Month: March 2013

Station XI: Regrets

shelliwilliams Cross, CRUCIFIXION, Golgotha, Good Friday, LENT, Passion, Station 11, STATIONS OF THE CROSS, Uncategorized

crucifixion-22Scripture Passage: Mark 15: 22-32

22Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull).23And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it.24And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.  25It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.26The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”27And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.29Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days,30save yourself, and come down from the cross!”31In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.32Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

The eleventh station of the Via Dolorosa is marked by a beautiful Latin shrine.  This is the place where tradition tells us that soldiers nailed Jesus’ hands and feet to the cross.  It is only 9:00 in the morning.  For us, the thought of arriving at this eleventh station seems much longer, days really.  But it is still only mid-morning.  The sounds are deafening.  The clanging rings out over the land and settles into our hearts–a nail of greed, a nail of selfishness, nails of betrayal and hatred and war, nails of hunger and poverty, nails of not accepting and loving each other, nails of being so sure of one’s beliefs, so sure of one’s understanding of who God is and what God desires, that we miss seeing what God is trying to show us.  It is finished.  In the Name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.

It is here that our regrets sink in. It is here that we want to go back, we want a redo.  We would do it differently next time. We would not ask so many questions as to why he was doing what he was doing and to whom.  We would just watch and listen and learn from him how to love.  We would not fight and grapple with each other over who was in charge, over who was the most important, over who was his favorite.  Instead, we would bask in his spirit and his radiance and his love of equality for all.  And when asked if we knew who he was, we would not betray him.  Rather, we would step forward no matter the cost.  Because grace is not cheap.  But now we know how incredibly rich it really is.  Yes, we would stand up and be counted as one who follows him, who brings healing and love to the world, who doesn’t need credit or acclaim, and who is willing to lose one’s life to find it.  But there are no redos just now.

Regrets can be debilitating.  They can pull us into the past and keep us there.  It is not healthy.  Regrets can also be life-giving if we allow them to compel us to change, to perhaps turn a corner that we did not see before, to become something new, a New Creation, to become the one that God calls us to be.  And, yet, we still want the easy way out.  After all, we are empty cross people, Resurrection people!  And so maybe we walk away from this moment entirely too quickly.  After all, it makes us uncomfortable and God offers us life.  So too quickly we let it go, too quickly we move past our regrets without letting them change us.

The most difficult thing for us to face is that so little has changed.  We still try to be the one on top.  We still shut the door to those who are not like us.  We still close our doors so we don’t have to think about poverty or homelessness.  We still justify war.  We still will do anything it takes to defend the life that we have created.  We still betray.  We forget to love; we forget to bring healing; we forget to lose our life.  So, would we crucify Jesus today?  Would things go differently?  Only we can tell…

So on this Lenten journey, stop for a moment.  Look at the cross.  And let your regrets of what should have been done differently change your pathway.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Anointing Presence

shelliwilliams Anointing, Journey, LENT, Presence

mary-anoints-jesusThis Week’s Lectionary Passage: John 12: 1-8
Six 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.”

Several years ago a friend of mine forwarded me one of those prepared video streams with the background music that everyone emails around.  I have to admit that many of them have very little substance and some are bordering on being downright hokey, but this one struck me.  It told of a teacher who asked her students to list the Seven Wonders of the World and write about them.  They began work and most of them came up with the same ones that most of us would:  Egypt’s Grand Pyramids, The Taj Mahal, The Grand Canyon, the Panama Canal, the Empire State Building, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Great Wall of China (yeah, I know, it depends on what list you’re using, doesn’t it?).  But, to the point, one girl seemed to be having difficulty.  The teacher asked her to read hers aloud so that maybe the others could help.  Her answers to the question “What are the Seven Wonders of the World?” were these:  to see, to hear, to smell, to touch, to feel, to laugh, and to love. 

The story said that you could have heard a pin drop.  What a really incredible answer!  It’s more than just those biological senses that we have to make life enjoyable.  Rather, those are the things that connect us to each other.  Those are the gifts that give us a common humanity and draw us together.  The ability to see, to hear, to smell, to touch, to feel, to laugh, and to love—any of them enable us to reach out and connect to the world around us.  

This story is told in all four canonical Gospel accounts.  But it’s never told the same way twice, illustrating yet again that the Bible is not an historical narrative but rather a way to connect us to God and to each other.  The fact, though, that costly and seemingly extravagant perfumed oil is poured onto Jesus is always the same.  So what does that mean?  What could this costly nard mean in our relationship to God?  I think on some level, it represents presence.  It represents the way that we connect, the way that we relate.  It represents the way that we love.  After all, this story is all about presence and connecting with each other.  They have a dinner together; they are served; Mary touches Jesus’ feet; Mary wipes his feet with her hair.  (You will notice that in none of the accounts is Mary checking her email or texting her friend while she is doing this!)  She is present–fully and completely present.

