Sunday, April 20, 2014
An Unforgivable Sin?
“When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified’….” Lest we forget, Judas was present at Jesus’ last meal with his friends. What was he thinking and experiencing at that meal?
Peter Rollins invites us to hazard a guess.1 Imagine, he says, that you are gathered with Jesus and the rest of his friends. As the evening darkens, Jesus bids the group gather round the table. They quiet down and look at him intently.
“My friends,” Jesus says, “take this bread, for it is my very body, broken for you.” Neither you nor the others know quite what Jesus means, but you can tell he is serious. Then he carefully pours wine into each one’s cup. “Take this wine and drink of it, for it is my very blood shed for you.” A chill descends on the gathering, as Jesus says, “As you do this, remember me.” Most of Jesus’ friends slowly begin to eat the bread and drink the wine, but you can’t lift your hand. His words have pierced your heart.
Your hesitation hasn’t escaped Jesus’ notice. He comes over and looks into your eyes. As he gazes at you, you see the loneliness and the pain, the nails and the blood. You hear the jeers of the soldiers and the passersby. You know that he will slowly and painfully suffocate to death on the cross. You don’t want to see what you see, though anyone who dared to look in Jesus’ eyes would see it. You want to escape, but Jesus looks at you and smiles compassionately. He embraces you. He seems to already know the painful guilt and deep regret that you will feel. Then he releases you and offers you the cup. “Dear friend,” he says, “take this cup and drink it all. It is truly my blood, and it is shed for you.” You are profoundly shaken and uncomfortable as Jesus finally moves away from you. You fumble in your pocket, feeling the heavy pieces of silver lying there. Then you slowly get up and slip out.
We may not identify so closely with Judas, but he is an integral part of this story. We don’t talk much about him, perhaps because for us who try so hard to return to Jesus a tiny fraction of his love for us, Jesus’ betrayer is a puzzle for us. Perhaps he was a puzzle for the early church too. Although the name “Judas” is virtually a curse word for us, Judas or Judah is name of which one could have been proud. In the ancient world the name Judas was borne by a descendant of the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve tribes descended from the patriarch Jacob, and the tribe of King David. Judas here was surnamed Iscariot, suggesting that he came from Kerioth in Judea. He was most likely the only Judean amongst all the Galileans, whom Jesus called first. As treasurer of the band of disciples, he was probably skilled with money. He might also have had good political connections, especially among those who opposed Rome’s rule.
Why did Judas betray Jesus? Did he feel like too much of an outsider among the northerners? Did he trust too much in his business acumen and political skills? Did he hope that Jesus’ arrest would be the flash point that would finally ignite rebellion against the Romans? Despite scholars’ best efforts, the puzzle remains.
John’s account of that fateful night tells us that, after Judas left, Jesus began to speak again, giving his friends the “new” commandment, from which this day takes its name. But we are still left with questions. Frederick Niedner asks whether we ever wonder, on hearing Jesus’ new commandment, on hearing Jesus tell the disciples how to love each other, if any of them went out into the night looking for Judas. Did they wonder where he had gone? Did any of them want to extend love to him? “Did anyone fear for him, miss him, or try, even after he brought soldiers to Gethsemane, to bring Judas back to talk him out of his shame, his anger, his rapidly deepening hell?”2 Did anyone try to keep him from snuffing out his proud life, as Jesus’ own life was ebbing away?
Niedner guesses that no one found him. Perhaps no one has found him to this day. Perhaps “[h]e is still out there … wandering somewhere in the night, forsaken by every generation of disciples since that ancient Thursday, the night of the new commandment.” Even as we gather around the sacred table, we remember what Judas did, but we refuse to name him, and his place remains empty. Even as we give thanks this night for Jesus’ self-offering of his body and blood, and for Jesus’ modeling of new way of loving each other, dare we ask ourselves, who in our own lives is Judas? Isn’t there for each of us at least one Judas who “wanders about in the night unforgiven?” Perhaps we can even dare to ponder Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s question. Who is this Judas? Who is the betrayer? Can we say confidently, “Surely not I, Lord?” Or, in some ways, isn’t each of us Judas, “slipping about in the shadows, unforgiven, unloved, utterly alone…?”
Are there any unforgivable sins? Was Judas forgiven for his betrayal of Jesus? In the Inferno Dante pictures Judas as eternally frozen in the lowest circle of hell. On the other hand, Rollins’s telling of the story suggests that Jesus had forgiven Judas even before Judas slipped out. Many theologians believe that God’s infinite desire to include all of us in God’s loving embrace will eventually bring even the most hard-hearted, including the Judases among us, to accept God’s forgiveness and mercy. If we seek to follow Jesus’ example and “love one another as I have loved you,” must we not also forgive ourselves for our own sinfulness and weakness? Must we not also forgive those who have wronged and betrayed us?
This Lent a group of us has been pondering the work of forgiveness in our lives. On Tuesday we saw the film, “The Power of Forgiveness.” I found the film incredibly moving, partly because I have been to Belfast in Northern Ireland, Auschwitz, and Ground Zero in New York, all of which figure in the film. But for me, the most deeply moving segment of the film was the last segment.
In January, 1995, Azim Khamisa’s twenty-year old son Tariq was murdered in Lo Jolla, California, while delivering pizza. The shot that killed Tariq was fired by Tony Hicks, a fourteen-year old gang member. In the wake of the tragedy, out of unspeakable grief and despair, Khamisa vowed to transform his loss through the miraculous power of forgiveness. Believing that there were “victims at both ends of the gun,” Azim forgave Tony and founded the Tariq Khamisa Foundation to break the cycle of youth violence by saving lives, teaching peace, and planting seeds of hope in their future. A month after establishing the foundation, Azim invited Ples Felix, Tony’s grandfather and guardian, to join him. “It was a God-inspired meeting,” said Ples. “I saw a God-spirited person who was devastated. I shook his hand and expressed my deepest sympathy. I committed to do anything to help his family.” Together, since November 1995, the two men have delivered their message about the realities of violence, forgiveness, gangs, and the importance of making positive choices to over one million students. The foundation has established community service and youth mentoring programs. Khamisa has also written several books about his decision to forgive, while Felix has received numerous awards for his work in mediation and peace-making.3 Although Khamisa is a Muslim, both men model Jesus’ new commandment for us. Both men remind us that loving one another as Jesus loves us includes reaching out to those who have hurt us, and not letting anyone slip away unforgiven into the shadows of the night.
As we ponder the mystery of sin, forgiveness, and love, we remember thankfully all that God has done for us. We remember that God delivers us from bondage – of all kinds. We remember that Jesus helped us to see love in action. We remember that Jesus’ love for us and for the world took him to the cross. We remember that Jesus promised to be present to us whenever we eat bread and drink wine in his name. As we come again into his presence this night, we especially remember that Jesus overcame all divisions and on the cross triumphed over all evil. United with him, nourished by him, we forgive ourselves and others, and we look forward to that heavenly banquet when all will be finally and irrevocably united with Christ.
1. The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales (Paraclete, 2009), quoted in Synthesis, April 5, 2012.
2. Proclaiming a Crucified Eschaton” (Institute for Liturgical Studies, Valparaiso University, 1998), 10ff, quoted in Synthesis, April 17, 2014.
3. http://www.tkf.org/
Monday, April 14, 2014
Truly this Man was God's Son
“Truly this man was God’s son!” How could the centurion and the others keeping watch over Jesus make this declaration after he died? What had they seen or heard that prepared them to say, “Truly this man was God’s son?” In the gospel according to Mark, the centurion, who stood facing Jesus, saw how he died and made the same declaration, “Truly this man was God’s son.” In Luke’s gospel, at Jesus’ death, a lone centurion praised God and declared, “Certainly, this man was innocent.” Obviously, something in Jesus’ death had deeply moved the centurion and his fellow soldiers, but what enabled them to make such a vehement declaration of faith: “Truly this man was God’s son?”
You’ve just heard the long, tragic story. So place yourself back there in Jerusalem for a moment and consider what happened. The religious leaders handed Jesus over to the hated Roman authorities. The charges were vague at best: that Jesus claimed to be able to destroy the temple, and that Jesus had given a confusing answer to the high priest’s question as to whether or not he was the messiah. Pilate, a cynical and brutal political leader, questioned Jesus. Perhaps he had heard about the crowds that Jesus had attracted and had guessed that the religious establishment had condemned Jesus out of jealousy. Even so, he could not act decisively and instead heeded the shouts of the crowds pressing for the release of another criminal. The Roman soldiers, who considered Jerusalem to be a hardship post, saw the Jews as rebellious and ungovernable. In their treatment of Jesus, as they tortured and mocked him following Pilate’s release of Barabbas, they reflected the “Pax Romana” at its most brutal. They then marched him to the cross, to undergo the most painful possible form of execution, a way of dying invented by Rome to deter, through terror and humiliation, any who might challenge Rome’s rule. As Jesus hung inches off the ground bleeding to death, his former friends were nowhere to be seen. The women who had bankrolled his ministry were standing off at a distance, and scribes, elders, and passersby, probably even the soldiers standing guard, continued to mock him.
And then, the evangelist tells us, when Jesus finally died, the centurion and those standing with him, did a complete one-eighty. The evangelist doesn’t give us anyone else’s reactions to Jesus’ death. When the curtain of the temple was torn in two, did the priests regret having condemned Jesus? Did Pilate think that perhaps he should have followed his wife’s advice and had “nothing to do with that innocent man?” Did the scribes and elders wish they hadn’t been so quick to mock Jesus? Did the women trudging back to their lodgings wonder how their charismatic teacher had gone so wrong? All we learn is that the centurion and those with him were “terrified and said, ‘Truly, this man was God’s son.’”
Do we know anything about this centurion? Could he have been the one who invited Jesus to his house to cure a sick servant, and before Jesus actually got there said humbly, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come into my house, but speak the word only and my servant will be healed?” Could he have been Cornelius, who, after Pentecost, sent for Peter and was baptized along with all the members of his household? We will never know. All we know about this centurion was that he was a company commander and that, depending on his seniority, he was responsible for eighty to one hundred men.
What then could have made these hardened gentile soldiers burst out with “Truly, this man is God’s son?” Surely, as soldiers, they had seen many die in this way. Surely, when it was all over, they had turned their backs, collected their pay, and gone out carousing with their fellows. Was it only the terrifying earthquake that changed their minds? Did that convince them that they had had it all wrong about Jesus? Did they begin to wonder whether indeed “this man was innocent?” What else they might they have glimpsed? Were they astonished that the powerless Jesus had somehow eluded them and triumphed over their brutal power? Was it possible that they suddenly saw God in the depths of Jesus’ suffering? Did they somehow see in Jesus, silently and patiently hanging on the cross, a glimpse of the God who tenaciously endures the worst that the world can inflict? Did they suddenly see that the story of Jesus was not yet finished? Could they have guessed that something fundamental had shifted in the world?
What do you see when you look at the cross? I don’t mean the lovely flowering crosses that circle our necks or adorn our sanctuaries. Nor do I mean the sanitized crucifixion scenes that we see in most paintings. What do you see when you contemplate the broken, tortured body of Jesus? What is in your heart when you let yourself feel his loneliness and agony? Is there good news in this part of the story? Can we let ourselves hear it?
Ironically, we hear the good news from the mouth of the centurion. All the other witnesses and bystanders seem to have missed it – as we might easily do. In the centurion’s astonished reaction to what he has just witnessed at Golgotha – whatever the reason for it – we hear again the evangelist’s bold claim: that God is most present in the place where we think God is most absent, i.e., in the brutal, lonely death of Jesus. We hear again that God is made real even – or especially – in a crucified man.
As people committed to walking behind that crucified man, we may have our fears and doubts – as he did on that fateful night in the garden of Gethsemane. Even so, if we truly hear the centurion’s declaration, we can find light in all the myriad dark places in our own lives, including places of torture and death. If we truly believe the evangelist’s proclamation, we can see the surprising power of God at work everywhere. We can pray with conviction and with hope that God will indeed “lighten our darkness” and “defend us from all the perils and dangers” of our lives.
And then, we too can go into places of death and darkness, knowing that God will go with us. We are free to watch with a loved one who is dying, or to be Jesus’ hands and feet among the poor, the sick, the needy, and those who wait to hear good news. Jesus will already be out there ahead of us, in all the places in the world where people are dying, grieving, lonely, and afraid. We can go with him, knowing that we are never alone.
“Truly, this man was God’s son!” Thanks be to God that we hear the good news even at the foot of the cross.
You’ve just heard the long, tragic story. So place yourself back there in Jerusalem for a moment and consider what happened. The religious leaders handed Jesus over to the hated Roman authorities. The charges were vague at best: that Jesus claimed to be able to destroy the temple, and that Jesus had given a confusing answer to the high priest’s question as to whether or not he was the messiah. Pilate, a cynical and brutal political leader, questioned Jesus. Perhaps he had heard about the crowds that Jesus had attracted and had guessed that the religious establishment had condemned Jesus out of jealousy. Even so, he could not act decisively and instead heeded the shouts of the crowds pressing for the release of another criminal. The Roman soldiers, who considered Jerusalem to be a hardship post, saw the Jews as rebellious and ungovernable. In their treatment of Jesus, as they tortured and mocked him following Pilate’s release of Barabbas, they reflected the “Pax Romana” at its most brutal. They then marched him to the cross, to undergo the most painful possible form of execution, a way of dying invented by Rome to deter, through terror and humiliation, any who might challenge Rome’s rule. As Jesus hung inches off the ground bleeding to death, his former friends were nowhere to be seen. The women who had bankrolled his ministry were standing off at a distance, and scribes, elders, and passersby, probably even the soldiers standing guard, continued to mock him.
And then, the evangelist tells us, when Jesus finally died, the centurion and those standing with him, did a complete one-eighty. The evangelist doesn’t give us anyone else’s reactions to Jesus’ death. When the curtain of the temple was torn in two, did the priests regret having condemned Jesus? Did Pilate think that perhaps he should have followed his wife’s advice and had “nothing to do with that innocent man?” Did the scribes and elders wish they hadn’t been so quick to mock Jesus? Did the women trudging back to their lodgings wonder how their charismatic teacher had gone so wrong? All we learn is that the centurion and those with him were “terrified and said, ‘Truly, this man was God’s son.’”
Do we know anything about this centurion? Could he have been the one who invited Jesus to his house to cure a sick servant, and before Jesus actually got there said humbly, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come into my house, but speak the word only and my servant will be healed?” Could he have been Cornelius, who, after Pentecost, sent for Peter and was baptized along with all the members of his household? We will never know. All we know about this centurion was that he was a company commander and that, depending on his seniority, he was responsible for eighty to one hundred men.
What then could have made these hardened gentile soldiers burst out with “Truly, this man is God’s son?” Surely, as soldiers, they had seen many die in this way. Surely, when it was all over, they had turned their backs, collected their pay, and gone out carousing with their fellows. Was it only the terrifying earthquake that changed their minds? Did that convince them that they had had it all wrong about Jesus? Did they begin to wonder whether indeed “this man was innocent?” What else they might they have glimpsed? Were they astonished that the powerless Jesus had somehow eluded them and triumphed over their brutal power? Was it possible that they suddenly saw God in the depths of Jesus’ suffering? Did they somehow see in Jesus, silently and patiently hanging on the cross, a glimpse of the God who tenaciously endures the worst that the world can inflict? Did they suddenly see that the story of Jesus was not yet finished? Could they have guessed that something fundamental had shifted in the world?
What do you see when you look at the cross? I don’t mean the lovely flowering crosses that circle our necks or adorn our sanctuaries. Nor do I mean the sanitized crucifixion scenes that we see in most paintings. What do you see when you contemplate the broken, tortured body of Jesus? What is in your heart when you let yourself feel his loneliness and agony? Is there good news in this part of the story? Can we let ourselves hear it?
Ironically, we hear the good news from the mouth of the centurion. All the other witnesses and bystanders seem to have missed it – as we might easily do. In the centurion’s astonished reaction to what he has just witnessed at Golgotha – whatever the reason for it – we hear again the evangelist’s bold claim: that God is most present in the place where we think God is most absent, i.e., in the brutal, lonely death of Jesus. We hear again that God is made real even – or especially – in a crucified man.
As people committed to walking behind that crucified man, we may have our fears and doubts – as he did on that fateful night in the garden of Gethsemane. Even so, if we truly hear the centurion’s declaration, we can find light in all the myriad dark places in our own lives, including places of torture and death. If we truly believe the evangelist’s proclamation, we can see the surprising power of God at work everywhere. We can pray with conviction and with hope that God will indeed “lighten our darkness” and “defend us from all the perils and dangers” of our lives.
And then, we too can go into places of death and darkness, knowing that God will go with us. We are free to watch with a loved one who is dying, or to be Jesus’ hands and feet among the poor, the sick, the needy, and those who wait to hear good news. Jesus will already be out there ahead of us, in all the places in the world where people are dying, grieving, lonely, and afraid. We can go with him, knowing that we are never alone.
