Transfigured: Speaking to the Soul for August 3, 2023

 Luke 9:28-36

Sometimes, for a suspended moment, 
light can be a physical presence, causing 
eyelids to slam down like window-blinds, the doors 
of the mind to bang shut in shock and wonder, 
hands thrown up, defensively, as the flare 
makes visible the bones in those same hands, hands 
whose strength had been a source of pride but now 
seemed as ephemeral as moth wings against such a light. 

Even with our eyes closed, the figures danced 
orange and black upon the green screen of eyelids. 
Light so bright it deafened, 
at first we reeled, contained within the thunderous roar 
of an open furnace door. Lightning forked heavenward 
and split. Jesus stood, and two more-- 
on one side the Law in Moses, forming community; on the other 
Elijah’s prophetic imagination: poet and goad. 
In the center the Human One, divine image perfected 
yet also living, enfleshed, as when veiled, among us. 

And then the humming sound of our own heartbeats. 
Now we saw the seams torn asunder, 
Virtues at the center of a humanity, 
enlightenment embodied, laid bare 
and God’s Wisdom in the center, committed, 
to lay himself down for our sake. 
The holy companions murmured together, 
as old friends do, laughing at meeting again, 
the delight in pulling back the curtain 
revealing essential cosmic union. 
Of course we wished to stay forever. 

But the pronouncement to listen shocked us to silence, 
and we staggered like sleepwalkers 
from the cloud-shrouded mountain, 
newly alive, boundaries of earth and sky 
an illusion. Scattered images dancing 
along nerves, transformed from experience to memory,
our footsteps in sync with each pulse 
that beat as one with that sacred heart 
and thrummed from that unpierced wrist 
and beautiful, unmarred brow, 
Earth electric beneath our feet, transfigured. 

--LKS, written for the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul for August 3, 2023.

Worthy Weeds: Speaking to the Soul, July 20, 2023

Sometimes, the worthiness of a weed is in the eye of the beholder. In the lat few years, some farmers, alive to the extreme stress that many pollinating creatures are under, have begun planting the margins of their fields with clover, ox-eye daisies, sorrel—even vetch on the verge! Queen Anne’s lace, which sounds fancy but is actually wild carrot. Taking up valuable farmland! Sixty years ago, this would have been akin to heresy of the hippy-dippiest sort.

But these “weeds” attract pollinators—which in turn, helps the crop to grow, not just in one particular field, but all around. Maybe this is a modern admonition to do as Jesus advises us, to let the weeds grow up among the wheat in Matthew 13:24-30,36-43.

As conditions in our environment get more and more extreme climatologically, weeds are experiencing a rehabilitation of sorts, which makes the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew’s gospel shine with new possibility. What if this isn’t a story about judgment and flames, but a story of redemption, of allowing time and grace to sort things out where we rush in to condemn?

I remember I was sitting in my car one morning, about ten years ago, reading. In between pages I would watch my daughter's field hockey practice. They played in a desiccated brown field full of crispy grass and weeds—even though every boys’ team was gallivanting on crisply tended fields, the girls were shunted a half mile away, not even on school property, and yet the school claimed equivalency under Title IX. Every time I sat near this field watching these girls practice, I felt a sprout of annoyance break through the drought-fired clay of my heart.

The day before, a man half-heartedly, like a somnambulist, mowed this alleged field, even though the grass had remained in a state of stasis due to the extremely dry conditions of that summer. This field seemed to be in suspended animation, but instead of Sleeping Beauty, it was Sleeping Ugly.

There were tiny oases of green visible here and there across the burnt-ochre and sienna expanse, but those were weeds. It's always that way. When the *stuff* goes down, it's the weeds that thrive. It often seems like that with people, too. I don't know about you, but sometimes that just drives me crazy, especially if I have forgotten the weediness of my own natur, and put on airs that I might be more of a hothouse flower.

As I mused, desultorily, my eyes scanned the thatch patches that prickled, sea-urchin-like, over the ground-- and saw one small, shocking flash of color jump out from the landscape. There was a tiny yelp of purple hanging low among the clumps of fescue and thatch. A fluted flower-- belonging, yes, to some weed.

What could be more unlikely than beauty in such sere surroundings? What could be more stubborn than this small flower determined to bloom just here regardless of its improbability? What else could remind me that even in the most drab and dingy places there is grace and beauty if only we open our eyes?

And suddenly the weed was transformed into a bit of grace, a call for second chances.

In other words, a miracle.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul for July 20, 2023.

Sowing Hope: Speaking to the Soul, July 13, 2023

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-25

In the woods a woodpecker has discovered a pine
filled with insects like a pinata,
and has already worked a pattern of holes
like the brogues on a pair of wingtip shoes, hammering
a spiraling, pointillist tale of his search for sustenance,
his drumroll also warning me
that this tree may not be long for this world.
But still, this is the way of things,
and this is where I go to feel
the peace
and the industry
of wild things.

This is where things grow
mostly despite me
rather than because of me.

To be a gardener or a farmer
is to trade in hope,
to refuse to give up
even when the odds for abundant growth seem long.

Nonetheless here’s growth,
and anticipation,
and hope
in each new sprout from the ground.

Sow in hope; reap in care:
the instruction manual
for farming and ministry.

There is more than simply science
or even art
in how hearts, sometimes scarred from abuse or neglect,
can nonetheless be transformed
into the soil for new growth in love.

Sure, some seed may feed the birds--
but doesn’t God provide there as well?
Plant anyway, yes—
open to receive the gospel in faithfulness,
in response to the promise
that the gospel will bear fruit
even in the clayest soil of the healing human heart.

God famously works in clay, too.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on July 13, 2023.

The Wisdom of Love: Sermon for Proper 9A

I am pretty certain that, if you don’t remember hearing them and studying them before, the readings we just heard may have you a bit mystified. Our gospel itself is puzzling—except maybe for the last bit which at least offers some hope. But if you look closer, our readings today are about two things: the wisdom of God, and the love of God. Scratch that—it’s all actually one thing. God’s wisdom IS God’s love- love which ignores human expectations or limits.

Today’s passage from the prophet Zechariah might ring a bell. It predicts that the Messiah will enter Zion, or Jerusalem, riding on a donkey’s colt—and if you think back to Palm Sunday, that is exactly what Jesus did as he triumphantly entered the city to the waving of palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna!” Anyone hearing that in Zachariah’s time would have considered a leader doing such a thing to be incredibly foolish—it’s like someone trying to race in a Formula 1 event while driving a minivan. Great leaders should ride impressive animals—not donkeys.

This detail, though, has an important purpose: the reign of this Messiah will not be based on military strength, one where “might makes right.” Instead, his humility reveals God’s wisdom and values: that prisoners will be set free, and that hopes will be fulfilled rather than lying empty and unfulfilled. This God does not seek dominion but restoration—not overawing people with might, but working to relieve burdens and enabling a culture of shared plenty, of gratitude and rejoicing.

Then there’s the reading from the Song of Solomon, a passage known as “Springtime Rhapsody” a beautiful collection of very frank love poems that most of us hardly ever remember is even IN the Bible. And here’s why it gets skipped over when it comes time for Bible study or preaching: it’s kinda steamy. It’s like Danielle Steele was suddenly invited to turn in a couple of chapters to Holy Writ. Strangely, God is not mentioned anywhere within its verses—instead, we get a conversation between two lovers. This is also unusual because it gives the woman her own voice, and she admits her passion for her beloved—in fact, in a world in which women were often silent, she is the one telling the story. Hers are the opening words in chapter one, imagining the kiss of her sweetheart.

According to our puritanical forebears, this passage isn’t about desire and human passion in all its enthusiasm, bodies bursting to discover each other. Nope. According to our 16th and 17thcentury friends, this passage is about “the Church’s love for Christ” and “Christ’s love for His Church,” with Christ as the bridegroom. This understanding is based upon the idea that the covenant between God and God’s people is similar to the covenant of marriage.

I’m not sure about that. First of all, marriage was much more often NOT about love throughout most of human history than it was about the security of property and inheritance. But there is a second and more obvious problem here: that of faithfulness and passion on the part of the Church.

