Good Friday

Something strange is happening – a second century homily on Holy Saturday begins with this reflection, both vague and definite. It is unlike any other day because it lacks a precise meaning. After the funeral party has gone home and the dishes are cleared there is a large silence and a boundless emptiness. The old language of relationship has dissolved and the new one has yet to take shape.

In between two ways of knowing, we only know clearly that we don’t know. Through unknowing, as through a break in the clouds or a crack in a curtain, a kind of light not seen before promises to emerge. But it is not certain. Nothing is for sure any more.

In these times of living on the edge of two worlds we have only the light of faith, pure consciousness itself. Death is still being digested; the work of Resurrection has begun.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

Holy God who hovers daily round us in fidelity and compassion,

this day we are mindful of another, dread-filled hovering,

that of the power of death before which we stand

thin and needful.

All our days, we are mindful of the pieces of our lives

and the parts of your world

that are on the loose in destructive ways.

We notice that wildness midst our fear and our anger unresolved.

We mark it in a world of brutality and poverty and hunger

all around us.

We notice all our days.

Born on this day of all days,

that great threat looms so large and powerful.

It is not for nothing

that we tremble at these three hours of darkness

and the raging earthquake.

It is not for nothing

that we have a sense of our helplessness

before the dread power of death that has broken loose

and that struts against our interest and even against our will.

Our whole life is not unlike the playground in the village,

lovely and delightful and filled with squeals unafraid,

and then we remember the silencing

of all those squeals in death,

and we remember the legions 

that are swept away in a riddle too deep for knowing.

Our whole life is like that playground

and on this dread-filled Friday we pause before

the terrible silencing we cannot master.

So we come in our helpless candor this day...

remembering, giving thanks, celebrating...

but not for one instant unmindful of the dangers too ominous

and powers too sturdy and threats well beyond us.

We turn eventually from our hurt for children lost.

We turn finally from all of our unresolved losses

to the cosmic grief at the loss of Jesus.

We recall and relive that wrenching Friday

when the hurt cut to your heart.

We see in that terrible hurt, our losses

and your full embrace of loss and defeat.

We dare pray while the darkness descends

and the earthquake trembles,

we dare pray for eyes to see fully

and mouths to speak fully the power of death all around,

we dare pray for a capacity to notice unflinching

that in our happy playgrounds other children die,

and grow silent,

we pray more for your notice and your promise

and your healing.

Our only urging on Friday is that you live this as we must

impacted but not destroyed,

dimmed but not quenched.

For your great staying power

and your promise of newness we praise you.

It is in your power

and your promise that we take our stand this day.

We dare trust that Friday is never the last day,

so we watch for the new day of life.

Hear our prayer and be your full self toward us.

Amen.

On Maundy Thursday

As we expose our feet to be washed, our lives to be transformed in Holy Communion, as we surrender to the new mandate:

That you love one another.

States of being

a poem by Luci Shaw 

Stability is greatly

overrated.

Why would I ever want to sit

still and smug as a rock,

confident, because of my great

weight, that I will not

be moved?

Better to be soft as water,

easily troubled, with

at least three modes

of being, able to shape-

shift, to mirror, to cleanse,

to drift downstream,

To roar when I encounter

the rock. 

...

The God of Surprises

Lent begins with an invitation to join Jesus in the wilderness. There, as scripture tells us, we encounter the barrenness of solitude and even the wild beasts of our fears and anxieties.

  

I think we all wrestle with our liturgical times of listening, waiting, watching, and hoping. I see Spring dawning into full glory all around me and I long to see an increased creativity blossoming, a strengthened capacity to love emerging, and a greater openness to surprise being yielded.  As reluctant as we are about talking about our spiritual lives, this is precisely where our Lenten journey takes us in Holy Week:  to the Cross and to the barest essence of who we are and what we are called to be.

As I see it, spiritual growth often means learning to expect and even nourish a surprise of any kind. I don’t know about you, but I have never been especially fond of surprises. The hard part of this growth process comes in accepting that we are not in control. During our Lenten journey, as we clear space and watch for new growth, new growth can blossom in ways that we do not plan or even believe can happen. Because our growth is from God, we must be ready to embrace this new growth in faith and with the courage in knowing that whatever gifts of new growth we are given they are given by a God who loves us and desires our well being and growth.

As we journey closer to the Cross this Holy Week, we do well to remember Brennan Manning’s injunction about spiritual steadfastness: "Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted."  We stand here in the open space, holy ground, and we know that suffering may lie ahead.  It takes courage and faith in God’s purpose to continue our work, to devote ourselves honestly to God’s guidance, and to remember the promise: we will find our lives by first losing them.

