Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel
First Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm: Psalm 31:9-16
Second Reading: Philippians 2:5-11
Gospel: Mark 14:1--15:47
Gospel (Alt.): Mark 15:1-39 [40-47]
Palm Sunday has become a busy Sunday. Somewhere in the past twenty years, we've gone from hearing just the story of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem to hearing the whole Passion story--on Palm Sunday many Christians leave the church with Jesus dead and buried. If we return to church for the rest of Holy Week, we hear the same stories on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. It makes for a long, Sunday Gospel reading--and reinforces one of the paradoxes of the Passion story: how can people shout acclaim for Jesus in one day, and within the week demand his Crucifixion? Maybe it's good to hear the whole sad story in one long sitting, good to be reminded of the fickleness of the crowd.
It's one of the central questions of Christian life: how can we celebrate Palm Sunday, knowing the goriness of Good Friday to come? How can we celebrate Easter with the taste of ashes still in our mouth?
Palm Sunday reminds us of the cyclical nature of the world we live in. The palms we wave this morning traditionally would be burned to make the ashes that will be smudged on our foreheads in 10 months for Ash Wednesday. The baby that brings joy at Christmas will suffer the most horrible death--and then rise from the dead. The sadnesses we suffer will be mitigated by tomorrow's joy. Tomorrow's joy will lead to future sadness. That's the truth of the broken world we live in. Depending on where we are in the cycle, we may find that knowledge either a comfort or fear inducing.
Palm Sunday offers us some serious reminders. If we put our faith in the world, we're doomed. If we get our glory from the acclaim of the secular world, we'll find ourselves rejected sooner, rather than later.
Right now, we live in a larger culture that prefers crucifixion to redemption. For some of us, we see a brutal world that embraces crucifixion: no second chances, perhaps no first chances.
It's at times like these where the scriptures offer comforts that the world cannot. Look at the message from Isaiah: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. . . . For the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near" (Isaiah 50, first part of verse 4, verse 7, and first part of verse 8).
God promises resurrection. We don't just hope for resurrection. God promises resurrection.
God calls us to live like the redeemed people that we are. Set your sights on resurrection. We are already redeemed--it's up to us to fold the grave clothes of our lives and leave the tomb. Turn away from the cultures of evil and death that surround us.
Now more than ever, it's important that people of faith commit to redemption and new life. From the ashes, let us build the community that God wants for us.
Monday, March 18, 2024
Looking Ahead to Fall Seminary Classes
When we get to reading week, I start to check to see if the schedule of classes for the following term has been released yet. Even in the week or two before reading week, I check, although I know that the schedule isn't likely to be released. Yesterday, I checked to see if the Fall schedule was there, even though it was Sunday. There it was.
I must have missed the late afternoon posting of the schedule, because when I checked late Friday morning, it wasn't there. I can't actually register for classes until March 25, so I haven't lost out. More exciting, there are plenty of classes that will work for me.
In the past year, I haven't had as many classes that I could take. That's partly a function of having been in the MDiv program for awhile: a lot of the courses offered are ones I've already taken. But I've also felt a bit fretful as I've seen fewer classes that are offered for students who have to take classes from a distance.
This fall, I'll be taking a variety of classes: one is completely online, one meets by way of Zoom Mondays from 6:30 to 9:30, and two meet in person on campus for one week, October 14-18, with the rest of the work online.
If I take one more class, I could be done with the MDiv by December. But do I want to do that? Hmm. One of my favorite professors is teaching a class on the Gospel of Mark, so it's tempting. That class meets by way of Zoom once a month, and the rest is online. It could be doable.
You may be saying, "Wait, aren't you about to start a full-time job in the Fall?" Yes. Could I handle a heavy teaching load and a heavy seminary class load at the same time? Yes.
I will take the four classes regardless, unless something changes radically. It gets my requirements done, and the classes that I need for the certificate in Theology and the Arts done. I want to take the classes while they are offered and in a format that works for me. I can't be sure that it will happen term after term. Let me seize this opportunity while it's here!
Sunday, March 17, 2024
The Seeds of Saint Patrick's Day
I have never done much celebrating of St. Patrick's Day. I don't drink green beer, and if someone else served me corned beef, I'd eat it, but I don't love it enough to make it for my own homestead. Occasionally I make Irish soda bread, and I wonder why it isn't tastier. I've made a cake with Guinness beer occasionally, and here, too, I wonder why it isn't more delicious. I'm not braving the crowds to go to an Irish pub--I like my pubs deserted.
I am intrigued by the crowds of people who have no connection to Ireland or Christianity or any of the reasons we celebrate today. But I'm not critical. I believe in injecting festivity into daily life in whatever way we can.
Today I will go to church, people may wear green. That's fine. I am preaching a sermon that thinks about Saint Patrick, the Oscars, the U.S. presidential race, and today's Lectionary text: John 12: 20-33, a text about seeds and the necessity to die so that we may live again. Many would preach this text as an eternal life text, but I'm encouraging us to look at our current lives. What bulbs do we need to be planting? Where are we stuck in the mud of life?
