Maundy Thursday prayer and reflection

Holy God, source of all love,
on the night of his betrayal,
Jesus gave us a new commandment,
to love one another as he loves us.
Write this commandment in our hearts,
and give us the will to serve others
as he was the servant of all,
your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

I love infomercials. They are so addicting to watch. I enjoy the naivete of the host or hostess as they “learn” about the product along with the viewers. You know, the one with all the oversimplified questions, “ This vacuum doesn’t really pick up a bowling ball does it? These knives won’t cut through metal, right? That machine cooks chicken that fast? Are you kidding? That machine won’t really get that dirty rug clean, now will it? How many times will it take before that floor shines like new? If I use this everyday, I’ll have a body like his or hers? I love the sappy false skepticism and the fake surprise when everything goes just as the demonstrator said it would. I also like to go to home shows and see demonstrators with new products. Secretly, however, I would love to see a demonstration go south, get all fouled up, and the product break or turn the carpet puke green or make his hair fall out or her skin turn bright orange. My wife hosted a pampered chef cooking show a month or so ago. I wish I could’ve been there, but it was clearly not for me. I was not invited. As much as watching a demonstration can be interesting, I prefer a more hands-on approach to products. Of course that’s the idea of the informercial, to place a product in the hands of an amateur and see how easily they begin to use it effectively. Products are always safe, easy to use, and effective.
Jesus is not selling anything to his disciples, but he is inviting them to embrace a way of life that is new and improved. He is inviting them to accept a truth that is very difficult; Only his death will rescue them from the sin of the world. He must suffer and die at their expense in order that they might realize the intensity of God’s love. He relinquishes, what to them, was a promising political and religious future as Messiah and King, to be crucified. On Maundy Thursday, we recall how Jesus demonstrated his way of life, his way of love. He invites his disciples who are reclining with him for the meal, to receive a gift of hospitality from their master. Rather than typical self-service or rather than expecting a slave to perform the task of cleaning their dirty, scabby feet, Jesus kneels down with a basin and towel and washes them all one by one. He does so without prior commentary or ceremony. It is no ritual. This is not a repeatable act commanded by Jesus to be done in remembrance of him in every time and place. He will break bread and offer the cup for that. The ancient Passover meal is forever changed by Jesus into a remembrance of His body and blood, his dying and rising. And so we share the meal every week as a sign of Jesus’ life-giving presence. But tonight, we see a demonstration of Jesus’ love for his disciples. A love manifest in the washing of their feet. Maybe today, Jesus would wash our cars. We could sing, “Shine Jesus Shine, while he polishes our hoods. Actually, what Jesus does is he washes away the tired, dirty, achiness of a lifetime on the road. And he prepares them to walk on. He readies them to walk in his footsteps, to invite others to follow theirs, and to keep on going.
Jesus offers all of us that same love; cleansing us of our sin so that we can start anew. And that love and forgiveness is meant to be demonstrated for us as we exercise compassion for each other in the church. In the ways you encourage each other, hold each others’ hands, weep with one another, pray for one another, and just show up. Jesus’ demonstration is not possible if the disciples are not willing participants. Because Jesus’ love is physical! Bodies are required! The same is true now. Jesus’ love is demonstrated to us in and through the church’s mission. We cannot demonstrate love for each other, if we are not present with and for each other. When someone is absent from our life of discipleship, call them, invite them, encourage them. Speak the truth to them. How can we love you if you won’t let us? How can you love us, if you’re not with us? When Peter refuses to accept Jesus’ humility and love as a demonstration to be embodied in his own life, Jesus rebukes Peter. Sit down, take off your sandals, and stick your stinking feet in the basin Peter. If you don’t, you don’t get me, my mission, my way of life, and you won’t get my gifts either. Love is the mutual expression of humble self-giving service. Who was Jesus to you this week? Who served you? Who are you going to serve? In obedience to His command, you are invited to demonstrate His kind of love to someone. Because followers of Jesus, who love him, who have been washed by him, are also obedient to Him. Love that is authentic is like this: it cares for the hurts, struggles, aches, and pains of the other. Love washes off the dirt and provides respite from the road. Love is gentle and gracious. And it applies equal value and worth to everybody, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done or where they’ve walked. The one’s who need washed are the one’s who are the most dirty. Love is not love unless it is demonstrated in an intentional act of mercy. Disciples of Jesus don’t talk about love, they embody it in real ways. In their way of life as neighbors, strangers, coworkers, students, parents, husbands, wives, friends, enemies.. May you love Jesus. May you see Jesus’ love for you. May you believe it. And may you love someone with a real, intentional, caring, physical Jesus kind of love.

