Back from the boat.

As always the Big Event was a marvelous time of rest and re-creation.  This trip was especially so because we chose to go on a cruise again.  There is a silly commercial on TV that says when you cross the gang plank from land to sea, something changes.  Well it was true for me on this cruise.  I was able to relax, have fun and....wait for it...wait for it...dance in public.

Our speaker was Nanette Sawyer and her topic was hospitality.  I learned so much from her and my fellow clergy women.  The ah-ha moment for me was when Nanette spoke about triggers.  There are things, situations and people that trigger deep seated emotions in us.  Triggers take us by surprise however we have choices in how we react to them.  She had us do an meditation where we started visualizing someone we loved, felt the warm happy feelings that this person triggers in us (who knew that triggers are also positive), then we thought about someone neutral, where basically the feelings were baseline, then we thought about someone with whom there is hostility.  As we thought about the hostile situation, felt the feelings that this person triggered, Nanette then instructed us to go back to the person whom we love.  The clinched jaw, stiff shoulders and panicked breathing went away and was replaced by the lightness of heart I feel as I think about my dear ones.  What a revelation!

As I have shared before on this blog, I sometimes struggle when I am in group situations.  I get anxious about not fitting in, being ignored and worst of all being rejected by the group.  When I was in high school I was part of a group of kids who hung out together, however there was an inner circle and in subtle and not so subtle ways I was told that I was not welcome in that inner circle.  For years I carried that pain with me and when I am in a group situation my feelings about my high school days are triggered.  Hanging out with the Revgals at BE continues to be a source of healing and affirmation for me.  Sure we split off into little groups according to age, interests or just being on the same activities.  However, I never felt like there was circle where I was not welcome to join in a conversation, a meal or even an adventure.  Hospitality abounded every time I bumped into a Revgal on deck, on the beach or where ever the Holy Spirit placed us.  Now, whenever my anxiety is triggered in a group situation, all I will need to do is remember the love I felt from my colleagues and all will be well.

Thank you sisters in ministry.  I will carry you in my heart always!!!

Teh Quintessential Bahama Photo 

The Language of God

It's all about changing lives

I had an epiphany today. Today for the children's sermon I gave the congregation a top ten list of why one should go to church on Sunday.  The thing I forgot, which I believe is the most important thing is that being a part of a faith community changes lives.

Two years ago I went on a cruise with fellow clergy bloggers and that changed my life.  For the first time I realized through being in this community that I was love-able, acceptable and I could let go of the overwhelming baggage of shame that I have carried around all of my life.  Isn't that what church is all about, knowing that God loves you just as you are through the care and love of a community of faith.  Since the cruise I've been able to face a couple of hard situations knowing deep down in my heart that I was Ok, that I was loved by God, and I was held in the prayers of my fellow women of faith. 

This is what church is all about, transforming lives through the love of Christ.

Doubting?

Acts 5:27-32
John 20:19-31

I consider myself a woman of deep faith yet it is the apostle doubting Thomas in whom I most identify with. Like Thomas, I am a very analytical person. Whenever I am presented with a new idea, situation or problem I have to pick it apart and analyze it. I enjoy the task of studying the stories of the bible and analyzing them word by word to find out just what were those writers really saying back in the day. And, like Thomas, I’m not going immediately believe in something without first seeing it for myself. I too would have said to my fellow disciples, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."


Imagine if you will, being in Thomas’s shoes in this story. He had been sitting in a locked-up house with his fellow apostles “for fear of the Jews.” Eventually Thomas gets over his fear and leaves the house. Now, why would Thomas leave the house in the midst of such dangerous circumstances? According to the Gospel of John, it was earlier that afternoon he heard Mary Magdalene announce to Thomas and his friends that she had “Seen the Lord.” Thomas probably thought to himself, “There goes Mary again, excitable Mary, emotional Mary, hallucinating Mary. What is that crazy woman saying to us now.”

If Thomas is anything like me, he had to leave the house to go for a walk to blow off some steam. He was probably going stir crazy from being locked up in a house with 10 other guys who were only sitting around talking about how scared they were. Perhaps he left the house to go to the new Starbucks in Jerusalem to get an Iced Caramel Macchiato with a reduced fat banana chocolate chip muffin on the side. We just don’t know. What’s interesting is that it is when Thomas leaves the locked-up house that the resurrected Christ appears the other disciples.

After his outing, Thomas comes back to a house full of frenzied apostles. Thomas asks them, “What’s happening? What’s going on?” One of his friends grabs him and says, “We have seen the Lord.” I imagine that Thomas probably rolled his eyes and thought to himself, “Oh no, here we go again. Have they been nipping at those jugs of wine while I was gone?” He says to his friends “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later, Jesus appears in the house and this time Thomas is in the house. Imagine his shock when he sees his beloved leader who was just executed a week and a half ago. Jesus says to Thomas "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." And Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Biblical scholars have long debated what Thomas meant by his exclamation. Was he supplicating himself to the Risen Lord or was he just so shocked that all he could say was, “Oh My God!”

Then Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Is Jesus condemning Thomas for not believing in something that he could not see. Just what does Jesus mean when he says the word ‘blessed’? Blessed in the scriptures has different nuances, it can mean praise, favored by God, or praised by God. In this case, the particular Greek word used in this text is makarios (mak-ar’-ee-os) which means to be happy. So what Jesus was saying was “Happy are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Jesus is not shaming Thomas for questioning or doubting, what Jesus does is give Thomas what he needs in order to believe that Jesus was risen. He offers himself to Thomas so that Thomas can touch Jesus’ hands and side to truly know that Jesus is resurrected. Some believe that when Jesus says “Happy are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That he is giving a promise “to later generations that they too will experience the grace of God in Jesus. As bold as Jesus’ gesture to Thomas is in this reading, Jesus’ care for the faith of those who come after Thomas, who will not see, is equally without limit and measure.”1

In life we have to make choices on hope and faith alone. We take risks, make leaps of faith whenever we decide to do such as start a business, pursue a higher education or even get married. In a scene in the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” mathematician and Nobel prize laureate John Nash tries to use logic and reason to develop a “proof” on which he can make a decision as to whether or not he should marry his then girlfriend Alicia. Using mathematical reason Alicia gives John the proof that he is seeking.

She asks him how big the universe is and he answers “infinite.”

“But how do you know” she asks.

He replies, “I know because all the data indicates it.”

“But it hasn’t been proven nor have you seen it. How do you know for sure?”

Flabbergasted John tells her, “I don’t, I just believe it.”

“Hmmm” Alicia says with a mischievous smile on her face, “It’s the same with love, I guess. Now...the part that you don’t know is if I want to marry you.”

With wit and charm, Alicia helps him understand that some things have to be taken on faith even within the realm of mathematics

To believe in the Risen Christ is a radical thing. When we claim that we are part of the Christian Church, we are professing faith in something that we have not seen. We were not eyewitnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus. We did not touch the hands and the side of the risen Christ. Yet we believe. We take a leap of faith when we confess that we believe in Jesus Christ who died and rose again and in whom we find life. We believe that by the act of Jesus’ resurrection, God shows us that good will always overcome evil, love will always overcome hate and that not even death can contain this.

For us, it is the everyday resurrection stories that cause us to see the resurrected Christ standing before us just as he stood before Thomas. Whenever someone gives up drugs and alcohol to lead a sober life, we see the resurrected Christ. Whenever we reconcile a relationship with someone that is broken, we see the resurrected Christ. Whenever we see previously dangerous neighborhoods revitalized, we see the resurrected Christ. The data indicates it! But it hasn’t been proven yet. We only know for sure because we just believe in it. Thomas also came to believe when he saw with his own eyes the risen Christ standing before him, showing him that through God all things are possible and that not even the violence of nails, spears and death can contain God’s aim of life everlasting for all of God’s creation. He believed and he was happy! May we too see the risen Christ standing before us and be happy!

May it be so. Amen.

1. New Interpreters Bible. 852-853.

“Resurrection: The Perfect Moment”

Isaiah 65: 17-25
John 18: 1-20

Do you remember the last time you felt that everything in your life was perfectly falling into place. That for one moment you were doing what you felt you God is calling you to do. That in this moment your job is fulfilling and keeping you comfortable both financially and vocationally. That in this moment your family is healthy, happy and getting along. That in this moment the weather is fine, your house is standing and you are getting ready to start on your springtime projects all the while thinking if life could just stay this way permanently it would be heaven on earth! However, life being what it is never stays the same and perfect moments are just that. Moments.

