Seized By the Power of a Great Affection

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text: John 12: 1-11

12Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” 9When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, 11since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

We are getting closer.  Jerusalem is upon us.  We have walked this Way of letting go and picking up, of feeling both despair and hope, of lament and joy, of breathing out and breathing in.  But, still, the ending is beginning to loom bigger than we imagined it would be. What is it, exactly, that we’re supposed to do with it all?  How do we walk with Jesus to the place where he is handed over?

This passage is usually read on Holy Monday.  It is part of the walk that we walk during Holy Week that ends with Jesus’ crucifixion.  It includes Palm Sunday, the Anointing, the description of the Cross (the wheat passage), the account of Judas, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.  But this passage is part of the “taking stock” that we are doing this week, the walk with Jesus through his life.

The truth is that we are not used to a Christ who does nothing, who just surrenders. We are, rather, more comfortable when Jesus is showing us how to do what we’re supposed to do as followers. We like a Jesus who is strong and confident leading our team.  We are not accustomed to such a passive Christ. I looked up the word “passive” in an etymological dictionary. The root is the Latin passiuus. And then, surprisingly, it says “See Passion.” The etymological root of passion, the term that we use to describe Jesus’ suffering journey to the cross, is the Latin passionem, or suffering. And it says “See Passive.” The two words are related. The “Passion”, this time of suffering and letting go and being “handed over”, is a movement from planned and intentional action to no longer being in control. All of Jesus’ actions are accomplished. It is finished. It is a time of waiting—waiting for others’ response.  Jesus has shown us how to let go, how to surrender.

In the passage, we find this passive Jesus. He visits the home of friends, the home of those whom he had served, those for whom he had done things. And, it says, they give a dinner for him. Jesus is the guest of honor. After all the doing, after all the action, after all the stuff, he now spends time with friends. And they serve him. And then the passage tells us that Mary takes a pound of costly perfumed nard, breaks the seal, and lavishly pours it onto Jesus’ feet. Then as the oil runs down his feet and begins to drip onto the floor, she bows and wipes his feet with her hair. The whole house is filled with this overwhelming fragrance, sort of a combination of mint and ginseng, sickeningly sweet.

Well, the disciples just couldn’t leave it alone. What in the world was she doing? Here is this man who has worked for years to bring peace and justice to the world, to heal others, to end poverty and oppression and you waste this oil by pouring it out on him! That oil could have been sold. Things could have been done with that money! We could have done great ministry with what you just poured on his feet! But you have wasted it! You have squandered it!

Jesus responds. “Leave her alone,” he says. You see, she gets it. She understands. I do not have long to be with you. She knows where I am going. And she responds. This woman loves Jesus. In fact, she loves Jesus so much that she defies the expected, shuns her role as the subservient female, and instead pours out the abundance of her life and anoints Jesus for his burial. This is not the time to talk about budgets or the ways things are normally done. This is the time of Jesus’ waiting and her response. As she anointed Jesus, Mary entered Jesus’ Passion and understood what it meant to have a personal relationship with Christ.

There are those in our society that would describe that breakthrough as being “born again”. But that phrase, commonplace and probably overused and misused as it is today, was not even around over a hundred years ago. Instead, the words that were used to describe this coming into who Jesus is was to say that one was “seized by the power of a great affection.” Isn’t that an incredible phrase—to be “seized by the power of a great affection”? You see, we 21st century folks usually think we have it all figured out. We know what we’re called to do to make disciples of Jesus Christ. We live our lives as best we can within the framework of what God wants us to do. And we do what we can for others by reaching out in the name of Christ. All of that is wonderful. But are we truly “seized by the power of a great affection”? Why do you think Jesus did everything that he did while he was on this earth? Was it just to show us what it is we’re supposed to do? No, Jesus was more than merely an exemplary human being put here for us to emulate. Jesus came to reveal God’s love, to show us how much God loves each of us and how much God desires us, to make known once and for all the affection that God has for all of God’s Creation and for us as children of God. Jesus was God made known, Emmanuel.

