Easter Sunday: Glory

Lessons: Psalms 148-150; Exodus 12:1-14, John 1:1-18

Eucharist: John 20:1-18

 

We often think of Easter as a time when Glory reigns. The earth is awakening in spring, the Passover time of the Old Testament. Children's clothing colors in the South at least head to pastel.

Christ has of course risen in our liturgical life and hopefully in our hearts and minds. "Alleluia Christ is Risen!" "He is risen indeed, Alleluia!" Thus we greet one another in Church.
 

Of course Easter is at its heart about God's economy. At the base of that economy is the notion that we owe God but one thing: to worship and praise God who has created all things to reflect the divine glory and then to celebrate this glory by living kindly toward one another and in accordance to God's purposes. This later part being the beautiful challenge of every life. Not all believe this but it is the heart of the Judeo-Christian revelation as we find it in scripture.
 

When I got to the Gospel in Morning Prayer, I was surprised that it was not a resurrection gospel but the first Gospel of John. Why would I be surprised after so many years of Daily Office? Why the Incarnation on Easter? Then it struck.

"and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. John 1:14, 17-18.
 

And this is what I realized, always knew but had not pulled together with Easter. This Divine glory showed up in the incarnation, the desire to unite fully with our flesh, but the full revelation is only before us when the Christ, when Jesus, is willing to die to draw us from sin. And we can only get past the notion of a good man dying sadly when we are surprised by a new form of Divine/ human life, full existence and that is Resurrection.
 

Like most of us, I love Jesus. I love how he is with people, how he heals and listens and notices small unimportant folk. I love the language of love and sacrifice for those you love. I am challenged by the work of forgiveness and I know my wholeness is bound up in forgiving and being forgiven.
 

But glory...glory is being your fullness. Glory is stepping past your narrowness into the wonder of you or the wonder of God. Someone has said, "The Glory of God is a person fully alive." Assuming this is true, then that glory is Jesus resurrected and shot through with hope and inviting us each to join in this hopeful way of life. I want that every day. I need it many days. 
 

So maybe John 1 is a resurrection Gospel. "And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."
 

A blessed Easter. Now off to worship the One who is both greater than me, and makes me, me and you, you.

Holy Saturday: Sabbath

 

Lessons: Psalm 88; Job 19:12-27a; Hebrews 4:1-16

"And God rested on the seventh day from all his works."

So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God's rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs (our Hebrew ancestors.) Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:4,9-12.

Sabbath is always time out of time, no matter who keeps it. Only once have I entered a culture of Sabbath. I was staying in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem and when dusk hit all went silent. Except for we non-Jews who were moving about, all was in stillness until dusk the following day. Such stillness and quiet we seldom give ourselves to experience. Some give themselves times of retreat. Even when we do, our minds draw us apart from God's stillness.

Holy Saturday is Sabbath. According to our scriptures, this seems the day of empty or worrisome waiting. The women perhaps calculating in their minds spices for the morrow. We know nothing of the disciples. Except we know that as people of Jewish faith there were rituals of prayer and study and quietly waiting, prepared meals to allow for stillness. This was the day when: "the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." This one activity is the heart of Sabbath.

The guards also might have been in stillness by a sealed tomb with no Jews about.

Did whatever is involved in resurrection begin as the tomb sealed? Did it too rest until after sundown? We have assumed the latter from Biblical text.

And what of God who rests on the Sabbath? Did God rest this Sabbath knowing all had gone predictably with humankind. The best God had to offer in the presence of the Divine self in Jesus had come against the walls of evil in the twists of human will. Evil, the subtle or blatant rejection of subtle to massive Good, had played its hand and all now seems lost. Did God rest in these Sabbath hours knowing a creation was about to be reborn? It would be known by any who trip on resurrection and discover life tomorrow and onward. For now did God rest and be?

 

Did Christ enter the world of the dead to offer life just now, or did he wait until the sun set somewhere and Sabbath ended? 

If so, what then should we do...be?

When I was in the parish, this was a morning of focused and mildly flurried activity in preparation for the Vigil and Easter Sunday. One would not call it Sabbath, except that there was a focus beyond self. There was an offering to God of the many gifts we held together to make a feast. And there always was a moment at least for me when we would stand almost done and look at how beautiful the worship space had become. It was like a group breath, breathing in Sabbath, a gift offered and accepted. There were little bits of perfection woven into our imperfect world and lives and it was enough for now. Later the Sexton and I would stand there together, alone, and breathe in the silence. Sabbath.

Perhaps of all days, a little Sabbath should be held to on this day. Perhaps a gentle waiting in the heart, for God to be still in us.  Here, we and God together might note what is being brought to life just now.

Good Friday: Silent Crow

Lessons: Psalm 22; Wisdom 1:16-2:1,12-22; 1 Peter 1:1-10; John 13:36-38

It is Good Friday and I sit silent. After so many years of composing this day, I can be silent. 

I am like the crow that will not call out on Peter's denial even once. Why? Because in Peter's denial is the foreshadowing of mine already tasted.

Wrapped in Jesus sense of being forsaken, is my sense of being reclaimed on those days when the cock has crowed in my life and I did not choose to hear his voice.

So today I choose silence. I hear the surf beyond my door, the few cars driving by.

I choose silence before the mystery of so great a love as to die in my forever death that I may never know it.

In the silence I feel Peter's tear. Is it of shame or of joy? ...Both mingle here.

It belongs to us all.

A bird chirps beyond my door unaware of care.

I am grateful to know the value of silence, memory, tear and Grace.

Maundy Thursday: Meal and washing

Lessons: Psalm 102, Jeremiah 20:7-11, 1st Corinthians 10:14-17, 11:27-32; John 17:1-26

Eucharist: John 13:1-17, 31b-35 

Bill had been a postman during his working years and when I met him he was principally a volunteer at the Church showing up weekly to help with newsletters or bulletins or just being present to small tasks. His wife had died in the time before I arrived. I was only in my thirties and this was my first rectorship. So often I would say, "Bill would you mind..." with some small task at the end. He would always oblige with a ready smile.

When Maundy Thursday rolled around and I asked for volunteers who were humble enough to let me wash their feet, Bill signed up. This action in the liturgy is a moment when the clergy traditionally have acted in humble regard for their parishioners. Gently it reminds one that he/she is a servant of the people. Jesus puts all Christians in this relationship to each other in John 13.

"Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. John 13:12-15.

When I reached Bill in the ceremony I was greeted with very well worn feet, calluses on calluses from decades of walking. I washed them with attention thinking about how essential these feet had been for Bill and all who depend on the mail over decades. When I looked up to thank him, he was in tears. This tall rugged man was in tears and I felt I was invited more deeply into his heart. I wondered what it meant to him to be touched this way. I did not ask. It seemed too intimate and private even in this open church ceremony.

That is what Maundy Thursday is to me. It is an intimate day in the life of the Church when we receive two gifts. The Passover meal in the upper room which becomes the Eucharist is given us with new meaning: "This is my Body...This is my Blood." Many of us come to this meal for strength, comfort, focus in a weekly rhythm.

Secondly we are reminded that our identity is wrapped up in service. We each get to determine our particular call or seek the church's guidance, but we are united by one quality. What ever we give ourselves to should humble us as much as it gives us value.

In The High Priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 we hear these words:

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. John 17:22-23.

The signs we are given in life by Jesus are at least these two. Share often a sacred meal where Jesus is to be found and can commingle with you. Look at your life as a place of service rendered where God's care can reach out through you. This is where you will find God as an intimate and also make God thus known.

Wednesday in Holy Week: Quiet

Lessons: Psalm 55; Jeremiah 17:5-10, 14-17: Philippines 4:1-13; John 12:27-36

Eucharist: John 13:21-32

"Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say-'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." John 12:27-28

Holy Wednesday is the quiet before the storm. I think of it as a day to get final things in order in the parish. Some parishes worship by Tenebrae this evening as a preparation for Maundy Thursday. The service originally designed for Good Friday, is quiet, reflective, slightly downcast, with the slow extinguishing of candle. It ends in darkness with a loud crash. The emotions of betrayal hang in the air, Good Friday looms ahead. As Jesus is troubled in his final hours, so are we. And yet we know that through Christ's suffering we and he find glorification. All past time stands forgiven even as the actions of human betrayal bring the days to come. The gospel for daily mass is the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. In John's Gospel is a clear message that there was no surprise in this betrayal, at least in Jesus' mind.

So what do we do with this day? It is a day to find quiet somewhere, to reflect on all that Christ means to us. I would suggest it is not a day do flail ourselves but to look for how our better self is fed by Christ. Yes, that may also invite us to look at our opposite side. Let Philippines be your guide.

"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippines 4:8-9

Find quiet this day.

Tuesday in Holy Week: The Word

Lessons: Psalm 6, 12, Jeremiah 15:10-21; Philippines 3:15-21; John 12:20-26
Eucharist: John 12:20-36

One of the joys of my childhood was going on my own to stay with my maternal Grandmother for an extended period each summer. Being one of four children, this was my time to be singular. Every visit, I was the main focus of her energy and care. We loved lamb chops and dinner rolls from the Piggly Wiggly. I would be taken on road trips as she did marketing surveys of various chain stores in rural NC. Who knew that so many towns built their County Court House in the middle of a round-about?

When I first arrived, there would be a Bible pointed out by my bedside. "Read some of this each night before you go to sleep." I knew Genesis and a bit of Matthew almost by heart before I finished High School. It never dawned on me to begin anywhere else. Having spent many of my years in a daily mass parish, I now look back and realize this Bible reading is the Baptist form of daily mass. The difference was you do the Bible reading alone with no comment on what you read.

I would be well into college when a priest suggested a way to pray was to read a psalm, a bit of Mark, and sit in silence as a way to let prayer grow deeper. "If nothing comes into the silence, fine. Return each day and eventually something will come. Wait patiently for that day and do not judge yourself." How did he know I was a master at self-judgement?

Today in Holy Week we are invited to think on the Word of God and its activity in us. Scripture is marked by a sense that the Word of God means to enter us, shape us, create some sense of God's way within.

"Because the needy are oppressed and the poor cry out in misery, I will rise up," says the Lord, "and give them the help they long for."
The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined from ore and purified seven times in the fire. Psalm 12:5-6.

The psalmist has been meditating on those who overlook God and God's ways and how they effect others. I noticed in the psalm that you cannot understand the quality of the effect of listening for God as an isolated activity. In Psalm 12 the verse before the comment on the value of God's Word, must be seen in relationship to the verse before. There is some value in living justly in God that brings about our purification. And it is this continuing effort to live justly that brings us to a purer life, a life continually open to insight and growth.

Jeremiah, the reluctant prophet, speaks of how the Word penetrated him, that he digested the Word and this effected his outlook, his heart/mind.
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16.

In this Holy Week we are invited to recall the breadth of God's care. We are invited to notice that there is a broad hunger to know God's intent for our lives. Before the advent of St. Paul, the gentile world was hungering for a deeper relationship to God than secular philosophy. The Greeks were often well schooled in philosophy. We are invited to notice the gift of God's word in human flesh, in Jesus. This embodiment of the Word lived in public view has much power to aid in deep living. They, we, are invited into this depth.

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip...and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."
And Jesus says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me..." John 12:20-12, 24-25.

It would take me years, and still it takes me time, to notice this dying away is the illusion of myself. It is not the deepest me but the coverings that shade my eyes from truth. Sometimes it is my pride that must die a bit; sometimes it is my shame, an ancient friend of childhood; sometimes it is a bias I have carried too long. The point becomes more clear as Jesus goes on.

"Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light."
John 12:20-12, 35-36.

In my Grandmother's house, as the day became night, I would lift the Bible and dutifully read God's Word. Little did I know how it invited me into a Light that shines through time and alters me slowly. Little did I know there was a voice of a Greek in me wanting to see Jesus.

Monday in Holy Week: Time inside time

Lessons: Psalm 51; Jeremiah 12:1-16; Philippines 3:1-14; John 12:9-19

Eucharist: John 12:1-11

I keep thinking about time and liturgical time this morning. The oceanfront cottages are filling up since it is school break, but the weather is brisk. I wonder if those coming in were hoping for the usual spring. Evidently it is not going to happen. For them is it time off or time missed? Yet I imagine if they are from the colder north, even this is a break, a good shift in climate and time.
 

For many this is also Holy Week which is always time out of time. I have felt that most of my life, especially in the more protestant South. Easter bunnies decorated yesterday's restaurant and I had just come from the Passion of St. Luke's Gospel. Easter egg hunts are already afoot, and we are just entering the time when we begin to hasten our way toward the whole of the Passion. One needs the cross if Easter is to have its full depth. Otherwise all we get is a pastel wardrobe change, little boys in bow ties, little girls in gloves and hats, and candy eggs.

We went to a local high school performance of Seussical the Musical on Friday. The lead, Brady, the Cat in the Hat, was superb, alive, funny, and kept tenderly touching the heads of the small cast members. I liked how he inhabited his character. Only later did I find out this high school senior, Methodist youth group member, has just finished five months of treatments for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I cannot help but like him more. I wonder if those gentle touches meant more to him than I knew and if Good Friday and Easter will hold together in greater depth this year. He has tasted them both. Does he know it and in what way?

What does this have to do with Liturgical time, time out of time? Well it has a lot of overlap. In the readings of the week we will touch on last moments, Jesus' final days. In the Eucharistic reading which plays in my bones even as I am saying Morning Prayer, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus' feet and washes them with costly nard and tears, a foreshadowing of death. Here, a moment of expensive devotion, tears mingled in Nard. Judas is lost in usual time and wonders if it might not have been better to sell the Nard, restore the treasury. Time collides.

In the gospel at Morning Prayer treachery is afoot. Crowds are gathering on account of Jesus miracle of raising Lazarus, John's quick nod to Palm Sunday occurs, the disciples don't understand what is afoot.
The Pharisees then said to one another, "You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!" 
 

