Monday Prayer: Hymn to Christ

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You who bridles untamed colts, 
Who gives flight to birds, 
Who steers ships along their course, 
Tame our wild hearts, 
Lift our souls to you, 
Steer us toward the safe harbor of your love. 
King of the saints, 
Invincible Lord of the Father, 
Prince of wisdom, 
Source of joy, 
Savior of our race, 
Cultivator of all life, 
Guardian of our desires, 
Whose sure hand guides us to heaven. 
Fisher of mean, 
You cast out the sweet bait of your gospel, 
You draw us out of the waters of sin, 
Shepherd of men, 
You call us with your sweet, gentle voice, 
You invite us into your eternal sheepfold. 
Fountain of mercy, 
Light of truth, 
Faith without limits, 
Love without end, 
Exemplar of virtue, 
Proclaimer of justice, 
Leader of men, 
Your footprints show the way to heaven. 
Mother of your people, 
Your celestial breasts give pure spiritual milk. 
You slake the thirst of all who have faith. 
Bridegroom of your people, 
Your celestial beauty inspires us to sing your praises, 
You lift our voices with hymns of everlasting praise. 
-Clement of Alexandria
cross-posted at RevGalPrayerPals

Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles

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            This past spring, a mom from the preschool came back into the church after dropping off her child. In the corner of our parking lot, she had found a woman bent over and crying. Bringing her into the church office, the mother said that the woman was in pain from a broken tooth. The woman was obviously in a lot of pain and had sores on her face and her hands.
            She said that she had been in so much pain she wasn’t able to work. When we asked what she did, she looked at us and said, “I’m a working girl.” She waited for the judgment we didn’t have time to give because we were trying to figure out how to help her. The mom offered to drive her over to Safeway for some Orajel (pain killer) and some food. In the meantime, I made calls to find some help. I tried the Mary Magdalene center, but got no answer.
            I called LSSA and received the names of some dentists who might do low-cost or pro-bono work. However, we concluded that the entire situation might be better if we could get the woman to go to the emergency room and perhaps receive care, food, and contact with a social worker. I did not think we would end her professional career that day, but I hoped we might offer some light.
            Eventually, the mom came back to the church alone and very upset. After receiving the medication to make her tooth stop hurting, the woman wanted to go back to work. She was worried about the people who had her things and to whom she owed money. It was tough to console the mom who returned, who had been so hopeful that we would be able to save the woman. She cried to me, “How could she want to go back?”
            Because she does not know anything different right now, I said, but you helped her see a little something different today. And that will stay in her mind. It is hard to watch people who really want to help feel rejected and confused, but it happens in the work of reaching out to people in a broken world.
            I kept thinking about both those women this week when I was pondering Mary Magdalene in my heart- the bruised “working girl” and the very clean-cut preschool mom. As most of you know, I have a personal crusade to make it known far and wide that in the gospel accounts, Mary Magdalene is NOT (NOT!) a working girl (prostitute). In church history, she’s often been conflated with Mary of Bethany and the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet. While this did narrow down the number of characters in the Scripture, making it easier to keep everyone untangled, it gave Mary Magdalene a reputation she didn’t earn and threw into the shadows the one she did.
            In Luke 8, Mary (called Magdalene) has seven demons cast out of her by Jesus and then she, with several other women, begin to follow him as disciples. There is no mention of what the demons were. Presumably, like other demons encountered in Scripture, they are afflictions that prevent her functioning in society. They could be things like depression or anxiety, things we might recognize as psychological. They could be physical ailments- bleeding, epilepsy, screaming fits. They could be Satan trying to prevent her from becoming the instrument of God that she’s about to become.
            Nevertheless, she is freed from these demons and follows Jesus. Imagine what that was like for her. She had been invisible to society and now, suddenly, she was seen and known by the eyes of God in Jesus. She was restored, not only to wholeness, but to companionship, to community, to communion. Her body is whole because the body of Jesus, the body of God, came near and brought her consolation and healing.
            After her exorcism, we next see Mary Magdalene at the tomb. And she’s there in all the gospel accounts. She will not abandon the body that brought her own self back to life. Sometimes she’s with other women, sometimes she’s the first one there. I occasionally wonder if she ever left after Good Friday- after they laid him in the tomb. Maybe she never went home, but lingered in the shadows, in fitful waking and sleeping and sobbing, until Easter morning.
            This is the story that people need to know about Mary Magdalene. That she encountered the risen Christ and that she, she, carried the good news of resurrection to the other apostles- who were hiding in fear. That Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors are facts that we can get from other stories and other characters. We do not need that good news from Mary Magdalene.
            What we need from her is the tower of faith that stood in grief by the tomb. The pillar of strength that recognized the face of her teacher, her rabbouni! The urging of the Spirit that hurried her feet over packed roads, singing, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” The truth people need to hear about the story of Mary of  Magdala is not an exaggerated claim about what she might have been, but the bare facts of who she was- the Apostle to the Apostles, the first post- Easter evangelist, the foundation of the church because of the story she carried.
            If we elevate her too much, we risk her seeming too saintly, too out of reach. Yet, with Mary Magdalene, I do not think that will happen. When the other apostles seem uncertain or bombastic, unfaithful or confused, the eyes of the church turn to Mary Magdalene- who had real, physical experiences of healing, forgiveness, and hope.
             A working girl on Spenard doesn’t need to know, yet, that Jesus was a friend to prostitutes. She needs to know that the people who claim to follow Jesus are. People who are struggling, looking for hope, lingering because change does not seem possible need to know that the people who claim to follow Jesus are on their side. And in as much as we help anyone, we should never be doing it because it is what we think Jesus would want us to do. We should be doing because of what we know has been done for us through Jesus. And how did we come to know of this grace, this Easter hope, this work of forgiveness?
            Through the words of the first preacher, Mary Magdalene- who dared to follow Jesus, who dared to stay at the foot of the cross, who was prepared to honor the body of her Lord fallen- but met that body risen. Her story needs no embellishment or conflation, but it is powerful through the test of time. And if we dare to be like her, to trust in the healing that we have received and to seek the risen Christ, our story will stand as well.
            People want to know God’s history, and how will they hear it unless someone speaks it to them? People long to know that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, cannot, will not overcome it.
            With Mary Magdalene, like Mary Magdalene, I tell you, “Christ is risen.”
He is risen indeed.
Amen. 

