MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 30, 2015

What makes holy week holy?

As the sun cracked the horizon this morning, I’m pretty sure it had no sense that this day differs from any other. The gulls on the beach, my dogs on the morning walk don’t know one day from another. This morning’s news may be unusual, bleak, distressing, but the reports do not seem to indicate that there’s anything particularly special about this week. More and more in our culture, people will set out this morning for school and jobs without a sense that this Monday is distinctive or peculiar.

But for those whose spiritual journey unfolds in the Christian tradition, for those who reckon themselves followers of Jesus, following closely, or at a distance, this Monday begins Holy Week. What makes holy week holy? I don’t know what association you have with the word “holy”. It may conjure images of pious (and unappealing) people. You might not say it, but you may well think of them: I don’t want to be one of those folks, a.k.a., holier than thou. But the word suggests something that is set apart, and so this Monday matters to followers of Christ because it’s our most special week. To start the week, ask yourself why it’s special, why it’s set apart.

The week tells a story. The journey that began with Ash Wednesday now nears its destination, as Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. (Did you enjoy singing those hosannas yesterday?) Throughout the week, the story of Jesus unfolds: his final hours with his disciples, his encounter with religious and political authorities, his challenge of their institutional life, his suffering at the hands of good people, the desertion of disciples who deny and betray, the loneliness of the suffering, the pain, physical and otherwise, the end of life. We walk that way with Jesus this week. Or perhaps we don’t, treating it like any other week.

It matters that we walk through this week, this annual observance which serves as much as reminder as instructor. A friend, a priest I admire, posted this note on Facebook a couple days ago, as he considered his several homiletic opportunities: “Preaching in Holy Week forces you to really decide what you believe about Jesus and the Kingdom of God. I am thankful for the responsibility every year.” The gift of that responsibility is certainly true for all those privileged and challenged to mount the stairs of a pulpit this week. But it’s true for all who are called to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ. In other words, it’s true for all of us.

This week is special. Theologians sometimes speak about the “scandal of particularity”, how God remarkably, mysteriously chooses to use special times and spaces and people to further divine purposes, holy purposes. This one week set aside each year, one out of 52, may well be a case of this holy “scandal”.

This week is special. Use it to decide, or at least to explore what you believe about Jesus and the kingdom of God. Let the several liturgies guide you in that process. Take in as many as you can. Carve out quiet time. Make this Monday in Holy Week matter by claiming that this day, this week is indeed different. This day is not just another day. It begins a journey that will end with Easter joy, when the sun breaking the horizon signaled new life, resurrected life.

– Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 23, 2015

In the course of recent travels, I had the opportunity to have lunch with two motor-cycle riding French priests, Roman Catholics serving in a vital congregation marked by daring and creative ministry in the suburbs of Paris. Their description of their community ran counter to my stereotypes of religious observance in Europe, which I have assumed for years to be post-post-post-Christian. My impressions were first formed on Sundays during a semester abroad in Italy decades ago, when I’d visit a church in Italy and find swarms of tourists circling the periphery of the nave during mass, while just a very few worshippers participated in the liturgy. I could only imagine that spiritual engagement had declined.

Enter these French priests, who spoke of lively, youthful congregations, engaging and challenging preaching and teaching, daring ministry to the most marginalized in the city, offered in the spirit of Jesus. As I inquired as to the secret of the vitality of their ministry, they described a willingness to learn from unlikely sources, case in point, a recent trip they had taken. Twenty of them had traveled from France to Southern California to study non-denominational mega-churches, to see what they could learn. The visual of a busload of French priests, clad in long brown robes, navigating L.A., meeting pastors in flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts, it all made me smile. And wonder. So I asked what they learned. They said that the churches they saw did three things. They extended welcome. They expressed promise. They expected commitment. I surveyed my own experience with religious communities over the years. A few of them did none of those things. Some of them did one or two. Few managed to do all three. Those that did seemed to exhibit vitality. Reflect on the faith communities with which you have associated, those that have sustained you, those which you have helped to sustain. How did they do these three things? And since congregations are basically aggregates of individual members, think this morning about how you are personally engaged in these three practices.

