Year: 2011

WALK TO JERUSALEM: The Announcement

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Anunciation, JESUS, LENT, Openness to God
St. Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt, 12 century

Scripture Reading:  Luke 1: 26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Most of us good Protestants seldom talk about The Anunciation at all, let alone in the middle of the season of Lent.  The Anunciation literally means “announcement”.  The word itself probably holds no real mystery.  But it is the beginning of the central tenet of our entire Christian faith–Anunciation, Incarnation, Transfiguration, Resurrection, that cycle of holy mystery that with each turn draws us closer and closer to God as God reveals the very Godself more and more to us.  For us, it begins the mystery that is Jesus Christ, the mystery that will take us to Jerusalem.  For us, the fog lifts and there before us is the bridge between the human and the divine. 

In December, we usually speed past this reading, eager as we are to get to “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…”  We want to get to the beginning of it all.  But think back.  Jesus was human and just like all humans, something happened nine months before.  And whether or not you take the notion of a virgin birth literally, there was something remarkable that happened.  It is in this moment that God steps through the fog into humanity, that the great I AM reveals the Godself to all of Creation, and, just like every one of us must do, waits to be birthed into the world.  It is not just this young girl’s womb that is suddenly filled with child, swelling with expectant life; it is all of Creation that now waits for Light to be born.  The world is with child.

Can you imagine what Mary must have thought?  She was young, she had plans, she had her whole life ahead of her.  “How can this be?” we read.  In today’s vernacular, it would read, “Are you kidding me?”  And so as everything she knew and everything she planned toppled around her, she said “yes” and entered the mystery of God.  Now, I have to admit, I don’t get so wrapped up in needing Mary to be a literal virgin. (In fact, I don’t care enough about it to need to prove it or disprove it, so you can stay anywhere you are on the issue.) After all, would it really change what happened?  Would it really change who God was or what God has done?  Would it really change that this was the moment when the Light of God came into the world, when the Divine suddenly spilled into the womb of the world.  And that the one who held the birthing of God in her hands said yes.  Now, THAT, my friends, I think is important. 
 
Think about it.  What exactly does it mean to be “virgin”?  It means undefiled, pure, ready and open to receive.  Mary, the virgin, was open to receive God unto herself.  The most scandalous part of the whole story has nothing to do with whether or not the birth was “proper” in terms of our world; the scandal is that the great I AM, the holiest of holies, the One whose name could not be said, suddenly enters humanity with all of its violence and corruption and despair and the reordering of our existence begins.  All that we know and all that we plan is beginning to topple around us.  The Anunciation is the anouncement of hope for all of us.
 
If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us into [God’s] superluminous darkness, if it does not call us out of the little house of our homely, close-hugged truths…we have misunderstood the words of Christianity.  (Karl Rahner)
 
So, in this season of Lent, what does it mean for you to be open to receiving Jesus Christ into your life?  Because, you see, that is the way to Jerusalem…
 
Grace and Peace,
 
Shelli

Lenten Discipline: Life

shelliwilliams LENT, Rule of Life, Spiritual Disciplines

I know that “life” is odd for a Lenten discipline but isn’t that what all of this is about anyway?  Our focus on spiritual disciplines during this season is not merely intended to instill us with a set of rules;  rather, spiritual disciplines provide structure and support for our growing spiritual life.  But, as I said, they are not just rules (and are certainly not just rules to get us through these 40 days leading up to Easter!).  Spiritual disciplines, like Lent, provide the structure through which we can grow, much like those stakes that you are putting on your growing tomato plants or rose bushes.  Hopefully, this Lenten journey is not merely one that gets us on the path on which our spiritual life is meant to be only to be allowed to be forgotten and grown over once the season ends.  The whole idea is to instill a rule for our life, a pathway of sorts that best leads us to oneness with God.

We probably get hung up, though, when we limit our understanding of the “rule for life” to mere rules.  Rules probably get a bad rap in our society, as if someone has laid down some arbitrary boundary to our already-structured life.  Don’t think of it like that, though.  I mean, rules are good when they don’t exist as their own end.  They bring order to chaos.  They bring cycles to confusion.  They bring pathways to wilderness journeys.  (And if a rule doesn’t do something along those lines, then, you’re right, it probably SHOULD be broken!)

Yesterday I was walking my dog.  It was a lovely early evening, with a cool breeze that refreshed without chilling and both of us were enjoying ourselves.  We were walking around our neighborhood enjoying all the new flowers and budding old ones, as if life had somehow just woken up.  Because it was so nice, we took an extra long enjoyable walk.  When we were about 4 1/2 blocks from my house, Maynard had to “do his thing”, if you know what I mean.  We stopped so that he could relieve himself in peace and then (as we always do) we switched places so that his dutiful and well-trained owner could pick it up.  While I was leaning over, I felt something weird on the end of the leash, as if all of a sudden I was holding emptiness.  Now, let me tell you, this is NOT what a dog owner wants to feel when they are 4 1/2 blocks from home!  I glanced over at Maynard just in time to see him do some sort of very intentional acrobatic movement as, with head down, he watched himself take his right leg and pull it through the harness and then underneath it and then repeat it with his left leg.  I don’t know if he had been practicing this and thinking about this for awhile, but all I know is that the harness (with the leash still attached) was laying on the sidewalk with no dog attached to it.  I panicked and reached for him, thinking that he would bolt into some game of canine hide and seek (which he’s done before).  But he just stood there.  It was as if the harness was still attached.  Maybe he just wanted to show me how good he could be by himself.  I don’t know.

Maybe that’s what Lent is supposed to do.  It puts a very gentle harness on us as we go on our walk.  And then, when it is time to break free, when our choice could be to bolt, joining in a sort of human-divine game of hide-n-seek, we stand still on the path, breathing in the breath of God and knowing, intuitively, where to go.  A rule of life just gets us ready for that moment, that point of pure freedom when we intentionally choose God.

Yes, I put the harness back on the dog and we finished our walk.  He didn’t seem to mind being put back in it; in fact, it was obvious he expected it.  I don’t know what he was thinking.  Maybe he just wanted to prove he could get out of it.  Or maybe he just wanted to show me he could do it without it.  I have to admit it, though, I will not give him the chance to try to show me again.  God is much more trusting of us than I am.  That is why God is God and I am not!  But the point is that this journey of faith should not be taken lightly.  It should be done as if our very life depended on it because it is, after all, our life.

So, for this Lenten season, commit yourself to a rule for life  Where do you feel God calling you to stretch and grow?  What kind of balance do you need in your life?  What gives you life?

Grace and Peace,
 
Shelli

Just a word of explanation for the week to come…I struggled with how to proceed this week without “jumping ahead” to the Passion or even to Palm Sunday before I’m really ready to do that.  So, rather than, writing on the Lectionary passages for next Sunday, I’m going to step back a little in this walk.  Tomorrow I will begin with the Anunciation, the announcement of the coming of God into the world and walk from there.  I’ll take a quick walk through the steps of Jesus once again so that I can arrive in Jerusalem as the glorious Palm Sunday processional begins.

And ANOTHER word of explanation…I’ve had some of you who are in the “Google Group” that get emails every day mention that you have had comments but couldn’t comment “back” to me.  That is correct!  But I would LOVE to have your comments.  Click on the “Dancing to God” link at the bottom of the email and that will get you into the blog.  You can make a comment there and all of the blog readers can see it.  I would LOVE for you to do that!  

Disruption

shelliwilliams Disruption, LENT, Life

Life is full of disruptions.  I’ve spent the last couple of hours checking on whether or not the United States government is going to shut down tomorrow.  Apparently, in a last minute compromise of sorts, that has been averted–at least for now.  I suppose we’ll play this game again in a week.  Life is full of disruptions.

We are definitely creatures of habit, beings dependent upon the rhythms in our lives–the rhythmic workings of our own physical bodies, the rhythms of day and night, of seasons, of time, and the rhythms that we’ve created in our own lives.  These rhythms are important to us.  They bring us a sense of order.  Life is just easier when it meets our own expectations of what will happen.  But life is full of disruptions.  Perhaps that is one of our lessons for this season of Lent.  In its own way, Lent is about disruptions.  It is about a change in rhythm.  It provides an opportunity to break from the familiar, to release oneself from the staid and sometimes almost robotic way of existing through which we walk without much thought or caring.  Lent invites us to think and care by offering us a sort of holy disruption.  It is a way of changing our rhythm, of relocating our center as we recalibrate our priorities and our lives.  It prepares us to see things differently.  It prepares us for what is to come.

