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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Year B Lent 4: snakes alive

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

So says Jesus, and we have heard it so many times before that it’s easy to miss the intro: “Jesus said to Nicodemus.”

You may ask, what does it matter to whom Jesus was speaking? God so loved the world whether Jesus was telling Nicodemus or Peter or Pilate or us about it. The audience doesn’t change the measure of God’s love. Well, that’s true.

The thing about it being Nicodemus who gets this message is that Jesus is trying his level best to make this man understand the good news, the gospel, that Jesus has brought right to his doorstep: that God so loved the world that God would give to him, to Nicodemus, eternal life, and Nicodemus is making it really hard work for Jesus to get his point across.

To be fair, Nicodemus wants to hear Jesus, see Jesus, but he is also afraid of his fellow Pharisees, of their ridicule or disapproval; he is embarrassed to be seen with Jesus, so he comes under the cover of darkness, in the dead of night to find him; he barely gives himself a chance to see the light.

So Jesus tries to talk to him in ways that he will understand. Good Jewish boy that he is, Nicodemus knows the story of Moses in the wilderness, and the serpents, and the stick.

After God created the world, and all that is in it; after God created people in God’s image and in close relationship with the divine; after God spared the world from the end that the Flood could have made of it; after God promised not to do that again; after God called Abraham, and made many nations, and sent Joseph dreams, and spoke to Moses out of a burning bush; after God rescued the people of Israel, delivering them from the threat of death through the night of the Passover and parting of the Red Sea; after all of this, when the people were in the wilderness, they got a little perturbed that God had not done more for them lately. Specifically, they wanted better food, and fewer snakes.

Again, to be scrupulously fair, the snakes were a problem, because they bit, and people died. So God came once more to the assistance of God’s people, telling Moses how to use his staff – the shepherd’s rod that God had turned into a serpent during Moses’ first encounter with the burning bush, one that had become a serpent in the contest against Pharaoh’s magicians; the one that he had used to part the waters of the Red Sea – God told Moses to fit his staff with a bronzed snake so that the people would look once more upon this shepherd’s rod, this symbol of God’s power and authority and mercy for God’s people, and remember that God would also save them from the snakes. For God so loved the world, and the people.

I remember vividly a sermon I heard three years ago, the last time these snakes came into town. I emailed the preacher, the Revd Katie Wright, this week, and she kindly confirmed what I remember her saying:

“It sounds so easy, and yet how often do we not allow ourselves to look up, to claim the healing that is there for us.  Instead we keep kicking at the snakes at our feet.”

But that, the letter to the Ephesians tells us, is just when Jesus comes to us, when we are lying as good as dead in a heap of snakes and sin; that is when grace is needed, and God will provide it, lifting us up to the high places and seating us with him in the presence of God, of grace, of glory, if only we will look up long enough from our pit of snakes to see it.

There comes a time, Jesus tells Nicodemus, to look up, and to trust God, even though you know there are snakes snapping at your ankles, even though you know there is more work to do, more wilderness to slog through, more sin to solve, more than you can shake a stick at; there comes a time to look up and to trust God, even though what you see looking back is the serpent that bit you; even though what you see is the Son of Man crucified, dying on a cross. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The world has trouble with the way of the cross. The world would rather that the Son of God came for condemnation, of all that is other, unsavoury, unwanted. Remember how angry Jonah got when God forgave Nineveh, just because they repented. See how a city on the brink of peace poisons the oil with random acts of violence. See how the relics of racism resurface over and over again to spill their venom into a new generation, how tightly we hold on to our right to discriminate, our right to condemn rather than to love one another.

The world always pushes back against the way of the cross, that radical and redeeming love, as though the snakes are everywhere, spreading their poison.

For Nicodemus, seeing Jesus a couple of years later lifted high on the hillside, it must have been as though the poison of the Romans was expected to become the promise of God’s mercy after all; it made about as much sense to him as a snake on a stick, before he came to believe in the resurrection.

But, Jesus told him in the darkness of that night, there is a time even in the wilderness, even in bewilderment, to look up, to see God’s shepherding staff, still leading and comforting God’s people. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.”

I hope that you know me well enough by now to trust that I am not telling you to look on the bright side when the snakes are biting; God forbid, I wouldn’t dare. I will say, if you can, look up.

If you can, hold on to the promise of love, of life, of the lifting of our lives out of the poisonous pit of snakes, out of the wilderness; the promise of resurrection. If you can, look up, and see even from the cross God’s love looking right back at you.

Even Nicodemus, when he left Jesus that night, if he chanced to look up would see in the darkness the light of the sun reflecting off the moon; he would see the stars, unimaginably far away, the light from them rushing from ages ago, just as fast as it could, to fall into his eyes, looking up; looking for eternity.

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Prayer drought

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

A reflection for the Lenten collection of the Diocese of Ohio. From the day’s readings: “Jesus was casting out a demon that was mute; when the demon had gone out, the one who was mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed.”

Prayer drought

The one who was mute spoke.

The one who had locked away voice, expression, self and soul broke free, broke out; the one who had been oppressed, silenced, sidelined, parched of prayer was released by Jesus back into a new way of being, knowing, and being known by others;

what would that one say first?

Were the words of astonishment, or fear? Did they embarrass, or assault the ear?

How long had it been since words first were learned, then unlearned; the language of love, of community?

Perhaps the first would be a word of prayer: “My God!”

But then, how would you know, at first, that you could? You might not think to try it, after so long silent, after so many failures to speak out.

The first word must almost be an accident, an exclamation aimed at the back of Jesus, walking away, “Wait!”

Wait. Stop. Come back; chasing Jesus with an untried voice and rasping tongue.

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Year B Lent 3: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

There’s something unusual about the way that John’s gospel tells the story of the cleansing of the temple. Each of the four gospels tells some version of this event, and they are, for biblical accounts, surprisingly close in detail to one another. As usual, John is the outlier, but even he keeps to the regular format of the other three for most of the story. The kernel in common seems to be that Jesus entered the Jerusalem temple in the days preceding the Passover, drove out some people, probably overturned some tables, and made some kind of prophetic statement to explain his actions to the angry, astonished and frankly frightened bystanders.

John’s is the longest account, and the only one to mention sheep and cattle. In this retelling, Jesus unties the animals and makes of their tethered a kind of whip to drive them out. Contrary to some artistic illustrations, there is no need to infer that Jesus whipped the people. Still, this is a fiercer Jesus than we have seen elsewhere. Yet other aspects of John’s Jesus are gentler. Instead of upending the seats of the dove sellers, he simply tells them to take up their birds and leave. Doves were the sacrificial choice of the poorest people, those who couldn’t afford a lamb, let alone an ox; perhaps that is why Jesus pulled himself back from the brink of his rage and treated them kindly; the little people who were only doing the best that they could.[i]

In the other gospels, Jesus calls the temple a house of prayer for all nations, and the money changers robbers. In John, it is enough that they have made it into a house of trade, through a few innovations in the temple turned marketplace. Finally, as is typical for John, the whole incident becomes the basis for a theological explanation of just who Jesus is, and just what he has come to do.

But the most jarring difference between this account and the others has nothing to do with the details of the way the story is told, but when it is told. In the other three gospels, Jesus enters Jerusalem in the days leading up to the Passover just once, in the week before his death, and this exchange in the temple happens right after Palm Sunday, by our calendar. But this is only the second chapter of John’s gospel. Jesus has only just finished his first miracle, his first sign, as John calls it, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this outrage in the temple is the beginning of the end for Jesus. According to John, he is only just getting started.

Of course this is also the author who begins his gospel not with the nativity, but with the creation story, who writes his gospel against the backdrop of eternity. And really, his whole gospel is devoted to explaining just who Jesus is, and just what he has come to do.

In John’s gospel, Jesus goes to the Jerusalem Passover festival three times, and it is only at that third celebration that he meets death on the cross, at the same time that the lambs are being slaughtered for the Passover feast. John doesn’t have a Last Supper at this last Passover, because Jesus is the meal, the feast, the sacrifice, the celebration, the Lamb of God.

The whole of Jesus’ life of ministry, his death and resurrection, happen in this telling in the shadow of the Passover, the night of deliverance from death for the people of God. John Shelby Spong writes this:

“In the Jewish tradition it was the sacrifice of the paschal lamb that was said to have had the power to banish death from among the Jewish people on the night of their escape from Egypt and slavery. The death of Jesus was said to have lifted human life beyond the boundary that death had previously imposed.” [ii]

All of Jesus’ life, death, and ministry are written in the gospel of John in the context of the Passover, under the shadow of this first Passover in Jerusalem, where Jesus the sacrificial lamb drives out the sheep and the oxen. For John, and for his readers, this chaotic escape is the echo of the first Passover of the Jews, where death was suspended, outwitted, outrun, because of the realization that life is eternal, the life we live with God, with one another in the heart of God.

Of course, Jesus did not outrun death, lamb that he was he went to the slaughter; but death could not keep hold of him, because God that he was, he rose from the dead and demonstrated eternal life to the world.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters continue to celebrate Passover, year after year, just as we celebrate our own deliverance from death in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, year after year. It is not enough to leave it in the past. We need our Passover, our deliverance, our resurrection to live and be remembered and renewed year after year.

After Columbine, after Aurora, after Chardon, after Newtown we saw the Angel of Death pass over us, and we knew our need for the lamb of God to take away the sin of the world, to deliver us from our own deathwish.

I was struck this week by the coincidence of the fiftieth anniversary of the marches at Selma and the release of the Department of Justice report on the racist problems of the police force at Ferguson, Missouri, with its own similarities to the report we read about Cleveland last year; deliverance from racism, deliverance from oppression does not happen once and all is well. In his speech at Selma yesterday, President Obama recognized not only how far we have come, but how far is left to go: “Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet finished. But we are getting closer.” Still, we feel that need to remember what went before, in order to renew our commitment to the march towards love for one, another because we recognize that death still haunts the edges of our lives, and we need our Passover Lamb to help us to banish it from among us.

In our own little lives, our repeated fights and failings, bad habits and harmful patterns require the intervention of a spirit of sacrifice, forgiveness, resurrection over and over again. Day by day, we know our need for the grace of God, to pass over us, banish death from the heart of our lives.

Perhaps that is why John had Jesus go up to Jerusalem not once but three times for the Passover, because he knew our need for repeated deliverance, and he knew that Jesus had promised to be with us not once, but to the end of the age, so that whenever we remember the Lamb of God, Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us; whenever we do this in remembrance of him, we will know that he has already given himself for us, marked us for the Passover, delivered us from death into eternal life. So that we, with him, by him, through him might drive out death from the heart of the temple, and renew a right spirit within.

Amen.

[i] Derek Tovey, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 249

[ii] John Shelby Spong, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic (HarperOne, 2013), 180-1

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Pigeon

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

I like to hang around the fountains,
water coolers of the city, where traffic intersects,
dropping crumbs of cake and gossip, lies and lives.
Few notice me, but in the moment that it takes
their breath to fall I have named them all.

It all began with water. I surfed the wind that
whipped the waves of creation,
tossed the ark like a toy; I brought them
an olive branch to make them feel better.
I am known for carrying messages long distances.

Once, I fell in love, dropping headlong from the sky;
they tried to tame me, but he turned the tables,
broke the cage. Spooked, I flew the coop.

I like best the kind that springs up
unsuspected from the ground,
surprising squealing children;
water should always be astonishing,
considering where it came from.

The saddest sight that I have seen,
a fountain cracked and empty, dry and bitter
fallen angels face-down lying broken in its basin.

(This Sunday’s readings include the table-turning temple scene where the dove-sellers are rebuked and the sheep and cattle set free, although the fate of the doves is not clear.)

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