21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
So, we’ve been breathing a lot this season. We are about halfway through it all. I think today marks the beginning of the second half of the Lenten season. So, hopefully you’ve had some wonderful breathing exercises and have not hyperventilated.
Just breathe…
As we know, the Scriptures often equate breath with life and God’s Spirit. The Hebrew word is ruah, which though often translated as breath probably is better understood as the source of being, the essence of God. It is God “breathing” the very Godself into us so that a piece of us is truly “God-breathed”. But breathing requires that we open ourselves to receive.
Just breathe…
So, I was going to write some wordy treatise on breathing but in what I can only attribute to a personal revelation, I think nothing says more about breathing than breathing.
Just breathe…
To help with that, here is a poem that Diana Butler Bass had on her Lenten reflection a few days ago…(I would recommend her Substack “The Cottage” highly…look it up!)
BORN AGAIN by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
You cannot get life, earn it, keep it, or store it up like money. It is breath, Spirit.
You receive it. Then you release it, and become open to receive again.
You cannot hold it. You must receive it. God gives it to you.
Let go of your life, accomplishments and mistakes, all you deserve — good and bad —
and instead receive it anew from God in this moment, a single breath.
Let your repentance be simply to breathe, to receive and let go.
All the things you have to do and all the things you want to do disappear into the breath.
It is a death and resurrection. Let yourself disappear into the breath, the spirit, and be born again.
Go slow enough to live in the breath, to surrender the life you build and hoard, and to live the life God gives you.
Falling and rising, your breath is the gift of life from God, made new in every moment.
Breathe gently. Breathe deeply. Breathe life.
Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. (Etty Hillesum)
8For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
This passage essentially contends that to “walk in the light” means that we are no longer naïve. It is not about being happy or “blessed” in terms of how this world sees “blessed”. The world is illumined by our faith. We now must own a commitment to justice and compassion for all of Creation. Light is goodness and justice and truth. It is not about merely living a moral and righteous life; it is about witnessing to the light that is Christ. Light and darkness cannot exist together. As the passage says, light makes all things visible and then all things visible become light. The Light of Christ makes that on which is shines light itself. The passage exhorts us to wake up and see the light and then live as children of that light; in essence, we are called to become light.
I don’t really think of this light of Christ as a bright, blinding spotlight. It’s really much more nuanced and subtle than that. Think illuminating, rather than blinding. Think revealing, rather than overly bright. And it doesn’t dispel or destroy the darkness but rather illumines it. It casts a different light, a light that illuminates all. God, with infinite wisdom, gave us the power and the desire to see through the darkness and glimpse the light shining through, to see the Light that is Christ. It is a light that is always present regardless of our view, that exposes all that is visible and makes that on which it shines light itself. There is a Maori proverb that says “turn your face to the [light] and the shadows will fall behind you.” They are not consumed; they are still there, light streaming into their midst. Shadows do not exist without light. Light is what makes them visible. We are like that. Exposed by the Light of Christ, we become visible; and by becoming visible, we become light, children of light, images of the Light that is Christ, the Light that is God.
But light is a strange thing. Most of us just take it for granted. We’re vaguely aware of it if it creeps through the cracks and hollow spaces where we don’t expect it to be and we’re very aware of it when we have to drive in the direction of a rising or setting sun. But, for the most part, we are the most aware of its existence when it is not there or when we need it. (Sadly, there may be some of us that have a similar relationship with God!) But we humans need light. It regulates our circadian rhythms and controls melatonin release. In other words, we cannot go without light. (Kind of like our relationship with God!)
And, yet, we avoid exposure to it. Because light exposure changes the thing that is exposed. When something is exposed to light, it takes on some of those light particles. Colors lighten and change. We are no different. Faith is about light exposure. When exposed to the Light that is God, we change. We take on part of that Light. We become a ray of that Light, a light that becomes visible to all. We are not meant to live in darkness. We are created to be children of Light. We are created to be changed. There is still darkness. There are still injustices and prejudices and suffering and pain. There are still parts of the world begging for Light. That is where we come in, those who have been exposed, forever changed, and who can do nothing else but shine forth.
