You know that awful feeling when you sense something is amiss, and you don’t know what it is, and that even asking about it might make it worse? Often we will do all we can to suppress that niggling worry, afraid to ask what’s actually going on.
That’s how Jesus’ disciples felt as they traveled with him through Galilee and he continued to talk about the bitter treatment he was going to encounter.
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. (Here is week's gospel passage.)
It’s not that he was unclear – he says this at least three times as they journey on. But his words make no sense in light of their understanding that he is the Messiah, the Savior. The idea that their Jesus, so sought after by the rich and influential as well as the poor and marginalized, could be betrayed is unthinkable. And that he could be killed, he who held the power of God in his hands, who could command storms to be stilled and blind eyes to see? How could that be? And what is this he says about rising again? I suspect that made so little sense they hardly heard it. His words are so unsettling in every way, they were afraid to ask him to explain what he is talking about.
Even for us so long after the fact, left with a story we celebrate but can’t fully comprehend, let alone find Good News in, it can be hard to ask God to explain it. We might fear finding ourselves adrift in a sea of doubt, or losing our faith entirely. So we hold it at arm’s length, celebrating the high points, acknowledging the cross and empty tomb, but not wandering too close.
I believe Christ yearns for us to wander close, just as I suspect he wished his followers would have asked him directly what he meant. Asking God to help make sense of what makes no sense is central to a living faith. It is how we deepen our relationship with God.
What are your biggest questions about the Christian faith and story? Have you asked those in prayer? Said, “Jesus, why did you have to die? Why would a sacrifice be necessary for a God of love?” and listen for an answer. (Today is Holy Cross Day... not a bad time for such questions...) A thought might pop into your head, or over the next few weeks you might find yourself encountering a response. We can do the same with questions about or own lives.
Freedom comes as we surface the hard questions and open ourselves to exploring the answers. We draw closer to the God of mystery in the asking. In the end, that may be the only answer we really need.
9-11-15 - Thinking Like God
When Jesus tells his followers the horrors that are to befall the “Son of Man,” Peter takes him aside and admonishes him. “Don’t be talking like that! How can anything bad happen to you? I’ve just said I believe you’re the Messiah!”
And Jesus in turn rebukes Peter, quite harshly, tellling him: “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Jesus was asking a lot of Peter to think in divine terms. Yet that neatly describes the task of discipleship: learning to think like God. Paul writes that those who would follow Jesus “Have the mind of Christ.” This makes sense – if we are united with Christ in baptism, if he takes up residence in us, as it were, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, then we have his mind as well, not replacing our own, but informing, even transforming them.
Our minds and capacity for thought are among God’s greatest gifts to us, and also the seat of our strongest resistance to God. Funny how that is… Before we can set our mind on the things of God we have to become aware of the distinction between our own thoughts and God’s thoughts. Whenever we become aware that we are thinking solely out of our own reality – say, when anxiety or anger are leading the way, or we're convinced faith is irrational, or when we’re set on a course of action that we know is other than the way God would work in us – we can ask God to show us situations or people as God sees them. Often a broader perspective opens immediately.
This weekend, try to notice when your thoughts are purely human, and when they seem tinged with the holy. Like anything, this is a spiritual practice we can cultivate; as we become conscious, gradually we learn to think more like God.
It is a delicate balance to prize the gift of human nature and yet allow God’s life to grow in us and uproot everything that is not of God. Perhaps this is best summed up in the old adage, “God loves us just the way we are – and far too much to leave us that way.”
And Jesus in turn rebukes Peter, quite harshly, tellling him: “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Jesus was asking a lot of Peter to think in divine terms. Yet that neatly describes the task of discipleship: learning to think like God. Paul writes that those who would follow Jesus “Have the mind of Christ.” This makes sense – if we are united with Christ in baptism, if he takes up residence in us, as it were, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, then we have his mind as well, not replacing our own, but informing, even transforming them.
Our minds and capacity for thought are among God’s greatest gifts to us, and also the seat of our strongest resistance to God. Funny how that is… Before we can set our mind on the things of God we have to become aware of the distinction between our own thoughts and God’s thoughts. Whenever we become aware that we are thinking solely out of our own reality – say, when anxiety or anger are leading the way, or we're convinced faith is irrational, or when we’re set on a course of action that we know is other than the way God would work in us – we can ask God to show us situations or people as God sees them. Often a broader perspective opens immediately.
This weekend, try to notice when your thoughts are purely human, and when they seem tinged with the holy. Like anything, this is a spiritual practice we can cultivate; as we become conscious, gradually we learn to think more like God.
It is a delicate balance to prize the gift of human nature and yet allow God’s life to grow in us and uproot everything that is not of God. Perhaps this is best summed up in the old adage, “God loves us just the way we are – and far too much to leave us that way.”