For my Lenten discipline this season, I have been writing on this blog.  It is not always easy.  In fact, sometimes it is downright disruptive (as I’m sure you can tell on those days when I don’t get it in very early!).  And yet, this holy disruption has changed the rhythm in my life.  It has made me think more deeply and more often about things.  It has opened my eyes to ways that I can encounter God that before I would have sped past and completely missed.  It has, indeed, relocated my center.  And as I approach Jerusalem, I am ready for that disruption too.  But the whole point of Lent as a holy disruption implies that it is, or should be, a point of permanent change.  Unlike the bill that is at this moment waiting to pass the House, Lent is not really meant to be a mere stop-gap.  We’re not really supposed to just go back to “life as usual” when the Easter lilies come out.  (Now, you see, that is all the more reason why you shouldn’t give up chocolate for Lent!)  It really is about change and preparing us as we trudge toward the biggest disruption that Creation has ever known.  Because there at the Cross, life as we know it was disrupted by death and then death as we know it was disrupted by Life.  And neither death nor life will ever be the same again.

So, as the drums of Crucifixion begin to get louder,  let your disruption become your Life!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli  

LENT 5A: The New Dead

shelliwilliams Death, LENT, Life
“The Raising of Lazarus”
Fresco by Giotto di Bondone, Italian, 1304-06

Lectionary Text:  John 11: 1-4, 17-26, 41-44
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”… 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?”…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.”

So, gray and brown are the new black; forty is the new thirty, fifty is the new forty, and hybrids are the new luxury car.  Things change.  The ways that we live and talk about things change.  There are always new perspectives bursting into our consciousness.  And Lazarus is the “new dead”…Let me explain…have you ever noticed the last part of this story?  “The dead man came out…”.  It is not that “Lazarus came out miraculously alive again”. He did not appear and then go back to work that day.  It says, “the dead man…”.  Lazarus was still dead the way this world thinks of dead.  Jesus did not undo his death.  The point was that Jesus turned it into something new–a new life, a new way of looking at things, a new creation.  “The dead man came out….let him go…”  We can’t even imagine how great it’s going to be. 

Today would have been my grandmother’s 102nd birthday.  She died a year ago in November.  I still miss her.  I can’t even really describe how.  We were more than grandmother and granddaughter.  We were some sort of soul mates.  I still want to call her, to talk to her.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Sometimes she made me so angry, downright infuriated me.  She had that fundamentalist bend that I just didn’t understand.  I suppose I had that progressive bend that she just couldn’t tolerate.  But we were more alike than we were unalike.  We had a kinship beyond our obvious blood connection. I enjoyed doing things for her toward the end.  I remember one time I was helping her go to the bathroom when we were away from her house.  (OK…that may be too graphic!)  But she looked up at me with those deep brown eyes and said, “You know…I used to do this with you.”  “Well then,” I responded, “it’s time I do it for you.”  Things change; people change; life changes.  I still grieve, still want to call her.  I’ve been thinking about her lately, grieving all over again.  I know she’s gone.  And yet, not…

You see, the thing we had in common was our faith.  And that faith, that shared faith, tells me that there is something new.  I don’t think this story of Lazarus was a miracle story, per se.  Jesus did not do some sort of magic trick so that Lazarus could walk out in his burial clothes.  The end of the story (although I’ve never noticed it and never even read any commentary to support this) says that Lazarus was still dead.  Death was not undone.  Lazarus did not get up and go back to his life.  Rather, death was recreated into life.  Recreation is not undoing; recreation is making something new.  There is still grief and wanting for what was, for the familiar, for the usual, for the phone conversations that we crave.  But this is better.  We justF have to live into it.  That’s what faith is about.

