I Wonder

Sometimes, I find myself challenged by how we do Easter. I mean as a church. Feel free to also celebrate the bunny and chocolate and spring (if it ever gets here). We could use a little celebration right now - observing isolation, social distancing and all the necessary protocols, of course.

I’ve often found myself with questions as much as anything else as we navigate the traditional story of Easter. And maybe that’s a good place to start: the “traditional” story. The Last Supper, Good Friday and Easter Day have stories we know so well because we tell them every year. We know how the story goes (mostly) and we have specific rituals and songs and words to remind us. But sometimes, that’s as far as we go.  It’s a story. And we know how the story ends and that influences how we experience it and even what the story is supposed to mean to us. Jesus lives, alleluia.

But this year’s different. I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but in facing this pandemic, we have an opportunity to learn. A lot. Oh, so much. Here’s one little corner. Because we can’t gather for our big communal celebrations, maybe this is an opportunity to look at the story a little more personally, maybe wondering about some of those questions we’ve had that we’ve not asked because, well, tradition. And not necessarily tradition that’s the “we still do it because it’s relevant and meaningful,” but the tradition that’s “we’ve always done it that way.”

I have questions. Maybe you do, too. I’ll just share a few of those and, just to be clear, I mean questions, not challenges, questions.

Like “The Last Supper.”  We can call it that – in retrospect – but the disciples didn’t know that, did they?  They thought that they were celebrating the Passover meal with Jesus (a ritual meal itself which reminded Hebrews of God freeing them from slavery in Egypt). So the story from which we have built the central ritual of communion, was dinner. A family dinner, for that matter, because that’s what the Passover meal was about, families remembering their heritage with God. Do we remember God at our family meal? Do we remember that we are one family when we celebrate communion?

That’s a really good question this year because we can’t gather in person with our church family. Our church will be sharing communion online through a live streamed service this Easter, because the intention is communion in heart and spirit. As Richard Bott, the Moderator of The United Church has said, “when we share communion where the presider is in one space, and the elements and participants are in many, it is still true the bread that is broken and the juice that is shared continue to be real. Virtual space – real communion.”

On Good Friday, we might spend some time at the foot of the cross. But is our cross Jesus’ cross? In our world, particularly in our country, can we truly understand the horror and pain of the crucifixion? A tool of torture, intimidation and death is the symbol of our faith? I know we’re supposed to see that it’s redeemed by Jesus and all, but I’m still struggling with saying “God loves you” and showing someone a cross.

And if you were there, as the spiritual says, if you could put yourself right there in the story, imagine yourself at the hillside where Jesus was crucified, what would you be feeling?  It would be nice to think that we would be horrified, that we would try to help Jesus. But would we? If that was our world, or day, we might just think, oh, it’s another crucifixion – that’s probably ten this week, at least.  Maybe we would recognize that this was something different, but what if you were there: what would you think?  Or feel? “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

Maybe our Good Friday is tempered a bit by the fact that we know how this part of the story ends: resurrection on Easter Day. Yay, Easter Day! But what if you were there, what if you were Mary Magdalene or Peter or the other disciple that went with him?  What do you think Mary felt when she arrived at the tomb that morning, having watched Jesus die, and found it empty? Surprise? Anger? Was her first thought that someone had stolen the body? It wasn’t until she saw Jesus that she knew he was alive. So, Mary was surprised by the resurrection?

I guess that’s my biggest question: are we surprised anymore? Are we so comfortable that we know how the story goes, that we no longer wonder at it, that we are no longer moved by its power, challenged by its meaning. Do you wonder?

One on One

I can’t imagine that there is anyone or anything that hasn’t been affected in some way by the virus that’s enveloping the world right now. However you’re experiencing it, isolation is a unifying part of that and we’re just not built for it. We need connection, we need to gather and touch and share in some way. We’re built for community.

And communities are responding, people reaching out, supporting each other, finding ways to be encouraging and connect as best we can, on the phone, online, waving from the street and singing from balconies - you don’t always need technology. We can find new ways, too.

It will be particularly challenging right now because it’s spring and Easter’s this week. Whether you strictly observe the story of Holy Week, day by day, or celebrate the resurrection or just enjoy the big meal and chocolate eggs that come with the big bunny, the fact is it’s a time to gather and celebrate as a family, home family, church family, community family, every kind of family.

It’s going to be different.

We’ve been trying to come up with ways that we can help people engage the Easter story and celebrate the most important day on the church calendar as a church family. And it’s not just in the connecting-people-with-technology, it’s about the story itself. Maybe you’ve noticed this when trying to come up with more creative ways to work, learn or play: the more you look for different ways to tell a story, the more you notice about the story that you hadn’t perhaps seen before. Context is certainly a big part of that, too. Even a story that’s been told thousands of times speaks differently to a different situation.

So maybe, for example, the story becomes more personal. The Holy Week story is full of crowds: the Palm Sunday crowd that welcomes Jesus, the crowd that he throws out of the temple, the crowd who hears him teach, even the upper room crowded with the disciples for the passover meal, the garden crowded with soldiers and certainly the crowd that demanded his death. And what seems a moment of loneliness Friday, on a hill outside Jerusalem. Another in a tomb.

But the irony is that all those crowds also demonstrated just how fickle a crowd can be. And on Friday and Saturday, Jesus wasn’t alone. Mary and the other women were there, watching over Jesus, unable perhaps to save him from pain but present with him in his suffering it. Those same women come back the next day to find the tomb empty and are the first to see Jesus alive (Matthew 27-28).

What if we could find a way to be in those stories, not just as part of the safety of a crowd, but one on one with Jesus. How would the shout of “hosanna” on Palm Sunday feel if we remembered it wasn’t a cheer but a cry: it means “save us.” Would you shout “save me” to Jesus? How would we feel on Monday when Jesus drives people out of the temple if Jesus looked directly in our eyes and asked “how do you respect God?” Or when he’s teaching in the temple if he were to ask each of us, personally, “do you really want to learn how to live well?” At the last supper, when Jesus says “one of you will betray me,” will we honestly be able to say it’s not me? And on Friday, will you be able to stay and be present with Jesus rather than wander by with the rest of the crowd?

We all want to crowd around the empty tomb on Easter morning, but that’s exactly where he isn’t. Where he is, is with you. Wherever you are.

The Long and Winding Road

“How long’s this gonna last?”

You’re probably already tired of hearing that. I know I am, and that’s mostly from the number of times I ask it in my own head. The other day, one of the late night talk show hosts, broadcasting from his home with his kids around, joked “it’s day eighty-three of isolation,” only to be corrected by his wife: “six. It’s day six.”

Thing is, that’s a very real feeling. Whether you’re staying home observing physical distancing, you’re in isolation or working the front lines of health care or the myriad of essential services for which we are so grateful, we just don’t know, for sure, how long it will last. We just can do our best, day to day.

It’s still Lent and I’ve been talking about the wilderness for a few weeks now. (You might even be thinking “when’s that gonna end?”) I didn’t really intend for the wilderness theme to be so, well, what we’re living, but I wanted to explore some of the many ways that we have a wilderness experience in our lives, intentional and not, positive and negative, lost and found, timed and open-ended. Even as a body of people, because sometimes it’s not just individual. Right now, I think we’re experiencing a sense of wilderness globally, as nations of people, as communities and households. And wondering when we’re going to come out of it.

The story of the Hebrew people in the wilderness is pretty much what the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are all about. I say all of them because it’s not just about the story, it’s about the laws and instructions and practices, too.

You might know some of the highlights: the escape from slavery in Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, God providing manna to feed them and water from the rock, the Ten Commandments, of course, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, the laws of Leviticus (that folks seem to like to quote …), well, there’s a lot there, and it’s an interesting, complex narrative. But look at the big picture for a minute. Historical fact (and there’s no real evidence that it is) or a teaching myth, it’s the story of people who knew nothing but the oppression of slavery, suddenly finding themselves free and wandering into the desert, not knowing how to live together. Their very long and round about way of getting to “the promised land” is their journey to be a people, a nation and a community.

They were hungry and thirsty and their needs were met. Not extravagantly, but enough. They had no geographical home, and yet their home was with each other. They needed to learn how to live with each other and so there were guidelines, principles, rules and laws to help them do that. Chief of those were what we call the Ten Commandments. Except they weren’t commandments, that term didn’t appear until the Geneva Bible in the 16th century, the King James Bible and everything in english since. The Hebrews knew it as the Decalogue or ten sayings, the beginning of a framework for positive and meaningful relationship with God and each other. Even the dietary rules and the many, many laws were meant to create and build a structure in which to live, not a means to control. In the end, even faith in where they were going became part of understanding who they were, how they were and how they were connected to God and the creation in which they lived. They weren’t wandering, they were becoming.

Are we so different? Suddenly “freed” from our regular daily routines, but not the anxiety of “how will I live now?” (in fact, that increased exponentially for some), we need to find a new way, new practices, a new understanding of how to connect and be “community.” Kindness, compassion and grace are still there. Wisdom and common sense, too, we hope. We’re finding new ways to share our living. Love is still the thing that connects us and binds us together. Today we’re looking for new ways to live into that connection, to share in that relationship. One day, we’ll leave this wilderness behind and we’ll have been transformed.

Finding a way home

It’s a difficult time. However you’re coping with the world today, anxiety is not far away. Whether you’re isolated at home or at work and social distancing, you’d best be comfortable with your own company, at least for awhile. That can be challenging at the best of times; we’re not always good at remembering that “love your neighbour as yourself” only works if you love yourself first. And there can be a host of reasons why that’s a challenge.

But here we are, maybe feeling like we’re lost in a wilderness of what’s happening next, will everything be okay and will I be alright? It’s a wilderness of not knowing, of uncertainty and doubt. It almost seems ironic that we’re in the season of wilderness, self-examination and doubt.

For Lent this year, I’ve been talking about biblical characters who had wilderness experiences in their lives. I began with Jesus, of course, the story that inspired Lent, and next week we’ll look at the Hebrews who wandered in the desert for forty years, learning how to be a “people.” But I wanted to also wonder about some stories that weren’t typical, or even desired, wilderness experiences. So we looked at Adam and Eve and Noah. Their wildernesses were  anything but desert.

And now, back to the desert, let’s look at Moses. No, not the Moses who leads the Hebrews out of Egypt, who gives them the law, feeds them, finds them water and leads them to the promised land. No, let’s talk about the Moses who was Hebrew, raised as an Egyptian in the palace of the pharaoh, who kills an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave and then has to flee Egypt, across the Wilderness of Sin (not, literally, a wilderness of sin, but a desert in the Sinai region) and the Red Sea to Midian.

I can’t imagine how lost Moses must have felt when he finally arrived in Midian. Who am I, really? I’m not Egyptian, but not really Hebrew either. Who’re my real parents? The family I thought I had, wasn’t. What do I do now? If I am one of God’s people, where was God as all this happened? Where is God for the Hebrew people? Why is this happening?

But, of course, Moses sees the burning bush, talks to God personally, finds out what he’s all about and off he goes. Except, no. That’s not his story. Moses meets God in a different way long before the famous burning bush (Ex.3). 

Struggling on his own, Moses finds himself in Midian where he stops by a well. He sees some shepherds keeping some women with sheep away from the water and goes to their aid. As a result he meets the daughters of Reuel, who welcomes Moses to dinner and then to stay with them. Moses marries Zipporah, one of the daughters, and settles down to be a shepherd with his family, something he’s not wanting to give up when God calls to him.

Much like Jesus, I think Moses needed to find himself and where he belonged before he was ready for what God had planned. And for Moses, finding where he belonged wasn’t just a people or a place, it was family and it was community. It was people who welcomed him and loved him as he was, lost and wandering, and helped him to know who he is. When we feel lost, wondering and alone, God is in the hands and voices that welcome us and affirm us, just as we are, that reach out to support and care for us. 

Even when isolated or social distancing, a caring community gives life, regardless of circumstance or nationality or gender. Moses wasn’t turned away because he was Egyptian or because he had nothing or because of what he had done. He found a community of people that knew themselves well, loved themselves well and didn’t fear to love others, even as they cared for themselves. God’s love is for all.

Don't be afraid. Be Jesus.

“Don’t be afraid.”

That’s the one thing most frequently said by Jesus in the Bible. It’s not “love God” or “love your neighbour,” “be kind,” “don’t sin” or “go to church” (that one’s just silly). No. It’s “don’t be afraid.”

And I’m pretty sure we don’t hear them all. I bet Jesus said “don’t be afraid” to many more people, many more times than is recorded in all the stories we have. Much like the stories of Jesus sharing a meal with others, I think the gospel authors just got tired of repeating yet another “don’t be afraid” moment. And for the same reason: there are so many that they just become an ordinary, everyday occurrence. You’d expect that with the food stories. Everyone has to eat and that’s why Jesus shared that common ground so often. But it shouldn’t be surprising, then, that he’d need to encourage people to not be afraid. In Jesus’ world, so many lived in fear.

This is Jesus’ world, too. We still have fears. There’s still the oppressive use of power, from the ruthless brutality of dictators to the more subtle ways that power is exercised in the “free” parts of the world. There’s still poverty and hunger, there’s mental and physical health issues. There’s a whole host of things that the complexity of today’s world has added with technology and how we communicate and travel and simply interact with each other. It just seems like there’s lots to be afraid of. Sometimes it feels like we’re lost in a wilderness of fear. We didn’t choose it, but here we are and we can’t seem to escape it, to get back to a world where we feel we belong, where we feel comfortable and at home.

I feel like Jesus would still be saying “don’t be afraid.” Not as a command to change your behaviour or as if you could flick a switch and just suddenly feel different. We are, ultimately, free to be who we are.

I think Jesus means to remind us that we are loved and we are love and that fear disconnects us when we most need to know that. I know that sounds like one of those things pastors say to try and be comforting, but think about it. It’s when we’re afraid that we most need to remain calm and grounded, literally, connected to the earth. It’s when we’re afraid that we’re most likely to disconnect from compassion and grace, to think less about understanding and awareness and simply react. It’s when we’re afraid that we forget heart and mind are connected, that what’s truest is when heart and mind work together. It’s when we’re afraid that we become centred on ourselves and lose contact with the people we need the most, especially the interactive connection that reminds us that the world is a “we,” not an “I.” That’s where the strength is. That’s where God is.

Don’t be afraid. And wash your hands.

From Wilderness to Wonder

I began the season of Lent as I always do. I even said “I say this every year but, much like Lent, it bears repeating.”

So, here it is again. I think it’s important to remind people that when Jesus goes into the desert, he does not go alone. In the story which inspired the season of Lent - a time of reflection, self-examination and preparation for the Easter story - Jesus goes into the desert for forty days with the Spirit.  Through the desert, the fasting, the temptations, the wild animals and the angels, Jesus is not alone, whichever version of the story you read. The Spirit is there.

Well, of course the Spirit is there, you might say. Yes, it’s mentioned in the story, but we also spend a lot of time and talk on how God is present in the world. At least, I do and I was thinking about that this week in relation to another foundational story. 

I believe we’re created in the image of God, however you understand God. That could be in the religious sense, whatever your faith tradition, or simply that God is love, the energy that runs through all living things, the fabric of creation, a higher power - however you might understand God. So we are love and grace, we are inherently good, but we have free will and make choices, not always good. Frequently not, in fact. I mean, look around you.

I also believe that, whether you hear the creation story literally, mythically, metaphorically or otherwise, we are created both of the earth and by that same divine spirit (however you understand it, see last sentence). And I wonder if that isn’t part of what Jesus is all about: not changing us, but showing us and helping us to live into who we truly are and all that we are truly capable of. If God is in all creation, that means God is in us, just as God is in Jesus. Jesus is attuned to that dual nature and that’s what he mentors in us. We’ve become disconnected. Jesus tries to bring us back.

I think about how often we say things like “God is with us, we are not alone” (that’s in the United Church creed and I’m sure we all have similar statements) and we ask people to look for God or Jesus or the Spirit in their neighbours, friends and enemies alike. We say we are all children of God and that God is in all creation, the flowers, trees, the earth, water, sky … and yet, we are profoundly disconnected, from each other, from creation and God.

So I was thinking about another foundational story this week.

We tell a story of the very beginning, in which God creates all that is. And after God has created all that is from God’s divine spirit, God creates human beings from both the created earth and the divine spirit, in God’s image, and places them in a beautiful garden. Then, the story goes, they are tempted to sin, disobey God, gain knowledge and are subsequently cast out of the garden into the barren wilderness of the world and punished with the pain of childbirth and the need to work the land for food as if it were now an adversary. (Genesis 3) Our relationship with the earth is broken, our connection to God is lost and we are alone - alone - in the wilderness. Subsequent stories are told about our brokenness and how we might be fixed.

But what if we didn’t need fixing, we needed healing? What if we imagined that story differently? What if we turned it on its head, like Jesus did?

In the garden, we are so connected to the earth that we wear no clothes and every tree, fruit and vegetable, every animal and fish and bird helps feed us. We even name them. (Genesis 2) We are so close to God that God walks in the garden with us and Adam and Eve hide from God when the choose to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. (Genesis 3).

What if the choice to eat the fruit wasn’t just about acquiring knowledge but free will as well? What if God knew that, and instead of being cast out, we were sent out? Sent out from the wilderness of blissful ignorance in the garden, where everything was done for us, into the wonder which is the world, with knowledge and wisdom, to create and grow and care for the rest of the world. What if God’s intention was never to break our relationship with God and the earth, but to grow it, to build on it, to encourage us to live into the humanity and the divinity that was in us?

Imagine, just for a moment, how different our approach to life might be if our origin story wasn’t about being cast out in sin, but being sent in love. 

And Also With You

I’m know I say this every year but, much like Lent, it bears repeating.

When Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days - the story that is the foundation of Lent - he does not go alone. Each of the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke tell the story and each has their own unique details, but they all agree on this much. Jesus is baptized by John and the Spirit appears to descend on him in the shape of a dove. Then, with the Spirit, Jesus goes into the wilderness to fast and pray and be tempted by the devil. Jesus, with the Spirit, refuses to give in to temptation and then Jesus, with the Spirit, heads off into the early days of his ministry. Before the wilderness, in the wilderness and after the wilderness, the Spirit is always with him.

And also with you.

Personally, my take on this story has always been that the point of Jesus going to the wilderness is the same as it is for any of us. The wilderness is a place of discovery, a place set apart from our daily lives where we might take the time for some self-examination, wondering and visioning. A place to figure things out, about who we are, how we are, where we’re going and how we might get there. If you’re giving something up, taking something on, praying more diligently,  or engaging in some form of Lenten practice this year, that should be your goal. Not simply the doing of it, but the why of doing it. Despite the fasting (and, just to be clear, that’s fasting, not starving), the desert terrain and the solitude that might be physically weakening, Jesus comes out of the wilderness spiritually stronger and ready for the journey that’s ahead, not because he was alone, but because the Spirit was with him.

And also with you.

“With” is the key word here, I think. Each of the temptations that the devil offers Jesus in the story is an opportunity to exercise power over the world to meet very human desires: hunger and thirst, physical safety and security, and control of others for our own benefit. But, with the Spirit, he resists, each time citing scripture about the giving of the law. Remember the law was given to build community between people, God and creation and the heart of the law is about love and relationship. It was about the sharing of power, not the exercise of power over others. This is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry, too. Perhaps it was the focus of his time of discovery in the wilderness.

And also with you.

Really. Imagine how different the world could be if we all took a little wilderness time with the Spirit to figure out how we might share love and power as Jesus did. We would share it, not force it. We would look for equity, not advantage. We would listen and learn, not speak from ignorance. We would share our uniqueness and respect it, not hide from it and fear it. We would lift up the weak, not overwhelm them. We would hear the stories of the broken and share in their healing, not try to fix them. This is how Jesus built community with people. And also with you.