Sacred Text: Excerpts from John 20
It’s been a week and a half since Easter, and the urgency, the activity, the fear of Holy Week—in which Jesus was captured and executed—this activity is passed. The surprise of Easter has also passed—the discovery of the empty tomb, the wonderment, the rejoicing… That too is now passed, and we are left wondering what do we do after Easter?
The story of Thomas provides a realistic model of how we might continue in faith in a world full of doubt. It may seem a bit odd to think of Thomas as a model—growing p, calling someone a “doubting Thomas” was a way of dismissing them as overly skeptical. It comes from this story—Thomas wasn’t with the group when Jesus originally appeared, and claims “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands…. I will not believe”.
Maybe Thomas is the realist—I certainly see myself in his character. Thomas knew Jesus was taken, and killed. He had been dead for three days. Peter and some of the disciples saw the empty tomb, but what a tragedy: they didn’t understand, says the gospel of John; someone had taken Jesus body. There’s the story of Mary, but this is only second hand. What is Thomas to believe: Jesus is dead, not alive.
Thomas wasn’t with the other disciples that first evening. The others were gathered, doors locked for fear of their persecutors. Jesus appeared to them then. But Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus came. The story doesn’t tell us why—was it too painful to be gathered together in the memory of their dead teacher? Perhaps Thomas had drawn away to be alone, to think, or to pray. Or perhaps, even, to despair.
Thomas wants proof that such a miraculous event could actually happen. Thomas does not want to succumb to wishful thinking. He rejoins the disciples. And after what must have been a long week, Jesus came among them again and Thomas answers with joy “My Lord and my God!”
We often draw on second-hand stories, stories from the Bible that teach us about God, stories from each other, when we’ve seen God in our own lives. But sometimes, we need more—and we rightly cry out to God “I want to see you in the flesh!” We may not be given an apparition of Jesus saying “Behold”—but I do think that if we look hard enough we can see God in our lives.
I said before that Thomas might provide a realistic model of faith. If he makes the most famous statement of doubt in the Bible, he also makes what I think is one of the most powerful statements of faith. A few chapters earlier in John, Jesus is going to back to Judea because Lazarus has died. “But haven’t they just tried to stone you there?” the disciples ask. But Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”.
Thomas rightly recognized that following Jesus was a dangerous enterprise. But he believed in Jesus’ message, he loved his teacher so that he would follow him, even unto death. Again this was no wishful thinking faith—that everything would be fine.
This was true faith, true trust in following God even unto the valley of the shadow of death.
And so may we live in faith like Thomas, in a world in which we are so not sure that everything will work out right, in a world in which we have to keep going, even if we don’t have the benefit of a tangible presence of God. Let us seek God, and walk confidently with God even into the darkness.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Wholeness
“ ‘You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done … you are fierce with reality.’ … I now know myself to a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it but to embrace all of it.”
[Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, pg. 70]
In psalm we prayed together, we asked God to “purge us with hyssop that we would be clean” We said, “wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”. The psalmist longs for wholeness—longs for joy and gladness, for their crushed bones to rejoice. But there is darkness lurking, parts of psalmist that are dirty, that need to be purged. Wholeness in this vision involves removing some of the offensive parts.
The sacred text we read for today seemed to take a diametrically opposed perspective: for Parker Palmer, the way to wholeness was to embrace all of himself, the weakness and strength, liabilities and well as gifts—even darkness along with the light. Only by embracing all of these parts, says Palmer, was he able to leave behind his malaise & depression.
How do we reconcile these two perspectives— The natural tendency to want to reject the unclean parts of us, and the equally natural tendency to want to be accepted for who we are, flaws and all?
It’s kind of hard to imagine a biblical psalm with the sentiment of embracing the broken parts within ourselves. So many pleas for rescue are found there, along with plenty of humility. It seems a very modern idea, perhaps part of the self-esteem movement, that we should embrace our flaws without rejection or judgment.
And it might be modern. Or it might the model of Jesus himself, embracing the sinner, the unclean, the traitor-collaborator. If Jesus, if God does not condemn us for our faults, but loves us all the same, unconditionally; if God doesn’t reject the darkness, liability and weakness in us but loves us, loves us not despite these flaws, then perhaps it is a sacred wholeness to embrace all of oneself.
For myself, I’ve worked to embrace the fact that I can be a little… grumpy, a little self-centered, lacking in ways I wish I weren’t. It’s hard because I’d like to deny that I am that way at all. But when I recognize my weakness and strength, then I can love even these flaws, just as I would in a friend or spouse.
Embracing this wholeness isn’t license to give up the vision of leading a God-filled life. Rather, embracing all of our flaws lets us acknowledge the raw material we have to work with. And when we can embrace these unclean parts, paradoxically, we can then better bring our lives to God, and say “create in my a clean heart”: I am who I am, give me the wisdom to begin anew, forget my past mistakes, says the Psalmist.
The good news is that God loves the whole you, and though you may see yourself like the dirty snow on the side of the road, crusty and gray—God sees you purer than the most pristine snowfall, and want your weary, broken bones to rejoice.
Amen.
Moses: Here I am Lord, Please send someone else.
Following a reading of excerpts from Exodus 2-4.
"Here I am, Lord. Please, send someone else."
Moses says both these things, and because he does, he is perhaps a very approachable model for understanding our vocation, the work we are called to do with our lives—not our careers, but our lives.
Moses was born to a Hebrew mother, but because Pharoah was engaging in genocide against the Hebrews, his mother set Moses out in a basket in the river. He was found by Pharoah’s daughter who then hired his mother to nurse him. His mother must have been a formative influence: while Moses was raised as an Egyptian, he never forgot his Hebrew roots.
When I read the story, I see a Moses who is angry at the oppression of his people. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew—and maybe his anger overcame his self-interest of keeping your head down (and depending on your perspective, his anger may have overcome his better judgment). He saw this beating and he killed this Egyptian, and is then forced to flee.
Moses doesn’t put up with much—well, he puts up with a lot later on as a leader, but he’s consistently standing up for the oppressed. He’s fled now to another land, sitting a well. He sees some women trying to water their flocks get chased away by some other shepherds; he defends the women, and then marries one. That worked out pretty well for him.
And so, Moses is tending his father-in-law’s flocks when the passage we just read began. He sees a burning bush, hears God calling him, hides his face in fear. This may be Moses’ first encounter with God—we don’t know much about his religious life beforehand. Moses sees something amazing, he must be rejoicing inside that God is finally going to act on behalf of his oppressed people. Until Moses gets the news: God’s going to send Moses to Pharaoh. “Who am I to go to Pharaoh”—seems like a legitimate question. “What if they don’t believe me”, ok.
But as God outlines the plan, Moses ain’t buying it. At the end, he’s reduced to “God, I’m not that well spoken.” When that doesn’t work, I think he’s finally honest: O my Lord, please send someone else.
Many of us are in a similar situation. Perhaps there’s no burning bush, but there’s a tug on our hearts—God is calling us to do something. I feel it sometimes: I’m too weak, too busy, too tired, not good enough. And these are legitimate worries, but they’re hiding something else. I just really don’t want to do it.
God knows our limitation—there’ll be help we can draw on, just as God gave moses signs and aid in the form of his brother Aaron. But, “send someone else”—there is no one else. We’re it. We the church are God’s hands. You and I have each been given our own calling: there’s no one who can do your life’s work.
We will fail along the way, miss the mark, just like Moses did—things may seem to go very badly, we’ll have self-doubt, others will question our work. For someone who didn’t want the job, couldn’t speak very well, got so frustrated he smashed the ten commandments, Moses did pretty well with his life. And so we too we may do pretty well in life, if we stay in touch with God, with that burning bush moment, to sustain us on the journey that is our life.
Amen.
"Here I am, Lord. Please, send someone else."
Moses says both these things, and because he does, he is perhaps a very approachable model for understanding our vocation, the work we are called to do with our lives—not our careers, but our lives.
Moses was born to a Hebrew mother, but because Pharoah was engaging in genocide against the Hebrews, his mother set Moses out in a basket in the river. He was found by Pharoah’s daughter who then hired his mother to nurse him. His mother must have been a formative influence: while Moses was raised as an Egyptian, he never forgot his Hebrew roots.
When I read the story, I see a Moses who is angry at the oppression of his people. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew—and maybe his anger overcame his self-interest of keeping your head down (and depending on your perspective, his anger may have overcome his better judgment). He saw this beating and he killed this Egyptian, and is then forced to flee.
Moses doesn’t put up with much—well, he puts up with a lot later on as a leader, but he’s consistently standing up for the oppressed. He’s fled now to another land, sitting a well. He sees some women trying to water their flocks get chased away by some other shepherds; he defends the women, and then marries one. That worked out pretty well for him.
And so, Moses is tending his father-in-law’s flocks when the passage we just read began. He sees a burning bush, hears God calling him, hides his face in fear. This may be Moses’ first encounter with God—we don’t know much about his religious life beforehand. Moses sees something amazing, he must be rejoicing inside that God is finally going to act on behalf of his oppressed people. Until Moses gets the news: God’s going to send Moses to Pharaoh. “Who am I to go to Pharaoh”—seems like a legitimate question. “What if they don’t believe me”, ok.
But as God outlines the plan, Moses ain’t buying it. At the end, he’s reduced to “God, I’m not that well spoken.” When that doesn’t work, I think he’s finally honest: O my Lord, please send someone else.
Many of us are in a similar situation. Perhaps there’s no burning bush, but there’s a tug on our hearts—God is calling us to do something. I feel it sometimes: I’m too weak, too busy, too tired, not good enough. And these are legitimate worries, but they’re hiding something else. I just really don’t want to do it.
God knows our limitation—there’ll be help we can draw on, just as God gave moses signs and aid in the form of his brother Aaron. But, “send someone else”—there is no one else. We’re it. We the church are God’s hands. You and I have each been given our own calling: there’s no one who can do your life’s work.
We will fail along the way, miss the mark, just like Moses did—things may seem to go very badly, we’ll have self-doubt, others will question our work. For someone who didn’t want the job, couldn’t speak very well, got so frustrated he smashed the ten commandments, Moses did pretty well with his life. And so we too we may do pretty well in life, if we stay in touch with God, with that burning bush moment, to sustain us on the journey that is our life.
Amen.
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