Midweek Sabbath

It's Sunday morning on Vine Street, and the church buildings are full of people of all ages. There's chatter and laughter on the steps and in the hallways, singing, prayer, and music in the sanctuary - lots of energy, from early in the morning until the last after-worship conversation over coffee has ended. Sunday is a day of worship and learning, nurturing relationships and making new friends, a day of celebration and sabbath rest.

A few weeks ago the Elders created a sanctuary of a different kind, a window to sabbath rest in the middle of the week. We used to use our chapel only for worship on Sunday morning and on occasion for a small wedding or funeral. Now we gather there every Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. for Evening Prayer, led by one of our Elders.

The chapel is especially beautiful at that time of day. The sun is low, and the mild light pours through the windows, bathing the entire space in a warm glow. It is wonderful to just sit there and enjoy the peaceful silence.

Evening Prayer is a brief service, lasting only about thirty minutes, of responsive readings from the book of psalms, a reading from scripture or a short meditation, the Magnificat, a. k. a. the song of Mary from Luke 1:47-55, prayers of intercession, and the Lord's Prayer.

You could wait for a particularly hurried week to come by the chapel on Wednesday evening to immerse yourself in the peace of God, or you could just come next Wednesday to sit and rest, to pray for the church and the world.

Sometimes I cannot participate in this midweek Evening Prayer, but whenever I do, I leave enveloped by that light, and with a sense of deep joy.

Signs

There was a funeral on Saturday in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. George Tiller had been shot last Sunday in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church as he handed out bulletins before worship. For years, Dr. Tiller and his family had lived in a gated community, he drove a bullet proof car, and he wore a bullet proof vest – he had been shot before, and his office had been bombed. Dr. Tiller was murdered because he performed abortions.

Security was tight at the funeral service, with dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers mingling among the mourners inside and outside the sanctuary. A few blocks from the church a dozen or so protesters gathered in a holding area, one holding a sign, “God Sent the Shooter.”

Inside the church, near the end of the service, Mrs. Tiller rose and, standing in the chancel, sang “The Lord’s Prayer” in a clear, strong, unwavering voice. I am glad that hundreds stood with her and only a handful with the person outside holding up a sign with a lie.

I carried with me this week a passage from the gospel of John reminding us that God does not send shooters.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved trough him.—John 3:16-17

Throughout the week I questioned if these words had any strength left in them, if John 3:16 could be anything but a slogan, tattered and worn out by too many bumper stickers, t-shirts, and posters held high during ball games. The words have become a cliché, an empty formula, little more than a password for a tribe – but no matter how ragged and frayed they appear, they are true: God sent the Son, not the shooter.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world, and to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.—John 1:9, 12-13

Nicodemus had seen things he didn’t understand, strange and wonderful things, signs whose significance he did not know.

There was a wedding feast, and Jesus was there. When the wine gave out, he told the servants to fill large jars with water; and when the chief steward tasted it, it was the best wine.

One day Jesus went to the temple, and he drove out sheep and cattle, poured out the coins of the money changers, overturned their tables, and said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

These actions raised a lot of eye brows and questions, but many believed in his name because they saw the signs that we was doing. Nicodemus had seen the signs, but he didn’t know what to make of them, or what to make of Jesus. He had seen what Jesus did, and he thought that God was connected, somehow, but he didn’t know how. He was in the dark.

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

We know, he said, like someone who has studied long and hard, taken his time to observe, and carefully drawn his conclusions. We know, he said, speaking for more than himself. Did he represent the Pharisees? Maybe. Did he speak for the religious leadership in general? Possibly. Does he stand at the beginning of a long line of many who are in the dark about Jesus, yet are drawn to his light? Certainly. Nicodemus speaks for all whose souls thirst for the living God, all who long to learn about and live the life of the Spirit, all who are attracted to Jesus, recognizing something extraordinary in him but not yet believing. Nicodemus speaks for all who come to Jesus with our considerable knowledge, our well-established certainties, and our questions.

We know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.—John 3:2

We have seen the signs, we have drawn our conclusions, and now we come for more. And Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

This is very confusing to Nicodemus who knows his religion and knows it well. He is a learned man, steeped in scholarship—and now Jesus is telling him that in order to know the life of the Spirit in the kingdom of God he must be born anew, a second time. How can this be?

How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?—John 3:4

Brian Williams took a large crew of reporters and videographers to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to document a day inside the Obama White House; some of you may have seen the program. At one point he talked with Vice President Joe Biden about saying things off the cuff that the White House staff had to carefully rephrase or creatively interpret afterwards. And Joe Biden’s reply was basically, “Look, you don’t teach an old dog new tricks. I am who I am, and some things I just can’t change.”

Old age and new beginnings just don’t go together. It’s not like you can just go back and start over and undo who you have become. Nevertheless, Jesus speaks of birth.

Jesus tells Nicodemus, tells you and me that seeing the kingdom, entering the dominion of God is a birth.

Do you know what you did in order to be born?

Nothing. Exactly. You didn’t choose your parents or your birthday. All you did was listen to your mother’s heartbeat and suck your little thumb. And on your birthday, surprised, you submitted to the force that pushed you down the birth canal, you squinted at the light, and you cried until somebody held you close and tight and warm. Your birth was an awesome and exhausting event, but it wasn’t your doing.

“Do not be astonished,” Jesus tells us, “that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.”

Nicodemus comes to Jesus to find out where the man from Galilee fits in the framework of his knowledge and experience, and Jesus talks about two of the most uncontrollable, uncontainable of human experiences, birth and wind. He tells him that the life eternal is a mystery beyond human knowledge and control.

Nicodemus has come no closer to understanding Jesus. He is confused by this talk of wind and spirit, water and birth. He cannot fit Jesus into his knowledge of God and the traditions he has followed for many years. He cannot fit Jesus into his life and who he has become. The thought of birth confuses him because there’s nothing for him to do—no books to read, no papers to write, no exams to take.

The only thing birth requires of you is to relax and rest in the labor of God. To be born again, to be born from above is an adventure in trust.

An adventure in trust, not control. Nicodemus has so many questions and he can’t just give himself to the life Jesus offers. At the end, though, he does not argue with Jesus or depart in protest. He simply throws up his hands, asking somewhat helplessly, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? How can these things be?”

It doesn’t end there. In chapter 7 we read that it was Nicodemus who publicly spoke up on behalf of Jesus when the religious leadership accused him without giving him a hearing (John 7:50-52).

Then after Jesus’ death on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, and Nicodemus came to prepare Jesus’ body for burial—Nicodemus bringing a hundred pounds of fragrant myrrh and aloes (John 19:38-42).

In the end, Nicodemus didn’t participate in the world’s hatred against Jesus. Instead, his actions reflected neither confusion nor fear, but boldness, generosity, and most of all, love. John doesn’t tell us that Nicodemus had become a believer, but he shows us a man who loves fearlessly and extravagantly.

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.—John 3:8

I cannot shake the suspicion that the hands that at the funeral held the sign, “God sent the shooter,” on other occasions have held a sign, “John 3:16.” I am troubled by the air of certitude and knowing that surrounds these signs. I am troubled by views that can see the world solely in black and white, ignoring the colors that love paints between them. I am troubled by the portrait of a God who is an enforcer of texts, rather than the lover of the world.

When I look at the cross, I see a different picture. I see the light that shines in the darkness. I see the face of God who comes not to condemn but to save. And I hear the call I believe Nicodemus heard: to participate in what God is doing, which is to love the world.

Audio of this post.

The Adventure of Life

Miles and I joined the Mission Trip to Nashville group last night to watch "UP."

It's a great animated movie, and if animation makes you think, "Hm, kid stuff," you're on the wrong track.

This is great story telling, great animation (with amazing attention to detail), and great fun.

The journey to Paradise Falls (the name alone is a lovely variation on an ancient theme) is a beautiful meditation on the things that give us the courage to live.

Go and see this movie. Borrow somebody's kid if you need an excuse.

Rain on the Driest Place

The driest place on earth, according to climatologists, is the Atacama desert in the north of Chile. There are sterile, intimidating stretches where rain has never been recorded, at least as long as humans have measured it. You won’t see a blade of grass or cactus stump, not a lizard, not a gnat. The air is so dry, it literally sucks the moisture out of your finger nails and turns them brittle as autumns leaves.

It is dry in the Atacama, but it’s not the driest place on earth. The driest place is where hope has evaporated:

The driest place is the desolate land between Israeli cities and settlements and Palestinian villages and refugee camps where every peace initiative seems destined to fail.

