Claimed

One day, when I was volunteering as an on-call chaplain for a series of hospitals in the area, I got called in to minister to a Jewish man who was suicidal.  It became quickly apparent to me as I talked to the man that he really needed a rabbi.  My problem?  It was Saturday and the rabbi the hospital usually called in emergencies did not answer his phone on Saturdays. 

I called the head chaplain for the hospital and he put me in touch with a Jewish woman who was also a spiritual care volunteer for the hospital.  I relayed the need for the rabbi to her and she called the rabbi herself, knowing he would pick up if he saw her name.

The suicidal man got his visit with the rabbi.

One of the most interesting things to me, as a chaplain, was ministering to all people, not just Christians, but Jewish people, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhists … even agnostics.  Even among Christians, various denominations had different needs.

Some Catholic patients wanted a priest.  One Catholic man prayed the Hail Mary in Spanish while I said it in English.  Another man wanted healing prayer, not just prayer for healing, but the laying on of hands.  A husband and wife wanted to know if I believed in spiritual warfare before they would let me pray for them, because they needed prayer for that specifically.  One man began to speak in tongues as I prayed for him.  Other patients punctuated my prayers with “Yes Jesus” and “Amen” as I spoke.  One patient was so high, he was convinced he was deaf and couldn’t hear, so I wrote a prayer for him on the whiteboard in his room while a large, burly orderly sat nearby for my protection.

You meet people where they’re at.  You offer them whatever you can to ease that spiritual pain.  You offer it unconditionally and without judgement. 

Last week, I spoke about the value of a sparrow.  Jesus says we are worth so much more than a sparrow, but what is a sparrow worth?

And in today’s reading from Matthew 12:1-14, we get another animal comparison.  This time, Jesus, being peppered by gotcha questions from the Pharisees, asks His own question of them in return.  They want to know if it is lawful to cure someone on the Sabbath.  Jesus says to them in verses 11-12, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep!”

There are two very important things that Jesus is saying here that go beyond simply our value being more than a sheep.

First, He’s not asking them if they would save any old sheep that they happened to find in a pit.  He’s asking if they would rescue their sheep.  And in doing this, Jesus is implying that those He heals are His.  They belong to Him.  We all belong to Jesus.  We are all His sheep.

Secondly, when Jesus asks the Pharisees if they would save their sheep, He qualifies that by saying suppose it’s your ONLY sheep.  Again, there is a greater implication here.  It’s not just that we belong to Jesus, that we are His sheep, it’s that He treats us as if we were His only sheep.

We are, therefore, much like the sparrow, priceless, irreplaceable. 

And, so of course, in today’s reading, Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath.  He belongs to Jesus.  And Jesus, as He always does, shows compassion on the Children of God.

You, too, belong to Jesus. 

When I was volunteering as a chaplain in the hospital, I was mostly visiting people in the ICU.  That meant I was seeing people who were quite possibly suffering the worst moment in their lives.  And when I would pray for them, I would pray two prayers—there was the prayer I spoke aloud, and the prayer I held silently in my heart.

That silent prayer was simply this—I was claiming them, I was claiming them for God.  They were protected.  They were anointed.  They were a Child of the Living God.  Whatever evil or darkness had entered their lives, it was not welcome.  It had no home there.  This person belonged to the light and to God. 

A couple of weeks ago, I read to you my favorite quote on prayer from Anne of Green Gables, that part where she talks about staring up at blue, blue, blue sky and just feeling a prayer.   That silent prayer I said for patients, that prayer I held in my heart, that was feeling a prayer, feeling it in my spiritual bones.

My prayer for you today would be that you would know that Jesus has claimed you as His.  You are His and He is yours.  There is nothing He wouldn’t do for you. 

Amen.

Did You Know Bees Are Side-Sleepers?

Okay, some bees are side-sleepers.

Some bees just sprawl out on their bellies and sploot.

Still others dive into the flowers and sleep with their little bee butts pointed to the sky.

The other day, when it was a bit chilly out, I saw another bee, dug deep into a zinnia, with the petals wrapped around him like a blanket.

The one thing I have never seen is a bee asleep on his back.  Alas, if a bee is on his back, chances are the poor bee is not sleeping.

But still the most amazing thing to me is this … bees sleep.

And they’re not alone in the natural world.  Early in the morning, I have seen, not only bees, but also moths, spiders and flies, sitting still on flowers, seemingly frozen in time.

When I lived in Florida and walked our church’s prayer labyrinth in the spring and fall, I was careful not to disturb the thousands of love bugs that were sleeping in the labyrinth’s shrubs. 

