A Less Sexy Love

Editor's Note: This reflection is a forthcoming piece in the Lenten devotional series by and for Young Adults organized by The Episcopal Church. I share it now because some young adults from St. Francis and I are gathering tonight - February 14th @ 6p.m., - at the Memorial Union's Rathskeller to informally discuss a love less in keeping with the commercially popular Valentine-sentiment. It's the love that is seemingly essential to the existence of saints and the convictions of martyrs (like St. Valentine): love for one's enemies. This reflection is my own internal springboard and reference point for approaching that conversation.   JRM+ 

Meditation for Palm Sunday, March 24

Scripture: Luke 19:28-40

“After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem” (Lk 19:28)

The “this” that Jesus said, before he went on ahead, up to Jerusalem, is the familiar parable of the talents, which ends with the nobleman’s ominous lines: “‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence’” (Lk 19:26-27).

The connection between these earlier words and today’s reading swells with an unresolved tension. Plainly, the nobleman’s words do not prepare us to see the heralded, new king slaughtered. But God’s rejection of the evil wrought by “these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them,” lands squarely on Jesus.

Palm Sunday reveals Jesus as at the same time God’s elected and rejected one. This is meant to be Good News for us, but it is still hard to see Jesus slaughtered in the presence of God and God’s enemies. Harder still to hear the words on our lips – “Crucify him!” – and realize that we are God’s enemies, the ones “who did not want me to be king over them.” 

I do not like to think of myself as an enemy of God, but my not liking it does not by itself make it untrue. I am like the double agent who sometimes forgets whose side she is on. But I have found grace in Jesus’ hard words to his disciples, “Love your enemies” (Lk 6:27).

“Love your enemies” is what we do when we imitate God’s love for us.

Admittedly, I need God’s help to love my enemies. I pray that knowing I need God’s help to love my enemies makes me less of an enemy to God, but who can tell for sure if that is not the double agent talking? 

I used to think of an enemy as the worst thing a person could be, but enemy status has not proved enough to keep God from us and our being found in Christ. Instead, love without expectation or personal gain is arguably known only with the help of enemies to love. So I have learned to ask for God’s help in loving my enemies, and also to pray for more enemies to love.

Maybe loving enemies is how we go up, with Jesus, to Jerusalem. Maybe this is a piece of the surrender, the sacrifice, by which we learn the friendship of the crucified King.

A prayer for today:

God of the cross, sear these words of your Son on the hearts of your people, so we may live the love by which you have called us friends: “…love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Amen.

Resources for Lent

A couple of days still before Lent. Here are some resources for Lent that I have found (or think might be) helpful. Please add your own resources in the comments' section of this post. With prayers for a Lent that is holy, life-giving, preparation for the great Paschal mystery.

Peace.
JRM+

1) Shedding Light on Lent: How the Transfiguration Shows Us What Lent is For; a homily that frames Lent within the central context of Jesus, baptism, and the destiny of God's people.

2) Common Prayer; a daily prayer resource based on the 'Ordinary Radicals' movement within the Church. Contains frequent references to contemporary issues with a strong emphasis on Christ and Christian living. Seasonal practices are helpfully suggested.

3) Lenten Meditations for Young Adults, (via the Episcopal Church); this series, written by young adults - including yours truly - debuts February 13.

4) Abiding by Ben Quash; this year's Lent Book, commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

5) Your Book of Common Prayer; especially the service of baptism (p299), the Easter Vigil (p285), and the Daily Office.

6) The Liturgy; don't stop going to Church during Lent; worship may be the best resource your have.

7) Your Bible; last but not least, read some Scripture. If you are looking for a place to start, the lessons outlined on page 288 of the BCP are a good place to start.

Observation: Reviewing this list, it is probably the case that the resources appear in reverse order of importance, though in that case 6 and 7 are a) and b) of the same number. Don't go to Church and not hear the Word; don't read your Bible without the Church. You know, keep your preacher honest.

Shedding Light on Lent (How the Transfiguration Shows Us What Lent is For)

 

We’re about to hit the desert, head into Lent. Lent starts this Wednesday, with Ash Wednesday, and it’s long, forty days, a preparation for Easter. And it’s not supposed to feel good, Lent. No. Lent should be itchy and make us mindful of being miserable. Some people have bad grades, parents, or ex-girlfriends to keep them mindful of their miserableness. The rest of us need Lent, that great equalizer. Lent is for staying grounded; your not being above despair. 



Winter in Wisconsin is very Lenten, especially if you shovel your own driveway. Your skin dries out, splits, leaves your hands cracked and bleeding. Even hours later, when you’re prodigally indulging in the excesses of central heating, the dry skin keeps you itchy, even if your bed sheets are sinfully soft, leaves you itching all over. And there’s a certain justice in this. Jonesing for soft bed sheets, after all, is almost as spiritually misguided as your midwinter impulse for a day without the need for extra leggings, just one spring day with green grass and flowers sneaked into this season of snow and ice and blue sidewalk salts. Is that too much to ask? A single, spring day with green grass, warm sun, frisbees, and attractive people not wearing their whole wardrobes all at once, you know, with their knees and shoulders showing. Lent teaches you not to long for these things. 



Lent is for realists, the ones who know how silly and disappointing hope can be. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Grey skies and gloom. Lent is for people with the good sense not to call every invention of humankind progress (see here Tinkles the Toilet Cat – you can look it up – and waterboarding). It may sell and impress the neighbors - as seen on TV - it may seem essential to the protection of national and/or international securities, but Lenten types sense the futility of it all. Not just the pointlessness of it, but the seeming impossibility of it being otherwise. So Lent is for people who ride the engine of progress in ironic protest.



The question in Lent is how you step off the moving sidewalk, which I tried once, when my daughter got nervous, got cold feet that day at the airport. She was pushing the green stroller and it was on the rolling walkway, she was off it, just on the edge, and I was sailing along, out in front. She stopped, and I didn’t. Lent is like that. Awkward and hopeless. Like middle school. As a general rule I don’t trust individuals who remember middle school with fondness.



“What are you giving up for Lent?” That’s the question I remember from middle school at the Episcopal school I attended. And we’d talk about chocolate and Cokes and little brothers. A clergy spouse I know makes a joke of giving her husband up for Lent, what with the obligations Lent brings on for him. A friend of mine tried a kind of fast once. He gave up desserts, except for Sundays, which are feast days after all. But then he would transfer Sunday feasts to Tuesdays or Thursdays, swap them out, for convenience, and cash his chips in early.



You can start to see how it’s easy to get there - to that place where Lent means shoulds and shouldn’ts and rules and guilt and every time you ever got in trouble for anything, like Mrs. Tennison’s kindergarten class, when she saw you reach for the scissors that time and accused you of having plans for mischief that you later wished you’d really had. It’s not hard to see how people start talking about their being spiritual without being religious. 



But another friend of mine says that, despite its burdened reputation, Lent is really only ever about two things: preparing for baptism and remembering your baptism. Preparing to be baptized or remembering that you are. 



Huh.



A French writer once wrote (because that’s what writers do); he said, “In the end, life offers only one tragedy: not to have been a saint.” When Lent points us to baptism, it calls us to the life of the saint. The Transfiguration of Jesus, our gospel lesson today – and every last Sunday before Lent – is a picture of what it means to be a saint; a picture of what Lent is for.



When Peter, James, and John climb the mountain with sleepy eyes and stay awake just long enough to see their Lord transfigured, they see Jesus as he is, God’s only begotten Son. Very God of very God. Begotten, not made. By whom all things were made. When Peter, James, and John climb the mountain, they learn that to look on Christ is to look on God. 



But when Peter, James, and John climb the mountain, they also see a picture of themselves as they will be, in their Lord, transfigured. Glowing with the glory of God. Adam as Adam was created to be. When Peter, James, and John climb the mountain, they learn that to look on Christ is to see who they are made to be, and by whose power this is possible; as the disciples look on Christ, they enter the cloud; they shine with the glory; they begin their participation in the life of the triune God.



When the disciples look on Christ, they see both the face of God and the face of humanity, fully alive, in the presence of God. In this way, the Transfiguration of Jesus on this last Sunday before Lent means to show us God’s dream and our destiny. Lent is about preparing for glory. Lent is about becoming a saint. That’s why, in the end, Lent can only be about two things: preparing for baptism and remembering your baptism. Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus.



As much fun as religion-as-aimless-and-heavy-burden can be – cf., the surprisingly popular philosophy that says that if it feels good, it must be bad – consider, instead, that every practice taken on, every habit surrendered, might be examined this Lent in light of your baptism or its preparation. Of your would-be Lenten discipline, hasten to ask, “How does taking this on or giving that up immerse me more fully in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ?”



Giving up chocolates and Cokes are fine things, even for Lent, though they risk leaving you on the surface level of self-improvement. But this year, I’m thinking of disciplines that keep the focus on baptism squarely before me. This year, for example, I intend to memorize the Exsultet, that great hymn that begins the Easter Vigil, as a way of allowing the joy of that great feast to enter my bones. And because memorization is an under-appreciated practice these days, I think. I also plan to take five minutes each day at noon this Lent to reread the promises of my baptism as they appear on pages 304 and 305 in the Book of Common Prayer; trusting that by reading them in the middle of my ordinary day, my eyes might be opened to see new places in this life wherein the death and resurrection of Jesus find real currency, makes new claims on me. 



You can begin to see the possibilities. Possibilities not simply to be made better, but to be made real. Putting on Christ, to be made a saint, even. Shining with the glory of God. This is what Lent is for and why Lent, in the end, can only be about two things: preparing for baptism and remembering your baptism. Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus.



I’ll see you in the desert.



Amen.

SFH.2.10.13

Shiny Happy People

In honor of this Sunday's lessons, in which everywhere are shiny people.

Love and Improv (learning to love what is)

In honor of Sunday's appointed epistle, that great chapter in 1 Corinthians, a three-fold ode to love:

The first is a post-script from yesterday's reflection on the wisdom of Wayne Shorter, from my brother Matthew, himself a musician of considerable wisdom and beauty. Here' what he writes, in response to yesterday's piece:

"That's really cool; there are a couple of books I have (written by jazz musicians) who talk much about that. About practicing 'presence' BY 'not practicing the future'. To me True Improvisation (not just in music) is such a lost art. To really improvise is to be fully present, aware, to see/hear things as they present themselves in the moment, to let all 'concepts' go. I think it is much like Love."

It's hard for me to read Matthew's words without thinking of Jesus' encouragement to be people of ears that hear and eyes that see.

And then there's this tremendous hymn (612 of the 1982 Hymnal) that marked the Gospel sequence in worship this morning that simply stopped me sort in its boldness - "give us love" - and simplicity:

Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost,
taught by thee we covet most,
of thy gifts at Pentecost,
holy heavenly, love.

Love is kind, and suffers long,
love is meek, and thinks no wrong,
love than death itself more strong;
therefore, give us love.

Prophecy will fade away,
melting in the light of day;
love will ever with us stay;
therefore, give us love.

Faith and hope and love we see,
joining hand in hand, agree,
but the greatest of the three,
and the best, is love.

And last, but not least, the Avett Brothers and their heartbreaking, beautiful song about the victory we did not think to expect from Love.

"How Do You Rehearse the Unknown?"

I hopped into the car today - warming the engine ahead of Bek and the kids for a family trek across town -  and so caught the tail end of an NPR interview with legendary Jazz musician Wayne Shorter. I was captivated, then stopped short, by his words which both truly describe jazz and immediately transcend it.

"The six years I was with Miles, we never talked about music. We never had a rehearsal," Shorter says. "Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.' The effort to break out of something is worth more than getting an A in syncopation.

"This music, it's dealing with the unexpected," he adds. "No one really knows how to deal with the unexpected. How do you rehearse the unknown?"

I found myself reflecting on Shorter's words with respect to three recent and particular points of connection:

1) The bold and inspiring honesty with which Bishop Curry recently described the challenge before the Episcopal Church - to be the Church - in an unknown context, into an unknown future.

2) Duke Divinity School's educational emphasis on practices that form virtue and character - over, say, situational ethics - as corresponding to the jazz musician's preparation for the performance she, by definition, can never rehearse.

3) This splendid piece (below) by Jeremy Begbie, reflecting on improvisation, Christian character, and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the people of God. (It is probably not responsible to leave out Sam Wells' work here, too, chiefly 'Improvisation,' which looks at many of these same themes through the lens of theater, and so of status, givens, and over-acceptance.)

May we Christians, after the example of Wayne Shorter, find the freedom to be shaped by the tradition we receive, the courage to go on stage not knowing, the grace to be inspired of the Spirit, and the commitment to succeed and fail, equally and beautifully.

A Constructive Critique of Children's Bibles: St Francis Students Weigh In

A while back on the blog, in "A Quasi-Muppet Theology of Creation," I shared the conversation by which the students of St Francis House decided to study children's Bibles in order to identify and evaluate the essential parts of the biblical narrative, as we tell them to our children. 

At the time we began the study, I wrote about my mostly cynical response to the students' proposal:

I admitted that, as the father of two children, 1 and 3, I consider myself something of an expert on children's Bibles, and that I mostly hate them. I tire of improvising around clumsy stories (water into grape juice, anyone?) just before bed and when I am tired and not wanting to keep on my theological toes. And yet, I told them, all the more reason to pay attention to the ways we Christians tell the story to our children. Right?

Now we have a semester of study under our belts, and I need to admit that the process has been unexpectedly fruitful. The insights and honesty of the students have illuminated nuances of Scripture and the faith we live as Christians in ways for which I am grateful. I feel honored to have been part of these discussions.

Even so, I was not prepared for our conversation of a week ago, circled up in a small coffee shop at Union South. We had been looking at a table of contents from a children's bible - a sort of step back for perspective from our week to week studies - and going around the table with a mix of critiques, questions, and eye-rolling disbelief. We cited a felt-obligation toward forced morals and over-glossed descriptions (pithy platitudes) of God as obstacles to a children's Bible faithful telling of the Christian story. 

One of the students even wondered out loud if, by these children's Bibles and the things they don't contain - "let the dead bury their own dead," for example - we seek to protect not our children, but ourselves, from the resulting questions our children would ask us about the story we tell and the (at least sometimes) incongruous lives that we live. Um...

But then, as we ended, this question: "Okay, then, what would you add to make a children's Bible for faithful, more true?

Some silence. I volunteered my answer first, saying that I would add a section called, "Songs God's People Sing," which, I explained, would include some representative psalms, modeling the idea that faith is not just about our moral goodness or what we think about God; faith is embodied and, first and foremost, faith makes us people of praise. This reflection comes from my firsthand experiences with my daughter, whose endless requests for "one more hymn, Daddy," have been my delight as her dad.

What else, though. What would you add?

The answers:

More Church. And the understanding that, in Christ, we have been made a part of it, animated by the Holy Spirit.
Community. The idea that we are not in this alone; that God calls us to learn from and rely on others. That asking for help is a good thing for God's people.
More death. Because the story as it is has plenty and is more honestly connected with our mortal nature.
More tax collectors and prostitutes. With the observation that Jesus came to redeem humanity, not to save humanity from the need for redemption.
The cost of discipleship. Including Jesus' teachings on wealth, the poor, and other "hard sayings." Again, who are we protecting?
An appendix of talking points and additional resourced for parents. We observed that at least one children's book included a lot of rhetorical questions, like, "Noah sent a dove. Can you find the dove?" Most able babysitters (to say nothing of parents) do not need these inane promptings. Significantly, though, these kinds of questions function to relieve the adult reader of genuine interaction. What if children's Bibles functioned instead to reinforce and equip that interaction, encouraging conversations after bedtime is over?

I left the coffeehouse that night energized by the students' insights and excited for the students' desire for encounter with the God who is, rather than the one we wish we'd gotten instead. I also left our time together deeply hopeful for the creative imagination of these students for engaging the faith we've received in its fullness and penning the story in its depth, breadth, and wonder. Thank God: better Bibles for children are coming.