Preparing for Palm Sunday

 

During the season of Lent, we’ve opened our hearts and whole lives to the narrative of Lazarus.  We witnessed the fierce faithfulness of Martha and Mary who loved Jesus enough to look him in the eyes to tell him how much it hurt that Jesus didn’t come to hold the hand of Lazarus before Lazarus died.  We celebrated how such heartfelt honesty is a both a prayer and invitation for us.  We stood as Jesus wept outside the tomb as a wave of grief at his friend’s death washed over him.  We have watched the stone be rolled back, even as some in the crowd said, “But the stench!?”  Because when we do hard, holy things, when we come to the tombs of life today that try to confine people, the aromas of suffering and struggle are never pleasant.  We pondered what was it like for Lazarus and what it is like for you to feel bound up by others comments and your own editorial board chattering in your mind? 

 

If you keep reading after the resurrection of Lazarus, you will see that the authorities begin to plot and plan to kill Jesus.  When someone has power over life and death, it will always frighten those who cling to human power and prestige and privilege.  If Jesus could conquer death, there would be no stopping him. 

 

In chapter 12 we read, “Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 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.  But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,  “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”  (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)”

 

Mary anoints Jesus and perhaps this moment inspired Jesus to wash the disciples’ feet in the next chapter.  Judas protests.  Judas who will be contracted and convinced by the powers that be to betray Jesus.  To be sure, Judas has a point that if the perfume was sold, the money could have done a world of good.  At the same time, John’s parenthetical comments make it clear that Judas did not speak from a place of compassion or care but rather just to be a contrarian.  Or perhaps he wants to blame and shame Mary.  Or maybe he wanted a point on some imaginary scoreboard in his soul.  We are not sure of his motivation. 

 

This week, we are preparing for Palm Sunday by asking, who might you offer your care for in your life?  Can you channel your inner-Mary and reach out with extravagant embrace?  This could be a handwritten note to someone in our church you have not seen in over two years.  This could be calling someone you know who will be spending Easter alone to invite the person to a meal.  This could be reaching out to someone who is grieving to listen without trying to rationalize the pain.  Let these suggestions inspire your imagination as you find ways to share God’s love in a tactile and tangible efforts.  As you prepare for Palm Sunday, may your heart be open to the One who rides on, rides on in majesty upon a humble colt into our lives in six days.

Friday Prayer

 

Week four of living with Lazarus’s story is set free into the world.  This week we asked ourselves, “Where am I most alive?”  “Where do I long to go?”  And, “who will go with me?”  I pray that you listened to your life AND let God get a word in edgewise.  I hope God’s wisdom surprised you and showed you a way to be alive or courage to head in a new direction or person who could travel with you.  I pray God rolled away a stone in your life that was blocking or showed you a new pathway.  I pray for our church that we would be honest about the ways we hurt and harm others in the past and present.  I pray our church would find new ways to honor one another as created in God’s image.  I realize and recognize my humanity.  I confess that sometimes I stay silent because of fear, hypocrisy, and hatred.  That economics can too often convince me to do or not do something.  Lent is a time to be honest.  Lent is a time to weep just as Jesus wept.  Lent is a time for God’s liberating love to move in new ways for you and me.  Tonight we will welcome two scholars who have studied Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman to help us understand his wisdom for today.  May our church not only study, but embrace and embody the story of Lazarus’s resurrection as a way toward life and liberation and love in this world today.  Amen.

Thursday Pause

 

Today we push pause together.  We sit holding our lives lightly with each other.  I invite you to take a deep breath.

Breathe in God’s presence that meets you in the stresses and strains that can bind you…breathe out the blame and shame thinking that can bind us.

Breathe in a peace that surpasses understanding…breathe out endless chatter of our minds that causes chaos to swirl.

Breathe in God’s liberating love for yourself and for all our brothers and sisters who are bound by discrimination…breathe out fear, hypocrisy, and hatred that promise to keep us safe (but don’t).

Breathe in the good news we can change directions and go together in new directions…breathe out feelings of being stuck or stymied or thinking, “That’s just how it is.”

Breathe in a feast of Thurman quotes that have illuminated the Lazarus narrative this week…breathe out cynicism that causes us to see only the brokenness.

Breathe in slowly and deeply…breathe out letting your exhale be even longer.

Breathe in trusting in God…breathe out all the voices that want to fix or save or solve your problems.

Breathe in….breathe out.

Be still in this moment and feel God’s love.  Amen. 

Lent with Lazarus

 

This week we are adding to our Lent with Lazarus quotes from the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman.  Here is one from his book, Jesus and the Disinherited:

 

“The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish thinker and teacher appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. 'In him was life; and the life was the light of men.' Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.”

A few thoughts from this quote.  First, Dr. Thurman is clear that Jesus was a poor, itinerate, preacher from a minority religion.  Jewish people were tolerated, if they paid taxes and didn’t protest too much about Caesar claiming to be a “god”.  Jesus wasn’t powerful or prestigious.  As he said in Matthew 8:20, “The foxes have holes and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man does not have a place where He may lay His head.”  Jesus wandered through life, just as we can sometimes feel aimless or restless.  

Second, Dr. Thurman reminds us that the church today has gained and gathered tremendous power.  Think about our church with its property, buildings, and budget.  I think about this when I receive a paycheck from the church.  I tremble when I hold my life up to Jesus’s life.  I am not poor, itinerate, or pushed to the fringe with my back against the wall.  I need to keep praying, “Lord I want to be a Christian in my heart,” and keep asking God to guide me in living that prayer.  This reminds me what it means to be full alive, I long to let God’s love radiate and roam free from my heart to the world.  

Third, I am always aware of how the church has/continues to hurt and harm people through racism and homophobia and sexism.  There exists a wall for our BIPOC brothers and sisters, obstacles for our LGBTQ family; and a stained-glass ceiling for our sisters in faith that don’t honor women as we do men.  There are tombs where we still confine and define people based on race, sexual orientation, and gender.  There are also tombs of economics and geography too.  The ways we “other” people, binding them.  Just as Lazarus was set free with God’s liberating love, so too that is our work.  

Notice Jesus brings the life to Lazarus…the people unbind him.  God brings life today, we are called to unwrap the things the constrict and restrict, especially those on the margins.  Just as people in the Lazarus story worried about the smell of the tomb, so too there will be a stench as we deal with our biases – individually and collectively.  Just as Thurman said that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred guard the gates that can prevent people for being fully alive, we need courage to go together into God’s kin-dom.  May you and I prayerfully ponder Dr. Thurman’s quote today and throughout this season of Lent.  Amen.  

Lent with Lazarus ~

 

This week, I am weaving together the narrative from John 11 and quotes from Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman into a beautiful tapestry.  Yesterday, we held the question, what makes you feel fully alive?  We acknowledge the coming to life of Lazarus as one way the Spirit can stir within us in new ways.  I wonder have you ever had a moment where life felt like a dead end, but then there was an exit ramp you had not noticed previously?  There is the fully alive of Martha’s honest, heartfelt conversation with Jesus.  We can feel fully alive when we share our thoughts and ideas with each other.  Such sacred conversations are important in our lives and can transform us.  We can feel fully alive when like Mary we are fiercely faithful.  While Martha’s faith compelled her forward to go out to Jesus, Mary stayed back.  Mary lingered, just as Jesus did.  Sometimes fierce faithfulness forges forward, other times our faithfulness is a pregnant pause to ponder where God would have us go or what God would have us say.  You don’t have to race to return every email or text.  You can breathe, wait, let God get a word in edgewise before your fingers start typing a stream of conscious response. 

 

There are moments when we can feel lost or wandering in this world, especially now.  This makes me think of a quote from Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, “There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?'”

 

I pray you will let those two questions in Thurman’s quote sink, sing, and simmer on your soul this day in ways that help you feel alive.  May those questions help free you, let God’s liberating love loose in your life to unbind you.  I pray these questions will stir new directions and roll back stones that seem to be blocking your way right now or show you a pathway you had not notice.  May you and I continue to be alive in a world that longs for each of us to let our lights shine this day.  

Lent with Lazarus ~ Week Four

 

We continue to let the narrative of Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Lazarus sit and stir within us this Lent.  I pray over the last three weeks there have been moments of information and inspiration.  I pray you have found new insights that have set you free and found ways to let loose your fierce faithful love.  I pray you have discovered places to roll back the stone, let the fresh air in, and name that there are parts of life that don’t smell that great.  For all that still binds us, both in holy life-giving ways and that which confines/defines us in less than holy ways, we open our hearts this week again to our Lent with Lazarus.  Read now the Good News Translations ~ noticing where there are differences from other versions of the last few weeks:

 

A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, became sick. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived. (² This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.) ³ The sisters sent Jesus a message: “Lord, your dear friend is sick.” ⁴ When Jesus heard it, he said, “The final result of this sickness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory.” ⁵ Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days. ⁷ Then he said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

⁸ “Teacher,” the disciples answered, “just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?”

⁹ Jesus said, “A day has twelve hours, doesn't it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world. ¹⁰ But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” ¹¹ Jesus said this and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

¹² The disciples answered, “If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well.”

¹³ Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep. ¹⁴ So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him.”

¹⁶ Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, “Let us all go along with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!”

¹⁷ When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. ¹⁸ Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother's death.

²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

²³ “Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her.

²⁴ “I know,” she replied, “that he will rise to life on the last day.”

²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷ “Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

²⁸ After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary privately. “The Teacher is here,” she told her, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him. (³⁰ Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.) ³¹ The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.

³² Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

³³ Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. ³⁴ “Where have you buried him?” he asked them.

“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ “See how much he loved him!” the people said.

³⁷ But some of them said, “He gave sight to the blind man, didn't he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?”

³⁸ Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance. ³⁹ “Take the stone away!” Jesus ordered.

Martha, the dead man's sister, answered, “There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!”

⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believed?” ⁴¹ They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. ⁴² I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. “Untie him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.”

 

As I read this story, I think of a great quote from the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive” 

Where do you long to come alive like Lazarus?  When you do you feel most alive?  These are experiences when you are in a faithful flow and lose track of time.  When, where, and under what conditions does your soul soar and heart feel full to overflowing?  I was taught and caught as a child to be modest and humble; even to downplay shining my light.  I was told not to brag or boast, keep my ego in check.  Rev. Dr. Thurman wants us to be unbound from that which tries to confine or define us.  Rev. Dr. Thurman wants us to let our light shine.  How might you come alive and live fully today?  I affirm it isn’t only Lazarus who is alive in this passage.  Martha is alive with her honest questions; Mary is alive with her fierce faithfulness; Jesus is alive in his honest weeping.  Where do you long for life this Lenten season?  May that holy question guide you every hour today.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

Week four of living inside the narrative of Lazarus is wrapping up and I pray letting loose new insights for you.  We have found ways to see ourselves specifically in Lazarus’ side of the story.  We have honored where we need to be set free and holy covenants that wrap and sustain us.  We have looked at the branches of our life.  We continue to listen and let this story speak to our story. 

God of liberating love, grant me the strength to look at the branches of my life.  Help me examine and explore where there is life and where a branch might be trimmed.  I hand to You the clippers, release control to Your wisdom which guides and grounds me.  Thank you for places where I feel released from “shoulds” and “have tos”.  Thank you for people I covenant with and give my life to tasting the sweet fruit of Your love.  Thank you for this season of Lent when You untie and free us.  Thank you for the question, “What is it you plan to do with your one, wild and precious life?” (With deep thanks to Mary Oliver for this question).  You hold my life with me, thank you God.  Help me be set loose to live your love this day.  Amen.