If even insects know it’s time to rest, why is it so hard for us?

I, myself, function best with about nine hours of sleep.  I wish it was uninterrupted sleep, but honestly, if I slept nine hours straight that might feel more like a coma.

How much sleep do you need?

Do you wish you could sleep more?

What’s holding you back?

Is it time?  Do you think you just don’t have the time to sleep that much?  Is sleep low on your priority list? 

Because if that’s the case, let me remind you that in Mark 4:35-41, Jesus and the disciples are on a boat during a very intense storm.  The waves are crashing over the boat.  The disciples think they are going to die.  And what is Jesus doing?  He’s sleeping.  That’s how important sleep is.  Not even a storm will deny Him rest.

And when the disciples wake Jesus up, begging Him to do something, here is what He didn’t say.

He didn’t say, “Oh, it’s storming?  I had no idea.  Thank you for waking me.  Let me try and quiet this storm.”

He’s Jesus.  He knew it was storming.  He just prioritized sleep over the storm.

So when the disciples wake Him, the first thing He says in Mark 4:39 is “Quiet! Be still!”

Now is He saying that to the storm or to the disciples?  The Bible says He addressed the storm.  I think He meant it for the disciples too.  Because both the storm and the disciples got real quiet, and real still, real quick right after that.

But rest is more than sleep, isn’t it?

Sleep can give our body and mind time to heal each night.

But to rest our spiritual selves, we need something more than just sleep.

Take Elijah in 1 Kings 19:1-7.

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.’ Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’

I see memes on this passage frequently, in reference to selfcare and the necessity of eating well and staying hydrated.  But this passage isn’t Elijah taking some time off to have dinner with friends.  He is specifically attended to by an angel of the Lord.  And it is only after he has had this time to eat, drink and rest that he is ready to meet with God in 1 Kings 19:11-13.

He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

It is only after Elijah has taken care of the important things, like food and water, only when he is able to accept those things from the angel of the Lord, that he is able to truly listen to God.  He wasn’t ready, sitting under that broom tree, begging God to take his life.  But he’s ready now.

Rest is not just about our physical needs, but our spiritual needs as well, and we can absolutely see that in the natural world.

Ten years ago, I was getting ready for my first Christmas without my mom and two grandfathers, all three of whom had died earlier in the year.  Those first holidays without loved ones are so difficult and I could not get into the Christmas spirit, even going so far as to pack up my Christmas decorations only days after putting them out.

I was hurting spiritually and so every day, I drove out to the church to walk the grounds, to be surrounded by nature, in the hope that I would feel God’s presence.

On one of these days, I got out of the car, headed out around the church toward the prayer labyrinth, when something caught my eye and I stopped suddenly in my tracks.

Our prayer labyrinth was a living labyrinth with a path marked by shrubs.  Throughout the year, it was home to pollinators, birds and rabbits, and, at first, that was what I thought I was looking at … a rabbit, something grayish-brown, close to the ground, hiding behind all that green.

So, I took out my camera and zoomed in to get a closer look.

It was not a rabbit.

It was a bobcat, lounging in the labyrinth.

Now, I knew that people had seen a bobcat at the church, but despite all the days I had spent walking the grounds with my camera, I had never seen one—until that day.

I did one of those choking, half-sobs, mesmerized by the beauty of this bobcat, the wildness of it and the complete serenity it seemed to embody there in a place for prayer.

I took picture after picture, following it—from a distance—as it walked away and headed for the woods. Once, it looked back at me—I have a picture of that too—and there was a spiritual connection, the kind you feel when God answers prayers.

I had prayed that morning to feel God’s presence and God provided that in a way I could not have thought to ask for or imagine.

Rest.

It’s not just sleep.

Rest for your soul is time spent with God, breathing in and out, in and out, the spirit of the living God.

Like Elijah in the wilderness, selfcare is more that eating and hydrating—it is time spent with God.

What Is a Sparrow Worth?

“You are of more value than many sparrows,” Jesus says in today’s reading from Matthew 10:24-33.  Figuratively speaking, it’s a very nice sentiment, but I can’t help but thinking—okay, but what’s a sparrow worth?  We’re worth more than sparrows, but how much is that? 

And for the literalists among us, Jesus gives the answer to that, too. 

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Jesus asks, rhetorically.

Okay, so we’re worth more than a penny, but really, does that answer the question as to how much God values us?

So, I’m worth more than a penny, but what is that in today’s money?

It’s like that time when a friend of mine, who is a priest, told me she prayed for me for a whole mile on her way to church that morning. 

