4-30-18 - Love and Commandments

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Here are two things that do not go together: love and commandments! Since when is keeping commandments a sign of love? What happened to flowers and chocolate? Oh, it starts out okay; Jesus tells his followers, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” 

(This Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

That I get - the love which we have received is what we give to others; love is something we can abide in, hang out with. That sounds beautiful and comforting and profound and unconditional. But Jesus isn’t finished: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

I know those psalms that talk about how “the law of the Lord" is sweet, like honey, but I think of commandments as “shoulds” and love as “want to” and never the twain shall meet. This verse makes it sound as if God’s love is not unconditional after all, but highly contingent upon our ability to obey. Since I tend to prize unconditional love above all other theological concepts, and because I think efforts to obey are bound to end in failure, disappointment and self-condemnation, I react negatively to this word.

But let’s take a closer look. Jesus is not saying, “If you keep my commandments, I will keep loving you.” He says, “As you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” There is no change to the love in which we are invited to abide, only in our capacity for experiencing that love. Keeping Jesus’ commandments, he is saying, makes us better able to swim in the love of God flowing to and around us at all times. It puts us in the “head space” and “heart space” to receive – and give – the love of God.

Jesus best made visible God’s love for humanity. He lived it, taught it, demonstrated it, and finally died and rose again to complete it here on earth. He is saying that it was his fidelity to God’s commandments that made him able to manifest God’s love. Similarly, our fidelity to his commandments makes us able to show forth his love in this world. We need only recall times when we’ve been in the grip of attitudes or behaviors that were outside of God’s will for us to know how much our ability to love can become compromised.

Could it be that God’s commandments are not about our ability to “be good,” but intended rather to enable us to be Love? Perhaps I think of commandments as guilt-inducing rather than loving because trying to live into God’s commands without the power of God’s love at work in us is an uphill climb. With God’s love flowing through us, it becomes more like riding a bike with plenty of gears, so we can keep a steady pace no matter what the terrain.

Where are you experiencing a lot of love in your life, from God or other people, or from yourself toward others? Where is it a little choked off? Are there adjustments you can make to the way you are thinking, acting, loving, to become more Christ-like?

It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. We can’t fully live into God’s commands without God’s love in us, and we can’t fully abide in God’s love without living the way God commands us. The great news is that, as we increase in each area, the other increases too – the more we abide in God’s love, the easier it is to live God’s way, until we discover that living God’s way opens us to more love than we could ever imagine.

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4-27-18 - On the Vine

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

“Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
Context is everything. These words, to modern ears, can sound insufferably egomaniacal, pompous, even abusive. Spoken by Jesus, to his closest followers, shortly before he takes his leave of them forever? Loving truth about where their power for ministry comes from.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” 

If we are talking vines and branches, it’s clear: a branch cannot generate fruit if it is cut off from the vine. And a branch cut off from the vine, whether by pruning shears or by withering, is good for nothing. But what about when we’re talking people? Disciples? Can there be no good done in the world without its doers being connected to Jesus?

This passage does not address that question. Jesus is talking here to insiders, believers, disciples. He has been training them in the ways of the Realm of God, equipping them to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. THAT fruit, he says, is not possible apart from him. There might be all kinds of holy people, makers of peace, bringers of justice who have no discernible connection to God in Jesus Christ. But ministers of the Good News? We need to be connected to the Vine.

What kind of nutrients come through a vine to its branches and ultimately to the fruit they bear? I’m not a plant biologist, so only speculate generally. I imagine there are sugars and enzymes needed for growth, for warding off diseases, for the formation of fruit. As the vine harnesses nutrition from its roots in the soil, and the water it receives, and the chemicals unleashed by the sunshine, it passes along to the branches what they need to be as whole and life-giving as possible. And the only way the branch gets what it needs to be fruitful is through staying connected to the vine.

So let’s transfer the metaphor to us. Jesus says he is the Vine, we are the branches. He is rooted in the long tradition of God's activity since before time. He is himself the source of the Water of Life. He is glorified in the light of God; indeed he is the Light of the World. Through our connection to him - united with him in baptism, renewed in him in prayer and holy eucharist – we receive everything we need to exercise ministries of transformation.

And how do we stay connected? By spending time with him in prayer; by gathering with other branches regularly; through the Word, the sacraments; through the exercise of ministry in his Name – which means, letting his Spirit work amazing things through us. We can feel the difference between doing good work on our own strength, and how it feels when we're running on Holy Spirit wind. When we allow ourselves to be filled and "loved through," those nutrients come through to us from the Vine.

Branches are not responsible for the fruit they bear. We just need to be as connected as possible, and if the vine is healthy, the fruit will grow. Our Vine is Jesus – we can trust there will be wonderful fruit as we are faithful. Here endeth the metaphor!

(On Wednesday, I wrote about how the term "abiding" is not in use in our days. A quick Water Daily reader sent along this link to a clip from The Big Lebowski - the Dude abides!)

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4-26-18 - Fruit

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

In the northern hemisphere, we are coming into the season of fruit – beautiful, juicy, luscious, abundant fruit of every shape, size, color, taste. Fruit is one of God's greatest gifts.

