30GoodMinutes.org - Walter Wangerin, Jr. - Into The World, Not to Condemn the World

Walter Wangerin, Jr.
"Into The World, Not to Condemn the World"
Program #3021
First air date March 1, 1987

Biography
Walter Wangerin was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of a Lutheran Pastor and educator. Like his father, Walter is also a Lutheran minister and served for more than ten years at Grace Lutheran Church, an inner-city church in Evansville, Indiana. Walter has been a migrant worker, a radio announcer, a literature teacher — but he is best known for his wonderful books. The Book of the Dun Cow was the American Book Award winner and was selected by the New York Times as the best children’s book of the year. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Into The World, Not to Condemn the World"
It’s the eyes, isn’t it? It’s those eyes that look at you steadily and don’t turn away and sometimes seem to drill so deeply into you that they see your soul. It’s those eyes, isn’t it? The eyes of some people whom you thought you knew well., and who were important to you, whom you thought loved you. Those eyes that when they looked at you pierced you. Those eyes that are so bright and so glaring and so burning that the longer these people looked at you with those steady eyes, the more uncomfortable you became and the more distressed it seemed to you that they should look so deep and see so much. It’s those eyes, isn’t it, that sometimes you want to turn away from? It’s those eyes that sometimes you wish would turn off like lights and not be so bright. It’s those eyes that sometimes, if they look long enough, you think maybe even you hate them. Isn’t it?

The most important thing that I would like to say in these few minutes that I have to talk with you, and the chief thing from the text that I'm just about to read, is that whenever God appears and looks at you through whichever human eyes, dear people, God loves you, God is not condemning you with those eyes, even though it may feel to you like a condemnation. There may be a problem in this gazing, but the problem isn’t in God.

This is what John says. The text begins very familiarly — you know it — but then it goes on and maybe the next words aren't quite so familiar to you. Listen to this:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Then it goes on:

For God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might, through him, be saved. He who believes in him is not condemned. He who doesn’t believe in him is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. Well, then this is the judgement. That the light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than they loved the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest those deeds should be exposed. But the one who does what is true comes to the light that it might clearly be seen that those deeds have been wrought in God.

This is what you should remember: That when the Lord appears, and sometimes appears in people whom you thought you knew very well — appears in their eyes, when the gaze begins — the gaze that maybe you sometimes remember late at night, lasting longer than you wish it would last — when the gaze begins and their eyes become so bright and so penetrating and so drilling that you want to duck it, You may or may not be aware that that is a holy gaze. And that the same Lord Jesus who came into the world 2,000 years ago comes by the Spirit again and again for our sakes and often in the people who are nearest to us. And then it is the eyes. And then it is those eyes that look and look so deeply that we want to shrink from them. We grow uncomfortable by eyes so bright that they are light. And we grow distressed and we want to back away. And we don’t want them to look. We want to hide from the light.

Well this you should know: The problem is not with the holy gaze. The problem is not with the God who looks at you through these people — through your children, through your parents, through you spouse, through friends so dear that they know you better than you want them to know you. The problem is not with the holy gaze. Sometimes the problem is with us. We don’t like the light, we don’t like the steady gaze and the penetration. We don’t like the holiness. People remember that behind the gaze is love but in us is something else and it reacts harshly and uncomfortably to the love.

I would say that sometimes in our shame we are children of the night. We are ourselves children of the darkness, and when people turn on light when we love the night then we grow uncomfortable, and the very light itself, which is love, is something that I think we even feel as though we hate. Or at least so Jesus said at some times. And we shrink. But the problem isn’t with the gaze! The problem is with us who want to hide the things that shame us, that we are children of the night.

Like my son. My son Matthew, ten years ago, was five years old and was mildly hyperactive. He lived his life in a complete overwhelming energy that happened again and again. Whenever Matthew had desires it didn’t matter what time of day or night it was, Matthew needed to satisfy his desires. Sometimes my son Matthew at the age of five was a child of the night. I mean that literally. I mean that sometimes he moved through the night. Quietly, like a mouse making “ticker, ticker” quiet little sounds as he moved from one room to the other. I would lie on my back and I would say to myself, “Well, there are two creatures in this house. We have mice and we have Matthew.” And I didn’t know which was making the “ticker, ticker” sounds until I got up to go check. And I did. I love my son.

I would walk from my bedroom and I would walk through the living room and I would listen for these tiny “ticker, ticker” sounds to see where they were. And sometimes they were in the kitchen, and sometimes when I put my head in the dark kitchen it sounded as if the noise was on the counter, underneath the cupboards. But I didn’t know, I who loved my son, didn’t know exactly what it was my son was doing, or whether it was Matthew or whether it was mice, until I turned on the light.