“Thank you,” I told her, earnestly.  “That’s so sweet.”  But in the back of my head, I’m wondering, was that a mile through a school zone, or a mile on the interstate, because a mile going through a school zone is going to take a whole lot more time than a mile zipping down the fast lane on the interstate.

These details are important!  How much prayer did I get?

All joking aside, let’s get back to the original question—how much does God value the sparrows?  What is a sparrow’s worth?

I have been a nature photographer for a long time and especially, living in Florida, that meant becoming a bird watcher too.  In Florida, birds are celebrities. 

Seriously, next time you are in Florida, drive around—maybe not in the big cities—but definitely in the smaller cities and suburbia, and if you see a group of people gathered on the side of the road, ninety-nine percent of the time it’s for a bird—sometimes for an alligator, but mostly birds.

Some years ago, there were so many people pulled over down the road from where I lived in Florida—people with tripods and cameras and even a news truck, you’d think they were covering a royal wedding.

It was royalty of a sort.  The mating pair of swans that called that particular retention pond home had brought half a dozen or so cygnets into the world.

That was a rarity.  But the sandhill cranes seemed to make that same spot home for their nest year after year and believe me, I pulled over in mud and through heavy traffic to get pictures of those first steps those baby cranes took.

There was a bald eagle’s nest overlooking the interstate and in order to get a picture of their babies each year, I had to either hike up the overpass, bike up the overpass, or eventually, I just bought an electric scooter and scooted up the overpass and then used a camera with a zoom big enough to capture the rings of Saturn to get pictures of the eagles.

And then there were the white pelicans.  White pelicans are migrating birds in Florida, so you see them in December usually and then again a few months later.  But when they arrive it is with such fanfare.  There can be dozens and dozens of them, moving, swimming in mass in the retention ponds.  But they aren’t alone.  They follow the cormorants who lead the pelicans to the fishes.  All that attention draws in the great blue herons and great egrets and hawks and osprey and eagles.  Yes, you have to stop when you see such a sight.

The Florida Scrub Jay is the only bird endemic to Florida.  Florida is the only state you will see them in and they are protected.  I would drive a few miles down the road from where I lived to a sanctuary where they were known to live.  Scrub Jays generally stay with a very small area.  They don’t venture very far.  They are also very tame because, despite the signs warning against feeding the Scrub Jays, people still do.  And so yes, I have had Scrub Jays land on my head when I have tried to take a picture.

I was looking through all my old photos the other day to try and see when I became a bird watcher, when I went from someone who noticed the birds here and there, to someone who brought her camera to church with her, just in case something miraculous happened outside the church windows, like the hawk who landed on the arbor that marked the entrance to the prayer labyrinth, or the cardinal who regularly tapped on the glass during the service.

When did I start seeing birds as something of value, of worth, as something distinctly of God’s creation?

It was in 2014, I think.  It had been a rough few years.  I had gone from the highest of highs, starting seminary, trying to answer God’s call to the priesthood, to the lowest of lows, having to drop out of seminary and quit my teaching job because of health problems, I had zero control over.

What do you do when you are one hundred percent certain of your purpose in life, one hundred percent certain you are serving God with everything you have—and it’s not enough?  What happens when your spirit is strong and more than willing, but your physical health means that somedays just walking from the couch to the bathroom is nearly impossible.  What do you do when all you have ever wanted to do was serve God, but now there seems no way? 

“God will make a way,” the lyrics to the song tell us or in Proverbs 16:9 this, “The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.”

Or earlier in verse 3, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”

And so, in a story I have told many times, a friend of mine from work told me about a book where a man had taken a picture of the same tree every day for a year.  Knowing my love of photography, she told me, “You can do something like that.”

And so every day, I drove to my church, to that beautiful little church surrounded by trees and overlooking the water, and I took a picture.  Sometimes I only made a few steps from the car, but I took a picture, drove home and wrote about where I saw God that day.  I was able to do this for almost three hundred days in a row, and those pictures turned into a book called, Hope Lives: Choosing God in the Face of Illness.

But it was around Day 172 that suddenly my daily pictures exploded with birds, mockingbirds and blue jays, cardinals and osprey, red-shouldered hawks and cooper’s hawks, ducks and great egrets, great blue herons and little blue herons, and the incredible pileated woodpecker. 

Together with all the other life, flora and fauna, dragonflies and butterflies, snakes and turtles, lizards and wasps—God filled my days with His creation.  He filled my spirit.

All that life, especially that bird life, was precious to me.

God saved me with birds.

And so birds are priceless to me.

And if they’re priceless to me, you know they are priceless to God.

That is how much a sparrow is worth.

You are worth more.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Is There Balm in Gilead?

 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “

“'Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this, and nothing more.”

 

Ah, distinctly, I remember, it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember ….

 

Okay, I’ll stop there.

These words may sound familiar to you.  Maybe you recognized them right away.  Maybe the title and the author are right on the tip of your tongue.  Maybe you need a little hint—so here it is—this poem features a bird who utters only one word over and over—Nevermore.

If you guessed this poem is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, fantastic!

If you’re also thinking “Hmm, Nevermore?  Isn’t that the school Wednesday Addams attends in that show on Netflix?”  Yes, yes it is.  That’s how writers pay homage to the greats who came before them.

If you’re also thinking that you never expected to hear a sermon that featured Edgar Allan Poe, the master of the terrifying and the macabre, and a reference to the Addams Family, well, two things—it’s October, tis the season, and also, I’m a former Language Arts teacher … trust me.

In the poem, The Raven, the narrator is deep in grief over the loss of his beloved Lenore.  When a mysterious raven appears in his room, he finds himself compelled to speak to the raven as if the bird were a mystical conduit to the other side. 

It seems crazy, but the narrator is suffering, frantic for answers, desperate for something, anything to ease his pain, at one point asking the raven, “Is there balm in Gilead?”

This question—is there balm in Gilead—is actually lifted directly from the Bible, specifically, from Jeremiah 8:22, where Jeremiah, another man in deep grief and mourning over the suffering of his people in forced exile in Babylon, asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?”

Jeremiah is also credited with writing the book of Lamentations and, for the most part, the book lives up to its title.  It is a book of laments, an accounting of suffering, a liturgy of grief.  Jeremiah is known as “the weeping prophet” for a reason.

And yet, as we see in today’s reading from Lamentations 3:21-24, Jeremiah also offers an antidote to spiritual grief and suffering.  Those verses read, “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.’”

Let those words just settle on your heart for a moment.  Isn’t it amazing that thousands of years later, words like that can still have so much impact, can still provide so much solace and promise?

“The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him.”

That’s a verse worth remembering, worth tucking away in your mind to be pulled out when needed. 

If I surveyed a hundred people, Family Feud-style, and asked them what they thought was the most popular and well-known verse in the Bible, what do you think would be the answer?

My guess is John 3:16, right?  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son …” we know this one, right?

But my pick for the second most popular verse would be Jeremiah 29:11 … “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to help you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  That’s my paraphrase. 

And here’s the thing, I can tell you how old I was, where I was and who shared that verse with me for the first time.  I was spending the summer with my grandparents when I was seventeen.  They were devout Southern Baptists and so that very first night that I arrived, they sat down with me on the couch in the living room and gave me my very first Teen Bible.  And that night my grandparents shared with me Jeremiah 29:11. They taught me to underline it and date it so that I would always know when I had first heard it.

Now, I will be the first to tell you, my grandparents could be a little heavy-handed when it came to sharing God’s word, aka, witnessing. 

I had believed in God since I could talk.  I had plenty of Bibles.  My grandparents were not the first people to ever talk to me about God.  I had been through CCD at the Catholic church and Sunday schools at Methodist churches and other Baptist churches.  I prayed nightly and deeply.  I was intensely spiritual.  And I owed most of that to my parents and how they raised me.

But that night with my grandparents was the first time I had ever heard Jeremiah 29:11.  And those words spoke to me.  They speak to me still.

My grandparents weren’t finished, though.  They told me that just like they had shared that verse with me, I now needed to share that verse with someone else, which considering I was an introvert—was more than a little terrifying to me.  But my grandparents knew the power of God’s word to heal and bring hope to others.

In today’s reading from 2 Timothy chapter 1, Paul tells Timothy in verse 5, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”

It may seem like a throw-away line at first.  Ah so Timothy has a family.  Grandma Lois and Mom Eunice.  Great.  But this verse says so much more than that.  It is a statement that shows how faith is passed from generation to generation.  How Timothy’s “sincere faith” is directly connected to his mother and grandmother’s faith. 

It is a verse that shows us just what our purpose is on this earth.  We are stewards of God’s word, stewards of His love and it is an awesome responsibility.  It is a responsibility that should humble us in how grand a purpose it is.  God’s word is precious.  Afterall, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  We are caretakers of that Holy Word.

But we cannot hoard the Word and keep it to ourselves.  We must share the Word, share our faith, because as Paul tells Timothy in verse 7, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love.”  It is a “holy calling” Paul says later because he knows how powerful the word of God can be in driving out darkness and hate and bringing light and love to the world. 

It seems like in the world these days, we are shown again and again how words hurt, how words divide, how words prolong pain and encourage hate.

Every day we see the power of hateful words, so much so that maybe we doubt that words of love can ever be enough.

Very rarely are we shown how words heal and bless, how the power of grace and mercy, of forgiveness and unconditional love can move mountains.

In today’s gospel reading from Luke, Jesus tells the disciples if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could say to that mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and plant yourself in the sea,” and it would do exactly that.  The mustard seed command in Matthew is a bit different, replacing the mulberry tree with a mountain.  But regardless the message is the same. 

This is what your faith is capable of.  Even faith the size of a mustard seed could change the shape of the world.  The potential of your faith is beyond anything you could ever comprehend or imagine. 

Nothing you do in service of that faith is small.  And woe to anyone who dismisses your mustard seed.

Nothing you do for God is small.

That summer with my grandparents, I was on the phone with my mom one night.  She was having a hard time.  My mom had a hard life.  And on that particular night, she was upset and was having her own “balm in Gilead” moment.

People who feel helpless and hopeless, who are in despair, always ask, in their own way, about the balm of Gilead. 

When you are suffering spiritually, when your soul cries out, when you ache from someplace deep within … you become desperate for anything that might ease your pain.

And so, Edgar Allan Poe’s narrator turns to a raven for answers, only to be left angry and bitter, cursing the bird, for its constant non-answer of “Nevermore.”

In the end, Poe’s narrator is left without hope, confident there is no spiritual balm for the grieving.

But we (you and I) we know better.  We know there is hope.

There is hope in God.  And that hope is no small thing.

And so while I was on the phone with my mom, that night, more than thirty years ago, I opened up my Bible and said to her, “Have you ever read Jeremiah 29:11?”

[And let me say one last thing on Jeremiah 29:11.  God’s promise in this verse that His plans for us are plans to give us “hope and a future”—that promise is not just a promise to us, but a generational promise.

What does that mean?  It means that no matter what generation you are, whether Silent Generation, Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z or Gen A, you are the hope and the future of all the generations that came before you.

You are someone’s hope.]

So what are the words that you need to hear today?  Is it Jeremiah 29:11. Perhaps you need the words from Jeremiah 31:3 where God declares this … “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

But also, remember this—as important as God’s word is in sustaining us, in lifting us up, in carrying us through the dark, Decembers of our lives, we, as stewards of God’s word, have a duty to share that spiritual balm with others.

And so, I will leave you with one last verse, this time from 1 Peter 3:15.  “Always be ready to share with others the hope that is inside of you.”

Amen.

All Stories Have Happy Endings ... Even Yours

When I was four years old, my parents took me to see the new Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back.  If you’ve seen the movie, you might question whether or not it was appropriate for a four-year-old and to that I would say such was the experience of every Generation X kid.  And, in our parents’ defense, movies that in hindsight maybe weren’t appropriate for little ones, were frequently marketed as kids’ movies.  (Return to Oz, I am talking about you).

So, I was four years old when I saw The Empire Strikes Back and here’s what I can tell you about the movie and my reaction, as a four-year-old.  At the end of the movie—spoiler alert—Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are engaged in an epic lightsaber fight.  Darth Vader gets the upper hand, literally, when he slices off Luke’s hand.

And when the arm didn’t gush blood, my parents taught me a new word, “cauterize,” explaining what the lightsaber had done to the wound. 

Following this, in some very awkward timing, Darth Vader invites Luke to join him.  Luke scoffs.  Why would he ever join Darth Vader, the man who killed his father?  To which Darth Vader responds that he didn’t kill Luke’s father—he, Darth Vader, is Luke’s father.

“Noooooooo!” Luke screams.

Let me cut to the chase here.  Luke is rescued by Leia and Lando Calrissian.  And off they fly away.

The heroes escape!  That’s great!  That’s how every movie should end, except that not all the heroes escape in The Empire Strikes Back.  Han Solo, the handsome, roguish space pirate, has been captured by a bounty hunter, named Boba Fett, and has been frozen, seemingly rather painfully and perhaps fatally, in carbonite. 

And so, when the lights came up in the movie theater and the credits began to roll, I was sobbing uncontrollably. 

This was not how stories were supposed to end.

Flash forward two years later, when my parents took me to see another science fiction movie—this time a Star Trek movie entitled The Wrath of Khan.  Spoiler alert, the movie ends with Spock, Captain Kirk’s best friend, sacrificing himself for the crew.

Spock dies.

The lights come up.  The credits roll and my now six-year-old self is sobbing uncontrollably.

Seriously, who writes stories where one of the main characters dies in the end?  At six years old, I was not yet reading Shakespearean tragedies.  If I had been, perhaps I wouldn’t be surprised by the darkness in stories.  And I wasn’t yet old enough to read books with dogs on the cover and learn that any book with a dog on the cover meant that dog was going to die. 

To my four and six-year-old selves, all stories should have happy endings.

Anything else was just wrong.

I am reminded of several stories in the Bible where people face devastating and very much unhappy endings … or so they think.  Jairus comes to Jesus to heal his daughter.  Mary and Martha send word to Jesus that their brother, Lazarus, is sick.  In the case of Jairus’ daughter, Jesus is delayed by the bleeding woman touching His cloak and, in that delay, Jairus’ daughter dies.  Jesus also arrives too late to save Lazarus.  By the time Jesus gets there, Lazarus has been dead and buried for days.

And Jairus and Mary and Martha, who put their faith in Jesus are left saying, “This isn’t what was supposed to happen.  He was supposed to heal them.  And now they are dead.”

And in today’s reading from Mark 15:1-11, Pilate is desperate to avoid condemning Jesus to death.  He decides to let the people choose.  Free Jesus or free Barabbas.  To Pilate it seems like an easy choice.  Barabbas was a bad, bad dude.  He was a killer.  What had Jesus done?

But to Pilate’s surprise and I imagine Barabbas’ too, the people choose to free Barabbas.

And Pilate, I’m sure, was left saying, “Well, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”  Now, Pilate is forced to sentence Jesus to death.

And not just Pilate, but I’m sure all of Jesus’ family and friends, His disciples, those He had healed on the road, all His followers, watched Jesus condemned to death—watched Him die and were left speechless and lost.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

But all three, Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus and Jesus experience the same mind-blowing miracle.  Jesus raises both Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus from the dead—the daughter perhaps minutes or hours after death, Lazarus days after his death—his body already in the tomb.  And Jesus too, days in the tomb, self-resurrects. 

Over the course of our own lives, we will all experience death, both in the literal sense and the more figurative sense, a divorce, a job loss, a move, an addiction, an illness and so on.  There will be times in our lives when we will find ourselves in a dark place, when we say, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” but the Good News is that with God, with Jesus, we may experience these deaths, but we can also experience resurrection, times when we can see the smallest pinprick of light in the darkness, and grab hold of it.  We climb out of the darkness and find purpose and meaning.  We find new life.

I doubt that any of us, after going through a particularly dark time, has referred to life on the other side of that darkness as a resurrection, but that is exactly what it is, because when we do move through those dark times—when we find the strength to do that, to move forward, that is the Holy Spirit working in us.  Who else but God could be responsible for a resurrection?

The interesting thing about science fiction movies like Star Wars and Star Trek and fantasy series like The Lord of the Rings and The Narnia series, even the comic book movies by Marvel and DC, the Avengers and Batman and Superman—they all have deaths and resurrections in them.

Why do you think that is?

Death and resurrection.  It speaks to us.  It would not speak so strongly to us, if we had not experienced it ourselves. 

In Return of the Jedi, the sequel to The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo’s friends free him, and he is restored to life.

In The Search for Spock, the sequel to The Wrath of Khan, Spock is resurrected in a way that doesn’t even try to be subtle in its biblical allusions.  Spock is brought back to life thanks to a bit of world terraforming-technology—a technology called the Genesis Device. 

So think today about the resurrections you have experienced in your own lives and how God was working in you to perform a miracle.

Amen.

When the House Next Door Whistles at You

I realized the other morning that my neighbor has a security system that when activated, when it detects motion—it whistles at you.

And it’s not just any whistle—it’s a “hey, look over here,” whistle.  It’s meant to grab your attention.  Specifically, it wants you to turn and look to see where the whistle came from, because when you do, when you see the camera, that’s when it can get a clear picture of your face.

It’s very clever and more than a little creepy.

So, what is trying to grab your attention these days?

Of course, we live in a world where everything is constantly seeking our attention, so our list might be a little long.

Some things may only steal our attention for a second or two like the ubiquitous ads that populate our social media feeds.  Recently a friend started posting screenshots of some of things these ads have tried to sell her like a hat that looks like a lampshade and a skirt that looks like a cheese grater.  I myself have been shown ads for a couch modeled after a crab.  All of which makes me worry about the mental health of these algorithms and AI programs.  The craziness of the human race may be just too much for it to manage.

But even a second or two of an advertisement can really add up to minutes and hours of our day.

And so most of the day, we spend our time trying to manage the flow of things vying for our attention, trying to discern what’s important and what’s not, what we have the energy for and what is just going to zap our energy with nothing gained. 

It takes a great deal of discernment.

Where do we even start?

Today’s reading from Mark 14:1-11 should be a familiar story.  Jesus and the disciples are in Bethany, when a woman (who is unnamed in these verses but who we know to be Mary of Bethany) breaks open a jar of nard and anoints Jesus with it.  Judas is outraged.  What a waste of money!  Could not the ointment have been sold and the money given to the poor?

Now, we can question Judas’s motivations for making this argument, but Jesus doesn’t call him out.  Instead, Jesus says something that I have always found a bit perplexing.  He says, “For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.”

I find it perplexing because that’s not how I would expect Jesus to answer, certainly not the Jesus who is all about sacrifice and humility.  Why didn’t Jesus stop Mary?  Why didn’t He say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up Mary.  Let’s not waste this on me.  Let’s sell it and give the money to the poor.”  Isn’t that exactly the message He gave to the young rich man?  How do I get into Heaven, Lord?  Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor.

But, instead, Jesus allows Mary to break open the jar and pour it over His head.

Why?

Because time with God, time with Jesus, is never a waste.

And orienting ourselves to God, turning to Him, helps us be the person who can help the poor, the person who can discern through all the chaos of life where they can do the most good.

Mary of Bethany wasted nothing in that moment.

Every morning, I have been taking a short walk around the neighborhood, generally right around sunrise.  I take my camera with me and in a bit of contemplative photography, use the camera to help me focus on the small things, on the places where we might overlook God’s presence.

Lately, that walk has been taking me right past my neighbor’s house … hence the whistling security camera, but I don’t let that deter me or distract me.  I head over to the house next door to the house, the house around the corner.  It is overgrown and wild.  There is a “no trespassing” sign, but I can’t imagine how anyone lives there because I can see no clear path to any door.

But the front yard has flowering life that is spilling onto the sidewalk.  Zinnias and sunflowers and other plants that I don’t know the names of yet, but I will learn.  This yard is where I have found the sleeping bumblebees that use flower petals for pillows.  It’s been too cold this week and so I haven’t found any bees, but it doesn’t stop me from looking because I know God is there.

I start my day—as you know—with chocolate, first thing, as soon as I wake up.  But then, I move to God.  This is how I must start my day if I have any hope of getting through the day and not being overwhelmed by the things that demand our attention, by all the whistling security cameras and such.

No time with God is a waste.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Take Heart, Take Courage

Back when I was around seven years old, my family and I were on a trip to Silver Dollar City in Tennessee—Silver Dollar City would eventually become Dollywood.  My parents were busy watching a candle being made or something—one of those demonstration booths, places like that have—it was, of course, super boring to me, so I begged to go to the playground which was in sight of where they were.  And this being the early 1980s, my parents were perfectly fine with me heading out on my own.

Playgrounds made in the 1970s and 80s seemed designed to bring pain and suffering to children, with metal structures and concrete pads being the consistent feature.  I had broken my arm at a playground just the year before, but still my parents let me go.

It was Tennessee and the sun was hot that day.  I climbed up the slide and then pushed off, not considering that the metal slide and the hot sun might be conspiring to ruin my day.  I felt the scorch on my legs almost immediately and popped up to my feet, thinking I would just run my way down the rest of the slide.

Nope.  My feet slid out from under me.  I landed hard on my back, slid down the rest of the way and landed again on the ground, hard on my back.

The shock of the landing was compounded with the fact that suddenly I couldn’t breathe.  I gasped for breath, helplessly.

An older couple—I remember thinking they looked like someone’s grandparents—ran over to me.  I guess I managed to point to where my parents were and I think the man must have been the one that ran off to get them.  My memory is bit foggy—it was a long time ago. 

But the woman stayed.  She looked down at me and softly spoke to me as I continued to struggle to breathe.  “You have the wind knocked out of you,” she told me.  “It’s okay.  You’re going to be all right.  Just breathe.  It’s okay.  Just breathe.”  I remember her putting her hand on my abdomen as she spoke.  “Just breathe.”  All these years later, it seems like a dream to me.  But I remember her kindness more than anything and I remember feeling safe.

If you have ever had the wind knocked out of you, you know it can be terrifying, especially if you’re a child and you don’t know what’s happening.  Simply it’s just a spasm in the diaphragm and it does resolve on its own, but for those brief seconds, you feel like you’re going to die.

Today’s reading from Mark 6:47-56 is very similar to last week’s reading.  Once again, we find the disciples on a boat, struggling.  Last week it was with a storm.  This week it’s with a stiff wind.  They are really struggling with the oars.  But while it was a storm last week that frightened them, in this week’s reading it is Jesus, Himself, who is not on the boat, but, from shore, sees the disciples struggling and decides to walk out to them—to walk on water, to the disciples, who when they see this mysterious figure walking out on the sea, predictably freak out, thinking they are seeing a ghost.

Jesus says to them in verse 50, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Now here is where I’m going to turn into a bit of word nerd and punctuation nerd, because when I first read this verse which is the NRSV, I noticed a couple of things.  First, the overall feeling in this verse is one of tenderness and calm.  It’s as if Jesus were talking to the disciples as if they were a wounded animal caught in a trap.  He doesn’t want to scare them, but He wants them to know they are safe.

“Take heart,” he says, which is such an interesting phrase that I thought, I wonder what the other translations say.  Because the whole verse here is one of calm, even with its punctuation.  Take heart comma it is I semicolon do not be afraid period.  Pause, longer pause, stop.

But let’s see what other translations say.

The NIV for example.  I heard someone on Facebook the other day call the NIV the khakis of Bible translations, inoffensive and just fine.  Depending on how you grew up, what denomination, especially if you were in a mainstream protestant church, you probably grew up with the NIV version.

So, let’s look at what they do with verse 50.  The NIV reads, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

Take courage exclamation point.  It is I period.  Don’t be afraid period.

This is a different Jesus than the NRSV.  I call this Jesus, Gaston Jesus—Gaston from “Beauty and the Beast.”  This is Warrior Jesus.  This is I Am Here to Save You Jesus.  This is Arnold Schwarzenegger Jesus, carrying all twelve disciples on His back as He walks across the sea.

Let’s look at another translation, this time the World English Bible, which might be a new translation for you.  I am familiar with it because it is in the public domain and if I want to include Bible quotes in my books, this is the version I’m going to use.  The World English Bible is basically a modern version of the King James Version.  So no thee’s and thou’s.

Here’s their translation of verse 50, “Cheer up! It is I! Don’t be afraid.”

Cheer up exclamation point.  It is I exclamation point.  Don’t be afraid period.

The King James Version actually says, “Be of good cheer.”

And so I can’t help but call this the Charles Dickens’ Jesus.  I seriously hear Jesus with a British accent in this version.  Incidentally, Dickens did write a book on Jesus’s life for his children.  It was recently turned into an animated movie this past year.  But this is a Jesus who is always smiling, a Slap You On the Back, Best Friend, Jesus. 

I could go on and on with the various translations.  I will give you one last one—this from The Living Bible, which like The Message Bible is considered more of a paraphrase than an actual translation.  The Living Bible is the only Bible my mom had and it seems like it was the go-to version for women in the 1970s. 

But verse 50 says this, “It’s all right,” he said. “It is I! Don’t be afraid.”

It’s all right, Jesus says.

Take heart.

Take courage.

Cheer up.

It’s all right. 

So, which Jesus speaks to you?  Because it occurs to me that how we view Jesus may have a lot to do with the Bible translation we have been most exposed to in our lives.  Or maybe it’s the opposite.  Maybe we are drawn to the translation where Jesus speaks in a way that we have already heard Jesus speak to us, to our own hearts. 

I did not start reading the NRSV until I became Episcopalian.  And today, I can tell you that the NRSV translation of verse 50 with Jesus saying, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid,” that soft measured approach, seems most like the Jesus I know now.

But there have been times in my life when “Take courage!” was how my Jesus spoke.  That Jesus set a fire under me.  Don’t give up!  Don’t be afraid!  Take courage!  I needed that Jesus.  I needed the Jesus who would fight for me and who wanted me to fight for myself too.

And there have definitely been times in my life, like when I was on the ground at the base of that slide in Silver Dollar City, struggling to breathe, when I needed Jesus to say, as that woman said to me, “It’s all right.  It’s going to be all right.”  I needed a soothing Jesus, a loving comforter. 

Jesus speaks to us differently throughout our lives, but always in the way we need to hear at the time.

What words do you need to hear today?

Take heart.

Take courage.

Cheer up.

It’s all right.

Amen.