“Truly, this man was God’s son!” Thanks be to God that we hear the good news even at the foot of the cross.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Who is the Greatest?
“Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
“Hey, Maryam, Jesus wants your little Ya’acov for a minute. Bring him in here, wouldya?” What do you suppose that mother was thinking as she picked up her little son and walked into the room where Jesus and his friends were sitting? Why would the rabbi want her son in with them? They weren’t going to do anything strange to him, were they?
Of course the young mother didn’t know how the rabbi’s twelve followers were struggling to understand what Jesus was teaching them. Three of them had had an overpowering vision of him up on the mountain, which they would not understand until much later. The young mother didn’t know that the disciples didn’t understand how John the Baptist really had been Elijah, or that they were afraid to ask Jesus what he meant when he talked about dying on a cross and rising again. She didn’t know that they still thought he was going to throw out the Romans and establish a new political order. She didn’t know that some of them – John maybe, who might have thought he played second fiddle to Peter, or Judas perhaps, who was starting to doubt that Jesus would do anything worthwhile – wondered what their status would be in the new community he was creating. She probably thought they were just hangers-on of the miracle-working rabbi, following him around as if they had nothing better to do. Reluctantly, she handed over her child.
Perhaps Maryam shouldn’t have been too hard on the Twelve. We wouldn’t have done much better, because Jesus was preaching and practicing a radically world-changing message. Jesus was “turning the world upside down.”1 Jesus interpreted the Law of Moses differently from other rabbis, and he helped people to see the proclamations of the prophets in fresh ways. Jesus taught his disciples that peoples’ needs supersede even the demands of the Law, and that it is OK, for example, to heal on the Sabbath. Jesus taught them to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them. Jesus taught them that God loves and cares for all people – Gentiles, women, the disabled, the poor, the hungry, those in prison – all people. Jesus taught them that if they truly wanted to see God they must look among those on the margins of society: they must invite in the homeless, the destitute, prostitutes, and even the hated tax collectors. Jesus taught them that those who wanted to be his disciples were expected to lead by serving everyone.
Did the disciples understand his teaching? Out of nowhere, it seems, came a question – and a way for Jesus to teach them what communities of people committed to him might look like. One of them asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus didn’t directly answer the question. Nor did he launch into a long discourse or cite chapter and verse of the Hebrew Scriptures. Instead, he called for Maryam’s child. Maryam had been right to wonder why, since children were treated almost like property in their society, and their status was little better than that of a slave. As the adult disciples began to squirm seeing a child in their midst, who could surely not be a model of anything, Jesus pointed to Maryam’s child. And then he flung a challenge at them: “change and become like this child! Give up your sense of self-importance, your sense of entitlement, your craving for status, and your desire for self-preservation. Then put your conversion into action: turn around and create communities in my name where you welcome all the status-less people. And when you welcome them after I’m gone, you’ll be welcoming me again.”
The Twelve may have had trouble understanding Jesus’ teachings, at least until after Jesus’ resurrection, but down through the centuries many of his followers did understand what he was getting at. Many of them tried hard, risking – and even losing – their lives to welcome in Jesus’ name those whom polite society disdained. St. Brigid, St. Francis, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Prudence Crandell, who taught black children to read in colonial New England, Anglican Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, who was martyred in Melanesia in1871, Constance and her companions, who died nursing Yellow Fever victims in Memphis in 1878, and C.F. Andrews, who lived out Jesus’ example in India in the early 20th century, to mention just a few. All of them understood Jesus’ teaching. All of them were “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” because they gave up any sense of rank or self-importance for themselves, and because they created Christian communities that actively served those whom others looked down on.
Such people and such communities don’t exist only in history books or on church calendars. A young man named Byron McMillan discovered such people and such a community when he visited Rutba House in Durham, North Carolina. In 2003 North Carolina native Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and his wife Leah moved into an old house in Walltown, an inner-city neighborhood in Durham. There they founded Rutba House, an intentional community that serves as a “house of hospitality where the formerly homeless are welcomed into a community that eats, prays, and shares life together.” Jonathan directs the School for Conversion, a nonprofit organization that has grown out of the life of Rutba House to pursue beloved community with kids in their neighborhood, through classes in North Carolina prisons, and in community-based education around the country. Jonathan, who is white, is also an associate minister at the historically black St. Johns Missionary Baptist Church.
When Byron McMillan visited Rutba House, he was bored with conventional church. Although he had been faithful in worship and had been on several mission trips, he had not been able to make the connection between Sundays, or mission weeks, and the rest of his life. At Rutba House, he discovered real ministry among people in need, and an authentic community of people who respected and cared for each other. For the first time in his life, he found a group of people who really took Jesus’ commands seriously. More important, as he lived with Jonathan and his family, he discovered people who “didn’t think they knew everything. They weren’t powerful people trying to create a program, or build a church, they were just humble people that loved people and wanted to eat together, laugh together, cry together, and just hang out with each other the way Jesus did.”3
“Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Can you hear the challenge in Jesus’ affirmation? Do we understand that in following Jesus we leave ourselves open to the possibility that Jesus might want to change our expectations? Do we understand that Jesus is challenging us to look beyond our individual relationship with God to partner with God in creating Christian communities that truly reflect our commitment to the one who emptied himself for our sakes? Are there ways to welcome strangers and those on the margins that we have yet to see? Can we see that we are called to “get out of the way” and follow Jesus in becoming people for others?
Might Jesus challenge us also to wonder if we are doing all that we can to effectively minister to those in need? Are we serving the homeless, the hungry, and those without adequate health, dental, and vision care right in this community? How are we serving children in need in this community? Do we need to consider how our churches can work together to mentor, tutor, and perhaps even feed local children? Where are the holes in our social safety net? And is there a community in another county – or country – whose needs touch our hearts? And if we ask ourselves why we might do any of these things, rest assured it is not so that we may feel good about ourselves, or because we have found what one writer called a “human key to heaven.” We undertake any of these ministries, because we see the face of Christ, in the faces of those to whom we minister. We undertake these ministries, because we have become people for others, because we have pledged ourselves to be the Body of Christ in the world, and we try as best we can to do what Jesus did in the flesh, including welcoming children of all communities, orphans, widows, and all those on the margins of society.
“Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
“C’mon in, Maryam. Jesus is winding up. He’s just about done with talking about your son.” Maryam tentatively stood in the doorway of the front room. She saw the rabbi’s friends seated at his feet. She saw her son Ya’acov nestled in Jesus’ arms and Jesus looking down at him lovingly. Then Jesus gently lifted the boy up and placed him back in her arms. He looked at her and smiled. She saw the love in his eyes. And she knew that, from that moment on, her own life would never be the same.
1. Albert Nolan, Jesus Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008), 50
2. http://jonathanwilsonhartgrove.com/bio/
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5jUjiwuF-g
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Can These Bones Live?
“Mortal, can these bones live?” Six centuries before Christ, the prophet Ezekiel was preaching to a despairing people. Their holy city had been destroyed. Their richly ornamented temple, built by the great king Solomon, was no more. They had been forced into exile, and they were now living in an alien culture. They struggled to remember the God whom they had once so fervently worshipped. Surely all that had once given meaning to their lives was gone, and they were living in a darkness that was almost worse than death. And then God called Ezekiel to give the people a different vision. God called Ezekiel to remind the people – just as we need to be reminded – that God not only creates life but also restores it, and that exile, darkness, and death are not God’s last word to them, even when they could not see how or where new life might be possible.
What could be more lifeless than the huge mass of “very dry” bones God commanded Ezekiel to walk around? “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel is dumbfounded by God’s question. Surely, the answer is “No!” Surely there will never be life again in these absolutely lifeless skeletons. Ezekiel gives the only possible answer: “O Lord, God, you know.” Indeed, God does know. For the God addressing Ezekiel is the God of promise, the God who fulfilled God’s promises by creating a nation out of the elderly and childless Abraham and Sarah, by delivering that nation from slavery in Egypt, by bringing that nation into a land of milk and honey, by entering into covenant with them, and by raising up judges, kings, and prophets. Who else but that God brought the people back to life – again and again?
And so yet again, through Ezekiel, God promises life to the Israelites. “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.” With God’s command come muscles, sinews, and skin, until the bones are all knit together and standing upright. Then comes the most important part: God commands the breath to come from the four winds and breathe upon these slain. And so it does. And what is this breath? This is the life-giving spirit of God, the ruach, the same Spirit that God breathed into the masses of dust in the creation story of Genesis, the dust that became human beings. And one more promise: God promises that, with God’s breath animating them as they come alive, the people will recognize and celebrate their dependence on God’s breath, they will “know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.”