So, in this season of breathing out and breathing in, breathe out shielding yourself from the light. Breathe out trying to be anonymous, trying to be “part of the crowd”, trying to hide who you are, who God created you to be. Instead, take a big breath and breathe in all the Light that surrounds you. Let it shine so brightly on your life that you might become uncomfortable, that you might feel overexposed. Let it reset your holy rhythms. Be aware of the changes it brings to your life. Just try it. God has called us to be reflectors of the Light—all the light.
I cannot create the light. The best I can do is put myself in the path of its beam. (Annie Dillard)
14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
This is it: THE verse. So, what we do with THE verse? It’s on street corners and billboards and T-Shirts and tattoos and faces and signs at sporting events. I think it is often read as some sort of great reward for doing the right things, the recognition of a narrow and exclusive pathway. You know, if you do everything you’re supposed to do, you’ll be rewarded when it’s all said and done. And if you don’t, well you’re just out of luck. You messed up. So, look at me…do what I do, go to church where I go, be what I am, look like I look. I’m saved; are you? (Define that! Do we really understand what that means?)
Really? Truthfully, I used to hate this verse. The way it was taught did not make sense to me. I mean, why would the guy that welcomed all those thousands of people on a hillside (or a plain if you’d rather read it in The Gospel According to Luke) suddenly say, “nope…just this group”? Yeah, I think we’ve read it wrong. (Cue the lightning bolt, I guess…) For God so loved the world—not the ones in the right church or the right country or the right side of the line—but the WORLD. God loved the world, everything about the world, everyone in the world, so much, so very, very, VERY much, that God came and walked among us, sending One who was the Godself in every way, to lead us home, to actually BRING us home, to lead us to God. Are you saved? Yes…every day, every hour, over and over and over and over again. I’m being saved with every step and move and breath I take. I think that’s what God does. God loves us SO much that that is what God does. God is saving us. God came into the world to save the world. So why would we interpret this to mean that God somehow has quit loving some of us or that we have to somehow bargain with God to begin loving us or that “being saved” is a badge of honor? See, God loves us so much that God is saving us from ourselves—all of us, as in the WHOLE WORLD.
The reference to the snake refers to Numbers 21:4-9. It is the account of the Lord sending poisonous serpents into the wilderness that can be countered by making a serpent and putting it on a pole so that everyone who looks at it will live even though they were bit by a poisonous snake. (OK….whatever!…I’m not really a snake person.) So, essentially, it’s like this: You think your main problem is snakes? I mean, THAT’S your problem? Alright, here it is. Look at it hanging there on the tree. Quash your fear, let your preconceptions go. There…no more snakes. You don’t have to fear snakes.
So, this time? You have let the world order run your life. You have become someone that you are not. You have allowed yourself to be driven by fear and preconceptions and greed. You have opted for security over freedom, held on to what is not yours, and settled for vengeance rather than compassion and love. You have conjured up wars against each other. I created you for more than this. I love you too much for this to go on. Look up. Look there, hanging on the tree, there on the cross. Stare at the snake. Stare at the Cross. Enter the Cross. See how much I love you. In this moment, I take all your sin, all your misgivings, all your inhumanity and let it die with me. All is well. All is well with your soul. There…no more death. You don’t have to fear death.
Many people read this verse as the depiction of a narrow way, a way that is defined by the Jesus that they imagine. I don’t think that. I read it not as a narrow pathway to God but one that is wide and welcoming, one that is merciful and grace-filled, on that each of us can find a way to walk. That’s Jesus’ message for me: “Come, THIS way…I’ll show you! Because that is how much you are loved.”
There are so many of us that are quick to define who is “in” and who is “out” as far as God is concerned. Really? Are you sure? I mean, isn’t that a little above your holy pay grade, so to speak. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. So, come all you that are searching and those that are lost. Come all who struggle with being accepted in the church, all who have been shunned and made to feel that they are less than. Come ALL of God’s children. You are loved. You are so loved that God walked this earth in the form of a human to show us all the way. And, yes, I think that is REALLY, REALLY good news.
So, for today’s breathing exercise…Breathe out what the world tells you about who is “in” and who is “out”. Breathe out the vision of a church and a Kingdom of God that only includes those who believe the “right” way, who walk the prescribed path. Breathe out hatred and exclusion and xenophobia of God’s children, no matter who they are. Then breathe in…breathe in that great, great love of God that Jesus showed us. Breathe in that you are so deeply and incredibly loved that you can’t even fathom its depth.
