Tag Archives: love

Marriage is a dance

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Dear couple,

You took ballroom dancing a while ago. And quite a few times this experience came up in our conversations.

So much in the image of dancing relates to the couple relationship in marriage. If you can hold the image, for a moment, of a couple engaged in a dance, let me reflect on what this experience can teach us about a healthy marriage.

Marriage is a dance. Usually someone takes the lead, and the other follows. But, depending on the music, the roles might reverse. Sometimes in marriage when circumstances change, health challenges mount, or when certain stresses pile up, the one who usually follows might need to take the lead for a while; whether it’s taking care of the other, or simply giving a little bit more time and love. Other times, the roles might need to reverse, again.

The first message here is to remain flexible in your roles and learn to give and receive when called upon. Rigidity and inflexibility are not signs of a healthy marriage; being flexible and fluid with roles and responsibilities, are.

Secondly, in a dance, couples sometimes dance together and sometimes apart. Kahlil Gibran (“On Marriage”) wrote about the blessing we find in the spaces between us. Honouring our differences and the important function of our individuality in a relationship is just as important as the togetherness part.

In truth, respecting boundaries may even be more important because in doing so we recognize our unique gifts and contribution to the relationship. Instead of pretending we have to be the same and merge our concept of self – blend it – with the other until we lose a sense of unique self, we learn to complement one another in mutual love.

Indeed, there is a time in the dance where we need to ‘let go’ of holding the other’s hand and dance separately: Pursuing our unique hobbies and interests, spending some time with our own friends, asserting one’s own opinion vis-à-vis the other – these are examples of a healthy individuality within a committed couple relationship, a vital characteristic of the ensemble.

Mutual and reciprocal love also means that when a mistake is made, or a mis-step as in a dance, both individuals in the partnership have to face the problem. Both are affected. When one of you messes up, both of you are thrown off course. And in that moment of confession and realization of the problem, you are left facing each other. And what will you do in that moment?

When you’ve described this situation to me, I was glad to hear that in the dance you tried to regroup, and get back into sync with each other and the music. And carried on. Because mistakes will be made, to be sure. In marriage, when one partner slips, we often think: “Well, that’s HIS problem.” Or, “that’s HER problem.” “They need to fix it;” “They need to get help.” “It’s not my problem.”

Actually, it is. The mutual nature of a healthy relationship means that just as much as it takes two to tango into a problem, it will take two to tango to resolve the problem and manage it. Any problem or conflict in a relationship carries with it mutual responsibility – causing it and resolving it. Accepting this truth will go a long way to getting a couple back into the dance.

For example, whether or not you directly exhibit symptoms of a problem that affect the relationship, you ask yourself: How did I contribute to causing this? What is my culpability? Was there something I was doing, or not doing, to allow this problem to grow? And, what is my role in solving the problem? What can I do to improve and help the situation?

In order to get back on track, both sides of the question need to be addressed by each partner.

Finally, the broad context of a dance is a party, right? Let’s not forget this: At a party, you dance. It is a joyous event, something to be celebrated. Like marriage, and this wedding day, you are surrounded by a community. Marriage is a public act, supported by others around you. Your friends, your family and your church gather to celebrate and give thanks for your decision to be married.

And, what is more, we’re having a ball! It is a party. Take the time to look around you today at the faces of those who have come to support you and pray for you. These are the people who have walked with you and promise to continue walking – and dancing on the dance floor – with you on the journey of life. Marriage calls us, in the end, not to retreat and isolate ourselves from, but to engage with our community and our world in meaningful and productive ways. Marriage is a reflection – a witness – to God’s purposes in the world.

The music is the source of our dancing and our partying. The music is the reason for our joy in marriage. The music is like God’s presence. It is always there for us. God’s love, God’s peace, God’s Word – are available to us. God’s grace is the beat – the rhythm – that gives life to our movement with one another.

And for this, we are eternally thankful!

Dance on!

The Glory of God

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Just ten days after the attacks in Boston, one of the victims gave a chilling testimony to the media about what happened in the moments after the bombs exploded.

She and others standing at the bar overlooking the street were blown off their feet and against the wall. Then, she remembered the smoke and screams which reminded her of 9-11. In an unwavering voice she spoke of how her foot suddenly felt like it was on fire, and she couldn’t put any weight on it.

Everyone started running for the back door of the bar. She called out for someone to help her, because she couldn’t move. She recalled how frightened she felt because no one seemed to be listening to her pleas for help. And then, everything went dark.

Reflecting on the trauma we watched on TV last week, my wife and I have talked about what we might have done if we found ourselves on that sidewalk in Boston watching the race when the bombs went off. Had we not been physically damaged by the shrapnel what would we have done? Started running away, focused on escaping the mayhem? Would we have been primarily motivated by self-preservation?

Or, would we have looked around us? Would we pay attention to where the greatest need was, and offer help? Would we have run against the crowd?

I must confess, I didn’t imagine I would be so altruistic and ready to help. I must confess, I would likely be one of those people running headlong to that back door focused on nothing else but getting out.

And for us Christians who have received Christ’s commandment “that we love one another,” we may be embarrassed, as I have been, at how poorly we put this command into practice.

In the Gospel passage today (John 13:31-35), we hear Jesus’ commandment to love. And what I find remarkable is that Jesus gives this commandment precisely at a time when everything but love was swirling about him. It was the night before his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus was a marked man. A target was on his back. And while Jesus was eating the Passover Meal with his disciples, Judas had just slipped out from the group to carry out his dastardly deed to betray Jesus.

And right after Jesus speaks the commandment to love, Peter falsely predicted that he would always be faithful and committed to Jesus – we know later that Peter denied knowing Jesus three times.

So Jesus command to love is spoken right in the very midst of betrayal and violence. Not an easy situation in which to be preaching or practising love.

But it is precisely at these times when it matters the most. Jesus calls us to do this not in some abstract, ideal, fantasy world when it’s easy to love, but rather in the real world of violence and broken-ness. And that’s not easy.

This is one reason why we need to gather for worship from week to week –

We need to hear over and over again God’s good news in the midst of all around us that is un-loving.

We need to hear once more the story of the resurrection, the affirmation that life and God’s love is more powerful than death and sin.

We need to hear once more God’s undying love for us all, so that we can be strengthened to practice love toward others, when it counts the most.

I find it significant that we read the word “glory” some five times in this short Gospel text. Odd – even counter-intuitive – you would think, that “glory” is associated with the pretext of Jesus’ suffering and death. Perhaps this emphasis on the glory of God is to underscore that love is not just some Valentine’s Day, romantic, warm fuzzy feeling shared between people in a comfortable, safe place.

Love, on the other hand, is in the Christian faith, self-giving. It is something realized, and practiced, for others – especially when the going gets tough.

As difficult as it is, coming to that place of self-giving love often, in the testimony of people’s lives, happens right in the valley of the shadow of death: amidst loss, stress, disappointment, suffering and pain. The transformation people experience towards a renewed sense of God’s love in Christ Jesus occurs usually at their lowest point in life.

For a long time, the accumulation of personal wealth was the single most important goal for Millard Fuller. During the 1960s, making a pile of money was his singular goal from which he never wavered. Amassing a personal fortune, Fuller was the ultimate “success” story.

But he paid a high price for this. Fuller admitted later how it affected his personal integrity, his health, and his marriage. When his wife Linda left him and informed him that his Lincoln, the large house, the cottage on the lake, two speed boats and a maid did not make up for his absence from his family, he realized what he had sacrificed for money.

It was at that moment when a transformation occurred in his life – when he began focussing less on himself and more on others, more on living out God’s great love for himself, and for others.

In 1976, Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity, one of the most transforming forces around the world today, drawing on local volunteers to build houses for those who have need.

From someone who was once only focussed on himself, Fuller was transformed to someone focussed on others, living out Jesus’ commandment to love one another. “I love God and I love people,” Fuller says now, “this is the focus of my life, and that is why I am doing it.”

I like the story of two young boys playing church. One of them was explaining to the other what all the parts of the liturgy were about.

“So, do you know what the pastor does at the end of the service when he does this?” And he made the sign of the cross.

“Yeah, sure,” the other boy chimed in, “it means some go this way out and the others go that way out!”

The boy was right. The cross sends us out and scatters us out into the world with Christ’s command to love, where we would least expect to do so. The really important thing for any church is not how many people the church can seat, but how many it sends out to love in real, practical ways. A self-giving love, in moments of human hardship, is the glory of God.

The victim of the Boston attacks who recently spoke to the media was told some days after her foot was amputated how she was rescued from the mayhem of that smoke-filled bar. She was told of how a couple of people risked their own lives to drag her to safety. Those two people resisted the temptation to run en masse with everyone else. They had the presence of mind to look around to see if anyone needed help. Amidst the chaos, they were able to express the love that Jesus was talking about, whether they knew it or not.

Glory be to God!

Dare to be you

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In my life as an identical twin, unrealistic expectations of my twin-hood abounded. On the one hand, people presumed my brother and I are identical — I mean perfectly duplicate copies of each other. On the other hand, people loved to compare and contrast, presuming — as I always have — that there are inherent differences.

The ‘identical twin’ designation is nevertheless a misnomer. Being an identical twin doesn’t mean I am a copy-cutter, mirror-image of my twin brother David. We are actually different!

And yet, my twin identity has contributed — I think — to some attitudes with which I’ve lived most of my life, attitudes that may not have been entirely helpful to my growth and maturity and development, spiritual and otherwise.

Particularly, I remember how important it was for me to recognize my own path, my own unique identity — apart from David’s. Until I was able to claim a unique place within the fabric of my family, my community of friends and church I often felt compelled to incessantly compare myself to David, which was exhausting and emotionally draining.

Until I could say to myself that “I am who I am” on my own two feet, I would too easily slip into negativity and self-rejection. Either because I was not good enough compared to David, or I had to be someone that I wasn’t, or better than I was. Or, relish in the victory that I beat out David in some way — for the moment, anyway!

From this kind of thinking emerges a work ethic, which is not unlike what many of us have likely heard or told ourselves growing up: “Try harder!” “You’re no good the way you are; you have to try to be something and someone that you aren’t now.” The striving and activity characterizing religion today has as its starting point: self-negation, self-rejection. “I’m no good the way I am; I have to get better.” Or, “we’re not good the way we are; we have to get better.”

In and of itself, this motivation is not bad. A yearning for completion, for healing and growth, for communion with God and one another is good and healthy. Denying our brokenness and sin is dangerous and ultimately destructive.

But when this desire becomes ego-centric in expressions of false humility or justifications for staying stuck — mired in a pious negativity (“I/we can’t do that; I’m/we’re no good” — we can so easily miss recognizing the whole point of our journeys of faith (“Yes I/we can, because of God’s grace and love!”).

Christians believe we are all made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27); we all have the imprint of God on our lives. But everyone doesn’t manifest the same divine qualities. Even identical twins!

Each of us reflects a unique aspect of God’s character. And this truth results in different gifts, different energies. Different ways of dealing with a similar situation, even. All good. All part of the beautiful diversity of creation.

Sometimes I wonder whether we haven’t confused the voice of brokenness and sin in each of us with our diversity. That just because you do something differently from me, just because you react in a different way to a situation we both face, just because you are different from me — that somehow either I have the right way and you have the wrong way, either you are sinful and I am righteous or vice versa, or we’re better than them.

What if by digging a bit deeper we recognize a shared truth about ourselves and our Lord? What if by inquiring a bit further we discover that it’s not that we’re better than them, but that they have simply gone about it in a different way — a way with which we’re merely unfamiliar. What if it’s not either/or? What if it’s both/and? And this awareness starts, I believe, not by insisting on conformity in the church, but by acknowledging, recognizing and celebrating our diversity.

Our diversity and variety make us whole and complete, as the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12). All parts are needed for the health of the Body, as Paul famously writes in his letter to the Corinthian Church. We can’t all be eyes, or we wouldn’t have a body. We can’t all be legs; that would look like a very funny body! We can’t all be hair, or we would be Tribbles on an old Star Trek episode — the Trouble with Tribbles! We are not like-minded people even though we belong to the same church — but we never were!

And that’s good! The way it ought to be!

During our weekly lectionary study, some of you noticed that John seemed particularly interested in mentioning that the disciples caught precisely 153 fish after following the instruction from Jesus to throw the net on the right side of the boat (John 21:1-19). Why mention an exact number: 153? Why not simply write: “They caught a whole mother-lode of fish!”?

Initially I just thought John throws a number out there simply to indicate that the disciples counted all the fish that would potentially be sold on the market, as professional fishers would do. This is not some made-up story, after all. This post-resurrection account is grounded in the economic reality of the day. These fishermen have to make a living off the fish they catch, right?

An early thinker, writer and leader in the church, Jerome, wrote in the fifth century that at the time it was assumed that there was a grand total of 153 species of fish. He went on to interpret that the 153 was a reference to the “completeness” of the church, which embraces all people (p.11, Richard Rohr, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective). Suffice it to say, the citing of a number here is not arbitrary, but has a symbolic value and is therefore intentionally written such.

In the Gospel story, we witness two very different responses to Jesus in Peter and John: Peter, consistent with his impulsive character, jumps in the water and swims to Jesus. He’s all about action.

John, on the other hand, is the first to recognize that it is the Lord (v.7). His gift is recognition. What gift is this, you might ask? A very important one, evidently: It wasn’t just Mary who couldn’t at first recognize the risen Lord standing right in front of her in the garden the morning of the resurrection (20:11-18). In the locked, upper room the text suggests the frightened disciples don’t immediately recognize it is Jesus who comes and says, “Peace be with you”; it isn’t until they see his wounds that they can confess who he is (20:19-29). In Luke’s account of the post-resurrection appearances, the twins walked about ten kilometers from Jerusalem to Emmaus talking to a stranger they didn’t recognize was Jesus himself! (Luke 24:13-35). Being able to recognize the living Jesus in our midst, in the course of our daily lives — this is a gift. And John has it.

Peter is about action. John is about understanding. John doesn’t jump in the water and swim to shore. Peter doesn’t reflect, contemplate and perceive. Each does their part. Both have their unique gifts to bring to the disciples’ collective experience of the risen Lord. One without the other is inadequate. One is not better than the other. Both are equally valuable, even though they represent such diverse expressions of faith.

The church today needs a variety of gifts in order to respond fully to Christ’s presence in the world today, and in our lives. The church today — we — need to set aside our claims of priority and work together in patience, forgiveness and devotion to Jesus Christ who is alive! That goes not only for us in our congregation, but in terms of how we relate to other congregations, our Synod, our national church, other Lutheran and non-Lutheran denominations.

What are our unique gifts? What do we bring to the table? What are the gifts in those we meet who are very different from us?

Let’s dare to be who we are! Let’s embrace our individuality!

Doubting Thomas – reconciled

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Douglas “Pete” Peterson was a US Air force pilot who during the Vietnam War flew hundreds of bombing missions over North Vietnam. Then in September 1966 his plane was hit by a missile and he had to eject, landing with broken bones in a Mango tree near a small village.

Knowing who this man was and where he came from, the angry villagers paraded him around town like a hunting trophy. Treating him like dirt, they dragged him down dusty roads and jeered and taunted him, eventually landing him in the Prisoner of War jail otherwise known to American POWs as the “Hanoi Hilton”. There he spent the next several years of his life until finally released in the mid-seventies.

Reflecting on his harrowing ordeal years later, Pete Peterson said that he had no intention of becoming a “career POW” and that God had not saved his life for him to be angry.

He was appointed by then President Clinton to be the first US ambassador to Vietnam since the war. It was awkward for both parties – first for the Vietnamese to receive a man who had killed many of their military and civilian population during those countless bombing raids.

On the other hand, for Peterson it was a challenge to be a diplomat working with the Vietnamese government who were ultimately responsible for the “lost” years of his life enduring torture and threat of death in the “Hanoi Hilton”.

A special moment came four months after he took up his post in May 1997. On the 10th of September – the same day he had been shot down 31 years earlier – Peterson revisited An Doai, the village where he had been taken prisoner.

He drank tea with Nguyen Viet Chop and Nguyen Danh Xinh – two of the men who had dragged him back to the village through the rice paddies. And he walked through the fields, holding hands with the grandson of one of his former captors, to the mango tree in which he had fallen 31 years earlier.

Peterson said that day: “I return here not to re-live what was probably the most unhappy day of my life, but to signify to the entire world that reconciliation is not only possible but absolutely the way to reach out.”

In his four years as Ambassador, Peterson became – in the words of one reporter – a “billboard for reconciliation”. Peterson himself confessed that working for the Vietnamese on behalf of the United States, he had to “check hate at the door”.

And what did reconciliation, love and grace accomplish?

He was instrumental in advocating for a helmet law for cyclists and moped riders in Vietnam. Also, a study he helped set up discovered that the leading cause of death among children in Vietnam was not disease, but accidental drowning.

It was calculated that in Vietnam every hour one toddler drowned. A large portion of Vietnam is covered in lakes and rivers and rice paddies. Also most people can’t swim – so parents don’t teach their children. The organization Peterson helped found lobbied policy makers so that today, the Vietnamese government has instituted swimming lessons in the schools with the hope that by 2020 every Vietnamese child leaving secondary school will be able to swim.

Today in the Gospel text we read the story about the “Doubting Thomas” (John 20:19-31). Often our first thoughts about this story center on the question of doubt in a life of faith; “Do not doubt but believe!” is the thematic call-sign for this annual Easter story.

The end of the story nevertheless implies a very important theme we may overlook. While we don’t know for certain, I believe it is fair to assume that Thomas is reconciled to his community of faith.

There’s a moving scene in the 2003 film, “The Gospel of John” (directed by Philip Saville), where Thomas returns to his community of faith in the upper room. He comes back a week later – how and why we really don’t know. Perhaps, after sensing the futility of remaining cut off from them, he was going to give his cohorts a second chance. Perhaps he “checked hatred at the door” and felt he had nothing to lose by showing up and seeing first hand if what they said was true: that Jesus was alive.

And when Jesus does appear and gives personal attention to Thomas, Thomas weeps. Watching this scene, you can feel the emotional release: all the pent up anger, fear and cynicism just surrendered in the wash of Jesus’ love and compassion for Thomas. “My Lord, and my God” Thomas is finally able to confess. His confession signals his reconciliation with Jesus and with his community of faith.

God is about reconciliation. God’s mission on earth is about reconciling those who have been divided. Paul calls it the “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5). Where reconciliation happens – as it did for Thomas and Jesus in the Upper Room two thousand years ago; as it did for Pete Peterson and Nguyen Viet Chop in a Vietnamese rice field sixteen years ago – there God is.

So let us pray for, and work towards, reconciliation: Where there is division and hatred, may God’s grace and love and forgiveness heal, restore and reconcile. The Easter message is about second chances, new beginnings, new life, new opportunities, starting over. It was for Thomas and Jesus. It was for Pete Peterson and the Vietnamese.

May it be for us, as well.

You can read the entire, moving story of Pete Peterson in BBC News Magazine, 22 March 2013, “Pete Peterson: The exPOW teaching Vietnam how to swim” by William Kremer, BBC World Service

From Golgotha to Homs

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This Holy Week our attention focuses on the story of Jesus’ Passion. For people of faith especially the suffering and violence to which Jesus eventually surrenders in death on a cross stirs the emotions and even brings tears during the liturgies of the week.

It is a moving story of sacrifice, love, betrayal and ultimate vindication and victory. It’s impact has literally changed the world and altered the course of history.

But if our humble observance this week stops at a reverent gazing upon the Cross of Christ, how then does our faith translate to today’s realities? Would Christ on the cross two thousand years ago not lead us to see Christ in the faces of those who suffer today?

Some Christians express concern today for the various ways people of faith strive to make religion relevant, popular, exciting and culturally palatable.

Then they need Good Friday. Because the cross keeps us grounded in the primary action of Christ. The cross stands at the center of the holy story. If any will question and scrutinize the actions of Christians, it will never be in helping the poor, standing with the marginalized, advocating for justice for those who suffer, all in the name of Jesus — as unpopular and undesirable as doing this might be.

This year the observance of Holy Week falls at a time when the crisis in Syria heightens and refugees stream over the borders into neighboring Jordan –Escaping violence, searching for safety and security, forced from their homeland. The escalating hundreds of thousands of refugees are alarming international aid organizations and local governments.

The Cross of Christ cannot but point us to look in this direction today. To the suffering, the dying. I was astounded to read earlier this week that tens of thousands of children die each day in poverty and from malnutrition — conditions often exacerbated in refugee camps.

Action among the living faithful must emerge out of a holy observance about God’s great acts in Christ. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son ….

The world yesterday. The world today. And the world tomorrow.

From Golgotha to Homs, with love.

To hear a first hand account and learn more about the growing crisis in Syria, the Christian Council of the Ottawa Area invites you to “Joining in Prayer for Syria” on Thursday April 11 beginning with welcome and refreshments at 7:15pm at the Arch Diocese Centre at 1247 Kilborn Place in Ottawa.

A presentation will be given by Huda Kandalaft of Homs, Syria, and now of Ottawa. She will speak about the struggles of Christians in Syria today.

Simplicity I – Holy Week

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Lent is a call to simplicity. We are called in this season to simplify our lives. In the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, the first beatitude is: “Blessed are the poor (in spirit)”.

On Maundy Thursday, the altar is stripped of all its vestments and vessels to remind us of Jesus’ suffering and humiliation at the hands of the soldiers upon his arrest. This ‘stripping away’ was a negative –

Indeed, don’t we look upon “poverty” as something bad? In our remembrance of Jesus’ passion haven’t we come to look with suspicion on anything in our lives of faith that smacks of this kind of ‘stripping away’ in our lives?

Because poverty means we are in a state of doing without something we feel we need. We may even equate a poverty of spirit with self-rejection, self-abasement, self-denial.

Therefore we have quite naturally focused our efforts on righting the wrong. We pursue social justice and serving the needs of the poor.

Yet, for me, something remains unattended, inadequate, in our doing more.

In this Lenten call to simplicity, am I not also called to ‘strip away’ all that which distracts me from being truly present? Will I truly pay attention to whatever circumstance of life in which I find myself – rich or poor? Am I not also called, alongside others – rich and poor – to return to an awareness and appreciation of what is essential?

I have appreciated the opportunity during past Lenten seasons to simplify and try to shed peels off the proverbial onion of my life – peels that represent inordinate desires, stuff and lifestyle choices that are really not that important, especially for my physical, spiritual, mental health. It’s good from time to time simply to pay attention to what I normally do without thinking – my routines and regular decisions in life, my automatic emotional responses to certain situations, the stuff I purchase without thinking.

Can the way of poverty, then, also be a positive force? Especially, too, as we hear the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, declare that what he wants is a “poor church serving the needs of the poor.” Surely he doesn’t mean a poverty that is self-denigrating, self-rejecting – but rather a kind of poverty that strips away all that is really unnecessary and frankly only reflects our ego compulsions, our desires, our obsessive behavior.

And perhaps there isn’t a better time to reflect on the question of spiritual poverty than when things aren’t going all that well in life? When taking a step back and assessing where our lives are going is warranted. Maybe you find yourself in a particular bind, or facing a challenging situation with someone, a difficulty that has presented itself now. Before going on the attack and blaming others — even God — what may God be calling you to “let go of”?

Every time a sports team begins to lose games, over and over again, I hear the same thing from coaches when they’re interviewed and asked why their team is losing; often they say – “we have to get back to basics, doing the small things right.” Simplify.

And, it’s also about getting back to basics in our prayer with God. I can’t think of a better way to acknowledge among very diverse Christians our bond of unity, than to affirm the role of prayer in our common practice of faith.

And not that we must pray the same way. But simply in our communion with God who connects with us in our hearts: as we listen, as we wait, as we praise, as we lift our hands and hearts, as we use words even as words aren’t always necessary, as we reach out in prayerful action in the name of Christ. Prayer – getting back to basics. Doing small but meaningful things from the heart. Modern day contemplatives say that the best way to prepare yourself for prayer is by small acts of kindness.

Which doesn’t necessarily always have to be expressed in great deeds of social action. The action can be a small, unselfish act by a young child. Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like a little child you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Macrina Wiederkehr in the book, “A Tree Full of Angels” beautifully illustrates this truth and our need for simplicity, simple prayer, simple action; in short, child-likeness; She wrote:

“One special moment of beauty that stands out in my mind I experienced in a bus station …. I witnessed a little girl helping her brother get a drink at the water fountain. Attempting to lift him to the proper height turned out to be impossible. I was just at the point of giving them some assistance when quick as lightening she darted over to a shoe-shine man, pointed to a footstool he wasn’t using, dragged it to the water fountain, and very gently lifted up her thirsty brother. It all happened so fast and it was so simple, yet it turned out to be a moment of beauty that became a prayer for me. So much to be learned from such a little moment. Perhaps what touched me most [she concluded] was her readiness to seek out a way to take care of the need without waiting to be rescued. It was a moment of beauty: a small child with a single, simple heart.”

Lent culminates in this Holy Week as we hear the stories again of Jesus’ arrest, suffering, torture and brutal death on the cross. The reality of death is one we naturally want to deny, to put off thinking about – because its unpleasantness and mystery can unnerve us. No wonder not even many Christians care to worship on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday – and wait then to rejoin the worshipping assembly on the joyous exuberance of Easter morning.

And yet, it is through the unpopular way of simplicity and this most simple reality of our mortal dependence on God that we can now know and experience the glory, love and eternal victory of God in Jesus. Without Good Friday there can be no Easter. May our Holy Week observance be a blessing for us in the simplicity of our prayer and being. May the difficult yet simple journey to the Cross and through the Cross open the way for us to eternal life, and make us aware of what is truly important. May the example of Jesus give us the courage to let go when we need to. And receive the forgiveness freely given.

For our health. For our well-being. For the sake of Jesus. And those in need.

Palms and Passion II

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Like I said, maybe you might want to stay home on Palm/Passion Sunday.

But before you make alternate plans, hold on a minute. The reading from Philippians (2:5-11) appointed for this Sunday might help us deal with the liturgical and contextual disconnect of Palms and Passion. This ancient Christian hymn describes God’s work in Jesus – particularly Jesus’ self-emptying to take on human form and be of loving service to others.

If you look at the shape of the text itself, perhaps the most notable structural element is the space between verse 8 and 9. Yes, the space.

Your bibles most likely preserve the extra-line space between two, clearly visible sections of this poetry. The first part puts the onus on us, because it is introduced by the words: “Let the same mind be in you …” (v.5). We are encouraged to embody the gift of Christ’s presence, Christ’s mind, in us – the attitude of loving service to others.

In the context of what we do on Palm/Passion Sunday – this is the Palm part. Bear with me.

You see, the crowds heralded Jesus as the King who would save the people from Roman domination. The crowds believed in the kind of Messiah who would come and make their lives better, who would change their external circumstances for the better. And so when Jesus rode in majesty, riding on a donkey, the crowds understandably laid palm branches on the royal highway and cheered “Hosanna! Hosanna!”

The Palms part of the service represents our often meager attempts at worship, at service, at prayer and Christian faith. Well-intentioned, perhaps. But, in this sometimes zealous defending of the truth or passionate display of piety, we are still seeing into a mirror dimly, aren’t we? (1 Corinthians 13).

For all their misguided, imperfect, muddied expectations, beliefs and desires – this was the human response to Jesus. I believe we can relate: Because how often do we catch ourselves falling far short of the mark? How easily do we come to confession, bearing our misdeeds and failures? Don’t we, as the Christian family, need to confess our divisions, our fighting, our self-absorbed compulsions that lead us astray, distract us, and bring us to our knees? That’s why we need to ‘do’ Palm Sunday.

But we also need to ‘do’ Passion Sunday.

Because the Palms part alone is not the full story. Doing the Palms part alone means we haven’t truly ‘emptied’ ourselves, as we are called to let the mind of Christ be in us. How can we embody the “mind of Christ” by emptying ourselves of ourselves? Is this even possible?

That’s why the space between verse 8 and verse 9 is so important. Because however we decide to respond to this scripture, to Jesus, to our living faith either individually or communally – our response dies at verse 8. After that, God takes over.

If every knee will bend at the name of Jesus, if every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, it is because God highly exalted Jesus and gave him that name that is above every name. Human volition – our action, our choice, our striving – ends at verse 9. The most important word in this text is, “Therefore”. Because now, God takes over.

We cannot do what Christ did in the Passion. We cannot atone for our sins, ourselves. We cannot by our good works save ourselves. We cannot by our even valiant efforts make ourselves right with God by what we believe and by what we do.

I know so much of our Christian culture orients itself about imitating Jesus – What Would Jesus Do? All well and good. But the Passion reminds us that it was Jesus, and only Jesus, who walked that path to the Cross for us. The Passion puts in perspective who is the author of our faith, who makes things right in our lives, who creates in us a clean spirit, who lives in us in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The space between verses 8 and 9 is the equivalent of the grave in which Jesus lay, dead as dead could be – perfectly obedient to death – with no pulse, no thought, no will (p.175, Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word Year C Vol 2). A famous preacher, Fred Craddock, says: “The grave of Christ was a cave, not a tunnel”; that is, Christ acted for us knowing that his human life had to completely stop.

That is precisely what God has exalted and vindicated: self-denying service for others to the point of death without first claiming any return, no eye upon a reward (p. 42, Philippians – Interpretation Series). Otherwise, it wouldn’t be death, would it? Our human thoughts and beliefs and wishes all have to die. So it was for Jesus’ humanity. Love for others, to the point of death.

I read the Processional Gospel from Luke this year. What immediately follows this text we didn’t read. The form of the Lukan text implies that Jesus went immediately from the triumphal entry on the donkey to the hillside overlooking Jerusalem, where he weeps over a people so misguided and delusional. But unlike a natural human reaction which would dismiss and discard with disdain, Jesus weeps out of love and great desire to gather everyone under protective wings as a mother hen her chicks. (Luke 19:41-44)

Jesus reconciles Palms and Passion in his love for sinners. That’s us. Despite our sin, Jesus sees in us a beauty and a reflection of God’s goodness worth dying for. Worth going to the Cross for.

That is why on Palm/Passion Sunday, in the end, we do not focus on what we believe about Jesus. We focus on what he did. And what we can do because of what he did.

God’s laugh at Easter

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In his 1962 literary classic, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, Ray Bradbury writes about a carnival that comes to a small town. The novel describes the evil, carnival magicians who inflict the townsfolk with demonstrations of supernatural events that confirm the main characters’ worst fears: Their very lives are in danger. The dark fantasy climaxes with a confrontation between the Wicked Witch and Charles Halloway, the town’s librarian.

She finds him in the library among the book stacks and begins her evil design to kill him by stopping his heart. He is terrified, locked in the hypnotic power of her dark presence. Charles can only watch, transfixed, as she weaves the air with her scorpion fingers, slowing his heart, beat by beat …

He feels his heart squeeze. Nearing the moment of no return when darkness engulfs his vision, Charles last notices her spindly fingers tickling the air. And he giggles —

A giggle which then turns into a deep, rolling, belly laugh. He can only laugh at her performance.

The witch stops short. She renews her efforts with vigor, waving her hands all over the place. But her power is suddenly thwarted. Laughter turns the tide of evil. And the carnival leaves the town. Laughter, in the face of evil, saves the day.

Easter is God’s last laugh at the devil. When all seems lost and Jesus lies in the tomb, apparently defeated by the evil of humanity …. The morning sunlight bursts on the scene, the stone is rolled away, and the grave is found empty! Ha! Jesus is not dead. He is alive! Hallelujah! Ha! Happy Easter!

It is tradition at Easter time to tell jokes. Because laughter reflects the character of this season of joyous celebration. Here’s a joke about golfing – a true story, actually:

Four retired vets, even with the limitations of ageing, regularly golfed together. All of them, though, especially Jerry, had the reputation of cheating a bit to gain an advantage against his very competitive group of friends.

One time when the foursome was out on a warm Spring day, Jerry hit his ball from the fairway and made an awful mis-hit. His ball flew into the bush off to the right of the fairway. The ball was so far into the bush that when he finally found it his comrades could not see him from the fairway. All they could hear was the “swish-swish-swish-swish” from swinging his club at what must have been a terrible spot.

Finally after about seven “swishes” the ball popped out on the fairway. When he emerged from the bush one of his comrades asked, “So, how many strokes, Jerry?” And Jerry, thinking quickly, replied, “One.”

“One!” they all said together, “We heard you take at least seven swings!” Jerry immediately replied, “Darn snake and I got him too!”

On Easter, the tables have been turned. God did not “cheat” death; like breaking the rules of a game. Instead, God overcame death; there’s now a new game in town. Now, bad news is dwarfed by new life. It’s called: Resurrection. Life triumphs over death. Death and life did hang in the balance in the torturous, grievous days leading to this morning. But now, there is no question of who is victorious. The life of God in Jesus triumphs over death.

What does the new life – the resurrection – of Jesus mean for you? That’s a very good question that I hope you will reflect on in this season. One thing it means for me is, now I can believe in what without the resurrection of Jesus would at first seem impossible.

Just like when Charles Halloway laughed at the witch in the Ray Bradbury novel: After Charles shared his discovery with others in the town, they were able to believe something that didn’t seem remotely possible before. They were able to believe that they could expel the evil carnival from their town. Which they did. With the gift of laughter.

For many years athletes believed it was impossible for humans to run a 4-minute mile. In track events around the world, top milers ran a mile in just over 4 minutes.

Then, a British runner named Roger Bannister decided to determine what changes he could make in his running style and strategy to break the 4-minute barrier. He believed it was possible to run faster and put many months of effort into changing his running pattern to reach his goal. In 1954 Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. His belief that he could succeed contributed to a changed outcome in his life.

What’s even more remarkable, I think, is once Bannister broke the record, the best milers from around the world also began to run the mile in under 4 minutes. But, unlike Bannister, these runners did not substantially change their running patterns and strategies. What had changed were their thoughts; they now believed it was possible to run this fast – and their behavior followed their thinking.

Of course, just knowing it’s possible to run fast does not mean everyone can do it. Thinking is not the same as doing. So how does the Easter story encourage our faith? How does the Easter story encourage our belief in a risen Lord, in a God that is not dead, but alive? How does believing in the risen Lord translate into life lived fully?

What did Jesus first do after he was raised from the dead? Remember, Jesus spent 33 years limited by his human form. Even though he was fully divine, he chose for that amount of time to give up his place in the divine realm, take human form, become a servant, and die a human death (Philippians 2).

What do you think Jesus would want to do when back in his divine form? From a human perspective, you’d think the divine part of Jesus would be thrilled to be finally freed from the burdensome, messy, violent, cruel, painful trappings of his humanity, right?

You’d think the resurrected Jesus would want nothing more to do with the human world. You’d think he’d just want to get outa there and shoot away into the divine realm, where he would be reunited with his Father, right?

But the Gospels are all clear on this: We read that Jesus – in his divine form – appeared to Mary and some other disciples on that first Easter day, right after he is resurrected from the dead. The Gospel stories we read over the next several weeks are about Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to his disciples — the famous walk to Emmaus, breakfast by the sea, meeting the doubting Thomas. When Jesus first emerged from the dark tomb, the Bible doesn’t say he spent time with the heavenly beings, united with his Father God. But his human friends, on earth!

Now, let’s for a moment consider why on earth Jesus would do this – that is, meet with his earthly friends right away? He obviously wanted to connect with them — to assure them, encourage them, empower them, love them. He was, after all, their friend — forever.

Incredible! Not only did Jesus express an incredible love to us in his death; he also, in his divinity, shows unbelievable love – to reach out to us, today – AFTER his resurrection.

What is the nature of the divine Jesus, the risen Lord, we worship today? He comes to us. He is with us – Emmanuel. As the Psalmist so wonderfully expresses – there is no place on earth we can go now that he is not there! (Psalm 139). Anywhere, everywhere we go, Jesus is there, too.

What the Easter story so profoundly teaches us is that Jesus Christ has not given up on us. He remains committed to us even after his resurrection. Just as he went first to his disciples after being raised from the dead and showed to them his faithfulness, so too Jesus continues to come to us, to show us his faithfulness. He is, as one scholar described, “the hound of heaven” – he will never give up on us.

The living Jesus will keep on waiting for us to answer his gentle, loving knock on the door of our hearts. He waits for us to respond in faith, in believing. He continues to come to us in love and mercy, waiting for us to respond in faith and believe in things we cannot yet see. And the more we believe something is possible, the more likely we are to attempt it, and maybe even realize it.

What if it is possible? Easter invites us to believe in something that is beyond the present circumstance. Easter invites us to believe in someone that is beyond rational explanation and sensate knowing. Easter awakens in each one of us the God-given gifts of faith, hope, and love. Just like laughter does; it opens our hearts.

So, laugh a little today. And imagine what could happen if we all believed in these impossible possibilities!

A Prodigal Parable

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A wayward son left home at the age of 17 to make it on his own and get out from under the thumb and control of his Dad. His parents heard from him only at Christmas.

In time, after all the inheritance money the boy received from his Grandpa was spent, and he realized how good he had it at home, he called his Mom and asked if it would be alright if he took a train to come home. He promised her he was off drugs and was done with loose living. She was delighted but he wanted her to check with his Dad to make sure he would accept him back.

The train tracks ran right behind his parents’ property. There was a large oak tree near the trestle he had played on as a child. “Mom, if it is okay with Dad for me to come home, ask him to tie a white flag on that tree and as I come by I will know whether or not to get off at the next stop. The boy was hungry for home.

He was also nervous. Would his Dad forgive him? Could he come home? When the train took the last curve before his home, he could not bear to look.

He hurriedly asked his elderly seat partner to look and see if there was a white flag on the oak tree. The son closed his eyes and prayed.

Then he heard the man excitedly say, “Did you say ONE white flag, son? Why, every branch has a white flag attached to it!”

Read Luke 15:1-3,11b-32. Who are you in the story? Who is God? Who finds healing? And how? What do you imagine happens next?

(All my notes indicated was that this story came from a CSS Publication for preachers. If anyone has the exact bibliography, please let me know. Thanks!)

Wisps of Wisdom — on sin & forgiveness

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How does our perspective on sin and forgiveness relate to the following ‘wisps of wisdom’ on the sometimes heavy topics of sin, judgment — and forgiveness?

It’s Lent, after all! Aren’t we supposed to dwell on these matters?

At a round table discussion last weekend with several senior, committed, lifelong Christians, I heard these kinds of statements:

“Confessing sin is about becoming aware again of my need for and my dependence on God.”

“God will not act toward us in judgment because of our sins so much as for all the gifts we refused from the gracious hand of God.”

“Forgiveness of sins is not a reprieve from a judge but an embrace from a lover.”

“It is not Jesus’ suffering and death that saved us but Christ’s love.”

What do you think? I, for one, am grateful and encouraged.