The driest place is among the walls of destroyed schools in Pakistan’s Swat valley, where the Taliban have ruled that educating girls is against God’s will.

The driest place is in a little suburban house somewhere in the U.S. where a young man has to decide whether it’s OK to stay in college after both his parents lost their jobs.

The driest place on earth is the place where all roads come to an end and you know you can’t stay there, but you can’t see a way out either. The driest place is the place where all hope has evaporated and nothing moves.

Ezekiel has seen this place; it is a valley full of bones. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t go there out of curiosity. It was the Lord who set him down in the middle of the valley. It was the Lord who led him all around so he would get a good look. There were very many bones, and they were very dry.

When I was little, I hid behind the couch when a tv program got to scary for me. And I still close my eyes sometimes when I don’t want to see what I’m afraid I’m about to see.

When I was little, and I didn’t want to hear what I was being told, I put my hands over my ears and started chanting, “I can’t hear you – I can’t hear you – I can’t hear…” and I still pretend I can’t hear sometimes when I don’t want to hear what I’m afraid I’m about to hear.

When I was little, I ran up the stairs from the dark basement to the kitchen where my mom was, and she thought it was all youthful energy, but I knew it was fear of the dark. And I still want to turn around and run sometimes. Instinctively I reach for the remote to change the channel from disturbing and unsettling to distracting and entertaining. I don’t want to be in the driest place; I’m afraid it will suck me dry. Give me a story that puts hands over my ears and eyes.

Ezekiel stayed; he stayed, with open eyes and ears, and the Lord asked him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Now he could have responded, “No, Lord, this is where all roads come to an end, and the only thing awaiting these bones is to be turned into dust.” Or he could have given the perfect Sunday school answer, “Yes, Lord, these bones can live, for with you all things are possible,” and turned around and gone home.

But Ezekiel stayed and replied, “O Lord God, you know.” You must decide whether you want to hear that as a statement of profound confidence in God or as a challenge – something like, “You’re asking me, if these bones can live? What do you say?”

And the Lord said to him, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”

Ezekiel didn’t go to the driest place by choice, but when the Lord set him down in the middle of it, he stayed long enough to see, long enough to hear the question, long enough to hear the call, “Speak to these bones.” He stayed long enough to hear the word of life, “Thus says the Lord God, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

And Ezekiel’s tongue may have been brittle as a leaf in the fall, but he spoke as he had been commanded, and as he spoke, the bones became bodies, and the bodies a people, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

The Spirit of God came with the words of the prophet who stayed long enough to see and hear and obey. And in the driest place on earth, the words of the prophet are like rain in the Atacama.

On Pentecost, the church celebrates the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the disciples. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus is particularly concerned to prepare his followers for the time after his death and return to God.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” he promises them, preparing them for the reality of feeling abandoned like motherless children.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” he commands them, again preparing them for the time when he would no longer be physically available to them.

“Abide in me as I abide in you,” he urges them, leaving them wondering how he would abide and go away, be present and absent at the same time.

Three times Jesus speaks of someone who would come from God to be with them. In our Bible translations we call him the Advocate, the Counselor, the Helper, or the Comforter; the greek word refers to someone called to the side of another to help.

Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.”
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.”

Having seen the glory of God in Jesus, the disciples would not face the world alone, but testify together with the Spirit to the grace and truth in Jesus Christ. Having heard the words of eternal life from Jesus, they would not face the future alone. The Holy Spirit would proclaim the teachings of Jesus to them in the new and changing circumstances of their lives. Jesus’ revelation of God would not be limited to the first generation of believers to whom Jesus was visible in the flesh and tangible; his ministry would continue in the ministry and witness of the disciples and the Spirit. The work of the Advocate is to make Jesus present, to mediate fresh encounters with his words of eternal life, given at the time of need. And in the driest place the need is great.

On Pentecost, the church celebrates the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the disciples. The Advocate did not remain a kind promise to the confused and frightened followers of Jesus. The Holy Spirit came – and continues to come – to inspire, empower, and teach the church to act with love and speak with boldness. It is through the Spirit that Christ abides in us and we in him.

According to John, the Holy Spirit is not busy bestowing particular gifts on individual believers, nor is the Spirit’s presence discernible as an internal experience of the individual believer or an outward display of spectacular spirituality. The Holy Spirit is given to the community for the life of the community, and the community’s calling is to be in the world as witnesses, as those who love as we have been loved, and proclaim as we have been commanded.

The Holy Spirit is given to us so we can be in the driest places where hope has evaporated and nothing moves, and not turn away, not run away, but abide with those for whom going away is not an option. The Holy Spirit is given to us so we can be there long enough to see, long enough to notice the great silence behind the world’s chatter, long enough to hear the question God is asking, long enough to hear the word of life, long enough to speak it. The Holy Spirit is given to us so we can hear and proclaim Jesus’ words of eternal life, words that comfort and challenge, words that guide, illumine, teach, convict, and liberate.

Very few of us can be in the parched place where Palestinians and Israelis no longer live as neighbors but as enemies. And very few of us can be in the parched place where the education of girls or the participation of women in public life are forbidden in the name of God. But we can listen to their stories with hearts strengthened by the Spirit, hearts ready to hear and respond.

And we can be in the driest place where families struggle with making ends meet, where co-workers go through trying times without a friend, and where fear is creeping in from all sides.
We can be there. It may be hard to stay, to see and hear and understand what’s really going on. It may be hard to bear the burden of knowing without seeking easy answers that are almost always too easy.

It may be hard, but the Advocate is given to us so we can continue to live as witnesses of our risen Lord even in the driest place.

The Advocate is given to us so we too can be advocates, comforters, helpers, vessels of God’s refreshing and renewing love.

Audio of this post.

Journey Home - A Model

The new addition to Room in the Inn's facilities began with a vision and years of planning and fundraising. Last Thursday was the groundbreaking.

I wanted to share a portion of the program with my readers; a paragraph that describes beautifully the work and vision of Campus for Human Development:

This expansion to our facilities and programs will enable us, using Mayor Karl Dean's words, "to complete the Campus." What this means is that we will be able to open a path for a person to make the "Journey Home," from living on the streets to securing a permanent apartment all under the guidance and support of our Room in the Inn community. In 1995, we formed the Campus for Human Development, becoming the city's only single site of services, offering an array of both emergency and long-term services. Today we stand on the brink of a new chapter in our long story. Specifically, what we will be able to create is a larger Campus that includes increased medical, educational, and day service space; and, for the first time, 38 affordable housing apartments. In short, we will expand and complete Nashville's comprehensive center for the homeless.

I hope the Mayor will remember this development - a single site with comprehensive services for the homeless - as a great model.

Nashville has a variety of services, both government-based and through non-profits and congregations, that address poverty in the city. Unfortunately, the system is very difficult to understand and not easily accessible. In many cases, multiple appointments with various agencies across the city are necessary. This is very time-consuming and potentially frustrating, e.g. for people who depend on public transportation or who can't afford to take an entire day off of work to meet with just one or two agencies.

It would be a significant step in the right direction, if we could combine those services in a network of neighborhood-based, single-site access points. One social worker could work with an individual or a family to help them understand all the resources available to them and assist them with completing the necessary applications. Non-profit organizations and neighborhood congregations that work on related issues like substance abuse, adult literacy, parenting skills, budgeting etc. could be partners at these centers.

Head Start Centers or community centers come to mind as potential sites for more comprehensive services for Nashvillians battling the causes and consequences of poverty.

Kneeling

It was on the evening Jesus and the disciples gathered for one last meal, when he took off his robe and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin, washed the disciples feet, and wiped them with the towel. He spoke for a long time that evening, but what we remember, without even opening the pages of the gospel, is that act of hospitality and service; what we remember is Jesus the Lord kneeling on the floor.

I was reminded of that beautiful scene when Hope and I were standing in the little courtyard of the Campus for Human Development on Thursday morning. Several hundred friends of Room in the Inn had gathered under the smiling sky to participate in breaking ground for a new facility where Nashville’s homeless would find shelter, food, medical care, counseling and education. The Governor couldn’t be there, but he sent a representative with the gold-embossed certificate declaring May 21, 2009 Room in the Inn Day in Tennessee. The Mayor was there, the Chief of Police, the Attorney General and the Public Defender, and many other community leaders, together with representatives of the more than 150 congregations who support the many services provided under the umbrella of the Campus for Human Development.

