Walk, don’t run through Holy Week

A friend who leads a congregation doesn’t sugarcoat it. He reminds folks from time to time that suffering is the promise life always keeps. And while that may not reflect the sunny optimism of Norman Vincent Peale or Joel Osteen, I think my friend is on to something fundamentally true about our lives. For all kinds of reasons, part of what it means to be human is to know brokenness of body, mind, spirit, memory, relationship, not to mention the brokenness of our culture, our political and economic systems.

Yesterday, on Palm Sunday, we heard the collect included above. The day is also known as the Sunday of the Passion, passion being one way of referring to suffering. As a prayer, this collect launches us on the annual journey of Holy Week, ultimately leading to Easter morning.

But we can’t get there too quickly. Walk, don’t run, through Holy Week. We spend this week with a focus on the various ways that Jesus faced suffering: betrayal, denial, isolation, misunderstanding of his closest companions, opposition from religious and political authorities, false accusation, ridicule, pain, torture, death, a sense that God had forsaken him.

All of it causes us to consider the mystery of suffering. Over the years, I’ve often returned to a short book by J. Christiaan Beker, who taught at Princeton Seminary. The book is entitled “Hope and Suffering: The Biblical Vision and the Human Predicament,” written with a biblical perspective on suffering, informed by Beker’s experience as a slave laborer during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. It’s a short book but has been helpful in noting that there is not just one way to understand why we suffer.

He notes that sometimes we suffer because of things we have done, because of dumb or destructive choices we make. A hospital administrator once told me that many patients in his hospital were there because of some sort of abusive behavior they had inflicted on themselves. This man was not blaming the victim. Just stating what he had observed.

Beker notes that sometimes we suffer because of things other people do to us, either individually or in some societal, systemic way. The history of racism in our nation is an example. Political leaders who protect their guns rather than our kids offer another example. The horrors unfolding in Ukraine make that point.

Suffering can come through the natural order, as we pause and pray this morning for those harmed by recent tornadoes in the south and midwest.

We can also note that sometimes we suffer for righteousness’ sake. I love the quote (author unknown) that says Jesus promised his disciples three things. They would be absurdly happy, absolutely fearless, and always in trouble.

Beker adds that sometimes suffering simply defies explanation, a mystery of why bad things happen to good people that we can never explain. Maybe we shouldn’t even try. That’s sort of where the book of Job leaves us. Our response can only be silent presence. A friend who is a composer (and good human being) wrote a piece of music after the shootings at the church in Charleston. The piece was entitled: There are no words.

There are some circumstances in which suffering can have a redemptive quality. Which brings us to Jesus. We walk with him this week through the suffering he experienced. Our focus is first and foremost on him, as he stretches out arms of love on the hard wood of the cross to draw us into his saving embrace. We recognize our complicity in his suffering. And we honor him, thank him, revere him, worship him as God amongst us, God with flesh on.

And as we recall his suffering, walking the way of the cross, we sense his presence with us in whatever suffering we face. Beyond that, as we realize that presence, we are called to be mindful (dare I say woke) to the suffering around us, and to find ways to be a healing presence, to practice compassion, which literally means suffering with.

All with a recognition that suffering is not the last word, that Easter is coming. But we can’t get there too soon. The experience of Easter will be richer for our walk through Holy Week. No sprinting. As this week we tell the story of Jesus’ passion, his suffering, may we commit to a pilgrimage that leads to resurrection, his resurrection and our own.

More about that next week, thanks be to God.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Tohu wa-bohu

Order out of chaos. That’s the business God has been in since the beginning of time, when Genesis tells us that the universe was formless and void. In Hebrew, the phrase that describes this chaos is tohu wa-bohu. Over six days of creative work, order was fashioned out of unruliness. No wonder a day of rest was needed.

Later in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jeremiah uses the same phrase to describe judgment that will come on the people of Israel. Chapter 4 of that prophetic book describes the reversal of creation, moving from order to chaos. Tohu wa-bohu.

I’m wondering if you ever feel tohu wa-bohu. The phrase in Hebrew has a certain ring to it. When I’m feeling like a mess, I say to myself that I’m tohu wa-bohu. A dose of daily news may be enough to trigger that feeling.

What to do about it? If order is to be discovered, our faith tells us that it will be God’s work. It will be holy work. We acknowledged yesterday in church, in the collect included above, that God can bring into order unruly wills and affections. We also recognized that if and when that happens, it will be as gift. It will be a grace that allows us to love what God commands and to desire what God promises. On our own, our hearts can devolve into chaos. The consistent message of Lent: we need help.

