Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Here I Am

Readings: Acts 2:14a, 22-32, Psalm 16, 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31




What was different about the risen Christ?


We can infer from the gospels that there was something unfamiliar in his appearance. Last week, Mary Magdalene met him outside of his tomb and mistook him for a gardener. Not until he spoke did she recognize him, and then came the joy of being unexpectedly reunited.

This week we recall his encounter with the disciples, who similarly do not seem to know him at first. He greets them, but not until he offers a sign—the wounds of crucifixion—does the light of recognition dawn on them.

Jesus walks about in anonymity. A resurrected messiah, we know, would have been wild news—people would have wanted to see him. Certainly the crowds would have exceeded those he drew before, even when performing miracles. But the risen Christ is obscure.

Even Thomas, an apostle, does not believe the news. His brethren assure him, in their excitement, that they have seen Jesus, that he has been among them again; but Thomas scoffs, saying, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe" (John 20:25).

This seems a gruesome request. But then, Thomas has been asked to wrestle with an unprecedented idea: that death might be reversed.

Jesus is understanding; he responds to Thomas’s insistence upon tactile proof. Put your hand in my side, if you must; he says. It’s me. And Thomas knows him.

There’s something different about the risen Jesus. Those who walked with him before do not know him until he declares himself. They do not doubt him once he is revealed; but they are hapless until the anonymity is peeled back.

This seems, to me, to be such a powerful injunction to be kind to those who walk among us. It is disquieting that the apostles saw him without seeing him; if they, who had known him in life, were so sightless before him in his new life, how are we, who see him only in the gospels, to recognize him?

Jesus said, “What you do to the least of those among you, you do to me.” He suggested he could be sought in the meek, in those brought low by their circumstances, in the hungry and in the searching. In the eyes which we often avoid meeting, there he is. In the lonely corners we do not visit, he waits.

I read a story this week about a young girl who was taunted and physically abused in public because of her appearance. This young twenties person was shifting between genders, and something about that piqued her torturers; they decided to assault her. To teach her a lesson? To put her “in her place”? Such acts defy reason. We are so illogically prompted to be cruel to one another.

The mystery of Easter is this: Jesus was crucified. Jesus is risen. Jesus walks the world again. We do not see him when we look for the man who healed, who walked on water, who fed the masses and defied Roman authority; that figure has departed us forever.

But what about those from whom we shrink? In the teenager reviled by their peers for daring to be who they are internally compelled to be: can’t we look for Christ there? In the face of the girl who was beaten, do we sense a glimmer of recognition?

The lesson of this season is that God does not abandon us to our fallible flesh. The world, post-resurrection, is a dress rehearsal, is an unset stage awaiting the last revelation. What we do in this moment has bearing on that; we have to ready our eyes to see.

Through our faith, we anticipate clear sight: “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). By acts of loving kindness to those we encounter, we attest our belief.

Hands which need to feel torn flesh belong to those who have not yet seen. Hands which reach out to greet those who seem, at first, just strangers, trust in the resurrection. We give our love to others knowing that it will someday come back to us, that Christ will someday from them say, “Here I am.”

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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

"I have seen the Lord!"

Readings: Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-18, Matthew 28:1-10




Some two millennia ago, Mary of Magdala took a Sunday morning stroll to the tomb of her rabbi, the man they’d called “messiah”.


She walked through the streets of Jerusalem before the sun rose, John tells us, to get there. Maybe grief had jarred her from her sleep; maybe she’d never managed to capture sleep at all. The gospels don’t offer many details. We only know that she was suffering from the loss of him, as were all the disciples.

Perhaps she wanted to pay her respects. Perhaps she wanted to sit outside the tomb and question God: Why? Whatever her aim, she found that the bleak calm of the pre-dawn was shattered when she discovered that the stone which was used to seal the tomb had been rolled back.

The Gospel of John suggests that she ran to the disciples to beg their advice and supervision before proceeding. Other gospels present the moment differently: she and a companion are met by an angel alone, without the male disciples intervening. Whatever the case, Mary found herself before the open and empty tomb, and the whys? in her head were forced to morph.

It is Mary who is first privy to the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. The gospels, again, present the miracle with variations: in John, she encounters the risen Jesus but does not recognize him; in Matthew, an angel announces his resurrection and fills her with fear.

And then she experiences the first post-resurrection dawn: Jesus speaks her name, and she knows. Or: Jesus stops her flight, greets her, and she knows. Light enters earth once again.

This is the wonder of Easter. On the Friday of Jesus’ death, the hopes of all the apostles seemed hopelessly disappointed. Messiahs were not supposed to die; they were supposed to radically, politically and noticeably transform the earth. Yet he left in his wake a still tumultuous Rome, a world still plagued by persecutions and injustices, and followers who were, quite frankly, stumped.

And yet the deed had been done; Christ, the anointed one, had initiated a period of new life, a new kingdom of God. Mary of Magdala was the first to be gifted with a viewing of it that Sunday morning; each Easter subsequent, our eyes have searched for it, too. We wake up and wait for God to call our names. We hold our breaths, anticipating Jesus’ coming in glory.

