Why is it so hard to trust the good times? Why is it that I see the dark nights of doubt and fear as real, and the good times of grace-filled days, the days full of good conversations and joyful laughter as short stopping points along the way, on a long journey full of struggle and heartache?
This past month has been packed full of hard work, but it has flowed gracefully, with the help of many angels along the way. I said goodbye to my parish of three years -- St. Luke's in Racine, WI: I packed up all of my too-many possessions; and I arrived at the huge rectory of my new parish -- another St. Luke's, in Jamestown, NY -- where I will be the interim rector for a year or so, however long it takes them to find the next rector in their search.
I arrived here just in time for the vestry and the youth group and the Bishop Overs Guild -- made up originally of all the working women in the church, and named after a missionary bishop who ended up settling in Racine -- to have their Christmas parties, so in 10 days, I attended three parties, two meetings and one choir practice. One of those parties was held at the rectory. (Yes, the same rectory that had just received all of my belongings only two weeks earlier.) So, when I wasn't attending meetings and parties, and trying to check in to the office enough to let them know that I WAS here, I was trying to get the public spaces of the rectory clear of boxes, and eventually decorate for Christmas.
All of this was tiring and stressful, but a lot of FUN after not having enough to do in my small parish in Racine, WI.
Already, in less than a month, St. Luke's-J has allowed me to tamper with two long-standing traditions: their Advent Service of Lessons and Carols, which I moved to the Sunday after Christmas, and the singing of "Silent Night" as the very last thing on Christmas Eve, which I moved to the place of the post-communion prayer, and then had the lights come up and sent them out with the uplifting and sending forth of "Joy to the World." We don't need sleepy and subdued people going out into the world. How's that message going to catch fire and attract new people?
But much credit to them for rolling with the changes. If this is a sign of things to come, this parish is open and ready to meet the challenges of a world that looks at church suspiciously, and without much respect. Not to say that I blame the world, after the messes the church has created with its clumsy theology and its claims to have ALL of the truth and ALL of the salvation -- whatever that means.
So, I find myself at another beginning, and it looks promising. I cannot be considered for rector of this parish; it's in my contract, which frees me to be bold and prophetic and not have to please specific people (well, not for long anyway), which is how it should be anyway for priests and pastors. Somewhere along the line, we began to worry about tenure and keeping our jobs, instead of speaking the hard truth in love. Some of my gifted, long-tenured colleagues have learned to do that. Me? Not so much. Too often, I find myself bursting with the urgency of what needs to be said, and don't always say it gracefully, or at the right time.
But for now, I'm going to enjoy this rest stop of fun and energy and promise of joyful Good News in a parish that seems open to the workings of Ms. Holy Spirit.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
California Highway
Someone must have praying for me. Good praying, I mean, not the sanctimonious prayer of some, where the person tells God what the prayee NEEDS (in their opinion). No, this one was coming from someone who knew me enough to want me to have God present to me during my pilgrimage-on-the-California-highways instead of my pilgrimage in Ireland, where I wasn't because I have no discipline and cannot save money. I didn't even have the money to be doing this camping trip which was really a pilgrimage of the .... you get the picture.
Doogie and I (Doogie is my Westie and soul mate) set out one early morning in May for San Diego, and planned to camp there two nights before heading up the coast to Oceano Dunes, stay there for two nights, and then get up to San Francisco. Then over to Tahoe or Utah, and down to the north rim of the Grand Canyon or through Flagstaff. I was going to be flexible and open, because I don't get to do that in my work as a parish priest enough (you know how those people can be; they are more interested in schedules and actually following the schedules than they are about being spontaneous in the spirit!).
Except that someone whispered doubt into my ear just before I left... and so I abandoned the trip midway, and it could have been a complete failure.
But somebody must have been praying for me.
After two good nights and a full day of dog beaches and dog friendly shops and cooking over a gas stove in San Diego in between, we hit the road for Oceano Dunes. I was prepared to ditch this portion and find a plan B. Oceano Dunes -- I had read and they didn't exaggerate -- was one huge camping and ATV beach. I envisioned 20 -some people on quads zipping all over the beach, up and down the dunes, and the possibility that there wouldn't much privacy. I was going to listen to my gut (Ms Holy Spirit herself) to see if it felt safe there. I shot up I-5 from the campsite because it was close by, and decided I would just bear down and get through Los Angeles as quickly as possible using sheer stupidity. As with every big city, there were many detractors telling me how many hours it would take me to get through the traffic.
It wasn't that bad, really. Except that bearing down and ramming through is one of the best ways to miss the scenery, which I KNOW wouldn't have happened if I had gone on the Ireland pilgrimage with Gil Stafford and his group. One of the stated principles of his group "Peregrini," which, from what I vaguely remember from seminary, has something to do with traveling, is that you should NOT miss the scenery.
Fortunately, I came to myself like the son in the story of the generous father (also known as the prodigal son), and got off I-5 a little after lunchtime to take the 101 toward the ocean. The 101, I found out later, has a worse repurtation than LA for its notorious traffic snarl-ups. Or "parking lots" more accurately.
I finally got off at a sign that said "Beach Traffic" or something similar, and parked it in a shopping center with interesting shops. After letting Doogie pee and smell a couple of unhealthy-looking trees in the parking lot, I took him to Starbucks and parked him with a scruffy looking guy that looked like he would throw down his life if someone tried to take Doogie from him so I could pee and smell the coffee in my own parking island of caffeine. (okay, that's over the top...)
Doogie and I sat grateful not to be moving and grateful not to be in the sweltering Arizona heat, and we people watched. Within sight of the shopping center was a middle class neighborhood; hell, I might have even been able to afford a house there if it wasn't California or Arizona. I got out my Atlas and tried to figure out where we were. We had been driving five hours by then, and I realized how silly I had been originally to think I might be able to get to San Francisco in one day. I was even beginning to wonder if we would get to Oceano before it got dark, but had re-discovered daylight saving time there in California. We don't do DST in Arizona; there is no need to inflict MORE daylight when the hottest temperatures soar even higher on our time off when our employers are not paying the AC bill.
I had missed the signs saying where we were. I have full-blown ADHD, but that usually doesn'y apply to traveling. I'm more like
Doogie and I (Doogie is my Westie and soul mate) set out one early morning in May for San Diego, and planned to camp there two nights before heading up the coast to Oceano Dunes, stay there for two nights, and then get up to San Francisco. Then over to Tahoe or Utah, and down to the north rim of the Grand Canyon or through Flagstaff. I was going to be flexible and open, because I don't get to do that in my work as a parish priest enough (you know how those people can be; they are more interested in schedules and actually following the schedules than they are about being spontaneous in the spirit!).
Except that someone whispered doubt into my ear just before I left... and so I abandoned the trip midway, and it could have been a complete failure.
But somebody must have been praying for me.
After two good nights and a full day of dog beaches and dog friendly shops and cooking over a gas stove in San Diego in between, we hit the road for Oceano Dunes. I was prepared to ditch this portion and find a plan B. Oceano Dunes -- I had read and they didn't exaggerate -- was one huge camping and ATV beach. I envisioned 20 -some people on quads zipping all over the beach, up and down the dunes, and the possibility that there wouldn't much privacy. I was going to listen to my gut (Ms Holy Spirit herself) to see if it felt safe there. I shot up I-5 from the campsite because it was close by, and decided I would just bear down and get through Los Angeles as quickly as possible using sheer stupidity. As with every big city, there were many detractors telling me how many hours it would take me to get through the traffic.
It wasn't that bad, really. Except that bearing down and ramming through is one of the best ways to miss the scenery, which I KNOW wouldn't have happened if I had gone on the Ireland pilgrimage with Gil Stafford and his group. One of the stated principles of his group "Peregrini," which, from what I vaguely remember from seminary, has something to do with traveling, is that you should NOT miss the scenery.
Fortunately, I came to myself like the son in the story of the generous father (also known as the prodigal son), and got off I-5 a little after lunchtime to take the 101 toward the ocean. The 101, I found out later, has a worse repurtation than LA for its notorious traffic snarl-ups. Or "parking lots" more accurately.
I finally got off at a sign that said "Beach Traffic" or something similar, and parked it in a shopping center with interesting shops. After letting Doogie pee and smell a couple of unhealthy-looking trees in the parking lot, I took him to Starbucks and parked him with a scruffy looking guy that looked like he would throw down his life if someone tried to take Doogie from him so I could pee and smell the coffee in my own parking island of caffeine. (okay, that's over the top...)
Doogie and I sat grateful not to be moving and grateful not to be in the sweltering Arizona heat, and we people watched. Within sight of the shopping center was a middle class neighborhood; hell, I might have even been able to afford a house there if it wasn't California or Arizona. I got out my Atlas and tried to figure out where we were. We had been driving five hours by then, and I realized how silly I had been originally to think I might be able to get to San Francisco in one day. I was even beginning to wonder if we would get to Oceano before it got dark, but had re-discovered daylight saving time there in California. We don't do DST in Arizona; there is no need to inflict MORE daylight when the hottest temperatures soar even higher on our time off when our employers are not paying the AC bill.
I had missed the signs saying where we were. I have full-blown ADHD, but that usually doesn'y apply to traveling. I'm more like
Preparing for the Upside Down Kingdom
Sermon – Sept. 23, 2012
One of my favorite pictures is of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama hamming it up at the camera, both with big smiles on their faces. They look almost impish in their grinning, as if they are up to something mischievous.
It is my favorite image of two of the holiest people of our time, and I guess for me, laughter is an essential ingredient of holiness.
I once heard that laughter is the shortest distance between two people, so if God is love, then God must laugh a lot.
So Jesus must have laughed a lot as well. At lunch the other day with the Llanases and Betty Marquand, we got talking about just that: Jesus laughing, and I told of a painting that I had seen of The Laughing Christ. Well, it turns out that there are several paintings of Jesus laughing, but I downloaded the one I liked best. Here it is.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is trying to instill in his disciples the kind of humility it takes to be a servant leader, an upside down version of what the world sees as leadership. Instead of a warrior king who would be Messiah by bringing political power to the Jews, Jesus tries to help them see that “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
Then he takes a child, puts it on his lap and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and welcomes the one who sent me.”
The only other time Jesus mentions children is in the Gospel of Matthew, when he says ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It’s important to acknowledge that Jesus was probably talking about becoming child-LIKE and not being child-ISH. The disciples are being child-ISH when they are arguing about who is going to sit on Jesus right and left hands.
Instead, he is probably talking about holy qualities of an innocent, natural child. that would best prepare us for the upside down world of the kingdom, where servants are valued over the powerful of the world, where the last in line get to be first, where the meek inherit the earth, and where those who are willing to die to their egos are given true life.
What qualities will it take to prepare us for such a kingdom?
Certainly, the ability to laugh easily, but not AT others’ foibles, but at our OWN sense of importance. The person who can laugh at himself when he feels slighted, and say ironically “Obviously you don’t know how important I am” is someone who will feel at home in the kingdom of God.
The next qualities come right out of the prayer that we say just after a child is baptized, when we pray that he or she will be given “an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.”
An inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.
All of these qualities embrace the gifts God has given us, and embrace the world as if life is an adventure, and there is trust that God will be there all along the way. And there’s JOY, without which life can get pretty dusty, pretty bitter. A Christian without joy is a contradiction of all Jesus taught, and if God is truly at the center of our lives and our being, joy should always be close at hand.
Finally, Jesus valued everyone equally, regardless of status or wealth. It is a very childlike quality to say to someone, “I’m coming to your house for dinner!” as Jesus did more than once. There is a trust in the goodness in other people’s hearts, because your own heart is pure.
Okay, so most of us don’t have pure hearts. But we can at least act a little more trusting, a little more joyful, wondering in the discoveries we might find.
The 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi tells the following story about a young man seeking advice asks to speak to someone wise. The villagers point to a man playing stick-horse with children. “He has keen, fiery insight and vast dignity like the night sky, but he conceals it in the madness of child’s play.” During their conversation the young man asks the wise man why he hides his intelligence. The man answers, “The people here want to put me in charge. They want me to be judge, magistrate, and interpreter of all the texts. The knowing I have doesn’t want that. It wants to enjoy itself. I am a plantation of sugarcane, and at the same time I’m eating the sweetness.” The following words are from the middle of the poem.
Knowledge that is acquired is not like this. Those who have it worry if audiences like it or not. It’s a bait for popularity. Disputational knowing wants customers. It has no soul. Robust and energetic before a responsive crowd, it slumps when no one is there.
Chew quietly your sweet sugarcane God-Love, and stay playfully childish. Your face will turn rosy with illumination like the redbud flowers. -Rumi 1207-1273 translation by Coleman Barks with John Moyne The Essential Rumi
If that doesn’t speak to you, maybe this thought will. I recently read a poster that said, “If you haven’t grown up by age 50, then you don’t have to.”
Now, let’s go and have some fun at a picnic!
One of my favorite pictures is of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama hamming it up at the camera, both with big smiles on their faces. They look almost impish in their grinning, as if they are up to something mischievous.
It is my favorite image of two of the holiest people of our time, and I guess for me, laughter is an essential ingredient of holiness.
I once heard that laughter is the shortest distance between two people, so if God is love, then God must laugh a lot.
So Jesus must have laughed a lot as well. At lunch the other day with the Llanases and Betty Marquand, we got talking about just that: Jesus laughing, and I told of a painting that I had seen of The Laughing Christ. Well, it turns out that there are several paintings of Jesus laughing, but I downloaded the one I liked best. Here it is.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is trying to instill in his disciples the kind of humility it takes to be a servant leader, an upside down version of what the world sees as leadership. Instead of a warrior king who would be Messiah by bringing political power to the Jews, Jesus tries to help them see that “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
Then he takes a child, puts it on his lap and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and welcomes the one who sent me.”
The only other time Jesus mentions children is in the Gospel of Matthew, when he says ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It’s important to acknowledge that Jesus was probably talking about becoming child-LIKE and not being child-ISH. The disciples are being child-ISH when they are arguing about who is going to sit on Jesus right and left hands.
Instead, he is probably talking about holy qualities of an innocent, natural child. that would best prepare us for the upside down world of the kingdom, where servants are valued over the powerful of the world, where the last in line get to be first, where the meek inherit the earth, and where those who are willing to die to their egos are given true life.
What qualities will it take to prepare us for such a kingdom?
Certainly, the ability to laugh easily, but not AT others’ foibles, but at our OWN sense of importance. The person who can laugh at himself when he feels slighted, and say ironically “Obviously you don’t know how important I am” is someone who will feel at home in the kingdom of God.
The next qualities come right out of the prayer that we say just after a child is baptized, when we pray that he or she will be given “an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.”
An inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.
All of these qualities embrace the gifts God has given us, and embrace the world as if life is an adventure, and there is trust that God will be there all along the way. And there’s JOY, without which life can get pretty dusty, pretty bitter. A Christian without joy is a contradiction of all Jesus taught, and if God is truly at the center of our lives and our being, joy should always be close at hand.
Finally, Jesus valued everyone equally, regardless of status or wealth. It is a very childlike quality to say to someone, “I’m coming to your house for dinner!” as Jesus did more than once. There is a trust in the goodness in other people’s hearts, because your own heart is pure.
Okay, so most of us don’t have pure hearts. But we can at least act a little more trusting, a little more joyful, wondering in the discoveries we might find.
The 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi tells the following story about a young man seeking advice asks to speak to someone wise. The villagers point to a man playing stick-horse with children. “He has keen, fiery insight and vast dignity like the night sky, but he conceals it in the madness of child’s play.” During their conversation the young man asks the wise man why he hides his intelligence. The man answers, “The people here want to put me in charge. They want me to be judge, magistrate, and interpreter of all the texts. The knowing I have doesn’t want that. It wants to enjoy itself. I am a plantation of sugarcane, and at the same time I’m eating the sweetness.” The following words are from the middle of the poem.
Knowledge that is acquired is not like this. Those who have it worry if audiences like it or not. It’s a bait for popularity. Disputational knowing wants customers. It has no soul. Robust and energetic before a responsive crowd, it slumps when no one is there.
Chew quietly your sweet sugarcane God-Love, and stay playfully childish. Your face will turn rosy with illumination like the redbud flowers. -Rumi 1207-1273 translation by Coleman Barks with John Moyne The Essential Rumi
If that doesn’t speak to you, maybe this thought will. I recently read a poster that said, “If you haven’t grown up by age 50, then you don’t have to.”
Now, let’s go and have some fun at a picnic!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Send Me Tough Angels
"I am not asking you
to take this wilderness from me,
to remove this place of starkness
where I come to know
the wildness within me,
where I learn to call the names
of the ravenous beasts
that place inside me,
to finger the brambles
that snake through my veins,
to taste the thirst
that tugs at my tongue.
But send me
tough angels,
sweet wine,
strong bread:
just enough."
(Jan Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path)
It seems I must go through the wilderness again.
St. Luke's is running out of money and will not be able to afford a full-time priest after September of this year. We had bought ourselves some time with an aggressive pledge campaign, increasing our total pledges by $25,000 for 2012. We crunched numbers, cut programs drastically, cut back the hours on already very part-time cleaning people, parish administrator, and facility repair guy. The biggest line-item in the budget is the clergyperson.
So I brought it up first. "You can't afford a full-time priest. You don't NEED a full-time priest. The parish doesn't need to go anywhere, but you need to get creative about how you can be the church without a full-time priest." They were all quick to come to my defense. "We need you." Those not as worried about my feelings, but concerned about how this might "look" said, "we will die if we don't have a full-time rector."
Of course this is not true. More and more parishes in the country, in mainline churches all over, are going to part-time clergy. Unfortunately, it can't be me. I have no savings, no other sources of income that will allow me to work part-time. The careers I had before seminary have now moved on without me, and my credentials have expired, the places I worked have closed or changed hands, the supervisors are elsewhere.
So I am back in the job search again. And though I have gone through this wilderness place before, the demons come back, the temptations can still get their claws in me, and pull me into their haunting cruelty. "This is not going to look good on your resume. Two years in one place. A year in another. Now less than three years here. How's it going to look?"
Oh, I know that one well. "How's it going to look?" Some people can be very cavalier about this idea. "Who cares what others think?" they ask. Those people have never been on the other side of an interview, or waiting for a response from a job application, or had someone with power over them question if it is something THEY did that created these questionable items on their resume. It is an upper middle class white person's luxury to be able NOT to care, and it is becoming scarce even among this population as "downsizing" makes its way into our daily lexicons.
And so I count on the Holy Spirit, who works in ways that aren't bound by tradition or appearances or worth in the world's ways of measuring worth. She will send those tough angels for support and reassurance when resumes are ignored, when emails are sent saying "you aren't a good fit," when phone interviews fall flat. And she will (and HAS) opened the right doors, the right hearts and ears of a search committee somewhere out there with a parish who needs the gifts of a quirky but faithful woman of God who preaches from her heart, teaches with passion and curiosity, gives deep spiritual guidance and touching pastoral care, who may not keep all the balls in the air from dropping, but has enough humility and self-effacing humor to admit it.
"Send me tough angels, sweet wine, and strong bread. Just enough."
to take this wilderness from me,
to remove this place of starkness
where I come to know
the wildness within me,
where I learn to call the names
of the ravenous beasts
that place inside me,
to finger the brambles
that snake through my veins,
to taste the thirst
that tugs at my tongue.
But send me
tough angels,
sweet wine,
strong bread:
just enough."
(Jan Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path)
It seems I must go through the wilderness again.
St. Luke's is running out of money and will not be able to afford a full-time priest after September of this year. We had bought ourselves some time with an aggressive pledge campaign, increasing our total pledges by $25,000 for 2012. We crunched numbers, cut programs drastically, cut back the hours on already very part-time cleaning people, parish administrator, and facility repair guy. The biggest line-item in the budget is the clergyperson.
So I brought it up first. "You can't afford a full-time priest. You don't NEED a full-time priest. The parish doesn't need to go anywhere, but you need to get creative about how you can be the church without a full-time priest." They were all quick to come to my defense. "We need you." Those not as worried about my feelings, but concerned about how this might "look" said, "we will die if we don't have a full-time rector."
Of course this is not true. More and more parishes in the country, in mainline churches all over, are going to part-time clergy. Unfortunately, it can't be me. I have no savings, no other sources of income that will allow me to work part-time. The careers I had before seminary have now moved on without me, and my credentials have expired, the places I worked have closed or changed hands, the supervisors are elsewhere.
So I am back in the job search again. And though I have gone through this wilderness place before, the demons come back, the temptations can still get their claws in me, and pull me into their haunting cruelty. "This is not going to look good on your resume. Two years in one place. A year in another. Now less than three years here. How's it going to look?"
Oh, I know that one well. "How's it going to look?" Some people can be very cavalier about this idea. "Who cares what others think?" they ask. Those people have never been on the other side of an interview, or waiting for a response from a job application, or had someone with power over them question if it is something THEY did that created these questionable items on their resume. It is an upper middle class white person's luxury to be able NOT to care, and it is becoming scarce even among this population as "downsizing" makes its way into our daily lexicons.
And so I count on the Holy Spirit, who works in ways that aren't bound by tradition or appearances or worth in the world's ways of measuring worth. She will send those tough angels for support and reassurance when resumes are ignored, when emails are sent saying "you aren't a good fit," when phone interviews fall flat. And she will (and HAS) opened the right doors, the right hearts and ears of a search committee somewhere out there with a parish who needs the gifts of a quirky but faithful woman of God who preaches from her heart, teaches with passion and curiosity, gives deep spiritual guidance and touching pastoral care, who may not keep all the balls in the air from dropping, but has enough humility and self-effacing humor to admit it.
"Send me tough angels, sweet wine, and strong bread. Just enough."
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Reflecting on that First Good Friday
I always imagine the first Good Friday as cloudy, with a dark threatening sky. One version of the crucifixion story says that the sun was blocked and that there was an earthquake, even. Others have cited evidence that there was actually an eclipse. We don’t really know, but it couldn’t have been a nice day.
I also feel for the disciples on that tragic day. Imagine giving everything up, your family, your home, your job, to follow someone who was so charismatic, so inspiring that you KNEW he was someone special, and then watching as he is arrested very publicly, dragged before the authorities, accused of blasphemy, and executed.
Not only would you have felt in danger yourself, as one of his followers, of being arrested yourself, but you would have questioned whether he was really who he said he was.
We know the rest of the story. We know how everything he told them was true, how he warned them that this was going to happen. It all makes sense to us because we know the whole story, from beginning to end. We may even feel a certain impatience with the disciples for being so thick-skulled and not understanding, but those last days, those emotional days before the execution of Jesus must have been incredibly confusing.
One minute they are preparing for the Passover feast, renting an upper room to gather for the Seder meal, even riding into town on a donkey, with the crowd getting caught up in the event like they KNEW this Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. “Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” they all chimed in. The disciples must have felt proud to be associated with him, shooing away people who got too close, the children who wanted to ride with him, the women who must not touch this man of God.
How could it have gone from that to THIS so quickly? Now they are left to sort it all out, scattered from each other in fear, cowering in hiding places all over the city while their Lord was being nailed to a cross.
The women, the Marys, stayed anyway. Jesus’ mother, another Mary, and Mary Magdalene, whom some said was Jesus’ favorite--they all stayed with him at the cross, kneeling on the ground, sobbing openly.
And John, the beloved disciple, who looked younger because he had no beard, risked his own safety to be there with the women. The guards paid no attention to the grieving group. They were looking for weapons, for signs of an uprising by the followers of this troublemaker Jesus. They were having their lunch using the cloak they had stripped from Jesus as a tablecloth.
They were too busy trying to look fierce and do the bidding of Caesar’s army to notice the interaction between the four stragglers and Jesus, who was telling John to look out for his mother as if she was his own. “Behold, your son,” Jesus also told Mary, of John, knowing that John could not replace him as her son, but would remind him, in his love for Jesus, of all that Jesus had tried to do.
But Mary cannot be consoled so easily, although she had suspected for awhile that this time was coming. Hadn’t someone warned her that her heart would be grieved? When they told her what a great man her son would become, hadn’t they also told her that first there would be sorrow?
John, too, felt as if his heart would break. He had seen and understood so much of what Jesus had said, that as the Son of God Jesus was one with the Father. Couldn’t he have used that power to destroy these soldiers, to save himself from this horrible death?
But Mary Magdalene knew this could not happen. He had said that the temple would be destroyed, and that Jesus would rebuild that temple in three days. He was speaking of himself, Mary realized at that moment when the sky was at its darkest, as Jesus breathed his last breath. And at that moment she resolved to be there when he returned.
I also feel for the disciples on that tragic day. Imagine giving everything up, your family, your home, your job, to follow someone who was so charismatic, so inspiring that you KNEW he was someone special, and then watching as he is arrested very publicly, dragged before the authorities, accused of blasphemy, and executed.
Not only would you have felt in danger yourself, as one of his followers, of being arrested yourself, but you would have questioned whether he was really who he said he was.
We know the rest of the story. We know how everything he told them was true, how he warned them that this was going to happen. It all makes sense to us because we know the whole story, from beginning to end. We may even feel a certain impatience with the disciples for being so thick-skulled and not understanding, but those last days, those emotional days before the execution of Jesus must have been incredibly confusing.
One minute they are preparing for the Passover feast, renting an upper room to gather for the Seder meal, even riding into town on a donkey, with the crowd getting caught up in the event like they KNEW this Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. “Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” they all chimed in. The disciples must have felt proud to be associated with him, shooing away people who got too close, the children who wanted to ride with him, the women who must not touch this man of God.
How could it have gone from that to THIS so quickly? Now they are left to sort it all out, scattered from each other in fear, cowering in hiding places all over the city while their Lord was being nailed to a cross.
The women, the Marys, stayed anyway. Jesus’ mother, another Mary, and Mary Magdalene, whom some said was Jesus’ favorite--they all stayed with him at the cross, kneeling on the ground, sobbing openly.
And John, the beloved disciple, who looked younger because he had no beard, risked his own safety to be there with the women. The guards paid no attention to the grieving group. They were looking for weapons, for signs of an uprising by the followers of this troublemaker Jesus. They were having their lunch using the cloak they had stripped from Jesus as a tablecloth.
They were too busy trying to look fierce and do the bidding of Caesar’s army to notice the interaction between the four stragglers and Jesus, who was telling John to look out for his mother as if she was his own. “Behold, your son,” Jesus also told Mary, of John, knowing that John could not replace him as her son, but would remind him, in his love for Jesus, of all that Jesus had tried to do.
But Mary cannot be consoled so easily, although she had suspected for awhile that this time was coming. Hadn’t someone warned her that her heart would be grieved? When they told her what a great man her son would become, hadn’t they also told her that first there would be sorrow?
John, too, felt as if his heart would break. He had seen and understood so much of what Jesus had said, that as the Son of God Jesus was one with the Father. Couldn’t he have used that power to destroy these soldiers, to save himself from this horrible death?
But Mary Magdalene knew this could not happen. He had said that the temple would be destroyed, and that Jesus would rebuild that temple in three days. He was speaking of himself, Mary realized at that moment when the sky was at its darkest, as Jesus breathed his last breath. And at that moment she resolved to be there when he returned.
A Transformative Peace
Over the last 25 years that I have attended Holy Week services, I have learned that the experience is powerful, transformative, and more moving than I could even anticipate.
There have been Holy Weeks that I have come to with things on my mind, outside disturbances that weighed on me heavily, even a resistance to the experience at times, and despite myself, have been swept up in the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil when we have done it, and of course, Easter Sunday, which is always made more glorious for having walked through the events earlier in the week.
It is not an easy walk. Maybe we should advertise a disclaimer, like we do with dramatic television shows: “Viewers may find this disturbing,” or “Warning: Viewer discretion is advised.”
After all, we are walking with someone through the last days and moments before his execution. That it is our God who is being executed makes it that much more disturbing. Many people, MOST people choose to stay away, to look away at the most painful moments, just as many of Jesus’ disciples ended up doing at the last.
We who are courageous enough to be here do so for many reasons: out of a sense of obligation or loyalty to a God who has walked with US through tragedy; because we believe that our God NEEDS US at this time of need; because we know that there is more going on than just empty worship.
This time of year, more than any other, is an experience of ANAMNESIS, of re-living the walk to the cross, and not just telling the story. If it was merely a re-telling, we could all read our Bibles in the comfort of our living rooms.
But here is one place where our liturgical tradition gets it SO RIGHT: by physically touching and consuming the bread and wine, by solemnly carrying out the furniture and decorations from the altar, we are RE-LIVING Jesus' last experiences. We are living out in our BODIES Jesus’ beginning the Eucharist, his command to “do this to remember me.” When we strip the altar, we are physically participating in Jesus’ stripping before he is hoisted on the cross and nailed to his death.
And sometimes we are even willing to allow someone to wash our feet, and turn and wash another’s feet, though proud Episcopalians have resisted this over and over, perhaps out of embarrassment over the ugliness of feet, or out of distaste for having to “do as I have done” even if Jesus DID say it.
Tonight is a time of sadness and a time for the hope of possibility as well. If Jesus is asking us to REMEMBER him, then he must mean that his Spirit will be there for us. If Jesus is asking us to love others as he has loved us, to do what he has done, then there’s much more to the story.
This is merely the end of one chapter, with more to follow. Of course we know that.
But before we can have Resurrection, we must first have death.
The world, and all of the people who avoid Holy Week, want us to fast forward through that death part, to avoid the pain and sorrow that comes from any ending. Tonight is not a Hallmark Hall of Fame sort of event. It is too complex; there are too many conflicting emotions, and the naked reality of sorrow and betrayal and torture, and yes, promise.
Which is why Jesus says almost ironically just before he is taken away, “Peace is my last gift to you; my own peace I leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.”
This is not a peace which says emptily, “everything is going to be okay,” as some would have us say. This is a peace which passes all understanding. This is a peace which says, “everything is NOT okay, but you will be okay, because God is with you.” It is the sort of peace which will get you through ANYTHING, even death upon a cross.
There have been Holy Weeks that I have come to with things on my mind, outside disturbances that weighed on me heavily, even a resistance to the experience at times, and despite myself, have been swept up in the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil when we have done it, and of course, Easter Sunday, which is always made more glorious for having walked through the events earlier in the week.
It is not an easy walk. Maybe we should advertise a disclaimer, like we do with dramatic television shows: “Viewers may find this disturbing,” or “Warning: Viewer discretion is advised.”
After all, we are walking with someone through the last days and moments before his execution. That it is our God who is being executed makes it that much more disturbing. Many people, MOST people choose to stay away, to look away at the most painful moments, just as many of Jesus’ disciples ended up doing at the last.
We who are courageous enough to be here do so for many reasons: out of a sense of obligation or loyalty to a God who has walked with US through tragedy; because we believe that our God NEEDS US at this time of need; because we know that there is more going on than just empty worship.
This time of year, more than any other, is an experience of ANAMNESIS, of re-living the walk to the cross, and not just telling the story. If it was merely a re-telling, we could all read our Bibles in the comfort of our living rooms.
But here is one place where our liturgical tradition gets it SO RIGHT: by physically touching and consuming the bread and wine, by solemnly carrying out the furniture and decorations from the altar, we are RE-LIVING Jesus' last experiences. We are living out in our BODIES Jesus’ beginning the Eucharist, his command to “do this to remember me.” When we strip the altar, we are physically participating in Jesus’ stripping before he is hoisted on the cross and nailed to his death.
And sometimes we are even willing to allow someone to wash our feet, and turn and wash another’s feet, though proud Episcopalians have resisted this over and over, perhaps out of embarrassment over the ugliness of feet, or out of distaste for having to “do as I have done” even if Jesus DID say it.
Tonight is a time of sadness and a time for the hope of possibility as well. If Jesus is asking us to REMEMBER him, then he must mean that his Spirit will be there for us. If Jesus is asking us to love others as he has loved us, to do what he has done, then there’s much more to the story.
This is merely the end of one chapter, with more to follow. Of course we know that.
But before we can have Resurrection, we must first have death.
The world, and all of the people who avoid Holy Week, want us to fast forward through that death part, to avoid the pain and sorrow that comes from any ending. Tonight is not a Hallmark Hall of Fame sort of event. It is too complex; there are too many conflicting emotions, and the naked reality of sorrow and betrayal and torture, and yes, promise.
Which is why Jesus says almost ironically just before he is taken away, “Peace is my last gift to you; my own peace I leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.”
This is not a peace which says emptily, “everything is going to be okay,” as some would have us say. This is a peace which passes all understanding. This is a peace which says, “everything is NOT okay, but you will be okay, because God is with you.” It is the sort of peace which will get you through ANYTHING, even death upon a cross.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
