Sunday, May 5, 2013
Sermon May 5, Redeemer Morristown
I told you last week that I belong to a school for leadership. It focuses on helping people to manifest their dreams and passions. It doesn’t teach techniques or qualities; their position is that leadership is not a characteristic of certain people, but can appear in groups and among people. We know leadership is present when something new emerges, something that wouldn’t have happened in the current context, something that answers the needs and concerns of the people involved.
We spend a lot of time on our own internal barriers to leadership. We look at the payoffs we get from not committing ourselves or from not changing. We look there, because the inertia of the daily world and our own fears are the biggest obstacles to meaningful transformation. Then we work on what we can do differently.
I’m thinking about the school because these readings call us to our responsibility for the futures we live. They present very different responses to an invitation to wholeness. We don’t know how either story ends, but the pictures they paint make clear the stakes and the choices we face every day.
Do you want to be healed?
Throughout the Gospels we read about people who came to Jesus for healing. In most of them, the person asks for themselves or for another, and Jesus answers. One time, shockingly, a woman comes and asks, and Jesus says no until she wins her argument with him and shows him a new way. Another time, a woman doesn’t ask, just touches him, and that is enough. Jesus is reported to be able to heal from a distance.
Now, things are a little different in the Gospel of John. John wants to teach us that the healings are signs of something bigger. The point for him is not that Jesus is a healer, but that Jesus is the Messiah, the chosen one of God. Healing is just a sign. So sometimes he tells stories where the individual does not ask for healing, where Jesus initiates healing to make a point. A blind man is healed, in order to come to proclaim Jesus as Messiah.
But this Gospel story is different even from that. Jesus has just healed an official’s son, when the official asked him to. Now the action shifts to Jerusalem, to a pool by one of the gates in the city wall. This pool evidently has healing properties, but only at certain times. The early manuscripts disagree about how this happened, but it clearly isn’t automatic. In fact, this poor guy has been sitting there for 38 years and never gets healed!
I don’t know about you, but I would have gone to another pool by now.
Jesus cuts right to the chase. He asks him to commit to his own healing.
“Do you want to be healed?”
And, you know, it’s not clear that he does.
He doesn’t say yes.
He makes excuses. I’m alone, I’m slow, I never get there.
OK, he can’t seem to walk, but where are his friends? Can’t his relatives take him somewhere else? Why is he so helpless?
In 38 years, he hasn’t made a friend. He hasn’t made enough community for others to help him, or defer to him. In 38 years lying around the pool, he hasn’t gained the attention of others enough for them to say, “We’d better get him into the water.”
I don’t know. Maybe there was a time when he tried, and failed. Maybe he committed before, but when it got hard he gave up. Now he’s just lying by the pool, not really expecting anything to be better, afraid to give voice to his desire.
Do you want to be healed?
How much desire do we kill because the world has taught us it’s hopeless?
One way the consumer economy works is by teaching us to trade in our deep desires for connection and creativity for products and amusements.
But it also works by telling us that our deep desires are impossible to fulfill.
We can lie around the pool, but we can’t expect real transformation. It’s no one’s fault. Certainly it’s not my fault.
If this man were to name his desire to be healed, he would become vulnerable. He would become responsible - response-able. His disempowered innocence would end.
There are plenty of days when I want to live like that. I want to tell you why I can’t change, why I can’t help, why you can’t count on me. If I name my desire, I become responsible for whether it comes to pass or not.
In the story, Jesus cuts right through this guy’s resignation. He heals him. Just like that, the guy can walk. But he doesn’t heal his heart. When the man is confronted for carrying his mat on the sabbath, he makes excuses again. “The guy who healed me told me to do this.” Later he turns Jesus into the authorities. His body is healed, but he’s still not responsible for his life.
Fortunately, we have choices. Encountering God is not a one-time event. God keeps showing up.
