Carrying Holy Week

It was Thursday night, after Maundy Thursday services. I listened to a voicemail from my best friend, who is also a pastor. “I don’t need anything, really. I just wanted to talk. I’m just feeling… something. I don’t know what it is.” 

‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘I know what it is. It is the weight of Holy Week.’ 

It is not exactly sadness or depression or grief or fear. It is not exactly exhaustion or stress or overwhelmed-ness or tension. It is some of all of these things. And, it is more. 

As pastor, I experience Holy Week in a different way than I ever experienced it as ‘simply’ participant. Even when I was assisting minister or intern, the Three Days were about me and God and God’s transforming work. Only as pastor did I become aware of the weight, the honor, the responsibility, the burden of carrying a congregation through these days. God calls us to stare death in the face and carry our congregations directly to that place. These people we love, we cherish, for whom we have great responsibility, we take to the edge of death and plunge into it with them.

This is heavy. It is burdensome. Not burdensome in a way I wish to cast off and be rid of – but in the way of an honored animal who has been entrusted to keep an entire family’s possessions secure as they cross a raging river. Carrying those we deeply love, we step into the waters of death; hoping, praying, trusting for a miracle. Hoping, praying, trusting that we will make it through the danger and come out on the other side, resurrected. 

We need no more faith in the story than we had before we were pastors. We need no more guidance than the story itself. We need no more promise than that which we already have received. But perhaps we need more courage. 

Because as pastors, when we step into these waters of death, we do not do so alone. We take our entire communities with us. And we pray, and we hope, and we trust that God will not only meet us there, but bring us through to the other side, where in the end we might raise up our voices in a triumphant shout: God has overcome!! 

But today, our Alleluias wait. Today, our lips move in silent, fervent prayer. Today, our hearts tremble. And today, we carry this weight as we walk, together with Christ, into death.

I just can't remember...

We spend the first half of our lives celebrating as we reach new milestones, learn more information, find ourselves able to do more things. We laugh with joy when a child says a new word. We throw a party when a young adult graduates from high school. We give a clap on the back and a "well done" when an adult secures a new job.

And we grow older.

As we grow older, we discover we can't do the things we used to do. We grieve as our sight worsens. We often feel useless when we must hire someone to do our laundry or our cleaning. We complain, "My mind must be going... I just can't remember things like I used to."

I am somewhere in the middle -- still able to reach milestones, learn more, do new things -- and yet also recognizing and grieving that there are some things that I will never do, some I may never do again. [I suspect that we never move beyond this 'middle space,' the liminal place between what I could do or think before and can't now, and what I can do and think in the future.]

We recognize that through Jesus, God has experienced the human life. Jesus really knows what it is to grow up, to be an infant and then a child saying first words and then a young adult setting out to do a job. Jesus knows what it feels like to age, and Jesus knows what it is like to suffer physically and to die. But Jesus didn't get to live to be 80 or 90 or 100. What, do you suppose, Jesus knows about that?

We might imagine that before coming to earth, Jesus (being one with God) knew what God knew, communing with God in an intimate way we can but imagine. And then, Jesus became bound by humanity: a human body, a human mind. Speaking about the last hours, when God's kin-dom will be made manifest on earth, Jesus told his disciples: "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32, NRSV)

I wonder, was Jesus experiencing one of those moments? One of those "...I know I know the answer to that question... and now I just can't remember" moments. One of those "My mind must be going, I can't remember anything like I used to" moments. I wonder if Jesus' mind pricked with an ancient knowledge that he just couldn't bring into his human mind in that very human moment.

There is a grief process associated with memory loss. Frustration at being unable to remember, perhaps anger at the way things are and are becoming, perhaps depression that we know we won't be able to return to a better memory, and perhaps finally acceptance. In my stage of life, I still hear "If it's important, it will come to me later" a lot. That's not always true. As we age, it becomes less true: there are many important things that we forget, can't remember, and may never remember until God's eternal kin-dom comes.