This story is also seen as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ own crucifixion and raising.  It’s like he’s saying, “Folks…stay with me here.  There are things that are about to happen that are hard.  In fact, we’re fixing to go through crap.  (Sorry…couldn’t think of a better way to say it!)  Your loss will be unbearable.  And it will not be undone.  I will not pull some magic trick out of a hat at the last minute.  I will not undo my death.  But, as I said…stay with me…look what I’ve done here.  The best is yet to come!  If you stay with me, I can’t even describe the incredible things that will happen.  You just have to experience them for yourself.  Just stay with me. “

Death is not to be undone; rather, it is made new.  It is recreated into life.  It’s the “new dead.”  Isn’t that better?  Do you believe this?

So, in the Lenten season, know that the best is yet to come!

Happy Birthday Grandmother!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Preserving Life

shelliwilliams LENT, Surrender

I had the opportunity yesterday to attend a global “Leadership Summit” within the United Methodist Church.  No, I did not travel around the world, but through the wonders of modern technology, we were joined live with United Methodist clergy and laypersons from literally all corners of the globe–Phillipines, Zimbabwe, and most of our United States conferences, to name a few.  We talked about what it means to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  We discussed what exactly it meant to strive toward the goal of having vital congregations and vital disciples.  As I was sitting there listening to part of the presentation, I asked myself what thing probably most stands in the way of a church being a “vital congregation” or a person being a “disciple of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  What do you think it is?  The thing that popped into my head is self-preservation.

I typed preservation (not even limiting it to the “self” variety!) into an online concordance.  Do you know how many times that is mentioned in the Scriptures?  Guess.  The answer would be zero.  Yes, zero.  There is no place that I know in the Scriptures where God calls us to a practice of self-preservation.  There is no place where God calls congregations to be self-preserving of who they are, of what they think, of what they’ve accomplished, no place where God wants us to make sure that we have beautiful buildings or comfortable facilities, no place where God calls us to be safe and secure and risk-free. 



St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Houston, TX
(Voted one of the fifty most iconic buildings in the city)

 (Now, I need to offer a point in the spirit of full disclosure here:  I am privileged to worship and lead worship in a space that is truly amazing!  It was built in 1929 and is one of the most magnificent cathedrals in Houston, if not the United States.  I am truly thankful for it.  It provides both emotional and spiritual food for me.  That said, there is indeed a fine line between allowing it to be transformational (as it is!) and making sure that we preserve it for our own edification.  It is difficult to be a part of a congregation whose building is its greatest asset and at the same time its largest possible detriment.  It is a walk of faith between the two.  Thanks be to God! )

You know, I don’t think there’s any where in the Scriptures where Jesus tells us not to rock the boat or make waves or push people beyond where they are comfortable going.    If I’m remembering correctly, Jesus turns all those nicely set tables and beautifully-constructed worship spaces completely on end! In fact, we’re actually supposed to be more in the surrender mode, letting go of all those things that “make” us, that wall us off from each other and from God, that stand in the way of our becoming who we’re called to become, and throwing ourselves into this journey of faith, risky as that may be.

Lent is the season when we are acutely reminded of this.  It is the season for letting go, the season for fasting from the usual, the season for surrendering our lives to the cross.  I have read a lot of Lenten resources and studied the Lenten Scripture passages.  I do not recall being asked to hold on to what I’ve been given for dear life.  Because, you see, that is not life.  Life is not about preservation; life is about laying everything aside and following the One who gives you life.  Life is about loss at the very depth of our soul to the point where we have nothing to lose.  It is at that lowest point of letting go and losing all so that we will truly preserve life.  Resurrection happens in the shadows of crosses, not in the bright lights of success.

So, what makes vital congregations and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?  I would contend that it would be letting go.  In fact, start running…God is way out ahead of us!

So, in this Lenten season, let go.  It is there that you will find the Cross and it is in the shadows and darkness of the Cross that you will finally see the Light of Life.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

LENT 5A: Reintegration

shelliwilliams LENT, Spirit, Unity

Lectionary Text:  Romans 8: 6-11
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Romans 8 is said to have been Paul’s greatest work, a masterpiece within a masterpiece.  We’re all familiar with it.  We’ve prayed it, sung it, and heard it read at funerals.  It’s a shame that many of us might be reading it completely wrong.  I mean, where in the world did we get the idea that the “flesh” was completely bad?  For Paul, the “body” or the “flesh” was probably closer to neutral than bad, more lifeless than life-taking.  The point is, though, that it cannot exist alone.  Paul actually had a “big picture” view of what life holds.  His contention is not that there is some sort of ongoing war between the flesh and the Spirit but rather that the flesh, the body, needs the Spirit to breathe life into it, to breathe the very essence of God into its being, making it holy and wholly what it should be. Paul is not preaching segregation but, rather re-integration, unity, a return to the way it should have been all along.

