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Be persistent.

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There are two stories in the Gospels that I like that I keep mixing up. I’m going to try to get a grasp on them here and maybe figure out why I like them so much. Most of the translations are from the NRSV translation, but I may have gotten those mixed up too. I have used several different websites to copy and paste these verses from and they have different defaults.

One is about the faith of a Gentile woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. Let’s look at Matthew 15.

“21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”

There is another telling in the Gospel according to Mark, in Mark 7:24-30. In Mark’s telling the woman is a Syrophoenician, not a Canaanite, but the point is the same. The details don’t matter, the story does, and the story is the same in both. In both, the woman is a Gentile. In both, her daughter is possessed by a demon. In both, Jesus was a little ticked off that she would presume to ask him to heal her daughter. He dismisses the woman twice, finally referring to her as a dog. He thinks that he is just there to bring healing to the Jews. He can’t be bothered with someone who isn’t Jewish. But then, she is persistent. She doesn’t turn away from his first rebuff. She doesn’t stop when he calls her a dog, which is a pretty low insult.

Then there is this story. It is a woman who suffered from an “issue of blood” as some of the accounts translate it. This had gone on for 12 years. She was unclean in the most basic way in Jewish life. Menstrual blood was seen as a sign of defilement. Not only was the woman unclean, but anything she sat on was unclean. Anyone who sat on something she had sat on was then, themselves, unclean. Women who were on their periods were treated like lepers. For twelve years she was ostracized because of this malady.

Let’s look at Mark 5:25-34. “25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

This story also appears in Matthew 9:20-22 and Luke 8:43-47, with little change. I like this version because it points out that she had spent all her money and “endured much “ from many doctors and they hadn’t helped, and in fact she had gotten worse. This makes her plight even more sad.

In both, he was surprised at the faith of the women. In both, he tells them that their faith has made them well. He doesn’t say that they were healed because of his power – it was their faith in his power, which comes from God.

They have other things in common. They were persistent. They were active in their faith. They didn’t wait for healing to come to them, they went to it.

Somehow when I tell the story, it is a Canaanite woman who suffers from an issue of blood. So I’ve mixed up the stories. Somehow I never cross the story the other way – it never is a story about a sneaky woman who is trying to steal power to heal her demon-possessed daughter. Demon possession? Who is to say that wasn’t the first century explanation for mental illness? But I digress.

I also like the fact that the person who is sick in the first story isn’t the one who is asking for help. It is the woman’s daughter. It is the woman herself who is asking. Her prayer is known as an intercessory prayer. Her faith in Jesus brought healing to her daughter, who was unable or unwilling to ask for help.

How many people do you know who are like that? They think they are beyond help? They think that they are not worthy of healing? They think they deserve their pain?

This now reminds me of the story of Jesus and the Centurion. This is in Luke 7:1-8.
“After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. 3 When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. 4 When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, 5 for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” 6 And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; 7 therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” 9 When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 10 When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.”

Here’s another story where Jesus was surprised by a Gentile’s faith. The Centurion served the Romans – the enemies of the Jews. This one had done good things for the Jews, so he was allowed by the disciples to get close to Jesus.

Now I’m reminded of Matthew 7:7.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (NIV)

Here’s another translation, and I find it significant that in translating it as “keep on asking…” it refers again to persistence.

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. (NLT)

Here’s another one that tells us to be persistent.

Luke 18:1-8
18 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”[b] 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Don’t give up. Keep asking. Keep praying. Even if you don’t think you are being heard. Even if you aren’t sure. Even if the prayer isn’t for you. Keep on praying. Know that you will be heard. It will all work out in God’s time. Remember, it is “thy will be done” not “my will be done.”

My problem with church.

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I’m starting to realize what my problem is with church. It is self-sustaining. It is self-centered. I don’t just mean my parish or denomination. I mean church in general. I mean The Church.

I went to a “lay ministry appreciation day” a few years ago. It was the second such one that my diocese had put on. Every parish from all over the diocese was invited. That is 45 different congregations. At least 150 people were there. I felt something different this time than I had the first time. I felt like I’d wasted my time. I felt cheated. I felt like maybe my church was on the wrong path. I’m starting to wonder if church in general is on the wrong path. I felt like I was seeing behind the scenes for the first time, like in the Wizard of Oz.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m still very much for Jesus. I just think the church has gotten in the way. I think the church has become more interested in keeping the church going than in being the Body of Christ.

I’d gone to the first Lay Ministry Appreciation Day and not felt this. I was swept up in learning about how to be a lector and an acolyte. I think I heard a little about how to be a chalice bearer but I wasn’t one yet so I didn’t pay much attention. There were classes on everything that is done in the church to make it go.