There is a story from the Sufi mystical tradition of a disciple that comes to an elder for direction.  “Where shall I find God?” the disciple asked the elder. “God is with you,” the Holy One replied. “But if that is true,” the disciple asked, “why can I not see this Presence?” “Because you are like the fish who, when in the ocean, never notices the water.” It is not that God is not with us; it is that we are unaware of that incredible Presence.  When we finally stop doing what we think we should be doing, let go, and listen for that which God is calling us to be we will become aware of that extraordinary Presence that is God. And in that becoming, we enter the anointed Christ-life.

We are about to enter the week when we come to the end of all our doing. This is the wilderness week when we let go and walk with Christ through the suffering of the Cross. This is the week when we finally realize that we can do nothing else. And on that final day, as the passive Christ is handed over, there is nothing more for him to do other than wait for our response. Who will follow me? Who will come to me with all your misery and your sins, with all your trouble and your needs, and with all your longings to be loved?  Who will follow me through the wilderness? Who will hand over their lives just as I have done that you too might be raised to new life? Because it is then that the oil will be poured out for you in much the same way as you are immersed in the waters of your Baptism.

I have read several modern interpretations of the theology about Mary that posits that Mary of Bethany and Mary of Magdala were actually the same person, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised.  There is also the belief that Martha was possibly a later edition to the narrative.  In other words, Lazarus only had one sister in this interpretation.  I’ve read some of Professor Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer’s work and Diana Butler Bass also writes about it.  Most of the work is based on the earliest existing texts including the Gospel of John (before the Western translators got hold of it) as well as some non-canonical texts (including The Gospel of Mary Magdalene).  So, I’m not completely convinced yet but I find it extraordinarily fascinating.  Because what it does is place Mary right in the story—the whole story.  It shows us that Mary confesses Christ, serves Jesus, anoints him for burial, witnesses his death, and proclaims the first Easter message. 

What I find fascinating is that IF this is the case, it means that Mary was doing everything at that dinner.  She was serving (as women did and even do) AND she was engaged, sitting at the feet of Jesus and anointing him for burial.  Mary got it.  Mary understood it enough that she did not allow herself to be strapped by the ways of the world, to be limited by her gender or her role, to be told the “proper” way to do something.  She allowed herself to be truly “seized by the power of a great affection”.  And, in that moment, Jesus was everything to her.  In that moment, she gave herself to him.  In that moment, the connection that they shared was the human connection that God calls us all to share—to love each other without distraction.  So, breathe out…breathe out all those things that pull you away from paying attention to each other, from engaging.  I have a handful of friends (one is a cousin) with whom I have regular or semi-regular lunches.  We do not engage with our phones.  We do not read anything but the menu.  We just spend time together.  We talk.  We share.  We ask advice.  We talk about books and theology and family and memories.  The point is that we breathe out the world and engage with each other.  That’s what Mary did.  I envision that if there WAS no Martha, then the dirty dishes were left in the sink for a while (the scandal!).  And then we breathe in…we breathe in Jesus.  We become seized by the power of a great affection.

Mary breathed out.  She breathed out what was expected.  She breathed out everything that would be said about her.  And then she knelt down and lifted the cup and poured out the oil until nothing was left.  It dripped down Jesus and onto the floor and seeped into the floor boards.  She tried to wipe it up with her hair.  And then she breathed in.  She wanted to remember this moment.  Days later would be too late.  Now was the time to engage.  In this moment she knew.  And she breathed in the presence of her Lord.

Jesus is Christ because he is truly human…He is the true Human because of his maturity, because of the way he showed us, beyond and inclusive of morality, the way to be a human being.  He tells the disciples that they will always have the poor with them—and that today he is here and he wants the friendship, he wants the spice, he wants the life…He is also telling us one thing more—that life is good, that its hidden design is goodness, that we may and should be sure to enjoy life.  Dig down.  Dig deeper.  Get intoxicated.  Smell the spices.  Jesus did.  So may we.  Even if we aren’t there yet. (Donna E. Schaper)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Way

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Lake of Galilee from Capernaum

Scripture Text:  Mark 6:1-6

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6And he was amazed at their unbelief.

