As more and more US citizens are vaccinated against the scourge of Covid, more and more stories are starting to appear with titles like “the path forward: wise actions/next steps” and “what will the NEW normal look like?”
· WIRED Magazine shared their insights into the “perplexing psychology of returning to normal” stressing that healing and hope still necessitates the ability to live creatively with ambiguity – something none of us do well – even after a full year of anxiety. “Just because a war is over,” says Adrienne Heinz, research psychologist at Stanford University, “doesn't mean that what happened during the war doesn't still activate you, doesn't still haunt you in some ways… where a healing” still needs to take place. For many of us the archvillain here continues to be uncertainty.
· The NY Times wrote about the importance of finding ways to grieve what we might consider our small sorrows – those lesser losses born of good fortune and/or privilege – that stand in stark contrast to the death of 2.6 million people around the world during the contagion. Or the millions among us who have lost their jobs. “In the hierarchy of human suffering,” Tara Parker-Pope writes, “a canceled prom, a lost vacation, or missing seeing a child’s first steps may not seem like much, but mental health experts say that ALL lost must be acknowledged and grieved.”
· And the wisdom-keepers at the quarterly, YES Magazine, have been talking about the rediscovery of common ground as an important consequence of our shared grief. Vandana Shiva suggests that the path forward must be paved by reclaiming the commons: our common home, the Earth, our common future as sisters and brothers, our common commitment to sharing and caring for creation and one another in ways that strengthen nature’s gifts and recycle them in ways that help biodiversity and life-giving ecosystems thrive. I couldn’t help but recall a poem by W.H. Auden:
'O look, look in the mirror, O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing although you cannot bless.
'O stand, stand at the window as the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor with (all) your crooked heart.'
During our midday meal most days, Di and I tell one another what we’ve been reading and how it’s touched our hearts and minds. This past week we’ve been especially aware of what we hope to retain from this year of isolation: deep introspection, for sure; lots of quiet time, too; the cooking, the careful use of resources, and a renewed appreciation for God’s assurances found within the cycles and seasons of creation have become pretty important to us as well. We’ve pondered what must be grieved and mourned, as well – the small sorrows that still weigh heavily within – even as we sort out our gratitude for the blessings. I hope it isn’t trite to say that like Dickens we’ve seen this year as the best and worst of times.
Like many of you, I’ve done a TON of reading during this sabbatical year of solitude, safety and solidarity. I never expected to work my way through ALL of writer Michael Connelly’s cop novels about Harry Bosch – but I have. I took in lots of Celtic spirituality and nature writing, too. And early this week I began what turned out to be Fr. Henri Nouwen’s last book, a journal written during his 1995 sabbatical from L’Arche, after which he died suddenly of a heart attack. You may recall from our Celtic Advent that one of the practices I try to honor is following the threads of serendipity that show up in my life. Like a Celtic monk on a pilgrimage, I wander within the seemingly random but curiously connected events to discern what they might be saying to me, where they might be leading, and if I am ready to trust the mysterious wisdom they reveal?
Imagine my surprise last week when on the same day that the Vatican released their statement condemning same-sex marriage as a sin, my FB newsfeed showed pictures from dear friends vacationing in Mexico as part of their 20-year wedding anniversary celebration. What a holy mash-up: the withered and ugly words of a fearful institution alongside the vibrant and holy smiles of two lovers who just happened to be the first same-sex couple I had the privilege to counsel and then officiate at their wedding back in Tucson, AZ on the first Saturday after Easter. And just so that I wouldn’t miss the message, on that same evening I read these words from Fr. Nouwen’s journal:
Why am I so tired? Although I have all the time I want to sleep, I wake up with an immense feeling of fatigue. Everything requires an immense effort, and after a few hours of work I collapse in utter exhaustion. Without wanting to, I feel a certain pressure within me to keep living up to that reputation as a Catholic priest, writer, and spiritual director to do, say, and write things that fit the expectations of the Catholic Church, L’Arche (where Nouwen was in residence), my family, my friends, my readers… Lately I feel caught in it all and I experience it as restricting… What does it mean now to fulfill my vocation? Does it require that I be consistent with my earlier way of living or thinking, or does it ask for the courage to move in new directions, event when doing so may be disappointing for some of the people I love? (Sabbatical Journey, p. xii)
Like many contemporary people of faith, ourselves included, Nouwen found himself making new connections, leaving behind some of the old certainties that had once given him focus but now had outlived their usefulness, exploring new possibilities. He was growing deeper into the mystical love of Jesus and all its revolutionary alliances. Nouwen knew all too well that the more profoundly he followed the path of the rebel Jesus, the more he would need to leave behind other parts of his life – even some shaped by his life as a priest. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
I was delighted to discover that Nouwen had been nurturing a deep friendship with some circus, highwire acrobats. They were his inspiration for an incomplete spiritual reflection on deep trust. “The daredevil flyer,” he observed, “must never catch the catcher. Rather, he must wait in absolute trust.” Nouwen’s circus connection tickled and touched my heart given my own awareness of the spirit of Jesus guiding me as a sacred clown. In so many ways, it felt like what the prophet Jeremiah was saying to us in today’s appointed reading:
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with you. It will not be like the covenant that I made with your ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. In this covenant: I will put my law within you, I will write it on your hearts; and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. No longer shall you teach one another saying, “Know the Lord,” for you shall all know me, from the least to the greatest, as I forgive you and remember sin no more.