Yesterday’s collect recognizes that we navigate life amidst swift and varied changes. That certainly can be seen in our political system. That can surface in our congregations, often marked by transition. That can happen in the face of an unexpected health crisis or a sudden change in employment status. It can happen in relationships with family and friends. Who knows what a day might bring? Chaos can be right around the corner.

Again, what to do about it? The prayer we heard yesterday invites us to keep our hearts fixed where joys can be found. So here’s the question that keeps coming up for me this Lent: Where is the heart fixed? Maybe in the chaos, you’d say it’s not fixed anywhere, thank you very much. Maybe you feel like you’re playing whackamole with the chaos of life, contending with unruly wills and affections. Maybe you’ve given your heart to that which will not satisfy your heart. That can make us feel totally tohu wa-bohu.

Let me suggest a favorite story from the gospels that may help. The disciples were in a boat in the middle of a threatening storm, which is a biblical image of chaos. Right in the thick of it, Jesus comes walking on the water. Peter got the idea that he could walk on the water, too. He put one foot over the gunwale. Then the next. He discovered that he actually could walk on water. He could weather the chaos. As long as his gaze was fixed on Jesus. When he lost that gaze, he sank.

Take some time this Monday morning to think about where your gaze is fixed, where you are giving your heart. As we prepare for Holy Week, set gaze on the one who stretches out arms of love on the cross to draw us into his saving embrace.

-Jay Sidebotham

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I’ve fallen and I can’t get up

I was recently reminded of a pastoral encounter in the first days of my ministry. It had to do with a quite elderly woman who lived alone in a big house, a crusty New Englander whose unhappiness with life was somewhat contagious, making the people around her as unhappy as she was. She was especially tough on this clergyman.

I was the only one at the church on the day when the call came to the office. It was an alert from one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” buttons. I went over to her house. It turns out she had been shuffling around on the floor for well over 24 hours, maybe more, never losing consciousness but simply unable to get up. She was so stubborn in her commitment to her own self-sufficiency and independence that she refused to push the button. She finally realized that she had no power in herself to help herself. But boy was she unhappy to realize her dependency, to have to push the button. We spent a good many hours together as we waited for her children to arrive from out of town. By the end of the time, she admitted that she now liked me. I wonder if recognition of her vulnerability had something to do with that shift. I bet Brené Brown would say so.

“God helps those who help themselves.” Contrary to popular opinion, that adage is not in the Bible. It may be a commendable call to take responsibility, but it bumps up against truth conveyed in the collect we heard in church yesterday. That collect begins with the premise that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves. In other words, we need help.

The season of Lent, with a focus on self-examination, may help us realize that. Have you ever felt that you had no power in yourself to help yourself? The great Swiss theologian and pastor Karl Barth was once asked where he liked to preach when he visited the states. He said that he preferred to preach in prisons because that’s where he met Americans who actually knew they needed help, knew they needed the gospel.

The recognition of powerlessness seems to be key to the spiritual journey. The good news of our faith means that power is in fact available and accessible. I suspect many are familiar with the first beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). I’ve come to favor the paraphrase which says: Blessed are those who know their need of God. The first step in accessing holy help is to admit we need it. That is why we have a penitential season like Lent. That is why we regularly say the confession in our liturgy. That is why at baptism we promise to repent and return to the Lord whenever we sin. Not if ever we sin. Whenever.

And what kind of help are we looking for? The collect says we need help to be kept in body and soul. We need holy help in all aspects of our lives.

When we ask for help so that our bodies can be defended from all adversities, it may mean prayer for healing, for release from physical ailments that render us helpless. It may be prayer for those who face persecution from adversaries, like the people of Ukraine. The phrase reminded me of Ta-Nahisi Coate’s painfully beautiful book Between The World And Me, written to his son about how racism threatens his son’s body.

And we need help as our souls may be assaulted and hurt by evil thoughts. That’s why the refrain from Psalm 51 is so important as we ask: Create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me. Evil thoughts, coming in great variety, may be murderous, lustful or vengeful thoughts we’d be embarrassed to have projected on a screen. They may be thoughts of comparison: envy, jealousy. They may be thoughts that arise from an unwillingness to forgive, so that we stew in resentment. We need help to live with those.

We admit we don’t have power in ourselves. Thanks be to God, that does not mean that there is no power available to heal and protect and bring new life. That’s good news. That’s gospel. That’s what Jesus is about.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Going astray

The first Christians were not called Christians. They were called People of the Way. For many reasons, that might have been a good name to stick with. I’m guessing that name grew out of the way Jesus spoke about himself when he said: “I am the way.” It was an invitation to his disciples to follow him, to stick close to him.

That in turn echoed the notion from the Hebrew Scripture that God would show the way through the wilderness, either as the children of Israel left the slavery of Egypt, or later on, as the exiled children of Israel tried to find their way home.

We are finding our way through the season of Lent. The season has been compared to the wilderness. One of the things that was both challenging and frightening about wilderness was that it was described as a trackless wasteland. In other words, there were no road signs. No directions. No paved roads. No rest stops. Certainly no GPS. It was easy to wander. It was easy to get lost. It was easy to give up hope. Which is why it was important to have someone or something to follow.

The prayer we heard yesterday in church confesses that some of us (maybe all of us) have gone astray, perhaps an echo of the biblical text set to music by Handel: All we like sheep have gone astray. In yesterday’s prayer, there is a call for a penitent heart which is really an admission that we have either lost our way or deliberately chosen to go off on our own path. We’re headed in the wrong direction. Penitence, an expression of repentance, suggests an intention to turn around, to make a course correction.

So in this season of Lent, a season of self-examination, we might want to think about the way we travel through our own version of wilderness. (We all know something about wilderness.) Where are we headed? Do we have a clue which way to go?

As the prayer suggests, this season is an invitation to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word, Jesus Christ. What actually might it mean to embrace and hold fast that truth, which we encounter in the person of Jesus?

It goes to what it means to be a disciple, someone who follows. It means asking the question posed by pastor and theologian Brian McLaren to our congregations: Are we a club for the elite who think they have arrived or are we a school for disciples who are on the way?

One way to focus on the way is to reflect on the way of love articulated by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. He’s boiled that way down to seven verbs. These words chart a course in the wilderness, based on a relationship that makes it possible to follow the one who will lead us through the wilderness. The verbs? Turn. Learn. Pray. Worship. Bless. Go. Rest. (Scott Gunn, Exec. Director of Forward Movement has written a grand and succinct book on this way of love, reflecting on each of these words. Definitely some good Lenten reading.) As you unpack each of these verbs, and figure out how they apply in your own context, they provide a way to keep on track, a way to keep from going astray. This expression of the way of love is obviously not the only way to think about how to move forward faithfully. But I have found its simplicity helpful in my own spiritual journey.

The bottom line is that we are not invited to follow a set of rules. We are invited into a holy relationship with a person, to follow Jesus who invites us to come and see new life available to us. Take these days of Lent to consider what that kind of relationship might look like in your life, and how you can cultivate it. By God’s grace, you’re going to make it through the wilderness.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Manifold temptations

What are temptations that you face? Some years ago around this time of year, in my work with a group of teenagers, I asked them if they ever felt they had been tempted. One young girl spoke up: “I was tempted to give money to the guy begging on the street, but I didn’t.” Not exactly the response I was hoping for. It was one of those moments when I realized I had work to do, and maybe even wondered if I was up to the task.

It may not be that we talk these days much about temptations. The prayer (the collect) we read yesterday in church suggests that they will come. Not a matter of if but when. And they’ll come in force. I appreciate the Rite I language which predicts manifold temptations. I’m wondering what those might be for you as we begin the season of Lent.

Lent begins with the story of Jesus being led to the wilderness (by the Holy Spirit, of all things) to face tests. It’s an indication that the season of Lent assumes that we will have encounters with temptations. It’s a season of challenge, and I think we’re led to a sense of how to navigate such challenges as we read that Jesus went through the same thing.

The temptations Jesus faced were not notorious sins, not outrageous temptations about lust or greed. Jesus’ temptations included a quite reasonable need for food (After 40 days without food, turn stones into bread, a temptation to use God as quick-fix magician or valet). A second temptation had to do with trusting God for protection. (A temptation to take a leap off a skyscraper to see if God catches you, if God is really looking out for you, a test of how strong faith really is, with a hint that God might not be up to the task). A third temptation had to do with worship. (The devil says if you worship me, I’ll give you unlimited power, a temptation about where we give our heart, whether we will really love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength).

