Christ the Mother Hen (Wednesday of Holy Week 2015)

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! [Matthew 23:37]

Guard me as the apple of the eye;
   hide me in the shadow of your wings [Psalm 17:8]

 On this night before the night Jesus was betrayed, I'm thinking of these verses and how often I find urban people don't quite understand the image of God as mother hen. I've heard sermons talk about how Jesus was comparing himself to this ridiculous creature as some form of humility. 

Farm people know differently. 

As a kid on the farm, there was this time I got too close to a banty hen and her brood of chicks. She fiercely chased me a good 25 yards, both of us running as fast as we could, before she decided I was far enough from her chicks. 

And if a chicken hawk or other predator would come into view, she would puff up and call the chicks to her and guard them with her own body. They'd run under her and disappear, safe (so long as the predator wasn't big enough to carry off the hen herself!). 

To me, the image of Jesus wanting to call Jerusalem under his wings is a desire to play protector, to manifest his fierce love for Jerusalem. 

The Psalm line I've sung hundreds of times in a compline service. It's a gentler image, I suppose, less fierce than Jesus's frustration with Jerusalem. Yet, the protection is there, the safety. 

As that farm boy who got chased by a banty hen, I nonetheless wished I could shrink down to chick size and disappear into the puffed up feathers of that mama bird. I imagined it to be warm, that sleepy kind of cozy, safe to rest in the darkness there. 

I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the Wednesday of Holy Week. Perhaps you do. 

It's just been on my mind all day.  

Remembrance and Retreat (Tuesday of Holy Week 2015)

I disrobe. I'm underground, in flickering light. It's a few steps down into a pool of water. I'm going to drown. This priest will help.

Underwater, held there, I panic. I'm dying while the priest's muffled voice speaks in trinity.

Then I'm raised up, gasping, alive. I step up, out of the pool. There is chanting. A white linen garment enfolds my body.

Everything changes, dissolves into a garden. It is night. There is my Lord, arrested. A crowd surrounds him, weapons in hand.

Some turn to me. They know I am with him. They grab me, I twist away, leaving them with hands full of white linen. I run.

Everyday, I remember my promises. Everyday, I run away naked as the day I drowned.

Pursued (Monday of Holy Week 2015)

"What the priests and scribes didn't know---and we much too often forget---is that salvation doesn't come to the one doing the saving, not in the instant. Salvation comes after the one saving, indeed, the one with power to save, is spent, poured out, emptied."

I wrote that in the previous blog entry. I have said that my blog posts are my least edited writing. I pretty much type into Blogger, check for spelling and such (not carefully, which may be obvious), and click "publish." 

The above was convoluted enough to confuse a friend. She focused on the phrase "Salvation comes after the one saving" and asked if I meant salvation pursues the one who is saving. We talked about it and I clarified it was a sequence thing, not a pursuit thing, and on we went to talk about moths or something. 

But I've been thinking about being pursued by salvation all day. 

I rather like the image, in it's abstract way. 

There is the strain of thought in some theological circles that God is pursuing us, that God is not giving up on us and is seeking us out, no matter how "lost" (however we might mean that word) we might be.

I like that image and to anthropomorphize or at least characterize "salvation" as something that has independent agency to pursue us somehow hits a theologically geeky pleasure point in my brain. 

Salvation is one of those slippery concepts. It often refers to eternal destinations in popular discourse. I've not found that a sustaining belief. I also have pretty well given up on any form of substitutionary atonement, which will be preached all over the place this coming week. I always feel like talking about salvation leads to those two ideas. 

So in the context of this week, I'm thinking of Jesus as the embodiment of salvation, pursuing us but even more wanting to protect us from the powers of this world. He knows he's unpopular in Jerusalem, he knows he's going to meet with trouble, but for love of us, he cannot help but speak out against the kingdoms of this world and try to give a vision of the Reign of God that is already among us if we'll just turn around and take notice.

The cross is less about Jesus dying for our sins, then, and a whole lot about Jesus dying because we can't give up our power or our pursuit of power. We can't empty ourselves of the delusions of grandeur that we maintain about ourselves. Still Jesus wants us to catch that vision of love, compassion, self-sacrifice. He's willing to pursue us with this saving vision that he lets nothing get in his way, not even death.