Which I did. I would turn on the light and there would be not mice but Matthew, on the cupboard, making for himself at 2 a.m. in the morning, sugar sandwiches. And when the light would go on Matthew did not like the light. Up would go Matthew so his head would hit against the door of the cupboards and he would hurt himself and the sugar would fly everywhere. And he didn’t like the light and he didn’t like me and he didn’t like my gaze. But I loved Matthew, which is why I turned on the light. I saved Matthew from himself. I saved him from sugar sandwiches.

Now Matthew has grown older. Last year Matthew had developed into that significant being which theologically we call Teenager. And last year I was the light for Matthew again. Only in this case it wasn’t just a kitchen light. In this case it was a spiritual. light. I looked at him and I loved him, and it was my very love which was hard for Matthew to take.

We live next to a park. Between us and the park there is only one road. On that road, at night, in the darkness people park. Those people who are parking there sometimes are doing things that they would rather not have the sunlight shine on. And it depends upon what they choose to drink, and it depends upon what they choose to smoke. But sometimes, in that darkness, they will become a danger for us and so I find myself listening, 1, 2 a.m. in the morning for the noises that go on outside. I stay up late, and I sit in my study and I listen. There came a night in fall last year, while I was sitting there that I heard glass break outside. And I got up, and I went out into the backyard to find out why the glass was breaking because it was very possible that people could be also breaking into our house. I would save my children and I would save my family, I would save my wife and me.

On the left hand side of the house I didn’t see anyone at all in the darkness. I saw a car parked in front and it was possible that there were people in there but I couldn’t see through the bushes. So I walked around behind the house itself and came up on the right hand side of the house. Against the dark night, standing on the roof of our house, I saw a figure, dark, holding very, very still. And my heart started to leap. Well, I honestly thought that this was a thief who had broken a window and was going to break into the room of my children, my sons Joseph and Matthew. I thought I would say something to this figure. I thought I would say something important or frightening. I would say, “Freeze!” Well, I walked up underneath where that figure was, already frozen not moving — and I said, “Can I help you?” It was as though this person was in a shopping center and I was going to help this person pick out what they wanted.

As soon as I said, “Can I help you?” the figure moved, doubled down and swung around and in the movement I saw that it was my son Matthew, who had climbed out of his window and was standing on the roof of the house, poised to go which way I do not know. I said in a sterner voice, “Matthew, into your bedroom. I will talk to you there!” I went up the stairs to the bedroom. Matthew was already in through the window. The glass was his window — he had broken it. And I sat down in the chair and I gazed at my son Matthew, I gazed at him. And for a little while he could take my gaze and then he dropped his eyes and his face grew hard and I don’t think he liked my gaze. I don’t think he liked the penetration of it. But I will tell you that in my gaze was this: That I loved Matthew, I loved my son Matthew and I would save him from the night. But at that point he was a child of the night and the very love itself was too bright for him, and so he dropped his eyes, and he wouldn’t look back at me. I think he might even have hated the look.

It’s ok. I can tell you that story because it’s better now. I can tell you stories that grow better. That’s the neat thing about the light, you see. The light is steady and it penetrates and it sees the child wholly, and it sees you all the way to your soul and it doesn’t cease to love. It loves everything that it sees in there. That’s what at first is so distressing about the light and the gaze of love — that there were things that you thought you should hide. But this gaze sees it and in the seeing of it continues to love you. And over a period of time, when you realize that you are seen wholly and the gaze still doesn’t turn away, and it still penetrates, and it is still light, and it is still love; then quietly, and peacefully, and easily by the blessing of that light you, yourself, become no longer a creature of the night, but a child of the light.

It’s the eyes, isn’t it? It’s the eyes of those friends that you wish didn’t know as much as they knew when they gaze at you. But it’s a holy gaze, people, it’s the holiness of the presence of God in that gaze which is so distressing. It is not that it hates you, it is that sometimes you hate to be seen. But it loves you. It sees all the sugar sandwiches that you make in the darkness. This holy gaze of Jesus is all the times that you thought that you would satisfy your own desires, your own greeds, your own sexualities, which you thought were hidden until the gaze is turned on you. It’s that gaze which sees you go out into the night like my son, and make choices totally for yourself. It’s the gaze that burns.

But know this, if you know nothing else, the gaze loves you. That living., brilliant, and burning gaze saw you from the beginning. It was you who were late, it was you who were the laggard, who didn’t know how well you were known. Let it look and know this: It does not condemn. It wishes to save you from sugar sandwiches and from deep night and from yourself. Do you understand?

Let me tell you all of this a different way. I will tell you a story. It is a true story only in this case I am not the gazing parent, I am myself the child. When I was that extraordinary theological term which sometimes distresses people to live with, called “Teenager”. My father, this is very important for the story, was the President of Concordia College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And I was the oldest of seven children. My father layed down a law for me, a most significant law as far as he was concerned, but a very insignificant law and stupid law as far as I was concerned because I was a teenager. Teenagers are wise — they understand all things. In the spring of the year we used to play football on the campus of Concordia where my father was the president. We played football in a hockey rink which had simply grass and earth in it when the spring came. Now that’s important for you to know as well. In the hockey rink when the spring came there were stones on the ground and we always played our football games in stocking feet. This is important as well because children are fleet in stocking feet. We’d go very, very fast. Nobody could slow us down in those days, and I was, after all, a teenager and if my mother said, “Don’t play in your socks”, I was wiser.