The account of Jesus early in his ministry speaking in the synagogue before his hometown is found in all four Gospels.  It is the beginning of the story of Jesus we know as the teacher, as the community organizer, as the one that pushes people beyond their own boundaries.  In the Lukan Gospel, the passage from which he read is included. 

So, as was the custom, Jesus stood in the synagogue to read.  He unrolled the scroll and began.  But something happened in the midst of the reading.  He saw himself differently after reading the lyrical words from the scroll.  Hear the Scripture that was read: (Isaiah 61)

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,  and release to the prisoners;
2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,  and the day of vengeance of our God;    to comfort all who mourn; 3to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory. 4They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

The truth was that Jesus wasn’t seen as a prophet or a Messiah by this crowd.  He was just one of them, this little kid that had made good and of whom they were very proud.  This was the kid that they had helped raise.  They probably thought that his ministry would be a reflection on them.  But Jesus was not cooperating.  And when they looked at him, they did not see a reflection of what they were expecting but a dim view of something that was a tad unfamiliar.  Jesus was standing there, calling them to change, calling them to look at things differently, to step out of their carefully constructed boxes and away from their earthly temples of who they thought they should be and actually become the people of God. So, who did he think he was?  God?

The truth is, Jesus was asking them to go beyond what they knew.  As hard as it was for them to fathom, God was not some far-off inaccessible entity to which they could go when it was convenient and from which they could turn when it was not.  This ordinary, earthly man standing before them was God—Immanuel, God-with-us—calling them to serve others, to put themselves out there, and to unlock those gates that we all so carefully build around our lives.  They were being called to look into that reflection to see not who they were but who they were supposed to be.

And the passage says that they “took offense at him”.  In Greek, the word offense is “skandalon”, from which we get the word “scandal”.  Jesus was scandalous because he had the audacity to imply not that these learned people who had worshipped so faithfully for so long were wrong but that the religion that they practice, the boundaries that they had built, were not the whole thing.  

Albert Einstein once said that “we cannot solve our problems with the same mindset that created them.”  This world that God created is always changing, always growing, always alive.  There’s sort of a wildness to it, not to be tamed or fixed, but to be embraced and entered.  We are called to go out into the world and change it.  But, more importantly, we are called to move to where God is leading us and allow ourselves to be changed.  The world is different than it used to be—and so are we.

Jesus got that.  I think he knew in this moment that the ministry he was beginning was not a recap of the “usual” way.  No, it was the Way of Christ, the Way that God calls us to go.  And as much as the world still tries to sanitize that image of Christ, still tries to make him “acceptable” to the ways of the world, as much as those in power try to present a version that is on their side and affirms what they are doing, the truth is that the Way of Christ doesn’t look like this world or this theology that we have so carefully constructed.  It is rather one that shakes us up, turns us around, and heads us in a new direction.  We cannot follow the way that has been paved over and we can’t live in a world that has been safely fenced off against those who we are called to serve.  The pathway ahead is wild and untamed.  So, breathe out…breathe out the usual way.  Breathe out the way the world tells you that you should go.  Breathe out the usual and the comfortable and the way that won’t get you, I don’t know, killed or something.  And breathe in.  Breathe in the Spirit of the Lord that was breathed into the human we call Jesus.  And follow the path that calls you to build up ruins, raise those place that are devastated by our world, and repair the cities that the world has chosen to forget.  Breathe in the very image of Jesus Christ.

I think Jesus knew in this moment that the pathway would not be easy, that people would be “offended”, that there were those who would try to stop him.  Perhaps he knew how it would all end.  Jesus was not just placed in the world to become yet another historic footnote.  Jesus came to invite us into the Story, a story that at times would be difficult, a story that would take us on a difficult journey to the Cross, but, ultimately, a story that would end where it all began—with Life.  And God saw that it was very, very good.