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Intensifying Lent in the Last Week of Lent
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
More on Infographics
I don't have much writing time this morning. I need to leave even earlier than usual for a morning of meetings in Spartanburg. Let me return to the idea of infographics, which I first wrote about in this blog post. Now that my baptism infographic has been graded, I can share it:
As I was looking at my pictures, I came across the black and white version, which I took in case I messed up the infographic when I added color. I wouldn't have had a way to undo the color, but I could have turned in the black and white version. Happily, I liked the color version better.
I still find this concept of an infographic intriguing. I'm still looking for ways to incorporate it into my writing classes. Of course, this is the time of year when I find myself yearning for a different way to do the research paper. Or wishing that I didn't have to do a research paper at all.
Let me record this here: as much as I'm enjoying teaching, I do find myself yearning to do more creative things in class and not having to do some of the traditional stuff, like the research essay. I find myself wishing I could teach less English writing classes and more creativity class. Not so much creative writing, but a class exploring creativity.
Maybe I just want to play with art supplies.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel
Psalm 51:1-13 (Psalm 51:1-12 NRSV)
or Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33
This verse is my favorite from the Gospel for this week: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (verse 24). I have a vision of a seed who desperately resists change, who wants life to continue as normal. "Let me have the familiar. Don't force me to change."
But that seed doesn't see that it lives alone in the dark, damp earth. It thinks life is fine, because it has never known anything else. It thinks life is fine, because it doesn't have a vision of anything else. How can it? It lives all alone in the dark, damp earth.
Only by letting go (however painful that might be) of its current life, will that little seed find itself transformed. That seed, in its current form, must die, so that it can be reborn into a much more glorious life. That seed, once it lets go, once it faces death, will break through into a life of sunshine and fresh air and water and smiling faces. That seed, once it lets go, will find much company. It will bear fruit, which means it has fulfilled its biological imperative--it has gotten its genes into the next generation.
The most obvious way of interpreting this passage is to see it as being about death and Heaven. Eventually, we die and break out of our existential loneliness by joining our loved ones in Heaven.
But perhaps this passage gives us a deeper insight.
Certainly, we see a vision of Christ, who is troubled (according to traditional interpretation) by his impending death. That seed represents Christ's death as well as our own. If Christ had just lived quietly into old age, preaching and teaching, it's a pretty safe bet that you and I wouldn't be Christians. It is only by Jesus' death and rebirth that Christianity can flourish.
We might also think about how that seed could represent our current lives. What part of your life do you need to let die, so that you can be transformed into something glorious? Past visions of Christianity stressed the glories we could look forward to in the afterlife, yet Christ comes to live with us to show us how we can live now, how we can make the Kingdom manifest on earth now.
We spend much of our lives in the dark, damp earth--and that earth can be a metaphor for many things--what imprisons us? Is it our tendency towards anger? despair? Does the earth stand for the substances we abuse? Does the dirt represent the behaviors that keep us from fulfilling our true potential as Christians?
Before you plunge into sadness about all the ways you've fallen short, take heart. Remember that the dirt is also a nourishing medium. Seeds won't grow without dirt. All that dirt has gone a long way to protecting you for that time when you're ready to bloom.
God's vision for us is not one that keeps us muffled and buried and alone in the mud. All we have to do is to die to our current lives.
That sounds so harsh. And yet, it is what is required of us. Much of our New Testament stresses that fact. Being a Christian requires that our old life dies. Otherwise, we won't flower and flourish like we should.
In keeping with the seed metaphor, all we have to do is shuck off the husk of our former lives. All we have to do is to have the faith to face transformation. All we have to do is sprout.
Friday, March 8, 2024
International Women's Day and the Church
March is the month designated to celebrate women's history; March 8 is International Women's Day. We might ask ourselves why we still need to set time apart to pay attention to women. Haven't we enacted laws so that women are equal and now we can just go on with our lives?
And that's in a first world country. The picture for women in developing nations is bleak. And these past few years have reminded us that legal protections can be stripped away, in every country.
Most of us understand why a world where more women have access to equal resources would be a better world for all of us. Many of us have spent years and decades working to make that world a reality. Some of us are lucky enough to have a church that supports the vision of equality that God offers to us as what the Kingdom of God looks like.
Not everyone has that experience. And sadly, many people have experienced discrimination against women coming at them through their churches. That damage may have happened years ago, in churches that no longer resemble the ones we have now--but the damage is done, for those people.
We know that the world can change very quickly, and God calls us to be part of the movement to change the world in ways that are better for all--and particularly for the vulnerable and powerless. We have made great progress on that front. But there is still more to do.
So, today, let us get started, let us continue, let us make progress. And let us pray for all who are with us on the journey. And let us pray for all of those who need us to make progress at a faster rate for their very lives and the lives of their daughters are at stake.