Easter 4: Are We Living Death or Living Life?

 

Traditionally the Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Reflecting on the image of the Good Shepherd and the sheepfold we are to consider Easter resurrection by taking a serious look at how we choose to live as individuals and as community: Are we living death or living life?

In the Kid’s Corner, I mentioned the gems that I have found between the pages of books, particularly old books; bookmarks, notes, prayer cards, newspaper clippings. Amongst some old books of my dads I found a little booklet published a 120 years ago, called: ‘The Song of the Syrian Guest.’

The author, William Allen Knight, tells a story of his family in America, receiving a Syrian guest into their home for dinner and conversation. The guest told many stories from Syria including the words of a favourite song – which we know as Psalm 23- along with an explanation of each line from the heart of a Syrian shepherd.  

Two sections particularly spoke to me as Good News, as words of resurrection, amidst new restrictions and growing cases of COVID.  I invite you to pull up a chair and listen to two phrases from Psalm 23 as told by a Syrian guest.

 

-for thou art with me –

“To show how much the presence of the shepherd counts for the welfare of the sheep I can think of nothing better than the strange thing I now tell you.  It is quite beyond the usual, daily care on which the flock depends so fondly. But I have seen it more than once.

Sometimes, in spite of all the care of the shepherd and his dogs, a wolf will get into the very midst of the flock. The sheep are wild with fright.  They run and leap and make it impossible to get at the foe in their midst, who at that very moment may be fastening his fangs in the throat of a helpless member of the flock.  But the shepherd is with them.  He knows what to do even at such a time.  He leaps to a rock or hillock that he may be seen and heard.  Then lifts his voice in a long call, something like a wolf’s cry: ‘Ooh! Ooh!’

On hearing this the sheep remember the shepherd; they heed his voice; and, strange to tell, the poor, timid creatures, which were helpless with terror before, instantly rush with all their strength into a solid mass.  The pressure is irresistible; the wolf is overcome, frequently he is crushed to death, while the shepherd stands there on a rock crying, ‘Ooh! Ooh!”

-I will fear no evil for thou art with me.

 

You anoint me with oil –

“Oh, there begins the beautiful pictures at the end of the day.  The psalm has sung of the whole round of the day’s wandering all the needs of the sheep, all the care of the shepherd. Now it closes with the last scene of the day.  At the door of the sheepfold the shepherd stands and ‘the rodding of the sheep’ takes place.  The shepherd turns his body to let the sheep pass; he is the door, as Christ said of himself. With his rod he holds back the sheep while he looks them over one by one as they go into the fold. He has the horn filled with olive-oil and he has cedar-tar, and he anoints a knee bruised on the rocks or a side scratched by thorns. And here comes one that is not bruised but is simply worn and exhausted; he bathes its face and head with the refreshing olive-oil and he takes the large two-handled cup and dips it brimming full from the water he has brought for that purpose, and lets the weary sheep drink.

There is nothing finer in the psalm than this. God’s care is not for the wounded only it is for those who are just worn and weary.

-thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 

Are we living death or living life?

What I hear in the stories told by the Syrian guest, is that the heart of shepherding and being a sheepfold is relationship. Thou are with me, you anoint my head with oil – both are relational. When reminded by the shepherd to not be afraid, the sheep work together – collectively pushing in on each other to form a tight community, and face/address/tackle whatever ‘wolf’ is in their midst.

There are instances where collectively we hear God’s call and do push in on each other to form a tightly knit community that addresses social ills and evil in our midst. But there are other examples where we are scattered and not a sheepfold at all. When it comes to the stewardship of creation, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, addressing Systemic racism, we are not in the sheepfold, we are not even in the same field.

There are other areas also where perhaps we are living dead, rather than living life.

Areas where we are not living as a sheepfold, meaning relationships are all screwed up. Consider how the norm is no longer tight knit neighbourhoods or extended family living.

We have hired-hands and out-sourced our relationships: consider that much of our caring capacity has been given to ‘experts’ – professionals, service providers, organizations, government- particularly in relationship with seniors and long-term care, childcare, health care,  education, food production, manufacturing the things we use. On so many levels - We are disconnected. We are outsourcing relationship.

Are we living death or living life?

 

The Syrian guest’s reflection on Psalm 23 is the shepherd standing on rock or hillock and crying, ‘ooh! Ooh!  This is a call to resurrection, a call to not be afraid, a call to remind us to work together to stamp out evil in our midst; to push in on each other and form a tight community and address the things that draw us away from relationship with shepherd and sheep and creation.

 

Living death – is living that does not have us living into our capacity to care; it is living devoid of relationship, or only living into some relationships. It is outsourcing and hiring others to do the difficult work of walking with others, suffering with others, taking care of others. It is being too busy to care or too wrapped up in your own stuff to warrant getting involved.

 

Living life – is living that is resurrection. Life that brings joy because all your relationships – those with God, people, creation, objects; centre on care and growing and or reflecting on the relationship.  Living life is taking to heart the care of the Shepherd and applying the word’s thou art with me and you anoint my head with oil, and then sharing this resurrection  in and through our relationships.

 

As a gathered community - Anointed with oil and cup over-flowing- be released from fear and refreshed from weariness; that you may live life. Amen.

 

Easter 3: How Have Ministries Been Enhanced

 

 

Through this season of Easter we are reflecting and applying the Easter story to resurrection springing up from the Lent of pandemic.

The first Sunday of Easter we reflected on the question: what is God calling us to do?

The second Sunday of Easter we reflected on spring cleaning – and were introduced to a journaling pamphlet, “Moving With the Risen Christ.” And you were/are invited to take time through this season to fill it out and return it to the church.

On this third Sunday of Easter we reflect on the question: how have ministries been enhanced over this pandemic time?

 

Enhanced. This is a resurrection kind of word.

Heightened, increased, intensified, appreciated, built up, deepen, boosted, bolstered, strengthened, enlarged, augmented, raised, enlivened... yes, a resurrection word! Alleluia!

 

This past week I read, ‘The Council of Pecans’ – a chapter in the book,  ‘Braiding Sweetgrass,’ by Robin Kimmerer. I learned something extraordinary!