Easter hams and other strange cultural phenomenon

This is Maundy Thursday and I've been invited by our local state Senator to receive two Easter Hams in thanksgiving for the ministry we offer to the hungry in our community. I intend, of course, to give them away.
Ham is not kosher. Why do Christians eat hams on Easter? is it a snub, in-your-face, gesture to our Jewish cousins? Do we intend to offend, to break kosher laws as a sign that we are not Jews. We'd do better to eat lamb. But we will eat ham. I am not a ham lover, although I have become a huge fan of ham loaf---a delicacy native to Lancaster county, I guess. I'd never had ham loaf gromwing up, never even heard of it. Sort of like pig stomach, scrapple, whoopie pies, shoofly pie, chicken pot pie, and chicken and waffles. Waffles are breakfast food where I come from, topped with butter and syrup. Not chicken. I have learned to adapt to this culture, where horse drawn buggies travel on busy highways. But it hasn't been easy. There is a sense here that an outsider is always an outsider. I think this is changing generationally. Especially as this homogeneous community is infiltrated by people of other races and ethnicities. Nevertheless, I am not native to Lancaster County. Muy children are, though. I wonder what that may mean as they grow up, if we remain here during their childhood years. Will they adopt some of the ways of thinking inherent in the culture here? Or will they adopt the cultural ways that we bring? I realize that second generation immigrants often speak the language of the surrounding culture as fluently as their native language. But their parents are rarely as ocnversant in the adopted culture. Will the same be true of my kids? Some of you might think that we have moved from the U.S. to Tanzania, with all of this talk about cross-cultural immersion. But such is the case for us. Even though my wife is native to central PA and I have lived in central PA for around 12 years, we feel like strangers in a strange land. We feel like sojourners, nomads, refugees sometimes. On certain matters we realize we must defer to local folk ways.
There is much to love about Lititz. The beautiful park, downtown, the neighborhoods, easy access to everything and evreywhere. We're less than five hours from five major east coast cities! But I wonder, are we settlers or pilgrims? Are we farmers or shepherds? Are we owners or renters?
In Holy Week, I am thinking about the brevity of life. And about place with respect to that. I am here. here I am. I am not in Chicago or NY or London or Baghdad or Jerusalem. I am here. Now. What am I called to here and now? or maybe to whom am I called? Jesus and I are about the same age now, I guess. If he is risen and continues to live a crucified/resurected life with GOD, does Jesus have an age? Or does he now transcend the limits of how we mark time? That's speculative thought. But I am pondering this week what it means to fulfill one's purposes in life. In his mid-thirties, Jesus was crucified. And that death someone sets to rights, justifies the world's What does it mean to die? And what does it mean to submit one's life to the will of God by faith? God used me to give away two Easter hams, making two families happy this holiday. For that reason, I am here. Today. But tomorrow is unknown. And tonight is a night of remembering and doing what is most difficult with one's life. Loving others by serving and suffering without regard for one's self. Whether we are wasking each other's piggy toes, as Jesus demonstrates, or giving away Easter hams, the thought is the same: What we have, who we are, where we live, all of this is the work of GOD. Given that reality, why aren't we more content?

this hymn that I love

"Lord, who the night you were betrayed did pray that all your church might be forever one: Help us at every Eucharist to say with willing heart and soul, "Your will be done." Tht we may all one bread, one body be, through this your sacrament of unity.
For all your church on earth we intercede; Lord, make all our sad divisions soon to cease; draw us all closer, each to each, we plead, by drawing all to you, O prince of peace; so may we all one bread, one body be, through this blest sacrament of unity.
And hear our prayer for wand'rers from your fold; restore them too, good shepherd of the sheep. Back to the faith your saints confessed of old, and to the church still pledged that faith to keep. Soon may we all one bread, one body be, through this blest sacrament of unity.
So, Lord, at length when sacraments shall cease, may we be one with all your church above---one with your saints in one unbroken peace, one as your bride in one unbounded love; more blessed sill in peace and love to be one with the Trinnity in unity." William Turton, 1856-1938.

Sacraments. That the sacred is found in certain practices or rituals, to many, is a rejection of the spontanaeity of the Holy Spirit at work in peoples' lives. Especially as the sacraments were coopted by Christendom to centralize spiritual authority and power in the papacy and in an exclusive priesthood. Luther and the reformers sought to correct medieval abuses of the sacraments, but the result has been a Protestant rejection of them. maybe rejectin is too strong a word, but clearly a departure from their centrality. The result has been deep fragmentation of the body of Christ, without a center to unite us. We can't even share! When were you taught to share? As a child, right? The church's lack of devotion to sacramental unity has been responsible, in part, for the spirtual infancy of most Western Christians.
Sadly, the sacraments divide us into our personal theologies and kingdoms where we avoid the other or judge them unworthy to be called brother or sister. Often people seek peace and unity in their own terms and with conditions. Conditional grace is not grace. This Easter, when we gather for ecumenical easter dawn worship in the park I will lament that we are not gathered around the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I will lament that the visible, edible expression of Christ's love for us and our love for one another will not be offered. I respect the theological assertions of other Christian traditions and don't seek to impose a way of understanding the gospels, Jesus, or the church on anyone. But the mystey of the meal as the locus of His presence among us, inviting us and nourishing us, is a significant part of my faith and an aspect of the way of Jesus we simply cannot avoid or ignore any longer.
Some friends of anabaptist roots and I gather monthly for eucharistic fellowship. We believe we are transcending sad divisions by living into a table fellowship that is strengthened by ecclesial diversity. May others join us in this endeavor to be an open and hospitable table, where Christ is revealed at the center, in a culture that is decentered, unhinged, and spiritually fragmented.

open plea

April 21st is the date before the judge. Eric will plead guilty and will sit for a summer in county jail awaiting sentencing. He could get 20 to 40 years, given what the DA is requesting. He could go to trial, get destroyed, and spend the rest of his life in prison. He could plead guilty, take the DA's deal and go to prison for 20 years and a few more. Or he can make an open plea, take his chances with the judge for a lesser sentence. He says he's throwing himself on the mercy of the court, given that his priors and his past are non-violent, drug related. I am amazed at his kind of surrender to that. I'm not sure I could do that. I'd want a lawyer to get me less time. Instead he puts his future in the hands of one judge. Will he show mercy?
Eric wants a chance to tell his story. He's even writing a book in prison about his life. It's cathartic, real, and inspired by his sobriety. He's written 180 pages. Of course, he lives in jail where productivity is measured by how few fights broke out in a given week. Eric has made some bad choices in his life. Why? Why do people do what they do? Why did Eric, knowing what he knew about his own siuation and his own weaknesses, exercise such horrible judgment 18 months ago? The reasonable thing to do would have been to call his parole officer, connect with someone who cared, and stay clean enough to stay rational enough to not steal a car, rob some stores, and shoot enough heroine and cocaine in his arm to kill anyone else. He was not reasonable. He went the other way, the path of destruction.
We asked ourselves two questions; why do people commit crimes? And why is Eric still alive? He's been in hell. he's hit the bottom, the pit of self-despair, self-loathing, and selfish pleasure seeking? He has been hopelessly hurting and helplessly waiting for deliverance for a long time. So we read Ephesians 2, "You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desire of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ---by grace you have been saved---and raised us up with him..." Wow, Paul. You nailed it. Dead, but made alive with Jesus. A cleaned-up mess. A disaster that has experienced relief. Living in that new knowledge of how God has rescued us from our own hells, he canmake an open plea for mercy.
So the book he intends to write and publish is meant to reveal a raw truth about the human condition. It is that all of us are broken, flawed, hurting, hungry, and capable of destructive behaviors. And that we need to be saved or we perish. Salvation becomes real when you're in hell, when you need help, when you are in pain, when you are depressed, alone, imprisoned in your own body and mind.
I asked Eric about the big risk he is taking in an open plea. What if the judge gives him more time than the DA is asking? What if his risk is a fool's errand that will reap a fool's reward? What if he won't leave prison? His son will be five in August. He will grow up with a father in prison. What will be the implications of that for Eric's son? It is complicated. All you can do is surrender to it. If he could control the outcome, predict it, or avoid it, he would. But he can't. So he goes before the judge with an open plea. Don't we all? We face GOD everyday with an open plea. I wake up. I'm alive today. I'm given another chance. I deserve wrath. I'm disobedient. I'm not living a life consistent with the way of Jesus. And yet, I believe that GOD is rich in mercy and imputes onto me the love God has for a son. By grace. freely given, no strings. because of who God is and how God chooses to be toward me. Not because of what i've done, what improvements I've made. And God does the same for Eric, in or out of prison. Will God rescue Eric from the criminal justice system? Can we pray for his release? Eric is doubtful of prayer's affect on his sentencing. Can God persuade the judge? Or is God's work saving Eric, even while he is serving out his sentencce, more important than whether God miraculously gets Eric released earlier? What is salvation? May God be gracious with Eric, with his family, and with all of us. May we make our open plea everyday trusting in God's unending mercy given through Jesus. He took the place of a criminal named barabbas, in order that a criminal might be set free. Barabbas means "sonof a father". Aren't we all children of a parent? Is Barabbas "everyman"? Is Jesus judged in our place? Is not his execution, meant for us? What if we lived in that knowledge, within the beauty of that grace?

Holy Week contemplations 2009

Lent is coming to an end this week. And although I am grateful to celebrate the resurrection on Sunday, I will miss it. Lent feels more natural to me than other pars of the church year. I think its because I am at home with a theological anthropology that is Augustinian or maybe a bit Calvinist. I believe people suck. We are not good. We are in a mess that we have made. We are responsible for the unholy crap that occurs everyday. So lent allows me to feel the depth of my moral depravity, to wallow in my personal muck, and to be truthful about my weaknesses.

Yesterday we observed Palm/Passion Sunday. We used Eoc-friendly Palms from Lutheran World relief---meaning that theydid not contribute to deforestation, while we did contribute to the sustainable economy of a Mexican Palm tree farmer. That was a good thing. It always amazes me that the gospel narrative for Sunday holds together this schizophrenic nature of people; one minute the crowds are following Jesus the Messiah King into Jerusalem shoutin "Hosanna". A week later they are accusing him of treason and shouting "crucify". Fickle, aren't we Jesus? Thing is, I doubt any of us would be in that crowd, so passionate and bold. Not us, not the privileged. We couldn't follow Jesus on the grounds that he would turn our safe and happy worlds upside-down. We maybe required to give up our lives in order to declare allegiance to him. Better to back Rome and the powers- that-be. been I think we would have abandoned Jesus well before the Passover march on Temple jerusalem. And by the time the crucifixion occurs, we would have been back to work. Its amazing that his followers interpreted the cross as the divine salvation event considering how many crucifixions they would have witnessed already. I propose that the truth about Jesus' life and death would have escaped us as it did Roman history and the annals of antiquity for the most part. Were it not for those who beleived in his resurrection, we would not have a single story about Jesus life and death.

Lent offers forty days of spiritual formation and continuing education for those of us whose lives are caught up in the story of Jesus. Prayer, fasting, giving, and studying become hallmarks of the season. I fast from coffee for the season because coffee is a sign of my dependence on earthly things, rather than on the things of GOD. (Not saying that coffee is not a gift from GOD, because it is. Its just that I take it for granted and I depend on it as daily bread.) I also try to reada good book or two. This lent has been challenging though. I have been doing the work of an evangelist and the inefficiency of that kind of ministry takes its toll on my time. I continue to visit people in prison and have made hopeful connections with three men there. I'm also involved in a prison ministry task force, the church in society committee of our synod and our advocacy council. We have been making innovative plans to infiltrate our annual synodical assembly this June. I will be wearing a prison-issue orange jump suit with stats on incarceration in PA and the U.S. I hope we raise awareness that inspires mission to the prison population.

We explored "The Jesus Creed" by Scot McKnight this Lent. I recommend it for anyone who has read "The Purpose Driven life" by Rik Warren, because I think the former is a smarter alternative to the self-help guidebook that Warren wrote. "The Jesus Creed" asks about spiritual formation in the time of Jesus. His suggestion is that Jesus was spiritually formed by the Shemaand by the Levitical command to the love the neighbor. These two commandments from the Torah shaped Jesus' messianic/rabbinical ministry. What I'm learning again is that my assumptions about Jesus ought never to become rigid and unchangeable. McKnight offers another way in which we might look at Jesus, come to know him, follow him, and love him.
In the Easter season I will blog. We will be exploring what it means to care for creation and its renewal.