For John earthly time is interrupted by a cosmic shifting. Humankind's ability to do all as usual is not possible. The usual powers that we blindly give over to, the rhythms we do not alter, are weakening and they know it.
"You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!"
They will keep to their plot to secure worldly place, but will lose a larger battle. This bizarre way of loosening the grip of human sin will play out fully. The powers that be, we if we are not careful, have no idea that God is shaking time, activities, hopes, promise of eternal time.

So we are invited to walk the dusky edge of time and liturgical time. Maybe we are busy with eggs, bonnets, bow ties. Yet aren't we also busy with Brady, the Brady in us, coming through life's deeper side, learning to hope more deeply, healing from some piece of our journey?

"You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!"

Palm Sunday

Lessons: Psalms 24, 29; Zechariah 9:9-12; Timothy 6:12-16; Matthew 21:12-17

Of late I have been visited by memory. Actually it has been with me for a long time, but of late I have quietly paid attention. Perhaps this memory is at play because I have observed in the young the deep desire to find a love worthy of a lifetime. Many of us desire this comfort and challenge. About a year ago I had the privilege of watching a mature couple come to be. I will long remember the intended bride saying to me something like, "Who knew after so many years this love would come to me?" It was a treasured surprise and one tended.

But the memory which has come to me is the reality that I have had four significant intimate loves in my life. I am not sure how to categorize them except to say in each case I was willing to pledge myself to each of them. Two actually came to "marriage," a willing life commitment on both our parts. One of those ended this description of who we are to each other. Two did not come to this commitment. Yet all remain a part of me. I suppose this journey in love is not so different from others. What I wonder about is the fact that I still carry all four within me. I hold them all differently, but from time to time each reappears to be valued, touched, wondered about. Very often I feel passive when they come to visit with the exception of my now marriage. Sometimes I wonder about what might have been. Yet no longer am I nostalgic, as if any one would be better than the other. They just are each a part of me and each taught me lessons worthy of a life time. Each has asked me to forgive something. Each I am sure has forgiven me something. I do not think I am unusual in this reflection except perhaps in my willingness to both forgive and accept distant forgiveness, to assume it to be.

What does any of this have to do with Palm Sunday? Palm Sunday is a conflated day. There is the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, this celebration of something wondrous about to be fulfilled, the possible Messiah of prophetic hope appearing on the spiritual landscape of a hopeful people, Israel. We are adopted into this hope. And then the shift to the reading of the passion narrative of this same person's betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, and crucifixion. There is some note of burial affirming death. Without this piece Easter and Resurrection lose meaning. If this is not enough conflation, the Morning Prayer lesson is that of the purging and cleansing of the Temple, an event that occurs between to other lessons.

And here is what occurs to me this year. There is a movement from active to passive in these lessons. In some sense Jesus sets himself up for the entry. He indicates where the Donkey is to be found and off they go. In the Temple he does a cleansing that is more than an angry outburst. It is a prophetic action asking all to recall the purity of intent worship, a house of focused prayer for all people.

Then it is a yielding. Jesus is "handed over" in the garden by Judas, by God. His speech is more measured, less instructive, sparing. He justifies little. He is yielding. Henri Nouwen suggests that this is the heart of the Passion. Jesus goes from prime actor to recipient of others' actions. In here is a choice to follow as a disciple or turn away in the crowd of life. God also is active. When Jesus gets to "it is finished" more than a human drama has taken place. Jesus has allowed much to be done to him after his long years of doing and teaching. Men have done things to Jesus and under it God has done things to Jesus. Some drama of eternal forgiveness has been playing its hand.

And we are for now not active. We are the passive participants of forgiveness like some deeply loving relationship filled with hope, one that might not have been so successful from our view of control and hope.

To me it is like aging and knowing what might have been if only I was more attuned, or perhaps another was more attuned. I am asked now to forgive the things I missed or did. I am asked to accept forgiveness from another, from the heart of the Universe, from God. I am asked to assume it to be. I am passive except in my willingness to yield and to treasure the gift.  From here I now live.  We all do.

Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent: Unbinding

 

Lessons: Psalm 137,144; Jeremiah 31:27-34; Romans 11:25-36; John 11:28-44

What is the shortest verse of the Bible? That was the earliest trick question about scripture I remember. The answer: "Jesus wept. John 11:35." It seemed such an odd verse to memorize but also so human, so like us, "Jesus wept."

As a child you knew this energy, that of "Jesus wept." You did this after a fight with your brothers, after a scolding which seemed harsh, when you were angry that no one heard your answers to authority, after a dog bit and flesh is torn. So when you had to memorize this brief verse, it was as if you were memorizing that Jesus was like you, human. So powerful was he and yet so deeply moved by this death he might have prevented. I do not think though that this seemed a death he could have prevented when I was a child. It was more like "Jesus wept." and then everybody was saying, "Its all your fault." Yea, I knew that one too.

So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. John 11:36-37

It is one thing to feel, to hurt. It is another to be blamed for everybody's hurt. Kids know this one too. You did not mean for it all to go wrong, it just did. Now you get to carry everybody's stuff, their anger and blame and feel the pointing of the finger.

But Jesus is no kid. When they all get to the tomb with all their blaming, Jesus asked for the stone to be rolled back, opened. Sounds like Easter. Then house cleaning Martha says, "There will be such an odor after four day's rot."

Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

Ok, so Jesus is no kid here. If I opened it, it would stink and smell of festering whatever.

Not here. He can turn rot into glory, that is a good trick. Not me.

So he says a little prayer like, "Thank you God for hearing me, now use me to your glory and purpose." "Lazarus, Come out!" "Unbind him and let him go!"

I like that picture: the mummified Lazarus, alive, needing help to be unbound. The people needing to take an active role to let him be himself again. Jesus did his part, now you do yours. I wonder what it was like for him, sitting in the grave and someone else must set you free, take off the bands that hold you tight.  Will they?

And it makes me remember there are buried things in me. Some are good things, places where I have been touched, grown, treasured and I treasure them back. They make me smile with comfort or pause with reminiscence.

Then there are other things, hurts, grievances, resentments. old memories I may have over treasured in a festering way. They stink I guess. I've watched myself take them out and freshen the scar in a moment of memory. This is not such a good thing. Maybe this is a "Jesus wept" moment. At least I think that is what they told me.

Lent is drawing to a close. Holy Week begins tomorrow. Maybe I will do well not just to think that Jesus would weep over the resentments I have buried but would like to allow me to unbury them. But not just so I can pick at them, but forgive them more. As if Jesus is saying, "Come out." "Unbind him and let him go!" It would be good to be free of more ancient stuff I have stored away.

Maybe the shortest verse in the Bible is not so short because it only makes sense when it is connected to a whole story of Jesus loving his friend Lazarus (or Carr or you). And what he really wants to say is, "Come out." "Unbind him and let him go!"

Friday in the Fifth Week in Lent: Chiseled in Stone

 

Lessons: Psalm 22; Jeremiah 29:1, 4-13; Romans 11:13-24; John 11:1-27

I had heard that Michelangelo approached a stone of marble with a feeling for it. It was to him as if there was a statue or relief waiting to be set free. His task was to assist its emergence.

This winter when we visited Florence, I was determined to see the David which I had missed seeing thirty years before.  The David was freed from an old abandoned piece of marble, one with a defect, which other artists had discarded.  It had been abandoned for decades and Michelangelo took it up as a personal challenge.

David is housed in the Accademia, in a beautiful setting now out of the elements.

As breathtaking as the David is, what held my attention was the approach. Lining the .corridor that leads into Michelangelo’s David are the four, incredible, Unfinished Slaves. Pope Julius commissioned thirty such figures as part of his tomb in 1505.  Julius soon died, and the huge project was diminished several times over many years. The plans stopped and started. Michelangelo worked on the project intermittently, and produced only six figures, four here and two in the Louvre in Paris.

It was the Awakening Slave that most held my attention.  Here is an unfinished slave, massive in muscle structure, straining to be set free from the marble.  The chisel marks are rough and invite one to imagine Michelangelo at work.  I did not know whether to be disappointed it was unfinished until we got to the last, the Bearded Slave.  Much closer to completion, it is less impressive for being more complete.  It was not that Michelangelo’s work lost ground, it lost mystery. I felt I had been given a tutorial in the artist’s work and imagination.  I so wanted to touch the forbidden work.

The raising of Lazarus from John’s gospel is not a metaphor but just the same I see one within it.  Here is John’s intimate story of hope and friendship.  But what forever puzzles is Jesus' choice to remain two days where he is.  And John means for it to puzzle us. Why if you love someone do you not just jump to and fix the situation?

By the time Jesus shows up, four days later, Lazarus is well dead. Mary hearing of Jesus' arrival, races to meet him and laments, "If only you had been here my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha said to him, "I know he will rise in the resurrection at the last day."
Here she shows herself to be a faithful and studied Jew influenced by the pharisaic party.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 

She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."

Here for me is the metaphor. We are all like a precious piece of marble designed to hold a work of beauty as God sees beauty. It is our original beauty designed into each of us at the beginning of created time. For us, Jesus is the artisan. His chisel is offered to those who choose to trust and yield to his teaching and being. His process is patient and slow, not to force a shape but reveal a shape.  The chisel is willing to slowly free us of our casing.  Martha and Lazarus both have known this and have allowed this intimate relationship to help them grow and become.  From time to time the chisel hits hard, “Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things.”  And sometimes gently, “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be denied her.”