And fruit is the one criterion for success as a Christ follower. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing... My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” 

And later in this long teaching, he says, “You did not choose me. I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (John 15:16).

What does it mean to bear fruit? It goes deeper than simply being productive. Productivity involves outcomes and measurable results, things you can tick off a task list. Fruitfulness obviously includes a product – the fruit – but fruit develops in different ways on varying timetables. And we don’t “produce” fruit – we grow it. Rather, we allow it to grow; we can't make it grow. We can only create the right circumstances for it to grow. And we can't hurry it. (Somebody tell tomato growers that...).

I love productivity – especially if I have produced things I can see: articles, songs, sermons, spreadsheets, newsletters. On a day with many pastoral appointments and meetings, I have trouble feeling I’ve “done” anything, because the outcomes aren’t visible and measurable. Jesus invites me to value fruitfulness more than productivity.

How can we assess fruitfulness in ministry? We look for changed lives. When we see people changing, healing, growing, turning God-ward, we are seeing good fruit. When we bring justice or peace or reconciliation to a community, we are seeing good fruit. When we experience greater joy and more love in our lives, we are seeing good fruit.

Where in your life do you feel the most fruitful? What branches seem barren, producing little?
What fruit do you feel is still forming in your life? Does it have the water, sun and nutrients it needs? How might you foster greater growth?

What fruit do you see, and would like to see in your community of faith? How might you help cultivate greater fruitfulness, more changed lives?

Fruit forms well when it is attached to the plant that nourishes it. Our fruitfulness in life, and as followers of Christ, flourishes as we allow God’s Spirit to flow through us, to form and ripen us and our ideas, to bring us to the fullness of who we are intended to be. Then we bring delight to others, just like a beautiful peach or a perfect strawberry.

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4-25-18 - Abiding

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

We don’t much use the word “abide” in the sense in which it is used in the Bible. I cannot think of a usage outside of church literature in which it appears. Which is a pity – it’s a good word! Much richer than its nearest contemporary equivalent, “hanging out with.”

I did no etymological research, but a Google search reminded me that we do use the word – in the sense of something we comply with, or can barely tolerate (“I will abide by the ruling,” “I can’t abide that color”). That's nothing like what it means in this week’s gospel passage. Abide means to dwell with over time. There must be a connection between “abide” and “bide,” as in, to bide one’s time. Abiding suggests resting with deeply, not rushing away. Oh! Maybe that’s why we don’t use it these days – we rush so much, and do so little “resting with deeply,” “ staying quietly with.”

Jesus used the term that our forebears translated as “abide” quite a bit, especially in these farewell remarks captured in John’s Gospel. He uses it as a verb and as an imperative:
“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”

This image conveys a powerful sense of connectedness. To abide as a fruit abides in the vine suggests that it both comes from and is connected to the vine, so connected it would take some force to part one from the other. This does not undermine distinction and independence, but emphasizes greater fruitfulness:
“Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

How do we abide with Jesus and let him abide in us? We hang out with him in prayer and conversation and praise and worship. We recover our awareness of how we are connected to him, despite the efforts of the world and its messages, and the pressures of our lives to shake us loose. It is easy to feel disconnected from God except in those times when we consciously return. How would it be to carry that felt connection around with us daily?

That can happen as we live into the second part – letting Jesus abide in us. We are promised that Jesus lives in us through baptism, a connection that is renewed at eucharist, through the Word, through prayer and service. Thus, one way we abide with him and he in us is to make more space for him. Don’t toss him in a back room, just stopping by to visit when you’re feeling sad or stressed. Give him a seat at the table, when you’re doing dishes, paying bills, going to sleep. Instead of relegating him to a few moments here and there, make some time to nurture your connection.

Some monastics have practiced a form of constant prayer called “hesychasm,” the prayer of the heart, which trains one to pray with each breath, in and out, so that practitioners pray without ceasing. Whether we adopt that practice, or set alerts on our phones, or set aside times and places to rest deeply with Jesus, he promises us a more fruitful life through that connection.

And we can be sure HE is abiding with us. Even when we’re not paying attention.

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4-24-18 - Pruning

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

I live in a beautiful house, with a large deck overlooking a river. Surrounding the deck are bushes, which seem not to have been pruned in ages. Trying to gain an unimpeded view of the water, I started to cut some straggly branches, and soon discovered that’s all there are. All the growth is on the outside edges because no one has pruned these bushes.

Pruning is a painful process. No one wants to cut into living things, or beautiful ones, though a gardener or farmer - or surgeon - will do so in order to allow a plant to become as healthy and fruitful as possible. Jesus said that even God is in the pruning business: 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

Jesus talks both about the cutting away of non-fruitful branches, and the cutting back of fruitful ones. Nothing seems to be exempt from God's pruning shears.

We prune plants to conserve their resources so that the fruitful parts receive maximum nutrients. The same is true in our lives. Not every aspect of our lives bears good fruit, and when we have too many branches we dissipate the focus and energy available to each one. We must undertake pruning processes, or allow God to work them within us.