In Christian language, to be truly human is to shape our lives into an offering to God. But we are lost children who have wandered away from home, forgotten what a truly human life might be. When Jesus, our older brother, presented himself in the sanctuary of God, his humanity fully intact, he did not cower as though he were in a place of “blazing fire and darkness and gloom.” Instead, he called out, “I’m home, and I have the children with me.”(Thomas Long)
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 4Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
6When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” 7But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” 11Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.
Once again, God has called the most unlikely, the most unexpected, and the most unprepared candidate to do God’s work. There seems to be a pattern here. This time, God’s choice is a young, but apparently good-looking, harp-playing shepherd, an eighth son, from the village of Bethlehem, and from a family with no real pedigree or appropriate ancestry at all. And with this person, God lays the road for the hope of the world. No pressure there! But the unlikeliness doesn’t stop there. What about Samuel? God called him to go to Jesse the Bethlehemite and anoint a new king. Well, I’m pretty sure that Saul (you know, Saul the King) would not have been impressed with that had he found out. What if Samuel had just said, “You know, God, I would really rather not. That just doesn’t work into my plan.”?
Think about it. What would change about our journey if we knew where we would end up, if we thought that we might end up in a place that we didn’t plan? And what would change about our life if we knew how it was all going to turn out? I mean,…the boy David is out in the field just minding his own business and doing what probably generations of family members before him had done. He sees his brothers go inside one by one, probably wandering what in the world is going on. Finally, he is called in. “You’re the one!” “What do you mean I’m the one?” he probably asked in his teen-age sarcasm. “What in the world are you talking about? Don’t I even get a choice?” “Not so much.” And so, David was anointed. “You’re the one!”
What would have happened if David has just turned and walked away? Well, I’m pretty sure that God would have found someone else, but the road would have turned away from where it was. It would have been a good road, a life-filled road, a road that would have gotten us where we needed to be. But it wouldn’t have been the road that God envisioned it to be. We know how it all turned out. David started out by playing the supposed evil out of Saul with his lyre. Yes, the good King David had some bumps in the road, so to speak. (OK, A LOT of bumps! I mean there was that Bathsheba thing and then there was the son who tried to overthrow him and then there was a whole lot of bloodshed that probably didn’t need to happen. Maybe David actually got a little full of himself.) But he ultimately is remembered as a great king and generations later, a child was brought forth into the world, descended from David. The child grew and became himself anointed—this time not for lyre-playing or earthly kingship but as Messiah, as Savior, as Emmanuel, God-Incarnate. And in turn, God then anoints the ones who are to fall in line and follow him. “You’re the one”.
Do we even get a choice, you ask? Sure, you get a choice. You can close yourself off and try your best to hold on to what is really not yours anyway or you can walk forward into life as the one anointed to build the specific part of God’s Kingdom that is yours. We are all called to different roads in different ways. But the calling is specifically yours. And in the midst of it, there is a choice between death and life. Is there a choice? Not so much! Seeing the way to walk is not necessarily about seeing where the road is going. So just keep walking and enjoy the scenery along the way!
So…and this is hard…breathe out all those plans you’ve made. Breathe out the pathway that you’ve laid and perfectly manicured and made sure that no one treads on. And, then, breathe in…breathe in the imperfect you that God is calling. Breathe in a way of living differently. Breathe in the possibility that, unlikely as you seem, you are the one for that way that you are imagining. Next time you ask, “why doesn’t someone do something?”, breathe in…and start walking. God doesn’t call perfect people. I feel certain that that group would be sparse at best! God calls us and mercifully walks with us through the journey. But you have to start.
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only [they] who see, take off [their] shoes—The rest sit round it and pluck blueberries. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
14David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but the Lord did not give him into his hand. 15David was in the Wilderness of Ziph at Horesh when he learned that Saul had come out to seek his life. 16Saul’s son Jonathan set out and came to David at Horesh; there he strengthened his hand through the Lord. 17He said to him, “Do not be afraid; for the hand of my father Saul shall not find you; you shall be king over Israel, and I shall be second to you; my father Saul also knows that this is so.”