It was a great day for Nashville, and I already look forward to the day when we will dedicate the new building, including 38 units of affordable housing (I am excited that with our recent grant of $10,000 to Campus for Human Development, Vine Street will help families and individuals transition into permanent housing).

It all began in 1977 when Fr. Charlie Strobel, then the priest at Holy Name Catholic Church on Woodland, gave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a homeless man at the door of his rectory. It didn’t stop there – the simple gesture of sharing food with a person in need led to the creation of Loaves and Fishes. Charlie’s simple gesture of opening the doors of the rectory to those sleeping outside in the cold led to the creation of a cooperative ministry by six Nashville congregations known as Room in the Inn. And it didn’t stop there. Last year, 151 congregations in and around Nashville provided 26,737 beds and served 64,779 meals to their homeless guests from November 1 to March 31.

Today the PBJ has iconic status among the people of Room in the Inn; it speaks of God’s unconditional love for all human beings, and especially the poor and dispossessed; it stands for the truth that relationships of trust and respect are healing; and it reminds us that even the most complex problems can be addressed with caring gestures we all know and understand.

Standing in the courtyard, I was reminded of Jesus who taught us how to be the community of his friends by kneeling on the floor with a basin and a towel. That evening, after he had washed the disciples’ feet, he returned to the table and began to teach them, or rather, continued to teach them. He didn’t tell any stories or parables, and only the image of the vine and the branches can anchor the many words of his farewell speech in our imagination. The vine and the branches speak of being the community of Jesus’ friends, of having roots and bearing fruit, even when the full meaning of the many words printed in red eludes us.

At the end of his farewell speech, after Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven. Throughout the evening, his eyes and attention had been on the disciples: he washed their feet and wiped them dry, he spoke to their troubled hearts, he promised them fullness of joy and truth, he taught and encouraged them.

Now he looked up to heaven, and the words he spoke were addressed to the One he called Father. At the end of the evening, before they crossed the Kidron valley to go to the garden, Jesus prayed.

“I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”

This is not the prayer of a man in agony, wrestling in the dark night with God’s will and the knowledge of his impending death; there is not even a hint of struggle. This is the prayer of a man who has complete confidence that the purposes of God will be fulfilled in the events about to unfold. It is the prayer of the Son whose earthly mission is completed in his death and return to the Father.

Most of the prayer, however, is more than merely a reflection of the love and intimacy the two share with each other. The prayer opens up to include the community of Jesus’ friends; his eyes are lifted up to heaven, but his arms are stretched out to embrace all believers.

“Now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

Most of Jesus’ prayer is intercession for the future life of his followers, for generation after generation of believers. He prays for us and our work and witness in the world. He prays for us, because we live in the world, but we don’t belong to it.

We belong to the community of Jesus’ friends; we belong to the communion of life, based in the mutuality of love and intimacy between Jesus and God. We don’t belong to the world, but we live in it as those sent to reveal the glory of God by embodying the friendship of Jesus. We live in the world as the living, breathing invitation to life in communion with God and one another.

Twice in this prayer, Jesus speaks of unity. “Protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

In these times of deep division within the church over how to be church, how to respond faithfully to God’s call to ministry, perhaps the first thing to remember is that Jesus is praying for us.

His words are not instructions for us on the subject of unity. We are not to determine the character of the relationship between Jesus and the Father in order to come up with ecclesial principles and organizational flow charts. Jesus entrusts the future of the church not to the church itself and our capacity to understand, agree on, or live that unity. With the same confidence with which he entrusts himself to the love and power of God, he places the church’s future in the hands of God.

We participate in his prayer by overhearing it and remembering that we are a community that not only needs Jesus’ prayer, but can depend on it. Gail O’Day wonders how the Christian community’s self-definition would be changed if it took as its beginning point, “We are a community for whom Jesus prays.” To me, it is profoundly comforting to remember that.

Anthony Healy is a church consultant, and one evening he was sitting in the fellowship hall of a congregation that had been plagued by trouble throughout its existence and wanted to move on.

Part of his work was to trace that painful history, touching gently on the episodes that had befallen that community with a senseless regularity. It was a distressing yet necessary process.
He looked around the room and saw sorrowful faces, eyes close to tears turned toward him. Then he noticed on the opposite wall a picture that had to that point escaped his attention.

It was the picture of the Laughing Jesus, you have probably seen it many times. Healy asked himself, “What in the sorrows of this church is so humorous?” He was convinced there was a reason he noticed the laughing face of Jesus when he did, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He completed his work with the congregation, and a few weeks later the epiphany emerged from this seeming outbreak of divine levity over a church’s troubled past. The message was: Ease up. Even as they are, these people are my people. Even as it is, this church is my church (see Healy's book, The Postindustrial Promise). Smile, we are a community for whom Jesus prays.

Jesus’ words in the gospel according to John are written for repeated reading, for slow, persistent ruminating – the individual phrases come to life only in the context of the whole. I used to dread reading John, but not anymore. Every time, it seems, I open the pages, I hear echoes and notice patterns I hadn’t seen before. Reading John is like walking through a garden that looks different every time you set foot in it, and as soon as you think you have finally determined the layout of its paths it takes you to a corner where surprises grow. The secret, I believe, is to keep walking. The secret is to live in that garden.

Reading and rereading the chapters of Jesus’ farewell speech I noticed that the tall columns of words in red were flanked by two beautiful and memorable images: At the beginning, Jesus kneeling on the floor, close to the ground, washing the disciples’ feet, and at the end, Jesus looking up to heaven, his arms stretched out to embrace all whom the Father has given him, praying for the disciples.

Jesus calls us to live and abide in the communion of love he shares with the Father and to love one another as he loved us. Jesus sends us into the world to be the living, breathing embodiment of the reconciliation he brings.

Until we discover an even fuller expression of our calling, let us serve as he served, with humility and loving attention, and remember that he prays for us.

And when we pray, let us pray as he prays, with confidence and loving attention.

Audio of this post

Falling Over

On Sunday, KK and the kids talked about things we do with our hands in worship and ministry. Clapping, shaking hands, holding hands, hugging - they came up with over forty things we do with our hands to share God's love with one another!

At one point, KK was shaking her hand in a way that reminded me of dusting the furniture. "This is something Thomas does a lot," she said. I was confused. "Dusting?" I asked, and she started laughing. "Not dusting, writing! Thomas writes a lot!" and there was the motion again. I fell over backwards on the carpet, laughing.

Then the kids led the congregation in what TJ calls, "Jazz hands!" a.k.a. applause in American Sign Language, thanking me for five years of ministry at Vine Street.

Carol Doidge, John Marshall, and Greg Bailey added words of thanks and Greg handed me an envelope with a thank-you gift.

I didn't open the envelope until after our worship service - and I almost fell over backwards again! Thank you all for this wonderful gift, and for the relationships, the conversations, the prayers, the songs, the meals, the work, the laughs and smiles and tears of the past five years.

Thank you, Vine Street!

For the Peace of the City

Requests to the church office for housting assistance have been going up steadily since October 2008. In these difficult times, more individuals and families need help so they can stay in their homes and pay their utility bills. At the same time, funding for local non-profits that focus on helping Nashvillians stay in their homes (or assisting them in getting back into permanent housing) has dried up: many charitable foundations have lost 40% or more in assets in the current economic downturn.

I am happy to report that Vine Street Christian Church decided to meet this critical moment with a strategic move. The Official Board voted on Monday, May 18, to invest, in addition to current outreach commitments, $30,000 in local agencies who address the need for housing from different angles. The details of the proposal had been worked out by Julia Keith, Chair of Local Outreach, and Hope Hodnett, representing the staff.

Checks for $10,000 each will be sent to

• Disciples Village, a retirement home in Nashville that opens its doors to low-income elderly in our community;
• Room in the Inn, a ministry that assists people without housing with essential services and help to find permanent housing; and
• Rooftop, an organization that provides funds to individuals and families in need of emergency financial help with the goal of preventing homelessness and providing hope.

I am grateful for the work of this church, love in action for the peace of the city. I am grateful for leaders who step out boldly when tough times call for bold action.

What Abides

In April, the U.S. lost 563,000 jobs, and who would have thought that this labor statistic could be cause for cautious optimism: The numbers are down 100,000 or so from the 663,000 jobs lost in March; we may have reached the bottom. Since December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been cut – that’s about ten times the population of Nashville.