Are there aspects to your life or work or relationships that no longer feel fruitful? Patterns of thinking or behaving or relating that are not life-giving? Make a list today of “branches” you might be willing to cut away, leave behind entirely. As you read through that list, where do you feel the greatest sense of loss or failure? Where the most relief? Pray through it with Jesus and/or discuss it with a spiritual adviser or friend. Then act on what you've discerned.

What areas of your life, work or relationships feel fruitful? How might you prune or refine your involvement in them to allow for even more growth?

There’s an old adage that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” (To which one wag responded, “The examined life is no picnic either!”) I suggest the same is true of an “unpruned life.” It is like an overgrown garden – hard to move around in, with a lack of differentiation and clarity, healthy growth often impeded by weeds and undergrowth.

Undergrowth! There’s a great term. That which is overgrown becomes undergrowth. If we want to see growth in our lives, not to mention our ministries, bring on the pruning.

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4-23-18 - The Long Goodbye

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If John’s Gospel is a reliable historical record (a question over which scholars have spilled much ink through the centuries…), the Last Supper must have lasted a Long Time. As John tells it, after the drama and rituals of washing feet, breaking bread and sharing wine, Jesus delivers himself of many Last Words. This discourse, which fills chapters 14-18 of the Fourth Gospel, is dense, elliptical, sometimes repetitive - and full of nuggets of teaching that theologians would later mine in developing core church doctrines like the Trinity, Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, and Heaven.

This account is not as a transcript. At best, it is a compilation of memories and themes, filtered through several witnesses some 40-50 years after the events being described, and reflecting movements and controversies in the early church. Yet I choose to believe Jesus said much of what is set down here, if not in these exact words, sequence, or occasion. At some point Jesus spoke to his followers about vines and branches and abiding in God. And these words still resonate for us:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

Jesus is about to take his leave of these beloved and frustrating disciples. He has said he is going to a place they cannot follow, but to which he is the way. He talks about pruning and fruitfulness, as he is about to become for us the branch cut away, despite the manifold fruit he had borne in just three years, reflected in thousands of lives renewed, loves restored, sins forgiven and infirmities healed.

But Jesus is not referring to himself in this moment. He is the true vine, he says, and God will remove every branch in him that bears no fruit. That means the branches to which Jesus has given life. That means his apostles. And that means us.

This week’s Gospel passage is not long, but it is thick with metaphor and meaning. Using the image of a vine and its branches, Jesus talks about how we are honed, and nurtured, and how to stay fruitful as servants and friends of God. Exploring this passage offers a good opportunity for some spiritual inventory. So today let’s start by thinking about ourselves as branches connected to that True Vine.

How connected do we feel? How much in the way of nutrients is making its way to us? 

How fruitful do we feel we are?

Jesus needed to be sure his closest followers understood some things while he was still with them in flesh, before the harrowing ordeals ahead. Hence the Long Goodbye. But for us, these words are a Big Hello, for our fruitfulness is ever before us. Let's receive them as such and leap into the exploration ahead.

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4-20-18 - Freely Offered

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We are doing the Alpha course at my church. Alpha is a 10-week introduction to Christian faith and practice, meeting weekly over dinner with a talk and discussion. The first week looks at “Who is Jesus?” The second we jump right into “Why Did Jesus Die?” There are many answers to such a question, depending on which of the four canonical gospels you’re reading and where you sit on the theological spectrum.

There are also no answers to so deep and unsettling a mystery. Did humans operating out of sin and evil kill Jesus? Did God have his own son killed? Was Jesus’ death due to politics, paranoia, personal feuds? Could it have been prevented? Was it simply the inevitable consequence of human choice, or a divine plan?

Perhaps a combination of all of these. Jesus predicted his arrest, death and resurrection often enough that it seems to have been a plan he was enacting. Yet that plan required human beings to make choices that could have gone in other ways. And any notion that Jesus was a passive victim of either human or divine operation is contested by these words attributed to Jesus as he talks about being the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

Laying things down, things that we call life, is a constant effort in the life of a Christ-follower. Jesus demonstrated a self-giving love that offered everything, including his life. Where are we called to sacrifice our comfort or convenience or resources so someone else might have more room to live?

I was in a conversation yesterday about racial reconciliation, and someone said it’s not enough for those of us born into privilege to say we’re sorry for the historic and current injustice that limits access to the wealth and security we enjoy; we may actually need to get up and out of the chair, to make space for someone who hasn’t had our advantages. That’s a way of laying down of our lives at a high level. There are also smaller scale choices we can make – to lay down our insistence on being right, or knowing better, or having more. What comes to mind for you?

It is our privilege to make a choice to yield our privilege. Like Jesus, we have power to lay down our lives and to take them up again. In fact, when we lay them down, we truly find a richer life to take up. As we lay down those things that we cling to so tightly, we make room for God’s life to expand in us. As we give our life away, we find ourselves in that abundant life Jesus promised.