And so, perhaps this is one more way that Jesus comes to be with us. Perhaps this is one more way that Jesus understands us. Perhaps this is one more place that we can lean on Jesus. Perhaps Jesus, too, knew what it was like to forget, forget what is so very important -- vital, even -- and to learn to trust that it's enough that God knows, and will always know, and we can be blessed in that.

Suffering through hope

Isaiah 53:4-12

Hebrews 5:1-10 

Mark 10:35-45

These are difficult texts. They are inextricably linked, both by their history and in our culture. Do you recognize any of these words from Handel’s Messiah? Studying these stories this week, my heart feels wrung out. There are so many associations in these texts. A beaten, brutalized, crucified savior. One who came and bore my shame (and the shame of the world), to set me free. A king who became a willing servant. A Lord who gave up everything to be crucified as a slave. A God who overcomes all the evil intentions the world could design, through forgiveness, redemption, and life.

Let’s look first at the Servant Song from Isaiah. This is the fourth such song in this book, a poem written some 500 years before Christ was born. This song was written into the Judean community that had been exiled by the Babylonians. In building an empire, the Babylonian army had come through, crushing the Israelites and either killing or taking into exile the political and religious elites. The ‘ordinary folks’ were left behind, living as servants and slaves to Babylonians who had planted themselves in the Israelite’s homes and taken over their lands. Some of these people became refugees to Egypt because of the horrid conditions in Judah. The conditions for those in exile, though, had not been quite so terrible – they were permitted to have homes and lands, amass wealth and even worship their God. For generations, the Israelite people lived this diasporic life, spread out all over the Mid-East; and now, the exile had been ended. The new King of Babylon had permitted all of the Jews to return “home” to Palestine. And this song of the suffering servant was written into this community, seeking healing from division, oppression and despair.

Listening to this prophecy, the Israelites would have remembered Moses. They believed that he, as servant to God, had taken all of the sins of the early Hebrews onto himself, dying with them – for their sins – in the wilderness. At the time, the people wandering in the desert didn’t understand his sacrifice, or God’s hope for their future. They considered him ‘struck down by God and afflicted.’ But now in retrospect, the Israelites looked back and saw God’s saving act for their people through Moses’ servant leadership. ‘But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.’ 

The author of this poem makes a similar claim about what has happened in the exile. Although terrible things had befallen the ‘servant’ of God in the exile, through Israel all the nations would come to know God. ‘The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.’ The Israelite nation has become a servant to God, bearing the sins of the Babylonians. And now, God’s redemption has come: ‘Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.’ During the generations of exile, the Israelites had lost hope of salvation. Just as their ancestors in the wilderness forgot God and God’s saving and redeeming hope, so their ancestors in these last times had forgotten God. But now, God’s works were being revealed in the world; salvation from oppression, healing in community, and hope for a better future. The servant whose voice we hear in this poem knows much about affliction, oppression, and wounded-ness. And now, that same servant speaks out in a voice of hope.

As Christians, with the perspective on history that we now have, we hear this servant song in Isaiah, and we recognize in it Jesus. Like us, the early Christian community came to understand Jesus’ life and death through the lens of this song. ‘He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.’ 

But Jesus’ disciples aren’t expecting this. When James and John tell Jesus that they can drink his cup and be baptized with the same water he is baptized with, they have no idea what that will mean. In all likelihood, they still expect that Jesus has come to reign in some earthly kingdom, in some way they can both fathom and understand. Thinking forward to the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, and then to the disciples’ fear that kept them locked in that upper room in Jerusalem afterwards, we can see their confusion. Like the Hebrews in the wilderness, like the Israelites in exile, the disciples experience affliction and oppression and pain. Justice has been perverted. An innocent man condemned to death. The only Son of God…  What must they have thought?: ‘Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain’?

And there it is. The hope for the future, crushed, smashed, annihilated before them on the cross. And then, Confusion. Fear. Silence. Despair.

But Jesus, Jesus had expected this. He had predicted this. Not as one who was sent to die, not as one for whom the Lord’s will was to crush with pain. But as one who knew the evil of the world and became flesh to love it into redemption. And redeem it, he did:

On the third day, he rose again. 

On the third day, he overcame death and the devil. 

On the third day, he showed evil who’s boss. 

On the third day, he still loved the world, enough to come back into it. 

On the third day, he resurrected hope that God’s future is our future, and injustice doesn’t get the last word.

This is the servanthood to which Jesus calls his disciples. A servanthood that leads us into the darkest, messiest corners of the world, and allows us to proclaim hope. We do not presume to take this honor, or force it on one another, but take it only when called by God. In becoming servants of one another and slaves to all, we answer God’s call to be a part of the redemption of the world. As we freely choose to walk into the world with a message of hope, we know that we too can expect, even predict, experiences of affliction and oppression and pain. Justice will be perverted. Innocent people will be murdered. And wherever this is true, wherever hope has been crushed and smashed and annihilated, there we stand, too, awaiting the hope of God’s redemption.

But just because God works hope into every story, and redemption into every life, doesn’t mean that pain or affliction or injustice or sorrow are the will of God. God desired that the Hebrew people would find freedom from oppression, and God delivered them into the wilderness. God desired that those wandering people would find homes and rest, and God led them into the promised land. God desired that the Israelites in Diaspora might experience healing and community, and God’s deliverance from exile came. God desired that the world might come to know God’s love and grace, and Jesus overcame all the evil and injustice the world and all its perverted social structures could throw at him. And God desires still that all people would find freedom from oppression, homes, rest, healing, community, love and grace. 

And it is with that desire that God sends us into the world with a message of hope. To those who are beaten by their loved ones, God proclaims: you are worthy of safety and love. To those who are crippled by depression, God proclaims: you are my child, whom I love. To those who find warmth in a crack pipe, God proclaims: your pain need not consume you. To those who have been raped, God proclaims: your body is precious and whole. To those whose bodies hurt, God proclaims: your pain is my pain, and together we are made whole. To each of us, God proclaims: I have named you and claimed you, and you are mine. 

Whatever happens in this world, whatever happens in our lives, God’s hope remains. As we are servants to one another, and slaves to the world, we bear that hope for a future that belongs not to us or the world, not to structures of injustice or oppression, but to God.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

What God knows...

15-20% of all recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Most women of childbearing age will have 2 miscarriages, though depending on her regularity and how early it comes, she may not notice. Most miscarriages happen because of abnormal cell division that results in chromosomal abnormalities, 80% of them occurring during the first three months of pregnancy.

I know this. I thought I was ready for this. I expected to be sad, but not so sad. I expected to grieve, but not so much.

A few days ago I was 10 weeks, 6 days pregnant. Today I am not. 


When I first wondered if something was wrong, it could have been normal. By the next day, though, it didn't seem normal anymore. I called the midwife. Unfortunately, there's still a 50% chance that it's fine, and an equal chance that it's not... I elected to have an untrasound. I wanted to know. We are so glad that we did this, my husband and I sitting in a room together, our guts both preparing us to grieve, but not willing to say the words until we had some proof. I have had ultrasounds before. In my previous pregnancy, at six weeks we got to see the little heart,  a little pocket of skin -- open close open close open close open close. So now, we watched for it. The outline of the baby became clear; early, but clearly there. But no movement, no heart beat, no life.

The strips flowed across the screen, one for placental blood flow -- fluid. One for fetal heart tones -- nothing.

It became real. This was a little baby; I saw its picture. This little baby within me was already dead.

The midwife confirmed what we had already seen. "This baby, this pregnancy didn't make it. I'm so sorry." The next day, she called me with the report. The baby measured at 6 weeks, 5 days. What?! The baby measured at not quite 7 weeks; I knew for sure I was nearly 11 weeks pregnant. My body held onto this child for almost 4 weeks after it was no longer longer growing, no longer viable. My body held onto this baby for a month, and I didn't know anything was wrong. I didn't sense, didn't imagine, didn't fear. It took four weeks for my body finally to begin letting go.

