The One Who is Raised to Begin Again

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  John 11: (1-16) 17-44 (45) (Lent 5A)

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 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.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. 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. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

This has always been at the very least a strange story to me.  I think I once had some image of Lazarus walking out of the tomb, with tattered grave clothes dangling and an unbearable stench following him (probably from a 3rd grade Sunday School picture!), and then dressing and sitting down for a nice fish dinner with Jesus and his sisters.  But the Scripture is not here to show us magic or to in some way depict a God that with the veritable snap of a finger can just put everything back like it was before. (Well, I don’t know, I supposed God CAN, but why?  That’s not really the way God works.  God has something much better in store.)  This story is taken as a precursor to Jesus’ own Resurrection.  It was Jesus’ way of promising life.  But ironically, it is also the act that turns the tables toward Jesus’ demise.  Here, standing within two miles or so from Jerusalem, the journey as we know it begins to wind to an end.  Even now, the Sanhedrins are gathering their swords and the night is beginning to fall.

This passage is odd.  Even when you read it all (I “shortened” it but I’m not sure how good a job I did), it’s more about the minutia around Lazarus’ death and rising than about Lazarus himself.  In fact, we really know very little about the character Lazarus except that he was dead and then he wasn’t.  Like us, the characters deal with death by dealing with minutia.  When my dad passed away, I was definitely the queen of the minutia.  One family member removed herself completely.  Another one wept in the front room.  (I remember thinking…I want to do that, to weep, to wail, to scream, but, instead, I’m organizing and directing.)  When my grandmother died, my dad and I sat alone in the hospital room for hours waiting on the funeral home.  We recounted memories, talked about what it meant, and felt that thin veil that gathers when a loved dies, the sense of the presence of those who were loved and who were important there with us.  THAT’s what I wanted.  I wanted to sense that veil.  But instead, I directed and hosted and gathered information—the police, the EMT’s, more police (he died at home), and then the funeral home.  I barely remember it but somehow it happened.  Isn’t that how we often deal with death?  But here…Jesus steps in and raises Lazarus.

So, why would Jesus do that?  Surely he knew what might happen.  Surely he knew how many red flags his presence near Jerusalem had already raised.  And what about Lazarus?  Who was this mysterious man whose main part in the whole Biblical story is to die and be raised?  Why do this with someone as seemingly insignificant as this?  Maybe it’s because Lazarus is us–you and me.  Maybe the whole point of the passage is not to point to Jesus’ Resurrection but to our own.  Do you think of yourself as journeying toward resurrection?  Do you believe this?  Sure, we talk about journeying to God, about journeying to the Promised Land, whatever that might be, and about journeying to where God call us.  But do you think of it as resurrection?  Do you think of yourself dying and then being raised?  Maybe each of us is Lazarus.  Maybe that’s what Jesus wanted us so badly to believe and live.

We don’t talk a lot about our own resurrection.  Perhaps it’s because we think that feat is reserved for Jesus Christ.  Or maybe we don’t want to talk about it because in order to talk about our resurrection, we must also acknowledge our death.  We must acknowledge an ending.  Resurrection, of course, doesn’t happen without death.  But that’s been the promise through the whole story when you think about it.  Think of all the stories of redemption, of re-creation, of resurrection—stories of raising and passing over and wrestling, stories of new life.  That’s the message. 

We talk a lot of this Lenten journey as our journey to the Cross, our journey with Christ.  So, does it stop there?  I think the story goes on.  Jesus is Resurrected.  Maybe that’s what Jesus was trying to show us–not that we would be somehow plucked from death in the nick of time and not that God really has need of putting our lives back together like some sort of Humpty-Dumpty character, but that we, too, are journeying toward resurrection, toward new life.  Lent is the journey that shows us that.  Lent shows us that the journey is sometimes hard, sometimes painful. Lent shows us not that death will not claim us but that death will not have the final word.  Death thins that veil between earth and heaven, between this life and the next.  And resurrection steps in and tears it apart, ripping it at the seams for all to experience.  (Read the Passion story—there’s a curtain that rips) 

