Things that Should not Be

It was just a little over a month ago that I was in my hometown for my brother's wedding.  My brother asked me to officiate, and I felt honored to be there.  It wasn't a big wedding, but it was such a joyous occasion, to be able to share in the love of my brother and his new wife, and see so many of my cousins come out to be a part of the celebration.  We all grew up together, but we don't get together very often now.

Then, just two days after the wedding, on Monday morning, I was back home in Texas, and I saw a Facebook update from another of my cousins.  He was grieving.  He was telling us about the death of his sister.

My cousin Karen had been fighting cancer for several years.  She had setbacks and she had victories. I have kept up with her life mostly on Facebook these days, but when were children they lived just a few blocks from us for a little while.  She was a few years younger than I was back then, and very shy.  I remember she loved kittens.  She grew into a beautiful and talented young woman.  She grew up and had babies.  She played the harp.  She was also someone who pursued God and faith intensely.    And she had cancer.

For so many reasons, her death didn't seem real to me.  Maybe it was simply because we had lived apart for many years.  We had had only virtual conversations.  Maybe it was the idea that when we were celebrating my brother's wedding, she was dying.  Maybe it was just the memory that she was my younger cousin, the little girl with blue eyes who loved kittens.  How could it be?  She should still be alive.

That's what I believe, that there are things that should not be.

It was just about a week later that I got a message from a colleague.

A young pastor that I knew had just had a serious heart attack.  He wanted me to know, and he wanted me to join those who were praying day and night.

I had known this young woman since she was a seminary intern at my congregation.  Bright and articulate, full of passion and clarity about her call:  that's how I remember her.  She played the violin.  She taught us lectio divina.  She worked closely with the youth and the youth director.  After she graduated, she spent a couple of years in the Pacific Northwest, and then returned to our area to be a valued colleague at a neighboring congregation.  She was a fierce voice for justice, for inclusion.

She was the pastor of a vibrant congregation; she had a husband and three young children.

We prayed passionately.  It was just the sort of occasion made for miracles.  And that was what we prayed for.  We prayed for her heart to be strong.  We prayed for a full recovery.

We did not get what we wanted.

It's true.  We don't know the wisdom of God.  But I will also say:  these were not selfish prayers.  Our friend was a gift to us -- but she was also a gift to the world, someone who was doing healing work here.

There are some things that should not be.  The world is not yet what it should be, what it will be.

If you do not believe me, these are the words of the prophet Isaiah, longing for a different world,

"For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind....
no more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed."

Brothers and sisters,
do not be afraid to grieve.
We long for a new world.
It is meet and right so to do.

There are some things that should not be.

Holy Week

On one level, it is an ordinary week.  I get up, I have breakfast, I take the dog for a walk.  I go to church, and write a lot of sermons and plan a lot of worship, more worship than for an ordinary week.  The worship also takes a fair amount more choreography than ordinary worship.  So, it's not an ordinary week.

But I'll be honest.  In some ways, it does feel like an ordinary week.  I know this is Holy Week, which will be busy, and will be consumed with remembering and worshipping and singing and praying.  The part of me which would have made a good nun would like to think of this week with more intentional and disciplined times to stop and think about the week, and all that happened, how Jesus is getting near the cross.

What did he do today, I wonder?  It is Wednesday in Holy Week.  Tomorrow evening he will be celebrating the Passover with his disciples, one of whom will betray him.  Finally he will be alone.  But what did he do today, Wednesday in Holy Week?

He is in Jerusalem with his disciples, getting ready, I suppose.  He is telling those parables, the ones that make people follow him, or stop following him, the ones that make some people hungry and other people angry.  He is healing people, and getting ready for the Passover.

It is Holy Week.  And it is an ordinary week.  I need to clean the house, because we are having company for Easter.  But really, it is an ordinary week (and the house will not be clean enough by Easter either, but will still look like our house).

Somehow, for a flash and a moment I realize that the task is not to make this week special, not to wonder what Jesus was doing today and pay better attention and pray more, but it is to know that these ordinary moments are holy, that talking to the clerk at the grocery store is holy, that sweeping the floor and dragging the trash cans back from the street is holy, that doing my mother-in-law's laundry is holy.

God is in it, all of life.  In the flesh.

And it matters, every single bit of it.

Sneak Preview: A Sermon for Transfiguration

            Dear friends in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our creator, and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen

            Way back when I was in the 5^th grade, our family took a vacation out to visit my cousins who had moved to Seattle, Washington.  We didn’t fly, we drove – trekking across country in our rambler and staying in different motels every night.  Vacations were really rare in my family.  Other than long weekends, I only remember a handful of times we went farther than my grandparents’ farm in southwestern Minnesota.  So, this was a really big deal, very exciting.  And what was even rarer than vacations:  Mountains.  In fact, until that summer I had never seen a mountain before.

            So I still remember how we spent one whole day driving through Montana, and how, suddenly, my dad said in an excited voice, “Look!  Kids!  There’s a mountain!”  And how we perked up as we saw, off in the distance, the beginning of the majestic Rockies.  We had never seen anything like this before – so we were in awe at the different landscape.  Evidence for the existence of God, right? 

            Has that ever happened to you?  When you’ve seen something, or experienced something for the first time?   For me, it was mountains.  For you, perhaps the ocean, or the giant redwood forest, or a piece of history up close.

            A day later, on the same trip, we were still driving, and my dad said, in an excited voice, again, “Look, kids, there’s a mountain!”  and we all said, “yeah, yeah, yeah.”

            What a difference a day makes.

            Today is the day of “Transfiguration”  -- named after this unusual experience that Peter, James and John had up on – of all places – a mountain.  If you are paying attention, you might notice that, in the gospels, important things happens on mountains.  Jesus gives the sermon on the mount – on a mountain – after his resurrection, he gathers his disciples again to teach them – on a mountain – and today, he takes three of his disciples up on a mountain where he is transformed – transfigured – before their eyes.  His face shines, and his clothes become dazzling white.  Wow.   “Look!  There’s the Messiah!”  It was like they were seeing him for the first time. And though we can imagine the clothes and the face glowing – maybe a little – when you think about the whole world “transfiguration”  -- it’s possible that it can’t even be described.  Something has really, radically changed about Jesus.  what’s another word that’s similar?  ‘meta-morphosis.’  Like the change from caterpillar to butterfly.  “wow!”

            Moses and Elijah were there speaking with him – and if you want to understand the importance of this, imagine a scene where Barack Obama is seen talking to Presidents Washington and Lincoln – something that would make some of us very happy and others of us very disturbed.  Moses and Elijah are lending legitimacy to Jesus’ ministry – they are telling us that this Jesus – he’s the real deal.  And then you have the voice of God, “Listen to him.”  Interesting.  Not ‘look at him’, or even ‘follow him’, but ‘listen to him.’  That’s what the voice says.  And then, it’s so sudden, so brief, that it’s all over.  Peter doesn’t even get a chance to build a memorial.  They’ll never be able to go back and find that spot again.   They were in the presence of God, and they knew it, but only for a moment, and then it was gone.

            So why is this story in the Bible, anyway?  It’s sort of frustrating, because it’s so strange, and so fleeting a moment – when they recognized Jesus, when he was transfigured.  Some people think this story really belongs at the end of the gospel, after the resurrection.  It’s out of place here, in the middle of the gospel.   It seems like it should be a resurrection story, his glory revealed at the resurrection, not before.

            Perhaps it’s sort of like a “sneak preview” – as in the movies, a ‘preview of coming attractions’.  Because when Jeuus and the disciples come back down the mountain, they are going to encounter darkness, and struggle, and failure and perhaps a sneak preview will help them in the middle of it all.  Because, you know,  it’s easy for us  too, as each ordinary day goes along, to start looking at the world, and saying, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah.’   Perhaps it’s sort of like a sneak preview, not just of coming attractions, but of what is present, but most often, unseen.  Maybe it’s meant to keep us going during all the ordinary days, and the days of struggle, and the days when it’s easy to forget what he has told us is true, because it doesn’t look much like it.    “sneak preview.”  Maybe that’s what it is.

            There’s an interesting point in this particular story:  when Peter and James and John see Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah on the mountain, do you know what they are talking about:  his departure in Jerusalem.  And the word for departure in greek is this one, “Exodus.”  They are talking together about his ‘exodus”, the place where he will be transfigured again as he struggles and suffers and dies, the place where everyone will desert him, where he will no longer look like the messiah they expected.  ‘yeah, yeah, yeah.’  And yet he is with them, with us, always. 

            Transfiguration.  Jesus face shines on that mountain, but the point is not just that Jesus’ face shines.  The point is not just that he is transfigured.  The point is, finally, that our faces are shining, because we have been in his presence, and even though, when we look in the mirror, we can’t see it.  The point is that we are being transfigured as we walk with him, not just on the mountain, but every day.  The point is that we are being changed, from one degree of glory into another.

            But, most of the time, you can’t see it.  That’s why the voice from heaven says, “Listen to him.”  Believe him,.  Trust him.  You are made in my image, he says.  I’m here, with you, he says.  I am forming and re-forming you,  working in you and among you. 

            Most of the time, we can’t see it.  But once in awhile we get a glimpse.

            Long ago, one cold day, I was called to a nursing home to visit a woman who was dying.  She was frail and old and small, I remember.  I knew her, a little.  I sat there and I held her hand, and she did not hold my hand back.  I thought I could see her, while I sat by her bed.  And then, a figure came through the door, quickly.  A woman, who came right over to the bed, and leaned over.  It was this woman’s daughter.  And she kissed her mother on the forehead. 

            And I saw.  This was not a dying woman.  This was a beloved and beautiful woman, alive to God.  Transfiguration.

            What a difference a day makes.  Or a moment.  When wine is poured, and bread is broken, and we listen to him, as he says, “this is my body.  This is my blood.”  What a difference a day makes.  It is a sneak preview of the feast on God’s holy mountain, where Jesus, and all of the broken, holy, people, will shine.

            AMEN

The Rapture and Tornadoes

So, the world didn't end on May 21, 2011.  Jesus didn't appear, and those who followed him were not raptured away from this world on Saturday, never to face pain or evil or suffering again.

On Sunday, tornadoes devastated Joplin, Missouri, and destroyed homes and lives nearer to me, in Northeast Minneapolis.  Not the apocalypse, but for those who experienced it:  close enough.

To me, the most disturbing thing about believing in the rapture is not the propensity to choose exact dates. It's the idea that some followers of Jesus believe that they will escape great suffering while the majority of the human race goes through the tribulation.  There sometimes seems to be an unseemly glee when some recount the misery that others will encounter after they themselves are raptured.

First of all, there is plenty of evidence that followers of Jesus are going through, and not escaping, tribulation, every day.

And second, I would hope and pray that in the event of tribulations, in the event of disasters, the last thing that followers of Jesus would want to do is escape. I would hope and pray that followers of Jesus would follow Jesus:  more deeply into the suffering, into the tribulation: to bind up wounds, to heal, to comfort, to rebuild, to make peace.   I would hope that followers of Jesus would want to be in Joplin, Missouri, in Northeast Minneapolis, as well as in chemotherapy wards, in hospice care units, on battlefields, showing the mercy of God, showing the face of the love of God.

Until the real last day.  Whenever that is.

Tuesday in Holy Week: Silence

Christianity came to Japan long ago, brought by Spanish and Portugeuse missionaries, Jesuits and Franciscans.  Though many were suspicious, there emerged a small but devoted following of Christ-followers. 

But the suspicion grew, and finally Christianity was outlawed.  Most of the missionaries were banished, or fled.  Those suspected of being Christian were required to renounce their faith.  They were to step on a picture of Mary or Jesus, called a "fumie", as a sign of their rejection of Jesus and the church.  Some did; many refused to step on the fumie, and many were tortured and killed.

Shusaku Endo tells the story of this time in his novel Silence.  A foreign priest narrates the story of his faith, his weakness, his decision to come to Japan, trying to help the persecuted people to hold fast to their faith. He tries to find out about a priest who has lost his faith, and wonders what happened to him.  The title "Silence" refers to the Silence of God at the time of the persecution. 

The priest is asked to step on the fumie to renounce his faith, but, even though he is weak, and has committed many sins as a priest, and has failed many times in his duties, he refuses.  But the authorities do not torture him.  Instead, they torture the people of his parish. 

When he is brought before the authorities again, he says he hears the voice of Christ, telling him to go ahead and step on the fumie.  Christ bore the burden of sin, betrayal and denial before, and will bear it again and again, for us. 

As we travel through Holy Week, I think of our steps through life, and how often we step on the fumi-e, the image of Christ.  We do this whenever we deny or betray the image of God in our brothers and sister, whenever we step on one another, whenever we trample on the poor. 

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. 

What I'm Thinking About

It's the night before the night before Christmas eve.  We bought a little food for the simple Christmas eve dinner tonight.  A little earlier, while I was at church, a man walked in with a bag of hay for the manger. 

This is my office right now:  boxes and wrapping paper, some old sermons, a stack of books of stories, three illustrated books of carols on the floor, files of worship materials, notes paper-clipped together, a pair of shoes shoved in the corner.

This is my house right now:  the angel is on top of the tree, but the coffee table needs to be cleaned off.  The stockings are hung by the chimney, a poinsettia on the small dining room table.  There's an old bill that needs to be paid right away.  Junk mail.  A creche.

Some things are settled.  Other things will be settled, in some way or another, whether to my liking or not.  Some things will never be settled. 

For some reason this year, I found a few of my old Christmas sermons.  I re-read them, perhaps in a fit of nostalgia, perhaps looking for some fresh inspiration.  I don't really know. 

You know what struck me? 

Despite all the changes in the world in the last several years, many things don't seem to change.  Lately, bubbles have burst, and unemployment miseries are high.  The future is uncertain.  We are at war.  Some people are grieving, others are rejoicing.  Common themes:  tears, joy, children, straw. 

The well of human misery is deep.  I am always struck by this.  Perhaps there are a few people who sail through life without experiencing much hardship, doubt, or loneliness, or failure.  But I haven't met many of them.  Start listening, really listening to people, and you hear stories:  stories of all the ways people can be broken, stories of all the ways people can stumble.

And yet, I don't think this is what life is all about.  The well of human misery is deep, and that experience binds us together, but it is not who we are. 

It is the night before the night before Christmas eve.  The future is uncertain, except that in two days, ready or not, the baby will be placed in our arms, the angels choirs will sing, the shepherds will shade their eyes.  In two days the weary couple will find shelter.  In two days people will be singing Silent Night in the dark, clutching a candle.

That is who we are.  The well of human misery is deep, but this is who we really really are:  we are the ones who sing in the dark, who clutch candles, who hold the baby in our arms, and look into his eyes.