Jesus wept, so why can’t we?

“Jesus wept.”

The shortest passage in the bible, John 11:35.

Jesus wept because he heard of the death of Lazarus, a man he knew and loved, a friend who was like family.

Jesus wept out of love and grief, not out of doubt.

Jesus wept because it is the human response to loss and sadness.

Jesus wept because it is what anyone with a heart does when that heart is damaged or broken by news that is not welcome.

Jesus wept but the world didn’t stop. No one judged him. No one left him.

Jesus wept and no one questioned if he was fit to lead or fit to serve.

Jesus wept in front of his followers, in a public place for all to see, and no one turned away, no one tried to hide him, no one tried to quiet him.

Jesus wept without shame or embarrassment because weeping is as much a part of human life as laughter.

Jesus wept because tears are prayers of thanksgiving in the depths of sorrow. Each tear is praise for a life lived that now is gone, gratitude for a gift given that is no more but we loved while we had it; a gift so great that the absence of it pains us to our very core.

Jesus wept because we celebrate life not only with smiles and joy but also with heartbreak and sorrow.

Jesus wept because he loved and to love is to risk it all for the sake of the other. To love is to know your heart will swell and break because that’s how God created each and every one of us.

Jesus wept because the pain of love is as rewarding and important as the elation of ecstasy.

Jesus wept for himself and his friends but not out of selfishness or doubt. We can mourn loss in the same moment we have deep and abiding faith that death doesn’t have the last word.

Jesus wept because faith isn’t about 24/7 smiles and praise but about steadfastness in the face of loss and pain.

Jesus wept because he could, in a full embrace of his humanity and capacity for life, love, suffering, loss, joy, elation, friendship.

Jesus wept because he should, because that’s what we do when someone we love leaves us, sometimes even when we know it’s temporary.

Jesus wept, showing us yet another stone in the path that paves the way of life, the way of the cross, the way of faith, the way that is discipleship and dedication to following him.

Jesus wept, so why can’t we? Why don’t we? Are we less human? Do we feel love and loss any less? Do we think ourselves better or stronger than the almighty? Are we so ashamed and embarrassed by our tears whereas God himself cried openly and with abandon?

Jesus wept. And so do we, can we, should we.

Fog and the Mountain

The fog crawls up the mountain

Digging its tendrils deep between the trees

Hugging their leaves and licking their branches

As the fog reaches the mountain’s pinnacle

Wind rips it away from its lover

Never to meet again

The fog dissipates in feathers and wisps

Into tears of contentment

Satisfied by its one great union

Confusing King

A new king comes to power and immediately abolishes the old taxation system. The subjects wait with great anxiety to hear what will replace the system they have known. Past kings have demanded the subjects pay different percentages of their income and harvests every year. The people of the kingdom know punishment certainly awaits anyone who fails to comply with the king’s orders. Not knowing the expectations of the new king causes great consternation and gnashing of teeth across the kingdom.

The traditional day of taxation arrives but the new king still has not announced his demands. The people line up outside the castle with goods representing the ten percent tax rate required by the previous ruler. They wait and wait for the gates to open and the king to step forward, but nothing happens. After a full day of standing in line, the people become restless and even more worried. Finally, the king looks down from a balcony on the side of the castle and repeats his announcement that the old taxation system has been abolished. The people stay where they stand, waiting to hear how the king likely will increase the former rate and what day they will be expected to render such taxes. Instead, the king waves and tells them all to go home and back to their fields before he turns and goes back into the castle.

Over the next several months, the king walks through the fields and visits his subjects in their homes. No king has ever done such a thing. Kings don’t spend time with their subjects and certainly do not visit them in their fields where they work. The people assume the king spends time among them to see for himself how much they harvest or how much they make. Maybe the king does not trust his subjects to give him the full tax amount demanded. If he walks among them, he will have a better sense how much his people will owe him so as to guard against the subjects not giving their full amount.

The king’s presence among them makes them nervous and resentful, so they begin to inquire about the king’s desires and purpose in visiting with them in their fields. The king simply says that he likes to see their hard work and how they find fulfillment in the work they do. He wants to know their families and understand how he might better serve them as their ruler. He cares about his subjects and wants to provide for them the best way he possibly can.

Out of utter confusion and frustration, the subjects continue to fill the void of demands and expectations by coming up with their own. They tell one another stories of terrible punishment that is to come if they do not pay the king tremendous tributes of money and harvest yields. A rumor goes around that the king is building a massive dungeon under the castle where subjects will be thrown for decades if they fail to pay 40, 50, 60, even 90% of their harvest to him.

Once again, the subjects line up outside the castle on their customary tax day, this time with even greater offerings for payment. They grumble and complain that the king would demand so much of them, even their full livelihood. They fuss as they wait for the king to appear to take their taxes or throw them in the dungeon for failure of payment. The citizens begin looking at one another, comparing their offerings with others, worried they might not have brought enough because their neighbor seems to have brought twice what they have. They worry and argue among themselves.

Once again, the king comes out on the balcony, reminds them of his previous announcement, and tries to send them home. But many of his subjects stay where they stand. The next morning, he finds several of them have chained themselves to the walls of the castle. Some among them have told the rest that the king is angry because they did not bring enough on tax day and that is why he sent them away. These leaders have convinced people that the king soon will come to enslave them for their failures and the only way to gain favor and some forgiveness is by chaining themselves before the king does. He will favor them for realizing their wretchedness and locking themselves up.

The king comes out, breaks the chains, and sends them home once again.

The following year, on tax day, the people show up at the doors of the castle. This time, some have brought 1%, some 6%, others as much as 50% of their year’s earnings. No one is grumbling and no one is judging their offering against their neighbor’s. The king steps out on the balcony to ask why they have come since they no longer are bound to any tax system. The people tell him they have not brought taxes, but offerings of thanksgiving. They have come to understand the king. The day after he walks in their fields with them, he has supplies sent specific to the needs he has witnessed among them. If a farmer has a broken fence, he sends other farmers to help with fresh fencing supplies. If a family has lost their livelihood because their milk cow was killed by a wolf, he sends another milk cow. The people have come to show their gratitude for the king’s faithfulness to them, not because they have to, but because they want to. Life now is infinitely better than it ever has been before and they want the king to understand how thankful they are for his generosity, care, and kindness.

The king does not judge their gifts, assessing if they are adequate. Instead, he accepts their offerings, saying each one is enough. Before he brings the goods into the castle storerooms, he has his subjects consider who in the kingdom might have need of their offerings. If they know someone who needs what they have, he tells them to first take their offering to their neighbor, then bring it to him. What remains, the king stores and uses when he sees a subject in need.

I imagine this to be God’s experience in watching humanity. Patiently, God watches as we try to twist and redefine grace, unable to accept it as unbounded and infinite. We expect a certain economy, one that demands tit for tat based on bartering and exchange. We try to make God live by human rules of commerce by telling ourselves and one another that we must earn God’s grace and love or that we have received it and now are indebted to God to a crushing degree.

God wants a response from our heart of gratitude and love. We keep trying to make our offering compulsory. We cannot believe God would love us unconditionally and pour her grace upon us with abundance. We make new rules and spread misconceptions because we cannot accept such an immense gift. Meanwhile, God waits and watches, wanting us not on our knees but with arms open, ready and willing to return even a small fraction of the love she already has given.

To live in such love and grace is true freedom. Were God to require specific offerings or demand certain acts of contrition, then we would bound in chains. The minute something is compulsory is the minute we lose our freedom. But a gift, an offering, an act of love can only be given if it comes voluntarily and from the heart out of a pure desire to show appreciation.

The day we allow ourselves one another freedom, the day we all bring our offerings out of unbounded thanksgiving and love, is the day the kingdom of God will be made real.

Love and Bridges

Saturday night I closed my eyes to doze a bit while my husband, Derek, drove us home from a family gathering in Gainesville. I had been deep inside my mind, working on my sermon for the following morning. My brain was starting to quiet when I found myself suddenly singing, quietly at first then building. I couldn’t remember the name of the song nor who recorded it, but the words flowed out from some deep recess inside of me. I sat up in my seat and watched the familiar roads and signs of 365 slide by, the words of the song coming to me more quickly.

I smiled and remembered learning to play the tune on the piano as a young teenager. “I haven’t heard this song in a long time. I had forgotten all about it,” I said to Derek.

He replied, “Well, it hasn’t forgotten you.” It most certainly had not.

The DJ filled in the missing details, “That was ‘Love can build a bridge’ by The Judds.” Of course. How could I forget.

I hope you remember this song as well. The refrain says,
“Love can build a bridge
Between your heart and mine
Love can build a bridge
Don't you think it's time?
Don't you think it's time?”

