The Feast of Freedom

Christ the Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed!
Bread and Wine Reading: "The Feast of Freedom", Jurgen Moltmann

Scripture Reading: Mark 16: 1-8When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Christ the Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Jurgen Moltmann characterizes the Christian faith as “the beginning of God’s rebellion.” What an incredible phrase! The “usuals” of life—injustice, pain, suffering, even death—God has defeated! It is not that they are bypassed, not that they are creatively avoided. (That’s what we are good at doing!) They have been defeated! They are no more. Moltmann says that “the Easter faith recognizes that the raising of the crucified Christ from the dead provides the great alternative to this world of death. This faith sees the raising of Christ as God’s protest against death; for the Easter faith recognizes God’s passion for the life of the person who is threatened by death and with death.”

And yet, as death is defeated, something must be put in its place. That something is life! On this morning, as the stone is rolled away, the dawn bursts forth and God breathes new life into each of us. Death is no more! Death has been swallowed up by life! The dance of life has begun and God is asking you to dance! Your eternity, your salvation, has already begun. You just have to listen to the music!

I’ve always loved the image of salvation that R. Paul Stevens depicts in The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective. He claims that salvation and our vocation as Christians are both a “rescue operation” (rescuing us from our inhumanness, from our sins) and a “completion project” (completing what God had started in us so long ago, completing that “image of God” in each of us!). In his view, “the last thing we do is the first thing we think about. If we want to have a party with a cake, we first think about the party, then the cake. Then we obtain the ingredients and turn the oven up. We do not first turn on the oven, go out to buy the ingredients, and then plan the party. God envisioned the final party and then “thought up” creation. The whole of our human existence makes sense in the light of the eschaton, the end.” The party is not in full swing yet, but we have the invitation and we hear the music wafting over our lives.

Christ the Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed!
We have risen, dying to self, we have risen! We have risen indeed!
What, then, are you going to do with your new life?

Final Thoughts:
As we come to the end of this “blog study”, I am in awe of the wonderful journey that we have experienced together. I’m curious, though. What did you think of it? Did it help you? Is it something that you would like to do again? Let me know! I would love to know who participated with me! I know it’s a pain to comment on the blog (Not sure what to do about that at this point!), but I hope that you will email me and, first of all, let me know that you participated and secondly, let me know your thoughts. If you don’t know my email, go through the St. Paul’s website at stpaulshouston.org and click on “About St. Paul’s” and then “Staff” and there’s a link through which you can email me. I’m also on Facebook (having finally bowed to the lesser gods of social networking!).
I do plan to do future studies like this. It’s a good outlet for me to write and it’s a good discipline for all of us. I’ll definitely do something for Advent and Lenten seasons (and hopefully I can also figure out how to “repost” daily posts from this one!) but I’d also like to do something this summer. If you let me know your email, I’ll let you know when I do that!

Thank you again for blessing me by allowing me to be part of your Lenten journey!

Happy Easter…go forth with new life!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The End is Life

Bread and Wine Reading: "The End is Life", Frederick Buechner
Scripture Reading: Matthew 27: 57-66
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.

In some ways this text is almost more menacing than yesterday’s. The act of sealing the tomb means that it really is the end. And, apparently, Pilate wanted that. After all, he couldn’t be made to look like a fool if Jesus proves true to his word. “Make is as secure as you can,” he commands. After all, we can’t have this Jesus character showing up again. He HAS to be dead. But he also fears that Jesus’ followers might do something sneaky by stealing the body and making it LOOK like what Jesus said had really come to be. They were apparently a little afraid.

What must the disciples have been thinking? They were, of course, still grieving deeply for the loss of their friend and teacher. But, think about it. On some level they were perhaps anxious about what might or might not happen. After all, if Jesus did not emerge from death, what was the whole about? But, on the other hand, if he DID, what would that mean for them? It would mean that they finally had to step up and be Christ in this world and that’s probably the scariest of all.

We do the same. As long as the whole birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ remains a 1st century phenomenon to us, we can relegate it to something from which we can learn. We can emulate who Christ was. As Frederick Buechner says, “We can say that the story of the resurrection means simply that the teachings of Jesus are immortal like the plays of Shakespeare or the music of Beethoven and that their wisdom and truth will live on forever…Or we can say that the language in which the Gospels describe the resurrection of Jesus is the language of poetry. Instead it is simply proclaimed as a fact. Christ is risen!”

What, then, does that mean for us? On this Holy Saturday, what does it mean if the stone is rolled away? It means, as Buechner put it, that “in the end, [God’s] will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen.”

The stone is sealed. Fate’s path has been chosen. And now we wait. We stare at that stone hoping against hope that it is not a religious farce, that we have not been duped somewhere along the way. But, when the stone is rolled away, are you really ready for what is about to happen? Are you really ready for life?

Discussion Questions:
1.) What feelings do you have as the stone is sealed?
2.) What doubts do you have about the Resurrection? (Oh, come on…did you think you were the only one?)
3.) Are you ready for what is to come? Are you ready for life? What does that look like for you right now?

Just wait…wait for the tomb to be rolled away…wait for life!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Jesus Gives All

Bread and Wine Reading: "Jesus Gives All", Henri Nouwen

Scripture Reading: John 13: 1-7, 31b-35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”…“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Henri Nouwen makes the claim that Jesus’ two acts of washing the feet of the disciples and offering his body and blood as food and drink belong together. Nouwen contends that together they make up of the fullness of God’s love. We’ve heard it before: Love God with your whole being, offering everything that you are and you’re your neighbor as yourself. They cannot be separated. Nouwen says that “Jesus calls us to continue his mission of revealing the perfect love of God in this world. He calls us to total self-giving. He does not want us to keep anything for ourselves. Rather, he wants our love to be as full, as radical, and as complete as his own.”

The loving God part is something that, intellectually, we understand. We’re supposed to love the one who created us. But what does that mean? If God loves us, why does God want us to surrender those things that are important to us? Why does God want us to give up everything that we have, everything that makes us who we are? The reason…is that God wants us to be who we were created to be. And part of who were created to be is a creature who gives of oneself radically, completely, just as Christ did.

But this washing feet thing…what is that about? Feet are personal; feet are intimate; touching someone’s feet is an act of love, isn’t it? Exactly. The first time that I participated in a symbolic footwashing on Maundy Thursday, I was reticent. Would this be uncomfortable? But kneeling down, taking someone’s feet in my hands, pouring water, and gently caressing them was nothing like I expected. I felt in those feet where they had been; I felt in those feet the lines of the paths they had walked; I felt in those feet the pain and the joys that they had experienced in their lives.

There is an alternative medicine form called reflexology that has been around for as long as 5,000 years. It’s claim is that the foot carries patterns of what the rest of the body feels, what the rest of the body experiences. I don’t really embrace it, although it’s interesting. I will tell you, though, that it may not be that far off. Our feet connect us to others. They touch the earth; they carry us; they lead us into new experiences. Our feet are the first to feel cold, the first to feel the warmth of the earth, the first to step into a hot bath, the first to brave the chill of cold water. They are the first off the step in the morning. And they are the first that carry us to our next point on our journey. Maybe this is what Jesus knew—that by washing the feet of those whom he served, he was cleansing the world that was connected to them and setting them on their path.

I guess after he finished washing their feet, they finished the meal. They ate the bread; they drank the wine. Essentially, Jesus cleansed the world and then gave of himself as sustenance. We are called to be self-giving, to give all that there is of us to God and to others. And when we are emptied of all that we think we are, Jesus says, “Take, eat…fill yourself…eat and drink all the sustenance that you need…in remembrance of me.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What does it mean for you to love God with your whole being?
2.) What are those things that you might have to surrender to become who God intends you to be?
3.) Look at your own feet. Where have they been? Where are they going? Imagine the Christ washing your feet. What does that mean?

So go forth toward the Cross…Do this in remembrance of me!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Waiting for Judas

Bread and Wine Reading: "Waiting for Judas", Madeleine L’Engle

Scripture Reading: John 13: 21-32
After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

Madeleine L’Engle contends that “if we are brave enough to accept our monsters, to love them, to kiss them, we will find that we are touching not the terrible dragon that we feared, but the loving Lord of all Creation.” And yet, for centuries, Christians have been deeply bothered by Judas and the account of his betrayal of Jesus. We have let the other disciples grow up to be heroes and saints but Judas, the quintessential “bad seed,” is relegated to the hell pile. It was just a kiss. But it was the kiss of betrayal. And so, poor Judas is forever the monster of monsters, the dragon of dragons. But did we ever stop to ask Judas why he did that? Perhaps he really was bad. But maybe…just maybe…maybe Judas thought he knew best, thought that he could prove that he was on the “winning side” when Jesus, hero though he was, saved himself from death. Maybe Judas just got a little overzealous in trying to prove himself right. We don’t want to consider that because then we might see ourselves in the dragon.

Madeleine L’Engle relates an old legend that many of us have heard before: After his death Judas found himself at the bottom of a slimy pit. After a thousand years of weeping his repentance, he looked up and saw a tiny glimmer of light. After contemplating it for yet another thousand years, he began to climb. He slid and climbed and slid and climbed and slid back again. Years later, he finally made it. At the top, he dragged himself into an upper room with twelve people seated around a table. “We’ve been waiting for you, Judas,” Jesus said. “We couldn’t begin till you came.”

Judas…even Judas…is forgiven and the table waits, his chair in place. We are so quick to send him to our image of hell, as if that somehow validates our own discretions. But Christ raises him up and seats him at the table. Perhaps we should not be too hasty to remove the empty chairs or close the doors of our spaces. Who are we to say who the Christ has invited to the party? The truth is that Christ invites all who have come to an ending, all who have left their lives behind, all who want to start again. We are all betrayers and we are all beloved. And then we are back where we started. “In the beginning, God created….and it was very, very good.”

Discussion Questions:
1.) Who are you labeling the betrayer?
2.) What is your image of that table to which Christ invites us?
3.) What is it that you need to let go so that you can be created again?

So go forth toward the Cross…Christ is waiting with Judas, inviting you to come!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Thirsting

Bread and Wine Reading: "Thirsting", Alexander Stuart Baillie

Scripture Reading: John 12: 24-33
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Thirsting is a normal part of our human experience. It describes a profound human need. But when we become convinced that our desires are our needs, perhaps we are then thirsting for the wrong things. It is no less destructive than drinking saltwater. No matter how much you drink, your thirst will not be quenched. Alexander Baillie says that “there are those who thirst for everything save righteousness. Their lives are so engrossed and encompassed within the limits of their world of time-space that they forget that there might be some other relations to life. Such crass limitations make life little and cramped. But shutting out the Eternal, they lose all that is truly worthwhile. They forget that life abundant is not to be found within their little cosmos of human desires.”

We are all guilty of this—of narrowing that for which we thirst to things that we ourselves can obtain. Baillie cites the human thirst for wealth, for pleasure, or for a certain level in life, a certain rank or station. But in the depth of our souls, in that deepest God-image place that resides in us all, is an incredible thirst for the Divine. As St. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and we cannot find rest until we find it in Thee.” Only God can quench our thirst for the Divine.

In the Scripture passage, Jesus promised that as he was lifted up, as he was carried away from the hopelessness and despair of this world, he would draw all people to himself. All would have their thirst quenched by the Divine. But in order to be lifted up, the self that one has created must die away. No longer can there be an attachment to this world—to wealth, to pleasure, to the place that one has obtained for oneself in life. Those are meaningless. But God through Christ offers a life that will always quench our thirst—a life with the Divine forever walking with us, a life for which our true self thirsts.

Baillie says that “one needs to keep on thirsting because life grows and enlarges. It has no end; it goes on and on; it becomes more beautiful…[One] cannot be satisfied until [one] attains unto the stature of Jesus, unto a perfect [human], and ever thirsts for God.” We all thirst for God in our deepest being. But it is only when we become fully human, the image in which we were made, with the mind of the Christ, that we will know that God created us to thirst for nothing but God. It is that thirst for the Divine that glorifies God’s name.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What image of thirst is present in your own life?
2.) To what worldly things are there attachments in your life?
3.) How would you describe that deep thirst for God?

So go forth toward the Cross with a thirst for God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Remember Her

Bread and Wine Reading: "Remember Her", Ernesto Cardenal

Scripture Reading: John 12: 1-11
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’ When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

Mary took a pound of perfume and broke the seal. Once the seal was broken, you had to use the whole thing. It wouldn’t keep. It would be wasted. So, in the eyes of those in that room, it was not the using, but the breaking of the seal. She got it—no longer should abundance be hoarded and hidden away. It should be lavishly poured on the world.

It is interesting to think about some of the language that is used here—Mary took, poured, wiped. We have heard those words many times—Jesus took the bread, poured out the wine, and wiped the feet of the disciples, and through these common gestures and such common touch, we are shown what true love is. The act becomes sacramental. Mary enters Jesus’ life and he becomes part of her. Her life becomes a sacrament that shows Jesus’ love to the world. And the whole world is now forever filled with the fragrance of that perfume.

Where do we find ourselves in this story? Jesus has begun the walk to the cross. Are we standing on the sidelines watching the events unfold as if it is some sort of prepared video stream? Are we holding back those things we have because the cost is just too great? Or are we waiting to see what the person next to us will do? Each of us is called to take, to pour, and to wipe, to spread the abundance of Christ to the world so that it lingers long after we are through. Each of us is called to become a living sacrament of Christ’s love. Each of us is called to walk with Christ to the cross. Each of us is called to embody that close a relationship with the living Christ. Each of us is called to see, to hear, to smell, to touch, to feel, to laugh, and to love with the depth and passion of Christ. Because, you see, that is the only way to experience that lingering fragrance that is still in the air.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What abundance in your own life do you need to pour out for others?
2.) What images do you have of the relationship with Christ that you are called to embody?
3.) Where are you on the road to the cross right now?

So go forth toward the Cross and breathe in the sweet perfume!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

God the Rebel

Bread and Wine Reading: "God the Rebel", G. K. Chesterton

Scripture Reading: Mark 11: 1-11
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’ They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Have you ever noticed that the Markan lectionary reading for Palm Sunday spends about half the passage explaining how to get the stupid colt in place? It’s as if the director of the play was going out of the way to make sure that we noticed the animal, to make sure that we noticed how truly out of place the colt was in this grand processional. There are Scriptural commentators that have pointed out that on this day, there would have been a grand processional coming from the west, carrying with it all the accolades of military might and power, sitting atop their grand stallions. And from the east, was this small, slow-moving parade of somewhat mismatched followers and one sort of underdressed man riding on a colt. It just didn’t match. In fact, on some level, it almost seemed to be a joke.

In his essay, G.K. Chesterton makes the claim that “Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king.” The point was that God was not then and has never since been aligned with the ways of the world. We who claim institutional religion as our belief system often find ourselves trying to pull God into the ways with which we are comfortable, the ways that affirm how we see ourselves in this life. We try to project an image of a God who agrees with us, a God who is on our side, a God who stands and salutes the same flags that we do. But instead we find a God who rebels against the ways of the world, a God who instead of coming to affirm us instead came to start a revolt and reclaim our lives.

The whole Passion story just does not “fit”. We come to town in a joke of a parade while all the floats covered with roses are on some other road. We go through the week trying to follow one, trying to become one with one who is ultimately tried and convicted. And then we stand there and watch the whole dream of our lives being better nailed to a cross in utter failure. And then, as if this wasn’t bad enough, the skies darken and the ground shakes like all of earth is ending. If this is God, it seems that God is abandoning God’s very self. Chesterton says to “let the revolutionists of this age choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has been in revolt…They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.” Yes, God, in total rebellion of all things inhumane came as fully human and by entering the suffering and despair and hopelessness of the world, turned it all upside down. And maybe, if only for an instant, declared Godself an atheist so that even that could be defied.

On this Palm Sunday, you are invited to join in this little misfit parade, lay your branches at his feet, and be part of turning the world upside down. “Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!” And, someday, this rebellious, defiant God and this upside down world will come to make perfect sense.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What images do the Palm processional hold for you?
2.) What do you think of Chesterton’s idea that God, if only for a moment, was an atheist?
3.) What images of this “upside down world” do you have?

So, join the parade and go forth toward the Cross whether or not it all makes sense now!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Strangest Story of All

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Strangest Story of All", C.S. Lewis

Scripture Reading: John 1: 1-5, 10-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it….He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

C.S. Lewis begins his essay by saying that now “we come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear.” The claim is, of course, a colossal understatement. Strange, indeed! Nothing like this had ever happened before and nothing like this has ever happened since. But it is more than our merely surviving death. In the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, death is, once and for all, defeated and in its place, is life recreated. Lewis describes it by saying that “something new had appeared in the Universe: as new as the first coming of organic life…A new mode of being has arisen.”

Tomorrow is Palm / Passion Sunday, the beginning of our remembrance of this last week of Christ’s earthly journey. It is a difficult week for most of us. Many of us would just assume go to sleep and wake up a week from tomorrow and not be faced with the all-too-real realization that we must walk through the earthly death of Christ in order to get to the glory of Christ’s Resurrection. Nothing can be defeated; nothing can be overcome, without facing it head-on. Ignoring it will not do. Sleeping through it will not do. The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are two chapters of the same story. The story makes no sense without both. And, strange though it may be, we have to ask ourselves what it means to us. We have to discover for ourselves how it reads into our own life. Lewis asks, “What are we going to make of Christ?” and answers that “there is no question of what we make of [Christ]; it is entirely a question of what [Christ] intends to make of us.”

This is the road we walk when all of our hopes have been dashed, when our energy is spent and exhaustion has set in, when we are overcome with regrets for what wasn’t, when we can see no way out of the mire and the mess that is our lives, and when we realize that we cannot do it ourselves. This is the road we walk when we realize that we are not alone. This is the Way of Christ making something new out of our lives. It is the way to Christ’s Resurrection, but it is also the way to our own. And when we come to the end of the road, knees bent from despair, we will bow before the seemingly God-forsaken Cross and we will allow ourselves to be handed over just as Christ did. And then…

So, what does Christ intend to make of us? Listen to Lewis’ words: “Come to me everyone who is carrying a heavy load. I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out. I can do that. I am Rebirth. I am Life. Eat me, drink me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid. I have overcome the whole Universe.” It is a strange story, but it is yours. Go now and claim it for yourself.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What does the Crucifixion mean for you?
2.) As you prepare for this final week of Lent, what is it that you need to relinquish, to surrender?
3.) What does Rebirth mean for your life, for your story?

So go forth toward the Cross and claim your story!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Life in the Blood

Bread and Wine Reading: "Life in the Blood", Toyohiko Kagawa and Sadhu Sundar Singh

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1: 3-10
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Toyohiko Kagawa reminds us that “there are those who say that because God is love, [God] could not allow punishment.” “But,” he continues, “that is too easy. It is like saying that because God is love, when you put water into a bag with a hold in it, the hold in the bag won’t matter! You must close up the hole!” As this relates to our own spiritual life, God’s glory and God’s forgiveness is available to all. But we must be ready to receive it. In other words, our “hole” in our life must be closed.

But God doesn’t leave us to our own devices to plug up the hole. We do not have to wander aimlessly through life with a hopeless, gaping hole in us. Kagawa says that “the love of God can perfectly heal the holes of the past, and all of its sins. It does not merely repair the damages of sin, but even transforms that which has been broken into perfect health, perfect working capacity.” Forgiveness is not all we need. We need to be made whole.

But being made whole requires change. Kagawa says that “love creates the same pattern anew.” Christ does not call us to submit our selves just so we can be showered in forgiveness. This is not something that Christ does TO us; rather, redemption in Christ is done for us and with us. We do not stay what we were before, though forgiven. After all, what good would that do? We are transformed into a new creation. But we have to be willing to leave the old one behind.

As the Scripture says, God has gathered us unto God through Christ, forgiven us, and is in the process of making us new. We don’t use it much anymore, but people used to talk of being “delivered” through Christ. Maybe that’s not such a bad word. If we walk toward the cross, if we enter the cross, Christ will deliver us to resurrection. The writer of the letter to the Church at Ephesus described it as adoption. Think about that word—it means chosen, it means claimed, it means loved so much that one takes another into his or her self. God loves us so much as to choose us, claim us, take us unto Godself, and, being made brand new, we are delivered to Resurrection. We just have to allow ourselves to be carried by God. We just have to allow ourselves to be made completely new.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What are those “holes” in your own life?
2.) What things in your life are difficult for you to leave behind so that God can make you anew?
3.) What images does being “claimed by God” create for you?

So go forth toward the Cross, and let God make you anew!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Naked Pride

Bread and Wine Reading: "Naked Pride", John Stott

Scripture Reading: Romans 8: 35-39
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We Americans don’t really do well with nakedness—either literally or figuratively. Perhaps it is our Puritan influence that sees the flesh as at least something less than good and at the most downright naughty. But I think, more than that, it is that we are taught to “put on a good face”, to “not air our dirty laundry” and to “act like that that we want to be”. And then we are shocked and even a little taken aback when someone is “real” and genuine. Why can’t we be real?

John Stott begins his essay by claiming that “the essence of sin is [humanity] substituting [the human self] for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting [Godself] for [humanity].” This is a powerful statement. Why can’t we be real? Why do we think that we have to be someone we’re not? Why do we aspire to be God? We will never be God; God is God.

We 21st century Protestants do not do well with confessions. Excuses are really much more our norm—“I’m only human”, “I was just trying to…”, “The devil made me do it.”---PLEASE! Why can’t we just admit that we messed up? But instead we try our best to cover it up with finery and frills, thinking that we can hide it from others, from God, and even from ourselves. But, as Stott says, “As we stand before the cross, we begin to gain a clear view both of God and of ourselves, especially in relation to each other…But we cannot escape the embarrassment of standing stark naked before God...We have to acknowledge our nakedness, see the divine substitute wearing our filthy rags instead of us, and allow [God] to clothe us with [God’s] own righteousness.”

We know those things that separate us from Christ—hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. We bask in the knowledge that God will save us from these in God’s time. But God doesn’t really use magic potions or save us because we are good. We are saved by grace. We are saved by our turning to God, by our surrendering our lives so that God can pick us up, set us on our feet, and coax us forward toward that perfect oneness with God. But surrendering is about acknowledging our need for God. It is about admitting hardship and distress, persecution and peril; it is about hungering for God even in the face of famine; it is about putting down the sword; it is about revealing our nakedness, showing our deepest needs, and working to bare everything that we pretend to be. It is about finally being real and letting God clothe us in righteousness. Think about it. A doctor will not dress a wound by merely covering an old bandage; our wounds must be exposed and redressed by the covering of God’s grace.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What aspects of your own life to you cover or shield from others?
2.) What are those things that you need to expose to God and to yourself?
3.) What is something that you pretend is OK that you need to surrender before God?

So go forth toward the Cross, and bare yourself before God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Sheath Your Sword

Bread and Wine Reading: "Sheath Your Sword", John Dear

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26: 50-52
Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you are here to do.’ Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him. Suddenly, one of those with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

It seems odd to talk about non-violence in the midst of one of the most (for us) violent times in Scripture. After all, Jesus Christ was killed…murdered…assassinated…crucified. And yet Scripture still tells us to “put your sword back into its place”, put it away, sheath your sword. John Dear says that “the disciples are unable to comprehend Jesus’ way of nonviolence.” Who are we kidding? We have the same difficulty. Violence, sadly, is a way of life. We try to preach non-violence; we try to shy away from violence; we try to put it on some other continent across the ocean and hope to God that it doesn’t cross to us. But are there times when it’s appropriate? Are there times when it is the only way? Are there times when there’s no other way?

But then, there’s the way of the cross: There are no swords; there are no guns; there are no bombs. So, what is it we’re doing? Dear points out that “we cut off an ear—and so much more. We destroy entire countries and incinerate hundreds of thousands of people in a flash. In fact, we are willing to risk the destruction of the entire planet, if necessary, to defend ourselves.” He is right. We are a violent people. We are so scared of losing what we have that we justify violence in any form. What does that say about us? Have we let the world so inflict our thoughts that we can see no other way out?

And then there is this Jesus who would die by the sword before he would draw it. How many of us would do that? As Dear says, “the unarmed Christ disarms us.” It disarms us because we do not know another way. It is high time we did. And yet, I am convinced that there is more to nonviolence than putting down the sword. Jesus never advocated a non-responsive reaction—just a nonviolent one. We are called to change the world. That means that sometimes it will be messy; sometimes we will upset people, sometimes we will make them angry, perhaps even cause them to draw their swords. Our response?...Sheath your sword, unleash your tongue, And speak the Word that God has done.

But all the disciples left him and fled. Jesus is led away to be crucified. Did they see no other way? They saw that it was the slaughter of their Savior or the slaughter of their lives as they knew them. And so they sacrificed their Savior. And we in our comfortable living rooms do it again each and every day if we do not speak out, if we do not stand up, if we do not affect change in the world. But change is not meant to be violent death; it is meant to be new life. And, so, “all who take the sword will perish by the sword” because the sword knows no other way. But we do. We know that our swords are laid at the foot of the cross and that we ourselves are changed and born anew at the hand of the new Creation that is Christ.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What is your reaction when there is a call for “nonviolence”? Do you see those who make that call as out of touch?
2.) To what violence do you hold in your life? What are some ways that you can change your reaction to life?
3.) What change do you see for the world?

So go forth toward the Cross, and be the non-violent change that is Christ!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

A Cosmic Cross

Bread and Wine Reading: "A Cosmic Cross", Paul Tillich

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27: 50-54
Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’

We read this account of Jesus’ last breath with all the drama it deserves. With that single breath, all of nature, all of Creation seemed to move uncontrollably, as if the very foundations were sliding from beneath our feet. Tillich points out the notion that Jesus’ death is inextricably connected to nature and a series of events in nature: “Darkness covers the land; the curtain temple is torn in two; the earth is shaken and the bodies of the saint rise out of their graves. Nature,” he says, “with trembling, participates in the decisive event of history…Nature is in an uproar because something is happening which concerns the universe.”

We Christians tend to remember the Cross as our own salvation, as the crossroads at which our human sins were forgiven and life continued on into the eternal. We hang tightly to the idea of the human Christ bearing the cross for us, the sinful human creatures that never really seemed to get it right. And yet…the earth shook, the rocks split, earthquakes, winds, tearing, opening, darkness…all of Creation that since the beginning of time had been moving and growing to this…the whole of Creation now stops in its tracks and with a painful groan moved its very foundation into something beyond who she was. The Cross is not just about us; the Cross is about the whole of Creation as she moves toward reconciliation—Creation with the Creator.

Tillich says that “since the hour when Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last and the rocks were split, the earth ceased to be the foundation of what we build on her. Only insofar as it has a deeper ground can it stand; only insofar as it is rooted in the same foundation in which the cross is rooted can it last.” The entire universe, all of Creation, all of nature, once rooted in the very laws of itself and its own doing are now swept up and rooted in the laws and vision of God. We forget that. We forget that we are not the center of the universe. We forget that God exists all around us. And that we, made in the image of the Creator, are called to be a part of that change—not just a change in ourselves, not just a change in how we live or how do things—but the transformation of all of Creation.

The Cross began the change in which we and all of Creation participate. And, as part of the whole, we still groan in pain as we move toward the full transformation. Change is hard; change is painful; but change is life abundant. No longer are we the changeless ones standing by the cross with heroic admiration for our Christ as he opens the door to our eternal lives. We are instead swept up into the transformation of time and space and all of Creation. As Tillich says, “since this moment the universe is no longer what it was; nature has received another meaning; history is transformed and you and I are no more, and should not be anymore, what we were before."

1.) What image of the Crucifixion does this present for you? What image of the Resurrection does it present?
2.) What does this cosmic view of the Crucifixion say within your own faith understanding of your salvation?
3.) If we are truly not “what we were before”, what does that new image look like?

So go forth toward the Cross, and receive another meaning!

Grace and Peace,

ShelliDiscussion Questions:

The Father's Hands

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Father’s Hands", George Macdonald

Scripture Reading: Luke 23: 44-46
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.

This is the final act. The curtain descends. Jesus has openly and willingly surrendered himself and his life to God. It is easy for us to look to the hero Jesus and this act of selfless surrender. But George Macdonald reminds us that “every highest human act is just a giving back to God of that which [God] first gave to us…Every act of worship is a holding up to God of what God has made us.”

From that standpoint, Macdonald contends that this final act of Jesus, this submission of his life to God, was not just the commending of his spirit at the close of his life, but a summation of everything that he had done in his life. The sacrifice had been being given all along, from that first night in the grotto, through years of rejection, years of sacrifice, until this moment. It was not, then, a final act; it was Jesus’ last prayer. That is what we are called to do—not merely submit in that moment of earthly death, but submit our whole lives, our whole being to God. And what is it that stands in the way of our doing that? Is it selfishness? It is the misconception that our lives are ours to control? Is it fear?

In Thank God It’s Friday, Bishop William Willimon claims that “to have one’s life grabbed, commandeered by a living god, that’s a fearful thing.” After all, those dead gods with which we surround our lives are easier to control! But, he says, “It’s a fearful thing to commend our spirits to God because well, who knows what God will do with our lives?” That is the crux—submitting one’s life to God means that one gives up control, gives up the “plan” that one has laid out for his or her life. Submitting one’s life to God means that one’s life ends. And that is indeed a scary thing. That is what Jesus did. It was finished. His life as he knew it was over. God had other plans. And in the wee hours of the morning just a few days later, God unveiled the New Creation. It was clear: Submitting to God, dying in Christ, means nothing less than life.

And yet we still try to control our lives, try to hold out for the piece of ourselves that we just don’t want to let go. “Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord to thee. But, dear God, if it’s all the same to you, could you leave my ___________ alone?” (I’m thinking that each of us can fill in the blank!) That’s what we want. We want to know that there’s a living God in our lives, but we want God to leave us alone. That’s not the way it works. “Into your hands I commend my spirit”—all of it, the whole thing. And in the wee hours of the morning just a few days later, God will unveil the New Creation. Submitting to God, dying in Christ, means nothing less than life. So, let go already! Your life is waiting!

Discussion Questions:
1.) What does that change about worship to think of it as a “holding up to God of what God has made us”?
2.) What does that mean to you to say that Christ’s submission to God at his death was a summation of his life?
3.) To what things in your life do you still hold on? What stands in the way of surrendering and committing your total self to God?

So go forth toward the Cross, and commend your spirit to God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

It is Done

Bread and Wine Reading: "It is Done", Watchman Nee

Scripture Reading: John 19: 28-30
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

We shudder at the sound of the final words of Jesus on the cross: “It is finished.” In our minds, there seems in them an all-too-certain finality, an utter hopelessness, an ultimate loss of control. They are hard words for us. Was Jesus admitting failure and surrender? Was Jesus declaring a hopeless departure from what he really had intended to do in his ministry? Was Jesus too exhausted to go on? What do we do now?

That is the problem for many of us. We think that it is now our turn, that we have to somehow take over for what Jesus could not finish, that it is now up to us to save the world. But Watchmen Nee said that “Christianity begins not with a big ‘do’, but with a big ‘done’. We begin our Christian life by depending not upon our own doing but upon what Christ has done…What happened to him happened also to us. All the experiences he met, we too have met in him.” In other words, “It is finished.”

Nee contends that “God is waiting till you cease to do…When you cease doing, then God will begin.” That is hard for us hard-working Western Christians. In all truthfulness, we still emerged from the Protestant Reformation with a faith in our own doing, a faith in the works of, perhaps, proving our faith to others, to God, and to ourselves. On some level, we still want to help ourselves, to do something to make sure that God is pleased with us. And yet…we are drowning—drowning in work, drowning in our home lives, drowning in our relationships, drowning in trying to be someone that we are not. Watchmen Nee asks, though: “Have you ever tried to save a drowning man? The trouble,” he continues, “is that his fear prevents him from entrusting himself to you…Either you must knock him unconscious and then drag him to the shore, or else you must leave him to struggle and shout until his strength gives way before you go to his rescue. If you try to save him while he has any strength left, he will clutch at you in his terror and drag you under, and both he and you will be lost. God is waiting for your store of strength to be utterly exhausted before [God] can deliver you…[God] has done it all!”

So, what are we supposed to do? Nothing. God has done it all. Did you miss what was said? “It is finished.” Jesus did not utter that HE was finished; Jesus declared that IT was finished. In other words, the work here is done. In his book, Thank God It’s Friday, Bishop William Willimon likens it to the same word that Michelangelo uttered when he put his last touch of paint on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: “It is finished.”

“And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”(Genesis 1: 31)

Discussion Questions:
1.) In what ways do you depend upon your own doing in your faith journey?
2.) What are those things that you feel you should be doing as a Christian? For what reasons should you do them?
3.) What would it mean for you to cease doing? What would it mean instead for you to become instead?

So go forth toward the Cross, knowing that it has already been done!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Signature of Jesus

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Signature of Jesus", Brennan Manning

Scripture Reading: Matthew 8: 14-17
When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.’

We are good at voicing the claim that Jesus “took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Handel even put the words to music. But what do they mean? Do we really understand what it means that God in Christ took on our suffering and bore what many of us either cannot or perhaps will not? Brennan Manning tells the story of a meditative man who removed a drowning scorpion from the water. But when he touched the scorpion, it stung him. As he tried again, the scorpion stung him so badly that the man had a painful reaction to the poison. When a passerby pronounced him a fool and asked him why in the world he would risk himself for a creature that would only hurt him, the man replied. “Just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.”

Perhaps the reason that we struggle to understand what God did is because we do not understand who God is. This was not a “one-time” act; it is God’s very nature to save. And to understand that, we cannot just merely revel in gratitude for what God did; we must take on that nature for ourselves. Manning reminds us that the somewhat overused and commonplace term “born again” was seldom used a century ago. “Rather,” he says, “the words used to describe the breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ were: ‘I was seized by the power of a great affection.’”

“Seized by the power of a great affection”: Christ came, manifest in human form, to reveal the essence of God’s love, to reveal that great affection that we can scarcely grasp. There has never been a love like Jesus Christ. It is a love beyond anything that we could have ever imagined. It is indeed a love that the world would deem foolish. Manning says, though, that “Jesus was seized by the power of a great affection and experienced the love of his Father in a way that burst all previous boundaries of understanding.” It is God’s nature to save; it is God’s nature to love us beyond what we could grasp or know; it is God’s nature to take on our suffering, not to shield us from that very part of ourselves, but so that we will not have to do it alone.

Manning reminds us that Jesus did experience suffering—born into poverty under (as Manning points out) questionable circumstances, misunderstood, insulted and mocked, betrayed, and then persecuted, beaten, and murdered in a public and humiliating fashion. The pain and humiliation that Jesus experienced was not the judgment that God passed on the world, but rather the judgment that the world passed on God. And yet, God’s nature is not to walk away but rather to save those who passed judgment, to bring humanity into the arms of God. Why would God do that? God does that because that is God’s nature; that is the signature of Jesus Christ.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What does it mean to think of saving as God’s “nature”, rather than an act that God does?
2.) What does the term “seized by the power of a great affection” mean for you?
3.) What meaning does that hold for you that Jesus’ signature is on our suffering, that God participates in it just as we do?

So go forth toward the Cross that you might be seized by the power of a great affection!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Waiting for God

Bread and Wine Reading: "Waiting for God", Simone Weil

Scripture Reading: John 19: 38-42
After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

In an excerpt from “The Love of God and Affliction”, Simone Weil claims that “one can only accept the existence of affliction by considering it at a distance.” God created love. We know that. It is easy for us to hang our beliefs upon that. And yet, God created a love more remarkable than anything that we can possibly imagine. Weil says that “[God] went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance” to show that love. In this essay, she writes of the distance between God and God, the distance between the greatest supreme agony and the greatest marvel of love. She says that “nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.”

And yet, in the darkness of the Crucifixion, God crosses what Weil called “the infinite thickness of time and space.” It is something that we all have to do. But it is God that crosses it first. The greatest distance imaginable between the Creator and the creature is crossed by a love that is greater even than that. No longer do we have to fear evil, for even though it has touched us, God has traversed the seemingly bottomless canyon even beyond its own boundaries. No longer can evil and God be pitted against one another in some sort of dualistic cosmic battle. God has not fought the battle; God has crossed beyond the evil and taken it unto Godself.

But Weil contends that “we do not realize [this] distance except in the downward direction. It is much easier to imagine ourselves in the place of God the Creator than in the place of Christ crucified.” We want so badly to be with God that we miss the God with us. She describes the dimensions of Christ’s death as a “tearing asunder”. It is the only way that we could see the distance that God has crossed; it is the only way that we could see the distance we must cross. And so, torn apart, we as humanity, Christ as humanity, is abandoned by God. We are left alone to cross this chasm between God and God. And once our souls make that same journey that God made first, we are welcomed into the arms of a waiting God.

As this season of Lent brings us closer to the cross, as we near the end of the journey, as we now begin to come close enough to hear the shouts in the distance, to hear the drums of the death march, we are aware of how far we’ve come. And yet the journey has not even begun. God has gone ahead across the distance. We must follow. The time of our waiting for God is over; God now waits for us.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What, for you, depicts that distance between God and God, between the cross and the Resurrection?
2.) What is it that holds you back from journeying across that distance?
3.) For what are you waiting before you follow?

So go forth toward the Cross through a distance that God has already crossed!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Cross and the Cellar

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Cross and the Cellar", Morton T. Kelsey
Scripture Reading: John 19: 1-7
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face. 4Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Morton Kelsey says that “each of us has underneath our ordinary personality, which we show to the public, a cellar, in which we hide the refuse and rubbish which we would rather not see ourselves or let others see.” He goes on to say that beneath even that sort of shadow side is a darker self. It is the self that most of us do not usually encounter, a self “full of violence and hatred and viciousness…the lowest level of humans that public executions appeal.” We all have parts of our self that we hide from the rest of the world, that we hide even from ourselves. But Kelsey also contends that it is “in the cross [that] this level of our being has thrust itself up out of its deepest underground cellar so that we humans may see what is in all of us and take heed.”

That Cross of Good Friday is indeed difficult for us to grasp. How can something so horrible, something so undeserved, something so criminal happen? And so we try desperately to search for answers, settling our blame upon either the ones of us that we think are not like us—Pilates or Romans or those who worship differently from us—or accepting instead the image of a God who would plan the whole brutal thing as payment of some debt. The truth is, though, as Kelsey puts it, “whenever we look upon the cross,…we see what humankind can do, has done, and still does to some human beings.” We see ourselves at our worst.

The depiction of this shadow self as the “cellar” is a good one. If, like me, you live in an area where cellars are rare, think of a disorganized closet, a garage that no longer is capable of housing an automobile, or that stash of things that you crammed in that box hidden away the last time the doorbell rang unexpectedly. We all have things that we hide from the world—those “little chinks” in our façade. Perhaps, then, it is when our shadow gains control over ourselves that we lose perspective and see it possibly manifest in something worse—that “deeper hold” of which Kelsey speaks. He claims that “they were not wild viciousness or sadistic brutality or naked hate, but the civilized vices of cowardice, bigotry, impatience, timidity, falsehood, indifference—vices all of us share, the very vices which crucify human beings today.”

But the Cross is something that we are called to bear, to take on, an image through which we cannot help but expose our deepest selves. The Cross is the way that we deal with that hidden self, the way that we lift it high for all the world to see, the way that we surrender it to God. And God takes all of Creation--even the shadows in our lives-- and breathes new life into it, recreating it anew.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What is in that “cellar” of yourself? What are those things about yourself that you hide from others?
2.) What is it about that Cross that is uncomfortable for you?
3.) What would be the first shadow in your life that you would surrender to God?

So go forth toward the Cross that every part of you might be recreated!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Crucifix

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Crucifix", Thomas Howard

Scripture Reading: Luke 23: 32-35
Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’

“And the people stood by…” We tend to do that. We stand by, not knowing what to do, not knowing if we should get involved, not wanting to get our hands dirty. We just wait…wait for Easter morning when the whole ugly thing will be more palatable at which to look. But Thomas Howard reminds us that “we don’t just have an empty cross with the work finished and done…that which is thus ‘finished’ remains present in actual time…Sin, sorrow, and suffering, and death itself, were indeed taken away at the Cross, but we mortals must enter into the depths of this mystery in actual experience.” We are called not to merely worship the cross, but to enter its mystery, to be part of its “actual experience.”

This is the most difficult for us Protestant Christians, those of us who have chosen to spend the whole of our church year bowing before the “empty Cross”, the depiction of Christ’s Resurrection and the promise of our own salvation. And while I’m not willing to trade the large gleaming empty cross at the front of my own sanctuary and permanently replace it with a Crucifix, I think that we do miss part of what the Cross means if we choose to never enter the pain and the suffering that is Christ’s. In fact, Howard asks, “Where, suddenly, is the theology that teaches that because the Savior did it all, we thereby are reduced to the status of inert bystanders?” “And the people stood by…”—there it is again—that uncomfortable claim that we stand by and let Christ suffer, that we stand by and wait for Christ to finish up this whole messy ordeal, hand us a lily and a pretty bonnet, and invite us to joyfully sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and go on about our business.

The season of Lent, though, is about entering the experience of the Cross—the whole experience. Because how can one understand the joy of Resurrection without experiencing the pain and suffering and even the death of Crucifixion? The two cannot be separated.

There are many people nowadays that describe themselves as “spiritual”, depicting it as something a step above “religious.” (Personally, I’m not convinced that the two can be effectively separated.) But there are those who would claim to be “spiritual” and not “religious”. Being spiritual goes beyond worshipping; it is a way of connecting one’s life with God. But the Cross is about going further. We Christians are not called to be merely spiritual; we are called to be incarnational. We are called to enter and bear all that is Christ—the pain, the suffering, the death, and, just when we think “it is finished”, the joy of rising to eternal life, to an eternity of oneness with God. If we are to truly understand what that means, we must, then, embrace the entirety of the message of the Cross. And so, perhaps, if only for awhile (maybe 40 days or so!), we should spend this Season of Lent truly looking at the “pre-Easter” experience of the Cross. You will be amazed what that Easter morning Cross, gleaming in the sunlight of a newly created day, looks like if you understand how God created it, if you have experienced all that is God.

Discussion Questions:
1.) How uncomfortable are you with the Crucifix, with the notion of the “unempty” Cross?
2.) In what ways do you allow yourself to be a bystander to the whole Christ experience?
3.) What, for you, does it mean to be incarnational?

So go forth toward the Cross and experience all there is of God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

I Thirst for You

Bread and Wine Reading: "I Thirst for You", Mother Teresa

Scripture Reading: John 7: 37-39
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” ’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Scripture Reading: John 19: 28
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’

The first Scripture for today is one of our favorites. We look at it as God’s promise of refuge, of healing, of comfort. But we miss what I think may be the focus of the passage: “Come to me.” God created us and made us in the image of God, made us so that we would desire to be with the one whose image we share. As Mother Teresa beautifully portrays in her essay, “I know you through and through—I know everything about you…I have followed you through the years, and I have always loved you—even in your wanderings.” That is the crux: God loves us. God love us so much that God created us, created the world in which we live, and has tried since the onset of Creation to get us to “come”.

We read this first Scripture with the assurance that God embraces us, that God will be there when we are in need. It is one of our favorites. God is there when we need God the most. And yet, we still don’t come. But God created the world, trying so many ways to convince us how much we are loved. “Good grief,” God must have thought at times, “how many burning bushes and over-zealous prophets does it really take?” And yet, we march on…we allow poverty to continue in our lives; we let greed consume our being; and in an effort to preserve the image and the lives that we have created for ourselves, we turn aside or plow over or underutilize or march against the one next to us, the one who God loves just as much as God loves us. No, we never came.

And so God comes to us once again. God comes to show us what life is, how life should be, and when we rejected the thought of change, God hung there with as much love as in the beginning. “I thirst.” God will always welcome the thirsty and quench our thirst. But God thirsts with a depth and profundity that we will never grasp. God thirsts for us to come. God thirsts for us to enter the Passion of Christ and stand at the foot of the Cross that we might be swept up in the new beginning, the New Creation. “I thirst…” “Come to me.”

Discussion Questions:
1.) What gets in the way of our truly believing and accepting that God loves us this much?
2.) What would that do for our lives if we truly embraced that?
3.) What is your own response to God’s thirst for you?

So go forth and quench the deep and abiding thirst of God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

From Action to Passion

Bread and Wine Reading: "From Action to Passion", Henri Nouwen


Scripture Reading: John 3: 14-17
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

In this essay, Nouwen tells of a friend of his who, dying and debilitated from the ravages of cancer, was bemoaning the fact that he could not do what he once did. A social activist, the man was accustomed to living out his faith through action, through service to the world, through making things happen in the name of Christ. But, as Nouwen says, “the central word in the story of Jesus’ arrest is one [he] never thought much about. It is ‘to be handed over.’” This is the Greek translation. It’s used both when Judas “hands Jesus over” and when God “hands Jesus over”. This, of course, is a passive term. The etymological root of Passion, the term that we use to describe Jesus’ suffering journey to the cross is probably the Latin passionem, or suffering. And, interestingly, if you look up the word “passive”, the root is shown as passiuus. Under “Passion”, it says “See Passive” and under “Passive” it says “See Passion”. The two words are related. The “Passion”, then, the time of suffering and being “handed over”, is to move from action to being out of control of what is going on in one’s life.

Nouwen says that “it is important for us to realize that when Jesus says, ‘It is accomplished’, [‘It is done.”, in some translations], he does not simply mean, ‘I have done all the things I wanted to do.’ He also means, ‘I have allowed things to be done to me that needed to be done to me in order for me to fulfill my vocation.” This is hard for us to grasp. Our society tells us that we must be in control of our lives, in control of our own destiny, or we will fail. We are told that if we do not take control, we will end up penniless and worthless. And, yet, Jesus is “handed over”, moving from a life of activity and action to a time of passivity and passion. Nouwen says that “Passion is a kind of waiting—waiting for what other people are going to do…All action ends in passion because the response to our action is out of our hands. That is the mystery of work, the mystery of love, the mystery of friendship, the mystery of community—they always involve waiting. And that is the mystery of Jesus’ love. God reveals himself in Jesus as the one who waits for our response.”

Jesus’ Passion was the transition from the “doing” of Jesus to the “becoming”. And the becoming has a great deal to do with our response. And when our doing is done, it will be time to wait…to wait to become. Each life seems “unfinished” at its end in terms of our world. Most of us are convinced that the greatest success in a life well lived comes from doing all that you planned to do, completing this earthly journey with finished projects and perfectly manicured existences, with lives neat and intact so that those remaining can simply put them away into boxes or photo albums, books or memoirs, or memories of yesterday. But life is always left “unfinished”. That is our true Passion, our true waiting. The Passion is not the end; it is the invitation to others to join in the action in the name of Christ. And, “handed over”, Jesus waits for our response…

Discussion Questions:
1.) Do you think we place too much value in “action” done for God?
2.) How do you think of that notion of being “handed over”? How comfortable are you with that?
3.) How does that speak to our faith if we embrace the Passion as a time of waiting?

So go forth into Christ’s Passion, respond, and then wait…!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

On This Gallows

Bread and Wine Reading: "On This Gallows", Dorothee Soelle

Scripture Reading: Mark 15: 37-39 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’
Dorothee Soelle begins by asking the question, “how can hope be expressed in the face of senseless suffering?” It is, of course, the ultimate paradox. Hope…good; Suffering…bad—How can something good come from something bad? Soelle goes on to tell a story from Elie Wiesel’s book Night:
We do have a hard time dealing with the death of one so innocent. And yet, our faith tells us that the boy was not alone. God was there, walking the young boy through the valley, never leaving his side, and even taking the suffering and pain unto Godself.

The SS hung two Jewish men and a boy before the assembled inhabitants of
the camp. The men died quickly but the death struggle of the boy lasted half an
hour. “Where is God? Where is [God]?” a man behind me asked. As the boy, after a
long time, was still in agony on the rope, I heard the man crying again, “Where
is God now?” and I heard a voice within me answer, “Here [God] is—hanging here
on this gallows…”

God is not “up in heaven” waiting for us to come there. God is not a deity who is removed from whatever happens in our lives. The Cross tells us that God is here, walking with us and even sharing in the suffering that life (or our brothers and sisters) sometimes inflicts upon us. But if we ourselves are claiming to be followers of the cross, we share that walk with God. We share that walk with each of our brothers and sisters who are suffering or in pain.

Soelle claims that “a person’s resurrection is no personal privilege for [himself or herself] alone—even if he is called Jesus of Nazareth. It contains within itself hope for all, for everything.” God does not leave the side of the one who is suffering, the one who is hanging on the gallows. But we are called to be the ones to remove the suffering victim from their pain and torture. We are the ones called to speak out, to stand up, and to end the suffering of others. Soelle reminds us that “it is no less significant for us than it is for the boy that God is the one hanging on this gallows. God had no other hands than ours, which are able to act on behalf of other children.”

There is indeed pain and suffering in this world. In the Cross, God showed us that no one has to endure it alone. But in the Cross, God also showed us that we are so connected to each other that the suffering and pain of one of our brothers or sisters is not to be separate and apart from our own lives. As children of God, as images of God, we ourselves also bear the burden of suffering and find ourselves, the very likeness of God, hanging there. And, with that, the resurrection of one of us raises the world to new heights as part of God’s ongoing act of Creation and that, my friends, is indeed the hope of the world.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What does it mean for you to think that God was the one hanging on the gallows, that God was the one hanging on the Cross?
2.) What does the idea of one’s resurrection not being merely a personal thing, but a part of Creation, mean for you?
3.) What meaning does this bring to the notion of the Cross for you?So go forth, aware of your brother and sister, and when one suffers, remove them from the Cross in the name of God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Still Bleeding

Bread and Wine Reading: "Still Bleeding", Wendell Berry

Scripture Reading: Mark 15: 25-32
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

Essayist Wendell Berry writes a heartfelt depiction of the question that we all have somewhere within us: Why didn’t Jesus come down from the cross? Why didn’t Jesus save himself? Why didn’t God come in victory and prove that we are right? But Christ’s descent was not from the cross but into the grave. Christ did not claim worldly victory because, as Berry puts it, “from that moment he did, he would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be his slaves. Even those who hated him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in him then.”

It would be more comfortable for us in this world if Jesus had come as the all-powerful one that had been expected. But that is not who Jesus was. Jesus Christ was not a worldly ruler; Jesus Christ was God. If we crave the wisdom of the world, we will be bound by power and with power comes victory—victory over each other, victory over the earth and the environment, victory even over ourselves. But if we crave the wisdom of God, we will be bound by love and with love comes peace. Berry claims that our suffering is endless; indeed, that Christ still bleeds from the cross because we are more tightly bound together than any of us realize. He says that “we all are involved in all and any good, and in all and any evil. For any sin, we all suffer…It is why God grieves and Christ’s wounds still are bleeding.”

We cannot understand this love of Christ until we cease pursuing power over this world. Love and power cannot exist together. This is the mystery of the cross. In love, God took the ultimate power play of humanity and conquered it not in victory, but in love. God continues to show us this each and every day and, yet, we still want power. We still want to make our brother and sister like we are, like we think they should be; we still want to control our destinies and the destinies of others that may affect us now or later; and we still build our walls higher and higher in an effort to protect what we have and who we are. This is why we struggle to understand the immense love in Christ’s death for in Christ’s death, we see the world as God sees it. As Joan Chittister says in There Is a Season, “only those who come to see the world as God sees the world, only those who see through the eyes of God, ever really see the glory of the world, ever really approach the peaceable kingdom, ever find peace in themselves."

Discussion Questions:
1.) What difference would it make if Christ had come in power rather than in love? What difference would it make if Christ had truly conquered the world?
2.) What would it mean if the world truly saw itself as bound together in love and as a world that feels the pain and suffering of the other?
3.) What do you think the world look like through God’s eyes?

So go forth in peace and walk in the wisdom of God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

For the Sacrificed

Bread and Wine Reading: "For the Sacrificed", Dag Hammarskjold

Scripture Reading: John 13: 1-5
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

In his writing, Hammarskjold depicts the last night of the life of a young man who was “adamant in his committed life.” Those around him, as much as he loved them, did not really understand him. Hammarskjold asserts that even Jesus had not really understood where this road might end. At this point, he was being forced to face the possibility that, as Hammarskjold says, “the end might be a death without significance—as well as being the end of the road of possibility.” So, loving them until the end, he got up from the table and began to wash the disciples’ feet.

So Jesus walked that road of possibility all the way to the end without remorse or even a request for sympathy from others. And he chose even to walk it alone. Hammarskjold reminds us that in this hour, faith is the only thing that really counts, “faith without any hope of compensation other than he can find in a faith which reality seems so thoroughly to refute.” Jesus was not, then, a martyr. He did not see himself that way. Hammarskjold claims that “what we have later added was not there for him.”

Martyrdom is defined as a state that denounces or furthers certain beliefs. On some level, honorable though it may be, it is done to prove a point. Jesus did not die to prove a point. Jesus did not choose death to prove anything. His faith even unto the end was part of who he was. And when his faith journey turned toward the Cross, he knew that was the way to go. He did not die a martyr. After all, what would that say about our Christian faith, if the requirement was that someone had to die to further it? I don’t think that is what it was. The Crucifixion was not to further a religion or even to further our faith. It was, rather, a road through the ultimate sacrifice into what Hammarskjold calls the “Divine possibility”, a new fellowship, the fulfilling of a destiny that Jesus had chosen to walk. I love the thought of that “Divine possibility”, a road toward something that we cannot possibly understand but one that will become clearer and clearer as we approach what I think is really just the next turn rather than the end. And it is the way that we are called to go. It is part of who we are as one made in the image of God, in the image of Christ.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What meaning would that hold for you to think that even Jesus was facing the question of significance of his acts and, perhaps, of his life?
2.) Do you see a difference between martyrdom and Jesus’ act of sacrifice? What does that mean in your faith understanding?
3.) What does it mean to you to say that we are called to walk that same road toward the Cross?

So go forth toward the cross, toward the “Divine possibility”!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

A Father's Grief

Bread and Wine Reading: "A Father’s Grief", Martin Luther

Scripture Reading: 1 John 4: 7-10
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Does God grieve? Does God feel pain? Martin Luther claimed that “into God as God, no pain, grief, or dislike can come.” But, he continues, “[grief] occurs when God is in man or in a divine man.” This is an interesting thought. It implies that as God becomes human, fully human as we say, God sort of surrenders a piece of the Divine, if only for awhile. God enters not just our humanness but also our sin. And there, God grieves, God despairs, God feels pain. As Luther said, “for God feels more pain over our sin and it gives [God] more grief than his own torture and death.”


Fully human…that is a hard thing for us to get our minds around. “Became one of us”…on some level, that is even more difficult. But God in Jesus Christ became one of us, walked as we walk, and entered our sin in order to show us what it means to be “fully human”. Jesus, the fullest of all humans, shows us how to be human, how to be made in the image of God, how to be who we are called to be in this life and on this earth.

God despairs when we are less than that which God created us to be, when we are less than fully human, when we act and think and believe in inhumane ways. Luther said that “sorrow over sin does not finally belong to us humans; we ourselves are not capable of it. Wherever God can bring it about in us, it the most pleasing and most appropriate but at the same time the most bitter and heavy undertaking on which we can enter.” Essentially, God became one of us to show us ourselves, to bring us to an understanding of those places where we fail to be who we were created to be. It is the true Light that illumines this for us, the light of God reflected through Jesus Christ.

Our sin can no longer be dismissed as “only human.” Sin, rather, implies that one is less than human, that one is “inhumane”, if you will. God’s entering of our humanness in Christ shows us that sin does not belong to us because we are made in the image of God. And it is only when we are not human, when we are not who God made us to be that God grieves.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What difficulty do you have with God entering our humanness or becoming “fully human”? What does that mean for you?
2.) What do you think of the idea of God grieving or being in pain?
3.) What is the meaning for you of your being made in the image of God?

So go forth and become fully human, who you are called to be by God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli