John Claypool “A Taste for the Other”

Biography The Rev. Dr. John Claypool is a native of Kentucky. He was ordained in the Southern Baptist denomination in 1953, and served churches throughout the South for over 30 years. In 1986, he was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, and became rector of the historic St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a post he held until his retirement just a few months ago. He’s now the newly appointed Theologian in Residence at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

“A Taste for the Other” There’s a medieval legend that though it has very ancient imagery has a challenge that is as contemporary as this morning’s paper. It seems that two knights in full battle regalia were riding along late one evening and neither thought that there was anybody else for miles around, but by a strange turn of fate they happened to intersect each other at a particularly dark place in the wood. Both of them were startled and each one interpreted the motions of the other as gestures of hostility. Both of them perceived that they were in the presence of an adversary. And so they began to do what we humans always do when we feel threatened; they began to defend themselves and to fight. At first the blows they exchanged were very, very slight, just glancing blows but as you know, violence has a way of feeding on itself and with each blow it became more intense until at last they were giving lethal, lethal attacks on each other. Both of them were severely wounded but finally one of them was able to unhorse the other and with what little strength he had left, he was able to thrust his spear through the heart of his adversary. And then badly wounded himself he got off his horse, by this time it was night, and went over to the vanquished foe and pulled back the face gear that was over the knight’s face. And there in the pale moonlight, he saw to his utter horror the countenance of his own blood brother. To think kinspersons had misperceived each other as enemies and as a result both of them had been destroyed.

There’s a sense in which that ancient parable is something of a parallel to the dark history of our planet. All the great religious systems that I know of all suggest that this is a universe, not a multi-verse, which means that there’s a single source back of all reality. And if you think out the implications of that, it means that if we come from the same source, we therefore have some kind of connection with each other. All those who have the same parent are, by virtue of that fact, brother and sister to each other, and yet somehow across the centuries we have lost that sense of primal unity. We have lost that sense that we are at some deep, deep level connected and kin to each other. And because of our diversities, because we have different color skin, different color political ideas, different ways of behaving, we have allowed our differences to become absolute. They have become the occasions of conflict. and even though at a deeper level we are profoundly kin to each other, we have turned into adversaries and we have done to each other what the two knights did on that dark night.

I don’t think I am stretching the truth to say that Jesus came into our world for one purpose and that was to reverse the story of the two knights. Instead of kinspersons misperceiving each other as enemies and, therefore, destroying each other, Jesus came to help us see that even the enemy, if you can look deep enough, is in fact a kinsperson. And because of that primal connection down at the very base of our being there are reasons to be brotherly and sisterly with each other. There are reasons to love even those who may appear to be our enemies. Jesus came to reverse that terrible, terrible destructive spiral and give us a way to see each other more profoundly as those to whom we are kin.

Now how do we do this? Well, I heard years ago Ralph Sockman say that we humans have three sets of eyes, not just one. He said there are the eyes of the body by which we perceive color and shape and structure. And then there are also the eyes of the mind in which we take all this sensory data and we make connections with it. If a scientist in a lab says, “I see it,” he is not just talking about what he sees with his eyes, he’s talking about seeing connections that suddenly become apparent. But Sockman said in addition to these two, we also have eyes of the heart, eyes of the heart that see down to the very depths of an individual’s identity. With the eyes of the body we ask, “What is something?” With the eyes of the mind we ask, “How does this fit together with everything else?” But with the eyes of the heart we ask the question, “Why is something? Where did it come from? How did it ever come to be?” And when we look at each other with the eyes of the heart, lo and behold, that’s when we discover that we do have the same parent, we do come from the same solitary source. And because we have that common parent, we are therefore in the profoundest sense kin to each other. And if we ever begin to look on other human beings with the eyes of the heart, if we ever sense who they really are in their deepest identity, then it does change the way, not only that we see people, but also the way we feel about them and how we are connected to them.

One of the great saints of the Christian tradition, a man named Francis of Assisi, was one who had this profound awakening, this opening of his eyes of the heart by which he could see other people. As a very young man St. Francis had this great desire to be a military hero. He saw the world as divided between adversaries and he had this great desire to vanquish the enemy and also to be heroic in battle. Well, it turned out that his little city state was about to go to war with another city state. And the night before he volunteered to go into the army, he boasted at a local pub that he was going to come back after the battle covered with glory having vanquished those that he called his enemy. Well as it turned out, before he ever got to the battle he became very sick and so Francis had to limp back home not as a hero but in the eyes of many people as a coward and a deserter. It was terribly depressing to the young man. In fact, he was so sad and so ashamed that he went out of the little village of Assisi and went deep into a cave because he was so depressed. And one of his biographers says that there in that cave down in the depths of the earth St. Francis got all the way down and all the way back to the place from which creation comes. He got to the place where he saw everything as it emanates from the creative and generous hand of God. And so the biographer says that after that profound sense of all coming from the same source, he came out of that cave an absolutely transformed person. The biographer says he came out walking on his hands conceptually .

That’s a very interesting metaphor. If you walk around on your feet and you look at a tree, that tree has a sense of solidity as if it is self-sufficient there in its own right. But if you begin to walk on your hands, that is if you turn upside down and look at that same tree, it is as if it is suspended in space, held in being by something other than itself. And according to this particular vision, St. Francis saw all creation as literally hanging like a chandelier and the thing that was holding everything in being was the desire of God that that person that entity be. And as a result of seeing everything in God and God in everything, St. Francis became famous for regarding all creation as a family.

There was a movie about him once that was called “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” He named every animal “brother, sister” because he sensed this profound connection that because we come from the same, same source we’re therefore brother and sister to each other. And if we ever begin to see each other with the eyes of the heart, that is to recognize that every person that we meet is there because God wanted that person to be and that we are here for the same reason, then a connection of brotherliness and sisterliness begins to emerge and it does affect our behavior.

One of the great novels of our western civilization is a thing called “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, along-running musical on Broadway is based on that particular novel. One of the chief characters is that particular piece is a man called Jean Valjean. He is falsely accused of having done something criminal and therefore was imprisoned against justice for many, many years. And as a result of that he become embittered, he became cynical, he became hardened. He saw all the world through the eyes of an adversary. He manages to escape from prison. He’s trying to get back to his home. And one day he goes to the house of a kindly bishop. He was hungry and asked if the bishop would give him some food. And the old bishop surprised him by saying, “Not only will I give you food, I want you to come in and I want you to dine with me tonight and then you’re welcome to spend the night here in my home.” And so he received this wonderful hospitality but he was so embittered and so hardened that he couldn’t trust the goodness of the bishop. And so though he spent the night there, he got up early the next morning, stole one of the candlesticks out of the dining room of the bishop’ s house and went on his way. He was stopped by the police. They recognized where the candlestick had come from. And so they took him back to the bishop ‘s house and said, “We have caught this man who obviously stole your property.” And to Jean Valjean’s great amazement the kindly bishop said, “Oh, no, he didn’t steal it. I gave it to him as a gift and I’m so glad you’ ve come back because you just took one. Here, I want you to have the other. You need a pair.” And with that the police were confused and they left. And here was Jean Valjean in the face of someone who had acted so lovingly even though he had acted in such a destructive way. What was the secret of the bishop’s behavior treating this one as he did? He saw him with the eyes of the heart. He saw that though his behavior was that of an enemy, his deeper identity was that of a brother.

I can think of nothing that could change our world better in this day in which we live than our learning to look at every person we meet with the eyes of the heart. It is the reversal of the legend of the two knights. Instead of kinspersons misperceiving each other as enemies, let us, even when someone seems to be an enemy, perceive that one’s profoundness identity–they are brother and sister and, therefore, worthy of our deepest affection.

Interview with John Claypool Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: John, your compelling message on the connectedness of all living things, we all belong to God, then we all belong to one another, but how was that profound awakening revealed to you personally?

John Claypool: I think it came through St. Francis who I mentioned in the sermon. I read a biography of him by G. K. Chesterton and that’s where that wonderful metaphor of coming out walking on his hands, that’s where I first encountered it. And I begin to realize that because all things are in God then God is in all things and that becomes what we need to connect with when we see each other. It is so easy to live on the surface and just look at the differences between us but the profound, profound oneness that we all have from our common heritage is something that’s grown on me for years and years.

Talbot: Lutheran theologian, Joseph Sittler, used the metaphor of a spider web for the human condition. Touch one part and the whole part quivers. But what about people who are in the depths of depression or isolation or feeling separated or just trying to survive, how can they hear the message?

Claypool: Well, I think to ask their Creator to make them aware of all the ways of seeing that are available to us. You see, I think the three kinds of eyes we have are the gift of creation. We all have the capacity to see with our physical eyes, our mental capacity. We all have a mystical dimension to us. If we will simply ask ourselves, “How did I come to be? How did you ever come to be?” Our English word for “exist” means to “stand out of nothingness” and English word “depend” means “to hang.” I try very hard to look on every person as a chandelier. Everybody is hanging. Why? Because they exist because God wants them to. And if I can get in touch with that divine origin, our divine dimension, then behavior becomes secondary to identity and what a person does is not the whole story of what they are.

Talbot: John, your medieval legend of the two knights as adversaries when in reality they were blood brothers speaks so much to what is happening around us today in our market culture in which we live bent on self-interest and greed. And also the political divide, the absence of moderation and dialogue and so on. What advice do you give to people who are victims of that kind of culture?

Claypool: I think I would say to people pause and ask yourself, “How did I get to be here in the first place? Did I earn my way into this world or was my life given to me?” And then remember that what is true of each one of us is true of all of us and that is every one of us were given the gift of life through the generosity of a mystery other than we are. We didn’t earn our way into this world. We were given the gift of life and if I can just remember that every person I meet, every person, is here because God wants them to be here that I think gives a whole different image to who they are.

Talbot: John, you are a child of the south. You were born in Louisville, Kentucky. You served on the Conference on Religion and Race when you were a young pastor. How does this message speak to the racial understanding, the racial realities in our society?

Claypool: Well, I think it suggests that underneath the differences of our appearance, and the difference of our racial origins there is a deep, deep commonality. Do you realize that if a surgeon who is well trained can operate on any of the seven continents, can operate on any human being because underneath our skins of different color and our facial expressions which may be different, underneath we have the same physiology? It is the same body that any good surgeon would be equipped to work under. That says to me that though we are different on the surface, if you look deep enough into our true identity we are much more alike than we are different. Everyone of us needs food, everyone of us at this moment are receiving the oxygen that we didn’t create. We are being sustained by something not ourselves. If we can quit focusing on the ways we’re different and ask ourselves in what ways are we so much alike. We have the same needs, we have the same hopes, we have the same hunger for love and for affection. If we can shift our focus from how we’re different to the ways in which we are so much alike and then realize that’s from a common source.

Talbot: That we have more in common than in conflict. Thank you, John Claypool.

Claypool: You’re so welcome.