So now, we work on our own letting go. We grieve the loss of this child, of the way we imagined our family to be. A friend led a service of blessing for us, our little family gathered together. We ask questions, we cry, we wonder. In my grief, I ask deep questions. Why, God? What did I do wrong? Are you telling me not to have more children? What does this mean? My husband's questions are a bit different. Could the baby think yet? Could it know anything? Our friend told our daughter that the baby is in heaven, with God; is that true?

As a pastor, I felt I should have had an answer to that one... but I had to walk into it. Heaven is our mythical way of talking about and understanding what happens after we die. We can't possibly know what it will look like or be like, but we need some language to talk about it. We also can't possibly know whether we will know or recognize each other, and once we die, it won't matter. But if I've been married for 60 years and my husband dies, I need to be able to imagine that when I die, we will be reunited. We believe that God will give us that gift. So, talking about heaven is making a theological claim about who God is.

We repeat Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." We repeat Psalm 139, "You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb." We believe this. We believe this is who God is. So, God knew me before I was born, and God knows me now, and God certainly will not turn away once I die. God knew this little child before it came to be. God knew this baby as its heart stopped beating. God knew this baby as it passed. And God certainly will not now turn away. So yes, this child, this little baby with whom we had so little time... God cradles it in his strong father's arms. God holds it close to her own mothering breast. This baby that we love, God loves, too.

And so,

Child of God, we entrust you to the arms of God's mercy.
Almighty God, who formed us all out of the dust of the earth, receive you in peace.
Christ, the Good Shepherd, enfold you with his tender care.
God the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, bear you to life in God's new creation. 
May you dwell forever in the paradise of God.
Amen.

(from Evangelical Lutheran Worship Pastoral Care: Occasional Services, Readings, and Prayers)

Apathy or Action

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
 he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
 he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
 thou anointest my head with oil;
 my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
 and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

As I prepared to preach this week, these words from Psalm 23 echoed in my ears, reverberating louder than the words I was reading in the New Revised Standard Version. It appears that somehow, over time, these words have etched themselves into my heart, into my soul. Without trying, I repeat these words in this antiquated language, and the psalm transports me into the very presence of God.

I do not know how these words came to be etched on my heart. Perhaps they were some of the many verses that I learned in Bible classes as a child. Perhaps it is because they are spoken at so many funerals. Certainly I have heard this psalm read in many places, repeated over and over again. And somehow, these words carried their way past my conscious mind and into a hidden place in my heart. Generally, I am suspicious of Bible verses that are so ubiquitous as this. I have heard so many verses repeated over and over, used to hurt people, to deny people their life, their dignity, their truth. Many verses become darts spat at people or groups, at "others" whom we fear or hold in contempt. Alternatively, we sometimes love Bible passages because, when taken out of their larger context, we allow them to leave us placid, apathetic toward the injustice within ourselves and our society against which the whole Bible cries out.

Perhaps Psalm 23 is a favorite for that reason. But this time, I think not. As I repeat it again and again, it is this phrase that reverberates the loudest: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." Maybe this line strikes me because I've been too close too recently to my own death-shadows. I don't think so, though. I think this line strikes me, because I think it strikes all people. The human condition means that each of us, in our own times and in our own ways, face valleys darkened by clouds or rain or cliffs so high the sun simply doesn't penetrate to where we are. Whether we struggle with our own mortality or a loved one hanging on only by a thread, our own deep depression or watching the torment of a sister or son, terror over trying to stay afloat in a house that's underwater or seeking meaning in a world where 70 innocent people who are just out for a good time are shot and 12 of them killed, each of us faces death-valleys in our lives.

Our valleys look different from each others', and we stumble or fall or run right into them at different times in our lives. But once we're there, watching the wolves circle closer and closer, feeling our back up against the rock wall, our souls cry out with the same questions: Who am I? Do I exist? Do I matter? Am I alone?