Lent shows us that our faith tells us that there is more.  Lent shows us what it means for Christ to unbind even us–even you and me–and let us go.  Through all of life’s transitions, through all of life’s sad endings, through all of life’s unbearable turns, there is always a beginning.  There is always resurrection–over and over and over again. So, breathe…breathe out finality, breathe out hopelessness, breathe out endings.  Our faith tells us that the only endings are those that are transformed to beginnings, to life.  So, breathe in life.  We are all Lazarus, whether or not we know it.  Just start breathing again…

There was, indeed, something I had missed about Christianity, and now all of a sudden, I could see what it was.  It was the Resurrection!  How could I have been a church historian and a person of prayer who loved God and still not known that the most fundamental Christian reality is not the suffering of the cross but the life it brings?…The foundation of the universe for which God made us, to which God draws us, and in which God keeps us is not death, but joy.  (Roberta Bondi)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Fully Human

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series, Uncategorized ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  2 Corinthians 5: 17-21

17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We’ve read this before, this “new creation” stuff.  We’ve read that God has reconciled us to the Godself through Jesus Christ.  OK, now that we’ve gone over our main theology…The truth is, what does that mean?  After all, we’re only humans.  Right?  We’re sinful and messed up and many of us have no idea what this actually means.  I mean, what does it mean to be human?  We read the Creation stories.  God created us.  Why?  Was it to become something different?  Was it to become better?  Or are we doomed?

I think many of us tend toward Gnosticism.  We imagine the notion of a good God, a God who created us as humans, as sinful, as not “of God”.  We have the notion of a divine spark that might pull us out of our plight of humanity, our sinful state.  But, remember, God created us.  God created us as human.  Do you really think God would create us as bad and then expect us to claw our way out of our created demise?  That’s bizarre.

So, along came Jesus.  So many of us relegate him to a super hero of sorts, a “super human” that is somehow above all this that we have to endure.  Really?  See, we are told that Jesus was born of a human, born as a human.  Otherwise, Jesus never would have been able to reconcile us to God.  Jesus came as one of us, as Emmanuel, the one among us, the one who was one of us, the one who showed us the way to be not just “merely human” but “fully human”.

Jesus was fully human and fully divine.  Call it the sacred “And”, the very reconciliation of God to the Creation that God so dearly loves.  THAT is our understanding of the Cross.  The Cross was not a way “out”.  It certainly wasn’t a punishment for being human.  I don’t even think it necessarily “wipes” our sins out (oh dear, I’m going there!).  For me, the Cross is the ultimate reconciliation, the new Creation.  It is the place where God recreates humanity, recreates the world, finally gives us a notion as to what it means to be “fully human”.  “Fully human” is not “just human” or “merely human”.  “Fully human” is the way that Jesus lived, the Way that Jesus walked.  “Fully human” is what we’re called to become—not “godly”, certainly not Divine”—just what we were created to be all along. 

So, the breathing…Breathe out the notion that you are “merely human” or “only human”.  Oh, my goodness, God created you for so much more.  And breathe in the message of the Cross, that we are reconciled and made new, that God invites us and walks with us to what God intends for us to be. 

Jesus didn’t come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human. (Hans RMadeleine L’Engle)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Life Breathed Into Flesh

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(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  Romans 8: 6-11 (Lent 5A)

6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

So many times, this Scripture is one of those that is read as if being “human”, being “flesh” is bad, as if somehow body and spirit are not compatible existing together in Creation.  That’s not the way it was intended.  After all, didn’t God create us as “flesh”?  For Paul, of the “flesh” is not “human”, per se, but rather a perversion of who we should be as humans. But it is the “way of the Spirit” that brings life.  Without the Spirit, the essence of Life breathed into the body ultimately dies.  The two belong together.  God’s Spirit brings breath and life.  Paul’s words are not mean to be dualistic, separating two unlike things, but, rather, transformational, depicting the salvific act of transforming sides of a whole that need each other.