God’s Verbs

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In trying to come up with a bulletin cover for this Sunday, we made a Wordle of the Ephesians 1:3-14 reading.

Those are the top 100 words from the reading. Clearly, Christ is the main word. Surprise! Yet, I’m drawn to the verbs- destined, ransomed, intended, blessed, sealed, adopted, believed, chose, received… Almost all of these refer to God’s actions toward us (and all creation) through the Living Word, through Jesus, through Christ. We are often too quick to list or listen to harsh verbs about God’s action. God does get angry (see: Amos, Ezekiel, Jonah), but typically with just cause. Yet, God’s modus operandi– FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME- is not anger, but relationship. The verbs of Ephesians 1 reveal that desire- choosing, blessing, adopting- in a way that we should sit with, respond to, and ponder in our hearts.

John the Holy Forerunner

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A Sermon for the Feast of John the Baptist
   

         John the Baptizer hardly ever gets his own attention. It seems like we hear quite a great deal from him in Advent and then at Jesus’ baptism, but we hardly ever talk about him. In Advent, the discussion is more about Zechariah’s, his father, lack of faith compared to Mary’s trust in God. After Jesus is born and grown, the actions focus on who God is in him and what God is doing. John is a footnote to that story as well.
            This week when I asked for questions about John the Baptizer, only one person dared to ask anything and they sent the question in a message, rather than in any kind of public forum. The question ran along these lines: Do you think John ever wondered if he might be The One? Did he always know he was the forerunner? What was it like to always know that you were second?
            I had to think about that for a while. John would have grown up hearing his own birth narrative and that of his cousin, Jesus. He was probably raised in a very particular way, given his father’s priesthood and the specificity of his dedication to God. He may have even been a Nazarite with strictures on cutting his hairs, touching dead bodies, sexual practice, and eating. In fact, the camel’s hair clothing and the locust and honey diet are supposed to help us understand that he lives the life of prophet- like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos.
            Given the way that John is depicted, as such an obvious bridge between the promises of the Messiah and the advent of the Messiah, it is hard to think that he ever thought that he might be the One Who Is to Come. Yet, don’t you think every little boy of the time thought he might be the Messiah? If your stories of God’s anointed are of David to the tenth power, when you and your friends played Roman invaders versus Holy Warriors, don’t you think one kid always climbed on top of the rock and declared himself “The Messiah”?
            Would John have thought that might have been his name? Names were important as we saw in today’s reading. People did not speak the name of God and the names that were bestowed on children carried weight and power. And in other Christian denominations, John receives much more serious treatment and gets other names. He is the Baptizer, the Forerunner, a prophet among prophets. As the Holy Forerunner, his entire work is pointing to the One Who Is to Come. Given the seriousness of his nature and his focus on his work, I’m not sure I would blame him if he had occasionally wondered if he might be the One. Somehow, I doubt it though. Once Jesus appears on the scene, John knows him and is inspired by God to understand who and what Jesus is. Still John wonders and eventually asks, “Are you the One Who is to Come or are we to wait for another?”
            And there it is, folks, the doubt of the Holy Forerunner. The question of the ages… Jesus, are you it? Who among us hasn’t asked that question? And has anyone hear fulfilled their own call with what appears to be the certainty of John the Baptizer? He lives into what he believes and still dares to ask… Are you the one? He’s AT THE BAPTISM… and he dares to ask… Are you the One?
            What was the work that John was doing again? What does his father prophesy that he will do: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.”(Luke 1:76-77) John prophesies at the side of the Jordan- telling people that the times- they are a’changin’. He is offering a baptism, outside of the temple and separate from the culture of sacrifices, for the forgiveness of sins. He speaks truthfully of sin and separation, of false truths and false leaders. He speaks of transformation, of lives altered by an experience of God’s promises and trust in their truth.
            In a time of permanent Advent, John says the Light is coming and you better be ready! And the message he brings attracts people. John has disciples. John is condemned by the temple leaders. John gives the ruler, Herod Antipas, serious indigestion. And it is not because John is saying that “I’m all right, you’re all right.” It’s not because John is saying, “God is love.” It’s not because John is saying that the Messiah will bring joy.
            People are coming because of the promise of new life. People are attracted because it seems like this is something to give them hope. People are coming because they are being told that God has not forgotten them. That God is still acting. That the voice of God in the world has not been silenced. That God is speaking to them about the expectation of changed behavior and the reality of promises fulfilled.
            People wanted to hear the message that John was preaching. People want to hear the message that John was bringing. In truth, I think we ask ourselves “What would Jesus do” because it seems easy. You can either tell yourself, “But I’m not Jesus” or you tell yourself that Jesus welcomed and care for all kinds of people. Both of these things are true, you’re not Jesus and Jesus did minister whole-heartedly to all kinds of people. But we are not baptized into Christ for an easy life or for comfort or for consolation. We’re baptized into a life as co-workers in the kingdom and what if our work is supposed to look a little more like John’s?
            What if the work to which we are called is political, like John’s- calling out injustice against women, children, men- all races, all nationalities, all faiths? What if our task for the kingdom is to call out leaders who bend the rules for their own benefit, but ignore the possibilities of their power to bring justice and change? What if our work is theological, like John’s – not be Jesus, but to point to Jesus, to explain who Jesus is to us and to the world? What if our work is prophetic- affecting what we eat, what we wear, where we live, with whom we are seen? What if our work is revolutionary, like John’s – to call for change in hearts (including our own), in minds, in churches, in communities, in governments, in the world?
            And what if we are called to this work at the very same time we ask the question, “Jesus- are You it? Are you The One?” Keep in mind, John asked that question through his disciples, while he was in prison for doing the work to which he had been called. He knew he was the Forerunner, he knew he pointed to the Light. He was just checking, one more time, to be sure Jesus was it. And then he kept going, right to his death.
            We wait. We wait for a new heaven and a renewed earth. We wait for the kingdom where justice and peace are at home. We are Easter people, resurrection people, living in the second Advent, waiting for Jesus to return (Jesus- are You it?) In a world that lacks justice and peace, where people commit the same sins over and over again… maybe in this perpetual Advent- the world needs a little more John, a little more promise, a stronger expectation of change, a demand for righteous action, and an unambiguous pointing to the light.
We too are holy forerunners, pointing to the One Who Has Come and Will Return. God shapes us into the people the kingdom needs for our particular time and place. Occasionally, when the world is dark and has great need, the Holy Spirit is equipping us- not to be like Jesus- but to be like John.
Amen. 

It’s A Mystery (Sermon, 6/17)

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2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34
            When I was back on the East Coast a couple weeks ago, I went to visit my maternal grandparents’ grave. I went by myself and took flowers and water. I brushed off the stone, pulled the dead grass from around the edges, and then sat for a while and talked. My grandfather has been dead for just over eight years and my grandmother, for not quite four.
            I miss them frequently. When I was sitting at their graveside and talking to them through my tears, I kept thinking about what I was doing. If I believe they are resting here until the last days, why have I occasionally perceived them with me? Or if I believe that they are now in the presence of God, why is it so much more meaningful to be here in the place where I last saw their bodies?
            Somewhere in the mix of experience and emotion, in the tangle of reason and hope, somehow I hold to be true that my grandparents are resting in God, cheering me on, and waiting with all until the time of judgment. Yes, I realize some of those things seem contradictory, but they are all part of the presentation we receive in the written Scriptures about the life after death.
            Paul exhibits that same mix of future hopes in the passage from 2 Corinthians that we read today. 2nd Corinthians is pieced together from at least four or five letters that Paul wrote to the community at Corinth. If you read it straight through, it feels a little disjointed and Paul’s emotions and examples seem all over the map. In this section, he’s talking about how God calls the faithful into different kinds of ministries. That sounds like familiar Pauline stuff- the different gifts or different members of the body.
            He is also saying that all people receive help, through the Spirit, for the ministry of hardship and the ministry of reconciliation. Regardless of what your other gifts may be, Corinthians or Anchorage-ites, you will come to learn that there is struggle in the life of faith, but that you are never alone in that struggle (ministry of hardship). As we are learning to live and to die in and with Christ, we are also equipped for and brought into the work of sharing his message with those around us (ministry of reconciliation).
            Paul is writing so vigorously about these things that he points that out that he only sounds sane when he’s making the effort to talk to people. Usually, he’s just crazy for God. (“If we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right minds, it is for you.”) As Paul writes furiously, he comments, “while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.”  What is Paul saying about the body here? And about when we return to Christ?
            When Paul talks about the body as treasure in clay jars or that being in the body means being away from the Lord, he is notlamenting that somehow our physical existence separates us from God or from God’s love in Christ. (Think Romans 8:36-38.) Paul does not believe in the immortality of the soul without the body. In the same way that he trusts in God’s resurrection of Jesus in the body, Paul trusts that this will happen to all those whom God has redeemed through Jesus.
            The struggle for Paul, in part, is that the degradation of the body in this life makes it hard for us to do all the work to which we have been called. By the time Paul is writing his 8th, 9th, 10thletters to the Corinthians, he’s older. He’s been beaten and jailed. Things are not quite as easy as they were. While this might not take a toll on the faith of his heart, the literal walk of faith has become more of a stretch for him. Paul laments to the Corinthians that the breakdown of our physical bodies in this life can make it hard to perceive or to dare to hope for (or to desire) their resurrection in the next.
            The other issue is that Paul expresses here, in one sense, the expectation that the dead are immediately in the presence of the Lord. This is an immediate hope. Elsewhere, in Philippians and in other letters to Corinth, the judgment and the life eternal are far off- a future hope. When we combine Paul’s own lack of timeline with other parts of the Bible, we can have a confusing landscape of expectations. Hebrews talks about the cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on in our race. Revelation talks both about the saints who are already around the throne and the judgment that is to come. Part of understanding what Scripture says about the life of the world to come is to consider who is writing about it and what their purposes are. The separate books and authors that make up the Bible are working together with Spirit to assure us, regardless of details, that our life begun in God remains in God forever. But the mechanics of what happens after what we know for sure are a mystery.
            This is part of the ministry of reconciliation that Paul talks about and to which we are called. The love of Christ urges on to this work- to loving and serving our neighbors, not to insure our future, but because we trust that it has been insured by work that is not our own.
            That’s the heart of the parable from Mark that Jesus spoke to his disciples. The sowing, the growth, the harvest is not ours. We’ve been called into the work, but the success of the kingdom is God’s work and God’s secret work. What we are called to do is obvious. What God does is mysterious. We have to learn to live with the mystery, the parable, and to let it go enough so that we can do the obvious to which we are called. If we refrain from feeding, from visiting, from healing, from teaching, from companioning until we understand everything… nothing will ever get done. The tasks we have from Jesus are plain; everything else is a mystery.
            This mystery is most certainly true about the life that is to come. I had a professor in seminary whose his first wife died of cancer when they were both young. When I talked with him about grief I was experiencing, he was very helpful. He also emphasized what we know and what we don’t. He talked about how he wished both of his wives knew each other, though he knew that was not possible right now. He also talked about wanting to know that his first wife was happy for him. He noted, to me, that he did not know that she wasn’t.
 All of my grandparents are dead. I wish that they could see Daniel, my son, and know what he’s like and how he’s growing. But I don’t know that they don’t know. I hear them speak to me sometimes. Maybe it’s that I really want to. Maybe it’s because they are encouraging me or advising me.
I have no idea what comes next. All I know is what I believe is true and I believe what Jesus says is true, not because I want immortality, but  because of what I have experienced and encountered through reason and Scripture through the Spirit. That God sees all people through the eyes of Christ and that we am called to do this too. That this is the life in which I am in now, and you too, and whatever comes next is beyond my control (and yours). That I have body that’s not what it once was, but is also not what it will be. That there is a new creation since the resurrection- a creation of reconciliation, healing, and hope unlike any other.
And in the mystery that is the new creation, we all (even the pastor) walk by faith, and not by sight.
Now, but not forever.
And we do not walk alone.
Amen.
           
            

50 Essential Passages: Thinking about Hagar (#12)

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I realize that I will never finish this series if I expect every entry to cover all the thoughts I have on a passage. So, I am striving for reflection and completion.

Passage 12: Genesis 21:8-21

 The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.*10So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.’11The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.12But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named after you. 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.’ 14So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.’ 19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. 21He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

     We live in a world of connections, wherein we can so easily be in touch with anyone whom we have ever met. Yet we still pass many people, content to stay mutual strangers. Despite our vast repositories of information and contacts, it is likely that you do not know what happened to the sister of the young man that your cousin dated in high school. You probably do not know the story of the mother of the man whom your parent did not marry. The saga of third cousin of the neighbor who moved away ten years ago is lost to you and to yours.

     So be it. 
     We cannot know everything. We cannot know everyone. We can, however, remember that their stories, even unknown, touch up against our own through God. We think frequently about how God is shaping us, about God’s promises to those in our particular faith community and to us, about God’s work in what is our known world. What about God’s work that goes on, unbeknownst to us?
     Did Isaac ever wonder what happened to the dark-eyed teenager he remembered so faintly from his childhood? Did Ishmael ever speak of his half-brother whom he enjoyed making laugh? Did Abraham tell Isaac of his folly? Did Hagar tell her son of Abraham and of Sarah and of her broken heart? Did both boys grow up, knowing of God’s promises to their parents and their role in fulfilling them? And, if they knew, did they imagine God making the same promise with regard to each of them?
     Isaac and Ishmael are both signs of God’s providence and commitment. In human history, they represent two significant personal, political, and religious streams whose currents have significantly shaped the sands and rocks of time. If Isaac had known that Ishmael was also the start of a great nation, what might he have done differently? If Ishmael heard of the twin promises, did it soothe the ache of rejection or fire up his frustrations at his father and at Isaac?
     God’s promise to Hagar is a powerful and significant promise. Offered to a woman in the worst of circumstances, watching her child die, it is not a hurried consolation prize, but a powerful offer of hope and future. While Ishmael may have been second place in some households, in the eyes of his creator, he still mattered- as the offspring of Abraham and as the offspring of Hagar.
      All of creation, including all people, receives this promise of hope and a future. God considers each person worthy of shaping, of wholeness, and of salvation. We are called into seeing that worthiness in one another. Furthermore, we are called into working together toward the fulfillment of those promises. We do not always know the stories of the people around us, but we can know the promises that have been made to them. We should expect that God is with them. We cannot pretend their stories do not matter.

What God has Cleansed (Earth Day Sermon)

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Acts 11: 1-18
            Care of creation as a part of our Christian life seems a little obvious. Does it feel that way to you? We believe that God’s hand was active in establishing the universe. We understand that there are natural processes that are mysterious to us. We grasp the fact that we are not alone on the earth and that many millions of plants, non-human animals, fish, and lots of other people can be affected by our choices and our actions.
            So we understand, basically, why it’s important. We get it. But do we change what we’re doing based on what we know to be true? I had a lot of heartburn about having a service on Earth Day, oriented toward creation, with a 12-page bulletin. That’s a lot of paper. But we have people who can’t hear and need to be able to follow the service. We have a worship book that turns out not to be very visitor-friendly in its orientation (lots of flipping back and forth). So we sacrificed trees for the sake of hospitality. Does it mean anything to regret this decision? Could we figure out how to go bulletin free one Sunday a month?
            When I ask that kind of question, I immediately see that I have a problem, a flaw in my thinking. I’m skipping right to the specific before I comprehend the reason for the general. I can read Job and understand, again, that God knows and loves all creation on both the micro and macro- scale. Yet, how am we brought into that love? I do not mean how are we brought into loving creation. I mean, how are we brought into God’s love, into God’s knowledge?
            Imagine, if you will, that you are Peter. The Apostle. You fished for years, your life was pretty much set, and then came Jesus. Like a bat out of Nazareth (or something like that). You follow him. You see amazing things. You have powerful revelations. You deny, confess, distort, and accept. You see the risen Christ. You witness the flames of Pentecost. And through all of this, you’re a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. John was a Jew. Thomas, Andrew, Philip- Jewish, Jewish, Jewish. All the people at the Pentecost event- Jewish.
            And now there are people who believe in Jesus as the Messiah. They trust that he is the Son of God. They experience truth in the story of the resurrection. And they. Are. Not. Jewish. What do you do? Send them away? Slap the pork chop out of their hands and circumcise them on the spot? Tell them it is too bad they weren’t chosen?
            When Peter is in Joppa, God sends a vision to a man named Cornelius. Cornelius is an Italian soldier who believes in God and, in his time of prayer, God tells him to go and see Peter. In the meantime, God sends Peter the dream of the “unclean animals” and repeats the scene until Peter gets the point God is trying to make, “Who are you to say that what I have made is profane? Unclean? Unworthy?” When Cornelius appears before Peter and introduces himself and tells Peter of his vision, Peter probably has a little hallucination of a pig, induced by lifelong hatred of Romans and conflation of Roman soldiers with pigs. Then he realizes this is the point of the dream! Truly God shows no partiality because God has even spoken truth to this Italian swine soldier.
            Of course, Peter later gets a lot of flack for sharing the gospel with Gentiles. His reasoning is actually rock solid, “God did it first.” Peter cannot keep the Holy Spirit from blowing where it will, descending as it desires, inspiring the understanding of truth in whom it shall. One of the interesting ironies of the Bible is how long it takes people who have been called by God to realize that God is also working in other people and in other circumstances.
You might think that people whose understanding of God’s work in history included Ruth, Cyrus (the Great), Melchizedek (blessed Abraham), and Pharaoh’s daughter (raised Moses), among others, might not be so shocked that God would conspire to bring inspiration and salvation to non-Jews. And the thing is, we cannot speak against Peter and the other Jews for being slow to come to this understanding. Christians do it all the time. We forget how we have been grafted onto the tree of life. We assume that we are the very roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. (And we know what ass-u-me does.)
            This brings me back around to care of creation. We did not invent this. A green revolution did not begin with us. It began with God, whose farm is all creation. The stories of God at the beginning of the world mention that there was not yet land because there was not yet people (man) to tend the soil, to care for the land, to be co-creators.
            People have slowly come around to understanding God’s call to all people, God’s welcome and openness to every person. How long can the rest of the world wait for us to understand the extension of renewal and redemption? How long can we pretend that we do not understand Peter’s dream that nothing God has made is profane? How long will we profane what God has made by being careless with what we eat, what we do, what we buy, how we live?
            I’m saying this to you, but the voice in my head is saying, “Sit down and be quiet, you hypocrite. Remove the plank from your own eye.” We’re in this together… on Earth Day… on the third Sunday in Easter…
            Where do we start? Let’s begin by making the revelation of Peter’s dream our prayer: “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you eat, let your prayer be of gratitude for the ways the food got to your table. “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you look at the grit of spring or cut your eyes from a man holding a sign on the corner, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you take out the trash or sort things for the garage sale, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” When you look in the mirror, when you wash your face, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.”
            The first step toward the acceptance of Gentiles was the realization that God had loved them already. God was there first. So the first step in our own journey toward care of creation, realizing that God loves it already. God loved it first. And God has loved us to share entrust the responsibility of caring. But we have to begin with understanding that what God has made clean, what God has welcomed, what God loves, cannot be called or treated as common.
Amen.  

Book Review: Still (Lauren Winner)

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Still is the most Southern thing I’ve read in a long time.

I do not mean that it is about the South or about Southern issues or even has a Southern voice. It has a Southern speed. 
The book reads like a long day with a friend you know so well that you don’t rehash details. Lauren Winner reflects on the middle of her faith journey- what comes between the fiery beginning and the slow burn of the end. The book feels like a conversation she has with you, over a day or a weekend. 
Over eggs and grits with me, she confesses, “The enthusiasms of my conversion have worn off. For whole stretches since the dream, since the baptism, my belief has faltered, my sense of God’s closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone.” (p. xiii)
In my mind, I walk with Winner to pick peas in the garden, after breakfast, and she shares about her struggle to sit with her loneliness, “I tell the loneliness to pull up a seat. I notice she does not look so very threatening after all- she has a touch of the dowager about her, actually. She is clutching a handbag made of fat white beads, and she smells of rose water. We sit next to each other on my screen-porch sofa… I lean back. I breathe.” (59) 
As we shell peas, on the same porch, Winner recounts, “I told my spiritual director I was praying (I doubt she was fooled). I told myself that I should be praying, that it would be good for me to pray; I said to myself, Of course you feel far away from God, how could you feel otherwise when you will not pray? But still, I persisted in not praying. My chastisements about my own lack of prayer became private jokes. When I nosed up against prayer, I felt angry…” (64) 
Winner walks me several miles to get a cold drink and we talk about how boredom masks other emotions, other experiences, our resistance. She says, “Boredom is, indeed, a restless state. I am, I hope, inching toward stillness.” (126) 
When I try to recall an earlier comment, something she said about prayer, Winner tells me, “I am not a saint. I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God.” (194) 
Usually when I read a book for review, it’s marked up, full of marginalia, little paper flags poke out beyond the page edges for attention and remembrance. I never touched a pen while reading this book. It felt like I would have interrupted the conversation. I needed to be present in the moment of the reading. The very personal, unwinding confessional, sipping whiskey nature of this book did not lend itself to notes on the first go around. 
When I go back, and I will go back, I will make notes. I will remember to mark the page where she talks about prayer as a marker of Christian life… not necessarily your own prayers, but perhaps the prayers of other people for you. When I read this again, I will be less interested in what happened in her divorce and more able to recognize the map of grief she is drawing for after a death and a divorce. When I read this again, what I appreciated about the tone of Winner’s writing voice will have deepened. 
This is the first book of Winner’s that I have truly liked, possibly because she always writes with an appeal to her reader to relate to her and her theological viewpoint. This time I do. I understand what it’s like to be in the middle, to realize that there is a lot of sailing to do before hitting the other shore (God willing). And, as it turns out, you cannot always predict the weather, the pirates, the flora and fauna. All you can count on is the persistent presence of the sea, which can become so ubiquitous as to be forgotten. But is it still there? Is it still keeping you afloat? 
Still meanders and moseys, without clear plot or direction, but with clarity of voice and purpose. For the first time, Winner seems to be living the questions instead of providing answers with a questionable surety. You cannot solve Winner’s problems or bring solutions to her, so you just listen. In the listening comes your own pondering of the middle, of your middle, of the middle of faith, of the middle of God. 
I received a copy of Still from Lauren Winner through a giveaway on RevGalBlogPals. No requests were attached to receiving the book and no promises were made upon receipt. All page numbers are from the hardback edition of the book, published 2012 by HarperOne. 

My Hour with Thomas

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On the second Sunday in Easter, our church observed Bright Sunday (or Holy Humor Sunday)- extending our resurrection celebration. In addition to kazoos, jokes, and laughter, we had an interview with the apostle, Thomas.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me today on Theology in the Morning with…Pastor Julia! We’ll have a special food giveaway later this hour, but right now let’s meet our special guest. You may know him as the Eeyore of the disciples or the famous doubter, but let’s welcome… Thomas the Apostle!
Thank you so much for coming today. How do I address you? None of you apostles seemed to come with a last name.
Thomas is fine.
Thank you for that. Well, let’s get to it. I think the first question we’d all like an answer to is: Where were you when Jesus showed up that first time?
You know, Pastor Julia. If I’m willing to do the time and space travel it takes to come here and answer questions for you and these other fine folks today, I’d think you’d come up with a better first question. Everyone wants to know and what are you going to say if I tell you that it was my turn to empty the dirt pot (if I may be subtle)… or that I had gone out to get more bread or wine… or that it was just pretty rank in that room with 10 other scared men. Whatever I tell you is going to disappoint you, so all you need to know is that I wasn’t there. Can you live with that?
Wow! I must say, Thomas, I did not expect you to be so frank. I suppose…
It’s like this. I loved Jesus, still do. I mean, I see Him every day now, so can’t really complain. But three years of parables… that can make a man crazy. I wanted some plain talk and I don’t mind telling you that when he did get around to telling it like it was, it was hard to swallow. Since the resurrection, my goal is to tell the truth- straight up. No parables, no metaphors. Also, I don’t spend time on what doesn’t matter. Where I was doesn’t matter in this interview.
Well, thank you for your frankness. Moving on then, what did you think when the others told you that Jesus had been in the room with them?
Honestly, I thought they had all gone crazy together. We were so keyed up, scared, and jittery. It seemed possible that they had a group vision or something. What happened with Judas hit us all pretty hard. Not just because he had traveled with us and been a friend, we thought, but also because most of us understood that anyone of us could have easily done what he did. Maybe not in the same way or for the same reasons, but still… Anyway, when I came back and everyone was tripping over themselves to tell me about Jesus’ return. It was just too much. I’m sure you’ll want to list out the history of Thomas the doubter, but can anyone here tell me that you wouldn’t have said the same thing in the same circumstances?
I’m pretty sure I can’t say that I would have been different. So, what was it like when you did see Jesus?
What do you think it was like? I wanted to throw up and throw myself at his feet, all at the same time. Even after the crucifixion, even when we weren’t entirely sure what to believe about where his body was, we still knew the truth of what we had witnessed when we traveled with him. I still can hear Lazarus’ voice lifting out of that tomb. I can still see the stunned expression of blind men seeing for the first time, of people who walked, of people who heard and received a word of forgiveness. So, even when we as disciples didn’t know what to think… we had these powerful experiences to chew over with one another. Those experiences formed our understanding of Jesus and, in that upper room, none of us were willing to admit to thinking we might have been wrong, even though we all had that thought. And then he was there!
If I may interrupt, how did he come through that wall?
You may not interrupt. That’s not important to the story. However he did it, it was done! And there he was and I was terrified and thrilled and ashamed and gratified and… Even now, it’s too overwhelming to think. Suddenly, when he appeared, everything I knew came into place. The last rock in a wall. The opening move of a game. It was like the most powerful end and at the same time the most astounding beginning of any story, song, or even battle that you might see. Suddenly, I knew that this was my Rabbi, my teacher, and my God, THE God… right there. When he offered for me to touch him, I couldn’t dare. Moses only saw God’s backside and lived to tell about it. What would happen to lowly Thomas who asked for proof, got it, and then pressed his luck?
That’s such an amazing story, Thomas. We’re all curious about what you did next, but this is supposed to be a light-hearted Sunday. We’ve all been enjoying laughing and your story seems so heavy.
It’s not that heavy when you actually think about it. You don’t think there’s humor in it? Believe me, I laugh every time I consider that Jesus didn’t punish me for asking a question. He could have said, “Impudent wretch! Did you ever listen when I was talking?” But he was as kind and generous in resurrection as he ever been.
And, you, you dare to think that this is not a story of joy? What kind of interpreter of scripture are you? There are three gifts in that story and youget two of them. Jesus gives peace to all disciples, he gives proof to me, and he blesses those who won’t quite have the same experience I did. You get peace! AND a blessing! What more do you want?
Well, proof might be nice.
Proof! Ha! Proof is like the buzz of those kazoos that you were playing earlier. It’s great while it lasts, but then it grates on you. It takes your breath away and then leaves you empty of mystery. Proof gives you a tangible experience for a while, but it doesn’t allow for height and depth and breadth and range.
If you have proof, will you have peace? Will your questions end or will they increase? If you received proof, would you relinquish your blessing? The comfort of the Spirit? The experiences you have resurrection in communion and in community and in creation?
I don’t know, but doubting seems so…
What is doubt? It’s like proof, it comes and it goes. If you banish one question, another will arise. Your faith, God’s gift of faith to you, is not the absence of doubt. It’s action in spite of doubt. It’s moving forward, even while questioning. It’s closing a door, but knowing that Jesus just might come through the wall.  You’re learning as you go, just like I was. Just like Peter. Just like Andrew, James, John, and all the women who helped us along the way. But you have written accounts to help your faith. You have the promise and the presence of the Spirit. The resurrection has always been your reality.
And you have my story, my little story that you try to make big in all the wrong ways. What was I doing? How did he come through the wall? How about this?!? Jesus knew my questions, brought me the answer of his own body, did not strike me dead on the spot, and offered a blessing to everyone who doesn’t get what I got. How about that to make your Sunday bright? And your tomorrow? And the day after that?
Wow, Thomas, I don’t know how to thank you for coming in today. You’ve been an amazing guest. I’d like to talk to you more after the break about your life after the upper room, but first we have some messages from our sponsors. Folks, I just want to repeat something Thomas said: Your faith, God’s gift of faith to you, is not the absence of doubt. It’s action in spite of doubt. It’s moving forward, even while questioning. It’s closing a door, but knowing that Jesus just might come through the wall.

Amen

A Moveable Feast (Second Easter Service)

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Mark 16:1-8
            Do you know why the date of Easter changes? It has to do with the cycle of the moon and the church calendar. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. For the most part that means Easter falls somewhere between March 22 and April 25. Of course, and this is one of the best parts, the churches that use this date for Easter have what’s known as an “ecclesiastical calendar”, meaning the church occasionally has slightly different lunar dates than the astronomical calendar, kept by, well, astronomers. But for the most part, the formula has held true since 325 A.D. (for churches using the Gregorian calendar).
            Easter has earned a special name, since it does not have a fixed date. It is referred to as a moveable feast. Moveable feast. And all the dates that are coordinated with Easter’s date are also moveable feasts: Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Ascension, Pentecost, and Holy Trinity Sunday. All moveable feasts because their celebration is always a given number of days from Easter. (For example, Ash Wednesday is always the Wednesday before the sixth Sunday ahead of Easter.)
            Why am I talking so much about calendars? It’s actually not the calendar part I care about. It’s the name: moveable feast. It sounds like a picnic on the go, something that comes with us, that we can carry, that carries us. A moveable feast sounds like a banquet, a glorious table spread with all kinds of amazing foods. But when you’ve been really hungry or exhausted, a moveable feast is a shared crust of bread and the slug of liquid that makes you feel like you can keep going. Easter is both of these kinds of feasts.
            Mary Magdalene, Mary- the mother of James, and Salome were not in a feasting mood as they headed toward the tomb for that first sunrise service, a service of laying on of hands and prayer. They probably ate very little the day before, since it was the Sabbath and because they were probably still stunned from the crucifixion. At some point during that day, each of them quietly set aside ointments, cloths, spices in a little basket. Not a feast, just little odds and ends to tend Jesus’ body, to mend it, to commend it to God through washing and prayer. Tears pouring down their faces, they crept out of their houses at first light, before their families were awakened. Instructions were given to oldest daughters and daughters-in-law about the morning meal. And then the quiet slap of sandals on hardened dirt streets.
            The mother of James probably thought she was the only one, until Salome hurried to catch up to her. They both saw the figure of Mary Magdalene ahead of them and scurried to be by the side of that beloved apostle on the way. Still stunned by how abruptly it had all ended, the ringing of the hammer on the nails in their minds… the feel of Jesus’ body gone cold as they laid it in the tomb… the confusion as to where the disciples had gone… was it true about Judas… how will they move the stone. It was all too much. These women were not ready for a feast of any kind.
            But, ready or not, they arrived to hear of resurrection. They come with one task in mind, if they can accomplish it. That task proves worthless, all their planning, their grieved collection of materials. The task they came to do is moot and they are given another task, but it’s too much to absorb. We want to imagine them leaping in excitement and leaving the symbols of sorrow in their wake, a trail of spices, cloths, and broken perfume bottles leading to the empty tomb.
            They are stunned and afraid. What if this is a trick? What if Jesus’ body has been stolen? Do they go tell the apostles, who will doubtless come to the same conclusion and, possibly, accuse the women of knowing what happened? What do they do? Only minutes before they had a momentous task, honoring the body of Jesus. Now they have a different, monumental task… becoming the body of Christ. Carrying words as a balm, hope as the fragrance, faith as a spice. They nibble at the edges of this feast, easing the hunger of their grief.
            Why does the angel tell them to go his disciples and Peter? Is it because Peter is special, is elevated, or because Peter denied Jesus and it’s important to express plainly that he is still in the fold. He is still a sheep of Jesus’ own flock, a lamb of God’s own fold, a sinner who has now been redeemed. The messenger is clarifying for the women that there are no side tables at God’s feast, no people who wait for scraps in the kitchen, no one who will be turned away from the banquet of resurrection. Even Peter has a place at the Easter feast, when it reaches him through the witness of the women.
            That’s the thing about a moveable feast. It comes whether you’re ready or not. Whether you are in your own extended Lenten season, wrestling with crucifixion, lying in the tomb- unable to rise, the moveable feast comes. A moveable feast offers us hope until we can taste joy. A moveable feast offers expectation until we can drink from faith. A moveable feast fills us with courage until we are stuffed from encounter.
             
            Easter is the moveable feast that brings us the food for our souls when we need it and when we can receive it. Sometimes in April. Sometimes in September. Sometimes in December and January. The news of resurrection comes to us in our deep hunger and edges us into fullness, into renewal, into strength.
            Who would believe the story of three women who say they saw a heavenly messenger at the empty tomb of an itinerant preacher from the backwater of Nazareth? Who will listen to that story? Who will take their word?
            People who are hungry for forgiveness. People who thirst to believe God is still acting in the world. People who believe in the possibility of redemption. People who crave justice and peace. People smell the scent of equality and long to have their fill. People who have tasted of true freedom and want to revel in it again. That’s who will listen to their story. That’s who will believe them. People who are hungry for the feast of Easter. Hungry for it on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Hungry for it on the day after. And after that. And after that.
            Do you dare to believe that this is a moveable feast for you? That is for the person beside you and beside them? That this feast has moved from an empty tomb to Galilee to Judea to all of Palestine to the entire world? Do we dare to speak up and say this is a feast to which everyone is invited?
            Our hymns and our words mainly speak of Easter joy, but that first Easter (and maybe every one since) wasn’t about joy. It was about hope. The hope in the truth of the resurrection. The hope in the triumph of the God of life over the power of death. The hope of grace and forgiveness and the family of God. You may not always feel like feasting on first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, but we can believe the feast is there.
The moveable feast of resurrection, of Easter is bound human limitations, then or now.
When is resurrection?
When is Easter?
Thanks be to God that the moveable feast of Easter is always right when the world needs it to be.
Amen.