4-30-19 - God On the Sidelines

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Simon Peter was a professional fisherman before Jesus came along and called him from his nets. He knew his way around a boat, a net, a lake, a school of fish. He knew how to do this – except tonight, nothing. All night, no fish. And then some yahoo on the shore tries to tell him how do to it.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.

I can imagine the language in that boat at this suggestion. “We’ve cast the nets on every *&@#%* side of the boat! Who is this guy?” And then perhaps more colorful language yet, as their nets inexplicably become so full they could hardly move the boat. Many of us have areas of our lives in which we don’t think we need God’s assistance. I often hear people say, “I don’t need to bother God with that!” or “We’re not at the point of needing prayer yet…” as though we're to deploy the “big guns” only as a last resort.

But God doesn’t want to be on the sidelines of our lives – God wants to be right smack dab in the middle of our work, our rest, our joys, frustrations, questions, convictions. Indeed, God wants to be working with us, and through us. And could it be that the One who made all universes knows a thing or two about teaching, medicine, tax preparation, fundraising, marketing, finance, law, or whatever it is we do for a living? What if we invited God’s presence at regular intervals in our work days?

For that matter, the Holy Spirit can also help us in our relationships, our stresses, our habits. And – surprise! – God can help us in our churches and ministries. We don’t have to have prayer and worship on one side, and the “work of the church” on the other. It’s all of a piece. It’s all holy work, as we allow the Holy Spirit into it.

What is most frustrating to you in your life right now? Where do you feel stuck, jammed, not moving, not growing, in the dark, out to sea? Could it be that Jesus is nearby? Might he have a word for you? Have you asked his guidance? That can be scary – what if he doesn’t answer? So ask again.

Jesus said something about wanting us to be fruitful, so I’m guessing he will have a word to guide us. Maybe he’s already speaking it through someone we don’t want to listen to – which might include our own deepest selves.

What if he’s already given us the answer? What “expertise” do we need to let go of in order to hear it?

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4-29-19 - No Going Back

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

This week we get to explore the most fun of all of Jesus’ recorded resurrection appearances – his beach-side fishing lesson and breakfast fish-fry. It starts out low-key – Peter decides to go fishing, and six of his fellow disciples join him. (Two unnamed… I don't why the evangelist John, who later tells us exactly how many fish were in the nets, couldn’t be bothered to identify those two...)

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Why did Simon Peter decide to go fishing? Let’s review the tape: Jesus has risen from the dead. He has appeared at least twice in the locked room where the disciples are holed up. He has spoken peace to them, breathed the Spirit upon them and commissioned them to bring forgiveness and release to the world. Only, they haven’t gone. He did all that on his first visit, and a week later they are still in the same room. He has also appeared to a few on the road to Emmaus, and in Galilee, and a few other times not spelled out in the gospels. But no one seems to know what to do next.

From what we know of Peter, he did not do well with inaction. He is a man of strength and impulse. Thomas, too, is shown in the story of Lazarus to be action-oriented and brave. Yet they don’t seem to know how to move forward in the climate in which they find themselves. Jesus is risen; that’s incomprehensible and wonderful, all at once. It also increases the risk – the authorities who executed Jesus might well want to stamp out his following. It’s not safe outside, yet they can’t stay in that room forever.

So Peter and his buddies go back to what they know. At least they can get out of Jerusalem, get out on the water they know and love, maybe even make a few bucks if they get a good catch. But now they can’t catch a damn thing. Jesus had promised to make them fishers of men, and they don’t seem to know how to catch fish anymore!

Have you ever tried going back to an old pastime, habit, relationship, milieu when things feel stagnant or blocked? It never works. The pull of the familiar is strong, but we worship the One who said, “I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5) The movement of God is always forward, not back. Yes, sometimes we need to get out of the locked rooms of our fear and distress, but before we go back to the last place we felt comfortable, it is good to ask God, “Where are you inviting me to join you next?” We can look around to see where we believe God is at work, doing the things we know God does – healing, feeding, restoring, renewing, reconciling – and join God there. We can discern where our energy seems to rise, where we feel the winds of the Spirit blowing us.

Peter and his friends thought they were killing time, waiting for God to summon them. Little did they know that God was right there, inviting them to see the familiar in a whole new light. God is always up to something new – what is God up to where you hang out?

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4-26-19 - By His Wounds

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Many things distinguished Jesus in his earthly life – his rhetoric and wit, his way with a story, his compassion, his spiritual power. But in his resurrection body, his most distinctive attribute seems to have been the wounds on his hands, feet and side – healed, but still visible. They made him recognizable (as Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings sing in "By the Marks"). Such wounds were not unique, but their being healed in three days was. Jesus’ were still open – he invited Thomas to touch – but they were clean and healed.

The church has always made much of the wounds of Jesus, in part because the gospel writers did. And one reason they did was this prophecy in Isaiah, a significant foundation for the theology that salvation came through Jesus’ crucifixion: 
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his wounds we are healed.”

The idea that one can be healed by the wounds of another seems odd – how can wounded-ness yield healing? Yet this idea roots a profound truth about life in Christ: just as his healed wounds showed that he had transcended death, so our healed wounds are evidence of a journey of healing, one we can share with others once we’ve been through it.

Jesus healed our sin-sickness by taking it upon himself on the cross, and to the grave, dead and buried. As he emerged from wherever he was during that night and day and night before Easter morning, he rose a new man, free from the sin and shame he’d borne on the cross. In that journey, he made our healing possible. By his wounds, we are healed.