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4-19-18 - Other Sheep

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Many sayings of Jesus have inspired Christian evangelism through the ages – the Great Commission, references in parables to an eternity in hellfire for those who do not accept God's invitation of salvation. One of the sweeter imperatives to sharing the Good News comes in his somewhat cryptic remark about “other sheep”:

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

In its early years, the nascent church struggled with issues of inclusion and identity. For whom was Jesus’ message intended? How far were they to stretch the boundaries of belonging? Jesus’ original followers were Jews, and a few times he names the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” as the focus of his mission. Yet the gospels cite several occasions when he ministered to Gentiles – non-Jews, Romans and Greeks, as well as Samaritans. And after his resurrection and ascension, the apostles found themselves confronted with Gentile converts to the Jesus movement, and clear guidance from the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ message and ministry were for all people, for all time. (Read the book of Acts!)

This line about “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” seems to support that view, though Jesus might also have meant people outside the norms of acceptability, those lepers and harlots and bruised and blemished folk that seemed so drawn to him. Whatever groups he was referring to, at the very least he implies that there are insiders and outsiders – and that those outside need to be invited in.

One of the most dangerous descriptors for church communities is, ironically, “family.” A congregation that refers to itself as “just one happy family” is often less likely to grow. Why? Because the group identity is so strong, it presents a barrier to those who might want to join. Visitors may be greeted warmly and offered hospitality, but are treated as just that, visitors, not part of the family.

As followers of Christ we are to be always thinking of the sheep that are not in the fold, whom Jesus might want us to invite in. And where will we be most apt to encounter these sheep? Out in the pastures, not in the sheepfold. The more we get ourselves out of our folds into the pastures, the better positioned we will be to come into relationship with others, relationships in which we can naturally talk about our spiritual selves and invite them to share theirs.

What is a "pasture" you might hang out in, getting to know other sheep? How might you introduce them to our Shepherd, until they can come to know his voice for themselves?

Then the next time we come back to the sheepfold – which we need to do, regularly, for rest and refreshment – those other sheep just might follow us Home.

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4-18-18 - To Be Known

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In his conversation about shepherding, Jesus highlights an important quality of a “Good Shepherd” – she knows her sheep. In contrast to a hired hand, who might only know the number of sheep he’s to keep track of, the good shepherd knows the sheep individually, knows what each looks like, its characteristics, which ones follow well, which ones are inclined to wander, which ones are more vulnerable.

Jesus doesn’t discuss this quality in the abstract; he makes it personal: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."  

Being known – it is perhaps the richest, most intimate experience a person can have. (Is that why ancient Hebrew texts use the verb “know” or “knew” for sexual encounters?) To be known means we have been seen, and studied; been deemed worthy of time and attention. The one who knows us has weighed our strengths and shortcomings and decided in our favor. Being known does not imply being loved, but one often follows the other (and not always in the same order).

That we are known individually by the God who made us, who doesn’t just lump us all together as “humankind” but treasures the particularity and specificity of each one of us, is a radical reality. Yes, God cares about communities, and yes, an over-emphasis on “just me and my Jesus” can imperil the integrity of our spiritual life. Yet the personal, relational dimension to Christian faith is undeniably present in the bible, and life-changing when we acknowledge it. As intimately as the Father and the Son know each other – they who are distinct yet One – that’s how closely Jesus knows us, our dreams and longings, our disappointments and losses, our passions and foibles, those shadow parts of ourselves we loathe, as well as what we treasure. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, and loves us without reservation or condition.

The question is: Will we let him in? Will we open ourselves to this one who already knows us? 

Will we take the time to get to know this Good Shepherd?

“I know my own and my own know me” begs an interesting question: Maybe it’s not whether or not Jesus is the Good Shepherd, but whether we consider ourselves his sheep.
The choice is always ours – his offer of relationship is always extended. Maybe we should come to know him as he already knows us.

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4-17-18 - The Hired Hand

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In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd – and he makes a distinction between a shepherd and a hired hand:

The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

Given the increasing hostile encounters recorded in John’s Gospel between Jesus and the temple leadership, we can surmise that Jesus is likening the religious leaders of the Jewish community of his day to mere “hired hands,” not reliable guardians of the people for whom they are to care. They seem too preoccupied with their rules and their compensation. They fall away at the hint of danger (is he referring to their careful dance of collaboration with the Roman occupiers?), and fail to provide the spiritual nurture and care they should.

Jesus seems to say that only one who owns the sheep can appreciate their value enough to tend them properly. This is unsettling for me as a religious “professional” – after all, I am a “hired hand. It’s an important principle to me that clergy not feel ownership over their congregants, but rather see themselves as stewards on behalf of the God to whom all things belong, to tend, feed and nurture spiritual growth. Does the fact that I am financially compensated mitigate my shepherding?

Jesus might have gone further in his definitions, to distinguish between good hired hands and bad ones. A hired hand who is deeply committed to the Shepherd, whose values align with the one who owns the sheep, may be as fierce in protecting them from harm and as dedicated to keeping the flock together and thriving as the Shepherd himself. Such a hired hand must remain in close touch with the Shepherd on whose behalf she tends the sheep, to receive instructions about where to pasture, where to find the strays, when to lead the flock into the fold.

I strive to be such a hired hand. I hope congregations can hold their pastors to high standards of integrity and spiritual depth. If ever you wonder why we generally pray for clergy in Sunday services, this is one reason – so they can balance being in tune with the Shepherd while attuned to the wellbeing of the sheep. If your pastor is falling short, tell her. If he is nurturing the flock well, tell him.

And pay attention to what flocks you may be called to tend as a hand working for the Good Shepherd himself. He needs a lot of good hired hands, and they don't all have to be clergy…

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4-16-18 - The Good Shepherd

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Every year on the fourth Sunday of Easter our lectionary delivers up a section of Jesus’ “Good Shepherd” discourse from the Gospel of John. This set of teachings is sandwiched between Jesus’ healing of a man blind from birth (John 9), which sharpened the ire of the religious authorities with whom he’d already been tussling, and his raising of Lazarus (John 11), which caused those leaders to seek his execution. So this Good Shepherd passage is far from cuddly or comforting – it crackles with the growing danger in which Jesus finds himself, speaking of death and sacrifice, of negligent shepherds and thieves.

Before we look at all that, though, let’s note how subversive it was for Jesus to compare himself to a shepherd in the first place. The impact of this image may be lost on us, as we tend to think of shepherds as earthy, pan-pipe playing rustics tending the land and their cute little flocks. In Jesus’ time, though, shepherds were considered crude and base ruffians, unkempt, unwashed, often dishonest and generally suspect. That’s why our Christmas story of angels appearing to shepherds in their fields is so astonishing – how could such low-lifes would be the first to hear of Christ’s birth?

Yet, as we know, Jesus made a practice of consorting with people considered by “respectable” folk to be the dregs of society. He was often in trouble for dining with tax collectors and prostitutes, honoring lepers and the ritually impure with his company and healing. Here he claims a demeaned profession as his own. To say “I am the good shepherd” is to assert that there can be such a thing as a good shepherd. In explaining what distinguishes a good shepherd from a bad one, he manages once more to skewer the ruling elite.

There is yet a deeper level of affront to those leaders in this statement: Jesus’ use of “I am” in making this claim. This could not but echo for his hearers the name God gives when Moses demands his name: “I am that I am,” a statement of pure being. Each of the “I am” sayings recorded in John’s Gospel begins in Greek with “Ego eimi…” However, the “I” is implied in the word “eimi,” or “am.” Putting “ego” before it is redundant, rendering it “I I am” – thus amplifying the “I am” so that the comparison to God’s name is inescapable.

In these few words, Jesus manages to offend the powerful on several levels, and to signal to those on the margins of society the Good News of what God is up to. When he says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” he redeems the role of shepherd and claims it for himself. And he frames in advance his suffering and death as a redemptive sacrifice, alerting his hearers that this Good Shepherd will be called upon to lay down his life for the sheep he loves.

This Shepherd of ours is a fierce and vigilant warrior – and he is still on watch over us, leading us out into good pasture, and in to the safety of the fold, guarding us from forces of evil that would prey on us or try to lead us astray. We still have the freedom to wander, but as we choose to stay near, what joy and power will be ours.

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4-13-18 - Proclaiming Forgiveness

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If Jesus’ words to his gathered disciples on the evening of the day of resurrection are to be attended, his assurances of peace came with a charge: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.

…and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Some people resist a focus on repentance and forgiveness – too much cultural guilt associated with the idea of sin. So that may not be where we begin our proclamation. But it’s not hard to get there once the conversation is started. People in recovery from addiction understand innately the need to repent; others of us need only look at our behavior in relationships to quickly arrive at the same understanding. To comprehend that we are capable of hurting ourselves and others, AND to grasp that a remedy has been provided, is freedom indeed. That is a huge gift we have to share.

The promise of life in Christ goes way beyond a focus on repentance to healing and wholeness in every sphere. The balancing act we maintain as witnesses to this source of healing is to keep repentance in the picture while making room for the rest of the story of our of life in Christ.

Can you think of a time when you felt set free by the promise of forgiveness, whether that came from a person or from God? Can you imagine leading another person to that place of relief and freedom? Today, you might reflect on those moments of connection in your life, and then think about who you might be called to bear witness with.

The proclamation Jesus commanded began in Jerusalem on Easter night. A few weeks later, it began to spread around the region and then to the ends of the earth. If we bear witness to freedom in God’s love, it will continue to spread until everyone has been drawn into Christ’s saving embrace. Then there will be no need for repentance.

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4-12-18 - Interpretation

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Yesterday I wrote about how challenging it can be to read and glean meaning from the Bible. That should not surprise us – what we call “the Bible,” as though it were one document, is in fact 66 different pieces of literature of many different types – sagas, histories, novelettes, law codes, poetry, prophetic utterance, apocalyptic vision, drama, correspondence, treatise, authored by hundreds of people over hundreds of years, often encompassing oral traditions dating back thousands of years… How can anyone glean meaning from that?

We cannot read the Bible without interpreting it. Even as we open it, we encounter the interpretations of those who first wrote down the oral stories, those who selected and shaped the writings, those who decided which writings had authority for the religious community, and finally the translators, with their own theological lenses, who must choose words among different options, and where to place the periods and commas when the original languages lack punctuation. And we bring to the reading of scripture our own ideas, histories, traditions, mood and life circumstances on any given day we choose to open that book.