There was a grand procession where we all wore our vestments and marched around the cathedral carrying banners and crosses. The Bishop celebrated the Eucharist and chanted it. There was incense. There were Sanctus bells. It was everything I’d ever wanted in a communion experience. It was as high church as you can get and not be Orthodox. The worship experience at my parish is very simple, so I really appreciated this different way to worship God.

Then the last year I went it was the same but I was different. On the evaluation form I wrote how sad I was that we spent so many hours learning how to do church but not learning how to be The Church. We talk about Christ, but we don’t learn how to be Christians. That feeling is getting even stronger every day.

My husband and I have been checking out other churches over the past few months. They are still Episcopal churches, currently. But I’m seeing a horrible trend. When I look up their websites I see the same things under the “ministry” tab. They are all about “inreach” rather than “outreach.” The vast majority of ministries are about making the church go. Setting up for church (altar guild). Participating in the worship itself (lector and chalice bearer and acolyte). There are opportunities for different groups to eat out or go bowling or shop. Perhaps there is a Zumba class. But there is nothing about social outreach, or if there is, it is marginalized. Even our pastoral care is about taking care of people who are already members of the church. Something feels missing here.

Church is not a social club. Well, it is, kind of. But the goal has to be to build up the Body of Christ. We can hang out with each other while we are doing something that is what Jesus said to do. Feed the hungry. Welcome the immigrant. Visit prisoners. Clothe the naked.

I went to a retreat recently and I noticed that in the instructions it said to bring snacks and an “adult beverage.” There was no mention of bringing a Bible. Wine wins over Word. I find this very sad.

I’ve heard that very few Episcopalians read the Bible. The argument is that we hear it every Sunday. The Bible is broken up into four readings every Sunday, and there is a three-year rotation. There is an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, an Epistle (a letter), and a Gospel reading. If you’ve gone to church every Sunday for three years, you’ve heard a good portion of the Bible. But you haven’t heard all of it, and hearing it isn’t the same as studying it.

Look at Luke 4:1-13, where Jesus was being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness. Even Jesus read the Bible. He knew how to counter the Devil with the Word. Any time the Devil pushed him to do something wrong, he knew how to answer him with Truth. In order to do that he had to have read the Bible and fully understood it.

I think this is important to note. He was the Son of God. He was the Word made flesh. And he read and studied the Bible. If Jesus, who is so much higher than all of us, took time to read and study the Bible, then we should study it all the more. We need to be able to think for ourselves to counter the challenges we get every day. The Devil himself doesn’t come up to us and challenge us, but we certainly get tempted and sidetracked from the Way. We need to know how to respond to those challenges. God means for us to use the brains He gave us.

In the Orthodox Church, every person is expected to read the Bible for themselves. Their pope is considered to be equal with everyone else and is not considered infallible. People are expected to keep him in line by knowing the Bible for themselves. If he says something that isn’t true, they are expected to recognize it and speak up. What a different idea that is! If it weren’t for the fact that they won’t ordain women, I’d consider joining.

Within church there are about 10% of the people who do all the work. There are so many who sit in the pews, every week, and do nothing. I wonder what they do during the week. Are they active in their faith? Do they treat everyone they meet with the same kindness that Jesus did? Or are they as passive on Tuesday as they are on Sunday?

And then there is the idea of money. I don’t want to give to the church. I want to give through the church. I don’t want to support a machine. I want my money to go to people who need it. I’m busy, working 40 hours a week. I don’t have the time to help everyone who needs it. But I expect the church to help me with that. I expect the church to have determined people who need help and my money to go towards helping them.

When we had a stewardship drive, they mentioned that they were down. The amount of expenses were over the amount of pledges coming in. So they said we had two choices. Either pledge more, or get a friend to come to church with us and get them to pledge. No. There is a third choice. Cut expenses. When everything broke one year at my house (water heater, A/C and heater, and roof) we cut expenses. We had to get a second mortgage, and to pay for it we stopped eating out. We cut out the home phone. We cut out cable. I sold my car and got a cheaper one. This is how I run my house. I didn’t expect a renter to move in to pay the bills. I didn’t go to my boss and ask for a raise.

The vestry had a plan recently that they thought was great. “Adopt an expense.” So, on top of your tithe, you could decide to “buy” a line expense. You could pay for the copy paper. Or the electricity. So what does the tithe go to, if it isn’t paying for that?

Then there was a time where there was a debate about going to one service. We currently have two services during the school year, and one during the summer. The hope was that we would have one service year round. We have a nave that will seat 300 people, but only about 60 show up to each service. It would be nice to have one service. For me, I’d like it because I’d only have to schedule one service – with just a few people who are stepping up to the plate to serve, it would be great to just have one service. It would be nice because we’d all be together. It is hard when there are two services – there’s half the church that doesn’t know the other half.