Most oddly it is in Lazarus’ death, Martha’s grief, Mary’s attentiveness that the greatest realization will come. In a few verses Lazarus will rise and create a foretaste of Jesus own resurrection.  For the author of John, this story readies us for the message of Jesus' trial, death and resurrection.  Perhaps it readies us for our own.

But here is what I learned as I approached the David.  While I may want to be this thing of extraordinary beauty in my eyes and those of God, there is much beauty in the Unfinished Slaves. In the rough chisel marks is so much imagination about what might be.  Our rough unfinished selves perhaps tell more of a story than our full arrival. Knowing what we have been chiseled from, tells others far more than some polished end product. 

I am not yet that end product. Few, if any are.  Perhaps I will treasure my chisel marks…and yours more often now.

Thursday in the Fifth Week of Lent: Signs

Lessons: Psalm 131-133; Jeremiah 26:1-16; Romans 11:1-12; John 10:19-42

Today I find myself thinking about signs and how sometimes we just want one  You are driving down the highway having switched from one roadway to another and suddenly you think; “The speed limit was just 70 miles per hour.  Is it the same here?” You wait and wait for the sign knowing a ticket might be close at hand.  Perhaps that says too much about my driving.  Or you are facing a decision in life, small or large and you want assurance you are on the right course.  A sign of affirmation or a u-turn sign would serve you well, or so you think.  The more I am in unfamiliar turf, the stronger I sense this.  Forever I feel this way about the stock market and my little investments.  I hate researching this area but I want affirmation I am investing wisely.

Those are to me the small places of life.  There are bigger ones that are connected to the deep loyalties of our lives.  Looking for meaningful work is one.  Is this a right fit?  I have watched a friend settle into a long term position and throughout the first several years all the signs seemed to indicate this might have been a wrong fit.  Should he stay or move on? What does that seem to say about suitability to his work, his profession, and all that lead him to the decision in the first place?  Was he misguided when he said yes to this position?  How can this place become a better fit?  Does he need to shift something in his perspective and expectations?  All this is tough questioning for a good person.  The good news is it has settled out into a fit, but not without real effort and shift. 

Sometimes signs are not crisp like a speed limit.  Most of us negotiate with how we will interpret a speed limit.  Must I obey or how many miles over it can I safely drive?  We know that is open to interpretation.

I love the Gospel of John because it is filled with sign and symbol.  The first three Gospels are more linear and largely event connected.  John adds a layer that is more a meditation on meaning.  Jesus talks longer and in the symbols of sacred seasons, light, dark, day, night, evil and good.  The law is always mediated by grace, God’s care. There is also the desire for a firm sign that Jesus is clearly the Christ, the Messiah. There is also utter resistance to this notion of Jesus as Christ by those in authority, except for a very few. 

In the background of today’s lesson are two stories, the healing of the man born blind and the teaching on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Both violate the desire for a clear linear picture.  Mud and spittle on the Sabbath does not seem right medicine.  Jesus assuming the title of Good Shepherd who can be heard and followed into deep safety seems too close an identity with God. 

So again the authorities ask;

"How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."

Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”

Jesus goes on to talk of how closely his works are outcroppings of divine care seen by any who follow him.  Yet those questioning him are clearly more tagged by the violation of their understanding of Sabbath keeping and by Jesus' understanding of his alignment with divine will.  These are wrong signs for them.

Jesus reduces his place simply to this: “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."

And herein lies the pinch. We moderns are not unlike these ancients.  We like things clear and proven.  We do not want to hang our decisions on “might be’s” but on clarity. Yet all we get is this compassionate outcropping of God we call Jesus as a sign for how to live.

Will we shape our moral, economic, political selves on the charity we find in Jesus on the off chance he is the Son of God, the Good Shepherd, the wisdom that runs deeper than life?  Will we settle that the clearest sign we get is a call to live by kindness, be measured by humility, seek in every place how to love each other better?  Will we enjoy spending ourselves in concern for each other over against putting self as the highest priority?  Will we run counter to the self promotion the world asks of us many times?

When we look at our path and see we have somehow failed at following what we then discern as best, will we turn and begin again as best we can following a kinder and more charitable way, as a sign we accept correction and forgiveness?

Sometimes this is all the sign we get.

Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent: Sheep and shepherd

Lessons: Psalm 119:145-176; Jeremiah 25:30-38; Romans 10:14-21; John 10:1-18

The image of God as the Shepherd of Israel runs deep. In the gospel of John Jesus uses the image or metaphor of the “Good Shepherd” to both connect him to this godly care offered and to remind his hearers we live in a symbiotic relationship of interdependence with God.  Here he pictures humankind as sheep, some lost, some found.

Why would we use such an image for the relationship between God and ourselves?

Sheep live in community for safety and well-being, to breed and to feed, which is their main occupation. But they also live in relationship to a human, a shepherd who guides, provides and protect them daily.