Generally, I love the arrival of fall. I can’t wait for cool nights and open windows, the proliferation of pumpkins and spiderwebs. But my enthusiasm is dampened this year. It’s midterm election season, one that typically is contentious but feels more so this year than at any other time I remember. The promise of fall as the gateway to holidays entirely about love and thanksgiving starkly stands juxtaposed against the vitriol, hatred, and division championed by the campaigning happening all around us.

I cannot speak to the reasons behind our current love affair with division but I do know that I cannot believe it is of God. In our sinfulness, we have come to prize conflict and aggression. Scarcely do we meet a new person before we assess if they are “with us or against us,” that is, if they agree with our views and ideologies or are a part of the irredeemable other party.

The temptation of division is nothing new. The earliest Christian communities tried to divide themselves as well. The apostle Paul struggled to help the Roman community set aside their obsession with separating the Jews from the Gentiles among them. He wrote to the Romans, encouraging them to set aside their selfish resentments and delineations in favor of working together in kingdom building, rooted in the love of Christ.

To live in a community of love is not to agree with one another all the time or have the same vision for the specifics of the work we should commit ourselves to do together. Indeed, conflict and disagreement are inherent to any relationship. The test of our discipleship is in our ability to stay together as brother and sister and strive to do the will of God regardless of our differences. In fact, our strength can be found in those very differences. They are the things that enrich our community and our corporate understanding of God.

The Judds go on to sing in their song,
“I would whisper love so loudly, every heart could understand
Love and only love can join the tribes of man not trials
I would give my heart's desire so that you might see
The first step is to realize that it all begins with you and me...

When we stand together, it's our finest hour
We can do anything, anything
We're believing in the power”

Despite the animosity that pervades our society, I still hold onto hope. We are resurrection people after all, aren’t we? Imagine if our conversations began rooted in love rather than hatred? What if we started from a desire to understand rather than a desire to debate? I still believe deeply in the power of love to transform us and our community, our world.

On that drive home, my mind and spirit compelled my body to sing out words I had long forgotten and it came as a balm to my soul. May the Spirit move us to reach deep inside to find more messages of hope, connection, love, and redemption, rather than the easily accessed hatred and selfish conceit that fills the air around us. If only we would begin with love, rather than division, even if it starts as a mere whisper.

Radical Expectations for Relationships

Sermon Audio for June 24

Yesterday I spoke to our need to have people in our lives whose views and perspectives differ from our own. We need the balance and variety of gifts they bring. We differ greatly, were created as such, and it is the power of the Eucharist that binds us together. The body of Christ, broken in love for us, should ever be our model for how we are to be in relationship with one another, with love at it's core. I asked if our egos were so delicate now that we can no longer engage in real conversation. The cultural norm today for how we are to interact with one another runs counter to the model set in scripture.

I don't post links to the audio for my sermons but am sharing today because of several requests I have had to make it available.

My apologies for not having any text to go with it. I don't preach from a manuscript or notes.

Peace and love to you all.

Mary+

Dedication, Zeal, and the Love of My Momma

I never went through a rebellious teenager phase. My parents can verify that. My brother didn’t either. He was too busy fishing and hunting and I was too busy pushing classmates to sign the “Prom Promise” that they wouldn’t drink and drive on Prom night. We were pretty chill teenagers.

However, I did have behaviors that drove my parents crazy, especially my mom. At the top of the list: not having a tidy room. My brother is older and always has kept a clean space. Even his closets stayed fairly neat. None of that could be said about my bedroom growing up (or now, for that fact). Some people walk into a room and immediately spot any piles of papers or stacks of detritus. I don’t see these things until they are about to spill and take over the room. I mean that. My brain does not register the presence of these stacks and piles.

This lack of vision on my part became evident pretty early on and my mom would beg me to straighten up my room. After countless arguments, we struck a bargain when I was thirteen: She wouldn’t come in my room. It’s not that I didn’t want her there; it was for her own mental health.

My room is just one example of many points of contention. I was not a perfect child, no one is, and I made my fair share of eye rolls at things my mom did and said. I was frustrated by ways she pushed me to improve and change. Like any normal kid, I found my mom’s parenting annoying at times. In the back of my mind, I think I knew it was her job but did she have to do it so passionately and with such zealous dedication?

Her worrying and encouraging didn’t stop when I graduated from college or even seminary. It seems a mom never retires. When I was pregnant with our first child, she checked in on me regularly and made countless trips from Georgia to DC to help prepare our townhouse for the arrival of baby. She hopped a plane at the first signs of contractions and stayed with us for over a month to wait, deliver, and care for our little Peanut.

We waited for two weeks for the baby to come and in that time my mom and I made countless trips to BabysRUs and Target. She made even more on her own and came back with ideas and supplies for entire systems of care. One day I came into the kitchen to find her setting up a multi-tub system on the kitchen bar for sorting and drying pacifiers and bottle parts. There was a box for non-sterilized items, one for drying sterilized items, and another with a lid for dried sterilized items. I remember chuckling in my mind and thinking, “Classic Mom.”

Our oldest arrived and we struggled. Hannah was not a good nurser and I had no idea what I was doing. I felt inadequate, made exponentially worse by a nurse in the hospital who witnessed me struggling to get Hannah to latch and said, “God did not bless you with good nipples.” Thanks, Lady! Hannah was jaundice, which made her sleepy, and she wasn’t an eager eater. She still isn’t. As a toddler it was impossible to get her to sit for more than eight or nine minutes to eat. Even now, she’ll perch on her chair rather than sitting, just in case there’s something that catches her eye that’s more interesting.
The fighter in my mom came out strong. She was eager to organize and advocate for Hannah and for me. She and my father took turns, in the wee hours of the morning, making Hannah take bottles of pumped milk by tickling her feet and rubbing below her collar bone to keep her from falling asleep. I escaped falling into despair at my inadequacy as an inept nursing mother because my own mother found, made an appointment, and took me to a nursing specialist. I cried many tears because I thought it was my fault Hannah was jaundice and that she couldn’t nurse. That all changed, thanks to the coaching of the specialist and encouragement from my mom.

A few days before my mom left us, she and I were standing in the kitchen together. All of a sudden, the tumblers in my brain fell into place and I understood my mother and her zealous parenting. The love and desperation I felt for my daughter lined up with the years of my mother’s apparent meddling and worrying. All at once, I thought, “Holy crap! I get her now!” I remembering turning to her and saying as much. I thanked her and I might even have apologized.

I know this story will not resonate with everyone. It might not even resonate with most people. I understand how exceptional this is and here’s why: My mother’s mother died when she was six-years-old. She never had the opportunity to roll her eyes at her mother’s fretting. She never got to have her mother help her through her tough first pregnancy and delivery.  She didn’t get a moment like mine in the kitchen with her mother. Nearly all of the work my mom has done in her role of “mother,” she has learned on the fly. She didn’t have a template to follow or even from which to deviate.

Not everyone has pretty little stories that feature them with their mothers. Some people struggle with failing or nonexistent relationships with their mothers. Heartbreakingly, some will only have memories of abuse and neglect by their mothers. Still others, like my mother, never had a mother present with whom to have a relationship. It is to all of you that I offer my story.

For me, my mother’s story is one of redemption and hope. She and I never could have had our kitchen moment without her work. She wanted something different for her life as a mother and for us as her children than what she had as a child. Void of any real model for motherhood, she found other ways to learn and grow into her motherly vocation. It hasn’t been perfect or always pretty. She can tell you about her disappointments and perceived failures. But her determination and dedication made my world very different from what it could have been.

We don’t have to repeat the story we have been given. We don’t have to follow anyone else’s model of what it means to be a mother or be paralyzed by the absence of a model. We aren’t going to do it perfectly or even gracefully. At times we will feel like we are winning at parenting and other times we will feel like absolute failures. What matters is how we nurture the love we have to give and allow that love to fuel our dedication and zeal.

One of my favorite words is “steadfast.” People talk about the “patience” of Job, but I prefer the translations that substitute the word “steadfastness.” Job was faithful, even through his frustrations and anger. He was dedicated to God despite all he experienced.

I haven’t always agreed with my mother’s methods, far from it, but I will forever appreciate her steadfast dedication and love. That steadfastness made her a nurturing mother, against all odds, and has given me a good model to follow. It’s not only a model for being a mother but a model of hope for how to survive and then thrive. Because of her story, I understand more fully the power of redemption. I pray it will offer all of you hope as well.

Thank you, Mom, for being a fighter, a worrier, and my mother.

A Cheerful. . . Receiver?

Part of my job is working as a chaplain at a middle school. I love this work. I love those baby adults so very much. They crack me up every day and they laugh at me on a regular basis. Today at lunch I told one of them that I saw her pitch at her game yesterday and that I was proud of her. She rolled her eyes and groaned.

I said, "What? You don't think it was a good game?"
Her response: "I pitched a terrible game yesterday! The worst."

I said, "Well, you were out their pitching, though. I can’t pitch like that and I’m proud of you." She continued to rolled her eyes and say what a bad game at was. She could not bring herself to say, "thank you."

Compare this to my five-year-old. He had a T-ball game on Monday and after the game I said, "Good game! You played well and I’m proud of you!"

His response? "I know. Thanks." Friends, he is not a genius T-ball player. He spent most of the game making designs in the dirt between second and third base, knelt on the ground next to his father. His big accomplishment was swinging the bat and hitting the ball rather than the T or his coach.

That’s it then. Middle school is the age when we no longer except a compliment as it is and have to excuse it away. That is when we become uncomfortable when someone tells us we’ve done a good job or has told us we look nice or that they are proud of us. We shift from self-assuredness and a simple, "thanks," to self-doubt and arguing with the person offering their love.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that we are to be a cheerful giver. In church we use the saying on and off throughout the year as our offertory sentence, just before we pass the plate. I say the first part of the passage, "The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves. . ." and the congregation replies within an enthusiastic, "a cheerful giver!" I can't claim this practice. Our bishop introduced it a few years ago and it's become a part of our regular worship.

Yesterday I had lunch with a church member and he started to argue when I reached and paid for the bill. He interrupted himself and said with a laugh, "I guess I need to learn to be a cheerful receiver."

He hit it right on it. That’s it. We talk about being a cheerful giver, which is very important, but the reality is most of us are much worse at receiving than we are at giving. We are particularly terrible when someone is giving us a compliment or a pat on the back or anything we think we might not deserve. (Which pretty much is everything).

A lot of us are happy to give you anything: a compliment, cash, a ride to the airport, to babysit your kids when you’re having a bad day, or give you a gift certificate for your next cup of coffee because you look like you need one. But you turn around and do the same thing for us and we are all excuses and pardoning and shame and guilt. In our embarrassment and excuses. We make you look like an idiot because you thought we might possibly be worth it.

Of course, we do this for number of reasons. We don’t believe in ourselves; we think we should be able to do it by ourselves; we are self-sufficient and independent and can do it all on our own. "I don’t need your help because I’m capable enough and good enough and strong enough and know if I’ve done a good job or not."

The side effects of this is worse than we intend. We mean to be self-deprecating and humble but the result is that we have said to the other person, "I don’t need you;" or "I don’t think you’re good enough to take care of me;" or "I don’t trust you;" or "You don’t know what you’re talking about." None of us means this of course. We just don’t know how to handle a gift when it’s given to us.

Here’s the thing, though. How do you feel when you offer a compliment? Or offer to help a friend? Don’t you do it because you want to help that person? Don’t you offer, not out of obligation, but because you genuinely like that person and you want to help her? You cook the casserole and take it to the parents of a newborn because you remember what those first weeks were like. You take your friend out for a cup of coffee because you realize he could use a break. Or maybe you just would like some of his company.

The people who offer to help you feel the same way. They are offering because they love you. They are offering not so that you will be indebted to them. Most people try to help because they are your friend they love you and they are trying to minister to you.

I am not overstating this when I say it is a sin not to receive, and receive graciously. You aren't proving how tough, independent, and awesome you are. The people around you already know that. Instead, you are blocking the other person's opportunity to do ministry. You’re keeping them from doing what God is asking of them. Are you going to get in God’s way? Let other people do onto you as you do onto them. Let them pay for the dinner. Let them take your kids one Saturday afternoon so you can take a break. Let them bring you chicken soup when you get a cold. It’s their way of saying, "thank you" for all the times you have done the same. It’s their way of saying, "Hey! I love you and I see you. I see you could you some help." And take that compliment! People are proud of you and like what you're doing, wearing, or saying! There’s no shame in that.

I don’t say this lightly, by the way. I’m a terrible receiver. I hate asking for help. It has taken me years to allow people to do for me. I still feel guilty and I still do it reluctantly because most days I want to pretend that I am 100% self-sufficient. But I am always glad for the renewed relationship, the increased intimacy, the spirit-filled time we have together. This is only possible when I acknowledge, "Yes I could use some help. Thank you for that compliment."

May we strive to be a cheerful giver for it is, indeed, in giving that we receive. But may we also strive to be a cheerful receiver - stretching our arms out in love and humility to accept the gift someone is reaching out in love to give us.