Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Spring, Sabbath, and the Hesitant Hermit

Yesterday I had to stop walking and take off my sunglasses to gape at the amazing colors in front of me – a hot pink tree in full flower, set against a backdrop of emerald green grass meeting a cloudless rich blue sky with a garden of dazzling yellow and vivid red tulips in between. Everywhere you look this unusual year, spring is in full force. The dead landscape has reignited and the shoots are pushing up out of the ground into the bright sunshine.
            I took my first 24-hour completely solo retreat last week.  They called me “the hermit” when they showed me to my tiny cottage off the beaten path and delivered my meals in a picnic basket.  I spent the time wandering the woods, sitting on a tree suspended over a rushing stream, reading, writing, drinking hot tea and listening to the sounds of the forest all around me – owls, squirrels, birds of all kinds, the clacking of 160 foot tall trees as their tops leaned and bumped, greeting each other in the wind far above the forest floor.  I rattled around my hermitage and struggled to quiet myself.  I tried to be in “Sabbath time”; I worked hard to rest.  I brawled a lot with “should” and argued back and forth with “how,” and desperately sought the patience to tolerate the incessant chatter in my head that drowned out the silence.  And I remembered again that Sabbath-keeping is hard
Finally, I settled into the realization that whatever I did or didn’t do, whatever it is supposed to look like or ought to be didn’t matter.  Really. What mattered was that I allowed myself to be. To be in the present. To be with myself. To be however I was and not to judge it, not to squash it into a certain shape, or trade it away for some other, better way of being.  Just to be me.  What mattered was that I paid attention to how I was, and allowed myself to simply be.  There are so many layers on top of who I am as a person, as a human being: job, family, expectations, tasks, ideals, goals. These things dictate me; they direct most of my time and actions. I am addicted to the adrenaline of always going; I am a great do-er. I am a lousy be-er.  I watched chimpmunks and wild turkeys race through the trees, butterflies land on leaves in the sunlight, and thought about what a gift it was to be there.  Just to eat, sleep, walk, and not to do anything.  And the hardest and best part of the gift was the time and space to recognize how difficult this is for me.  What did I accomplish? What did I produce during that time?  Did I spend the hours wisely?  Those questions are utterly irrelevant in Sabbath time. 
The purpose of Sabbath time, the reason to keep sacred space, is to return to the ground of our being.  To be.  That this is difficult reveals how very necessary it is.  The fact that we will most often wonder if we are doing it right indicates how addicted to doing we are.
There is no one right way to keep Sabbath time.  There are lots of great suggestions and ideas for what to do with the time, (and I am happy to share some with you if you are finding Sabbath-keeping as hard as I sometimes do).  But the important thing is not what you do.  It’s that you stop doing long enough to just be.  To be you.  To be before God and with your own self the way that you really are.   To pause and take off the sunglasses to see the colors.  To listen to the sounds both outside and inside of yourself. 
I took home a few surprises from my retreat (other than the large birch branches outside the church building).  I came home grateful – deeply thankful for my husband and kids and amazed at them and the astounding gift of sharing life with them.  I came home feeling more settled inside – I did not work for or expect this, it just happened.  I came home feeling renewed energy, hope and joy in what God is doing in and through our congregation, and more deeply connected to each person that makes up this lovely and quirky little part of Christ’s body.  And I felt more humor and patience, and aware that in all my doing, God has humor and patience for me. 
May your Sabbath time be blessed.

Photos from Tonya Hansen Toutge - taken out her window at work today...
This post appears as an article in the LNPC May-June Newsletter

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Stories of Resurrection


If Paul, Ananias and Peter were here today, we would tell them we were sharing stories of resurrection. We would tell them all about Easter, and how it has become this annual remembrance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, among other things, and that for this season in the life of our congregation, we are talking about how we experience resurrection in our lives – how we see life coming from death, hope born out of despair. 
We would tell them about last week, and how we heard stories from Sue, Dee, Cyndi and Dick, stories of faith and of life changing, joy growing out of pain, stories of great tragedy and loss and of new, different, surprising life emerging out of those places.  And if they were here today, we’d ask them to share their stories of resurrection. 

And they might look at us quizzically, they might wonder what we mean-  we followers of Christ who believe not having seen, we followers of Christ who have known only the Risen Christ, who encounter Christ in the world in hidden and surprising ways, and who have been the Body of Christ with and for each other.  They might look at us and wonder what we mean, resurrection
And then a light might go on, and they might share their story – each one different, but each one a glimpse for all of us of how resurrection happens, because each one is an encounter with the Resurrected Christ, with the Risen One himself, it is not resurrection as an idea or a theory, not resurrection as something we do, but Resurrection as a person, as in “The Resurrection and the Life,” Resurrection as in Jesus Christ coming face to face with YOU, and your life changing because of it.

We saw Mary’s encounter with the Risen Lord- she went to care for his dead body, she went in resignation.  She didn’t believe the empty tomb, she didn’t believe the angels, she didn’t believe Christ himself  - didn’t know him, until she heard him call her name, heard her own name in his voice, and then she recognized him.  That was her moment, her encounter with the Risen Lord.  And the disciples who chatted with him all along the road to Emmaus didn’t believe, they didn’t think life was possible after death until they saw this stranger break bread at dinner with them as he had done before, and their eyes were opened to the Risen Christ. 

Thomas’s resurrection story came next, and we saw that when he came across the story of Jesus’ resurrection as told by others it wasn’t enough for him – he had given so much, committed so deeply, and was so disillusioned by the loss of it all, by the loss of him, that he needed to see Jesus for himself. He needed to touch him.  And Jesus appeared to him, and showed himself to Thomas, and let Thomas touch the wounds, and told Thomas to believe. And he did. 

And today we are hearing more resurrection stories.  Stories of encounter with the Risen Lord.

The first is Paul – who was known as Saul at that time. His story is a complete 180 – the drama-filled testimony of a former drug-dealer, or a wealthy corporate cheat who finds Jesus and overnight his whole life is different, the kind of testimony that packs stadiums and sells books.  He had made it his mission in life to stamp out this movement and rid the world of Jesus-followers. Until God knocked him to the ground and left him blind and helpless, at the mercy of those he had come to destroy. 

Paul’s resurrection story bumps up against another story of resurrection, Ananias – a follower of Jesus, one of those in Damascus who had dreaded Saul’s arrival.  He already believes in resurrection, has committed his life to the way of Jesus, but then God tells Ananias that he is supposed to go find Saul where he is staying, and pray for him, in Jesus’ name.  Probably the most fearful thing he can imagine, a stupid, dangerous thing.  But he does it.  And the scales fall from Saul’s eyes – and Ananias’ too – and Saul is baptized, then he stays a while with this small group of Christians – much to everyone’s great amazement – and the resurrected Christ is encountered again as they become for him the community of faith, the Body of Christ.

Then we have Peter. Dear Peter: heartbroken, shattered, finished Peter – his last encounter with Jesus was to deny ever knowing him – three times, right in front of him – before Jesus was killed.  Peter had gone back to fishing.  It was all he could do.  And Jesus appears to them, and once again, nobody recognizes him until he does something so Jesus-like, something so familiar, something out of their own relationship and experience of him, he tells them to put the net to the other side and it comes up busting with fish. 
Peter panics with excitement, and even though they are fairly close to shore, he puts on his heavy clothes and leaps in the water – one can only presume panting into shore after the boat had already landed.  And Peter’s resurrection story – just like each one of the others – was exactly what Peter needed. 
It spoke right to the place of death within him, the place where all hope was gone, and it stirred up that place, painfully healing it. 
“Do you love me?”  "Yes, Jesus, I do love you."  I’m sorry I denied knowing you! I am so sorry! 
“Then feed my sheep." 
"Do you love me, Peter?" 
Oh Jesus!  I do love you, you know that I do! 
"Then care for my lambs."
"Peter, do you love me?" 
Oh God! What are you doing to me?  I love you, I’m sorry, please!
And he looked at him right in the eye and said to him, “Feed. My. Sheep.”  Three times you denied me, three times you are forgiven.  You are restored Peter, you are called. You are more than forgiven, you have a part to play, I trust you to care for what is mine, I trust you to be part of what I am doing. I need you.  You’ve known the darkness within, you’ve known brokenness and sorrow and you’ve even denied me – whom you love more than any other- you are the one that I choose.  Feed my sheep.
And he does.

In the weeks that follow we will hear more resurrection. More stories of encounters with the Risen Christ. Stories of Jesus going right to the place of death, standing in the place of emptiness and calling us to see him there.  Calling us by name, calling us from the places we’ve known the love of God, places that deep inside ourselves recognize grace reaching out to us because we’ve seen Jesus like that before.
 
Resurrection stories begin in death, in the place where fear lives, and where anger breeds, the place where impossibility resides.  Those are the places Jesus goes. 

Places, Paul would say, where we’ve built up our own power over against others, so convinced of being right, and often in God’s name, that we mistreat others and bully Christ himself in our arrogance.   Jesus goes there.  Sometimes knocking us on our face, disorienting us and showing us ourselves and our actions as they truly are, and then giving us a chance to experience mercy through the love and acceptance of others – often the very others we’ve called enemy.

Places, Peter would add, where we haven’t forgiven ourselves, where we’ve stayed in the darkness of the wrongs we’ve done against others and written ourselves out of the story, Jesus goes there.  He sees who we are, forgives what we’ve done, restores us, claims us, aligns himself with us, and gives us a purpose and a calling.

Places, Ananias would describe, where we’ve closed the door of possibility – labeled people or circumstances unreachable, irreversible, impossible, Jesus goes there.  Breaks our stereotypes and challenges our fears and invites us to join in the kingdom of God unfolding in surprising people and unexpected ways.

This is how Resurrection happens.  And it is happening all around us.
So this week, in our own lives and in this world – for which we are called and to which we are sent- watch for the Resurrected One.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Risen Indeed

Isaiah 65:17-25, John 20:1-18, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26

What is the resurrection you long for this Easter? The question asked the first time I read it... Then it stuck with me, Where do you need resurrection this Easter? Ever since this question came across my radar several weeks ago, it has grabbed hold of me and keeps on probing, nagging, persisting.  Where do I need resurrection?

The question implies there are dead places within me, or in my world. The question assumes there are places beyond hope, beyond rescuing, dead and gone, over and given up on.
 It’s not, where do I need resuscitation? Where would I like to see a little more verve and oomph in my life?  It’s, where do I need resurrection? Where are things so utterly dead, so completely past redeeming, so fully beyond reimagining or resuming or recuperating that they are over?  That if anything were ever to happen there again, it would need resurrecting, literally, bringing it back from the dead and making it alive…and so they are places I have grieved and moved on from, places I have buried and forgotten, places in me or the world that I have relinquished hope, that I have simply abandoned.  So it is a hard question to let yourself ask, let alone answer, because it means staring at corpses. 
Where do I need resurrection this Easter?
How do we even begin to open ourselves to a question like that?

We are accustomed to death. We adjust to death. We even swallow the lie that it is a natural part of life and should simply be succumbed to.
And so to sit here today and talk about resurrection like it somehow makes sense, like it is something docile and graspable, something domesticated and churchy, is the strangest thing to do.  Because if it is real, it changes everything.
The day the disciples did their ridiculous race to the tomb, the day Mary leaned in and saw angels and mistook Jesus for the gardener, the day of the Resurrection, the easter event itself, it wasn’t all trumpets and triumph. It was confusing and frightening.
Jesus, who was dead, is now alive?  What do we do with that?

But death, now we know what to do with death.  We’re really good at death.  Mary knew what to do with death – she brought the spices to care for his body.  So what if everything they had believed was gone? That’s how life works. You live and learn, you lose and you keep going.  So what if everything they had lived for was a lie?  You move on.  Death happens, the bumper sticker should say.
So when the grave clothes are there, empty, what are the disciples supposed to believe? Death is the final word.  When a couple of glowing strangers are sitting there where Jesus’ body had been, what is Mary supposed to think?  Death means it is over.  Why would they ever think things would start again?  Why should they?

Resurrection defies the laws of nature, it disobeys logic and physics and sanity, it flouts death’s authority over the world and all that is in it.  Experience and logic and everything else tell us that things move from life to death.  And there they end.  So why would they imagine Jesus could be alive? Why is Resurrection even an option? 

Last week, on Palm Saturday we talked about Jesus’ last week on earth, a week in which he stormed through the temple, and cried through the garden, and bled through the courtyard,
and at every turn ripped off death’s mask to reveal its insidious and pervasive presence underneath all decorum and decency, inside all relationships when love turns to betrayal or failure, within every experience of being human when fear causes us to fall asleep on each other, or to weep so hard we sweat blood in terror at what awaits us. 
We pondered the question, what would God want to do in God’s last human days on earth, what would God want to make sure to do the week  before leaving?
And so Jesus did not go quietly into that good night – he called out death, he exposed the hypocrites in us all and the injustice and the evil and the suffering and pain of being human, and he left them hanging out there waiting for an answer.

This is the answer. Today is the answer. Easter is the answer. 

When the story was over, when he was buried and gone.  Jesus Rose from the Dead.
The resurrection ends death’s disguise, and caps its reign, it sets the final score.   It says that no matter how terrible things get, and they get terrible, and no matter how hopeless they are, death doesn’t get the last word.  The last word is life.

It’s easy to live like death rules.  To live worried about me and mine, to live seeking more and better, to ignore the needs of those around me, to let fear, or disgust, or apathy dictate my actions.  It’s easy to live towards death – after all, that is the logical progression, and the dominant mindset and force. 

Except – the dead God lives.
What if we lived like resurrection was real?
What if we turned, and heard the risen Lord call our name, and believed?

Then we live as people with hope. People who see each other and the world we are in as sacred, belonging to God, over which death is not the final word.   Then we live as people who can participate in resurrection, as the future hope bleeds backwards into the present, and we get to be people who talk about life coming from death and be part of it in all the little and big ways it happens.  Then we get to live our lives knowing that what we do and who we are matters to God, is beautiful to God, is something God can work with.  That we can let go and know that even in my darkest places, God is there, has been there, that God loves to bring life out of death, resurrection is God’s THING.

And that we can honestly face and name the darkness, the places where death appears to have won, the pain and suffering in our world, we can say those things aloud because they are taken into God, into a God who brings life from death and hope from despair. Because by saying and naming and sitting in those places we are joining Jesus who is already there, we are claiming and waiting for resurrection.

I was asked to write for an online collection from various people, in 100 words or less, why I need the resurrection.  This is what I said:

I need the Resurrection
because my sister is sick
and can’t afford insurance,
because I’ve told a weeping Haitian mom,
“No, I can’t take your son home with me.”
because I’ve been rushed off a Jerusalem street
so a robot could blow up a bag that could’ve blown up us.
because I’ve exploded
in rage
and watched their tiny faces cloud with hurt.
because evil is pervasive
and I participate.
I need the Resurrection
because it promises
that in the end
all wrongs are made right.
Death loses.
Hope triumphs.
And Life and Love
Prevail.

So, back to our question… 
On this Easter day, when we sit here announcing and embracing the absurd and astonishing news that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, when we gather together to sing and shout and defy death’s rule and celebrate the relentless and transforming promise of hope,
I ask you, What dead things have you given up on?  What hope have you abandoned, fear have you submitted to, brokenness have you accepted?
Where do you need resurrection this Easter?


Thursday, April 1, 2010

How to Repent (It's not how you think)

Psalm 46 ,  Jeremiah 31:31-34 When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion o...