....and he began to wash the disciples' feet....

When I prepare for a funeral, I sit quietly and await the Holy Spirit.  Holding what I know about the now deceased, I wait for the Holy Spirit to guide me to a scripture passage that will open the gates of heaven for those who grieve.

Once it was Genesis 1  "In the beginning when God began creating....and God said, Let there be light and there was light and God saw that it was good."

Once it was Moses arguing with God.  Once it was Mary anointing the feet of Jesus.  Today it was Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

It came to me as I drove to the cemetery for a graveside service (sometimes the Holy Spirit waits until the last moment).  I could picture the joy and relief and comfort it would have brought this woman to have someone who loved her so deeply wash her feet and welcome her into his house. She was not always welcome; she rarely felt welcomed.  This public witness of Jesus' deep love for her; this sign of release from a challenging and difficult life and beginning of a new and glorious life; this moment of being ministered to......these were the pictures of heaven that came to mind.

I wanted to say so much more than 'she is with the Lord' (although God knows that is a powerful blessing and promise).  I wanted everyone to be able to picture her with the Lord, tickled pink that someone was fussing over her, settling in to her new life with God.  

This is how the stories of faith are used: they give us a narrative that points to God and the hope we find in the promise of Jesus. The narrative is the receiving blanket for a unique experience of hope - transcendent hope - hope that is a taste of the eternal.  The narrative holds God's promises and attempts to pass onto us the power and experience of this God.  We enter the story, identify with one of the characters, resonate with the hope found there.

God is always bigger than the story.  The parts of God which remain hidden are much greater than the parts which the stories reveal, but the glory......the life....the healing....the wholeness....the hope....of our Lord Jesus is there.  There is God's story and there is our story and then.......there is the story that will be written one day down the road.

....when Jesus began washing the disciples' feet....

Thinking about funerals

It has been a year of funerals.  Some of them expected.  Some of them made it hard to swallow.

Today I did a graveside service for a family.  I had sat with them as their loved one slowly let go of this life and embraced the next.  It took a lot longer than any of us expected, but then you could always count on this person to say or do the unexpected.

It got me thinking about what I would want when I was the one lying in that bed, looking nothing like myself and certainly nothing like I would want to look.  I am thinking I'd like to hear my children tell stories and laugh; I'd like to hear some solid hymns (I'll be sure to leave a list) and a few pieces of classical music; prayers would be nice, especially the old liturgical ones.

But in the end, I think I would like to have someone reading scripture: the stories I have come to love which have opened the door to the transcendent God for me.  The story of Moses arguing with God; Jeremiah's complaint that the Word of God was a fire in his belly.  I'd like to hear again Mary's song of praise and trust in God from Luke and the story of the woman with the 12 year flow of blood who touched the hem of Jesus' garment.  Perhaps in the end I would like to hear again of how Mary anointed Jesus' feet and then Jesus turned around and washed the feet of the disciples.

Then finally, Mark 16.1-8  Early in the morning on the first day of the week the women went to buy spices.and then went to the tomb.  They said to one another "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"  When they looked up, the stone had been rolled away and a young man said, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here....."

When the moment comes when those who have loved me (for reasons I will never truly understand but for which I am deeply grateful) see that I am no longer there, I want them to know that those were the words that shaped my life and they are my legacy to them.

As for me, I will be with the risen Lord.

with a little help from my friends

  It takes a village to raise a child.  It's a common enough saying.  We engage in the business of raising up and shaping our - all of ours - children communally.  Our children benefit from being surrounded by a community who cares for them and about them.

A community rich in grace, filled with opportunity which is also secure and safe can build children into confident, merciful, well rounded adults.  However, a community that is chaotic, built on values of power which demonstrate little concern for the neighbor can easily lead to fearful, power seeking, adults whose perspective on the world is no bigger than their own front yard.  

A community which is formed around the Word of God in Jesus has its own flavor as well.  It is a community where strangers are not just welcomed but included.  It is a community where no one is too little or unimportant.  These are people who understand their own flaws and sins and the enormous gift of freedom that God's forgiveness in Jesus has given them.  Therefore, these are people who hold forgiveness in the highest regard and work daily at achieving it.

In a Jesus community, the story of creation is important.  It tells us that life, from its first moment, was a gift from God and was 'very good.'  We learn that God created humankind in God's own image, male and female each created the same.  All humans were created in the image of God.

From the story of the escape of Israel from slavery in Egypt, the long story of God's emphasis on freedom begins.  Freedom from slavery, freedom from economic oppression, freedom from gender oppression.  Jesus frees the folks he encounters from hunger and demons and sickness and small mindedness.  Jesus opens a whole new world.

As people of Jesus we are called into this 'new world living' through the waters of baptism.  Generosity is the energy that flows through us, forgiveness drives our relationships, freedom is another word for justice in our civic and religious lives.

In our worshipping communities, we are called to create a place where these values are the formative ones.  We are a people of forgiveness, of generosity, of a peculiar perspective on living out our lives which includes all the people around us.  We seek justice, not for ourselves, but for those who this world oppresses.

We fail.  We continue to be plagued by our own limits.  We often turn a deaf ear and blind eye to Jesus.  But this is what we are aiming for: a community that raises up all people to new life, full life, abundant life, forgiving life, generous life .....in Jesus' name.

It's good to go back to the beginning every so often and remind ourselves.

It sort of creeps up on you

No, I'm not talking about zombies or that nasty weed that I simply can't get out of my garden, I'm talking about faith.  And, I am talking about my experience of it which may be 180 degrees from your experience of it. I will try to describe the certainty that has grown over the years from that first encounter with something /someone beyond myself.

I grew up in a church family; we worshipped every Sunday and worked on the wider work of the church. We said grace before meals and prayers at bedtime.  I learned the Bible stories, most of the catechism (no, not by memory).  Over the years I reflected on many of the paradoxes of the faith and the life of faith.  I always had a serious question to ask and rarely accepted shallow answers to those questions.

There are good reasons for that.  My next younger sister was afflicted with polio at 3 months; it made the 16 years she was granted challenging and often painful.  There was an iron lung, orthopedic braces, operations, hospital stays and a funeral before she reached her 17th birthday.  In our house, suffering was never an abstract.  Strangers who rejected my sister because of her disabilities before they knew her, strrangers who refused to serve us meals; strangers who made rude comments aloud; strangers who called the health department because she was a health risk.....we knew all of these.  She was the first handicapped child allowed to attend 'regular' school in our school district.  She was neither an object of charity or pity, but a funny, courageous, bright and normal girl in a deformed body.

Her health determined our family's agenda: if and where we might vacation, how we as a family traveled from place to place, how much money was available for spending.  We all learned how to cook and do laundry and take care of ourselves because my parents were often full out caring for her.  
Her life shaped my life, and it shaped my faith.  But not in one fell swoop, but slowly, over time, after questions answered and truths challenged. Witnessing the thoughtlessness and sometimes, bigotry, of strangers, I became sensitive to injustice towards others.  Watching her struggle and suffer with little or no hope of living a long life, I find glib answers to life's deepest losses intolerable.

Throughout it all, God was at the center of our family life and our family routine.  I found God and I found myself through the rhythm of worship. Over the years, the presence of God and the certainty of Jesus' love for me and those around me simply grew.  I searched for deeper truths; I refused to accept 'pie in the sky' explanations.  The promise of heaven could never take away the reality of life in this world.  

I was immersed in an ethos of faith and God slowly crept up on me, becoming as natural as breathing and ordinary as doing laundry and as miraculous as a sunrise.

How did it happen for you?


 

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith."

I am in the midst of preparing for a funeral for one of our oldest members.  We will be listening to this passage from Paul's second letter to his disciple Timothy who was a pastor to community of faith.  Paul was in prison and the only way he was leaving was to travel to the executioner.  Thus he writes.....

"I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day....."  2 Timothy 4.6-8

I often recommend this passage. It reflects the truth for many: those who have battled long and hard against an unseen enemy and those who have lived very long lives. "I have founght the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith...."

When folks have faced the pain and loss and exhaustion of fighting against forces which are robbing one of health or happiness this passage can be a moment of release - a blessing on the deep truth that it is a gift that the end has come.  Loved ones have been 'poured out' as a libation (which is an offering to God), drained of strength and often they have lost their very sense of self.

For those who have lived a long life, it speaks to the endurance needed to cling to God over long distances and through multiple obstacles.  They are ready to rest in the arms of their Savior, to be received into the heavenly places in ways only God can know.

"I have kept the faith......"  These are the words that capture my attention.  I'm in the faith business and sometimes it is a challenge for me to keep the faith.  The ethereal business of faith is practiced in the rough and tumble world of sin; the demands of discipleship are layered over the demands of making a living and keeping afloat.  When one recognizes that being a person of faith means bringing the teaching of Jesus out of the clouds and into the present, the work gets harder.  Sin is not an abstract concept; we run into it everyday and it often makes our days more than difficult.

Faith in Jesus is a relationship, and a relationship with Jesus will transform.  With each authentic encounter with the truth of God's love for the world in Jesus, we are opened to newer vistas: new ways of thinking, new ways of being, and new content for our confessional conversations with God.  Authentic relationship with Jesus brings peace, while at the same time, it brings every part of our lives into a bright light/

Trusting that God is in charge, that Jesus reigns, that tomorrow can and will be different than today because it is all in God's hands - the God who through the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead - to trust that promise is no small feat.  To trust in that God while experiencing chemo or watching a loved one disappear to dementia, or commending our 21 year old grandson into God's hands.....that is hard work.  Allowing God to push and pull us into a deeper faith life, allowing ourselves to be open to the Spirit's call to both action and repentance, listening for God today when you are in your 90th year of todays is also hard work.

What can we do?  How can we be strengthened for this difficult journey?  We can come to the table to encounter the risen Jesus.  We can study and listen to God's Word in the old stories of faith in the modern examples of it.  We can travel among the lost and lonely so to be God's hands at work in this world.

I need to do this again and again and again.  Otherwise I will lose sight of the Jesus who has claimed me for life.  Otherwise, I would become one of the lost ones.

What about you?

I hate being wrong

I'm not talking about getting Babe Ruth's lifetime batting average wrong. Who can remember all that detail?

I mean when I am caught being a jerk.  When I am devoid of compassion.  When I say stupid things.  When I have failed to show the love that lies within me.  When I am tight fisted; even more so when my heart is made of stone.

I hate it when it takes me only seconds to realize that I have done it again.  I have brought sadness and hurt into someone's life.  I have wounded another or bought into my own jealousy or envy. I have gleefully accepted the benefits of a system which unfairly cheats another - and claimed no responsibility. You want to know what I really hate it? I really hate it when someone else calls me on it.  I really hate being a public sinner.

I want to run from that awful feeling so I often compound the whole mess by trying to justify my actions, mitigate the impact of my words, pretend that I had the best intentions.  I have a closet full of excuses:  I was tired, I wasn't feeling well, the other person was nasty, they behaved badly, I owed them nothing.  They are, however, only excuses.

The reason I fall into this pit is singular.  I am afraid and fear makes us stupid (and blind and deaf too I think). It paralyzes us.  We can no longer think straight, and we certainly can't hear the voice of Jesus nor feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Then it isolates us.  When fear is in control, we cannot form real community.  Community requires an enormous share of giving:  giving of ourselves but also giving others the space to live equally blessed lives.

Perhaps you have experienced this as well and recognize that dark, lonely place where you are afraid that this horrible moment of sin is all that you have to give in this world.  You will always be defined by it.  It will always control you.  You are no better than this ....this....person!

I think that son who ran off with half his father's money and then had to come home groveling for forgiveness and mercy felt much the same way.  Yet, much to his surprise, his father was there, waiting for him, rejoicing at his return, celebrating with all.  (Luke 15)

Jesus stands in the road watching and waiting for us to turn around, to leave our stupidity behind and trust in his mercy and love.  On those days when I am dead wrong, it is only the love of God that can call me to life.  Welcome home, brother, we've missed you.

How many times can you die?

This is not a rhetorical question.  How many times can you die?  Most of us get one.  One time to die. (Modern medicine has made some advances on this number, but nothing reliable.)

One time.  I've already had mine.  It happened about a month after I was born when my parents made the drive from Baltimore to Bath, PA to their home church for my baptism.  It was cold with snow on the day I died.  All my grandparents were there, along with an older brother and a couple of aunts and cousins.  I wore a white dress, the same one my brother wore.  My grandmother made it.

The pastor poured the water over my head and baptized me......into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I died with Christ so to live with Christ on that day when God's glory is made manifest to the whole world.  St. Paul says I died to sin by which he meant that sin could no longer claim me as one of its own.  Now I belonged to Christ and the Holy Spirit was about to really get to work in my life.

It was the starting point for my second life.  Buried deep within the heart of God, I was (and continue to be) slowly shaped by the love of a creator God who gave me my first breath, forgave (and continues to forgive) all the numbskull and even nasty things I've done and thought, showed me the face of my neighbor and pressed me forward to create a community with them.  From this generous God I was taught generosity and challenged again and again when my heart proved to be two sizes too small.

That's why my parents took me to that baptismal font....to die to the deadly life that awaited me and to be formed into the life of the Creator.  It was the life they experienced; they wanted it for me. It meant putting aside the kind of life that I would see around me.  It meant listening for Jesus' voice since the voices around me were deafening.  It meant pruning those places in me that hampered my growth into God's vision of a beloved child.

Now those of you who are reading this know that I am far from perfect; most days I'm far from medium.  But on all days I belong to Jesus and Jesus shapes and molds me into the new life of glory that awaits me. Along the way confession is my constant companion and forgiveness my salvation.

All sound a little radical to you?  A little 'over the top'?  A little like those crazy disciples tramping behind Jesus in all those stories?

It is.  It was meant to be.  Life as a disciple is more questions than answers.  It is constantly being aware of the great needs of our neighbors knowing that solutions we offer are temporary.  It is to expect that we will stumble regularly, and sometimes quite badly, and yet we call on the name of the Lord and wait and watch for his guidance.  We accept the weight of our own sin and bask in the wonder of God's gracious forgiveness.  We live the resurrection in each day - some days we are better at it than others.  We are Christ's and we live in him....

...and it is joy.

All of this is to say, there is nothing for you to fear.  You have already died.
You belong to Christ.

Today consider simply allowing Jesus to live in and through you.  Wait. Watch. Listen.
Quiet the voices that do not know Jesus and do not know the power of his love.
Begin to truly live  the life you were given long ago in those waters of baptism.  You...beloved child of God, disciple of the living Lord.