But the argument was that we should only have one service to save money on heat and electricity. That nave is huge, and it takes a lot of power to heat and cool it. At the same time they were having a “Bunco” gathering in the church. The ladies of the church were meeting to play a gambling game with dice. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I was opposed to that. So we have electricity and heat for a gambling game, but not for a second service? I’m still angry just thinking about it. We also have wine tastings. Imagine the look on Jesus’ face when he shows up at our door and says “You’re doing WHAT in my Father’s house? From Luke 3:8, we hear John saying “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” I’d hate to think that Jesus died so we can play games in his Father’s building, and have wine tastings.

I do pay 10% of my net income to the church. I pay it electronically every month so I don’t even notice it. It isn’t a hardship. But I won’t give more. I volunteer in church – I’m a lector, a chalice bearer, and an acolyte. I schedule the lectors and chalice bearers and train them. But I won’t do more there like that. I think others need to step up. I’ve been asked to be in charge of the Sunday School. I’ve been asked to be on the altar guild. I’ve been asked to be on the vestry. I think others need to fill those holes.

I volunteer by tutoring ESL kindergarteners. I have volunteered with Second Harvest. I have learned CPR. I have become a severe weather spotter to help out the National Weather Service give severe weather reports. I’ve taken a pastoral care class. I’ve attended numerous interfaith gatherings. I’m active. I wrestle with my faith and encourage others.

I want my church to do more. I don’t want to start a new church. I don’t want to have to find a new church. I want the one I attend to get caught up in the Holy Spirit. I want it to come alive. I want everybody in my church to take it seriously. I want people to see God through us. I want us to take the words of the dismissal seriously – to go forth to love and serve the Lord. From John 3:17-18, “17 How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

I’ll end with this.

Luke 13:1-9 (NRSV)
There were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”

I’ll work on and with this church for another year. If it doesn’t bear fruit, then I’m gone.

Eve was framed.

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So many denominations teach that women are evil. They teach that all sin came from Eve. They teach that she ate from the forbidden tree and dragged Adam down with her. They use this twisted version of the story to justify not allowing women to be ministers, as well as justifying husbands being abusive to their wives.

Read the story for yourself, and then walk along with me here. Eve was framed. If you don’t have a Bible nearby, you can follow along with the website biblegateway.com. That is where I’m copying all these verses from, and I’ll be using the New International Version, partly because it is the default translation on that page. Feel free to use other translations. You’ll see the same story.

In Genesis 2:9 we learn that there are two trees in the center of the Garden of Eden. “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” There isn’t just one tree in the center, like we are often told when others do the explaining for us. Already we learn that something might be different here. Maybe we have been deceived.

The Lord God created Adam first, in Genesis 2:7, and in Genesis 2: 16-17 we read “16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Then Eve is created. In Genesis 2: 18-22 we hear the story of how Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Please note that she wasn’t in existence when the rule to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are left to presume that Adam told her that rule. The rule is not repeated to her in the text. But we will soon see that something went wrong in the transmission. Just like in the game of “telephone” when we are children, the story changes a bit when it is shared from person to person.

In Genesis 3:1-3 we read “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Wait. Let’s compare that with what God told Adam. Yes, He said to not eat of the tree of knowledge. He didn’t say anything about not touching it. There is our proof that something went wrong in the transmission, and that Eve wasn’t told this by God. Eve got this secondhand from Adam. Some might use this as an excuse that women should listen to what their husbands say as if it came from God. If that is true, then the husband needs to repeat what God said exactly and not start changing it.

And, let us remember that neither of them had yet eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were innocents. They had no way of knowing right from wrong. They didn’t have the capacity to understand their actions at that point.

Then it gets really interesting. In Genesis 3:6 we hear this – “6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Look at that last sentence. Adam was with her. He was standing right there the whole time that the serpent was tempting Eve. He didn’t speak up. He didn’t counter the serpent. He didn’t say anything. He let his wife do something that he knew to be wrong. He was fully aware of what was going on.

They eat the fruit together. Then the jig is up. They’ve become self-aware. They realize they are naked and they hide. God goes out to find them and asks what happened. Adam says to God in Genesis 3:12 “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” How passive can you get? He sounds like she forced it on him. He knew what tree the fruit came from. He had the direct knowledge from God that he shouldn’t eat from that tree. He was standing right there with her when the serpent was trying to deceive her, and said nothing. And then he blamed her and acted like she forced the fruit on him.

Eve was framed.

Hanging out with Jesus.

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I went to my spiritual director on Wednesday. I’m trying to think of a spiritual director as a guru for Christians. It was strongly recommended that I find a spiritual director because I had started the process to decide if I was being called to the ordained ministry in my church, specifically as a deacon. While that process is on hold, I’m still going to my spiritual director. I find she is very helpful. It is like therapy without any drugs or annoying office music.

We talk about all sorts of things, and a lot of them don’t seem to have anything to do with getting closer or farther away from God. She’s stated that her goal is for me to have “intimacy with Jesus.” These words are totally foreign to me as an Episcopalian. We don’t talk about Jesus being our buddy and pal in church. We don’t talk about inviting him into our hearts. We talk about him, sure, but we don’t really talk with him. We certainly don’t invite him to hang out with us.

She offered me a thought exercise yesterday that I found to be very powerful. Think of the story of Zacchaeus in the 19th chapter of the book of Luke. He was the short tax collector who wanted to see Jesus in the crowd, so he ran up ahead and climbed up a tree. Jesus saw him up the tree and called for him to come down and then invited Himself over to Zacchaeus’ house to have supper. Now that you have the story in mind – imagine that you are Zacchaeus. Imagine climbing up that tree. Imagine Jesus looking at you, noticing you up in that tree. Imagine how you would feel. Imagine him saying he wants to come over to your house to have supper. Your house. With you.

Try to get over the terror that your house isn’t clean enough. Do you have enough food? Where will everybody sit? Feel through how will Jesus respond to this. Remember, this is Jesus. He made a feast out of a few loaves of bread and some fish. He can handle half of a leftover hamburger and black olive pizza and two bottles of Killian’s.

That is the kind of intimacy that she is aiming for. To see Jesus as a real person who wants to be with you. Who wants to come over and spend time with you. Her recommendation is to invite him into everything you do, all day long.

I didn’t go right to work that day after seeing her. I went to tutor ESL kindergarteners, teaching them English. I think Jesus is totally down with that idea, so I had no problem inviting him along. I think Jesus is all about welcoming the stranger and making him feel at home.

Then I went to work. So I invited Jesus to hang out there too. Part of my job that day was cleaning up damaged books. I felt a little weird inviting him to hang out with me while I was cleaning muddy books. I felt a little weird inviting him into being with me while going through the mundane task of checking in armload after armload of books and movies that get returned. But then I thought about it. I like hanging out with my husband. Perhaps this is the same kind of thing. Real friends just like being with you, no matter what you are doing.

I’m OK with the idea of looking for Jesus in other people. This is seeing them in the way that Mother Theresa did – that every person was Jesus in disguise. I’m also OK with serving every person as if I was Jesus. This is serving them in the way that Saint Theresa of Avila did. She said that Christ has no hands or feet on this Earth but hers. The idea is to literally be the Body of Christ.

But I feel odd about inviting Jesus in to everything in my life. This sounds selfish of me to ask. Surely He has better things to do. Surely He has other places to be. Now I don’t think I’m proud. I eat leftovers. I regularly shop at Goodwill. I ask for financial assistance when I need it. But to ask Jesus to be with me, all the time? Isn’t that needy?

When I was writing this I felt the answer. He’s bigger than I can imagine. He is everywhere. He can handle being with me and with everyone else who needs him. And we all need him, even if we think we don’t. Even if we think we’ve got it all covered and everything is fine. Especially then.

I suspect Jesus wants to be with us, to be invited into everything we do, all the time. I suspect he’d love to be with us in our joyful moments as well as our sad ones. He’s just like a good friend – you share birthdays and graduations with them, but you also share the news of your cancer diagnosis and the funeral of your parents. Real friends want to be with you all the time. They may not know what to do in those hard situations, but they know that just being around is helpful.

I thought of those people who refuse to take Communion because they feel unworthy. I remember a conversation at church with a friend who didn’t want to let the priest wash her feet on Maundy Thursday. I think of both things like this – it is like being invited over to a friend’s house and then refusing their hospitality. They have made lemon and ginger tea and cooked up some fine snickerdoodles for me. And I say I’m not hungry? Actually, I am hungry, but I think I’m being polite by refusing. What really is polite is to eat the cookies and drink the tea and say thank you. To refuse hospitality is rude. They went to the trouble for you. They want to make you happy – and you can make them happy by drinking the tea and eating the cookies that they went to the trouble of making for you.

So in the same way it is polite is to accept the friendship that Jesus wants to offer. Again, this is a totally foreign concept in every Episcopal Church I’ve been to. I don’t know why. I hear that this isn’t the case in all Episcopal Churches. I know it is very Pentecostal, but I’m too Orthodox to think I’d enjoy that kind of service. I like the ritual, I admit it. But I digress. Perhaps if more people were introduced to this concept they’d open up to it. I certainly think it is a good idea. I just had to be told about it. So I’m telling you.

So I invited Him into every hard thing yesterday. I invited Him to help me with my painful feelings, and feelings that I’m uncomfortable with. I saw a cover of People magazine that talked about an actress’s “brave goodbye.” It was a story about her death from cancer. I was reminded of my Mom’s death from cancer and got angry at how her death was just as sad but nobody knew about it. She wasn’t mourned by thousands of people. And then I started to think about all the other people who die anonymously. There is no reason that a celebrity’s death is more heartwrenching. I remembered – invite Jesus in. So He stood with me with those feelings of hurt and loss and betrayal and pain. He stands with me now as I remember those feelings.

This is part of what we are to do. This is part of what I learned in the pastoral care class. We aren’t there to solve problems. We are there to listen. We are there to be there. We are there so people aren’t alone in their times of pain and loss and darkness. But in order for me to learn how to be there for someone else, I have to learn how to let Jesus be there for me.

Perhaps part of my problem is I’m not sure how to be a friend. Perhaps part of my problem is I don’t know how to be on the receiving end of a friendship. I’ve spent so much of my life with people who I thought were friends who it turned out were only around when they needed me. When I had a problem they vanished, like a backwards version of Casper the friendly ghost. I remember several people saying after my parents died that they didn’t know what to do for me. So they didn’t do anything. They didn’t even call like usual. They left me alone. So I learned how to stand on my own.

I think I’ve been that way a lot with Jesus. I’ve seen him as an idea, a historical figure, instead of a real person who is immediately available. I’ve seen him as out there, instead of in here, in my heart, in my life. This is a work in progress.

(I’ve intentionally not capitalized the pronoun “him” in here, in referring to Jesus. I’m trying to not distance him by using it that way.)

Elevator

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Today I’m going to meet Anne Lamott. She is signing her new book at the main branch of my library system. She is the author of “Traveling Mercies,” “Grace, Eventually,” and “Plan B.” All of these contain her thoughts on faith. She and Sara Miles are two of my favorite Christian authors. They both get into the trenches of faith and don’t pull any punches about how hard it is to live this life.

So many Christian authors talk about how wonderful their life got when they became Christian. They write that everything got better and easier. They live in really nice houses and drive really big cars. They write about the huge churches they started and how their congregation is growing every week.

This doesn’t synch up with what I’ve experienced.

I do not know what floor they got off on when they got on the elevator of Christianity. They must have gotten off on the floor that was marked “fancy stuff” and “easy street.” When I got on the elevator, I got off on the “broken people” floor. I got off on the “time for hard work” floor.

So many authors I’ve read have left me feeling like I didn’t do it right. That maybe I didn’t press the button hard enough. Maybe my prayers weren’t heard because I wasn’t trying correctly. Maybe my connection is faulty.

I feel like Anne Lamott and Sara Miles are my sisters in the trenches. They talk openly about how hard it is to be a Christian. Things break. New things don’t just start appearing. People are mean. Sometimes those people are the ones you go to church with. From reading Anne and Sara’s work, they’ve let me know I’m not alone in my experience. They’ve let me know it is OK for me to write about it too. They’ve affirmed me, and given me permission.

I feel that once you become a Christian, everything gets harder. You are aware of your responsibility. You realize how much you have not done well and it is time to make amends. It is like getting sober. In AA, part of the twelve steps is making amends to those people you wronged when you were drunk. Now you are aware of all the damage you’ve done, and now you have to try to fix it. There is no twelve step program in Christianity, or at least, not openly. But the same rules apply. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the same thing. Part of showing love is making amends. You have to go rebuild that bridge if possible.

Anne and Sara both tell about how hard it is to go slogging into that muddy, raging river and digging up those stones to try to rebuild the bridge. They talk about how the person on the other side yells at you because they like the broken bridge just like it is, thank you very much. That person hasn’t been through the same experience you have, so he doesn’t want the bridge rebuilt.

But what about those who have decided to follow Jesus? Is it any easier to live and work with them? No. Not at all. You’d think we’d all be on the same team, working from the same playbook. You know, same Lord, same Bible. You’d be wrong, sadly. There are many times where I wonder what they are thinking when they say and do crazy things.

I just read about a lady who objects to the term “Deviled eggs” and they call them “Jesus eggs” in her house. It is this kind of stuff that I’m talking about. Then there are people who slaughter elephants to then take the ivory from their tusks and carve them into statues of Jesus. I can’t even begin to tell you how horrified I was when I read that story in National Geographic. It was a blog post from a local Rabbi that gave words to my feeling. Rabbi Rami Shapiro said “True religions teach you to see the Lord in the elephant, as the elephant, and not collude in the murder of the elephant to honor your Lord. Jesus died for your sins, not to excuse them.”

I’m not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that Christianity has gotten a bad reputation, and it is often due to really whacked-out Christians. I feel the need to apologize for all of Christianity. We have sinned against God and our neighbors by not showing love. We have gotten sucked into the materialism. We have gotten greedy. We have gotten tripped up by the legalistic nature of religion. We’ve forgotten that Jesus came to fulfill the law – but by getting to the heart of it. Rather than fulfilling the letter of the law, he fulfilled the spirit of it. He worked on the Sabbath to heal a crippled man. So he broke one rule, but honored the real rule.