Scripture is never fixed in meaning. It is always being interpreted and re-interpreted – and according to the Gospel writers, Jesus was not shy about telling his followers how they should understand it:
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

The conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the way the prophets anticipated the Messiah foretold the events of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, was introduced early into the Christian communities’ self-understanding. While others can read the prophets, especially the “suffering servant” sections of Isaiah, and come away with different interpretations (for Jews, of course, these prophecies were most definitely not fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth), Christ-followers read the scriptures through the views expressed in the writings of the New Testament.

This interpretation offered by Jesus has an ongoing life. It does more than look back – it lays out the community’s mission going forward: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. Thus, the belief that in Christ the long arc of God’s plan of salvation was revealed, matters to Christ followers today as it did to the original disciples. Proclaiming that Jesus was the Anointed One foretold by the prophets, whose death effected forgiveness for all humanity, is something that offers life. And it is our business to offer life in Jesus’ name.

It is fashionable in some Christian circles to de-emphasize belief, and focus more on spiritual practice, to suggest that Christian life is less about truth claims and more about how we access the Holy. While spiritual practice is where we live, we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Our spiritual practice and our ministry grows out of our conviction that Christ was who he said he was.

For me, his interpretation, albeit conveyed through the fallible conduits of gospel writers, scribes, editors and translators, overrides all others. This risen Christ is the Truth. I want to be about the mission of offering life in his name.

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4-11-18 - Minds Opened

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Scripture is hard to understand. We attach great import, meaning, even authority to these words set down thousands of years ago, which were invested with import, meaning and authority by the communities who preserved them. Wildly diverse in literary style, theological understanding, point of view – yet all of it is regarded as the Spirit-inspired Word of God. And so often it baffles, bores, or even offends us.

Not for nothing does the Book of Common Prayer contain a collect for the reading of Scripture:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ…

Should grappling with Holy Writ be so much work? Turns out this is yet another aspect of the Christian life we are not to attempt on our own steam. That’s what Jesus’ disciples found out on Easter Sunday, not once but twice, when he explained how the hopes and songs and prophecies of the Hebrew Bible were fulfilled in his life, death and new life:

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

“Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Ah! That’s how it’s done – Jesus opens our minds! That’s also how the two on the road to Emmaus described their conversation with Jesus: They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

There is a wealth of love and wisdom and beauty to be mined in the pages of the Bible, and like mines that produce precious gems, it doesn’t always yield its riches easily. We need tools and some sweat, and the help of others, to interpret these ancient words for ourselves – in the way Philip asked the Ethiopian official reading Isaiah if he understood what he was reading, and he replied, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” (Acts 8:26-40)

There are many ways to try to comprehend the words and stories and teachings of the Bible, tools and techniques and forms of analysis to bring to bear – literary, linguistic, textual, symbolic. It definitely helps to read and study it with other people, to share perceptions from different angles and ranges of experience. Perhaps the most important tool, though, and often the most neglected, is to ask Jesus to open our minds to understand what we’re reading.

We can pray before we open up the Bible, “Okay, Jesus, you know my mind and its ways. Open it to your truth. Show me your love in these words.” And then open the book!

I believe his desire is that these words and stories and people and songs have life for us as they have for all the generations before us. He has opened minds before; he can open ours as we say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

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4-10-18 - No Bones About It

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Who could blame those poor disciples for thinking they were witnessing an apparition? Who of us has the context to correctly interpret data like someone who's died suddenly materializing in a room! Maybe, on this side of Star Trek, we can imagine it. Not so Jesus’ disciples: 

They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

The early church and the gospel writers had a lot of misinformation from critics to overcome, much of it centered on issues of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Many found it unthinkable that a spiritual master or holy person would be put to death, especially in such a gruesome and humiliating way as crucifixion. Some argued Jesus must have been merely human. Others claimed that if Jesus was divine, he must only have appeared to die, not actually done so.

And rising from the dead? We find rumors and conspiracy theories in the very pages of the New Testament. Jesus wasn’t really dead. The body was stolen and hidden away. Someone who looked like him was making these appearances (someone so committed to this deception they had wounds in their hands, feet and side?) And the least far-fetched theory – that Jesus’ ghost was about on the earth.

As Luke tells it, Jesus is swift to dispel that notion:  He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Here was unassailable proof for those who would be called to offer testimony to Jesus' resurrection life. “A ghost does not have flesh and bones.”

A ghost does not eat, either – which Jesus did next:  

While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Someone who’s been to hell and back, literally, deserves a little better than broiled fish, but that’s not the point. What counts is that Jesus’ resurrection body looked and acted a lot like his pre-resurrection body. And in other ways, not at all.

What difference does this make for us? It matters that we proclaim a Lord who rose from the dead, not a ghost, not a zombie. We proclaim a Lord thoroughly, thrillingly alive.

There are those who traffic in the spirits of people who have died; that realm seems undeniably real. And Christians are explicitly told not to put our spiritual energy into that realm, or to open our spirits to it. We worship the Risen Christ whose Holy Spirit moves within us, inspires us, comforts us, and leads us into ministry in which others are transformed. As the angel said to a women at the tomb on Easter morning, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen!"