This is also an ancient Biblical portrait of God with us, a shepherd who guides, provides and protects us daily. In a nomadic culture which lived often by herding it was a close and familiar relationship of interdependence.  The shepherd guided and cared for his flocks and the sheep held benefits for the shepherd, milk, and wool and trade and meet at times. In some deep way the sheep add purpose to the shepherd’s existence.

Over the doors of my seminary chapel is a bronze relief of Jesus the Good Shepherd kneeling down and helping a sheep out of a twist of brambles, thorns. He is strong and attentive. One can come and go out of those doors and seldom look up to the relief, but when you do you are reminded this Shepherd is attentive to any lost in the brambles, the twist and turns of life. 

I know what it is to be lost.  I think I had a pretty good family, not perfect but pretty good.

I always had someone between parents, grandparents, siblings who loved me, not perfectly but good enough.

 

Yet I knew what it was to be lost. I was not a very good athlete and that seemed all important at times. It was discovered I was dyslexic early on, but that did not erase the pain of struggling to read when other people came by it as easily as expected. I remember my fourth grade teacher just summing it up…”you’re stupid.”  Well maybe but that really didn’t help. I also remember my fifth grade teacher whose attention healed much. That did help.

And then there was this disquietude of feeling different. I couldn’t name it really…just not quite like my elder brother…different.  I remember being called awkward…well maybe.  But it was more like different in some unexpected way, some unnamed, unacceptable way that would only find its name as I became adult.  And there was a great deal of push back on my part.

 And so there were these places of feeling lost…wondering what found was like, fitting in was like.

The ways of feeling lost are many.  These are but mine and I wonder what are yours, what are your moments of feeling lost.

Oddly this “being lost” birthed in me empathy.  I was not ambiguous when I saw someone’s hurt.  I got it. I felt connected.  I could vicariously experience another’s feelings in ways some folk missed mine.  This is an odd gift in a child but none the less present.  “He is an oversensitive child.”  Well maybe or maybe not. Maybe just clued in.

When I would see Jesus over that chapel door forever patiently dislodging that sheep, I saw here empathy acted on, there as he holds back the sheep from bolting and further lodging the brambles. Jesus somehow knows what it is to be hemmed in by that which holds back our free movement.

Yes those were the brambles of my life he was working on. He still is and that picture hangs in my study just to remind me.  So easily we get lodged in the brambles of life, self-centeredness, insufficiency, ancient hurts tapped and made new. 

Above the altar in the seminary chapel is a statue of that same shepherd with a young sheep in the crook of his arm, now safe and secure. That was me too, now safe for a moment.  Sometimes I was the lamb, and sometimes I felt called to be the arms of Jesus, protective, aware, wrapped in care. I pondered those images weekly, even daily for three plus years.

Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

Here is a life lesson…there is a journey into the care of God.  It begins with trust in an hour of need.  It may come early or late in life.  It ends in the knowledge of the One who is our safe haven, but more, the One who seeks us to secure us in life, yield us useful.

This care does not depend on whether we notice it or not.  It is a divine given.

But if we do notice it and notice it deep we become it. Why.  Because it is how we make him known and allow our hands to tackle not just our brambles but those of another.  Odd how this Shepherd chooses to work in us.

Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Lent: The Feast of St Joseph

The Feast of St Joseph

Lessons: Psalm 132; 2 Samuel 7:4,8-16; Luke 2:41-52

I think about how we need the freshness of faith.  How we need those new or young believers whose wonder and questions prompt us to look beneath our taken for granted belief. Whether it is David being reminded he was taken as a shepherd to king because in his youthful faith he was so pure; or whether it is Jesus at twelve after his bar mitzvah, there is the gift of youth challenging age.  Usually it is not a challenge of authority but a wonder at possibility.

David slays Goliath not because of his superior strength but because he believes God will protect.  And that protection is in the humor of a small stone, an artful arm, over against arrogance and mere human perspective.

I suspect when Jesus was finally found by his parents in the Temple among the elders he was having a childishly wonderful time asking those questions that make age think.  Questions that come from a not yet compromised and jaded faith.  Questions carried by a faith that emanates from a natural trust in God.  The how does this happen and the why don’t people believe or why they believe as they do.  They come from our wonder still open to possibility.

I suspect we all have a story when we gave way to wonder.  Those youthful touchstones when mystery over-reached reason and we were oddly open to God.  Mine is at eighteen, newly returned to the church after my family had departed when I was 13 or so.  Sheepishly but hopefully I presented myself at the altar in Holy Trinity Episcopal Church to receive communion.  My friends had told me that because I was not yet confirmed in this church I should not.  But in their absence I took my Presbyterian confirmed self to the altar rail.  As the sacrament was placed in my hands and the words spoken, “This is my body given for you, take, eat this in remembrance of me,” a shot of electric current ran down my spine.  Waiting for the cup stabilized me.  I was home at last it seemed and loved beyond my memory…”for you.”  It took me some time to share what had happened and when I finally could, the priest listened and thanked me for sharing with him this moment.  I was relieved not to be called crazy, but be held in respect.

I wonder if that was one of those desired for moments when the freshness of faith feeds the aging of faith.  One of those moments when youth touches age and ancient hope is born deep and again.

I think the thing I most love about church are those moments when someone’s freshness of belief disturbs my steadiness and I hope again, maybe a little jaded but still anew.  When has that most powerfully or gently happened for you?

Monday in the Fifth week of Lent: Sight

Lessons: Psalm 31; Jeremiah 24; Romans 9:19-33; John 9:1-17 

We spend too little time entering into other people’s stories and we then miss the message of God.  It would take me years to experience how rich is this creation with varieties of yearning for life, decades of allowing the coverings of my eyes to fall away.  Urban life was my best tutor, but urban life lived in Christ.

The icon that comes to mind this day is Raul, sitting in the back pew of the church, larger than his years, gone before I got to know him, Sunday by Sunday. Until the Sunday we spoke and the next, slowly we know each other.  Not 23 but 16, I am surprised. He is sent looking for God who was larger than in the Church of his “youth.”

Even this was the Church he found on his own seeking to meet the God he knew to be and found under sacrament and senses and care.

He would teach me much, what it is to be young again and look older, what it is to be vulnerable, to appear to belong and be without legal papers. I would learn again the fierce love of a mother who risked much to bring self and two children to America to save their lives and begin again.  Only Lady Liberty’s torch was not so bright.  To begin again is no longer our national welcome. I learned what it is to live in domestic shadows hoping for the in break of light.  I would be useful to God in connecting some resources, and then slowly life took the fuller shape of green card to citizenship.

But none of this matched the wonder of watching faith be and grow and become.  Not just in Raul but in me, there was this tender green shoot of faith.

And so when I read of Jesus and the man blind from birth and the ridiculous but taught question; “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  I am relieved at Jesus retort, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

 And then with clay and spittle, the common  things of life and touch which reaches to the depth of God, Jesus ‘anoints’ the blind man’s eyes and he sees once he washes in the pool of Silo’am. Does he stumble in darkness as he goes to the pool or does someone take his hand and lead him?  Has he navigated so long by blindness that this he can do alone?  We are not told but he returns seeing.

Jesus disappears for a while it seems.  People who know the man puzzle at the grace of miracle and its Sabbath timing and its outside-the-law-ness. Can anything outside the law be of God who orders all things correctly?  We know the answer.  Too often the law has the human twist of no concern, or partial concern where the right order overshadows the right care.

But when all is spoken there remains the question of Jesus who has slipped away.

Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided.  So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

I do not know why God put Raul in my life or my life in Raul’s way.  I only know that on a Christian Sabbath, there he was and on the days and months to follow, we would both be granted sight.  He alone can speak for what he was granted to see.  I was granted the gift of youthful faith and hope and journey, a chance to be of some use to him and God.  I was granted an invitation into another’s life and journey and search for what makes whole.   But most of all, I saw the Christ pass between us and anoint my eyes as the taken for granted nature of citizenship was washed away from my eyes and care was given as sight once again.

Was either of us born blind? If so, whose fault?

Perhaps we are all just born “so God’s works might be revealed.”  Is this not sight. Is it not just kindness assumed and given as we yield to the divine kindness of Christ and mud and hope.

Maybe this poem says best what happens in God's time when we are willing just to yeild to the Christ who comes from every place and is found in story, sacrament and sign.

Christian’s Poem by Jorge De Lima

                        From Divine Imagination pg. 167

Because the blood of Christ

spurted upon my eyes

I see all things

and so profoundly that none may know.
Centuries past and yet to come
dismay me not, for I am born and shall be born again,
for I am one with all creatures,
with all beings, and with all things;
all of them I dissolve and take in again with my senses
and embrace with a mind
transfigured in Christ.
My reach is throughout space.
I am everywhere: I am in God and in matter;
I am older than time and yet was born yesterday,
I drip with primeval slime,
and at the same time I blow the last trumpet.
I understand all tongues, all acts, all signs,
I contain within me the blood of races utterly opposed.
I can dry, with a mere nod,
the weeping of all distant brothers.
I can spread over all heads one all-embracing starry sky.
I invite all beggars to dine with me,
and I walk on the waters like the prophets of the Bible.
For me there is no darkness.
I imbue the blind with light,
I can mutilate myself and grow my limbs anew like the starfish,
because I believe in the resurrection of the flesh and because I believe in Christ,
and in the life eternal.