There is a curious thing about pecan trees; from year to year one can not determine how many pecans trees will produce; there is not a pattern to the thin years or bumper crops. The trees have a mind of their own... kind of. Perhaps not unexpected is that all the pecan trees in one area produce the same amount as the other trees in a given year – chalk that up to similar environmental conditions – water, sun, temperature, soil.  What is curious is that pecan trees across the country -so in vastly different environmental conditions- all produce the same amount of fruit in a given year. In low years, everyone has less pecans and struggle together to find adequate food for the winter.  In years of abundance, there is an abundance for everyone and every creature. The chapter is called, the council of pecans, because some how to achieve this the trees must communicate with each other, deciding how much they will produce. Especially in years of mass fruiting, there is evidence that the trees share carbohydrates with each other via incredible fungal networks that redistribute the wealth – one tree to the next.  The council of pecans has a beautiful message, if we listen  -- there is no discrimination; when there is a scarce harvest this scarcity it shared, when there is a feast it is a feast for all- producers and creatures everywhere!

 

How has ministry been enhanced? This question is asking us to open our eyes to the resurrection story being experienced in our midst. It is the same as Jesus’ question from the text, “Have you anything to eat?”  Jesus’ question doesn’t say, ‘give me something to eat’ or what it is that he wants to eat;’ rather it is simply, ‘have you anything to eat?’

 

Jesus’ followers were in a lull, a time of grief and confusion. A time of fear and insecurity when they were not sure whom they could trust and what might happen to those found out to be connected to Jesus.  In the fog of confusion and cloud of unknowning a pair of followers are on the road walking to Emmaus, when a stranger appears on the road and enters their conversation. With hesitation the couple shares with the stranger the strange events of the past few days – talking about death and the recent stories of seeing the dead -Jesus- to be alive. The stranger shares with the couple his understanding of scripture and the hearts of the couple are warmed. They have been given something to eat – spiritual food.

On arriving at their home the couple invite and welcome the stranger into their home, despite any fear or hesitation they may have. The stranger asks the open-ended question, “have you anything to eat?” ... and in sharing fish, bread – physical food – they recognize that Jesus, in flesh and bone, is in their midst and with wounded hands Jesus blesses them.

 

This resurrection story is full of abundance! It enhances our understanding of what resurrection is all about and hopefully expands our experiences of resurrection as we take it to heart.

It is in the willingness to welcome a stranger and to share ‘anything to eat’ – whether conversation, scripture, a journey, shelter, food, table – that the couple, the disciples, recognize Christ in their midst. And Christ is incarnate, flesh and blood, where the divine is seen in human flesh.  Resurrection is a tangible God showing up in person ... in person, bearing the marks of death, the wounds of suffering. 

We live in a time of foolish and senseless deaths: black lives, murdered and missing indigenous  lives, COVID death, domestic violence, mass shootings ---- we can’t turn away from death.  It is ever-present. We live in a fog of confusion and a cloud of unknowning.

 

And into this Jesus asks, ‘have you anything to eat?’

How have ministries been enhanced over the pandemic?

Ministry has been enhanced in the moments when, with wounded hands, we have welcomed the stranger and shared what we have. Facing death, in the time of death, this morning – right now – we experience resurrection as we gather together to hear the word of God and feed the soul; when we don’t turn from foolish death but work to change the statistics; when we as a community invite expressions of grief and lament; when we open a space -in a mult-media plethora of options- to welcome and feed the stranger. Ministry is enhanced when we feast on gratitude and prayer for others; when we take the time to pass out bread whether in the form of physical bread, or heart bread by telling someone else about God’s grace and forgiveness. Ministry is enhanced when repentance and forgiveness are proclaimed.

 

The most eye opening idea for me this week was the putting together of thoughts:

 that ministry is enhanced when we work together like the council of pecans.

Communicating with each other where no one is left out and all are connected; indiscriminately suffering with each other, enjoying abundance together; being fed by each other so that others will be fed; dying with each other, rising together; praying for all; proclaiming repentance and forgiveness widely without reserve; and remembering that some years there will be a scarcity of fruit – so to survive creatures will need to rely on each other- and other years there will be an over-abundance of fruit, a time to celebrate, to live resurrection in its fullness; a year when death will be overshadowed with life!

Until then, proclaim repentance and forgiveness in word and action, welcome strangers, share what you have (conversation, scripture, journey, shelter, food, table), and in so doing may we all experience the risen incarnate Christ in our midst.

 

 

 

 

Spring Cleaning

 

Have nothing in your house you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. ---William Morris

And from geniusquotes.org:

Spring cleaning isn’t about sorting through things and getting rid of clutter. It’s about taking stock of who you are and how others see you.  Its a chance to redefine yourself, to change expectations and to remember that it’s never too late to recapture who you were, or to aim for who you want to be.

 

Today’s scriptures (and the beautiful weather of the past week) have had me thinking about spring cleaning:

 In the early church community we hear of a community of people who are sharing what they have with each other.  The community uses their possessions for the good of all: I sense that nothing is wasted; items are used, reused, and passed along; if food or necessities are required possessions without immediate purpose are sold or traded for what is essential.  The focus of the community is love and compassion for each other.

The disciples’ story gives us a glimpse into a different kind of spring cleaning, one that focuses on the items in our brains and hearts. The text speaks about degrees of belief. The disciples have just experienced the death of their teacher and have had to work at making sense of what they belief; integrating new thoughts into a life-long faith system, accepting a changing relationship with how they understand scripture and the idea of Messiah, and how this applies to actions and life moving forward. And then Jesus appears in their midst! Spring cleaning continues – beliefs, ideas, emotions, actions – some things get pushed out and others resurrected into something new.  

 

In the early years of the church, the community gathered together to care for each other and to tell the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The community also went out to care for others and to proclaim the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection to those who had not yet heard.  There was nothing in the house church that one did not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.  The community took stock of who they were and how others saw them. This early period was a chance to redefine themselves, to change expectations and to remember that it’s never too late to recapture who you were, or to aim for who you want to be. And so it was for the first 200 years or so.

 

After 300 CE,  there was a change of focus within some church communities from spreading and telling the story of Jesus to collecting and preserving sights and artifacts belonging to Jesus and the disciples. Historian Eusibeus records that the Emperor (that is of Rome) has a desire to recover sights like the Upper Room, Jesus’ tomb; artifacts like the cross. Shrines were built to mark the sights, pilgrims began to visit sights to see and take a piece home with them – whether a rock or a piece of tile, a chunk of pottery. Sights began to accumulate things: artifacts to attract pilgrims, candles, sculpture, decorative pieces, tombs, benches; ways of doing things, prayers to be said, fees to pay, what to believe, how to act. The proverbial closet became full of stuff.

