Year B Easter 2: that our joy may be complete

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

That which we have  heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life– this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us– we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

I have spent every day since Eater Sunday immersed in our Spring Break Vacation Bible School, and it was a good week.

On Monday, we reviewed child safety policies and boundaries (not the most pleasant part of the project, but necessary and sound), and distributed lesson materials amongst the leaders, checked our schedules, prayed for the week to come. On Tuesday, the children arrived. In a whirlwind. We spent six hours of each day together till Friday, then yesterday morning the children brought their families to show them what we had done together, what we had heard and seen with our eyes, what we had looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, not to mention playdough, jump-rope, painted t-shirts and soft toys.

One of the daily features of the week was our God-sightings project; bunting created out of paint and old t-shirts, and pictures of God.

The God sightings were, of course, a variation on the theme that we introduced last year with the simple question: Where have you seen God?

At first, when we introduced the question, the children were doubtful. We had just learned a song which calls God “invincible,” which led to a small investigation of the difference in meaning between “invincible” and “invisible;” but when it came to seeing God, it was God’s invisibility that raised doubts and caution in the children’s minds. How could they hear God with their own ears; see God with their own eyes; touch God with their own two hands?

It is Thomas’s dilemma, and it is the human condition, to wonder how to trust the evidence of our sense when they are working beyond the realm of the visible, audible, smellable, touchable world in which we live and move and have our being. The world, I might add, that God gave us.

The other disciples tried to persuade Thomas of what they had seen and heard, but he was doubtful, at least at first. By the end of the week, though, when Jesus returned once more, Thomas was ready, and his only recorded words at that meeting are not of doubt but of joyful worship: “My Lord and my God!”

Had his brother persuaded him? Or at least sown the seeds of doubt in his mind at his own stubbornness, the resistance of his senses?

We do influence one another, in the way that we see or don’t see God; in the way that we look upon the world that God has made. Choosing to look for God’s actions within it helps us to know where we are called to act in union with God’s will; to know where it is that Jesus is beckoning us to hold his hands, touch his side, follow him.

There is a strong theme of thunder in the t-shirts hanging downstairs. The children found God’s voice in the thunder; they recognized God’s power in the storm; and they saw the light split open the darkness. By Wednesday or Thursday morning, when the thunder rolled in before dawn, before my alarm went off, I found myself rolling over and rumbling back, ”Good morning, God.” The children at our VBS had influenced where I found God, heard God’s voice, calling me to rise to another day.

This morning, I awoke to the sound of a flock of geese. The ancient Celts thought that these were a sign of the Spirit; how else, they wondered, could they know how to fly in a perfect V formation, except by divine inspiration. In the half-light this morning, I imagined the V of the geese flying the line between the light and the dark in the sky, bringing the light to life: Good morning, God.

These fifty days of Easter are a strange and troubling time, when the risen Christ walks abroad, taking his disciples by surprise on the road, by the water, behind closed doors, murmuring of Peace. They are days when the signs of God are all around us, the signs of resurrection, calling us into the good news that the kingdom of God has drawn near. But as the disciples trembled to recognize Jesus – Mary in the garden, the couple on the road to Emmaus; Thomas, hearing the news second-hand – so it is easy for us to dismiss and even willfully ignore the signs of Christ’s presence, unless we choose otherwise; unless we choose to walk in the light, with our eyes open.

It is easy; it is too easy to see the dark side. It is never hard to find; it never was, from the rise of Rome to its falling; history turning in its grave. It is our vocation to find the new life of the light of Christ, whether in a historic handshake or the embrace of brothers; and it is our vocation to share the good news of the risen Christ at work in the world; to tell the story of God’s love for the world, of Jesus who returns with a greeting of Peace; because we have influence in the way that the world lives and moves and has its being, when we choose to share what we have heard and seen and touched concerning the word of life.

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life … we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us… so that our joy may be complete.

We have seen the Lord.

Amen.

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Easter 2015: on not winning

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Our Sunday School children know the rule about running at church – the one that says, “Please don’t run in the church.” This morning, the rule was suspended for five minutes – set on a timer – so that the story might be told.

Mary Magdalene comes and tells Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple about her discovery of the empty tomb. SP and the BD run to the tomb – somewhere along the way it seems to turn into a bit of a race. The BD gets there first. He looks inside, but doesn’t go in. Although he arrives second (and maybe more short of breath), SP has no such hesitation, and dives headlong into the empty tomb.

[During the reenactment of the race, two by two up the centre aisle, I had not expected my first SP to be quite so shy; I had not, in other words, expected to have to dive through the empty tomb, aka packing box, myself, to lead the way. Fortunately, I made it through to the other side, though there were some worrying moments.]

So who, technically, won the race? Who got to the tomb first?

The BD, who arrived first at the door? Simon Peter, who was the first to enter? What about Mary Mags, who had already been there and back before the boys were even awake?

What about Jesus?

In a way, it doesn’t matter who got there first, because Jesus isn’t there. Instead, he comes back for them, calling Mary by name, walking on the beach with Peter, watching over the BD, even returning twice to the same place for Thomas, trying again.

Jesus is not a prize we win. He comes freely to each of us, to call us by name. We don’t always recognize him. But he comes back for us, not only when we’re winning, but especially when we’re sad, or lonely, or lost.

But when he does come back for Mary, lost and lonely in the garden, he won’t let her hold onto him; when he does come to her, and call her name, he tells her to share the good news.

Jesus is not a prize we hold onto, but the good news that we share.

*

This is not a religion for winners. I saw a billboard once, for a church, that said, “Where Winners Worship, And God is Praised,” and my first thought was, well, that’s nice.

But what about the rest of us? Where do the losers go to worship. And is God praised when they do, or do you have to win for it to count?

Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with winning. A number of basketball players and fans are counting on that this weekend. The fast, the strong, the agile and the able, the smart and quick-witted, each have their place at the table. But it is the best news to some of us that this is not necessarily the religion of winners.

Jesus ended up losing his life on a cross, for all his winning ways. And even after the resurrection, there were no winners amongst his disciples; Jesus was not a prize for the fastest, the boldest, the bravest. We would love to win the right to decide whom God loves, but that’s just not how the gospel works.

No one gets to hold onto God’s love and dole it out like candy prizes, rationing the deserving and the undeserving.

It can get quite uncomfortable, sharing God’s love with those we find it impossible to love. But even from the cross, Jesus invoked God’s forgiveness on his own murderers. There are those we find it inconceivable to love; but for God all things are possible, and God made each of us, all of us, for the love of God.

This is not a clear-cut Christian story. The Gospel is rather a messy, unfair, unkempt story of failure and death, angel encounters, winnerless races, empty grave clothes, and the destruction of evil, the undoing of death, the reversal of the Resurrection of Jesus, who comes back for each of his disciples, to call them by name and assure them of his love for each last one of them, even if they mistake him for the gardener; even if he has to come back to the same place twice.

We love the idea of winning. But isn’t it even better to know that we do not need to win God’s love? That God has loved us all along. And Jesus is the living proof of that love.

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Easter Vigil 2015: ready or not

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Last night, I buried Jesus under the apple tree.

Good Friday, and the daytime of Holy Saturday, are the only times in the Christian year in which the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, is not celebrated. Instead, on Maundy Thursday at the commemoration of the first Last Supper, enough bread and wine are consecrated to serve those present that night, and those returning on Friday to contemplate the Cross. Between those two services, the bread and the wine, the Body and its Blood, remain in the garden of Gethsemane, suspended, awaiting trial and crucifixion in a room full of flowers and light, an imitation of Eden.

After the Good Friday service, with the aumbry hanging open and its sanctuary light extinguished, the garden dismantled and the lights turned out, there is nothing to do but to consume what is left of the sacred mystery. Jesus’ body is hidden from us in the tomb, and we may not hold onto it.

Of course, the priest’s dilemma is that of any host trying to predict how much food and wine will be needed for a two-day open house. There must be enough for anyone who shows up; which generally means there is too much, which leaves us with leftovers.

After everyone had left in silence and the dark, I came into the Sacristy to finish the work of Good Friday, and I was faced with half and pound of bread and half a bottle of wine. The wine was easy; we have what is called a piscina, which is a special drain that goes straight into the ground, designed specifically for disposing of sacred elements that cannot be consumed. Which left half a pound of bread, the Body of Christ.

The two universally agreed-upon ways of disposing of sacred elements are burying or burning. There are those who scatter the Bread for the birds, and I have nothing but respect for them, but I cannot personally bring myself to break and throw and walk away from the Body with which I have formed an intimate connection. I thought also of an online colleague who had the genius idea of turning her leftover Bread into Bread Pudding; I wished, briefly, that I could be the person who could take it home, transform it into delicious dessert, resurrect it to a new life for Easter. But again, I couldn’t see myself driving it home, breaking down the Body of Christ, soaking it to bits, adding eggs, baking it, bringing it, watching the crumbs at the coffee hour, worrying about the leftovers all over again.

So instead, in the dark and the rain, I slunk past the AA meeting and got a shovel from the garage; using stepping stones to avoid too much mud, I dug a new grave, and I buried it under the apple tree.

One of the gifts of the Easter Vigil is its beginning in darkness, while the earth still rests under the shroud of Christ’s death on the cross, his entombment. On Easter morning we get all sorts of silly, with noisemakers and egg hunts and children’s sermons where anything goes – seriously, if you’re here again in the morning, remember it’s only Easter once a year and don’t think too poorly of me when I play a little loudly with the children at the mouth of the empty tomb.

In the morning, in the daylight, all is forgiven and all is revealed and restored and reawakened; but in the darkness before the dawn, we are still stumbling back towards the graveyard, retracing our steps to the tomb, and we are not sure yet what we will find.

The people of Israel, leaving Egypt under the cover of night. Ezekiel, in the valley of dry bones rising. The women, in fear and trembling wondering what, who they will find at the tomb. The deliverance of God defies death, denies the powers of evil, restores us to new life; and yet it is frightening, the power that is present, the mystery of God’s love for us, so steadfast and straightforward; incomprehensible. In the gospel which we will hear shortly, the women are afraid to tell anyone what they have seen and heard. They tremble at the thought of Jesus’ return, even as they rejoice at his rising.

We are familiar with this suspense, this conflict of desire, of hope, and the apathy of fear. A friend wrote today that it is here, in the darkness of Holy Saturday, perhaps, where we spend most of our time: in that in-between space, life-locked, nothing to do but await resurrection. And when it comes, we are barely ready, so sunk into our Saturday slough, our tombs sealed shut, our bodies running on empty, our minds run out altogether, our hearts turning over like an engine out of gas, an irregular, hollow wheeze, rattle, and thump. We are barely ready for resurrection.

And so we gather in the darkness before the dawn, and pray with those caught in the empty spaces between death and life. The ones in Kenya, shocked by sudden death; the ones whose grief has smoothed the walls of their hearts and left them hollow; the ones locked out of life by illness or addiction or despair or by locked doors, locked-up minds, locked-out hearts, the ones who wait for resurrection, and tremble at its coming.

The ones who bury the Body, because they cannot bear to see it left out for the birds, because they need to seal up the tomb.

We are barely ready for resurrection. But it is coming. Whether we are ready or not, God has never been unprepared to restore us to life, to hope, to joy;

We come together, in the darkness before the dawn, like the people of Israel gathered on the shores of the Red Sea, like the bones drawn together to await the breath of life, like the women clinging to one another, coming in fear and trembling towards the empty tomb. Whether we are ready or not, Jesus has plumbed the depths of hell and found them wanting; he has spring-cleaned the tomb and left it empty.

We come together, in fear and hope of coming face to face with new life, the power of God played out in the mystery of resurrection, the power of life over death, life let loose, unlocked, let out.

Whether we are ready or not, he has returned to jump-start our empty, wheezing hearts; to feed us with bread pudding, heavy and sweet, to restore our appetite for life.

Ready or not, resurrection is coming.

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Good Friday 2015: Bury me at the crossroads

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

I nail my sins to the cross,
not because I blame God, or believe that Jesus should bear my guilt.
I have often heard myself cry “crucify,” but this is not that.
This is some strange, new hope that comes from
seeing the crucifixion from the other side,
knowing that when Jesus died,
what we used to nail him to that tree
was our own blasphemy;
the ways in which we deal death where God would give us life:
extremism, terrorism, state-sponsored execution, murder;
our jealousy, hypocrisy, our feigned innocence,
washing our hands of “accidental” death from the guns that we make,
the drugs that we supply;
the demand that we populate with twisted desire.
Anti-Semitism, every kind of phobia; racism, sexism,
and the everyday slights which we offer one another,
the paper cuts of daily life together.
Our ignorance and indifference;
our design and our distraction,
all become the destruction that we nail into the cross,
the cross of Christ.
But from the other side, we see him take them down,
down with him to the netherworld.

So nail my sins to the cross,
a dubious memento to take to the grave,
and leave them there,
if you would save us from ourselves.
As you open the doors of hell, lift Lazarus out,
bury my malice, seal up my lust.
Let rage run cool, my heart grow molten
to merge with the rock of my salvation
which is fallen so far from the heavens,
a meteor splitting the ground;
falling further than evil can follow,
Nail my sins to the cross,
take them with you,
leave them there,
if you would save us from ourselves.
Bury me at the crossroads.
Let your grave be my destruction,
your rising my resurrection.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.

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Maundy Thursday 2015

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

The last time that someone washed my feet in a real-life situation (not that liturgy is not real life – it should be, it should represent to us the realest of realities, life fully lived – but we often fail to take it that way, so let me put it this way for now); the last time that someone washed my feet in a real-life situation was more than quarter of a century ago. I had argued that morning with my mother. We loved each other very much, but I had disappointed her, and she was in the process of disappointing me with her response. My rejection of her values felt to her like a betrayal; her refusal to accept my independence felt like betrayal to me. We argued, then, each out of our own sense of injured love; but life goes on, and I went out for the day.

When I came home, my foot was bleeding from a cut acquired through the wearing of open-toed sandals in a dirty and dangerous city. My mother came into the bathroom where I was going through the tortured motions you have to go through in order to get your own feet under running water and into clean bandages. Without hesitation, my mother took my feet out of my hands, washed them, anointed them with antibiotic ointment, and bandaged them for me. As she worked, she offered from her knees and from her heart her forgiveness, her acceptance, her love; and I found myself doing the same. Neither of us had changed our position, yet love and mercy won, and we were reconciled.

We ask our annual ritual of foot-washing to bear a lot of freight. Once a year, we become the disciples, receiving grace without understanding; we are Peter, trying to deny, to resist; we are Judas, scalded by the touch of mercy; we are the woman, washing Jesus’ feet with our tears and drying them with our hair, anointing them with ointment and with kisses. We are Jesus, with a towel around our waist. No wonder are tempted to sidestep the real issues of betrayal and forgiveness, murder, mayhem and humble reconciliation, true love; no wonder we are tempted to turn it into a parable of pretense, a re-enactment; rarified ritual, performance religion, humbler-than-thou, obsequious servility, anything but reality.

Jesus was not play-acting with his disciples. This was not a stunt; it was a prophetic action, a parable played out. He knew that Judas would betray him. He knew that Peter would deny him. He knew that all of them would wonder if they had been wrong all along, if they had fallen under the spell of a madman. He needed them to know, too, that they were loved, to the end; only then would they stand any chance of obeying that new commandment, to love one another.

He needed them to know that they were forgiven for their doubts and their faltering faith, that they were accepted and reconciled and that God’s steadfast love and mercy ran through Jesus’ veins and through his hands and through the water that was poured upon them.

We ask our ritual of foot-washing to bear a lot of freight, if we do it right. Just as the breaking of the bread should make us shudder at the memory of the body broken, quaking through our own brokenness, yet bringing sweetness to the tongue; so the water should make us shiver with its knowledge of all of our betrayals, yet soothe us with its forgiving touch.

If our liturgy is to connect to our real life, a whole life lived in the light of Christ, then what we bring to our ritual is our real selves, our own betrayal, our own faltering faith, our own forgiveness, our own injured and imperfect love. Our love that is injured by injustice; restricted by our freedom to discriminate, rendered imperfect by our self-righteousness before God, our false humility before one another. We betray one another by our failure, our refusal to see Christ in those whose feet he would have washed without a moment’s hesitation.

If our liturgy is true, then we no longer become Peter, or James, or John. We are not play-acting, re-enacting, pretending humility, forcing familiarity. We are not the unnamed woman with the tears and the ointment. We are not Judas, and we are not Jesus.

We are children of God, hasty and rebellious. We are the Body of Christ, bearing God’s witness to the world, reconciling power and authority with love.

By this, said Jesus, shall they know that you are my disciples: that you love one another. Indiscriminately, showing a serious lack of judgement, all-loving, all-serving, all-forgiving.

When we allow the ritual to speak to our own realities, our own foot-washing becomes a prophetic action, calling us and compelling us to confession of our sins against God and against one another, our injured and imperfect love; recommending reconciliation, offering forgiveness and fortitude, strength for the journey as servants of Christ, apostles of the gospel of God’s love for all whom God has made; made for the love of God and of one another.

We become the Body of Christ, not only our feet but our hands and our heads and our hearts; a Body, injured, wounded, even broken, but resurrected always by the risen life of Christ, the love of Jesus, the everlasting mercy of God.

Amen.

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Everyday holiness

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Although they had warned him against her,
there was nothing untoward in her touch.
The salt of her tears drew out his skin as though
it reached back toward her.

She dried his toes with her hair, barely tickling;
no one could accuse her of teasing,
her grave solemnity undoing any laughter at its source,
demanding understanding, willing complicity.

He thought it was worth a try, to let them know
how much they had meant to him,
their company, their frank, dumb friendship,
before he was shorn like a lamb for the slaughter.

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Liturgy of the Palms and the Passion

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

From yesterday morning’s Palm Walk (the monthly Euclid Prayer Walk gone seasonal, complete with flowers and fliers to hand out to passers-by, inviting them to Holy Week at any or all of the mainline churches on Lakeshore Boulevard), through yesterday evening’s Saturday service with its centre on the Palms and its end in the Passion, to this morning’s more traditional BCP service (by the time the third person came into my office to ask about “rumours” that we would or would not be processing outside, I was given to opine that this was less rumour and more rebellion…). Hot on the heels of Friday evening’s divine rendition of the Seven Last Words, it has been a full and heartfull weekend. One sermon did not seem to cover it, so here are two briefer responses, one to the Palms and the other to the Passion, the best this soul could do this weekend, although in reality, my spirit was mostly left speechless.

Palms

The children are playing “parade.” They cut branches and leaves and grass to wave like flags. They throw their coats on the earth to make a colourful parade ground. They ride on their neighbour’s baby donkey and their friend’s large dog. They take turns riding, while the others sing and shout and laugh, Hosanna! – a childish parody of Pilate’s parade processing in by another gate across the city.
The stranger comes in through their little decorated gate. They have heard of him; strange stories, wonderful things. He is riding a small donkey, as though he were one of them.
The children sing and wave their branches. Their parents join them, laughing and singing “Hosanna!”
“Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our Lord!”
Their voices trail away as they listen to what they say, and the stranger continues to smile and to wave and wink at the children …

Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, writing on The Last Week of Jesus, compared and contrasted the Palm Sunday procession, as we have come to know it, with Pilate’s procession into Jerusalem coming in through the front gates on their armoured warhorses. Jesus and the Jews are making a mockery, they suggest, of Roman and its perceived power and might, by their own little ragtag parade of donkeys and cut branches, the symbols of the power of their humility before their God.

Jesus “did not regard equality with god as something to be exploited, but emptied himself,” says the letter to the Philippians. Even at his highest hour, with the crowds laughing and bowing before him, he knows enough not to let it go to his head, even the Messiah, knowing that to a man, the people here would die, that as a man, he was as vulnerable to the evil of this world as the next man.

And it was precisely because he knew what it was to get down amongst the children, to laugh at oppression and blow raspberries at pompous parades of power; it was his very humility that made him strong, strong enough to know, as Caesar did not, that no mortal man is equal to god, nor woman either, although they are made in the divine image, although they are not slaves but cry out with a spirit of adoption, Abba, father, even though he, Jesus, is God Incarnate.

There is something in the divine wisdom and love which has a heart of humility, a heart to offer for the world, rather than to lord it over the world. We humans struggle to find such humility within ourselves; we want so often to compete with God for attention, adulation, even just a little extra control. But there is something in the heart of the divine which has the humility we humans harden ourselves against.

It is that humility which allows Jesus to find himself at the heart of the parade, and keep his focus on God. It is that very softness which is the strength that allows him to stand before his own people, rejected and betrayed, before the strength of the state of Rome, and be silent, stay himself. It is that facility for the offering of himself that lets him forgive them from the cross, love us even to death.

Next week the story will be very different, strange and wonderful and very different. This week, we travel with urchins and agitators, priests and politicians through dangerous territory. We are tempted to hold on to our power, but Jesus, at the heart of it all, offers himself humbly for the sake of us all.

What can we offer him in return for such humility, such forgiveness, such love? Nothing except our own humility, our little attempts at mercy, our small, quiet acts of love.

And it is enough. He doesn’t require of us the pomp and circumstance of the Roman circus. It is enough to invite him into our scattered ceremonies, our tattered celebrations, our humble, holy lives.

I pray for you a Holy Week filled with small celebrations, echoes of majesty, humble holiness; hints of the humility of a God who rides on a donkey, and gets down among the children to play at parades.

*

Passion

When I got home yesterday, there was a gaggle of girls in my living room sporting slightly scary facial masks and discussing slightly scary movies. We began to reminisice about youngest daughter’s early adaptive behaviour in the face of the minimally scary stuff found in the Disney cartoons that her older brother and sister would watch. As soon as the drama began to rise, daughter would fall asleep. “Not dealing with that,” her baby brain would say.

The line in the Passion Gospel which caught me with its poignancy was this:

“He found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they didn’t know what to say to him.”

One of the hardest things that we do, in my experience, is to keep vigil with someone who is in pain, or despair, or at the point of death. To sit still and witness to their suffering, without relieving it, without denying it, without leaving. I sat with a dying woman once who she told me, in so many words, that her circle of friends had become divided into those who would hold her hand, and those who would shift away, slide away, leave her alone even while they sat a few minutes longer at her side.

There’s a very simple answer to the seemingly profound question of why Jesus had to die, and it is this: that he was human. If he had come down from the cross, if he had been swept up to the skies by flaming chariots like Elijah, or even done a disappearing act like Lord Lucan or Jimmy Hoffa, we would not trust God; it wouldn’t count. The whole Incarnation would be for nothing, if it didn’t end just as we all end our lives on earth. With or without resurrection, the whole thing would come undone if Jesus didn’t die.

And why death on the cross, unjustly accused, unfairly executed, oppressed, rejected, betrayed and agonized?

Because none of us should be able to say to God, it’s ok for you; you got off easy. Try my life for a change.

Of course, we say it anyway; but the drama of Holy Week, the highs and the lows, the pinnacle of fame and good fortune, everything falling into place – go find that donkey, and there it is; red carpets and paparazzi all the way into town, and a good meal with good friends at the end of the day – for all of that to disappear in a moment, to turn on a dime into torture and the mercilessness of murder at the hands of the state, the protectors, the peacekeepers; the denial of disciples and the falsity of friends, the collusion of the clergy and the hypocrisy of the faithful; all of that drama is part and parcel of Emmanuel, God with us, the God who gets it, who knows our lives inside and out, the lows and the highs and the fragile fortunes of the brave.

As we go through Holy Week, following Jesus’ precipitous descent into darkness and death, if we can stay with him, hold onto him, bear with him even through his suffering, we will know the strength of which we are capable, when we are needed by another. We will know the comfort that comes from being a comfort, the blessings of blessing another.

And if we can bear with Christ in his suffering, we will find that he bears with us in ours; that he shares in our highs and our lows; that he is with us when the crowds are shouting glory, and with us when the silence is almost too loud to bear. That he is in the circle of those who hold our hands.

Because none of us should be able to say to God, it’s ok for you; you got off easy. Try my life for a change. Or when we do, at least we will know that God, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, is right there with us, saying yes, yes my child, I know.

Amen.

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Seven Last Words of Christ

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Reflections for a presentation of Haydn’s classic work,  adapted for piano and violin from the contemporaneous piano solo arrangement by Peter Douglas, Music Director at Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio, Lent 2015

Performed by Peter Douglas (piano), Krista Solars (violin), Rosalind Hughes (narrator)

View the performance on YouTube

Introduzione in D minor – Maestoso ed Adagio

*

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

How many crosses do you think they could sling up in an hour? These were professionals: they knew what they were about. Like executioners through the ages, they were proficient in the details of their trade; consummate technicians. Armed with the authority of the state, of the might, the right of Rome, they knew just what they were doing. Like the ones who set the fuse, and check the failsafe. Like the ones who sharpen the blade, weigh the scales of justice and find them wanting, take up the first stone. Like the ones who wait in the shadows, known only by their acronymous, anonymous codename. Extraordinary rendition rendered ordinary by the magicians, the specialists. The expert hand on the cockpit controls. Shall I bring it closer to home? The ones who find the vein, set the needle, select the cocktail, such a merry word for a sterile act. Carefully metred discipline, executed exactly. We, with the soldiers at the cross, we know what we are doing. When we know what we are doing, we get lost in the details of doing what we know, and doing it just right. Lost in our own righteousness, we might so easily forget to look up; to look up to find sweet mercy looking back at us:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Sonata I (“Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt”) in B-flat major – Largo

*

Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

The dying seek solace from one another Even at the last, beyond hope of rescue or reprieve, bodies exhausted, even bored with pain, still, the human desire to hang together, to reach out: I am with you. We are in this together. I will stay with you. Together, we will get through this. Together, we will find a way to paradise. Jesus, even on the cross, still playing Emmanuel, God with us, to the end, through our own endings, holding the hands of the dying. We’re in this together, he says. Do not be afraid.

Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Sonata II (“Hodie mecum eris in paradiso”) in C minor, ending in C major – Grave e cantabile

*

Woman, behold your son.

Behold your son, as if she could look away. Remembering the angel, the strange visitors, the star. Remembering his rejection of her at the temple, at the house in Galilee – “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Was this one more word to push her away? “Son, behold your mother.” They looked at one another, doubtful. He thought of all that she knew, the stories he had half-heard, all that she could tell him about this man he had come to love with all of his heart and soul and mind, as though he were God himself. She saw the days and years that he had spent following etched in his face, the years she had missed as he travelled beyond her reach; here was another angel, perhaps, more ragged than the first, come to tell her things beyond her reckoning. She was perplexed, the first time the angel came, and told her, “Behold, you will bear a son.” Since that moment, she had loved him. Since that moment, she had not been able to look away. Yet he had said, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” With an effort, she turned her head once more to the young man, the rough-hewn angel, come to share him with her. They leaned heavily on one another as they turned together to contemplate Jesus, to wonder how it had come to this. Woman, behold your son.

Sonata III (“Mulier, ecce filius tuus”) in E major – Grave

*

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

It was not the first time he had said it. It would not be the last time any of us would hear it. In the wilderness, tempted, taunted, hungry and afraid, unsure and unable to hold back from his purpose, Jesus cried out, but there was no one to hear. From the cross, they heard him, and they hung their heads, uncertain how to respond, what to believe. At Auschwitz, writes Elie Wiesel, witnessing the death of a child, a man asked, “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . .” At Hiroshima, Nagasaki, in Dresden and yes, in New York and in the skies over Pennsylvania, the cries were repeated. Breathless, Eric Garner, dying on the sidewalk. Wordless, Tamir Rice, lying on the sidewalk. Speechless, the mother grieving her child, the child unconsolable at the unexplained abandonment of death, the spouse echoing through an empty home. The addict at the end of his strength. The desolate at the end of her rope. Teardrops dripping into an empty glass.

He was quoting the twenty-second Psalm, a prayer already centuries old. It is a cry as old as time. It is a cry that echoes all around. And yet, it perseveres, it is repeated only because at its heart, at its depth, at the height of its agony it holds out hope against hope that someone is still listening. That God will, in fact, return, to comfort us.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Sonata IV (“Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me”) in F minor – Largo

*

I thirst.

You can hear the running water playing through the melody, the thunder of the flood, the tender banter of the woman at the well, the water turned to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Now, the young Messiah who promised living water presses dry lips together. The very waters of creation draw back in fear before the spectacle of God Incarnate, dry as dust. Without fresh water, living water, we are as arid as the desert, as sterile as the Dead Sea. Without living water, the Spirit of God broods not over creation but our destruction. Jesus! “But you have saved the best wine till last,” he remembers them saying, as the vinegar sets his teeth on edge.

I thirst.

Sonata V (“Sitio”) in A major – Adagio

*

It is finished.

It is not the last word. “Consummatum est”; it is finished. Done. Complete. It is not the end. When the last note dies, is all that follows silence? When the last stitch is placed, the life of the garment is just begun. When the last step is taken, the destination reached, is the story over? When the stage is set, when the plate is composed. When the last page is turned, is the book ended? Do we throw it on the fire, return it to the shelf, or pass it on? When the last breath falls, what next? This is not a statement of defeat. It is not a submission, but a decision: the order is fulfilled, the life that has been lived; the file has been saved, the bow has been set. And it can never, now, come undone.

It is finished.

Sonata VI (“Consummatum est”) in G minor, ending in G major – Lento

*

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

It is the final act of love, to entrust ourselves wholly to another, to hold nothing back. We come close, at times, before an operation, boarding a flight: when we reclaim ourselves, our self-control on the other side, we are a little embarrassed at what we gave away, how trusting we were, how foolish. Foolish or not, it is love that says, in the end, I trust you. I am ready, finally, God, to love you with all of my mind and body and strength and spirit, all that is left of me is yours.

Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit.

Sonata VII (“In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum”) in E-flat major – Largo

*

Il terremoto (Earthquake) in C minor – Presto e con tutta la forza

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Killing God

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Reduced to absurdity,
the burning bush caught flame and I,
caught in the inferno, perished,
though its leaves still furl.

There is no moderation to divine love;
It is all or nothing; and
giving all, it takes all
consuming.

Reduced to smoulder, then, I choose
the anger of the embers, the hot rage of the ashes,
left behind,
spent.

I shall engulf you, flare and flame until
my sun burns brighter than your pale fire,
until my desire for you runs cold,
quenching.

And as the hart pants for the water,
you will use even that against me.

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Year B Lent 5: love with the lights on

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

I don’t know how many of you read the Revd Canon Percy Grant’s Lenten reflection yesterday. She wrote about the universal experience of childhood – or not even only of the young; the experience of waking in the half-night and the quarter-light, to shadows backlit by darkness to represent to us our deepest fears, our monsters, our pursuers. She remembers, in a moment of that frank bravery of which the young are capable, flicking on the light to catch it in its act of being a cardigan slung across the shoulders of some furniture.

I recommend that you hunt down and read Percy’s words for yourself, but in the final analysis, my take away was the identification of a mutually confessional community with the turning on of the light; the notion of the opening up of ourselves and our sin and our salvation to one another as that which illuminates our lives, drives out fear, lets the truth shine through in comfort.

Jeremiah looks forward out of the darkness of his days in exile to the days of the new covenant, when all is so illumined by the light of the Lord that “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

And Jesus appeared in Galilee, and by the Jordan, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand, has drawn near.” The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. But I do not think that we are yet at the point of Jeremiah’s paradise where we no longer need one another to say to each other, ‘Know the Lord;’ where we no longer need to share our faith to be sure of it; where we no longer need the encouragement of others to help us to find our way to Christ, and to the community of God.

In fact, isn’t that the very heart of the Incarnation God’s acknowledgement of our need for flesh to flesh contact, community, witness? The prophets were one thing; messengers of God, acknowledged and recognized for their access and ability to pray and to preach God’s truth. But Jesus was something else; the very embodiment of God’s Word to us, God’s love for us, God’s mercy to us, God’s solidarity with us. The high holy days of Christmas and Easter are so important to us because they commemorate God’s participation in the unique experiences suffered by all of humankind: birth and death, and whatever is beyond it. By their witness, we are assured, that God knows us as well as anyone could, and knowing that, God recognizes that it takes one to know one; takes one of us to know one of us truly.

Even at the beginning, in the creation stories, God knew that we needed one another: “It is not good for the man to be alone,” God said, even though Adam was never alone, with God walking beside him in the garden. Yet God knows our need for one another.

So while Jeremiah might be right that it is open to all to know God, from the least of us to the greatest, still we, with the Greeks, tend rather to sidle up to one another and ask to be introduced, if we are bold enough; or wait an eternity on the sidelines, looking for a break into the conversation, if we are not.

I think that perhaps the reason that the Greeks chose Philip to approach is that he wasn’t himself over-confident, over-familiar with the centre of attention. The first thing that Philip did when Jesus called him was to go and get his friend Nathaneal, for back-up and for a buffer. It worked: Jesus’ conversation with Nathaneal, as recorded, is much longer than anything he got out of Philip. And now, approached by the Greeks, he runs to get Andrew, for back-up and for buffering, so that, even now, he doesn’t have to do the introductions by himself; even now, in the final stretch, Philip is still a little shy. He needs his friends, his back-up, his buffer, his security blanket, his night light.

I think that what Philip might have been forgetting was just how much more afraid, nervous, shy, anxious, excited, adrenalin-driven those Greeks must have been! How long had it taken them to pluck up the courage to speak? How many of the disciples afterwards asked, “Why had none of us ever invited them in before, to meet Jesus?”

It would, after all, have been the Christian thing to do.

But I get it. It’s a big decision, to turn on the light, invite someone into your face, into your space, into your truth, your way, your life.

When I was seven, there was a new girl in our class, Sally Brannigan. I still remember the exact moment, sitting at my desk with Charlotte as usual, doing sums, about ten minutes till playtime, when I decided that when the break came, I would say “hello” to Sally. Just that. Simply say, “Hello.” It was – you will laugh at me – but it was a huge decision, the choice to go first, to flick on the light and find out what was lurking in the shadows, for good or for evil. It was a momentous decision, for a seven-year-old; because, of course, she wasn’t Sally Brannigan yet, this new girl, come to change everything, the size of the class, the moments divided between one more of us, the smiles stretched one person further to go around. It was a huge risk, to turn on the light, acknowledge her presence, and the cataclysm of jealousy, change, friends fired and freed up, that she might bring behind her. It was, honestly, a bold move, plant my feet before her, look her in the eye and say, “hello.”

I was quite pleased with myself afterwards.

But like the Greeks, like Philip, I hadn’t even begun to consider how much easier it was for me to reach out, with my friends behind me and my teacher looking on approvingly; I hadn’t even begun to consider how much harder it would have been for Sally, left to her own devices. I only knew that someone had to go first, and for once, miraculously, I thought it might as well be me. Here I was; send me.

In two weeks’ time, it will be Easter. This place will greet people it hasn’t seen in a while, maybe some who are brand new. They are the Greeks, looking for someone to introduce them to Jesus, because no matter what Jeremiah says, we still need back-up, a buffer. They are Sally Brannigan, wondering what this life will be, what her place will be in this community, whether, in fact, we will make room for her at the table. They are Philip, and Andrew, best friends of Jesus already, still leaning on one another.

Each of them will see the shadows of this place in their own way.

Which of us will be brave enough to flick on the lights, show our faces, our true form, undisguised? We don’t need to be Jesus or Jeremiah. We don’t even need to be Andrew or Nathaneal. For some, it will be just as well to find us Philip, hanging on the edges, demonstrating by our own deference our fellow-feeling, our understanding of the threat and the shelter of the shadows. But just this once, Philip, don’t leave them hanging there. Be brave. Be bold. Throw on the lights and dazzle them with your smile.

Because we know that we can all know God in our own way, from the least to the greatest. And still, we have come to this community, because, God knows, we need one another. We need faith Incarnate. And we are the inheritors of that glorious Incarnation, God made manifest, Christ’s Body in the world, offered for the sake of all; love with the lights on.

Amen.

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