Some thoughtful Holy Week words from James Martin in his book, Becoming Who You Are
Toward the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus is clearly able to see what needs to be done. He has by this point more fully embraced his identity and his ministry. But there is one last test: his time in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately before the beginning of the Passion. Near the end of his life, he struggles with a complete embrace of his mission. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me," he says, hoping that perhaps suffering is not what God intends.
But somehow he realizes, through prayer and reflection, that his impending suffering, whatever it would be, is what God is asking of him at this moment. He realizes that it is part of the reality of his life. And it is here, it seems to me, that in accepting the cup of suffering, Jesus fully and decisively accepts his identity. Part of his life and vocation includes suffering, as do all of our lives and vocations. Jesus is then completely free.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Holy Week Evotional - Day 2
A Holy Week prayer for you today – from author and theologian Brain McLaren.
Compassionate God, as we consider the sufferings of your servant Jesus, in whose face we see your glory and love, our hearts are moved in compassion. As we weep with him for Jerusalem, for Israelis and Palestinians who are alike your beloved children, we also weep for those who suffer in our cities and towns around the world.
We pray for drug dealers and criminals for whom deadly weapons are the tools of their trade. We pray for weapons merchants and aggressive politicians who think deadly weapons can achieve peace. We pray for crooked police officers and city officials, whose corruption fuels violence. We pray for racists and hate-mongers who think their security is enhanced by reducing the security of others. We pray for people plotting terrorism, thinking that terror can cure terror. We pray for all those who live by the gun, the bomb, the knife, the threat, the insult, the epithet. Help them see that these things do not make for peace.
We pray for those facing unemployment, for the complex economic currents that we theorize about but don't fully understand. We know that violence is often a twin-brother of unemployment, and so we pray for business leaders who can seek to maximize employment for many, not only profit for a few.
Turn our cities, we pray, to your way of reconciliation, forgiveness, grace, compassion, and love. Help them see the futility of any path to peace that violates peace in its means. Help them see that there is no way to peace, but that peace itself is the way. Raise up prophets for peace - leaders in every city who pray, preach, and work for peace.
And help each of us as well, to find ways to be instruments of your peace. As participants in your mission to heal the world we pray. Amen.
Compassionate God, as we consider the sufferings of your servant Jesus, in whose face we see your glory and love, our hearts are moved in compassion. As we weep with him for Jerusalem, for Israelis and Palestinians who are alike your beloved children, we also weep for those who suffer in our cities and towns around the world.
We pray for drug dealers and criminals for whom deadly weapons are the tools of their trade. We pray for weapons merchants and aggressive politicians who think deadly weapons can achieve peace. We pray for crooked police officers and city officials, whose corruption fuels violence. We pray for racists and hate-mongers who think their security is enhanced by reducing the security of others. We pray for people plotting terrorism, thinking that terror can cure terror. We pray for all those who live by the gun, the bomb, the knife, the threat, the insult, the epithet. Help them see that these things do not make for peace.
We pray for those facing unemployment, for the complex economic currents that we theorize about but don't fully understand. We know that violence is often a twin-brother of unemployment, and so we pray for business leaders who can seek to maximize employment for many, not only profit for a few.
Turn our cities, we pray, to your way of reconciliation, forgiveness, grace, compassion, and love. Help them see the futility of any path to peace that violates peace in its means. Help them see that there is no way to peace, but that peace itself is the way. Raise up prophets for peace - leaders in every city who pray, preach, and work for peace.
And help each of us as well, to find ways to be instruments of your peace. As participants in your mission to heal the world we pray. Amen.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Holy Week Evotional - Day 1
A brief e-votional each day this Holy Week. Today, the day after Palm Sunday, it's a quote from Joan Chittister, from her book The Liturgical Year:
"Palm Sunday... reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus' public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems ... Here in the Passion narrative we trace the struggle, one scene at a time, between the Word of God and the ways of the world.”
"Palm Sunday... reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus' public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems ... Here in the Passion narrative we trace the struggle, one scene at a time, between the Word of God and the ways of the world.”
How He Lived; How He Died
Palm Sunday Sermon in 2 Parts - Sunday, March 28
As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
How He Lived…
Two of my favorite authors and thinkers in the faith are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Together they’ve written a book called The Last Week, and it’s an exploration of this Holy Week in which we now find ourselves. One of the images they bring to light is that of Jesus, entering Jerusalem. He’s riding on a colt, but his friends are all walking. They’re wearing robes and sandals and carrying very little.
On the other side of town, Borg and Crossan suggest that another figure is entering the city—that of Pontius Pilate. Unlike Jesus, Pilate rides on a majestic warhorse. He’s accompanied by Roman soldiers carrying weapons and banners—impressive and intimidating signs of empire. Pilate, of course, is essentially an extension of the Roman Empire, sent to Jerusalem to keep an eye on things.
So there you have it. On one side of the city, a Roman bureaucrat arrives in an intimidating display of power. Surrounded by spear carriers and sword wielders, he’s here to maintain order.
