An Embarrassment of Love

Luke 7:36 - 50

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. ³⁷And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. ³⁹Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” ⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” ⁴¹“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” ⁴⁴Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” ⁴⁸Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” ⁴⁹But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

We like to level the playing field when we read this story. The woman is a victim of circumstances, and the Pharisees are insufferable little prigs. Paul Tillich says that ruins the point. To the storytellers, "the sinners are serious sinners, and the righteous are seriously righteous". The Pharisees get a lot of bad press, but they lived very good lives. Not all Jewish laws were about fasting and washing your hands. There were also commandments to take care of the vulnerable, and to humble yourself before God. If you did that, you might be someone I admired. And they were.

And on the other hand, Tillich, says, the sinners were truly sinners. True enough, most women become prostitutes from desperation. Some are even placed into bondage by their families. But there is always a choice in there somewhere. I think of the film, "Born into Brothels", where the mothers turn on their children from their own misery. Let's say for argument's sake that she did make some choices, that she had become someone she was not proud of. She was living a life without life.

And she recognized life in Jesus. She glimpsed a way out. I buy that.

Interesting approach, though. If everyone thought you were a hooker, would you want to go acting like one? Such a sensuous thing to do, even if it were considered common courtesy to embrace a traveler, and offer oil for his feet. This seems so intimate, so presumptuous, like a mother and her little boy, or a lover.

He was an earthy man, who liked to eat and drink wine. He saw so few differences between people, talking to women at wells at noon in front of everybody,healing whoever was in front of him, Sabbath or not. He accepts this embarrassing stew of shame, sex, tenderness and brass without question. He accepts her in spite of it all. That's the point.

He tells her that her sins are forgiven. He says the Pharisees' sins are forgiven, but much less interesting to God. God, I say, is much more like the woman, in her over-the-top love.

He didn't jump up and he didn't fly away

Luke 7:11-17

¹¹Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. ¹²As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. ¹³When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” ¹⁴Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” ¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. ¹⁶Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” ¹⁷This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

My kind calls this kind of story propaganda. The kind of passage deftly snipped out of the text by Thomas Jefferson for not being reasonable or realistic. My kind calls it symbolism - some quality was dead - hope, love, justice - something nice and abstract so that restoring it back to life doesn't smell bad. Raising it back to life could sound reasonable.

So I don't ask Jesus if he did this or how, but why? Isn't it better to leave the dead alone, to not upset what is natural? Isn't it more helpful to teach the living how to bear their grief?

You may be more sensible on this than me, he says. Her suffering was too much for me. I became weak in it, too. Had to stop it, had to help her. Wouldn't you?

I say, And later she would be the one he grieved. What about his suffering? Would you raise her, too? Would you just raise people all the time, so nobody dies? I don't see that happening.

No, I didn't raise her; I couldn't be there. I won't tell you something reassuring like: I could tell it was an old woman's time but not a young man's. This sort of thing is not reasonable and not at all fair. So much pain, always pain, everywhere pain. They only tell of the ones I could help. There were many others. No good reason for who or which. Maybe it is your work, to sit with the grieving.

Oh no, Lord. I don't know how I'd bear it. I'd take it into my body, my being.

Exactly. That's what happens. It has a terrible price. It was easier to raise the dead.

And you died, in the end. Did you really, you know, rise? My husband's people like to say, "He didn't jump up and he didn't fly away."

That's pretty funny. And - there are many ways to rise. I'm just saying.

The Advocate: John 16:12-15

John 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples:

"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,

he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own,

but he will speak what he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are coming.

He will glorify me,

because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Everything that the Father has is mine;

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine

and declare it to you."

This is Trinity Sunday in most of church land, and many Rev. Bloggers are getting their Creed on. Not long ago, I would probably have been smug or incredulous about the whole thing. (I am the person who in seminary wanted to make prank phone calls to the Prot Schools, saying, "The trinity is silly!" and hang up. Thankfully, I was at least mature enough not to follow through.) But in reading these blogs, I am impressed with the serious struggle each preacher makes with the meaning of trinity. Balancing tradition with modernity, mystery and faith, and fears of facing blank, bored faces in the pews. It isn't my struggle, but I've made similar ones.

So what does a good Unitarian Universalist make of this passage? I'm struck by the line, "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now..." You can feel them pressing him with questions, and his own sense of the time running out. Maybe they were just starting to get what he was saying. The disciples are a famously clueless lot, and I have the sense that Jesus was fed up a good bit of the time. And yet, he still wants to teach them, he still has faith in them and their worthiness to learn and spread his message. He sounds so human and so sad. He wants, somehow, to love them and teach them beyond his own life.

I think of the bride I met a few months ago, whose father died when she was four. Before he died, he made a tape for her, telling her about everything he wished for her life - love, education, children of her own. What an act of generosity, I thought. To say things she could not have understood then - and in so doing, to love her well past his own life. She is planning to transcribe some of the tape and have one of her uncles read it in the wedding. The groom was a little nervous when he heard this. He thought she might lose it during the ceremony - or more likely, that he might. These would be some powerful words. She assured him that they would be just fine. I assured them they would probably not be, but it would be worth it.

I don't know what Jesus means about the Advocate. I do know some of the words of Jesus were actually words they believe he spoke, and some of the words were added later to describe their shared experience of Jesus after his death. They grew in understanding after he died. He somehow continued to teach them. And he continues to teach us now. Tradition, mystery, faith and sometimes apathetic community all have a hand in it.

Peace Be With You

The lectionary reading this week is John 20:19-31. It begins: "When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came in and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord."

The disciples have shut themselves in a room and locked the door. Note John's nonsensical little dig, 'against the Jews'; all of these fellows are also Jews. The community for whom this gospel was written, and in whose shared worship these stories were recited, was being evicted for following the wrong rabbi. They were mad. And they were lost and confused, just as they describe the disciples at this moment. What else do you do, but lock the door?

And Jesus stood among them, and said, 'Peace be with you.' I think of worship services, where we say "Peace be with you" in such pious, church-lady tones. Given this story, maybe it means more than, "Love your hat." The context is terror. The door is locked, John takes pains to say; Jesus doesn't just casually stroll in. There isn't some mistake about whether or not he really died, or perhaps they got the wrong guy. Walking through a locked door is magic. It's a miracle. It is terrifying.

And then he showed them his hands and his side. A real, human, wounded body. He returned from the dead, walked through a locked door, and he was no ghost. He was the one they loved, but he had died. The text says, "They rejoiced," but not without some struggle, I have to think. I am reminded of a documentary in which an Israeli filmmaker crosses into Palestine, and in the course of filming, befriends a Palestinian boy. They are holding hands. The boy is crazy about him. He tells him, "I am an Israeli." "No you're not," says the boy. "Yes, I am." "But you're not a REAL Israeli," he insists. "Yes," the young man says, still holding fast to the boy's hands. "I am really a real Israeli". The astonishment on the boy's face, trying to hold "love" and "Israeli" in one sentence, is sweet.

All these things at once - grief, disbelief, fear, joy, hatred - sometimes are rolled together in a sentence or two. You get them all at once - you have no choice. Peace be with you. You're going to need it.

Going to the Dogs

In my Bible discussion group yesterday, we meditated and discussed the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman and Jesus. Here's my rough paraphrase...

As usual, our man is dead tired. He just had a major scrap with the Pharisees about hand-washing, and is so sick of those hypocrites. He goes someplace where he thinks nobody will find him, somebody's house.

Well, you just know that means someone is going to show up with a problem. She barges in and starts in on her daughter being demon-possessed and all. He has seen so many of these and he's a little bit bored with it, I think. And she's Greek, to boot. Is there really any decision to make here? There's only so much of him to go around. Pull down the shade, closed for the day, nobody home. Didn't need to say the thing about the dogs, though. Even it's TRUE you can't go feeding dogs before you make sure your own kids are fed. True, if not exactly on message. And she says, Even dogs can lie under the table and catch the crumbs from the children. Not bad, not bad. You got to give the blessing for that kind of balls, especially on a woman. How she must love that kid. He does it, he gives the blessing. He's got to.

Q: When am I so tired I forget my decision to love people, I get stingy with my blessing?
A: Several times a week.

Q: What do I love so much that I would go to any lengths for a blessing? Look like a fool, trash my reputation, grovel at someone's feet?
A: Almost nothing.

Lord, Hear my prayer.

Jumping Around

After preaching and the intensity of coffee hour, where I am very tired and concentrating hard on what people are saying to me because it's my one chance to connect with a lot of my folks, and it's a dear opportunity. I am wiped out but also jacked up from all that human energy whinging around me. I've been slugging around the house, not good for much. My new vice is Facebook, which is bad, bad, bad for someone with ADD. It's also an excellent procrastination tool. One plus: someone from my high school class "friended" me and I saw where she had posted this goofy YouTube clip of the Archies. Suddenly, it was Sixth Grade Slumber Party Time. It was the Archies playing their seminal works, "Sugar, Sugar" and "Shang-A-Lang". It was the Bay City Rollers playing"Saturday Night" and "I Only Want To Be With You". It was the Jacksons, Tommy James, the Partridge Family. I could remember dancing in my girlfriends' basements, squealing when my fave "Roller", Les, appeared on Merv Griffin. (Now he looks a bit stuck on himself, if you asked me.) But more than specific memories, I just felt excited all over again. No pretense of taste, here; none required. I was dancing like an idiot. Actually, I'm a good dancer. But I doubt the neighbors would have noted the quality as much as the simple fact of their 48-year-old neighbor jumping around in her bedroom. Hope I don't show up on YouTube.

I've often pooh-poohed nostalgia. Explore new things, I say. Engage your brain with new information. But this sure was fun. I recently heard someone on NPR recall the sensation of listening to the radio and hearing your favorite song, shouting, "It's on! It's on! They're playing it!" Or walking down the beach and hearing the same song on everyone's radio. That experience is gone. There were fewer choices, then. But maybe music was more exciting because more people shared it with you. It wasn't your special little ipod playlist plugged into your private ear. Or maybe I'm just tired.

where your treasure is

Matthew 6:19-21

.19."Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, 6.20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 6.21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

This teaching has always had a pious ring to it, telling us to be good, to think more of "heaven" than having that lovely thing at ______ (name of store that makes you insane with desire). Certainly the plainest meaning seems to be that possessions and wealth are vulnerable to theft and decay. I've experienced it. Seeing delicate little holes in my favorite sweater after stuffing it in a cardboard box for the summer, or reduced to a doll sweater after my boyfriend put it in the washer by mistake; being obsessed to have a new Blackberry which will be obsolete in 5 months - I well understand. And yet I've found these experiences of emptiness and disappointment do quite little to quench the fever when it comes upon me. I confess that the notion of 'treasure', still sounds rather exciting. I picture running my hands through a pile of shimmering gold coins and cackling, "I'm rich, rich, rich!" I think of waltzing into Macy's and shooting the works on Any Thing I Damn Well Want. I think Jesus knew how alluring all this was to people, even in a culture that couldn't have been as consumer-crazed as ours. Maybe it made them curious about heaven, and what could possibly be more compelling about it than the stuff they lusted for. And so you have to ask, what is heaven? It's 11:00 pm and I have to go to bed. Maybe I'll dream the answer. Or maybe you'll tell me.

I have a "My Bible"

In the group I described last post, the leader asked if we "brought our Bibles". None of us had. I realized that I didn't have one. While I own several Bibles for different purposes - my New Revised Standard with extensive footnotes and cross references from seminary (the first Bible I'd owned in decades), an old Red Letter Edition King James, whose language I love and old type I photocopy for collages, a light, paperback NRSV, and The Message for a jolt with familiar passages - none of them would qualify for "my Bible". That is, a companion, a Bible for comfort, regular study and devotion, something that is - well, personal.

I went online and ordered this one. It's an NRSV in gray, genu-wine imitation leather. I bought it from one of Amazon's used book dealers (it's new) and I waited a long, long time for it. I wondered if it was okay that I was checking the mail each day and saying where's my *$%ing Bible?

So today it arrived. I didn't expect it to be so pretty and to feel so soft and nice in my hands. It says "Holy Bible" and has a curlicue cross with little curlicue ornaments down the side. The verse on the front is "Be still and know that I am God." (I only need reminding of that several times a day.) There's a shiny blue ribbon marker. It has the handy titles above the stories like "The Transfiguration" so that people who haven't memorized chapter and verse can find things. And there are some silly things. It's clearly a gift Bible, probably for confirmands - that's about 9th grade, right? - and so there are all kinds of workbook pages in the front and back for the young person to fill in. "Favorite and Special Memories" of church events, holidays and vacations, etc. "People who have touched my life" with "Name" and "Why this person is special" to fill in. Then there's the "About Me" page with blanks for favorite movie, TV show, etc. "Milestones on the Spiritual Journey" that asks about when you were baptized and how you came to know Jesus. There are also lovely things like the prayer of St. Francis, St. Patrick, Thomas A Kempis, Merton, and more. There are Bible verses to read when you're afraid or lonely. There are instructions for Lectio Divina and centering prayer.