What has your wilderness looked like this Lent?  Where do you see signs of new growth?  Are there any buds of creativity germinating in you?  Have you found your heart stretched to a deeper capacity? Where has God surprised you with grace and joy?

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

You are the God who creates and recreates,

who judges and delivers,

who calls by name and makes new.

This much we gladly confess in praise and thanksgiving.

This much we trust and affirm...

only to ponder the chance that we are too glib,

that we say more than we mean,

that we say more

than we can in fact risk.

We make our gingerly confession in a world filled

with those who cynically acknowledge none but themselves...

we are their fellow travelers

with those who in vulnerability have no chance

but prayer to you...

and we stand in solidarity with them.

Thus we ask, beyond our critical reservations,

that you be your powerful, active, sovereign self.

Give us eyes to see your wonders around us;

Give us hearts to live into your risky miracles;

Give us tongues to praise you beyond our doubt.

For it is you, only you, that we turn on behalf of the world

that waits in its deathliness for your act of life. 

Amen.

The Darkness of Emmaus

I wonder how many parking lot conversations would suddenly change if we found ourselves asked this question by Jesus:  what are you discussing with each other?  It is a very humbling question. 

I wonder how the chatter of our own mind would change if we stopped and asked ourselves this question.  The story of the disciples' journey on the road to Emmaus is a familiar one.  If you think about the two traveling the road, they are wallowing in darkness: "we had hoped he would be the One to redeem Israel." Perhaps it is natural for humans to want to move when they have experienced something overwhelming, something disappointing, some devastation. Do we have a bodily yearning to be somewhere else, to seek something else, to physically enact movement from grief, depression, sorrow to wholeness and light?

Even as we move through the darkness, it seems we have a hard time recognizing the divine when we are distraught or mired in our own emotions. Somehow our senses are dulled (or maybe too acute) and we are lulled into a shunted existence.  It is then literally a journey through darkness to light and sadly can be a long one. While we may think ourselves alone, while we may feel alone, we never are. That is the promise of scripture, the power of the walk to Emmaus.

As Simon and Garfunkel made famous in their song:  hello darkness, my old friend, I think many of us come to know the darkness too well, to wear it as a cloak, a barrier of protection. How have I made myself blind to those around me? How have I tuned out those walking with me? Why is my innermost being turned in on itself?

If we open ourselves, epiphanies are possible, even plentiful. Growth, transformation, and reaching a destination can be laborious and painful.  Yet, very worthwhile.  

God loves us with a tough love that propels us forward toward the light. As the choir sings so beautifully: I want to walk as a child of the light.  As we move to Easter it is my prayer that the light will be visible in the distance, that we will find ourselves strangely warmed by the presence of the wholly/holy Other.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

We call out your name in as many ways as we can.

We fix your role towards us in the ways we need.

We approach you from the particular angle of our life.

We do all that, not because you need to be identified,

but because of our deep need,

our deep wound,

our deep hope.

And then, we are astonished that while our names for you

serve for a moment,

you break beyond them in your freedom,

you show yourself yet fresh beyond our utterance,

you retreat into your splendor beyond our grasp.

We are--by your freedom and your hiddenness--

made sure yet again that you are God...

beyond us, for us, but beyond us,

not at our beck and call,

but always in your own way.

We stammer about your identity,

only to learn that it is our own unsettling

before you that wants naming.

Beyond all our explaining and capturing and fixing you...

we give you praise,

we thank you for your fleshed presence in suffering love,

and for our names that you give us.

Amen.

Losing our lives...

As we move into Holy Week, I keep thinking on Jesus' words: whoever wants to save their life must lose it. Perhaps this is a hinge for our march to Easter morning. After all, we began Lent in the desert with Jesus and this was Jesus' temptation: to have the whole world at his fingertips, power, control, and adoration. 

Essentially that is our temptation too, every day, every moment. Does my innermost self long for things? Do I long for adoration? Do I long for acceptance? Have I lost my very self, the person God created me to be, in the chase of worldly ambitions? Does my neediness prevent life and peace?

On the pragmatic side of things, we all have goals. And, that is a realistic part of being alive.  But Jesus comes to disrupt those goals. If we are honest, we constantly try to tame Jesus, domesticate Jesus into a mild mannered fellow, a likeable chap that looks like us. Yet, nothing in scripture suggests or supports this perception. Jesus is the uninvited guest who comes to the banquet in overalls.  He is the person that we love but don't want our friends to know how much. He is that Holy Spirit who whispers, "what are you really doing here?" He is that King who disappoints our romantic notions of grandeur and finery.

