole in that proof!”

Debate continues but Tom More is unable to get around the old priest’s argument.

It takes a village to be a true sign of the gospel. Embodied lives and stories. Visible signs. Telling the gospel as a set of ideas or a doctrinal system skates very close to what we might call "thanatos gnosticism" (a deathly brew of special knowledge by which we think we get into heaven). But Father Smith reminds us that the words of such a telling, simply as a telling, well, "they don't signify anymore." They don't point to anything more than other words and ideas. And in a time like ours that just doesn't wash. We all live in the state of Missouri, the "Show Me" state today. The name of the game is "incarnational ecclesiology," a show and tell community that puts flesh on and gives authenticity to the church's preaching and claims about Jesus Christ.

And that’s where the struggle with racism has to find its center for the church – visible, sacramental, incarnational community and embrace of neighbor and enemy in the love and justice of Jesus Christ (not to be confused with other versions of love or varieties of justice). Something that signifies. More books, conferences, lectures, articles as helpful as they may be are nothing more than a sounding gong and clanging cymbal if they do not signify. If, that is, they do not point to concrete places and practices and participate in that reality to which they point. Visible, sacramental, incarnational – love.