Jesus makes his way through these tests by making reference to the words of scripture. He knew where to draw strength. That may be one of the reasons why one of the things we’re invited to do in Lent is to read and meditate on God’s holy word. Scripture was clearly a resource to help him through. Have you found that to be the case in your own encounters with temptation?

Here’s another resource, suggested by a hymn that is not in the 1982 hymnal but one that I often find myself mulling over. What a friend we have a Jesus.

I’m taken with the phrase: Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer. I forfeit peace on a daily basis. You?

Later in the hymn we find the phrase: Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. The story of Jesus in the wilderness tells us that he knows what we’re dealing with. Have you found prayer (however you pray) to be something that helps you in the wildnerness experience?

The premise of the collect we heard yesterday in church is that because Jesus knows our weaknesses, we can find strength to deal with our own temptations. There’s challenge for sure in this season compared to the wilderness. But as we tap into resources like scripture and prayer, along with other spiritual practices that we might take on in this season, we are not only challenged. We are also formed into what God calls us to do and be.

As the season begins, what are the resources at your disposal, that will help you as you encounter manifold temptations? How will you put them to work in your life this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

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Mountaintop experiences

When have you had a mountaintop experience?

Speaking literally, it can be that exhilarating moment at the conclusion of a hike or the end of a ski lift when you are transported to a place where you get the long view, where beauty grabs your soul and takes your breath away, where worries suddenly seem small. It may be an experience of success, a sense of accomplishment after prolonged striving. It may be a spiritual moment. People speak of retreats as that kind of experience, when daily routine is interrupted and clarity comes with a change of venue. It can be an epiphany in a time of quiet contemplation. It can be a moment when in our grace-starved world you give or receive some kind of grace.

Yesterday in church we read about a mountaintop experience for Jesus and a few disciples. The collect above reflects that story of the Transfiguration, read every Sunday at the end of the season of Epiphany, just a few days before we launch out on the season of Lent. The collect indicates that the mountaintop experience came as those disciples get a clearer glimpse of who Jesus is, as they hear the voice of the Holy One describing Jesus as the beloved, someone worth listening to.

That revelation, that epiphany comes with purpose. While in the story told in the gospel, Peter seems to want to freeze the moment in time (maybe even build a visitor center), that apparently is not what this mountaintop experience was all about. As Pope Francis has said, there’s no such thing as a stationary Christian.

Jesus and the disciples are not meant to stay on the mountaintop. Rather, as they descend, Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem, toward Holy Week, with all that meant for him. Our church reenacts that movement with the 40 day journey of Lent starting in two days, taking us to Easter. Yesterday’s collect tells us what it’s about two things: being strengthened to bear our cross and being changed into Christ’s likeness.

So we start a journey which will entail bearing our cross. That’s why Lent is presented as a season loaded with challenge. The season is compared to the wilderness, marked by deprivation, hardship, testing. The season resonates because we all know something about those challenges. They come in great variety for sure, but we all have them. I believe we can face them fortified by some recollection of a mountaintop experience. For those of us who swim in the Christian stream, we can face them based on some clearer vision of who Jesus is and why he matters. What has been that epiphany for you? How does your understanding of Jesus give you strength to face challenge?

At the same time, Lent is not just a season marked by challenge. It’s a season for formation. As described in the collect, it’s about being changed into Christ’s likeness. In the same way that we all face challenge, we also all have room to grow in terms of becoming more Christ-like. Where do you see that possibility in your own life? What vision of Christ (what mountaintop revelation) have you had that sets that goal, and allows you to glimpse that possibility?

This Monday morning, give thanks for any mountaintop experience you have had, especially one that involves a clearer vision of who Jesus is and why he matters, why he is worth following. If you have the opportunity, tell someone else about that experience, not to brag, but simply because clarity comes with articulation. Then as you celebrate that recollection, let it sustain you in the challenges ahead as you bear your cross, whatever the challenges may be. (It’s a pretty safe bet that those challenges will show up.) Let the recollection of mountaintops shape you in your own spiritual journey, as you are changed into Christ’s likeness.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Be Strong in the Lord

When I first showed up at an Episcopal Church as a young adult, there was a lot that was mystifying. I’m okay with mystery, but some things were just confusing. For instance, I noticed in the bulletin that in addition to the offertory, there was this thing called a collect. I thought: Well, that’s cheeky. And entrepreneurial. Two opportunities to take in cash. It was only after a while that I learned that a collect is really a prayer that collects thoughts reflecting the theme of that day in worship.

