All in

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume (John 12:3).

I was reading the chapter in Searching for Sunday called Perfume. In it, Rachel Held Evans says, "Rather than measuring out a small amount of oil Mary breaks the jar and lets it all pour out. She's all-in, fully committed, sparing no expense. The oil she may have been reserving for her own burial, or the burial of a loved one, has been poured out generously, without thought of the future."

She's "all in." She is giving generously, with a prodigal nature, with no thought to the implications of what she is doing on her future. 

Imagine for a moment, what it would look like if the church saw Mary as a role model of a way to be a disciple. 

It's a dangerous way to live. It's a radical way to live. This "all in" nature of what Mary does is rare to see. Can you think of people who are "all in" as disciples? I can think of some. They are blessed in their service and their faith, don't you think?

Imagine for a moment how your life would be different if you were "all in."  I imagine that is what it means to pick up your cross and follow.

No Place God has Abandoned

Yesterday, I wrote about the John 3 passage about the spirit: "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (verse 8)

Another point that Rachel Held Evans brought up in the chapter I was reading was that we fail to notice God at work. If the wind blows where it chooses - if God works where God will work - then we can't predict that or control that. 

We try. We think God can't possibly be at work in the people we judge to be unGodly. In the denomination we would dismiss. In the homeless or the angry or the addicted. In the children or the youth or the elderly. Those aren't appropriate dwelling places for God, right? (she says, sarcastically).

Evans says, "...I assumed God to be absent when there is not a corner of this world that God has abandoned."

Can't find God on the street? You're not looking.

Can't find God in that person in front of you? You're not looking.

Can't find God on the playground? You're not looking.

Can't find God in the immigrant? You're not looking.

Can't find God in the church? You're not looking.

It's a heavy statement. "There is not a corner of this world that God has abandoned."  

There are places I would abandon. Good thing I'm not God. And that I can't control the wind.

Wind Blows Where it Chooses

"The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

I think that verse is one of those lovely verses in John that we know must be true, but we just don't take the time to know what it means. At least for me, this is true. I've read it, but I"m always distracted by the rest of the very lovely chapter, and I don't think about this verse.

This morning, I was reading a chapter from Rachel Held Evans book, Searching for Sunday; she was writing about this verse. Jesus is trying to explain -- well -- everything to Nicodemus, and Nic isn't getting it. So, finally, Jesus tells him to compare the spirit to the wind - in fact, he uses a word that means both spirit and wind. 

Think about it. You see the work of God in the world, if you will look, but like hearing the wind, you don't know where God comes from, where God is going. You can't predict the wind (or God); you can't control the wind (or God). Even though we try.

If we look, we will see the work of God everywhere. Evans says we will recognize God's work by the fruit - fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Where have you seen those lately?

A few days ago, I was driving to work, and I saw a turtle trying to cross the road. In our impatient world,  no one is going to wait for the turtle to cross the road, or even notice that it is there. A turtle crossing the road is going to die. Horribly (for the turtle). I often just drive by, in a hurry to get where I cam going and do what I need to do, but today, I stopped and turned around. I was going to get the turtle out of the road.

As I was driving back to the turtle crossing, I saw a very large, black SUV coming down the road, right at the poor, slow turtle. Surprising to me, it stopped, right before it hit the turtle. A large (by large, I mean tall, athletic, young) man stepped out of the car. He rescued the turtle.

Kindness, right in front of me. 

The spirit moving. 

It wasn't a bit thing (unless you were the turtle), but maybe it was a big thing. Maybe it was God at work in that man's life, and in my life, to make himself known.

The wind blows where it chooses.

Sacred vs. Secular

"Indeed, the word sacrament is derived from a Latin phrase which means 'to make holy.'"

"But our God is in the business of transforming ordinary things into holy things, scraps of food into feasts and empty purification vessels into fountains of fine wine."

Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday

I remember, years (and years and years) ago, when I was in youth group, the youth pastor taking us all in the Sanctuary. He played music over the sound system, and asked us to write down whether the music was sacred or secular. I had never heard any of it before (I don't know if I was the only one) so for me, I had to make a judgment on how it sounded (and maybe using the words). Once we finished, he told us that all of the music he played was considered sacred. I don't remember the music at all, but I remember the idea that sacred vs. secular is a difficult line.

There is a controversy in my church (not a battle, just a disagreement) that applause in worship is either bad or an expression of praise. One of the opponents of applause, who is a pastor (not our current pastor), defends his opinion by saying that applause is secular. That has always bothered me, especially in light of the lesson I learned as a youth. How is it possible for one person to judge the sacred vs secular nature of anything? Especially something as neutral as applause. How can one person say that the act of applause is not a sacred act?