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside…He speaks to us the same word:  ‘Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time…And to those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, [God] will reveal {Godself] in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in this fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who [God] is. (Albert Schweitzer)

Lyrics: “Jesus” (Ashley Cleveland)

Jesus
They say You walked upon the water once
When you lived as all men do
Please teach me how to walk the way You did
Because I want to walk with You

Jesus
They say you taught a lame man how to dance
When he had never stood without a crutch
Well here am I Lord holding out my withered hands
And I’m just waiting to be touched

Jesus
Write me into Your story
Whisper it to me
And let me know I’m Yours

Jesus
They say You spoke and calmed an angry wave
That was tossed across a stormy sea
Please teach me how to listen how to obey
‘Cause there’s a storm inside of me

Jesus
Write me into Your story
Whisper it to me
And let me know I’m Yours

They drove the cold nails through Your tired hands
And rolled a stone to seal Your grave
Feels like the devil’s rolled a stone onto my heart
Can You roll that stone away?”

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Water Into Wine

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Remains of first-century city of Capernaum, February, 2010

Scripture Text:  John 2: 1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

So, more taking stock…remember this day?  Remember the wedding where the newly-baptized Jesus who had not yet really started doing all the things he did suddenly performed his first miracle?  But, in an infinitely obvious clue that Jesus was human, his mother made him do it.  That was always a little odd and somehow refreshing to me.  I mean, Jesus didn’t just walk out of the manger and begin being Jesus.  He was fully human…growing up, probably getting in trouble, worrying his parents, and obeying what they said or at least fulfilling what they desired.  Jesus was the Messiah.  But he was also Mary’s son.  So, he had to go get more supplies for the gathering. Because that’s what good sons do!

So, a little background…According to the Mishnah (which is sort of the oral tradition of Judaism based on the understanding of Scripture), a wedding would take place on a Wednesday if the bride was a virgin and on a Thursday if she was a widow. The bridegroom and his friends made their way in procession to the bride’s house. This was often done at night, when there could be a spectacular torchlight procession. There would be speeches and expressions of goodwill before the bride and groom went in procession to the groom’s house, where the wedding banquet was held. It is probable that there was some sort of religious ceremony, but we have no details. The processions and the feast are the principal items of which we have knowledge. The feast was prolonged, and might last as long as a week (so, OK, that would be quite a lot of wine!).

So, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is at the wedding, although her role seems to be more than that of a guest. She seems to at least have some responsibility for everything that is going on. Perhaps the couple was an extended family member or something.  But she seems to be one of the first to know that the wine is running out. She instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do, and they appear willing to take her instructions.

Now you have to understand that this was an embarrassing situation.  The wine has run out, and there appears to be no solution.  Either no more wine is available, or there is no money to buy more wine. The guests seem unaware of what is happening. If something is not done, all will be embarrassed. Some commentators even inform us that litigation was possible in such cases. (Can you imagine being sued for not providing enough food and drink at a marriage ceremony?)  But, regardless, it is clear that Jesus’ mother expects Jesus to do something out of the ordinary.  She expects him to fix the problem.

But I think there’s something else in this story.  Think about the wine itself.  It begins as ordinary grapes.  Well, not really.  If you go even farther back, you start with water.  Remember, everything starts with water.  And then those ordinary grapes with just the right amount of water, the right amount of sunlight, and the right amount of nutrients fed to them from the rich, dark earth begin to seed.  And then we wait, we wait for them to grow and flourish and at just the right time, they are picked and processed and strained of impurities and all of those things that are not necessary.  And then they are bottled and tucked away while again, we wait.  They are placed in just the right temperature, with just the right amount of light, and just the right amount of air quality and environment, and we wait some more.  We wait and until it becomes…well, a miracle.

