LENT

Unless You Repent…

shelliwilliams Calling, Journey, LENT, Repentance, Transformation

This Week’s Lectionary Gospel Passage:  Luke 13: 1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (NRSV)

Hmmm!  Maybe we should try the Psalm.  They’re usually a little more friendly, not quite as prickly to the touch, right?  The truth is, we do not like to be threatened and this sounds very threatening.  We’d rather listen to the soothing melodies of assurance and unconditional love and grace.  Repentance is just too stressful, just too harsh and unyielding.  But, unless you repent…
 
I think the problem is that we look at repentance as something negative.  We envision repentance as some sort of self-denial.  We think that we can no longer be who we are but instead we must become some sort of stamped-out “stepford” Christian in order to “measure up” to Jesus Christ.  To quote the old, much-overused, and oft-abused slogan “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD), we use Christ as some sort of divine measuring stick of what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is immoral, and, more importantly, what is it that would win us favor and life with God?  So, what would Jesus do?  Well, I’m convinced that he’d throw that rot out with that batch of bad figs!  Because repentance is not negative.  It does not mean losing who you are.  It means discovering the wonder of who you are meant to be.
 
The Greek word that is usually translated as “repentance” is metanoia.    In Classical Greek, it meant to change one’s mind, one’s heart, one’s soul, one’s life.  Penance was not a part of it.  It simply meant to follow a different road.  I think that IS what Jesus would do.  Why is that so difficult for us?  Is the road that we’re on so grand?  For most of us, probably not.  It is just comfortably familiar.  But don’t we deserve more than comfortable?  We are told of a new life, a new creation, an existence of perfect harmony and shalom.  I don’t think that’s necessarily limited to our next life, or heaven, or the other side of the rainbow, or however you envision it.  I think it’s down that road.  But…unless you repent…unless you change course, let go of the life that you’ve created, and listen to the road that beckons before you, you will remain comfortable and secure and right where you are. And then you will die! But, oh, what you will miss!
 
The road ahead looks dark now and even a little bleak.  The skies are blackening and there’s this awful hammering of metal against wood up ahead.  There is shouting and chaos.  It IS tempting to pull the covers over our head and just stay in for the day.  But just beyond that hill, just ahead, through those rocks and trees, there is a tiny flicker of light.  Let us go and see this thing that has happened.  Frederick Buechner says, “To repent is to come to your senses. It is not so much something you do as something that happens. True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, “I’m sorry,” than to the future and saying, “Wow!” (Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 79)  But, unless you repent…
 
So, repent and believe the Gospel!
 
Shelli

Picture: Israel (February, 2010)

Facing Jerusalem

shelliwilliams LENT, Transformation

This week’s Lectionary Gospel Passage:  Luke 13: 31-35:
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

This time at the beginning of Lent is hard for us. We read the assigned lectionary Gospel passage for this week with much trepidation. If we were watching it on a big screen, this would be the time that we would begin to cover our eyes. It is because as we move into this season of Lent, this season of our journey to the cross, we begin to get a sense of what is about to happen. We want to yell to Jesus, “Go back…go back to where you were…go back to what you were doing before…go back and do it differently this time…be safe…be careful.” But we also know that it is too late. After all, how could it be done differently? Jesus is not known for being safe and careful.

The writer of the Gospel According to Luke gives us clues that tell us that the time for “going back” has lapsed. The passage begins “at that very hour”. Time has come together. The future has poured into what is now. Now is the time. It was apparent that Jesus knew that too. Jesus was looking beyond where he was, beyond these towns in which he was teaching and spreading the Good News, beyond Galilee. Jesus was looking ahead. He had to face it. He had to face Jerusalem.

I think that this is part of what this season of Lent calls us to do—to look beyond, to extend our vision, to see past those things that get in the way of being who God calls us to be. It means that we can no longer stay safe and secure and wrapped in the planned predictability of our lives. It means that the time has passed for us to stand looking longingly at the fertile Galilees of our lives with the calmed waves and the fruitful harvest. It is time. It is time to brave the wilderness, to begin our pilgrimage through the barren desert, and to finally, at this very hour, face our own Jerusalem.

