Day after Ash Wednesday

Yesterday was so busy.  I made soup, got the baptism class materials organized, printed out and distributed, ran off the bulletin for Good Friday, prepared for the soup supper study, talked to Bob's family about his service, picked up 10 kids for afterschool, did the soup supper, had Ash Wednesday and  . . .  that was about it.  After I picked Caleb up from St. Joe I fell into bed and had weird dreams all night. 
Today I met with Janice, and now I'm doing table clothes, sketching a Good Friday service for CUPS, going to CUPS meeting and ordering more books for the study.
Plus I have to get ready for Sunday. 
Prayer for the day Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.  Blessed are the peacemeakers, for they shall be called children of God. By name, the baptism candidates, Jeff's family, and me.   To be blessed and to be a blessing.  Listen to Him.   

Ash Wednesday Poem

Ashes -
by Anne Weems

Two nights ago I knelt and
   
took the ashes from the fireplace.

It was some time before I saw evidence
   
of the smudge of ash upon my face.
I washed it quickly away.

Last night I knelt and took the bread
   
and dipped it in the cup,
and then I felt the cool smooth
   
finger of ash upon my forehead,

ashes from last year's palms
   
saved for this holy time.

I wondered if there might still be
   
some remnant of Hosanna!

lingering in the ashes.

All evening long I wore the ash,
   
that holy ash,

and when others saw the smudge,
   
I wondered if they were inclined
to wipe it clean
   
or to lean closer
in the hope of hearing
   
some soft Hosanna!

burning still
   
in ash

or heart . . .

Shrove Tuesday

Forgive me.  
I'm so sorry.  
I confess that I did the wrong thing, 
said the wrong thing, 
thought something I had no business thinking.  
I meant to do the right thing, but I didn't.  
Or, more often, I didn't even intend to do any differently than I did.  
This is my fault.  
This is partly my fault.  
I'm so sorry.  
Forgive me.

In the Orthodox church there is a liturgy where the people come up to the front, and say to the priest.  "I am a sinner.  I need forgiveness."  And the priest says, "God forgives.  Forgive me."  And then people say it to one another. 
"Forgive me." 
"God forgives.  Forgive me." 
How cleansing and renewing would that be?  I am breathing easier just playing it in my mind.  Maybe that is the prayer for the day, "God forgives.  Forgive me."

Getting set for Lent

Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday.  I'm making pancakes for choir, and attending Caleb's band concert.  But I've been thinking about Lent for a week or so and I'm going to blog here everyday during Lent. 
I'll put my "listening to Jesus" quote up, and then just thoughts for the day.   It's possible that I might link to it.  But probably not. 
Tonight we had a Session meeting which was pretty energy filled.  I feel hopeful about the year ahead. 

The Worry Bird

Matthew 6:25-33

Once upon a time there was a bird. A worry-bird, who lived in a magical kingdom called Illinois. The worry bird was dressed all in black, with patches of scarlet on her shoulders that shone in the July sunshine. The worry bird lived in a nest she had built all by herself, out of last years grass and the mud from a thunderstorm that had come in the spring, right in the middle of a field of grass and wildflowers and weeds. The worry bird had everything she needed in life, except for one thing: she did not have enough.
Every morning, the worry-bird woke before dawn and rose from her nest to pick clover seeds and Johnson grass kernels and the tiny black middles of spent thistle flowers. Every morning she worried that today; there might not be enough to eat. If only her field were bigger, then she would be sure to have enough. Sometimes she stopped for a moment to preen her shiny black feathers or she squatted beside a puddle and stretched her neck to let little sips or rainwater run down her throat. Each time, she worried that tomorrow the puddle might be dried up and the rains might not come and there wouldn’t be enough water to slake her thirst. Her worried rest stop could not last long because soon she must be on her way. For she was a bird upon whom depended not only her own life, but also the lives of three little fuzzy chicks. Their mouths were always open and they greeted her hungrily each time she returned to the nest. She worried about what would happen to them if anything happened to her. Or even if nothing happened to her, still she had worries.
The worry bird worked very hard. And her work was a burden; because she always worried that she was not doing enough. The worry bird had a little hidden stash of grain, piled away in a place only she knew about, so that she wouldn’t run out unexpectedly. And the stash was a worry; because it wasn’t big enough, or well hidden enough to really make her feel secure. The worry bird had her little family. And her family was a burden to her, because she worried about them. The worry bird had neighbors in her field – some other blackbirds, a meadowlark, a family of mice and a skunk. And her neighbors were a burden to her because of course she worried that they would get to the seeds and the water, and her babies before she could. The sun shone and the rains of summer came and went. And every perfect day was a burden to our heroine, because she worried, knowing that each one brought her one-day closer to winter and the cold and the long trip she must make south. What worries she had!
And if the food and the water and the family and the neighbors and the weather weren’t enough to worry about – she had the TV, which she had bought to help her forget her worries.
But, alas! The TV only seemed to make her worries worse. She saw on TV that there was a mop that you could buy that would clean up all your messes, wet or dry, and she worried that her nest was not clean enough.
She saw on TV that some birds lived in fine birdhouses, with copper roofs to shield them from the rain, and sunflowers painted around the doorway and a perch made out of a shiny metal key. And she worried that her nest was too plain and too open to the sky. Some birds ate at bird feeders, and bathed in birdbaths. “What I wouldn’t give to splash around in one of those!” she thought.
She saw on TV birds that wore jewel colored feathers, and she worried that her black feathers were not pretty enough. “I’d be satisfied,” she told herself, “if only I had some blue feathers, or some yellow plumage, and a longer tail and yellow eyes and a red crown upon my head. Just a little flash of purple. That would be enough.”
She learned on TV that proper nutrition was essential to good health, and that if someone didn’t get enough vitamins, terrible things could happen. She worried since she didn’t take a scientifically compounded multi-vitamin formula her feathers wouldn’t be numerous enough, her eyes wouldn’t be sharp enough and her beak wouldn’t be strong enough. And how could she be sure that she got the right combination of high and low density lipids for maximum performance of skin and nerve tissue?
She worried because there were so many things out there in the world, and she didn’t have enough of them. She didn’t have that nifty Ronco seed processor that made meal preparation a snap. She didn’t have the “gazelle” exerciser to tame middle age bulges. She didn’t even have a single tube of feather gloss, to make her wings shiny and sexy. She had so little. Really. It wasn’t enough.

Numbers flashed across the TV screen. If only she had a telephone. And fingers. She would dial up and get those things that would satisfy her and assure her that her life was plenty full. But she didn’t have a phone. Not even a land line, much less one of those wonderful picture taking cell phones that every teenager on TV carried around in their pocket because their parents knew they needed it. What about what she needed? Huh? Who was looking out for that? Who would make sure she had enough?
Every night, when the worry bird tucked her little black head beneath her little black wing, her eyes were wide open with anxiety and fear and she worried the night away.
How can I make sure I have enough for tomorrow? For next season? For next year?
How can I make sure my children are smart enough, brave enough, big enough, athletic enough, polite enough, and moral enough?
How can I get healthy enough?
How can I live well enough, long enough to be happy enough that I am alive?
The worry bird tossed and turned every night, till she tossed and turned her babies right out of the nest. And then she worried even more.
One afternoon, as she flitted around the field, worrying, she noticed that the sky was growing quite dark. A line of clouds, pewter-colored and heavy with rain, marched across the afternoon from the west. The slice of blue sky in the east grew smaller and smaller and lightening, at first far away, but getting nearer and nearer, pierced the gloom and struck the earth with explosive concussive thunders. The worry bird flew back to her nest, closed all the windows and turned on the TV to see the “W” in the corner of the screen. Huge drops of rain began to plop into the dust of the field and gusts of wind bent the tall grass around the worry bird’s nest. The clouds to the south of her took on a greenish hue and the worry bird watched in horror as a finger of cloud reached down and traced a serpentine path across the prairie right to her nest.
It picked her up in a whirl of water and roaring dust and spun her higher and higher. At first she closed her eyes, but as she ascended toward the clouds, she opened first one and then the other and looked around at the awesome sights opening before her.
She saw around her clouds full of rain – enough rain to fill a million puddles.
She looked below her and saw fields of grass and grain that extended seemingly forever – enough seeds to feed her forever.
She watched as one, just one, of her glossy black feathers drifted down through the center of the cloud – beautiful enough to be mistaken for a shard of polished ebony.
The worry bird knew that the storm would surely kill her. Yet, strangely, she noticed that she was not particularly worried about that. The moment of life that she had seemed enough. She didn’t fret - her little brain was entirely occupied with wonder.
The world was so much bigger than she had imagined. The sky was so much more beautiful than she had dreamed. Her life was so much more precious than she ever knew. And even the storm had at its heart something that felt like love.
And then, her heart pounding but peaceful, she felt the whirlwind release her. Her nest fell away, and she spread her wings on a suddenly gentle breeze and drifted back down to the meadow.
And she began to sing.

Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Sunday's Coming - and I'm not ready!

This is going to be "Creation Sunday" at church.  The kids are going to show off what they have been learning about that story from Genesis.   And our "rehearsal" yesterday was - in my humble opinion - a complete debacle.  I am so frustrated with myself for not being able to corral and keep them all "on task".  And I wondered how in the world worship was going to happen with them "in charge". 
But I woke up in the middle of the night with this idea: 
I'll keep going with the Sermon on the Mount texts.  This week's lectionary is the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.  And I'll say something about how the beauty of God's creation and God's love for his creatures is echoed in Jesus' sermon.  And I'll find (it HAS to be on that old hard drive) my "Worrybird" story and tell that instead of sermonizing. 
Ha.  Problem solved.  Maybe.   I need to get a bulletin put together and see.
Arg.  I love these kids.  I wish they had a great teacher for Wednesday afternoons.  But they have me.  And Michael.  Who also just loves them, and whom they love.  It'll be OK. 
All will be well.  And all will be well.  And all manner of things will be well. 

An Eye for the Beloved Community

These are notes for my sermon on
Matthew 5:38-48
I hope I preached it better than I wrote these notes.


Long Epiphany
An extra long look at Jesus and an extra long sermon on the mount.  This text is practically never preached.  But it is at the heart of some of the most effective Christian lives in the world.  And the most effective Christian communities in the world. 

Jesus continues his revision and expansion of the law with “You have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  But I say to you . . . do not practice violence when confronted with evil.”

The rule “lex talonis” was an advance in ethical understanding that limited escalation of violence.  Where it is not practiced - wars ensue and suffering increases exponentially.  The Hatfields and the McCoys.  Mafia wars.  Sophisticated lasar targeted bombs exploding on mud huts.  How does it end? 
Escalation happens in more personal venues, too.  Dear Abby letter from the guy who left his laptop out on his desk in his open dorm room.  Someone hid it from him, supposedly to teach him a lesson, but actually they might have just been being mean.  So he filed a police report, pressed charges, got the hider kicked out of school, fined and put on probation.  And now the hider is mad at him and turning his classmates against him.  Yeah.   Great revenge!  

Getting revenge - Doing to others worse than they’ve done to you is deeply engrained in human beings.  Some say it’s a byproduct of evolution.  In her book The Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Karen Armstrong begins by writing about our "reptilian brain," the one that is still present underneath the more developed brain. The "reptilian brain" is responsible for the fight/flight response in animals.

Some argue that it is a necessary part of life when danger is near and a quick response is necessary.

I’d argue, to the contrary, in increasingly complex and interrelated communities, and that the dangers we face now -   loss of political cohesion, economic dysfunction, environmental damage, or just plain mean people messing up our emotional health - these are dangers where fight or flight is the wrong response.  Wrong as in ineffective and the kind that will get you killed. 

If we practice an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, what do we end up with but a village of blind, toothless people. 

So it isn’t true that, Jesus is inviting us to consider embracing a life that is riskier and more foolish.  It is just that it is counter to our very basest instincts for survival. He is outpacing our reptilian brain with a call to the highest and best within us, to raise our sights and join him in creating a more compassionate world.

I think this has personal as well as global implications.  But let’s talk about the global.  before we talk about taking Jesus seriously in our own community - let’s talk a little about how non-violence figures into larger changes in the world.  Mahatma Ghandi used non-violent confrontation to acheive human rights and political independence for India.  Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement he led practiced non-violent protest even in the face of violent resistance.  And the United States was delivered from a future of apartheid.   Egypt is undergoing huge changes as the result of non-violent resistance to a violent regime.  Huge.
     Last week a Palestinian doctor put a human face on the cost and the possibility of peaceful resistance.  His story is sort of heart breaking  but hopeful.  Kind of like Jesus’ own story is heartbreaking but hopeful.  The doctor spoke several places in Champaign Urbana, about his effort to respond non-violently to the Israeli occupation of his land.  His story is all the more compelling because the targeted shell from an israeli tank tore through his apartment in Gaza and killed three of his children - daughters.  His response has been to write, speak and form a foundation dedicated to the rights and education of women and girls.   I heard him tell Steve Shoemaker, “Of course when we are attacked, we become angry.  We should be angry.  But what that anger motivates us to do - about that we have a choice.  And violence is always the wrong choice.  I choose to address the injustice in a way that takes us forward to a better place.”  I encourage you to read his book, “I Shall Not Hate” as a way of understanding that part of the world better. 

As Christians, we need to be praying for and standing with and using our considerable power to shape public opinion in favor of people like that.   I think it matters what we bother to understand and tell people is important to us. 

But I don’t pretend that our Jesus’ vision applies directly to our political situation.  We have power. 

I think that our challenge, to love our enemies and resist hatred and violence comes much closer to home  -  that is in our response to mean people and ugly behavior that we encounter day to day, at our jobs and in schools and in our extended families. 

Our challenge is to not become hateful when people are hateful to us.   To figure out and live out Jesus’ better way with our neighbors and co-workers and church brothers and sisters.    This is often messy and difficult.  But it reveals the kind of person we are.  And I want to tell you a little story:

When my family moved to Oklahoma City, my father worked for a man I found morally repulsive.  He owned this huge insurance company, which he ran like a tyrant.  He was bad to people.  Little things, like sexually harrassing the many women who worked as low level clerks.  Discriminating against people of color.  And being hugely, obscenely rich.   He and his family lived in a huge Oklahoma huge mansion, with servants and expensive everythings, which he shared only with other, equally obscenely rich folks.  And he made my father’s working life miserable.  I hated him.  Because he was wrong in every way I could see.  And here’s what my mother did:  she baked bread and took it to his family.  Not all the time.  But often enough that it completely ticked me off.  I used to rail at her, “Why are you being nice to those people?  Why are you treating them like human beings?  They don’t treat us like human beings?  We are nothing to them.  Don’t do something “friendly” for them.  They don’t deserve it.  They don’t appreciate it.  They have everything!  Don’t give them our bread!”  But she disagreed.  She said, “Oh, I don’t think they have anything as good as my homemade bread.” 

Now - if I was making this up, the end of the story would be that the horrible evil man called daddy into his office one day and said, “You can have the resources you need to do your project.  And I’ve decided that women deserve a fair shake around here.  And you can hire that African-American assistant and pay her a decent wage.  Why don’t you and Lou come over and help me decide which charity to give a million dollars to.”

That didn’t happen.  Here’s what happened:  This guy flew his family out to Aspen, on their private plane, to ski one winter.  And he got in a hurry to get back and make more money, so he bullied  the pilot into taking off in some very bad weather.   And the plane disappeared in the mountains.  After several days, his spoiled rotten children had to hike out of the mountains.  His wife was paralyzed and spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair.  And the big boss guy was killed.  Froze to death in his private plane. 

And my mother, who had practiced Jesus’ way, was in a position to minister to them as a friend.  And they needed a real friend.  Just like they didn’t have homemade bread.  The didn’t have many real friends. 
I, on the other hand, was left with a dark and ugly and hateful heart, in need of some deep repentance and grace and healing.   The vehicle of the healing came with Jesus’ words, “If you love those who love you, what do you want, a medal?  Everybody can do that.  If you greet those who greet you, how does that make you special?  I have something better in mind for those who follow me.”

The last line of this scripture sometimes trips people up - it gives them an easy out.  The NRSV translation is “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Well, of course we say, that’s impossible.  Nobody’s perfect, least of all me.  But that’s not the best way to translate what Jesus said.  His words mean something more like, “Become (in the future tense)  make your journey be in the direction of - completeness.  (Perfect here means completed.)  Just as your heavenly Father’s love encompasses everyone - the good and the bad, the just and the injust - so you are called to practice loving both friends and enemies.”  It’s not about them.  It’s about the image of God that is in you.  Be like God is. 

And that’s not impossible.  It’s hard.  But it’s not impossible.  Jesus showed us that.  There is a way.  He is the Way.  Let us walk the Way of love and mercy that he sets before us.