Saying ‘Yes’ To God

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Text: Acts 2.42-47; 1 Pet 2.19-25; Jn 10.1-10

Last week, I told a story about who I showed myself to be in a crucial moment. In that story, I didn’t like the person I saw that I was, and in that moment, Jesus appeared to me and guided me into a new direction. The process was unpleasant and difficult, but it ultimately led me to new life—life that is more abundant than before.I shared one particular story, but the truth is that this kind of transformation has happened to me many times. Not all have been as dramatic as seeing the Risen Christ sitting on a sidewalk. More often, they are subtle, happening in ways I don’t even realize until later. More often, they do not take place in a single moment, but over months, years, or even decades of struggle and growth. Perhaps you also can look back and see processes like this that have happened in your life. Following Jesus is a journey. Unfortunately, too often we talk about discipleship as if it were a destination; as if, once we get there, once we are baptized or once we repent or once we make some sort of decision to follow, we have arrived. The truth is, however, that discipleship is a journey, a way of traveling, not somewhere we’re traveling to. As we pick out the path we will take through this life, discipleship is the Way in which we choose where to put our feet next; and one way we describe how we do that is the metaphor of listening for Jesus’ voice.St. John believes that, because all creation has come into being through him, we all belong to Jesus and we all know his voice. He believes that something deep within us recognizes him. If that is the case, then why do so many of us not walk in the Way of Jesus? Why do humans do so many things apart from God’s will? In this story, Jesus talks about “thieves and bandits,” who slip in over the wall of the sheepfold, so to speak. They also call to the sheep to follow, and sometimes the sheep do. But why? Doesn’t he also say that they will run from strangers because they don’t know their voices?The story we get today follows immediately after the story of Jesus healing the man born blind. Remember that story? The disciples ask him who sinned—the man or his parents—to cause him to be born blind. You might also remember that, throughout that story, the man is questioned again and again by the leaders of his synagogue as to how he was healed. When he tells the truth—that Jesus healed him—they become angry and throw him out. They excommunicate him. Seems a bit drastic, doesn’t it? I wonder why they do that?In my experience, whenever people act rashly, it often boils down to either anger or fear. Sometimes, those are the same thing. I wonder what the synagogue leaders might have been afraid of from this formerly blind man? Did they worry that his story would cause other people to follow Jesus? Were they concerned about conflict arising in their congregation? Were they trying to protect the orthodox beliefs they held from this ‘heretic?’At the end of the story, as the man once again meets Jesus and sees fully who he is, Jesus notes that this man—who was born blind—can see who Jesus is, but those synagogue leaders—who had full use of their eyes—were blinded by something. Some nearby Pharisees take offense and ask Jesus, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Maybe they, too, are angry. What do they have to be angry about? Do they think that Jesus is attacking their faith? Or questioning their ability to know God? One common thread I see running through this story is that, for whatever reason, these people seem to feel threatened by Jesus and what he is doing. This happens throughout all the gospels, not just John’s. People perceive Jesus and his message as a threat, and they react with anger, and even violence. At the end of this very chapter of John’s gospel, people will pick up rocks to stone Jesus for what he says. Following Jesus’ voice is easy when things are good. It’s when the chips are down or when there is much at stake that the other voices become harder to ignore. Jesus’ voice always draws us towards the cross, and sometimes there are things in our lives we would sooner not see crucified. The way of the thieves and bandits can seem more expedient. It’s easier to respond with violence, whether physical, emotional or verbal, or to run away or manipulate people to get what we want. I wonder, if we’re being honest with ourselves, how