We tend to get wrapped up in those things of the “flesh”—our needs, our desires, our fears. Paul is not saying that we dispense with them as bad. They are ours.  Paul is making the claim that the Spirit can breathe new life into them. There is no sense in fighting to sustain our identity apart and away from God. It will ultimately die. Paul has more of a “big picture” understanding than we usually let him have. He’s saying that the flesh in and of itself is not bad but the Spirit brings it to life. I don’t think he is drawing a dividing line between darkness and light, between mind and Spirit, between death and life; rather, he is claiming that God’s Spirit has the capability of crossing that line, of bringing the two together, infused by the breath of God. It is a spirituality that we need, one that embraces all of life. It is one that embraces the Spirit of Life that is incarnate in this world, even this world. I mean, really, what good would the notion of a disembodied Spirit really do us? Isn’t the whole point that life is breathed into the ordinary, even the mundane, so that it becomes holy and sacred, so that it becomes life?

And here’s the important part.  Verse 1 of this chapter from Romans says that there is “no condemnation”.  In other words, through Jesus Christ, we are more than flesh.  We are more than those things that we think “make us”.  We are more than the identity that the world inflicts upon us.  Through Christ, we are “flesh embodied”.  Our flesh and our spirit, our body and our soul, our humanness and that piece of the Godself that was so lovingly and graciously supplanted in us is one, undivided.  It is that total self that God loves–not just the Spirit, not just the things that are not of this “flesh”, but everything.  We are a package deal.  Don’t you love package deals?

In his book, Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr says that “in mature religion, the secular becomes the sacred. There are no longer two worlds. We no longer have to leave the secular world to find sacred space because they’ve come together.” In essence, our body and our spirit are one. That is what Paul was saying. Life in the Spirit is an embrace of our whole being. There are no parts that are elevated above the others. It is a new way of learning to see. It is a new way of learning to be. Everything becomes one in God. There are no good parts and bad parts. Everything is waiting to be transformed in the Spirit.

Here’s another way to illustrate it. How many of you like to eat raw eggs? How about a nice tasty tablespoon of flour? Or, perhaps you would rather have a wholesome cup of sickeningly sweet Karo syrup? Well, obviously, none of those things sound that appetizing. In fact, for most of us, they all sound downright disgusting. (I say “most” because I do know of someone (of blessed memory) that used to drink syrup when he thought no one was looking.  I so miss that!) But if you take those things and combine them, along with some other ingredients, you get my Grandmother’s pecan pie. Alone, they are worthless. But as a whole, they are wonderful.

We cannot pick and choose what parts of our lives we want to be with God. All of the mail is opened and read. For if one is to live a true life of holiness, there is nothing left out or hidden from sight. There is no secular. It is all sacred. There is no thought in our mind that is not part of the spirit. And there is not one of us that is of lesser importance than another in a true community of faith. Every part of us, no matter what it looks like, no matter what is tastes like, is necessary to make the recipe wonderful. Life in the spirit means that everything belongs in a perfectly balanced recipe for life that perfectly reflects and perfectly reveals all that there is and all that there is meant to be. That’s us–we’re a package deal.  Everything belongs! Thanks be to God!

So, for today, breathe out—breathe out that assumption that one’s humanity is bad, that those things “of the flesh” are things from which we are trying to run.  And, then, breathe in—all of it.  Breathe in everything in your life and be open to God’s way of breathing Spirit into it all.

Perhaps if we are brave enough to accept our monsters, to love them, to kiss them, we will find that we are touching not the terrible dragon that we feared, but the loving Lord of all Creation.  And when we meet our Creator, we will be judged for all our turnings away, all our inhumanity to each other, but it will be the judgment of inexorable love, and in the end we will know the mercy of God which is beyond all comprehension. (Madeleine L’Engle)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Seeing Jesus

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(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  John 12: 20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “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, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.  “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.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. 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.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.

And now the conversation begins turns to this talk of death and loss.  We know we’re getting closer, that the tide is beginning to turn.  But we’re not sure.  We’re not sure that our journey really prepared us at all.  But we need to start talking about it.

