4
en GOATS TO TIGERS" April 29, 1973
Gentsis 1:26-27
‘JoKn 2121-17
f

i

5 , Ther is a Hindu fable told about a motherless tiger_cub who was adopted by goats

and brought up by them to speak their language, emulate their ways, eat their food,

;
boda generally to believe that he was a goat himself -\ Then one day a magnificent,
aa ——————— SS

full-grown tiger came along, and when all the other goats scattered in fear, the young

tiger - who thought he was a goat - was left alone, afraid but somehow not afraid.\ The

big tiger asked him indignantly what he meant by this charade, but all the little one

could do in response was bleat_neryéusly and continue nibbling at the grass. | So the

tiger picked him up by the scruSt of the neck and carried him to a pool where he could
—

see their two images side by side. \ When this failed he gave the young tiger a piece

— SS

of raw meat to eat.| The Cub recoiled at first because of the unfamiliar taste of it,
————— —_—S a

but the more he ate, the more the truth about himself became clear\ Finally, lashing

Se ——

his tail and digging his unused claws into the ground he raised his head high and the

jungle heard his first exultant roar. resgorthed=beeene-a—tiger . (See F. Buechner,
The Magnificent Defeat P. 90)

There are a lot of significant differences between the major religions of the world.

But on one important point they all agree.\ Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christian-
ere

ity #4 unanimous in their starting point \ namely, that men - as they ordinarily exist

in the world are not_what they were created to be.

In the Judeo Christian tradition that truth is expressed initially inthe Bible in

the story of Adam.\ God_created man in his own image - but that image is badly blurred

and marred before the story is over\ God created man to serve him and other men in

love, but Adam chooses to serve himself instead. \ Paradise is lost:\God's image in man
is tece ee 1S ie cant

is denied \man falls from grace and is destined to live out his days somewhere "East of

Eden";\ that is to say, close enough that he is reminded of what could have been: \close

enough to be reminded daily of the sweet smells and tastes and the perfect innocense

66 the garden.

The problem is that we can't really be goats.\ There is enough of the Tiger left in

us to make us permanently dissatisfieds| permanently and notorously frustrated because

m2
we are rot what we know we could be.\ Like Adam ~- we carry around with us the memory of

the garden as a kind of built-in longing for something more - something Tost that needs

to be recovered:

That theological analysis of the nyman dillemna has many secular expressions \ The
"search for identity" that seems to be an obsession currently in the psychological
disciplines grows out of the very real fact that most - if not all - of us are not

satisfied with the kind of person we have become. \ We are mt who we want to be - who we
es ts iaiiieihildidiatamnal ar el
know we could be. The "Human Potential Movement" with its heavy emphasis on personal

growth and realizing our true self is based on the same reality. \ So, in a sense, is
anne, — Pie

Women's Liberation.

To return to the language of the fable - we are so made as to he discontent with

eating grass:\ we know there is something more to us.| Hecaon

am. On the CBS News Documentary 60 Minutes Thursday night, television advertising -

its philosophy, assumptions and techniques - was thoroughly scrutinized. \ The president
of a large Ad agency argued that people buy new products because of the satisfaction they

bende all
”

wil] receive in using them. "People buy happiness, he said. \ But then the program brought
cn NLT — iene,

in Erich Fromm, a distinguished pshcyologist and author who took a rather different tect

ane

People know intellectually, he said, that one product is not substantially different from
[er ne , ’

another. \ People know, intellectually, that washing your hair with a certain shampoo will
— — =e eC

not transform you into a ravishing, alluring brunette,\ People know intellectually that

there is no way, regardless of what hair spray, mouth wash ordeoderant they use, that

TT,

they will one day come bounding through a field of waving grass, to meet in passionate

_ae id

embrace the person of their crane] Intellectually - objectively - rationally - it is

A

totally and utterly absurd.

But, Fromm observed, most of us don't live objectively. \ Rather we are Somewhere

i]

between reality and fantaey:\ somevhere between the truth about who we are and the_hope
a ied

for what we wish we couuld become. \ Advertising holds up the hope that feeds our

discontent. \* Someday that just may happen tow".

There are different ways of dealing with our discontent.\ One of them is to ignore

it: |to accept stoically who we are and to place no more demands on ourselves to dream

~3-

no more dreans.| ("setter to be a well adjusted aoat then a frustrated tiger. "| Another

| seen

way of dealing with it is toe seek_anesthesia in hard work, or drinking, or television.

And yet, it rarely works.

In a sense, being a Christian only makes the problem worse:\ because a Christian is

=,

one who has seen what life was meant to be:\a Christian is one whose Lord defines the

hope, the potential.\ The late T. S. Eliot, the poet everyone quotes but nobody

Pa oil

understands, once wrote,|"In the juvenescence of the year comes Christ the Tiger." |I don't

a, cereal

know but I presume he was referring to the Hindu fable.|He was saying that a Christian is
—— EE

a tuer cub who thinks he is a goat, but who has seen The Tiger\\the real thing.

Once that has happened, a person either has to change - or get_rid of the tiger.

a

a

Once we have looked up from our half-alive grazing @ locked eyes with Jesus Christ, nothing

oe
i,

can be the same. \ Our discontent is amplified - and we must be transformed - or we must
——— Tre,

ee

crucify him.

carrey,

All of that by way of introduction to what I have always thought was one of the most
interesting and intriguing and moving incidents in the Gospel narrative:\the post resur-

rection appearence of Jesus to his disciples on the beach and the strange interrogation

Pina

fo Peter.
Peter, I would suggest to you, was the sort, \ Alone among the disciples he was ready

to Fight it out with the guards at the Garden when Jesus was arrested.\ Alone he tagged

along to the late night trial.\ But then, when he was recognized as a Galilean in the

courtyeard, he had denied knowing Jesus, net once, not twice, but three tines \ He was a

Ll Len

courageous man - but his courage put him in a position wheft pié cowardice was also exposed.

La niteitimememandl Fanaa |

The others had notfollowed to the court yard = nor had the others denied their Lord.

Dae |

And to make matters worse, Jesus had looked at Peter after it happened.\ HE WAS exposed -
Femme

and that memory must have been indelibly burned into his W@me wind.

So they had all gone back to Galilee, back home to familiar surroundings.\ And I can
tet

imagine Peter torturing himself, hating himself for what he had done:\ loathing himself

because he had come so close to being the kind of man he wanted to be \ He had almost said:

fi |
[ves. I know the man - he is my Lord and Master - 1 stand with nin."\ That is what he

wanted to say: \that is what he could have said. \ But he had failed.

i

i

Thus it was Peter who said: "I'm going Fishing. "\\ork is a way of dealing with

-4.

frustration and discontent | Winston Churchill used to lay pricks.\ at Checquers, the
ee a ERC Ce ed Ce

country residence of the Prime Minister he would build a whole wall, have it torn down

OE,

and then begin again\\ Personally, I know days when I long for_the feeling of physical

exhaustion and emotional fulfillment that comes as a result of diaqing ditches for eight

hours. \ For those who don't do it professionally, there is therapeutic value in physical

dabor.\ So Peter said:| "Let's go fishing."
From a hundred yards out they heard a man call them through the dim light of early

morning, \ Tt wasn't unusual for someone on the beath to spot a shoal of fish and shout

. . Fl * $i pl H
instructions to the men in the boat. \put then John recognized hin| It is the Lord. \ ae

And Peter dived into the water, swimming and stumbling up the beach, leavin e others

{eC

to hauj_in the nets and row back to shore.

They ate breakfast together \ when he broke bread they all know who he was. And
then begins the strange interrogation of peter \("Do you love mee more than these?" Three
times the burning» indicting, demming question came. Three times - just as Peter had
denied_him three times.\ Three times he said\'Lord, you know that I love you' And three
times Jesus said: "Feed my lambs: [tend my sheep:| feed my sheep."

Peter became, history tells us, a saint of a nan. \ After a life of discipleshp in

the ervice of his Lord tradition has it that Peter was crucified in Rome - upside down -

omen.

at his own request because he was not worthy to die in the same manner as Jesus. \ Be

a

that as it may, Simon Peter became a Tiger if there ever was one. \And that experience on

einai til
———

the beach with the Risen Christ, it has always seemed to me, was the turning point \ It

was there that somehow he was given the power to stop acting like a goat.

thet ensue .
It's important, I think, ser the condemnation and criticism, had nothing to do

with it.\ desus did not condemn.Peter for his failure of nerve \he did not ridécule him
Nenad Ss Sanaa aiiied

for his cowardice and duplicity.\ He did not drum him out of the corps even though

aici

there was ample reason. [From that I think we can conclude that wallowing in quilt over

our own failures is not the way to becomething something other than we are.\ Unlike his

Ce aiid

a

wore zealous followers Jesus seemed to be singularly aninterested in playing on human

guilt.

It is equally important, I think to see that Jesus did not simply deliver Peter a

he.

-5-
pep-talk.| He did say, plainly, clearly, "Feed my sheep.’ | But the sense of it is not
[ "You" ve got to try harder Peter: A you' ve got to win this one for the Gipper." And yet

I thnk that is precisely what a lot of us laok for in Christian faith, and it is precisely

what a lot of what goes under the name of religion cispenses:\ "Prous pep talks": | "try

harder, do more, be better. | The trouble with that is that it doesn't vork.\ The best

minds have always concluded that we dont't have it in us to follow Jesus Christ if ail we

a

have going for us 7s our own power \ From St. Augustine to Reinhold Niehbuhr, theologians

eel

have called it “an impossible possibility. A\ For the fact is, Adam's story is our story.

God's image in us is badly blurred \and to be human is to rai \it is to keep acting and 4

nel

looking like a goat.

It is important, | think, to see that Jesus initiated this encounter ‘\desus came to
_ el beeen nd

rer: \Jesus would not Tet Peter go. \ There is descomfort mthat - because it means that

Le in| "
art of our discontent with ourselves is recisely the result of Jesus Christ comin to \ 4
us - Tooking at us - asking us\"D Do you love ne) do you really lwye me?" %
cmc. _—- PT a. v

And, it is important, I think, to see that there is both grace and _power in the *

4

ee
F pisen Lord gho keeps 5 coming \ He forgave Tie Pter.\ That is obvious \te loved Peter - even
& ar TE, ey

& though Peter had proved profoundly uy unloveable \ And he did somethingmore i| he gave Peter

the power to become all that he could becone.\ And that, 1 think, is the point of our great-
aeRO ed ee —
est difficulty with Christian faith. \ We understand, we believe, we give and do and try -

but we back away from that business about the power of God in Jesus Christ to change us.

My good friend Jim Morin, at Trinity Methodist, in his Good Friday sermondealt with

3 t mplications o
that idea and told of speaking to a group of businessmen about the impiica F

Jesus’ teaching about Teve and sacrifice and compassion. \ afterward @ man approached him
a ee

and said what all of us have heard at one time or another: "You preachers are all alike: |

you live in an ivory tower \\ that stuff is OK from the pulpit: |but in my world it just
rarer ee, —_
doesn't work." That is to say A "T'm not open to the power of God to change ne." \

That's wheneit's at for most of us, I think. \ That's why we we are 50 perplexed and

ee,

repelled | by our penecostal brethren when they start talking about the power of the
anal Peed
spirit | and how it changed their lives: \ehat s why we're so nervpus about the whole idea

of conversion ~ because it implies some unpredictable power that might just change us.

=r Ete

Ube. ‘Conas Lord cbsos - hoping Mae were a
Po a eee ike tebe ae ee, wept ek We wed ce He?

-6-

There is no one among us who cannot identify wheith the Goat-Tiger fable\ There is

eC

no one here who cannot identify, on rather intimate terms, with peter\\ We fail our Lord.

Cal

We fail our wives and husbands - our children - cur friends.\ We ane not what we know
Se eiaaimeiniiimemniieiimammins’ Se

Fi

we cauld be - we are aware of the fact - and there is no one here who has not, at one

a,

time or another, said -["depart from me Lord - for I can't cut it ~ I can't and I'm not
ee

eh, en ad

i“
even sure I want to be the man or woman you wnat me to be, |
acorn, RIT,

The promise of the Gospel is power:\ power to change:\power to become. \ The Lord

of the Resurrection #s one who comes to the likes of Peter and transforms them:\ he comes

to give life to the half alive:\he comes to lead us into a new life of involvement and
ee

rah jeu EE

sensitivity and great joy. \He comes to show us what it means to be alive and the

eh,

promise is that he gives paer - power to becone \ poner to turn goats into Tigers. AMEN

Father, forgive us our failure of nerve. And grant us courage to be open to yar son who

ever pursues us: Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN