But deliver us from evil

Posted on August 10, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Last month, I went on a camping trip to the coast with my daughter. It was glorious: the ocean does something to my soul which even the greatest of Great Lakes can’t match. There is a tug in that salt undertow which at once tempts a person to combine with the most profound elements of creation, and to fight against her assimilation, to try earnestly to stand against the surf and stay alive. I love the sea.

On our last night there, a storm rolled in. Rolled, as in went through the motions of a steamroller.

Never mind the rain, which, inspired by the sea, fell like a crashing wave, sweeping out the ground from under its newborn rivers, running back, like the undertow, to the shore.

Never mind the thunder and lightning, which got seriously overexcited and insisted on dancing a reel around and around and around us for hours, dropping its flash-bombs and rumbling with laughter, pinning us inside its circle for as long as it pleased. So rude; so boorish.

No, what really had me worried was the wind. It was the wind that picked up tables and chairs, shelters no longer worthy of the name, and threw them angrily against building walls. It was the wind that bellied up against our tent, flattening us to the floor, aggressive and unrelenting.

I began to pray. It seemed unlikely that you would walk out across the waterlogged campsite speaking, “Peace. Be still.” I prayed for smaller miracles: that our tent would survive. That we would survive. That the tree would not fall. That you would not let me let my daughter down.

That was the crux of it. Isn’t it always?

My fear is less of the elements, because what can I do against them, and who am I to them? My fear is of my own decisions, whether they are wise, and good, and capable; whether they will save my daughters and son, or lead them into danger. That is where your guidance would come in handy.

And now, on a clear day, far from the coast and its healing saltwater salve, I hear men speak storms of fire and fury, and once again I pray, from the small, dark space in which my heart has pitched its tent.  I pray that you will inspire most of us to wise choices, to lead our feet into the way of peace. I pray that you will provoke in many of us the courage that comes from faith, and the obstinacy that accompanies love, to resist evil. I pray that you will not let me let our children down.

 

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Heaven on earth

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Looking ahead to Sunday’s Transfiguration and the disciples’ awe-filled witness to the glory of God revealed in Christ, I have been thinking about religious experiences; extraordinary revelations of the divine. I occasionally wonder if I was “done out of” a heavenly vision when I flatlined once in an operating theatre and noticed nothing out of the ordinary; but maybe such ingratitude misses a vision of the kingdom of heaven that is already to hand …

If my soul was untethered, then it was too far gone in sleep to know it. I only learned of my dance with death in the recovery room, where I came back cold, so much colder than I had ever felt in my life. My only intimations of a world beyond my own cold bones came from a heated blanket, and another, wrapped around by a nurse who swaddled me as though I were her child. They came from the awkward, hurried prayers of a friend, holding hands at the bedside as though it were not strange for us to meet this way.

In other words, heaven was brought near to me not by any out of body experience, but by the earthy and earthly mediation of loving bodies, moving in and out of my field of vision, in a white and stainless steel temple devoted to the merciful care of all who might pass by.

Almost as though the love of God could be clothed in flesh, stained and sagging, unilluminated, and glorious.

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Preachers, politicians, and parables

Posted on July 30, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

In St Paul’s finest moment, he asserts that “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So let’s not let parables, preachers, or politicians divide us, either. (Romans 8:38-39)

The readings are for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A Proper 12)

Jesus asked his disciples, “Have you understood all this?” And they answered, “Yes. Got it.”

The consensus at Tuesday’s Bible Study was that they might have been trying just to stop Jesus telling them more parables because their heads were spinning, but perhaps that’s unfair. Each parable is a pearl in its own right, but when they are strung together like this, they make something else, a pearl necklace perhaps; something more personal than commercial.

Jesus asked his disciples, “Have you understood all this?” And they said, “Yes;” and if they meant it, then honestly, they were wiser fishermen than I.

But when we look at the parables as a set, we find patterns woven between them. Nothing is clear in itself, and yet we hear, between the lines and between the riddles, intimations of the kingdom of heaven, and how it might relate to us, and to Jesus.