While I really didn't want all this extra stuff and I am totally making fun of the workbook pages, I secretly want to fill in the blanks about my family and my special friends and how I feel about God and my favorite TV show. Because that would make it My Bible, wouldn't it?

How about you? Do you have a My Bible? What's it like? Did you used to have one? Do you wish you did now?

Wade in the Water

I had a lovely meeting with some Christian UU ministers; we call ourselves the "Friends of Josh" - a sly way of describing a secret society, akin to AA, who call themselves the "Friends of Bill." We had an introduction to Ignatian spirituality, which involves praying and imagining oneself in a story in the gospels. We read Mark 1:9-17, which is jam-packed with not 1, not 2, not 3 but FOUR stories!

We were to choose one of the stories, then ask for our desire from God. Then we imagined the story as fully as we could, making use of our senses, and relating ourselves to Jesus, or to what he was experiencing. I chose the baptism. I have been to the River Jordan, as I believe I've posted before, or to the spot where they take tourists for group baptisms. There is a pristine park gathering spot, with a counter to purchase a big t-shirt in which to dunk oneself, and changing rooms. They videotape every baptism, and you can purchase a recording of your holy moment as you're leaving the "park". I started calling it and other places like it in Israel "Jesus Land".

It made me smile. I had to wipe all that out of my mind. I sat on the riverbank, and looked at the lush, green trees that grew alongside it. I was a child of five in my imagining, in shorts and a T-shirt. I watched as Jesus was getting baptized. I was drawn to the tender way John cradled the back of his head as he dipped back. I didn't know if I was supposed to do this, but I decided to get in the water, too. It was cold! Suddenly, (or "immediately", as Mark is fond of saying) I felt the strong tug of the current. It was hard to keep my footing. I also saw clouds gathering and darkening, and birds - not just one dove, but many birds, filling the air. There was a loud voice that I could not understand, and it seemed to come from everywhere, and filled the skies.

I was very frightened - cold, pulled about by swift waters, and the voice and birds that were everywhere. Suddenly, I was caught up in some very strong arms. I knew them to be Jesus. I was held fast. And even though the water was still cold, the voice was still roaring, the birds were still circling, and the current swirling, I knew I was safe.

Moments later I was seated on the bank of the river, the delicious sensation of cool water on my skin in the midst of a hot afternoon. It sparkled and danced in the light.

I have been wondering what Jesus is like - not just a character in a story, but what the living Jesus might be like for me. This is a clue, I think. A focusing of God's love that is too powerful and mysterious to take in without some human form that I can relate to. Someone/something that doesn't take me out of danger, but holds me in it, so I am not alone or afraid.

And I pray to give this love to other people, frightened and selfish as I am. But first I must receive it.

sharing nicely

I agreed to the interview with some trepidation. My friend Sheela from my aerobics class wanted to interview me for a paper she is writing for seminary. She said that she needed to talk to someone who is not a Christian. (She's Assembly of God, and saw Unitarian Universalism as a religion that embraced all world religions. True enough.) She wanted to share her faith with me and find out what I thought.

I said, "S-sure." The only reason I agreed to this is that I do love Sheela. I have been at her house for an interfaith, international gathering - mostly other evangelicals from India like herself, but a few Hindus sprinkled in, so I couldn't quite wear my "Sore Thumb" t-shirt. People spoke about their lives as couples on an amazingly personal level. (Sheela & her husband Tom teach a couples' class at their church, so people were probably quite comfortable talking in front of them.) I was tense; not unlike someone wearing a dress and pantyhose sitting right next to a pool with people laughing and splashing around - convinced someone was going to try to push me in at any minute. But they didn't. Really. She heard what I thought - at least the tiny bit I shared in my nervousness, and still liked me.

This meeting today upped the ante, I must say. There we were, in my office, she sitting next to me on my love seat, asking me to read highlighted verses from her Bible, and asking me to say what I thought they meant. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me." Etc. My little forays into discussing the different meanings of the Greek words or the context of the verses didn't go anywhere. My descriptions of God that included the interdependent web, the divine spark in all people - zip. I was sad to have confirmed what I suspected going in: she really didn't want a dialogue. She was sorta hoping I'd see the light. Her light.

But God bless her. Every time I said what I know was heresy to her - Jesus was not the only person in whom God was manifest; the resurrection was probably not bodily, some of the words attributed to Jesus were probably put in his mouth by people writing them down 50-90 years after his ministry - she took it like a trouper. She did argue back when she disagreed, but it didn't get ugly. Mostly because, I think, we agreed to be nice.

Well, you know what? After reading all week about fundamentalists of various stripes turning to violence, hooray for nice. In thinking about the troubles in Ireland, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the shootings of Dr. Tiller and the guard at the Holocaust museum, all done because people care more about themselves and their beliefs than other people, let's give nice a standing ovation. In my study about fundamentalism, and in my experience today, I have a renewed respect for the challenges of true interfaith dialogue. We ain't there yet. But we can care enough not to hurt one another. I suppose that's niceness at its best.

Where is my father?

I was listening to my colleague preach in church today, and he told this wonderful story. In 1980, the American hockey team beat the Russians, an amazing feat, apparently - I know *this much* about hockey. They were doing a victory skate around the rink, and the camera zoomed in on one of the players, craning his neck to the far reaches of the crowd. They showed his face, clearly mouthing the words, "Where's my father?" He wanted to share the moment with his father, knew he was sitting up there, and wished he could see him. According to some therapists, this one searing moment sent droves of men into therapy for the next 20 years.

"Where's my father?" At some basic level, my colleague said, we all want to know.

I called my father today and I was sad to know where he was. Newly separated from my stepmother, to whom he has now been married for more years than my mother. She is in a nursing wing at Anoka Care Çenter. He is at home. Alone. I've been supremely frustrated with him these past few weeks, stubbornly refusing to either face the facts or spend the money for proper assistance. Falling. Unable to get her to eat enough, unable to bathe either himself or her. We sibs have been at our wits' end, trying to get him to recognize that his now frail self cannot care for someone with advanced Alzheimers. Finally, the social worker put it plain enough: do it or I will report this to the county.

Where's my father? Forced now to do the right thing - and to live alone at 86, for the first time in his life. I said, despite my incredible relief that she is being cared for, "It must be awfully lonely at your house." He said, "I watch TV, and when there's a joke, I look over to see if she's laughing, and she's not there."

That sound you hear is my heart breaking.