The reading starts by telling us of the arrival of some Greeks. Now this may seem to us to be sort of periphery to the point of the story but it’s not. For you see, this arrival of the Greeks is something new. It marks the beginning of an entirely new section of the Gospel. These are not merely Greek-speaking Jews, but Gentiles who have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. These are non-Jews, Gentiles from across the sea who wanted to meet the Hebrew holy man. This is the beginning of the world seeing Jesus and knowing who he is.  They approach Philip and request to “see” Jesus, to have a meeting with him. Perhaps they want to know more of who this Jesus is. Perhaps they just want to talk to him. Or perhaps they want to become disciples. But regardless of why they are here, their arrival points to the fulfillment of the church’s future mission—to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world, to see Jesus. This is the decisive dividing line between Jesus coming as a Jewish Messiah and Christ, through his death and resurrection, fulfilling God’s promise for the renewal and redemption of all of Creation. Now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Jesus did not just come to save you and me.  Remember, Jesus is the Savior of the World, to show God to the world.  Jesus has begun to draw the world into the Cross.

Change is all around us.  No, not all of it is good right now.  Our world seems to be shaking a bit—war, growing economic worries, divisiveness, escalating disregard for the “other”, even a new “acceptable” racism, an “acceptable” xenophobia, an “acceptable” homophobia, an “acceptable” hatred toward those with whom we share this world, and even more war.  It’s scary.  Sure, we could run, go back to our old ways, to the comfort and safety of home.  We could yell and scream and demand that someone put it back the way it was.  The problem is that nothing stays the same.  Even if we could return, it would not feel like home.  For you see, this journey has changed us.  We walk this season of clearing and surrender and then we realize that this season never really ends.  We are different.  We don’t look different but we do see differently.  Jesus has taught us how to see.

But what is this thing with wheat?  (OK, to the end, Jesus seemed to continue speaking in confusing parables!)  Well, wheat is a caryopsis, meaning that the outer “seed” and the inner fruit are connected. The seed essentially has to die so that the fruit can emerge. If you were to dig around in the ground and uproot a stalk of wheat, you would not find the original seed. It is dead and gone. In essence, the grain must allow itself to be changed.  So, what Jesus is trying to tell us here is that if we do everything in our power to protect our lives the way they are—if we successfully thwart change, avoid conflict, prevent pain—then at the end we will find that we have no life at all.  He goes on…” 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, and where I am, there will my servant be also. And whoever does this, God will honor.” This is the only time that the Gospel speaks of God honoring someone. And we begin to see the connection unfolding. Whoever follows Jesus through his death, will become part of his everlasting life.

You see, we can’t go back to what we know because it is no longer ours.  The Light has become part of us.  Jesus wanted us to understand not just that he was leaving soon, not just that his death was imminent, but that this journey to the cross was not just his to make, but ours. This lifting up and this drawing in is all ours.  We ARE the Children of the Light.  Now is the time to walk with Jesus to the cross.  Now is the time to see Jesus.

The season is continuing on.  What we know is coming seems to move toward us faster, overwhelming us.  Now is the time to see Jesus.  So, breathe out—breathe out that tendency to want to go back, to retreat, no matter how hard life is, no matter what the world throws at you.  And breathe in—breathe in allowing yourself to be changed, to grow, to step forward and be the very image of Christ in the world.  Breathe in the presence of Jesus.

Discipleship is not limited to what you can understand – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own understanding, and I will help you to comprehend. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. In this way Abraham went forth from his father, not knowing where he was going. That is the way of the cross. You cannot find it in yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man. Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire – that is the road you must take. It is to this path that I call you, and in this sense that you must be my disciple. (Martin Luther)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Finding the Breath That Remains

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(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  Ezekiel 37: 1-14 (Lent 5A)

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

“Ru’ah.”  As we’ve mentioned before, it is the Hebrew word that is here translated as “breath,” God breathing life.  It is also translated as “wind” or “spirit”.  Actually, we English-speakers don’t really have a translation that will do it justice.  It is not JUST breath; it is the very essence of God giving us life, God’s Spirit, God’s Word breathed into all of Creation, into all that is life.