So, using wine to depict a miracle is not all that unusual.  The Bible is full of wine.  In fact, no single plant or product is mentioned more frequently than the vine and its fruit.  There are over 200 uses of wine itself.  It is used as a symbol of abundance and blessing.  When Moses pronounced God’s blessing in Deuteronomy, the words were “[God] will love you, and bless you, and multiply you; [God] will also bless…the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil.”  The Book of Isaiah talks about the vineyard and its grapes to depict the world as it should be, as God envisions it.  And often a surplus of wine is taken to depict the coming of the Messianic Age, such as the words from Amos, “The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when…the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.”  Wine is used to talk about sharing, about hospitality, and even about peace.

And Biblical theologians have over and over pointed to the relationship that this story has with the Eucharist.  Think about it.  We take ordinary bread and ordinary wine, and through what we can only describe as a Holy Mystery, a veritable miracle, those ordinary things become holy.  They become for us the body and blood of Christ, the very essence of Christ to us, for us, and in us.  It’s not a magical conversion.  We still believe that they are bread and wine.  But God’s Spirit has made them this incredible sustenance that we need.

And remember that when the wine ran out, Jesus did not conjure up fresh flagons of wine.  A miracle is not about fixing something or turning something into what it was not; a miracle is about making something new.  So, Jesus took what was there, those ordinary, perhaps even abandoned vessels of ordinary, everyday water and turned it into a holy and sacred gift.  Water and a miracle…

So, this story of wine makes a little more sense.  Wine is water—plus a miracle.  It is a story of Jesus fulfilling even the smallest of needs, of God infusing grace into our ordinary lives if we will only trust that that will happen.  But there’s more.  In case it is lost on us, remember that our own bodies are roughly two-thirds water.  Do you remember that from biology?  No wonder the ancient sages always used water as a symbol for matter itself.  Humans, they taught, are a miraculous combination of matter and Spirit—water and a miracle—and thus unique in all of creation.  No wonder that wine is such a powerful, sacramental, and universal symbol of the natural world—illumined and uplifted by the Divine.  Wine is water, plus spirit, a unique nectar of the Divine, a symbol of life.

And we, ordinary water-filled vessels (remember, we’re like 80% water or something) though we are, are no different.  God takes the created matter that is us, those incredible bodies that have been created from in the very waters of life, and, just as God has done before, moves over the water and breathes Spirit into us, breathes life into us.  We, too, are water plus a miracle.  Christ’s Spirit is infused into us, living in us.  13th century German mystic Meister Eckhart said that “every creature is a word of God.”  It’s another way of reminding us that we are water plus a miracle.  So, breathe out the you that was, the you that you thought you should be, that the world told you to be.  And breathe in the miracle that is you.  After all, you are water plus a miracle—created matter plus the Spirit of God.

So maybe this story of Jesus’ first miracle is not as odd as we thought.  Our lectionary places it immediately following the remembrance of Jesus’ baptism and the remembrance of our own.  It is the point where God’s Spirit, where the holy and sacred itself, was poured into each of us.  So, yes, we are a miracle, created matter, Spirit-breathed.  We are the good wine that God has saved for now.  We are water plus a miracle.

And, notice, this passage begins with a very familiar phrase: “On the third day…” On the third day, there was a miracle…I don’t know, I guess God knew what was going to happen all along.  It’s water, the very basis of creation, plus a miracle.

“We hear of…water into wine…as a miracle.  But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes.  Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” (Benjamin Franklin)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Remember

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  Mark 1: 4-11

4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Whenever I write daily during Lent, I am always wondering what to do with this week before Palm Sunday.  After all, the Lectionary passages for this coming Sunday ARE Palm Sunday.  So, maybe it’s a good time to sort of “take stock” as we come closer and closer to the Cross, as we walk with Jesus through those last days.