After Jesus’ death, after the disciples have become bearers of the Holy Spirit, Paul meets a woman by another body of water. He’s come to Greece, to Philippi, and he goes to the river outside the gate in hopes of finding Jews to pray with. He meets Lydia and other women. Lydia gets it. She asks for the water of transformation, for baptism, and then she asks Paul and his party to stay at her house. That house becomes a center for the new community in Philippi.
I don’t know why the guy in Jerusalem couldn’t grab his desire and claim it. I don’t know why Lydia could. But I’d rather live like Lydia.
The water of healing awaits us. God awaits us. And sometimes God intervenes directly in our lives. But even then, it’s up to us to decide whether to acknowledge it, whether to participate and claim our lives.
In the School for Leadership, we don’t talk about what we want to do. We talk about what we plan to do. Desire is good, but planning takes us even further into commitment, into vulnerability, into our own power.
Planning doesn’t push God out. Part of planning is opening myself to God’s action, and going with the momentum. We can plan to keep our eyes open to what God is offering.
Do you plan to be healed?
Is there a place in you that sits by the poolside, waiting for the world to come to you?
Is there a place so wounded that you don’t want to risk wanting anymore?
Listen to Mary Oliver:
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Scattering Seeds
I couldn't sleep last night, so I went to the blog and for the first time found the page where you can see where people are reading from. I'm so excited to see that some of you are in Russia and Italy and Mexico and Germany and . . . ! It gives a new, visceral feeling to the mystical body of Christ.
I hope you read something that sparks hope and renewal in you. I hope, I pray, that you will pass that on to others. And please pray for me, for us, as we stand at the door and peer in. Bless you wherever you are!
I hope you read something that sparks hope and renewal in you. I hope, I pray, that you will pass that on to others. And please pray for me, for us, as we stand at the door and peer in. Bless you wherever you are!
Sermon at Redeemer Morristown, April 28
It was great to be back at Redeemer last Sunday. Readings were Acts 11, John 13:31-35, and a quote from Peter Block on belonging.
As always, I have to begin by saying how glad I am to be back with you. Many of you don’t know me yet, but I know you, because I know this community. I know this to be a place of commitment and compassion.
The Gospel and the reading from Acts were not chosen for you, believe it or not. They were appointed in the lectionary. But what gifts they bring us! And they speak to my concerns these days, to the work I’m doing. And they speak, I hope, to you.
For the past year and a half, I’ve been part of a school for leadership sponsored by a group called the Mastery Foundation. They are not connected to any particular faith tradition, but they have been shaped by many active ministers of many faiths. They are passionate about fostering workability and resilience in communities. They offer courses on community building, peace and reconciliation, and ministry development. They work in Israel, in Ireland, and in the U.S. They are giving me the resources to start a new women’s community, to step out and do something that makes a difference in people’s lives. I’m able to be here today because I left my parish position to take a leap of faith. I’m looking to build community. This brings me continually back to thinking about what community is and how to do it.
Between the story in Acts and the Gospel, we hear some important things about community. The story in Acts describes how the early group of Jesus’ disciples spread beyond the bounds of Judaism. Peter recounts a vision in which he learns not to disdain the Gentiles and their ways. As Luke tells the story, it’s pretty easy and clear. Peter tells the Judean community what happened, and they say, “Oh, OK, that’s great. Even those scummy Gentiles get a second chance at life.”
It’s not likely that things were that smooth. Luke’s version leaves out a long process of argument and downright name-calling that didn’t end for centuries. But the story remains pointed and important. It reminds us that we will continually be called to reach beyond what makes sense to us. The Gospel keeps growing, calling to wider circles of people, and when it does it’s likely that “those people” will appear to us as a problem rather than the answer to our prayers.
But say we expand the circle. Say we even realize, one day, that others have opened the circle to us. At some point in our lives, we all find ourselves in the position of the Gentiles who were waiting to be included. Women and people of color know this position. Queer folk know this position. The revolutionary, insulting moment of awareness for privileged people is exactly that moment when we find that we are outside some circle, needing others’ permission to enter. When men first encountered women’s spaces where they were not invited, it was a shock. When heterosexuals realize that there’s a whole world they didn’t know about and weren’t invited into, it can be a shock. We all have some place where we find ourselves outside waiting.
