Easter 2012

Night has fallen in Tallahassee and I am now finally getting around to posting for this Easter.  One might expect me to expound upon the Gospel lesson.  But honestly, I have often felt that there is so little more that any of us can add to the news of Christ's resurrection other than a simple: Wow!   I realize priests feel compelled to preach a much more expansive sermon than just saying, "Wow!"   There are people out there in the congregation who they likely will not see again, or may see again at Christmas Eve.  And so there is pressure to come up with more than, "Wow!"

I just hope everyone does take a moment to sit in quiet and consider the amazing awesomeness of what happens on Easter.  Death was not the finality for Christ.  He conquered death, too.  And in rising, his earthly compatriots, both men and women, are stymied and don't recognize him until he speaks their name, or breaks the bread, or does some other "sign" that let's them see him.  In my own mind, I imagine that the Christ that emerges from the grave does not look the same as the one who died on the cross.  I imagine that the risen Christ may appear stronger, bigger, perhaps not as world-weary.   I would think he would have to be as the final act of saying, "Nothing, absolutely nothing, no amount of hatred, and violence, and jealousy, and stupidity, can crush this life force!"  Again, I am brought back to, "Wow!"

For me, in yet another odd twist in God's whacky outreach to me, I found myself listening carefully to the words of St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians:

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.  For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them--though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.--1Cor.15:8-10

This sounds like me.  I did not persecute the church of God in the same way that Paul did.  I certainly never went around rounding up Christians so we could stone them to death.  But I have stood outside the gate of the church in the past, and spit and cursed at it.  And I have labeled all Christians homophobic hypocrites. In this way, I have attacked the Body of Christ.  But like Paul, I had my own encounter with God that pulled me out of darkness and into the light in a way at a time that I never, ever expected it to happen.  It wasn't anything I sought intentionally.  In fact, I was resistant.  But the day that I was told, in no uncertain terms, to "Show up!" was the day that I did what was the unthinkable in my mind: I started attending church again on a regular basis. And I discovered the liberation afforded through the grace of God and the redemptive power of Christ.   Even for me, the queer Christian.  Given the history of how the church has treated my kind (and, in some quarters, we're still rejected), coming home to God is no small thing!

This Easter has not felt as exhilarating as others in the past.  But it feels incredibly solid in my conviction that Christ counts me as one of the beloved.   The fact that I have not deserted Him in the face of opposition , marginalization, and human rejection is truly amazing grace.  He is risen... not just in the re-telling of the story but in the hearts and minds of many who others would toss aside.  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Alleluia!

The Light of Christ: An Exodus

As Holy Saturdays go, this was a most unusual one for me.  For the first time in my experience, Passover and Good Friday collided on the same night.  And because I was serving at St. John’s, and because it was a Friday, and because my partner and I were just too worn out, we decided to forego the Seder on Friday night… and instead celebrated it this afternoon, a few hours ahead of the Great Vigil of Easter.

I’m glad we made that decision.   Because it helped to give even greater meaning for me as I made my transition from our Seder plate at home to the gathering at the table at St. John’s. 

This period of Lent has certainly been intense for me… especially the last week.  The Jewish tradition of dipping bitter herbs into salt water to remember the tears and turmoil of the Israelites in Egypt felt real to me.  I have shed so many tears in the past ten days, I’m not sure I have any left.  I have felt very close to Christ, too.   I have experienced the pain of living in Love and truth, and finding that I am scorned and rejected by some of the very people who should know better.   Christ’s journey and his mission to bring freedom to the oppressed are as ancient as his ancestor Moses leading the Israelites through the waters of the Sea of Reeds to escape slavery.  In the same way that Moses was delivering his people from the oppression of the Egyptians, Christ’s mission was to bring all people out of their prisons of fear, prejudice, and hatred and deliver them to Love.  What makes Christ’s story the amazing, remarkable and incredible moment that it is comes with the arrival of Easter and the realization that the brutal death he endured on the cross was not the last word.  Christ beat death, too.  And that takes my breath away.