 

Over the years there were times of ‘spring cleaning,’ particularly of hearts and brains; buildings remained, as did the stuff in them.  One example of a ‘spring cleaning’ was the Reformation – where focus shifted through a renewed reading of scripture – hearts and minds were changed through wrestling with and understanding that God was not about judgement, but rather, grace. ‘Spring cleaning’ -getting rid of that which was not useful or beautiful – helped the springing up of creative music, art, preaching, conversation, study – resurrection of faith through once again focusing on telling and sharing the story of Jesus.’

 

The current situation of the church is one of spring cleaning.  Over pandemic items have been set aside, some completely tossed out, and new ways of telling and sharing the story of Jesus’ have grown. We are in a position where we are slowly returning to the closet – the building- where our relationship to the material things around us will have changed; some items will have lost their use and no longer be beautiful.

This is our chance to spring clean – to spring clean material things, to spring clean matters of the heart, to spring clean our intellects, to spring clean so that our focus as individuals and a community of believers is resurrected to be of use and beauty to the world.

 

To help in this endeavor a reflection pamphlet has been created to assist us in figuring out our focus – and the nitty-gritty of who we are and who we want to be moving forward.  The pamphlet will be available for pick up, it will be mailed out to some, and photos of it shared. Please take the time to participate and reflect --- to do some spring cleaning of yourself and the church--- And if the pamphlet is not your style, feel free to send your reflections to the church in whatever style works for you.

 

Spring cleaning has been forced on us. Spring cleaning can continue as fuller community is resurrected coming out of pandemic.

 

Resurrection is:

.. about taking stock of who you are and how others see you.

It’s a chance to redefine yourself, to change expectations and to remember that it’s never too late to recapture who you were, or to aim for who you want to be.

 

Thanks be to God.

Easter - What Is God Calling Us to Do?

 

 

It was the best of times it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.      Charles Dickens might as well have written the opening to the “Tale of Two Cities” to describe our present time; Easter 2021.

 

Echoed in line from Dickens, is Paul’s reflection from 1 Corinthians on the foolishness of the cross; echoed is the conundrum the women find themselves in at the empty tomb; echoed is our reality of living in the tensions of belief and incredulity, hope and despair; echoed is the truth that there is nothing and everything before us – just as the Gospel of Mark ends the story where the women say nothing to anyone because they were frightened.  In the Greek text it literally reads ‘they were afraid for...”

 

The Gospel of Mark – this Easter morning story- is early.... Mark does not use theological expressions, he gives no Christological titles, doesn’t use proofs or prophecy from scripture, no descriptions of the resurrection are present, and  the description of the angel at the tomb is basic – not extrapolated.

I know there are some of you who will take your Bible and look at the ending of Mark to verify that this is indeed how the Gospel ends.  Be warned that you will find more verses after verse 8. Generally publishers will mark the verse ‘shorter ending’ and ‘longer ending.’  Both of these were added later – you can google ‘ending Gospel of Mark’ to learn more.  Two of the oldest scrolls of the Gospel, dating to 300 CE end at verse 8.

 

Throughout the seven weeks of Easter we  will hear stories of resurrection appearances from the other Gospels. As beautiful as these stories are – in the story told by Mark there is something simple and honest and oh so very real.

This is my favourite ending because I get it, I can put myself in the group of women; I get lost in conversation with them about who will roll the stone away; I feel the confusion of finding not a body, but, a young man in an empty tomb. I feel devastated that my final gift of love – to anoint the body of a friend and teacher- is not going to happen. How am I ever going to grieve this loss? And I am afraid because this is not what I was expecting, I don’t understand, and this is going to get someone or a group of someones in a lot of trouble. 

Standing at the tomb I sense something beyond understanding; there is a truth that I just can’t quite put my finger on; a change has occurred may I not be too afraid to live into it.

As an introvert I walk away, pondering, seeking options to answer the how, the why, the what now  --- what can this mean?

 

What is God calling us to do?

The women, Mary, Mary, and Salome, were asked to go and to tell the disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of them to Galilee; there they will see him. 

Peter is specifically mentioned because Peter would have been living in the guilt of denying Jesus the night before his death. A specific invitation to come, invites Peter back into the fold --- still loved, still a disciple, still a member of the community.  It also book ends the Gospel of Mark for at the beginning Jesus’ first invitation to be a disciple is given to Simon (Peter) who immediately leaves his nets to follow Jesus.  In literature of this time, to come full circle naming a specific person at the beginning and at the end – is to say that the telling of the Gospel is based on the eyewitness account of the person mentioned. Mark relates Peter’s account of Jesus. At the end, Peter would not have an account, if Mary, Mary, and Salome chose to live as if nothing was the matter, as if nothing changed; if they chose to be silent in fear, rather than grapple with the possibilities before them.

 

What is God calling us to do?

When in the Gospel of Mark I stand at the tomb, I sense something beyond understanding. I feel a change.

This resurrection account feels like our present reality – our journey through pandemic.  Things have changed and won’t ever be the same, but, looking forward we can’t see what resurrection experiences await, or what possibilities will grow.

I imagine the women - having the empty tomb experience-  work its way through their brains; their fear subsiding enough that they chose to tell the disciples and Peter what they found and heard.  Little by little as the days go on, as the group leaves Jerusalem to go back to their homes in  Galilee, more and more truth is accepted and sprouts new life. COVID won’t just one day end, rather, living in a changed world happens little by little as the days go on and then we open our eyes and hearts and we will find ourselves – the community- in a new place.

 

What is God calling us to do?

This is one of various questions that will be posed to you -to us as a community- through the Season of Easter. The question asks us to wrestle with Jesus’ resurrection, and what it is to live this resurrection through our lives today; it is a question to help us move as a community through pandemic to participate in what God is doing – what God is wanting to do- in this neighbourhood, in this world, in creation- through the community’s hands and faith and proclamation of the resurrection. Despite fear, perhaps because of fear, we are called to go and tell!

We are to consider the concrete ways we as individuals and a community can do this. This is our task:

Calm your fears enough that you can  tell someone the story of Jesus and the resurrection –

 particularly in

The best of times and in the worst of times, in the age of wisdom and foolishness, in the epoch of belief and incredulity, in the season of light and darkness, in the spring of hope and the winter of despair, when we have everything before us and when we have nothing before us, whether we are moving heavenward or the other direction...