I do believe that we are here on earth to literally lose our lives.  We first most lose our childish orientation of the world revolving around us. Whether I am engaged in liturgy (the work and worship of the people) or engaged in walking with a friend, trying to listen earnestly, or even trying to understand someone else's situation:  it is not about me.  

There is a freedom that comes in finding a deep peace within, a peace that is not conditioned by the presence of any other person or thing in this world. The more of I lose of my wants, needs, hopes, and expectations the freer I am to be in this moment. This is the salvation that I glimpse in Jesus:  do you love me enough to let go? Of everything?  Drop your nets, take up your Cross and follow me.

What are we spending our lives doing? So much of life is being caught up in the commerce of this world, the frenetic pace of accomplishment and quantifiable results. What if we stopped defining ourselves by what we do? What if we could answer that we as church are spending our lives loving and giving away all that we have? Instead, have we given up everything for things that do not last? Are we chasing a love that is not real, not true, not everlasting?

Beyond the commerce of this world, what riches do I treasure in my life?  Where am I poor in spirit? Where am I grasping on to things that do not last? What sacrifices in my life have I made that make a true difference? I suppose I have more questions than answers.  These questions come back to Jesus' command: take up your cross and follow me.

I think good people of faith really struggle with this command.  We think in literal terms of picking up a cross and get lost in the abstraction of what that cross may be. Do we each have a cross to bear? Do I know what my cross is? Is it of the same essence as what Paul complained about with his thorn in his side?  Can I help another to carry their cross while also carrying mine? How does carrying my cross match up with "my yoke is easy and my burden light?" 

As we move into Holy Week the Cross will be a primary focus: were you there when they crucified my Lord? Beyond singing this heavy hymn once again, how can we answer that question with our life?

The goal of Lent is to find ourselves lost and then found on Easter morning.  What does that journey look like now? Are you seeing buds of new life out of death, seeds of transformation? What sacrifices have you made and which will you continue to make as a permanent part of your life? I will continue to hold balance as a primary part of keeping focus on that which truly matters, finding the quiet spaces to lose myself, marvel in grace and mercy, revel in gratitude, and repent of distractions.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

You who command,

You who are our commander,

You who are our commander-in-chief;

We intend obedience, without reserve.

As we ponder your commands, they often come at us

like more nagging from our mothers,

like more rules from our teachers,

like more expectations from our peers,

like more pressure from the church,

like more defeat from our guilty conscience.

Our obedience thins down to resentment,

tired of the nagging and pressure and rules and expectations.

Then we hear your wonderful words of life,

and know that in your command is our perfect freedom.

For your command,

for Jesus' glad obedience,

for Jesus' new command of neighbor,

we give you great thanks.

We vow full, glad compliance.

Amen.

On Palms and Necessity

There is probably no other question that gives me pause than this one: Was it necessary that we kill Jesus of Nazareth?  Today we celebrate Palm Sunday and physically and vocally enact the procession to Jerusalem.  We will cheer Jesus on, lay down our garments, and applaud; and then when he fails to live up to our expectations, we will turn on him and yell "crucify him" just that quick.

I don't question God's wisdom as wholly beyond anything we can grasp in this world.  As is asked of Job, "where you there when I laid the foundations of this world?"  No, I was not there. Yet, when we sing "were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Yes, I was.

I remember Barbara Brown Taylor's words: I am not in charge of this House, and never will be. I have no say about who is in and who is out. I do not get to make the rules. Like Job, I was nowhere when God laid the foundations of the earth. I cannot bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion. I do not even know when the mountain goats give birth, much less the ordinances of the heavens. I am a guest here, charged with serving other guests—even those who present themselves as my enemies. I am allowed to resist them, but as long as I trust in one God who made us all, I cannot act as if they are no kin to me. There is only one House. Human beings will either learn to live in it together or we will not survive to hear its sigh of relief when our numbered days are done. 

With a posture of humility, can we say the Cross a stumbling block or a stepping stone?  Maybe it is not either-or, but both-and.  While I stumble at the sight of the Cross, I also find it to reveal a truth about who we are and how we are wired. At our crudest, when something disrupts our sense of well being, power, or prosperity, we seek to be rid of it.  The commerce of the world supports this reaction and gives us the tools to make such removals expedient. 

I find comfort in the three Solas of faith as I wrestle with the dappled wonder of divinity as well as the broken travail of finitude. Grace alone, faith alone, and Word alone.  These are my stepping stones when I stumble.  

