Tag Archives: Jesus

Lent: Never ending Lessons in Paradox

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jesus_disciples_iconThe Lenten Scripture readings can sometimes be hard to wrap your head around, and yet, on another level, they are so very simple. Trust in God. Serve. Forgive. Love. Be merciful just as God is merciful.

I find consolation in that the disciples also seemed to have a hard time wrapping their head around the message of Jesus.

Two cases in point …

In Sunday’s Gospel from Mark (9:2-10) we have Peter wanting to set up tents and stay on the mountaintop with Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, almost missing the point that this was a new moment. In the end it required a voice from the heavens to snap him out of it!

Today we have the story of the mother of James and John (Matthew 20:  17-28) asking that “these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” The sons also did not get it, thinking they were up for what was ahead without stopping to think of the level of sacrifice following Jesus might entail.

I imagine that Jesus must have been just a little bit frustrated when, once again, his friends just did not get it.  But he rolled up his sleeves, sat down, and tried another way of teaching lessons in paradox.  His way was not business as usual, but something new centered on God’s way of love, justice, and mercy.

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

It shall not be so among you ….

What are the ways that we are called to live the paradox of the Gospels today? In our families? Communities? Ministry?

What is is that I just don’t get? My prayer this morning is for my heart and mind to be opened to Jesus’ never ending lessons in paradox this Lent.

Meeting Jesus Again: Thank You Marcus Borg

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meeting jesus again for the first timeI read this morning that Marcus Borg has passed away. Theologian, Author, Historical Jesus Scholar, Biblical Scholar, Lutheran turned Episcopalian, Oregonian, Professor, Husband, Friend … surely he was many things to many people and will be deeply missed.

When I heard the news of his death, I immediately said a prayer of thanks for him, and especially for the role his book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, played in my own faith journey.

While I was raised Catholic and went to 12 years of Catholic School, from my late teens to my late 20s I essentially rejected it all as entirely irrelevant–organized religion, spirituality, God, Jesus, you name it.  But then something happened and somehow God broke through. It’s a long story, but the 2 second version is that a friend invited me to her Catholic church and I weirdly and unexpectedly felt at home. The next Sunday and each week after I woke up with a deep desire to return.  So I kept going, but all of my doubts and questions and blanket rejection remained and led to a whole lot of confusion.

One day, a few weeks after I inexplicably became a doubting weekly church goer, I remember riding in my friend Kim’s pick up truck down 39th Avenue in Southeast Portland as she gave me a ride home after mass. I was trying to articulate to her my mixed up feelings around the pull to return to my Catholic roots. I remember saying that I didn’t know if I could do it because I was not quite sure what I thought about “that Jesus guy.” I’m pretty sure those were my exact words.  Kim suggested I read Borg’s book.

I was intrigued by the title. I read the book. And something shifted within me even as I read the opening words of Chapter One of Meeting Jesus Again:

We have all met Jesus before. Most of us first met him when we were children. This is most obviously true for those of us raised in the church, but also for anybody who grew up in Western culture. We all received some impression of Jesus, some image of him, however vague or specific.

For many, the childhood image of Jesus remains intact into adulthood. For some, that image is held with deep conviction, sometimes linked with warm personal devotion and sometimes tied to rigid doctrinal positions.  For others, both within and outside of the church, the childhood image of Jesus can become a problem, producing perplexity and doubt, often leading to indifference toward or rejection of the religion of their childhood.

Indeed, for many Christians, especially in mainline churches, there came a time when their childhood image of Jesus no longer made a great deal of sense. And for many of them, no persuasive alternative has replaced it. It is for these people especially that this book is written. For them, meeting Jesus again will be–as it has been for me–like meeting him for the first time. It will involve a new image of Jesus. 

His book did not take away all of my questions or doubts or lead to instant conversion. Instead, I think what it did for me was give me freedom to not know what I thought or felt. It gave me a way to reconsider Jesus, to meet him again as if for the first time, to start afresh in building a relationship that continues to grow and deepen with twists and turns and meaning and surprise, comfort and challenge.

It was from that fresh reset of my feelings about Jesus that I started on the path that led me to the corner of Susan and St. Joseph.  Having met Jesus again, I was ready and able to then meet him through our CSJP Charism of peace through justice.  As our CSJP Constitutions so beautifully put it:

“Christ is our peace, the source of our power. United with him we engage in the struggle against the reality of evil and continue the work of establishing God’s reign of justice and peace.”

Thank you Marcus for sharing your gifts with the Church and the people of God. If my own story is any indication, I suspect you have had a profound influence in many people’s lives.

A bit apocalyptic, but sound advice

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homer_simpson_end_is_nearToday is the last day of the church year. Advent, believe it or not, starts tomorrow!  The liturgical readings the past few weeks have been, well, a bit apocalyptic, and focused on the end times. A case in point is today’s Gospel (Luke 21.34-36).

“Jesus spoke to his disciples about the end which is to come. He said, ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’”

Is the end of the world coming tomorrow?  Most likely not. Yet it is funny how sometimes we act as if the littlest things are the end of the world, like missing out on a black Friday sale, yet treat life-diminishing realities like embedded structural racism and enduring poverty lightly, if at all.

But Jesus tells us … be alert. Be present in the here and now. Resist the death-dealing and life-diminishing realities.  Live as if you believe … in love, in goodness, in life. We choose so much in our lives, so what would happen of we chose to live them fully as if today is the only day we have, while still believing in the promise of tomorrow?

Those are my hope filled apocalyptic thoughts for this last day of the liturgical year.

Peace

And Jesus Wept … praying for peace

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And Jesus Wept memorial, St. Joseph's Catholic Church across the street from Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial
And Jesus Wept memorial, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church across the street from Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial

Today’s Gospel from Luke is a poignant one:

“As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If this day you only knew what makes for peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes.'”

The headlines of course are filled with the recent killings in Jerusalem and  the continued bloodshed in Iraq and Syria, not to mention the political infighting in Congress. The headlines gloss over or ignore other situations of violence, such as poverty and oppression. There is violence in our streets, our homes, our very hearts.

But Jesus tells us, there is more. More is possible. Peace is possible.

Imagine Jesus standing in our midst today, seeing that we have everything within us which makes peace possible, should we choose to see and live it:

Our goodness. Our love. Our compassion. Our possibility. Our mercy. Our yearning for justice, equality, and reconciliation.

Can we open our eyes and our hearts to the reality that peace is possible?

Can we choose, live, and act for peace, in our our lives?

Can we start today?

Risk and Call

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Today’s Gospel reading can be a puzzling one. It’s the parable of the talents (also the name of an AMAZING book by Octavia E. Butler by the way, but that is a digression). In this Gospel passage from Matthew, we hear the story of the man who, before going way on a journey entrusts his servants with his money. Two servants are rewarded upon his return for trading and increasing the money entrusted to them,  while the third is chastised for burying the money out of fear until his master’s return. Is Jesus advising on investment strategy?  What exactly is he getting at with this parable?

In the little booklet I use for daily prayer, there’s a reflection by a Good Sam Sister from Australia that  helps makes the message very personal, practical, and real:

“The risks that earn us affirmation as ‘good and trustworthy’ are the ordinary kingdom exchanges of daily life; forgiving rather than burying a grudge in our hearts; standing by one another in times of sorrow, failure, or misunderstanding; giving someone the benefit of the doubt; associating with those whom many consider the ‘wrong kind’ of unacceptable people;  laying down one’s life for another–perhaps a misunderstood friend, rebellious child, a terminally ill spouse, aged parents. All this ‘now’ effort is preparing us for the ‘not yet’ entry into the kingdom.” – Sr Verna Holyhead, SGS (Give us This Day reflection for this Sunday’s readings)

So one way of reading the parable is this: how much we are really to risk sharing ourselves and living into the not yet aspects of the reign of God in the here and now? This way of reading resonates with me, and it resonates with my own journey of faith and sense of call. God seems to be forever inviting me to risk vulnerability, to open my heart to others, to let go of my fears and my need to control situations that really, if I am honest, are entirely beyond my control. It’s in the unexpected and the ordinary that I am challenged to grow into the life of love that is God’s never-ending invitation.

My experience also tells me that when, in these moments of grace, I am able to risk vulnerability and trust God’s call, then the result is way more about God than it is about me. Sometimes, in those moments of grace, we’re even able to break through our own limitations and step into new territory where the Spirit leads and we follow. And that, my friends, is pure blessing.

Disturbed

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Jesus Eats with Friends by Rick Beerhorst
Jesus Eats with Friends by Rick Beerhorst

The little book that I use for my morning prayer and reflection on the readings of the day has a beautiful (and challenging) reflection by Jean Vanier, part of which I’d like to share here:

The cry of the oppressed, the lonely, and the rejected,
is essentially a cry
for recognition, presence, and communion.
Their cry disturbs,
creates fear,
provokes rejection.
But if they are listened to,
they can also awaken the hearts
of the powerful and the wise,
calling them to change,
to conversion;
calling them not just to organize and do things
with generosity
but to enter into communion with them. …
So it is that the Spirit of Jesus
through all the pain and disturbance
leads us to something new,
a form of chaos
from which is gradually born
a new love
flowing from the heart of God.
~Jean Vanier, Jesus The gift of Love

Powerful, isn’t it? Of course, Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche so he knows intimately and concretely that of which he writes. And of course the reading was included in the Give Us this Day book today because of our Gospel reading from Luke (14:12-14) where Jesus dines at the home of a Pharisee and challenges him to “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” to his next banquet, those who cannot repay with an invitation in kind.

Disturbed.

That is an appropriate word, especially given that this is the first word of the Chapter Call that was affirmed at my religious community’s general Chapter in September.

Disturbed by the Spirit, we recommit ourselves to Jesus’ way of radical hospitality.

We are called to a deeper and wider living of community for mission in company with poor and marginalized people.  Our contemplative discernment pushes us, individually and as Congregation, to action; deeper mutual support enables us to take risks for justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

As disciples of Jesus, we respond anew to the call of Mother Clare to be “brave, noble, large-minded and courageous souls.”

We will be living into this Call as a Congregation over the next six years. I’m not sure exactly where it will lead,but I do know that it will challenge us,  and I suspect, awaken our hearts and give us new life and energy as we respond anew to the call to be a community of peace.