9-10-15 - Suffering
Does God want us to suffer? There is a strand in the Christian tradition that looks at the suffering Jesus underwent – which he predicted – and suggests that it is in suffering that we draw closest to our Lord. This is not how Peter saw things:
Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (This Sunday's Gospel passage is here.)
Just before this, Peter has identified Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One of God long foretold, who would come to redeem the people of Israel – redeem, as in buy back a pawned item so it can be restored to its true purpose. It was assumed that the Messiah would bring to an end the suffering and humiliation of God’s chosen people. What good is a Messiah who’s going to suffer and die?
Jesus is firm: But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
Invoking Satan, it appears that Jesus sees in Peter’s words a temptation, a temptation to veer from the mission he is living out, a temptation to doubt his discernment of what is ahead for him. In Jesus’ case, suffering was part of his mission; a humiliating and horrible death was in part how his mission of redeeming humanity would be accomplished.
That is not necessarily true for us. The ways in which God might invite us to make God-Life known in the world may not directly involve suffering. We may be called to write or to feed or to proclaim or to organize, never being persecuted for our faith. But there will be pain, if we’re open to letting our hearts be broken by God’s love for this world. In that sense, every ministry, every life involves suffering.
This morning I attempted to preach this message to a room full of people in wheel chairs in a local nursing home, some of them relatively young. I’m not sure I was convincing when I insisted that God is with us in our suffering, even as God often allows it to unfold in our lives, and that God can work through it. It is through the presence of Christ with us that we gain the Life that overcomes death, the Life we can share with others, no matter what our condition.
I don’t believe God visits suffering upon us so we can draw near to Christ. But I believe with all my heart that Christ draws near to us when we suffer, and helps break it open so new life can emerge from the dark.
Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (This Sunday's Gospel passage is here.)
Just before this, Peter has identified Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One of God long foretold, who would come to redeem the people of Israel – redeem, as in buy back a pawned item so it can be restored to its true purpose. It was assumed that the Messiah would bring to an end the suffering and humiliation of God’s chosen people. What good is a Messiah who’s going to suffer and die?
Jesus is firm: But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
Invoking Satan, it appears that Jesus sees in Peter’s words a temptation, a temptation to veer from the mission he is living out, a temptation to doubt his discernment of what is ahead for him. In Jesus’ case, suffering was part of his mission; a humiliating and horrible death was in part how his mission of redeeming humanity would be accomplished.
That is not necessarily true for us. The ways in which God might invite us to make God-Life known in the world may not directly involve suffering. We may be called to write or to feed or to proclaim or to organize, never being persecuted for our faith. But there will be pain, if we’re open to letting our hearts be broken by God’s love for this world. In that sense, every ministry, every life involves suffering.
This morning I attempted to preach this message to a room full of people in wheel chairs in a local nursing home, some of them relatively young. I’m not sure I was convincing when I insisted that God is with us in our suffering, even as God often allows it to unfold in our lives, and that God can work through it. It is through the presence of Christ with us that we gain the Life that overcomes death, the Life we can share with others, no matter what our condition.
I don’t believe God visits suffering upon us so we can draw near to Christ. But I believe with all my heart that Christ draws near to us when we suffer, and helps break it open so new life can emerge from the dark.
9-9-15 - The New Elvis?
Conventional wisdom suggests that a healthy sense of self-worth does not rest on what other people think of you. Surely Jesus didn’t care what other people said about him, did he? Yet it is also wise for public figures to check their polls every now and then (maybe not as often as the pols of today check their polls…). So we find Jesus asking his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’
They answer readily; someone as powerful and unusual as Jesus would surely generate debate, even an assumption that he carried the spirit of a luminary from the distant or recent past: And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’
This reminds me of entertainment writers who compare up and coming stars to those of old. “She’s the new Audrey Hepburn,” He’s the new Springsteen,” as though the only way to apprehend someone is to categorize them in relation to someone else. Jesus was frequently asked if he was John the Baptist returned to life. To ask that question was to miss the reality of the man standing right in front of them.
Jesus thought his closer followers might have a different perspective. He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’
How do you answer that question? It can be as hard for us to see Jesus for who he intrinsically is, apart from what we’ve heard about him through church, history, and cultural assumptions, as it was for people in his day to see him apart from the great prophets of old and their expectations in a time of national powerlessness. The only way we can truly answer that question is to seek to know him as he is revealed in the Gospels, as we see his power at work through the church, and as we experience him personally in prayer.
Which also means that, if we’re active in study, action and prayer, our answer will evolve. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever – but our discernment of who he is not fixed, not until that day when we see no longer “through a glass, dimly,” but face to face.
Peter's answer reflected Israel’s history, the promise of future redemption, and the knowledge of Jesus Peter gained in relationship with him: Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’
In naming him as the promised One of God, Peter also claimed Jesus as one-of-kind, not the “new” anyone, but new creation.
So we too, made in the image of God as unique persons, can get to know Jesus, the Lord who was, and is and is to come - and so discover the new creations we are in Him.
They answer readily; someone as powerful and unusual as Jesus would surely generate debate, even an assumption that he carried the spirit of a luminary from the distant or recent past: And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’
This reminds me of entertainment writers who compare up and coming stars to those of old. “She’s the new Audrey Hepburn,” He’s the new Springsteen,” as though the only way to apprehend someone is to categorize them in relation to someone else. Jesus was frequently asked if he was John the Baptist returned to life. To ask that question was to miss the reality of the man standing right in front of them.
Jesus thought his closer followers might have a different perspective. He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’
How do you answer that question? It can be as hard for us to see Jesus for who he intrinsically is, apart from what we’ve heard about him through church, history, and cultural assumptions, as it was for people in his day to see him apart from the great prophets of old and their expectations in a time of national powerlessness. The only way we can truly answer that question is to seek to know him as he is revealed in the Gospels, as we see his power at work through the church, and as we experience him personally in prayer.
Which also means that, if we’re active in study, action and prayer, our answer will evolve. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever – but our discernment of who he is not fixed, not until that day when we see no longer “through a glass, dimly,” but face to face.
Peter's answer reflected Israel’s history, the promise of future redemption, and the knowledge of Jesus Peter gained in relationship with him: Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’
In naming him as the promised One of God, Peter also claimed Jesus as one-of-kind, not the “new” anyone, but new creation.
So we too, made in the image of God as unique persons, can get to know Jesus, the Lord who was, and is and is to come - and so discover the new creations we are in Him.
9-8-15 - Back to the Real World?
If you’re having some trouble transitioning into the fall schedule from the summer lull, Sunday’s gospel reading should help us come down with a bump. Jesus tells his followers that they have signed on for tough duty:
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I tend to see it as a time of lowered responsibility, lessened engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial (as my Labor Day breakfast of bread, butter and jam will attest). Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on incredible mission trips this summer, but I fear I’ve gotten so good at living in the “now” this summer, I won’t remember where I left my cross to take it up again.
Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God. None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s ways of meeting the world’s needs ahead of our own.
Today, let’s spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources. As we sharpen our attention (if, like me, you’ve let yours slacken…) we find we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully.
We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I tend to see it as a time of lowered responsibility, lessened engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial (as my Labor Day breakfast of bread, butter and jam will attest). Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on incredible mission trips this summer, but I fear I’ve gotten so good at living in the “now” this summer, I won’t remember where I left my cross to take it up again.
Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God. None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s ways of meeting the world’s needs ahead of our own.
Today, let’s spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources. As we sharpen our attention (if, like me, you’ve let yours slacken…) we find we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully.
We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.
9-4-15 - Outside Feasts
It’s no longer August, but we have one more week of our Summer Pastimes series at my church, looking at how they speak to us of the life of faith. As always, we abandon the Lectionary for a gospel selected - here is this week's.
I don’t know about you, but I will be attending a picnic this Labor Day Weekend – maybe not the last time we’ll eat outside before fall, but traditionally one of the Big Picnic Weekends of the year. Picnics are one of the best summer pastimes there are, combining as they do food and fresh air and bringing an indoor activity outside. But how do picnics speak to us of the life of faith?
Certainly the themes of food and fun and fellowship resonate with most churchgoers I know. Picnics bring these elements out of the buildings where they often occur and into the open, where anyone might happen upon them, and possibly even join in. Earlier this summer I served smoked salmon canapes during the sermon one Sunday (the gospel passage was the loaves and the fishes… same as for this week…). I suggested to my congregation that our mission as the Body of Christ might be as guerrilla picnic planners, mounting feasts, large and small, in unexpected times and places. What if we really adopted that mission, at least once a month? What would you provide, and where?
Even ants and other uninvited guests at a picnic remind us that we are not in control of our lives, try as we might to think otherwise – and that enjoying the beauty of creation comes with the responsibility to make sure all of God’s creatures have a safe environment in which to thrive.
Picnics also remind us of God’s provision, as we feast in abundance on food that somehow tastes better for coming out of a cooler or a basket. And unless we packed the basket, we don’t know exactly what we’re going to be served, especially not when we’re enjoying a potluck picnic with goodies brought by many. Sometimes we get fed even when we haven’t brought anything along.
Our life in God is like that – a feast that can happen on any given day, not in a formal dining room but on a field or by a lake or in a stadium parking lot, alone or with others. Often, the life of God in us gathers others to us, both to be fed and to share their food with us. And as we experience the variety and try new tastes, we find our spirits expanding to receive more and more unexpected blessings.
That psalmist was onto something when he sang, “O taste and see how precious the Lord is." Must have been coming from a picnic.
I don’t know about you, but I will be attending a picnic this Labor Day Weekend – maybe not the last time we’ll eat outside before fall, but traditionally one of the Big Picnic Weekends of the year. Picnics are one of the best summer pastimes there are, combining as they do food and fresh air and bringing an indoor activity outside. But how do picnics speak to us of the life of faith?
Certainly the themes of food and fun and fellowship resonate with most churchgoers I know. Picnics bring these elements out of the buildings where they often occur and into the open, where anyone might happen upon them, and possibly even join in. Earlier this summer I served smoked salmon canapes during the sermon one Sunday (the gospel passage was the loaves and the fishes… same as for this week…). I suggested to my congregation that our mission as the Body of Christ might be as guerrilla picnic planners, mounting feasts, large and small, in unexpected times and places. What if we really adopted that mission, at least once a month? What would you provide, and where?
Even ants and other uninvited guests at a picnic remind us that we are not in control of our lives, try as we might to think otherwise – and that enjoying the beauty of creation comes with the responsibility to make sure all of God’s creatures have a safe environment in which to thrive.
Picnics also remind us of God’s provision, as we feast in abundance on food that somehow tastes better for coming out of a cooler or a basket. And unless we packed the basket, we don’t know exactly what we’re going to be served, especially not when we’re enjoying a potluck picnic with goodies brought by many. Sometimes we get fed even when we haven’t brought anything along.
Our life in God is like that – a feast that can happen on any given day, not in a formal dining room but on a field or by a lake or in a stadium parking lot, alone or with others. Often, the life of God in us gathers others to us, both to be fed and to share their food with us. And as we experience the variety and try new tastes, we find our spirits expanding to receive more and more unexpected blessings.
That psalmist was onto something when he sang, “O taste and see how precious the Lord is." Must have been coming from a picnic.
9-2-15 - Be Opened
This week’s gospel passage contains two great stories – the first, about the Syro-Phoenician woman, and a second, about Jesus healing a man who is both deaf and mute.
They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
The story has power on its most basic level, but for some time I have been more alive to an allegorical interpretation of this tale. For me, the man who is deaf and mute can also represent the church of our day, which can be deaf to the promptings of the Spirit and impeded in communicating the Good News about Jesus to our surrounding communities.
How does it alter our understanding of this story if we put our churches in the place of the deaf-mute? Let’s look at the nature of this healing. Where sometimes Jesus heals with a word, not even in the same physical location as the one healed, in this case he is intensely personal and material. He uses his own saliva, placed on the man's tongue, and puts his fingers in his ears. Beyond the "ick" factor, we see here an incredible intimacy. Perhaps our churches, and those who work so hard to sustain them, have forsaken intimacy with Christ for the burden of keeping his church lumbering on. That has ever been a bad trade!
We need to come close to Jesus again, close enough to touch his wounds, and allow him close enough to touch our ears and our tongues. We need to take to heart his command, "Be opened!" and recover the impulse toward faithful faith-sharing that is in our DNA as followers of Christ.
Where do you feel your spiritual hearing might be stopped up? In what ways do you feel impeded in talking about your life in God? Today as a prayer experiment, read this story again and put yourself in the place of the deaf-mute. Let the story unfold in your imagination. Does Jesus say or do anything different with you? Anything specific?
If it wasn't impossible to pronounce, "Ephphatha!" would be a great name for a church. I pray we will live into the heart of this command, and truly, in every possible way, "Be opened."
They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
The story has power on its most basic level, but for some time I have been more alive to an allegorical interpretation of this tale. For me, the man who is deaf and mute can also represent the church of our day, which can be deaf to the promptings of the Spirit and impeded in communicating the Good News about Jesus to our surrounding communities.
How does it alter our understanding of this story if we put our churches in the place of the deaf-mute? Let’s look at the nature of this healing. Where sometimes Jesus heals with a word, not even in the same physical location as the one healed, in this case he is intensely personal and material. He uses his own saliva, placed on the man's tongue, and puts his fingers in his ears. Beyond the "ick" factor, we see here an incredible intimacy. Perhaps our churches, and those who work so hard to sustain them, have forsaken intimacy with Christ for the burden of keeping his church lumbering on. That has ever been a bad trade!
We need to come close to Jesus again, close enough to touch his wounds, and allow him close enough to touch our ears and our tongues. We need to take to heart his command, "Be opened!" and recover the impulse toward faithful faith-sharing that is in our DNA as followers of Christ.
Where do you feel your spiritual hearing might be stopped up? In what ways do you feel impeded in talking about your life in God? Today as a prayer experiment, read this story again and put yourself in the place of the deaf-mute. Let the story unfold in your imagination. Does Jesus say or do anything different with you? Anything specific?
If it wasn't impossible to pronounce, "Ephphatha!" would be a great name for a church. I pray we will live into the heart of this command, and truly, in every possible way, "Be opened."
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