If Welch's grape juice and Hawaiian bread can be made sacred by God, then why would we draw any lines concerning what God can make holy?

(By the way, this week has been brought to you by the Cardinal (grinning).  Prepare yourself for many more bird pictures - we stocked the feeders in the backyard.)

The Release of Communion

I don't remember anyone ever telling me how to take communion. I just remember watching, and doing. I remember my understanding and need of communion being strengthened through my walk to Emmaus. I love the symbolism (this happens in my community - I don't know if it is universal) of walking forward with my hands on the shoulders of the person in front of me, and the hands of the person behind me on my shoulders. Connected.

When I watch people approach communion - especially some clergy - I see them offer their two open, cupped hands to receive. I don't do that. I think about it whenever I reach the elements, but something prevents me from doing it. I have made it to the point of lifting one empty, cupped hand to receive the bread, but there is something vulnerable in offering both hands - a line I haven't yet crossed.

Today I read this:

If we did nothing else," writes Nora Gallagher, "if nothing was placed in our hands, we would have done two-thirds of what needed to be done. Which is to admit that we simply do not have all the answers; we simply do not have all the power It is, as the saying goes, 'out of our hands.'" ...."Faith," she says, "is a catch-and-release sport. And standing at the altar receiving the read and wine is the release part." (Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans)

Have you ever considered the receiving of communion to be a "release?"  That statement took me by surprise. It seems counter-intuitive. 

I'll have to consider what it is I need to release.

Gifts and Grace

In Sunday school a few weeks back, the teacher asked the question, "Does the forgiveness we receive from God depend on our repentance? Does it depend on how sorry we are for what we did? Does it depend on how hard we ask for forgiveness?"  

You can read the Bible and see scriptures that would support the answer to that question being yes, but if the answer is yes, then the whole idea of grace is a farce.

Grace is a gift. Unearned. Unmerited. Undependent (I don't think that is a word) upon anything that you or I do. If there are requirements, then it is not a gift.

My in-laws had a tradition, call a happy. A happy is gift given for no reason. Not a birthday gift, not a Christmas gift. It's usually a surprise, and it demands nothing in return.   It is in no way an exchange. It is grace.

Rachel Held Evans, in Searching for Sunday, described a gift she received from a friend. Evans didn't want the grace of the gift (flowers). She received them, and then immediately considered how she could return the favor, so that she wasn't in debt to the friend - so that the grace of the gift could be negated. She writes, "I was in possession of my friends' gift long before I received it...."

The giving of the gift is dependent upon nothing. The receiving of the gift - that's the rub. And yet, God's grace can even help with that.

Sinner

These were the people who wore their brokenness on the outside, people whose indiscretions were so other, so uncommon, their entire personhood was relegated to the category of sinner.  They were the people the religious loved to hate, for they provided a convenient sorting mechanism for externalizing sin as something that exists out there, among other people with other problems, making other mistakes.  (Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans).

Have you ever been in the hospital and heard someone refer to a patient as the "infected arm in room 201"?  I think some nurses and doctors might do that in order to stay detached from the patient.  It's easier, isn't it? To see the patient as only the aliment instead of a person?

What Rachel Held Evans is talking about is a little of that, but it also includes something much for sinister, much more sinful.

Do we see a person and judge them by the sin we believe they have, rather than seeing the person? Do we do that in order to feel better about ourselves?

If I call the person in front of me an addict, am I saying - at least subliminally - that "I don't sin like that."

If we see label a parent as a "poor mother," - because in our eyes, her children aren't behaving the way we would expect them to, or she isn't doing what we think she should be doing - are we feeling better about ourselves?

When the Pharisees scoffed, and called someone a prostitute, or a tax collector, or an unclean leper, did it make them feel better?

At least I'm not like that person.

Pharisees, Walking Away

Reading Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans this morning brought new light for me to a story that I'm most of us are familiar with.

Think about the scripture of the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees bring a woman who has committed a clear violation of the law to Jesus, and they bring the implements to enact the clear scriptural punishment.  It was a test - how could Jesus get around it?

When we look at this story, we are often focused on the woman - we focus on the power of forgiveness. We are drawn to Jesus and his intervention in the execution of the sinner. We give some attention to the idea that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," but we don't often look at the Pharisees - the righteous.

The Pharisees are saying,"Look at this woman - look what she's done!" I think Jesus is saying,"Look at yourselves - it's you I'm focused on. What have you done? Where is your sin?"

Where are you in this story? Are you the woman who was used as a pawn in this story? Are you the Pharisee, testing Jesus? Am I the one who is so certain of my "rightness" that I can only point fingers at others?

We hear this story, and sometimes the take away for us is, "Go and sin no more." We repeat Jesus as if to use it as a confirmation: "See? The Pharisees were right! She was a sinner."

"WE have sins we delight in taking seriously, biblical instructions we interpret hyperliterally, issues we protect over-vigilantly because it helps us with our sorting system. It makes us feel righteous.

I think sometimes we bring someone else's sin to Jesus, expecting a pat on the back  and an "Attagirl! You're right; that's a terrible thing that person is doing." What we get, instead, and sometimes ignore, is what happened to the Pharisees. Jesus writes our own sin in the sand, and we should drop our stones.

Don't miss the Pharisees walking away.

Faith to Move Mountains

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

That verse is one of those statements that sounds good, but upon deeper (but not the deepest) reflection seems to be only that. A pretty statement.

There are lots of statements like that – prettily designed phrases that everyone posts on Facebook because they sound profound, but really don’t reflect truth. I wish I could think of some examples – but I shove those pretty (and useless) phrases out of my head once I reject them.

Faith to move mountains. Pashaw! Mountains are very big; I am very small. I have faith, but I’ve seen lots of mountains that never move. Addiction. Cancer. Hatred. Flood waters. Big mountains that don’t seem to move; the best and most wonderful movement of God in that can sometimes be the ability to endure them and move on. Don’t misunderstand me – I do believe that God can move mountains; I’m just not sure the mountain moving is always a reflection of the faith of the person standing next to (or under) the mountain.

But this morning I read the following in Rachel Held Evans’ book, Searching for Sunday: “After all, with enough faith, a person can move a mountain…even a mountain of her own making.”

I’ve never thought of it like that. I’ve never placed that verse next to the truth that we place obstructions between ourselves and God. Those are real mountains, and I do believe with faith, that we can move them.

What mountain stands between you and God? What is it that you – working with God – can move? Sometimes the cement that holds the mountain in the way is of our own doing. Sometimes, allowing God to move that mountain requires that we let go of it. What do you need God’s help in releasing? Don’t give up on the idea of moving the mountain – let go of it and give it to God to lift away.

Faith isn’t measured by the mountains that we can move. Faith is infinite when we realize that it comes from God. If it is a grace that comes from God, then we can open ourselves up, let go of the mountains we create and cling to, and allow God to clear the way. Sometimes the biggest mountain is ourselves, and with enough God, we can allow ourselves to change.

Means of Grace

From Rachel Held Evans book, Searching for Sunday:

“I was always denied baptism and communion growing up,” Andrew said. “My dad told me I wasn’t manifesting enough fruits of the Spirit in my life. He wanted me to wait until I was good enough, holy enough.”

One of the gifts I received from my Walk to Emmaus is the concept of means of grace (it’s Wesley – taught by Emmaus). There are ways that God has established that help us to know and accept grace. Sacraments are means of grace (although there are countless others). Baptism and communion are ways that God has created as guideposts for us to recognize – to notice – God’s grace.

I was speaking with a woman who was baptized as a child – forced to do so by her parents. She is a woman of faith, but she is uncertain whether the baptism “took.” I want her to have confidence in the presence of God in her life, and who am I to argue with what she feels, but I want to tell her that God is who act through baptism – not us. It isn’t magic – it’s a symbol that God has accepted – adopted – us as children of his own. We can do nothing to change that.

I remember that my grandmother wouldn’t participate in communion because she was angry with a neighbor. The thing is that communion isn’t offered to anyone who is free of sin. If it were, then Jesus would not have offered it to the disciples. It is a means of grace – a way for God to help us remember that we are forgiven, accepted and loved.

There isn’t a magic line we have to reach in order to receive grace. There is a test we have to pass. There is only us and only God. God invites; we accept. We (not me, not you, not Andrew, not his father) are never “good enough.” That’s WHY there is baptism; why there is communion. Because we need it.

Andrew continued, “’I put off baptism because I felt like I was in a state of sin, like I wasn’t good enough or fit enough to be baptized. But then I realized that baptism is done at the beginning of your faith journey, not the middle or the end You don’t have to have everything together to be baptized…You just have to grasp God’s grace. God’s grace is enough.”