Where is my father? Jesus quite plainly referred to God as his father, or the Father - he called him 'abba', which has a tender connotation of papa or daddy. Prior to this, Jews had referred to God in more distant and sovereign terms. This is so much more intimate. The father in the prodigal son story, which was also read in church today, was the dad we all wish we had, the dad I imagine most dads wish they could be. 100% unconditional love. God must've come through to Jesus that way, loud and clear - all the love we could have ever wished for, no matter what. It's the God he brokers into the world for us. May you find this God now. May I. May we show up for each other.

Think I'll write my dad a letter.

Everybody Sexy!

There's a game show I've made up - it's called "Everybody Sexy!" It's like a combination of Survivor and American Idol. It's too radical for the United States, so I imagine it, say, in Eastern Europe.

Here's how it goes:
The host comes on, loud and hammy, and says, "Everybody Sexy!" The requisite gorgeous women in bikinis jump around.

Then you have contestants come on. Contestants on "Everybody Sexy" must be over 18. Other than that, they may come in all ages, shapes and sizes. There's a variety of things they could do, but it must be something that makes them feel sexy. They could sing a sultry number, a la Marilyn Monroe. They could model underwear from Victoria's Secret or International Male. They could do a strip tease. Anything. And if they do anything, anything at all, they win a prize. Always.

There are rules for the audience for "Everybody Sexy", and they are much stricter. To be in the audience you must have been a contestant first, so you know how it feels to be up there. Audience members may: clap, wolf whistle, give a hearty "Woo-Hoo! or "Work it, Honey!" But they must do it with complete and utmost sincerity. There will be judges circulating through the audience, like proctors for an exam. If an audience member is not completely sincere and enthusiastic for each contestant, he or she will be voted off the show. If someone laughs, and the contestant clearly did not intend his or her performance to be comic, something really bad happens. We don't talk about this, as it would spoil everyone else's good time. But it weeds out the immature and uncommitted.

Don't you want to see this? A show like this would cancel out half the suffering of junior high, all the angst of gaining a few pounds, and give hope with each birthday.

Everybody sexy!

Dawn-Watching

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
- Psalm 130:5-6

I visited a couple in the hospital this week. He was in surgery, she was waiting. The surgery was supposed to last three hours - tough enough to busy oneself in old People and Highlights magazines - but then it stretched to seven. Complications. Bleeding. Tissue fused impenetrably. I waited one of those hours with her, as she showed me notes she had written for the insurance company, of the many procedures he had had over the past 12 years.

I marveled at how many times they have had to hope - that this surgery, that treatment, this therapy, that medication would do the trick. It's been a lot of dawn-watching. She mentioned that a chaplain once referred her to Psalm 130. It was a throwaway comment, she wasn't much of a Bible-believer. I wish I had had my Bible with me, and that I knew the Psalms better. I looked up Psalm 130 today, and it is certainly the Psalm of waiting and hoping.

I'm struck by the repetition of the line - "more than those who watch for the morning". Think about those times you've watched for the morning - sleepless, afraid, lost all perspective, most likely. Or think of people who must stand guard over something, the "night watchman" and his loneliness. Vigils. There is such a fierceness in this waiting and hoping. Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms interchanges the words "wait" and "hope", as if the two actions were the same. There is a fierceness in this kind of vigil.

"Waiting for/hoping in his word" is still somewhat mysterious. My fundy upbringing would say it means reading the Bible, and reading it like a form of anesthesia - knocks you right out until God makes things better. But of course the Psalmist didn't own a Bible, didn't have access to Torah, most likely. Alter thinks the writer is waiting for word of God's forgiveness, since there is so much about that elsewhere in the poem. For me, "his word", God's "answer", is looser than that. It may not be an Answer, but an answering presence. Always there, too - it is we who fidget, figure out, move away, panic.

I've always thought that turning something over to God was a peaceful thing, and sometimes it is. I become calmer, I turn away from hand-wringing and heat up dinner. And sometimes it doesn't mean turning away, just waiting with God, trusting that new life will come, is always coming, and there will be something good in it.

God is not the pizza man

Last post, I looked at the question, "Lord will only a few be saved?" and thought the questioner was talking about all the suffering people in the world.

Now I wonder. Isn't it just as likely he's asking about himself? "Lord, I have this FRIEND who has a problem..." I feel far away from Jesus sometimes, far from God. I look with envy at people who have a strong felt sense of God. This is another way of looking at the Greek word sozo, translated as "saved." I certainly feel gathered into God's bosom more at some times than others.

Usually when I'm in trouble. I'm obsessed about some problem I can't fix. I'm sure things are going to hell in a handbasket. I recognize that I'm powerless over the situation and I finally - finally ask for God's help. And it comes. Subtle directions: call someone I deeply disagree with, instead of firing off an e-mail. Let go a teensy bit - and don't try to change him. Or get him to agree with you.

I feel a sense of release, and ah, there You are. I am saved from "the bondage of self" as we addicts say.

Jesus says "Strive to enter through the narrow door". "Strive" isn't a very fashionable spiritual word these days. But we do have to figure out what is our part, and to have faith that our part matters. Often, we must work to remain conscious - the temptation is to simply go blank. And then we are lost - and in need of saving. And we need to show up - God probably won't just come to our door with the answers like the pizza man.

Lord, will only a few be saved?

Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” Luke 13:23-30

Hard not to hear heaven and hell in this passage, the sanctified and the damned; I see the whole "Left Behind" franchise. I feel the cold sweats that awakened me in the middle of the night as a teenager, terrified that Jesus had come again, and I had been left, baby, left.

Whew. Let's all take a deep breath. Our good friends at the Bible Workbench point out that the Greek word sozo, translated here as "saved", has many meanings. It can mean: rescue, liberate, keep from harm, heal, bring out safely, preserve, free from disease, and free from demon possession. The same word is used in several healing stories: the man with the withered hand and the woman with the flow of blood, saving Jairus' daughter, and the blind man.

They ask us to ask put ourselves in the place of this anonymous asker, and think what we might mean if we asked, "Lord, will only a few be saved?"

There's so much pain in the world, so much suffering. There are wonderful moments of healing and liberation, but sometimes they seem very sparse. How many live in poverty? How many live with violence all around them, and little hope of peace? I try to look for signs of hope in our economic crisis, and I see people losing their homes, their jobs, their dreams, their chance to retire after years of faithful, hard work.

I think the disciples were attracted to Jesus because in his presence they could be a healing force in the world. And they must have seen the limitations to what they could do. We helped this many. But look at how many more there are. Lord, look how few are saved. The question is really a lament.

Jesus' answer doesn't just gloss this over, either. He could have said to 'focus on the positive' and look at the good, the progress. But I think his answer joins the lament - yes, there are few people we can save. But strive to enter through the narrow door, anyway. Go out still and "save" people, bring them to wholeness when you can. Cherish the ability to even save one. And weep for those who will remain lost.

sermon: love your enemies

Hey Gang -

I'm trying to get back in the blogging groove, now that I'm fully back at my church. 'Tain't easy - and I now admire the full-time ministers who blog faithfully all the more. This is a sermon I gave April 26 on Jesus' teaching to love our enemies. The children's story was so integral to the sermon I have included it, as well.

Story for All Ages

When I was growing up, I lived across the street from a girl named Shelly Martin. She was my friend. Sort of. We played a lot together, but Shelly was kind of mean – sometimes I wasn’t exactly sure she was my friend. Sometimes she would make fun of my clothes, or say mean things about me to other people. I would come home crying.

One day, I went over to Shelly’s house after school. I knocked on her door, and she came outside, and said, “My cousins are here. You can’t play with us. We’re having a party.” I don’t know quite what happened inside me, maybe it was just that ha-ha-ha look on her face, but I took my lunch bucket and hit Shelly over the head. My metal lunch bucket.

Then a strange thing happened. Shelly started crying. I had never seen her cry. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran home. For about a minute, it felt kind of… good. All those times she had made me cry. And then it felt really bad. I realized I didn’t want to hit anybody again. I thought there had to be better ways of standing up to Shelly than hitting her over the head. There were good things about her, too – like the time my mom was in the hospital and she had a birthday party for me. In our church, we teach that no one is all good, and no one is all bad, and so you have to treat everyone with worth and dignity – and no one deserves to be hit.

Readings
Matthew 5:43-47
Singing the Living Tradition #584 “A Network of Mutuality” by Martin Luther King

Sermon

I really did hit Shelly Martin over the head with my lunchbox. It's true. In that moment, she had become my enemy. I succumbed to an ancient, powerful, human logic: “You hurt me and I'm going to hurt you.” We know that this just activates more hurt, more retaliation. But the impulse is strong. Religion has tried for centuries to steer us away from this. People have been critical of the Hebrew Bible's instruction, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” What they don’t know is that this was actually an improvement over what people had been practicing – a life for an eye. A head for a tooth. A whole family for a life. You must limit the punishment, the rabbis said, and somehow make it proportionate to the crime. But there were also passages in the Hebrew scriptures that pointed out the love of God for all people, not just the righteous or those whom we judge to be good. “Thou openest thy hand,” said the Psalmist to God, “thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing.” Not just the people we happen to think deserve it.

So Jesus was not the first rabbi to teach this notion of loving your enemy. But in preaching to an occupied and despised people under the thumb of the Romans, his words would have startled them, just the same. The Romans kept the Jews in dire poverty and took their land, their wealth. They punished people brutally. Crucifixion was not invented for Jesus; the sight of people on crosses would have been familiar. They would not have thought Jesus' teaching was at all reasonable. Or desirable. Are you saying to just let them hurt us? Are you saying that it's okay what they do to us? Jesus wasn't teaching them to capitulate, to agree and cooperate with an unjust system. He wanted people to resist. He was telling them, though, that they couldn't get anywhere if they gave in to hate. He was telling them to keep their humanity intact. And they only way to do this in his view was to love the enemy.

Jesus' teachings are hard to follow. I think especially of the Palestinian Christians we met on our travels to the Holy Land, the ones who, ironically, would most resemble the oppressed Jews of Jesus' time. What did they think of this teaching? Did they struggle with it? Some were remarkably open people, who had Israelis for friends, even in the midst of their anger. Some were not. But few people, in all times and places, have come anywhere near following it.

Martin Luther King admitted that this teaching was hard, but he preached love of enemies to his congregation. They were oppressed by the legacies of slavery and the very current violence and poverty in their lives. His sermon “Loving Your Enemies” counseled blacks to love the whites who were oppressing them. I marvel at anyone having the conviction – the nerve – to tell an oppressed people to love those that so clearly and forcefully hated them. But he said, “This command of Jesus challenges us with new urgency. Upheaval after upheaval has reminded us that modern man is traveling along a road called hate, in a journey that will bring us to destruction and damnation. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival.” (Strength to Love, pp. 49-50)

Different from the preachers that plantation owners brought in to convert their slaves to Christianity, this was not a message to, “Slaves, obey your masters.” He was not telling them to capitulate to segregation. He preached this sermon in the midst of the Montgomery bus boycott and the beginnings of the civil rights movement. “We will not obey your unjust laws,” he said. “We will hate segregation, but love the segregationist.”

These words could only make sense coming from someone like King himself, who had actually lived them. Someone who had to learn to survive threats and jail and being met with constant hatred, himself. If he were not to become subsumed by hatred, he had to find a way beyond wanting to hate in return.

In our time, the Dalai Lama, one of the most respected and beloved spiritual leaders does not teach the Tibetans to hate the Chinese. Even though the Chinese government has exiled him, and is brutally oppressing the Tibetan people. You just know in listening to him that he does not hate them. He's done away with the desire to hurt his enemies.

We all have enemies. We all have people who have hurt us in some way. Sometimes our enemies are personal. A cheating spouse – someone who left us - or the enemy is the one for whom we have been left. The bitterness that surrounds divorce can be a powerful force to reckon with. People marvel at ex-spouses who are friendly with one another. A parent who abuses a child becomes an enemy. The damage done to the psyche of that child can be deep and painful – and inspire a lifelong bitterness toward the parent.

And if we are in a situation like this, we feel that to let go of the bitterness, and to forgive somehow lets the one who hurt us off the hook and excuses what they have done to us. We think it diminishes our power and makes us vulnerable to more hurt. Or sometimes we would absolutely let go of the anger and bitterness if we could, but it feels too big, somehow; it won't let us go, even if we want to let go of it. And I could not preach one word to you about forgiveness if I had not personally felt the power of forgiveness in my own life. The release in forgiving someone who abused me in childhood. I know people who have experienced the miracle of forgiving their parents, and who have stopped the cycle of abuse from continuing with their own children. And that’s a miracle. Loving your personal enemy does not mean continuing to let them hurt you. It does mean releasing them and you from the bondage of the hurt. By forgiving them what they have done.

Sometimes it's a whole group of people, who have harmed or wish to harm us. People who don't even know us and hate us. I was driving to a meeting a few months ago, driving down the back streets in Fairfax to Aldersgate Church. I was stopped at a stop sign. And when I pulled forward, the car behind me started blaring his horn. Not just a quick toot out of frustration or to get my attention, I mean really pounding his horn. I looked behind me, and it was a battered pick-up. The driver was now not only pounding his horn, but giving me the finger. Over and over again. I wondered what I had done. (I'm a nice Midwestern girl; we always think it's our fault.) Couldn't figure it out. He just kept pounding and jabbing his middle finger – while turning, by the way, which was an accomplishment. Then I remembered my bumper sticker. “We support the freedom to marry. Unitarian Universalists standing on the side of love.” There was a rainbow in case you didn't get the point.

I didn't feel threatened. It was a bright Saturday morning, plenty of other people around. I wasn't hurt. But it took my breath away. I had an enemy.

Last fall, the UU church in Knoxville, Tennessee, experienced a shooting, by a man who had divorced one of their members. But he enlarged his rage to include the community she loved, and then to include all religious liberals. Sometimes just by being yourself – you draw enemies to yourself. It is part of being vocal about who you are and what you stand for. A friend of mine once had a counselor say to him, “I'll bet you don't have an enemy in the world.” My friend said, with some pride, “No, I don't guess I do.” The counselor said, “It's not a compliment.” If you're really going to be yourself, if you’re going to stand up for what you believe in, someone is going to not like you. Sometimes hate you.

Notice that the teaching is not “Avoid ever having an enemy,” or “Make sure everyone really likes you.” You can't have a church or even a bumper sticker that openly supports gays and lesbians if you're trying to live up to that one. No, the teaching is “love your enemies,” and so it assumes that you will have them.

Some enemies come about through no action of ours, direct or indirect. I have heard – and personally felt - much rage toward the people who engineered the subprime mortgage deals. Those who could read the signs of economic destruction from the beginning and said nothing. Those who then sliced the loans up into different bundles that ended up infecting the world's economy and causing millions of people to lose their investments, their jobs, their homes. People who made their fortunes from other people's misery. If you were alone in a room with Bernie Madoff, say, and you had a lunch bucket, what would you do? What would you tell some well-meaning preacher who told you to love them? This is a hard teaching.

The notion of extending compassion to someone who is more powerful than ourselves is a disturbing one. When we think of compassion, we think of it in terms of the “less fortunate”. But an enemy is always someone whom we allow to have power over us. And if we are to expend our energy in blame and hate, lose more than our wallets. We will give up our humanity. We will give away more power. We must somehow learn to love these enemies, too.

What exactly does it mean to love your enemy? There are three Greek words in the gospels that can be translated as “love”: Eros, Philias and Agape. Eros is romantic love, that yearning, that baby-I-can't-live-without- you kind of love that is delicious and not very long-lasting. It wouldn't be very practical to advise this sort of love when it comes to an enemy. But eros is not the word being used here.

Philias is also found in the Bible, meaning a love of people who love you, or those whom you find appealing. With philias, you can expect something from the other person. There is some reward for your loving them, some mutual relationship. There is some relief that the teaching doesn't use that word, doesn't suggest this kind of love. Martin Luther King said we should be grateful that Jesus did not tell us to “like our enemies”. Much harder, in his opinion, than love.

The word used in our text is agape, which is an unconditional love. It is the way that God loves, if you like, or it is simply compassion itself. It's the kind of love we mean when we talk about affirming the “inherent worth and dignity of all people”. It's the kind of love our Universalist ancestors had in mind when they preached about universal salvation – that no one is beyond the pale, no one is beyond redemption or forgiveness, no one may be so judged that we feel free to castigate them to hell. But agape is also a love so powerful that it is not something we can quite accomplish on our own, that is, simply by sitting down and making ourselves do it. We need help. We need to learn how. We need to be transformed somehow.

So if agape is the word, and it means loving as God loves, if it means compassion no matter what, how on earth do you get there?

First, loving our enemy simply means, to begin with, not killing them. And that's good! Also not easy to pull off. The death penalty is still legal in this country, and still has a certain amount of popular support. Pacifism is so far only completely agreed upon by a few religions – the Quakers, the Disciples of Christ and some strands of Buddhism. Vegetarians are a small minority. But there is power in staking a claim to not killing. No matter how few.

Loving our enemy also means not hating them. King taught that the most powerful reason to love one's enemy is that hate only begets more hate. And we have to let go of that. It means giving up that perverse satisfaction we feel when we cleverly insult them to our friends. It means realizing that there is more to someone than the evil they have done. There is more to this human being than “the thing that hurts” me. No one is all good or all evil.

Loving your enemy means learning how to forgive them for what they've done to you. Not for their sake, but for your own. Not because they are sufficiently sorry, or have changed enough in character, or somehow show that they deserve it. You forgive so that you do not have to live in the grip of bitterness, yourself. Terry Anderson, the journalist who had been kidnapped by Hezbollah in the mid-1980s, regularly spoke to people afterwards about the freedom he found in forgiving his torturers. It's hard to imagine finding that within yourself, and yet when he did, he said, it set him free.

Loving our enemy goes further, though. It means trying to understand how the person feels. I was having coffee with Scott shortly after the incident where the man was blasting his horn and giving me the finger. Scott said, “Imagine someone carrying that much hate around. That must be really painful.” And I thought differently about the man. I was a little less pleased with myself for being such a good, outspoken UU, and a little more concerned about someone else's life. Curious. Sometimes when we can't shake a feeling, like fear, or anger – it is helpful to be curious, to wonder about something. What is it like to be him? It is a beginning.

Loving your enemy means wanting the good for them. Jesus instructed his followers to “pray for those who persecute you”. I have found praying for someone I'm really mad at does do something – for me. Buddhist meditation includes the practice of metta, which is intensely desiring the good for all people. Including the ones who hurt you. When I'm stuck on loving someone when I don't feel all warm and fuzzy about them, I think about wanting the good for them. Happiness. Prosperity. Joy. Something you might not sincerely feel in the moment. I have experienced a shift in myself in saying these words – before I mean them. I know a Southern preacher who counseled saying this prayer: “God BLESS that rotten jerk, Lord, because I sure can't.” Believe it or not, it helps.

Loving our enemy is hard. How do people do it? How have any of our great heroes done it? Some have attributed it to their faith in God, or to their sense of Christ within them. But there are many who don't believe in God, or who aren't Christian who are powerful examples of forgiveness. The Dalai Lama with the Chinese, Thich Nhat Hanh with the Viet Cong. It is clear both the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh have been released from their hatred.

People, I think, attribute some kind of supernatural spiritual power to these spiritual leaders. We call it faith, and decide that some just have it and others don't. Or we think of faith as being some kind of magical something that whooshes over us, filling us with peace and trust and certainty about the goodness of others. I remember the film “Dead Man Walking,” based on the experiences of Sister Helen Prejean, who counseled a death row inmate before his execution. At the end of the film, she encounters the father of one of the two teenagers who had been murdered by the man she had been counseling. He says to her, “I wish I had your faith, Sister.” She stares at him for a moment, and says, “It's not faith. It's work. I have to work at this every day.”

Loving your enemy means knowing, really knowing how little someone else can truly hurt you. The safer you feel in your own skin, the less of a threat someone else can be. It means being able to put aside your ego, your need to be right, and know you will not disappear. This is not a condition that comes without work. It doesn't come by snapping your fingers or by willing it to happen, but in doing honest, deep, soul-searching work on yourself. Therapy. Twelve step work. Spiritual practice. Time and patience. Ordinary work. The work of a human being.

We are not aiming to become saints, to become divine. Walter Wink wrote, “I do not know what the word 'divine' signifies. But I do have an inkling of what the word 'human' might entail,... and there have been exemplary human beings, in [all religious] traditions. We are not required to become divine... flawless, perfect, without blemish. We are invited simply to become human.” (Walter Wink, The Human Being)

How do we love our enemy? Imperfectly. In speaking to an audience, the Dalai Lama once said, “I wonder why people like me so much.” Try to imagine any other spiritual leader saying this. Only someone as completely humble as the Dalai Lama could say it so sincerely. “I wonder why people like me,” he said. “I think it is because I like Boddhichita so much.” In the Mahayana tradition, Bodhichitta means the union of compassion and wisdom. And the practitioner works on the good of all beings as if it were his own. But notice that he doesn't say how good he is at Bodhichitta, or that he has somehow mastered compassion. He just says that he likes it. I interpret this to mean just that he cares about caring. It's not always possible to feel compassion, to feel the love we believe in. But if the Dalai Lama is correct, sincerely caring about caring is a practice all by itself.

How do we love our enemy? By caring about caring. By looking at how people around us do it. If you look at the article outside our office door, you can read how the Knoxville UU church has experienced healing. They have refused to shut their doors in fear. They have insisted on welcoming everyone – even now, especially now. And as they mourn the two members they lost and tend to the still-fresh wounds of their community, this welcome must not be an easy thing to offer. Their felt sense of compassion for the shooter must be spotty sometimes. But, they believe, if they are going to be Unitarian Universalists with their lives and their hearts and not just their words, they must care about caring. Even when they don't feel like it.

These are not easy times. A sense of scarcity can invite us to fear, to close down on ourselves and to think only about survival. But ask Dr. King reminds us, our survival depends on each other. And on our open hearts. So may it be. Amen.

I'm Back!

I haven't blogged for many moons. Our trip to the Holy Land was wonderful but stressful, and making sure the group was humming along absorbed any extra energy I might've had to post. We returned Tuesday morning, bleary-eyed and grateful for everything we saw and heard and experienced. Just for the heck of it, I went to my blog, and was surprised to read three comments - all supportive and everything. I thank everyone who prayed for us, or thought about us. I thank all of you who have read this blog! It inspires me to do more.

Where to begin? We were a mixed group, of Jews, Catholics and Unitarian Universalists. Sometimes people didn't know what to make of us, didn't understand why we were there, if not a straight-up Christian pilgrimage or a Jewish heritage group. I was probably the most interested in the Biblical narrative of anyone. We were there to hear many different perspectives, Jewish and Palestinian, and to see beauty, history and religious treasures. And, okay, to have fun. Probably the holiest, most God-driven moments were in our struggle to listen to hard things, to a conflict that doesn't show many signs of resolution.

A snapshot: We are driving around East Jerusalem in our comfy, air-con bus, narrated by a charming, scruffy young man from ICAHD, the Israeli Coalition Against Housing Demolition. He says, "We're so far to the left, if you stand in the center, you can't see us." We drive through potholed streets with no sidewalks, run-down buildings whose owners can't get permits to improve, and people whose houses could be demolished at any time - demolitions happen one or two per week. The neighborhood is being marketed as cheap land for internationals and touts an excellent view of the old city. We drive up to the wall, a 20-foot high concrete bruiser that cuts through neighborhoods and separates families, and keeps a lot of people from going to work. It also has reduced the number of suicide bombings to near-zero, and is the reason I felt comfortable enough to even come to this part of the world, let alone take a group. I had to keep remembering this, though I still don't know what to do with it.

So all of this is tough enough. Then we pull up to a parking lot where a family is living in a tent, having just lost their home. They have a big sign up saying "Stop Ethnic Cleansing" so we know they want us to come, and don't mind if we take pictures. There are also ultra-Orthodox Jews pulling up to visit a holy site nearby. I can't say this to my group, but I really don't want to get off the bus. Will there be some kind of confrontation? Will the police show up and chase us off? Can I come face to face with people in such intense suffering? What could we possibly say?

Thank God for peer pressure. We go up, tentatively. There is a sweet, black-hooded grandma that reminds some in our group of a condor. The woman who speaks to us just lost her husband who had a heart attack in the stress of losing their home. She is lovely, with wavy hair pulled back and a dimpled smile. I have seen this before: people trying to explain their situation to us without being "too angry" and scaring us. (I was reminded of the coaching Barack Obama received throughout his life to avoid being seen as an angry black man.)

Later on, we will visit a lovely new synagogue that is led by a Reform rabbi, Kinnaret Shiryon, who happens to also have been the first female Rabbi in Israel. It's in a "new town" called Modi'in. We love the worship, even though it's three hours long and all in Hebrew, including the announcements. We can feel their joy as a community. They celebrate their volunteers doing social justice work. They are one of the few spiritual options for those who aren't Orthodox (the state religion) or "secular". They are liberals like us. And yet we cannot forget what we are told: that Palestinians consider Modi'in a settlement. It's nowhere near the site of the demolished homes we just saw, but we know that the sparkly-clean little town with its pretty park including a giant caterpillar for children to play on came about because Palestinians were kicked off land. In the last few decades.

Afterward, we join their potluck and we mingle. One of our bolder group members asks someone how they deal with the suffering of the Palestinians. The person says quite honestly, "Most of us are in denial."

My Jewish/UU husband (who also calls himself a "Jew-U") is supportive, saying, "I have high expectations for Israel - I want them to live up to their own standards of justice." I'm not sure what stirs my soul about this. As clergy, I am presented over and over with situations where people are in need. I don't really know why this one in particular gets my attention.

I think about Jesus and his ministry with people "with their backs to the wall", as my hero Howard Thurman once put it. He probably didn't see any outward evidence of hope for the Jews living under Roman occupation, either. But he didn't shy away from touching them, healing them, teaching them, and eating with them - knowing he was one of them - and opening his big yap in front of the powerful.

May I have the strength to speak, also.

Fishers

I love the story of the first disciples in their boats, bummed out after a night of catching no fish. They know what they're doing; presumably, they've been at this awhile. Jesus says, Put the net in again, over there. I can only imagine their weary, heart-sore looks, even anger. What do YOU know about this? But they might as well, and then the net comes up: teeming, bursting with more fish than they know what to do with.

I give up easily. It's one of my character defects. I'm a natural-born quitter. If I were one of those fishermen, I'd probably have decided that not only is the lake empty, but I also suck at fishing. What's the point? Somebody comes along and says, Try it again, and it works. What makes the difference? I don't think there is a Magic Jesus Wand, that this story is literally true. But sometimes when we give up, somehow, some way, God doesn't. And God pushes us to try it again. It may not be that dramatic. But sometime, heart-sore and despairing, I have those small nudges to try one more time.

I am about to embark on a trip to the Holy Land with 13 fellow pilgrims. We are actually going to this Sea of Galilee, and other places "where Jesus walked". We're also going to be "where Jesus is walking now", to quote Peter Miano, one of our trip organizers. We're going to meet people who are working for peace and dialogue, justice and love. I've been nervous all week, convinced that God must've tapped the wrong girl on the shoulder t0 lead this, because I am so introverted and disorganized. Ain't no fish coming out of this effort, God - could I please change my mind? And she says, Nope. Put that net in again.

I pray for help, and what happens? Little things. The readings in my meditation books are remarkably spot on - including the fish story. A friend whom I have not heard from in months calls - not because she knows I'm going, but just because she misses me. And she was remarkably helpful. I remember my excitement. Suddenly everything I see and hear seems spiritually useful, emboldening and calming. Who knows where this bounty came from, but there is someone I suspect.

Pray for us, please. Pray that we can handle the big catch I suspect will be landing in our boat.

Mary and Martha: The Rematch

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” John 11:20-37

Once again we compare Mary and Martha in their reactions to Jesus. Both of them are hopping mad, it seems clear, that Jesus didn't get there in time. It's interesting that Martha who was loath to keep resentments to herself (She's not doing her share of the work - I have to do everything while she moons over you.) is so easily placated. She expresses her anger so carefully - I know you can still raise him if you ask. As in, please don't be so angry at me for showing my measly feelings that you go away. She also seems to be mouthing the words of correctness here. I believe you are the resurrection. Yep, I do. Forget I said anything. It just sounds too easy. It sounds like how Marcus Borg described his idea of faith, growing up: "strong, correct belief".

Enter Mary. Full-body rage, I picture here. Where the hell WERE you? You let him die! The text may say she knelt at his feet, but perhaps (and yes I redact) only after she had let out a howl of rage and despair. She weeps. There is no nice discussion of resurrection and what it means and how you get it. She just weeps. The crowd also weeps. And it gets to Jesus. That is what I love most here. He lets himself feel the full weight of this grief - theirs and his own. Emotions are contagious, and he allows himself to be touched by contagion. In this moment he is not concerned about working the big miracle and getting more people to follow him, even if he believes it will help them to love God. He. Just. Weeps. Marcus Borg describes this as an adult version of faith: full commitment of one's life to God. The God that puts love and compassion before anything else.

And the crowd that has come with Mary in her grief? Their reaction is mixed. Wow, look how much he loves him. And Well, you'd think that if he healed that blind guy he would've... I don't blame 'em. I want God to do what I think is reasonable in a time frame that is reasonable. To me. It is always tempting to say something is unfair. Why should Lazarus die? Why should one person be healed and another be told to wait, or be left to die?

If I were writing this story to make a theological point, I would have reversed their reaction. I'd put the carping about what he should be able to do first, and then the realization of how he deeply he loved Lazarus second. Everybody goes home with the point clear. But the story is the story, and John captures how people are, not how we should be. It's up to me to see what's really important. As usual.

No Miracle, Still God

My friend Sheela, an Evangelical Pentecostal from India, wore a t-shirt to our aerobics class that said on the front, "Even though there was no miracle...", and on the back, it said, "He is still God." She bought it from a man who was badly burned all over his body, his face very disfigured. He traveled to different congregations to tell his story. He had prayed for a miracle, for his burns to be completely healed. There was no miracle, he said. And yet he still had faith. He went all over, telling people not to lose heart, to trust God anyway. Live your life in service and love anyway.

I find this remarkable. It contradicts the "Super Jesus" miracle stories - John's line that Jesus waited until Lazarus was dead to come so that he could revive him and more people would believe in him because of a more stupendous miracle. It contradicts decades of traveling faith healer shows that get people to "come to Christ" because people come forward and are healed of their diseases. The blind see, the lame rise up from wheelchairs.

Most of this is trickery, of course. I started calling my column "Leap of Faith" after the movie of that title that came out in the early '90s. Steve Martin was a traveling preacher who duped people out of their money by pretending to work miracles of healing in the crowd. Turns out he had a receiver in his ear, hooked up to Debra Winger, who was spying on the crowd, and giving him tidbits of information, allowing him to miraculously know things about people. The movie turned when there actually was a miracle healing, much to the shock and amazement of Martin & Winger. No one could explain it. But it also forced Martin's character to get close enough to real people who were hoping and trusting him with their lives, and he couldn't go on pretending. He fell in love with a waitress and stayed. That's when he found actual faith - in himself, in other human beings, in goodness - perhaps in God. You had the sense that he now wanted to be worthy of the goodness and trust of the young man he had "healed". To be real.

But it's much more frequent that there is no miracle. At least not in the way we hope.

When I was a student chaplain, we met with a woman in a wheelchair who was a full-time chaplain at the hospital. She said that the miracle healing stories were sometimes tough for people to know what to do with. How fervently, how faithfully they prayed for God to remove their affliction. Let them walk. Let them see. Let their cancer disappear forever. "I believe in Jesus. Why doesn't he heal me?" they ask, and their hearts break. Our job, she said, was to show them that there could be healing, no matter what the state of their bodies. She was proof. As long as there can be life, as long as we can live with purpose, that's healing. That's still a miracle.

It takes people who really believe this, and live it themselves to teach it to us.