How far are we beyond Rome? Our kingdoms still disappoint us. This Easter morning, peace will elude so many people. As war rages on in Libya, as shots continue to ring out in the direction of Syrian and Yemenis protestors, peace will seem a distant prospect. Japan will still be struggling to recover from a devastating earthquake and nuclear leaks. Egyptian women will still be wondering how it is that they, though they thought they’d secured their freedom by participating, frequently at the fore, in this year’s protests, have once again been relegated to second class citizens. Our gulf will still be polluted and the people who depend on it will remain out of work. Cubans will have traded dictators. Tibet will still not be free.

The earth will spin to face the sun on Sunday, and light will fall across the regions slowly, and so many will not know it as peace-filled dawn. So many will not see immediate evidence of the kingdom of God.

And yet, the mystery for us is, each year in succession: he has risen. Indeed, Christ has risen. Death was defied. Something new began.

We are promised peace in God’s kingdom, and are still waiting for clarification on how that will come. Two thousand years have taught us, as three days taught the disciples, that there will be nothing conventional or predictable about God’s ultimate gift. We do not get peace here because he died; we are charged to work for it because of his precepts. Our wars and troubles are, to the degree which we create them, our responsibility; our souls are his.

We come to church together on Easter to celebrate Jesus’ new life. We come anticipating new life in Jesus. We gather in the pews because a new light has dawned. We wait for the risen God to call our names. We trust that he will.


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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Let Us Rejoice

Readings: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Matthew 21:1-11



I’ve done some meditation lately around the prodigal son. His story is an interesting one: blessed with an abundance of wealth, he foregoes prudence and elects to gallivant about, indulging every whim and, promptly, depleting his gifts. He winds up destitute, alone, and far from home.


This parable of Jesus’s has always been a source of hope to me. The prodigal assesses his situation and elects to return home. He cannot possibly do so with much expectation; in fact, when he arrives at his father’s house, he begs even a lowly position. But his father, overjoyed to see him again, embraces him, draws him in, and throws a banquet in his honor.

My door is always open, I have imagined Jesus saying. Though we exhaust years resisting God’s love and generosity, it remains always available to us, if we but ask. Home in God is, indeed, a radical kind of home.

It strikes me this week how different Jesus’ return to his own earthly home was. By the time he returns to Jerusalem, he and the apostles have been all around Israel, they witnessing his great acts, he performing miracles and teaching. His fame precedes him into the city. He may have had every reason to expect a grand reception. And, indeed, he initially receives one; the gospel tells us that the crowd spread their cloaks on the road before him, made his path laden with palm branches, and exalted him as he rode in. These reverent acts seem much deserved; unlike the prodigal, he has not embarrassed his father’s household. Rather, he has made its name great.

And yet, for Jesus there is no fatted calf. There is no banquet. There is no happily ever after. Shortly after his arrival in the city, he is betrayed and murdered. The results of that have reverberated through our theology down through the ages.

One could claim that my distress over considering these stories side by side arises only because I’ve misunderstood them. The moral of the parable of the prodigal son is not that we deserve to be welcomed home no matter our transgressions; it is rather a story that praises the son’s eventual humility, the father’s boundless generosity and which cautions against the brother’s jealousy. Obviously, Jesus’ story is neither a painful lesson that, no matter how boundless our virtues, we are not guaranteed an easy go; his story, theologians have taught us, relates more to incarnation, atonement, and grace.

All of this is true. But beyond these truths are internalized readings; and, in connection to the approaching holidays, I can’t help but think about how both stories have much to say about the fragile nature of returning home.

We are, obviously, expected to be more like the father of the prodigal than we are to be like the Roman community which demanded the homecoming Jesus’ crucifixion. The scriptures enjoin us to maintain an open door, as well as an open heart. Jesus’ spirit is a generous one; he operates in a mode of grace. If we wish to call ourselves Christ-like, so too must we be generous, and channels for grace.

But these stories also have something to say about what we expect from one another. To enter a former home, or the home of another, cloaked in deference belies our equal dignity as co-humans; it inhibits hospitality for all involved, which does damage that requires correcting. If we are invited in to another’s space, it seems best to enter with an open spirit, relegating to back burners questions of whether we have earned such hospitality. Love, under heaven, is something that perhaps none of us have earned, but which the story of Jesus tells us we all deserve.

And yet the other side of this is that temperance is still required. To bustle back home with an inflated sense of self, expecting to have our path marked by flower petals and bordered by grateful hosts, is as irresponsible as instantaneous deference. It leaves us vulnerable to volatile situations which humility might illuminate; it, too is a barrier to hospitality. Learning this lesson does not imply blaming Christ for his fate; the gospels tell us that Jesus’s knowledge transcended our own, and so he did not enter Jerusalem, or any situation, unaware of impending situations. We receive Jesus’ grace but not his foresight. What he could anticipate, we cannot.

What both of these stories lack, and which makes homecoming, in theory, so worthwhile, is mutual trust. The prodigal, because he has not earned a warm reception, does not trust his father to give it; the Roman community, though Jesus has proven himself worthy of a hearty welcome, refuses to trust in his goodness enough to get it. While the prodigal son has the fortunate surprise of being granted unearned and conditionless love, Jesus falls victim to Rome’s suspicion. Their stories are extremes; but they also highlight the dangers of refusing intimate connections with others.

And so I offer an Easter prayer—for all of us, wherever we may find ourselves: may our tables be open, may access to them be freely and lovingly offered. And may our entrance into other circles be easy; may we find others as welcoming as we strive to be. May we exemplify grace. In no way can I imagine more thorough rejoicing; how better to convey our gladness in God.

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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

You Shall Live

Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45



It’s like a scene out of H.G. Wells. An army long reduced to dust is reconstituted at the mere utterance of a prophet. From ashes they rise; bone fuses to bone, sinew follows atop, until the former fleshly figure is restored. At the command of a deity, winds rush through them, and again they are animate.


Our wonder redoubles: this is not science fiction, but the vision of a prophet. It is not a vision of what could be if the laws of nature could be subdued or suspended; this is a real look at what God can do, in any here and now.

What Ezekiel speaks of is not possible; it strains credulity. That belief in the word of God alone could reverse the effects of death seems a stretch to us, in a world so used to the horrors of death that news of it becomes almost banal. God raises the dead? Fine. Then where is the hand of the Divine upon communities in Haiti, in Japan, in Libya?

Did God not make promises through Ezekiel that God’s yet to make good on? Did Ezekiel not channel the Divine’s words: “‘and you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,’ says the LORD”? We wait to see it; we are impatient.

But perhaps we look forward to the wrong miracle. In Ezekiel, the vision is of the world’s graves opening at once, and of all humankind marching forth animate once more, revitalized by God. And that would be a sight, indeed. Yet the miracle foreseen is not of the many called forth; the miracle anticipated is God’s undoing of what we thought to be final, and irreversible. The unspoken awe in Ezekiel is of a God who can, out of the bleakest conditions, draw forth perfect life.

“You’ll know that I am God,” the Divine says in Ezekiel. Not when whole armies of our forbearers literally march forward into Israel, but when death, which still strikes us as the most final and irreversible of human conditions, is, despite expectations, reversed.

In John, this death is literal: Jesus raises Lazarus from the grave. Lazarus shakes of his shroud and returns to his daily activities. The ground doesn’t shake beneath the footfalls of all Israel’s deceased. Only one man is brought forth. One. Neither is he crowned in glory or given a place of prominence; he simply returns to the life he lived before.

Yet for his family, and for those who witness the miracle, this is all that is needed. Jesus reverses their despair; he fills their hearts with hope. God can repair anything; God can transform what is dire into what is grand, and instantaneously.

We want a sign; we want to know God’s greatness as Lazarus did, as Ezekiel expected to. Perhaps we yearn for the restitution of those cut bitterly down: we pray for God to take away the realities of war, and of natural disasters. Or maybe we want the gospel’s miracle: we want to keep our one, want just one interjection of God’s hand in our affairs to show us that our prayers are heard.

Who are the Lazarus’s of our world? Before our vision flit innumerable figures who seem caught up in the flow of fate, and on whose behalf we hope for interjection. Who is raised from the world’s worst ‘deaths’? Whose situations are transformed?

My own prayer this week is that Iman al-Obeidi will receive a little Lazarus treatment. Her story already defies what is standard. She’s cried out in Libya, naming and denouncing unspeakable violence visited upon her by a few who manipulated power. Her voice demands morality, and righteousness, and justice, out of an environment which otherwise seems to be, currently, an ethical vacuum.

Her story, amid the turmoil in Libya, might have been quickly hushed up, or led to her own punishment or shaming. Yet she has not been hustled away; she continues to cry out, she continues to fight against her own dehumanization, and she pushes for freedom.

Iman al-Obeidi is in a tug-of-war, caught between distressed and unforgiving social mores, and the dignity and resuscitation she knows she is inherently owed. So far, impossibly, her humanity is winning out: she has not slipped from the world’s sight into darkness, but continues to loudly and visibly appeal on her own behalf.

She has already survived the unspeakable; she persists despite continual indignities visited upon her by public officials. We can extend our empathy in human solidarity: her last days have been a nightmare, and we know that what she’s been through cuts many people off from who they used to be. Such things form gulfs that seem irreparable. Iman has, so far, resisted such ends.

She fights for life. She struggles to regain herself—the Iman she knew before, a home and family from which she is temporarily kept apart, the basic, the everyday. She is warring for the right to be. And I join so many others in praying that she wins.

It looks as though she might. And if she succeeds—if she finds her way home, if she escapes social reduction—we can see God in that. We may count it as an answered prayer. Flesh back on bones, or normalcy back to those who’s boundaries have been trespassed; our prayers ask for the actualization of seeming impossibilities.

Our readings tell us that prayers are heard; they assure us that God can do anything. But they also reveal the confounding nature of miracles, in that what is miraculous is usually unexpected. We cannot dictate how God works in the world. We can only know that God does work in it, and that when the Divine moves, the results are guaranteed to astound.

Heaven has always managed to put Wells, and the best of his colleagues, to shame. We await the next installment of the saga; our breath is baited, our eyes strain to see.

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