And by our healed wounds, others can find healing. Survivors of particular diseases or traumas often bear special ministry to others who suffer as they did. People who have emerged from depression or other mental illnesses often have special gifts for others walking in darkness. The recovery community runs on this principle – as people get sober and gain the strength and support and tools to clean up the messes around them in their lives, they become sources of strength and healing for newcomers to that process. Indeed, many recovering addicts find this service to others integral to staying sober and clean themselves.

What healed wounds in your life can be sources of healing for others? Have you experienced people seeking your help in some area you’ve already traveled? Are you willing to share your journey into wholeness, expose your wounds?

What wounds remain unhealed in your heart, or body, or spirit? Invite the love and power that flow from Jesus into those places, and begin to see yourself as healed. Or seek another believer to pray with you and for you. Every church should have an active ministry of healing for members and outsiders alike to draw upon.

Jesus invites us to come and put our hands in the marks of the nails, and know the healing power that made him whole. We can do that in prayer, and in action. By his wounds, we are healed.

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4-25-19 - Life Through Believing

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Where do you get life? I don’t mean conception and birth, I mean what quickens your pulse day to day? What causes energy to rise in you, excitement to tinge your voice? What – or who – could you talk about all day long if anyone would listen? That’s one way to discern where we get life.

Have you ever thought of believing as something that gives us life? Believing seems like a fairly passive activity – and yet it may just be the most courageous action we can take in a world that challenges our faith. We learn at the end of this week’s gospel reading that the reason John wrote his gospel was so that we might come to believe and have life:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 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.

Jesus’ disciples came to believe he had risen from the dead because he stood in front of them; he surprised them on roads and at tables; he made breakfast for them on a beach. Even though they did not really act on this knowledge until the Spirit filled them at Pentecost, they had the conviction of their experience, and most died witnessing to that truth.

We have to believe on less tangible evidence – and as we allow it to accumulate, as we really start to list all the “signs” of God’s power and love we have witnessed and experienced, we too can come to believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God. And as we begin to exercise spiritual power in his name we find such abundant life, and more evidence piles up.

John says he wrote about the signs of Jesus’ presence so that his readers would come to believe. What if we started talking more often about the evidence we’ve seen of God’s movement in the world? How many might come to believe – or at least, explore Jesus for themselves. Think of the impact John’s Gospel has had on the world. Just one of your stories might change someone’s life, and allow them to have eternal life through believing. Which one might it be?

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4-24-19 - Blind Faith

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

We often associate faith with vision. Insight, perception, and illumination are all words related to sight as well as religious life. But when we think about it, true faith means being willing to live blind, to trust in what we cannot see.

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.”

Thomas was strong and courageous, devoted and steadfast. But he was short on faith. Until he was willing to become blind, he would never see.

Those who lack physical vision need to trust in many things – helpers, service animals, canes, the goodwill of the people around them. Many also report that, in the absence of sight, other senses become more acute. A sight-impaired person might feel a disturbance in the air that tells them someone has come into or left a room, or recognize people by their scent, or find their hearing sharpened.

So it is with the life of faith. We voluntarily put our trust in things and people we cannot see, and as we do, we find our spiritual senses become more keenly developed. Maybe we become more sensitive to people in pain, or we can sense the presence of evil more acutely. As we spend time in prayer, we come to recognize the presence of Jesus, God as Father, the Holy Spirit. And as we learn to step out in faith when we feel the Spirit nudge us to do or say something, we often find those nudges become more frequent and vivid. We are learning to walk by faith, not by sight.

Jesus gave Thomas a break – he showed up again and let him see him, touch his wounds. 
“Do not doubt, but believe,” he said. And then he added a word for us: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We cannot grow in faith if we are not willing to become blind, to stop relying so heavily on what we can see with our eyes and perceive with our minds, to learn to truly trust the instinctual life of the Spirit in and around us. What we perceive with our physical senses sometimes causes our faith to falter – we see the pain of the world, the ongoing illness of those for whom we have prayed, and that “evidence” can shut us down. Jesus invites us to lean instead on what cannot be seen, what can only be believed.

Only then will our vision become sharp enough to see the life of God - which is, as U2 observes so acutely in the song, Walk On, "...a place none of us has ever been, a place that has to be believed to be seen.”

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4-23-19 - Our Super-Power

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

If you could be granted a super-power, what would it be? The ability to fly? Become invisible at will? Transform into another kind of being? Heal people just by touching them?

According to the Gospels, some of those super-powers may be ours some day, if the properties of Jesus’ resurrection body tell us anything. And some of those super-powers are already ours by faith through the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the first super-power Jesus conferred upon his disciples when he returned to them Easter night was one we might not think to ask for – the power to forgive.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, 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.”

This is the first gift of the Spirit mentioned in the Gospels. It is a power that can bring freedom and peace. And, like many super-powers, it can be dangerous if abused - or neglected. The saints of God have the authority to forgive, to set free those who have caused harm to themselves or others. And the church (i.e., the saints of God) has the authority to withhold forgiveness, to keep people bound by the consequences of the harm they’ve caused. When the church forgets this authority, when it either devolves into self-righteous condemnation of others or a wishy-washy "no problem, God loves you" sentimentality that ignores the real toxicity of sin, we end up with a whole lot of stuckness clogging our wheels.

The fruits of unforgiveness are writ large in the American body politic today. Many who claim the mantle of Christ seem to have gone out of the forgiveness business altogether, preferring to label and demonize, objectify and divide. Indeed, there are few temptations more corrosive than righteous indignation – it can fuel our anger, quell our compassion and direct us inward. When whole groups stop talking to – or listening to – other large groups, we become polarized and paralyzed. And when people do this in the name of Christ, the church's mission is weakened.

We have received the Holy Spirit in baptism, in communion, in prayer, in action. Before we seek the splashier gifts of the Spirit, what if we focus on our calling to be agents of forgiveness? I read an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist spiritual teacher, on the subject of forgiveness, in which he said we have to deal with anger before we can forgive – and one way to deal with our anger is to cultivate compassion for those who are causing harm. We can ask God to show us why they have become that way, what unhealed wounds they are operating out of. And we can ask God to show us the same about ourselves.

The super-power to forgive – or not – has been given to us. Will we use it for good?

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4-22-19 - Terror and Rejoicing

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

The Big Day is over. Put away the Easter bonnets and the lilies – we’re back to regular life. 
(And if you’re clergy, you’re in the Easter Monday brain fog of exhaustion…). 
Christ is risen? Me, not so much.

Only, it’s not over. In church-time Easter goes on for seven weeks – seven weeks to try to comprehend what those Alleluias are all about. And in Gospel-time, it’s still Easter Day, still that First Day of the week, the First Day of the new creation, the First Day of forever. And Jesus’ disciples are not celebrating; they’re terrified.

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.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

They may have begun to wrap their minds around the fact that Jesus appeared to be very much alive, inexplicably, miraculously. But they certainly haven’t figured out how. And his risen-ness presents a more immediate problem: now they are in even greater danger. They were already anxious – witness Peter’s haste to disavow his friendship with Jesus after his arrest. But now they are truly scared. The authorities who put Jesus to death would not welcome these new developments. They might well want to stamp out any hint of this Jesus movement and eliminate all witnesses.

Into this turmoil, Jesus appears. Not through the locked door. Not through a window. He is just suddenly there, standing among them, speaking peace to them, showing his wounds.

And so it can be for us, as we can become aware of him. When we’re in the midst of turmoil or terror, malady or malaise, sometimes we forget that Jesus can get into the room. We think we have to invite him, or worse, that we have to get our act together before he’ll drop by. But he just shows up, speaks peace upon us and upon our circumstances, and shows us his wounds, like a calling card, a calling card that says, “I know a little bit about suffering. I know what it’s like to be alone and forsaken. I have not forgotten you, and I will never leave you or forsake you. You can find healing for your wounds in mine.”

In what situation in your life might you need to recall Jesus’ presence? Pray to become aware of where he is in that; go from, “Come, Lord Jesus,” to “Where are you in here, Lord?” Talk to him, tell him what you’re going through, listen for his responses. Receive his peace, for it is hard won and it sticks.

Today is Earth Day. As we grapple with the ever-more frightening and seemingly hastening reality of climate change, we might practice this prayer: “Where are you in this room called Earth, Jesus? Give us your peace and your power to heal the damage we have done to this beautiful planet you have given to sustain us.”

The disciples found their terror turned to rejoicing as they realized he was truly alive among them. Five minutes earlier they would have been unable to fathom rejoicing. And yet, there they were. And there he was. And joy is. Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

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4-19-19 - Those Cloths

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

If Jesus’ resurrection had happened in this age, Peter might have thought he’d been vaporized by alien death rays, with only the grave cloths left lying there in the tomb. The detail about the cloths is an odd one to include – in John’s gospel we’re even told they were neatly folded. Yet, were it not for those cloths, people might have thought Jesus’ body had been stolen.

But it’s unlikely that anyone would steal a corpse and leave the wrappings behind. Those cloths signaled they were no longer needed, for Jesus was alive. People needed to see that tomb empty and those grave cloths cast aside to know something big was up.

What are some of the “grave cloths” in our lives, things or habits or rituals that we once needed to mark – or obscure – a death, a loss, a goodbye? Are they still wrapping a memory? Are we hanging on to them? Why are they still hanging around our lives?

What would it mean to leave those wrappers, memories, lost hopes, perhaps even dead relationships behind? To leave them neatly folded, no longer required, for death has been swallowed up in life? That is the promise of Easter – that death no longer has the controlling vote in our lives. Death no longer has the last word. That goes for all the emotional and spiritual deaths we endure as well as the physical ones. Preparing ourselves to celebrate the mystery of Easter might include being willing to leave some old deaths behind, allow God to bring new life into those places in us.

But today it is still Good Friday. Today we mark Jesus’ death, after which his friends and followers wrapped his body in those cloths, having no time to properly wash and anoint him for burial. What a sight the women doubtless feared as they came along in the dark early Sunday morning, knowing they would need to wash off the dried blood, the mud and muck, that decay would have begun to set in. What they found was more frightening and more wonderful still – no body at all. Only the cloths, no longer needed.

Maybe we will find some of the griefs our old grave cloths were wrapping are healed now too, and we can leave them behind in tombs now emptied. Life has gotten out!

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4-18-19 - Women's Tales

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

What does it tell us about how God regards women that the first ones to encounter the empty tomb and the risen Christ were female? All four gospels report that the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection were women. If the early church saw fit to proclaim this fact, why have women had to struggle to be recognized as leaders and scholars in so many churches? The early church, even thirty to sixty years after Christ's resurrection, when the Gospels were being compiled and written, openly acknowledged this fact, despite Luke’s admission that women were – unfairly – regarded as spinners of “idle tales.”

Then [the women] remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

Jesus’ male disciples may not have believed what the women told them, but the story did galvanize them to investigate for themselves. Without the story the women brought, they might have remained huddled in that upper room while the Risen Lord paced around, waiting to talk to them.

Of course, the church does not need 
only women’s stories. It needs all our stories, our stories of encounters with God, and seeking for God, and doubting God, and coming to know Christ. Stories are how Jesus taught the reality of God’s realm in this world, and stories are how that reality continues to spread through those who have witnessed the amazing power of God unleashed in the world.

If we are not witnessing that power, we’re not hanging out in the right places. Often, we need to get out of our comfort zones, see things from new angles, to experience God and have stories to tell. Tonight many church communities will begin to tell the story of Christ’s Passion, not only in words, but in actions – eating, drinking, singing, praying, washing feet – or holding our feet back. We are invited tonight to feel this story by which we are saved, not only hear it.

The world needs our stories of God’s activity in our lives – not women’s stories nor men’s stories, but saints’ stories. In the fullness of God-Life, Paul wrote, gender doesn’t matter any more than does race, ethnicity or one’s status as a slave or free. (Galatians 3:28) We are equal in blessedness, equal in belovedness, equal in apostleship.

Our stories may not convince people any more than did the story the women shared that day, but if we tell them, people may run to find out for themselves. The rest is up to God.

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4-17-19 - Be-Dazzled

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

My irreverent sub-conscious strikes again: reading this oh, so familiar passage, my mind conjures a vision of dazzling disco dudes outside that tomb where the women were seeking Jesus’ body:

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground…

Other gospels say there were angels; Luke only tells us about men in dazzling clothes. Rhinestones? Gold lamé? I’d have been terrified too. But maybe their terror had more to do with what these guys said:

…but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Angels, if angels they were, are heavenly beings with one job: to convey messages from God to God’s people. These “men” had a specific message for Jesus’ followers: "He has risen from the dead, as he told you he would be." That was the Easter morning message to Jesus' friends. Yet their opening line still resonates for us, so many years later: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

How much of our lives do we spend doing that, seeking life in places or people or patterns that long ago ceased to have life for us? Seeking approval from people who should have no power over us; seeking power in situations beyond our control; seeking security in jobs and homes and bank accounts; seeking spiritual fulfillment in rituals and programs that once might have sparked a connection but are no longer where the Holy Spirit is leading us? Often we seek life in our past, or in our hopes for our future, anywhere but in the present where God-Life is always to be found.

As we prepare to contemplate the amazing mystery of Resurrection this week, let’s examine where in our lives we might be seeking the living among the dead, or seeking life where we used to find it rather than where it is now. Where are you seeking Jesus?

And then meditate on this: Where and when do you feel most alive? Most connected? What causes your energy to rise, your voice to take on a different timbre when you talk about it? That’s a sure sign we’ve stumbled onto God-Life, the place where the Spirit wants to work with us and through us to bring Life to others.

I believe passionately that God wants life for us, life in abundance, as Jesus told his followers. I settle for a lot of “not-quite-life,” and I don’t think God wants us to settle. God wants us to leave behind the boneyards of our memories and losses and disappointed dreams, and be be-dazzled in his glorious light. We might even wear dazzling clothes!

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4-16-19 - Who Moved My Lord?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

In 1988 a business book was published which became a phenomenon. Who Moved My Cheese:An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life is an allegory about anticipating, dealing with and/or seeking to avoid change. Maybe it is irreverent to associate this best-seller with the scene outside Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, but we can blame my unconscious which makes these leaps (and has more than a slight penchant for irreverence).

The women on their way to anoint Jesus’ body for final burial were already concerned about how they would move the massive stone which sealed the tomb and protected its contents from marauding animals. Upon arrival, they found that problem solved, and a worse one before them:
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.

Now they had two questions: Who moved my stone – and who moved my Lord? The most likely explanation was that someone had stolen the body, perhaps Jesus’ enemies who’d heard his claims that he would rise again after being killed. But what if his friends had moved it, to avoid just such a tactic by his enemies? In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene weeps outside the tomb that day, crying, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they have put him.”

That lament sums it up for many who find changes in church life hard to absorb, whether it’s new forms of worship or fewer people or changes to the lay-out. Part of the reason many embrace religion in the first place is as a refuge from what our prayer book calls “the changes and chances of this life.” But Jesus was not promoting religion. He was offering relationship with God, intimate access with the Holy One through faith in His Son. Jesus was a change agent to a religious system that had grown calcified and brittle.

Jesus is still a change agent. When we begin to believe in this Lord we cannot see but whose presence we can feel and know, we find he moves a lot more than our cheese. He shifts our priorities so we allocate resources, time, love differently. He adjusts our vision so that we see things and people we used to overlook. He invites us into new ways of doing things, a radical level of trust in the Spirit’s power rather than our own. He removes the stones that keep us from new life, obstacles that seem insurmountable. And he is never in the place we think we’re going to find him, certainly not in the chill of a lifeless tomb.

What stones in your life need moving out of the way? Can you believe God can do that?
Where have you been seeking for Jesus? Can you stop looking and believe he is with you?

Embracing Easter life invites us to embrace the unexpected, the new, living, breathing reality of God all around us, drawing us into new scenarios, new ministries, new relationships, new ways of being.
The one eternal and unchangeable God is the only fixed point; everything else is on the move, in a beautiful dance of change and growth. That is the promise of Easter.

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4-15-19 - The First Day of the Week

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

We have some traveling to do this week, walking deeply into the disturbing stories of Jesus’ suffering and death. So do we really want to reflect on Sunday’s gospel – the big “reveal” of resurrection – while while we are engaging all the pain that came before it? Well, knowing where we are headed can deepen our journey. We are capable both of being in the story and peeking at its Easter surprise at the same time. As a song I once wrote says, “From the shadow of the cross, see the light beyond the grave.” We live always in the light from our forever future, beckoning us out of the shadows.

And shadows there were that Easter morning; Luke tells us the women came to Jesus' grave with their embalming spices at the end of night: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.

What does that “but” refer to? Here is how Chapter 23 ends:
On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

Jesus had died relatively quickly for a victim of crucifixion on that Friday, but not early enough for his followers to claim his body and prepare it for burial before sundown and the start of Sabbath. They were only able to wrap him in cloths and lay him in the tomb which Joseph of Arimathea had helpfully offered. “On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” One wonders how much rest the grieving and terrified disciples were able to get that sabbath, but they did refrain from working.

In Jewish time, Saturday, the Sabbath day, is the last day of the week, commemorating the seventh day of Creation, when God rested from his work. Therefore Sunday is the first day of the week, a day of new beginnings, new possibilities. It is no accident that Luke emphasizes the timing of day, of week. It is still dark, but dawn is breaking. The world is still in shadow, but light is coming. It is a new week, and all things are possible. On the first day of this week, he reminds us, God initiated the New Creation.

As our work week begins (Sunday, our day of worship, being really the first day of the week…), what possibilities lie ahead for you? What shadows are you contending with? What glimpses of light do you see on the horizon? Being aware of where you are will help you be more present to Holy Week.

The first day of the week is also the eighth, for time is infinite, and circular as well as linear. Each week we start afresh, building on the gifts of the week just past, our sins forgiven, our hearts re-centered in God. (That’s why we go to church on Sundays.) This week is a special one, maybe busier than some, and yet it’s also ordinary, each day giving way to the next. Our Sabbath is over for now – let us walk into Holy Week.

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4-12-19 - When Stones Sing

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

One person’s praise is another’s blasphemy. When Pharisees heard Jesus’ disciples calling him the “King that comes in the name of the Lord,” they told him to shut them up.

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

When praise is happening, we need to let it rise; we can't quell it. Praise is part of the natural order in God’s world. Sometimes it’s obvious in a riotous sunset or an explosion of spring flowers, the grandeur of waterfalls, symphony of birdsong. But can stones really shout the praises of the One who made them? One day I asked one, sitting on a rock in the sun during a retreat. It told me a lot:

I sing.
I sing of God’s love.
Even cold and solid and unmoving – I sing.
I sing a song rooted in ancient times
I have been singing, and my song has changed and grown –
  oh, not so you could notice unless
  you were watching for the past 20,000 years or so –

But I sing.
Of love unmoving, unmovable
Of earth, of lichen and moss
  and living things that grow on me, adding to the song
I sing with birds, whose song blends with mine
I sing of grass and trees with whom I share space
  of sunlight that warms
  and moonlight that bathes
  and rain that refreshes.
The rain and the wind
  bring new verses, chord changes, shifts in melody –
as wind and rain in your life
  make your song deeper, richer.

I sing to remind you of enough,
  that God has thought of everything,
that you can put all your weight on God’s love
  as you can on me.

I sing with joy.
I sing with all my might,
  that you might hear me and join in.
Sing out! 

Prayer Poem on a Rock, Kate Heichler, September 2013 (revised)

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4-11-19 - Mobs and Multitudes

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

With nationalism, xenophobia and racism on the rise in our world, some political gatherings become violent. It’s not hard to bring that lens to the Palm Sunday story. Certainly there are multitudes on display:  As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

We soon see how quickly the multitudes praising God and lauding Jesus as “the king who comes in the name of the Lord” morph into mobs braying for blood. As is true today, there was likely some manipulation on the part of leaders in fomenting that transition, an appeal to fear and inciting to anger. We also have in the mix unrealistic expectation and disappointment, and those are incendiary ingredients.

Why does this crowd of disciples praise God? Because of the deeds of power they have seen in Jesus. He wielded spiritual power that had immediate effect in the temporal realm – palsied limbs visibly restored to strength, leprous skin made clear, water transformed into wine, notorious extortioners into models of generosity. The fact that this power resided in a man of such holiness, above reproach in every way, excited expectations that at last God had sent the King who would deliver the people. They refused to believe that his kingship was of a nature other than what they wanted.

So when Jesus is overcome by the authorities, handed over and mocked, spit upon, beaten, and raises not a finger to help himself… it’s not hard to see how such dashed hopes could curdle to venom, yielding to cries of “Crucify him.”

And how about us? We may not have joined in the bloodlust, but have we too experienced disappointment in our faith? Dashed expectations of what we thought God could or would do for us? Maybe we don’t get mad so much as withdraw, distance ourselves, afraid to trust in this One who is more powerful than any force in the universe – indeed, who made the universe – yet can’t seem to keep our loved ones from harm and our world from becoming a morass of unmitigated terror and pain.

How do we hold our hosannas in the face of failure and loss? By singing not to Jesus, but with him. By staying close to him, telling him when we’re mad or disappointed, by saying “I don’t understand. But I believe. Show me.” We don’t have to give way to rage. He didn’t.

And as we demonstrate his peace in the face of rage and outrage, we just might help to sow peace ourselves, to keep multitudes from becoming mobs, to transform mobs back into multitudes singing God's praises.

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4-10-19 - Carriers of the Holy

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Why we don’t call this Cloak Sunday? In some of the versions of the story – like Luke’s – there is no mention whatsoever of palm branches. But they all say that the people spread their cloaks on the road as they accompanied Jesus on the road into Jerusalem.

Then they brought [the colt] to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.

Why did they spread their cloaks on the road? Did they so honor the holiness in Jesus that they didn’t want even the hooves of the colt carrying him to touch the bare ground? For that moment, this colt was a holy vessel, consecrated to God’s purpose, as holy as the tabernacle of old in which the presence of God was thought to dwell. In fact, we are told that this colt, whom Jesus’ disciples found tied up in the next village, as Jesus said they would, was one which had never been ridden. This was an animal set apart to mediate the divine into ordinary life.

That is what we call sacramental – ordinary things which are consecrated to the Lord’s purposes, to bring the holy into the everyday. Cups and plates, even if they are made of silver and called chalices and patens, are just cups and plates until the time they are called into holy use. Water is just water, until it becomes blessed as the water that gives new life. Bread and wine are things we enjoy at a restaurant, until we set them aside to carry the holy into our lives.

You and I are ordinary people, yet we are also consecrated to carry the holy presence of Christ into the world. As it did for that colt, the call can come at any time. In our lives it comes frequently, and some of the time we discern it and act on it. In those times, we remember that our truest vocation is to be bearers of Christ’s light and love and presence to the places and people who need to see him. Remembering that, we are able to look past our own reactions in the situation, lay ourselves aside and bring Christ forward.

I pray we might share the vocation of that little colt, knowing ourselves to have been found and untied, released for service as bearers of Christ. I pray we might walk around the streets and roads of our towns aware that we are carrying a holy presence, expecting that presence to make a difference. People may not lay down cloaks before us – in fact, they may throw obstacles in our way. But if we’re carrying Jesus where he has asked to go, we need fear no obstacles. We are holy vessels, consecrated to God’s use, and that is enough.

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4-9-19 - The Lord Needs It

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

License to borrow without permission? Or an example of provision in the realm of God? Jesus has an interesting way of obtaining the beast upon which he will ride into Jerusalem. His way calls for a lot of trust on the part of the disciples whom he instructs to go get it, and from the owners.

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

They do indeed find the colt exactly where Jesus said it would be – how did he know that? And the owners do happen upon them untying it and ask what they're doing. The disciples answer just as Jesus told them to, “The Lord needs it.” And that seems to satisfy the owners. Did they know Jesus? Had they heard of him? Or were they just people of strong faith?

What if we were to develop the habit of saying that when people ask us why we invest so much time or money or resources in God’s mission through our churches. “The Lord needs it.” That would end the conversation very nicely - and start a more important one. And when we ask others to invest in our ministries, we don’t have to say, “We need it.” We can say – if it’s something we feel God wanting to do through us – “The Lord needs it.”

And what if we gave that answer to ourselves, when we look at our priorities and question where to invest our time or money or talents. “The Lord needs it” could be incentive to reprioritize quite a lot. It could also provide a nice evaluative lens – “Does the Lord need this?” we might ask about something we’re spending a lot of energy on. “Or is it just something I think should be done?”

And what if we made our resources available to the Lord’s use, as the owners of that colt seem to have done, so that people came along and asked us to use our stuff – or just helped themselves, knowing it would be alright? That’s starting to happen in the “sharing economy,” where people make tools or talents or bicycles available through websites for others to take, use and return. How might our life of faith and ministry be a sharing economy?

An economy based on “The Lord needs it” could be bustling, creative and efficient. It calls for a lot of faith, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If s/he tells you where to find something, assume it will be there, waiting for you. And if anyone asks you what you’re up to, say, “The Lord needs it.”

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4-8-19 - Getting Ready for Jerusalem

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

The first question that arises in response to this Sunday’s gospel reading (we will explore the Palm Sunday part in Water Daily this week) is, “After he said what?” The reading begins, “After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” When there’s an “after” or a “therefore” we need to know what happened before.

Just prior to his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus tells a rather harsh parable about a man who went on a trip to gain “kingly power.” His own citizens sent him word that they did not want him as their king. On his return he sought an accounting from servants to whom he had entrusted one pound each. The first had traded successfully, yielding a ten-fold increase; the second had made five pounds. The third had buried his so as not to lose anything, provoking his master to take away his one pound and give it to one who’d made ten. The ending is vengeful, even violent:

‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.’

Is Jesus the man in the parable, who will return with kingly power and deal with those who rejected him? Or is this parable about the ways of the world, not God’s realm? These would be hard words from the Prince of Peace – especially one who will in coming days resist all attempts to manifest a worldly show of kingship. “After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”

Jesus knows what will happen to him in Jerusalem; he’s told his followers several times: 
"The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem, be arrested, tried and killed. And on the third day he will rise again.” He knows that those who want him to be king will be militant this week – and those who are disappointed that he is not the kind of king they want will turn violent. Is he subverting the whole notion of “kingship” from the very beginning, riding into the city not on a steed but on a colt, lauded not by leaders and soldiers but by children and multitudes of ordinary folk?

That first question, “After what?” leads to more questions than answers – and maybe that’s not bad as we prepare for our own journey to Jerusalem during Holy Week. We’re not there yet. We’re still outside the city, getting ready. Maybe for us that means reflecting on the disciplines or practices we’ve taken up during Lent, asking how they have brought us closer to Jesus. Maybe it means looking at our calendars for next week and making sure we’ve set aside time to participate in Holy Week and Easter activities.

I pray that exploring this story, the story before The Story, will bring us closer to Jesus this week, close enough to pet the donkey, feel the cloaks and palm branches, hear the “Hosannas!” of the crowd. We don't necessarily want to go to Jerusalem, knowing what awaits us there. Yet it is there that we are born anew. So let's go.

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4-5-19 - Putting Jesus First

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

Have any of Jesus' sayings been more often misconstrued, with more devastating consequence? When Judas protests that the price of the ointment Mary “wasted” on Jesus could have fed the poor, Jesus defends her: "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

That one reference to the persistence of poverty has led some to a “so, why bother?” stance about remedying economic inequality. Others have gone so far as to see in those seven words a mandate for poverty, despite the record of Jesus’ pronouncements about justice and giving in the gospels. I actually heard someone quote these words and say Jesus does not want us to help those who are poor.

Such an interpretation makes a mockery of the Good News, which Jesus said he came to proclaim to the poor, as well as to those marginalized in other ways. The imperative to share our resources so that no one is in need (an ideal reached briefly in the early church, according to Acts 4…) should be a driving force for Christians engaged in God’s mission of reclaiming, restoring, and renewing all people to wholeness in Christ. In God’s realm no one is defined by how much or how little she has, but by her belovedness.

An even deeper distortion of the first seven words of that sentence can result when the second seven are ignored. Jesus' main point was that his presence in human, embodied form, was finite, and soon to end. Those who emphasize the “social gospel” and Jesus’ love for the poor, as though he did not equally value the humanity in people with resources and privilege, can be as much in danger of misinterpretation. It is Jesus who matters, more than his teaching and example and ministry and power. When we reduce him to “teacher” or “moral example,” social worker” or even “healer,” we miss the most important aspect of his identity: Son of God, Redeemer, Lover of your soul right here in your living room.

Mary, better than anyone else, seemed to grasp what was happening; that Jesus, in the way they had known and come to love him, would soon be dead and gone. She alone seemed to understand that it was about him, all about Jesus, and she expressed that insight in a profoundly sacramental action.

Can we value him that much? Can we make Jesus our priority? Spend time with him, seek his counsel, ask to be filled with his Spirit, make him known among the people whom we encounter, whether their needs are material or spiritual? I’m pretty sure that if more Christians put Jesus first, our hearts would be so transformed we could not tolerate poverty or injustice, violence or warfare. As Gandhi famously observed, if Christians were more like Christ, there would be a lot more of them. (That’s a paraphrase; the actual quote and its context can be found here.)

When all who claim to follow Christ put Jesus first, there will be no rich or poor, only sister, brother, beloved community.

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4-4-19 - Love You Can Feel

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

When Mary of Bethany poured a full jar of expensive oil of nard all over Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, she wasn’t just trying to relax him with a little aromatherapy. She was anointing him, while she still could, guessing that his time on earth was short. Nard, an essential oil derived from spikenard, a flowering plant in the Valerian family (thanks, Wikipedia…) had many uses, although, save for a reference in the Iliad to its use in perfuming a body, it does not appear to have had funerary use. The spices brought after Jesus’ crucifixion were a mixture of myrrh and aloes.

But Jesus answers Mary’s critics with this cryptic statement: 
‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.’

There are many kinds of anointing in the Bible – anointing of priests and prophets, of kings and kings-to-be; anointing for healing; the hint of anointing in baptism; the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This act of Mary’s doesn’t fit any of those categories. And if she bought the oil for Jesus’ burial, why does she use it all now?

Knowing the danger he was in, perhaps she wanted him to feel in a tactile way the love of those who surrounded him. Perhaps she had a sense of the horrors ahead, and wanted him to have one moment of pampering. Perhaps she wanted to show the others how to give it all. Perhaps she thought the day of his burial would be too late to do him any good.

Six days hence, Jesus will be washing the feet of his disciples, to their shock and great discomfort. He will let them know in a tactile way what love feels like, the love of one who lays aside his power and prerogatives for the beloved. He will teach them what it looks like to give it all. They don’t really understand then, any more than they likely understood Mary’s gesture. But later they would.

Who in our lives needs to feel our love in that way?
Who needs us to relinquish our power or privilege, and give of our time, our gifts, our pride? 
Maybe someone to whom we are close; maybe someone we don’t know at all.

Feet are intimate, way too much so for many people; some churches wash hands instead of feet on Maundy Thursday, which breaks my heart a little. Intimacy is the point. Receiving care at the place of our least attractive feature is the point. Being pampered and loved – and yes, anointed – is how God makes effective saints out of ordinary people.
All we need do is submit to love. Even Jesus did that.

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4-3-19 - What a Waste

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Yesterday’s reflection notwithstanding, I get anxious about hugely generous gestures, someone sacrificing everything to help someone else or to serve God. I don’t have the impulses of a Mother Teresa; I probably would have told St. Francis of Assisi, “Why not just leave most of it behind? Why all of it?" Everything in moderation, right? Even sacrificial giving.

So I’m in questionable company this week – for the person in our story who articulates this pragmatic way of thinking about resources is none other than our pal Judas:
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’

In an aside, John tells us that Judas didn’t actually care about the poor, but wanted to steal the offering for himself. How about we give him the benefit of the doubt? Let’s say he actually did care about the poor, that he actually did care about the radical equality that Jesus was preaching, that he actually did want to see the revolution come to pass. To someone with economic justice on his mind, Mary’s extravagant gesture could seem an unconscionable waste of resources. Three hundred denarii’s worth of high-priced perfumed oil on one person’s feet? Stinking up the house?

It is outrageous, when you think about it as stewardship. It makes no sense. About as much sense as it made for God to offer up that One who was most precious to him, his only begotten Son. About as much sense as it made for that Son to take upon himself the consequence of catastrophic estrangement which was our due as ones who rebelled against God; to give up his position, his dignity, his life.

One grey and rainy Good Friday in New York City, I found myself in Union Square after the three-hour service at Grace Church. Everything was dingy and dirty; everyone looked harried and downcast, me included. And I thought, “For this? You gave it all for this miserable lot? What a waste.”

Yes, what a waste; what ridiculous extravagance, to let the Son of God die that we might be free to love God for eternity. As that beautiful hymn, My Song is Love Unknown, says, 
“Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. 
Oh, who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?”

Becoming a person who can offer it all starts with our willingness to accept that Christ has given it all for us. To accept that we are that precious to God, that God reckons us worthy because God said so, not because of anything we think or do or say. Perhaps today we might meditate on that extravagant, profligate, wasteful, over-the-top love lavished upon us like that ointment on Jesus' feet; let it soak into our bones, into our spirits, into all the dents the world’s “no’s” have left in us.

You are loved, beyond measure, beyond sense. Deal with it! Nothing is wasted.

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4-2-19 - Extravagant Love

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

There are some who posit that Jesus of Nazareth was not the celibate religious leader depicted in the Gospels, that he was intimately involved with, perhaps even married to Mary Magdalene. Certainly, a married religious leader would have been acceptable, even normal in that place and time, but the Gospels convey not the slightest suggestion that Jesus was romantically linked to anyone.

Had he been, my candidate for the identity of the lucky girl would be not Mary of Magdala, but Mary of Bethany. She’s the one who neglected her household duties to sit at his feet, taking in his teaching while her sister prepared a meal alone (Luke 10:38-42). Later, when Jesus finally arrived days after their brother Lazarus had died, it is Mary for whom he asks. And when she comes to him and gently rebukes him for having arrived too late, it is her tears, and those of onlookers, which appear to move him to action (John 11). There is no reason to imagine their connection went beyond friendship, but it seems to have been a deep connection.

This is evident in the enormous intimacy and generosity of Mary’s gesture at the dinner in her home in this week's storyMary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

This act is shocking on several levels. There is the intimacy of anointing Jesus’ feet, well beyond the expected obligation to wash the feet of a guest. It would have been unseemly for a male religious leader to be in such close proximity to a woman. Mary's using her hair to wipe the oil required a physical closeness that might have made onlookers squirm. To kneel at someone’s feet and tend them with your hands and hair is a posture of profound worship and devotion.

Then there is the shocking extravagance, wastefulness even, of using the entire jar of ointment. Nard was extremely precious and very potent; no one would use a whole jar for one use, even to anoint a whole body. The house being filled with the fragrance tells us how excessive this gesture was. But its very excess is what commends Mary’s action. She holds nothing back, not for economy nor for propriety. She acts upon her instinctive awareness that Jesus’ time among them is coming to an end; she seizes the opportunity to demonstrate her great love while he is yet with her.

We are in a different situation – Jesus is not going anywhere; in fact, we’re waiting for him to return in fullness. But our time in this world is limited. Don’t we want to fully embrace God’s love in the here and now?

Where in our lives do we hold back on expressing our love for Jesus, for God? 
Do we content ourselves with the hour or so a week we spend in church; the amounts we pledge that stretch our budgets but little; short prayers at the beginning and end of the day, and anytime a crisis arises in between? Or do we take the time for spiritual practices that draw us closer to God, offer our gifts and resources in ministry?

In what ways do you lavish your time and resources on God and God’s people? 
Can you think of times when you have left nothing in reserve?

Mary demonstrated her extravagant worship in both quality and quantity. She held nothing back, lavishing love and care on her Lord. How might we love Jesus the way she did?

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4-1-19 - Jesus' Best Friends

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

The gospels say little about Jesus’ friendships. We see him interact with his disciples, but other than a few exchanges with Peter, those tend to be group encounters. Yet there is one family, at least according to Luke and John, with whom Jesus had a particularly close relationship: the two sisters and one brother from Bethany who appear in at least three stories in those two gospels.

Our passage this week begins with an almost comically understated reference to Jesus' connection with this family: 
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

This casual aside about Lazarus – “Oh, you know who I mean, the guy Jesus raised from the dead,” is followed by the prosaic, “They gave a dinner for him.” Let's hope they did a lot more than that! We are told that Martha served, which might seem inconsequential were it not for that brief but penetrating vignette in Luke’s gospel about another time Martha cooked and served dinner for Jesus, and got a little lesson in priorities. We learn so much about her in that story, and here she is, serving dinner yet again.

The other sister, Mary, is our main character this week, and we’ll introduce her tomorrow. What intrigues me as we begin to explore this short tale is the glimpse it gives us into Jesus’ social life. He had thousands of followers, and some close associates, but his peripatetic life and the increasing danger in which he found himself – John tells us this is six days before the Passover, the final Passover Jesus will celebrate in his worldly life – no doubt made it difficult to form and maintain friendships. This household seems to have been a place of refuge and friendship for him, and I find his humanity more vivid seeing him rooted in this web of sibling relationships with three distinct personalities.

If we think of Jesus at the dinner table of that family in Bethany, we might more easily imagine him as a guest at our tables. And that is where he wants to be - invited into our homes and lives, welcome at the table as we eat, on the couch as we relax, accompanying us as we work and exercise and play and recharge and interact with the people in our lives. This story reminds us that Jesus’ love is universal, and also always particular as we receive him.

He came for you, and for me. And, as George Herbert so memorably articulated, he expects us to eat with him.

Love (III) - George Herbert (1593-1633)

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
  Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
  From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
  If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
  Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
  I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
  Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
  Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
  My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
  So I did sit and eat.

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