Mtr Paula Barker Datsko
Dear friend,
On Saturday, I saw the opera Wozzeck at the movie theater (live in HD from New York). Having been composed by the Austrian Alban Berg during World War I and its aftermath, the opera portrays the desperate brokenness of humankind through the story of a man and a woman being crushed on the underside of society’s inequities. In twentieth-century imagery and sound, the struggles of fallen humankind as foretold by God in the third chapter of Genesis are played out. The man is striving to earn a living, giving what little he has to support the woman and their child. For a few extra pennies, he submits himself to bizarre medical experiments by a doctor, who is exhilarated to exacerbate Wozzeck’s emerging psychosis. The woman is driven by her desire for men, who can provide shards of material comfort. They both end up dead. In the closing scene, their child plays alone--oblivious to his catastrophic vulnerability as an orphan. On one level I find myself revolted by the horror of this image of the human condition. On another level, I know that stories equally devastating really happen in places far and near today.
Why is the world such a mess? In Genesis 1, God declared all that was created to be good. So why isn’t it? Why do evil and decay seem pervasive? Genesis 3 offers a way of accounting for the rupture between what God created and the way things are. Is the curiosity of Eve the root of all evil? Or is it the unthinking compliance of Adam? Both lead to resisting God’s purposes. Disobedience.That’s what our theological tradition most often identifies as the source of the fracture. From there, we humans revert, like Adam and Eve, to shame and blame, attempting to hide from or deflect God’s gaze.
Thank God, that is not the end of the story. The Gospel lesson’s account of John the Baptist reminds us of the prophets who bore witness over thousands of years to the coming savior. The letter to the Hebrews reminds us of the redeeming work of Jesus, through whom God’s children are being brought from suffering to glory. The Bible’s story of salvation history culminates in hope.
The world of the opera Wozzeck is a dystopia of despair except for one moment. Shortly before Wozzeck murders the mother of his child in a rage of possessiveness, the woman remembers Jesus’ compassion for the woman caught in adultery. She prays to Jesus for mercy. With this glimmer of grace, one may hope that she will be received in paradise like the thief who repented on the cross.
Where is the despair in your life, dear friend? And where is the hope? We live in a broken world. Evidence of that abounds. Yet this broken world is redeemed: the realm of God is breaking in even now, in our midst. What glimpses of grace catch your eye? What flickers of hope lift your spirit? Let faith focus there. Let lovingkindness flow, like light shining in the darkness.
Mtr. Paula