My grandmother lived to be over 100.  She developed a plethora of physical ailments but she never lost her sharp mind and her memory.  In those last few years before her death, I had wonderful times of just driving around our hometown with her (the one we had BOTH grown up in) and sharing her memories.  I knew what she was doing.  She was “taking stock”.  She knew that the end of her earthly life was imminent and this was her way of making sure she left what she needed for us, that we knew from where we’d come.  So, together, we sat on a road that used to be “out in the country” as she recounted where the family farmhouse had been and down the road from there where the Stockdick School was that my great grandfather had built.  (Those are now covered with suburban homes, grocery stores, and a really cute wine bar.) 

On one of the trips, we went to the old cemetery where there are relatives back to my great-great grandparents (on two sides of the family…yeah, we don’t get out much).  My grandmother wanted to find the gravestone of her dad’s younger brother who had died as a child to get the year he died.  She called him Little Roy.  So, I remember kneeling down in the mud scraping on a more than hundred-year-old tombstone (he died in 1899) to get the death date while my grandmother stood there on her walker watching me.  I ended up going back to the car and digging in my purse for a pencil and a piece of paper and I did a rubbing of it. We were “taking stock” of those important moments–together.

After my grandmother died, we found all these notes where she had tried to recount all the family stories.  I also found the pencil rubbing of Little Roy’s tombstone.  I took all those and put together a book of sorts.  They were the important things that my grandmother “took stock of” before she died.  They needed to be remembered. 

Don’t you imagine that Jesus was doing some of that?  I mean, he knew things did not look good.  He knew where things were going.  So, he began to take stock of his life. Had he served God in the way he was called to?  Had he shown his followers what they needed to see?  Had he left something that would take hold?  Jesus was human.  Of course he was asking himself those questions.  (That’s why it’s OK for US to ask those questions!)

And so, he remembered his baptism.  He remembered with love his cousin John, who had baptized him in that cold murky water of the Jordan.  John was gone now.  Only beautiful memories remain.  He remembers that point where he knew it was time to begin his ministry, to walk the walk that God had called him to.  He had gone to John to be baptized.  Even Jesus couldn’t baptize himself!  It was what he would call his followers to do so it was his to do also.  He knelt down and John had bent over him.  And it was then the heavens opened up and the Spirit emerged in the form of a dove.  We read of the heavens being “torn”, violently ripped apart so that they could not go back together in the same way.  The Greek word there is a form of the verb schitzo as in schism or schizophrenia. It is not the same word as open. I open the door. I close the door. The door looks the same, but something torn apart is not easily closed again. The ragged edges never go back together as they were. The Gospel writer known as Mark wasn’t careless in using that word: schitzo. He remembered Isaiah’s plea centuries before when the prophet cried out to God, “Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down to make your name known to your enemies and make the nations tremble at your presence.” In other words, at this moment, God’s Spirit on earth became present in a brand new way.  A new ordering of Creation had begun. 

It was at that moment that the heavens opened and spilled onto the earth.  The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove.  And we heard what the world has always been straining to hear: “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  In this moment, Jesus knew his ministry had begun.  This is the moment toward which all of Creation has been moving.  This the moment for which we’ve been waiting.

And we remember in this moment that it had begun.  And at the same time we remember our own baptism, that moment when the heavens are torn apart and spill out into the earth.  Breathe…breathe out wanting to hold back.  Breathe out wanting to keep things the way they were.  Breathe out the reticence you may have.  And breathe in…breathe in your baptism, breathe in what God is calling you to do, breathe in the Spirit that spilled out of the heavens.  It is yours, meant for you.  The heavens will tear again soon.  The temple curtain will rip in two.  Perhaps this tearing was a foretelling of what was to come.  For now, we take stock.  And we remember.  And we follow Jesus on this journey.

Jesus was still wet with water after John had baptized him when he stood to enter his ministry in full submission to God.  As he stood in the Jordan and the heavens tore apart and spilled into the earth, all of humanity stood with him.  We now stand, wet with those same waters, as we, too, are called into ministry in the name of Christ.  As we emerge, we feel a cool refreshing breeze of new life.  Breathe in.  It will be with you always. Submit your life, empty yourself, so that there will finally be room for Christ in this world.  Then…it is up to you to finish the story.  This day and every day, remember your baptism, remember that you are a daughter or son of God with whom God is well pleased and be thankful. You are now part of the story.  Take stock of it all. 