Prior to the events of Jesus’ trial and death on a cross, his disciples thought they were living into their perfect moment. Here is the son of God was walking with them doing great things such as changing water into wine, making a lame man walk and even raising the dead to life. They heard Jesus preach about the kingdom of God, a beloved community where all of God’s creation would live in right relationship with each other having all would have what they need to live full prosperous lives. The people who followed Jesus rejoiced in what they saw and heard Jesus do believing that Jesus would bring them into their moment of perfection freeing them from the oppression of the Roman Empire just as Moses did when he brought their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land. Little did they know what this moment would look like.

Mary Magdalene was one of those hope-filled disciples who followed Jesus with anticipation for the kingdom yet to come. Mary knew first hand the power of God through the works of Jesus. Jesus cured her of “evil Spirits” and because of this miracle she was able to begin to live a full life as a disciple in Jesus’ community. For the first time in her life everything was falling into to place, good health, good friends, and a sense of doing what God was calling her to do. For the first time in her life, she was not just surviving but thriving under the care and teaching of her Rabbounni Jesus.

Along with the other disciples she followed him from village to village to help him spread the good news of God’s love to all people. She witnessed him perform miracles and speak of God with such conviction she thought that life could only get better with Jesus leading them. However she heard Jesus say that he would suffer, that one of his own would betray him, that he would put on trial and eventually killed by those who feared him however on the third day he would rise again. But like the other disciples she couldn’t wrap her head around what he was talking about. To Mary, Jesus was all that was good. How could someone preaching the good news of God’s love be a threat to anyone? Jesus is the son of God, isn’t life with him only supposed to get better!

The disciples celebrated what they thought was the beginning of their perfect moment as Jesus entered into the temple in Jerusalem. Mary joined them in setting Jesus on a donkey and yelling, “Hosanna, Save Us!” while waving her palm. Little did Mary know that this moment would take her to the foot of the cross where she would witness the moment of Jesus’ painful and violent death.

The perfect moment had ended and with it all the disciple’s dreams of Jesus conquering the Roman Empire were shattered. As Jesus was arrested, put to trial and nailed to the cross, many of his disciples ran away or went into hiding. However some like Mary Magdalene stayed near to him in remembrance of how Jesus transformed her life through his ministry.

“It’s hard not to feel for Mary Magdalene as she makes her way to Jesus’ tomb in on that first day of the week. Her hopes once high, now crushed. It seems certain that she does not expect, of all things, an empty tomb. Barbara Brown Taylor has written an elegant sermon on this text, and she explores what's in Mary's heart: ‘Resurrection [unlike springtime]…is entirely unnatural. When a human being goes into the ground, that is that….You say good-bye. You pay your respects and you go on with your life as best you can, knowing that the only place springtime happens in a cemetery is on the graves, not in them….’ Mary is lost, ‘like an abandoned pup who had lost her master, staying rooted to the last place he had been without the least idea what to do next…’.” (1.)

However what Mary encounters at the tomb goes beyond her wildest imaginations. She meets the risen Christ. In the midst death and destruction, indeed God has created a new thing, the promise of eternal life. “This empty tomb is about the fulfillment of God's purposes, the same God who long before spoke of ‘new heavens and a new earth.’ has given us Easter Sunday ‘the first day of God's new week, the moment of sunrise after the long night, the time of new meetings, new meals, of reconciliation and new commissioning. It was the beginning of the new creation. It was, therefore, the sign of hope for the future, not only for individuals but for the whole world….The personal hope for resurrection is located within the larger hope for the renewal of all creation"(2.)

Resurrection puts before us the possibility of a different kind of world than the one we actually live in. It is Jesus being killed by those who feared him only to rise from the dead to show us the promise of God’s love and grace. The empty tomb shows us that God is in charge and that even the violence of death on a cross cannot contain God’s aim to defeat the power of death and set things right for all of God’s creation. Today we sing Alleluia; he is risen because we want to celebrate the assurance of the new beginnings that resurrection brings. However in order to for us to live into this new beginning, we have to die to our old ways and surrender ourselves to the new life that only God can bring.

The perfect moments of life may seem few and far in between, however it is those moments that carry us through the dark times. This morning we celebrate Easter, the perfect moment when Jesus rose from dead. It is this moment that “carries us through every suffering, every loss, every good Friday experience, knowing that hope in the end will triumph and the God of life will have the last word.” (3.)  He is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Amen!

1. Kathryn Huey “Sermon Seeds” http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/april-4-2010.html?print=t
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.