God's Friday

On this day, when we wonder, "What in God's name is going on?"  How can Jesus' death ever been good?  And is this Easter faith even worth celebrating...or should we just dive into discounted chocolate and candy?  I want to share one of my favorite videos with you that I believe is so poignant and powerful.  I pray it sings and speaks to your heart on this holiest day.

Grace and peace ~~

Poem for Maundy Thursday

Broken Moments 

There is that experience we all know well.

When the glass slips from our grasp,

When the plate plummets from our palm,

When the measuring cup free falls from our fingers.

Crashing chaotically on the ground.

The eerie sounds of that which is fragile,

Smacking against that which is solid, fierce.

When the vulnerable lands against an unforgiving,

And unrelenting force.

Suddenly sharp shards of glass scatter across the floor.

Splintering and sprinting in all directions

The small pieces suddenly free to escape to corners far flung.

We know this well because it not happened once,

But because it is happening all the time.

When the sharp shards of life scatter across our days and years.

When relationships we thought invincible;

When our bodies we believed immortal;

When our hearts once taught to be impermeable;

Suddenly encounter forces and our lives feel fragile as glass.

We bring broken moments tonight to the table.

Words spoken too quickly.

Hurts and harms we can’t quite let go of.

Neighbors we struggle to love.

People we refer to as, “Them” and “Those”, rather than, “Beloved.”

Places our community is caught in a rut of injustice.

Spaces where we have lost our capacity to talk so we shout.

Enter in to the broken moments, O God.

Sit with us in the shards of life, O Christ.

Help us trust in the slow work of the Spirit.

May the taste of bread and juice feed and fuel our lives,

this night, tomorrow, and for a thousand moments to come.

This is our prayer to You,

comma placing,

still creating,

loving us through the brokenness, God. 

Amen.

Lenten Rituals

This Lent, we tried something a bit new with lighting a candle each Sunday.  It is meant to be an echo, mirror of Advent when we light the candles of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.  So, during Lent, we will light a candle each week too.

We began where Scripture began ~ in Genesis 1 ~ with our belovedness.  We are formed, fashioned with the fingerprints of God.  To begin at the beginning of being blessed by God.  To let this light guide us not only for one Sunday or one week...but to continue to let that shine brightly in the coming weeks.

We moved on to lighting a candle of healing/wholeness because we all need healing in our life.  Theologian Ruby Sales asks the question, "Where does it hurt?"   That question belongs to all of us.  Some hurt because of racism/sexism/homophobia.  Some hurt because of job/food insecurities.  Some hurt because they can't find affordable housing or difficulty in school.  Some hurt because of stress or anxiety.  We all hurt.

Next, we lit the candle of being unbound by that which confines and defines us.  This was the narrative of Lazarus who we are told came out of the tomb and needed to be unbound because the grave clothes were too tight around him.  Like with the question, where does it hurt, the places and people we feel confined by can feel make us claustrophobic.  Where are those places you need to ask God to break through and enter in fresh ways?

Next, we lit the candle of abiding...which is one of the Gospel of John's favorite words.  To abide in God is to be rooted/grounded/firmly planted in the presence of the holy.  I want you to notice the cycle here ~ we started with beloved...and let that shine a light on brokenness in our mind/heart/ and bodies...which led to us noticing/naming the places we needed God to call out to us...now we are back to abiding in God.  We abide in God not because of what we believe or do, but because of who we are.  Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.  We need to remember our connections to the holy. 

Because we skipped a week - rather than having seven candles - we will have six.  The four above during Lent, then on Palm Sunday we light a candle of hopefulness.  The word, "Hosanna" we shout and sing on Palm Sunday means "save us."  Save us from what we cannot save ourselves...save us from brokenness...save us from constant bickering and partisanship...save us from talking about "those people"...save us from blaming until we have fully accepting our own participation.  Save us.  Yet, Jesus' way of saving (the cross) is not how it was supposed to be done.  Jesus was supposed to take care of those oppressive Roman authority once and for all.  Only he does it not by might makes right, but by vulnerable self-giving love.  When we light the candle of hopefulness, we realize that our hopes and dreams take us to places we never imagined or thought we would want to go.

Finally, on Easter, it is a light of life.  New life...resurrected life...renewed/refreshed/restored life. 

I want to invite you today to light six candles...one for each of the above words.  Listen to how it sings to your life.  What truth does it have to teach/tell you?  Which words/lights are you like a moth drawn to...and which would you rather not light?  Pay attention today to our still speaking God moving in your midst as we prepare for Maundy Thursday tomorrow.  May this be a gift and offer more than a trace of God's grace.

Blessings ~~   

Preparing for our holiest week

It is well with my soul...how can you sing that when so much in our world seems to present evidence to the contrary?  Famine...struggle....lies and scandals....a world that seems to have gone off any script any of us were taught in school...friends who live with devastating illnesses....people grieving.  The list could go on, but you get the point. 

It perhaps feels like this song is trying to wallpaper over such pain and suffering...but it is actually born out of it.  The author wrote this hymn after his wife and child died at sea.  Notice, the opening lines,When peace like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll
Those words are not just some aesthetic, they are autobiographical.  The writer knew all to well the sorrow billowing like the sea...in fact...because of the sea.

When the writer goes on to say, Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, "It is well, it is well, with my soul."  Again, I don't think this is because of a denial of reality, but to say that the present reality doesn't define who I am fully.  This moment of brokenness, pain, hurt and harm is real.  It is honest, but there is also more to me than this.

One of the things pain does is blinds our eyes and clogs our ears.  Suddenly the fullness of life doesn't seem so full.  It is like everything is replaced with brokenness and tears.  To sing this hymn is an act not of denial but defiance.  I will not be defined only because of this illness.  I will not be defined only by the racist/sexists/homophobic remarks.  I will not be defined because at the heart of who I am is whose I am.  I beloved to God who calls me beloved.  That truth helps my shy soul peek and peer it's head out wondering if it is safe.

How do you feel well in your soul?
Where do yo want to push back, saying, "Yeah but, it doesn't feel well here?"
Where do you need that trace of grace to work/wiggle its way into your life?

I pray these questions, along with this hymn helps you as we start out on this holiest of weeks.

Grace and peace ~~

Les Mis for Lent...last one

Okay...one final song...appropriately on Palm Sunday.  This is the finale from Les Mis which is a total spoiler alert if you haven't watched the whole thing.  But I absolutely believe the final line that, "To love another person is to see the face of God"  That for me is what holy week is all about.  This is to see God's love from the Palm Sunday parade to the sharing of bread at table to the pain of death on Friday to the glory of Easter.  God's love is in the good...the bad...and the ugly.  It is the final two categories that are the hardest for us.  It is easy to see God in the sunrise or laughter or love of family.  It is harder when bridges collapse and kill people, or school shootings, or just turning on the news.  It is harder when the crosses of life keep popping up inconveniently in our lives still today.  And we have a choice...we can follow faithfully toward that light of love and live that way...or we can get bitter.  We can connect with communities that a make a difference or we can says, "It's all about me and what I want."  We can try to live with humble love or we can seek violence.  Les Mis teaches and tells us the way of humble self giving love that leaves me with tears in my eyes.  Enjoy!!

May the light of God's love shine brightly this week...especially in those moments when the bad and ugly of life try to cover/cloud out God's peace and presence.

Many blessings ~` 

Les Mis for Lent take three

One of my favorite songs in Les Mis is the following one, "Do you hear the people sing?"  It is a song about protest and passion and possibility.  It is a song about hope in the face of the hardest times.  It is a song about Holy Week...facing our deaths and standing courageously with a strength not of our own making/manufacturing.  I pray that this song stirs and speaks to your soul today...give you strength of the One who is our hope ages past and love for days to come.

Where do you long for the kind of freedom God's love lets loose in the world?
How can you co-create with God in these moments toward such freedom?

Grace and peace ~~

Les Mis for Lent take two

As we continue to let the music of Les Mis guide us and ground us in this week before Palm Sunday, we turn back to the theological question of law and grace.  In some ways it is a false choice to think it has to be either/or...rather than the all embracing both/and for so much of life.  I want you to listen to this solo Inspector Javert sings about stars being a witness to his goodness.  Listen for the ways his certainty blinds him and his black/white ~ either/or thinking causes him to stumble and struggle to see that change might be possible.

This passionate and poignant performance is masterful.  His singing brings to light the power of Javert's position.  Javert believes he is so right that Valjean can never be right. 

That speaks...sings...into our position today.  We have too many people - on many sides of the issues - that would shout about the stars being their witness to their own rightness.  People who can't see their own need for grace and God's love.  Or people who think that grace can be earned by doing more, trying harder, or pleasing God.  When you worship an angry God...you are never going to feel good enough or correct enough...plus you will always look for someone who is worse off than you (those people) so that maybe God will focus wrath on them instead (witness people condemning others based on sexual orientation or voting patterns or belief). 

Christ did not come to show us a God who was angry or to appease God.  Christ came to reveal God in God's fullness and love...that we would abide in God.  Yet, such a truth is too difficult in a world where we are always trying to earn something...so we turn our relationship with God into a transaction or a tit-for-tat contract because that just feels more natural and normal.  So, listen again, only now can you hear the stars singing back, "Grace is always unearned/ unconditional/ unceasing... that is why it is called grace."

May there be more than a trace of such grace this week for you.

Blessings ~~