First, how do you extend hospitality and express welcome? In some ways, it’s the central Christian virtue. I find it expressed in the story of the Road to Emmaus (Read it in Luke 24). It’s a post-Easter story (sorry if I’ve gone a little rogue on the church calendar, since it’s still Lent). In this story, Jesus is invited by two disciples to have dinner. He accepts their hospitality, and in short order ends up sitting at the head of the table. He becomes the host, breaking and blessing bread. And because they invited him into their home, they see who he is. What will be the opportunity today to express welcome, hospitality, inclusion, grace today? Who knows, you might just see something of Jesus.

Second, what promise guides you on your journey? Do you have a sense of the possibility that life could be different, that it could be transformed by God’s spirit, God’s power? Are you on that search, or have you given up hope? From its earliest pages, the Bible holds out promise: the promise of the blessings of descendants, the promise of a new home or a return from exile, the promise that Christ will come, and that Christ will come again. Have you heard a promise in your own journey of faith? Do you expect God will do something new in your life? As Jurgen Moltmann said: Where would we stand if we did not take our stand on hope.

Third, how would you describe your commitment to your faith journey? What is being called forth from you in your life? Where in your life do encounter the cost of discipleship? Is the cost worth it? A wise counselor once said to me, at a crossroads, in a moment of discernment, that in the journey of faith there is always cost and promise. Do we have the commitment to the journey that will see us through to the promise? We come to the closing days of Lent, a season rich with meanings. Take some time in this fifth week of Lent for the discipline of self-examination. How are you expressing welcome? Where do you see the promise? What is the character of your commitment to the faith journey?

If you think those are excessively tough questions, don’t blame me. Take it up with these two French priests.

– Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 16, 2015

Persistence

I recently learned that the Dawn spacecraft had reached the Ceres asteroid, located somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. It took seven and a half years for the spacecraft to get there. I found myself wondering about the person who at NASA was watching that progress, day in, day out for the last seven plus years. A lot of days marked by not much to report. A picture of faithfulness.

I recently heard that Lady Gaga worked with a voice coach every day for six months in preparation for her “Sound of Music” medley at the Oscars. For what it’s worth, I thought it was an impressive performance (though Stephen Sondheim disagreed). I was most impressed with the intentionality behind the preparation, the perseverance, the persistence.

I’m told that Pablo Casals, arguably the best cellist on the globe, practiced every day well into his nineties. When asked why he practiced, he said: “Because I get better.” A witness to the truth that in the journey, we are never done. So we keep on keeping on.

I’ve heard that Martin Luther prayed four hours a day. When someone asked how he had time in his busy schedule to do such, he said something like this: “I’m too busy not to.”

These random events sound like a set up for a bad joke: Lady Gaga, Pablo Casals, and Martin Luther walk into a bar…. (If you have the punchline, send it to me.) These witnesses (Okay. I admit. I never expected to write about Lady Gaga) are evoked by the season. I’m at the point in Lent, and coincidentally at the point in winter, when I’m done. Enough already of acknowledging my wretchedness, my manifold wickedness, to swipe phrases from the Book of Common Prayer. Enough of gray skies and cold weather. I’m ready for something new.

But the forty days of Lent indicate a persistent theme about the journey of faith. That persistent theme has to do with persistence. It has to do with endurance. On a good day, I can see that endurance is a key Christian virtue. It has to do with hope, that essential human quality that calls us to plant seeds for trees whose shade we may never enjoy.

If I’m alone in feeling late winter crankiness, indulge me, forgive me, say a prayer for me. But if you’re feeling some of it too, if your life has ever taken on that quality, then consider the fact that the spiritual journey is often simply about putting one foot in front of another, like a marathon runner hitting the wall. Speaking of one marathon runner, Mother Teresa was once asked how she could wake up every morning and address the overwhelming poverty which given its systemic spread, never seemed to change. Mother Teresa said: God calls me to be faithful, not successful. That’s faith. That’s faithfulness.

It’s the faith of Abraham and Sarah, who heard a promise that they would be parents of multitudes but, oh by the way, they were 90 and had no kids. It’s the faith of Moses who hightailed it out of Egypt and spent forty years watching sheep. What a waste of his Ivy League education. It’s the faith of St. Paul who spoke of the connection between endurance and hope. It’s the faith I am privileged to witness at work in the lives and ministries of faithful clergy and parishioners around the church, ministers (ordained or otherwise) who show up and show love. It’s the faith, the faithfulness, that reflects the faith, the faithfulness of God who hangs in there with us.

So this Monday morning, give thanks for God’s faithfulness. Take note of where you have experienced it. And let your life as a person of faith find ways to reflect that faithfulness, in persistence, endurance, patience in the hope that before long, Spring will be here. Persist.

– Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 9, 2015

Discipleship matters

What’s an authentic Episcopal expression of discipleship? That’s a question I’ve been kicking around for a while, and I’m wondering this Monday morning how you would answer that question. I welcome your thoughts. (Note: If you’re not an Episcopalian, answer it from your context, another denomination, another faith tradition, unchurched, none, done, etc.) For me, in order to find an answer, I’ve been talking with folks who seem to know something about it. I wrote a friend, a mentor, a monk, Timothy Jolley, who serves at a monastery in Grahamstown, South Africa. He shared thoughts about discipleship, including this bit of insight from one of his buddies who said: “My problem is not that I fail to understand the gospel. My problem is that I have no intention of doing anything about it.” I can imagine Jesus saying something like “Follow me”, to which I respond: “I’m going to need to get back to you on that.”

Some background, as I understand it: Timothy was called to South Africa a number of years ago, when the system of apartheid was breaking down, when that country desperately needed models of community. Church leaders invited the monks to come, to move to a beautiful spot right outside Grahamstown. Like Abraham from the Hebrew Scriptures, they went without really knowing where they were going, or what they would do, no real game plan or strategic vision. Just faithful following. They went because they were called. So they began their time in South Africa by saying their prayers, observing the rhythm of prayer that is constitutive of monastic life. They did that faithfully. Before long, they found the ministry God had for them, or perhaps more to the point, the ministry found them. It was to connect with the children of poor townships nearby, legacies of years of apartheid. Through a tragic turn of events (the death of a couple children who were unsupervised because their mothers had to work and could not find child care), the monks identified a ministry to serve the local children, God’s children. They founded a school, embracing a vision, a hope, a dream that the poorest children of South Africa would have access to education comparable to that offered in the most elite institutions.

It began with prayer. And as I was recently speaking with Timothy about this subject of discipleship (I sense he knows a lot about what it means), he said that in discipleship the first step is prayer. I quote: “Ministry grows out of a commitment first to prayer and allowing God to change our hearts so that the Holy Spirit can light a desire and a fire for conversion. The first task is to teach prayer.”

For this South African community, the remarkable good work which has emerged began with listening, spiritual attentiveness, a humble and gracious spirit trusting that God will show the way. Take a gander at the work they are doing, lovingly described on their website.  (www.umaria.co.za and if you feel so inclined plan a visit or visit them with some support). It is remarkable work, a work of justice and peace and service, offered in Jesus’ name, impossible to separate from the spiritual exercise of prayer. Too often in our tradition we set contemplation and activism in opposition. To counter that misperception, the Holy Spirit provides witnesses like Timothy, a disciple of Jesus, our Lord whose ministry to those in need was animated by his stubborn habit of going off by himself to pray.

I have a feeling we need to figure out how to do that more, maybe even this Monday morning. How will we let a relationship with the Holy One unfold in the mystery of prayer, animating our lives, animating our ministry in a world in need of Jesus’ healing presence? Stop what you’re doing and pray this morning for the guidance of the Spirit to show you the path of being a disciple. It’s a high calling. It matters.

– Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 2, 2015

What is the most important word in the Bible?

Stop before you read any further, find a piece of paper, and jot down your top three candidates. What did you come up with?

At a conference last week, I heard an answer from Sara Miles, wise and witty author. I don’t mind sharing her answer since she got it from Sam Wells, a great English preacher who said that the most important biblical word was “with”.

Sara Miles talked about what that word suggests about the character of God. I’d like to invite her to preach on Trinity Sunday (that sole Sunday devoted to a doctrine of the church when seminarians or guest preachers often get the pulpit). She used the word “with” to make sense of the mysterious, okay confusing, doctrine, a doctrine which I’ve always understood as feeble human attempt to express the reality of God, three persons in one. (Someone once told me that asking human beings to describe the mystery of God is like asking an elephant to play the piano.) The doctrine is the product of biblical allusions that have to do with “with”. In its prologue, John’s gospel makes reference to the word which was with God. The gospel of Luke speaks of Jesus filled with the spirit. Matthew’s gospel proclaims that the name of the child born to Mary would be “Immanuel”: God with us.

If indeed the reality of God is expressed as community, as relationship, a matter of with-ness, Ms. Miles said that we are similarly called to focus on the ways we are with others. Love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable. For most of her life she had not been a churchgoer. One day, she stumbled into a church in California and took communion. Conversion began. She was with others in a new, transformative way. As she hung around that place, she felt called to begin a food pantry, offering free food to anyone who came without condition. No need to prove indigency. No forms to fill out. Just grace. She was with others in a new, transformative way. That ministry continued, deepening her conversion (You can read about it in her book Take This Bread) as a way of being with people, not simply doing for them, but being with them.

I realized that so many of my efforts as good Christian/good citizen have to do with doing something for someone, but not necessarily with. Donating money with the buffer zone of a check, the postal system, paypal. Serving a bowl of soup with the buffer zone of a table between us. Not bad, but in my case, not enough. Not really being with, as I create bubbles and barriers that keep me safely surrounded by the familiar, in the process, losing the relational piece which is at the heart of spiritual growth (i.e., increasing love of God and neighbor). I often resort to that bubble thing with the people closest to me. Why do I do that? Fear? Self-centeredness? Fatigue? Laziness? Distraction? Lent is not a bad time for me to ask that question. (Thanks a lot, Sara Miles.)

Maybe you’re better at with-ness than I am. In our culture it’s an uphill climb. I was in a crowded Starbucks in New York recently, a line of about 20 people in that franchise of a corporation committed to community. Each and every person was deeply engrossed in smartphone, crowded in ways only Manhattan can. But they could not have been more distant from each other. I suspect there are families who gather around the dinner table, each with tablet or phone or laptop, distracted and distant. I’ve been known to send an email to my wife when we’re both in the house at the same time. What would it look like to agree that “with” is the most important word?

I’m reminded of a story of a woman who did a bit of jaywalking in Manhattan a number of years ago. She was struck by a cab, breaking her leg. She remained conscious throughout the ordeal. A woman of intellect, privilege, affluence, influence, she found herself on the pavement facing unprecedented vulnerability, facing a growing crowd looming above her. She spoke not only of the pain and fear but of the isolation. An acquaintance happened by, a person with enough intuition to lay down on the cold asphalt beside her, to be with. It made things better.

Have you ever had anyone do that for you? Maybe God is the one who does that for you. Maybe Jesus does. Maybe the Holy Spirit. Is there a way on this Monday in Lent that you can do that for someone else, stranger or friend or family member? Can you be with that person in a world marked by lots of folks who have been knocked to the pavement?

– Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org