The NY Times obituary of the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh concludes with the intriguing report of a comment he made when teaching at the headquarters of Google in 2013. With his bald head and his brown and saffron robes, he told those masters of big data something that cannot have been easy for them to hear. “‘We have the feeling that we are overwhelmed by information,’ he told the assembled workers. ‘We don’t need that much information.’”*
We don’t need that much information. I suppose that out of politeness, the Google executives supressed their laughter. I don’t suppose that they had vetted his comments before he delivered them. The masters of endless information may, in fact, have gravely nodded their heads, as though they agreed with Thich Nhat Hanh, when he said, “We don’t need that much information.” Maybe they knew, deep in their hearts, that we are, indeed, overwhelmed by information, even as they (and many others) furiously mine it and store it in electronic heaps of ones and zeros. Maybe no one is more overwhelmed by information than the people who have to handle its relentless flow every second of every hour of every day, across every inch of this planet.
But what can they do about it? The information harvest is plentiful, and is making people at Google and elsewhere rich, as they pile up information in ever-larger electronic barns. But maybe we don’t need that much information?
The thought exercise of imagining how we could live without so much information is daunting for all of us - not just for the people at Google. Which bits could we do without? The other side of that exercise, is to ask which bits of information we most need, and what to do with that precious, and crucial information. And part of being overwhelmed by information is the very real struggle to answer this question: What information do I need?
When we think about how little information Jesus and his companions had about the world, it’s enough to make us laugh. The verses we heard from St. Luke’s Gospel provide some of the only evidence that Jesus even knew how to read. Jesus’ own teaching unfolded entirely in the oral tradition, except that once he wrote something in the sand. Here in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth is the only time I can think of that we are told explicitly that Jesus interacted with a text of holy scripture. It’s telling to see what information he imparts.
St. Luke tells us that “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.” And Jesus might have turned to something more completely self-referential and revelatory, like the so-called “Servant Songs” of Isaiah. “Here is my servant,” he could have read, taking on the voice of the Lord from Isaiah 42. “The Lord called me before I was born,” the Servant says in Isaiah 49. Then, “I will give you as a light to the nations,” declares the Lord later in that chapter. “See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high,” begins the Servant Song in Isaiah 52. Jesus might have used the opportunity in the synagogue in Nazareth to establish his credentials and assert his authority as the chosen Servant of God, albeit a suffering servant. That’s the kind of information Jesus might have shared with those who were listening.
But apparently he thought we don’t need that much information. Here’s what information Jesus gives to us at the outset of his ministry on earth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
That’s it. That is all the information Jesus provides about himself and his work. Everything else he does will have to speak for itself. If you want to know what Jesus thinks you need to know about him, that’s it. He has come for the sake of the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed - for all those whose hope has been crushed.
As it happens, even this small bit of information is often too much for us, and we don’t know what to do with it. The thought that Christ’s church should pick up his ministry of care for the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed - even allowing for the metaphorical use of those terms - has often proved to be too much of a challenge for us. Generally, the information we want is of a more self-referential kind. If we are going to follow Jesus, what’s in it for us? His first disciples asked essentially that very question, and most of us ask it too, in one way or another.
It’s telling, too, that in establishing a new covenant with his people, God did not send down more information. He did not inscribe text onto stones, or parchment, or golden sheets, or in the clouds, or even in the sand. Instead, he sent us his Son, who is not a fount of information to be processed; he is a person and a Presence whom we can either get to know or not; we can either embrace or not; we can either love or not. (Maybe we don’t need that much information.). And that person, that Presence, came to us, and is with us still, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to bring relief to the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed.
Here is another question: are you poor, captive, blind, or oppressed - even metaphorically? If the answer is yes, then Jesus is providing you with almost all the information you need about him, if you are looking for good news: he came to bring you relief. And since his mission is anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus can give what he promises. Maybe we don’t need much more information than that.
However, the other piece of information that Jesus gave us to consider is the Cross. Nailed to the Cross, having been rejected by his people, abandoned by his friends, beaten, humiliated, and sentenced to death, Jesus is in league with all of us who have been rejected, abandoned, beaten, humiliated, and who are headed toward death. The Cross is the inevitable information that results from Jesus’ ministry for the sake of the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed, all of whom generally know more or less what he means when he calls them to take up their cross and follow him. And the mystery and the wonder of the Cross is that it does not lead to death - it marks the path to resurrection. It does not signal failure - it is the very symbol of triumph. It does not lead to despair - it is the promise of hope. That’s the information we need to know about the Cross.
And those of us who know ourselves to be poor, captive, blind, and oppressed need to claim the promise of hope, need to cling to that symbol of triumph, need to know how to find the path of resurrection!
Oh, we are overwhelmed by information - perhaps never more-so than in these past two years of pandemic. But it is possible that we don’t need that much information. It is possible that nearly all the information we need to lead a holy life is shared with us when Jesus tells us that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, because he has anointed him to bring good news to the poor; that he has sent him to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor; and that the only other piece of information we really need is the Cross, which leads us past death and into resurrection life, and which shows us that the first piece of information is true?
That’s the information that we need. May God help us to hold it in our hearts, and to learn from such scant information the truth of his love.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
23 January, 2022
Saint Mark’s Locust Street, Philadelphia
* NY Times obituary for Thich Nhat Hanh, by Seth Mydans, 21 January, 2022
