April 13: Faith and Food

Faith and Food
Acts 2:42-47

When I think of tables, I think of eating with friends and family. Through the years these tables have taken different shapes and forms. Sometimes it’s just me and another person and at other times there could be 15-20 of us gathered around. Sometimes it’s quiet conversation and other times a cacophany of chatter, dishes, and someone yelling down the table to get someone else’s attention. I’m Irish-Italian; we tend to be a loud bunch. Of course that didn’t change when I headed off to college, and all of my friends were religion geeks like me. There was still a lot of talking over one another, around one another, and yelling at someone in order to get a word in edgewise. I felt right at home.

The table I normally think of is our family table growing up. Mom, Dad, my sister and me every night for supper. We didn’t have very many family rules set in stone, but eating supper together was one of them. When friends were over, they ate with us. Same thing if family visited: eating supper together never changed except when we slept over at a friend’s or had a school function. Some nights there was a lot of chatter, some nights we played Jeopardy more than we talked, and other nights we ate in relative silence because we were tired. The ebb and flow of activity may have changed but supper itself did not. We ate one meal as a family at the table everyday. Period.

One of the hardest things to get used to when I moved out and started living on my own was eating alone. It seemed odd, wrong. And not just because of family dinner. Before college I had always eaten breakfast with my sister, lunch with friends, and dinner with the family. In college I always ate with friends or the family that adopted me at church. Eating by myself bothered me more than living by myself. In the movie Under the Tuscan Sun her neighbor invites Francis over for supper saying, “It’s not healthy to eat alone.” I absolutely agree with him.

In fact the Mediterranean people know how to do supper. I lived in Barcelona for a year as a Nazarene in Volunteer Service or NIVS for short. I loved their attitude about food. Food was something to be enjoyed, not scarfed down. I am a slow eater. I always have been and I will stubbornly remain so. I get teased because I refuse to scarf my food down in order to “do” something more important. What’s more important than nourishing yourself? And I don’t believe you can nourish yourself if you inhale your food. I fit right in in Spain and with the Mediterranean mindset: food is to be enjoyed and preferably enjoyed with family and bunch of friends. They take supper seriously. There it is a three hour affair with three or four courses and a lot of conversation. Talking, joking, sharing the day, getting caught up. It’s relaxed. Everyone is enjoying themselves. Everyone is enjoying the food. I fit right in. I found out the Italian genes I got from my full-blooded Italian great-grandmother ran true in my blood. They somehow skipped the rest of family.

(more…)

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Reflections on the Image of God

Sally has a beautiful poem and a post thinking about what it means for women to be made in the image of God. Here is the beginning of the poem:

Dark am I
and lovely!
Made in Her image
not chiselled,
starved,
or mutilated
by the whims
of fashion…

If you are a woman, what does it mean for you, a woman, to be made in the image of God? For everyone: How do male and female together more fully reflect the image of God than the exclusively male-based images of God we are used to?

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April 6: Peace and Wounds

Peace and Wounds
John 20:19-31

The nurses at NIH thought it was horrible that we had to spend Easter there and couldn’t go home. But it was sunny and up in the 50s in D.C. Chicago had a white Easter from what I hear. In fact, when the nurses apologized about us having to stay there over the holiday, my response was, “It’s snowing in Chicago. The weather is much better here.” And for the the first time I saw what Craig Kocher talked about in last week’s Blogging toward Sunday: “Peace and wounds dine together on Easter.” Peace and wounds dine together on Easter. I didn’t have the words for it Easter Sunday, but that is what happened. For the Easter service at the NIH chapel, there were some very sick people. Two of them wore masks to protect them. They were probably in one of the cancer programs, and had little to no immune systems from their treatments. The young boy was also in a wheel chair, and you could tell by his eyes, he was so happy to be there. Sitting among people who were so sick, and yet so filled hope, this was an Easter where the resurrection, its power and hope were center stage, believed and proclaimed in full faith. Peace and wounds dined together.We normally don’t think about wounds on Easter Sunday. That’s what we did on Good Friday. The resurrection has happened. Now it’s time to get on to the “hallelujahs,” pretty dresses, hats, and Easter egg hunts. We are quick to move from the nails and spear of Good Friday, forgetting that Jesus still carried those wounds on the first Easter. It was when the disciples saw Jesus’ wounds that they knew it was him and began to rejoice. It wasn’t the glory of heaven that tipped them off: it was the nail and spear wounds that still showed, even after the resurrection.