Sometimes I think that our society (myself included!) sometimes forgets what that’s about.  What does it mean to be present, to fully and completely engage with another, to enter their world, to open yourself up to them, to who they are, to the God that you see in them?  If each of us indeed has a piece of the Godself in us, an image of God in our being, then engaging with each other in this very moment is the very crux of our spiritual journey.  It is the way that we journey to God, becoming aware of the moment and the experience that God has placed before us right now.  Alfred North Whitehead supposedly once said that “the present is holy ground.”  Maybe that’s what Jesus was trying to get across.  “Look, look at me now, be with me now.  Take this moment that God gives you now and feel it, for it is offering you each other–see, hear, smell, touch, feel, laugh, love.  In other words, live loving God and neighbor with all your heart and your soul and your might, with everything that you have.”

On this Lenten journey, we are coming closer and closer to the Cross.  Do not be afraid.  Take each step as it comes and extravagantly anoint it.  See, hear, smell, touch, feel, laugh, love.  The point is the journey itself and what you do while your on it.  Eternity is not “out there” somewhere.  It is here, it is now, beckoning you on this path.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Station X: Stripped Naked

shelliwilliams Acceptance, Dignity, Jesus Christ, LENT, STATIONS OF THE CROSS

 

"Station 10", Peter Adams, 2012
“Station 10”, Peter Adams, 2012

Scripture Passage:  John 19: 23-25a

23When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says, ‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ 25And that is what the soldiers did.

This tenth station of the Via Dolorosa recalls that the Roman soldiers stripped Jesus of his clothing and gambled for his robe near where Jesus was to be crucified.  Visitors can peer into a Latin chapel through a special window.  This station is disconcerting, to say the least.  Keep in mind that Jesus was Jewish and, as a Jew, had been taught that it was a disgrace to be seen naked.  This would have been the ultimate disgrace.  Jesus, stripped of his humanness and his very dignity, is being prepared for crucifixion.

Dignity is a strange thing.  We think of it as something that we humans can bestow or take away from each other at will.  And, yet, dignity by its very definition is described as innate.  It is a gift from God, a gift of our humanity, so removing it from another is essentially depriving them of something that has not only been given to them but is part of them.  So stripping Jesus of his garments was the way that his tormenters removed his dignity, the way that they made him something less than human, the way that they, in their minds, put him in some way beneath humanity, in some way less than themselves.

Sadly, there are ways that we continue to strip others of their dignity, ways that we over and over again strip humanity of the gifts that God has bestowed.  And it’s not limited to physical stripping, although we as a people are guilty of that over and over again as we allow that to happen to others.  Putting someone in a place of humiliation, a place where they can no longer be who they are called to be does the same thing.  Anytime that we become so convinced of our “rightness”, of our position of being above others, anytime that we misuse and abuse conceived power over others, anytime that we refuse to accept others because they are different than what we think they should be, we have again stripped the garments of Christ from our world.

And yet, Jesus was seemingly passive as the soldiers stripped away at his garments and bared his nakedness for all to see.  Maybe it was because he knew, he knew that he was being stripped of his humanness.  This is the turning point.  This is the way that one prepares oneself, by stripping away at the things that get in the way.  This is the final hour.  The cross is being prepared and Jesus along with it.

So on this Lenten journey, let us allow ourselves to be stripped of those things that get in the way, let us allow ourselves to be humbled that we might be open to receive the Divine into our lives.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Resume’

shelliwilliams Calling, Journey, Spirituality, Surrender

Resume'This Week’s Lectionary Text: Philippians 3: 4b-14

4even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

This passage begins with Paul almost sounding a little arrogant, as if he is presenting his resume’ for being a church leader and quashing anyone else that might think themself better for the job than he.  But then his tone changes quickly.  It’s as if the resume’ is just not enough.  The resume’ is not going to get someone to the point in this faith journey where they need to be.  So Paul’s words become a treatise on faith itself, rather than on Paul.  In fact, Paul is almost disputing that claim that being better-versed or better-practiced in the faith brings one closer to God.  I think he might even say quite the opposite.  Paul would discount any blind following of the rules and order of religion and opt instead for a bare openness to what the faith journey itself holds.  In fact, my guess is that Paul would claim that any reliance on our resume’ will get us nowhere.

