Until last fall one of the longest running, best-attended, financially successful Las Vegas shows was Siegfried & Roy. This was a combination magic show/three-ring circus extravaganza performed by master illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn. Using their trademarks -- enormous white tigers -- as companions and cohorts in their performances, Siegfried & Roy awed and amazed crowds with their innovative magic and their fearless use of those big cats.
Then on October 3rd, 2003, something went terribly wrong. In an instant, the hard wall of reality came crashing down on these master illusionists. On stage Roy slipped and fell. The relatively young 600-pound tiger Montecore was spooked or scared. He sprang at the downed Roy, grabbed him by the neck and dragged him away.
Critically injured, in fact barely alive when the enormous tiger was lured off of him, Ray Horn suffered a series of strokes brought on by the tremendous blood loss. While being transported by ambulance Roy implored anyone who could hear him not to hurt Montecore that the tragedy was in no way the tiger's fault. In fact, as the incident was reviewed and analyzed over the next few days, the conclusion reached by Siegfried was that the tiger had been trying to help Roy when he fell. The neck dragging was described as simply the tiger's instinctual method for carrying one of its own young out of a dangerous position.
At the center of that terrible accident, however, was this one overlooked fact. The illusionists had forgotten they were living inside an illusion of their own making. Siegfried and Roy had worked with, trained with, and lived with those huge, powerful tigers and lions for so long that they had bought into the Mirage and myth they had created.
Yes, their tigers were well-trained, well-treated, and well-loved. The tigers had never known a life outside of Siegfried & Roy's opulent, elegant Mirage oasis. But marble floors, jeweled collars, and bright lights couldn't dim the instinctual drives and primal nature of these cats.
They're not just extra big, but now domesticated cats. They're wild animals, with thousands of years of behavior hard-wired into them. When Siegfried & Roy began believing their own illusion, their mythical ideal of a partnership with these wild creatures, they opened themselves up to real danger. Roy was right to insist that his attacker Montecore was a good tiger. It's just that everyone had forgotten what good tigers do -- good tigers hunt, pounce, bite, shred, kill. That's the essence of its tiger-ness: it's a master killing machine. That's the reality Siegfried & Roy forgot and failed to take seriously.
We all exist with a variety of illusions. We all cling to small deceptions; little fudges and fictions that help us get through our lives. Self-deception is a major capacity of the human brain. I call them brain bluffs. The greatest bluffs are those you believe yourself:
- No, those jeans don't make us look fat;
- Yes, we do still look like we're in our twenties;
- Today's lottery ticket will be the big winner;
- The next first date will be our last;
- The baby will sleep through the night tonight;
- This year the taxes will be done before April 14.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman argues a compelling thesis: "My thesis has been that we're piloted in part by an ingenious capacity to deceive ourselves, whereby we sink into obliviousness rather than face threatening facts." (Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 241.) To avoid feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, we put up smokescreens, camouflage our errors, cover up our wrongdoings -- we deceive ourselves to preserve our self-esteem and self-image. The power of self-deception may be one of the greatest powers at work in our world today, it's so prevalent.
"Who are they kidding?"
Try walking through a mall or an airport and see how people dress themselves without thinking, "Who are they kidding?"
People in the finance business who see spreadsheets of income and expenses shake their heads thinking, "Who are they kidding?"
Drug counselors working with addicted kids who have been crying out for love and attention for years, shake their heads as they look at parents, "Who are they kidding?"
Writer/cartoonist James Thurber created Walter Mitty, a mild-mannered everyman who developed a method for dealing with the annoyances and atrocities of life -- a nagging spouse, noisy children, nosy neighbors, a sniping boss, a meaningless job, community failures. Walter Mitty simply tuned out reality by imagining himself into exciting, amorous, adventurous excursions that left all those dreary real-world problems far behind. These illusions, these daydreams got Walter Mitty through his day-to-day humdrum existence. But because he took such comfort and delights in these little myths, Mitty spent his life kidding himself and never did anything real about his problems.
He settled for the illusion. He ducked the truth. He lived the fiction. He opted out of the reality. He mastered the kidding life.
In today's gospel text Jesus is journeying closer to Jerusalem, closer to his destination -- and, he knows, closer to his death. A couple of weeks ago we read about the mountaintop experience of revelation we call the Transfiguration. Jesus quickly left that moment behind, setting out on the dusty road to Jerusalem.
Jesus refused to remain posed in some heavenly abode (tableaux), poised in some applauding environment (milieux). He was transfigured but he would not be transfixed. He knew the fulfillment of his mission lay elsewhere.
When the Pharisees warned Jesus about the dangers posed by the tetrarch Herod, Jesus was unconcerned with any threat coming out of Herod's office. Instead he focuses steadily on his own down-to-earth time-line, the divine agenda that has already been set for him. Jesus declares with an unswerving resolve that "today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way" (verse 33).
There's no self-delusion here. Jesus is rooted in the harshness of the reality he inhabits, a reality that sees Jerusalem as his destination and Jerusalem as the culmination of his mission.
But Jesus doesn't skip over the journey itself either. There's yet work to be done that's as much a part of his mission as is his destiny and destination of Jerusalem. Jesus focuses on the day-to-day labors he must yet undertake by informing the Pharisees that "I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow."
It's not until the third day that Jesus readjusts his vision from those daily tasks to focus on his final goal, his showdown in Jerusalem.
Even as Jesus remains level-headed, he isn't spooked by tales about Herod. Even as Jesus remains hard-working, he keeps healing and performing exorcisms as he travels. Jesus can't help but indulge in a momentary daydream. Pondering in his heart the city of Jerusalem, the center of both faith and faithlessness, Jesus faces up to the reality of its temperament: it's "the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it" (verse 34).
But now that he's drawing near to this awesome destination, Jesus gives voice to a dream, a dream where these wayward children of God might be gathered safely together, even as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. It's a dream of obedience and dependence, a dream of love and loyalty that Jesus knows will not come true . . . "you were not willing." The obstinate children of God are about to once again blunder into danger and disaster; a future, which Jesus knows only, can be changed by the completion of his own mission. Jesus can offer the eternal care and watchfulness of God, but only through his sacrifice and death.
These chicks won't be saved by the sheltering wing of the hen. These chicks will be saved only by the hen giving herself over to the fox in their place.
It's a reality that has a hard bite.
I don't know what reality bites are nipping away at you this morning. But I do know that self-delusion is the wrong way of dealing with them. For self-delusions lead to life-illusions, which lead to disillusionment and destruction and wasted lives.
No one said of Jesus, "Who is he kidding?"
Jesus set his face firmly towards Jerusalem, even though he knew it would kill its prophets. And when warned of Herod's threat, Jesus kept walking straight towards his future with these words: "I must keep going today, and tomorrow, and the next day."
Will you keep kidding yourself with brain bluffs?
Will you face and outface your reality bites?
Jesus wants to show you how to "keep going today, and tomorrow, and the next day."