Deny the resurrection if you will, but don’t claim the risen Jesus was “just a ghost.” He was and is the Lord of heaven and earth. Let's make no bones about that.

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4-9-18 - Everywhere At Once

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Imagine saying goodbye to someone in one town, and then finding them back home when you return. And knowing you did not pass them on the road. “How did you get here?”

The disciples whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaus (a story Luke tells just before this week’s passage begins) didn’t recognize him when he walked with them. But in Emmaus, they prevailed upon him to dine with them – and the moment they realized who he was, he vanished from sight. Then they hightailed it seven miles back to Jerusalem so they could tell their brethren what had happened:

They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Easter Sunday may be two weeks back, but in church-land we’re still exploring the events of that day. This week we revisit the scene when Jesus showed up in the upper room Easter night, but now we get Luke’s version, which picks up as the two from Emmaus arrive back in Jerusalem and compare notes with the ones in the Upper Room. Imagine the excitement those early encounters with the Risen Jesus occasioned in his followers. In that one day he’d appeared to Mary, to Peter, to a few other disciples, to Cleopas and the other on the road, like teasers for the big event. And now, Bam – here he is in Jerusalem!

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

"How did you get here?" That’s a question we will ask more, the better we get at discerning when Jesus is with us. We might feel his presence at church on a Sunday, and then be surprised to find him waiting at our kitchen table at home. Or we might experience him with us as we visit someone in a hospital, and find out that at the same time he was comforting another friend in prayer.

One gift of resurrection bodies, it seems, Is the ability to bi-locoate. No longer bound to human flesh and space and time, Jesus could materialize wherever and whenever he wanted. And guess what? He still can, because now he has the Holy Spirit and us to make him known. Flesh and Spirit – that is how Jesus’ presence is still mediated to the world. As we train our inward eyes to discern the presence of Christ, we also want to be conscious about when and where we’re called to make known that presence, to allow Christ to work through us.

I don’t know about you; I’m always surprised when I realize Jesus has shown up in me for someone else, though he said he would. That’s how he can be everywhere, wherever there are faithful followers willing to bear his Spirit to the people around them. We are Christ’s resurrection body now! And if we don’t know what to say, we can always start with the words Jesus used: “Peace be with you.”

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4-6-18 - Believing for Life

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There was no rhyme or rhythm to Jesus’ resurrection appearances; it seems he just kept popping up among his followers, like he was living out the song, “I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places…” And maybe there were many that were not recorded in the Gospels. John implies as much, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.”

One that was “written in John’s book” occurred a week after his first appearance to his disciples:

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Jesus would be referring to us, who have to believe without benefit of Jesus in the flesh. Some people find that a hurdle too far. Why bother believing if we can’t have any proof? But what constitutes proof? In a court of law, the sworn testimony of witnesses counts as proof. That’s in part why the Gospel writers labored to set down what they knew of Jesus’ life and ministry. As John says, “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

Given the testimony of so many billions of Christ-followers throughout the ages, as well as evidence of transformation readily available to us, we have enough to support our heart-belief that Jesus was indeed the divine Son of God, and that he did indeed rise from the dead. But so often we let other evidence, the sad record of man’s cruelty to his fellow inhabitants of this planet, and our shameless disregard for the just allocation of resources, count for more than the “case for the defense.” And when we do that, we close off avenues of life for ourselves and others.

John suggests that there is a pay-off for believing, even when the evidence seems stacked against us: we receive life through believing in the power in the name of Jesus Christ. The spiritual practice of faith, i.e., believing in what we cannot see, increases our capacity to experience God, and to facilitate that experience for others. We can see Jesus in people, feel him in prayer, encounter him in worship.

Where did you last encounter Jesus? Was it in some ministry or conversation? In something beautiful or deeply moving? In a question or an answer? One way we can exercise our “believing” muscles is to make a note at the end of each day one way we bumped into the Risen Christ. And when we tell each other, we all build up our faith muscles.

As that old song goes,“I'll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.”

As we truly learn to discern Jesus wherever we find him, and believe, we will find ourselves living more fully and deeply the Life he died and rose to make possible for us.

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4-5-18 - Unless I See

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Nobody wants to miss a big event. Like when you’re in line for hot dogs at the stadium and you hear the crowd go wild at a homer with the bases loaded. That you didn’t see.
Or you leave a party just before the A-List stars show up (happens to me all the time… not you?)

Perhaps the biggest “miss” in human history was Thomas’, who ducked out for a smoke or some errand, and missed the risen Lord of heaven and earth suddenly present for supper with his bereaved and confused disciples! And despite the fact that they all told him the same story – “Jesus was here! He really was!,” Thomas refused to buy it.

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Did he think they were prey to a shared hallucination borne of wishful thinking? Were his credulity muscles worn out by the roller-coaster of the past few days? Or is it that Thomas, always a fast decider, quickly evaluated the data available to him and deemed it insufficient?

Is Thomas the patron saint of doubters? Or is he the patron saint of “trust but verify?” There was nothing lacking in Thomas’ faith, nor his courage. He was quick to follow Jesus into situations of danger if called for. But for some reason, despite having witnessed the raising of Lazarus, he found it too far a stretch to believe on faith alone that Jesus was risen from the dead. He wanted to see, he wanted to touch.

He is not alone. Do you know people who are drawn to the Jesus story, drawn to the life of the church, even inclined to believe – if only they could see some proof? Some people are wired that way, others formed that way by past experiences or disappointments. As this story continues, Jesus indulges Thomas’ desire to see with his physical eyes – and commends those who are able to believe on faith-sight alone.

For us, faith-sight is all we have. After the Ascension, nobody got to see Jesus’ resurrection body or touch his wounds in this world. (For a great song about the next, here is Gillian Welch’s “By the Mark.”) Yet God does allow us to “see” the reality of God-Life around us. We might use the same criteria that Jesus did when John’s disciples asked if really was the Anointed One they’d been expecting. “Go and tell John what you see,” he replied,“The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Luke 7:22).

We can see – and experience – amazing healing, transforming love, injustice overcome, chains of addiction and destructive patterns broken.Some Christian communities even witness the (recently) dead raised. One message Easter shouts to us is “Nothing is impossible with God!” The more we believe and live out that truth, the more evidence we perceive.

Christ is visible now through us, his body in the world. His wounds are visible in ours, and as our wounds become healed ones, as his were, healing can flow through them to others. Then everyone can see and touch and believe.

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4-4-18 - Sent With Peace

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When Jesus showed up in a locked room with his disciples on Easter evening, he gave them more than a good fright. He gave them his peace, and he gave them a mission. And then he gave them the only resource they would need on that mission, his Holy Spirit.

When it was evening on that day... Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

That peace of Christ has been passed along, person to person, generation to generation, all the way from that room on Easter night to us. It is peace that “defies understanding,” that comes to us in the most unpeaceful circumstances. It is peace that can help us move through the hardest of times, so that others remark on our serenity. It is that peace we share in our Eucharistic worship.

That peace of Christ comes with a mission. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” Jesus said. Jesus’ statement may be general, but the actual sending is always to a specific place and people. Where are we sent? Wherever we feel the Spirit of God beckoning, enlivening us, getting our attention. Wherever we sense the Spirit of Christ already at work. We don’t have to start things. We just come along and participate in what God is already doing. What freedom and joy that can be.

When we think of “mission” as something we are supposed to discern, prepare, and go out and “do,” it can feel daunting. I think that’s why many Christians think it’s a big hurdle and stay in their pews. We think we’re supposed to be on top of it, ready, equipped, holy, have all the answers.

Wrong! The only thing we need to be is willing to do is let the Holy Spirit work through us. The minute Jesus told his followers they were sent on a mission like his, "...he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

It’s not a light thing to receive the Holy Spirit, but neither need it be heavy. The Spirit is the fuel that powers us when we’re about the Mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness. I think that’s what we’d hear from Martin Luther King, Jr., murdered fifty years ago today.

Where do you feel sent? To whom? Do you have a nagging desire to address some need or injustice? Are you excited about certain kinds of ministry? That’s how you’ll know the who and the when and the what and the where of it.

And do you feel you are carrying the Peace of Christ? Have you claimed the gift of Holy Spirit passed along to you?

I’m glad we share Christ’s peace with each other in worship by ways other than breathing upon each other; that could get a little gross. Any way it comes, though, we can be sure we have received the Spirit with Christ's peace.

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4-3-18 - April Fools

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I wonder how often Easter has fallen on April Fools Day? There can hardly be a better April Fools twist than the Resurrection. And it kept happening to Jesus’ friends and followers, that Easter day and in the weeks to come. Jesus just kept showing up in places he would never be expected – often unrecognized. They fell for it every time.

On the second Sunday of Easter (Easter being so big a mystery, we take seven weeks to explore it each year), we eavesdrop on one of these unexpected appearances by Jesus. He shows up in the very room where the disciples last broke bread with him the previous Thursday – what must have seemed a hundred years earlier. So much had happened since that Passover meal; Jesus’ arrest, his sham trials, mocking and torture, execution. They’d endured all the shock and sorrow and fear that they’d be next, as his followers.

And then another shock in finding his tomb empty – with several indicators that this was not a case of body snatching, but that the very laws of death and life had been overturned. And then – reports. More reports. A sighting in the garden. A sighting in Galilee. What must they have been feeling?

And now he appears among them, just materializing, for he did not come through the locked doors or windows: 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

Peace would be the last thing I can imagine anyone in that room feeling. Yet Jesus is suddenly there among them, inviting them to the impossible: “Peace be with you.” When Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” it is more than a suggestion – it is a declarative action, one that accomplishes what it proposes. They were at peace. They must have been, for John tells us, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

What word best describes your circumstances these days? 

Happiness? Turmoil? Stress? Love? Joy? Anxiety?

Can you imagine Jesus showing up in the middle of those circumstances? In the middle of your life, uninvited and yet very much there? Can you hear him say to your spirit, “Peace be with you?” And receive it as a declarative action with power to accomplish what it purposes? That is what the Word of God always does.

What happens to your circumstances when you are at peace within them?

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