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Recommended listening for tonight: 

Hosanna! (Palm Sunday 2015)

Mark 11.9: 

Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’  

Mark 15.31: 

In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. 

 This morning, as the passion narrative was read, my mind was drawn to the remembrance that "hosanna" has something to do with salvation. There seems to be something lost in translation or vernacular, because the way the crowds used it in welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem doesn't precisely make sense---it doesn't seem to be a cheer of praise or adoration in the way, say, "hallelujah" is---but it does seem these crowds were expecting of Jesus, the healer and teacher and disciple-gatherer, to restore the kingdom of David. Basically, "save us from this Roman occupation!" 

 So, as often happens with my in worship services, I was pondering one specific thing---in this case, salvation and the classic questions like "saved from what, for what?"---and not necessarily paying attention to everything going on. 

But I was jarred back to the service before me as I heard the above verse from Mark 15 read. "He saved others, but he cannot save himself." 

 It jarred me because it was another instance of expecting salvation of a particular kind and not seeing the salvation before us. 

Even more, the second Bible quote reveals something about us and how we expect power to work. If the priests and scribes really believed that Jesus saved others (it's possible, they were mocking Jesus with the first half of the quote), the second half of the sentence reveals their own view on power---what's the point of having it if you don't use it for yourself? 

Except our other reading this morning held this bit (one of my favorite pieces of scripture): 

Philippians 2: 6-7

. . . who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.

What the priests and scribes didn't know---and we much too often forget---is that salvation doesn't come to the one doing the saving, not in the instant. Salvation comes after the one saving, indeed, the one with power to save, is spent, poured out, emptied. 

It may be the hardest lesson to learn, one that the church has failed at both teaching and modeling through the centuries. 

I offer this as a place to begin our Holy Week reflection upon the Passion of Christ. 

Faraway -- a book response

Some years ago, a friend who had spent many years being sexually molested by a family member, carefully and haltingly confided in me that part of the shame in being treated like that was that sometimes she liked it. That may be putting it too strongly. She sometimes experienced pleasure. Maybe that's as far as it went. I already feel like I'm putting words in her mouth.

But I carefully and as gently as possible said that made sense to me. Sex is pleasurable, genital stimulation feels good, and even if---maybe especially if---you're being treated like a sex toy, it made sense that you might try to lose yourself in whatever positive thing you could.

I surely don't know. I've been remarkably lucky to not have had that in my childhood.

My friend came to mind, however, as I read Faraway by R.K. Kline and Daniel D. Maurer. Faraway is the story of a summer in the mid-seventies when Kline, a teenager in suburban Missouri, found himself seduced into a life as a gay prostitute, a hustler in public parks and private homes. It starts out as what seems like a sexual adventure, even a burgeoning romance. A gay teenager eager to explore his sexuality would of course find the attentions of an attractive older man exciting and pleasurable. Indeed, part of what made this story compelling was how the authors draw the fine line of expressing the sensuality of the initial experiences while communicating the quick descent into something dangerous and abusive.

Sex feels good and even if it doesn't lead us into prostitution (or keep us in an abusive relationship), I think many adults have had the experience of the promise of pleasure leading to regretful, if less dire, situations.

But this book isn't really about the sex. It's just present, bluntly present, like a baseball bat to your ribs. Terrible things happen in this book, and they happen to minors, and they're heartbreaking, to say the least.

These terrible things happen, however, within the context of friendship and first love---things that most teenagers experience without the terror.

I hesitate to say too much about the story itself. It's something to experience as it unfolds without too much warning about what happens within it.

I will say that it's simply told, without much flash, without much literary pyrotechnics. It's frank. It's clear about what's going on without any attempt to soften the details or turn it into poetry. In current internet jargon, there maybe should be a "trigger warning" on the cover.

I will also say that I read this book in a day. I never do that. I was drawn into this story with the knowledge that the narrator made it out alive and eventually became a Lutheran pastor. I have to say that what kept me engrossed was the wondering how he escaped this circumstance.

Kline was human trafficked without ever leaving home and the circumstances around that had as much to do with how society treats LGBT people, the overt, negative messages we LGBT people receive on a daily basis. As much as he didn't like being a prostitute, the other boy hustlers were people who knew him and treated him like family. There was love among these boys, an unconditional love that Kevin couldn't be certain he would find from his own family.

I would like to think that a book like this would lead people to compassion for teens who find themselves in these dire situations, but I took a look at the reviews on Amazon and found that two reviewers found it self-serving and disgusting, seeing the 14 year old boy in the story as having enough agency to have known better or done differently. So there are heartless jerks in the world. I suppose this isn't news.

But I would highly recommend this book to someone who has a heart, is open to seeing what some people endure, how a search for friendship and love and acceptance can lead to really horrific places. Set aside your judgments and read what is, essentially, a message of hope and restoration. Don't expect to find easy comfort, but do enter into this story with a heart willing to be broken and with a mind willing to see how easily manipulated simple desire can be.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

We All Fall Down - Ash 2015

True story: I woke up this morning singing "ashes ashes, we all fall down."

I know it's a song about the plague, but it still fits pretty well. If we pause to remember, we have to acknowledge that we are ashes and we all fall under the power of death.

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A clergy friend on Facebook pondered today why, of all days in the church year, so many unchurched people want to receive ashes. Why not some more joyous day? Why turn to the church at the start of a penitent season? What does this say about people's expectations and image of the church? 

I'm sure I can't know all the possible reasons. One thing I've observed is that we, as a species, like rituals and I know people who make up their own rituals. That there are people gravitate towards the imposition of ashes is curious. Of all the established rituals of established religion, it's one that emphasizes our mortality, reminds us we will die. It's a powerful ritual, yes, but it's not what one might call "positive" in our culture of positive thinking.

It's also not a sacrament of the church, so perhaps being powerful without the weight of "salvation" talk, some people find it a safe place to experience solemn ritual.

I honestly don't know. But apparently it's common enough to make a clergy person ponder the phenomenon.

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Today, on my lunch hour, I took the MetroRail down to a grocery store for some lunch. There were a significant number of people with black crosses on their forehead. On the train, I observed, more than heard, a conversation between a blond twenty-something young woman and a Hispanic man of similar age. He had a cross on his forehead. I saw her lean in to him and point to his forehead. He seemed both surprised and a little embarrassed. I could tell his response was "It's Ash Wednesday." I could see her lips form the question, "What's that?" I wish I could have heard his response. It was short and it seemed to satisfy her and she settled back into her seat. 

It struck me how secular some parts of our society are now, how Ash Wednesday has to be explained to an adult. I don't have any real judgment about it, but it's a reminder that for some unchurched, all our rituals are foreign. We can't assume that people know something and just choose to ignore it. Some people really don't know. 

It also struck me that there was a priest or pastor somewhere along the rail line who had a really thick thumb. I saw some mighty bodacious ash crosses, all clearly the work of one thumb.  

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I didn't grow up with this ritual. We observed Ash Wednesday, but we didn't impose ashes. In my small town, predominantly German Texas  environment, that was something the Catholics did. No Lutheran would have thought to go about with ashes on their forehead, much less any Methodists or Baptists or Presbyterians (the other main denominations in town, all dwarfed by the Lutherans). I was an adult before I experienced this ritual. I guess it was in the 1980s when Lutherans started giving in to this piece of liturgical adiaphora. Seems strange, now, that we ever observed Ash Wednesday without it. (In my home town, there were no Episcopalians---something else I didn't experience until I was an adult---so there really weren't any other Christians to receive ashes besides the Catholics.) 

By the time I was in seminary, in the early 1990s, it had become a practice in many Lutheran churches. As a seminarian, I recall helping on Ash Wednesday with the ritual. It was all fine and not terribly profound until I had to mark an infant's forehead and tell her she was dust. I think that was the first time I felt the power of the ritual. 

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What is the power of the ritual? It's a little bit like a dance. If it could be expressed simply with words, we would write an essay. Instead, we have this ritual/dance. There are words, yes, but there is also something deeply nonverbal about it. It's physical, it's dirty, it's threatening, it's humbling, it's a very low common denominator. 

You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You, too. Me, too. 

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Is there some implication of redemption in it? "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." Ashes placed on our moist, blood-filled forehead, marking us with the form of a torturous method of execution, claiming that death device as some kind of identifier . . . It's not coming to me. It's not in the text or even really in the action. Maybe it's all the baggage around it, all the history and theology and larger ritual around it that we somehow find it meaningful and, ultimately, redemptive.

The more I type tonight, the more questions I have.

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We're going to die and it's somehow going to be okay. We're going to die and somehow God is in it. We're going to die and we forget this often enough that it's good to have a ritual to remind us, if only once a year, that it's our reality, and it's somehow okay and full of God. 

Maybe that's some small part of the nonverbal content of this ritual. 

I don't know. I'm grateful for the ritual. That is all.

NES: Ineffinitions

In the world of theater lighting, there is the phenomenon known as "spill." When hanging or focusing lights, the technicians (or techies as they're more familiarly known) work to have the light defining space on stage. The most recognizable example, I suppose, would be the spotlight, and the round pool of light it creates.


It's not uncommon to hear in the theater, in the course of setting the lights, someone say something like, "We have some spill on the edge of the playing area, downstage right." What they mean is that there is light falling where they don't want it to go. It's often faint, diffuse light, bu nonetheless not the effect desired. The techies will employ one instrument or another to get a sharper edge to the light.

(That I am using this analogy has some irony, as I just barely passed my lighting course in college, 30 years ago. I hope that what I've written above is clear enough to the non-theater person and doesn't embarrass myself too badly in front of my techie friends.)

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Theologians are a little bit the lighting designers of the religious world.

This thought came to me as I was reading  The Holy Spirit by Alasdair I.C. Heron. In this book Heron surveys the many ways the Holy Spirit has been portrayed or defined, both in scripture and in the history and doctrines of the church.

Associated with creation, ecstatic praise, prophetic utterances, conversion, and healing---among other things---the Holy Spirit has a history of not being up to any one thing. As the church wrestled with the Trinitarian language we used---particularly in the baptismal formula of "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"---questions arose. Wrangling with how Jesus was the "Son of God" was difficult enough, given our roots in Hebrew religion, but the Holy Spirit, with vague references in Hebrew scripture (usually just "Spirit of God," very seldom "Holy Spirit") seemed simultaneously like a given and an afterthought. We've always thought of God as Spirit, what's to discuss? But, ugh, we've made a deal about the Son being fully human and fully divine. Shouldn't we also say something about this Holy Spirit thing? How do we speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but only define two of them? And so the wrangling and wrestling continued.

A skilled lighting designer can help a team of theater artists direct our eyes to what they want us to see on stage, but it's slippery business. Particles and/or waves don't care much about our defined playing area.

However I go about talking about the Holy Spirit, there's going to be "spill" beyond what I say here. The word "ineffable" comes to mind, quickly followed by the old joke, "don't eff with the Ineffable." The joke seems like good advice, but still here I am.

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I've struggled with this first entry into the Not Exactly Systematic series. I've a notebook with no less than half a dozen false starts and her I have this, still mostly an introduction. 

So I'll close out with a little more introductory verbage. I want to be plain about my biases in my focus going forward, also about my reasons for starting this series with the Holy Spirit, rather than more traditionally with the Father. 

Bias---I believe there is Good News in the Christian faith. I believe the Gospel has the power to transform and enliven our existence. In reading Heron's book, I was struck by the absence of Gospel language. It wasn't absent, but it was not the focus---it was mostly spill. If a theology of the Holy Spirit---pneumatology for us theology geeks---is to have meaning for me, it is in proclamation of Good News. So my attempts in writing about the Holy Spirit will be looking there. Spill will undoubtedly occur. 

Reasons---As I began thinking about this project of writing about the Trinity (or in a broad way, the Creed), it occurred to me that the Holy Spirit is really the "person" that we experience most often or most directly if we experience something at all of God. God the Father is often painted as distant, needing intermediaries (like the Son or Spirit) for us to approach and experience God as Father. Jesus is the Incarnation of God, and we talk of him as being the person of the Trinity that comes near to us (Immanuel) in that this is God experiencing our pains and joys, sufferings and delights. Still, despite knowing an awful lot of Christians, I don't know anyone, personally, who has met the resurrected Christ in the same way that Thomas did, touching the wounds on the Body. I realized that anything I would call an encounter with Jesus was the work of the Holy Spirit revealing it as such. 

So: Good News focus, beginning with the Holy Spirit as the "Person" we're most like to meet first. 

Hopefully, next time, I'll move on beyond introductory material. 

[Moreso than usual, I welcome comments on the NES series. Questions and reactions will help me focus and shape future installments. Thank you for engaging.]