Where am I going with this? One of our readers recently asked: “What’s a collect?” Each Monday, we’re looking at the collect for the Sunday that begins the week, reflecting on themes in those prayers, in the confidence that praying shapes our believing, in the hopes that readers will carry the collect with them throughout the week. This week, the theme I want to explore from yesterday’s collect has to do with strength and where it comes from.

In that collect, we pray for strength because we recognize that strength comes as a gift from God. It’s a matter of grace. We count on that holy help, strength from a power greater than ourselves. I can think of people, some famous, some that I’ve run across in congregations where I’ve served, some whose lives unfold outside of the church, who show a supernatural strength of spirit which I can only describe as a gift. I’ve encountered people who in life’s darkest moments and deepest challenges show a resilience that goes well beyond what human beings can muster on their own. Have you run across folks like that?

And as yesterday’s collect indicates, we’re not passive objects in the process. The mystery of grace in our lives suggests a synergy by which we participate in the strengthening, as we look for help to keep God’s commandments.

Which brings to mind a parish priest I admire a great deal. The Rev. Doyt Conn leads a great church in Seattle. In a part of the world that has been characterized as “unchurched,” Doyt leads a vital and growing congregation. He talks about his church as a spiritual gym, a place people go to gain spiritual strength. A lot of that strengthening process has to do with spiritual practices. He notes, by way of analogy, that if you spend time each day at Equinox, lifting weights with your right arm, your right arm is going to get stronger. It simply will happen, whether you believe it or understand the process. He thinks that spiritual practices (like prayer, scripture reading, regular attendance at worship, commitment to service in Jesus’ name) will offer the strength we need, as long as we practice them.

I’m wondering where you experience spiritual strengthening. One of the places where I experience spiritual strengthening comes in the eucharist. As my friend Doyt indicates, I don’t need to understand or explain how that strengthening happens. But the grace of strengthening is suggested in the prayer we say after communion. In that prayer, having been fed with bread and wine, we ask for strength and courage to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart.

We could talk at length about each of those words: strength, courage, gladness, singleness of heart. Today, we focus on strength. Pray this week for strength. Where do you need that holy strength?

And let your spiritual practices, whatever they may be, be part of this prayer. Here’s a thought: Use the upcoming season of Lent as a chance to begin to make those strengthening practices part of your life. As the psalmist encourages: Be strong in the Lord.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Freedom

Freedom is the theme explored in the collect heard yesterday in church (see above). From earliest days, we each may have encountered that theme as we have employed the childhood refrain: You’re not the boss of me. (Some adults apparently find it is still useful.)

We’re conditioned to imagine we are free agents, independent players, blessed with free will. It surfaces in our individual life choices. The topic of freedom also pervades political discourse (e.g., Don’t tread on me.) Freedom appears to be one of our highest values, equated with independence and autonomy.

The biblical narrative suggests that we may not be as free as we imagine. We see it in the confession of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, as he shares his own internal struggles. He writes:

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me…For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:15-24)

Have you ever felt stuck in that kind of psychic and spiritual loop? I’m wondering where you feel restriction or restraint in your life. It may be contention with addiction. It may be an inability to move beyond resentment. Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela said that if he couldn’t forgive his captors, they would still have him in prison. It may be habitual dynamics in families, when we just can’t help saying that thing that we know is going to trigger discord and dispute at the holiday dinner table. We come to the meal swearing we’re not going to get into it. We’re not going to play the old tapes. And then we simply can’t zip the lip. Lack of freedom may result from brokenness of body, mind or spirit. It may be a matter of being bound in an unhealthy relationship. It may be captivity in the systemic flaws of our society like racism or materialism or classism. There’s no shortage of limits on our freedom. We may join with St. Paul and wonder who is going to rescue us.

Which brings us to Jesus. He spoke often about freedom. Here’s a bit of a conversation from the Gospel of John, chapter 8 (vv. 31-36): To those who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

So what is the freedom that Jesus offers? Again, St. Paul picked up the theme in the letter to the Galatians (5:13,14) when he said: “For freedom Christ has set us free… For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I’m taken with the phrase offered by St. Augustine who suggested that in service is found perfect freedom. That’s the holy paradox that represents the path to freedom: It’s about service. It’s about love. Try it this week in some new way. And be free.

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth