Awakening to Ministry

John 20: 19-31 picks up right where we left off, where Mary went running to tell of the resurrection to the disciples, who were are holed up in a room behind locked doors. No one can get in, not even those who are so nervous, so threatened, by the way the crowds loved Jesus, that they might come after his followers, too.

The disciples are bereaved over the death of Jesus and maybe over their own failure to stand with him to the end, but now this woman, Mary Magdalene, is making the most incredible claim that has ever been made, a claim that would undo their sense of failure and inadequacy, their loss of hope. All might be made right after all; all might be healed. Could it be? Could it actually be so? Is it true?

There in that room, gathered in fear and confusion, they lock the doors, and wait. And then Jesus shows up. What are his first words? "Peace be with you." No fear. No scolding. No turmoil. No doubt. Only peace. We say these words to each other during our worship services. We extend the peace that Jesus offers to us. And then--as the gospel of John's Pentecost--Jesus breathes the gift of the Holy Spirit into the disciples.

It is their commissioning to go out and be peace and love and justice for the world. Just as God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends them into the world that God loves so well. O. Wesley Allen hears in this breath the echo of Genesis and "God's breathing life into creatures at the beginning of the world (Gen. 2:7)." On Easter, Allen says, God in effect recreates through resurrection not just a few followers long ago, but all of us as well (New Proclamation Year A 2008).

During the next 3 weeks, I am going to be preaching a series called "Awakening." This first sermon will be focused on how we awaken to ministry. We learn how to minister from Jesus, who literally met the disciples right where they were in that room. Mary Magdalene, the disciples, and especially Thomas, all wanted more evidence that Jesus was actually risen from the dead when he appeared to them. Jesus does not scold them, but is patient and provides what they needed to believe. We can do the same for anyone seeking Jesus, or looking for someone to share Jesus with.

*Prayer:

Everliving God,
your eternal Christ once dwelt on earth,
   confined by time and space.
Give us faith to discern in every time and place
   the presence among us
   of him who is head over all things and fills all,
even Jesus Christ our ascended Lord. Amen.

*United Methodist Hymnal, 323.

In Christ,

Jack

Giving Up Death

As the season of Lent draws to a close and Holy Week is upon us, again I find myself in a happy, comfortable, familiar place, because I know that Easter is right around the corner. I have a habit of not letting these feelings last for very long, once I identify them as such. When I am comfortable, I tend to be more laid back and let things fall through the cracks. I don't pay as much attention as when I am uncomfortable, looking for a way back to the peace that I crave. This creates a sort of cycle, as you can imagine.

On the one hand, I know that Sunday is Easter. This gives me peace, hope, and joy! On the other hand, I remember that this week is Holy Week, where Jesus was headed to the cross. I remember that Christians in Egypt have been killed during a worship service on Palm Sunday this week. I remember that many in our world suffer and die for their faith. Indeed, we need Jesus to save us from all of this.

Easter becomes cheap when we do not consider what it took for Jesus to rise again. He had to die, and he did. If you have ever experienced the death of a loved one, you have a glimpse of what Holy Week is all about. The pain, confusion, heartbreak, and grief of loss sometimes feel like a pit of emptiness and despair. Christians find their way out of that hole through the healing power of time and hope that death is not the end. It wasn't for Jesus, and it will not be for us.

On Thursday evening here at Gray Memorial UMC (2201 Old Bainbridge Road), we will have the stations of the cross displayed. These images will help you walk through these final moments of Jesus' life. You will find that he prayed, was betrayed, arrested, put on trial, condemned, crucified, and buried. Although they are tough images to look at, they remind me of the price of salvation; of what Jesus went through so that we could have a relationship with God. However confusing it is that Jesus died for us, the peace and assurance that I am saved because of it makes all the difference.

So, in these few days before Easter, I invite you to read the story of holy week (Matthew 26:30–27:66, Mark 14:26–15:47, Luke 22:39–23:56, and John 18:1–19:42). I don't blame you if you read this narrative while you cling to the knowledge of how it ends! We follow Jesus here and now, knowing that Jesus rose again on the third day after he died.

Prayer:

God of such unwavering love,
how do I "celebrate" the passion and death of Jesus?
I often want to look the other way  and not watch,
not stay with Jesus in his suffering.
Give me the strength to see his love with honesty and compassion,
and to feel deeply your own forgiveness and mercy for me.
Help me to understand how to "celebrate" this week.
I want be able to bring my weaknesses and imperfections with me
as I journey with Jesus this week, so aware of his love. Amen.

In Christ,

Jack

Giving it Up: Popularity

Palm Sunday. On this day, followers of Jesus remember his humble entry into the holy city of Jerusalem, "mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Matthew 21: 1-11 describes the scene, but it may not be as it seems...we may see this as a glorious procession into Jerusalem, but for all of its prophetic magic (it fulfills Zechariah 9:9-10), power and strength were absent. Authors Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan have noted that on the other side of the city, Pontius Pilate was also processing in as tensions were threatening the holy city. His was an entrance which included war horses, steel, might, strength, glory, and more popularity.

And so we also may have opposite and conflicting "processions" meandering their way into our lives. On the one hand, Christians believe and remember that Jesus came in humility, fulfilling God's promise to the world. But we also want Jesus to come in power and might and popularity. We want following Jesus to be "popular," but Jesus' way is the way of the cross. It is the way of humility, service, and love of others (especially those who are not "popular"). We want Jesus to fix our problems, but the reality is that he doesn't fix them, he enters into them. During this time of festival in Jerusalem, the city "was in turmoil" (v.10). He entered into it. He did not fix it, as was Pilate's goal, with all of his power and might. Jesus strolled on cloaks and branches on a donkey as the people shouted "Hosanna!"

"Hosanna!" is a word that means "save us" or "help us." It is a term of praise as well as a prayer; this word is used only in the Bible here when Jesus enters the turmoil of the holy city.

Do you allow Jesus to enter into your life, your turmoil, humbly, or do you want him to fix everything? How are there different, conflicting "processions" in your life?

We know how this story ends. Not in the overthrow of the Roman powers, but on the cross, dying for you and me. It ends in death and resurrection, not in power and might (at least not in the way that was expected). We can use our knowledge of how this story ends to our advantage: we know that in the end, humility, obedience, and love wins. We know, as unexpected as what Jesus did was, God wins by saving us not through power and might, but love and mercy. Thanks be to God!

*Prayer:

"Hosanna in the highest!"
that ancient song we sing,
for Christ is our Redeemer,
the Lord of heaven our King.
O may we ever praise him
with heart and life and voice,
and in his blissful presence
eternally rejoice!

*"Hosanna, Loud Hosanna," United Methodist Hymnal, 278.

In Christ,

Jack

Giving Up Our Lives

We are so close to Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter...This week, we find Jesus, John 11: 1-45, a mere 2 miles (John 11:18) from Jerusalem. Before Jesus enters the city to face his persecution and crucifixion, here he is in a story of his own very personal grief. In the gospels, this family in Bethany---Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, are the only individuals that are singled out as "loved by Jesus." Sure, he loved those in the crowds that followed him and his followers, but this kind of love was different; it was intimate. It was the sort of love that caused him to weep...what a story to hear just two weeks before we remember the grief caused by his own death...

There is something very poignant about his grief, as shown through his encounter with Mary, too. In John 1: 29-42, right after Jesus was baptized, two of John the Baptist's followers. John referred to Jesus as the "lamb of God," and they began to follow Jesus. Jesus asks them, ‘what are you looking for?’ and they respond with another question, ‘where are you staying?’ He replies, ‘come
and see.’ This isn't a casual exchange, but a deeply theological encounter. An alternative translation
could be:

• ‘What are you seeking, what do you hope to discover?
• ‘Where will you endure, remain – where will you not be moved from?’
• “Come and perceive, understand, experience.’

When Mary comes to Jesus, she falls at his feet, grieving for him. This moves Jesus in a real way, and he asks her a question that mimics the opening to the gospel – ‘Where have you placed him?’ Her response: ‘Come and see.’ The words are the same in the original text – ‘Come and perceive, understand, experience.’

Jesus' love for us is personal. He knows us: our pain, our turmoil, our neediness, and our fragile mortality. So, we do give up our lives to Jesus, whether we know it or not. Jesus knows us (see John 4) and loves us. The question is whether we will embrace that love or not; whether we will willingly give up our lives to follow Jesus. In our moments of pain and grief, our hope can lie in the loving hands of Jesus.



*Prayer:

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
such a way as gives us breath,
such a truth as ends all strife,
such a life as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
such a light as shows a feast,
such a feast as mends in length,
such a strength as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
such a joy as none can move,
such a love as none can part,
such a heart as joys in love.

*United Methodist Hymnal, 164.

Credit to Starters for Sunday, a website from the Church of Scotland. Some of this material was learned from their entry this week.

In Christ,

Jack

Giving Up Superiority

The story of the woman at the well in John 4: 5-42 is the single longest recorded conversation that Jesus has with one person. In it, the unnamed woman creates barriers between herself and Jesus. I challenge you to look at these walls she puts up, and see if you have ever done the same. If you find that you have, or are, I hope that her story helps you to deconstruct them. This seems to be a goal of Jesus', both for this woman and for you and I. He gives up his superiority in this moment to offer himself to the woman at the well.

The first barrier is prejudice. She was a woman (not valued very highly in society), and a Samaritan woman at that. Samaritan's and Jews did not get along; they had hostility towards one another. The woman said, “Why are you, a Jew, asking me to get you a drink?” The animosity she expressed was characteristic of the relationships between Jews and Samaritans. Maya Angelou wrote, “Prejudice is a burden which confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible” (All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes). That’s exactly what she was doing. She was distorting the past and making the present inaccessible. She couldn’t meet Jesus because she brought prejudice into the relationship. When we evoke prejudice, we are creating a barrier between us and the life-giving water than Jesus offers us.

The second barrier is social custom. It was not custom for a Jewish man to interact with any woman in public. It was also not custom for a Jewish man to ever speak to a woman except their mother, wife, or daughter. So, the Samaritan woman at the well evoked this barrier as a wall between her and Jesus as well. Social customs may keep us from interacting with certain people. This, too, is a wall we evoke or build up that keeps us from receiving life-giving water that Jesus offers us.


The third barrier that the woman highlighted was that Jesus was an outsider to her. Jews did not travel through Samaria. In fact, Jews were more likely to go out of their way to avoid the area, even if they had to get past it. So, Jesus was an outsider; not someone the woman at the well would normally see or interact with in her country. This made it difficult for her to truly listen to Jesus. It is true that Jesus is an outsider; he is not from that area. And Jesus is also an outsider to us; Jesus is different than us; Jesus is the son of God! We tend to think of Jesus as like us, but he just is not. If we accept the life-giving water that Jesus offers us, we will be different, too.


The woman also hesitated to be honest with Jesus but, as she tells us, the readers, Jesus already knew about her. She did not want to become vulnerable with Jesus, sharing her story, and we don't like too sometimes either. But Jesus already knows us. So, we can share our story and our experience with Jesus. This can bring us peace, healing, comfort...life.

My prayer is that you can see how you can relate to this unnamed Samaritan woman at the well, and ultimately do what she ended up doing: sharing about her experience with Jesus with her neighbors. She ended up offering Christ to those around her. Maybe if we can get past the walls we put up around Jesus, we can meet with him and share about him, too.

Prayer:

Fill my cup, Lord
I lift it up Lord.
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more;
fill it up and make me whole.

(Fill My Cup, Lord. United Methodist Hymnal, 641)

Credit to Ministry Matters, the source from which I drew the different "barriers" of the woman at the well

In Christ,

Jack

Giving Up Expectations

Nicodemus and Jesus

One of our readings for this Sunday, the second one is Lent, is John 3: 1-17. It includes one of the Bible's most famous verses: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." This statement by Jesus comes in a late-night interview with a man named Nicodemus.

Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin, the supreme council in Israel (this is the group that accused Jesus of blasphemy, for example.)  Nicodemus is seeking like so many today. He declares that
Jesus is “Come from God” – a saying normally used only of angels/messengers of God, so it hints at his believing in “something more.” At this point he is hesitant to commit himself and thinks of Jesus as only a “teacher.”

Nicodemus, settling in for a theological/philosophical discussion, would not have expected Jesus’ blunt retort in verse 3 about being born again. Jesus meant to challenge Nicodemus to think deeper about his own faith and about who Jesus is.

Up until then conversion referred to Gentiles converting to the Jewish faith: it would have been a very confusing concept that Jews to be born again. Nicodemus’ cheeky answer shows this.

Nicodemus knows something profound about Jesus, that he is "a teacher come from God." What is surprising to me is that this is the block that he stumbles over. It is what he knows about Jesus that keeps him doubting about who he really is: the savior come to save all, offering all people new life.

But Nicodemus' struggle is real. Our struggle to know God through Jesus is real.

 “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life" is the prized verse in this passage. But moving too quickly to this verse gives the illusion that our struggle with knowing and believing can be easily reconciled.

What if before going there, we lingered more intentionally and empathetically with Nicodemus? Perhaps if we did we would begin to appreciate the real resistance we experience when we hear God’s promises.

What if those promises seem as nonsensical to us as they did to Nicodemus? How can we possibly receive those promises if we do not, finally, understand them, not at least in the way the world is accustomed to understanding?

One clue to our question appears in the work of London-based writer, Susanna Howard. She works with dementia patients, people who, in the language of science, are largely defined by irretrievable losses of neurological function: loss of speech, loss of language, loss of identity, loss of mind.

For the past six years, she has been engaged in the art of listening to the words of people who suffer with dementia. She calls the project, Living Words:

"It can be extremely hard for words to come and we validate all words and sounds that are uttered [by dementia patients] -- words and expressions that seem nonsense can in fact be directly metaphoric, or just need to be said. For example, a person will use words that wouldn't be used in ordinary conversation: 'Everything was all packed up and plopped over with'; 'These people, in to the third act'; 'Some round here are all embers'; 'They don't say much this tribe.' In not finding the 'right' word people might use replacement words without realising."

While others often see only loss, she sees a life to be honored: “I very much believe that this is life and to be embraced -- only through engaging in the darkness do we see who we really are and glimpse what this life is." When she finished her first collection of poems by a woman with advanced dementia, the woman took her hand and said, “Now you know two worlds, the one outside and the one inside in me and you must go and tell all the people.”

It was a gift, a mission handed to her under cover of that darkness, a darkness disturbed by improbable illumination.


Prayer:

Wash, O God, our sons and daughters
where your cleansing waters flow.
Number them among your people;
bless as Christ blessed long ago.
Weave them bright and sparkling;
compass them with love and light.
Fill, anoint them; send your Spirit,
holy dove and heart’s delight.

(“Wash, O God, Our Sons and Daughters,” Ruth Duck, The UM Hymnal, No. 605)

In Christ,

Jack

Credit to Starters for Sunday and workingpreacher.org, whose work this week was influential for this entry

Pancakes and Ashes

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

I have to admit, I needed to "research" a bit about what this day actually means. I have heard of Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, but what in the world does "shrove" mean?

A quick internet search helps a bit:

"'Shrove Tuesday' (also known in Commonwealth countries as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake day) is the day in February or March immediately preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), which is celebrated in some countries by consuming pancakes. In others, especially those where it is called Mardi Gras or some translation thereof, this is a carnival day, and also the last day of "fat eating" or "gorging" before the fasting period of Lent...the expression "Shrove Tuesday" comes from the word shrive, meaning "absolve"."



Of course with food-eating comes party-having and perhaps some other festivities that you can imagine as part of our understanding of "Mardi Gras." Think New Orleans, beads, dancing, costumes...

So, the tradition holds that before you fast for 40 days, you have one last chance to feast before Lent begins.

I understand how much this practice may be, but I am afraid it conveys a God that does not wish for us to have fun and celebrate much. I am afraid this practice may convey a message that the season of Lent is not a joyful time, that we should not look forward to it.

Our season of Lent is derived from the time after he was baptized. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. During this time, Jesus fasted. But this time was far more than simply giving up food. It was a time of self-discovery, for proving himself, claiming his own identity...a time for Jesus to be equipped for ministry in the world. A time set apart to be tempted and tried, but ultimately come away from it with a strong sense of who he was.

OK, maybe the tradition of this day makes a bit more sense to me now. If Lent is to be an intense time of self-discovery, sacrifice, prayer, and a re-commitment to God, maybe one more day of "carelessness" makes sense...

But I believe this tradition marks just who we are as human beings. The way we think of Lent as a transaction (I will sacrifice 40 days as long as I get just 1 day of "carelessness"), points to our need for grace and mercy. We are human beings in need of that; we are in need of a God who offers us this time to be strengthened through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, knowing that Christ himself did as well. And Jesus died too, just as we will.

Ash Wednesday points to our humanness, our limitations, and just how much God loves us. We will not live forever in this world in these bodies. We were born from dust, and to dust we will return. We have hope that this life we will be made new one day, that we will be raised up by the power and mercy of God, but Wednesday, and throughout Lent, we ponder our humanness. We contemplate that we are not there yet, that we need a God who comes to us now in our humanness.

So eat your pancakes today, receive your ashes tomorrow. Be reminded of your limitations, your need for grace. We are invited to be strengthened by God during this time in the wilderness of our own lives. May God grant you peace and mercy through this season of Lent.

Prayer:

God of Lent,

As we enter this time of sacrifice, self-discovery, prayer, repentance, of drawing closer to You, grant us peace, grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the road ahead. Strengthen us, mold us, make us new by your grace and mercy. Through Jesus Christ our Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

In Christ,

Jack