“Mortal, can these bones live?” The same breath that God breathed into the very dry bones of the House of Israel, Jesus breathed into the son of the widow of Nain and the daughter of Jairus. Jesus breathed that same breath into an equally lifeless Lazarus. In the last sign of his identity as the Messiah, Jesus gave the clearest possible demonstration of God’s power over death and the grave. God breathed that same breath into the crucified and lifeless Jesus, raising him to resurrection life. The same breath, “the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead” came into our bodies when the waters of baptism flowed over us. That same breath moves in the world today, raising people, communities, and nations to new life – against all odds.
“Do you believe this,” Jesus asked Martha. Do we believe in God’s promises of restored life? Easter is two weeks from today. What do we really believe about death and restored life? On hearing of someone’s death, many of us say, “May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.” Do we really believe that the souls of the dead are now with God, in a place of perfect peace, perfect joy, and perfect health? Isn’t the continued life of our lost loved ones, to say nothing of all those dead in wars and genocides, too much to hope for?
“Mortal, can these bones live?” Isn’t it easier to see all the dark places in our lives? Who could forget Auschwitz and the horrors that occurred there and at all the other concentration camps? Have we so easily forgotten the many descendants of forcibly exiled Africans who perished under a cruel system of slavery or were lynched during the Jim Crow era? We remember those lost in Rwanda, on September 11th, and in Darfur. We remember those lost when a tsunami struck Southeast Asia, or when a wall of mud came down in Washington on those living in houses that should probably never have been built.
And how about the dark places in our own lives? In our study of forgiveness this past week, we took the brave step of looking at those places in our lives where we need to repent, to change course, to get a new mind. We even considered the people to whom we might need to apologize, in order to truly reverse course. Where are the places of darkness and death in our communities? Can we forget those lost in fires in old ramshackle houses or murdered on the streets of our cities and towns? Stephanie Jaeger, a Lutheran pastor in Chicago tells of hearing Ezekiel’s prophecy at a service honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. The congregation hearing that prophecy “came alive” when the Baptist preacher called for changes in the mandatory sentencing laws in Illinois. “On any given day,” Jaeger tells us, “more than 10,000 men are housed in Cook County Jail in Chicago. Most of them are poor; almost all are men of color. One fifth of the men suffer from mental illness.”1 Where are the places where war and death still hold sway? Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Syria? Where are the places where modern-day slaves are forced into prostitution or sweatshops?
“Mortal, can these bones live?” You know all this. You have only to open your newspaper or your favorite news app. Even though our culture avoids dealing directly with death – people don’t “die” anymore, they “pass” – you don’t need me to remind you that we will all die, and that we live in a world of darkness, sin, and death. If you are here, it must be because you need to hear a different message. The congregation in Chicago needed to hear a different message. They needed to hear that God breathes new life into us when we are addicted, hopeless, guilty, depressed, and in pain.
And the church has a different message for us. We can’t help but hear it if we have “ears to hear.” We hear that different message not only in Scripture. We hear in the baptismal liturgy when the priest prays over the water: “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” We hear it sermons. Didn’t Ezekiel show us that good preaching can even raise the dead? In the Nicene Creed, we reaffirm our trust in “the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” We hear it in the priest’s declaration of forgiveness, when I ask God to “strengthen you in all goodness, and by the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.” We hear it in the exchange of peace: “The peace of the Lord be always with you.” We hear it as we receive Christ’s Body and Blood: “The body of Christ, the blood of Christ, keep you in everlasting life.” We hear it in our hymns. Even if you don’t like to sing, pay attention to the words of the hymns. In a few minutes we will sing, “They who eat of this bread” – i.e., the Eucharist – “they shall live forever.” Our last hymn will remind us that Jesus is, “enthroned in glory,” and, more important, “There for sinners thou art pleading: there thou dost our place prepare; ever for us interceding, till in glory we appear.”
Though we must travel with Jesus through the darkest places, though we must cry with the psalmist “out of the depths,” if we have ears to hear, we cannot miss the message that the church delivers to us at every turn: that God not only enlivens our natural life but also promises us life other than and beyond this world, a new creation, a new way of living that will come into being when this created existence ceases.
“Mortal, can these bones live?” The three great days of Holy Week are almost upon us. What will we say on Good Friday? Can the bones of the crucified man live? They did. Can our bones live? They will, because the “Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead” dwells in us, has been poured into us, because we live in him, with him, through him, and for him. We have God’s promise. All we have to do is trust in that promise.
1. Christian Century, Vol. 131, 7, April 2, 2014, p. 20.
What could be more lifeless than the huge mass of “very dry” bones God commanded Ezekiel to walk around? “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel is dumbfounded by God’s question. Surely, the answer is “No!” Surely there will never be life again in these absolutely lifeless skeletons. Ezekiel gives the only possible answer: “O Lord, God, you know.” Indeed, God does know. For the God addressing Ezekiel is the God of promise, the God who fulfilled God’s promises by creating a nation out of the elderly and childless Abraham and Sarah, by delivering that nation from slavery in Egypt, by bringing that nation into a land of milk and honey, by entering into covenant with them, and by raising up judges, kings, and prophets. Who else but that God brought the people back to life – again and again?
And so yet again, through Ezekiel, God promises life to the Israelites. “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.” With God’s command come muscles, sinews, and skin, until the bones are all knit together and standing upright. Then comes the most important part: God commands the breath to come from the four winds and breathe upon these slain. And so it does. And what is this breath? This is the life-giving spirit of God, the ruach, the same Spirit that God breathed into the masses of dust in the creation story of Genesis, the dust that became human beings. And one more promise: God promises that, with God’s breath animating them as they come alive, the people will recognize and celebrate their dependence on God’s breath, they will “know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.”
“Mortal, can these bones live?” The same breath that God breathed into the very dry bones of the House of Israel, Jesus breathed into the son of the widow of Nain and the daughter of Jairus. Jesus breathed that same breath into an equally lifeless Lazarus. In the last sign of his identity as the Messiah, Jesus gave the clearest possible demonstration of God’s power over death and the grave. God breathed that same breath into the crucified and lifeless Jesus, raising him to resurrection life. The same breath, “the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead” came into our bodies when the waters of baptism flowed over us. That same breath moves in the world today, raising people, communities, and nations to new life – against all odds.
“Do you believe this,” Jesus asked Martha. Do we believe in God’s promises of restored life? Easter is two weeks from today. What do we really believe about death and restored life? On hearing of someone’s death, many of us say, “May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.” Do we really believe that the souls of the dead are now with God, in a place of perfect peace, perfect joy, and perfect health? Isn’t the continued life of our lost loved ones, to say nothing of all those dead in wars and genocides, too much to hope for?
“Mortal, can these bones live?” Isn’t it easier to see all the dark places in our lives? Who could forget Auschwitz and the horrors that occurred there and at all the other concentration camps? Have we so easily forgotten the many descendants of forcibly exiled Africans who perished under a cruel system of slavery or were lynched during the Jim Crow era? We remember those lost in Rwanda, on September 11th, and in Darfur. We remember those lost when a tsunami struck Southeast Asia, or when a wall of mud came down in Washington on those living in houses that should probably never have been built.
And how about the dark places in our own lives? In our study of forgiveness this past week, we took the brave step of looking at those places in our lives where we need to repent, to change course, to get a new mind. We even considered the people to whom we might need to apologize, in order to truly reverse course. Where are the places of darkness and death in our communities? Can we forget those lost in fires in old ramshackle houses or murdered on the streets of our cities and towns? Stephanie Jaeger, a Lutheran pastor in Chicago tells of hearing Ezekiel’s prophecy at a service honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. The congregation hearing that prophecy “came alive” when the Baptist preacher called for changes in the mandatory sentencing laws in Illinois. “On any given day,” Jaeger tells us, “more than 10,000 men are housed in Cook County Jail in Chicago. Most of them are poor; almost all are men of color. One fifth of the men suffer from mental illness.”1 Where are the places where war and death still hold sway? Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Syria? Where are the places where modern-day slaves are forced into prostitution or sweatshops?
“Mortal, can these bones live?” You know all this. You have only to open your newspaper or your favorite news app. Even though our culture avoids dealing directly with death – people don’t “die” anymore, they “pass” – you don’t need me to remind you that we will all die, and that we live in a world of darkness, sin, and death. If you are here, it must be because you need to hear a different message. The congregation in Chicago needed to hear a different message. They needed to hear that God breathes new life into us when we are addicted, hopeless, guilty, depressed, and in pain.
And the church has a different message for us. We can’t help but hear it if we have “ears to hear.” We hear that different message not only in Scripture. We hear in the baptismal liturgy when the priest prays over the water: “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” We hear it sermons. Didn’t Ezekiel show us that good preaching can even raise the dead? In the Nicene Creed, we reaffirm our trust in “the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” We hear it in the priest’s declaration of forgiveness, when I ask God to “strengthen you in all goodness, and by the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.” We hear it in the exchange of peace: “The peace of the Lord be always with you.” We hear it as we receive Christ’s Body and Blood: “The body of Christ, the blood of Christ, keep you in everlasting life.” We hear it in our hymns. Even if you don’t like to sing, pay attention to the words of the hymns. In a few minutes we will sing, “They who eat of this bread” – i.e., the Eucharist – “they shall live forever.” Our last hymn will remind us that Jesus is, “enthroned in glory,” and, more important, “There for sinners thou art pleading: there thou dost our place prepare; ever for us interceding, till in glory we appear.”
Though we must travel with Jesus through the darkest places, though we must cry with the psalmist “out of the depths,” if we have ears to hear, we cannot miss the message that the church delivers to us at every turn: that God not only enlivens our natural life but also promises us life other than and beyond this world, a new creation, a new way of living that will come into being when this created existence ceases.
“Mortal, can these bones live?” The three great days of Holy Week are almost upon us. What will we say on Good Friday? Can the bones of the crucified man live? They did. Can our bones live? They will, because the “Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead” dwells in us, has been poured into us, because we live in him, with him, through him, and for him. We have God’s promise. All we have to do is trust in that promise.
1. Christian Century, Vol. 131, 7, April 2, 2014, p. 20.
Monday, March 31, 2014
As God Sees
One day Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, and Dr. Watson, his assistant, went on a camping trip. They ate well, enjoyed a bottle of wine, and then lay down. Soon they were fast asleep. Some hours later, Holmes woke up. He nudged his faithful friend. “Watson,” he asked, “Look up and tell me what you see.” Watson replied, “I see millions and millions of stars.” Holmes then said, “Well, Watson, what does that tell you?” Watson thought a bit and then replied, “Astronomically, I observe that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I see that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is about a quarter past three. Theologically, I understand that God is all-powerful, and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Why, what does it tell you?” “Watson, you idiot,” Holmes replied, “Someone has stolen our tent!”1
It’s Laetare Sunday, also known as Refreshment Sunday or Rose Sunday, for the rose-colored paraments and vestments that are traditional for the day. Since we don’t have rose-colored paraments and vestments, we’re still using our purple paraments and vestments. Even so, we’re halfway through Lent. Just for today we can ease up on our Lenten disciplines and look forward to the joys of Easter. And because we anticipate Easter, today is also a traditional day to tell jokes, even in the midst of this solemn Lenten season.
Just as Holmes chided Watson for not seeing what he most needed to see, today’s Scripture invites us to question whether we are seeing what we most need to see. Is it possible that we might see the world around us differently? In our reading from the first Book of Samuel, we encounter a venerable servant of God, who learned to see differently. Samuel had served God since he was a young boy, since he first said to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” On God’s instructions, he had anointed Saul as king. When Saul failed to be the king the people of Israel needed, Samuel followed God’s instructions and sought a new king from the family of Jessie. Even though Samuel was able to hear God speaking, he still needed to be tutored by God in how to see. Wasn’t his first choice for the next king just the one we would make? Big, handsome, regal, yes? No, for “the Lord does not see as mortals see.” Wasn’t David, as the youngest, the least likely person to be the next king? Yes, yet God already foresaw the powerful leader that David would eventually become, and God taught Samuel how to see a little of what God saw in David.
In our Gospel story, it is the disciples who learn to see differently – at least we hope so – and the Pharisees who cannot or refuse to see differently. Walking along, Jesus and the disciples pass by a blind man. The disciples see the man and do what Watson did – or what we might do, or think when we see a beggar or homeless person. They see an “it.” They focus on the past and look for someone to blame for the man’s condition. They see a theological problem, an abstraction. Jesus models a different way of seeing. Jesus sees a human being, a “thou.” Jesus looks into the future and sees what the man might become. Jesus sees someone in need. Jesus looks for a way to transform evil, not just talk about it.
And then Jesus acts. He does something concrete to change the man’s condition. He doesn’t let himself get mired in process. He doesn’t wonder what the systemic reasons are for the man’s blindness or his need to beg. He doesn’t wonder why the man’s family isn’t taking care of him. He doesn’t wait to mix the mud paste until the man says he believes that Jesus can heal him. He doesn’t care that the Pharisees will criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. He sees someone who needs help, he takes action, and he enables the man to see.
The now-sighted man is, as we would be, ecstatic that he can see. When he finally finds Jesus again, he worships him. Unfortunately, the Pharisees have a different reaction. They are not impressed by Jesus’ healing of the blind man, and they are offended that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Have they, as we often do, put God in a box? Are they unable to see beyond the lines of their dogma and tradition? Do they try to fit God into the confines of their own understanding, instead of seeing the sign that God might be doing something entirely unprecedented?
What do you see in this story? Are you like the disciples, willing at least to wonder what Jesus might be up to? Or are you more like the Pharisees, unable to believe that God might do things in an untraditional, unexpected way? I wonder what would happen if we could put aside our preconceived ideas about how things are and ask God to help us to see as Jesus saw, as God sees – even just a little.
Might we see ourselves differently? Might we be able to admit honestly who we are? We began our Lenten study series on forgiveness looking at the need for honest, intentional self-examination. This past week we talked about recognizing our enemies, both those people we actively dislike or believe wish to harm us and those elements of our own personality or lifestyle that we dislike. Is it possible that we are not seeing either our external or internal “enemies” clearly, or as Jesus sees them? Might we also admit how and where – and more often than we like – we miss the mark? Might we be able to ask God to open our eyes to those places in our lives we could begin to change?
By the same token, might we also be able to see ourselves as God’s beloved and gifted children? Think of all the images just from Scripture that remind us of how dear we are to God. We are like the protected sheep of today’s psalm, watched over by the Good Shepherd. We are the guests at God banquet, fed with the rich wines of Isaiah’s prophecy or with the bread and fish of the gospel accounts. We are the ones who are healed from our diseases by God, whose eyes are opened by God, and who are taught by God to have faith in God’s promises. We are those who in baptism were “sealed with the Spirit” and are now part of Christ’s body.
If we could see as Jesus saw, as God sees – even a little – might we also see others differently? If we knew our family and friends to also be God’s beloved children, might we be more understanding of them? Might our anger flare up less often? Might we treat our co-workers, our clients, those who wait on us, guests, and strangers as fellow human beings with real needs of their own? Might we be slower to judge those who look, talk, smell, or behave differently from us? Might we be more willing to take the practical steps needed to meet their needs for healthcare, housing, clothing, or work? Might we even see other faith communities differently? Might we be more willing to partner not only with those of other Christian denominations but with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or even with those of no religion, to begin addressing the world’s myriad needs? If we could see as Jesus saw, as God sees, might we be able to recognize signs of God’s presence in the world? Might we see that God is already working a transformation in us – if we would but cooperate?
One day people saw a blind man sitting by the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read, “I am blind, please help.” A creative publicist came by and noticed that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped a few coins in the man’s hat. Then, without asking the man’s permission, he took the sign, turned it over and wrote another message on it. Then he put the sign back by the man’s feet and left. That afternoon the publicist came back to check on the blind man. The blind man’s hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized the publicist’s footsteps and asked if he was the one who had rewritten his sign. The blind man wanted to know what he had written on it. The publicist said, “Nothing that was not true. I just phrased your message differently.” He smiled and went on his way. The blind man never knew that his sign now read “TODAY IS SPRING AND I CANNOT SEE IT.”2
God is continually transforming us into Jesus’ likeness. As we trust in “the slow work of God,” perhaps we can also begin to comprehend the work to which we have been called as members of Christ’s body. As Teresa of Avila, one of the great Christian mystics reminded us,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hands but yours, No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.3
1. Told in Synthesis, March 30, 2014.
2. Ibid.
3. Parminder Singh Summon, Summon’s Compendium of Days (New York: Seabury, 2007), 96
It’s Laetare Sunday, also known as Refreshment Sunday or Rose Sunday, for the rose-colored paraments and vestments that are traditional for the day. Since we don’t have rose-colored paraments and vestments, we’re still using our purple paraments and vestments. Even so, we’re halfway through Lent. Just for today we can ease up on our Lenten disciplines and look forward to the joys of Easter. And because we anticipate Easter, today is also a traditional day to tell jokes, even in the midst of this solemn Lenten season.
Just as Holmes chided Watson for not seeing what he most needed to see, today’s Scripture invites us to question whether we are seeing what we most need to see. Is it possible that we might see the world around us differently? In our reading from the first Book of Samuel, we encounter a venerable servant of God, who learned to see differently. Samuel had served God since he was a young boy, since he first said to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” On God’s instructions, he had anointed Saul as king. When Saul failed to be the king the people of Israel needed, Samuel followed God’s instructions and sought a new king from the family of Jessie. Even though Samuel was able to hear God speaking, he still needed to be tutored by God in how to see. Wasn’t his first choice for the next king just the one we would make? Big, handsome, regal, yes? No, for “the Lord does not see as mortals see.” Wasn’t David, as the youngest, the least likely person to be the next king? Yes, yet God already foresaw the powerful leader that David would eventually become, and God taught Samuel how to see a little of what God saw in David.
In our Gospel story, it is the disciples who learn to see differently – at least we hope so – and the Pharisees who cannot or refuse to see differently. Walking along, Jesus and the disciples pass by a blind man. The disciples see the man and do what Watson did – or what we might do, or think when we see a beggar or homeless person. They see an “it.” They focus on the past and look for someone to blame for the man’s condition. They see a theological problem, an abstraction. Jesus models a different way of seeing. Jesus sees a human being, a “thou.” Jesus looks into the future and sees what the man might become. Jesus sees someone in need. Jesus looks for a way to transform evil, not just talk about it.
And then Jesus acts. He does something concrete to change the man’s condition. He doesn’t let himself get mired in process. He doesn’t wonder what the systemic reasons are for the man’s blindness or his need to beg. He doesn’t wonder why the man’s family isn’t taking care of him. He doesn’t wait to mix the mud paste until the man says he believes that Jesus can heal him. He doesn’t care that the Pharisees will criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. He sees someone who needs help, he takes action, and he enables the man to see.
The now-sighted man is, as we would be, ecstatic that he can see. When he finally finds Jesus again, he worships him. Unfortunately, the Pharisees have a different reaction. They are not impressed by Jesus’ healing of the blind man, and they are offended that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Have they, as we often do, put God in a box? Are they unable to see beyond the lines of their dogma and tradition? Do they try to fit God into the confines of their own understanding, instead of seeing the sign that God might be doing something entirely unprecedented?
What do you see in this story? Are you like the disciples, willing at least to wonder what Jesus might be up to? Or are you more like the Pharisees, unable to believe that God might do things in an untraditional, unexpected way? I wonder what would happen if we could put aside our preconceived ideas about how things are and ask God to help us to see as Jesus saw, as God sees – even just a little.
Might we see ourselves differently? Might we be able to admit honestly who we are? We began our Lenten study series on forgiveness looking at the need for honest, intentional self-examination. This past week we talked about recognizing our enemies, both those people we actively dislike or believe wish to harm us and those elements of our own personality or lifestyle that we dislike. Is it possible that we are not seeing either our external or internal “enemies” clearly, or as Jesus sees them? Might we also admit how and where – and more often than we like – we miss the mark? Might we be able to ask God to open our eyes to those places in our lives we could begin to change?
By the same token, might we also be able to see ourselves as God’s beloved and gifted children? Think of all the images just from Scripture that remind us of how dear we are to God. We are like the protected sheep of today’s psalm, watched over by the Good Shepherd. We are the guests at God banquet, fed with the rich wines of Isaiah’s prophecy or with the bread and fish of the gospel accounts. We are the ones who are healed from our diseases by God, whose eyes are opened by God, and who are taught by God to have faith in God’s promises. We are those who in baptism were “sealed with the Spirit” and are now part of Christ’s body.
If we could see as Jesus saw, as God sees – even a little – might we also see others differently? If we knew our family and friends to also be God’s beloved children, might we be more understanding of them? Might our anger flare up less often? Might we treat our co-workers, our clients, those who wait on us, guests, and strangers as fellow human beings with real needs of their own? Might we be slower to judge those who look, talk, smell, or behave differently from us? Might we be more willing to take the practical steps needed to meet their needs for healthcare, housing, clothing, or work? Might we even see other faith communities differently? Might we be more willing to partner not only with those of other Christian denominations but with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or even with those of no religion, to begin addressing the world’s myriad needs? If we could see as Jesus saw, as God sees, might we be able to recognize signs of God’s presence in the world? Might we see that God is already working a transformation in us – if we would but cooperate?
One day people saw a blind man sitting by the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read, “I am blind, please help.” A creative publicist came by and noticed that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped a few coins in the man’s hat. Then, without asking the man’s permission, he took the sign, turned it over and wrote another message on it. Then he put the sign back by the man’s feet and left. That afternoon the publicist came back to check on the blind man. The blind man’s hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized the publicist’s footsteps and asked if he was the one who had rewritten his sign. The blind man wanted to know what he had written on it. The publicist said, “Nothing that was not true. I just phrased your message differently.” He smiled and went on his way. The blind man never knew that his sign now read “TODAY IS SPRING AND I CANNOT SEE IT.”2
God is continually transforming us into Jesus’ likeness. As we trust in “the slow work of God,” perhaps we can also begin to comprehend the work to which we have been called as members of Christ’s body. As Teresa of Avila, one of the great Christian mystics reminded us,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hands but yours, No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.3
1. Told in Synthesis, March 30, 2014.
2. Ibid.
3. Parminder Singh Summon, Summon’s Compendium of Days (New York: Seabury, 2007), 96
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Living Water
Picture yourself in Tucson. The city rests on a desert plateau about 2100 feet above sea level. It is surrounded on three sides by mountains that rise to over 9,000 feet. Unlike the Sahara of our imaginations – endless miles of rolling white sands – the desert here contains many varieties of plant and animal life. Saguaro cacti and other succulents rise high above the desert floor. Palo Verde and Mesquite trees provide a little shade, and hummingbirds twitter everywhere. The light in Tucson, like most of the desert southwest, is astonishingly clear and bright, and there are twice as many sunny days as cloudy ones. What you might not notice, until you begin to get dehydrated, is that the air in Tucson is very dry, indeed dangerously dry. Every work truck carries the familiar orange barrel-shaped water coolers. Open up almost anyone’s fridge and you’ll find plastic jugs filled with water, that are constantly being refilled. On the back patio there will inevitably be a gallon jug of tea baking in the sun. And when you sit down to lunch, or perhaps just to visit, you’ll drink at least three glasses of the chilled iced tea or some other drink. You can survive in Tucson without central heating, you can even survive without central air conditioning – the first evaporative coolers only became affordable in Tucson in the late 1940s. But you cannot survive in Tucson without water. It is absolutely necessary to life.
Now picture yourself in Samaria, near a well on the outskirts of Sychar. Here too the climate is desert-like and very dry. Here too you can’t survive without water. It’s noon. Trudging up to the well is a lone woman, shunned and ridiculed by the other village women, who would have come earlier, while it was still cool. The woman desperately needs water for herself and her male companion. To her surprise she meets a tired, dusty, Jewish man, who breaks all the rules and asks her for a drink. “What,” she says, “You’re kidding, right?” Then, to her astonishment, he tells her that if she knew with whom she was speaking she would have asked for “living water.” She knows her sacred geography and history, so she presses the stranger about this water. And again he astonishes her by telling her that all those who drink the water he provides “will never be thirsty,” and, indeed, that this water will become “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
What on earth is this “living water?” To begin with the expression translated “living water” can also mean “fresh, running water,” as opposed to water in a cistern. But what kind of water is Jesus offering? Actually, we don’t have to look much farther than the Hebrew Bible to get some clues. In today’s lesson from Exodus, the water gushing out from the stony rock becomes a symbol for God’s continuing care for God’s people – despite their tendency to whine, complain, and drive Moses nuts! Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah speaks for God and, accuses the people of choosing cracked cisterns instead of the “fountain of living water,” i.e., God himself (2:13). Similarly speaking for God, Isaiah promises the exiles that when they return to Israel they will “draw water from the wells of salvation” (12:3). Isaiah also voices God’s promise to guide the returning exiles “by springs of water” (49:10) and God’s invitation to all who thirst to “come to the waters” (55:1). Ezekiel tells us of the beauties of the restored Temple with a lush description of the life-giving river flowing from the Temple. Ultimately, water symbolizes the source of life and Spirit for all creatures. Jesus is heir to this rich Scriptural tradition, and so he reminds the woman – and the hearers of this Gospel – that our relationship with him is absolutely necessary for life, and that through him, we have access, deep within ourselves, to the life-giving action of the Spirit.
There’s more. Jesus’ “living water” transforms us. It is not meant to make us feel good. Instead, Jesus’ living water transforms us into people who are like him. Look at how Jesus related to the Samaritan woman. Jesus reached out to her across every social barrier – gender, religious practice, morality, and ethnicity. He accepted her, instructed her, encouraged her, and loved her. He gave her dignity, even though those around her surely abused her, because she had transgressed the rules of proper living. When the woman was touched by Jesus’ loving acceptance, she could turn around and offer Jesus’ love to others. Running off and leaving her water jug, she ran to the neighbors who had shunned her and invited them into Jesus’ presence. Empowered by Jesus, she became the first evangelist!
Can we experience the transformative power of Jesus’ living water? In The Bean Trees, a hauntingly beautiful novel set largely in the southwest, Barbara Kingsolver relates the story of Taylor Greer, a native Kentuckian who winds up in Tucson with a Cherokee child. One day, just at the beginning of the summer rains, Taylor goes into the desert with Mattie and Esperanza, two of the assorted friends she makes. Mattie mentions that for the ancient Native Americans, today is New Year’s Day. “What?” exclaims Taylor, “July the twelfth?” Mattie explains that “they celebrated it on whatever day the summer’s rain first fell. Everything started over then,” she said. They planted crops, the kids ran around naked, and “they all drank cactus-fruit wine until they fell over from happiness. Even the animals and plants came alive again when the drought finally broke.”1
So do we have to go to the desert southwest to experience the power of living water? Aren’t we also thirsty? Like the Samaritan woman at the well, aren’t we also thirsty for love and acceptance? Aren’t we thirsty for real, authentic life? Don’t we, as John Lawrence suggested,2 often go after water that doesn’t really satisfy us? “There are,” he says, “the more obvious wells” of alcoholism and drug addiction, the “forever running sluice of poverty and hunger.” Perhaps we drown ourselves in our work – paid or unpaid – only to neglect our health, our families, our neighbors, and our God. Jesus promised the Samaritan woman that “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” Jesus says the same thing to us – to all of us, me, you, the clergy, the bishops, the alcoholics downstairs. Irenaeus, the second-century Bishop of Lyons reminded us that “The Church is the fountain of the living water that flows to us from the heart of Christ. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace.”
So the question remains. How do we experience this living water? We experience this living water in the same way that the Samaritan woman experienced it: by opening ourselves to Jesus’ presence. Although Jesus is present to us everywhere we seek him, for some of us, he may be more present in especially sacred places: old churches or pilgrimage places. Others of us might sense his presence in nature: in spectacular sunsets or on our daily walk. For others, Jesus is present in “thin places,” where the veil is parted and we suddenly sense that Jesus is standing beside us – as I did this week praying with a family whose loved one was dying. Many of us – hopefully all of us – see Jesus in the Eucharistic banquet, when we sense ourselves sitting at table with him and his friends as we receive his Body and Blood.
And when you are centered in the Lord, his water will flow through you. When his water flows through us into a parched and thirsty world, we can ourselves follow our Master, and offer our love to those whom Jesus loved, to those who are marginalized, who are poor, sick, needy, or addicted. Would you like a concrete way to ensure that people everywhere have access to the safe, clean water? Providing access to clean water is one of the major program areas of Episcopal Relief and Development. Closer to home, dare we let Jesus’ living water touch those who are not a part of this community? Later this spring, we hope to offer living water to those who wish to worship “in spirit and truth,” but who cannot, for any number of reasons, join us in this sanctuary. The church will leave the building – to share its living water with those who thirst.
As we prepare for Street Church and our other ministries here is a simple way to practice the presence of God.3 It is given to us by Edwina Gately. In week 27 of 52 ways to practice God’s presence, Gately prays,
The rain is falling
like millions of silver jewels
shining against
the black of the night
to be absorbed
by the thirsty soil.
May your grace, O God,
fall upon
our dried humanity
unceasing.
May we absorb
your moistness
that our dried up hearts
may rise and swell to bursting.
And here is her invitation: “As you water your plants or flowers, imagine God’s grace watering your soul.” May we, like our plants, drink deeply of God’s living water.
1. As quoted in Sundays and Seasons (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2007, 115.
2. Quoted in Synthesis, March 27, 2011 (Boyds, MD: Brunson Publishing Co.).
3. A Mystical Heart (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 66-67.
Now picture yourself in Samaria, near a well on the outskirts of Sychar. Here too the climate is desert-like and very dry. Here too you can’t survive without water. It’s noon. Trudging up to the well is a lone woman, shunned and ridiculed by the other village women, who would have come earlier, while it was still cool. The woman desperately needs water for herself and her male companion. To her surprise she meets a tired, dusty, Jewish man, who breaks all the rules and asks her for a drink. “What,” she says, “You’re kidding, right?” Then, to her astonishment, he tells her that if she knew with whom she was speaking she would have asked for “living water.” She knows her sacred geography and history, so she presses the stranger about this water. And again he astonishes her by telling her that all those who drink the water he provides “will never be thirsty,” and, indeed, that this water will become “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
What on earth is this “living water?” To begin with the expression translated “living water” can also mean “fresh, running water,” as opposed to water in a cistern. But what kind of water is Jesus offering? Actually, we don’t have to look much farther than the Hebrew Bible to get some clues. In today’s lesson from Exodus, the water gushing out from the stony rock becomes a symbol for God’s continuing care for God’s people – despite their tendency to whine, complain, and drive Moses nuts! Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah speaks for God and, accuses the people of choosing cracked cisterns instead of the “fountain of living water,” i.e., God himself (2:13). Similarly speaking for God, Isaiah promises the exiles that when they return to Israel they will “draw water from the wells of salvation” (12:3). Isaiah also voices God’s promise to guide the returning exiles “by springs of water” (49:10) and God’s invitation to all who thirst to “come to the waters” (55:1). Ezekiel tells us of the beauties of the restored Temple with a lush description of the life-giving river flowing from the Temple. Ultimately, water symbolizes the source of life and Spirit for all creatures. Jesus is heir to this rich Scriptural tradition, and so he reminds the woman – and the hearers of this Gospel – that our relationship with him is absolutely necessary for life, and that through him, we have access, deep within ourselves, to the life-giving action of the Spirit.
There’s more. Jesus’ “living water” transforms us. It is not meant to make us feel good. Instead, Jesus’ living water transforms us into people who are like him. Look at how Jesus related to the Samaritan woman. Jesus reached out to her across every social barrier – gender, religious practice, morality, and ethnicity. He accepted her, instructed her, encouraged her, and loved her. He gave her dignity, even though those around her surely abused her, because she had transgressed the rules of proper living. When the woman was touched by Jesus’ loving acceptance, she could turn around and offer Jesus’ love to others. Running off and leaving her water jug, she ran to the neighbors who had shunned her and invited them into Jesus’ presence. Empowered by Jesus, she became the first evangelist!
Can we experience the transformative power of Jesus’ living water? In The Bean Trees, a hauntingly beautiful novel set largely in the southwest, Barbara Kingsolver relates the story of Taylor Greer, a native Kentuckian who winds up in Tucson with a Cherokee child. One day, just at the beginning of the summer rains, Taylor goes into the desert with Mattie and Esperanza, two of the assorted friends she makes. Mattie mentions that for the ancient Native Americans, today is New Year’s Day. “What?” exclaims Taylor, “July the twelfth?” Mattie explains that “they celebrated it on whatever day the summer’s rain first fell. Everything started over then,” she said. They planted crops, the kids ran around naked, and “they all drank cactus-fruit wine until they fell over from happiness. Even the animals and plants came alive again when the drought finally broke.”1
So do we have to go to the desert southwest to experience the power of living water? Aren’t we also thirsty? Like the Samaritan woman at the well, aren’t we also thirsty for love and acceptance? Aren’t we thirsty for real, authentic life? Don’t we, as John Lawrence suggested,2 often go after water that doesn’t really satisfy us? “There are,” he says, “the more obvious wells” of alcoholism and drug addiction, the “forever running sluice of poverty and hunger.” Perhaps we drown ourselves in our work – paid or unpaid – only to neglect our health, our families, our neighbors, and our God. Jesus promised the Samaritan woman that “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” Jesus says the same thing to us – to all of us, me, you, the clergy, the bishops, the alcoholics downstairs. Irenaeus, the second-century Bishop of Lyons reminded us that “The Church is the fountain of the living water that flows to us from the heart of Christ. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace.”
So the question remains. How do we experience this living water? We experience this living water in the same way that the Samaritan woman experienced it: by opening ourselves to Jesus’ presence. Although Jesus is present to us everywhere we seek him, for some of us, he may be more present in especially sacred places: old churches or pilgrimage places. Others of us might sense his presence in nature: in spectacular sunsets or on our daily walk. For others, Jesus is present in “thin places,” where the veil is parted and we suddenly sense that Jesus is standing beside us – as I did this week praying with a family whose loved one was dying. Many of us – hopefully all of us – see Jesus in the Eucharistic banquet, when we sense ourselves sitting at table with him and his friends as we receive his Body and Blood.
And when you are centered in the Lord, his water will flow through you. When his water flows through us into a parched and thirsty world, we can ourselves follow our Master, and offer our love to those whom Jesus loved, to those who are marginalized, who are poor, sick, needy, or addicted. Would you like a concrete way to ensure that people everywhere have access to the safe, clean water? Providing access to clean water is one of the major program areas of Episcopal Relief and Development. Closer to home, dare we let Jesus’ living water touch those who are not a part of this community? Later this spring, we hope to offer living water to those who wish to worship “in spirit and truth,” but who cannot, for any number of reasons, join us in this sanctuary. The church will leave the building – to share its living water with those who thirst.
As we prepare for Street Church and our other ministries here is a simple way to practice the presence of God.3 It is given to us by Edwina Gately. In week 27 of 52 ways to practice God’s presence, Gately prays,
The rain is falling
like millions of silver jewels
shining against
the black of the night
to be absorbed
by the thirsty soil.
May your grace, O God,
fall upon
our dried humanity
unceasing.
May we absorb
your moistness
that our dried up hearts
may rise and swell to bursting.
And here is her invitation: “As you water your plants or flowers, imagine God’s grace watering your soul.” May we, like our plants, drink deeply of God’s living water.
1. As quoted in Sundays and Seasons (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2007, 115.
2. Quoted in Synthesis, March 27, 2011 (Boyds, MD: Brunson Publishing Co.).
3. A Mystical Heart (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 66-67.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Journeys
First, let’s hear some more of the story. The last we heard of Abraham’s story was, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.” Actually, other people went too, so here’s a little more of the story. “Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh…. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages towards the Negeb” (Gen. 12:4-9).
Abraham heard God’s call to move. Imagine it. He was seventy-five. Sarah was perhaps ten years younger. Although they had no children, they must have had many servants, animals, tents, cookware, clothing, and other possessions. They had lived all their lives in one place, among family and friends. They had welcomed their nieces and nephews, their great nieces and great nephews. They had walked their flocks and herds over the same hills and valleys for decades. They were respected elders in their clan. Now they were called to gather the flocks and herds, pack up all their goods, say their good-byes, and literally walk away. They faced a perilous journey. Would they survive the desert heat, the wild animals, and the bandits? Would they find sufficient food and water? And where was “the land that I will show you?” And all this on the strength of an absurd promise: “I will make of you a great nation.” Can’t you just imagine Abraham answering God, “You haven’t even given me kids. You’re going to make me a ‘great nation?’”
But, amazingly, they went. What a lot of courage, moxie, and faith, that journey must have taken. At each place along the way they stopped and recognized God’s presence with them. Did they eventually come to see that God was with them everywhere? On this arduous journey, did their trust in God deepen? Did the physical move from Ur to Canaan also turn out to be a spiritual journey? We’ll never know. We do know, though, that they continued to wander for some years, that they received God’s promise a second time, that Abraham argued with God, that they entertained angels unawares, that Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac, and that Abraham was even willing to sacrifice Isaac at God’s call. Ultimately, their story is too far back in time for us to know much more. Even so, God fulfilled God’s promises. Abraham did become a great nation, and he has become a paradigm of faith for three of the world’s major religious traditions.
Nicodemus was also on a journey, a journey that was more spiritual than physical. Imagine, if you will, what this visit to Jesus must have been like for Nicodemus, what courage it must have taken him to venture out. He was a respected elder of the Pharisees, a community that deeply revered the covenant that God had made with the Jews at Sinai and that tried diligently to live according to their understanding of the Law of Moses. No wonder Nicodemus came by night. He would have had much to lose if he had been seen by his fellows. Did he have to psych himself up for it? What excuse did he give his family for venturing out so late?
Even though he was a leader of his community, Nicodemus treated Jesus with great respect. Jesus was not of the priestly or scholarly clans, and had not been formally ordained, yet Nicodemus addressed him as “Rabbi.” He even acknowledged that Jesus had given signs that he had “come from God.” Nicodemus was clearly a spiritual seeker. And he wanted to know concretely who Jesus was and what God was up to.
Did Nicodemus get a straight answer to his query? Almost like a Zen master, Jesus challenged the realist Nicodemus, answering him in what surely sounded – and still sound – like riddles. Jesus invited Nicodemus to begin a journey of reflection and spiritual transformation. As the image of physical birth suggests, it would be a painful and arduous journey. It would be a journey as risky spiritually as Abraham’s journey was physically, and with an equally unknown destination. It would be a journey that would move Nicodemus beyond the certainties of the law toward recognition of God’s love for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.
Did Nicodemus get it? It’s hard to tell from the gospel account, since the evangelist moves the camera away from Nicodemus and instead has Jesus launch into a lengthy speech. However, Nicodemus comes into the story twice more, when he later defends Jesus before the Sanhedrin, and then after Jesus’ death when he provides spices for Jesus’ burial. Some think that he then became a respected leader of the fledgling Christian community. Whether or not he did, with his courage in approaching Jesus, his questions, his confusion, and his honest seeking, Nicodemus too has become a paradigm of the spiritual life, especially of the transformation that an encounter with Jesus can provoke.
Wally Underwood was also on a journey, though he didn’t know it at first. As Fr. Lenny Stephens was enjoying a rare quiet evening at home, Wally’s eldest daughter Val knocked on Lenny’s door. After introducing herself, she announced to an astonished Lenny, “The baby, Father, the baby … the baby needs doin.’ Mum said I should get it sorted. So, here I am, wi’ the baby, to see when she can be done.” Finding his voice, Lenny got the baby’s name, Madonna Cheryl, asked when she’d been born, and got other needed details. Then he asked about Madonna’s father. “No idea,” was the unembarrassed reply. ‘Whoever he is’ll do nothin’ anyway. So no point in tryin’ to find out. Baby’ll just be part o’ the family, so ma mum says.” “Who can come with you to church and stand with you,” Lenny asked, “if there’s no father for the baby?” “Oh, that’s no bother,” Val replied. “Ah’ll tell ma dad to come.”
And so Madonna’s grandfather Wally Underwood showed up at church the following Sunday. He was a sight quite unlike anyone Lenny had seen before: rumpled suit, three-days growth on his face, hair only partly plastered down, and horn-rimmed glasses repaired with the proverbial Band-Aid. On subsequent Sundays, he fell asleep during the sermons, though he did wake up for the offering. He stood up and sat down at the wrong time, until he learned the system from the gracious folks who were always ready to help him. At the appropriate time Wally stood proudly beside his daughter on the day Madonna Cheryl Underwood was finally “done,” as the family had wished.
Val Underwood never came back to the church. But Wally did, even when he didn’t have to. He was still unshaven, and his suit was still rumpled. He began to stay awake for the sermons, and he joined a parish men’s group. He came to the annual parish retreat – in his rumpled suit. He became part of the church family.
Fr. Lenny was enjoying another rare quiet evening at home, when there came a knock on his door. It was Wally. “Wally,” Lenny asked, “what brings you here? Everything all right?” “Sure, everythin’s sorted, Father. It’s just that I needed to ask you something.” “Ask away,” Lenny replied. “Well, it’s like this,” Wally continued, “I heard you say in church on Sunday that there was to be a Confirmation Class soon, and I wondered if it would be OK to come along.”
We are on a journey. Like the characters in all our stories, we are on physical and spiritual journeys. All of us are experiencing the physical changes wrought by time on our bodies. Many of us have moved physically, to new places, new jobs, new relationships, and new church communities. We understand the fear and courage such moves entail. As we make these changes, like Abraham we too discover that God is part of the transformations occurring in our lives. Many of us are also like Nicodemus. We wrestle with things of the Spirit. We wish for more clarity than we have, more certainty that we are in the right place spiritually. We know how difficult spiritual growth and transformation are. And some of us are like Wally. One day the Spirit reaches out to us and begins pulling us along to a perhaps unexpected place. And finally we find ourselves asking, perhaps timidly, “Would it be OK if I came along too?”
We can count on this: God will continue to lead us. Ultimately we can trust that God’s love is greater than anything we can imagine, and with Jesus as our travelling companion we will reach our final destination in God.
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