When we’re in together, it can be exhilarating. Finally - a place where I’m welcome! A place where I fit, with all my rough edges and quirky parts! A place where I’m loved and accepted as I am!
But that’s just the beginning of belonging. We long for it. We long for that place of recognition. But belonging is a community capacity, as Block says. We cannot experience it without the other parts of belonging. When we truly belong to something or someone, they belong to us. That means we are responsible for the building up and maintaining of that community. Belonging without ownership and accountability is just warm feeling. It isn’t yet community, and it isn’t yet what Jesus promises. There’s so much more waiting for us.
In John’s account, Jesus tells the disciples to love one another. What we miss in today’s reading is that he tells them this just after Judas has left them on the night of the Last Supper. Judas has left to betray Jesus, after Jesus has washed his feet and eaten with him. And Jesus knows Judas is doing this.
Why does this matter to us?
Luke’s happy story about welcome really hides just how challenging this Gospel work can be. The hard part isn’t just opening the door to those we think of as outside. It isn’t just walking in when we’ve been told we don’t belong.
The hard work begins when we’re in, and we look around and say, “What am I doing with these losers?”
What am I doing with that traitor?
What am I doing with that sinner?
What am I doing with that not-so-educated, or too educated, person?
What am I doing here with Republicans, or Democrats?
What am I doing here with people who don’t share my theology?
Those are exactly the questions we need to ask.
What are we doing here?
What am I doing with the person who walks in for the first time?
What am I doing with the people who disagree about the direction of the church, or the country, or the world?
What am I doing with the people who aren’t here, who need what I have?
What am I doing with the resources entrusted to me by previous generations?
What are we doing here?
Social justice work and community service and cutting-edge worship are inseparable from the internal work of community building. We need always to reach out beyond our current borders, and we need also to strengthen and repair the internal fabric of community.
In my new community, with only two members, we spend a huge amount of time working on internal relations. We’re not doing it because we have nothing else to do, or because we have a lot of conflict. We’re doing it because we are keenly aware that our effectiveness in the world is linked to our internal communication and commitment. We do it so we can be ready to receive the next members with open arms.
Each day we deepen our commitment to one another and to the ministry we see awaiting us. We leave open room for disagreement, because disagreement is one form of commitment. But we return to the work of belonging, for the sake of the world.
In a world in which it’s easier and easier for people to become isolated, the work of belonging is more important than ever. And it is work. It is holy work, the work of stewardship and reconciliation and outreach. It brings great gifts, and also great demands. But the demands turn out to be gifts as well, when we are called to use all of our capacities in the service of the world.
By this everyone will know that we are disciples, if we have love for one another.
As always, I have to begin by saying how glad I am to be back with you. Many of you don’t know me yet, but I know you, because I know this community. I know this to be a place of commitment and compassion.
The Gospel and the reading from Acts were not chosen for you, believe it or not. They were appointed in the lectionary. But what gifts they bring us! And they speak to my concerns these days, to the work I’m doing. And they speak, I hope, to you.
For the past year and a half, I’ve been part of a school for leadership sponsored by a group called the Mastery Foundation. They are not connected to any particular faith tradition, but they have been shaped by many active ministers of many faiths. They are passionate about fostering workability and resilience in communities. They offer courses on community building, peace and reconciliation, and ministry development. They work in Israel, in Ireland, and in the U.S. They are giving me the resources to start a new women’s community, to step out and do something that makes a difference in people’s lives. I’m able to be here today because I left my parish position to take a leap of faith. I’m looking to build community. This brings me continually back to thinking about what community is and how to do it.
Between the story in Acts and the Gospel, we hear some important things about community. The story in Acts describes how the early group of Jesus’ disciples spread beyond the bounds of Judaism. Peter recounts a vision in which he learns not to disdain the Gentiles and their ways. As Luke tells the story, it’s pretty easy and clear. Peter tells the Judean community what happened, and they say, “Oh, OK, that’s great. Even those scummy Gentiles get a second chance at life.”
It’s not likely that things were that smooth. Luke’s version leaves out a long process of argument and downright name-calling that didn’t end for centuries. But the story remains pointed and important. It reminds us that we will continually be called to reach beyond what makes sense to us. The Gospel keeps growing, calling to wider circles of people, and when it does it’s likely that “those people” will appear to us as a problem rather than the answer to our prayers.
But say we expand the circle. Say we even realize, one day, that others have opened the circle to us. At some point in our lives, we all find ourselves in the position of the Gentiles who were waiting to be included. Women and people of color know this position. Queer folk know this position. The revolutionary, insulting moment of awareness for privileged people is exactly that moment when we find that we are outside some circle, needing others’ permission to enter. When men first encountered women’s spaces where they were not invited, it was a shock. When heterosexuals realize that there’s a whole world they didn’t know about and weren’t invited into, it can be a shock. We all have some place where we find ourselves outside waiting.
When we’re in together, it can be exhilarating. Finally - a place where I’m welcome! A place where I fit, with all my rough edges and quirky parts! A place where I’m loved and accepted as I am!
But that’s just the beginning of belonging. We long for it. We long for that place of recognition. But belonging is a community capacity, as Block says. We cannot experience it without the other parts of belonging. When we truly belong to something or someone, they belong to us. That means we are responsible for the building up and maintaining of that community. Belonging without ownership and accountability is just warm feeling. It isn’t yet community, and it isn’t yet what Jesus promises. There’s so much more waiting for us.
In John’s account, Jesus tells the disciples to love one another. What we miss in today’s reading is that he tells them this just after Judas has left them on the night of the Last Supper. Judas has left to betray Jesus, after Jesus has washed his feet and eaten with him. And Jesus knows Judas is doing this.
Why does this matter to us?
Luke’s happy story about welcome really hides just how challenging this Gospel work can be. The hard part isn’t just opening the door to those we think of as outside. It isn’t just walking in when we’ve been told we don’t belong.
The hard work begins when we’re in, and we look around and say, “What am I doing with these losers?”
What am I doing with that traitor?
What am I doing with that sinner?
What am I doing with that not-so-educated, or too educated, person?
What am I doing here with Republicans, or Democrats?
What am I doing here with people who don’t share my theology?
Those are exactly the questions we need to ask.
What are we doing here?
What am I doing with the person who walks in for the first time?
What am I doing with the people who disagree about the direction of the church, or the country, or the world?
What am I doing with the people who aren’t here, who need what I have?
What am I doing with the resources entrusted to me by previous generations?
What are we doing here?
Social justice work and community service and cutting-edge worship are inseparable from the internal work of community building. We need always to reach out beyond our current borders, and we need also to strengthen and repair the internal fabric of community.
In my new community, with only two members, we spend a huge amount of time working on internal relations. We’re not doing it because we have nothing else to do, or because we have a lot of conflict. We’re doing it because we are keenly aware that our effectiveness in the world is linked to our internal communication and commitment. We do it so we can be ready to receive the next members with open arms.
Each day we deepen our commitment to one another and to the ministry we see awaiting us. We leave open room for disagreement, because disagreement is one form of commitment. But we return to the work of belonging, for the sake of the world.
In a world in which it’s easier and easier for people to become isolated, the work of belonging is more important than ever. And it is work. It is holy work, the work of stewardship and reconciliation and outreach. It brings great gifts, and also great demands. But the demands turn out to be gifts as well, when we are called to use all of our capacities in the service of the world.
By this everyone will know that we are disciples, if we have love for one another.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
We need a good shepherd about now
I can't believe it's been three weeks since I wrote. We've been very busy, and that's good. I led a retreat last weekend on deepening prayer, and this weekend I'm off to talk about Mary Magdalene to a church group. On Sunday I preach at the monastery.
I have to admit I'm dreading it. I love to preach, but not this week.
The bombings in Boston, followed by the explosion in Texas, have hit me hard. The destruction, the lost lives, the injuries and shattered lives, haunt me. Even more, they remind me that in too many parts of the world people live like this every day. Most Americans don't have to notice. We're shocked and outraged when our security is violated, and we should be. Everyone deserves to be safe. But I think of Afghanistan and Iraq, where bombs continue to go off. I think of Chicago, where 500 people will die this year from guns. I think of women and girls in India, who face rape and assault just going to school.
We need a good shepherd.
I need one.
I need to hear your voice, Jesus, loud and clear.
I need to know where to go, how to follow.
I've been listening to Bobby McFerrin's version of the Twenty-Third Psalm. Go to Youtube and listen.
It's beautiful, but I can't even write "Glory be to . . "
Oh, see? I just did.
Glory to the Mother, and the Daughter, and the Holy of Holies.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
May you and your loved ones be safe this week.
May you have enough food and shelter, and clean water.
May you find work that does not degrade you, or the world.
May you hear the good shepherd, and follow rejoicing through the valley.
Amen.
I have to admit I'm dreading it. I love to preach, but not this week.
The bombings in Boston, followed by the explosion in Texas, have hit me hard. The destruction, the lost lives, the injuries and shattered lives, haunt me. Even more, they remind me that in too many parts of the world people live like this every day. Most Americans don't have to notice. We're shocked and outraged when our security is violated, and we should be. Everyone deserves to be safe. But I think of Afghanistan and Iraq, where bombs continue to go off. I think of Chicago, where 500 people will die this year from guns. I think of women and girls in India, who face rape and assault just going to school.
We need a good shepherd.
I need one.
I need to hear your voice, Jesus, loud and clear.
I need to know where to go, how to follow.
I've been listening to Bobby McFerrin's version of the Twenty-Third Psalm. Go to Youtube and listen.
It's beautiful, but I can't even write "Glory be to . . "
Oh, see? I just did.
Glory to the Mother, and the Daughter, and the Holy of Holies.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
May you and your loved ones be safe this week.
May you have enough food and shelter, and clean water.
May you find work that does not degrade you, or the world.
May you hear the good shepherd, and follow rejoicing through the valley.
Amen.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Women's Time
I'm excited to begin the Triduum here at the monastery, as a sister again, a companion of the women who stood by Jesus. These days feel to me to be special for women. We know they were at the events of the three days, sometimes serving the men, sometimes just standing by helplessly, sometimes getting ready to prepare Jesus for burial. We don't know the details, but I feel them every year as I work in the sacristy, or wash feet, or sit in a dark quiet place.
Last year I went to Israel. We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the supposed spot of Jesus' death and burial. At the entrance there is a large flat rectangular stone, imagined to be the stone on which his body was prepared. It is called the Stone of Anointing. Now, the stone has only been there 100 years or so. Its historical connection to the crucifixion is tenuous. But pilgrims have been pouring oil and scent on that stone for a century, and it now smells and feels like a place of anointing. I bent down and smelled it, and it captured me. All around me pilgrims poured olive oil and spices onto the stone, and soaked handkerchiefs and crosses in the oil. I soaked the only thing I had, a rosary I had bought on the trip. For a while, it smelled of the tomb. I still smell it, in my mind, when I hold that rosary.
For me that stone belongs to the women. That love, that outpouring, that oil and tears and scent, was the gift of the women as surely as any gifts brought to the manger by wise men. But these three days of love and pain and fear and hope belong to us all.
Have a blessed three days, rising to new life and love.
Last year I went to Israel. We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the supposed spot of Jesus' death and burial. At the entrance there is a large flat rectangular stone, imagined to be the stone on which his body was prepared. It is called the Stone of Anointing. Now, the stone has only been there 100 years or so. Its historical connection to the crucifixion is tenuous. But pilgrims have been pouring oil and scent on that stone for a century, and it now smells and feels like a place of anointing. I bent down and smelled it, and it captured me. All around me pilgrims poured olive oil and spices onto the stone, and soaked handkerchiefs and crosses in the oil. I soaked the only thing I had, a rosary I had bought on the trip. For a while, it smelled of the tomb. I still smell it, in my mind, when I hold that rosary.
For me that stone belongs to the women. That love, that outpouring, that oil and tears and scent, was the gift of the women as surely as any gifts brought to the manger by wise men. But these three days of love and pain and fear and hope belong to us all.
Have a blessed three days, rising to new life and love.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Blessed is the one who comes
Today I preached at the monastery. Here's my sermon.
Blessed Holy Week to you!
The story is told that St. Teresa of Avila, on one of her many journeys, was crossing a river when she was thrown by her horse into the river. Landing with a splash, she looked up to heaven and said to God, “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!”
It’s not just Teresa who encounters this problem. Jesus enters Jerusalem with blessing, coming in the name of God. Soon he will be dead at the hands of imperial power, abandoned and betrayed by many of those who today pronounce the blessing. No wonder God has so few friends.
But I don’t think God is the one with the problem. I think we have a problem. We have a scandal in our midst. Our faith is centered on one who is blessed, and the blessed one is crucified. What are we to make of that?
We can call it irony, but it’s not ironic. We can call it tragedy, but it’s much more than that. We can call it paradox, which is a nice version of contradiction. But all of those evaluations of this moment rest on a mistake. There’s no irony here, no tragedy, not even really a paradox. There’s simply blessing.
But what, exactly, does it mean to be blessed? Being blessed, like being God’s friend, is both less and more than it often seems to be.
When we hear the word “blessed” in the Bible, we are actually using one word for two distinct concepts. In the Beatitudes, we hear that the poor, the humble, the sorrowful are blessed. That’s a good word. In Greek it is makarios. It means to be happy, joyous. It’s good to hear Jesus tell us that things will not always be as they are, that we can turn around and rejoice, that we will be blessed.
But that’s not the kind of blessing that Jesus gets. When the crowds cry, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” the word Luke uses is eulogemenos, one receiving a blessing. The Greek in turn is translating the Hebrew barakh, which means to kneel, to receive a blessing.
Blessing, in this sense, does not make the blessed one happy. It makes them holy. It marks them off, it consecrates them. Our English word, “bless,” comes from the Old German word for spattering blood on the altar. To be blessed is to be a sacrifice.
Jesus was blessed, not as one who gets to have a quiet life with a wonderful family, but as bread and wine are blessed. Jesus was marked as God’s own, as a sign of God’s power, but not for his own enjoyment.
He really meant it. He did not come to do his own will, but that of God. He was blessed.
This is such a hard truth to grasp. Throughout our history we flee from this. We want to believe that virtue brings worldly success. that if we honor God we’ll get what we want. Like a good business deal.
We want the prosperity gospel, not only for the material goods it promises, but because it makes the world line up in an orderly way. It’s not just greed or self-interest that draws us to think like this. It’s just as much the desire for a world that makes sense. We want virtue to be rewarded and injustice to be punished. We need at least the hope of order and justice in the world.
But that’s not what blessing is about. If we honor God, we will indeed find joy and peace, but not in any simple way. If we honor God, we will more likely find ourselves in Gethsemane with Jesus, praying for the peace of the world.
Being blessed means walking into the chaos of the world. It means being a sign of God in the midst of a world that defies the power and love of God.
Being blessed in this sense is not a privilege of those of us who go into places of pain to serve others. Being blessed in this sense begins with those who are there, in the center of the pain. They are the signs of God, walking in the pitiful procession that leads to the cross. We, who the world considers more blessed than they, are in fact the spectators on the journey into Jerusalem. It is the poor, the homeless, the victims of rape and violence, the addicts, who walk in that procession. Jesus rides in on a donkey, not a Mercedes. Soon Jesus will walk back out, in even humbler fashion. And he will still be blessed.
We’ve each been blessed. We were blessed at our baptism, marked as Christ’s own. We may hope for blessings of peace and happiness, but they were not guaranteed in that blessing. We were dedicated to God’s service, like the vessels we will eat and drink from in a minute. We were given to be poured out, like the wheat and the wine. We were blessed. We are blessed.
Being blessed means walking with Jesus into the places he walked into. This week we will remember him in the temple, in the prison, and in the tomb. But remembering him in those places is not enough.
Today there are others who defy the Temple, the centers of religious power that turn toward serving themselves rather than God. We need to walk with them as they call us back to true worship and service.
There are people, faces of Christ, in prison and serving those in prison. We need to walk with them, and sit with them, in the black holes of despair and anger.
There are people on their way to death, victims of state violence and victims of private exploitation to the point of death. We need to walk with them, to protest their treatment, to lift the cross from their shoulders.
And there are people carrying less obvious, yet excruciating burdens, among us and within us. We need to walk with them too.
We need to do this because we have been blessed.
We need not fear this blessing. This blessing is good news. For God goes before us and with us, leading us into places we might rather avoid. God carries us into the darkest corners of the world, and the darkest corners of our hearts. But God goes with us, and gives us what we need to walk this road. We can even celebrate, as God carries us to joy and wonder beyond our wildest dreams. But we only get there by being blessed.
In the 8th century, Andrew of Crete wrote:
“It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ - “for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” - so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet.”
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Blessed Holy Week to you!
The story is told that St. Teresa of Avila, on one of her many journeys, was crossing a river when she was thrown by her horse into the river. Landing with a splash, she looked up to heaven and said to God, “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!”
It’s not just Teresa who encounters this problem. Jesus enters Jerusalem with blessing, coming in the name of God. Soon he will be dead at the hands of imperial power, abandoned and betrayed by many of those who today pronounce the blessing. No wonder God has so few friends.
But I don’t think God is the one with the problem. I think we have a problem. We have a scandal in our midst. Our faith is centered on one who is blessed, and the blessed one is crucified. What are we to make of that?
We can call it irony, but it’s not ironic. We can call it tragedy, but it’s much more than that. We can call it paradox, which is a nice version of contradiction. But all of those evaluations of this moment rest on a mistake. There’s no irony here, no tragedy, not even really a paradox. There’s simply blessing.
But what, exactly, does it mean to be blessed? Being blessed, like being God’s friend, is both less and more than it often seems to be.
When we hear the word “blessed” in the Bible, we are actually using one word for two distinct concepts. In the Beatitudes, we hear that the poor, the humble, the sorrowful are blessed. That’s a good word. In Greek it is makarios. It means to be happy, joyous. It’s good to hear Jesus tell us that things will not always be as they are, that we can turn around and rejoice, that we will be blessed.
But that’s not the kind of blessing that Jesus gets. When the crowds cry, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” the word Luke uses is eulogemenos, one receiving a blessing. The Greek in turn is translating the Hebrew barakh, which means to kneel, to receive a blessing.
Blessing, in this sense, does not make the blessed one happy. It makes them holy. It marks them off, it consecrates them. Our English word, “bless,” comes from the Old German word for spattering blood on the altar. To be blessed is to be a sacrifice.
Jesus was blessed, not as one who gets to have a quiet life with a wonderful family, but as bread and wine are blessed. Jesus was marked as God’s own, as a sign of God’s power, but not for his own enjoyment.
He really meant it. He did not come to do his own will, but that of God. He was blessed.
This is such a hard truth to grasp. Throughout our history we flee from this. We want to believe that virtue brings worldly success. that if we honor God we’ll get what we want. Like a good business deal.
We want the prosperity gospel, not only for the material goods it promises, but because it makes the world line up in an orderly way. It’s not just greed or self-interest that draws us to think like this. It’s just as much the desire for a world that makes sense. We want virtue to be rewarded and injustice to be punished. We need at least the hope of order and justice in the world.
But that’s not what blessing is about. If we honor God, we will indeed find joy and peace, but not in any simple way. If we honor God, we will more likely find ourselves in Gethsemane with Jesus, praying for the peace of the world.
Being blessed means walking into the chaos of the world. It means being a sign of God in the midst of a world that defies the power and love of God.
Being blessed in this sense is not a privilege of those of us who go into places of pain to serve others. Being blessed in this sense begins with those who are there, in the center of the pain. They are the signs of God, walking in the pitiful procession that leads to the cross. We, who the world considers more blessed than they, are in fact the spectators on the journey into Jerusalem. It is the poor, the homeless, the victims of rape and violence, the addicts, who walk in that procession. Jesus rides in on a donkey, not a Mercedes. Soon Jesus will walk back out, in even humbler fashion. And he will still be blessed.
We’ve each been blessed. We were blessed at our baptism, marked as Christ’s own. We may hope for blessings of peace and happiness, but they were not guaranteed in that blessing. We were dedicated to God’s service, like the vessels we will eat and drink from in a minute. We were given to be poured out, like the wheat and the wine. We were blessed. We are blessed.
Being blessed means walking with Jesus into the places he walked into. This week we will remember him in the temple, in the prison, and in the tomb. But remembering him in those places is not enough.
Today there are others who defy the Temple, the centers of religious power that turn toward serving themselves rather than God. We need to walk with them as they call us back to true worship and service.
There are people, faces of Christ, in prison and serving those in prison. We need to walk with them, and sit with them, in the black holes of despair and anger.
There are people on their way to death, victims of state violence and victims of private exploitation to the point of death. We need to walk with them, to protest their treatment, to lift the cross from their shoulders.
And there are people carrying less obvious, yet excruciating burdens, among us and within us. We need to walk with them too.
We need to do this because we have been blessed.
We need not fear this blessing. This blessing is good news. For God goes before us and with us, leading us into places we might rather avoid. God carries us into the darkest corners of the world, and the darkest corners of our hearts. But God goes with us, and gives us what we need to walk this road. We can even celebrate, as God carries us to joy and wonder beyond our wildest dreams. But we only get there by being blessed.
In the 8th century, Andrew of Crete wrote:
“It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ - “for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” - so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet.”
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Cat update - sigh
Over a month has gone by since Shadow had her meltdown. We've kept the two cats separate almost entirely since then. We thought we'd let them calm down. But in fact we're stuck. No progress.
Now, with spring here, Shadow is getting restless. She's used to being outside overnight from March through October, chasing things and running around. This year, because we live next to a big road, she's becoming a house cat. She's not happy. As soon as I open the bedroom door in the morning, she goes to the glass door and starts watching. She's getting whiny. She needs more exercise than I can give her with her flying skunk. (Yes, flying skunk - with hot pink fringe.)
She could be more active, more involved, if we could open more doors around here. But we're still in apartheid. So now we're trying again. We've been rubbing them each with a towel, then rubbing the other one with that scent. Phoebe seems OK with it, but Shadow hates that towel! She won't even lie on the one that smells like Phoebe.
We have the plug-in pheromone going - so far, no action.
We've heard that two adult females are the hardest combination to bring together. Hmmm. Hopefully that applies only to cats.
Pray for our cats. Pray for us.
And enjoy the crocuses!
Now, with spring here, Shadow is getting restless. She's used to being outside overnight from March through October, chasing things and running around. This year, because we live next to a big road, she's becoming a house cat. She's not happy. As soon as I open the bedroom door in the morning, she goes to the glass door and starts watching. She's getting whiny. She needs more exercise than I can give her with her flying skunk. (Yes, flying skunk - with hot pink fringe.)
She could be more active, more involved, if we could open more doors around here. But we're still in apartheid. So now we're trying again. We've been rubbing them each with a towel, then rubbing the other one with that scent. Phoebe seems OK with it, but Shadow hates that towel! She won't even lie on the one that smells like Phoebe.
We have the plug-in pheromone going - so far, no action.
We've heard that two adult females are the hardest combination to bring together. Hmmm. Hopefully that applies only to cats.
Pray for our cats. Pray for us.
And enjoy the crocuses!
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