Well, if you play on the ground in stocking feet you find that over the winter stones have come on your football field. So this is what our habit was, always. Whenever we would step upon a stone we would pick it up and we would pitch it out until our hockey-rink-football-field was clear of stones and we could play very, very well. I had the habit that when I picked a stone up I would throw it up at the lights that ringed the hockey rink. Enormous clear globes that my father had once told me were 6,000 watts. Well, it was o.k. because I always missed. I was a terrible shot.

There was a day when I picked up a stone and I winged it at the light and a man said from the outside of the rink, “Don’t do that!” And I looked and it was the President of the college, it was my father.

And I said, from all of my wisdom being a teenager, “Why not?”

He said, “You’ll break a light.”

I said, “No, no that’s o.k. I always miss.”

He said, “Don’t do that!” Now you must understand that my father had eyes. He had searing eyes. He had eyebrows that went up like hawks wings from his eyes. He had glasses, horn-rimmed dark glasses and eyes. And he said, “Don’t do that!”

And in my soul, when my father went away I said, “That’s o.k. I always miss.” There came a day when I stepped on a stone, and I reached down, and I picked it up and I winged it at a light. The instant that that stone left my finger, I knew it was a perfect shot. In slow motion I saw that stone rise up. Even, clear trajectory. I saw it come right underneath a 6,000 watt clear globe of light. It was like it waited there, looked down at me, winked, smiled at me. And then it just touched that light. And the most beautiful shower of stone and all of the glass of a 6,000 watt bulb came down in front of me.

I hit it! Dad said, “Don’t”, Dad was the President of Concordia College, Edmonton, Alberta Canada, I was the oldest son of my father and I hit it. I hit the light, just like my dad said I would.

Then began for me a hell. I said to Randy, “Don’t tell Dad.” I said to my brother, Paul, “Don’t you ever tell Dad
about this.” I told every kid in the hockey rink, “Don’t tell Dad.” And then I thought I was safe. Except that when Dad came home for supper that night, I couldn’t look at him because he didn’t know what a terrible son he had, and I felt so guilty underneath his gaze, with his winged eyebrows, looking at me. Dad used to have a way of loving me, he used to touch me on the shoulder and he would say, “Avee, Avee.” But when he came home now, when he didn’t know how terrible I was, and he would touch me on the shoulder and say, “Avee”, I would shrink from it. It was as though his hand was too hot for me. And he would look at me with a question in his eyes and I would look down. I didn’t want my father to look at me, not deep, not as deep as my father could look, because look what he could see in me! He would see shame in me.

This went on for several days. Everybody else in our family could talk to my father and everybody was at peace with him, but not me, not Avee. It became so bad in me that I decided that I would go talk to my father, even though that seemed more fearful. to me than anything else. The suffering of the isolation and the separation, and the eyes of my father overwhelmed the fear, and I went to talk to him.

Presidents of colleges have huge offices. They have enormous oaken doors in front of their offices and I went to that office. I knocked on my father’s door at about the level of a butterfly’s kick. And in the back of my mind all sorts of voices were talking very, very loud saying, “We’re gonna get a spanking, we’re gonna get a spanking.”

My father said, “Come in.”

I opened up the door and there he sat on the other side of the desk, looking at me with his hawk-wing eyebrows and his eyeglasses. He said, “What do you want?”

And I walked to the desk, and I said, “Dad, you know the 6,000 watt light bulb that you said, ‘don’t hit’?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “I hit it.” And I dropped my eyes because he was looking at me.

For a little while he sat, and then he stood. My father, the president of the college, stood, and he walked around the desk and he came to my side and I lowered my eyes. And I wished he would have spanked me or punished me but he didn’t do anything. My father the President of the College, kneeled down beside me and did what I could hardly stand, he killed me with a gesture. My father the President, put his arms around me and hugged me and loved me. I think he loved me to death. I think his love was more than, for a little while, the child of the night could stand. His love was so good and so bright that I became dust, and then I became raised up.

Because, don’t you know, that when we go through those changes of becoming dust the love doesn’t cease. It’s the love that waits until we look around and say, “That’s what it was.” All along it was the thing that we did not deserve. My father hugged me and I did what I wouldn’t have done if he had spanked me — I cried, and I changed, and I came to the light. It always was love. It never was condemnation. It was me that had the problem with the eyes, but in my father it always was love. And I became in that moment, not just before my father don’t you understand, because it was Jesus who was in my father — Jesus who saw steadily into the depths of my soul — I became in such a hug, in such a steadiness of watching, in such a brightness of light, I became a child of my father, and of the light, and of God. To that I didn’t say then, but I do say now, Amen.