These numbers are important, but they don’t tell us how dramatically life has changed for the individuals and families directly impacted by those losses. This summer, high-school students are competing for summer jobs at Nashville Shores and for other seasonal work with men and women who must make a living for themselves and their families. Every day the church office receives multiple requests for financial assistance to pay rent, utilities, medications, gas or food. We use my discretionary fund to help individuals and families stay in their homes – and last month, for the first time in five years, it was almost depleted. Rooftop, one of the key non-profit agencies in the city assisting people with housing expenses, ran out of funds for the month of May after only two days.

We are currently working on a proposal to the Official Board to double our outreach funding by strategically using endowment earnings and designated funds. We want to use those funds specifically for housing here in Nashville, because once a family loses the roof over their heads, issues like loss of work and income, lack of education and health care become a lot more difficult to address.

I am telling you this because this is what the staff here is working on every day. I am telling you this on mother’s day, because this year, whenever I call my mom, she asks me three questions, and I know today will be no different: First, how are the kids and Nancy? Second, what’s new at Vine Street? And third, how are people dealing with the depressed economy?

My mom taught us that love isn’t a word we write on a card on occasion, but our response to the world and to the needs of others. In her life and her faith, love has always been a lot closer to solidarity than to sentimentality. She taught me that love is the power that keeps us from getting lost in fragmented isolation.

When people lose their jobs, they lose more than their income. Work is our way to make a living, but it is more than that. Work is how we each turn the gift of life into our life. Work is an important part of who we are, it gives us a sense of purpose, the deep satisfaction of having something to offer – skills, products, and services that others need and appreciate. The work we do is an essential piece of the story we tell about ourselves.

Let me tell you about Emilio. Emilio was sixteen at the end of World War II when he came to the U.S. from Sicily. He married Flavia and they had two boys. [My thanks to Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character, for insight and inspiration]

Emilio had little education, and he worked as a janitor all his life. Working hard, saving regularly, and playing by the rules, he and Flavia were able to buy a little house in the Boston suburbs and send their two sons to college. Whenever the boys talked about their class work, Dad didn’t understand a word, but that didn’t diminish his pride. The little house and his sons’ education were visible results of his life’s work. To his colleagues and neighbors Emilio was a friend they could rely on, and he was a respected member of the catholic parish in what was once an Italian neighborhood.

His son Rico graduated from a local university in electrical engineering, went to business school, and married a fellow student – Jennifer was neither Italian nor Catholic, but that was OK. School prepared the young couple to move and change jobs frequently, and they did, following the demands of an economy that values flexibility. In fourteen years at work, Rico and his wife have moved four times, from New York to California, then to Chicago and Missouri, and back to the east coast.

The world they live and work in is very different from the one Emilio and Flavia knew. Stable routines and predictable career tracks are things of the past. Staid bureaucracies and hierarchical management have given way to flatter, more fluid networks. Flexibility has replaced long-term commitment. No more gold watches after thirty years with the same company.

In some ways these changes are positive; they make for a dynamic economy. But they are also destructive.

There was a time when the word “career” referred to a carriage road – a means to help you get from one place to another. Applied to work, a career was a path with fairly predictable stops and turns. You would start at the bottom and work your way up over time in just one or perhaps two companies. Or you would choose a field, get the required training, and all you had to do was fine-tune a skill set that would remain valuable for decades.

We can no longer count on that. The estimates change constantly, but college students are advised these days to anticipate more than ten job changes during their working life. Flexibility is key – colleges are preparing young people for jobs for which no job descriptions have been written yet.

And it’s not just flexible minds that are needed, the demand for flexible bodies is also growing. Recently, when IBM closed a facility in California, they told 200 engineers they could keep their jobs if they were willing to move their families to India.

Flexibility makes for a dynamic economy, but it cuts roots and makes it more and more difficult to sustain family ties and friendships.

Rico makes more in a month than his dad made in a year, but he is worried. He grew up with values like mutual commitment, self-discipline, loyalty, and trust. “You can’t imagine how stupid I feel when I talk to my kids about commitment,” says Rico. “It’s an abstract virtue to them; they don’t see it anywhere.” Flexibility means, there is no long term; stay loose, keep moving, don’t be dependent, don’t get too attached, it only hurts when you have to leave.

I find it curious how changes in our economy lead to the loss of homes for thousands of workers and their families, and at the same time create a sense of being uprooted and disconnected, a sense of homelessness among those most successful in this new world of constant and rapid change.

I have thought much about housing recently, simply because the number of people looking for help to prevent eviction has gone up. I have thought about the things that can give us a sense of stability when everything is in flux, a sense of being at home in the world, if you will.

Some of those thoughts were triggered by an old-fashioned word, abide, repeated again and again in today’s readings from the gospel according to John and from First John. We don’t use the word abide much anymore, and even in parts of the country where traditions and the King’s English are honored, highway motel signs don’t read, “Abide with us.” They simply flash, “Vacancies” or perhaps, “Stay here.”

“To abide” has to do with staying, even if it is only for a night. But it also has to do with dwelling, persevering, and lasting.

Perhaps you remember the ending of chapter 13 of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where the Apostle writes, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

All things come to an end, but love outlasts them all. Love is the power that keeps us from getting lost in fragmented isolation.

In the gospel according to John, Jesus gives us this beautiful image, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

We want to lead fruitful lives, we have a need to lead fruitful lives, and we need a sense of belonging that can outlast the ever-changing circumstances of our lives. Jesus points to himself as the place where we can stay. He gives us roots we can rely on no matter where in the world we are. He invites us to draw strength from him and bear fruit, fruit that brings joy to the vinegrower, to us and to those with whom we share the gift of life.

Love abides: not as a principle or a virtue, but as the living relationship we have with God and with each other through Christ the Vine.

Love abides because Christ abides, because Christ lasts, endures, perseveres, hangs in with us, holds on to us.

Love abides because Christ binds us together across boundaries of income, education, ethnic origin, and political philosophy.

I am not sure if we will be able to create just and sustainable ways of producing and distributing goods around the world, but I hope so. I am not sure if we will be able to build political and economic institutions that serve the well-being of all, but I hope so. I am not sure if we will ever be able to promise each other that none shall have to live on the street, but I hope so. I have the courage to hope because I believe that love abides. I have the strength to hope because Christ is risen, Christ abides.

The love of Christ is the power that saves us from getting lost in fragmented isolation. The love of Christ bears fruit in our lives in all the ways necessary for God’s planting to flourish: we become generous and creative in making sure individuals and families have a roof over their heads; we encourage our children and each other to trust God and think about more than just ourselves; and we practice disciplines that help us to abide in him who so faithfully abides in us.

The love of Christ is the power that saves us from getting lost in flexibility.

Make yourselves at home.

Audio of this post

In love laid down for me

1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” It’s not about words, it’s actions that matter. I think I know what the writer of 1 John has in mind. Let’s not just talk about love. Let’s not just sing pretty songs about love. Let us embody love and put it into action.

But words do matter, or the writer of 1 John wouldn’t use so many of them to try and convince us. Words do matter, or we wouldn’t lose any sleep over hate speech. Words do matter, because to speak or to write is to act. The words of 1 John are not just words, but testimony, argument, authoritative demand, and urgent plea.

Let love determine what we say and how we say it, what we do and how we act, the letter insists. Let love be the fabric that weaves together all strands of our being, let love be the pattern of our days.

And not just any love. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and the love of power thrives in its company. No, not just any love will do.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Jesus is the pattern. Jesus laid down his life for us – he sought neither power nor wealth. The center of his attention was occupied by God and God’s will, life in abundance for all. Jesus didn’t think of himself outside of these relationships – with the One he called Father, and the many he called brothers and sisters. Not once did he place himself outside of these relationships in splendid isolation. Not once did he participate in the game, where everything and everyone can become a means to selfish ends, and every action is calculated, every step and gesture and word.

Let us love, but not just any love will do. We know how easy it is to mask our desire to have as affection – or our need to control, our hunger for attention, our need to be needed, all dressed up in love-talk.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Frightening words; we wonder if we’re supposed to be willing to die for each other.
Jesus didn’t wait until the end to lay down his life. Jesus didn’t wait until government, religion, and public opinion came together in uncommon accord, condemning him to death and executing him – Jesus laid down his life for us from the beginning. Every step of his, every gesture, every word, every touch, every breath was life laid down for us.

How do we lay down our lives for one another? In 1 John, the answer comes in the form of a question: “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 to help?”

The laying down of our lives begins not with a big, bold, once-and-for-all yes, but with just one small no that is not spoken, neither in word nor in action. The laying down of our lives begins with seeing a brother or sister in need and not turning away, and it continues in the slow, persistent refusal to think of ourselves outside of our relationship with that brother or sister and God. The laying down of our lives is complete when we can no longer say “I” without saying “you” and “You.”

I believe this is what Jesus calls the life abundant. I believe this is what Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon has in mind when he teaches, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” The abundance, the fullness comes with the laying down.

By happy coincidence I watched a movie last week that offers great commentary and insight on what it means to lay down one’s life. The Mission, released in 1986, tells the story of a Jesuit mission in the heart of South America.

Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, climbs the steep rock face of Iguazu Falls to bring the faith to the Guaraní, an indigenous people living above the falls. He can’t expect a friendly welcome; the last missionary to go there had been strapped to a cross and sent over the falls to his death. Father Gabriel enters the forest, and when he notices that he’s being watched, he sits on a rock, assembles his oboe, and begins to play. Soon he’s surrounded by curious warriors who listen to his music. They let him live and take him with them.

Then we meet Rodrigo Mendoza, played by Robert de Niro, who makes his living as a slaver, kidnapping indigenous people and selling them to the nearby colonial plantations. Rodrigo stabs his brother in a jealous rage, and his guilt buries him alive. Father Gabriel visits him and invites him, as an act of penance, to come to the mission with him.

So Rodrigo also climbs the falls, dragging behind him his heavy armor and weapons, tied into a net. He drags his guilt all the way to the Guaraní camp, where one of the men cuts the rope, releasing him from the weight of his past. Armor and sword are thrown into the river, and Rodrigo begins a new life. He becomes a member of the mission community, a community of peace and learning, of music and worship, where life in fullness thrives.

But suddenly the political circumstances change dramatically. The colonial powers, Portugal and Spain, have come to an agreement that portions of the land claimed by Spain would be signed over to Portugal, including the land above the falls. Portugal wants the Jesuit missions closed, in order to pursue without interference the conquest of the land and the expansion of the plantation economy based on slavery.

The Pope sends an emissary to survey the Jesuit missions and decide which, if any, to allow to continue. Cardinal Altamirano is faced with a difficult choice: If he closes the missions, the indigenous people will certainly die or become enslaved. If he rules in favor of the missions, the Jesuit order may be forced to leave Portugal and all its colonies. The decision is made: Father Gabriel’s mission is to be abandoned, along with all other Jesuit missions.

Now Portuguese troops and militia gather at the foot of the falls; Father Gabriel and Rodrigo, the former slaver, debate how to respond to the violent threat. Rodrigo once more takes up his sword that a boy has retrieved from the river; he cannot stand the thought of the people he has come to love becoming slaves. Fr. Gabriel shakes his head and says to him, “If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don’t have the strength to live in a world like that, Rodrigo.”

They both prepare for the attack. Rodrigo by organizing the defense and building weapons, Gabriel by praying and gathering women, children, and old people in front of the church.

The battle begins, the defenders fight bravely, but they can only slow down the attackers – there’s no stopping them.

Rodrigo is shot several times and lying on the ground, he watches Fr. Gabriel leading the unarmed congregation out of the burning mission compound toward the river. They sing, and all they carry is a crucifix and a monstrance, all they carry are symbols of the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. The soldiers hesitate for a moment, but when the order comes, they fire, some of them crossing themselves before they pull the trigger. Dying, Rodrigo watches his friends fall, one by one, only a handful escape by running away to the jungle. Rodrigo watches until he sees Fr. Gabriel collapse, his body pierced by bullets.

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” says Jesus according to John. Rodrigo and Fr. Gabriel both laid down their lives for their friends by living with them, teaching them and learning from them, receiving their forgiveness and offering it, working with them, building a community of peace with them. Rodrigo took up arms in defense of the defenseless, Fr. Gabriel refused to live in a world where might leaves no room for love. Both died a violent death because of their commitment to that life of embodied, daily love. Who wants to decide which one made the right choice?

At the end of the film, we see a group of Guaraní children loading a few salvaged belongings into a canoe. One of the girls notices a broken violin floating in the water, next to Fr. Gabriel’s scorched oboe. She picks it up and takes it with her as they set off, up the river.

I hope that somehow, after all the brutality and loss, she will be able to play the tune Fr. Gabriel had played and invite those around her to trust the power of love.

The film doesn’t end with that scene. It ends with Cardinal Altamirano, the Papal emissary, concluding his written report: “So, your Holiness, now your priests are dead, and I am left alive. But in truth it is I who am dead, and they who live.”

This the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This is the fourth Sunday of the new song, the fourth Sunday of praise, the fourth Sunday of bold hope: might does not equal right – Christ is risen from the dead. The good shepherd continues to seek the lost and bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. He doesn’t send out the dogs to round up the herd, or emissaries to negotiate with the wolf; he calls, he talks, he sings the shepherd song and plays the kingdom tune like only he can play it. “I lay down my life for the sheep,” is the chorus. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Christ is risen and he sings for Jews and Gentiles, for slavers and Guaraní, for priests and warriors, for all who hear and recognize his voice in the wilderness we have made of God’s world.

Pick up the broken violin and learn to play.

Click here for audio of this post.

You Are Witnesses

We’re moving on, and we’re moving fast. After Easter, there are so many things to do. Gardens and flowerbeds need to be planted, graduation invitations need to be mailed, and with camps, vacation, summer internships, General Assembly, and the family reunion coming up, summer plans need to be made. It’s two weeks after Easter, and we’re moving on – it’s almost May; and we know, before we’ll be finished saying, “Happy Mothers Day!” it’ll be Memorial Day.

But a big boulder is sitting in the rapids of time. The church’s lectionary – quietly, yet stubbornly – resists the rush.

The ‘lectionary’ is a set of recommendations that has evolved over the centuries, recommendations for how we read Scripture when we gather for worship, and what portions we read and when. The lectionary is also the church’s calendar where every Sunday and every holiday is given a name, and today, perhaps to your surprise, is not the Second Sunday after Easter, but the Third Sunday of Easter.

Spring is rushing toward summer with bright-green speed, the schoolyear is rushing toward graduation with flying gowns, and the lectionary – quietly, yet stubbornly – resists the rush. Easter lingers, and today is only the third Sunday of it.

We open the Bible for the gospel reading, and in Luke it’s still the first day of the week. The entire chapter 24, his final chapter, walks us through the day that began with the women coming to the tomb. They returned with a story, but their words seemed to the others an idle tale.

Then Luke tells us about two of the disciples going to a village called Emmaus and talking with each other about all the things that had happened. They shared their story with a stranger who came near and went with them, told him about Jesus and what a prophet he was and how they had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel; told him about how he had been condemned and crucified and how the women had astounded them with their words. You know the story, how the stranger interpreted to them the scriptures, how he accepted their urgent invitation to stay with them for the night, and how they recognized Jesus in the stranger in the breaking of the bread.

That same day, they returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and their companions gathered together – and now everybody had a tale about the risen Lord! And while they were sharing resurrection stories, Jesus himself stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

No one had let him in; he just showed up, startling them. Now perhaps you think that this was the third time, after all, that the resurrection disrupted the flow of their day, and that by now they should have been able to deal with the fact that Jesus was not dead but risen. But they were still startled and terrified, then disbelieving and wondering.

Perhaps you think it was time for them to get it and move on – but move on where to? What did it mean for them that Jesus was not dead but powerfully present? What does it mean for us?

In the gospel according to Luke that first day begins at early dawn, but it never ends. There’s not a single word indicating that eventually everybody got tired and went to bed. Jesus ate a piece of broiled fish, and then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. How long do you think he taught them? Until the next morning?

Until their imagination was unlocked; until a few closed doors in the hallways of their minds swung open. Jesus interpreted for them the witness of scripture until they understood that his rejection and his death were part of God’s work to redeem humanity and renew creation.

Jesus opened to them the witness of scripture until they could hear the call: Now that Christ is risen, repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

Jesus is neither a dead man, nor a ghost, but the risen Lord who teaches, sends, and blesses us for ministry. “You are witnesses,” he said to them, he says to us. You have a story to tell. You have a story to embody and live.

In the gospel according to Luke, the entire final chapter is dedicated to the first day when Jesus rose from the dead; and the sun doesn’t go down on that day, night doesn’t fall.

The chapter ends with Jesus leading them out as far as Bethany, and, blessing them, being carried up into heaven. The sun doesn’t go down, night doesn’t fall. The gospel concludes with the disciples worshiping him and returning to Jerusalem with great joy.

The first day doesn’t end; it culminates in the disciples’ return to the city, and the way I see it, they are not alone. Returning with them in an unending procession of great joy are the nations who have heard the good news of repentance and forgiveness of sins.

On Easter Sunday, the children sang,

“Every morning is Easter morning from now on, every day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone.”

What they are telling us is not that our days are an endless repetition of a day that began and ended two-thousand years ago. They are telling us that we are living in a new day. A day that is not defined by sunrise and sunset, but by the Lord Jesus, crucified and risen. This day is defined not by humanity’s sinful past, but solely by God’s power to create and redeem. Easter lingers because this day does not end.

Jesus is neither a dead man, nor a ghost, but the risen Lord who teaches, sends, and blesses us for ministry. “You are witnesses,” he says to us. You have a story to tell. You have a story to embody and live.

Like every generation of disciples before us, we move on not to leave Easter behind, but to live in it more fully every day of our lives.

We move on – from words that seem an idle tale to moments of recognition.

We move on – from the burial of hope to the table where our eyes are opened.

We move on – from having our vision impaired by fear and doubt to having our minds opened to understand the scriptures.

We move on – from being slow of heart to believe, to hearing the call of Christ in any kind of circumstance.

“You are witnesses of these things,” he says to us. And we want to respond, “Who – us?” because the world has a way of robbing us of our hope, filling us with fear, closing our minds, and colonizing our imagination.

But he continues to break into that reality saying, “Yes – you.” We have a story to tell. We have a story to embody and live, a story the world cannot be without.

In the spring of last year we got into a little boat, big enough for all of us, yet small enough to remind everybody that this is no cruise ship where some are crew and the rest are passengers. We set sails, allowing the Spirit of God to blow freely and pull us forward. We called our adventure ‘The Journey.’

We were very intentional about listening to each other. We gathered in groups of various sizes, heard presentations and shared comments, and then we met in groups of three for a hundred days. One hundred days of prayer – obviously some of us were more reluctant than others to participate in that part of the journey, but it turned out to be the most rewarding.

We talked and listened, we prayed, we watched in wonder how trust and friendship grew among us; we had our hearts and minds opened. We moved from the safe surface to the secret places, and were not our hearts burning within us again and again?

No idle tales; we were free to share our hopes and fears, our frustrations and our dreams. Insights emerged and visions, discoveries were jotted down, ideas refined.
The summer of prayer turned into a harvest season of gathering and rejoicing. And like wheat becomes bread to strengthen the human heart, and the grapes gathered in the vineyard become wine to gladden the human heart, the harvest of our conversations and prayers has become a story to nourish the heart and kindle the imagination.

It is not just any story, it is our future story, Vine Street 2019. I’m not spilling a secret when I tell you that we will watch a video presentation of that story during lunch today – the 30-second trailer was released online on Thursday afternoon, and it had over 70 views already by Friday.

We will watch a video premiere, but this little film is more than the play of light on a screen and sound waves on the air – although it is that. It is more than the product of the creativity of a writer, a director, a photographer, and an editor – although it is that. It is more than the faces and voices of several of our members – although it is that.

It is the embodiment of our work and prayer of an entire year. It is the call we have heard and the beginning of our response. It is the shape we will give to our witness over the next 5-7 years, beginning in Nashville and extending to all nations around the world. Yes, it is that big.

This is how we intend to live in the day that began with the women coming to the tomb and finding the stone rolled away.

This is how we intend to live as witnesses of our crucified and risen Lord.

This is how we intend to live as God’s Easter people in the world.

Audio of this post is available.

And here's the video:

Delicious and Imaginative

The Resurrection Continues

It is a strange reversal, when you think about it. Jesus is out of the tomb, risen from the dead and on the loose in the world – and the disciples? Hiding behind locked doors, prisoners of fear.

There was little conversation, nobody had remembered to get something to eat, but no one really felt like eating anyway.

Mary had told them that she had seen the Lord and what he had said to her, but her tesimony, for whatever reason, hadn’t made the slightest difference. We don’t know if they didn’t believe her of if they couldn’t imagine what her words might mean.

One of the stories I suspect was in circulation in the first century but John didn’t write down, is the one about Mary pulling her hair in frustration: all she had were words, and her words were not enough to break the paralysis of fear and guilt, not enough to let them hear what she had heard and see what she had seen.

It is strange reversal; Jesus is out of the tomb, and the disciples are in it.

Then Jesus came and said, “Peace be with you.”

The first word of the Risen One to the gathered disciples was peace. The last time they had been together, he had told them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (14:27).” And now Jesus stood among them, after their betrayal, their denial, and their abandoning him – Jesus stood among them and spoke peace into their troubled, fearful hearts.

He showed them the wounds in his hands and his side, and his presence transformed the dark tomb into a house of joy, with laughter pouring into the street. Their fear melted away and the living Christ was once again the center of their lives.

“Peace be with you,” he said, not, “Shame on you, you sorry bunch” or “OK, friends, let’s talk about this,” but, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Suddenly they saw the world outside, the world of sin, death, and fear no longer as a threat, but as the object of God’s love. Only moments ago they had been little more than bodies in a tomb, now they were a community with a mission, sent by the risen Christ.

In the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the prophet looks at a valley full of bones, and the Lord asks him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And the Lord tells him to prophesy to these bones, to speak to the bones and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord (Ez 37:1-14).”

In Ezekiel’s day, the bones represented the people of God in exile, lifeless, dry, dispirited and discouraged.

I know Mary must have felt like she was talking to a pile of bones when her words couldn’t break through the pall of fear and grief that lay on the disciples. But now Jesus was in their midst and he breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit. A small band of fearful men, held together solely by habit, shame and fear – now they were the church, commissioned and empowered by the living Christ, born into living hope.

Can these bones live? We shall see – the mission of Christ continues, and his disciples follow him telling the story, forgiving sins and serving others until the peace of Christ, the shalom of God, fills earth and heaven.

Since the days of Mary and the other apostles, frightened disciples could be church because the Risen One keeps breaking in on us, breathing on the white bones of our lives, leading us out of our tombs, and placing in our hands the gifts of God for the world: peace and forgiveness. Because Christ is risen from the dead, we no longer live toward the horizon of death, but toward the horizon of fullness of life for all creatures.

The resurrection isn’t something that happened to Jesus two millennia ago, but rather something that began with him and continues with those who hear the word of life. It is the transformation of our old, tired world into the new creation. It is the wind that blows from the future of fulfilment, the breath that brings life to dry bones, the dew from heaven that renews the earth.

Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus came in the evening of that day. Neither were any of us around then. All we have is what Thomas was given, the words of witnesses.

The other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But their words, just like Mary’s before, didn’t have the power to break through whatever kept this disciple from hearing them with faith.

He didn’t know whom or what they had seen, what apparition might have fooled them. He needed to see for himself, and more than see.

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

He needed to see, he needed to touch, he needed to get close. Thomas wanted proof – not a convincing argument about the general possibility of bodily resurrection, but tangible proof that this Risen One was indeed the Crucified One.

He had questions nobody could answer for him with a reference to scripture or to some other authority. He needed to see, he needed to touch, he needed to get close.

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. That is remarkable, isn’t it?

There are plenty of churches where you are no longer welcome when your questions cannot be answered with a quick reference to scripture or to some other authority.

There are too many Christian communities where no one voices their doubt or their struggles for fear of being excluded or declared spiritually challenged.

And there are countless individuals who hear the words of Mary and the disciples, but they won’t be back a week later with their questions and their need to experience for themselves what the words declare.

In this gem of a story, the community of disciples consists of those who have seen and those who have not; no one is pushed out or forced in; they’re together. And the scene repeats itself, solely for Thomas’s sake, we suppose.

Jesus comes and stands among them and says, for the third time now, “Peace be with you.” He turns to Thomas and, far from rebuking him for his stubborn insistence on something more tangible than words, says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

And Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God.”

The one who wanted proof, the one who didn’t want to settle for repeating the words of others but held out for an experience of the Risen One on his own terms, this Thomas made a confession of faith unlike any other in the gospels.

Thomas has been remembered in the church as the doubter par excellence and called to the aid of authorities whenever the questions of some became uncomfortable and needed to be squelched. I don’t think we should remember him as a doubter, though, but rather as one who insisted on the continuity between the ministry of Jesus and the mission of the church, one who insisted that the glory of God is revealed in the wounds of the crucified Jesus.

The gospel according to John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Close to the end of the gospel, it is Thomas who, after much struggle, affirms that statement in the presence of Jesus, crucified and risen.

The resurrection is not something that happened to Jesus two millennia ago, but rather something that began with him when God raised him from the dead.

The disciple whom Jesus loved came to the tomb and saw the linen wrappings; then he went inside, got a little closer, and he saw and believed.

Mary Magdalene had seen angels at the tomb, but they had no comfort for her; then a stranger spoke her name, and she recognized Jesus and believed.

The disciples believed when they saw the risen Jesus, and they rejoiced, “We have seen the Lord!”

Thomas believed when he saw Jesus with the other disciples, and the word of the risen Jesus moved him from unbelief to confessing, “My Lord and my God.”

Not a bad conclusion to the gospel story.

But in the final verses of this chapter it becomes clear that the Sunday evening scene wasn’t repeated solely for Thomas’s sake, but also for ours.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We have not seen what the first disciples have seen, but we hear their witness.

In the final verses of the chapter, we read a note from the author to the readers, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

We trust the Word that comes to us through the proclamation of the first witnesses.

We follow the call that comes to us through their word and the work of the Holy Spirit.

We continue the mission of Jesus Christ, embodying his peace and forgiveness in how we live our lives.

We believe, not because we have seen, but because we trust that we will see the shalom of God filling earth and heaven.

And we continue to be witnesses who declare what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life.

The resurrection continues.

Audio of this post is available.

Now the Story

The little boat has served us faithfully.

We got on board in the spring of last year, and the Spirit of God blew across the sails – gently sometimes, forcefully occasionally, always pulling us forward.

We gathered in groups of various sizes, heard presentations and shared comments, and then we met in groups of three for one hundred days. How surprised we were to find this portion of the journey to be the single most rewarding!

All the insights and discoveries, all the thoughts, hopes and dreams were harvested – no, not to be stored in a pretty barn. Like grapes become wine and wheat becomes bread, the harvest of our conversations and prayers has become a story. Are you curious?

On Sunday, April 26, during our Spring Luncheon, we will present “Vine Street 2019,” our future story. This is not only a premiere you don’t want to miss; it is a sacramental moment: it is the embodiment of our work and prayer of an entire year, it is the call we have heard.

Tallu in Nicaragua

On Monday, April 20, Tallu will fly from Nashville to Managua/Nicaragua to work for one year in a community development project coordinated by Church World Service, Week of Compassion, and CIEETS.

Tallu is a member of Vine Street Christian Church in Nashville; we are very proud of her, of course, and we look forward to this opportunity to build relationships with the people she'll be working with. I hope she'll soon have her blog up!

For today, have a safe trip, Tallu, and God bless your adventure in ministry!

Who Are We Now?

In the Garden

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.

What kind of sabbath had she passed the day before?

Surely not a day of holy rest, a day of rejoicing in creation’s beauty and abundance. More likely, she spent her sabbath in numb silence, a vast stretch of grey time, punctuated by episodes of hellish fury against Rome, against the temple leadership, and against God.

She had allowed this man to awaken hope in her; she trusted Jesus like she had never trusted anyone before. Because of him, she had dared to step out of the darkness into a life of forgiveness, love, and promise. And now he was dead; and with him, her hope had died.

How do you put into words that your world has a hole in it larger than life itself? How do you sit with this unending absence, this void that swallows up light like a black hole? A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty, says Philippe Ariès.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.

On Monday, an earthquake shook the ground under the small town of L’Aquila in central Italy, killing 292 people. We do not know how many went to the graves, early this morning, while it was still dark, to touch the earth, or to just be where they had buried a loved one without whom the fabric of their lives was little more than a frayed cloth about to fall apart.

On Wednesday, news anchor Dan Miller, a virtual family member of thousands in Middle Tennessee and a husband, father and friend, died suddenly, only 67 years old.

On Friday, a tornado touched down several times in Murfreesboro, killing a mother and her baby, injuring dozens of people, and damaging or destroying 250 homes. The same storm system had caused three deaths in Arkansas on Thursday.

Too many funerals that did not come at the end of long, well-lived lives, but too soon, too violently, ending too many dreams, leaving too many promises unfulfilled.

Earlier this week, somewhere in America, a woman was called into her supervisor’s office. Sales had been down since September last year, and the company was losing money daily. ‘So sorry,’ the supervisor said, ‘we have to let you go.’ She cleaned out her desk, wondering how long their family could afford to pay the mortgage with just one income.

Earlier this week, somewhere in America, a man sat across the desk from his doctor, trying to make sense of the words, ‘three months, perhaps four.’

Someone else heard the words, ‘I have never loved you,’ and slipped over the edge into nothingness where life is a fall without end and the darkness is overwhelming. [See Craig Barnes, “Savior at Large”]

Earlier this week, the darkness of Friday covered the world like a suffocating blanket.

Early on the first day, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.

She didn’t want to see anybody, or she could have asked one of her friends to come with her. She wanted to be alone, close to the one who used to be the light of her world, whose name was the first name of her hope.

The moment she saw that the stone had been removed, leaving the entrance to the tomb wide open, Mary ran to tell Peter and another disciple that Jesus’ body had been stolen. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then John tells us that for a while there was a lot of running back and forth to the tomb, with what sounds like an odd competition between Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved – an entire paragraph about who got there first, who entered first, and who saw what and when.

After emerging from the tomb, rather than starting to search the garden for the missing body, the two disciples went home, without another word to each other or to Mary. John explains that ‘as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.’ A generous interpretation would suggest that they went home to study the scriptures some more.

Mary didn’t go home; I suspect she didn’t have anywhere to go, since the closest she had ever come to feeling at home had been with Jesus. Mary stood outside the tomb, weeping.

The angels she saw sitting where the body of Jesus was supposed to be, showed remarkably little sensitivity.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” they said to her.

She told them what she had told the disciples, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

The angels had no comfort to offer.

You have to wonder if angels do not know how difficult it is to keep on living after someone you love has died. Not being mortal, they may not know the pain of loss and grief. They may well lack the capacity to imagine a world without hope, a world without light, a world falling and collapsing into a dark, formless void.

Are you hearing echoes of the first chapters of Genesis? I am.

This is the first day, while it is still dark. This is the darkness before God speaks. This is the garden where it all began, where it begins again and again with the love of God for a rebellious humanity.

The cross is the ultimate clash between the will of God and our will; it is the tree of life robbed of its fruit, stripped of its leaves and roots, and perverted into an instrument of death. The cross shows us what we do to each other in the name of justice, political ambition, and religious conviction. We betray, we deny, we forsake, we accuse, abuse and condemn. We turn the garden of creation into a world where God is crucified and buried.

This day is not about a missing corpse. Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” the stranger asks, sounding just like one of the angels. “Whom are you looking for?” She doesn’t answer him; all she wants is for him to give her back the dead body of Jesus.

And he says, “Mary!” – and she turns and light and life and laughter return to the garden.

“Rabbouni!” she replies with wonder and joy, lunging forward to embrace the long-lost friend.

How is the scene to end?

Richard Hays suggests, in a 1992 article in the Christian Century,

A Hollywood director (…) would finish the scene with lush strings, Cat Stevens on the vocal track, glints of light from the rising sun on the morning dew, slow-motion shots as Mary runs to embrace him.

Some of you may not remember Cat Stevens, but we have seen enough movies to imagine the closing scene, the long tearful hug and Jesus saying with a nice baritone voice, “Let’s go and get the others; time to go home. I will never ever leave you.” Cut – and roll the credits.

But this is not Hollywood; this is the first day of the new creation. The Risen One frustrates our desire for closure, and says abruptly, “Do not hold on to me.” This is not the resumption of a former relationship, a turning back of the clock that somehow undoes the reality of suffering, the brutal reality of the crucifixion. There is no going back. This is the beginning of a new relationship between Jesus and his followers.

On this day, we do not cling to the hope that Jesus will take us back to the life we once knew with him. What we do hold on to is the promise that his departure was not a fall into oblivion, leaving us orphaned in a world of our own loveless making, but rather the opening of a window through which the Holy Spirit comes to us to abide with us.

This day is our celebration of the wondrous resilience of God’s purpose, of the faithfulness of our God who will not let us go. The Friday darkness gives way to the light of the new day, and on this day the Spirit gathers us into the intimacy the Son shares with the Father, an intimacy God has willed and desired for us since the beginning of time.

Mary doesn’t cling to the body in which she first encountered the love and grace of God – instead she receives and embraces the commission to speak about God’s will and desire to draw humanity into the communion of the divine life. And so Mary leaves the garden, not as one driven out but as an apostle who is being sent on a mission.

The sad sabbath of loss and grief did not end while she was groping for a way through the dark, nor when she saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Not even a vision of angels had the power to change her lament, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

But then she recognized the voice that called her by name. Mary left the garden confessing, “I have seen the Lord,” and everywhere she went, everywhere we go, proclaiming the Risen One, the dead wood of the cross leaves, blossoms, and bears fruit. Thanks be to God.

The Lord Needs It

Passover is an annual celebration, a spring festival whose date is determined by the lunar calendar. This year it begins this Wednesday at sun-down, and Easter, as always, follows soon after.

Before the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70, Passover was one of the great pilgrimage festivals that brought together God’s people from near and far. Those who lived in Judea may have made the trip every year; for others it was a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. They went up to Jerusalem, up to the Temple, to remember how the Lord had brought them out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and had led them to the land of promise.

I like to imagine how in the days leading up to the festival, the roads around the city were full of people, young and old, most of them on foot, some on donkeys – slow-moving traffic, but nevertheless a cheerful throng on the way to a joyous feast. They chattered and laughed, helped each other find the children that got lost in the crowd, shared food and water, ointment for their sore feet – and on the last few miles, when they could already see the city on the hill, they sang the songs of Zion, songs of longing and fulfillment.

Among the crowd were those who knew they would never make this journey again – who knows how many years they had been saving every little copper coin to be able to be in Jerusalem for Passover just once. You know they had tears running down their smiling faces as they climbed up the dusty roads; you know they laughed when they explained, apologizingly, “O everything’s OK, thank you for asking, I’m just so happy to be here.”

The little ones were watching, and while they may not have known all the stories of God’s mighty acts, they learned lessons about God and faith every step of the way. This was the journey of their people with their God.

For Jesus, according to Mark, this was the first and only trip to Jerusalem. He had told his disciples repeatedly what awaited him in the city, but they were unable to hear and grasp what he said when he spoke of rejection, betrayal, torture, and death, let alone resurrection.

James and John heard him talk about his humiliation at the hands of the religious and civil authorities, but all they could think about were seats of honor at Jesus’ right hand and his left. One more time Jesus taught them about servanthood and service as standards for greatness, but who knows if his words ever made it from his lips to their hearts.

Now they were approaching Jerusalem, and something very curious happened.

Jesus sent two of his disciples to go and get him a donkey. His instructions were very clear and detailed: where to go, what kind of colt to look for, to untie it, even what to say should anybody ask them what they were doing and why.

And then everything unfolded just as Jesus had said it would: they went away, found the colt tied near a door, began to untie it; bystanders asked, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” and they told them what Jesus had told them to say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately.”

Now what would you say if a couple of guys showed up in your neighbor’s driveway, opened the door to the car, and looked for the keys behind the visor?

“What are you doing? Can I help you find something?”

I’m sure you would find the answer entirely satisfying, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately.”

This is a strange conversation, isn’t it? Perhaps the strangest thing about it is that Jesus has so much to say about where and how to get the little donkey, and then he is silent until the next morning; doesn’t speak a word. They bring the donkey, he sits on it, people spread cloaks and leafy branches on the road, they sing and shout, and Jesus doesn’t say anything. He enters the city, goes to the Temple, looks around, and then he and the disciples go back to Bethany for the night.

“Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” says the header in our Bible, but the whole scene is a lot less triumphal than what Matthew, Luke and John describe, and more than half of the passage deals with fetching a donkey.

We know Mark knows how to be brief. Mark doesn’t waste any words. Why then is so much attention given to the instructions to the disciples and to the unfolding of the unusual scene in the village?

We like the pageantry and drama of Palm Sunday. We love the palms, the parade, the children singing and the crowds pouring through the city gates to welcome the king. We love it so much, we add a little trumpet to the song, and it sounds almost like Easter.

Mark’s little story is very different, very restrained in comparison. Yes, today we welcome God’s Messiah to the city, and the trumpet and the palms and the shouting are the least we can do. But I believe Mark wants to make sure we remember that we are disciples, and not the royal welcome committee. The curious details about where and how to obtain the donkey are all for our sake.

Jesus taught compassion and service; he spoke of God’s faithfulness in the presence of human rejection, betrayal, torture and condemnation; he told his friends what would happen, but they couldn’t hear it – they were preoccupied arguing about greatness, jockeying for positions of influence and prestige, dreaming of glory.

Had they known about “the triumphal entry” they would have wanted to walk in at Jesus’ right hand and his left, or perhaps ten paces ahead of him manifesting their self-importance and controlling the crowds with serious looks and officious statements.

Jesus sent only two of them, but they went on behalf of all of us. They listened, they did as they were told, and they found everything just as Jesus had said.

Were they surprised at the positive response they received when they said, “The Lord needs it”? No doubt in my mind.

Did they begin to understand that this wasn’t just about a donkey but about all the events of that final week?

Did they begin to trust that everything would occur as foreseen and foretold by Jesus ever since they left Galilee?

Did they begin to grasp that rejection and suffering were not the failure of Jesus but the very consequence of Jesus being God’s Messiah?

I don’t know – on Thursday night, all of them deserted him and fled (Mark 14:50). He was alone.

The more important question is, do we understand that we are on the way with the Son of God and that all that happens this week is not just a series of unfortunate events?

The gospel according to Mark begins with the call to prepare the way of the Lord(Mark 1:3), but that preparation does not translate into chairing the messianic party committee or writing choreography for the Son of David cheerleaders.

In Mark, preparation of the Lord’s way translates into “the arrangements people make for the ministry of Jesus” (Joel Markus) – things like finding him a boat and have it ready (Mark 3:9), gathering people in groups for a miraculous meal in the wilderness (Mark 6:39), fetching a donkey for the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem, and getting a room ready for the Passover meal (Mark 14:13-16).

Thomas Long came up with the lovely phrase describing disciples as “donkey fetchers.” What we are asked to do may seem mundane and routine, and on days when the donkey is particularly balky, pushing and dragging it to the Mount of Olives can be utterly exhausting. But our efforts have a place in the redeeming work of Christ.

We may think that a convertible or at least a white horse would be a more appropriate ride for a king, but Jesus knows what he’s doing.

We may think that leading an army of sword-wielding heavenly warriors would be the most promising way of dealing with humanity’s rebellious tendencies and the presence of evil in creation, but Jesus knows where he’s going.

We may think that what we do in response to Christ’s call and obedient to his teachings doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but it does: because to be a disciple is to make arrangements for the ministry of Jesus the Messiah.

Mark’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem has another intriguing detail. In no other gospel do the songs and shouts end so abruptly. Verse 10 ends, “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” and verse 11 continues, “Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.”

He is alone and all is quiet. He looks around. He knows where he is going. He knows that before the week is over he will enter the deepest loneliness.

One last word. When Jesus gave instructions to the two disciples for how to respond should anyone ask why they were untying the colt, he told them, “Just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” Mark doesn’t tell us, though, who took back the colt or if it was taken back at all.

I wonder if it stayed. I wonder if the donkey stayed when all others fled. I got the thought from a line in the book of Isaiah, where God declares,

“I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand (Isaiah 1:2-3).”

I wonder if the donkey stayed, a silent witness watching as the love of God for God’s people – Israel, you and me and all the others – went farther than any human being could have ever imagined.

This is the week when we remember that love prevailed against rejection, betrayal, torture, and death. This is the way of Christ. This is the journey of our God with us.

Audio of this post is available.

Nouvelle Alliance

On Palm Sunday, Nouvelle Alliance Christian Church gathered for their first Sunday worship service in the chapel at Vine Street Christian Church.

The members are all recent immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo and their children. The worship languages are French and Lingala, and the sermon is also translated into English. Celet Nkobe is the leader of the new church, and we pray that Nouvelle Alliance will thrive and become a home for French-speaking Christians in Nashville.

On Good Friday our congregations will worship together, and on Easter the youth will serve pancakes for both congregations.

The Book

Yes, Polar Star Press published a sermon series I preached in the summer of 2008, "Affirmations."

The book is a collection of reflections on the Disciples' affirmation of faith - it's a beautiful confession, but we call it, somewhat over-cautiously, the Preamble to the Design.

This We Believe would be such a lovely statement, but we're a long way from anything like that ...

Anyway, your purchase of the book will support the work of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. Thank you!