I saw a feature on one of the news shows this week that talked about the “new” look of resumes.  With the changing economy coupled with the changing needs of the job market, the traditional one or two page, neatly blocked listing of one’s accomplishments just doesn’t cut it anymore.  Oh, it’s not bad, per se, but it will probably not get one farther than the myriads of other one or two page, neatly blocked presentations that get tossed into the same pile.  It just doesn’t work anymore.  Instead, prospective employers want to get a sense of who the person is.  People are now posting on Facebook and tweeting their presentations.  They are providing PowerPoint and You Tube media releases that either augment or replace their resume’s.  One guy called the company that he was hoping would hire him and asked for his resume’ to be pulled because he had another offer.  They called and talked him into interviewing and then hired him.  The point is, a resume’ is now more than a list of accomplishments; it depicts who the person is.  (Gee, I thought I was being stupendously cutting edge by printing mine out on cream or ecru colored paper!)

But, face it, we are a list-driven people.  We want to neatly and systematically check off what headway we’ve made and our faith journey is no different.  It’s really sort of a “catch-22” when you think about it.  Our religion and our belief system provide the necessary grounding that we need for our journey.  They point us in the right direction.  They start us on our journey and they keep us with at least some modicum of framework of what that journey entails.  And yet, if we rely on them, if we turn them into some sort of spiritual resume’, we are lost.  In fact, they just downright get in the way.   Religion does not provide the answers; it provides the questions.  The “prize”, if you will, is not the attainment of the goal.  It is not being “in”; it is not finally and forever getting the position that we so desperately want.  The prize is the journey, the opening of our lives so that God can weave through and truly become for us the One in which we live and move and have our being.  And in order to do that, as Paul says, we have to leave ourselves (and our resume’s) behind and journey into who we are rather than what we’ve done.

So, on this Lenten journey, forget who you are and journey toward who you are called to be. (And don’t worry about your resume’…we’re all behind the times anyway!)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Station IX: On the Other Side

shelliwilliams DISCIPLESHIP, Inclusion, LENT, Mercy, Repentance, STATIONS OF THE CROSS, Way of the Cross
"Under the Baobab Tree: African Stations of the Cross"
“Under the Baobab Tree: African Stations of the Cross”

Scripture Passage: Luke 10: 30-33

30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

For us, we have the sense that this procession to the Cross was some sort of grand parade but, truthfully, this was something that happened regularly.  It really was just another crucifixion in the big scheme of society.  And most would have assumed that this poor criminal, already tried, convicted, and sentenced, already rejected by society, was just being dragged to a death that he must deserve.  And, besides, this was the eve of the Passover.  There was so much to be done–errands, food to be prepared, houses to clean.  So think of all the passersby, scurrying through their lives, many complaining about the traffic and the clogged roads that the procession was causing.  So, many would have just passed by on the other side, not wanting to touch or be touched by hopelessness and despair and death or maybe just not wanting or having the time to get involved.  And, then, again, Jesus falls.

Tradition tells us that Jesus collapsed for a third time not far from where he would be crucified.  A Roman column indicates the location of his third and final fall.  It has become part of a wall of a Coptic church.  During the Crusader period, there was a large monastery here, the remains of which are still visible today.  Standing there, you can see the roof of St. Helena’s Chapel, a part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where a community of Abyssinian monks live today.  This is the place where Jesus would fall for the last time.  This is the end of the road, so to speak.  The next station will be on the other side, preparing him for crucifixion.  This is the last place where those along the way could show mercy, the last place where they could help, where they could stoop down and gently help him to his feet.  But most would pass by on the other side.

This is uncomfortable for us.  After all, where would we have been in the procession?  I hate to admit it, but I’m not the most patient person in the world. I’m afraid that I would have been avoiding the traffic,trying to get everything done, trying to get everything in place by sunset.  We are so accustomed to living a life of faith needing Jesus.  We know we need Jesus.  We know that we are not complete without God.  We do not always live that way, often trying to fix things and change things and make it look like we don’t need anyone.  But we know we do.  We need Jesus.  But, here, here is the place where Jesus needs us.  How can that be?  How can the Savior of the World need me?  These three falls that are depicted in the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross, uncomfortably show Jesus as vulnerable, as betrayed, and as needing us.  So where are you standing?