true this may be of us. Maybe we don’t respond by picking up rocks to do harm, but how often do we respond to threats or conflict by trying to defend ourselves or our position? How often do we try to attack those who are against us by writing them off as malicious or stupid? When we feel threatened by another, which voice do we follow?Jesus reminds us that the voice of the shepherd—the voice that calls to us and which we hear in our deepest, inmost being—may be calling us to the cross, but that this is not where the journey ends. The cross is the necessary entrance to the empty tomb. The way of Jesus doesn’t call us to death, it calls us through death to new life. The other voices, though they may promise us immediate safety or victory or relief, ultimately cannot lead to life. We see it in the gospels. The people who are trying hardest to save and protect their religion and their heritage and their nation ultimately turn to the violent way of Rome—their oppressor—to accomplish what they want. As powerful as Rome is, all they can do is kill—and that’s just what they do. They kill Jesus. But that’s where Jesus shows what true power is: the power not to take life, but to give it.This is the power to which the voice of our shepherd is calling us. As hard as the path may be, it is the path of abundant life, not death, destruction and thievery. But with so many voices calling us, how are we to know which one to follow?Jesus says in this story, “I am the gate.” The gate, he says, is the only place where the people who are supposed to be in the fold enter. The letter of 1^st Peter says the same: that Jesus sets us an example to follow. Jesus not only shows us what it looks like to suffer “with an awareness of God,” he also shows us what it looks like to live in that awareness. One of the things I notice is that while the antagonists in the story—the synagogue leaders and Pharisees and chief priests and Romans—all try to tightly hold on to something and control the situation, Jesus instead lets go. He places himself at the mercy and in the power of the people and systems that are trying to silence him. The phrase he will uses in the verses following today’s gospel reading is “to lay down his life.” I don’t think he’s talking about self-destruction, or even self-sacrifice. I think he’s talking about detachment. Detachment is the idea of holding things lightly. To us comfortable people, it might sound a lot like losing—like pushing away the people or things that we care for the most—but it’s quite the opposite. Detachment is more about holding most tightly to the one thing that really matters, and letting everything else that gets in the way of that take its place on the periphery. In these stories, I see people holding tightly onto things like belief or orthodoxy, national identity or heritage, power and control. They hold those things so tightly that they can’t hear the voice of the shepherd anymore. Jesus, on the other hand, holds onto everything in his life loosely. He’s willing to let it go if need be—and that allows him to follow where God calls and do what is required and, ultimately, to rise from the grave. Detachment is less about saying “no” to the things of the world around us than it is about saying “yes” to God, and in trusting that “yes,” falling ever deeper into that “yes,” even when it is frightening. Jesus entrusts his being to this “yes,” and that is what makes him able to do what he does. That’s the invitation I hear in these stories: to trust in that “yes,” and to be willing to fall into it. Suffering and conflict are inevitable and unavoidable in life. The invitation of faith is not to seek out suffering or to endure it needlessly, as some have interpreted these passages, but to trust in God’s “yes” to the point that even suffering and conflict don’t have the power to deter us. 1^st Peter describes how Jesus conducts himself in suffering, and those attributes are a great place to start practicing, but the real power of that passage is in describing where the voice of the shepherd can lead us and how it will form us if we can let go of everything that gets in the way of our following it.During this Easter season, we are reminded where that voice is leading us, and that it has the power to deliver. The God who raised Christ from the dead is the God who leads us to new life, as well. We see that new life daily, not just once at the end of our lives. Can we—will we—trust that this new life is for us, as well?

I Have Seen Jesus

Third Sunday of Easter, Year A
Text: Acts 2.14, 36-41; 1 Pet 1.17-23; Lk 24.13-35

I have seen Jesus. In the spring of 2008, I was walking down 8^th Avenue in Manhattan, on my way to Penn Station to return from visiting Stephanie in New York. He called out to me from the sidewalk, where he was sitting in a pile of filthy clothing and belongings. I had my headphones in and my eyes down. I replied, “Sorry, I haven’t got any,” meaning spare change. Then he started yelling at me.

That’s when I saw him. I mean actually saw him. I hadn’t even really seen a human being there, at first; just a silhouette on the sidewalk, panhandler, a nuisance, and obstacle to reaching my destination. When got agitated, I took out my headphones so I could hear what he was saying. He was angry, hurt, offended. He’d seen the cross necklace I was wearing and the Jesus patch pinned to the shoulder of my hoodie, and he’d called out, “God bless you, brother.”

To which I had replied, “Sorry, I haven’t got any.”

And then my eyes were opened, the fish scales fell away, and I beheld the Son of Man sitting on his throne in all the glory of God. It wasn’t at all like the pictures. There were no rays of light, no gold or clouds or precious gems, no glittering crown, flowing hair, peaceful complexion.

At this point, maybe you’re thinking that I’m speaking figuratively. I’m not talking about, “‘Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.’” I’m being completely literal. I’m talking about Jesus, in the flesh, no doubt about it. He was made known to me in the breaking of my heart.

Haven’t you ever wondered how Cleopas and his companion could walk with Jesus for seven miles without knowing who he was? What St. Luke means when he writes, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him?” I don’t, not anymore. I know exactly what he means because it’s happened to me. I saw Jesus. But only after I walked right past him sitting on the sidewalk on 8^th Avenue.

I didn’t see him at first because I wasn’t looking. I wonder if the same was true for Cleopas and his friend. Jesus was dead, after all; why would they think to find him on the road to Emmaus? How could he possibly be there? Even if he looked exactly as they remembered him, could they have known him? Or would they have shaken their heads, thinking that the grief was making them hallucinate?

Cleopas and his friend know what happened. Jesus was a mighty prophet, condemned to death and crucified. They had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, but clearly he wasn’t. Of this they appear to be certain. I wonder if that certainty might have been what kept them from seeing.

I know that was true for me. As soon as I saw that lump of clothing and cardboard on the sidewalk, I immediately knew what I was looking at and what to expect. I knew that this man was going to ask me for money, and that he was going to use it for drugs or alcohol or something that he didn’t really need. I knew that he was going to accost me and that I didn’t want to be accosted, so I left my headphones in, cast down my eyes, and blinded myself.

I must confess to you, my friends, that this story still makes me feel sadness, remorse, and regret. I still feel the burn of shame when I think of who I showed myself to be in that moment. Walking down that sidewalk wearing my cross necklace and my Jesus patch, though I held no hammer, I crucified Jesus so I wouldn’t have to see or hear what he had to say, just like the chief priests and leaders of the people.

Peter concludes the sermon we started last week with a stark accusation: “…this Jesus whom YOU crucified.” When his audience responds, Peter immediately draws that accusation into a blessing: “The promise is for YOU”—YOU who crucified Jesus. Where we might expect condemnation or vengeance or abandonment, God instead extends the promise of repentance, of the Holy Spirit, of new life.

In that moment on 8^th Avenue, Jesus showed me not only himself, but the incredible love of God—love that was not going to let me walk away down that sidewalk without observing what I had so intentionally tried to miss; love that was not going to let me go until it blessed me, changed me, called me by a new name. That experience was painful, yes, but it changed me for the better. In the moment that I saw Jesus, I, too was crucified—and I was raised up again. In that moment that I was repented. My mind was opened and my heart was reoriented, and I received life that was more abundant than it had been before, because ever since I have been looking for Jesus, waiting to see where he might appear next.

That is why I share this story with you: not to caution you against my mistake, not to strike fear into your hearts of God’s judgment. Yes, the story makes me feel regret and shame and sadness, but it also fills me with joy and hope, with wonder and excitement. I share the story with you because it is a story of my own redemption.

Remember that Cleopas said they had hoped Jesus would be the one to ‘redeem’ Israel; I wonder what he meant by that. What were they hoping for? What did they feel Israel needed to be redeemed from? Roman occupation, perhaps? They are convinced that the actions of the chief priests and leaders of the people have obstructed and opposed what God was doing; but as Jesus walks alongside them, he opens their hearts to a new story, one in which God is actually working through the events of the last days. This idea that God can turn even evil to God’s own purposes is called redemption.

My callousness and lack of compassion on that occasion on 8^th Avenue was redeemed by God as that act of sin and became the means by which I died and was reborn. In the same way, the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus was redeemed when it became the incitement to repentance for the people listening to Peter’s sermon. Jesus’ death is redeemed by God when he is resurrected to new life. What is evil and harmful and painful does not disappear, nor is it balanced out, but God takes it and uses it as the raw material for a new creation. The Crucified One becomes the Resurrected One, still bearing the marks of the nails in his hands.

I wonder what it is we are hoping to be saved from. What are we hoping for God to redeem? What are the promises we fear we will never see fulfilled? Maybe it’s something personal, like my story: a fault or a mistake or some source of guilt. Maybe it’s something big and cosmic, like climate change or war or income inequality. Whatever it is, I wonder if sometimes we might have our eyes so firmly set on the solution we wish to see that they are kept from recognizing the redemption of God walking right alongside us.

I am here to tell you on this third Sunday in the season of Easter that I have seen the risen Christ. I want to tell you this painful and embarrassing story because my shame is my glory; because in a moment when I was—maybe not at my worst, but certainly not at my best—God came to me and saved me from my “futile ways,” from a life I didn’t want to be living, giving me a new one in its place. I share the story with you because Christ is risen, and I have seen him; and if he is risen, it means that our hopes are not dashed, our salvation is not thwarted, and God’s promise is not lost. If he is risen, it means our redemption is at hand.

Did you notice how Cleopas’ traveling companion is never named? Odd, isn’t it, to learn Cleopas’ name—even though he never appears anywhere else—but not the name of his friend? I wonder if that might be intentional. Or maybe we do already know that fellow traveler’s name. I know that, along with my friend Cleopas, I saw the risen Jesus in the last place I expected, on the road to Penn Station, and was changed by the experience. I would be willing to bet we all have. Maybe the missing name in the story is our own. Maybe it is Seth who travels with Cleopas to Emmaus, or…

Maybe each of us meets the risen Jesus again and again and again. The question is whether we have recognized him.

Beyond the Shadow of Doubt

Second Sunday of Easter, Year A
Text: Acts 2.14, 22-32; 1 Pet 1.3-9; Jn 20.19-31

Thomas has a nickname, doesn’t he? A nickname that he gets from this story. It’s not the Twin, which is the nickname that John says he already has. He’s not Pragmatic Thomas, who asks the right questions and just wants to see some evidence. 

In spite of his powerful confession, we don’t call him Confessing Thomas, do we? In John’s gospel, Thomas has the singular distinction of being the one and only person in the entire story ever to correctly identify Jesus as God’s Son AND show that he knows what that means. John’s gospel lacks Peter’s confession on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and it also lacks the Gentile centurion who, after Jesus’ death, correctly figures out who he is. Instead, standing in place of both of them, there is Thomas, exclaiming, “My lord and my God!” But we do not call him Confessing Thomas.

What do we call him? Doubting Thomas. Why is that? Why not The Twin or Pragmatic Thomas or Thomas the Confessor? Why, with all that is going on in this story—not one but two resurrection appearances by Jesus, the commissioning of the apostles, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and Thomas’ incredible confession, among others—why is “Doubting Thomas” the detail that sticks with us?

Having been in the Church as long as I have, I wonder if doubt—or skepticism—frightens us. Why else would we spend so much time comparing ourselves to the people “out there” who don’t believe as we do, wondering ‘how they could possibly get along without faith?’ What else besides fear would have us wringing our hands and shedding our tears over spouses and children who have left the Church behind?

I wonder if we use this story of “Doubting Thomas” as a kind of cautionary tale to warn against doubt. Maybe in this story, we can let Thomas do our doubting for us so that, when he is ‘corrected,’ we can stand with the disciples and pretend that we were certain all along, as they were. Maybe when Thomas is brought back into the fold, we can imagine all the other “doubters” out there being brought back in, as well, and that gives us some comfort.

I can’t help but notice, though, that if that’s what we’re asking this story to do, it fails us. Jesus never scolds or reprimands Thomas for doubting; in fact, he indulges him. Jesus comes back a second time specifically to give him what he says he needs to believe: the opportunity to put his hands in Jesus’ wounds.

In fact, I wonder if Thomas could have made his incredible confession without having first doubted. All the others were there the first time, but none of them shows the kind of faith Thomas does at the end. If anything, I wonder if maybe this is a story in praise of doubt. Maybe doubt is something we in the Church ought to celebrate and encourage, trusting that it is a resource God can use to great effect, as with Thomas.

I wonder if we might be so afraid of Thomas’ “doubt” that we miss the truly amazing thing that is happening to Thomas—and to all the disciples. In order to see that, I want to draw your attention to three words in this story—three words that, I think, might all be describing the same thing.

The first is what Jesus says when he somehow comes in despite the locked door. He says, “Peace be with you.” In Aramaic or Hebrew, the word he used would have been shalom. Now, “shalom” is a typical greeting in Hebrew or Aramaic. To this day, people in Jews still say “shalom” to one another as a way of saying “hello.”

But our storyteller, St. John, is not a reporter or an ethnographer. He’s a poet and a theologian. He chooses each and every word he uses very carefully. When he says that Jesus, in his first appearance after the resurrection to his friends, says “shalom,” he means more than “hello.” In Hebrew, shalom means peace, but it’s much more than the English word peace. Shalom is not just the absence of conflict, or an easy calm; it is wholeness, it is wellness, it is perfection.

Shalom is a puzzle with the last piece fitted into place. Shalom is the moment when you greet your family in the airport after a long separation. Shalom is the sense that, to borrow from Robert Browning, “God’s in his heaven, and all’s right with the world.” Shalom is the word used to describe how everything will be when Messiah returns and God’s kingdom is established. This is what Jesus wishes his friends.

The second word comes after Thomas’ confession, when Jesus points out to him that others (like us) have not seen, and yet have come to believe. “Blessed are they,” Jesus says. Once again, the English word falls short. The Greek word is makarios, and it means something like blessed, or happy, or fortunate, but also something beyond each of those. Blessedness and happiness and fortune or luck all have very specific meanings in English, but this word covers parts of them all. It’s the same word Jesus uses in the Beatitudes when he says, “Blessed are the poor.”

The third word comes from the narrator’s explanation of why he’s sharing these stories with us. St. John says that his explicit purpose in recording this and all the other stories is so that, “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.”

There are two Greek words for “life.” You already know them both, even if you don’t know any Greek. The first is bios, which is the root of our word biology. Bios refers to the mechanics of being alive. To have bios means that your heart is pumping, your lungs are breathing, and your synapses are firing. The other word—the one St. John uses—is zoe. Zoe is the root of the words “zoology” and “zoo,” and it refers to life in the sense of “life on earth” or “to be fully alive” as opposed to merely surviving. This is the word Jesus uses when he says in Chapter 10, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”

Each of these three words—shalom, makarios and zoe—are hard to define by themselves. They sort of exist in the crevices between our English words. But together, I wonder if they define one another—and what happens to Thomas and his friends in this story.

At the beginning of this story, Thomas—like his friends—is grief-stricken and afraid. Maybe he’s angry, too. I wonder if there might be some anger in his declaration that he will not believe. But by the end, he is falling down in worship. I don’t just hear joy or relief or excitement in his confession; there’s something more there. I think something in Thomas has changed. I wonder if, at some level, the man who exclaims “My lord and my God!” is a different man than the one who says, “I will not believe.”

There is a word that captures what I think Jesus and John are talking about. When we put shalom and makarios and zoe together, I think what we end up with is resurrection.

Because, you see, Easter isn’t just about the resurrection of a single person—not even if that person is the Son of God. Easter is about the resurrectionof all humankind, all creation. The Greek word can mean “uplifting,” causing a “change for the better.” Easter is the uplifting of all creation, just as Thomas is uplifted. In the story, Thomas receives new life and John hopes that, by hearing this story, we, too, might become makarios like him, that we might receive God’s shalom and experience zoe that is abundant and eternal.

What might that look like? How does this story change us? What promise does it hold for us? For others? For creation? I have to believe it is a promise that transcends just the promise of life after death, that it includes some sort of transformation now, like the transformation that Thomas experiences.

Doubt may be the least interesting part of this story; and yet, I wonder if we have locked ourselves into one way of hearing or understanding it for fear of that doubt. But this is Easter. Even if we have the doors of our minds and hearts barred for fear of doubt, it won’t stop Jesus from coming in, inviting us, too, to put our fingers in the nail marks on his hands and our hands in the spear wound in his side; inviting us to see that our fear can’t prevent him from sharing his zoe with us, blessing us with markarios and shalom. I believe we tell this story to remind ourselves that the same resurrection that Thomas experiences in the risen Christ is for us, too.

Infinite Love, Poured Out Infinitely

Easter Morning, Year A
Text: Acts 10.34-43; Col 3.1-4; Mt 28.1-10

The summer of 2004, I think, I was a camp counselor at a Lutheran bible camp in Idaho. One week, I had this kid in my group, whose name is lost to the sands of time. We’ll call him Danny. Danny was going into 5^th grade, and had never been away from home overnight—and here he is at this week-long, sleep-away Bible camp. The poor kid was beside himself with homesickness. He would just start crying at the drop of a hat, pleading with me to call his folks and have them come pick him up.

Drop off was Sunday. I don’t remember how we made it through Sunday, but we did. Monday was not much better. By Tuesday, he was participating more with the rest of the group, but he’d still just all-of-a-sudden start bawling and begging to go home.

I tried listening to his fears. I tried being hopeful and getting him to think about what fun this would be. I tried redirecting him to something he enjoyed. He’d be having a great time one moment, and the next he’d start crying again. I’d say, “Look, you’re having fun!” and he’d just say, “I want to go home!”

By Wednesday I was out of ideas. By Wednesday, when he’d get sad, I’d get angry. I actually yelled at him! I yelled at a kid who was crying for his parents. Looking back, I can see now that I wasn’t angry at him, but at myself, because I couldn’t fix what was wrong. I’d said all the right things, taken all the correct steps, and I couldn’t make him stop being homesick, and that made me angry. Isn’t that silly? To be angry at a child for missing his parents? But in that moment, when I lacked control over the situation I believed it was my job to control, I was angry, probably because I was scared, because I didn’t know what to do.

That’s what I see in the story of Holy Week. I see a bunch of people who believe it is their job to be in control—camp counselors for a nation, you might say—and when they lose control, they get angry, probably because they are scared. You can see it in how they react. They not only kill Jesus, they seal him in a tomb and set guards to watch it. They set guards on a corpse! They are trying to regain control. It all made sense in the moment, but looking back, it’s about as absurd as yelling at a homesick child.

By contrast, though, notice what God does in the story. Instead of trying to control the situation, Jesus always chooses to act in love, even when he has to relinquish control. It seems like others are setting the course of the events, but we find out today that despite everything they have done, God still owns the story.

Anger, fear, violence, force, compulsion… these are the tools we use in the story, and they all fail to stand up to the calm and consistent love that God continually shows throughout. St. Matthew uses the dramatic scene of the earth shaking, the stone rolling away, and the living guards dropping like stones to paint that picture for us. When faced with the power of heaven—the power of love—every power we prefer to wield falls short. One simply cannot order a child out of homesickness.

It’s obvious to me now what I should have done back then in 2004. I know now that there’s no way to take away what Danny was feeling—but I could have just loved him through it. He was fine by the end of the week, of course; he had a blast Thursday and Friday and was excited to come back the next summer—go figure! Had I trusted that would happen and given up my need to be in control of the situation, maybe I could have figured out what he really needed in his fear, which was probably someone to listen to him and help him feel safe and secure.

Julian of Norwich, when she was a young woman, had a near-death experience, during which she received several visions. Later in life, she recounted these visions, and what she learned from them. In one vision, she observed that everything that exists “lasts and always will because God loves it… [E]verything has being through the love of God…God made it, God loves it, and God preserves it,” she writes.[i] In other words, it is only by the continual love of God poured out that everything in existence continues to be.

That is what Easter is: it is a reminder of God’s infinite love, poured out for us infinitely. It is that love that creates us, and that love that sustains us—something we are powerless to do for ourselves. It is that love that renews us and helps us grow, and at our life’s end, it is that love that gives us hope for life that is made new in ways previously unimagined.

I have no words for this love, and so instead, I’d like to invite you to try something with me. I’d like to invite you into a moment of contemplation of this love.[ii]

Sit up straight, with your feet flat on the floor (if you’re able), and fold your hands in your lap. You want to be relaxed and comfortable, but alert. Next, we bow. Shunryu Suzuki says that when we bow, we give ourselves up; we relinquish control. Before we can meet the risen Christ, we have to first let go of the notion that we are in control; so instead, we set our minds on things above, rather than the things of earth, as Paul says. We bow and give ourselves up in communal gratitude for the miracle of being here, alive, together, in this moment.

Sitting still, straight, with our eyes closed or lowered to the ground, we begin by simply becoming aware of our breathing. Breathe in, breathe out. Slow, deep, natural breaths.

(Pause and breathe)

Now, with each inhalation, listen sincerely to God’s silent, “I love you,” God giving Godself away to us, whole and complete, in each breath, sustaining us every moment in love, just like Julian saw. Each breath in is the infinity of God pouring itself for us infinitely, in the self-donating gift of this inhalation.

(Pause and breathe)

Then, with each exhalation, let go of yourself and exhale yourself in love, a self-donating act, giving back the gift God has given. With each exhalation, give yourself to this infinite love that, with the next inhalation, is infinitely giving Itself back to you, for in the reciprocity of love, our destiny—creation’s destiny—is fulfilled. Inhaling. Exhaling. Receiving. Relinquishing. Breathing this love.

(Pause and breathe)

Become aware of what arises in you. Maybe it’s something troubling and burdensome, either in your own life or in the life of someone you love. Maybe it’s a source of fear, or a source of confusion, or a source of abandonment; something that is burdensome to your heart, an obstacle to loving yourself, or someone else, or God.

(Pause and breathe)

As you inhale, inhale God’s self-donating love, loving you through and through and through and through, burden and all, finding no more hindrance to being infinitely in love with you than the stone and the guards at Jesus’ tomb.

(Pause and breathe)

And with each exhalation, exhale yourself, giving yourself in love—burden and all—to this Love loving you, burden and all, preserving you in your being, unexplainably, forever.

(Pause and breathe)

And end by asking God for the grace of returning to this place of love over and over and over again, until, little by little, it begins to saturate everything else in your life, and you start to see everything else floating on this tide of love poured out, poured in, endlessly.

---

[i] Julian of Norwich “Showings” (long text), Ch 5. The Classics of Western Spirituality, Richard J. Payne, ed. Paulist Press, 1978. pp 130-131

[ii] Adapted from James Finley, “I Love You Prayer,” Center for Action and Contemplation, Jan 24, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CW8jYewLLA&t=2s

God’s Love Made Flesh

Maundy Thursday
Texts: John 13: 1-17, 31b-35

What would you do if you knew it was your last night on earth? Would you try to check something big off your bucket list? Would you want to spend it alone, or surrounded by friends and family? Would you think about all that you had done in your life, or all that you had failed to do?

I wonder what would happen if, on your last night on earth, someone showed up at your door who you didn’t want to see. Maybe it’s a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon missionary. Maybe it’s someone from your neighbor’s pest control company trying to sell you service. Maybe it’s the person who wronged you in the 7^th grade. Maybe it’s the person with whom your spouse had an affair. What would you do? Would you turn them away? Invite them in? Would you bury the hatchet, or would you let them have it?

St. John says that Jesus knew this was his last night, that “his hour had come to depart this world and go to the Father.” What do you suppose might have been going through his head? What do you suppose his friends noticed about him that evening? Did he seem cheerful? Somber? Manic? Calm? Do you think they had any inkling that something was up, that he knew something they didn’t?

Because he does, doesn’t he? He knows what comes next: the arrest, the trial, the execution. He knows that one of his closest friends, gathered with him that night, will betray him to the people who want to kill him. And what does Jesus do with this information? “Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going to God, [Jesus] got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”

In the end, it is not the abandonment of his friends, not the denial of Peter, not even the betrayal of Judas that determines what he does next. Although he feels it, he does not let the heartbreak, the disappointment, and even the evil he is about to face set his course. Instead, he washes the feet of James and John, of Andrew and Nathaniel, Thaddeus and Bartholomew. But not just their feet. He also washes the feet of Peter—and the feet of Judas.

I can guess what was going through the disciples’ heads. Peter seems to be very uncomfortable about this whole thing. “Lord, you will never wash my feet!” Why do you suppose he says that? I would imagine we all have some idea why he’s so resistant. Few of us ever participate in the Maundy Thursday foot washing. Is it because we think feet are disgusting? Does it have to do with making ourselves vulnerable, allowing someone to see and touch—and smell—a part of our bodies that we normally keep hidden away? Is it the thought of letting one or our neighbors do something so menial for us?

I wonder if that might be why Jesus chose this as a sign of love. I wonder if he enjoyed the task, or if he was as repulsed as they were. Do you think he was moved to tears by the beauty of the moment? Was he grateful for the chance to show them how much he loved them? Was he resentful that none of them would really understand what he was doing, or did he pity them for it?

What do you suppose he felt when he came to Judas’ feet? Anger? Sorrow? Disappointment? Fear? Did he rush through the task a little bit quicker with Judas, or did he linger? Did he hope that, just maybe, his overt and embarrassing act of love might sway Judas’ determination? The story doesn’t tell us any of those things, but we can guess, because we are human, like Jesus, and I think that this key to understanding this story. We are all capable of feeling and imagining everything that each of those people felt that night, even Jesus.

What might seem alien to us is Jesus’ choice to show such love in the face of all that was about to happen. He chooses to wash his disciples’ feet even though he knew they would desert him. He chooses to wash Peter’s feet, and Judas’ feet, not to “heap burning coals on their heads,” as St. Paul suggests, but to show them that, no matter what they did or didn’t do, this love would always bind them together; that it was their part or share in one another. They would forever belong to him, and he to them. “Having loved his own who were in the world,” John tells us, “[Jesus] loved them to the end.” To the end of what? To the end of his life? To the end of his strength and ability? To the end of his being? To the end of the world?

Why does he choose to do this? Why, in this moment, when his hour has come to depart, does he choose to show extravagant kindness to those who do not deserve it? Why, at the end, does he choose to act in love rather than anger or fear or sorrow or any of the other things he might be feeling?

Here is St. John’s answer: Jesus chooses love because he knows that he had come from God, and that he was going to God. In other words, he knows who he is, and he knows who God is. He knows God is love, and that he is also love—God’s Love made flesh.

Here’s the thing though: when St. John says that Jesus is God’s Word—God’s Love—made flesh, I don’t think he means that Jesus is some mystical divine attribute somehow magically transformed into a human person. I think he means that Jesus is a human person who knows the truth of who he is: that God, in love, formed and shaped him and breathed life into him. He knows that this Love gives him life, and the life it has given him is about to return to that Love. He knows that in returning to that Love, life is renewed, given new form, because Love is endless.

When Jesus puts his robe back on and sits at the table, he asks, “Do you know what I have done to you?” Do you? I don’t; not really. What I do know is that in the washing of feet and the giving of his body and blood, Jesus has not only shown himself to be the Love of God made flesh, he’s shown us that so are we: we are also God’s Love made flesh. We are also God’s body and blood—God’s life—given for the life of the world.

We are—each of us—daughters and sons and children of God, in the very same way as our brother Jesus. He shows us with his whole life that to be loved fully and to love fully is to be truly human; and to be truly human is to be divine, because humanity—created in and by and for God’s love—is created in God’s image.

 The only difference between him and us is that he believed that and entrusted his life to that belief. Very often, we don’t—or can’t—believe such a thing. We have a different image of humanity: one in which people must be deserving of love; one in which life is finite and fragile; one in which rather than sharing our selves with one another, we hoard and protect them. And so, we abandon God’s Way, we deny God’s Truth, we betray God’s Life; and the lie we believe instead becomes our way, our truth, our life.

When Jesus issues his “commandment” to love one another, I don’t think he’s ordering us to have affection for one another, or to deny the feelings of anger or sorrow we sometimes cause one another or ignore the harm we do to ourselves or one another. In fact, I wonder if one thing this story shows us is that there might be room within love for all these things: for fear, gratitude, pity, sorrow, disappointment, even anger.

I wonder if, with his commandment, he’s inviting us in the midst of all those things to choose love, because love—God’s Love—is who we really are. I wonder if he is inviting us to experience for ourselves how this Love—this complex, messy, self-sharing, divine Love—is the truest definition of humanity, rather than the lie we’ve come to believe instead.

My friends, if you hear but one thing this night, hear this: this love is for you. It is given for you, shed for you; it is constantly broken and killed and raised to new life for you, so that you may know that this is the Love from which you have come, and to which you are returning—day after day after day, always returning. This Love is for you because it is who you are; it is the image in which you were created, the form and purpose you bear.

Remembering this, if you knew this was your last night on earth, if you knew you were about to return to the Love from which you came, what would you want to be the last thing you did?

Trusting that this is not your last night on earth, I wonder what might be stopping you?