David is one that spends a lot of time in the dark wilderness according to the Scriptures. Here, he is running, running for his very life. He knows that Saul is coming after him. So, he runs into the “strongholds of the wilderness”. Isn’t that interesting that this place that holds such danger, such peril, such forsakenness, is, here, a place of protection? David stays there, hidden away, as the wilderness surrounds him and holds him offering comfort and safety. I suppose given the alternative (you know, like when a really angry man with an army is chasing you), the wilderness appears to be a very attractive place. And it becomes easy to enter its wilds and close ourselves off to the world.
During this season of Lent, we talk a lot about wilderness, about darkness, about those places that do not provide comfort and repose. It would be easy for us to think that the wilderness is a place for us to stay. Now, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I would like nothing better than to close myself off and not have to deal with my part of the world. Sometimes, I would love to just stay in my room for days on end and write. But even though God calls us into the wilderness in certain seasons of our lives, the wilderness is not meant to be home. The wilderness is not a place where we put down stakes and plant roots. The wilderness is not a home; it is an encounter. It is the place that pushes us. If a wilderness begins to offer us solace, we have, sadly, tamed its wilds.
I’ve thought again about those early Desert Mothers and Fathers, who spent the better part of a lifetime wandering in the wilderness, communing with God, and writing the tales. But they did not live in the wilderness as a home; they did not tame it enough that they could close themselves off. Imagine them moving in a way that their feet never really touched the ground. Maybe that’s the operative word…moving.
When you think about it, the Bible is a story of movement. God creates life and just as quickly pushes it into the wilds. The creatures wander for a time and then they begin to plant their feet and build walls and boundaries (and dress themselves). So, God, with loving hands, pushes them farther out into the world. They wander and then they begin building. The Bible is a story of the rhythms of God driving us into the world and our building of walls and boundaries. It happens over and over and over again. It is no different here. David is driven into the wilderness and then decides, “you know, I’ll stay awhile and let it offer me solace and protection”. It did not last long.
Lent, like the wilderness, is not meant to be our home; it is meant to be our way of life. Because when we wander in the wilderness, we are free, we are vulnerable. University of Houston’s Dr. Brene’ Brown tells us that connection begins by allowing ourselves to be seen; in other words, being vulnerable, allowing ourselves to be seen, leaves us open to encounter. If we quit wandering and sit down and plant our feet and build a home that is not meant to be, that is not ours, we close ourselves off to encounter. We close ourselves off to God. So, if you feel the need to stay where you are, to build a home, to wall yourselves off, at least an opening so you can see the sun and breathe the air and know that God is always there.
The darkness, the wilderness, that place where we struggle and look for answers is indeed a place where we do not feel at home, where our comforts and all those things to which we’ve become accustomed, are stripped away. We are laid raw in a way. And, as uncomfortable as that is, it is in those places where we are most ready to connect with God.
So, here we are in this unfamiliar place, wandering, perhaps lost. Breathe…Breathe out the need to tame it, to make it your home. Breathe out the need to calm it and understand it. And then breathe in…breathe in the wildness, the untamed, the vulnerable, the lack of control. Breathe in…God. God is always there offering mercy and salvation. But God does not always offer comfort. God does not always tame the wilderness or light the darkness. Sometimes God just lets us be…and gives us a chance to breathe. Sometimes we need the darkness. Sometimes we need the wilderness. Sometimes realizing our vulnerability, our lack of control, our needs leads us to what we needed all along.
“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.” (Madeleine L’Engle)
O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.” Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Sometimes I think that “worship” in our culture is defined based on how gratifying it is to us, on whether or not it is meaningful to us or leave us feeling “spiritual”. Our worship is sort of graded based on how good the sermon is, or how wonderful the music is, or how it makes us feel. I’m guilty of it. There are just certain styles of worship and worship music that do not feel “worshipful” to me. But, really, is that what worship is? What is the point of worship? Worshippers in Early Judaism believed that God was actually IN the worship space that they carried with them. And so, they would approach the tabernacle with awe and joy. They didn’t get wrapped up in worship styles or whether or not they liked the sermon. Worship was about God, about coming into the very Presence of God with thanksgiving. Worship was about realizing that there was more than us, that God held all of Creation in the Divine Hands and was worthy of worship.
So, when did we lose that? When did we lose the notion that worship is not about us? Soren Kierkegaard, when talking about worship, asked that we think about what it means to us. Using his depiction of worship as a theater, think about your own notion of worship. Where is the stage? (Most would say the chancel or the altar. (Newsflash: It’s really NOT a stage.)) Who are the actors? (Most would say the clergy, the choir, and perhaps the ushers and acolytes, those that “make it happen”) Who is the audience? (Well, of course the congregation.) But Kierkegaard would say that the stage is the whole sanctuary, perhaps the whole world, all of those places where worship happens. And the actors? Well, that would be us–all of us, all of us bowing in worship. And the audience? The audience is God. I love that. I think it reminds us that we are not the center of worship. It is not about us.
The Psalm reminds us that God is the God of all, that everything is within God’s realm, resting in God. So, we are called to make a joyful noise. It doesn’t call for happiness. Happiness, that self-gratifying feeling, is always a little bit elusive. But joy–joy resides in the deepest part of our being. It is that sense of awe and presence when we know that God is there, always there, and can do nothing else but come into God’s Presence, nothing else but worship the God of us all. God desires our worship, not because God is selfish, not because God wants to be honored, not because we in some way owe God that; God desires our worship because God desires us, wants desperately to be with us, for us to feel and know and live in God’s Presence. And, there, there in God’s Presence, we worship. Our whole lives, we worship. Every moment, every place, every piece of our being, worships. O Come, Let us Sing to the Lord!
So, on this day, breathe out… breathe out your opinions of worship. Breathe out your judgment of how “good” the worship is, what order the bulletin is in, or how long it lasts. (And, for today, breathe out the fact that you’re tired because the time changed and it starts an hour earlier!) And as you worship today, breathe in the very presence of God. Breathe in the God who is always there and who wants desperately to be with you. Worship is not separate from life. If you breathe in deeply enough, it will become your life. Your life will become worship.
Oh…and make sure you turn you pay attention to what time it is!
To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God. (William Temple)
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to lead a discussion with the a UMW group on “Immigration and the Bible”. It’s based on a book with that same name by Joan Maruskin that was published to be a 2013 UMW study (that’s United Methodist Women for you non-Methodists! They’ve now changed their names but whatever…). Now, that “immigration” word is, for us, probably nothing less than a lightning bold word. It is so politically charged nowadays that most of us shy away from it. But the truth is, it is what the Bible is about. The Bible is about movement. The Bible is about immigration. It begins with God’s Spirit moving across the face of the earth and ends with a depiction of a city, a New Jerusalem, moving from heaven to earth. And in between, we read stories of people continuing to be uprooted. They move from one place to another seeking safety and sanctuary and we are continually given reminders of how we are called to welcome the stranger into our midst. The Bible is a story of movement and a story of welcome. And along the way, the call is not to build and prosper but to encounter each other and enter each other’s lives.
But each of us in this world works hard to preserve our perceived image of what that world should be—a world where our political views, our boundaries we have drawn, our wealth and possessions we hold, our standard of living and our understanding of who God is remain intact. The problem is that our need to preserve ourselves usually gets in the way of our ability to connect with others, our ability to encounter the rest of God’s children. Because if each of us is waiting for the other to respond in love first, then love will never be the response and the walls of hatred become stronger and more difficult to tear down.
Take the relationship between the Samaritans and the Jews. Both believed in God. Both had a monotheistic understanding of the one true God, the YHWH of their shared tradition of belief. But where the temple of YHWH for the Jews existed on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the Samaritans instead believed the Scriptures supported the worshipping of God on Mount Gerizim near the ancient city of Shechem. And with that, a new line of religious understanding was formed. The Samaritans believed that their line of priests was the legitimate one, rather than the line in Jerusalem and they accepted only the Law of Moses, The Torah, as divinely inspired, without recognizing the writings of the prophets or the books of wisdom. These differences between the two peoples probably began as early as one thousand years before the birth of Christ and what started as a simple religious division, a different understanding of how God relates to us and we relate to God, eventually grew into a cultural and political conflict that would not go away. The tension escalated and the hatred for the other was handed down for centuries from parent to child over and over again.
So here is this woman depicted as a stranger, an outcast, a Samaritan. And here is Jesus breaking all of the boundaries of traditional and accepted Judaism. First, he, unescorted, speaks to a woman. In the Talmud, the rabbis warned that conversing with women would ultimately lead to unchastity. In fact, Jose ben Johanan, of Jerusalem, who lived around 160 B.C., wrote, “He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will inherit Gehenna (or the destination of the wicked). ” (Wow! That sounds pretty serious!) Secondly, Jesus speaks to a woman of questionable repute. Now, in all probability, this woman was probably just a victim of some form of Levirate marriage gone bad, where she had been handed in marriage from relative to relative as her husbands died, leaving her penniless and out of options. And, finally, Jesus speaks to the so-called “enemy”. The truth is, there is nothing about this woman that is wrong or sinful or anything else that we try to tack on her reputation. The woman was just different. Her life had been difficult. She lived in darkness and had no way out of it. And the most astonishing thing is that this seemingly low-class Samaritan woman who is not even given a name in our Scriptures becomes the witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because, you’ll notice, Jesus did not just ask her for a drink. He engaged her in conversation about spiritual matters. Once again, the Gospel is found not in Jerusalem and not on Mt. Gerizim and not even in whatever faith community you call “yours”, but in our shared existence as part of this “new humanity”. The Gospel is found in our encounter with each other. Here, too, Jesus enters a new phase of his ministry. Up until this point, Jesus’ encounters have been pretty ethno-centric. But, here, the Gospel begins to spread to other ethnicities and other peoples. It begins to include an encounter with the world. It begins to include the “other”, the immigrant.
For most of us, our problem is that we are always waiting for someone else to make the first move toward acceptance and reconciliation. But Jesus did not wait. Jesus stepped into encounter. That is what we are called to do. We are called to go forward on an unpaved road to meet the other. We are called to somehow reach through our prejudice and even our fears and take each other’s hand. We are called to cross boundaries, rather than constructing them. We are called to reach through our differences and find our common, shared humanity, all children of God, all made in the image of God. That is the way that peace is found—one hand at a time. And that is the way that we encounter Jesus Christ.
Putting this study of “Immigration and the Bible” together, I began to see a new pattern emerge in the Scriptures—well, new for me as I read the Scriptures through a different lens. The Biblical story is a story of God calling us to go forth and our drawing borders, walling ourselves off, protecting who we are and what we have. God calls us to go and we draw borders. God calls us to go and we construct gates. God calls us to go and we build walls. But we are called to encounter the stranger. It is more than being welcoming. It is more than letting them into our carefully-constructed lives. It means entering their life and completely opening ours to them. It means that they become us and we become them. It means that we encounter each other.
We are in the middle of this season of Lent. It IS the season of wandering, the season of the wilderness journey. We always begin Lent with Jesus going into the wilderness, leaving what he knows, leaving the comforts of home. And I think that part of the reason for that, is that we are called to be wanderers, aliens, and sojourners. We do not stand in one place waiting for others to come to us. The Christian journey is always moving us toward something, so we go the way that God calls us to go and along the way, we gather the children of God. We encounter each other. As Jesus once said, “Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” In other words, go and encounter each other because that is how you encounter Christ.
So, let us breathe out that fear of the other. Let us breathe out the preservation of our way. Let us breathe out the notion that our view of the world, our view of who God is, is all there is. And let us breathe in what our brother and sisters can teach us. Let us breathe in the world and all the ever-widening circles that means.
I live my life in ever-widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself it it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song? (Rainer Maria Rilke)
The answer’s been here all along We just need to hold each other ’til the hurt is gone Oh, to belong, still a dream
Look what we’ve imagined with pain Make believing we aren’t the same But you and I know the truth Imagine what we could do If we imagined with love
Wild where the energy flows The window’s wide open All we see is the door that’s closed Sad how it goes So it goes, ’til it goes
Look what we’ve imagined with pain Make believing we aren’t the same But you and I know the truth Imagine what we could do If we imagined with love
Time for all of us to wake up out of this hypnotic state Instead of dreaming fast asleep, we should be dreaming wide awake
Look what we’ve imagined with pain Make believing we aren’t the same But you and I know the truth Imagine what, we could do, if we choose Yeah, what do we have to lose If we imagined with love?
Dancing to God 