Peace be unto you.” These are the first words Jesus says to his disciples after his resurrection. He appeared to Mary early that morning, but for some reason, he does not come to the disciples until that night. They’re huddled up in a room with the doors locked still scared of the authorities. Apparently they have not believed Mary’s story or her testimony, “I have seen the Lord.” They are sitting, locked in a room, trying to figure out what in the world has happened the last couple of days. Then out of nowhere, Jesus is there. There was no knock on the door. They didn’t hear a footstep. Jesus didn’t wait to be invited in. He was just there. In the midst of them. Giving them peace–his peace. The peace he promised them on the night before he died. Before his death, Jesus told the disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Jesus gives peace that isn’t dependent on what’s going on in the world or who is in charge. This peace flows from Jesus’ resurrection, not his political takeover. This peace flows from God’s power, not ours, not the government’s, or even the power of religious authorities. This peace comes from God, is given by God and sustained by God.

After Jesus gives them his peace, he shows them his hands and side. It is only then that the disciples believe that this is Jesus–raised from the dead–and they begin to rejoice. Jesus once again gives them God’s peace, and then commissions them: “As the Father sent me, so send I you.” In John the disciples do not have to wait until after the Ascension onto Pentecost for the Holy Spirit. The giving of the Holy Spirit is also less spectacular in John and much more intimate.

Craig Kocher notes that you have to get close to someone to breathe on them. You have to invade their personal space. Sharing breath is something couples and families share. It’s a familial intimacy; an act shared by lovers. It’s normally not how we pass the peace in the church. There are social graces to keep after all. Jesus did not think so. He comes close to the disciples. The same ones who abandoned him two days ago are now receiving the Holy Spirit through Jesus’ breath. The Spirit Jesus promised them would give them the words to say, would teach them all things, and always be with them was now fulfilled. They were equipped to go into the world as Jesus had and share the peace of Christ with that hurting and broken world.

But one of the disciples is missing on the night of the Resurrection: Thomas. Poor Thomas. I think he is one of the most maligned people in the Bible, and really for no reason. He’s nicknamed “doubting.” But which of the disciples believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead without first seeing him? None of them. The eleven didn’t believe Mary when she told them she had seen Jesus that morning. And Thomas didn’t believe those who told him they had seen Jesus earlier that night. Thomas wanted to see and touch the same thing the others had. They hadn’t believed until they saw Jesus’ wounds. Thomas is no different than the others. No more or less doubting. No more or less unbelieving. He’s just the same.

And Jesus gives him what he wants. Eight days later the situation hasn’t changed much. The disciples are still shut away in a room. Doors locked. Once again Jesus appears to them. Once again he doesn’t use the door or knock. He just comes. He once again blesses the disciples with peace. Then he turns to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” There is no scolding or berating. There is no disappointment. Jesus simply gives Thomas what he needs to believe. He comes, and he shows his wounds. Seeing is apparently enough for Thomas, and he calls Jesus his Lord and God.

In our self made hells in our fears in the corners we get ourselves backed into, Jesus comes. Jesus comes and he shows us his love–see his hands, his side. He comes into fear and trepidation, and he says: “Peace.” Peace. Through the locked doors, the fears, the “what ifs” whispered behind hands. Into this fear-filled, cowardly crowd, Jesus comes. Jesus appears to them. There is no chiding. There is no “why didn’t you believe Mary?” Or “why didn’t you believe the others?” No, Jesus comes to the depressed and frightened disciples–he just appears. Locked doors no more. He appears in our midst and says one thing: Peace. He came to the men who did not believe the woman and said peace. He came to Thomas who did not believe the men and said peace.