The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Out of the Depths

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  Psalm 130 (Lent 5A)

1Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

2Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!

3If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?

4But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

5I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;

6my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.

7O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.

8It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

The Psalmist writes from the deepest bowels of life.  It is his or her lowest point, feeling so overwhelmed with despair, almost hopeless.  And yet, there, is the sound of the still small voice.  It’s only a whisper but it is there.  The Psalmist strains to hear, laying there in the darkness, unable to sleep, unable to see the light of the morning.  It is a Psalm of faith.  It is the expression of one who though wallowing in the depths of sadness and despair, cannot feel God’s Presence and, yet, knows in the deepest part of his or her being that God is there.  It is the writing of one who knows that there is always morning, if we will only wait.

The words of the Psalm promise us that no matter how dark the night will be, there is always morning.  There is always redemption.  The King James Version depicts it as “plenteous redemption”.  We often hear of redemption as if it is some sort of payment that God required for our sins, as if Jesus’ death was somehow foreordained because we were such sinful creatures that God could take it no more.  But redemption can also mean restoration, to bring something to a better state.  It is what the Psalmist knows.  God is there, though unseen, restoring, recreating, even in this moment of darkness.  Redemption is not about payment; it is about the promise of morning, the promise of life.  Redemption is not about what Jesus gave us or what Jesus did for us but what God in Christ does even now.  God brings morning.

The Psalm does not give us empty promises that “everything will be alright”.  Rather, it is honest.  Sometimes life hurts.  Sometimes life hurts more than we think we can bear.  Sometimes we have our own dark night of the soul.  But in the darkness, we learn to wait.  We learn to hope.  That is what Lent is–a waiting in the depths.  We are journeying now deeper and deeper into the darkness.  We know that it will be painful, at times even unbearable.  But our faith tells us that God is present whether or not we can feel the presence.  And so, we learn to wait.  And in the waiting we sense that veil between darkness and light, between death and life.  So, we wait through pain and betrayal and last nights together.  We wait through darkness and death.  We wait in the stillness and foreboding silence.  We wait because we know that morning always comes.

We modern-day worshippers have, sadly, almost lost the voice of lament.  We praise God in good times and we beg God to change things in times of despair.  We struggle with waiting, with just waiting in the darkness, with knowing that God is there whether or not we feel that Presence.  When we are in the depths, we seldom wait.  We instead do everything we can to raise ourselves out of it.  What we miss is that in the waiting, it is God who will raise us up.  The Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem has a chapel that is known for its stained glass windows created by Marc Chegal.  They are set within a domed ceiling that directs the worshippers’ gaze heavenward.  But directly below the windows is an odd place where the floor is sunken and in the middle of the depression is a pulpit.  The floor was intentionally made that way with the belief that all prayer should be “out of the depths”.

How would our prayers sound if they were out of the depths, if they were out of the waiting?  How much more precious would redemption be?  I think that is the reason that we push ourselves into those depths on Good Friday.  We push ourselves to be taunted by death because only from that sunken place can resurrection come to be.  So, in this time as we get closer to that taunt of death, as we come nearer and nearer to the Cross, remember to breathe.  Breathe out the tendency to “fix” it, to clean it up and sanitize the whole idea for human consumption.  And breathe in what you find in the depths—the promise of plenteous redemption.  If we would only wait…

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.  (Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536, Also attributed to Carl Jung, because the quote was posted above his door in his house in Switzerland.)

Lacrimosa (Mozart)

Lyrics (Latin)

Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. Amen.

Lyrics (English)

Full of tears will be that day 
When from the ashes shall arise 
The guilty man to be judged; 
Therefore spare him, O God, 
Merciful Lord Jesus, 
Grant them eternal rest. Amen.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

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