And here, the shepherd responds, with rod and staff to guide us. Who are you? You are mine. I have marked you and sealed you, called you and claimed you. Do you exist? Out of the dust I have created you in my very own image. Do you matter? I know what plans I have for you, plans to give you a future and a hope. Are you alone? Here I am, always with you.

Perhaps this comfort may leave us apathetic. But I don't think so. Death-valleys paralyze. Filled with fear, we have no space for faith, for hope, for movement, for change. Faced with death or our own annihilation, we cannot move, cannot act, and so often even cannot pray. So words etch themselves onto our hearts, into our souls. Words that will come back to us in moments of terror, in days of faithlessness. Words that can still our fears, give breath to our bodies, hope to our souls. Words that will stir us to action, into a closer relationship with the One who frees us. Words that return to us to the presence of God, and our own voices to cry out to others in their death-valleys. Ultimately, words that lead us into our own witness, our own prophetic work against the injustices we see in our own souls and in our world.


And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

An Open Benediction

To let it come,
 awash in grace
      peace
      love

To open the heart,
 the indwelling of Spirit
      peace
      love

To breathe into space
 calling on grace
      peace
      love

[breathe]

The indwelling of Spirit
      peace
      love
      grace

be with you this day and evermore. Amen.

Disciplining the Soul

While still thinking about sacred spaces, I am reminded that so much work toward changing what is around us begins with what is inside of us. If I truly want to answer the question, "How can I create sacred space around me?" then my first question must be, "How can I create sacred space inside of me?"

My spiritual director, likely unknowingly, asked me to address the question through meditation. I am terrible at meditation. For me, focus on one thing seems impossible unless I am filtering out alternative inputs. I am challenged to find stillness in my life anyway - not only is life busy with church and family, but I live in the same world you live in - with radio in my car, TVs playing at the gas station or grocery line (during the rare occasions that it is me and not my husband doing the shopping), email and even games available on my phone, and constant tailored-for-me input on my computer. In the midst of so much activity and invitation, I have a hard time turning off, tuning out, and focusing on anything. By the time I get everything turned off and I tune out, I have difficulty staying awake!

So while prayer is a natural part of my day-to-day life, my prayer life fits well into my busy lifestyle. God listens while I drive; I listen while music plays; God listens while I do laundry; I listen while I read the Bible and prepare a sermon; God listens while I nurse my infant; I listen while I shower... and on and on and on. Certainly, I would be blessed by more contemplative prayer time (an offering of our midweek Lenten services at St. James this year), but I still experience my prayer life as vibrant. Meditation, though, is different. Meditation is an invitation to stop, to invite quiet, stillness, peace. It is an invitation to focus on one thing (in this case) or even no thing. Meditation invites me to

STOP.




And in the outside quiet, I discover inner discord. Anxiety about what else I "should be" or "could be" doing in this moment. Anxiety over whether I am doing right by my congregation. Anxiety about my call and my relationship to God and my next steps. Anxiety about who I am and how I am. I find I am spending quite a long time noticing these anxieties and trying to let them go -- asking God to hear them, heal them, take them -- before I can ever move on to the task on which my spiritual director set me.

"Walk with Jesus," she said to me "this Lent. Walk with him to the cross. Hold his hand, if you can. See what happens. You have as much comfort to offer him as he has to offer you." Envision this. Meditate on this. Take this journey, together.

It was a completely new thought to me that I might have something to offer Jesus in the walk toward the cross. There is profound insight there, and no doubt an important journey. But I cannot even begin this journey until I can find a place of stillness, a place where anxieties can be laid aside, a place where I can be embraced fully as the whole person I am - foibles and all - within myself.

And so, I am working to discipline my soul. Through contemplative prayer during my Lenten services, through a meditative journey with Jesus. I am working to find safe, sacred space within myself. And each moment where I find safety, I seek to expand it. Each day that God successfully wrests from me my anxieties long enough to find Jesus, I take a step forward.

I am committed to making this sacred space a living, embodied reality. Within. Without. For me. And for others.

And, again, I believe that every child of God, every person in this world, needs and deserves to find this sacred space.