 

Go tell others -especially those whom you know by name- that the empty tomb has brought change, a mystery not be ignored, and in emptiness offers possibilities for new life.  Jesus has gone before you and will meet you in the neighbourhood.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Unless a Grain of Wheat... Lent 5

 Theologian Karl Rahner wrote, “the earth is the body that holds the ‘soul’ until resurrection.”

The earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection.

In my heart of hearts, I would love for every human being to mediate on this line, even just to say it aloud a few times throughout a day. The earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection.

I believe that the nuance of the idea that the earth is the body, and we are working parts within that body – giving the soul purpose and connection with other souls to be in service of the earth – is enough to change how we sojourn and live.

Often when we contemplate change, repentance, forgiveness we think of an hundred percent turn around; all or nothing. Yet, it only takes a 2% movement in our thinking, to be change.  It is not about the all-in, it is change little by little. How would the world change if we took time to consider the earth is the body that holds us all?

Karl Rahner’s comment -the earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection- was highlighted as a phrase to cause movement in thinking and in people’s hearts. The phrase was used in his discussion and observations around burial practices and how such practices have changed and in their changing have caused a loss of connection with humans to the earth.  As a society we have become un-rooted to earth and the rhythms of life and death outside of ourselves. Consider the changes in our practices of death over the past century:  how many of you have washed a loved one’s body after death? Or been to a wake in the person’s home with the body present? Have you sat vigil with a body on and off over a couple of days? Have you hand dug a grave or filled one in? Have you wrapped a body in a shroud? Trudged through the cemetery, walking over other graves, to see the hole in the ground? Wailed in the cemetery? Taken care of a grave – added dirt on a settled plot, planted grass seed on it in the spring? Walked passed grave markers resurrecting the names written on them by reading them?

Many have not had experiences of the earthiness of death. In recent years, more and more people are choosing no visitations, no ceremonies, no burying or scattering of bodies turned to ash. Urban living and the funeral industry have sanitized and sterilized death.

We have lost connection to the earth -a connection to God- because of an un-rootedness in burial practices.

 

Whenever I hear the Gospel reading from today read, I am immediately transported to another place. ... There I am, a little apart from a huddled group of people, fixing black shoes on a patch of higher grass as it sinks into the mud, breathing in the smell of fresh earth, feeling the bitter wind on the tips of my ears, hearing the call of birds as focus goes to the hole in the ground. From my mouth come the words: Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

And in that moment, I am grounded; my faith is firmly rooted; I am -the group is- embraced by the body of the earth.  I am connected to the rhythm of life and death and resurrection. At any other time one may find me all over the map, as to the percentage of faith I have, or feel, or how connected to God I may be... but never, in that moment on the lip of an open grave, in the elements, standing on Mother Earth, have I ever been in doubt that the return to earth is the beginning of resurrection.  ..unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies...

 

We begin Lent each year with Ash Wednesday, a day with rituals and prayers to change our minds and hearts.  The day is but a start to a 40 day season to focus on sojourning to and through death; it is not a quick fix, but time under pressure. Ash Wednesday and Lent are part of the rhythm of the church year; having us purposely sojourn in uncomfortable places because if there are no uncomfortable places our hearts and minds never move, never change, and the possibility of resurrection remains dormant.

Obedience to the rhythms outside of ourselves – means seeing and experiencing a bigger vision- we move beyond individual ego and concerns, and enter the body of the earth; Relationship with the Creator of all.

Pastor Brooklyn from Mahone Bay shared with the Lutheran clergy group a thought about the Gospel and what she might preach today.  She reworded the imposition of ashes line from the Ash Wednesday service to, “Remember that you are compost and to compost you will return.”  The image works, we understand the richness of compost, the life giving qualities of compost, the fruit that compost bears. – For compost to be compost, living things sacrifice life.

 

Death, - this past year- sacrifices, griefs, reconnecting to the simple, to the earth, --- this extended sojourning in an imposed Lent-like landscape has changed us; maybe not a 100%, but at least 2%. We are no longer who we were a year ago when COVID closed the church’s physical doors. As individuals, a congregation, a worshiping community we have sojourned with death and that is changing everything.  We are in varying degrees of composting.

There is hope stirring in vaccines; there is talk of opening this and that; conversations that include dreams looking further into the future than just a few days; resurrection is in the air, it is just around the corner.

 

As we enter the last week of Lent, I am giving you a task.

Remember that you are compost and to compost you will return.

Accepting that this year has been one of sojourning with death, consider the rich compost we have become because of loss and grief and sacrifice. Our hearts and minds have changed.  We are grains of wheat that have fallen into the earth, died, and are now ready to bear much fruit. Your task is to reflect on: what things will you let go and not pick up again?  What practices have you learned over the year to bring with you into new life? What does church life and being the people of God look like/feel like moving forward? How will you, how will we, live resurrection?

 

Easter is not here yet, there are awkward days ahead and a long difficult journey: deciding when to shake hands, hug, or touch another person; when -if ever- to stop wearing a mask; when to let people into your house; when to go back to coffee hour; how to act around people you haven’t physically seen for a long time; and being prepared to let down walls and to experience pent-up emotion seeping out of your eyes.  It is going to be a muddy journey. I am thankful that as community we play in the mud together. Remember we are all compost and to compost we will return.

Resurrection will come, there will be much fruit.

 

And for now, the earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sojourning: Moving Towards Water

 

Let us help one another according to the Creator’s intention of putting us on this planet. This is a line from the Mi’kmaw, Honour Song, which I understand acts as a sort of national anthem. Keep these words in the forefront of your minds:

Let us help one another according to the Creator’s intention of putting us on this planet.

 

At National Church Council meeting last weekend, one of the presenters in their slide presentation used a map showing the Continental Divide of North America and North America’s six water basins. Instantly the image connected in my mind to our Lent theme of ‘Sojourning in the Land.’ 

Although I am sure that I learned the water basins at some point in my life – this time the visual clicked. When North America receives rain or snow, the water starts its journey downhill to eventually enter an ocean (in all the basins except for the Great Basin which is landlocked): West Coast waters journey to the Pacific, East Coast waters journey to the Atlantic, the Mississippi and outlying areas of that river drain to the Gulf of Mexico; the North drains to the Arctic Ocean; and the Central North basin waters journey to Hudson Bay. Conceiving  North America in terms of water basins changes my thoughts on sojourning in the land.

            The image totally draws attention from the land, moving outward to the oceans, deep seas.

Sojourning in the land is in the end a journey to water.  Some may find it sobering, others exhilarating, that eventually when our bodies die, and are laid to rest -and as our particles return to the earth- slowly the particles are washed to the nearest ocean. I find comfort in this continual cycle of death and rebirth through the cycle of water.

The image relates to my understanding of Ephesians “for by grace you have been saved through faith, this is not your own doing; it is a gift from God”   -like the water cycle: first lifted from the immensity of the ocean (God), rains down (grace); the journey is then faith filtering, finding God, then returning to the great I AM.  Life is cyclical, continual, renewing – water in many forms; changing, flexible, in tune with its purpose in each part of its cycle.

 

The map of the Continental Divide has affected how I hear the story from Numbers. The Israelites find themselves journeying in the wilderness. The book is full of stories of rebellions and complaints, arguments with Moses, and annoyance with God; we hear of their encounters with various enemies; and new-to-them prescriptions (rules) interspersed along the way. The people are not so happy. The journey is not so comfortable – the slavery they left is looking better than the wilderness. Today I think I get it.

Of all the water basins in North America, there is only one that is completely different. The Great Basin, located primarily in the states of Nevada and Utah, is landlocked. Water in the form of precipitation does not go to the ocean, instead it collects in lakes or swamps, to evaporate and make salt lakes. There is heat and desert. For those living in other water basins this anomaly is interesting and confusing. To live in this water basin – to sojourn there requires a different set of rules and ways of being.

Now think about the Israelites.  Before finding themselves in the wilderness, they were living in Egypt where life, weather, health, commerce were depended on the Nile River.  The Nile provided water, food, a way to make bricks to build shelter. This water basin provided a known order and routine; seasons, with the water eventually getting to the ocean via the Mediterranean Sea.  The Israelites had lived along the Nile and on its flood plain for generations – this is all they knew.

And then they find themselves in an anomaly. Consider that the wilderness journey was like plucking us up (from the East Coast Basin) and depositing us in the Great Basin without a guide book to help us journey across this strange land.

How do you travel through an unknown land; one you do not intend on settling in because you have a destination on the other side; this journey is a pass through.  You find the land inhospitable: you know not the customs or language of the people whom you meet; the weather patterns are different; the floral and fauna are unusual; you have no idea the potential dangers; or what you need to know for survival. No wonder the people act as they do. The situation really bites!

 

And according to the story – with the appearance of snakes- literally does bite!

In the wilderness the people’s new normal has been to take their complaints to Moses, and ask Moses to pray to God on their behalf; God responds in a saving manner. In this case God suggests to Moses that he craft a bronze serpent on a pole for the people to look at when bit and they will be saved.  It sounds awfully simple, and full of hocus-pocus; like God has a magic wand in the eyes of the people. It is a sign – God works a miracle as God imbues the snake sculpture as the magic wand.

Perhaps it was not the wand at all. It was Moses turning back to God at the behest of the people to take their concerns to God. The miracle, the health of the people, was in a shift of thinking and focus, no longer on their plight but rather the taking steps to move towards grace (God).  

The bronze serpent on a pole worked as a sympathetic kind of magic; meaning the human consciousness causes one to believe in magic based on the connection of an image to the thing that it represents.  The people believed that the pole would bring healing, so it did.  The people were afraid of the landscape they were journeying in; complaining about no water, no food—and what food there is, is griped about as detestable; and to top off the situation they are impatient and annoyed with God. Snakes come into their midst --- in some ways creations of their own making; all the whining and complaining, being afraid and annoyed are certainly biting. And then the bronze serpent steals away their attention, and offers a focal point of hope, to move the people beyond complaint, fear, annoyance; their biting at Moses and at God.  In this place the serpent makes sense – and with some reflection perhaps we can understand as we live through pandemic.  I am sure there are items that have become focus shifters for you; hope builders; items that help you cope day to day. For the most part, these things that save us, are good.

The trouble is however, sometimes we get stuck moving towards grace.  We get stuck and stop moving towards the ocean. That’s what happened with the bronze serpent on a pole, when the crisis was over, the people decided not to leave it behind in the wilderness as they moved on.  The reminder of the crisis – the serpent- came along, and so too the reliving of the trauma of the event; over and over again. Eventually the serpent was idolized and became a revered relic.  After the 40 years in the desert, as the people began to settle, the serpent pole was set up on a holy hillside;  and there it remained even after the Temple was built. By the time of King Hezekiah – that is - people had been in the land for a really long time and those who had lived through the situation in the wilderness had passed away generations before;  the book of 2nd Kings records that people were making offerings to the serpent pole and had named it Nehushtan. Something that represented a saving action, had now became destructive.

 

It’s as if for some, settling in the land prohibited the thought of journey – or sojourning. It is like drawing a line in the sand and saying here I am, I am not crossing over; and then setting up shrines to mark certain pieces of history – generally shrines to having supposedly come out the other side of a traumatic experience; where the shrine is a trigger to pull one back to continually relive the trauma; that doesn’t sound like a healthy, life-giving way to live.

 

Sojourning in the land, moving towards grace, is an important concept for the worlds’ peoples today. Through pandemic we have found those things that brought us through, ‘saved’ us. But so help us God, if we now carve in stone these same things.

The story from Numbers should remind us, wake us up, that some things work for a time; only a time, so don’t assume it always will-  if pandemic has taught us anything, it is that things do not work in all times, places, and circumstances.

 

I return to the Continental Divide and the image of moving towards the ocean – moving towards the waters of creation and the Creator. Sojourning in the land means being purposefully part of the water cycle: taking care of it, living grace, filtering faith and seeking God, returning to God to start all over again. The stories of the Israelites in the wilderness remind us that along the way we can get stuck and loss our purpose; we can experience trauma and end up in a salt lake, wandering there for decades; and we have also witnessed journeying through to the other side because salvation and hope were offered at just the right time.

In this time -  as sojourner in the land, flow towards the ocean of God, and along the way bring others with you, especially those who have hardened into salt.

 

Let us help one another according to the Creator’s intention of putting us on this planet.

Warning: Dangerous Landscape

 

First Lady, Rosalyn Carter, said, “A leader takes people where they want to go.  A greater leader takes people not necessarily where they want to go, but where they ought to be.”

 

Today our sojourning in the land is a journey of a different form – not on land per se, but rather a

hike through the landscape of scripture text; crawling and exploring through the Bible’s pages into unknown landscapes.  Today we sojourn with great leaders – not to go where we want to go, but to go where we ought to be.

 

I love to read.  I love stories in all forms: literature, music, movies, spoken word. I am not alone in this. Human history reflects a gathering around story – ancient pictographs, hieroglyphs, totem poles.  Humans share their stories with each other: poems, songs, epic sagas, fables, parables, jokes, memes, history accounts, wisdom, scripture, commandments. It is no wonder that faith too is passed on in these forms.  Stories in all forms have a unique attribute – story is able to bypass the critical intellect – a story gets inside our heads, our emotions are aroused and engaged, and once inside then the story gets tossed around, thought about, interpreted, applied... once inside the pieces of a story can be tackled by the mind to discover what the possible message could be; arriving at meaning from the inside out.

Readers, often come to the Bible with an attitude that reading it automatically makes one better – reading doesn’t work that way. It is the journeying through the words, romping in its meadows, afterwards, where ‘bettering’ happens. ‘Bettering’ also happens in the discipline of hiking through the pages of your Bible, over years and a lifetime. Through this time we experience different parts of the story because we bring with us who we are and how we at the time; so each time getting a more dimensional feeling of the story.  If we are angry, we read angry, we see angry, we listen angry, we interpret angry – scripture will be angry – and so too will our understanding of religion, faith, and God. I mention an attitude of anger because some have taken Jesus’ action in the Temple and focused on his anger, not exploring other possible paths in the story.

We also walk through the landscape of scripture as products of Western civilization where we believe the myth that everything has an explanation. Could we – dare we-  accept that scripture is inexplicable? That scripture was written to read us, not us it. The texts, and especially the crazy ones, are there to jar us out of complacency.

This is the point of today’s texts.

 

This Jesus story – the episode in the Temple- is Jesus being jarred out of complacency having heard and recited and mulled over the Commandments since the time he was a young boy.  The Commandments have read Jesus, down to his very heart; and observing the world around him, Jesus is unable to see a living of that particular story from the Word of God.  The disconnect annoys Jesus’ sojourning with the text, the Law.  The episode in the Temple is a wake up call to his fellow travelers, pointing to the distance humans have created between themselves and others, themselves and God. Jesus, by throwing over the tables in the Temple is not telling us to refrain from having garage sales or other money maker events in the Church; Jesus is reacting to the religion’s failure to live the Law – the summary being the Commandments we heard earlier – love God, love your neighbour.   The letter of the Law - the rules about changing money, offering sacrifice, policing who can and can’t come to God, judging the sin of others- has become more important than the spirit of the Law; the spirit to focus on relationship and perfecting relationship with God, people, and creation.

Temple religion was keeping the Law which was by no means wrong, but the trouble was that hearts were disengaged, relationships were broken; evident in the vast numbers of people being left out, abandoned, forgotten – like the poor, the widow, the orphan, the slave, the foreigner, the sick, the aged, women.

What Jesus is experiencing is rearticulated again in the poetic words of George Elliot Clarke’

“It is the distance between earth and heaven, us and God; not God with us, but us with God.”

 

Jesus turning the tables in the Temple is the beginning of John’s telling of the Gospel story. Again and again the religious leaders will address Jesus with questions starting in points of Law, pointing out failure to follow the Law; pointing fingers at those breaking the rules- particularly Jesus and the disciples. John’s telling of the story has Jesus placed in moments were he faces following the letter of the Law, or deciding to set the letter of the Law aside, and follow the spirit and heart of the Law. The heart is Jesus’ choice. Courageously Jesus chooses relationship every time: Jesus sits down and has an intimate conversation with a Samaritan woman, Jesus sees a sick man and despite it being the Sabbath heals him, Jesus sides with a woman caught in adultery, Jesus let a woman anoint his feet, Jesus touched those not to be touched -the blind, the leperous, Jesus called Lazarus from death back to life.  This epic saga has Jesus breaking the rules and redefining the Law at every turn.

 

Today’s text is John’s warning to us, the readers and hearers of the story, that this story is going to be messy, it is going to get people into trouble, it is full of angst and argument and putting people in their place.  This is a story not for the faint of heart or those with gentile sensibilities. The story is an epic battle of cosmic proportions. Such stories, as told through history, include blood and brutality, wherein the hero faces suffering and often torture or death; but if you stay with the story one usually finds redemption and liberation on the other side.

 

Today you are being warned, that sojourning with the biblical characters, walking in the texts, --following Jesus in his mission to clean house and transform hearts in this revolutionary re-telling of God’s vision that it is all about relationship -  is not going to be comfortable! No matter how good you are, or how good you think you are, you are being called from complacency -- expect blisters, bruising, being short of breath, perhaps a twisted ankle --- the texts are going to lead us, not to the places where we want to go (green pastures and still waters); but, rather, lead us to the places we ought to be.

  (Places were our relationships are broken, or don’t exist at all. The hard places were there is suffering, pain, and grief. Places where we face confession, forgiveness, and guilt. Places of lament, where we need to listen and not talk. Places where there are relationships that we can’t just fix. Places where societal rules will need to be set aside. Places that bring us face to face with death: of ourselves, of others, of peoples, of creation.)

We are being forewarned that the story we are reading – the story that is reading us—is taking us to the  cross with Jesus.  

Not where we want to go --- but where we ought to be.

Grounded Cross Bearing -Lent 2B

 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action (#59 and 60) were directed at church leaders and church practice.  Leaders and churches are called to teach, create resources, and educate their bodies for truth and reconciliation work. At a study conference two years ago Martin Lutheran University College theologian, Dr. Allen Jorgensen, taught East Coast pastors the characteristics of leaders who work reconciliation. One of these characteristics I would like to model this morning:

the characteristic is responsibility for personal location.

 

I am who I am because of my connection to the land where I spent my formative years. This was never so clear to me as when I moved to my first parish in New Denmark, NB.  Don’t misunderstand me, the land of the Tobique and Klokkendhal hill are beautiful, but I was homesick; homesick for big bodies of water, cedar trees and jack pines, limestone rock that lies horizontally, glacier affected landscapes, lake affect snow, fresh water salmon runs, tall standing cornfields interspersed with fields of cows, swarms of noisy red ring black birds and armies of bullfrogs that sing the sun down.  

My spirit was homesick because of how I related to the land from which I came; my relationship to it affected how I connected to creation, others, and Mystery – God. I had met God in places, sensed God’s presence, knew of spaces that held Mystery and healing; the land grounded me, my interpretations, my actions, my relationships. I knew its poetry, its scenery, its smells and textures, its seasons.

I am grateful for the land which formed me – the land of the Chippewa of Nawash known as Neyaashiinigmiing; ancestral and unceded territory of the Saugeen Ojibway.

For me the spirit of the land is part of who I am. When I read scripture I generally connect it to landscapes, smells, textures, experiences from where I was born and grew up. When I hear the story of Abraham, I remember him leaving Ur of the Chaldeans, his home, and travelling to an unknown place: I can see the landscape changing from known to unknown and the grief that accompanies that; like my moving from a land of lakes to the hill country of North-Western NB. When Jesus is in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, I imagine a boat on Georgine Bay – when the boat faced a storm, I re-experience the mighty thunderstorms that roll across Lake Huron, crashing on Sauble Beach. When the disciples are out and about walking from place to place I hear their conversation over the gurgling of water from Inglis Falls, foot steps skirting crevices, trilliums and jack-in-the-pulpits; and the way being framed by large cedars, with the disciples swatting at mosquitos.

 

This morning Jesus is teaching the disciples and then invites the crowd to gather round. There is no context of place other than a mention (before the text we heard) that Jesus and the disciples are visiting the villages around Caesarea Philippi.  Lots of walking. Lots of movement. This unidentified ‘where’ – this land- is significant in not being specific. When in Jerusalem, or going up to Jerusalem, Jesus is on a specific mission related to the Hebrew understanding of land, power, covenant, and the seat of God. Here in ‘non-specific’ land in villages around a Roman named city, Jesus talks about following, being disciples, and what this journey will entail. The words are spoken in a place, or non-place, thus including all people, all creatures- outside of the rules of religion and ideas of political or ethnic nationhood.

Jesus taught:  Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up my cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life must lose it, but whoever loses their life for the sake of the gospel will save it.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet  forfeit their soul? What can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Our Sunday Lenten theme, ‘Sojourners in the Land,’ has me hear the gospel in a new way.  Following and taking up the cross of Christ is understood through being rooted and connected to the land.

So often, I hear ungrounded reflections on Jesus’ words, were people interpret taking up the cross to mean bearing one’s cross; interpreted as loving the prickly people in our lives, suffering with chronic illness, bearing the burden of looking after the aging, settling in an unfulfilling job because it pays the bills, or rescuing family that can’t seem to shake bad-luck or poor decisions.

 Connected to the land, this is not what Jesus is referring to when calling listeners to take up my cross and follow me.  Taking up the cross – following Jesus is about journeying – sojourning in the land toward our own death – sojourning meaning a living out of God’s kindom in the world; bringing the kindom near, in the present, to the land where we are. It is not, however, just a ‘now’ project.  Sojourning in the land takes into consideration our relationship with creation and the land, being conscious of what we leave behind as garbage and what we grow as good news and spirit – those things that build the kindom of God.  In God’s covenant making with Abram, the father of many, the promises are not just about Abraham – a covenant is made for generation upon generation.  Psalm 22 is paired with the readings for today; it reminds us that we are called to consider ‘future generations.’ Indigenous practice connects making decisions now based on the impact for the seventh generation down the line; like the health of the environment, the welfare of the people, the spirit of the land. 

One way of taking up Jesus’ cross and following is taking responsibility for personal location. My location is the work of seven generations before me, and participation in the creation of seven generations into the future. That is a cosmic amount of time and a heavy responsibility. How I sojourn in the land – my practices of reconciliation, my relation to the earth and the environment , and the good news I choose to grow – will affect my and your great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and neighbours.

 

Christians have spent much of their history focused -not on reconciliation, relationship with the earth, good news-  but rather on sin. Today Christian communities still spend much time muddling in sin; talking in terms of movement away from sin, away from guilt; where the starting point for conversation about God and faith is sin. When we think of faith in this direction we become preoccupied with sin, we get stuck in a mire that acts like quicksand: ranking sin, judging our neighbours, deciding what is or is not sin, feeling guilt, shame, using our own works to try to get out, bondage, weight, resentment, God’s judgement. This takes considerable energy and hinders our ability to sojourn, and answer the call to take up Jesus’ cross and follow.

 As Lutherans I would hope that you have heard and have a sense of a different starting place, a different direction of movement.  As people of God we are not asked to dwell in the past, to get bogged down in sin;  we are baptised -and in that washing we die to self to rise and live resurrection; our focus becomes living faith where we start in the waters of baptism and sojourn through life moving toward grace;  and a fuller experience of grace.

Do you sense the difference in the phrases: ‘away from sin’ verses ‘moving to grace?’

Consider the cross of reconciliation. The journey of reconciliation is forward focused moving to grace, to a place of reconciled relationship. It is a journey that will take time, effort, and continued walking side by side with each other.  Today in school history lessons, children are hearing more voices, more sides of the story. Europeans are talked about as settlers. Settler language is a truth, however if we continue to think of ourselves as settlers that does not help the work of reconciliation; moving forward requires sojourners in relationship with people, land, and the spirit of both – so that generations from now are in better relationship with people and land than those relationships are presently.

 

I have been reading a book by Rodger Kamenetz reflecting on Jewish mysticism.  The book comments that for most of its history Judaism has been a landless religion.  Even though the texts talk about promised land – people experienced wandering in the desert, hundreds of years of exile, occupation by foreign powers, living in diaspora around the world.   Promised land was a concept, interpreted according to Rabbi Abraham Heschel, into a mystical idea where the sacred had to be found in time rather than space; thus the importance of keeping Sabbath, a “cathedral in time.”

We gather on Sunday mornings in a ‘cathedral in time,’ this week some of us in the church building, but our gathering is not just connected to this piece of property, this tiny piece of land in Mi’kmaki; ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaw people.  We are connected in relationship -across the land, connecting virtually and in person – we come together bearing with us the peoples and the land from which we grew; we come to explore how to be sojourners, moving to grace. Hand-in-hand we challenge and support each other to take up the responsibility of personal location, being in covenant with God, by taking up the cross of reconciliation with people and creation- working and sojourning in the land with hearts to better our relationships;  so that  grace will bloom in the seventh generation.

East Coasting (Lent 1)

 

‘East Coasting’ --- I have titled the sermon after this poem, written by George Elliot Clarke, which was shared earlier in the service. ‘East Coasting’ is my reflection for the first week of Lent. Let me explain.

For me, the season of Lent focuses on the idea of journey, and the time it takes to make or commit to a journey. In my heart and understanding, journey is rooted and connected to land. – in this case the East Coast. 

For those of you who live on the East Coast you do not need me to explain that East Coast living has its own unique spirit, culture, and personality.  And it is not just the people, it is the land too. There is something about living close to the coast and the mighty ocean that affects everything – the smell in the air, the song of the birds, the taste of salt. I knew a colleague who sensitive to the places where they lived – feeling the spirit of place. They described the East Coast as a place where life goes on in bright colours (seen in our houses and folk art), in engaging gigs and sea-shanties, in community mindedness, but all of this joy comes from a sadness -griefs- held in the land and the hearts of the people. It doesn’t take long – journeying here to understand:

The ocean is life-giving, teeming with fish and resources, work, prosperity, leisure, moderate temperatures; and the ocean is life-taking, storms at sea, lost boats, drownings, hurricanes, corrosive salt.

The land bears witness, our lives bear witness, and live the tensions of the dualities of life. People living in this land become attuned to the seasons and the nature of the land: the rise and fall of tides, the in and out of waves, and the beauty and destruction held in their power.

Living the dualities of life – the tensions of life- are our speciality because the land continually binds us into this space.  The season of Lent is a conversation focusing on tension and polarity, and how it is we navigate along the journey, keeping in mind God’s covenant and our relationship with God, creation, and others. We wrestle with sin and forgiveness, doubt and faith, unrighteousness and compassion, bondage and freedom, death and resurrection.

 

Bringing an ‘East Coasting’ sense of living to the scripture text we see the natural connection to the land – a wave – where Jesus comes in to the Jordan river for baptism and then is washed out, driven into the wilderness. Coming from the desert Jesus crashes in to Galilee and then slips away, the kingdom of God comes near – not quite wetting toes and hearts, and retreats, to return again – almost grasped to roll away yet again. Jesus’ ministry is a coming and going, waves of teaching and understanding, retreating to pray in a quiet place, waves of miracles, retreating to private conversations with the disciples, waves of wrestling conversation with religious leaders, retreating to homes of friends for a meal.

 

Canadian poet laureate and playwright, George Elliot Clarke, was born onto, into, the land of the Black Loyalist community of Windsor Plains, NS. In the words of his poem you hear the rhythm of the ocean, the rhythm of the coastland in the activities people are about; in music, in preaching, in worship, in farming/work, and in interaction in the landscape. I shared this poem with you this morning because the spirit of the land -and the people affected by the land- is in his poetry. His journey though life and his expression of that journey in his poetry was also whelmed by another spirit – the spirit of the holy.

Journey in the land, by the sea – affected his interpretation and journey through the land of scripture and reflecting on it. Clarke’s mother Geraldine once commented on his Bible.  She described it as old, ragged and torn, without a cover, completely bent out of shape with all sorts of papers stuffed in it here and there. It was “more worn than a minister’s Bible.”

Honestly my Bible is not that worn – not from lack of use, but careful use. I keep it ‘clean’ so it is easier to read when reading from it in public. But, if you look closely, there are pages that are bent, some that wrinkled having been rained on at church camp, others that have small tears, and a myriad of spots along the edges that are oil from my fingerprints through the years of journeying through the pages.

The Season of Lent returns us to scripture to journey through the covenants that God made with creation and God’s people. The Word, like water, continually laps at our feet (our hearts) drawing us to journey through scripture and journey through life in conversation with each other: to wrestle with the tensions we find therein.  

 

In David Du Chemin’s book, “Beauty of Anarchy,” (pg155) he describes to readers that there are only two ways of how to live in the present. Both make me think of the ocean –“East Coasting,” because each way has a strong pull for human beings to be the opposite; for us the opposite of what through covenant God calls us to be.  As waves come in, waves go out there is a connection in the polarity – inseparable;  an acceptance of this tension of how we know we ought to live and our failed attempts to live in the present.

According to Du Chemin: to live in the present - to be grounded, rooted, and landed- is to live first in forgiveness, and second in faith. Imagine both – forgiveness and faith- as rogue waves; the kind that crash ashore at Peggy’s Cove, surprising the unprepared, coming unseen with power, knock-you-down kind of force, an overwhelming deluge of cleansing water – destructive and full of life. This is the tension in which we live and where the scripture asks us to wrestle:

In the wave of forgiveness there is freedom, until we are tempted and pulled back into guilt and anger, bondage.

In the wave of faith there is freedom, until we are tempted and pulled into the surf of the opposite, fear.

Through the season of Lent we journey through expanding our practice of faith living. Summarizing Du Chemin’s thought expanding faith living is having: an openness to possibility and the faith that one (or the community) can handle whatever comes, that journeying through circumstances will make us stronger together; and while not everything happens for a reason, we can find or make meaning out of it (even tragedy) for our own lives; and in the end, to practice a faith that pain does not harm us, but journeying through pain – our own and accompanying those in pain- we return a new person (even triumphant); washed ashore to continue the cycle of gracefully living the tensions of life.

 

Perhaps it is living in a time of pandemic, experiencing waves of emotion, spirit: being okay and not okay all at the same time, feeling safe and unsafe, connected and unconnected, focused and unfocused... a journey of oceans and deserts; facing life and death, bondage and freedom --- and in the midst of all of it faith that God is present in the now--- whether flood or desert --- God is moving in the waves, journeying in, with, and around us. 

Journeying through pandemic, and beginning the Lenten journey through the biblical story of covenant and journeying with Jesus’ to the cross, has readjusted my thinking and is pulling on my heart to consider life in a new way; to consider myself on a journey – as a sojourner- where I no longer have a ‘bucket list,’ -those things I will do someday whether its travel or different hobby or an experience I would like; but rather live from an attitude and approach where life (my life, your life) every day life IS the bucket list.

 

This week I am inviting you to connect, reconnect with the land on and in which we live and move and have our being. I am inviting you to practice ‘East Coasting.’  Where God who moves over the waters, whose spirit is present, through the land calling us to live the tensions of life, continually calling us to forgiveness and faith.

East coasting is coming for baptism, then being drawn back in by the world, crawling in for forgiveness, rippling away, washing up to offer praise and soak in hope, to go disperse these to the community, to  push up on shore exhausted, filled to return back to the tumbling of surf .... forever action, resurrection-death, discovery-loss, receiving-giving, freedom-bondage, faith-fear...

in the tension of Lent be washed again and again in the tide bringing new life, and be whelmed by God’s presence amidst your East-coasting; so that your journey – your receding leaves behind forgiveness and faith.

Amen.