GOOD FRIDAY
Crucified saviour, naked God,
you hang disgraced and powerless.
Grieving we dare to hope,
as we wait at the cross
with your mother and your friend.

from A New Zealand Prayer Book.

SOME FUN in the midst of Holy Week:

I'm a Chevrolet Corvette!

You're a classic - powerful, athletic, and competitive. You're all about winning the race and getting the job done. While you have a practical everyday side, you get wild when anyone pushes your pedal. You hate to lose, but you hardly ever do.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

GOSPEL OF JUDAS has been creating quite a stir in the news this week. Click here to read it in PDF. Newly published and hyped by a television program, people are acting like it is the only extra canonical piece ever found. We have lots of these, especially since the discoveries at Nag Hammadi in 1945.
These books did not make it into the Bible but shed light on the diversity of thought surrounding the followers of Jesus after his death. See my previous post for my thoughts on diversity during his life. Many communities were formed and many stories were preserved to show how the followers perceived his importance in their lives. After reading the Gospel of Judas I can see why, IMO, this one did not make it. It portrays a community that believes a very dualistic version of the spiritual life. The body and the soul are separated - the body being a trap for the soul from which true spiritual beings have to be released. This is counter to my belief in the goodness of the body and Jesus revealing that goodness by being born into our midst. It also encourages a belief that Jesus was not really human. The belief that Jesus was truly human (as well as divine) is one of the most important points of Christianity. God who comes into our midst in real human mind, body, and soul - born, lived, suffered, and died - shows me the way to become the person I was created to be and how we are to live together in this world. Resurrection teaches that I have nothing to fear -even death. I don't find this in the Gospel of Judas and many of the other extra-canonical Gospels.
I do like the references to Jesus laughing in the Gospel of Judas - I like to think that Jesus loved to laugh with people and enjoyed a party with whomever would attend. I don't like the passages that lump men who sleep with men with people who kill their children as a sacrifice. I know that it comes from a time when our ideas of mutual loving relationships between persons of the same sex were not current but still hate to think that it could be used to support anti-gay arguments.
Overall it is interesting to read things that were written by people of faith who center around Jesus and to discover the various ideas. It makes me think that there has never been a perfect time of true belief. The journey of faith is one of testing and learning and growing. The best advice is probably Jesus' "by their fruits shall you know them."
What is the outcome of faith - does it build up community and respect the uniqueness of each human being? Or does it tear down community and individuals? The building up of both is the balance and the proof for me.

PALM SUNDAY Click Here for the Readings
On this Sunday we mash all of Holy Week -- Palm Sunday to Good Friday into one day. Since many do not attend mid week services it became necessary to add the Good Friday crucifixion reading to the Grand Entry into Jerusalem. I think it causes somewhat of a spiritual whiplash to start with one and move immediately to the other. But am glad as many as possible can hear the entire drama preceding Easter even if there is no time to chew on the meaning of it all bit by bit.
Lent has been a time of reflecting on how far from God we can drift in our distracted non-stop world. Instead of a continual running of rapids we can look more deeply into the waters of life. I hope this is true for me anyway. Palm Sunday is the epitome of how far away we can go - the people of Jesus' days in the flesh had and we have many ideas of the nature of God. Some saw him as nothing - just another crazy prophet who was not grounded in real life under the rule of Rome. Some hoped he would be the liberator - the one who would overthrow the Empire. Some greeted him as the one who would remove them from daily life into a spiritual realm - into a separatist group of like minded persons. What is our hope and belief?
By the end of the week - all our ideas are smashed against the cross. No one thought of God as hanging in weakness and death as a Way. We have a hard time with this concept - that through ultimate vulnerability and identification with those who suffer abuse at the hands of power - can come resurrection and new life. This is the message of the cross. When Elie Weisel writes in Night of the question asked when children were being hung and tortured in the prison camps of Germany during the Holocaust "Where is God?" the answer always comes back "God is hanging there." When we ask "where is God" when we see the stories of Darfur, the answer is "in the camps with the refugees." When the people in the gospel - Matthew 25 - ask, "When did we see you? Feed you? Clothe you? Visit you in prison?" the answer is "When you fed, clothed, visited, cared for the least of these - my brothers and sisters."
God is like the Persistent widow - continually knocking on the doors of our hearts - seeking justice for all God's people.

Lent 5: Click here for readings
A couple of lines stand out for me in the Gospel this week. One - the Greeks come to Philip and Andrew to ask to see Jesus. Makes me wonder what we would do when people come asking to see Jesus. Will they find him in church? in us? Second is the statement by Jesus "when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself." It reminds me of magnets and iron filings - the force of the magnet makes the iron filings line up in a pattern of the force field. The death of Jesus, along with his birth, life and resurrection are a part of salvation (the healing) of the world. When we are aligned with God we are at peace and able to feel connected to others and the holy even when things are difficult.
Jeremiah says that "I (God) will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." To me this is another way of saying we are a part of the holiness of creation. Sometimes we forget or we act in ways that separate us from our true selves. The psalmist's remedy is found in Psalm 51 -- the great song of prayer for forgiveness and amendment of life. We begin Lent with this psalm - it is a way of beginning to recognize how far short we fall of who we are created to be - the image of God in this world. Right relationships are the path back to coming to ourselves (as is said of the demoniac when he is healed).
God came among us in Christ to show us the way. It is a way of the servant to the creation and all people.
Next week will be Palm Sunday when we will lift up all our ideas of who we think the Messiah might be - but Good Friday and Easter will show us something beyond our wildest imaginings.

Some fun:



Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

LENT 3 Click Here for the readings for Sunday.
Today my friend and I picked up trash along the route where we usually walk. Every Spring, before the vegetation begins to cover the road sides, we take out big black trash bags, gloves, and blaze orange vests to gather the beer cans, plastic bottles, and other junk left by thoughtless drivers and walkers. This year we "only" gathered 2 sacks of trash. The first year we found several years worth of garbage and more sacks-full. It is our little contribution to beautifying our environment.
I was thinking about Jesus in the Temple in the gospel for this Sunday. He was doing more than just pretty-ing up the scene. He was challenging the whole religious political system of his day. Often called "cleansing the Temple" - which sounds a bit like holy housecleaning - he is going beyond cleansing. If one pays attention to his words - he is bringing down the whole edifice. He is coming from the tradition of the prophets who spoke of God who does not require the sacrifices of animals but who requires the sacrifice of servanthood. Micah says - what does God require of us - do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Doing - actions that will bring about justice, loving - compassionate care of all God's creation, walking - on the move - not stuck in a building the divides the "ins" from the "outs."
John has this story of Jesus early in his Gospel - the others have it just before the crucifixion. Luke uses the story of Jesus proclaiming the acceptable time - the time of jubilee - when there is healing, freedom, and justice. John uses this action to say the same thing.
John sees the world as it was intended to be in creation and a world that has been structured by humankind. The world of creation lives fully in relation with God - as in the Garden of Eden. The world structured by humankind works to enslave some for the benefit of the few. Our readings include the Ten Commandments- given to the people of God to free them - to teach them how to live in right relationship with God and one another. Paul in his letter to the Romans wrestles with this paradox of how much freedom God offers and how we choose slavery - slavery to addictions, to material goods, to believing there is not enough.
What often starts out as a good thing - worshipping God - ends up like the scene in the Temple. The temple was built for proper worship and sacrifice but it has become a place of rigidity and burden to humans. The law of not having graven images because no one can imagine the fullness of God (a good thing) has become a burden of having to exchange the money of the Roman rulers into Temple money with no images. For poor people their money cannot buy as much since there is a "cut" that goes to the money traders. Worship of God (another good thing) has been tied up with having to have the proper item - which once again must be purchased. Protecting the tradition (a good thing) has become more like a prison of the Spirit. God is kept behind the curtain - in the Holy of Holies
But the wild God of the Exodus, the journeying God of the desert will not be kept in places of our own making. God is out and about - walking the earth -- calling all of us to discover the holiness of all people, of all creation. Jesus comes striding into our midst, upsetting our lives like so many tables in the temple, whipping up our spirits, driving us out into the world to discover that following him is not safe. Like Aslan in Lion Witch and Wardrobe - he is not safe -he is wild - but he loves with the heart of the universe. It is the freedom of that love that speaks to those deepest yearnings in our lives. Yearnings we try to fill with poor substitutes - yearnings to love and be loved, to make a difference, to live forever. Jesus sweeps away all the substitutes and gives us the "real thing" - that love which passes all understanding.

LENT 2 - Click here for the Sunday Readings.
The Gospel this week talks about denying self and picking up your cross. I found an interesting article by Biblical scholar, Joanna Dewey, about the cultural context for this reading. Unlike our Western individualistic culture, Jesus lived in a world where your identity was tied to your family. Self would not be read in the same way we read it. Denying self would be denying your family and kinship group - walking away from your place in society, your livelihood, your security for something unknown. Picking up cross is not about bearing the burdens of life but choosing to risk crucifixion by refusing to go along with the principalities and powers. Jesus is calling people into new relationships - as in his statements about who are his brothers and sisters. He says that they are those who join him in calling God their father instead of following the patriarchal - father-headed families of the day. Or when he talks about hating your father and mother and sisters and brothers. Jesus is asking his followers to step into the reign of God - heaven in their midst and live into a new reality. This new reality will be one of becoming sisters and brothers across blood-lines, across class lines, across national and racial lines. Sisters and brothers who will resist a world that does not understand this Way even to death on the cross. The quote from Archbishop Tutu that I used in Lent 1 reflects this Way - join us - you have already lost -- God has broken through all the barriers we have erected. God has come into this world in Jesus to show us this Way. Paul in his Letter to the Romans glimpses it in his statement in Chapter 8:31-39:
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This passage is one that I use as a mantra when I am terrified to speak out when I think things are not right. I don't know if it would help me if I had to face something big - but it calms my pounding heart in the day to day tests.

I read this prayer last night and thought it was a perfect followup to the first Sunday of Lent.

We pray that someday an arrow will be broken,
not in something or in someone,
but by each of humankind,
to indicate peace, not violence.
Someday, oneness with creation,
rather than domination over creation,
will be the goal to be respected.
Someday fearlessness to love and make a difference
will be experienced by all people.
Then the eagle will carry our prayer for peace and love,
and the people of the red, white, yellow, brown,
and black communities
can sit in the same circle together to communicate in love
and experience the presence of the Great Mystery in their midst.
Someday can be today for you and me.
Amen

A prayer of the Chippewa
From Book of Common Worship, Presbyterian Church, USA

Lent 1 - Click Here for the Bible readings for this week.
Sunday we hear the end of the Noah story - God establishing a covenant with humankind. The pictures of Noah, the ark, the pairs of animals and the rainbow have graced many a child's room and Arky, Arky is an all time favorite church camp song retelling the saga of Noah and the Ark, happily leaving out the death and destruction for the entire world. Dead bodies of humans and animals floating in the sea don't make for nice pictures or songs.
Our lesson this week comes in at the point where God swears off using the power of God for such total devastation. Those hearing the story in the days of sitting around the fire telling and retelling the stories of faith, before they were written down, would have the picture of God wiping out the earth and its inhabitants and this most surprising revelation. God, the almighty and all-powerful, was setting his bow - that symbol of war - in the sky for all to see that God would not use power in this terrible way again. People throughout history have seen this action - the broken arrow, the broken bow, the swords turned to pruning hooks, the axe turned into a plow, weapons turned to signs of peace. The bow in the heavens is a reminder that God could wipe out life but will refrain from destruction. Instruments of war are laid down in favor of life. God's limits God's power for the sake of the world.
The psalmist prays that God will teach God's ways to the people so they may also walk in the paths of peace, paths of love and faithfulness.
The first letter of Peter draws parallels of baptism and the waters through which the world passed in the days of Noah. It shows Christ as the one who lived into the fullness of God's true nature in submitting to the cross rather than calling down the armies of angels. Christ reveals God in giving up all power in his crucifixion.
In the gospel Jesus is just setting out on his journey to the cross - the heavens are torn open at his baptism and then he is driven out into the desert to wrestle with what it means to be the Beloved Son. The tearing open of the heavens reminds me of the roof ripping friends of the paralyzed man of Mark 2:1-12. They found a way to get around the rules that kept them from Jesus. God tears open the skies to break through to show us a new way. Sometimes the roof or the sky needs to be torn open so our imaginations can see the Holy breaking into our everyday lives.
Bishop Tutu, the retired Archbishop of South Africa, is one who can see this inbreaking of the Holy and communicates what he sees to those of us who can't. There is an incident from the days of apartheid when the soldiers broke into his office and slammed down their automatic weapons - threatening his life with their power. He looked a them with his joyous smile and said - why don't you put away your weapons and join us - you have already lost.
People like Bp Tutu, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks saw the rainbow - the promise and lived in a way that did not use power over others to gain their dream. They used the weakness of God - that is so much more powerful than any thing we can imagine to bring fullness of life to all people.
Lent is a time to go into our personal deserts and wrestle with those things that do not bring life to ourselves and our world. We go into our time of reflection with the message of God that we are beloved daughters and sons. It is this message that allows us to emerge with a renewed sense of who we are and whose we are.

Shroving and Ashes:
No pancake supper for us tonight, unless we make them here at home. Hope that does not some make for a lesser Lent. We will seek out ashes for our foreheads tomorrow to mark the beginning of the 40 days of Lent (Sundays don't count) until we can Alleluia Easter into our lives again. I find Lent a restful season, a time to ponder how I am living my life and a time to take on something that will build up my spiritual muscles. As a priest, Easter is frantic with all its services from Palm Sunday until Easter Monday, so good to take Lent as a time to prepare. I have been on an Olympic "kick" as you can tell if you have been reading this blog. I preached on the Games last Sunday (pretty much the same as the blog). Our online EFM groups reflected on a photo of a biathelete. Out of our discussion we thought that Lent is much like the training period for the athletes. The difference, according to St. Paul, is that we run the race knowing we already have the gold medal, we are born with one. So why run the race? One reason to show forth our freedom from the world's vision of who we are. Another is the pure joy of the race.
This morning the cartoon For Better or Worse had another idea. Click here to see it. How have you been running your race? Knowing you are a winner in the eyes of God? I think Lent will be a good time to work out, to loosen up the mind, body and spirit for service and prayer.

Olympics, Transfiguration and passing the mantle. Click Here for Sunday's readings

Continuing to watch the Olympics this week and reflecting about the reading on the Transfiguration and Elijah passing his mantle on to Elisha. To me the look on the winners faces is a look of transfiguration - especially the ones who did not expect to win, Shizuka Arakawa, the Japanese gold medal figure skater was transformed from a quiet, reserved, determined, and graceful skater to a stunned and smiling winner as the scores flashed her triumph. The US speed skater, Joey Cheek, not expected to win but by .42 he got the gold and then gave his bonus for medaling to a fund to help athletes in poor countries. Smiling and waving and standing tall as he took his place on the podium. There were athletes for whom this was a last chance and gave it their all. The joy of being able to compete with the best of the best was evident in many. Today (Friday) I saw the women's freestyle cross country race - a grueling event of all out skiing - the winner fell to the ground with exhaustion and suddenly from the crowd her little daughter ran out to embrace her - she was revived and transfigured - partly from winning but much from the delight in her little girl. Many of the athletes seemed to have a good sense of balance about it all - Sasha Cohen, who was leading for the gold medal in figure skating said - you know what - it is just 4 minutes of my entire life. The Russian skater, Irina Slutskaya's mother is in the hospital awaiting a kidney transplant - but when she "only" won bronze - she shrugged and spread her hands as if to say - I did what I could and life is more than this. During one cross country ski race the Canadian cross country skier broke a ski pole as she raced along; she floundered a second, and then someone in the crowd handed her a pole, and she managed to win a medal. Later, it turned out that the person who gave her the pole was the Norwegian coach, whose own athlete then finished fourth. When asked, the coach made a remark to the fact that it was supposed to be a contest of skill, not one of equipment failure.
Each of these had a transfiguring moment - maybe winning the gold medal, maybe in doing their personal best, making the games more than a grueling "war" - transfiguring it into what it is supposed to be - a time of peace - of international good will and fun.
Many now will pass on the mantle - some by being a role model, some by teaching, some in giving their money to help athletes from poor countries train and compete. I noticed that many of the current coaches were once stars in their own right - gold, silver, bronze, all competitors - and now they are passing on the mantle to the new athletes. The Japanese coach was the first of his country to compete - people laughed at him and his partner as they gamely participated - now his skater has taken the gold - his mantle of determination and love for his sport passed on to his skaters, even though in his day he was considered a joke. Inside he had another picture that did not depend on others for his vision.
This is what is revealed in our Gospel today, Jesus knows who he is and suddenly the fullness of that is revealed to his disciples. His vision of his life and ministry did not depend on the perceptions of others. He walked his path whether it took him to the glory of the mountaintop or to the cross. We as his followers are called to do the same - as who we are, with the gifts we have been give, to shine forth into a hurting world. And then in time pass our mantle on to those who are coming forward in our midst - our youth - already taking their place in the leadership of our communities. I was very encouraged by the youth in the Olympics - on the whole they seem to have a good sense of balance and joy in their lives. Hopefully those of us who are older can learn from them.
In Wyoming we are starting an initiative that will offer opportunities and leadership for youth. Check it out at Wind and Wings.