As I read the Exodus portion assigned at the Great Vigil of Easter this evening, I was drawn to the statement of Moses to the Israelites, who were scared and complaining about this seemingly fool-hearty idea of escaping from Egypt.  Moses tells them not to be afraid, stand firm and keep their eyes on God:

“…for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.  The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

In my recent experience, I have felt myself stuck in Egypt.  And like the Israelites, I have been feeling scared.  I have not known what is next for me in my journey with God, but I know that I have had a stumbling block put in my path that is seemingly impossible to get around.  And it is impossible, if I believe that I am the one who will remove that stumbling block. 

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still."

As I think about my own journey, it is in those moments when I try to break up the stumbling block before me that I find myself thrashing and becoming embittered.  This is part of what led to my self-imposed exile from the Episcopal Church in the early 1990s.  The stumbling block became the "thing" that I paid attention to, and not God.  It was when God became the center and focus and reason for my being... in church and in the world... that my journey could begin in earnest.

I was reminded of that again this evening with the reciting of our Baptismal Covenant.  Nothing we do in service of Christ and for the sake of sharing the Good News can be done without God's help.   This includes warding off the Tempter's desire to pull us away from God.   The only way to move out of darkness is to follow the light.

Christ is providing that exodus out of pain, suffering, oppression and degradation.  When we trust in that, then his mission will be complete.



Good Friday: Walk in Love

 H/T Rev. Lee F. Shafer, Grace Episcopal Church, Anniston, AL

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”--Lamentations 3:21-24

No doubt, anyone observing Good Friday is likely feeling a little worn out by now.  Certainly, I am feeling that way.   I have been feeling that way all week.  My Good Friday really started ten days ago.  Today, kneeling on the hardwood of the church floor and looking up at the wooden cross, I could only hope that Easter is coming.

Good Friday is a tough love kind of day.   It's the day of remembering that Christ allowed himself to be put to death in an effort to reclaim us for God.  This is Love going to an extreme.  This is a man so dependent on Love that he will give up his life in the trust that this is indeed what Love intends.  I'm not sure if I can get to that point in my own life.  At times, I have put myself that completely into the hands of Love because my soul was able to say, 'The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him."  But remaining in that place is not always easy.  And, in this way, I have a Peter streak to go along with my inner Jonah.

To get to that point of fully trusting in God I believe is what leads us to walk in Love.  When I can surrender my ego, stop willing a certain outcome, or otherwise insist on having control of a situation, I can feel my feet moving more in the direction of Love.  That walk will lead me to the cross again and again.  But with each crucifixion comes a new resurrection and greater growth and deepening of my understanding of my connection to creation.  And each rising again puts me further along the road to God.   The crucifixions, painful as they are, do not get to be the final event.  They are part of the learning. 

 

Maundy Thursday and Massage

This evening, we did the now traditional practice in the Episcopal Church on Maundy Thursday of washing the feet.  The idea is to recall the moment in John's gospel where the night before Jesus is killed he takes the role of the servant and washes the feet of his disciples as a way of illustrating what they are to do for each other... and all others.

Often times, there are only a smattering of people who will participate in this ritual.  There's some kind of aversion to touching feet... especially feet that have been closed in often stinky shoes.

This isn't just an issue for church-going Christians.  Lots of times, clients will express sheepishness to me about not having had time to bathe and clean their feet prior to a massage.  For those who are just too embarrassed, I will offer that I can wash their feet for them.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm very sure."

Much of what I do as a massage therapist feels like the washing of the feet, or the woman who anoints Jesus with the nard.  I am always rubbing shea butter in my hands and applying it to the muscles of a client who puts their trust in me to make them feel better.   It is a special kind of servant ministry where I get to engage in healing.  That's different than when I was in the role of servant as a public radio reporter.  Holding a microphone, I had access to the state's powerful people where I could ask them the uncomfortable questions.  And I would take that same microphone into places where I would give voice to the otherwise voiceless, allowing them to make their case for justice for migrant farm workers and inmates on death row.

Washing feet in a church in the 21st century is nothing like the scene with Jesus in that to get feet clean in Jesus' time would take some doing.  If the people weren't walking around barefoot, then they would have been wearing sandals and their feet would be getting very dusty and dirty.  For Jesus to wash these feet, he'd likely have been at it for more than a few minutes to make them spic n' span.  But that's the kind of scrubbing job he had come to do.  His was to remove the sins of the world and by doing so he also demonstrated to his disciples what their calling is to be: to carry on in this same way.  And to love one another as he has loved them... as evidenced by carefully cleaning the part of their body caked and covered in the muck of the world.

With the foot washing this evening, the gift we have given each other is to prepare our feet to carry us forward into the world again... and take another step closer to the arrival at the cross on Good Friday.  Walk in Love.

Rejected Stones

As I listened at Morning Prayer today, I had another one of those pinged-in-the-forehead moments with God as we got to the end of the passage from Mark's gospel.   Jesus has just finished describing the history of how the human race has dealt with God, the prophets and ultimately how they will be dealing with him; namely, they're gonna kill him, throw the body out, and keep the vineyard that belonged to the owner.  Jesus asks his accusers what the vineyard owner in this parable would do?  And then answers his own question by saying the vineyard owner will destroy the wicked tenants and give the land to others because:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’”

Interestingly, this was a passage I quoted to someone yesterday when talking about church "things" with the diocese of Florida.  And it's what has been on my mind recently as I think about the place of LGBT Christians in the church.  I believe that it is in the interest of the church, if it wants to have any relevance or expectation for growth, to be very careful about who it has chosen to reject.  I have been thinking that the return of gay people into the church and their desire to find a faith community is a sign of God's mission to reclaim all the wandering ones and guide them back home.  Much the way "Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ the head and cornerstone,"  the community of LGBT people who are entering (or re-entering) the church is about bringing those whom the "builders" have rejected and making them a cornerstone of membership growth.  When those who were considered the stranger are welcomed into the community, there is hope.  And there is God.

What God intends to do with those who return?  Well, that's God's doing.  But in my own experience, I believe God is looking for LGBT people to fulfill their places in the Body of Christ.  We are the arms, legs, toes, fingertips, brains, heart, eyes, ears, and vocal chords just like our straight brothers and sisters.  We come in with the expectation that our baptism makes us full members in the Body.  We are more than pocketbooks and potlucks. We are people of God and the sheep of God's pasture.

Advice to the builders:  take a closer look at the stone you want to reject.  It may be the Lord's doing that the one you want to toss into the heap is the very one that is the future of the vineyard that you lease.    

Jesus Confronting the Prejudice

Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.” They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” —they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

These are the moments with Jesus that I enjoy.   I delight in Jesus facing off with the authorities, getting back in their faces and standing up to their attempts to lay a trap for him by using superior reasoning and logic to lock them up in their own box.   This business involving the accusation, "By what authority are you doing these things?"  to me is very much like what some of us in the gay community have encountered when we mix ourselves into the Christian community.

It's a "Who do you think you are?!"  or a "Where do you get off asserting that you have a place here?!"    Jesus has thrown over tables and cursed fig trees.  And the Temple authorities are some kind of pissed and concerned that this non-conformist is nothing but trouble.  Big trouble!

Sometimes, I have felt that I am viewed as a threat or some kind of trouble. Gay people, and I would venture a guess that anyone who is a minority in a majority church setting, have found ourselves standing accused by some in the congregation who don't want us there. We are viewed as sinners, or at least in the minds of a few, sinners beyond redemption unless we "repent" of our sexual orientation or our relationships.   It's a tough place to be.  However,  being grounded in our faith, we are able to do as Christ did: confound our adversaries through the strength gathered in us because of our faith.  When we know that we are "of God", we don't have to prove it to anyone.    

We are only a few days from Friday.   Who or what is demanding you justify your relationship with God?  Who or what is trying to shove you off your path to be with Christ?

Welcome to Jerusalem! And Now, Let's Kill Him!

Bless their hearts!

You can put whatever emphasis or intonation with that standard Southern stock phrase that you want.  But I am thinking about the decision the Episcopal Church made somewhere along the way to slam together the entry into Jerusalem with the crucifixion.  One minute, we're singing, "Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"   And then some 20 minutes later, Jesus is getting nailed to the cross.

That isn't how it happened.  And I'm sorry the church seems to think we have to do it in this way in order for the people to have Holy Week so neatly wrapped up in one service that they don't have to live out this week with intentionality and focus on the steps that led to the cross.  I'm afraid it robs the power of Holy Week in an effort to make it all "convenient". 

And so, rather than focus on the Passion Gospel, I'm going to stick with the other readings, each of which give us something to ponder deeply.  Certainly I found myself in tears as I read through the Isaiah passage that I was going to have to deliver to the St. John's congregation at 11:15.   The events of last week were reminders of what has been my life ever since the morning of November 11, 2007:

The Lord GOD has given me

the tongue of a teacher,

that I may know how to sustain

the weary with a word.

Morning by morning he wakens--

wakens my ear

to listen as those who are taught.

The Lord GOD has opened my ear,

and I was not rebellious,

I did not turn backward.

There have been days when I wanted to rebel and run away.  But I can't because "morning by morning he wakens my ear" with a song, a psalm, a Scripture passage, a thought.   This adventure of blogging began in December of 2007 as a means of expressing those things that have come to me as I travel a path toward God.  Insights, or indignation at oppression, have been with me in the moments when I'm waking, going to sleep, or waiting at traffic lights.  I can't escape God, or what I think is God, constantly nudging me along.      More and more in this past month I have felt myself moving in a direction that Paul talks about in his letter to the Phillipians:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. 

Am I sure about this?

My mentor posed some tough questions this week in her sermon:    What if Jesus requires more of me than I can give? What if following Jesus really costs me my life as I know it, my well deserved, hard-earned security? 

Yes, what if that is the case?  What if I have to take some bold steps in faith and stretch further than I have at this point?  So often it seems to really follow Christ closely means we have to walk through some rings of fire in our lives and trust that we won't get burned to a crisp in the process.  Following Christ means that we have to be brave.  We have to be willing to walk into places that challenge us, enter into conversations with people who try our patience, and we have to stand when others wish we'd simply sit down and shut up.  I think about the courage of those in England who were under enormous pressure to vote for the Anglican Covenant because that's what the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted.  Eighty percent of the English bishops have voted for the Covenant, but the clergy and laity split 50-50 on adoption.  It must be very difficult to oppose one's bishop on a matter of church politics.  And yet, they have stood up for what they believe to be the direction that the spirit is moving the Communion.  

I also think of the countless number of saints, known and unknown, who have advocated for a more inclusive vision of what the Christian church should look like.  Their positions have not always been popular and have often made the people uncomfortable, even angry.  Yet, having the mind of Christ in them, they continue to articulate a message of what it is to be in Love.  And in Love there are no exemptions, no black-out dates, and no out-clauses.  No matter how much we may not like someone or some group, it is never our place to decide if that person or group is worthy of inclusion at the Lord's table because we are all guests, and the host is generous.

Each one of us will have this week to consider if we are going to go the distance with Christ, even if only metaphorically speaking, and be at the cross on Friday.  We will each have our own experience of this week in which God came down to teach us to live in Love with one another and we, in our fearfulness and resistance,  killed Love.  Will you be there on Friday when they crucified my Lord, nailed him to the tree, pierced him in the side, laid him in the tomb?