You and Me, Two by Two, Sent Out. . . Where?

Mark 6:1-13

That's you. That's me. Jesus lays his hands on our heads and says, "Go. Don't take extra clothes or money or food. Carry your walking stick--you're going to be on the road for a while. Stick together; two heads are better than one. I hereby give you authority over demons and illness and above all, authority to spread the good news far and wide. Have fun! Let me know how it turns out." And he turns away, headed for "other villages," ones that were more willing to listen to him than his own hometown, where they thought he was getting above himself.

So we start walking. Where shall we go first? Do we just head for the nearest village? (Should we avoid our own hometowns? You know how they are!) We have. . . I'm having a hard time getting my head around this. Let's take inventory.

Between us, we have one outfit of clothing each, including sturdy sandals. Hope it doesn't get cold, or rain too much.

We have walking sticks. That ought to be helpful. Somehow. . .

 I have 97 cents and you have almost $3. That ought to get us a couple of tacos. Did he say they'd feed us? What if they don't?

We have authority over demons. Wait. Authority over demons? Illness, too. Like when he spits on people's eyes, or touches children and says "Be healed." You can do that now? Me, too? Seriously??

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Jesus sends out his disciples two by two. How many times have we read or heard this story? Have we really taken it in? The disciples--you know, those guys who were always missing the point, always arguing, always two steps behind Jesus--those guys have authority from God over unclean spirits and go around raising people from the dead! Judas, even, no doubt.

Where would you start? How do you find out who has the demons and needs to be rescued, and who is sick? How do you learn what the good news is for each individual? (We might have to start by listening, I'm guessing.) Because, the GOOD NEWS is the same for everybody, but beyond that, nothing is ever the same for anybody, I've noticed. And why do you think we're supposed to go together?

Any ideas?

What does "God With Us" Mean?

This week's lectionary texts have in common the idea of God caring for us through an endless variety of troubles, from war to storm to the turmoil of being whispered against and hated. But I've been wondering for years, What does that mean, "God will take care of you"?

I can tell you some things it doesn't mean:
      You or your children will have enough to eat.
      You will not lose your home or job.
      Your marriage will succeed.
      You will not be attacked, raped, or tortured.
      You will not die. in some terrible way, whether from accident, disease, or as a casualty of war.

So, if it doesn't mean any of these things, what does it mean? Is God "with us" the way Dian Fossey was "with" the gorillas? Staying as silent and unobtrusive as possible, sitting alongside with a clipboard and noting everything? Watching with the joy or sorrow each event elicits, but not interfering? Liking, even loving the apes, perhaps giving them pet names, but doing as little as possible to have any effect on the experiment? "Day, Month, Year: Debbie had a bad thing happen to her. So sad. It's hard to watch. . ."
Is God "with us" like that?

Or is it more like a friend, walking alongside us with an arm around our shoulders, crying when we cry and laughing when we laugh, listening to our irritations, woes, and celebrations and joining in them with us. . . but powerless to change anything?
Is God "with us" like that?

Or is God with us with us? Is God inside our troubles and joys, as we are? Is God in the boat when we nearly sink, in the armor when we take up the sling against our (and God's) enemies, inside our skin when we are ecstatic or depressed? When I am cut, does God bleed? When I laugh, does God's belly shake?

I recently read a small sentence that struck me: "Remember that what happens to you touches Christ first." Touches him first? I thought about it. Imagine a white board. In the center of it I make a tiny dot. That represents you or me, one human. Then, in the air around the white board, I draw a BI-I-I-I-G circle, way, way too big to fit on the white board. That represents God. When you or I "ask God to live in our hearts," what would that look like? Who would be actually "inside" of Whom?

If that were a fairly good representation of Immanuel, God With Us, then whatever came our way, good, bad, or indifferent, would definitely touch God first. And if God's infinitely bigger than we are, then I submit that God's emotions are that much bigger, too. It touches God first.

I admit, it doesn't really answer the underlying questions of why Bad Things happen (and keep on happening and happening and happening) to Good People. (Not sure I am one of those anyway.) But it does make me feel better. A little. . .

You?

What if? A Choose-Your-Own-Ending Story

What if I were in the upper room when the wind started? What if I weren't Peter, or James, or John, or even Matthias? What if I were some wholly unknown person--maybe one of the women? (Not Mary or Mary or the other Mary--someone no one ever heard of or ever will.)

I cringe in terror at the sound of a hurricane right in the house with us--we all do, even fishermen who are used to Lake Galilee's erratic and temperamental attitudes. Maybe especially those fishermen, come to think of it. But gradually our fear transforms to a holy, shivery awe as we realize this wind is not of the earth. We lower the arms we'd thrown over our faces, and lift our heads. Everyone is staring at everyone else, mouths open. I suddenly remember hearing about Jesus telling Nicodemus that the Spirit is like the wind. He said he'd send that Spirit to us--another comforter, he said. We wouldn't be alone anymore. Not that we're alone now--I've never experienced anything like this unity. Still, Jesus is gone, and it's terribly lonely!

Fire! There's fire, too? My arms prickle with chills as I watch flame divide into little tongues which settle just above each head. Mine, too? I try to roll my eyes far enough back to see above my veil, but can't. Then the murmuring begins, and quickly grows to shouts of praise and amazement. Hebrew, Aramaean, Greek, and things I can't begin to recognize--what is this?!

The joy becomes too big to contain in one upstairs room. We spill out and down the stairs in a peoplefall of singing and rejoicing, and see that crowds are gathering. "They're drunk!" someone shouts, and I have to admit, that is what it feels like. Are we drunk? On what?

Peter begins to speak and the crowd (ourselves included) quiet to listen.

But I'm not Peter, or James, or John, or Matthias. I'm not Mary or Mary or anyone that anyone has ever heard of, or ever will.

So, what happens next?

Abiding is Invisible

In John 15, Jesus tells his disciples that they need to abide in him the way branches live in a grapevine. We've been discussing and arguing and analyzing what that means ever since. We check ourselves, check each other, check our actions, and check the church manual. We make sermons and songs and blog posts about abiding.

Most of all, we try to be sure we're doing it. Doing it right. Whatever it is. We look for fruit. That should tell us. He said if we abide, we produce fruit. Well, what is fruit? Good works? Converts? Proselytes?

Here's my two-cents' worth. True abiding is invisible, and subject to Heisenberg principle. If you can look at it, it's not there. (My own slightly tilted definition.) A baby at its mother's breast has no idea there's a mommy and a me and what's flowing between us and wrapped around me is love and it's making me grow. 

It just grows.

A branch on a tree doesn't have a clue that there's a tree and a trunk and a cambium layer and water and sunshine and air. It doesn't even know there are apples. 

It just makes them.

I am above all things a discussing, arguing, analyzing checker. I couldn't possibly recommend that we quit that. So maybe we should give our busy little brains other things to discuss, argue, analyze, and check. Maybe the nature of Christ, or the history of religion, or Hebrew dualism or Greek verb tenses. Yeah, that ought to keep us occupied. In the meantime, we can be silently, constantly, almost unconsciously twining tendrils of our being into God's heart. Or, more likely, God can be twisting tendrils into ours.

We'll be abiding. Someday we'll get close enough to look the Vine and the Vinedresser in the face and hear the words, "Fruit! Good job!"

We'll be astonished. And we'll be one with the One.

40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#40

40. Winter ALWAYS turns to spring. A blessed Easter Resurrection to all!


Sometimes it doesn't seem like it. We've had some winters in recent years that made me think spring was never coming back again. The ones I hate the most are the ones that are long, hard, cold, gloomy, but you survive them, and wait with bated breath for the thaw. . .
         and the thaw comes, and the crocuses come up . . .
                      and you're just starting to release your breath and sing praises. . .
                                          -----and a deep freeze from you-know-where sets in!
(Do they have deep-freezes you-know-where?)
The thermometer dips into single digits, the crocuses shrivel up (you can hear them crying), the clumps of daffodils wish they could change their minds and tunnel back down, and robins sit on branches, puffed up into little balls, shivering and discussing their Florida winter in annoyed chirpings.

This winter wasn't like that at all, where I live. The thermometer hung out in the 50s and 60s with some forays into the 70s. Sunshine was often in evidence. We had, if I recall correctly, two winter days in November, two or three in January, about a week in February, and that was it. It was pleasant, but unnerving. Are we also going to be 30 degrees above normal in July?! Once again, we missed spring, but in a different way. During about one week in March, everything from crocuses to lilacs and tulips bloomed, and that was it. 80s. Welcome to summer, and you're going to have to hire someone with a Real Mower to do the labyrinth park before you can even ride the mower around it.

Life is the same way. You can sit in cold and gloom and dark until you're pretty sure the sun will never shine again. Your heart lifts in wary hope at every sign of God's glory leaking through the clouds, and then plunges in despair when the next calamity strikes. Is it worth it? Or everything seems unnervingly Nice, and you try to enjoy the gift of each day without looking too deeply into its mouth or waiting for the other shoe to fall. (Was that enough metaphors for you? I could throw in something about tempting fate, the sword of Damocles, or maybe Murphy and his infamous Law!)

Here's what I've learned: Spring always comes. Always. Always. Eventually. Really. Hold on, and wait for the Resurrection. Not just the Big One, in the Sky By and By, but the little, daily resurrections that God sends in the midst of the doom and gloom. And meanwhile, do enjoy the bright days. And don't look in their mouths.

CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!!

40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#39

39. It never stops growing, no matter what.

I suppose this may not be true in the strictest sense. I know that when the temperature falls below 40 degrees, grass stops growing, and most other things are dormant in the winter, too. Some things actually have to have a certain number of days below freezing in order to thrive. But that dormant season is only for the purpose of resting and storing energy so that everything can begin anew in spring.

It starts before you can see it. Underneath a crust of snow, perhaps, or down in the mud of an early thaw, roots begin to stir. Insects and worms think about moving again. Sap starts creeping up the “veins” in tree trunks and vines. Long before any green appears, there’s a red tinge to briers, but you only notice it at a distance, where there are a lot of branches together in one mass. After a while, there’s a certain odor—more like a feel to the air. It’s almost as if your own veins begin to stir a little, your brain cells start to stretch and yawn.

Then one day, the grass is suddenly greener than it was last week, and there are hard little buds on the reddening berry vines and a reddish tinge up in the very tops of the tall trees, too. Then—there it is! A crocus! Those birds and beasts and berries and leaves that were slowly stretching a week ago are in a tearing hurry all at once, and you’re already behind on mowing and digging and planting . . . and it’s spring!

I’ve lived long enough to spend a lot of time feeling sluggish and dormant and worrying that everything in my heart looks dead and brown and hopeless. I’ve learned that most of what seems dead isn’t, that it’s easier to tell what is truly past hope and needs cut off after the greening season begins again, and most important of all, that only the Master Gardener knows for sure which is dead and which just needs pinching back in order to spring forth twice as vibrant as before. The problem is, of course, getting pinched back hurts! It doesn’t feel like something that’s going to cause growth. I don’t like it! I don’t suppose my grape vines, do, either.

I always apologize and try to do it gently and quickly. I’m pretty sure they’re okay with it. Because it’s the growth, the fruit, that really matters.

40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#38

38. Heaven can see all of it, all the time.


Throughout these weeks of Lent, one of the continuing themes has been the confusion that can occur when the path seems to lead in directions you wouldn't expect. You can sometimes see the center, but not the path, or see the path, but not the center. Many labyrinths are flat, made on stone or concrete, and a walker can see all of them at once from anywhere on the path. Mine is flat, too, and now, while the trees and vines are young, you can see most of it. But as it grows, that will be less possible.

In life, however, you can never see more than about three steps back and one or two forward. Sometimes it's hard to see your own toes! Don't you wish you could rise up to about treetop level and look down on the whole pattern of your life? Even if you still couldn't see the future, it would be nice to find out if there was some semblance of a pattern in what has already taken place. Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe we still couldn't recognize the pattern even if we could see it. The problem is, the path is years long (sometimes many fewer years than we wish, sometimes many more. . .) and on top of that, there's this unbelievable jumble of paths overlooking and intersecting each other. Every person in your life, from the waitress you met once to your parents and spouse and closest friends, whose lives have intertwined with yours (and yours with theirs) for decades, has a pattern all his or her own. Who could possibly make sense of the fractals and Golden Sections and spooky quantum physical weirdness that results from all that?

God can, that's who. Only God. Heaven sees my labyrinth, and yours, and hers and his and theirs. The rain falls and the sun shines and there are droughts and feasts and famines and epidemics and lush bounty and blessings beyond the possibility of numbering. And that's enough.