We humans often lack Jesus’ keen insight into what we are supposed to do. This is an understatement. The bad part is that there are a lot of sins that we Christians do, and we do them in the name of God. We are hostile to people who aren’t Christian. We are hostile to people who are Christian but aren’t members of our denomination. We are hostile to people who are in our denomination but don’t share our views. We argue over interpretations of the Bible – should we or shouldn’t we do this? We argue over whether we should have stained glass. We argue over whether women should be ministers. We argue over how old the Earth is. We argue over who can receive Communion.

We forget that everything that Jesus did was to teach us to love each other. To be servants.

Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do. Please send your Holy Spirit to us so that we can truly hear Your Word and be Your Body on this Earth. Give us the knowledge and strength to mend the divisions between us. Give us patient hearts to be loving and kind to everyone, seeing everyone as Your child. I ask this in the name of your Son, Jesus.

Unclean!

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I’ve heard a lot of testimonies about people who have become Christian. They say that their lives have become easier. They gave their lives over to God and it all got easier.

I don’t know what they are talking about. I think it gets harder.

In my opinion, when you become a Christian, you become awake. You are aware of the awesome responsibility that you have to be a force for good in the world. You switch from being passive to active.

Yes, there is a sense of your “Higher Power” as they say in AA. You aren’t in charge (and you never were), and you know that God is in charge. You can relax in that sense. And there is the sense that once you are saved, you are then set for when you die. You know where you will go.

But what about in between now and then? Do you just get to sit back and be smugly happy that you’ve got “it” and others don’t? Is being Christian some ugly game of musical chairs, where the loser gets condemned to an eternity in Hell? That doesn’t sound very nice. It also doesn’t sound very Christian. Not really. Not in the true sense of the word.

It does sound like the modern brand of Christian, unfortunately. There are plenty of folks who wear that name like a shield against the rest of the world. They use it like a “get out of jail free” card. They feel like it means they are set – they will live forever. But they then are arrogant about it. They lord The Lord over people. But life isn’t a game of Monopoly. It really isn’t about getting and buying more stuff and about screwing over other people on the way.

When I became Christian I didn’t get a full grasp of what it meant, and I suspect that I still don’t know the full depth of what my responsibilities are. I certainly don’t feel like I do it right all the time. I feel like it is a process, and instead of “Being” Christian, it is more like I’m “Becoming” Christian. It feels like every year I grow deeper into my faith and closer to understanding what the Bible means. I still find the idea of Jesus as “The WORD made flesh” really interesting and I think I have no real clue what that means. I think I have a glimmer of a hope of understanding it.

I feel like the most important thing about being a Christian is that it isn’t a free pass to Heaven. It is marching orders to the front lines of Hell. We are called to be Christ’s Body in this world. Literally. We are His arms and His legs. When folks say “How could God let that happen”, the real answer is “How can we, agents of God, let that happen?” We are to be a force for good. We are to bring forth God’s love. We are to let God work through us.

Jesus didn’t hang out in the swank part of town. He didn’t buy a huge mansion and wall himself off from the world. He was a man of the people. He walked out among average, everyday people who were lost and hungry and sick. He got right in the middle of the tangled knots of life and untangled them. He was a hands-on kind of guy.

He touched lepers. Nobody did that. Lepers were “unclean” in all the ways possible. They had an infectious skin disease that meant they had to live outside of the camp with other lepers. They didn’t get to see their families. They didn’t get to hang out with their friends. It was a lonely existence. They had to wear bells to announce they were lepers to anyone who might come near. If you touched a leper, then you too were considered “unclean.”

But Jesus didn’t care about that. He not only associated with lepers, He touched them, and He didn’t catch leprosy. He healed them.

It makes me wonder, how much of their healing was just being acknowledged by another person? How much of the healing was just being noticed AS a person? Every single person Jesus healed was precious to Him. He violated so many rules that were in place at that time – touching lepers, dead people, women who had menstrual problems. Any one of these conditions would render a person unclean in those days. None of these rules stopped him.

Jesus not only showed us what to do, he empowered us to do it. He showed us that we are to heal others. He gave power to heal to His disciples and through the power of apostolic succession we have that power too. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we have it. Be assured – if you are Christian, you have that power.

So what is our modern day leprosy? What are the conditions that people find themselves in that make them excluded from society? What conditions make people pariahs? What conditions create invisible social walls that make people “unclean” in our society’s eyes? Thus – what places are we called to break down those walls and build bridges?

How about mental illness? How about being a single mother? How about AIDS? How about being gay? There are others, but this is a good start.

If you are a Christian, you have the power to heal. You have within you the means to bring forth God’s mercy and healing. All you have to do is let it happen. You don’t need special training. Just pray, and Jesus will show you how. It is that easy, and that hard. It is terrifying at first. It goes against all of our social rules. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get involved. Don’t make a scene. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world. The rules of society no longer apply. Jesus broke rules all the time. We are called to do the same. This often means getting out of your comfort zone. This often means taking a risk. It isn’t easy, but it is essential.

Now, it isn’t about passing judgment, and it certainly isn’t about passing laws against people. These actions create separation. We are called to bring together all the lost sheep. We are to show love and kindness and mercy to everyone. We are not to tell others that what they are doing is wrong in our opinion. We are to love them. By loving them, we are healing them. We are healing the rifts that divide people into “us” and “them”.

How do you bring forth healing? One way is to treat every person as if they are Jesus in disguise. This is how Mother Theresa acted. She felt that it was her honor to wash Jesus’ wounds when she washed a leper. She held Jesus in her arms when a frail elderly person died. You don’t have to work at a non-profit to do this. You can do this in your everyday job. Treat each person fairly and kindly. Don’t gossip. Be patient. Show actual interest in each person. Give each person your full attention and your time. When you start doing this you may find it is a little overwhelming and exhausting. Keep it up. It gets easier. It is just like exercise – you get stronger the more you do it.

We are given two commandments – love God, and similarly, love your neighbor as yourself. Every person is a child of God. Every person has within her or him a spark of the light of God. So, treat every person with kindness and respect and love. In Matthew 22:37 we hear these words from Jesus – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” We, as Christians, are called to show the same focus and intensity to “the least of these”, to the “unclean”, to everyone.

The History of the Church, in beads.

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I’m attempting to explain the history of the Church in bead form. I apologize for the dark pictures – this is a work in progress. (edit – I’ve added new pictures that are brighter. )

Here is a picture that gives an idea of what the whole thing looks like.

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And another –
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It all starts with the cross.

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Then the large fancy beads near it represent the Byzantine era. I chose blue, purple, and red because those were the colors God said to use for the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

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This section represents the Middle Ages. One church, so one unifying pattern. Lapis lazuli represents the material used by monks in their illuminated manuscripts. The red is antique “white hearts” from the African trade to remind us of history and time.

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Here is another picture of this section –
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This section has the three colors of the temple, but it is casual and a little jumbled. There is a pattern if you look hard. This is now, the age of strip-mall churches and Mega churches.

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And also here –
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Pure and unadorned, the color in this section has the best of blue and purple to it, and was started off with red, the color of the Holy Spirit. Blue is also the color of Mary – a human being who said Yes to God and allowed The Divine to work through her to bring forth healing and redemption to our world. This is the future. This is what we as the Church are being called to.

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Better lit –
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Yoga Sestina

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Stuck in the center of your garden is a wooden staff.
Perched nearby in the shade is a mossy stone frog.
His head is shaped like a neat triangle
and the afternoon brings a visiting pigeon.
Open the rain slicked wooden gate
to the garden and in will stride a warrior.

Your stone faced warrior
needs no weapons, no staff
to open her heart`s gate.
Within her rests a frog
that can fly higher than any pigeon
found in any city triangle.

Who needs city squares when you have a triangle?
Three equal sides is enough for a warrior
who does battle with slate grey pigeons
and wields a pen like a staff.
That ancient forgotten stone frog
will soon be hopping out of that torii gate.

Sometimes it isn’t a doorway so much as a gate
that is shaped with three sides, a square triangle.
Through it can stride a monk, a poet, or a frog.
It is much harder if you are a warrior. 
Sometimes you get tripped by your staff.
Drop it and fly free like a pigeon.

Nothing is freer than a pigeon.
They can roost on any gate.
They work for nobody, they are not staff
in any business triangle.
Strutting their freedom, they are Zen warriors
and are rarely eaten, unlike the frog.

Fancy restaurants serve frog.
Only desperate people eat pigeon.
You are that warrior.
You are standing at the gate.
Within this holy triangle
lies the secret of the staff.

Frog, you are standing before a gate. 

Like a pigeon, you are above any trinity, any triangle.

You are awake, warrior, where is your staff?

You keep using that word “Christian”. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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I didn’t want to be Christian. Who would? Everybody that I saw who said they were Christian were jerks. They are rude, self-centered, self-assured. Sometimes they seem like zombies – they just do what they are told by their pastor. They all dress the same and talk the same. They get all twirly-eyed when they talk about their “Savior and Lord”. And worst of all – they read “safe” books and listen to “family-friendly” music.

Even now that I am a Christian, it is kind of embarrassing to admit that I am a follower of Jesus, because there are so many other people who wear the same badge who are flat out rude or crazy. Why would I want to be associated with them?

I don’t, really. I want to follow Jesus. I don’t follow the followers. When I read the New Testament, I’m careful to make sure who said what. The apostle Paul said a lot of really amazing things that help build up the early church, but he also said some pretty judgmental things about anybody who wasn’t a straight male. According to his letters, if you were female, you’d better be quiet in church and subservient to your husband. If you were gay, well, forget it. Pretty much, he excluded anybody who wasn’t him – and that seems to be the trend today. “If you don’t do things my way, you are doing it wrong”, seems to be the way a lot of Christians think.

But Jesus didn’t say anything like that. Jesus said a whole lot about loving (he was for it) and a whole lot about judging (he was against it).

Before I became a Christian, I’d read a lot of books about other faiths. I’d learned a lot about Buddhism, and Sikhism, and Taoism. If it was a world religion, I was there. But then I thought that I was not being fair. If I’m going to give equal time to all these other ways of understanding The Big Questions, then I need to see who this Jesus guy is and what he says.

I decided to give the Episcopal Church a try. My parents had raised me as an Episcopalian but they quit going when I was very young. The service was familiar, if a little confusing. Turns out I’d picked up the service bulletin for the week before in my desire to get there early and settled in. So I had the wrong readings, and the hymns were off, but the rest of the service was straight from the Book of Common Prayer and that was familiar enough. After the service I cornered a priest with this statement – “Buddha is awesome, Gandhi is with the program, and Lao-Tsu also has it figured out.” This was a make-it-or-break-it moment right here. I knew I’d found truth in their teachings. If he dismissed them, then I knew I was done with this foray. So he surprised me. He said “Cool!” with a huge smile. OK, now we were talking. He wasn’t part of a church that acted like it had a monopoly on the Divine.

I then decided to read the Bible. Well, let’s be honest. Very few people can wade through the entire Bible. There are a lot of “begats” that slow most folks down. And there is all that interior decorating micromanagement going on with building the first Temple. So I skipped to the Gospels.

The more I read of the Gospels, the more I wanted to quote from the movie Princess Bride to the folks who said they were Christians but didn’t act like it. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” They kept saying Jesus, but turning it into a dirty word. Their Jesus was hateful and judgmental. Their Jesus was all about getting a ticket to heaven and you were done. Their Jesus was closed-minded and thoughtless. This wasn’t the Jesus I was discovering. The Jesus I was discovering was about love, and more importantly, showing love through service to others.

What would Jesus do? I’d think he’d be totally down with the idea of having friends from all different religions. And I don’t mean having friends just so he can try to convert them. I think he’d learn how to say “thank you” in a bunch of different languages. I think he’d volunteer at a food bank. I think he’d carry around extra bottles of water so he could give them out to folks he saw. I think he’d encourage people and raise them up.

I think being a Christian is about service. It is about living the life of Jesus. It is about taking up the yoke. Sometimes people need a sandwich, not a sermon. I think “being Christian” means to be Christ in this world – to take up where he left off. Saint Theresa of Avila tells us “Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” Go forth. Be Jesus, and be the nice one. Be the one that heals and feeds and clothes.

(I have now turned off comments for this post, and updated my comment policy in my About section.)

We are the Bread.

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I don’t think Jesus came for us to worship him, but to follow him. We are to take up where he left off. We are to be Christ in this world. We are to be the fixing, the healing for the world. We are to bring unity and love and understanding. We are to build bridges and tear down walls between people. We are to encourage and to lift up. We are to be a force for good.

So many people get stuck on the idea of Jesus as the Son of God. That whole miracle-birth thing really gets in their way. Now – don’t get me wrong. I believe that Jesus is God incarnate. But I don’t think that you have to believe that. I think that part of the message of the loaves and fishes is that we are to be the bread that is distributed. There was an amazing magic trick that happened in those two stories of Jesus feeding the multitude. Jesus is the starter – he shows us how to do it. He takes what is there – a few simple meager loaves and fishes. These were gifts that were offered. He blesses them – he gives thanks to God for the gift of them. And then he breaks them. He takes what is there – and he breaks it. This seems counterintuitive. But it has to be broken for there to be more.

Most of us like to hang on to what we have. We see our things as ours – our health, our jobs, our families, our friends. We don’t see these things as gifts from God. And we certainly don’t like it when they are taken from us. We certainly don’t like the idea of voluntarily giving them up – of breaking them.
But when they are broken, when we are broken, we get a chance to become more than what we were. In that time we can choose to give thanks. We can choose to see that they were gifts to us in the first place. We can choose to become more than our things that we think bring us comfort. We can choose to be the bread.

We can choose to feed others. We can choose to volunteer at Second Harvest. We can choose to raise money for AIDS prevention. We can choose to stand up to bullies. We can choose to be kind to the stranger. We can choose to not gossip. We can choose, every moment, every day, to be more than we are. We can choose to let Jesus work His magic on us and make us more than we were. We can rise with him and feed the world with love.