EASTER 5 Click HERE for Readings.
Often when we read this gospel we only think of afterlife. Perhaps this is because it is read at funerals and preached as an afterlife passage. Rarely does Jesus intend his messages to apply to "heaven" as in after we are dead. His concern is with life here and now. The kingdom of God is in your midst is how Luke reports it. Heaven (afterlife) is interesting but as the father, in a Woody Allen movie, answering the main character's question about whether he worries about what happens, you know, after? says "after? after? who cares - I will be dead."
Only God knows what happens after and God in Christ challenges us to make this world a place where all can experience the realm of God. In the Lord's Prayer we say each Sunday "your kingdom come, your will be done, on earthas in heaven." When we begin to read this Gospel through that lens we hear Jesus assuring us that no matter where we go we will find a home. He will prepare that place for us and be there wherever life takes us. buckaroo Banzaiin the 80s cult film says "wherever you go there you are." We learn as we grow up that the grass in not always greener somewhere else, we will not be a different person, we still take ourselves and our gifts and challenges with us. Without help we cycle around the same old stuff. The promise Jesus makes is that he will prepare a place for us by being the way, the truth, and the life. This is not a message of exclusion and damnation for those who are someplace else in their walk - it is a message of hope for us.
It is like going camping with an expert guide who knows the challenges and rewards of the wilderness. One who is with us showing us the path, who can read the signs of the wilderness, and who is ahead of us at the campsite with the tent set up and the dinner on the fire at the end of a long trek. It is a relationship with the One who can be trusted to lead us and who as the Psalmist says "holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip." and "who brings us to a place of refreshment."
Last night (Saturday, April 23) Passover began for our Jewish sisters and brothers. Our reading from Deuteronomy contains the question of why Passover is celebrated. "we were slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand" With out liberation we are all slaves to things that do not matter ultimately. We get caught in the struggles of position, power, honor, shame, addiction, abuse --- God wants something else for us. God wants us to live with justice and peace, and in community with one another and the creation. When we become children of God we are expected to assist with the bringing of this "heaven" to the world. As the letter of Peter says "Once you were no people, but now you are God's people:" "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the might acts of the One who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
The many mansions tells us that there are many places where we may find ourselves, there are many ways that God has of calling to people to join in bring heaven to earth, but we are assured that no matter where life takes us - Christ will be there preparing a home for us. We will never be strangers again - not to one another, not to the world, not to God.

HUMOR ALERT
Inspired by Jon Carroll's article in SFGate:

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sibling Jackhammer of Sweet Reason.

Get yours.

From a breakaway group

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Immaculate Sword of Grace. What's yours?

Easter 3 Click Here for Readings
Early thoughts for Sunday's sermon.
In our EFM online group on Monday evening we did Theological Reflection on a painting of Jesus at Emmaus. The angles and planes of the painting both separate and join the figures and objects. In the painting the wine in the chalice is split and the bread is still unbroken. It seems to be the moment before recognition of Jesus in their midst. It reminds me of all those moments just before the world can never been seen in the same way again. For the people of Israel the Red Sea split before their eyes and they can continue their journey to liberation from slavery. For the husband and wife at Emmaus all their preconceived ideas of life and death are about to be shattered. They could not see that it was the Risen Christ accompanying them on the road home because they could not see beyond their ideas about what happens when someone dies. All of us have opinions and positions about "how things just are" - and yet the Spirit comes and breaks through those ideas in the lives of our ancestors in faith. Journeying with Christ we will have these life changing, mind altering experiences. A wild ride with a wild God.

DYING, DEATH, and other thoughts
The media feeding frenzy surrounding the Schiavo and Schindler families has evoked all sorts of reactions. Politicians have tried to make political capital out of the case. Various groups have tried to convince the courts and the public of their closeness to God and what God would want. Others align themselves with the husband or with the wife or with the parents. The only thing I can discover in all this is a deep unknowing of motives, reactions, reports and the whole process of dying. We do not really know what Terri Schiavo wanted, what her husband is thinking in his heart of hearts, what the parents really want, or even if anyone is right about anything. Our thoughts are primarily a projection of our own hopes and fears.
Those who have disabilities are alarmed that the case is a sign of what might happen to them if this is just one step on a slippery slope to no medical intervention when people have conditions that are deemed inconvenient. There is good reason to be alarmed given our history as humankind on this earth. Those who have had to face death in their loved ones and the prolonging of life when there is no hope of recovery and nature would take over if it weren't for our medical techniques - fear the consequences of a wrong choice. Who ultimately gets to decide? The spouse, the parents, the courts, the legislature, religious institutions?

Out of all this I have had these thoughts but no conclusions:

1) Get a living will and end of life directives written up NOW!!! Spare your loved ones the agony of not knowing your wishes. There are lots of place to obtain a form - on the web, from hospitals and doctors, from attorneys - many are free.

2) Dying with dignity: guess what - death is not dignified, it is messy and terrible. Sometimes there is pain which one hopes medical care personnel can alleviate - but not always. One's body is taken over by others who must care for one's every need. This is not all bad. In my short time as a priest - I have witnessed amazing times in the process of death. Families are open to healing of relationships that seemed impossible. The power of the Spirit can strengthen the bonds of love and compassion. Not always, but as many times as I have seen it I come to expect it.

3) Judge not lest you be judged - the journey to death for the dying and those surrounding him or her is not an easy path. For those of us outside of the immediate circle - love and support is the best thing that can be offered. For those of us caught up in the whirlwind of last days, however long they last, give each other slack. Many things are said in grief that can cause further pain to one another. Remember the stages of grief are not linear or accomplished once and for all. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance are like the ball in a pinball machine - rocketing back and forth between the posts, getting stuck for a time, sometimes lighting up the whole body and sometimes causing everything to stop with a big TILT! Everyone make his own Tear Soup with her own ingredients and its own cooking time.

4) Live today. Be present with one another. Tell people you love them, you appreciate them. Don't wait. Death can come this moment as well as sometime off in the future. We will die - it is the only way to continue. For me it is a mystery and an adventure. I have written about it before and will probably write about it again.

5) And as Mary Oliver says in The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand …
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,  
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done? …
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

6) Alcoholics Anonymou puts it this way - when will you start showing up for your life?

EASTER
Last Sunday ended with these words:
"Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, `After three days I will rise again.' Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, `He has been raised from the dead,' and the last deception would be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can." So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone."

The stone blocking the tomb was sealed. It was sealed against any deception that might be perpetrated on the people. Like a letter with a big blob of wax imprinted with the seal of the sender, like a triple locked door of an apartment in the inner city, the stone covering of the door of the tomb received a seal of the Roman Empire. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary saw it and the guards saw it. It was over - death was final - no going back. It was the end.
How often in our lives do we have times when we are as stuck as that tomb? Hearts sealed tight - holding ourselves in so we won't be hurt any more than we already are.
As a Larry Warren of Knoxville, TN says:
"A time of when all you could do was weep ... triggered perhaps by
Words from a doctor "I'm sorry the tests confirmed that it is malignant."
A phone call in the night "There's been an accident, come to the emergency room right away."
Words from your employer "We are going to have to let you go."
Words from a parent to a young child "You know honey that Mommy and Daddy have not been getting along lately. We have decided to get a divorce."
These are times we pull the cave around us and seal the doors against everything. Words intended for hope and comfort seem empty and meaningless. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to the this place on that Easter Sunday 2000 years ago. They come with hearts sealed against hope, hearts heavy with grief and hands heavy with the things of death.
In the creative chaos of the moment they discover that it is not the tomb of rock that contains death and despair - that thief of hearts - Jesus - has slipped out into life and is now knocking on the sealed tombs of their hearts. Knocking, asking, seeking to be allowed into our places of despair and death and hopelessness. Calling us out like so many Lazurus' - be unbound, come follow me. Death is conquered. Christ is Risen.
It does not always happen in an instant - often it takes the word of someone who has been in this place before us. Christ speaks through those who have taken this journey and come through to a new place - a place of life and hope. Sometimes it is the healing of nature - Don Clendenin puts it like this:
"Despite the shadows of death that darken our world, if you look carefully you see Easter resurrection breaking out everywhere. In the boisterous laughter of a child rollicking with the family dog. In the bright orange poppies, red azaleas, yellow daffodils, pink dogwoods, and white apple blossoms that paint the neighborhood in an extravaganza of spring-time color. In a leisurely dinner with neighbors. In the human creativity of art and architecture, film and music, painting and photography. In the self-sacrificial goodness of so many people the world over. Magic is in the air."

Or in this poem by John Niehardt, 1908

Once more the northbound Wonder
Brings back the goose and crane,
Prophetic Sons of Thunder,
Apostles of the Rain.

In many a battling river
The broken gorges boom;
Behold, the Mighty Giver
Emerges from the tomb!
Now robins chant the story
Of how the wintry sward
Is litten with the glory
Of the Angel of the Lord.

His countenance is lightning
And still His robe is snow,
As when the dawn was brightening
Two thousand years ago.

O who can be a stranger
To what has come to pass?
The Pity of the Manger
Is mighty in the grass.
Undaunted by Decembers,
The sap is faithful yet.
The giving Earth remembers,
And only men forget.

We do forget - but today we are reminded - as St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans - nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus goes ahead of us - he is the beginning, the path and the end of our journey.
The seal upon our hearts that he offers is reflected in this passage from Song of Solomon
"Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one's house, it would be utterly scorned. Song of Solomon 8: 6-7

HAPPY EASTER

More on donkeys
A friend sent this poem to add to my donkey data base.

THE DONKEY
 G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked 
And figs grew upon thorn, 
Some moment when the moon was blood 
Then surely I was born; 

With monstrous head and sickening cry 
And ears like errant wings, 
The devil's walking parody 
On all four-footed things. 

The tattered outlaw of the earth, 
Of ancient crooked will; 
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, 
I keep my secret still. 

Fools! For I also had my hour; 
One far fierce hour and sweet: 
There was a shout about my ears, 
And palms before my feet. 

PALM SUNDAY Readings
The story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the beginning of Holy Week sets up a classic arc of hope expressed, hope dashed, hope re-imagined. The prophecy from Zechariah 9:9 is being fulfilled in Jesus' action on this day. People are visually reminded of their dreams of liberation from oppression. Each person has a dream of how this will be accomplished. As the week progresses all the dreams die, nailed to the cross with Jesus. The re-imagining of the dream comes but not this week.
Lane Denson in his daily (usually) meditation Out of Nowhere reflects on another telling of this event in Luke. Jesus says "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." That simple affirmation could be the most overlooked and unsung song of perceptive wisdom in all the events and words that surround us during our celebration of Passion Week.
Bennett Sims reminds us in his book on servant leadership that the quantum physics theorists are certain that there is a caring pulse of energy that animates and interconnects all the entities in the cosmos. Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit paleontologist, outraged his time when he said that the "molecules make love." This, of course, got his books banned as a consequence. In Jesus' time, it might have been -- indeed, was -- seen all along that the created order in all its facets always knew and recognized in their own way who and what was present in him among them. The daemons, the loaves and fishes, the storms, winds, and waves, the human maladies, the fig trees, Satan itself in the wilderness, all were on to what had happened and was going on to happen when the Word became flesh. No wonder Jesus could say that if the crowds were silent, the very stones, themselves, the seemingly most inert and mute of all creation (and, by the by, the epitome of efficiency), would burst forth in adulation. We call it atomic energy, but by whatever name, it remains, Benedicite, omnia opera Domini -- "O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord." If the events we celebrate during this Passion Week tell us nothing more, they remind us once again how inseparable are we one from the other and from the very stones along the way. They may be inert, they may seem to have no freedom at all, but when it comes to presence and endurance and dependability -- and even to praise -- we can learn from them a thing or two."
I often collect stones when I travel. Small reminders of my journeys. They speak to me of places that are important to me. I put them in the small fountain in our entry way. There is a Japanese tradition of meditation that involves listening to stones. Annie Dillard has a book called Teaching a Stone to Talk. There is something wise in stones. One has to sit very still to hear the wisdom. In our current environmental crisis, perhaps the stones are screaming at us to pay attention to the cries of the earth before it is too late.
Jesus enters Jerusalem riding the donkey of hope - a donkey is a determined animal, friendly and easy to ride, but also concerned with its own needs and self preservation, regardless of what humans think it should be doing. Maybe between stones and donkeys there is a lesson - a lesson about persistence, stillness, goals, and keeping the faith in the midst of confusing messages from others.
Take up a small stone today and hold it in your hand. As it warms to your body temperature, notice its shape and how it might have come to be in its current form. Listen to its story.

LENT Readings
On my way to Sewanee TN for Education for Ministry Training of Trainers. Hopefully there will be some signs of Spring. The readings for this Sunday have a theme of coming back to life from being dead. The "dry bones" of Ezekiel - are symbolic of a people who have had the life taken out of them by oppression and by conqurering powers. Lazarus has died to this life. In both cases the creative power of God and the love of the community bring them back to life. To me the key words are spoken by Jesus when as it says in the text - The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
With what are people bound in our time? Around the world, poverty and disease bind people from living fully. In Wyoming, it is drugs, especially "meth" that binds people. Held in bondage by addiction, how can we be the agents of unbinding. What meaning in life can we offer that is more attractive than a short term "high?" All dream of having a meaningful life, of making a difference, and for love - how can the community provide a space to make these dreams come true or at least be possible?

4 Lent Readings
Here is one of my favorite reflections on the Man Born Blind - the gospel for this week found in John 9.

It is from Stories of Faith by John Shea.
Another time
Jesus smeared God like mud
on the eyes of a man born blind
and pushed him toward the pool of Siloam.
The blind man splashed his eyes
and stared into the rippling reflection
of the face he had only felt.
First he did a handstand, then a cartwheel,
and rounded off his joy
with a series of summersaults.
He ran to his neighbors,
singing the news.
They said,
"You look like the blind beggar
but we cannot be sure."
The problem was never
that he was blind
and could not look out
but that they could see
and did not look in.
"I am the one, the seeing blind!"
They seized him in mid cartwheel
and dragged him to the authorities.
"What do you think of the man who made the mud?"
But the man born blind
was staring at a green vase.
His mouth was open slightly
as if he was being fed by its color.
"He is a sinner," said the priest.
who knew what pleased God's eyes.
"Can one who lights candles in the eyes of night not have the fire of God in his hands?" said the man fondling the green vase.
The priests murmurred
and sent for his parents
who looked their son
straight in his new eyes
and said,
"Looks like our son.
But he is old enough
to speak for himself."
Off the hook they hurried home.
"All I know," said the man
with the green vase tucked under his robe,
"is that I was blind
and now I see."
But with his new eyes
came a turbulence in his soul
as if the man who had calmed one sea
turned another to storm.
So before those who locked knowledge in a small room
and kept the key on a string around their neck
he launched into a theology of sin and salvation.
It was then
that the full horror of the miracle
visited the priests.
"You, steeped in sin, lecture us!"
They tore him from the podium
and threw him into the street
where a man was rubbing mud from his hands.
"How did it go?"
"I talked back."
The man with new eyes
took in every laughing line
on the face of the Son
who was as happy as a free man
dancing on the far side of the Red Sea.

I am not preaching this week but thought I would share this version of Psalm 23 from Nathan Nettleton of Laughing Bird


You, LORD, are my guide in the wilderness;
there is nothing more I could need.

You set up camp in places of beauty and shelter;
you lead the way on secluded tracks
beside creeks of cool clean water.
I feel my spirit breathing freely again;
your reputation puts me at ease;
I leave the navigating to you, and follow.

Even if we hike through a perilous valley,
where crows keep a menacing watch,
fear will still not get the better of me.
As long as I stick with you
I know I’ll make the distance;
with a knife and a bit of rope
you seem able to tackle any challenge.

You cook up a feast for me,
as those who wanted to feed on me watch, frustrated.
You pamper me like an honoured guest
and constantly top up my glass.

My life feels charmed, each and every day.
Love, mercy and all good things
keep falling into my lap.

I’m with you for life, LORD,
where you go, I’ll go;
where you live, I’ll live.

3 LENT Readings
This "really" is one of my favorite readings! I know I often say this, but it is because so many stories in the Bible evoke a response in me. This is the Gospel that I picked for my ordination to the priesthood. It speaks of the call to all of us, regardless of our lives to date, to proclaim the boundary breaking news of Jesus. In this story Jesus breaks the boundaries of gender, sex, religion, social class, ethnicity, and many others. Slowly leading the woman to see herself in a new way - a way that makes it possible to go back to her town square and tell what she has heard. To get an idea of how breathtaking this is - check out Jerome Neyrey's Study of John 4. Another commentary on the Woman at the Well is at Out of Nowhere by Lane Denson. He writes of how:
"In a rapid succession of shocks, a stranger, a Jew, a man speaks to her, a woman, a Samaritan. He speaks not only across religious and ethnic and sexual boundaries, but with an alarming candor and penetrating insight. Then he brings her back to earth and does a "guy thing." He asks for a drink of water. But then he speaks to her of a living water that does away with thirst forever. Step by step, he lays bare her past and her present and sees right through her into her future. In one stroke, the rigid sanctions of the kind of worship and religion and custom that she and her people have embraced for centuries are abolished. Jesus proposes a revolutionary new liturgy based not on the usual male-dominated, retrogressive system of exclusion and judgment, but a worship grounded unpretentiously and candidly in spirit and in truth."
Currently the Episcopal/Anglican Church is passing through a time of deciding who is in and who is out. This reading might be worth meditating on. Contrary to CNN and AP the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have not been "kicked out." The Primates (leaders of each independent Anglican church or province) met in Ireland and sent out a message.
One of the better responses is by The Rt. Rev. Michael Ingham of New Westminster in Canada. New Westminster was the first to authorize same sex blessings which, with the Consecration of The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire in the US, have the church in a swivet. To me the Woman at the Well shows what Jesus thinks of our artificial boundaries on who can proclaim the Good News.






Your link desc

2 LENT Readings
This weeks lessons revolve around journeying. In the case of Abraham it is an external journey and for Nicodemus it is an inward journey. Both are seeking blessing. I define the word blessing as a state of being where we feel at one (atone) with the holy. In our last week's lesson Jesus went into the wilderness to test himself (his being) against the temptations that we all experience. Now he can speak from experience to the issues of humankind. Abraham leaves home to seek this blessing in a strange and unknown land. Nicodemus is challenged by Jesus to be born "from above" - the word Jesus uses has multiply meanings - born again, born anew, born from above - all indicating an awakening into another way of looking at oneself and one's life. Jesus speaks of a wind that blows where it chooses, and we do not know where it comes from nor where it is going. The life of the Spirit calls us to that sort of awareness of the moment - a relationship with God who may call to us from all sorts of places and send us on unlikely journeys.
From my last post you can see that I am thinking about this theme. Partly from thinking about my own ancestors and their search for a "promised land," partly because Jim and I are on a trip to the Oregon coast and other points west, and partly because I have been thinking about my own life journey. Mostly I have questions and not too many answers. But I see parallels in all traveling - spiritual, physical, emotional. We depend upon angels and strangers as well as family and friends. WH Auden wrote a poem (it is a hymn in Hymnal 1982 also) that speaks to me of this type of journeying.


He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.