Taken together, the parables are like a net, knit together and cast over the crowd, pulling in the hopeful, the weary, the obtuse, and the understanding. All of that can be sorted out later.

I admit, I find the treasure parables problematic. A man finds treasure in a field, and instead of running to his neighbours, shouting for them to come and see what good fortune is lying on their doorstep, he reburies it, deceives the landowner of its value, and keeps it for himself.

This is not an appropriate way to approach the kingdom of God. Don’t be that guy.

The merchant is looking for pearls to buy and sell; he, too, thinks that the kingdom of heaven is a commodity that he can possess. Don’t be that guy, either. Perhaps they are bad fish; something about them smells a little.

We see around us too many people who claim to have found the kingdom of heaven, to know the mind of God, and who yet want to keep it for themselves. They judge themselves to be worthy, and treat others with contempt. They celebrate the chance to exclude swathes of God’s children: transgender children, poor children, immigrant children, gay children, black children, unarmed children, female children. We find them in the comments sections of the online news, and in the media, and in the churches, and in the government. Whenever they turn their judgement upon someone we love, we notice them, and we are afflicted.

But are we so indiscriminate in deciding with whom we share our hidden treasure? Or are we dealing in grace like merchants buying and selling pearls? Are we cheating on our disclosure statements regarding the treasure that we hold, and hide? Whom do we exclude, in the secret hidden thoughts of our hearts?

Speaking of cheating, the saga of Jacob continues this morning with that trickster finding one of his own in Uncle Laban. The first family of God is full of surprises, and secrets, and side-deals; and yet God remains faithful throughout all of our sins and stumblings.

As Paul writes centuries later, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Not the church, not the media, not the government, not even we ourselves.

When Jesus began his ministry in the regions of Galilee, the gospels agree, he told the people two things: to repent, that is to be turned and transformed by their response to the gospel; because the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent: turn away from sin and stumbling, and towards God, who is already close at hand, to catch us up and sort us out. This is the good news of God in Christ: that the kingdom of heaven is already at hand, whether we notice it or not; God is already here, with us, waiting for us. The kingdom of heaven is something like a sinner who stumbles across something wonderful, or a seeker who finds perfection, in the midst of the fish market.

Actually, if we’re going back to parables, I’d prefer the aroma of fresh baked bread from the woman with the yeast. You could spread it with mustard to make a sandwich.

The mustard seed is an interesting illustration. It isn’t really, I am told, the smallest of all seeds and it doesn’t really, I am further informed, become that great of a grown-up plant; but it does of course undergo a transformation. If it is to grow, it must first be buried in the dirt, and broken up, broken open, before it will embark upon its new life above ground. When it does, that formerly self-contained seed is now part of a greater system, giving food and shelter to the birds, cleaning the air that we breathe. From something dead and buried, it has transformed into something life-giving.

It is possible that Jesus is speaking of his own death and resurrection?

The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hides starter yeast in a whole heap of flour, so that it blows up the whole bunch. Did you know that in first-century Judaism, there existed an idea that bore a distinct resemblance to our own expression, “She’s got a bun in the oven”?[1]

Is it possible that in telling this parable, Jesus is referring to his own advent; that the kingdom of heaven is like one born of a woman? That the kingdom of heaven is like a bun, born of an oven, who is called the Bread of Life?

Fun fact: if you put the yeasty bread parable together with the net full of fish parable, you end up with loaves and fishes, feeding the thousands on the hillside.

If we are the fish, caught up in the net of the kingdom, all sorts and conditions; if we fish are gathered together with the bread that is Jesus, then we are enough for thousands. We are enough to satisfy multitudes. We can perform miracles, extending the feast, the treasure, the grace across those who are hungry for a word from God, a crumb of comfort, a solid meal, something that doesn’t taste sour.

Or at least we can proclaim the miracle: God loves you, no exceptions. And we can assure every child of God that nothing, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,”

[nor preachers, politicians, Popes, or people]

“nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate [you] from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen.

 

[1] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: the enigmatic parables of a controversial rabbi (HarperOne, 2014), 124

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Anniversaries

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Invisible weight; a calendar date slung
lazily, loosely around the neck, its heft
hitting the breastbone with each jarring
missed step, bruising the heart, bleeding
memories beneath the skin.

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Guns everywhere?

Posted on July 23, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

This is from my first op-ed published in the Plain Dealer: online today at cleveland.com; in print later this week (so I’m told).

What does the notion that a trip to the local sports bar requires a concealed weapon do to our way of being in community? What do guns in schools teach our children about how to live together? What does the introduction of weapons to our churches say about our faith?

There is something profoundly alienating about the idea that the only way we can be safe is to be ready at any moment to kill. It is a bias of mine that we do not make ourselves or one another safer by carrying death more closely in our pockets, or binding its tools to our bodies.

I first drafted this essay in the aftermath of a rash of mass shootings in the US. Ohio, Orlando, Pennsylvania, San Francisco – this last happened on the same day as the egregious attempted assassinations of congressmen practicing baseball in Virginia. The toll of mass gun violence between May and June was staggering. I knew that it didn’t begin to describe the scale of injury and death that is inflicted day by day, week by week, through homicide, suicide, accident, and neglect across our country. I found it curious how little attention those of us who are a little more insulated by our experience pay to the public health hazard that is gun violence.

I updated the piece, and sent it to the press, as the Ohio State legislature began to process a Bill that would further expand the prevalence of guns in public places, and which seeks further to relax our grip on understanding that these weapons are causing us irreparable harm. That same week, on Independence Day, and eight-year-old was grazed by a bullet slicing past him at a beachfront park.

If our independence is to promote our freedoms, our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then we need to rein in the violence. We need to get control of our weaponry. That is my opinion.

Read the essay here.

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Jacob’s ladder

Posted on July 22, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

This gallery contains 11 photos.

I made a simple board book to retell the story of Jacob’s dream to the children in church tomorrow. The reading is from Genesis 28:10-19. If you want to make your own, please retain the author credit, feel free to … Continue reading →

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Spirit and flesh

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Such contortions of the flesh,
bearing down in humility before
the Spirit, pregnant with the weight
of glory, groaning as a child
sighs in the dark, sideways, furled
in on itself, dreaming the impossible

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Godsplaining

Posted on July 16, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Godsplaining is what Rebekah gets in answer to her prayer in the midst of a difficult pregnancy in this morning’s reading from Genesis …

So little did Esau think of his birthright, his advantages, his destiny that he would sell it for a pot of beans. It’s a story that cries out for one of those alternative history treatments: the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau would replace the familiar formula of blessing. Jacob had yet to be renamed: might Esau, instead of his twin, have been adopted as Israel, the father of God’s chosen people, if he had not been so hungry that day after hunting, for nothing?

We never know what might have been, if a different path had been taken. We cannot see into those putative parallel universes where all of the possibilities play out, according to the science fiction writers, and some of the scientists. We are left with the here and the now, our lives as we have lived them, and the choices that we make today, as best and as faithfully as we are able.

Rebekah wanted to become a mother. Her husband interceded for her, because it was difficult for her to conceive. When she did, and the twins inside her uterus fought and squirmed and pressed upon her bladder and her gullet, and wrenched her back, stretched out her breasts and made her life wretched for the better part of nine long months – as these little creatures will do – then she prayed to God, “If this is how it’s going to be, just kill me now!”

And God did answer Rebekah, although not, perhaps, as she might have expected. Instead of removing her discomfort, God explained it (thus inventing “Godsplaining”), telling her that her destiny was to be the mother of strife, of nations, of an important turning point in history.

God did not remove her discomfort, but offered an explanation. And it was just enough to keep her going, apparently, until her deliverance. I do notice, though, that unlike most of her biblical sisters, Rebekah did not go down that same path again. The twins were her and Isaac’s only children.

The oracle that Rebekah had received in place of any relief of her distressing pregnancy symptoms dictated her later course of action with regard to her sons: aiding and abetting the replacement of the elder by his barely-younger brother. In setting up the trickery that stole Isaac’s deathbed blessing for Jacob, she was simply fulfilling the destiny declared to her when the boys were still in her womb.

Isaac was oblivious to the whole thing: to his wife’s distress, no longer interceding on her behalf; to his son and heir’s sale of his birthright to his younger brother; to his wife’s scheming to get his blessing on the whole switched-at-birth motif. If Isaac had paid more attention, would he have had a say in the succession plan? Again, what might have been is not ours to know.

So what, apart from providing the script for a stunning telenovela, does this story offer us in the way of biblical wisdom and guidance?

I think that it is something about how we interact with God’s intentions for us, and how God interacts with our best and blighted intentions.

For Rebekah, the desire to bear a child is part of her call to be a part of this founding nation, ordained by God through the covenant with Abraham. She assented to this call – her relatives asked her explicitly whether she wanted to go and become Isaac’s wife, and she agreed that she did. Now, some way down the road, she is finding it heavy going, with the twins pressing on her bladder and her diaphragm and putting out her back and making her burp, as they do, and she is miserable. She turns back to God and asks if all the trouble is even worth it.

But this is the trouble that she chose, that she asked for. So God does not take it away. God does not undo Rebekah’s choice to become part of this foundational biblical story. Instead, God reminds her of what is at stake: not only a few months of pregnancy problems, but a family saga – an international saga of epic proportions.

Sometimes, when the going gets tough, we need to be reminded that we chose to become Christians, to follow the way of the cross. We are innocent of wanting to be crucified; but we have chosen to participate in an epic drama of the goodness of God – grace, mercy, and justice – set up against the evil that lurks in the corners of creation that have yet to embrace God’s love. Whether it is the call to ordination, or to lay preaching, or whether it is simply (simply) the call to love God and one’s neighbour as oneself: we are part of an epic story, and our labour is worth its salt.

And God does not remove the symptoms of the way of the cross, nor undo our choice to follow Christ; but God does remind us of the grace that we are pursuing, and why it is all worthwhile.

So it may mean the awkwardness of calling out an off-colour or racist comment at work, risking ridicule or family fallout by standing up for the dignity of every human being, as our baptismal covenant promises. It may require the inconvenience of going the extra mile for someone when we really can’t be bothered; or even the danger of telling truth to power, balancing the scales of justice when we see oppression in action. It may call out the risk of rejection involved in offering unsolicited love and mercy, expecting nothing, not even gratitude, in return. The symptoms of Christianity in our everyday lives may occasionally bring us beyond our comfort zones. But our labour is worth it, because the seeds that we plant bear fruit beyond our reckoning. And this is the labour that we asked for, when we entered the covenant of God that was cut by Jesus.

We do not know what would have happened had Esau not sold his birthright, or Rebekah and Jacob not tricked old Isaac, or if Isaac had paid more attention to his sons. It is not ours to know what shape our lives would have taken if we were not Christians, because this, the Christian story, the Gospel story, is the story within which we live, and move, and have our being. This is our story.

It is a story of struggle, of drama, of the unexpected. Always, it is the story of God’s grace and loving interest in our lives, guiding, explaining, encouraging us along the way to stay faithful, to stay the course; to follow the way of the cross, no matter which turning we choose. And no matter where we find ourselves along the way, we will find God there, reminding us that we have the privilege of participating in God’s epic script to love the whole world, and each of us, God’s beloved and troublesome children, within it.

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Fishing

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Poised on the deck, line in hand, she
casts her bread upon the waters
and waits. Under the bridge,
birds echo and argue. The river
runs fast, but time has slowed
down, still water running deep.

I match my morning prayer
to hers, drawing out the psalms,
eking out the slow invitation;
waiting for a tug on the line,
some sign of life
on the other end.

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Wrestling and rest

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

The readings are for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15) Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30). Will we choose to wrestle with Paul, or rest with Jesus?

Poor Paul had a problem. He did not live easily in his body. He found it difficult to live harmoniously with himself. Thank God, he concluded, for Jesus Christ, who says in the Gospel, “Come to me, all who are burdened; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Poor Paul; although he was thankful for the opportunity, he never did seem to find much rest.

Although actually, some of the commentaries[i] suggest that Paul did not mean, in this passage, what we think he meant; even that Paul was not speaking for himself, but for a humanity, born from the sin of Adam, which has yet to find its way into the grace of God. It is inconceivable, they say, that Paul, who knows the grace of God, who knows the love of Jesus, who knows his way to salvation should continue to condemn his body to death! The man who met his Lord on the road to Damascus knows that in that moment, his life changed course, and that he was diverted from death – that death he would visit upon his fellow men – that he was diverted from death into life.

And yet, we recognize for ourselves the dilemma described in Paul’s angsty arguments against his own will and actions. We know we shouldn’t check our phones while we are driving – but how many of our hands stray towards that siren screen, as though they had minds of their own, apart from our sensible will? We know we shouldn’t take one more drink, place one more bet, but our bodies seem to have other ideas than our sensible minds. We know that the spiral of negative thoughts, revisiting the same scenes over and over again will not change the past, nor help the future; and yet we find ourselves slaves to the voices in our heads that shout down the sensible voice of reason.

Come to me, says Jesus, all you who are weary and burdened; for I am gentle, and humble, and my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

So why are we still in that place, wrestling like Paul, or Adam, wanting to do the right thing when we have been made saints by our baptism, made holy by the holiness of God, sanctified and sent to share that grace with the world? Why isn’t it easier to live as a saint?

When Paul was taken aside from the road to Damascus, led blindly into the city and set down for three days to recover his sight, his journey was not over. It was diverted, his destination transformed from one of destruction – he was pursuing Christians to kill them at the time – to one of salvation. He ended up as the greatest evangelist to the Gentile world, spreading good news wherever he went.

His journey was not over. “Wherever he went” covered the Mediterranean world, which was a long way in those days. It included shipwrecks, arrest, trials and tribulations. It included in-church arguments, friendships and fallings-out. His journey, at the time of his conversion and diversion, was just beginning. And he was still human, prone to all of the failings and foulness, good intentions and bad choices that afflict us all.

Come to me, says Jesus, all you who are weary, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

This, that Jesus offers, is not the image of the end of a journey. The yoke which joins us together, to share our burdens between us, between us and Jesus is used for walking together, not for standing still. The burden is light because of the way that it is carried, not because it has been laid down. Jesus is not speaking, this time, of a destination, but he is offering a way of walking the rest of the journey together.

It is a gentle and humble way of proceeding. It does not depend on punishment, or pain, but on encouragement and mutual assistance. It is gentle, dealing not in threats and beratements but in loving kindness, grace and mercy.
It is humble, seeking not to impose itself upon us, but courting us with its love, seeking not power but justice.

So what are we to do with those things that we do that we hate? If it is true (and I think that it is) that Jesus has already defeated the evil that besets us, then how do we live into his victory?

The greatest commandments that we have been given are to love God with all of our heart and mind, body, soul, and strength; and our neighbours as ourselves. It begins and ends in love. For those things that drive us crazy, drive us to drink, drive us to destruction – there is love. Perhaps it is the support of family and friends, perhaps of a more formal support group: AA, or a hospital-sponsored health program. It may be the community of the church; the small group comfort of a Thursday evening healing service, or the silent support of Centering Prayer. Is there more that we should be doing together, to ease the burdens, and lighten the yoke? Are there ways that we can support one another in this community, that we have not yet thought of or tried? Don’t be afraid to suggest them, for the yoke is easy and light when we carry our burdens in tandem, between us. The way of Jesus is not the way of singular struggle, nor of self-crucifixion. It is the way of gentleness and humility. It is the way of love; and love does not exist alone.

It is that assurance, of love, of gentleness, that we find at the altar, week after week. We say our confession – because the journey still involves sin – and we are assured of God’s forgiveness, week by week, day by day. We come in humility to find the most humble of offerings already set before us: the Body and Blood of Jesus broken open for us, for our salvation.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light, says the Lord.

Come to me.
_________________________

[i] The New Oxford Annotated Bible, third edition (OUP, 2001); The Oxford Bible Commentary (OUP, 2001)

 

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