Do You Not Perceive It?
Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 11 and John 12: 1-19
Luke 19:28-40
I am responding to both the readings from this week and last week in the UCC lectionary and the readings from this weekend in the Greek Orthodox tradition. Together, they seem to hold the same theme of a combination of renewal and inevitable danger, extravagent love and irrational hate. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, yesterday was Lazarus Saturday, the day Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. In Greek Orthodox churches, there is a liturgy in the morning, and afterwards, the women (it is usually women) gather to dye the Easter eggs and to fold the palms into crosses. I loved Lazarus Saturday as a child; I loved the smooth palms in my hand, and I can still remember how to fold them.
In John's gospel, this miracle was both the last straw that led to Jesus' death and the event that prompted the crowd's response during the triumpant entry into Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Greek Orthodox honor the parable of the ten virgins and the annointing of Jesus' feet with oil (the gospel from last week in the UCC lectionary).
But it was the readings from Isaiah and Philippians that touched me most deeply in my meditations the last two weeks. "Forget the former things," the prophesy says. "Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" And Paul, recounting his journey from persecutor of the church to its leader, writes, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal...".
The week before the resurrection, we get a little taste of what it will be like to praise joyfully; the miracle of Lazarus and the triumphant entry are like small glimpses of the resurrection. They sustain us as we move into Holy Week and experience Jesus' betrayal and horrifying death, reminding us that a "new thing" is coming. To this day, even after seven years here, it seems odd that I am not able to go to church each evening during Holy Week--and this year, for the first time, I won't be at a Greek Orthodox Church for Easter. I am beginning a new thing, in the pre-adoption process, and Easter weekend will instead include a gathering with friends, a short service I will lead, and another visit from the social worker who is writing my home study. Although I will mourn not singing the resurrection song at midnight with other congregants who have waited through Lent for the light to emerge from the darkened tomb behind the altar, I am at peace, at least party because I think my decision to keep "pressing on" toward this "new thing" is in line with what I'm being called to do at this point in my life.
And in the last two weeks, there have been other reminders of new directions, of beginning-agains. I spent last Saturday at a homeless shelter in the Fargo-Moorhead area with a small group of exchange or international students from China, Korea, and the Ukraine. We made a meal of fried rice and other Chinese dishes I can't name. I loved helping them cook; they moved around the kitchen with great authority, improvising the entire time; no recipes, and each decision sudden. The shelter is small, housing 10 men, and it includes a progressive program designed to help launch them toward self-sufficiency. Each night, a small group comes to the shelter to cook and sits down for a family-style meal with the men at a long table; these students are studying American social issues in their English language class, and this is one project they will do related to American poverty. The men were overwhelmingly grateful for the meal, and the dinner conversation went relatively smoothly.
After the meal, as the students were gathering their belongings and saying their goodbyes, I went out to the porch while some of the men had an after-dinner cigarette. "Is this part of a class or something?" one of them wanted to know, and I said, yes, a class on American social issues. "What are they learning?" he asked, and I told him they were reading about poverty, trying to understand how there could be homeless people in the richest country in the world. "Talk to the ten men here and you'll get ten different reasons why we ended up this way," one of them said. "Me, I fell off the wagon, lost my job, and here I am." He went on to talk about how he had regained his job and recovered his sobriety thanks to the assistance of the staff at the shelter. "I should be out of here in another couple weeks, I hope," he said. The next morning, when I read the words from Isaiah about focusing on the future, letting go of the past, I thought of him.
A gay man in our small town managed last week to get together several GLBT people in the region, most of whom I'd never met. I talked with 70-year-old gay farmers about what it was like to be out in rural Minnesota in the 50s. I felt terrible that I didn't know these people after living here for seven years, despite my attempts to meet people in the community who are not affiliated with the college. I thought again of this "new thing" that was beginning, this coming together of people who had, perhaps, only one thing in common: the fact that they had a coming out story to tell. I hope to get their stories written down, though the men may not agree; some came to the gathering but would not wear the name tags provided. They needed to be anonymous to feel safe. And it's no wonder: this week, there was another hate incident on campus. It may not be the 1950s, but there are still people filled with irrational hate who plan and execute hateful acts in the same way that those responsible for Jesus' death planned for a long time to find some way to crucify him. We fear people who are not like us; we fear anyone who seems to be a threat to the status quo.