Perhaps this is where we find the heart of the Cross:  in being emptied of this life, in being emptied of our very own selves in God (I must decrease, He must increase as John says).  In emptiness we find resurrection and new life, freedom and resuscitation.  I like, once again, how Barbara Brown Taylor describes our awareness, our honest posture in faith:  If it is true that God exceeds all our efforts to contain God, then is it too big a stretch to declare that dumbfoundedness is what all Christians have most in common? Or that coming together to confess all that we do not know is at least as sacred an activity as declaring what we think we do know?

I am certainly dumbfounded.  God's power comes in what appears often as weak, foolish, and lowly. That is a counter-intuitive wisdom that rings very true.  How can we posture ourselves this coming Holy Week to find that power in what appears weak, foolish, and lowly?  As we move through stations of the Cross, foot washing, Holy Communion, and tenebrae there is the same truth sprinkled again and again:  Salvation comes in all the tight places where our lives are at risk, regardless of how we got there. 

Salvation happens when we use a key to open a door we could have locked instead.  Sometimes that key is a human hand extended in love; sometimes that key is water, bread, wine, oil, tears or barrenness.  This is the Way, the way of life, and only God truly knows how it works.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

Holy God--in this precious hour, we pause

and gather to hear your word--

to do so, we break from our work responsibilities

and from our play fantasies;

we move from our fears that overwhelm

and from our ambitions that are too strong.

Free us in these moments from every distraction,

that we may focus to listen,

that we may hear, that we may change.

Amen.

The Nitty Gritty of Service

As we head into Holy Week, I am always reminded that nothing makes a group of liturgical Christians more uncomfortable than talk about evangelizing, serving, or having their feet washed! We somehow shy away from this notion that we are to be actively engaged with one another: helping, uplifting, sorting through the chaos of life, really serving one another.  I have also encountered those who have an active resistance to their leader/priest/pastor being engaged in servile activities--no yard work, no dirty/messy jobs, nothing that will break a sweat.  

Yet Jesus shows us the opposite of the far removed, neatly groomed church person!  We are here to sit in the darkness, get into the mess of peoples' lives. Jesus talks with sinners, eats with tax collectors, talks to women, has his feet washed, washes others' feet, touches the sick, gets into the nitty gritty of this life in every way imaginable. Sure, who among us does not love to go out to eat and to be served?  But, Jesus tells us the truly important people in life are the ones doing the service, not the ones paying for it.  This is wholly contrary to our culture.

I am sure that "serving the Lord" means different things to different people.  For me, being able to give freely with the welfare of the other person in mind is key. For example, my sister and I often joke when we give a gift, especially a spontaneous one that is not tied to a birthday or special occasion: "oh, you shouldn't have done that," she will say.  And I always respond, "I do what I want to do." 

Real service flows from love and from being able to give to another without counting the measure.  I am always saddened when folks in church get mad, or family members get angry with one another, and say something like "and after all I have done for you/this church!" Service is not about keeping score. You give, let go, and forget. This is hard to do in a culture that measures everything, even relationships, in terms of power.

There comes a freedom and graceful satisfaction in giving and letting go, in being able to do for another and enjoy the inner fruits of that satisfaction. I believe the more we do this the more we groom ourselves as followers of Jesus: this is the primary action of those walking the Way.  While the business world measures us by our productivity and capability, and throws us away when we do not measure up, the people who follow Jesus draw near to those who dwell in darkness, who walk through the valley of death, and we wait, we serve, we love.

Yes, people often fail to show gratitude, they disappoint us, or even ignore us.  But, if we are rooted in doing what God commands and not glued to the rear view mirror then we are free from the expectations we might place on others.  Real gift, real service is not tied to that.  Ever.  

How might we better find this inner stewardship as we march to Easter? How might we better root ourselves in the freedom of serving?  

May we pray to forget the cost of discipleship as it is measured by this world and our churches. May we know the cost of discipleship in God's unfolding kingdom, an energy and wisdom which propels us into this sacred moment and the ones to come.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

Before our well-being, there was your graciousness,

before our delight, there was your generosity,

before our joy, there was your good will.

We are second and you are first.

You are there initially with your graciousness, your generosity,

your good will--

and we receive from your inscrutable goodness grace upon grace,

gift upon gift, life upon life

--because you are there at the beginning,

at all our beginnings.

For a quick glimpse, we move out beyond our competence,

our productivity, our self-sufficiency

--in our new freedom what we glimpse is you--

outpouring yourself unreservedly in the midst of our hurt

and toward our hopes.

You are there in the splendor of your self-giving.