As the week ripened, more and more experiences illuminated Lent’s linkage of opposites for me: the sorrow alongside the joy, the brokenness entwined with the healing, the violence of hatred and fear juxtaposed with hearts breaking open in tender compassion and cries for justice, institutional judgement alongside embodied love – and Nouwen’s own yearning to fly high above his weariness that required a staggering trust in God’s commitment to catch us. One more marvelous mystery showed up on that same day, too: this poem by Nicolette Sowder that in my heart ties all the serendipity together:
May we raise children who love the unloved things
the dandelion, the worms & spiderlings.
Children who sense the rose needs the thorn
& run into rainswept days the same way
they turn towards sun...
And when they're grown & someone has to speak for those
who have no voice - may they draw upon that wilder bond
those days of tending tender things – and be the ones.
Being, living, speaking, trusting, feeling, and seeing life as the ones who will speak for those who have no voice – who witness the unloved things and honor them as both as kin and kindred – is how I am starting to understand what life beyond the lockdown looks like for me. The spirituality of Jesus as God’s sacred clown connects so much together as essential. As I reread St. John’s gospel, I’m finding that Jesus starts with the wisdom of his prophetic Jewish mentors and then goes on to discern new ways to take this love deeper. The ancient words are never static for him, stuck in an ancient history, but more suggestive and subtle. Today’s text, for example, draws on Isaiah 56, Zechariah 14, and Jeremiah 21 that all insist that unity and peace among different people and cultures can only come about if we let God’s grace disarm us. If we are intentional about giving up some of our securities, the holy will show us how discover new beauty in our common humanity. But this will not come cheaply: learning to trust that God’s love is sufficient to catch us when we fall in a world of uncertainty and chaos means dying to self.
As we now stand on the cusp of containing the contagion – and sorting out some of the chaos – the invitation to die to self, warrants our vigorous attention. It is a comprehensive call to commitment for contemporary disciples who, like Nouwen, realize that trust is how we are given eyes to see the unity of love within our paradoxical truths: trust reveals the commons, trust honors our mourning as well as our feasting, and trust helps us negotiate the very real uncertainties that still exist at this moment in history. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Those who follow Jesus rather than merely “like him on Face Book,” live as he does with abandon, simplicity, trust, and focused joy as well as sorrow.
As I studied today’s text from St. John’s gospel this week, I found that there are four other times in this gospel where St. John has Jesus introducing a spiritual insight about the meaning of disciple-ship with the words: very truly I say unto you unless. Bible scholars say that this is a well-known Middle Eastern expression for giving your word to another person. It is part of the honor code of the region that assures another that what you are about to say is absolutely true and from your heart. Beyond his call to die to self, Jesus shared four other assurances from his heart about living a life of faith:
· John 3:3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus: Very truly I assure you that no one can see the kingdom of God without being sired from above. (That is, inspiration form the Spirit.)
· John 6: 53 where Jesus tells some Judean religious scholars from the Temple in Jerusalem: Very truly I assure you that unless the Son of Man becomes your food – eating his flesh and drinking his blood – you will have no sacred life within you. (Hyperbole not literal truth about being nourished by the sacred.)