He comes to us and says peace. He comes to our little worlds, to our locked rooms, he finds us walking and fishing, and he says peace. Jesus comes and gives us peace–his peace. But he doesn’t give us his peace to hoard and keep for ourselves. Like the disciples, with his peace, Jesus also gives his Spirit to go out in the world and share that peace. Easter is a triumphant celebration, but it is not always pretty. It is not all Easter lilies and bonnets. It comes with wounds. Not only the wounds of Christ, but the wounds of the world. We are sent with the peace of Christ to share that peace with a broken, wounded, and dying world.

I skipped over verse 23 the first time Jesus visited the disciples. After Jesus breathes the Spirit on them, he says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Of course Protestants, particularly Evangelicals have a big problem with this. Like the Pharisees, when Jesus healed the man lowered through the roof by his friends, we say “Who forgives sin but God alone?” Listen to how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse: “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” When a person repents of sin, the sin is forgiven, and we are to recognize that. Parker Palmer wrote that “the mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way–to love the world as God did and does.” Of this verse Gail O’Day says, “The faith community’s mission is not to be the arbiter of right and wrong, but to bear unceasing witness to the love of God in Jesus”

Our job is to live the love, peace, and forgiveness of Jesus in our world. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always pretty, but that is what we are called to do. This wounded world will only be healed through and by the wounds of Christ.

The picture is from the He Qi Gallery.

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Short Hops: From Going Green to the PMSing Church?

Over at Lifehack, Dustin Wax does more than go green by buying into all the current marketing hype of “green products.” He gives us foundational principals for being better stewards and more ethical shoppers.

Too much of our world market is out of sight, and therefore out of mind. Since we don’t see the lives of the Bolivian granny who makes our chic shopping bags, or the Indonesian teenager who makes our shoes, or the Chinese mother who assembles our iPods,we don’t think about it. And we don’t think about the tremendous amount of resources it takes to get raw materials from Africa, North America, Asia, and somewhere in the Pacific to some factory in China to put together an mp3 player which will then be shipped (using resources again from all over the world) to some store in Oregon (that is again assembled using materials from all over the world) and into our pocket (of pants made in the next town over from the iPod factory, using cotton grown in Africa and rivets made of steel from Japan on machines made in Europe from materials mined in…).

On the other hand, if you’ve ever had the pleasure of attending a local farmer’s market, you’ve experienced something few of us do these days: an encounter with a part of your community, an actual living and breathing person, who made something for you to eat. There were some global resources used (even organic farmers use tractors, and they needed a truck to bring their stuff to market) but most of the labor and material involved came out of your local area — the soil you’re standing on, the person in front of you. You have a relationship with this person, and with their land. Your land.

In the last couple of months, I came across Pam Hogeweide’s site: How God Mess Up My Religion. She is ruminating about many things in her current post including:

  • Is the church like this woman I once knew who was so easily offended? You had to tread lightly around her or you’d set her off and get a scolding. I can be like that myself. At particular times of the month. Is the church like this? Like a woman at particular times of the month? Is she touchy?
  • My friend Kim said to me once that the church offers a cultural-like transition, showing people that they need to dress a certain way and talk a certain way. But where’s the gospel? she asked.

Sally has some pretty spring pictures and poetry up on her site.

At Chicago Carless, Mark Doyle is pondering how long do you need to live in Chicago before you are a Chicagoan?

On the other hand, drawing a distinction between Chicagoans by birth and Chicagoans by choice could just be the result of surprise. Let’s face it, how sane can anyone be who adopts as his home a place with a six-month winter? (I always say, Chicago taught me what cold is: in New York, 20 degrees keeps us indoors; in Chicago, 20 degrees opens our coats to the heat wave).

Yet so many are drawn to Chicago and stay. Generations of families, tens of thousands of families, began here with the arrival of immigrant parents from Italy and Ireland and Poland and Mexico. When innumerable Midwestern farm kids and children from teeny, tiny prairie towns go to sleep at night and dream of someday finding fame and fortune in the big city, it’s the Windy City that billows through many young minds.

And very occasionally a New Yorker finds his way here, too.

How long does it take for them all to become Chicagoans? Years? Lifetimes? Generations?

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Coming home!

I will be coming home tomorrow. Yeah! Now I just have to decide what I want to preach on this Sunday…and through Pentecost for the matter.

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February 17: A Visit in the Night

A Visit in the Night

John 3:1-17

 

 

 

The night is good for all sorts of things: staying up until three in the morning reading a good book, writing, or watching infomercials. For students the wee hours are normally filled with finishing up required reading, writing papers and preparing presentations for the class in a few hours. Unfortunately the night is also the time when our worries, doubts, and fears can take on monster size proportions and keep us tossing and turning into the wee hours. Normally that’s when watching infomercials begin. But one particular night a man decided to seek out Jesus.

 

 

Nicodemus had heard about Jesus and may have even seen some of his miracles and heard Jesus’ teachings himself. Nicodemus wanted to know more about this itinerant rabbi who disrupted the buying and selling at the temple and was turning the religion that he knew on its ear. Nicodemus came at night. One reason was probably that he didn’t want his colleagues to know. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a teacher of the Law, and one of the religious leaders of the people. The last thing he should be doing was going to an itinerant no-name rabbi from Galilee. But Nicodemus was also up. Scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the Law normally studied the Torah at night in preparation for the teaching and debates of the next day. So it was also convenient for Nicodemus to come to Jesus at night. All his duties of the day were over, and he was left on his own to study the Torah into the wee hours. We’ll probably never know exactly why Nicodemus came at night, but it was probably a combination of those two things.

 

 

So Nicodemus has come to Jesus and he says that he and other people know that Jesus is a teacher from God. He knows the miracles of Jesus cannot be done apart from God’s presence. Then Jesus throws him for a loop. Jesus starts talking about being born from above to enter the kingdom of God. As far as Nicodemus is concerned, he is part of the kingdom of God. He is a Jew, descended from Abraham. He was born into God’s covenant people. Why would he need to be reborn to enter the kingdom of God? How could he be reborn?

 

 

But Jesus did not tell Nicodemus that he had to be reborn. He didn’t need another physical birth. Jesus said he needed to be born from above, by the Spirit. Born of God. John opened his gospel saying, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” Nicodemus had been born a Jew by the blood, but that no did not guarantee that he would see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus needed to acknowledge that Jesus was more than just a teacher sent by God. He needed to see and believe that Jesus is God’s Son. He needed to be born of the Spirit. Like the wind blows and no one knows where it is from or where it is going, so it is with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works as she will birthing and giving new life to those who believe, not only Jesus’ miracles, but that Jesus is the Son of God sent by God to save the world. In fact, according to John believing the miracles is not enough–there must also be faith in the One that God sent.

 

 

The last we hear of Nicodemus in this passage is his question: “How can this be?” Although Jesus chides him for not understanding, he goes on to further explain to Nicodemus that he has been sent by God into the world. He has descended from heaven, and if Nicodemus will believe this, he will have eternal life. In John, eternal life is not something that begins after death: it begins when we believe that Jesus is God’s Son, and it is through his crucifixion and resurrection that we come into God’s kingdom. Even this early in his ministry, Jesus talks of his death on the cross. Eternal life is not always an easy road. Jesus also lets Nicodemus know that he is not being condemned. God did not send him to condemn the world but to save it. God sent Christ because of God’s love for the world, for those made in God’s image. God’s love has compelled the Incarnation, and it is God’s love that Jesus lives out.

 

 

We don’t know what Nicodemus’ decision was. John never tells us. Nicodemus’ last spoken words are “How can this be?” But it is not the last we see of him in John. He appears twice more. In John 7:50 he defends Jesus to the Sanhedrin and asks them to hear him out. We last see him at the foot of the cross in John 19 when he and Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body from the cross and prepared it for burial. Nicodemus might have asked questions and had doubts, but he was not given up on. He appears at the beginning of John’s gospel and hears one of Jesus’ first prophecies of his death and resurrection. At the end of the Gospel he at the cross and tomb. Did he become a disciple? Only God knows. The same God who loved him enough to take the time to explain being born from above and eternal life to him.

 

 

It doesn’t matter why or when Nicodemus came to Jesus. What matters is that he came. He came to Jesus and listened to Jesus. He may not have understood at first, and he asked questions, but Jesus answered his questions and explained what was necessary for Nicodemus to become part of the kingdom of God and have eternal life. It is the same for us. It doesn’t matter why we come to Jesus or when. The important thing is that we have come and continue to come. We can have our doubts and ask questions just as Nicodemus did. Jesus still gives answers and elaborates. We can even come to Jesus for the wrong reasons: because we want signs or an easier life, money, or health. Jesus will correct us just as he did Nicodemus.

 

 

Jesus will not give up on us just as he did not give up on Nicodemus. Although Nicodemus did not seem to get what Jesus was telling him in this chapter, he stands at the cross in chapter 19 and helps lay Jesus to rest. He heard Jesus’ prediction of being raised up for salvation and eternal life. He saw how far God would go to show God’s love for all humanity. He saw first hand God’s great love for the world. In the same way God continues to show us God’s love. Jesus continues to point to the cross and say this is how much God loves you. This is how much I love you. We are never given up on.

 

 

Jesus continues to beckon us to come and believe. Not to believe that he will make our lives peachy and nothing bad will ever happen to us again. But to believe that he is the Son of God, the one God sent into the world, so that we can have a relationship with God. We can have eternal life as God’s sons and daughters in God’s kingdom. People will always want signs and miracles and sometimes we do too. And sometimes we get them. But they can never be the basis of our belief. The foundation of our belief must be the Incarnation: that God has become flesh and lived among us. I love how Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14 in The Message: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” God became fully human and moved into our neighborhood. This is the foundation of our faith. The miracles and signs are nice when they come, but we must remember the one sign Jesus gave to believe in him. In John 2 he tells those who ask him what authority he has to disrupt buying and selling in the temple that “destroy this temple, and in three days it will be raised up again.” He was speaking of his death and resurrection. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he says the only sign given will be the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the big fish for three days and nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The only sign our faith rests upon is the death and resurrection of Christ. The Incarnation and Resurrection are the signs our faith rests upon–not the miracles of healing, exorcism, or food.

 

 

But when we get hung up on those miracles Jesus does not give up on us, just as he did not give up Nicodemus. Remember Nicodemus first came because of the signs and miracles Jesus was doing. That’s how he knew Jesus was sent from God. That’s where Jesus started and lead him to see that wasn’t enough. Nicodemus had to see that Jesus was God. Just as we need to see that Jesus is God.

 

 

Although Jesus is a little hard on Nicodemus, he tells Nicodemus God’s motive for sending the Son and for the toughness that tries to change his focus from Jesus being a teacher to Jesus being the Messiah: God’s love. This is what we need to remember too as Jesus continually turns our gaze away from lesser things to remind us of what is really important. Jesus continues to redirect our focus because of God’s love. It is God’s love that compels us to change and become more Christlike. Just as it was God’s love that led us to confess Jesus as our Savior in the first place. Although condemnation and “hellfire and brimstone” are popular ways for some in Christianity to try to get people to come to Jesus, that is not what God did. In fact, John 3:17 makes it very clear that Jesus did not come to condemn anyone in the world, but to show the love God had for the world and give us a way into eternal life with God.

 

 

As we walk through Lent, examining our lives, and repenting of the places we have not given to God or walked away from God, we need to remember why God is leading us through this time: because God loves us. God wants to have a more intimate relationship with us. God want us to be more Christlike. God wants us to live in the abundant life and eternal life that we can have in Christ. Walking through Lent can be long and dark, but the God who loves us walks with us, telling us what we need to do, just as Jesus told Nicodemus what he needed to do to have eternal life with God. God’s discipline and judgments are always to lead us deeper into eternal life and closer to God.

The picture is from the St. John’s Bible.

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Lenten Discipline: Fasting

Fasting from food is the normal fasting practice during Lent. Although now people fast from many things: a particular food group, sweets, TV, or the internet. On Street Prophets Starwoman posted a great post on fasting last year. Fortunately she linked to it in yesterday’s coffee hour for those of us who missed it the first time or just forgot about it. Here is an excerpt:

Fasting and Gratitude

This is a simple application of the old saying Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Fasting can sharpen our appreciation of what we do have, what we may otherwise take for granted.

Americans have a lack of appreciation for the things we have; we waste so much that what we discard in one day could feed all of Africa.
– Brother V., Franciscan missionary to Africa for 17 years

Physical hunger, Spiritual hunger

For me, this is the most compelling reason to fast. Hunger is frequently used metaphorically in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and I suspect in other scriptures as well. We hunger for God, we hunger for justice, we hunger and thirst for mercy, we thirst for God as a deer thirsts for running streams.

Let your body teach you what it means to hunger.

What do you hunger for?
Who or what is the Divine for which you hunger?
What do you hunger to see in the world?

She also has tips for those of us that have trouble fasting because of low blood sugar levels. I stopped fasting because of low blood sugar and what it did to me after 3:00. With her advice, I think I am going to fast until after the Ash Wednesday service (8:00 p.m.). And if it goes well fast on Fridays this Lent. Thank you Starwoman.

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Lenten Thoughts and Practices

I found two artlices on Lent that I really enjoyed. The first one describes why Christians need to observe Lent, and the second one offers a Lenten discipline.

In Images of Lent, Ron Rolheiser says:

Religiously the richest image we have for lent is the image of the desert, of Jesus going into there voluntarily to fast and pray. Scripture tells us that Jesus went into the desert for forty days and, while there, he ate nothing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that, literally, he took no food or water during that time, but rather that he deprived himself of all physical supports (including food, water, enjoyments, distractions) that protected him from feeling, full force, his vulnerability, dependence, and need to surrender in deeper trust to God. And in doing this, we are told, he found himself hungry and consequently vulnerable to temptations from the devil – but also, by that same token, more open to God.

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed challenges his readers to practice this discipline through Lent:

I am asking my blog’s readers to consider a challenge for Lent. No, it is not giving up anything. Instead, it helps move Lent into 40 days of living out the gospel: I am asking you to begin and end each day of Lent (beginning Wednesday) by reciting the Jesus Creed. And, whenever it comes to mind throughout the day, I am asking you to recite it again. In your evening recitation of the Jesus Creed, we are asking you to give some moments of recollection to confess any sins against the Jesus Creed throughout the day. |inline

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Just When You Think…

Just when you think there are ten people reading your blog, including family, you find out differently. Last week I mentioned in a post how disappointed I was in the last chapter of Carolyn Custis James’ Lost Women of the Bible. Today I received an email from Carolyn:

I deeply appreciate your comments about my book, Lost Women of the Bible. I take feedback seriously and am always interested in finding ways to improve and communicate more effectively. I must confess, however, to feeling saddened by your disappointment in the final chapter on Paul and the Women of Philippi, particularly because your disappointment was tied to something my book (and that chapter in particular) never intended to address.

In the chapter in question, I am addressing an aspect of the problem women face in the church that impacts every Christian woman, and not simply the women who feel called to pastoral ministry. My goal is to establish the fact that men (even men who are senior pastors) need women in the battle with them—ministering at their side and also ministering to them personally. That is why I’m talking about male pastors. So the logic goes, if these men need us, then surely every man needs the spiritual ministries of women. I doubt female pastors would have any difficulty in valuing the ministry of other women with and to themselves, so I wasn’t addressing them.

My books address a general audience. I purposely do not address specifics about what women can or can’t do in the church. I intentionally do not take a public position on the ordination question. I leave that discussion to others. I know this frustrates many readers. My purpose is to get both sides to look at the deeper issue of why the spiritual gifts and contributions of women are not just permissible, but essential to the whole body of Christ. I hope my books cause church leadership to wrestle with how that looks in their particular setting. It won’t look the same in every church, but every church needs to think this through and hopefully, begin to make progress in how men and women serve God together.

I think it is very cool that Carolyn, not only keeps track about what is being said about her books, but takes the time to email to correct reader mispercecptions. This was my response:

Thank you for writing me about Lost Women in the Bible. Thank you for clarifying what your purpose was for the book. I will re-read the last chapter with what you’ve said in mind. I really did like the book, and the scholarship you did was excellent (I’m a geek and a sucker for really good scholarship). You are also a great storyteller. I’m studying both Lost Women and When Life and Beliefs Collide because I am still trying to figure out how to keep a conversational tone throughout my writing instead of vacillating between conversational and academic.

I do think you are filling a huge gap for women with this book. When it comes to books about women in ministry it seems women are caught between women’s and children’s ministries or going for ordination. It’s good to see a book for women that does holistically address women’s spiritual gifts and both women and men working side by side to build God’s kingdom. I am glad that how I read the last chapter was not what you intended. More than likely I was reading through my own experience and what I thought should be there instead of staying with what you stated in the introduction was your intention with the book.

Thank you so much for taking the time to email me. It means a lot that you keep an eye out on what is being said about your books and taking the time to respond.

I am going to re-read the last chapter, and I have a feeling that my response is going to be different. I also have a feeling that the book review is going to be different as well.

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Transfiguration Sunday: A Glimpse of God

Jesus: A Glimpse of God

Matthew 17:1-9

 

I am not ready for Lent. And I did not want to leave Epiphany this year. In fact, as far as I’m concerned Lent is coming far too early this year. So I found myself dragging my feet writing this sermon. Fleming Rutledge said that on this Sunday “the church turns away from the light of Epiphany into the shadows of the Cross.” I find myself like Peter: wanting to build and stay where the light is. But Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem–not to overthrow the Roman rulers and rule an independent Israel. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die. In Matthew 16 right after Peter’s confession of faith and right before today’s passage, Jesus predicted his suffering, death and resurrection. The Transfiguration is the first step toward the Cross. Even with Jesus’ prophecies and warnings, the disciples weren’t ready for the trip to Jerusalem. And most of the time, no matter how much we prepare, we are not ready for the long shadows of Lent. Which is the reason for the Transfiguration. This really is a pivotal Sunday. This is the last Sunday of Epiphany, but we are already looking to Ash Wednesday, just as the glorified Jesus is already looking toward Jerusalem.

 

But before we begin the long journey to Jerusalem, we get a glimpse of who it is who is calling us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him. Jesus leads the disciples up to the top of the mountain. To a place where humans and gods met. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, mountain tops are places to encounter the divine. The Celts called these thin places: places where this world and the spiritual world intertwine, and it is easy to step from one world into the other. Jesus takes the disciples to this thin place. And there his divinity is revealed: “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” God’s glory, the same glory that filled the tabernacle in the wilderness and then Solomon’s temple, emanates from Jesus. Then two other men who met God on mountain tops appear: Moses and Elijah. We read of one of Moses’ mountain top encounters with God in today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture. Light and clouds shroud Mt. Sinai as Moses goes up to receive God’s commands. Elijah met God in sheer silence on a mountain. Now time is put aside as the lawgiver and the prophet of prophets meet with the Son of God on another mountain. It’s a scene we can’t quite imagine or get our minds around. We’re not supposed to, just as the disciples did not. As usual it is Peter who opens his big mouth before he’s really thought about what he’s saying. He wants to build booths for all three and stay on the mountain for awhile. We all do. None of us likes to move on from the glory of God when faith is easy and God’s presence is so evident in our lives. But move on they have to do as do we.

 

As clouds envelope the mountain top God once again approves of what Jesus is doing: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” The same voice that approved of his baptism now approves of his obedience to go to Jerusalem. God tells the three disciples to listen to him. In the powerful presence of God in light, clouds, and hearing his voice, the disciples fall to the ground. In her sermon on the Transfiguration, Madeline L’Engle said:

 

The story of the Mount of Transfiguration is also strong stuff, not to be understood in the language of provable fact. Jesus, like Elijah, stands “upon the mount before the Lord.” He took with him Peter and James and John, and extraordinary, incomprehensible things came to pass. Jesus’ clothing became shining, and Elijah himself appeared to Jesus in the brilliance, and Moses came, too, and they talked together, the three of them, breaking ordinary chronology into a million fragments. And then a cloud overshadowed them, as it overshadowed Moses on the mount, and the voice of God shouted out of the cloud.

 

Strong stuff. Mythic stuff. That stuff which makes life worth living, which lies on the other side of provable fact. How can we be Christians without understanding this? The incarnation itself bursts out of the bounds of reason. That the power which created all of the galaxies, all of the stars in all of their courses, should willingly limit that power in order to be one of us, and all for love of us, cannot be understood in terms of laboratory proof, but only of love. And it is that love which calls us to move beyond the limited world of fact and into the glorious world of love itself. Of Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, both of whom had themselves stood on the mount and been illuminated by God’s glory. When Moses went down from the mountain his face was so brilliant that people could not bear to look on him, and he had to cover his face in order not to blind them.

 

The brilliance of God is indeed blinding, and we need myth, story, to help us bear the light.

 

At the Transfiguration we see the incarnation through divine eyes. This is what God sees. We can only catch a glimpse because of the brightness. At the same time the Transfiguration is full of revelation and shrouded in mystery. But it is this mysterious light and glory that will see us through the long days of Lent as we travel in the shadow of the cross. In her sermon, Madeline continues on why we have a hard time understanding Jesus:

 

Jesus was not a westerner and He did not have a western mind, which is perhaps why He is so frequently misunderstood by the western mind today. His first miracle was a lavish turning of a large quantity of water into very fine wine at a wedding feast where the guests had already had a lot to drink. He was not interested in the righteous and morally upright people whom He saw to be hard of heart and judgmental, but in those who knew they were sinners and who came to Him for healing. His birth was heralded by angels, visited by adoring shepherds, and resulted in the slaughter of all Jewish infants under the age of two.

 

If Jesus was a threat to Herod two thousand years ago, He is still a threat today because He demands that we see ourselves as we really are, that we drop our self-protective devices, that we become willing to live the abundant life He calls us to live. We retaliate by trying to turn Him into a wimp who has come to protect us from an angry father who wants us punished, and the retaliation hasn’t worked, and we’re left even more frightened and even more grasping and even more judgmental.

 

And that is what Lent is about: seeing who we really are and letting Christ lead us into that abundant life that is full of the love of God. It is a season of repentance and self-examination. One thing the Transfiguration makes clear is that we are not God. But as we walk the days of Lent, seeing our humanness good and bad, we have the light of the Transfiguration to remind us of who our God is. And it helps us make it to Easter when not even death can hold onto the light that has come into the world.

 

But we have three more days before Lent begins, and during this time we can dwell and meditate on the mysterious light of God in our lives and world. This is the light that will sustain us through Lent until Easter.

 

The picture is from the St. John’s Bible.

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