On the other side, Paul never claims that the Spirit can exist alone.  I mean, really, what good would the notion of some sort of disembodied Spirit really do us?  Do you think that the essence of God really wants to just float around us, disengaged from who we are and what we do?  If that were the case, I’m thinking that the whole idea of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, Emmanuel, God WITH us would have been completely unnecessary.  The whole point is that life is breathed into the ordinary, even the mundane, so that it becomes holy and sacred, so that it becomes life?

But unity is a hard thing to accomplish and an even harder thing to hold together (no, that one is not meant to be a pun).  I remember when our church got its new website.  There was a committee, there were numerous meetings, there were months of working on this big change.  When we finally went “live” on the internet, it was beautiful.  Everyone commented on it.  We actually won an award.  But it took several weeks for someone to finally mention to us that the homepage of our website actually said “St. Paul’s Untied Methodist Church”.  As I said, it is hard to stay united!

So why is it easier or more comfortable for us to categorize things, to draw a dividing line between darkness and light, between body and Spirit, between bad and good, between “religious” and “spiritual”, between “them” and “us”, between death and life?  Do we think that’s more validating for us and the way we think and the way we live?  Oh come now!  Paul is claiming that God’s Spirit has the capability of crossing that line, of bringing the two together, infused by the breath of God.  It is a spirituality that lives incarnate in this world, even this world.  Incarnation, God with Us, is about reintegration.  It is flesh infused with spirit and spirit embodied in flesh.  That, my friends, is life.

So, for this Lenten season, let’s get it together!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli     

Once Upon a Time

shelliwilliams LENT, Story

Once upon a time…it’s always the beginning to a great story.  We all love a good story, one that grabs us and holds our attention all the way to the end, one that comes to some resolution that stays with us, whether it is a fairy-tale ending for a character portrayed as an “underdog” or one that leaves us with a sense of deep and profound loss or disappointment with which we must wrestle and live into ourselves.  We all love a good story.  I actually watched the last game of the Final Four last night.  I have no emotional attachment to either team.  (My “emotional attachment” dropped from the bracket several wrungs ago.)  But I really wanted Butler to win.  It’s just a better story.  Like I said, we like it when the underdog makes good.

The truth is, we all have a story.  Yes, our lives are veritable short stories within themselves.  But there’s something bigger.  There’s THE story.  You know, the one that begins, “Once upon a time there was heaven and earth, covered in darkness, until God brought light into being.  And then God filled this light-filled Creation with life–seeds that would yield growth, seasons that would bring rhythm into being, and living creatures to bring beauty and companionship and even sustenance to this light-filled place.  It was beautiful and life-filled and good.  And then God created the ultimate of creations–one who carried the very image of God within itself, one who could care for Creation and love Creation and be light.  God blessed it all and then God ceased creating.  And God looked at all of Creation and crowned it with the Holy and the Sacred, giving it just a glimpse of what it could become.  And God called that glimpse, the pinnacle of all time, “Sabbath”.”  (OK, so I took a little poetic license with the Scripture!)  The point is, it’s our story.  We were not created as individuals separate and apart from the story.  We were created as parts of the story.

Lent is a time to remember that, to remember that it’s not all about me, to remember that the story itself and all of its characters are bigger than the sum of all of us.  Lent is a time to realize that we are part of story that began long before we got here and that will continue long after we are gone and yet, we have always been a part of the story and always will be.  Lent is a time to let go of those individual wants and needs to which we hold so tightly, to let go of our need for our “story” to come out in a certain way, and to let THE story–OUR story grab us and take hold of our lives.  It is a mutual story but we all have a chapter to write, to write and then hand off to another, all without disrupting the story.  It is true that we don’t really know the ending, but my guess is that we all live happily ever after!

So, in this Lenten season, enter the story and find what chapter is yours to write!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Had to add this…even though they dropped early!