You see, one thing that we need to get straight in reading this Scripture is that, with the exception of one boyhood trip with his parents, Jesus had not been to Jerusalem. Jesus’ ministry was in Galilee. In fact, most of his ministry sort of centered around a lake. (We actually call it the Sea of Galilee—sort of a misinterpretation. It’s really a large and very deep fresh water lake.) From the middle of this lake, you can look around to the cities that line its banks—Tiberias and Sephoris, the cities built by Herod Antipas, the ruins of the ancient city of Magdala, Bethsaida, Capernaum—and between the lake and the Mediterranean Sea was Cana and Nazareth. This was the area in which Jesus’ ministry began. Jesus was not commuting to work in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was still a long way off, through the wilderness and beyond the fertile area of Galilee.

And even here, Jesus was probably perceived as a threat by Herod. It would have been much easier for Herod to get rid of Jesus. After all, this was the Herod that had already killed John the Baptist (and getting rid of Jesus would probably have elevated Herod’s somewhat meager ranking as a ruler.) And Herod had his own vision working as he tried to lead the Galilean people to a new world—a world where Rome was the center and where the values were totally opposed by the teachings of Jesus. So, yes, Jesus was a threat.

There are differing notions as to what Jesus meant when he referred to Herod as a “fox”. In the Old Testament writings, the fox was often associated with destruction and Jewish dietary laws classified the jackal as “unclean.” To the first century Greeks, the fox was seen as clever but unprincipled. Whatever Jesus’ intended meaning was, it was clear that Jesus dismissed Herod Antipas as powerless to stop his mission to establish the Kingdom of God. As Jesus responded, he was going to do what he came to do and then he would be on his way. The mission was set. So with this Scripture, we begin to get a sense that Jesus is looking toward and facing Jerusalem.

Jesus is no longer merely “preparing” to go to Jerusalem. He is headed there. He has set his face toward the holy city. To Jesus, the danger was not in the Herods of the world but, rather, those things that got in the way of his mission. But he turns toward the city with regrets and heartache. And Jesus laments for Jerusalem.
In The Gospel According to Matthew, this lament is placed once Jesus is in Jerusalem. We have this image of Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and lamenting for what could have been. But in the gospel by the writer known as Luke that we read today, the lament is part of Jesus’ Galilean experience. It is indeed a lament but rather than Jesus bemoaning what could have been, it is instead a challenge to the people to become a part of this mission, to “get their house in order”, so to speak, and to become a part of that new humanity that is of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not want Jerusalem to become a symbol of a city that rejects and kills the messengers of God; Jesus wants it to be the Holy City of God that it proclaims to be. After all, this is not an ordinary city. This is the city that claims that the presence of God is in its midst, right there in the temple in the heart of the city near Mt. Zion. And yet, this city, too, has fallen into a different cadence, marching to the beat of prosperity and security and a positioning of power toward those around it. This holy city, the city of the temple, the city that should know better, would be the one that when the time came, would reject Jesus. Jesus knew this. So he turns his face toward Jerusalem and begins the journey toward the cross.

And, once again, lest we somehow lapse into an understanding of Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus as only attributed to the 1st century Jewish believers, we need to realize that we are part of it. Jesus was not rejected by a religion; Jesus was rejected by a culture and a society that thought that they were so right and so comfortable that they did not want to or have a need to change. Jesus was rejected by a culture and a way of life that is very much like our own.

But there’s another point to the Scripture. Even knowing the rejection waiting for him in Jerusalem, Jesus still expresses the wish to love and protect the people, gathering them together as a hen does her chicks. Jesus never stoops to their level. He never judges or rants and raves about what is right, or what is moral, or what is going to happen to them because they have rejected him. He is the perfect image of God—the loving parent, the mother hen, who more than anything else, just wants to love her children and desires for them that they feel that love.

So where do we come in? In this season of Lent, what does it mean for us to face Jerusalem? Well, my friends, we need to remember that Lent is about more than giving up chocolate. It is also about turning our face toward our Jerusalem. It’s about being honest when we look at our cities, our culture, our ways of living in this world and dealing with our fellow brothers and sisters, and, most of all, being honest with ourselves.
Think about it. Jesus did not back down, even in the midst of numerous warnings. Instead, he kept working toward the vision that God had for the world. The mission was more important than his own preservation. Risking himself, God brought the Kingdom of God into the beloved city of God. He gathered in the people of God and then with deep and profound lament, had to face the very real truth that they were not going to change—not yet. And so he just loved them.

Where is your Jerusalem? Where is your city that refuses to change? What is it that you need to face? What is it in your life that stands in the way of your knowing how very much God loves you? What is it in your life that stands in the way of your loving God enough to love God’s children—ALL of God’s children?

You see…long ago in the holy city of Jerusalem, we saw the face of Jesus. It was the face of a man who longed for and worked for change. But it was also the face of God, who came that we might have life and have it abundantly. In his book The Faces of Jesus, Frederick Buechner says that “take it or leave it, the face of Jesus is, if nothing else, at least a face we would know anywhere—a face that belongs to us somehow, our age, our culture; a face we somehow belong to. Like the faces of the people we love, it has become so familiar that unless we take pains we hardly see it at all. Take pains. See it for what it is and to see it whole, see it too for what it is just possible that it will become: the face of Jesus as the face of our own secret and innermost destiny: The face of Jesus is our face.”

That’s what Lent is about. It is more than reliving Jesus’ journey from the fertile waters of Galilee to the harsh and painful reality of the holy city of Jerusalem. Lent is instead about our own journey, our own pilgrimage from the Galilees of our life to that moment when we truly face Jerusalem. It is about clearing away those things that obstruct God’s vision for our lives, that tie us to our own way of being that we have constructed, and that get in the way of us realizing that when everything is said and done, it is all because God just wants to love us and wants us to feel that love. So, open your eyes, look toward Jerusalem so that you can finally say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

So, go…face Jerusalem this Lenten season!

Shelli

Picture: Jerusalem, Israel (February, 2010)

A Holy Pilgrimage

shelliwilliams Journey, LENT, Wilderness

Last week I returned from a wonderful journey through the Holy Land with a wonderful group of friends–some [not so] old and some brand new! It was my first time to experience Israel and I have already encountered how it so profoundly changes those who have the gift of that adventure. How can I ever read Scripture the same again? How can I ever read accounts of vast groups of people journeying through the desert or waves being calmed on the [Lake] of Galilee during a storm or Jesus traveling from town to town teaching and healing without seeing and hearing and touching what I have once again? I am profoundly and forever changed. How can I be part of a Palm Sunday processional without feeling the uneven pavement beneath my feet and the way it slopes at a somewhat precarious angle as it winds above the city of Jerusalem and ends at the Garden of Gethsemane? I am profoundly and forever changed. How can I ever take the bread or serve the cup without remembering the old city in which that last meal was held, without imagining Jesus and the disciples winding their way through it in the dark trying to reach a quiet place of prayer on that dark and desperate night. I am profoundly and forever changed. Thanks be to God!

One of the questions that we were asked was what made the difference between a “trip” and a “pilgrimage”. I have been thinking about that since I’ve been back as the memories and the feelings make their way deep into my being. I think that one difference is that a trip takes you to somewhere new and a pilgrimage takes you to somewhere that is already a part of you. A trip is temporary as you return to your same existence from which you left; a pilgrimage stays with you and becomes a part of you. A trip allows you to be someone you’re not, if only for awhile; but a pilgrimage…a pilgrimage pushes you into becoming who you are. This trip was definitely a pilgrimage. Oh, sure, I brought pictures (some of them I’ll try to post over the next couple of weeks) and souvenirs and various mementos. But more than anything, I brought a piece of who I am home.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4: 1-13)

This last Sunday, the lectionary Gospel passage was Jesus’ 40-day encounter in the wilderness. I’m pretty sure that Jesus was not just trying to “get away from it all”, as attractive as that may have been to someone who worked the hours he did! He was not escaping; he was becoming. He was on a pilgrimage to find out who God meant for him to be–to find out who he was. It is our quintessential model for this Lenten season. Lent is not merely a time of self-denial. It really has little to do with giving up chocolate, or soft drinks, or your nightly glass of wine. Lent is a pilgrimage, a holy pilgrimage. It is, of course, about clearing one’s life to make room for God to work. But, I think, more than anything else, Lent is about becoming who you are, who God intended you to be. It is about finding yourself and when one finds who he or she is truly meant to be, it is there that one will finally know God in the way that God desires to be known.

In this Lenten season, I wish you a Holy Pilgrimage…Go…become who God means for you to be. It is there that you will finally know that you are home.

Peace on the Journey,

Shelli

Picture: Judean Wilderness, Israel (February, 2010)

When Nothing Else Makes Sense

shelliwilliams Cross, Good Friday, Holy Week, LENT, Transformation

A Good Friday Sermon…

Lectionary Text: John 18: 1-19:42

This is the road that we have all walked before. Most of us would rather not. We would rather just close our eyes and wake up when the whole awful thing has ended. We would rather open our eyes and see that everything is alright or, even better, back where it used to be. This is grief. We have all experienced it. We have all felt loss and despair; we have all felt as if the very foundations of our world have been ripped away and left us standing to fend for ourselves. We have all felt at times like the abyss in which we find ourselves is consuming us and that there is no way out. And grief is the one thing that does not get easier each time you do it. Each time cuts a little sharper and a little deeper until nothing of our lives make sense in light of the way it was before. This is the road we walk when nothing else makes sense.

The road we walk today is no different. Oh, perhaps it seems to be, because intellectually we already know the ending to the story. But it is grief nevertheless. We sit here in this darkened sanctuary contemplating what was done on this day. We can hear the sounds of a world going about its business. That’s always a bit odd for me. There’s a part of me that expects the world, if only for a moment, to stop and grieve my grief, to revere what I revere, and to feel this in the same way that I do. But that does not happen. It is mine to feel and mine through which to walk.

If we are feeling this today, can you imagine what the disciples must have been feeling? They were on the ground floor of something wonderful; they were part of changing the world. This radical roving man who they had agreed to follow for life was doing something incredible! What was happening now, though? Was it only five days ago that we came to town? Was it only five days ago that we were at the height of these years—processing into town with all those people cheering us on? Was it just last night that we were eating dinner together? And, now this? What went wrong? Surely this would turn out alright! After all, this man works miracles! But there was to be no miracle this time.

Their grief was insurmountable. And, around them the world was continuing on. We as followers of Jesus ourselves have this sense of this execution being a big deal, as if the whole of Jerusalem and surrounding areas shut down for the day to be a part of it. But the truth was, this happened all the time. This was just one more Roman crucifixion in the life of a city that lived in perilous and often tenuous times on the world stage. And, so the life around them did not stop. And they had to face their grief in the midst of it all.

And at this point, they had to also look at themselves, uncomfortable as that may have been. What part had I played in this whole sequence? What would I do now? And we 21st century disciples also have to ask where we would be in the story. There was Peter, wallowing in guilt for not standing up for his friend, for denying his own belief. He had wanted so badly to be part of Jesus’ “inner circle”. But why couldn’t he come through when it mattered? There were the fishermen James and John. They had willingly followed Jesus, giving up everything they knew. What would they do now? Jesus was their everything. What about Mary Magdalene? Jesus was the first person that had accepted her, that had loved her simply for who she was? And now that was gone. And Judas…Judas carried the heaviest grief of all. He didn’t know whether or not he could live with himself. The very foundations of their world were gone as they watched their whole world nailed to a cross and slip away. None of this made any sense at all.

We Christians have spent centuries trying to make sense of the cross, perhaps even trying to take our own humanity and our own part out of the equation. The truth is that Jesus was put to death because we as humans expected something different. It was humans who took control and did this. But there are more theories of the cross and its atoning power than most of us will ever fathom. It has been described by some as a cosmic battle between good and evil, a battle that God seems to lose at first only to pull it out in the end. Then there is the belief that the cross depicted God’s love in such that we humans might be compelled to follow in faith. And there are those for whom the cross is the satisfaction paid to God for the sins of the world, a substitution of the redeemer for the sinful, implying that God somehow demands a ransom in order to release our redemption and salvation. In all honesty, I struggle with all of these. In fact, none of them by themselves really makes sense to me.

It seems, to me that the cosmic battle takes humanity out of the picture, relegating us to bystanders. If there is no humanity associated with the cross, what, really is the point? And while the notion of God’s love depicted by the cross is of paramount importance to us, if we leave it there, it sort of turns it into an overly sentimental description of the incredible mystery and power of God. Is that all there is? And, probably the most popular understanding in our history, the understanding of the cross as a satisfaction paid to God for our sins does not really make sense for me. Think about it. God created us in the image of Godself. It would not make sense, then, for God to have to be talked into loving us. True redemption is not a required sacrifice, but an act of overwhelming love by God who desires us as much as we need God. It is we humans that try desperately to come up with a reason for the cross, with a reason for Jesus’ death. Perhaps there was no reason. Perhaps God truly took the senseless, the inhumanness of our humanity, and made sense of it.

Truthfully, though, there is no single understanding of the cross that has been accepted by everyone. None of them are mutually exclusive. And none, alone, really make sense of something that is so filled with the pervasive mystery of God. In a way that sometimes makes little sense to us, God turned suffering into joy, betrayal into forgiveness, and death into life. From that standpoint, the cross, for me, could be counted as God’s highest act of Creation in all of time. The cross is God’s overwhelming love made tangible and real and accessible for each of us.

God took something so horrific, so senseless, so utterly inhumane, and so personally painful and recreated it. But when you think about, God had done that before. If you remember, in the beginning, there was nothingness, senselessness and God created all that there is, bringing order to the senselessness. And it was very, very good. And now, at the depth of our grief, in the face of what seems to us senseless, God once again creates life. And once again, all of Creation responds. Other Gospel writers depict the Crucifixion by saying that the whole earth shook, rocks were split, graves opened and the temple curtain that had always separated the sacred from the ordinary was torn in two. As the earth opened up, surely seeming to the world that Creation was undoing itself, the holiest of holies spilled into it. In this moment, when all we see are endings, when grief overwhelms us, when our very lives seem to have been swallowed up, God recreates everything. In this moment, the universe has changed. Death is not just avoided or bypassed but is indeed swallowed up by life. In this moment, death itself is defeated. And God looked at it all. It is finished. And it is very, very good.

There’s still a lot in this world that doesn’t make sense. September 11, 2001 still clangs loudly in our hearts, with its almost jarring effects of despair and hopelessness, suffering and death, and its intrusive way that it has affected our well-tuned and carefully planned lives. Communities were devastated, lives were shattered, and the pall of an incredible hopelessness still to some extent hangs in our hearts over Ground Zero.

Like many other landmarks around it, the Liberty Community Gardens in Battery Park were almost totally destroyed on that day, buried in dust and ashes. What was left was later trampled by the hundreds of workers and then finally destroyed when it was designated as the place where the smashed fire trucks and rescue vehicles would be temporarily discarded.
But more than 2,800 miles away, there were some 75,000 people in the city of Seattle who responded to their own shock and sadness of that day by bringing more than a million flowers to the International Fountain in the Seattle Center. By depositing beauty, it was their way of honoring those who had suffered in the devastation. It was there way of creating something new. But we know that we cannot hold life in our hands. And so as the flowers started to decay, echoing their own tales of death and stench and despair, hundreds of volunteers began the painstaking effort of separating the flowers from the paper, plastic, mementos, and wires that were mixed with them and then chopped and mashed the 80 cubic yards of flowers into mulch for composting.

If you garden at all, you know that compost is a metaphor for renewal, a natural part of life and death, a reminder of new hope gained from loss. It is a reminder of rebirth and recreation. From the sadness of the twin towers, was birthed a source of life.

But the story doesn’t end there. One of the volunteers had an idea. And so, in September of 2002, a year after the desolation of the Battery Park Gardens, thirty-two donated boxes were each filled with forty to fifty pounds of the compost and flown to New York City. And on September 28, 2002, the New York gardens were rededicated—to abundance and beauty, and to a future life recreated from present death. Things will never be back to the way they were before, but God has sown the beginning of something new. But we had to wait to see it in all its fullness.

We had always envisioned a Savior that would make the world around us alright again. Instead God in Christ began recreating the world into that which it is supposed to be. That, of course, is hard to grasp as we stand at the foot of the cross watching our Lord writhe in pain and despair. But Jesus Christ came as fully human, with all of the feelings and emotions that we experience. Christ knew what it was like to be human, knew what it was like to feel pain, and knew what it was like to grieve. It is tempting to ask where God was through all this. God was there. God went to the cross first.

After the Crucifixion, this defeated little band of disciples had no hope. As you can imagine, they had no expectation of anything else to come. Everything in which they believed, in which they had invested their lives, had died on the cross. It seemed to them that the world had been right and they had been wrong. Joan Chittister says that “the road behind us becomes what frees us for the road ahead.” In this moment, God was already freeing them from grief and recreating joy.

And us…there is something in all of us that struggles with the thought of God suffering. We instead imagine a God that stands apart from us, shielded from pain, and prepared to pick up the pieces of our lives when we need it. But God, in God’s infinite wisdom rather recreates our lives from the inside, from the point of our deepest pain and suffering, from the cross, and even we become new Creations whether or not we can see it now. The cross is the rebirth of humanity in all its fullness. In this moment, it is death that dies.

It is hard for us to see right now. It is hard to see clearly through the tears of grief. Christ died on a cross in immense suffering and pain. And those who love him grieve a grief such that they have never known. As we sit here in this dark sanctuary and listen to the bells toll, we will once again feel the finality of it all. But Louis L’Amour once wrote that “there will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” And just when nothing else makes sense, it is in that moment that your eternity has begun.

In the Name of Christ Crucified, in the Name of overwhelming Love.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

On This Night

shelliwilliams Community, Eucharist, Holy Week, LENT

Scripture: John 13: 33-35
Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

My Grandmother once told me that the very first time that she was about to leave to go out on a date, her father looked her in the eyes and simply said, “Remember who you are”. When my father left his home to go to college, he was sent away with those same words: “Remember who you are.” And even though I probably too eagerly jumped in my little yellow Toyota and headed off perhaps a little too fast for my parents to have a chance to actually say the words, I too began a new life with the same words echoing from my childhood: “Remember who you are.” It was engrained and embedded deep within my being.

Sometimes life spins a little out of control. Sometimes things don’t go exactly like the carefully scripted plan we have in our own minds. Sometimes we have to let go or leave behind those in our lives before we’re actually ready to do so. Our lives are full of “last times”, those special, much-too-fleeting moments that we spend with those we love. It is those times when all we can do is trust that the groundwork has been laid for what must continue. Sometimes in those moments when we feel that time is ending all too soon the only thing that we can say is to “remember who you are”.

That had to be a little of what Jesus was going through on this night. Think about it…he had spent his ministry gathering those around him, teaching them, loving them, and indeed shaping them into who they were. And now…here he was completely out of time…the end was approaching. Night had begun to fall. All he could do was trust that the seeds he had planted in his followers would continue to grow and flourish even in a new environment and a new time. So on this night, he invited all those who love him—this somewhat motley crew of misfits and ordinary ones to sit around the table and enjoy their time together. He knew what was about to happen. He knew that this would be the last.

That is where we enter the story…in the midst of this evening meal…this Passover meal…the last meal. The feast is prepared. The loved ones are gathered together. We have visions of a perfect meal and a perfect time together. But, as all of us know, that is not always the way that family meals come together. This was no exception. Nestled beneath this wonderful feeling of closeness and fellowship were chords of betrayal and distrust, signs of denial and misunderstandings, and an all-too-constant stream of arguing among the disciples. Does that sound familiar?

But in this Passover meal that we have come to call the Last Supper, Jesus chooses to share himself—his very body and blood with all of those that were gathered—this denying, betraying, bickering, and beloved lot. It was a way of giving them something to remember him so that they would not feel so alone without him. He gave them something to hold onto—to touch and to taste—something to do to keep Christ close in their hearts. On this night, Jesus gives the gift of himself and a way for all of us to remember who we are.

This is the meal that shapes us. This is the meal that enables us to remember who we are. This is the meal that reminds us from where we came. This is the meal that lets us remember what Christ did for us. But this is also the meal, this holy sacrament, this retelling and remembrance into the core of our being that allows us to taste what is to come, to get a glimpse of what is holy and sacred and once again bring it into who we are.

Go forth and do this in remembrance of Jesus Christ!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Betrayed and Beloved

shelliwilliams Betrayed, Children of God, Holy Week, LENT

Scripture Reading: John 13: 21-32
After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

Today’s lectionary Gospel passage begins with…”Jesus was troubled in spirit.” He knew. He knew that a friend would betray him. It made him angry and indignant. But, more than that…it had to hurt. That has to be one of the worst pains imaginable. Because…think about it…betrayal is not something that you do to a stranger. You do not speak of inadvertently cutting someone off in traffic as a “betrayal”. For, you see, betrayal…true betrayal…is a deep-cutting blade that that can only cut into the closest of relationships. As painful as it may be, betrayal only happens in the midst of true intimacy. And that is the most painful of all.

“Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” What? The disciples looked at each other flabbergasted. NOT one of us. (And even if it was one of us, it is certainly not I. I love you! You are my Lord!) So Simon Peter leans in…Jesus…come here…come on, you can tell me…who is it? And Jesus, with perfect parabolic eloquence responds…It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. And then he hands it to Judas. Do quickly what you are going to do.

But the disciples didn’t get it. Well, of course not…because it really doesn’t make sense. So they began speculating. You know what I bet he really MEANT to say? He MUST have been telling him to buy something for the festival or to give something to the poor. (After all, just a few days ago, Judas was worried about the poor and why money was not being spent on them rather than on the extravagant anointing of our Lord!) NOW it makes sense. Because NONE of us could betray Jesus. And so the other disciples are removed from the betrayal, relieved of the blame.
So Judas leaves immediately. Even in the midst of betrayal, he is quietly obedient, knowing in his heart where he really belongs and is not going. And the passage ends as the darkness of night falls.

And, in all honesty, there is a little Judas in all of us. There are those times when we inadvertently choose the darkness, either intentionally or unintentionally. There are those times when our greed or maybe even our fears drive us to choose the security of wealth, fleeting as it may be, over trust in Christ. There are times when our own blindness toward others compels us to choose our own personal bread, rather than a community feast. And there are times when even our love for our Lord is so shrouded in the darkness of greed, and insecurity, and selfishness towards others that we once again hand him over to be crucified in our hearts. We all must ask the question “Is it I”? And we all must face the uncomfortable truth that sometimes it is. The question for us becomes: Are we more like Judas or more like the beloved disciple? The truth is, we are both. If we forget that we are like Judas, then we forget sin that always distorts our reality. If we forget that we are like the beloved disciple, then we are blocking the Spirit who makes everything new. We are the forgiven sinners as well as the created children, the betrayers and the beloved.

So where does that leave Judas? We still do not really have a clear answer as to the motivation that compelled him to betray Jesus. Maybe that’s not what matters at this point. Maybe we’re not even supposed to know. And yet, many people have spent the ages trying their best to condemn him. Dante would have placed him on fourth level of the ninth circle of hell, the lowest of inferno. I tend to err more on the side of God’s mercy.

Because, you see, the good news is that God does not love us in spite of who we are; God loves us because of who we are—the betrayer and the beloved, the Judas and the one whom Jesus loved. God loved us before any human person could show love to us—a “first” love, an unlimited, unconditional love. And here, in the midst of the shadows of this week, a light flickers in the darkness. Holy Thursday does not end with betrayal. It ends with love. It ends with life, whether we are the beloved, the ones who deny, or the ones who run away, and even for the Judas’s in all of us. So do not let your hearts be troubled. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

So go forth into the light–darkness and all!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

What is This Thing About Wheat?

shelliwilliams Cross, Holy Week, LENT, Preparation

Scripture Reading: John 12: 24-33 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Do you remember running through the sprinkler when you were kids? You want to do it. You want to feel that cool, refreshing feeling right after you do it. But it’s that first blast of cold, paralyzing water that takes your breath away that you dread and so you put it off. And then, finally, you hold your breath and run through it as fast as you can. That’s almost what we have a tendency to do with the cross. We dread it as we slowly walk toward it, dragging our feet a bit, not really wanting to experience it again—the memories and reliving of the horror, and the violence, and the suffering, and the pain. And as we approach, we then let our minds run quickly through it toward Easter morning.

But now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified. For, as Jesus says, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just single lone grain, worth nothing; but if it dies, it bears fruit and lives on. You see, wheat is known as a caryopsis, meaning that the outer “seed” and the inner fruit are connected. The seed essentially has to die so that the fruit can emerge. If you were to dig around in the ground and uproot a stalk of wheat, you would not find the original seed. It is dead and gone. In essence, the grain must allow itself to be changed.

So what Jesus is trying to tell us here is that if we do everything in our power to protect our lives the way they are—if we successfully thwart change, avoid conflict, prevent pain—then at the end we will find that we have no life at all. He goes on…”Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. And whoever does this, God will honor.” This is the only time that the Gospel speaks of God honoring someone. And we begin to see the connection unfolding. Whoever follows Jesus through his death, will become part of his everlasting life.

Jesus wanted us to understand not just that he was leaving, not just that his death was imminent, but that this journey to the cross was not just his to make, but ours. Now is the time to walk with Jesus to the cross.

And, yet, we still struggle with the whole meaning of the cross. We still struggle over why Jesus had to die at all. Why couldn’t Jesus just figure out a way out of this whole sordid thing and stay around? The world needed to hear more from him. Because then it just would have stayed a seed. But, you see, because Jesus was willing to die, was willing to be changed; God could raise him from the dead and give fruit to the world.

And the cross…whether you believe that God sent Jesus to die, or that human fear and preoccupation with the self put Jesus to death, or whether you think the whole thing was some sort of colossal misunderstanding…the point of the cross is that God took the most horrific, the most violent, the worst that the world and humanity could offer and recreated it into life. And through it, everything—even sin, evil, and suffering is redefined in the image of God. By absorbing himself into the worst of the world and refusing to back away from it, Jesus made sure that it was all put to death with him. By dying unto himself, he created life that will never be defeated. And in the same way, we, too, are baptized into Jesus’ death and then rise to new life.

This is why we walk this journey toward the cross. This is why we spend time there before waking to the Easter lilies. This is the paschal mystery—that true life comes only through journeys through death where we come to understand who God is for us. Christ is died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. God has given us a new consciousness and a new way of seeing life and in an act of ultimate divine love, the cross became God’s highest act of Creation. It is God’s recreation of everything. “But if it dies, it will bear much fruit.”

So go forth toward the cross, die to self, and bear much fruit in Christ!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli