The Rising Sun

I woke up this morning just after the sun strarting torching the eastern horizon.  I watched the world be filled with soft colors in the gentle light which moved across the field between me and eastern sky.  It was the third morning after the day of her peaceful last breath at a hospice house and the sunrise which would bring us to the moment when her body would be placed in the ground.  I remember standing there in awe at what I was seeing and thinking, "The sun has come up another day."   

Indeed, the sun came up just like it aways has come up.  It did not stop just because my heart was so heavy with grief, or because I had been walking through a great darkness.  It came up again reminding me that though she was gone, life continues.  It might seem to me that the world has stopped, but it has not.  It goes on.   It was a breathtaking panorama that unfolded before me, full of a splendor and glory that made me consider the glory and spendor of heaven.  As wonderful as was that moment of sunrise, I knew it paled in comparison to the glory and splendor of the eternal Home which became my wife's this past Wednesday morning.  

I am grateful for the promise Jesus made when He spoke to the disciples about separating Himself from them and preparing for them a place in the eternal Home.  And, I am grateful that when I turned lose her hand the other morning after she breathed her last breath that the eternal God of the universe had already taken her hand for the last part of the journey Home.  For over fifty-three years she has been a part of my visible reality and now she lives invisble to me on the other side of the thin veil which separates here from there.  Though I grieve, I am grateful to God and grateful for the great thing He has done in making her whole again.   

Living In Submission

There a lot of ugly words in our society and not all of them are spelled with four letters.  One of those ugly words is submission.  No one wants to live in submission to anything or anyone.   Some say we took care of that with the American Revolution when we said no to being ruled by a king.  It is used to be that there was in the marriage ritual a word about women being submissive to their husbands, but as can be imagined, that word fell into disuse quickly as our culture evolved to its present state.  The good old American spirit of independence makes us all equal and no one cares for the word anymore.    

Of course, it is a common word and theme in the Scripture which is a problem for some who seek to follow Christ.  Kneeling in churches used to be a more common thing than it is now.  The only time anyone kneels anymore is to receive holy communion and then it happens only in those traditions which allow for it as a part of the ritual.  Of course, there is some behind the pew kneeling in some traditions, but it is a group thing and not something that really sets the individual apart as one kneeling in submission to God.    There seems to be something within us which rebels at the idea of bending the knee in submission even it is before God.  We would rather do our submission from a sitting position, or maybe even a standing one.   

The actual act of kneeling may not be as significant as the spirit which is in the heart.  The Word calls us to live in submission to God.  This means we regard Him as a supreme power, a final authority, and the One whose will is more important than what we would will for ourselves.  To live in submission to another affirms that there is an agenda more important than our own agenda and for many of us who live and seek to serve Christ in the present day, this is a real problem.  

Chill Out!

It is always easy to talk about letting God be in control.  Actually, He is, we just live like we have the steering wheel.  We might try to wrest control away from Him, but it always remains firmly in His hands.  After all, He is the all powerful God and we are mere mortals with limited strength and sometimes even less sense.  If we had good sense there would never be any struggle about who is in charge.  Over and over the Word of God speaks to us about this issue and we nod our heads in agreement and then push the pedal to the metal to speed things up.     

Perhaps, the most frustrating thing to us about God being in control is that He never gets in a hurry.  He acts as if eternity is long enough to get what He wants done.  We are consumers of instant gratification and He is the One who is always calling us to wait, to pay attention to where we are and what is going on around us, and to quit worrying about what might be.  We hear what He has to say and we say it makes sense, but we have also come to the conclusion that it is a hard word to put into practice.   The bottom line in all this control business is trust.  

Either God is trustworthy or He is not.  He has said He has a plan for each one of us.  He says He cares for the sparrow and He will surely care for us.  Either He is trustworthy and keeps His Word, or He is the God of broken promises.  Of course, we know He is not the God of broken promises, but the God of made and kept promises.  The One who is in charge of our life even in those moments when we are fighting Him for control is trustworthy and faithful.  What He has said He will do, He will do.  We just need to give Him room to do it.  Chill out!

A Fly in the Ointment

It always seems that there is a fly in the ointment.  Look long enough and something shows up that you would rather not see.  It even happens in Romans 8:28 which says "We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."  The fly in the ointment is in those words which speak of God working for good in the lives of those who love Him.  Does Romans 8:28 only apply to those who love God?  Does He choose not to work for good in the lives of those who do not love Him and who do not embrace His purpose for their lives?  Is there an exclusion here which puts some out there to fend for themselves as best they can?    

I would rather not raise the question.  It is too troubling a possibility.  Perhaps, the direction the passage draws us it toward an understanding that only those who love God will look to Him as the One who is the Giver of good things even in the midst of adversity.  Others might think of it as some punishment or discipline being given by God for choices which did not take into account His will.  And, of course, there would also be those who would see misfortune and difficulties as the product of the random wheel that spins in the universe that spills out bad without any apparent reason.    

The very first words, "We know" speak of a conviction about God.  It speaks about a trust that all of life is in the hands of the One who put it into motion at the moment of conception.  It speaks of one who has come to understand and know God in such a way that there is no viable alternative to Him working on our behalf for our good.  For them Him doing otherwise would be in contradiction to His nature.  This core belief brings the sufferer to a far different conclusion than the one who sees life as a thing determined by random chance.  The one who loves God first and foremost is likely to see God in a different way than the one who lives, but without any love for God or gratitude for what He is doing.  

Working for Good

Clearly, if God is working for us, it is going to be for good.  Romans 8:28 says it well, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."  There are all kinds of things in our life.  Some of them we choose.  Some seem to choose us.  Some bring us joy and some bring us great sorrow.  Some are easy.  Some are hard.  Some are full of life and some seem empty of life.  There are a lot of different things which touch our life.  Sometimes we are beset by more than one difficulty and sometimes there is joy even in the midst of the thing we would not choose.    

What Paul tells us in this inspired word is that God takes the sum of the things which are touching us and uses them to bring good into our lives and into the lives of those around us.  It is as if God swoops up all the circumstances of our life, stirs them around, and then uses them for purposes we never thought possible.  In cancer treatment rooms it is not uncommon to see one sufferer reaching out to bring some hope to another simply because they have been through an experience which brought pain and devastation in their lives.  We are often able to be a helper and a comforter to another not because we have read about their suffering in a book, but because we have experienced it.     

Whenever we are tempted to think that some dark moment is too dark, or that some injustice is too great, or some pain too great for anything redemptive to come from it, we need only stop and look toward the cross of Jesus for a moment.  There the worst that humanity and evil had to give was poured out upon the Innocent Holy One; yet, even though the day ended with an apparent victory on the side of the darkness, we know such was not true.  The Light which has always shined prevailed in that darkness and through the darkness brought to each of us an assurance that good prevails and wins the battle.  

All Things

When we quote Romans 8:28, most of us are on auto pilot before we get to the last words.  This is simply another way of saying we do not always give the verse the kind of thought it merits.  Hurrying through lifts up the possibility of missing some of the stuff upfront.  One of those things which might be missed are the words, "all things."  Romans 8:28 reads, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."  

"All things" is a very inclusive word.  It surely includes some things to which we never really gave consideration.   The Apostle Paul lists some of the "all things" in his life in II Corinthians 11.  These were not things he could have anticipated from the Damascus Road, yet, they were poured out into his life, nonetheless.  Most likely it will be that way for us if we are blessed with enough years.  Things will come we could not have imagined in the good days when everything was filled with sunshine and roses.  Some folks around us are living in some hard moments in their life and the truth is that we may not see.   

The Word is true.  God can work for good in all things regardless of how horrible they may be.  We have seen it happen again and again.  But, it is not a good that comes cheaply for the ones who are suffering.  And it is not necesarily a good that will be seen except in hindsight.  But, God is faitihful to keep His promise.  The cross on Good Friday is the final proof of the way He works to bring good out of what seems to be full of nothing but deep darkness, pain, and suffering.  The final word is that He will be there for us to bring us through the darkness of all things into the Light of His presence.  Always!

We Know

The Word says, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."  (Romans 8:28)  It is a word we all know, one that we have all quoted from time to time, and one that is tossed about in the church community rather freely.  I wonder about the basis for our knowing.  Do we know that this is true simply because it is written on the pages of Scripture?  No one would doubt the rationale of that basis for knowing.  And even if this is our basis for knowing, I still wonder if we often throw out the word without really understanding what it is that we are declaring.    

To speak of knowing implies a confidence more than just knowledge.  It points to a knowing that is based not just on what someone has written, or said, but something which is also known through the crucible of human experience.  Are we not more likely to pay more attention to someone who is in the fire instead of listening to someone who talks about being in the fire even though they bear no singe markings?  This is not to say that we cannot live with confidence in this Word from Romans without the singe markings, but we do need to be careful about the way we glibly and too quickly throw out this word to someone who is suffering.   

When the Apostle Paul wrote, "We know," he knew from personal experience.  He knew what the Spirit was saying to Him as he sat with pen in hand, but he also knew that what was being divinely spoken in his spirit had been tested in the fires of his own life.  He knew it was true.  We must never forget that the one who is struggling in suffering is living in a world that is unknown to many of us and that such a  person is going to have a perspective that transcends any casual familiarity with this very powerful and meaningful Word of God.  They may know what we think we know.

Throwing Out Candy

Every year our town has a festival.  Ours is called "The Turpentine Festival" because of its involvement in that industry long years ago.  There is a parade that goes down the main highway and turns after about a half mile for a back street called Mullet Roe which takes it back to its point of beginning.  It is not a long parade, but then our town is not a big town.  Everyone shows up to line the road.  One of the things which always occurs is the throwing out of candy from the floats as they meander along the parade route.  It is not something which litters the ground for it is quickly picked up by scurrying children.    

As I was thinking about Romans 8:28 and the issue of suffering, I found myself finding this image in my spirit.  Romans 8:28 reads, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."  I fear we sometimes throw this verse about like someone throwing out candy from a parade.  We use it too quickly.  Too many times we use it from a perspecive that is different from the ones who are actually struggling with some of those things which make no sense at all to them.  

Years ago when I was a pastor at the Vidalia Church, I offered a short term study on the problem of suffering.  The problem part of it, of course, is created when we consider the good and loving nature of God.  How can He allow the suffering which goes on  is a question that has been asked more times than the angels could count.  I still ask it.  And, after another lifetime of living since that study some twenty-five or more years ago, I would teach the course differently.  Or, I just might not dare teach it at all.

God Has Put Us Here

Here is where God has put us.  While some may say God has nothing to do with where the here part of our life exists, there are also those who live convinced that there is nothing about our life which is chance, or coincidence.  Of course, there are times when we find the here part of our life so cluttered with very difficult cirumcstances that it is hard for us to imagine that God would have anything to do with either putting us in such a place, or allowing us to live there.  His ways are often hard for us to understand and to simply embrace whatever way He brings into our life is for some too big a stretch for something as simple as faith.   

There are many Biblical stories which enable us to see the faithful in strange places and in the midst of hard circumstances.  Jacob found himself in such a place after his act of deceit with Essau, Daniel ended up in a den of lions, David lived for a time on the run out of fear for what Saul might do, Mary and Joseph lived in a community which no doubt looked at her pregnancy as something which was shameful, and the disciples often encountered reproach and danger as they moved into the world after Pentecost.  God does not always put us in safe places.  Neither does He always insure that our faithfulness keeps us from harm and danger.    

It is true for us as well.  The here part of our life may not in the moment be something we would choose, but for some reason and purpose it is where God may be allowing us to live.  We may not be able to see in the present moment the divine rationale, or maybe we can and it is just hard to accept.  Regardless, our lives are always inside a plan He has for us.  Sometimes the plan may include a hard moment which has such shaping power that it will affect every relationship and every set of circumstances that will unfold in our life.  We can never know the value God places on where we are, nor can we know how our being there is working for good in our life and in the lives of thoe who are sharing it with us.  

Here from There

Here is where I ended up when I left there.  I should have known being how life is a circle, or so some say.  I say a circle because when as a child some adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the first thing I remember saying was, "I want to be a farmer."  My DNA is rooted in farm families.  Both of my parents grew up on farms and many of my aunts and uncles worked to grow crops from the dirt.  I always enjoyed visiting my extended family out in the country because they had mules and chickens, yards swept with a broom, and a water bucket with a dipper on the front porch.   

Suprisingly enough, the here part of my life has me on a small farm and every now and again some of my friends who do not know how little I know about farming refer to me as a farmer instead of a preacher.  It has surely been quite a transition going from the church to the farm.  While I do some farm stuff like growing some hay and tending some cows, I hardly think of myself as a farmer.  There are farmers around here and they surpass me in every way when it comes to that way of life.  

Sometimes I wonder who I am.  I know I am one of Wesley's worn out preachers and I know I live on land that has always been used for farming, but mostly I see myself as someone who arrived from there to here by the grace of God.  A lot of people I once called friends did not live long enough to retire, but here I am.  I like to think that I am here because God still has some unfinished work to do in my life and through it.  Each day I am grateful for the new sun I see and the new life which stretches before me.  I may not be sure who I am, but I know to Whom I belong and in these days that awareness is more than enough.

The Double Rainbow

Not too long before the day disappears each day, I meander out to the chicken yard and shut up the pen as the hens have returned from an afternoon of roaming and shutting the gate to the yard provides them a measure of protection from nocturnal predators.  On my journey to do the task, I looked toward the dark clouds and was taken back by the sight of a double rainbow.  Brilliant and sharp it was there against the dark clouds.  And then, as I left the chicken yard, I turned to look again and it was gone.  Here one moment and gone the next.   

It reminded me of a book entitled "Tinker's Creek," by Annie Dillard.  It was in that book, at least if my memory serves me clearly, that I first was presented the image of God as "now you see Me, now you don't"  If I remember wrongly, it is the fault of a memory that stores up stuff but does not aways put it in the right file.  Tonight I will give Dillard the credit which I do believe is hers to receive for introducing me to this idea of God as one who reveals Himself for a moment for us to see, know, and hear, but it is for a moment only and for those who are paying attention.  I want to pay attention.  I do not always do it, but I have found that there are enough moments seen by paying attention to take the task of doing it full time seriously.    

The double rainbow was for me a sign of the presence of God.  It said to me that I am not alone.  It tells me that I still dwell inside not one of His promises, but all of them.  It reminds me that life is not out of control, but that He is still out there in the midst of creation and within me in the depths of my soul doing what He always does which is being faithful to His own nature.  I can live with this reality.  He has always been faithful and there is no reason to expect anything to cause that reality to change.  After all, the double rainbow came on the heels of the storm.

Images

Somewhere along the way here, I came to a place of loving images.  Some may like language to very precise and exact leaving no room for any possible misunderstanding or error in interpretation.  I guess I am just not one of those people.  Images intrigue me.  I like the way images do not do all the work of thinking for me, but require a moment of slowing down and giving some thought to what the writer might be trying to convey.  Perhaps, this is a part of the appeal of good poetry, but it can also be true of good prose.     

The Gospel of John is an example of a writing which is filled with images that are rich in meaning and do not demand to be seen only in one way.   Images abound in those verses and chapters as John remembers Jesus talking about water, and light, and something as ambiguous as the way.  When we come to such places in our reading, be it in the gospel of John, or in some other writing it requires us to slow down and pay closer attention to what the words are trying to say to us.  I had an old friend years ago who was an Episcoplian priest who often said that Jesus was always saying "Go figure," and while he never gave me the chapter and verse, I think I, too, have heard Jesus saying these words between the lines, or in the midst of some teaching which was not as straightforward as his listeners and we might like it to be.   

Those who want someone do their thinking for them will never be comfortable with a lot of image nonsense, but for those willling to take the time to pause, and sit, and ponder the Word for more than a minute or two there is more to see than meets the eye at first glance.  Images point us.  They do not tell us.  They are not tutorial.  They are suggestive.  They give the Spirit room to wander in the deep places of our soul where memories are stored, hopes are dreamed, and holy work is taking place.  

The New Journey

If I were writing a book about these years of retirement, I think I would call the book, "The Journey from There to Here."   But, do not worry about being put in the awkward postion of saying that you would not buy such a book.  It is not being written.  My ego says it would be a best seller, but my Mom, if she were still on this side of the veil, would no doubt say to me, "Now, Son, remember I may be your only reader."  My Mother alway showed a streak of a kind but realistic spirit so the book will remain just something unwritten which exists in my imagination.   

But, if I were to write it, I think I have a good title.  Maybe nothing else would be good, but still it is a good title.  There is much for me to think about when I consider the journey from there to here.   It is a journey which has taken me from pulpit to farm, from a robe to work jeans, from carrying a good black pen to carrying a sharp pocket knife, from preaching to writing, from the computer to the tractor.  It has taken me on a journey from kneeling at an altar to kneeling in the dirt, from watching the liturgical calendar to watching the actual weather, and from being surrounded by people to mostly being alone.    

All of these things speak of a journey that is visible to those who might have nothing else to do but watch.  But, there has been another journey on the road from there to here which is one that has been mostly invisible to any bystander.  The most significant journey has been the one which has taken me from a world of being busy for the sake of being busy to a world where I am learning about solitude and silence.  It is not a journey most folks want to take.  I avoided it for nearly forty years, but retirement here at the farm unfolded that possiblity as a way of life in such a gentle and inviting manner that I dared to walk into it.  The deeper into it I go, the more I become aware of how far there is still to go on the journey from there to here.  Or, perhaps, it is not the journey from there to here so much as it is the journey from here to there.  

Cow Bird Lessons

There are a lot of critters that share the farm.  Some I expected to meet when the farm became home to this old man who had spent most of his life surrounded by other houses rather than wide open spaces.  There are squirrels, and rabbits, snakes, an occasional armadillo, and the slow moving opossum.  But, it is not only the ground creatures which abound, but also those who spend much time in the air.  Over the years I have learned to delight in seeing new birds and learning their unique sounds.  One bird which is not hard to identify is the cow bird.   

Ornitholgy calls the common cow bird an eqret, or a heron, but it is always called a cow bird around here because it is mostly seen riding on the backs of the cows in the pasture as they move from one grazing spot to another.  They eat ticks and other bugs as they ride and when not riding, they forage for the smaller crawling critters on the ground.    Everything seems to have its place around here in the creation.  And, everything is connected in some way to all that is around it.   

This lesson of being connected to the creation all around us is something that often seems to be lost to those of us who should be smart enough to figure it out; yet, who often seem intent on living and doing as if the whole world centers around us.  God did not put us here to be at the center of the creation.  Such is His place.  Ours is to be a part of it, to live mindful that other living things are important and have their place as well, and to live in such a way that our purpose for being here is always in view before us as we go into our unfolding life.  It might be said that cow birds bring glory to God by being a cow bird and it is surely true that we bring glory to God when we are intent on being who He created us to be.   

Life in the New

When I first started writing the blog some fourteen years ago, trying to write something that might pass for poetry was somethng I was afraid to do.  My early schoolish attempts at such writing always seemed to demand one line rhyme with another somewhere close by.  After a spell of reading, I began to realize that such was not required, but still I avoided the genre.  Writing a three paragraph blog posting in prose is like preaching.  You can go off script and allow for the unplanned and the extemporaneous, but poetry is too precise.  Every word counts.  And, then counts again.     

So, by and large I stayed away from it for a long time.  Only in recent years as the years have piled up and you begin to not care what others think did I begin to experiment with some writing that I call poetry.  Others might have a different name.  Regardless of what it is called, it is something new for me.  It is said that old dogs cannot learn new tricks and maybe it is true, but old dogs can try to learn new tricks which is maybe what I might call my attempts at writing something other than prose.   

Through the creation God speaks to us about life always moving toward the new.  Even as the creation into which we will walk tomorrow is one unlike any in which we ever walked, so are we to move toward the new instead of being paralyzed by it.  To embrace what is becoming in us is to walk in sync with God's plan for us and to walk in God's plan is to give Him glory.  So, move toward what is becoming new.  Each day we rise with a new set of experiences, new insights from disciplines of learning, and the whittling of our spirit being done by the Holy Spirit who is constantly bringing us more into the likeness of the Christ.  Instead of adding to the bucket list, start check them by doing.  Find how God is beckoning toward what is new and then go after it not for the sake of perfection, but for the sake of living.

The Empty Tomb

 What was empty

     filled with hope.

What was dark

     brings the Light.

What was an end

     marks beginning.\

What was dead

     comes to life.

What was eternal

     was flesh.

What was flesh

    became eternal.

What was lost

    gained victory

What was buried

   was resurrected. 

 What was Friday

   now Sunday.  

Easter Morn

Gabriel done gone and blown his horn,

   Gabriel done gone and blown his horn,

        Gabriel done gone and blown his horn,

'Tis a blessed Easter morn.

The angels in heaven done gone to singin',

   The angels in heaven done gone to singin',

      The angels in heaven done gone to singin',

'Tis a blessed Easter morn.

The church on earth done gone to shoutin',

    The church on earth done gone to shoutin',

         The church on earth done gone to shoutin',

'Tis a blessed Easter morn.

Jesus done gone and kicked out the dyin',

    Jesus done gone and kicked out the dyin',   

        Jesus done gone and kicked out the dyin',

'Tis a blessed, most glorious, Easter morn.   

Saturday's Darkness

If Friday was a day of uncontrollable grief that poured out of the soul in torrents of tears, then Satuday was the kind of day which hosted a grief that was mostly empty of the tears for they had been cried out, but one that was filled with a hopelessness that sucked the air out of life.  When Jesus was taken down from the cross toward the coming Sabbath on Friday, everyone knew He was dead.  It did not require waiting on someone like a modern day coroner to confirm the death, or to confirm the cause of it.  The women, including the mother of Jesus, had watched.  And though the disciples might have been on the fringe out of fear for their own personal safety, they watched, too.  All knew when the limp body came to the ground that there was no life in it.    

And, so when Saturday's sun rose, there was nothing but despair and sorrow to hold their lives together.  It was a kind of loss which numbs, a kind of grief which settles down in the soul, and the kind of sorrow that is felt as something which will have no end.  Even though Jesus had spoken of being raised from the dead, there were no voices or whispers which were saying, "He is going to rise from the dead."  They knew Jesus was dead and regardless of what He might have said another day, dead men stay dead.  It had always been that way.   

The only thing to be anticpated on Saturday was doing something forbidden by Jewish law on that Sabbath day which was finishing the task of making the body of Jesus ready for burial.  Time did not allow for this to be  completed on Friday evening as the Sabbath was rushing toward them so they planned to return at daybreak on Sunday to finish what was still incomplete.  It was this dark task which was anticipated on Holy Saturday, not some glorious resurrection.  And so they went through that day between Golgotha and the Empy Tomb as people whose lives had been shattered.  Little did they know that the darkness of Saturday was about to explode with a light that would forever shine.

Friday Thoughts

Though assigned a cross centered text for his Good Friday message, the preacher got up and said, "No one wants to talk about the cross when Easter is so close so let's start celebrating Easter early," and with those words he began a Easter morning message.  Not even on Good Friday does anyone want to talk much about the cross.  The cross is bloody.  It is painful and full of suffering.  It is about darkness and dying.  It is also about sin.  Put all those things together and it is no wonder the church has such an aversion to the cross.  It is the message that the "make me feel good" crowd does not want to hear.   

What is most problematic for folks today is not the suffering part of the cross, but the part that points to it being God's solution to our sin.  If death is a word to be avoided, sin is all the more a word to be avoided.  No one wants to talk about sin and no one wants to talk about Jesus dying on the cross to save us from our sin and its consequences.  The wages of sin may be death as the Bible says, but today's Christian is more into grace abounding more than enough to cover all our sin.  What we want is a painless way of dealing with sin.  The cross says dealing with sin is not anything but painless.    

The gospel tells us that Jesus willingly went to the cross as an act of antonement for the sins of all of us.  It was God's plan to which Jesus was obedient.  No one took His life from Him, He gave it.  He gave it because of His love for us, but make no mistake, it was hell on earth on Golgotha, but Jesus went there that there might be a way for us to live as those forgiven for our sins.  What we deserve for our sins, He took upon Himself that we might not forever be separated from God because of those sins.  All we can do is by faith accept the sacrifice He made for us and then to live as those who have been changed from within by the knowledge that divine shed blood makes our living now and in eternity possible.  Anything less is blasphemy.

Holy Thursday Meal

 'Twas Holy Thursday, and I, 

      having made myself clean

      with a bar of Mary's fine soap,

      and the waters of the brook

      made my way through the woods

      to the house where I finished

      getting myself ready to go

and eat the waiting holy meal.

In her arms my sweet Mary

     carried our child, Thomas,

     now too warm with fever,

     the fresh clean white shirt

     and mended blue pants

     she had managed still

     to make ready for me 

as a guest to the holy meal.

Bidding farewell, I set out

     on the lane to the church

     where Father O'Leary and,

     neighbors now friends all

     gathered around the Table

     to be abundantly blessed

     on the most holy night

when the dear Jesus is remembered..

At the place where music reached,

      I heard a bellowing sound

      from down in the river bog

      Knowing it could only be

      O'Malley's old milk cow

      that gave the needed milk

      for the new baby born 

without a mother's breast,

Into the muddy bog, I went

     grabbing halter rope

     pulling one way and another

     until cow and me came forth

     wearing black soured mud,

     but still I went toward the place

     where the Table had been set

for the very likes of me.

All had gone, only a candle lingered

     on the Table with a piece of crust

     and a cup once filled, now empty

     and so taking the crust of bread,

     I swiped inside the cup, 

     staining it with holy red,

     and took alone the holy meal

left for me under the hanging holy feet.

Something to Ponder

It is the disciple John who tells us Jesus washed feet on Thursday.  None of the other gospel writers included this act in their narrative of the life of Jesus.  They all spoke of the meal and John spoke of the meal, but only to give the washing of feet context.  "And during supper Jesus....got up from the table...and began to wash the disciples' feet..."  (John 13:2-5)   It should not surprise us that John would be the only one who would remember this moment and write about it.  To read his gospel is to know that he was a different breed of disciple.  He led with his heart which is to say that he was not one who required a well thought out decision to act.  It was his heart which caused him to respond as he did to the things which were happeing around him.     

John seems to see things others either missed, or simply chose not to tell.  His stories are rich with character portrayals, but also filled with the stories not written, the ones between the lines, the ones many missed because they only are looking at the obvious.  John saw what others did not see.  He felt what others were too busy to notice.  He creates images and symbols for us to see in a way unlike any other gospel writer.   It is obvious from his letters to the church that the prime directive of his life was deep seated love.  This, too, speaks of a man who is led to live his life by his heart.  

It is a good thing for us to remember this story told only by John on this holy Thursday, but, perhaps, more important than just reading it, is pondering it.  Maybe we should read of Jesus washing feet not for the information, but as something to sit with a spell.  Maybe we should sit with it until we can feel the cold water touching our feet, the rough hands of Jesus wiping them clean, and the salty tears running down our face.  Maybe then, what John wanted to happen with the telling of this story will truly happen.  

Wednesday at Bethany

What was it like

  to rest a bit 

   in Bethany

    before the storm

at Golgotha?

What was it like

 for the sisters

  to give some space

   until the time

had fully come?

What was it like

  to stay and know

   'twas only a moment

    till pain and death

finished the week?

What was it like

  to breathe again

   the air of love

    the spirit of care

and to walk away?

Controversy

Tradition declares Palm Sunday as a day of triumphal entry and Monday as the day for the cleansing of the Temple.  As Holy Week goes on, Tuesday is noted as a day of controversy.   After the act of turning over the table of the money changers and merchants selling sacrificial animals, those in charge quickly came to the conclusion that enough was enough.  With this act on Monday Jesus did more than stir orthadox theology with His radical teachings, He touched an economic nerve.  It always seems to be that way. The church will put up with a lot of stuff, but not any stuff which threatens the income to the treasury.   

It is not surprising that when Jesus re-entered the city the next day and went to the Temple and began teaching that He was attacked.  Those ecclesiastical pillars of Judaism were waiting for Him.  "By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?"  the chief priests and elders asked Him.  (Matthew 21:23)  It was a question which cut right to the core of the issues before them.  If He was of God, then everything they held dear was in jeopardy and if not, then He was some religious lunatic who could be disregarded or discredited into oblivion.  Of course, Jesus turned the question on them in such a way that they were left holding nothing but air.     

It was not a one question day, however.  As we read the narrative we see Jesus being attacked and challenged in all sorts of different ways.  When it was all said and done, those who opposed Him had their solution to the Jesus problem, "...they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill Him."  (Matthew 26:4  The presence of Jesus still remains a threat to many within the bastions of organized religion.  He is the radical, the revolutionary, who will not go away.  He continues to be a presence which calls into questions practices which speak more of power than service, self-exaltation more than self-sacrifice, and  loyalty to culture more than the Kingdom of God.  When He comes into those arenas with His radical words, He is usually ignored as the irrelevant one in the crowd, but every now and again someone hears and goes after Him and the holy revolution lives again. 

The Need for Cleansing

As we read and consider the moment known in Scripture as the Cleansing of the Temple, it makes us wonder what Jesus would think about the contemporary church and the way it does the Kingdom work.  There are no money changers making profits in the building, but then again with the servant style wages long since gone, He might pause beside the clergy table and ask a question or two about the motives of the heart.  And, as He walks by the homeless on the street to get to some of our multi million dollar sanctuaries, He might ask a question or two about our eagerness to feed the hungry, our willingness to quench the thirst of the parched throats,  our interest in clothing those in someone's thrown away rags, or our desire to spend time with the unknown strangers who might be sick, or even in jail.    

It is possible as He sees those things that the same anger which was stirred that day in Jerusalem might be stirred again.  Back then what went on in the Temple often happened under the facade of providing for the needs of those who came when in reality the needs of those who came were not as important as those who were benefiting from their coming.  Instead of turning over tables of  money and sacificial animals, He might push over a few pulpits from which a compromised Word is preached, or rip out a few pews inhabited by the self righteous.  Anyone who thinks He would walk in and applaud all that is happening lives in a world of illusion.    

There are many things which plague our contemporary church as being problematic and chief among them is the way the physical is valued, power is exploited for gain, and the bigger is better approach is always chosen which is mostly ego driven.  It is painful to write such words about a church I have loved and served for a life time, but it is also something which gave me a front row seat not only for seeing, but also regretfully, for being a part of it.  

Palm Sunday

 HaveYou made it yet?

    You know, made it there

       where folks are waiting

          some with palm branches,

            others building a cross,

they're waiting for You.

No need to hurry, Lord,

     You know what's waiting,

        what You have to do

          to finish what started

            when You came to us,

back at Bethlehem.

Folks will call You king, 

     act crazy on the road, 

       shout sounds of praise,

         jumping up and down,

           to catch a quick glimpse

of God walking to die.

Relish the moment,

     they will leave you, Lord.

       calling for a cross

         and shouting at You

           as You hang to die

for them, for everyone.    

The Franciscan

A few days ago I heard my name being called by a book I had already read.  It was a good read the first time, and the second time, and I have no real idea why I have found myself once again immersed in this book enttiled "Chasing Francis"  by Ian Morgan Cron.  The book is the telling of the story of Francis  through the pilgrimmage of a New England evangelical pastor whose mega church ministry is shattered by his own personal loss of faith.  As books go, it is average, nothing really exceptional, but none of this silenced the voice that was calling me to read.     

Maybe it is the spiritual magnetism of St. Francis of Assisi who lived in the 1181-1226 period.  He is remembered for many things:  establishing the Franciscans, personally trying to end the Crusades, his commitment to poverty as a way of life, his radical adherence to the life of Christ, and his love for all things of the creation.  His spiritual journey began with a voice coming to him from the crucifix of a falling down abandoned church telling him to rebuild the church.  Francis thought the voice was telling him to rebuild that particular church which he did, though he would later be credited with helping to restore the larger church which he served.    

While I was preaching all those years from various pulpits, this ancient saint was mostly just a historical characterr from the past who required no attention, but since retiring to a different life here on the farm, my collection of books about him has grown and my desire to feed on his spiritual legacy has multiplied.  I find the change interesting.  Living as one who served the church kept me too busy to appreciate a saint like Francis of Assisi, but the slower pace of retired life has caused me to thirst not for information about this saint, but to thirst for the spirit and abandonment to Christ which drove him forward into the ministry prepared for him.