On the other side of the city, a simple carpenter’s son arrives on a colt. Had it not been for the miracles and the rumors spreading ahead of him, he would have looked like just another peasant making his way into the city.
Both Pilate and Jesus come with power. Pilate has the power to make right with might, to represent the authority of a great earthly kingdom. Jesus has a different power—power to love and to serve and sacrifice—and he brings the authority of a heavenly kingdom.
Both Pilate and Jesus come in peace. Pilate is here to keep peace—to make sure no one gets out of line, to keep an eye on the activists, to prosecute those who could present a threat to Rome. Jesus is here to announce peace, but this is not the same kind of status quo peace based on the political convenience of some far-distant power. Jesus’ peace is a peace that can be given freely but not legislated—shared but not enforced.
This was how Jesus lived. Jesus was the living alternative to a business-as-usual, might-makes-right way of life. At every turn, Jesus flipped institutionalized religion upside down. He misquoted scripture, healed on the Sabbath, touched people with leprosy, met with outcasts, talked with a Samaritan woman, forgave sins… Jesus was an inconvenient presence in his time and in his faith. And now here he is, riding into Jerusalem—into the regional lions’ den of earthly power and authority.
A question to consider: What was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? Really—what was he doing there? After all, Jerusalem was a hotbed of religious thinking and politics—a dangerous place for a man like Jesus, whose reputation for confronting and disrupting religious and political powers was sure to get him in trouble. So what was Jesus doing there? Well, thanks to hindsight and close to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we could say that he was there to die—that Jesus was there in Jerusalem to be crucified. But I wonder if this is at least a slight oversimplification.
Ask yourself: What might Jesus have been thinking about that day? As he rode into town on that young colt, and as he watched the people waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna,” was Jesus thinking to himself, “Well, it’s been a nice run. These three years have sure gone fast. Too bad it all has to end this week…” Is that what Jesus was thinking? After all, Jesus surely must have known that death was a possibility here—that he was putting himself in harm’s way. So what was he thinking? Was he saying to himself, “I know what I’m here for—I’m here to get myself killed, so let’s get this over with.”
Or is it possible that Jesus was thinking something much different—that in fact Jesus was thinking, “I have to keep trying. I have to keep loving. Keep healing, keep reaching out, keep telling the truth, keep announcing peace…” Is it possible that Jesus came to Jerusalem to do what he’d been doing all along—to offer a compassionate, inclusive vision of God’s love for God’s people? To present a hopeful sense of purpose in this world?
Maybe Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to die. Maybe—just maybe—he came to be fully alive and to teach others what it could mean to live that way. And maybe this was the problem, because throughout history humanity has had a way of violently rejecting those who could do such a thing. And of course, Jesus did die in Jerusalem—he was killed there. But there is a huge difference between saying “Jesus came to be killed so that we could know love” and “Jesus came to love and so we killed him.”
If we say that Jesus came to Jerusalem to be killed so that we could know love, on some level we imply that his presence there was part of some cosmic script over which he had no control. But if we say that Jesus came to love and then was killed, we embrace this Holy Week as a remembrance of the way Jesus lived.
Jerusalem was a death trap for Jesus, but that’s where he went. And in doing so, Jesus said something about the nature of God—namely, that God is in the constant business of entering and confronting the broken places in our world. God will not be kept from showing up where love and truth are most consistently rejected. Jerusalem, Racine, your family, your thoughts, your marriage, your fears and worries, your pain… To the very end, without counting the cost, that’s where Jesus will go, because that’s how he lived.
How He Died…
Jesus died asking the question, “Why?” In Mark’s gospel, we read something of Jesus’ last moments before death…
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:33-34)
I don’t know about you, but I usually like to think of Jesus as having things under control. Calm. Cool. Collected. When storms rage on the sea, he quiets them. When the religious leaders try to trap him, he slips away. When the disciples argue amongst themselves, he sets them straight. Over and over again, Jesus is the one keeping it all together. With grace, he moves through towns and cities and countrysides, healing the sick, forgiving sins. Around practically every gospel corner, we see Jesus speaking and moving with graceful purpose,
handling the world’s problems with apparent ease…
But now this. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”
And so Jesus joins the entire human race in asking the question: Why? Why, God, why? Jesus, in that moment of blinding pain and anguish, having watched his friends filter away, and now hanging from the cross, asks that question that is so central to the human experience—especially the human experience of suffering: WHY?
It’s not a always a rational question, but it’s a human question: Why? Why, God?
Why is it, if you’re so powerful and good, that evil exists in this world?
Why, God? If you can do anything, why was my child born with a mental handicap?
Why did my father have to die so soon?
Why did the tornado hit my house?
Why can’t I get through one day without feeling lousy?
Why cancer, God?
Why earthquakes, God?
Why the holocaust, God?
Why can’t I have a normal life, my God?
My God, why have you forsaken me, God?
Jesus’ “WHY” wasn’t the first human “WHY” and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it was definitely was a human why. Which brings us to the heart of it all—that Jesus was human. Really human. God with us. God, yes—but one of us. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, feeling joy, feeling pain human being. Prone to sadness and misery, prone to defeat and heartache—human.
Jesus was NOT God in a human costume, parading around for roughly three decades, pretending to know what it’s like, pretending to struggle with the confines of an earthly body, thinking all the while, “Gosh, it’ll sure be great to get back up to Heaven with Dad so I can lose this goofy human body.”
The story of Jesus isn’t a story of God masquerading as a human being—pretending to feel pain, pretending to catch a cold, pretending to grieve when John the Baptist died, pretending to know what it’s like to feel so undeniably human all the time. The story of Jesus is the story of Emmanuel—God with us, truly with us, one of us, one with us. Living with us and, in the end, dying as one of us.
And when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s not a show. It’s not a desperate plea for posterity’s sake. It simply is what it is. A real man, hanging on a cross, wondering just where in God’s name God is. Feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. And, when you think about it, what else is there to say? Love. Pure, unadulterated love, is being betrayed, denied, and murdered here. Flushed down the toilet of humanity’s wasteful greed and ignorance.
And thus the cross comes into focus and we see more of what’s going on. God is with us. With us in our living, and with us in our dying. With us in our suffering. With us in our abandonment.
God with us in that feeling we get that God is nowhere to be found. That is how Jesus died.
As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
How He Lived…
Two of my favorite authors and thinkers in the faith are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Together they’ve written a book called The Last Week, and it’s an exploration of this Holy Week in which we now find ourselves. One of the images they bring to light is that of Jesus, entering Jerusalem. He’s riding on a colt, but his friends are all walking. They’re wearing robes and sandals and carrying very little.
On the other side of town, Borg and Crossan suggest that another figure is entering the city—that of Pontius Pilate. Unlike Jesus, Pilate rides on a majestic warhorse. He’s accompanied by Roman soldiers carrying weapons and banners—impressive and intimidating signs of empire. Pilate, of course, is essentially an extension of the Roman Empire, sent to Jerusalem to keep an eye on things.
So there you have it. On one side of the city, a Roman bureaucrat arrives in an intimidating display of power. Surrounded by spear carriers and sword wielders, he’s here to maintain order.
On the other side of the city, a simple carpenter’s son arrives on a colt. Had it not been for the miracles and the rumors spreading ahead of him, he would have looked like just another peasant making his way into the city.
Both Pilate and Jesus come with power. Pilate has the power to make right with might, to represent the authority of a great earthly kingdom. Jesus has a different power—power to love and to serve and sacrifice—and he brings the authority of a heavenly kingdom.
Both Pilate and Jesus come in peace. Pilate is here to keep peace—to make sure no one gets out of line, to keep an eye on the activists, to prosecute those who could present a threat to Rome. Jesus is here to announce peace, but this is not the same kind of status quo peace based on the political convenience of some far-distant power. Jesus’ peace is a peace that can be given freely but not legislated—shared but not enforced.
This was how Jesus lived. Jesus was the living alternative to a business-as-usual, might-makes-right way of life. At every turn, Jesus flipped institutionalized religion upside down. He misquoted scripture, healed on the Sabbath, touched people with leprosy, met with outcasts, talked with a Samaritan woman, forgave sins… Jesus was an inconvenient presence in his time and in his faith. And now here he is, riding into Jerusalem—into the regional lions’ den of earthly power and authority.
A question to consider: What was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? Really—what was he doing there? After all, Jerusalem was a hotbed of religious thinking and politics—a dangerous place for a man like Jesus, whose reputation for confronting and disrupting religious and political powers was sure to get him in trouble. So what was Jesus doing there? Well, thanks to hindsight and close to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we could say that he was there to die—that Jesus was there in Jerusalem to be crucified. But I wonder if this is at least a slight oversimplification.
Ask yourself: What might Jesus have been thinking about that day? As he rode into town on that young colt, and as he watched the people waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna,” was Jesus thinking to himself, “Well, it’s been a nice run. These three years have sure gone fast. Too bad it all has to end this week…” Is that what Jesus was thinking? After all, Jesus surely must have known that death was a possibility here—that he was putting himself in harm’s way. So what was he thinking? Was he saying to himself, “I know what I’m here for—I’m here to get myself killed, so let’s get this over with.”
Or is it possible that Jesus was thinking something much different—that in fact Jesus was thinking, “I have to keep trying. I have to keep loving. Keep healing, keep reaching out, keep telling the truth, keep announcing peace…” Is it possible that Jesus came to Jerusalem to do what he’d been doing all along—to offer a compassionate, inclusive vision of God’s love for God’s people? To present a hopeful sense of purpose in this world?
Maybe Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to die. Maybe—just maybe—he came to be fully alive and to teach others what it could mean to live that way. And maybe this was the problem, because throughout history humanity has had a way of violently rejecting those who could do such a thing. And of course, Jesus did die in Jerusalem—he was killed there. But there is a huge difference between saying “Jesus came to be killed so that we could know love” and “Jesus came to love and so we killed him.”
If we say that Jesus came to Jerusalem to be killed so that we could know love, on some level we imply that his presence there was part of some cosmic script over which he had no control. But if we say that Jesus came to love and then was killed, we embrace this Holy Week as a remembrance of the way Jesus lived.
Jerusalem was a death trap for Jesus, but that’s where he went. And in doing so, Jesus said something about the nature of God—namely, that God is in the constant business of entering and confronting the broken places in our world. God will not be kept from showing up where love and truth are most consistently rejected. Jerusalem, Racine, your family, your thoughts, your marriage, your fears and worries, your pain… To the very end, without counting the cost, that’s where Jesus will go, because that’s how he lived.
How He Died…
Jesus died asking the question, “Why?” In Mark’s gospel, we read something of Jesus’ last moments before death…
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:33-34)
I don’t know about you, but I usually like to think of Jesus as having things under control. Calm. Cool. Collected. When storms rage on the sea, he quiets them. When the religious leaders try to trap him, he slips away. When the disciples argue amongst themselves, he sets them straight. Over and over again, Jesus is the one keeping it all together. With grace, he moves through towns and cities and countrysides, healing the sick, forgiving sins. Around practically every gospel corner, we see Jesus speaking and moving with graceful purpose,
handling the world’s problems with apparent ease…
But now this. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”
And so Jesus joins the entire human race in asking the question: Why? Why, God, why? Jesus, in that moment of blinding pain and anguish, having watched his friends filter away, and now hanging from the cross, asks that question that is so central to the human experience—especially the human experience of suffering: WHY?
It’s not a always a rational question, but it’s a human question: Why? Why, God?
Why is it, if you’re so powerful and good, that evil exists in this world?
Why, God? If you can do anything, why was my child born with a mental handicap?
Why did my father have to die so soon?
Why did the tornado hit my house?
Why can’t I get through one day without feeling lousy?
Why cancer, God?
Why earthquakes, God?
Why the holocaust, God?
Why can’t I have a normal life, my God?
My God, why have you forsaken me, God?
Jesus’ “WHY” wasn’t the first human “WHY” and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it was definitely was a human why. Which brings us to the heart of it all—that Jesus was human. Really human. God with us. God, yes—but one of us. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, feeling joy, feeling pain human being. Prone to sadness and misery, prone to defeat and heartache—human.
Jesus was NOT God in a human costume, parading around for roughly three decades, pretending to know what it’s like, pretending to struggle with the confines of an earthly body, thinking all the while, “Gosh, it’ll sure be great to get back up to Heaven with Dad so I can lose this goofy human body.”
The story of Jesus isn’t a story of God masquerading as a human being—pretending to feel pain, pretending to catch a cold, pretending to grieve when John the Baptist died, pretending to know what it’s like to feel so undeniably human all the time. The story of Jesus is the story of Emmanuel—God with us, truly with us, one of us, one with us. Living with us and, in the end, dying as one of us.
And when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s not a show. It’s not a desperate plea for posterity’s sake. It simply is what it is. A real man, hanging on a cross, wondering just where in God’s name God is. Feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. And, when you think about it, what else is there to say? Love. Pure, unadulterated love, is being betrayed, denied, and murdered here. Flushed down the toilet of humanity’s wasteful greed and ignorance.
And thus the cross comes into focus and we see more of what’s going on. God is with us. With us in our living, and with us in our dying. With us in our suffering. With us in our abandonment.
God with us in that feeling we get that God is nowhere to be found. That is how Jesus died.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Evotional - Oscar Romero
Today is the thirty year anniversary of the death of Oscar Romero, once the Archbishop of El Salvador who, inspired by his faith, confronted that country’s oppressive and often violent government through nonviolence. Romero worked diligently to promote peace and justice among the people of El Salvador, but he was assassinated by the military.A few Oscar Romero quotes, then...
“If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ's life, his cross and resurrection.
That is a person's measure.”
"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."
And then, shortly before his assassination, Romero wrote these words:
“It helps now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.”
As we move through Holy Week and towards the cross, may we be mindful that our lives are grated onto Christ’s own. And may we take “the long view” as we let God’s kingdom find its way into our lives and our world.
Peace,
Ben
Monday, March 22, 2010
Abundant Living - John 12:1-8
Sermon on Sunday, March 21Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.
Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent and that means a few things. It means that next week is Palm Sunday and the following week Easter. Our Lenten vigil is drawing to a close, making way for shouts of “Hosanna,” Holy Week, the empty tomb, and an Easter egg hunt. For the past five weeks, we’ve been leaning toward the cross—toward those moments when Jesus is betrayed, arrested, denied, and crucified.
But first Jesus pays a visit to a family—sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. At first, one might think of this simply as a follow-up visit. Just days earlier, Jesus had performed a miracle at their home. Lazarus was dead, you’ll recall—dead for four long and lonely days—dead and gone long enough for all hope to be lost. By the time Jesus had arrived at their house, Martha had said as much: “Don’t roll away the stone, Jesus—there’s a stench.” But the stone was taken away from the tomb, and Jesus cried out, “Lazarus, come out!” And out walked this man, their brother Lazarus, still bound in bands of burial cloth, undoubtedly a bit dazed, wondering what had just happened to him.
Jesus doesn’t schedule too many follow-up appointments in the gospels, but you could argue that this was a special case. Maybe that’s what Martha and Lazarus were expecting. Maybe they thought Jesus would ask a few questions, run a few tests, and maybe prescribe some physical therapy. Being dead for four days, after all, must have some serious side effects. But not much is said about Lazarus in this story—he’s just sitting there, ready to eat with his sisters and with Jesus. We can well imagine that the world is a pretty fantastic place for Lazarus at this point. Dead for four days and now alive! Air, food, water, conversation—it all tastes like new life to him—like a second life he didn’t know he had coming.
Martha, meanwhile, gets busy preparing a meal. After all, how do you thank a man who raised your brother from the dead? You can’t respond in kind. You can’t return the favor. If you offered money you would only cheapen the gift of that miracle. And so Martha does what a lot of people do when they don’t know what to say or how to say it: she cooks. I imagine her cooking up a storm, having lovingly planned a meal for this man who brought her brother back to her from death. She’s back in the kitchen, pulling out all the stops, making everything just so, getting ready to communicate her loving thanks through food. Martha would have made a good Presbyterian.
And then there’s Mary. When Jesus had seen her weeping at Lazarus’ tomb, it moved him and he wept too. And now here they are again. And unlike Martha and Lazarus, and unlike the disciples, Mary seems to have a sixth sense about what’s going on. Jesus isn’t going to make it. She knows it. She saw what happened after he raised Lazarus from the dead. She knows what a threat Jesus has become to the religious establishment. And she’s heard the word going around: that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it to the chief priests and Pharisees so that he might be arrested. In Mary’s mind, the clock is ticking. She doesn’t have much time because, in fact, Jesus himself doesn’t have much time.
And so Mary does the only thing that makes sense in her mind. She brings a container of costly perfume into the room. It’s made from nard, a precious ointment imported from the East. And she anoints Jesus’ feet with it. I wonder if at first Martha and Lazarus thought this to be a bizarre gesture—nice, maybe, but a little strange. But then Mary keeps going, she keeps anointing and keeps anointing. Finally she pours more and more than enough—too much, really—on Jesus feet. The aroma must have been suffocating. “Mary, dear, you’re using way too much.” But she won’t be stopped. She tips the jar over entirely, every last drop spilling out onto Jesus’ feet. And still somehow it’s not enough. And so she begins to wipe them with her hair. Weeping, cleaning, anointing. Dumping it all out—every last drop.
At last she finishes cleaning Jesus’ feet with her hair. And I imagine there followed then an awkward silence in the room. How does one break the ice after a woman intentionally tips a year’s salary’s worth of perfume onto Jesus’ feet and onto the floor? What do you say after such an embarrassingly intimate and public display of love and waste? What do you say to Mary, whose hair is now drenched with perfume and covered with dust? Lazarus might have said, “Well, ok! Now who’s hungry?” Martha might have said, “Let’s open some windows and air this place out.” Instead it was Judas who spoke, and he probably said what everyone was really thinking: “What a colossal waste! Why wasn’t this perfume sold?” In other words: “We’re all dirt poor, traveling around the country on a shoestring with resources few and far between. What in God’s name could have possibly gotten into you, Mary?”
But Mary knows. And Jesus knows. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” Mary’s act was not an act of thanksgiving or even cleansing. She was doing what many of us do for our loved ones when they die—she was treating his body with care and respect and devotion—preparing it for burial.
Mary’s gift is a gift of extreme extravagance. It goes overboard—too far, in fact. Now there are a couple ways to look at that jar of perfume—the one that Mary dumped out at Jesus’ feet. One would be to say that it represents a nest egg—a foundation of wealth to be saved—a precious resource to hang onto, to use, maybe, gradually over the course of a lifetime—to sell in small volume, perhaps, during a rough year.
But Mary looks at that jar and says, “What else am I waiting for?” She may have thought to herself, “How many times in my life will I have a chance to be this crazy? Maybe never again.” I wonder if she said to herself, “If I can’t be generous and extravagant right now, it’s probably true that I’ll never really be generous or extravagant.” And so Mary treats that jar of perfume like she’s got a hundred others sitting in the back closet collecting dust.
Some people have the gift of being able to look at the world that way. Some people are simply blessed with the sense that nothing in this world is truly valuable if you can’t somehow turn it into a gift.
Not long before he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said, “I have come that all may have life, and have it abundantly.” There’s an invitation there for us to wonder more about what it means to live abundantly—to adopt a world view that flourishes with an abiding sense of abundance.
Have you ever noticed that if you believe and behave like you don’t have enough time, then in reality, you don’t? And have you ever noticed that if you believe that you have plenty of time and behave like you have plenty of time, then most of the time you do?
Some people in this world operate out of a sense of scarcity and some out of a sense of abundance. Some people—some of us—move through this world like there’s never a minute to spare. There’s always “the next thing”—the next phone ringing, the next text message, the next event to plan, the next meal to prepare, the next day to worry about. And so we miss moment after moment after moment because time is a scarce resource.
But there are some people—some of you—who seem gifted with the ability to move through this world with plenty of time. Plenty of time to turn off the phone, to chat, to stop by with a casserole, to plant seeds, to look at the clouds moving in… plenty of time because time is an abundant resource.
Have you ever noticed that if a person believes that love in this world is scarce, then it is? And have you ever noticed that if you believe that love in this world is abundant, then it is?
Some people operate out of a sense of scarcity when it comes to love. And it’s hard for them to trust love because there isn’t enough of it. And so love itself is measured and conserved—received, perhaps, with suspicion and shared tentatively.
But there are some in this world who operate out of a sense of true abundance when it comes to love. They know that love is a renewable resource—strengthened when it is given and received. They never worry about running out of love simply because they never have. They know that there’s no such thing as loving too many people because love itself isn’t something you have to ration. It’s abundant.
We could say this about lots of things. If you believe goodness in this world is scarce, then it is; but if you believe that goodness is everywhere, you’re sure to find it in abundance. If you believe that true friendship is rare, then it can be scarce. But if you believe you’re friends are everywhere, then they often are!
How much of our perspective in this world is shaped either by our sense of scarcity or by our sense of abundance? Another exciting question for us to ask ourselves as a church is this: what does a sense of abundance do in terms of our mission and outreach in this world? What could a family of faith like this one do with an endlessly abundant sense of its resources—its time, its talent, its potential. The possibilities are endless if you think about them abundantly.
In many ways, this reflects a conversation that the leadership of this congregation has been having lately. We’ve been asking ourselves the question, “How are we uniquely gifted by God to serve this church at this time?” Sometimes this is a hard question to answer. Church life is full of to-do lists. We’ve got lots of things to do around here. People to reach out to, light bulbs to change, classes to teach, ministries to keep going… there’s always a lot to do. But the truth is this: we don’t want you here so that we can give you something to do. We want you here because we believe that each person who comes into this place is uniquely gifted by God to be a part of this family of faith.
A quote that I love comes from Howard Thurman, who wrote, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
This week, I would invite you ask yourself: What makes me come alive? And how has God gifted me to be a part of the world? And may your response to those questions foster in you a true sense of abundance—that your life might spill over with extravagant love and grace. Amen.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
E-votional - Steadfast
This past Sunday we sang, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, oh Lord; great is your faithfulness.
Steadfast... This past week, the crocuses behind the house came up, pushing their way through the lingering snow. Part of the joy of planting bulbs is that by the time they come up, I've usually forgotten where I planted them, or that I even planted them at all. Crocuses are the first to arrive, defying winter's lingering grip and willing spring into existence. Poking through the snow, they seem to say, "We will not be denied!" And so it begins again: melting, thawing, growing, gardening, picnicing, playing...
Steadfast... Through Lent, we recall God's unwavering faithfulness. We remember that even as this season carries us relentlessly towards the cross, our faith blossoms from the mystery of resurrection - that sense that death never has the last word and that new life simply will not be denied. Thanks be to God for this enduring faithfulness, and for endless possibilities of new life!
Steadfast... This past week, the crocuses behind the house came up, pushing their way through the lingering snow. Part of the joy of planting bulbs is that by the time they come up, I've usually forgotten where I planted them, or that I even planted them at all. Crocuses are the first to arrive, defying winter's lingering grip and willing spring into existence. Poking through the snow, they seem to say, "We will not be denied!" And so it begins again: melting, thawing, growing, gardening, picnicing, playing...
Steadfast... Through Lent, we recall God's unwavering faithfulness. We remember that even as this season carries us relentlessly towards the cross, our faith blossoms from the mystery of resurrection - that sense that death never has the last word and that new life simply will not be denied. Thanks be to God for this enduring faithfulness, and for endless possibilities of new life!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Lost and Found - Luke 15:1-7
Sermon on Sunday, March 14
Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
Everywhere you go, there’s a ‘lost and found.’ Schools, stores, churches… they all have a ‘lost and found.’ Maybe it’s a closet or a cardboard box in somebody’s office. It doesn’t have to be fancy—just something to hold wayward mittens, stray umbrellas, misplaced reading glasses…
Reading through the gospels, it’s hard to miss a ‘lost and found’ theme. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he often uses losing and finding images. He tells the story of a woman who loses a coin and sweeps her entire house until she finds it. Jesus refers to the kingdom of heaven as a treasure that a man found in a field, and as a fine pearl found by a merchant. I suppose there’s just something about being lost and being found that resonates with us as human beings.
In our story today from Luke’s gospel, Jesus is eating with tax-collectors and sinners. And this frustrates the Pharisees and scribes. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they wish Jesus would beg for an invitation to eat with them. Or maybe Jesus’ willingness to eat with outcasts has simply made them embarrassed and uncomfortable, because they know deep down inside that if they took their faith seriously, they’d be doing the same. In any case, the religious leaders, the faithful Pharisees and scribes, are grumbling about Jesus. And so Jesus asks them an intriguing question:
“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”
It’s easy, I suppose, to read this and think, “Yes, this is what a good shepherd does. A sheep gets lost and so he leaves his flock and goes after it. That’s the ‘good shepherd’ way.” Upon further reflection, however, we might question the wisdom of this particular shepherding strategy. Say you’re a shepherd and you’ve got 100 sheep. You’re in the wilderness—a place where a mountain lion could easily pick off one of your sheep if you’re not paying attention. So every couple of hours, you make a habit of counting your sheep, just to make sure they’re all there. One afternoon you’re doing the count, “96, 97, 98, 99…” and you realize that one’s gone missing.
What do you do now? Do you stay with your flock of 99? Or do you leave them alone while you search for the one? What makes good shepherding sense? Well, according to Jesus, the good shepherd leaves his 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to go and look for one that’s probably already made a nice meal for a lion or some other creature. What kind of shepherd does that?
In Jesus’ story, though, the shepherd gets lucky. He finds the lost sheep and says to his friends and neighbors, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” And we can well imagine his friends and neighbors saying, “Gee, that’s great. Remind me not to send you into the wilderness with my sheep, because as shepherds go, you stink!”
I imagine that might be what the Scribes and Pharisees are thinking in Jesus’ presence. But of course, this is not a seminar at the annual Judean shepherding convention. This is Jesus, eating with the tax collectors and sinners, and the Scribes and Pharisees are there too, grumbling about the whole thing. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!”
Jesus’ teaching is not counsel on the finer points of shepherding; rather, it is a direct challenge to anybody who would attempt to pass judgment on who is “in” and who is “out.” Had Jesus not communicated in parable language here, his words to the Pharisees and scribes may well have been, “What makes you think you’re so good? What makes you think you’re the only ones God cares about? In fact, I’ll tell you what, God rejoices when these tax collectors and sinners come to me and listen! God rejoices when they show a fraction of the faith you practice…” Jesus might have said to the Pharisees and scribes, “You know, God may not be a practical thinker like you. God might be more like an impractical shepherd who’s so upset about a lost sheep that nothing can keep God from it—nothing!”
We always think of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd,” which is strange, because he’s the shepherd who will always throw conventional shepherding wisdom out the window when one of his sheep gets lost. Jesus is more like the “Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd,” which would be a wonderful name for a church, wouldn’t it? Every town’s got a “Church of the Good Shepherd,” but wouldn’t it be fun to worship at the “Church of the Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd”? “Where do you go to church?” “Oh, my family and I worship at the ‘Church of the Wild, Crazy, Impractical Shepherd.’” That’s the shepherding Jesus describes here—the kind of shepherding that leaves the whole flock for the sake of just one who gets lost.
Maybe here’s where we come in. Have you ever been lost? Have you ever felt lost? When’s the last time you got lost? I’d like to take a moment to invite you to think of a time in your life when you were lost…
Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
Everywhere you go, there’s a ‘lost and found.’ Schools, stores, churches… they all have a ‘lost and found.’ Maybe it’s a closet or a cardboard box in somebody’s office. It doesn’t have to be fancy—just something to hold wayward mittens, stray umbrellas, misplaced reading glasses…
Reading through the gospels, it’s hard to miss a ‘lost and found’ theme. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he often uses losing and finding images. He tells the story of a woman who loses a coin and sweeps her entire house until she finds it. Jesus refers to the kingdom of heaven as a treasure that a man found in a field, and as a fine pearl found by a merchant. I suppose there’s just something about being lost and being found that resonates with us as human beings.
In our story today from Luke’s gospel, Jesus is eating with tax-collectors and sinners. And this frustrates the Pharisees and scribes. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they wish Jesus would beg for an invitation to eat with them. Or maybe Jesus’ willingness to eat with outcasts has simply made them embarrassed and uncomfortable, because they know deep down inside that if they took their faith seriously, they’d be doing the same. In any case, the religious leaders, the faithful Pharisees and scribes, are grumbling about Jesus. And so Jesus asks them an intriguing question:
“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”
It’s easy, I suppose, to read this and think, “Yes, this is what a good shepherd does. A sheep gets lost and so he leaves his flock and goes after it. That’s the ‘good shepherd’ way.” Upon further reflection, however, we might question the wisdom of this particular shepherding strategy. Say you’re a shepherd and you’ve got 100 sheep. You’re in the wilderness—a place where a mountain lion could easily pick off one of your sheep if you’re not paying attention. So every couple of hours, you make a habit of counting your sheep, just to make sure they’re all there. One afternoon you’re doing the count, “96, 97, 98, 99…” and you realize that one’s gone missing.
What do you do now? Do you stay with your flock of 99? Or do you leave them alone while you search for the one? What makes good shepherding sense? Well, according to Jesus, the good shepherd leaves his 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to go and look for one that’s probably already made a nice meal for a lion or some other creature. What kind of shepherd does that?
In Jesus’ story, though, the shepherd gets lucky. He finds the lost sheep and says to his friends and neighbors, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” And we can well imagine his friends and neighbors saying, “Gee, that’s great. Remind me not to send you into the wilderness with my sheep, because as shepherds go, you stink!”
I imagine that might be what the Scribes and Pharisees are thinking in Jesus’ presence. But of course, this is not a seminar at the annual Judean shepherding convention. This is Jesus, eating with the tax collectors and sinners, and the Scribes and Pharisees are there too, grumbling about the whole thing. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!”
Jesus’ teaching is not counsel on the finer points of shepherding; rather, it is a direct challenge to anybody who would attempt to pass judgment on who is “in” and who is “out.” Had Jesus not communicated in parable language here, his words to the Pharisees and scribes may well have been, “What makes you think you’re so good? What makes you think you’re the only ones God cares about? In fact, I’ll tell you what, God rejoices when these tax collectors and sinners come to me and listen! God rejoices when they show a fraction of the faith you practice…” Jesus might have said to the Pharisees and scribes, “You know, God may not be a practical thinker like you. God might be more like an impractical shepherd who’s so upset about a lost sheep that nothing can keep God from it—nothing!”
We always think of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd,” which is strange, because he’s the shepherd who will always throw conventional shepherding wisdom out the window when one of his sheep gets lost. Jesus is more like the “Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd,” which would be a wonderful name for a church, wouldn’t it? Every town’s got a “Church of the Good Shepherd,” but wouldn’t it be fun to worship at the “Church of the Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd”? “Where do you go to church?” “Oh, my family and I worship at the ‘Church of the Wild, Crazy, Impractical Shepherd.’” That’s the shepherding Jesus describes here—the kind of shepherding that leaves the whole flock for the sake of just one who gets lost.
Maybe here’s where we come in. Have you ever been lost? Have you ever felt lost? When’s the last time you got lost? I’d like to take a moment to invite you to think of a time in your life when you were lost…
- As a child, separated from family…
- Maybe you got lost once when you got your heart broken…
- You realized that you friends weren’t who you thought they were…
- You got some news over the phone that scared the life out of you...
- You came to realize that you weren’t really sure who you were...
- Lost in a sea of unfriendly faces…
- Lost in a sea of confusing medical reports…
- Lost without a job, without purpose, without someone or something to turn to...
It’s easy to get lost. It’s easy to wander away and find ourselves lost. Lost in the wilderness of isolation, of individualism, of consumerism, materialism, perfectionism, busy-ism… It’s easy to get lost in the wilderness of I-don’t-need-anybody and it’s equally easy to get lost in the wilderness of nobody-needs-me. We know what it means to be lost. Sometimes the whole trick in life is getting found.
Of course, we usually like to be in charge of our getting found. Especially when it comes to faith, we like to be in charge. That’s why we use this language of “finding God.” You’ve heard it before: “I found God.” “I was lost in my life, but then after searching for a while, I finally found God.” “I found God when…(I went to church, I joined a Bible study, I saw a beautiful sunset, I heard a really good sermon, I met a wonderful person…) I - I - I - I found God!”
Did you ever hear that? Did you ever say it? I know I have. It’s like we’re rewriting the parable of the lost sheep and we’re the sheep who gets lost. It goes something like this...
“The Kingdom of God is like a sheep who wanders away from the flock. He wanders and wanders until he can no longer hear his 99 sisters and brothers. After awhile, he gets really, really hungry and, to his astonishment, remembers that there may be predators lurking around nearby. ‘Wow!’ he says, ‘I need to get home!’ Relying on his innate sense of direction, the sheep aligns the stars and plots an effective course from his current position back to the flock. When he arrives, he exclaims, “I was lost, but now I have found my shepherd!”
This is the Christianity around us, friends—a faith that relies on the individual to get found—a faith that makes you the active agent of your salvation. And it makes sense. We live in a culture that encourages and rewards our resourcefulness as individuals. But here’s the gospel: you are a child of God not because you found God, but because God has found you. God is the one seeking you. God is like a crazy shepherd for you and it doesn’t matter how lost you become! God is like a wild shepherd who didn’t pay attention in shepherding school because God would sacrifice everything just for you! And there is no place in the whole wide world or in the deep depth of your soul that God won’t come looking for you.
We’ve got just a few weeks left in Lent. And I would like to offer this invitation. Instead of seeking God during that time, maybe try remembering that God is seeking you. God is looking after you, searching for you in all the lost places you find yourself. God is in the constant business of looking for you, and then finding you, and then welcoming you home. That’s who God is—the Wild, Impractical Shepherd. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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