Ezekiel was both a priest and a prophet in the 6th century BCE, before and during the time of the conquest of Judah and the Babylonian exile.  Ezekiel himself was taken into exile, into a land far away from the land of his birth and of his identity.  The temple was destroyed and the city lay in ruins.  All seemed hopeless and gone.  The bones here, whether taken literally or as metaphor, are dry, lifeless, and broken.  They symbolize all of the hopes and dreams that now lay in despair.  The kingdom of Israel is gone and their lives have gone away with it.  There is nothing left but corpse-like bones.

And then, according to Ezekiel, “the hand of the Lord came upon me.”  In The Message, Eugene Peterson says that “God grabs me”.  Think of that image.  Here was Ezekiel, probably feeling the weight of despair of those around him and virtual helplessness at what he could do as their leader.  But then “God GRABBED him…I have something to show you.”  And there in the middle of death and destruction and despair, God showed him what only God could see.  God showed him that there was something there—there was always something there.  And then God breathes life into the bones and the bones come to life.  It is a story of resurrection.

The idea of God creating and recreating over and over again is not new to us.  But most of us do not this day live in exile.  We are sitting comfortably at home; we are residing in the place where our identity is claimed.  So how can we, then, understand fully this breathing of life into death, this breathing of hope into despair?  The image is a beautiful one and yet we sit here breathing just fine.  We seldom think of these breaths as the very essence of God.  In the hymn, “I’ll Praise My Make While I’ve Breath”, Isaac Watts writes the words, “I’ll praise my God who lends me breath…”  Have you ever thought of the notion of God “lending you breath”?  Think about it.  In the beginning of our being, God lent us breath, ru’ah, the very essence of God.  And when our beings become lifeless and hopeless, that breath is there again.  And then in death, when all that we know has ended, God breathes life into dry, brittle, lifeless bones yet again.  Yes, it is indeed a story of resurrection.

God gave us the ability to breathe and then filled us with the very Breath of God.  We just have to be willing to breathe.  It involves inhaling.  It also involves exhaling.  So, exhale, breathe out all of that stuff that does not give you life, all of that stuff that dashes hopes and makes you brittle, all of that stuff that you hold onto so tightly that you cannot reach for God.  Most of us sort of live our lives underwater, weighed down by an environment in which we do not belong.  We have to have help to breathe, so we add machines and tanks of air.  But they eventually run out and we have to leave where we are and swim to the top.  And there we can inhale the very essence of God, the life to which we belong.  God lends us breath until our lives become one with God and we can breathe forever on our own.

“Lending breath”…it is ours, but only for a moment, only for a breath.  We do not keep it, we do not store it away.  Like manna, we fill our lungs to capacity as only they are designed by God to do and then we exhale.  We let go.  We release that breath of life into Creation to make room to breathe again.  Most of us take it for granted, this rhythmic breathing in and breathing out.  We don’t really think about each of these breaths that have been lent to us, these God-breathed gasps that are ours for only a short time.  Actually, more of life is like that than we like to think.  We like to think that we are in control, that we orchestrate our breathing in and our breathing out.  But, really, the breath is not ours.  It is God-breathed.  It is what give us life, over and over and over again.  In a way, each and every moment, we are resurrected.  We begin again.  But we forget that.  Lent reminds us, reminds us that there is more than what we control, more than what we know.  Lent reminds us that the air we breathe is not our own, that we need to exhale.

We don’t tend to use the word “resurrection” as often on this side of the cross.  We wait until we have walked through the turmoil.  We wait until we have walked through that shadow of death and have been laid aside in a tomb.  I’m wondering if we don’t talk about it because it DOES involve a death, an exhaling of sorts, a letting go of all those things to which we hold that do not bring us life, that are not part of who we are meant to be.  That death, that exhaling, is a way of making room, making room for that God-given breath within us that is trying desperately to bring us life.  Resurrection allows one to breathe.

So, more breathing exercises…Breathe out—breathe out those things that make you dry and brittle, those things that weigh you down, those things that you try desperately to hold because you think you should or because you are fearful what will happen if you don’t.  Breathe out those things that do not bring you life.  And then breathe in…breathe in that breath, like manna from heaven, that brings newness and life.  The breath is there, that “Ru’ah,” that breathe that was breathed into you in the very beginning.  Just breathe… 

Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. (Arundhati Roy)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

‘Tis Love

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Passage:  Genesis 32: 24-31

24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Our faith journey is not meant to be a collection of information or a complete understanding of the entire Biblical story.  There is not some elusive list of doctrines or commandments or moral rules that we are required to memorize and follow.  The truth is, the answers are there but they are often shrouded in doubt and mystery and clouded over by our own pre-conceived notion of what faith is supposed to be and who God is in our lives.  Our faith journey is instead just that—an evolving journey on which we travel not to an end where our Maker finally welcomes us to a place called home but rather one on which we walk with this God we sometimes barely know and who we always fall short of understanding and realize along the way that we were home all along.  It is a journey on which we struggle and wrestle and often resist the Way that is laid before us.  But it is also one that gives us glimpses of the holy and the sacred that are so profound and so amazing that all we can do is fall down on our knees and worship the One who was with us all along.    

So, this story that we read has often eluded me.  What does this mean?  I was never satisfied with it being a story of Jacob’s great faith and persistence.  I mean, after all, who in the world would fight with one who is bigger than we can imagine and has no limits?  Wouldn’t it be smarter, and probably a whole lot easier, to just walk away?  And what does that say about God?  Surely God is not withholding something from us for which God expects us to fight. 

So, for a little background, note that Jacob and his entourage are about to reenter the Promised Land.  He has sent his entire caravan across the Jabbok, an eastern tributary of the Jordan about twenty miles north of the Dead Sea.  And it is here that, for some reason, Jacob stays behind.  And sometime during the night, he is wrestled to the ground.  Jacob may well have thought it was Esau at first, who had threatened to kill Jacob for taking his birthright (because Jacob did NOT come out the moral winner in that fight!).  He might have thought that he was finally getting his due for all those years as the trickster, that he had finally once and for all been “found out”. 

The struggle goes on through the night and as daybreak approaches, Jacob is struck on the hollow of this thigh by his opponent.  The blow has a crippling effect but Jacob retains such a hold that there is no escape.  He demands a blessing for the release.  You think about it—he had the birthright, he had everything in his life.  But his greatest desire was to be blessed. So, somehow Jacob either knew or had realized that this was God with whom he was wrestling, because only God has the power to grant such a blessing. 

Now remember that it was believed that God’s face would not be seen and if it was, the one who saw God would die.  This says something about Jacob.  He is willing to risk even death for the sake of the divine blessing.  And God is willing to allow Jacob to wrestle, even to demand, even to seemingly take more of God’s time and God’s power than he really deserved.  God gives the blessing and changes Jacob’s name to Israel, “God-wrestler”.

The story ends with a lot of ambiguity.  I mean, there’s no clear winner.  They just sort of walk away as the dawn breaks.  But Jacob will never be the same again.  He has looked not only God but himself square in the face and everything has changed. In a way, the old sages were right.  Once someone looks into the face of God, they do indeed die.  They have been made new, reborn.  Nothing will ever be the same again.  For Jacob, this act of wrestling has been one of transformation. And this trickster, this heel, this one who had spent his whole life trying to better his own existence, is renamed.  He becomes Israel and he names the place Peniel, which means “I have seen the face of God.”

You know, it’s interesting to note that the New Revised Standard Version uses “Peniel” in one place and “Penuel” in the other to name this place where Jacob wrestled.  They both essentially mean the same thing.  The difference is that “Peniel” (with an “I”) is singular or first person.  It means “I have seen the face of God.”  “Penuel” (with a “u”) is plural.  It means “We have seen the face of God.”  So Jacob names the place for his own encounter, acknowledging that he knew that he had seen the face of God.  By the time he leaves, though, the name is plural, opening up new possibilities to all of us having a similar encounter with the Holy and the Sacred.

The truth is, this wrestling match that Jacob had is not a story of persistence or winning; it is a story of redemption. Jacob was allowed to wrestle and wander and even doubt and, still, became the one he was called to be.  The message of our Christian faith is not that God is some impersonal force, or a terrifying presence to whom we cannot relate.  God does not expect empty praise and sacrifices and groveling from us.  God is willing to wrestle, to get down into our lives, to know who we are, and to allow us to search for who God is to us.  We are the people who wrestle with God. It is not presumptuous of us to make this claim. God was the one who gave that name to God’s people. That’s who God wants us to be.  Of course God could squish us like a bug in a nanosecond. But for our benefit, God is always available to wrestle with us, at whatever level we are capable of wrestling.  God sent Jesus into the world to wrestle with us, and Jesus allowed himself to get pinned to a cross. That’s what it took for us to experience the love that flows from God.

So, for us?  We breathe.  We breathe out all of those preconceived notions of God that we have.  We let go of the God who will punish us for not being “right” or abandon us for not being “godly” or shun us for not being the way that the world wants us to be.  And then we breathe in.  We breathe in a God who not only lets us wrestle but does it with us, a God that will love us more than we allow ourselves to love us, a God that is made of love.  We breathe in a God that doesn’t coerce but rather invites us into love.  That’s what Jesus showed us.  The God of us all is a God of love.

In the ways that truly shape life, we are left alone to wrestle with God.  That wrestling isn’t the assault of a thug, despite what people say about God’s hatred and wrath. That wrestling isn’t a contest for supremacy. It is about who we are. We have one sense of ourselves, and God has another. Or to use the image of Genesis, we know one name for ourselves, and God knows another.  In that wrestling with God, we decide whether to remain small, a creature of the world, governed by appetite and self-centered, or to become what God knows.  That is lonely duty. No one can do it for us.   (Tom Ehrich)

This hymn offering was written by Charles Wesley (because I’m TOTALLY a United Methodist dork!).  It was first published in 1742 and actually had 14 verses.  I love this hymn.  I want it sung at my funeral.  It is said that John Wesley tried to teach the hymn two weeks after his brother died and broke down.  And Isaac Watts supposedly said that “that single poem, “Wrestling Jacob”, was worth all the verses he himself had written.”  (Watts wrote “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”)  The whole thing is phenomenal.  Look it up at https://www.poetry-archive.com/w/wrestling_jacob/

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Place We Dwell

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Passage:  Psalm 23 (Lent 4A) (KJV)

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

(Yes, I used KJV because, according to my Grandmother, you cannot read Psalm 23 in any other version…)

Lent is a season of shadows.  During this time we walk through the shadow of the Cross, the shadow of death, and, even, the shadow of our former selves.  Maybe that’s the point of Lent–to wrestle us away from our comfortable, perfectly-manicured lives, from all those things that we plan and perceive, from all those things that we hide and, finally, teach us to traverse the nuances that the journey holds.  And yet, think about it.  What exactly creates shadows?  The answer is light.  Light must be behind the shadowed object.  So, the shadow of the Cross, the shadow of death, even the shadow of our former selves cannot be without the Light.

Faith is, by its very nature, a journey through wilderness, through green pastures and still waters and loss and despair and doubt and not really knowing what comes next. It is a journey through a place where all of a sudden God is not as God should be, not as the God that we have somehow conjured up in our own mind. No longer is God a freshly cleaned-up deity handing out three cotton candy wishes to faithful followers. In the wilderness, we find God in the trenches and in the silence of our lives. Or maybe it is that that is the place that we finally notice God at all. When our lives are emptied out, when our needs and our deepest emotions are exposed, is the time that a lot of us realize that God was there all along. Maybe part of our walk is a way of getting to the depths of ourselves, the place where in our search for God, we find our faith in God, and there in the silence we find our hope.

In her book, When God is Silent, Barbara Brown Taylor tells “a story from the Sufi tradition about a man who cried, “Allah! Allah!” until his lips became sweet with the sound. A skeptic who heard him said, “Well! I have heard you calling out but where is the answer to your prayer? Have you ever gotten a response?” The man had no answer to that. Sadly, he abandoned his prayers and went to sleep. In his dreams, he saw his soul guide, walking toward him through a garden. “Why did you stop praising?” the saint asked him. “Because I never heard anything back,” the man said. “This longing you voice IS the return message,” the guide told him. The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those people that think that God sends us suffering or heartache or grief to make us stronger or to test our faith or just to prove something. I don’t think I’d have a lot of respect for a God that has so little compassion for those who love God so much. God is always there, listening and guiding, and wanting us to get a sense of the holy and the sacred to which we’ve been called. But the point is that those times when life is not that great, when we struggle in the very depths of our being, are the times when God reaches through our waiting and our struggles and we can finally hear the silence that is God. We experience the biggest part of God when our need is the greatest.

Now I know that this Psalm brings about different thoughts and memories for each of us—some wonderful, some painful, some bittersweet. It’s probably one of those few passages that you can actually recite all the way through. It goes beyond the words, beyond the rhythm, beyond the hearing. It is truly beloved. It is a glimpse of the holy and the sacred.

My own standout experience with it happened several years ago. I was in seminary with little or no worship experience. I went to the funeral of one of my great aunts. And then, after the perfunctory family lunch (with our rather large family) and the funeral, we began to make our way to the cemetery for the burial. It was just a short drive. As we arrived, one of the ministers came up to me and asked me if I would like to read the Scripture at the graveside. Well, I have to tell you, when you’re in seminary, have little or no worship experience, and must now do this in front of your entire rather large family, many of whom are thinking it’s odd or wrong or at the very least just sort of cute that this woman is going to seminary to become a pastor, it’s a little overwhelming. I opened the funeral handbook (yes, there’s a funeral handbook! Perhaps we’re not as smart as you think!). And there, there it was…this wonderful Psalm. I would read that. But I did not choose it because I had opened to it; I did not choose it because it was familiar to me and I knew that there weren’t any hard words. I chose it because I knew that my grandmother, though nearly deaf, could hear it.  As I began to read, there was a stillness that settled over the crowd. The Spring wind that had been blowing all day stopped and all I heard was the faint sound of some wind chimes near the cemetery entrance. And I heard my voice but it didn’t sound like it was coming from me. As we got into the car to go, my grandmother whispered to me, “I heard you.” Don’t think it was a miracle; she didn’t hear a word I said. But it was part of her.   She had repeated it for 92 or 93 years at that point. She no longer needed to listen to the words. She could hear them anyway.

Several years later, I stood in another cemetery beside my grandmother’s casket, reading these words again.  This time I had graduated from seminary and had a little experience in worship. But don’t get me wrong…there was also my entire rather large family, many of whom are thinking it’s odd or wrong or at the very least just sort of cute that this woman has become a pastor. At the cemetery, I read the Scripture. I chose the same Psalm, not because my grandmother could hear it, but because I could.  (I will say that my grandmother always insisted that this Psalm could ONLY be read in the King James Version, so let that be a lesson too!)

Life is filled with shadows, places that you did not plan to go, places that scare you and challenge you, places that are filled with pain.  But God did not call us to walk through blinding Light.  God called us to learn to see.  Maybe the shadows help us do that.  Maybe the shadows are the reason we see the Light.

The crux is that this Psalm is meaningful to just about all of us.  I think it may be more than just the comfort it supposedly brings.  I think it depicts the place we dwell.  It depicts our life—all of it.  It depicts that incredible life that God created filled with good and bad, sunshine and shadows, celebration and despair.  But what we have to do is breathe out the tendency that we have to discount that, to perhaps only welcome the good while trying to hide or excuse the painful aspects.  Because all of it makes us who we are.  So, breathe in all of it…breathe in the place where you dwell.  Go back and re-read the Psalm.  It is where you are, always are—there with God, the great shepherd of all of us.

Blessed are the ears which hear God’s whisper and listen not to the murmurs of the world. (Thomas A’Kempis)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli