May, the Month I Mourn

Soon my body will begin to grieve. We are about to enter into the season of Grayson Owen's (a beloved family friend) birthday and soon after, his untimely death. My body always remembers this no matter how many decades pass. In many ways, Grayson's accidental death was the death of my own spiritual illusions.

Growing up in a family that flaunted rules, I took a different path - the one less traveled. I thought if you followed the rules, played it safe, loved Jesus, and returned your cart to the appropriately designated area when leaving stories, nothing too terrible would happen.

I was wrong.

After the loss of Grayson I was busy feeling helpless. Have you ever noticed how many people tell you the wrong ways to support grieving people? But NO ONE tells you how to do it "right". Of course, I'm old and now I know better: there is no right way to support people in grief. No matter what you do, it is not enough nor should it be. Because there is nothing this side of heaven that fully comforts a family and community who have lost one so dear, one so precious as a son, a friend, a beloved mischievous boy with beautiful brown eyes and gorgeous shiny hair.

But life continued. My kids still required food on the table. So off to Sam's Club I go. It's warm out, early July is my best guess. And it hits me as a trudge to the car with my cart full of food and several useless items that were too good a deal to pass up. Not the grief of his parents, or his brothers, or my daughter. Not the grief of his grandparents or friends. My grief.

So I unload those groceries and trinkets into the back of my mini-van, a vehicle that was accustomed to toting this young man to and fro on adventures with the surviving musketeers, and I DO NOT RETURN THE DAMN CART. I just leave it sitting in the middle of the parking lot.

Because I learned my lesson. Parents can do the best they can and still lose their kids. People can be and do good and none of it is protection from pain.

It is a great con, an attractive one, but a con nonetheless to teach people that if we are very, very good God will protect us from suffering. The worst rebuke Jesus ever offers is when the disciple Peter dares to object to the predicted suffering and death of Christ. Preach him crucified.

We have an opportunity, this Easter season, if we sit with the crucifixion long enough, to realize that what scares us the most is not cured by magical thinking. But if we let it, the resurrection can bring us hope. Not a hokey hope, not wishful thinking, something different.

What do you fear so much that you are willing to buy snake oil to cure it?

“Asking the Right Person for the Wrong Thing."

In Barbara Taylor Brown's book, Teaching Sermons on Suffering, she reminds us of the Zebedee brothers, who got their mom to ask Jesus to make them his right and left hand men (See Matthew 20 for all the lovely details). Embarrassing, right? When we get our mom to do our work, certainly we do not want to get caught - much less have it recorded in the Bible!

But there it is. Here is how Jesus responds to James and John. "You will indeed drink my cup," he says to them, "but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant." Barbara adds this, "They have, in other words, asked the right person for the wrong thing. They have asked the shepherd for individual retirement accounts. They have asked the footwasher for alligator shoes. They have asked the carpenter's son for box seats in paradise, and none of them is his to give. he can heal lepers and coast out demons; he can give sight to the blind and he can even raise the dead, but he cannot confer status or guarantee income or grant heavenly perks, because he does not have any of them to give." (p. 55, Teaching Sermons on Suffering)

So there it is. Right there in print. Want a demotion? Want to take on the role of servant? Go to Jesus. Want a robust retirement account? Be frugal and save your pennies.

What are you asking Jesus for?

Betrayal

What comes to your mind when you think of Judas? Traitor - right? He betrayed Jesus for 30 silver coins. What else do you know about him? He was not mentally ill, that we know of, nor did he secretly bear a grudge and insatiable desire for insurrection.

He was a friend of Jesus. A friend. An intimate. A confidante. He was the guy who held the money for Jesus' ministry team. He was at the wedding in Cana and saw Jesus turn water into wine; he say the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. He watched the blind healed and Lazarus raised from the dead. He let Jesus wash his feet. He was a good guy. And no one would have guessed that this is the guy who would betray Jesus.

Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss but it was not long before everyone else tucked tail and ran too. Jesus had far more to fear from his team than he did from outsiders. Outsiders were an expected threat.

Judas was the guy who most wanted Jesus to lead with a sword. When it became clear that Jesus was not going to lead through traditional means - intimidation and force - surely Judas himself felt as if Jesus had betrayed him!

And how does Jesus respond? He feeds Judas; he washes his feet; Judas is never excluded from the circle. Jesus knew who the betrayer was but he also was clear on who He was - the guy who loses to win. He is the guy who feeds the hungry and gives water to the thirsty. Jesus loved Judas even when Judas could not love him back. Even our betrayal is not enough to crush the love of God.

Preach Him Crucified

"Do I not conquer my enemy," said Abraham Lincoln, "By making him my friend?"

This said by the guy who was gunned down in Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. on April 14th, 1865.

As I so often say, this is a terrible sales pitch for following Jesus but Lincoln's words are imitations of Christ's teachings. Paul reiterates this in Romans 12 - be devoted, honor one another, be joyful, patient and faithful. Be hospitable, rejoice and mourn as appropriate, hang out with the rabble, do right and do not repay evil with evil, live at peace and do not seek revenge.

Preach him crucified.

Because these instructions (and more) continually remind us that we are losers in life if we define winning as getting our way or expecting to be treated well by others or demanding that Jesus prosper us just because we love him. No, that's not the Jesus way. We are to feed our enemy and give him water if he is thirsty. Overcome evil with good.

Sometimes this means rumbling a bit. Sometimes it will require loving others by telling the truth even when we know it will stir up feelings that, shall we say, are less than pleasant? But this is what love is. It is imitating Christ. It is loving when our feelings do not justify it. Sometimes love is tender, sometimes it is....firm.

Once when I was a kid I got glass in my foot while swimming at a public pool. I was at my grandmother's house visiting and I knew that if anyone was going to help me remove the glass - it was not going to be her. So I went next door and my beloved friends' mother, Dot, removed the glass without flinching. She was a sturdy woman that way. In that moment, I needed someone who could do hard things, which included pulling a shard of glass out of a frightened child's foot. It was as loving as serving me a double scoop of homemade ice cream - which my grandmother did later that evening.

Easter is a lot about resurrection but it is also about crucifixion. Preach him crucified.

The Dynamic Duo

The first baptism I ever performed was in a church. It totally freaked out those who came to be baptized. We were meeting in a school but walked across the street to a church for the baptism. I lacked imagination for what a jolt that would be to the system of our community. The church had graciously allowed us to use their baptismal font after their traditional 11 am service. Perfect. They would leave and we would arrive - no problem. Except that my friend freaked out. She was intimidated by the steeple, its people, and the formality of the environment. We survived the trauma. Barely.

Her shame attack was associated with past experiences in a church that sounded more like John the Baptist than Jesus. Remember? John was all about repentance. He went around in grunge attire shouting, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." People traveled great distances to take him up on his offer to wash away their past and start fresh.

To us, John the Baptist sounds like he is issuing some sort of threat. Why can blame us? That is how it is presented in many churches. To the people who followed John this was a promise. My friend had years of triggered messaging from a church that preached a message of fire and brimstone to her, a young woman who feared she was dancing very close to the flames. Her experience resulted in shame and guilt but their experience, those who heard the message of John, was one of pardon. My friend heard her pastor demanding that she own up to her depravity, ego and pride. But this message was ineffective because these were not her core issues!

My friend's core issue was hopelessness. John the Baptist preached the message of repentance BEFORE Jesus stepped up and taught us the concept of grace. This was not a haphazard or mixed message from God to us. God gets us. God is not focused on us as miserable sinners; he is well aware that what we need is faith in HIS commitment and power to renew and restore what humanity breaks. Soon the weather will be warm and our community will return to the water for another opportunity to wash away the past and start fresh. Our usual spot is the James River. The bottom is rocky, the water often brown with swirling mud; I usually see a snake or two observing our ritual. I'm always glad when it is over and we all manage to safely return to shore. It seems more fitting, somehow, to enter into those rocky rapids with a little fear and trembling.