So we speak our timid, trembling praise back to you,

timid because we are no match for your goodness,

trembling because our praise means turning our life to you,

But we do turn loose to you,

source and goal of our very life.

Our gratitude arises out of the dailiness of our well-being,

of meals regularly before us, of folks regularly caring for us,

of homes regularly warm and safe, of sleep regularly refreshing,

of new days regularly given against the darkness,

of work regularly filling our days with order and diginity.

And in our taken-for-granted regularity,

we discern your abiding and fidelity that holds our worlds

toward well-being.

Our gratitude wells up in the midst of such regularity--

new words spoken, new children born,

new vistas opened, new risks taken,

new words uttered that heal.

We dare confess that in these startling breaking points,

we glimpse your powerful care

which runs beyond our capacity to manage

and beyond our exhausted capacity to cope.

You...after all our best efforts,

it is you, you who hold and you who break.

And we are grateful.

Amen.

On the Trinity

Yesterday the Lutheran ministers of our region gathered at the church for our regional meeting. We renewed our ministry vows and shared Holy Communion. After this, we had "holy conversation" about our call to the ministry--when it began, how it developed, etc.

Without going into the long details of my call to ministry, I recalled to the group that I had no intention of being a pastor, of ever being in the pulpit.  I wanted to ask questions as a teacher of theology, not presume to answer them. And, so, my rude awakening to my "call" to ministry began with preaching my first sermon on Trinity Sunday. Yes, God definitely has a sense of humor.

I had long since taught that the theological concept of the Trinity is a mystery that cannot be grasped or pinned down, cannot be encapsulated in words or formulas. The reality of Trinity is that it can be experienced, embraced, and enjoyed. This is hard for many to hear because we struggle with the three-in-one reality just as I struggled to say something meaningful in that first sermon.  

Yet, an engagement with the Trinity can also unfold itself gently to us as it dissolves our fears. Trying to pin the concept of Trinity in words will only entangle us in confusion. That’s why the Triune God revealed God’s self to us not in words but in a person, the person of Jesus.

Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, is God’s love letter to humanity. When humanity was confused about who God is and what God requires, Jesus clarified our vision with the revelation that God is Love and Light.

In Jesus' life he healed the brokenness of our bodies and our societies by embracing the marginalized and pulling them in from the margins. In his death he became the magnetic target of all our hatred, pulling our violence, our sin, onto himself so we would not direct it at each other. In his resurrection he proved that love triumphs over hate. In all of this, Jesus revealed to us a power previously unknown and thus redefined God in our understanding. 

The understanding of the Trinity came about over time as the life and meaning of Jesus not only reshaped our perception of God but drew us deeper into relationship with God. Jesus’s perfect love cast out all fear and showed us that fear has no place within God. Jesus’s revelation that God is Love is the key to entering into the mystery of the Trinity.

The love that Jesus extended to the world, to reveal the true nature of God, ever flows between God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit. From the beginning of time, Love has been dancing in perfect harmony, leaving stars and planets in its footsteps. We who have been made from Love in the image of Love are called to join in the dance.

This may seem like a poetic fantasy. But it is the clearest way for me to understand the Trinity, to understand Love, to understand God – and the clearest way to understand what it means to be human. While I have a single body, my identity is bound up in my relationships. I am not Joy without my husband, without my children (present and deceased), without my family, without the dear friends who have made me who I am. I am not me without you. To be human is to be in relationship, and it is to be made in the image of God, who is relationship.

In Lent we confess that we are being molded by God into God’s image, following Jesus who modeled for us the perfect relationship with Love and showed us how to extend the love we receive in ever-flowing abundance to a hurting world. It is my deepest hope that we experience this Love as we enter in to Holy Week: not to re-enact a story with an unfamiliar ending, but to live into the Resurrection reality happening every day among us.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

We name you wind, power, force, and then,

imaginatively, "Third Person."

We name you and you blow...

blow hard,

blow cold,

blow hot,

blow strong,

blow gentle,

blow new...

Blowing the world out of nothing to abundance,

blowing the church out of despair to new life,

blowing little David from shepherd boy to messiah,

blowing to make things new that never were.

So blow this day, wind,

blow here and there, power,

blow even us, force,

Rush us beyond ourselves, 

Rush us beyond our hopes,

Rush us beyond our fears, 

until we enact your newness in the world.

Come, come spirit.

Amen.

Giving and Engaging

"The Good Samaritan." It is a parable we've heard many times. It would have been shocking to first century Jewish ears to hear "good" combined with "samaritan." The social outcast, the pariah, is the only one who stops to render aid to an injured man. Religious authorities pass by without a glance.  

