“Challenge of the Tiger”<= /span>

Luke 4:14-21
1 Peter 1:22-2:10

As we greeted the New Year I wonder if any of you experienced what I did, nearly choking on the greeting, “ Happy New Year?” It hardly seemed appropriate given the world in which we live. Yet I could hardly say: “I wish you a New Year of meaningful change.” = 220;I wish you a New Year of sensitivity to the sufferings of others.” “Oh that we could rise very high,” in the words of Michael Quoist, “above the city -- beyond our world – beyond time – to see the earth – the universe= – humanity – the flow of history as God sees them. And know that in the daily round o= f affairs facing us this year, there is standing room in new places, and new meanings= in which to live. If only we cou= ld see through God’s eyes!”

One day, when humans stood on the moon and looked at= a spectacular earth planted in the distant spaces of the universe, that was a= new perspective for humankind. Th= ose were new eyes indeed. But tha= t is not borrowing God’s eyes. That is not seeing the world as God sees the world. In Jesus Christ, God looked at the= world through a man’s eyes, and God did not settle for a tourist’s glance. God endured the stick= iness of sweat, the tears of frustration, gnawing hunger, painful throbs of a battered body, the bewildering experience of death. That is how God sees the world thr= ough the life of His Son. Cannot w= e, with feet firmly planted on the earth, knowing Christ, see the world through God’s eyes?

We need to do so immediately. There is so much at stake. We cannot let our lives move on as usual, letting the new year feel so much like the old year, doubting all the time the possibilities of what we could become, and creating new places and= new meanings for the lives of everyone on the face of the planet.

There is an ancient folk tale told by Krishna. It’s about a tiger that was brought up with a herd of goats. From the day this tiger’s eyes opened, all he saw was a goat’s life, and so it became his style of life also. He munched grass with the goats, a= nd butted heads with the younger goats for recreation. He even learned to bleat in an odd= sort of way, a sound that resembled, so he thought, the sound of a goat’s voice. Once in a while, a nag= ging voice deep within would say, “You don’t belong to this life.” But he always pu= t it aside as some disturbing intrusion from the world of dreams. If this didn’t satisfy him, = he just marked it off to the discontent that often hovers around the edge of a= ny style of life. So he chose to= stay with the goats because he believed that was the way life was meant to be.

Then one day a tiger came into the clearing. He was all tiger! He looked into the clearing and sp= otted the goats. He roared the earth-shaking roar of his species and bounded out to make his kill. The remaining goats fled in terror= and so did the tiger who had grown up with them. At first he thought to stay. The roar from the edge of the fore= st had stirred some lost memory deep within. He flexed his great muscles in a kind of automatic reflex to the challenge from the forest’s edge.&nb= sp; For a moment he could have been a tiger also. But he could not believe in the so= und he heard; in the challenge it brought. He could not believe in himself, in the instincts that had lain dorm= ant for so long. He could have gr= asped a new life, but then he fell back into being a goat the rest of his days.

This New Year, 2007, and the tiger is at the edge of= the forest of our existence. His = name is Jesus. In Gerontian, T. S.= Eliot writes: “In the juvenes= cence of the year, comes Christ the tiger.” This one whose birth we so recently observed, is seen by Eliot as an explosion of life into our life. It is Christ the tiger who will he= lp us see the world through God’s eyes.&nb= sp; Christ the tiger will challenge us to claim our true identity. Christ the tiger will ask us to sl= ough off the nothingness of our lives: the immaturity, the silliness of materialism, the shallowness of questions of style. Christ the tiger stands at the edge of human suffering in this world, beckoning us tow= ard our true identity that embraces the suffering of this world. Christ the tiger urges us to become signs of healing and substance in the midst of the suffering of this world.=

Christ the tiger encounters a woman at a well and re= stores her to mental and spiritual health. Christ the tiger responds to a woman who touches the hem of his garm= ent, and she is healed of her disease. Christ the tiger lives for a short period of time in the house of a = man named Peter. And later, Peter= , or a disciple of Peter would say out of that experience: “Once you were no people, bu= t now you are God’s people. O= nce you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Now you are God’s chosen peo= ple, a holy nation. You are chosen to build a new world; to stand with the world in its suffering; chosen not to destroy civilizations, but to build them up.”

We know that and see that through the eyes of the Ch= rist who said: “God’s Spirit is on me, he’s chosen me to preach the message of good news to the poor, sent me to announce pardon to prisone= rs and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, = to announce, “This is God’s year to act!” That is how God sees the world!

This is what passed into Peter’s life as he li= ved this short time in the company of Christ the tiger. It is this Christ who prompts us to trust our feelings, those feelings that gnaw away at us, telling us that our lives simply are not as meaningful as they could be. What particular meaning could this have for us as a congregation? there comes a time during the transition, the interim time, w= hen it is necessary to put behind us the slights and hurts and the interesting = but awful stories from the past; the dissatisfactions with people and clergy, taking the best of the past into the future and leaving the rest behind. Chris= t the tiger urges us to claim our true nature of forgiveness, moving in the future free from all that stuff that clings so closely.

It is, of course, tough to trust our feelings. Our feelings are not always reliable. You know the woman = who for twenty years had been driven to insomnia by the feeling that each night= there was a burglar in the house. S= o for all those years her husband had trotted down the stairs each night, looked around, and then returned with the reassuring word that there was no burgla= r in the house. Now after twenty y= ears that kind of cure for his wife’s insomnia becomes a burden!

Well, finally, one night he went downstairs and found himself looking into the barrel of a gun.&= nbsp; “Hands up,” the robber demanded. “Keep still and hand over yo= ur valuables and nothing will happen to you.” The man assured the burglar there = would be no outcry and he was welcome to take anything he wanted. “However,” he said, &#= 8220;I wish you would do one favor before you leave. I want you to come upstairs and me= et my wife. She has been looking fo= r you every night for twenty years.”

Trusting our feelings; feelings become eroded by the selfishness and technology of our age.&nbs= p; We are far too detached emotionally, from people and circumstances.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We seem no longer to be jarred by persecutions too horrible to mention, and violence beyond imagining. This year, we are invited to our t= rue nature; the nature of caring, justice, taking care of the dignity of our sisters and brothers. This is= our authentic identity. That is w= ho we are meant to be. Yes, in the juvenescence of the year….Christ the tiger at the edge of our humanity! Amen.