Jesus still needs us.  We are called to be there to feed the starving, to house the homeless, to clothe the poor.  We are called to be there to comfort the afflicted, to hold the grieving, to love the unloved.  We are called to be there to welcome the sinner and forgive the unforgiven.  We are called to open our church doors to all the children of God.  We are called to be Christ, to be Compassion, to be Love each and every time one of us falls.  So in this Lenten season, let us not relegate our faith to the other side of the road.  Let us walk the way that Jesus walked.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Repurposed

shelliwilliams CREATION, New Creation

Coal BucketThis Week’s Lectionary Passage:  Isaiah 43: 16-21
16Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,17who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:18Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.19I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.20The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,21the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

I am about to do a new thing…Wake up! Pay attention!  This is going to be incredible!  Remember the context of this passage.  It is probably toward the end of the exile, the end of a time of great loss and despair.  They have lost everything–homes, land, their way of making a living, even their very sense of who they were.  And now this…a new thing.  Let it go…leave it behind…let us go forward toward something new.  Let us begin again.

God is a God of beginning again.  It happens over and over throughout our story.  God takes us from a garden that we threw away and places us in a world.  God takes us from a world that we let get away and placed us on an ark to sail to a new way of being.  God takes us from exile and sends us to freedom.  God takes us from death and heads us toward life.  God is a God of beginning again.  The thing is God is always and forever about to do a new thing.  It is the story of our faith.  Our problem is that we don’t pay attention.  We don’t trust enough to let go.  Our faith tells us that the new creation will be better, will be something that we can’t even fathom right now.  But we stay, attached to our old way of being, to being comfortable and predictable and seemingly in control.

I love old things.  My house and my yard are filled with them.  In fact, I suppose that my house IS one of them.  But living and decorating with old things requires a few tricks.  You want them to look old.  (In fact, I have new things that I want to look old.)  You want them to look old but have a new purpose.  The trick is not to have old things but rather to repurpose them, to bring them in to a new way of being, to perhaps use them in a new way.  So I have an old rusty coal bucket with Cuban Oregano planted in it.  I have an old rusty metal lawn chair that sits out by the bird feeders.  I have old wire baskets that have become shelves.  And I have an old wooden ice chest that is a coffee table.  And my 1920 bungalow has central air, a modern kitchen, and a new bathroom.  Perhaps doing a new thing is not starting over but beginning again with what you have.  Perhaps doing a new thing is repurposing rather than replacing.   Maybe that’s hard for us to embrace.  We live in a disposable society in a temporary world.  The thing that we have is always in need of being replaced by the thing that we want.  So what would it mean to live a life of repurposing?

God created us and calls us into being.  But there is not some new me out there that God is waiting to slip into place.  God is a God of repurposing, of making new what is already here, of giving it new meaning and a new purpose, of giving it new life.  You just have to believe that God is about to do something new with who you are.  That is what faith is all about–believing in repurposing.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Laetare

shelliwilliams Joy, LENT

Easter Lily (DT 8087007)Scripture Passage:  Isaiah 66: 10-14
10Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her—11that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom.12For thus says the Lord: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm, and dandled on her knees.13As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.14You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies shall flourish like the grass; and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants, and his indignation is against his enemies.

This is a hard journey to walk.  It is a journey of despair and lament, of darkness and death.  It is also a journey of joy.  On this fourth Sunday of Lent, known as Laetare Sunday, we are encouraged to be joyful.  It is a recognition that in the midst of all that is life, there are natural rhythms.  We have just passed the mid-point of this Lenten journey.  This is a day of refreshment, of basking in the comfort and joy and life that God offers us.  Think of it as a glimpse of Easter Sunday, of that glorious day of Resurrection.  This is a day of joy!

But, sadly, joy often eludes us.  Why is that?  Are we waiting for everything to be in place?  Do we not think we deserve it?  Do we not think we have time for it?  Why is it so hard?  Can we just not find it?  Look around you.  Joy is everywhere.  Life is not a sequential movement from darkness to light, from sadness to joy, or from death to life.  Faith in God is not about pursuing a degree in joy. Life is about rhythms.  All of those experiences and feelings are part of it.  They all exist in the midst of one another.  And God is woven through all of them.  Being joyful is not some sort of pinnacle point that we are trying to reach.  It is not about seeking happiness.  Happiness is fleeting.  But joy…joy is deep and abiding.  Joy is everlasting.  Joy is present with all experiences of life.  It is thanksgiving; it is gratitude; it is an embracing of the part of the journey through which we travel now.  Joy is a realization that God is in all things.  Joy is God in our being and in everything that is.  Allowing ourselves to feel joy, to be joyful, is to respond to God.  Joy is faith.

So on this day, rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her.  Rejoice with her in joy.  Show her what is to come.  Show her that in the midst of this journey to the cross when death looms and darkness seems to overtake us, when it is hard to see anything other than grief and despair, that there is always joy.  There is always a glimpse of the beauty over the horizon.  So, rejoice and be glad!

Joy has no name.  Its very being is lost in the great tide of selfless delight–creation’s response to the infinite loving of God! (Evelyn Underhill)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli