The New Days

 

Joshua 5:9-12

Lent 2 / Year C

We had an early-afternoon appointment with our OBGYN a week before the due-date of our second daughter.  My wife was experiencing “back labor”, which apparently is uncomfortable.  Because Abbey was scheduled to be a C-section delivery, the doctor said, “You have gone long enough.  Let me call the hospital and see when they have an OR available.”  The word came back… 5:00 PM.  We went home, packed a bag, made arrangements for friends to care for our older daughter, fed the dog, and headed to the hospital.  One the way we stopped at a camera shop to pick up a couple of rolls of film and video tape to record the momentous occasion.  I still recall looking at my watch.  It was 3:30.  How odd, I thought, in 90 minutes our lives will never be the same; odd not that it was happening, but to be in possession of such knowledge down to the exact minute.

Life’s major transitions don’t always come so neatly scheduled, but some do.  Graduation.  Moving into a new house.  Starting a new job.  Your wedding day.  Relocating to a state.  Your last scheduled day of treatment before being given a clean bill of health.  Turning 16, 18, or 21, with all the new opportunities each age confers.  Retirement.  As I noted in Friday’s e-news, transitions come in many shapes and sizes; expected or unexpected; rapid or drawn out; anticipated or dreaded; embraced or resisted. 

In today’s first lesson, we read about a transition which has been a long-time coming.  God’s people, once enslaved in Egypt, cross the Jordon River and return to the Promised Land.  It has been forty years since the Exodus.  No adult whose feet touched the dry bottom of the Red Sea is still alive.  This is a new day for God’s new people, who bear the stories, traditions, heritage, and identity of their ancestors.  Some of it will translate into their new environment.  Much of it will not.

I remember graduating from seminary in Mid-May of 1987.  While it was a goal I worked hard to achieve, I had an overwhelming sense a significant part of my life was dying.  The community I had joined would never again be together in the same form or fashion.  Many of the daily routines and rituals I had come to enjoy would be left behind or drastically altered.  I was no longer a student receiving the wisdom of the church’s best and brightest.  It was now time for me to produce… something… somehow.

The next few weeks were a feverous whirl of events.  Moving back to Ohio.  Sleeping on a friend’s couch until I could rent a place of my own.  Being ordained a deacon.  And then, about fifty days after leaving the hallowed grounds of Virginia Seminary (affectionately known as ‘the Holy Hill’), came Day One of working in a church.  I sat in my office, which overlooked an alleyway, stared at the typewriter lounging on my desk, and wondered to myself, “What am I supposed to do now?”  Clueless, I took out a calculator, pencil, and paper and counted the number of Sunday’s until the day I retire – 2,444, give or take, and maybe something like 14,600 days.

Our very brief reading from the Book of Joshua belies the significance of the event it describes.  As if the transition from wilderness wandering to settled occupation was not enough, this day also represents the fulfillment of the promise Abram received from God centuries earlier when he lived in the region of Ur – “Take up family and possessions and go to a land I will show you.  I will be with you there and your descendants will prosper.”  This part of the story weaves through three generations in the Book of Genesis, makes its way to Egypt and several more generations in the Book of Exodus, and lumbers on through four decades of aimlessness in the Sinai before concluding with today’s reading.

The concise description of this time rings true to life.  Joshua and God’s people must decide what from their past is useful in their present and will translate into their future.  They decide to undergo the rite of circumcision (the sign of the covenant) and to celebrate the Passover Meal (reliving the events delivering their parents and grandparents from bondage to freedom).  They also decide to bring with them sacred objects accumulated on the way; chief of which is the ark with the Tablets of Law.  And finally, we learn some things from the transitional time are no longer appropriate, needed, or available to God’s people; specifically, the manna (or food from heaven) ceases and each person must now live off the fruit of his or her own labor. 

I suspect if you contemplate some of the transitions in your own life you will see a emerge a pattern similar to this – the holdovers, the new acquisitions, what is going to be left behind, and what has to be taken on.

After two years, it feels like we are at a transitional point with the pandemic.  While there is not a specific date or event marking the moment, the past few weeks have seen a dramatic change, haven’t they.  Although most of us reside in the same physical space and many of us hold the same job as before, so much about life has changed.  We have lost some folks to the virus.  Some relationships have drifted apart.  We have aged and become more isolated.  Some are bitter at what has been lost.  Some bristle at the sacrifices required to see us through.  Some are more anxious and uncertain.  I don’t know about you, but I start to wretch when I hear a modern-day ‘prophet’ tell me everything about the world has completely changed or there is no going back to the way things used to be. 

This transition will be like all that have come before.  We will figure out the most important memories and rituals to carry into the future.  We will figure out which of our pandemic adaptions will be useful as we move forward.  And we will discern what it looks like to pick up and carry on as a new day dawns.  God’s unfailing and unflagging promise to us remains the same… to be with us to lead us to a new day and a new place.  What was, was… wonderful, missed, mourned at times.  But our God is the God of what will be. 

Edgar Guest was a Detroit newspaperman and popular people’s poet of the first half and the last century.  One of his works titled The New Days pairs well with the crossing of the Jordon:

The old days, the old days,

how oft the poets sing,

The days of hope at dewy morn,

the days of early spring,

The days when every mead was fair,

and every heart was true,

And every maiden wore a smile,

and every sky was blue.

The days when dreams were golden

and every night brought rest,

The old, old days of youth and love,

the days they say were best

But I--I sing the new days,

the days that lie before.

The days of hope and fancy,

the days that I adore.

The new days, the new days,

the selfsame days they are;

The selfsame sunshine heralds them,

the selfsame evening star

Shines out to light them on their way

unto the Bygone Land,

And with the selfsame arch of blue

the world to-day is spanned.

The new days, the new days,

when friends are just as true,

And maidens smile upon us all,

the way they used to do.

Dreams we know are golden dreams,

hope springs in every breast;

It cheers us in the dewy morn

and soothes us when we rest.

The new days, the new days,

of them I want to sing,

The new days with the fancies

and the golden dreams they bring;

The old days had their pleasures,

but likewise have the new

The gardens with their roses

and the meadows bright with dew;

We love to-day the selfsame way

they loved in days of old;

The world is bathed in beauty

and it isn’t growing cold;

There’s joy for us a-plenty,

there are tasks for us to do,

And life is worth the living,

for the friends we know are true.

This morning we gather on a new side of the Jordon and give thanks for the promise and hope of the new days.

Life is Short, but There is Still Time!

 

Luke 13:1-9

Lent 3/ Year C

Did you hear about the nun who procrastinated doing her laundry?  She had a filthy habit. 

What do you call a fire-breathing lizard that procrastinates?  Dragon his feet.

Who does a procrastinator see when he isn’t feeling well?  Dr. Dolittle.

Had enough?

This morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke is aimed directly at those who assume there always will be a time down the road to tend to what we put off for now.  Some people ask Jesus about an unspecified number of Galileans Pilate had executed as they worshipped in the temple.  Given Jesus is also a Galilean, almost certainly he personally knows some who were lost.  Jesus responds by referencing eighteen people who died when a tower collapsed on them.  Within the language of “none of them were worse sinners than any of you” is the heart of Jesus’ message in the face of these horrific losses: Life is short!

It is a basic truth easy to overlook as one day follows in the footsteps of another and another and another.  For most of us, we only break out of this illusion when we experience a loss confronting us with the shortness and uncertainty of life.

How would you complete the following statement: Life is short…   A little Google research provides some possibilities. 

Life is short.

    Break the rules! 

    Live it!

    Experiment! 

    Lick the spoon!

    Buy the shoes! 

    Smile while you still have teeth! 

Perhaps the best advice: Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly, and forgive quickly! 

And how would you complete this variation of the same statement:  Life is too short to… Some suggestions… 

Life is too short to…

    …wake up with regrets. 

    …hide your feelings. 

    …worry about anything. 

    …wait. 

    …live with ‘what ifs.’ 

    …waste a single second on someone who doesn’t value or appreciate you. 

    …make excuses. 

    …read a bad book. 

I like what Christine Caine, a Christian author from Australia, says: “Life is too short, the world is too big, and God’s love is too great to live ordinary.”

I have always loved the thinking of the poet who wrote the 90^th Psalm:

You sweep us away like a dream; *

   we fade away suddenly like the grass.

In the morning it is green and flourishes; *

   in the evening it is dried up and withered.

The span of our life is seventy years,

perhaps in strength even eighty; *

   yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow,

   for they pass away quickly and we are gone.

So teach us to number our days *

   that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

Some may find its message to be depressing, even dour.  Given what Jesus says in today’s reading, I would say he finds it to be sobering and motivating.  It tells us it is time to ditch Dr. Dolittle, to stop Dragon our feet, and to make the most of the time we do have.

And this is the second part of Jesus’ message: You still have time!  For the unproductive fig tree, there is another year.  For you and me, who can say?  But there is still time.  If you have been watching the college basketball tournament, chances are you have heard an announcer say something like, “Team X is down by 12, but there is still time for them to get back in this game.”  Maybe you have seen Peter Seidel’s book on climate change titled, “There is Still Time.”  The other day I received an email informing me there is still time to register for next week’s seminar.  Each example combines a sense of hope with a sense of urgency.  Life is a little bit like those infomercials warning us to act now before time runs out on this offer!

I suspect the two times most of us attempt to make a significant course correction in our lives come at the beginning of the year and in Lent.  New Year’s resolutions are fraught with failure, perhaps because most are grounded in will power entirely apart from a spiritual undertaking.  Lent, on the other hand, infamously involves frivolous sacrifices… “I am giving up okra and beets this year”, when it can invoke God’s help to forsake habits and/or embrace changes which truly matter.

And God will help.  In today’s reading we learn Jesus says we have more than time.  We have the Master Gardener working in us and for us to encourage us to be as fruitful as possible.  In other words, God is working with us as we seek to make the best use of our treasure, our talents, and our time.  Stephen Covey, the author of Habits of Highly Effective People notes, “The bad news is time flies, but the good news is you are the pilot.”  We people of faith might add, “And we have a co-pilot we can trust to see us through.”

Here is a question:  What would you do if I promised to deposit $86,400 is your bank account each and every day of the rest of your life, with one condition… one day’s balance does not carry over to the next day.  Whatever you don’t use gets deleted when the bank closes at 5:00 PM.  But not to worry, when it opens the next morning your new account balance for the day will be $86,400.  Does it sound like an offer too good to be true?  Well, the surprising truth is each of us has just such an account.  Rather than money, each day you are credited with time – 86,400 seconds to be exact.  You can’t save it for tomorrow.  You can’t borrow from the future.  You must use your daily allotment of time in the best and wisest way possible.  What are you doing with this gift?  What changes might you make in order to make better use of each day’s deposit?  How is God prodding you and partnering with you to make good use of one of God’s greatest gifts to you… the gift of time?

Remember.  Life is short, but there is still time.

A Yearning

 

Luke 13:31-35

Lent 2 / Year C

For what do you long, yearn, deeply desire?  I am not asking about a material possession – something as crass as a new Lexus or the greenest lawn in the neighborhood.  I am not thinking about a retirement fund able to help you live comfortably when your working days are over.  A once-in-a-lifetime dream vacation is nice, but hardly the singular aim of one’s existence.  Yearning to have a good name and reputation is an admirable goal.  Raising your children to be well-rounded human beings able to identify their dreams and equipped to pursue them has real value.  Supporting ways to find a cure for a disease ravaging the health of a loved one is definitely worth your time and effort.

I am not going to stand here and tell you what you should long for.  I am going to encourage you to question honestly what it might be and then to evaluate if it is a goal worthy enough of who God created you to be.

Human longing is woven through today’s readings from Scripture.  The elderly and childless Abram yearns for a son.  The psalmist yearns to be in the house of God – not only to see God’s face, but also to be safe from those who seek to do him harm.  And the Greek word for yearning or desire is used three times in the Gospel reading. 

Having beheaded John the Baptist, Herod now wants to kill Jesus.  Here, the translation “wants” doesn’t quite do justice to the original Greek.  Herod yearns (almost to the point of aching or obsession) to be rid of Jesus.  For his part, Jesus (as God’s emissary) has desired through the ages to gather the children of Jerusalem to protect them as a mother hen gathers her chicks and shelters them under her wings.  And finally, Jesus says the people of Jerusalem were “not willing” to be gathered.  It was something they resisted rather than desired.  So Jesus finds himself operating between two types of yearning.  One actively works against God’s will, the other avoids or ignores it. 

He is not going to be deterred.  “Go and tell that fox I am doing the work I am called to do – today, tomorrow, and the next day.  No prophet is killed outside of Jerusalem.”  One commentator notes there are two types of courage.  The first is an immediate and sometimes spontaneous response an immanent threat.  A video made the news this week showing a police officer pulling an unconscious driver from a burning automobile at the scene of an accident.  Surely the officer did not make a conscious decision to act after weighing out the pros and cons.  His character has been forged over the years to express what he believes and values in a moment’s notice.  He yearns to protect people in danger, even if it means risking his own life.

The second kind of courage arises in anticipation of a daunting challenge.  When many would turn tail and run, this kind of courage meets the test head on.  It too is an expression of character as one accepts responsibilities that cannot be avoided.  This is the courage Jesus displays in today’s readings.  He knows what (and who) he is up against, but he will not shrink back from his yearning to bring the Kingdom of God to all people.   He will stay the course, even if it costs him his life.  It is the courage of the mother hen who is ready to risk all for the well-being of those she loves.

The free world has been captivated by the resolve of the Ukrainian people and especially the courageous witness of their president, Volodymyr Zelensky.  What do they yearn for?  To live free.  What are they willing to sacrifice for it?  Everything.  What yearning drives Vladimir Putin to commit such heinous atrocities and war crimes?  There are plenty of theories, but I don’t know if anyone knows for sure.  One thing is certain.  Every age and every place seems to be able to produce a fox who seeks nothing more than to dominate, even at the expense of innocent lives.

If its true every age and place has its fox, then it is even more true for every fox there are courageous mother hens whose selfless yearning is for the safety and well-being of others.  When President Zelensky said, “I don’t need a ride.  I need ammunition”, the world was given an example of the kind of courage one only finds in a person who yearns for something of incomparable value.  He has inspired his people and no doubt he has inspired many of you.

He certainly motivated Pavlo Servetnyk, a 28-year-old pizza baker in the coastal town of Kherson on the Black Sea.  With the city’s 300,000 residents cut off from outside supplies, Servetnyk is using his inventory to bake bread.  Every day he fills his truck with thousands of loaves of freshly baked bread and drives around Kherson’s near deserted streets to distribute what he has to who he can.  Working twenty-hour days, he is near exhaustion and every part of his body hurts, but without even lifting a gun he is committed to resisting the Russians by providing food until his resources run out.  When the fox appears, the mother hens spring into action.

We who witness what the Ukrainian’s are willing to sacrifice to be free and who marvel at Volodymyr’s resolve of Pavlo’s selflessness see in them something of our Lord’s determination to continue his works of compassion, even while facing a grave and immanent threat.  We are invited to ponder if we yearn for something too small and not at all worthy of our high calling.

I’ll leave you with a thought from Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, and the first President of Czech Republic (himself an inspiration to so many after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1988):

Hope is not the same thing as optimism.  It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out…  It is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

For what do you yearn?

Tempted vs. Tested

 

Luke 4:1-13

Lent 1 / Year C

If you are looking for some entertainment after today’s service, go to YouTube and search for “The Marshmallow Test.”  Multiple videos will come up.  Choose one that is short and shows children.  The Marshmallow Test is a simple experiment designed to measure the ability of four-year-olds to delay gratification.  The child is sitting at a table.  An adult places a single marshmallow on a plate in front of the little tyke.  The adult then explains she must leave the room for a few minutes.  The child is told he/she is free to eat the marshmallow now, but will receive a second marshmallow if he/she saves the first until the adult returns.  When the adult tester leaves the room the four-year-old is alone (although secretly is being video-recorded). 

[Check out the video here: (205) PARENTING SCIENCE: The marshmallow test - YouTube]

The struggles these little boys and girls go through is hilarious.  One boy puts his finger on the plate and spins it round and round.  Several children touch the treat and some actually pick it up.  They smell it.  They squeeze it.  They lick it.  One child pulls off a small section and eats it.  Another uses her finger to poke a hole through it.  I know of no other video which so vividly portrays the experience of being tempted.

The first Sunday in Lent always takes us with Jesus into the wilderness where he fasts for forty days and is tempted.  The Gospels tell us the Temptation follows closely after Jesus is baptized: the moment the Holy Spirit falls upon him and a voice from heaven proclaims him “My Son,” thus giving Jesus a new identity.  The Spirit then leads Jesus into the wilderness.  There is a connection here with the people of the Exodus who wander, not forty days, but forty years in the wilderness and also are tested.  Their time in this barren landscape is designed to help them learn how to live into their new identity as God’s people.  So it is with Jesus.  While the Hebrews fail in the face of testing several times, Jesus does not.  He meets every test and masters every temptation.

Did you notice how at the beginning of the text it says Jesus is “tempted” by the devil throughout his time in the wilderness and how at the end it says the devil finishes every “test” and departs until an opportune time?  It occurs to me tempting and testing are not exactly the same thing, are they.  Temptation has something to do with being enticed or lured into sin, resulting in a fractured relationship with God and (often) with others and even with yourself.  Testing, on the other hand, challenges the vigor of our faith and commitment.  In his Epistle, James contends testing leads to endurance and character.  We might say temptation challenges us to give in while testing challenges us to give up.

Testing.  My college had four required “key” classes: one in religion, another in humanities, another called ‘creative’, and yet another in science.  No one could graduate without passing all four.  Guess which one was my biggest challenge.  Right, science. 

The final consisted of 50 multiple choice questions and an essay.  For the multiple choice you filled in a computer card with a #2 pencil.  Halfway through the process I realized I had skipped a question and I had been miss-recording the majority of my answers.  So, my answer for Question #25 was recorded on the line for Question #24… and so one. 

The classroom was one of those large, tiered, theatre style rooms, and I tried desperately to get the attention of a teaching assistant.  Losing time, I decided to start on my essay.  Finally, an assistant came to me and I explained my situation.  He said he would bring me a new computer card, which he did.  He placed it on my desk, as I continued to work on my essay.

Once I finished writing, I took up the card ready to begin the process of transferring my answers up until the question I had skipped over.  It was not until then that I noticed my new card was completely and immaculately filled in.  I immediately deduced I had been handed an answer key.  And let me tell, you, the pattern of its answers – B, D, C, C, A, (and so forth) looked nothing like the pattern of my answers! 

Once again I attempted to get the attention of an assistant, which again took some time.  I then explained how I got to this point and my suspicion about the new card.  Somewhat nervously (and unconvincingly) he told me, “Oh no.  This is not an answer key.”  He took the card and went down to speak to the professor.  They were too far away for me to hear their conversation, but I could read the professor’s lips as he said, “Where did you get this?  That’s the answer key”.  The two talked some more and the assistant pointed up at me.  Then all of the assistant’s huddled with the professor and, after some time, someone brought me another new (and most assuredly blank) card.  I kept my answers as I initially recorded them, now knowing some of them were wrong.

After the test I went back to my room and told my story to my roommate.  “I think God is going to bless me for doing the right thing,” I told him.  His response: “You fool.  God was providing for your every need!”

I was never tempted to turn in the answer key as my own work, nor was I tempted to transfer its answers to my new card.  Nothing about this was alluring to me.  This test was a test – a trying of my core principles and beliefs.  More than a test in science, it was a test of character.  And, to be honest, it wasn’t so much of a trial (a difficult experience) as it was a revealing of who I am and what I value in myself.  It spoke to me of my identity. 

Which do you experience more – temptation or testing?  My temptations are subtle and difficult to identify.  I am tempted to think injustice and corruption are not my problems and there is nothing I can do about them.  I am tempted to think it is other people who are mean and hateful and dividing our country, but not me.  I am tempted to think other people need to do more, but I do enough.  I am not tempted by marshmallows. 

When I think about testing I think about those of you who are living with illness and chronic pain, who are unemployed, or who are battling addiction.  I imagine these kinds of test are incredibly challenging as you attempt to live out who you are committed to be.

And, like most of you, I think this morning of the people of Ukraine who are being tested in a way no one ever should be.  The free world is praying fiercely for them and is watching with awe and admiration as they sacrifice all to remain true to their country and to their core principles. 

Our Lord and Savior, when he was tempted never gave in.  When he was tested he never gave up.  And he promises to stand with us when we are tempted and when we are tested so that his faithfulness may become our strength.  May this be your experience as you move forward in this Lenten season and throughout life.

Ashes & Gratitude

 

Ash Wednesday

Perhaps of all the services we hold over the course of a liturgical year, what we do today is the most counter-cultural.  In a “look at me” society placing a premium on self-aggrandizement, the Ash Wednesday service lifts up modesty, discretion, and privacy.  In a society teaching us we are perfect and anything that goes wrong in our lives is someone else’s fault, this liturgy directs us to own up to our failures, shortcomings, and misdeeds.  In a society which says you can (and should) have it all, this service calls us to fasting and acts of self-giving and selflessness.  In a society where people scurry to outlets and sources which defend and reinforce what you already hold to be true, this service says one aspect of a holy observance is the intentional reading of Scripture and meditating on its meaning.  In a society obsessed with youth, beauty, and vitality, the Ash Wednesday liturgy speaks of mortality… remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

Is it any wonder prosperity-gospel mega-churches and the power of positive thinking houses of worship and pop-culture imitating big-box churches don’t impose ashes and won’t engage their consumers in a Litany of Penitence today?  They won’t call on their members to examine all the ways their faith and practice have been absorbed into the climate of our times.  And they definitely won’t speak of mortality beyond if you died tonight do you know where your soul would go.  Yes, what we are doing is counter-cultural. 

And it is ancient.  The association of ashes with penance and mortality predates Jesus and is found in the Old Testament.  The Imposition of Ashes emerged in the Christian Church somewhere in the 6^th Century.  The practice in our country was associated mostly with Roman Catholicism until the 1970’s.  Around that time, as people in other denominations began to discover the value of multi-sensory spiritual experiences, the Ash Wednesday service grew in popularity.

More recently, something called “Ashes-to-Go” has taken off.  It was initiated by a Chicago-area Episcopal priest on Ash Wednesday 2010.  He took ashes to a station where commuters waited for a train into the city.  The idea was to provide access to the ashes to folks whose schedule might not allow them to attend a service in a church.  He found people were hungry for a moment of prayer and reflection in the midst of their busy life. 

He shared the story of his experience and the practice is catching on across the country.  Clergy vest and stand outside coffee shops, busy civic centers, and basically anywhere you might expect a large number of people to congregation as they transition from home to work.  Some worry the practice disassociates the Imposition of Ashes from the broader and deeper call to observe a Holy Lent.  Still, Ashes-to-Go has enabled some folks to reconnect with their spiritual roots and in so doing has led them back into the life of a congregation.

As you know, our Lenten focus this year is on gratitude.  It would seem like what we do this day is about as far removed from gratitude as possible.  Focusing of personal failures and broaching the subject of death does not seem like the kind of thing to be doing if our Lenten aim is to inspire a deeper appreciation for all that is good in this life and a keener awareness of all who contribute to making the richness of our lives possible.

In the book The Gratitude Project, from which I am drawing heavily for our Lenten program, Nathan Greene writes an article about how his mother’s death at age fifty-three after a six-year battle with cancer, helped him (in time) to approach life with a deeper sense of gratitude.  Watching her fight every day for another day to be with her family led him to value life even more than he had before.  Years later, while working on a doctorate in childhood loss, trauma, and resilience, he came across a research article describing how a study determined our sense of gratitude actually increases when we reflect in a personal way on our experiences of loss.  The authors attributed this to something called “the Scarcity Heuristic”, which holds we value things more when we know them to be rare or scarce.  Greene might argue an Ash Wednesday service will make you more grateful for life because it reminds you each day is a gift, not a given.

Greene and another colleague interviewed 350 people who had lost a parent in childhood.  They wanted to understand the impact of gratitude on depression, a sense of well-being, and post-trauma growth.  Not surprisingly, those who rated themselves higher in gratitude also reported lower levels of depression and a greater sense of contentment and progress in life. 

Robert Emmons wrote another article about how gratitude can help us through hard times.  He argues it is essential to look back on painful memories in order to discern what we have learned from them and how we have grown as a result.  Reflecting on where you were and how far you have come will help you to be grateful; moving you past feeling like a victim or a failure or whatever. 

About a year after my marriage ended a parishioner called me in tears to tell me her husband had left her for another woman.  Listening to her I knew exactly how she felt and what she was going through.  I was surprised to realize I was no longer in that place.  Believe me, I was not close to being healed or whole, but for the first time I recognized the process to get there was underway.  More recently, I had the same experience as I listened to a colleague describe how his eighteen-year-old daughter is distancing herself from him and he fears she is on a course to cut off all contact with him.  And I know all too well exactly how it feels.  It is death by a thousand cuts.  As I listened I realized I am no longer there.  I didn’t get the outcome I hoped, but at least the cutting has stopped.  I have no fresh wounds and I am able to put energy into those things which add to my life.  I am grateful for this insight.

Emmons suggests we can benefit from an intentional period of looking back on unpleasant memories and asking questions like these:

·    What lessons did the experience teach me?

·    Can I find ways now to be thankful for the experience, even if I wasn’t thankful at the time?

·    What ability did the experience draw out of me that surprised me?

·    How am I now more the person I want to be because of it?

·    How have my negative feelings about what happened affected my ability to grateful in the time since it occurred?

He goes on to write this: “Remember, your goal is… not to relive the experience but rather to get a new perspective on it.” 

I suspect this can be a helpful way to approach Ash Wednesday.  Pondering our mortality, our selfishness, and (yes) our sinfulness should not weigh us down.  It should spur us onward.  Our liturgy reminds us we are not helpless and hopeless because it directs us to new perspectives and practices designed to reshape us as the people God created us to be and to restore us to full fellowship with the community of the faithful.  As you engage in this counter-cultural moment, may you find in it the promise of life as God intends it and the path on which to walk in order to find it.

A Time for Silence

 

Luke 9:28-36

Epiphany Last / Year C

Janet Hunt, a Lutheran pastor, writes about a time she officiated at the funeral of military veteran.  After she completed the graveside committal, the Honor Guard took over.  Surely you have seen what they do.  Taps.  The salute of guns.  And the solemn, dignified folding of the flag and its moving presentation to a family member.  I think back to last November as we stood in the Church Yard at the Columbarium and the Honor Guard preformed this service for Tom Pruden.  All eyes were on them.  No one spoke a word while the soldiers methodically went about their well-rehearsed task.  So meticulous and serious were they about this duty, before the service began they asked me to show them the flag.  Already folded, the work of whoever prepared it did not meet their high standards.  Alone, in the yard, the two soldiers responsible for preparation went through the process of unfolding and refolding the flag as is the President himself was present.  Every time I have witnessed the Honor Guard’s ritual, it has been a transcendent moment, but this one even more than the others.

Many times over the course of her ministry Pastor Hunt also has experienced this scared devotion to our country and to those who have served her.  “It always gives me pause,” she writes, “to bear witness to the formality of this ritual and to consider the symbolism playing out before my eyes.”  There was one exception for her, however… the time the funeral home director came to her side and offered “a rote and practiced explanation of what we were experiencing.”  “I wanted to kick him,” she writes.  “There are times for words and times for silence and this seemed to me to be a time for silence.”

Plato taught “The wise speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”  Abraham Lincoln famously observed it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

A time for silence.  Have you ever been watching a championship game on TV and noticed how when time expires or the last out is made the announcers go silent?  The elation of the winning team (and their fans) and the despair of the losing team is simply a moment too big for words.  The broadcasters allow the images to tell the story – typically for a good 30 seconds or more.  Talking over a moment like this only diminishes it.  It attempts to contain in the temporal something which belongs to the ages.

In today’s gospel reading Peter finds himself in a moment when silence is the preferred response.  The description of the Transfiguration defies explanation.  Jesus’ entire countenance changes as, for a brief moment in time and space, his humanity is eclipsed by his divinity.  He radiates light unlike anything Peter, James, and John have ever seen.  And there is more.  Moses (the giver or the Law) and Elijah (the founder of the prophetic movement) – the two most important figures in the Old Testament – are present and talking with Jesus. 

This truly is a moment when the old adage holds true – silence is golden.  This is a moment to be experienced, not narrated.  Peter gets rebuked, I think, not so much for what he says (and what he says completely misses the mark), but because he says anything at all.  I sat for a while and pondered what Peter could have said that would have been appropriate for the moment, but I couldn’t think of anything.  All I came up with is if this took place in our day and time, Peter probably would have said, “Let’s take a selfie!” 

The English Poet Thomas Carlyle wrote…

“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together… Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.”

Mother Teresa held God is the friend of silence and cannot be found in restlessness and noise.  She noted how in nature trees, flowers, and grass grow in silence; how the stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence.  It was her experience silence is absolutely necessary for the soul to be touched in a consistent way by God.

Before I was ordained a deacon and then before I was ordained a priest, I made silent retreats with the Cowley Fathers in Boston.  Other than the liturgy of the daily offices and a few brief mediations offered by one of the brothers, not a word was spoken for five days.  The opening meditation laid out what we might expect to happen.  At first, we were told, you will realize how tired you are.  For the first day and half I napped in the morning, napped in the afternoon, and went to bed in the evening much earlier than normal.  It is testimony to how we run ourselves ragged much of the time.

Next, we were told, the silence would allow us to hear our own inner voice.  For the remainder of the retreat I experienced a rich internal dialogue.  I learned I have a voice I cannot hear when my world is filled with noise and sound – music, TV, talk radio.  I learned you have to take time to stop listening to everything else if you want to be able to hear how you yourself actually engage the world and feel about it. 

The final part of the retreat never came to me.  This is when you learn to silence your inner voice in order to listen for God to speak.  I have had a few times since then when I was silent enough and open enough to hear a Voice from beyond.  There are many people who practice what is called “centering prayer” who hear God speak on a regular basis and, if you are interested in something like this, I can help you get in touch with folks who teach how to do it.

We are entering the season of Lent with Holy Week to follow.  Our Holy Week services, like the ritual of the Honor Guard, offer experiences of profound silence.  The Tenebrae service on Wednesday of Holy Week is a deeply moving liturgy with psalm readings and the extinguishing of candles.  When it is all over and a single candle lights this space and the power of the silence is palpable.  The same holds true with the Stripping of the Altar on Maundy Thursday.  It is akin to the Good Friday liturgy when the simple act of standing by the Cross in silence – as Jesus’ mother, John, and the other women did – changes us.  The Stations of the Cross on Good Friday evening also ends in silence.   No words are necessary.  No words would be adequate. 

Only on the third day will we be ready to speak of what we have experienced and our words will be these:

Alleluia!  Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

Maybe a part of your Lenten discipline can be a commitment to inviting more silence into your life, saying less and listening more, and becoming comfortable in the moment without have to comment on it.

Loving Your Enemies

 

Luke 6:27-38

Epiphany 7 / Year C

Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart, is it?  Not if you are going to take seriously his teachings and put them into practice.  Love your enemies.  Turn the other cheek.  If someone takes your coat, give him your shirt too.  Forgive if you want to be forgiven.  I get the feeling we should all be wearing t-shirts that on the front say, “I am a disciple of Jesus” and on the back, “I am a doormat.”

I suspect every priest over the course of his or her ministry has had at least one pastoral conversation with a parishioner who is experiencing domestic violence or an abusive workplace environment or something else of a similar nature who will not stand up for himself or herself because Jesus teaches you should turn the other cheek and you should forgive.  Is this kind of passivity what Jesus desires from his followers?

There are six different Greek words in the bible which generally are translated as “love.”  There is a specific word for romantic love and another word friendship or brotherly love and another for steadfast love and another word for the kind of love between a parent and a child.  When Jesus teaches we are to love our enemies, he uses the word agape.  Agape love seeks the well-being of another.  It doesn’t necessarily mean you like the other person or that you support the person’s behavior and actions.  It means you are committed to do good for the other person, regardless of what they do to you.  So, for example, ensuring a person who commits a crime receives competent legal counsel and a fair trial is an example of agape love.  And while releasing a person of the consequences of his or her actions may at times be merited (what we call a ‘suspended sentence’), enforcing penalties for the guilty is not in opposition to agape love. 

Martin Luther King powerfully embodied agape while dealing with Jim Clark, the sheriff of Dallas County in Alabama who sought to deny the voting rights of African Americans.  In preparing to protest this, King famously said, “We don’t want to hurt Jim Clark.  We don’t want to see him put out of office.  We want to convert him.”  King called into question Clark’s actions while at the same time demonstrated a respect for his humanity.  This is how you love your enemy. 

David Ewart, a Canadian pastor, contends Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek is rooted in non-violent resistance.  When Jesus says, “if anyone strikes you on the cheek,” everyone listening knows only two people are likely to do this to them – masters and soldiers.  Interestingly, this striking was never an act done in violence and always followed a very strict social protocol.  The master had the servant stand before him and struck the servant’s right cheek with the backside of his right hand.  The same with soldiers.  It was about asserting rank, privilege, and power and any deviation from this etiquette demonstrated the striker was not in control of himself and resulted in a loss of face. 

Try to visualize what Jesus teaches.  If anyone (your master or a soldier) strikes you with the back of his right hand on your right cheek, do not retaliate.  Instead, turn your face and offer your left cheek.  It might appear to us this sets up the victim for more abuse, but in fact it is an incredibly subversive and empowering act.  You see, it is physically impossible for the striker to use the back of his right hand to strike the left cheek.  The master or the soldier either must break with protocol and lose face or stand down.  Either way, Jesus has given his followers a way to regain dignity and some semblance of power in a situation where they are powerless.

Ewart contends the teaching to offer your shirt to the person who takes your coat is a similar tactic.  In that day, people typically wore a shirt-like garment underneath a coat.  For many, this was all the clothing they owned.  Roman soldiers had the authority literally to demand the coat off your back and you had no recourse against this.  Jesus offers one.  Give the soldier your coat and then offer him your shirt.  If he takes it, you will be left standing there in your skivvies and the soldier will have to explain why he has done this.  You may be uncovered, but you have exposed the injustice of having your coat taken. 

Jesus teaches we are to forgive because the measure we give will be the measure we receive.  This too feels like a difficult command and is particularly burdensome on those who have been severely wronged.  Again, every pastor has had at least one conversation with a parishioner who says, “I know I should forgive him or her, but I just can’t.  I guess I’m not a very good Christian.”  Perhaps focusing on the measure given to you by such a person will be helpful.

Those of you who were here when I first moved into my house remember I had nightmarish relationship with my next-door neighbor.  His pettiness and persistent provocations challenged my core principles, among which is I will not respond in kind to your bad behavior.  Agape means how you treat me will not alter how I am going to treat you.  I dealt with a lot of little things and a few big ones.

One day my neighbor decided to build a fence right down the property line, which is only a foot or so off my driveway.  It made opening my car door nearly impossible.  In addition, he allowed his hedge to grow to the property line and twelve feet tall.  As a result, I couldn’t see on-coming traffic as I backed out of my drive, nor could I see pedestrians walking down the sidewalk.  When I pointed this out to him, he suggested I take driving lessons. 

This is when I went back to Jesus’ teaching the measure you give is the measure you will receive.  There had to be some kind of consequence for my neighbor’s behavior.  In order to tend to his property on my side of his fence and in order to maintain his hedge he had to come onto my property, which he did regularly.  I informed him he was no longer allowed to access his property from mine.  No trespassing.  He was furious.  I told him I would allow a professional lawn service company to maintain his property which he could no longer access.  After suffering from his behavior for several years, I felt it was time he received something of the measure he was giving.  It was empowering.  And I hope my little story of woe gives you something to ponder as you have to put up with someone intentionally doing one unkind thing after another.

Maybe the next time this reading comes up in the lectionary I will focus on the benefits of loving your neighbor and why forgiving is a healthy and freeing endeavor.  For whatever reason, this morning I feel called to focus more on where the limits are, and how each is meant to protect us, not submit us to even more abuse.  And, as always, I am available for pastoral conversations.  I suspect these teachings open up a lot of questions and bring to the surface a good number of bad and buried experiences.