This phenomenon has sadly been acted out in many ways time and again; we typically call it the bystander effect.  I recall the famous experiment with seminarians who were released from class late to get to their preaching class (all were supposed to be preaching on the text of the Good Samaritan.)  Every one of them passed a person in need of aid and didn't even stop. The researchers concluded that our level of "hurriedness" makes us less available to render help to each other.

I've seen this situation acted out many times (the bystander effect and the lack of acting as a Good Samaritan) in my own life. It makes me wonder to what extend we are paralyzed by our social/cultural norms, paralyzed by fear of giving and being vulnerable. 

There is a fancy Greek word perichoresis which describes the relationship of God, Christ, Holy Spirit as mutuality and equality, a creative energy that literally dances forth (it is where we get the word, choreography).  Theologians have used this concept to teach how the Trinity relates and how we are to interact with one another: putting aside our power structures, especially in helping one another, we are called to foster mutuality and relationship over a benefactor/receiver type of relationship which has an inherently unequal cast to it.  

Granted, this is a little lofty in thought.  But, what if we thought of each other with this regard?  What if we humbled ourselves enough to realize that whomever we are "helping" may have some way of helping us in return? What if in reality we are more needy than they are? What if we allowed a give and take in the relationship beyond just handing off money or provision?

In Jewish circles the word for charity is tzedakah.  It is tied to the Hebrew word for righteousness.  It is a sacred duty and obligation to engage in tzedakah. What would our lives look like if we acted in this sphere of social justice more often? Beyond just aiding those in need, what if we recognized a responsibility for the well being of the other person: that whatever aid is rendered must help the person become more independent, more whole.

I think we would do well to heed the balance inherent in perichoresis and tzedakah.  How often do we rob people of their independence? How often do we settle for mailing a donation instead of engaging in relationship? Are we Samaritans?  Enablers? Benefactors? Or faithful people trying to live in a sense of gratitude, righteousness, and hospitable living?

On this balance beam is radical kindness and lavish giving mixed with common sense respect, tough love and the call of each person to live a productive, responsible life.  We do not always strike this balance well, especially in our churches and in our own wounded lives. If we are not to be defined by our seating capacity in our churches, but by our sending capacity, what difference will that make in our community? Will I choose to walk by in my hurried state or will I take the time to stop, look, listen, and engage?

Who is my neighbor? You are. We are. Everyone. Will I open my heart to this reality?  Yes, and I ask God to help me.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

We regularly say:

"We proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

In our primitiveness, we do not doubt your coming,

soon, powerfully, decisively.

In our settledness, your coming is not too urgent or real,

because we are venously entitled, privileged, protected, gated.

In our rationality, the "until" of your coming makes 

little sense to us, so we mumble and hope no one notices.

In these last days,

In these latter days,

In these final days,

In these very late days,

We draw closer to your promised "until."

We draw closer in fear,

in hope,

in gladness,

in dread.

So we do proclaim the Lord's death until he comes,

until he comes in peace against all our violence;

until he comes in generosity midst all our parsimony;

until he comes in food midst all our hunger;

until he comes in community midst all our alienation.

We are your faithful hopers,

distracted by despair, but hoping,

distracted by affluence, but hoping,

distracted by sophistication, but hoping.

Come soon, come Lord Jesus, come soon

while we face afresh your death,

until you come soon and again...again and soon.

Amen.

On Shame

Most people I talk to on a daily basis understand that God loves them. They can quote the Bible verses. But many seem to live with a secret sense of shame that complicates, if not blocks, God’s love because they don’t think they deserve it. In their mind God’s love is for people who have cleaned up their act.

But there’s an inherent problem to this kind of thinking: you can’t clean up your act without God’s love. If you insist on becoming a better person so God can love you, that “carrot” will always be in front of you. You’ll never get there. You’ve consigned yourself to your own personal “hell,” but you don’t even know what you’ve done because you think you know all about God’s love.

Yes, we know about it. Maybe we haven’t received it. As we all affirm regularly, we need to let the knowledge drop from our head to our hearts in order to bring the healing that’s needed.

The issue it seems is that we receive God’s love on our good days, when we are doing well. But we don’t receive God’s love when we need it the most; when we screw up and fail miserably. We resist the invasion of God’s love because we don’t think God wants to/ or is able to come into our unholy place.

I mention this because we all tend to beat ourselves up over failures and then become stuck there. But if we want to find the freedom that God has for us, we have to be open to love and forgiveness. Just think whom you might become if you loved yourself like God does?

You might find this hard to believe, but the Bible tells us and Lent leads us to the recognition that when you and I go astray, God’s first priority isn’t to get our behavior in line. God’s first priority is to reestablish our relationship with Him. God’s love draws us to Him, not our good behavior.

God knows that if He can help restore our relationship that our behavior will eventually follow. But if He/we focus on our behavior, our shame will push us away. It’s counterproductive.

We read the story of the prodigal son a week or so ago; the son that ran away from home to live the party life only to return home when his money ran out.

The shock of that story is the boy didn’t return to an angry dad who punished him for his behavior like you’d expect. The boy returned to a dad that met him at the gate of the city with a hug and a kiss and a ring and a cloak and then threw a party for him.

Jesus used that story to teach us how God thinks about sin and guilt, even shame. Most dads wouldn’t welcome home their runaway son with a party! But God isn’t like that. God is much more interested in our relationship than in exacting perfection of behavior. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about rules/commands/covenant.  It appears, however, in watching Jesus in the Gospels, that relationship always comes first.

…come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it. (Hebrews 4:16)

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

You are the God from whom no secret can be hid,

and we are a people with many secrets,

that we want to tell for the sake of our lives,

that we dare not tell because they are deep and painful.

But they are our secrets...and they count for much;

they are our truth...rooted deep in our lives.

You are the God of all truth,

and now we bid you heed our truth,

about which we will not bear false witness...

The truth of grief unresolved,

the truth of pain unacknowledged,

the truth of fear too child-like,

the truth of hate, as powerful as it is deep,

the truth of being taken advantage of,

and being used,

and manipulated,

and slandered.

We trust the great truth of your wondrous love,

but we will not sit still for it,

UNTIL you hear us.

Our truth--heard by you--will make us free.

So be the God of all truth, even ours,

we pray in the name of Jesus,

who is your best kept secret of hurt.

Amen.

On the Shadow

Roy and I had an interesting conversation yesterday about our struggle with sin, the struggle with the darker aspects of our personalities.  

"The shadow,’’ wrote Carl Jung, is ‘‘that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our ancestors and so comprise the whole historical aspect of the unconscious." The shadow is a primordial part of our human inheritance, which, try as we might, can never be eluded. 

The pervasive defense mechanism known as projection is how most people deny their shadow, unconsciously casting it onto others so as to avoid confronting it in oneself. Such projection of the shadow is engaged in not only by individuals but groups, religions, and entire countries, whereby the outsider, enemy or adversary is made a scapegoat, dehumanized, and demonized.

The shadow, is not meant to be taken literally but allegorically. It is not an evil entity existing apart from the person, nor an invading alien force, though it may be felt as such. The shadow is a universal feature of the human psyche for which we bear full responsibility to cope with as creatively as possible. Failing to deal with our shadow side, or proclivity to sin, will create a life that nurtures unhealthy attitudes and communal dysfunction.

What is the dark side? In my opinion, insecurity is at the heart of the dark side. Insecurity feeds all kinds of dysfunction. I’ve seen too many people use their position or leadership to find healing for their insecurity. In their mind, if people will follow them, it will prove to themselves and others that they are valuable. Most leaders would never admit this is their motivation to lead. And honestly, they probably don’t see it. But it’s there. And it’s destructive. 

This is a danger in any helping field, yes in churches, where wounded people seek to help others as a way to help themselves. I think Lent gives us the gift of wandering in the wilderness and the opportunity to get really honest about our motivations as we seek to live and be like Jesus.

Upon pondering this issue further, I think what happened in the Garden of Eden can be also referred to as "Original Insecurity." After all, insecurity will make you:

Competitive: you need to show others that you are better than they are.

Jealous: you constantly compare your life to others you consider more successful.

Ungrateful: focusing on what others have causes you to hold what you have in contempt.

Defensive: when people try to correct you, you are quick to offer excuses in fear of being exposed in your weakness.

Argumentative: defending yourself isn’t enough. You feel the need to go on the offensive.

Risk Averse: afraid that a challenge will expose your weakness, you play it safe.

Over Confident: in need of affirmation, you take unnecessary risks.

Unforgiving: easily hurt, you find it hard to “turn the other cheek” to your critics and brood.

Legalistic: because you never measure up in your mind, you make it hard for others to measure up to your standards.

Think Scarcity: not abundance. The insecure person lives in a small world where there is never enough to go around. It feels like the sky is falling.

No fun: when you are trying to justify your existence every day, life gets pretty serious. People around you walk on eggshells because they realize how fragile you are.

Toxic: add up all of the above and who wants to be around that? 

On the other hand, when we get honest with ourselves, when we find wholeness in Christ, when we repent and give our lives to Jesus, it breeds a culture of grace. No topic is out of bounds. Mistakes are forgiven, not punished. Freedom is in the air, along with a “can do” attitude. And then it can be a joyful experience to “be church” and to live abundant life together!

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

Power turns and postures and exhibits.

It controls and manages and plots.

We participate in it,

we benefit from it,

we are dazzled by it...and more than a little afraid.

Just underneath, all the while...

Just underneath dazzling power

sits violence and brutality,

greed and fear and envy,

cunning and shamelessness.

In that too we participate.

Like the ancients, we also live double lives,

public in pageant and role and office,

hidden in meanness and thinness.

We do not do well at bringing this double together.

But we confess you to be Lord of all of our lives.

Give us new freedom about our public lives,

give us new candor about our hidden lives,

Correct what is brutal and greedy and fearful,

chasten what is hidden and mean.

Make us women and men of shalom,

the kind of welfare you will for our common life.

Amen.

God's Kingdom

In our big celebration last week, Bishop Kendrick referred to both God's Kingdom and God's dream. The dream was tied to Jesus' prayer that we might be one, that is joined in unity rather than disunity.  And though we talk about God's Kingdom all the time, I wonder how much we really know about it or are willing to live into it these days?

This question almost always spurns me toward a future oriented glance and answer--just what does God's Kingdom look like? But, I don't think that is the proper orientation.  What is it about our faith life that always has us focusing on "tomorrow" rather than today? Why do we so easily put our eggs in a heavenly reward while ignoring the opportunities of today, right now?

In counter-intuitive fashion, the answer to this question is the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed and baking yeast.  Both start small and are part of transforming ordinary elements into a great yield. We are meant then to look at our own lives: are we willing to be faithful in the small things so that greater yields may come from our actions?

Martin Luther used the image of two Kingdoms for God's reign: the earthly kingdom of governmental authorities and the heavenly kingdom where the faithful become part of transforming the world. Most of us no longer face a backlash against practicing our faith while being dutiful citizens of this world. But, it does the leave me wondering which world I am most comfortably nestled in:  civic affairs and politics or the unfolding of God's kingdom in grace?

When I asked my husband what he thinks of when he hears the phrase "Kingdom of God" he said "heaven." Yet, in scripture I hear Jesus saying time and again: the Kingdom is with you, now.  Is the Kingdom of God different then the Kingdom of Heaven?  Scripture scholars have made loose distinctions between a millennial kingdom (a future oriented reality) and a universal kingdom (present reality) but the terms seem to be used equally, interchangeably by Mark and Luke.  Matthew is the only writer to use the term "kingdom of heaven." (Kingdom of God occurs 68 times in many New Testament books while Kingdom of Heaven only occurs in Matthew, 32 times).

So, if the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, yeast, even justice, then what are we to do with these images?  What do they imply for our lives today?  

If I am actively engaged in being a part of God's Kingdom, then my actions will convey the change I wish to see in the world.  Instead of a far away ethereal heaven, I now have a charge, a sacred duty, an honored mission to seek in my corner of the world.  I think this is a radical change for the way Christianity has traditionally groomed its adherents.  Instead of leaning toward a promising future (which will be as God wills it to be in perfection), then why not focus on today, focus on serenity:  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference!

It seems this Way of the Kingdom of God leads to a wholeness and a life of significance that we crave. Beyond the fear of meaninglessness, the anxiety of our unsettled struggle within ourselves, we have been given the opportunity to be emptied, to be other-oriented, to be the freedom we seek. Will we take part? Will we opt for the familiar and abandon the challenge? Is it too much work? 

What must I do to be open and transformed for a life of significance? What shape must my journey take today to yield Kingdom results? Important questions not only for today, but for who we are, who we hope to be on Easter morning and beyond.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

We yearn, in every season, for your presence;

We know that our hearts will be restless, until they rest in you;

We are like deer who seek a watering hole in the drought;

We hear invitations for "all who are weary and heavy-laden..."

And approach to you seems ready and easy.

Truth to tell, we do pant restlessly,

but not always for you.

Sometimes, instead for security

or sex and beer and sports,

or power and success,

or beauty and acceptance...not seeking you.

Truth to tell, we know you to be no easy mark,

with your rigorous entrance requirements

of blamelessness, truth-telling, no bribes,

and all manner of neighborliness.

We yearn for you in every season,

making you too easy, imagining you too difficult,

bewildered and unsure until you give yourself concretely to us...

as you have done and as you do.

Amen.