When Mary pours expensive perfume over Jesus' feet, Judas rebukes her, saying that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus says, "You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me." I have had trouble with these words over the years, but I also love the image of Mary on her knees, doing this intimate and beautiful thing to prepare him for his burial. I've come to terms with Jesus' words here by realizing that Jesus loved extravagence as much as he loved service; he knew when it was time to enjoy a good meal and when it was time to fast in the desert. He knew when it was time to act bravely against those in power (by saving the woman about to be stoned, for instance), and when it was time to pray alone in a garden. Maybe his story in its entirety is more about living a balanced life than it is about sacrifice, about living with integrity in each moment, having the strength and confidence to be authentic. After all, it was his grief that raised Lazarus from the dead; he chose to go back to Judea despite the fact that people there wanted to kill him in order to mourn with Mary and Martha. And later, when grief turned to joy, when he entered Jerusalem to face his death and the Pharisees asked him to quiet the crowd who were shouting blessings, Jesus said, "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
I think of the joy I have felt these last few weeks as I've completed pre-adoption training and begun my home study, imagining the child that will someday share my home. I think of the grief I felt these last few months as I've talked to a friend recently diagnosed with AIDS, responded to an e-mail from a student whose baby is in the ICU, talked with a friend in the process of transitioning from female-identified to male-identified about his family's hateful response, responded to yet another hate incident on campus. I don't always know how to hold both grief and joy in my life simultaneously, but I am learning to slow down and be in the moment, to stop over-working and over-thinking and over-worrying. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, of the rich scriptures of these last two weeks; but I hope to learn to listen for stones that have potential to shout out praises, to believe in each small miracle that can and will be fulfilled--that my friend will live the long life ahead of him with dignity, that my student and her boyfriend will raise a healthy baby, that my friend's family will understand his process and support his journey--and to be present in the grief when those miracles aren't enough, just as Jesus was present to Mary and Martha's grief, and just as Mary and Martha were present for both his death and resurrection. Perhaps if we're present in the moment we can see each "new thing" that comes with clarity. When God asks, "Do you not perceive it?" I hope to be able to answer, "Yes."
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 11 and John 12: 1-19
Luke 19:28-40
I am responding to both the readings from this week and last week in the UCC lectionary and the readings from this weekend in the Greek Orthodox tradition. Together, they seem to hold the same theme of a combination of renewal and inevitable danger, extravagent love and irrational hate. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, yesterday was Lazarus Saturday, the day Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. In Greek Orthodox churches, there is a liturgy in the morning, and afterwards, the women (it is usually women) gather to dye the Easter eggs and to fold the palms into crosses. I loved Lazarus Saturday as a child; I loved the smooth palms in my hand, and I can still remember how to fold them.
In John's gospel, this miracle was both the last straw that led to Jesus' death and the event that prompted the crowd's response during the triumpant entry into Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Greek Orthodox honor the parable of the ten virgins and the annointing of Jesus' feet with oil (the gospel from last week in the UCC lectionary).
But it was the readings from Isaiah and Philippians that touched me most deeply in my meditations the last two weeks. "Forget the former things," the prophesy says. "Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" And Paul, recounting his journey from persecutor of the church to its leader, writes, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal...".
The week before the resurrection, we get a little taste of what it will be like to praise joyfully; the miracle of Lazarus and the triumphant entry are like small glimpses of the resurrection. They sustain us as we move into Holy Week and experience Jesus' betrayal and horrifying death, reminding us that a "new thing" is coming. To this day, even after seven years here, it seems odd that I am not able to go to church each evening during Holy Week--and this year, for the first time, I won't be at a Greek Orthodox Church for Easter. I am beginning a new thing, in the pre-adoption process, and Easter weekend will instead include a gathering with friends, a short service I will lead, and another visit from the social worker who is writing my home study. Although I will mourn not singing the resurrection song at midnight with other congregants who have waited through Lent for the light to emerge from the darkened tomb behind the altar, I am at peace, at least party because I think my decision to keep "pressing on" toward this "new thing" is in line with what I'm being called to do at this point in my life.
And in the last two weeks, there have been other reminders of new directions, of beginning-agains. I spent last Saturday at a homeless shelter in the Fargo-Moorhead area with a small group of exchange or international students from China, Korea, and the Ukraine. We made a meal of fried rice and other Chinese dishes I can't name. I loved helping them cook; they moved around the kitchen with great authority, improvising the entire time; no recipes, and each decision sudden. The shelter is small, housing 10 men, and it includes a progressive program designed to help launch them toward self-sufficiency. Each night, a small group comes to the shelter to cook and sits down for a family-style meal with the men at a long table; these students are studying American social issues in their English language class, and this is one project they will do related to American poverty. The men were overwhelmingly grateful for the meal, and the dinner conversation went relatively smoothly.
After the meal, as the students were gathering their belongings and saying their goodbyes, I went out to the porch while some of the men had an after-dinner cigarette. "Is this part of a class or something?" one of them wanted to know, and I said, yes, a class on American social issues. "What are they learning?" he asked, and I told him they were reading about poverty, trying to understand how there could be homeless people in the richest country in the world. "Talk to the ten men here and you'll get ten different reasons why we ended up this way," one of them said. "Me, I fell off the wagon, lost my job, and here I am." He went on to talk about how he had regained his job and recovered his sobriety thanks to the assistance of the staff at the shelter. "I should be out of here in another couple weeks, I hope," he said. The next morning, when I read the words from Isaiah about focusing on the future, letting go of the past, I thought of him.
A gay man in our small town managed last week to get together several GLBT people in the region, most of whom I'd never met. I talked with 70-year-old gay farmers about what it was like to be out in rural Minnesota in the 50s. I felt terrible that I didn't know these people after living here for seven years, despite my attempts to meet people in the community who are not affiliated with the college. I thought again of this "new thing" that was beginning, this coming together of people who had, perhaps, only one thing in common: the fact that they had a coming out story to tell. I hope to get their stories written down, though the men may not agree; some came to the gathering but would not wear the name tags provided. They needed to be anonymous to feel safe. And it's no wonder: this week, there was another hate incident on campus. It may not be the 1950s, but there are still people filled with irrational hate who plan and execute hateful acts in the same way that those responsible for Jesus' death planned for a long time to find some way to crucify him. We fear people who are not like us; we fear anyone who seems to be a threat to the status quo.
When Mary pours expensive perfume over Jesus' feet, Judas rebukes her, saying that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus says, "You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me." I have had trouble with these words over the years, but I also love the image of Mary on her knees, doing this intimate and beautiful thing to prepare him for his burial. I've come to terms with Jesus' words here by realizing that Jesus loved extravagence as much as he loved service; he knew when it was time to enjoy a good meal and when it was time to fast in the desert. He knew when it was time to act bravely against those in power (by saving the woman about to be stoned, for instance), and when it was time to pray alone in a garden. Maybe his story in its entirety is more about living a balanced life than it is about sacrifice, about living with integrity in each moment, having the strength and confidence to be authentic. After all, it was his grief that raised Lazarus from the dead; he chose to go back to Judea despite the fact that people there wanted to kill him in order to mourn with Mary and Martha. And later, when grief turned to joy, when he entered Jerusalem to face his death and the Pharisees asked him to quiet the crowd who were shouting blessings, Jesus said, "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
I think of the joy I have felt these last few weeks as I've completed pre-adoption training and begun my home study, imagining the child that will someday share my home. I think of the grief I felt these last few months as I've talked to a friend recently diagnosed with AIDS, responded to an e-mail from a student whose baby is in the ICU, talked with a friend in the process of transitioning from female-identified to male-identified about his family's hateful response, responded to yet another hate incident on campus. I don't always know how to hold both grief and joy in my life simultaneously, but I am learning to slow down and be in the moment, to stop over-working and over-thinking and over-worrying. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, of the rich scriptures of these last two weeks; but I hope to learn to listen for stones that have potential to shout out praises, to believe in each small miracle that can and will be fulfilled--that my friend will live the long life ahead of him with dignity, that my student and her boyfriend will raise a healthy baby, that my friend's family will understand his process and support his journey--and to be present in the grief when those miracles aren't enough, just as Jesus was present to Mary and Martha's grief, and just as Mary and Martha were present for both his death and resurrection. Perhaps if we're present in the moment we can see each "new thing" that comes with clarity. When God asks, "Do you not perceive it?" I hope to be able to answer, "Yes."
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