· John 13: 8 where Jesus tells a belligerent Peter: Very truly I tell you that unless I wash your feet, you will never be a part of me. (The way of Jesus is upside-down and grounded a life of servanthood.)
· And John 15: 4 where Jesus speaks to those who were closest to him: Unless you abide in me as a branch abides in the vine you will bear no spiritual fruit within or among you. (Abide means to rest as in come unto me all ye who are tired and heavy laden and I will give you rest – life within the unforced rhythms of grace – rather than the compulsions and obligations of a cynical and utilitarian culture.)
It’s fascinating to me that beyond these examples, St. John has Jesus using the very truly I say unto you, expression 24 other times in his gospel. The abundance of these assurances points to the profound anxiety that was all too alive and well among the early church – something we can all appreciate. Cumulatively, they tell us that living into God’s grace by trust means: 1) the presence of the holy will saturate our humanity, 2) servanthood rather than selfishness is the way into the unforced rhythms of God’s grace, and 3) resting in Christ’s love is how our flesh will bear spiritual fruit.
Each of these commitments have their roots in ancient Israel’s poetic prophets - specifically Zechariah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah – each of whom speaks to their people’s experience of uncertainty, exile, and suffering and each of whom Jesus reinterprets for his context. St. John’s gospel, you see, is packed with the poetry of the prophets because, you may recall, part of its original purpose was polemical: this was an intra-Jewish argument about the meaning of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Those who followed Jesus tended to be Jews from the northern areas of ancient Israel, while those who opposed him were mostly southern Jews with an allegiance to the Temple leadership in Jerusalem – and you can see why St. John uses the tradition of the prophets to paint a picture of Christ’s significance.
· First, St. John connects the buoyant entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem for his final Passover with a description of the king of ancient Israel’s jubilant return to Jerusalem after the exile in Babylon during the 6th century BCE. Zechariah says: Now we rejoice greatly, O daughters Zion! Now we shout aloud, O daughters of Jerusalem! For lo, your king comes to you; trium-phant and victorious, yet humble and riding on an ass. Palm Sunday links Jesus to the end of exile and the testimony of the prophets.
· Second, St. John wants us to know that as Jesus led the people who were with him in Bethany for the healing of Lazarus into Jerusalem, he is revisioning and reclaiming what took place 500 years before this in Isaiah 56 where the joy experienced at end of exile in Babylon drew people from every tribe and nation into the community of God’s love: I will bring them all into my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer… so that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations—said the Lord.
And when they're grown & someone has to speak for those
who have no voice - may they draw upon that wilder bond
those days of tending tender things – and be the ones.
Being, living, speaking, trusting, feeling, and seeing life as the ones who will speak for those who have no voice – who witness the unloved things and honor them as both as kin and kindred – is how I am starting to understand what life beyond the lockdown looks like for me. The spirituality of Jesus as God’s sacred clown connects so much together as essential. As I reread St. John’s gospel, I’m finding that Jesus starts with the wisdom of his prophetic Jewish mentors and then goes on to discern new ways to take this love deeper. The ancient words are never static for him, stuck in an ancient history, but more suggestive and subtle. Today’s text, for example, draws on Isaiah 56, Zechariah 14, and Jeremiah 21 that all insist that unity and peace among different people and cultures can only come about if we let God’s grace disarm us. If we are intentional about giving up some of our securities, the holy will show us how discover new beauty in our common humanity. But this will not come cheaply: learning to trust that God’s love is sufficient to catch us when we fall in a world of uncertainty and chaos means dying to self.
As we now stand on the cusp of containing the contagion – and sorting out some of the chaos – the invitation to die to self, warrants our vigorous attention. It is a comprehensive call to commitment for contemporary disciples who, like Nouwen, realize that trust is how we are given eyes to see the unity of love within our paradoxical truths: trust reveals the commons, trust honors our mourning as well as our feasting, and trust helps us negotiate the very real uncertainties that still exist at this moment in history. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Those who follow Jesus rather than merely “like him on Face Book,” live as he does with abandon, simplicity, trust, and focused joy as well as sorrow.
As I studied today’s text from St. John’s gospel this week, I found that there are four other times in this gospel where St. John has Jesus introducing a spiritual insight about the meaning of disciple-ship with the words: very truly I say unto you unless. Bible scholars say that this is a well-known Middle Eastern expression for giving your word to another person. It is part of the honor code of the region that assures another that what you are about to say is absolutely true and from your heart. Beyond his call to die to self, Jesus shared four other assurances from his heart about living a life of faith:
· John 3:3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus: Very truly I assure you that no one can see the kingdom of God without being sired from above. (That is, inspiration form the Spirit.)
· John 6: 53 where Jesus tells some Judean religious scholars from the Temple in Jerusalem: Very truly I assure you that unless the Son of Man becomes your food – eating his flesh and drinking his blood – you will have no sacred life within you. (Hyperbole not literal truth about being nourished by the sacred.)
· John 13: 8 where Jesus tells a belligerent Peter: Very truly I tell you that unless I wash your feet, you will never be a part of me. (The way of Jesus is upside-down and grounded a life of servanthood.)
· And John 15: 4 where Jesus speaks to those who were closest to him: Unless you abide in me as a branch abides in the vine you will bear no spiritual fruit within or among you. (Abide means to rest as in come unto me all ye who are tired and heavy laden and I will give you rest – life within the unforced rhythms of grace – rather than the compulsions and obligations of a cynical and utilitarian culture.)
It’s fascinating to me that beyond these examples, St. John has Jesus using the very truly I say unto you, expression 24 other times in his gospel. The abundance of these assurances points to the profound anxiety that was all too alive and well among the early church – something we can all appreciate. Cumulatively, they tell us that living into God’s grace by trust means: 1) the presence of the holy will saturate our humanity, 2) servanthood rather than selfishness is the way into the unforced rhythms of God’s grace, and 3) resting in Christ’s love is how our flesh will bear spiritual fruit.
Each of these commitments have their roots in ancient Israel’s poetic prophets - specifically Zechariah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah – each of whom speaks to their people’s experience of uncertainty, exile, and suffering and each of whom Jesus reinterprets for his context. St. John’s gospel, you see, is packed with the poetry of the prophets because, you may recall, part of its original purpose was polemical: this was an intra-Jewish argument about the meaning of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Those who followed Jesus tended to be Jews from the northern areas of ancient Israel, while those who opposed him were mostly southern Jews with an allegiance to the Temple leadership in Jerusalem – and you can see why St. John uses the tradition of the prophets to paint a picture of Christ’s significance.
· First, St. John connects the buoyant entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem for his final Passover with a description of the king of ancient Israel’s jubilant return to Jerusalem after the exile in Babylon during the 6th century BCE. Zechariah says: Now we rejoice greatly, O daughters Zion! Now we shout aloud, O daughters of Jerusalem! For lo, your king comes to you; trium-phant and victorious, yet humble and riding on an ass. Palm Sunday links Jesus to the end of exile and the testimony of the prophets.
· Second, St. John wants us to know that as Jesus led the people who were with him in Bethany for the healing of Lazarus into Jerusalem, he is revisioning and reclaiming what took place 500 years before this in Isaiah 56 where the joy experienced at end of exile in Babylon drew people from every tribe and nation into the community of God’s love: I will bring them all into my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer… so that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations—said the Lord.
Jerusalem is that mountain – literally God’s city of peace on a hill – where Isaiah 56 tells us that those who had once been shut out of the sacred community, specifically eunuchs and foreigners, were now welcomed as kin as they all practiced sabbath. Not keeping kosher, not circumcision, not even maintaining the traditional sacrifices. All that was NOW necessary was sabbath. Rest. Freedom for each person to become fully human in the spirit of sacred love. Which sounds to me a lot like Jeremiah’s insight that there would come a time born of forgiveness when doctrine, law, rhetoric, rules, and rituals would no longer define God’s people as unique and holy because at the appointed time the essence of the holy would be written upon our hearts:
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with you. It will not be like the covenant that I made with your ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. In this covenant: I will put my law within you, I will write it on your hearts; and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. No longer shall you teach one another saying, “Know the Lord,” for you shall all know me, from the least to the greatest, as I forgive you and remember sin no more.
Jesus is immersed in references to the ancient prophets of Israel in St. John’s text not only because they were Christ’s mentors, but also because Jesus gave new shape and form to their wisdom in his flesh – and this gospel wants even those loyal to the priests and scholars of the Temple to see the ancient truth made new in Christ. To underscore the importance of this theological affirmation, St. John tells us that there came a time when those all-around Jesus learned that the word of restoration that brought Lazarus back from death into new life was touching countless other souls, too. It evoked a new sense of hope that could not be contained and had erupt into a celebration parade with dancing in the streets.
What was usually a procession into Jerusalem in preparation for the rituals of purification prior to the festival of Passover were now ecstatic – and this was part of Isaiah’s teaching, too: God’s grace would draw ALL the people together in community: I will bring them all into my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer… so that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations—said the Lord. And how does this gospel begin today’s reading but to note that in Jerusalem for the Passover on this day were Jews AND Gentiles. It is the symbolic fulfillment of the gathering of the nations by God’s grace and prophesied by Isaiah – and Jesus named it as such.
· One Bible scholar put it like this: when the story tells us that some celebrants from Greece ask to see Jesus, this is symbolic language saying that even those outside Judaism now believe and trust in Jesus: “This is a sign for Jesus that his hour has come: now his message of peace and trust can cross over the frontiers of Israel into the whole world (just as Isaiah prophesied.)” (Vanier, p. 210) Now the spirituality of Jesus could show a world divided by religion, superstition, fear, race, class conflict, and the struggle for power that historic barriers could be broken.
· Beyond Israel there were those open to the path of prophetic grace just as the Magi were as they prefigured this moment at Christ’s birth. This is why St. John has Jesus saying: My hour has now come – let the Son of Humanity be glorified – which literally means lit up or exhibited with brightness - for now we are ready to hear from the heart of grace. Very truly I tell you from my core: unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it falls to Mother Earth and gives up itself, it can bear much fruit. And let’s unpack this because literalists or fundamentalist get it all wrong when Jesus they point to these words concerning loving and hating our lives.
The LIFE that Jesus is speaking about is not simply our physical being but our value system. I’ve said before that this gospel juxtaposes opposites so that we discern the paradoxical nature of God’s wisdom. Here Jesus is saying the status quo – the world – has one set of operating values that teaches might makes right. Some have cynically paraphrased the 23rd Psalm: Yea, I walk into the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil because I am the meanest, baldest MOFO around who will kick your butt so don’t mess with me. Before the pandemic, our culture and economy insisted that reality was driven by utilitarian bottom lines and true value was getting the biggest bang for the buck.
To the contrary, Jesus prays: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is already being done in heaven. There is another set of values where selfishness is not primary: in the kingdom – or kindom as some prefer – selfishness is what pushes out outside of our intimacy with the holy. It is the antithesis of grace. If we’re addicted to winning, if our compulsions are all about competition and success, we are dead to the kingdom because we’re enmeshed in the values of the world and it is THOSE values, habits, fears, and addictions that Jesus tells us from the heart must die.
Nearly every day over this past year, we’ve seen these values in conflict as those who refuse to wear a mask celebrate the kingdom of selfishness. Those who wear masks do so for their own safety, of course, but also to care for those more vulnerable than themselves. It is incomprehensible to me that some faith communities who claim Jesus as Lord have demanded an exemption from public health precautions because they inhibit the full expression of their faith. In another context, Jesus was clear: greater love has NO one than this, that we lay down our life for the sake of another. The kingdom of selfishness is the antithesis of Christian servanthood.
Every time I hear one of the fundamentalist preachers or ultra-conservative priests carping about masks and the lockdown, I cannot help but hear Jesus saying: unless ye become as a child you shall never enter the kingdom of God. Five months ago, when we were last able to see our precious grandchildren in the flesh, 7-year-old Louie was terrified that he might be carrying the COVID virus undetected. So, he not only kept his mask on at all times, but when he hugged us goodbye, he held his breath and pinched his nose closed. HE got it – at seven – a little bit exaggerated but his love was all about taking care of those who might be more vulnerable than he. On our drive home, Di and I wept a little even as we gave thanks to God for his tender and trusting child-like kingdom values.
Let’s be clear: we KNOW the conflict of values and commitments Jesus spoke of is real – it IS a matter of life and death – and COVID has taught some of us the importance of dying to those aspects of our culture that value some lives over others. So has Black Lives Matters. And the Me, Too movement. Jesus tells us in today’s text – but over and over again, too – that “the hour has now come for the values of love to triumph over selfishness.” Just ask the more than 3,500 Asian American/Pacific Islanders who have been bullied, spat upon, attacked, harassed, violated, or even murdered over the course of just last year alone if now isn’t the hour. In L’Arche, this reality is sometimes articulated like this:
To die in order to bear much fruit, to separate ourselves from our psychological tendencies and need for recognition, to live our loss and grief openly and fully, to know in the deepest places of our hearts that we are loved and held by Jesus, all of this is the only way we can stay grounded in solidarity with the weak and wounded. To die to self is to rise up in love and live gently with all we see and touch.
That’s what’s underneath Christ’s words when he says: my hour has now come so whoever serves me, must follow me for where I am there goes my servant as well. That’s what this past year has made clear to me: that I must continue to die to myself. Die to my privilege. Die to any illusion of superiority so that I might live gently, openly, and tenderly in solidarity with others.
Especially those who have no voice. And I must invite other people of faith to do their part in dying to self and privilege, too so that there’s room in our culture to discover what we hold in common. From my experience I sense that for people like you and me this is a time for quiet responses – careful, tender, and sacrificial replies to the agony, grief, and chaos we all have known – the way of the servant not the leader. Our culture’s wounded are rising up and organizing again – finding their true voices as they must – and calling out for allies and partners in soul-force actions like the Poor People’s Movement that promise to transform our nation from the bottom up. We have supportive roles to play in this healing work and I look forward to doing so more publicly in the year ahead. Just this weekend our AAPI sisters and brothers were out in the streets calling for solidarity and justice in the wake of the slaughter in Atlanta.
What concerns me is that there now a growing chorus of voices from among America’s more privileged and mostly white faith communities - sisters and brothers who do justice, love mercy, and seek to walk with God and neighbor in humility – who are demanding that a MORE visible. MORE vocal, and MORE challenging and confrontational role in public affairs in order to counter and balance-out those more strident, ugly, racist, misogynist, nativist, conservative, and fear-filled Christian voices that are among the major purveyors of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxer lies, and so many of the super-spreader events for Jesus.
How do we as mostly white and privileged people of faith move into this new era of uncertainty with faith and trust in public? They are saying something like: "OUR Christian witness during the pandemic has been too quiet, too unnoticed, too humble and overlooked to capture the public’s attention. “If Christianity is to come through this with any credibility, the quiet Christians need to speak up and tell their stories of the pandemic. In effect, those who humbly followed the guidelines, who cared for others by doing things never imagined, need to counter the ethical malpractice committed by other Christians… and tell the world how we have fed hungry neighbors, provided masks for the poor, lobbied politicians and business leaders to maintain safe practices in their cities and towns, prayed for the sick, the dying, and the mourning, created alternatives for pastoral care, raised money to cover hospital bills, reached out to those suffering isolation, and honored the dead with online memorials and socially-distanced funerals.”
So, I’m going to risk getting this completely wrong, and upsetting some of those I love and respect, but I don’t hear the Spirit right now calling for a better public relations campaign for our mostly bourgeois and wealthy congregations. Nor do I sense the gospel inviting mostly white and middle-class congregations into new and public leadership positions to reclaim our privilege and notoriety. “What should I say: Father, help me out of this moment? No, it is for this reason that I have come.” Do you recall what Jesus said to us in the gospel text for Ash Wednesday?
When you share your resources for compassion, do so quietly and in private. Do not let your right hand know what your left is doing. And when you pray do not be like the hypocrites who love to be seen suffering out on the street corners so that others might notice them. Rather, when you pray go into your room, close the door, and lift up your prayers in private. And when you fast, do likewise, not to be seen and called pious. Wash your face, anoint your head and open your heart to God quietly.
In ways we’ve rarely had to consider before, Jesus is saying to those of us who love him who are white and privileged people of faith: come and die to self with me. Come, let go and trust that God’s love is greater than your fear. Or your imagination. Or your experience. Come, as the Canadian musician, Alana Levandowski, says: and be a quiet part of the willingly exiled moving in solidarity with the wounded because that’s where the kingdom of heaven is happening – and always has been.
Jesus is immersed in references to the ancient prophets of Israel in St. John’s text not only because they were Christ’s mentors, but also because Jesus gave new shape and form to their wisdom in his flesh – and this gospel wants even those loyal to the priests and scholars of the Temple to see the ancient truth made new in Christ. To underscore the importance of this theological affirmation, St. John tells us that there came a time when those all-around Jesus learned that the word of restoration that brought Lazarus back from death into new life was touching countless other souls, too. It evoked a new sense of hope that could not be contained and had erupt into a celebration parade with dancing in the streets.
What was usually a procession into Jerusalem in preparation for the rituals of purification prior to the festival of Passover were now ecstatic – and this was part of Isaiah’s teaching, too: God’s grace would draw ALL the people together in community: I will bring them all into my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer… so that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations—said the Lord. And how does this gospel begin today’s reading but to note that in Jerusalem for the Passover on this day were Jews AND Gentiles. It is the symbolic fulfillment of the gathering of the nations by God’s grace and prophesied by Isaiah – and Jesus named it as such.
· One Bible scholar put it like this: when the story tells us that some celebrants from Greece ask to see Jesus, this is symbolic language saying that even those outside Judaism now believe and trust in Jesus: “This is a sign for Jesus that his hour has come: now his message of peace and trust can cross over the frontiers of Israel into the whole world (just as Isaiah prophesied.)” (Vanier, p. 210) Now the spirituality of Jesus could show a world divided by religion, superstition, fear, race, class conflict, and the struggle for power that historic barriers could be broken.
· Beyond Israel there were those open to the path of prophetic grace just as the Magi were as they prefigured this moment at Christ’s birth. This is why St. John has Jesus saying: My hour has now come – let the Son of Humanity be glorified – which literally means lit up or exhibited with brightness - for now we are ready to hear from the heart of grace. Very truly I tell you from my core: unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it falls to Mother Earth and gives up itself, it can bear much fruit. And let’s unpack this because literalists or fundamentalist get it all wrong when Jesus they point to these words concerning loving and hating our lives.
The LIFE that Jesus is speaking about is not simply our physical being but our value system. I’ve said before that this gospel juxtaposes opposites so that we discern the paradoxical nature of God’s wisdom. Here Jesus is saying the status quo – the world – has one set of operating values that teaches might makes right. Some have cynically paraphrased the 23rd Psalm: Yea, I walk into the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil because I am the meanest, baldest MOFO around who will kick your butt so don’t mess with me. Before the pandemic, our culture and economy insisted that reality was driven by utilitarian bottom lines and true value was getting the biggest bang for the buck.
To the contrary, Jesus prays: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is already being done in heaven. There is another set of values where selfishness is not primary: in the kingdom – or kindom as some prefer – selfishness is what pushes out outside of our intimacy with the holy. It is the antithesis of grace. If we’re addicted to winning, if our compulsions are all about competition and success, we are dead to the kingdom because we’re enmeshed in the values of the world and it is THOSE values, habits, fears, and addictions that Jesus tells us from the heart must die.
Nearly every day over this past year, we’ve seen these values in conflict as those who refuse to wear a mask celebrate the kingdom of selfishness. Those who wear masks do so for their own safety, of course, but also to care for those more vulnerable than themselves. It is incomprehensible to me that some faith communities who claim Jesus as Lord have demanded an exemption from public health precautions because they inhibit the full expression of their faith. In another context, Jesus was clear: greater love has NO one than this, that we lay down our life for the sake of another. The kingdom of selfishness is the antithesis of Christian servanthood.
Every time I hear one of the fundamentalist preachers or ultra-conservative priests carping about masks and the lockdown, I cannot help but hear Jesus saying: unless ye become as a child you shall never enter the kingdom of God. Five months ago, when we were last able to see our precious grandchildren in the flesh, 7-year-old Louie was terrified that he might be carrying the COVID virus undetected. So, he not only kept his mask on at all times, but when he hugged us goodbye, he held his breath and pinched his nose closed. HE got it – at seven – a little bit exaggerated but his love was all about taking care of those who might be more vulnerable than he. On our drive home, Di and I wept a little even as we gave thanks to God for his tender and trusting child-like kingdom values.
Let’s be clear: we KNOW the conflict of values and commitments Jesus spoke of is real – it IS a matter of life and death – and COVID has taught some of us the importance of dying to those aspects of our culture that value some lives over others. So has Black Lives Matters. And the Me, Too movement. Jesus tells us in today’s text – but over and over again, too – that “the hour has now come for the values of love to triumph over selfishness.” Just ask the more than 3,500 Asian American/Pacific Islanders who have been bullied, spat upon, attacked, harassed, violated, or even murdered over the course of just last year alone if now isn’t the hour. In L’Arche, this reality is sometimes articulated like this:
To die in order to bear much fruit, to separate ourselves from our psychological tendencies and need for recognition, to live our loss and grief openly and fully, to know in the deepest places of our hearts that we are loved and held by Jesus, all of this is the only way we can stay grounded in solidarity with the weak and wounded. To die to self is to rise up in love and live gently with all we see and touch.
That’s what’s underneath Christ’s words when he says: my hour has now come so whoever serves me, must follow me for where I am there goes my servant as well. That’s what this past year has made clear to me: that I must continue to die to myself. Die to my privilege. Die to any illusion of superiority so that I might live gently, openly, and tenderly in solidarity with others.
Especially those who have no voice. And I must invite other people of faith to do their part in dying to self and privilege, too so that there’s room in our culture to discover what we hold in common. From my experience I sense that for people like you and me this is a time for quiet responses – careful, tender, and sacrificial replies to the agony, grief, and chaos we all have known – the way of the servant not the leader. Our culture’s wounded are rising up and organizing again – finding their true voices as they must – and calling out for allies and partners in soul-force actions like the Poor People’s Movement that promise to transform our nation from the bottom up. We have supportive roles to play in this healing work and I look forward to doing so more publicly in the year ahead. Just this weekend our AAPI sisters and brothers were out in the streets calling for solidarity and justice in the wake of the slaughter in Atlanta.
What concerns me is that there now a growing chorus of voices from among America’s more privileged and mostly white faith communities - sisters and brothers who do justice, love mercy, and seek to walk with God and neighbor in humility – who are demanding that a MORE visible. MORE vocal, and MORE challenging and confrontational role in public affairs in order to counter and balance-out those more strident, ugly, racist, misogynist, nativist, conservative, and fear-filled Christian voices that are among the major purveyors of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxer lies, and so many of the super-spreader events for Jesus.
How do we as mostly white and privileged people of faith move into this new era of uncertainty with faith and trust in public? They are saying something like: "OUR Christian witness during the pandemic has been too quiet, too unnoticed, too humble and overlooked to capture the public’s attention. “If Christianity is to come through this with any credibility, the quiet Christians need to speak up and tell their stories of the pandemic. In effect, those who humbly followed the guidelines, who cared for others by doing things never imagined, need to counter the ethical malpractice committed by other Christians… and tell the world how we have fed hungry neighbors, provided masks for the poor, lobbied politicians and business leaders to maintain safe practices in their cities and towns, prayed for the sick, the dying, and the mourning, created alternatives for pastoral care, raised money to cover hospital bills, reached out to those suffering isolation, and honored the dead with online memorials and socially-distanced funerals.”
So, I’m going to risk getting this completely wrong, and upsetting some of those I love and respect, but I don’t hear the Spirit right now calling for a better public relations campaign for our mostly bourgeois and wealthy congregations. Nor do I sense the gospel inviting mostly white and middle-class congregations into new and public leadership positions to reclaim our privilege and notoriety. “What should I say: Father, help me out of this moment? No, it is for this reason that I have come.” Do you recall what Jesus said to us in the gospel text for Ash Wednesday?
When you share your resources for compassion, do so quietly and in private. Do not let your right hand know what your left is doing. And when you pray do not be like the hypocrites who love to be seen suffering out on the street corners so that others might notice them. Rather, when you pray go into your room, close the door, and lift up your prayers in private. And when you fast, do likewise, not to be seen and called pious. Wash your face, anoint your head and open your heart to God quietly.
In ways we’ve rarely had to consider before, Jesus is saying to those of us who love him who are white and privileged people of faith: come and die to self with me. Come, let go and trust that God’s love is greater than your fear. Or your imagination. Or your experience. Come, as the Canadian musician, Alana Levandowski, says: and be a quiet part of the willingly exiled moving in solidarity with the wounded because that’s where the kingdom of heaven is happening – and always has been.
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