While I am certain that this passage could be interpreted as Christ’s never-ending, deep, passionate love for the Church, too often the Church seems to fail to return the favor, if you know what I mean. Fallible, distractible, self-deluding, foolish, frightened, wounded humans that we are, too often we are concerned about our own wants, needs, power-madness, and concern about authority to truly love Christ to the depth that we should-- especially if one takes this passage as a guide. But we can do better. We just have to remember that real love puts the Beloved Other ahead of its own selfish satisfaction, and takes delight and finds completion and true bliss in that self-giving love.

Our failure to love stems from a conflict within ourselves- between our worldly concerns versus our spiritual aspirations. What if we were to unite these understanding rather than untie them? For we fail to love each other for the same reason we fail to love God—because we get afraid, because we lose faith in our ability to give of ourselves. Yet the Song of Songs holds out the hope that love CAN be mutual and deep and intimate. Our love for each other can be deep and lasting. Our love for God can fill us completely, and our longing for intimacy is one we need to set free in our relationship with God.

Our failure to love stems from a conflict within ourselves- between our worldly concerns versus our spiritual aspirations. This leads us to our passage in Romans, which then meshes well with our gospel. Paul talks frankly about knowing what he SHOULD do, which is to act lovingly in the world, but being unable to follow through due to his weakness to sin, which leads him to act selfishly.

Paul almost sounds like a member of a twelve-step group here, admitting his powerlessness over his addiction to sin. And that may be a really good analogy to make to describe the power that sin can wield in our lives, especially when we lull ourselves into taking our eyes off the horizon of love that we have to work toward in our lives as children of God. Real love, and true holiness, do not come naturally. Yet there is hope. Paul cries out: “Who will rescue me?” and immediately, he gives the answer: God, through the Incarnate One, our Savior Jesus Christ. He then continues to point out that our intellectual assent to be disciples is often at war with our own weaknesses.

What all our readings are seeking to do is remind us that what is considered wise or clever in the eyes of the world is usually the exact opposite of what God’s wisdom is.

Our gospel passage takes this up especially at the end. And what is absolutely vital is that here. Jesus is speaking, literally, as the Wisdom of God, personified. And there’s an interesting tie to the Song of Solomon here: in the Hebrew scripture, Wisdom was personified as female—possibly because wisdom gets rejected as an authority as much as women did, then, and now.

Jesus is actually paraphrasing a passage from the Book of Ecclesiaticus, known as a wisdom work that appears in some Bibles.

It was allegedly composed about 200-175 BC by a scribe named Ben Sira in Jerusalem, which means Jesus could have known of it. Speaking as Wisdom, a traditionally female character in scripture, we hear Jesus tracing much the same argument as the author of Ecclesiasticus:

51:23 Draw near to me, you who are untaught, and lodge in my school.
51:24 Why do you say you are lacking in these things, and why are your souls very thirsty?
51:25 I opened my mouth and said, Get these things for yourselves without money.
51:26 Put your neck under the yoke, and let your souls receive instruction; it is to be found close by.
51:27 See with your eyes that I have labored little and found myself much rest.

The wisdom that Jesus seeks to give us makes the need for asuffocating load of regulations pointless—those same regulations Jesus’s opponents loved to enforce on others as the self-righteously religious. Jesus’ load is in fact quite light compared with the heavy burdens the scribes and Pharisees place upon others: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”

The wisdom of God does not seek to punish but to enlighten. In place of oppression, it offers love and cooperation. And I believe this speaks of a need in our time as much as in the time of Jesus. Just like now, self-identified “religious folk” were especially good at pointing the finger at others and justifying themselves. They would use the 613 commandments in Torah to denigrate and oppress others, laying burdens upon their backs, while overlooking the parts of the Law that would require themselves to be burdened or to sacrifice what they wanted to do.

And boy, does that resonate for today. How many people do you know who justify lying, cheating, violence, misogyny, or turning a blind eye to the suffering or poverty of others in the name of their own comfort—yet who will scream about how “sinners” who act or love differently than they do deserve being cast out, oppressed, dehumanized, and punished? As if being in a marginalized group isn’t hard enough? And they justify it more often than not in the name of “religion.”

Yet Jesus, speaking as Wisdom herself in our gospel verses, identifies with the oppressed and marginalized. Jesus, speaking as the Wisdom of God, invites all to come unto him, especially those who are weary and feeling burdened by the numerous strictures of the religious leaders.

How is Jesus’s yoke “easy?” First, a yoke is meant to be shared—it works by two creatures sharing the burden and pulling side by side. And rather than lay burdens about hundreds of laws on our backs, Jesus offers to get into the yoke alongside us and help us bear the burdens of being a disciple—a burden that is already lighter because it is based on love, not fear. Christ’s yoke is easy because he takes away the yoke of the Law by making us wise in love and generosity.

That is certainly an easier burden in comparison to the way the religious leaders were apply the law to those around them.

Yet the most important thing to remember is that Jesus refers to a yoke, and not just a harness. And a yoke is meant to be shared. Christ’s yoke is the yoke of Love. And sharing burdens with each other—in the name of love—is all we need, as the Beatles sang. All those great songs of our youth insist the same thing: “Lean On Me,” by Bill Withers. “He Ain’t Heavy—He’s My Brother” by the Hollies. “Climb on a Back That’s Strong,” by Shawn Colvin. “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” by Simon and Garfunkle.

What matters is our care and empathy for each other. As we live in Christian community, we are yoked to Jesus and to each other, and we all pull together. We share each others’ burdens. We literally “pull for each other.” As Jane Siberry wrote in her song “The Life is the Red Wagon:”

The life is the red wagon rolling along
The life is the red wagon simple and strong
…oh, it's no big deal
But when the feet are dragging
you pull for me, and I pull for you,
you pull for me, and I pull for you…

Have you ever experienced the grace of someone pulling for you when you feel that you just can’t go on? Have you ever received a random act of kindness? That’s living life under the Wisdom of God.

We have a lot in common with the cultural landscape of Jesus’s time. Believe it or not. Just think: we have those who seek to divide and conquer, and they are not unashamed of using religion to further their schemes, and to oppress and denigrate marginalized groups by pulling little bits of scripture from here and there to justify their hatefulness and sense of superiority.

We see legal systems being used to oppress people—to take away their ability to be redeemed for injury, to allow a small minority to try to impose their wills on others because they have the ability to buy their way into the system.

Jesus would be the first one to object to this scheme. If your faith causes you to hate and judge and hurt others, you are doing it wrong. As Jesus points out, those “others” were exactly the people he hung out with, ate with, and taught among. Even more than that, those are the ones to whom he encouraged to take up his yoke. So that he could pull alongside them and help carry their burdens. Not condemn them.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus consistently points out that the wisdom of God, and the way it orders our lives, turns worldly wisdom upside down. He is very clear to go even further: the “wisdom” of the world is very often absolutely contrary to the wisdom and ways of God, as he himself exemplifies. Jesus, as the Wisdom of God personified, lives and acts in very specific ways to show US how to live and act.

The way of wisdom, the way of welcome into God’s household, is also the way of mercy, grace, and above all, love. It’s the wisdom that is embodied in our baptismal covenant. This is the wisdom of welcome, beloveds, that we are called to commit to as disciples. Wisdom that doesn’t seek advantage or calculation, but, always and everywhere, serving each other in purity, gentleness, and love.

We worship a God whose wisdom is often seen as foolishness in the eyes of that very same world. A God who tells us to love people the world sees as broken, and love them fully.

May we all be so wise.

Preached at the 505 afternoon service on July 7, and the 10:30 am service of Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, on July 8, 2023.

Readings:

Zechariah 9:9-12
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

The Value of Sparrows: Speaking to the Soul, June 22, 2023

 “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?”- Matthew 10:29

The Almighty, and my professor, 
have enticed me to commit 
to thirty minutes of daily unstructured prayer. 
For Episcopalians, this may almost 
sound heretical, but I put away 
my prayerbooks and liturgies, and sit in silence 
at dawn, to discern the tender voice of God 
in whatever guise she assumes 
by this pond 
in the middle 
of this campus 
on this rainy mountaintop, 
clouds above, clouds below. 

At first all you can hear 
are the intrusions crafted by humans: 
the ringing of an unattended telephone, the 
garbage men greeting one another, heavy 
machinery belching diesel fumes aloft, 
revving engines, egad--
and it’s not even six a.m. 

Re-center, the wind murmurs, 
stippling the face of the pond like hammered silver, 
and the poplar leaves flash pale 
as they shrug over in unison, 
hands cupped in gratitude to midwife the coming rain. 

But then, the voice of God hovers 
just behind my ear: 
fish crows chiding “ah ah” just over my shoulder; 
Carolina wrens’ liquid song arrowing from the underbrush 
as Bachman’s sparrow—named after a preacher-- trills; 
a red-winged blackbird’s alarm whistle 
blending perfectly into the sound 
of the garbage truck reversing, 
upending any smug certainty 
of the comparative value of sparrows.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire; this was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on June 22, 2023.

Image: the pond at which I was praying at Sewanee during my summer school session there.

Practicing Loving-kindness: Speaking to the Soul, June 8, 2023

In the reading from Genesis this weekend (Genesis 18:1-15), we find Abraham to be an example of hospitality, generosity, and consideration of others. When approached by strangers, Abraham drops what he is doing to welcome them, and to offer rest, refreshment, and nourishment. The rabbinic tradition holds that Abraham’s example of generosity to others flowed out of his unity with God and God’s will.

Jewish midrash — collections of imaginative explanations and extensions of sacred texts—rabbis treat Abraham’s hospitality as even more than the simple welcoming of strangers, and is instead a sign of one of God’s key characteristics: chesed, or “loving-kindness.”

The rabbis teach that this kind of open-hearted embrace of the other, especially if that other is vulnerable, is one of the pillars that supports the world itself. The other pillars are prayer and the study of Torah. Chesed is about cultivating a character of love, mercy, generosity, charity, and service that comes from allowing God to work within us and align ourselves with the divine spark, or breath, that God planted within us from our very beginnings.

As it turns out, Abraham was offering hospitality to God, only he did not realize it. In return, the strangers demonstrated to Abraham that his and Sarah’s needs were seen and would be lovingly, generously addressed by God. When Abraham and Sarah respond to the wondrous predictions of the strangers with disbelief, and even bitter laughter, they are caught short by this question: “Is anything too marvelous for God?”

That same compassion and generosity lies at the root of Jesus’s sending out his disciples to heal and preach to the lost and hurting around them. The twelve received new titles, “apostle,” which means “sent.” They are “sent” to the ordinary people of Israel—for whom Matthew is writing.

Jesus has compassion and empathy for the common people; he sees their needs, like Abraham did as those strangers approached, and is determined to fulfill their needs as shepherd would for those sheep who have no one to watch over them. Jesus compels his disciples to go engage in the same compassion and empathy. To live a grace-filled life, especially because they themselves have received grace, loving kindness, and mercy.

This mercy, grace, and obligation to others that Abraham embodied is referenced in Hebrews 13:1-2: “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Could it be that strangers are angels among us, reminding us that we are stronger when we let loving-kindness rather than anger and woundedness rule our lives? May we be inspired to live a grace-filled life, practicing lovingkindness because we ourselves know we have received grace.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on June 8, 2023.

UnChained: Speaking to the Soul, May 11, 2023

“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”—Mahatma Gandhi

1 Peter 3:13-22

How should we respond when treated badly, even while doing good? How do we react when being good is no shield to suffering? Why do we think being good and then treated badly are even related? This is a question that hangs over the epistle reading from Peter’s first letter that will be read this coming weekend. Years ago, these questions even became the topic of a popular book by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, entitled When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The question of why bad things happen even to people of faith is one that haunts followers of every faith, as well as those who have none—and often those who have turned their backs on faith have done so precisely because of this question. The insistence of God’s continued goodness in the face of injustice and evil even has a special name in theology: theodicy.

Let’s face it: God does not try to blackmail us into belief, but instead honors our free will that was given to us in our creation in God’s image. And as unsatisfying as it may be, it is true that sometimes things just happen. If believing in God would protect people from everything from everyday betrayals to suffering and oppression, there wouldn’t be atheists—but many people would also have a shallow, transactional faith, which really is close to no faith at all. Yet the story of Jesus himself, his passion and betrayal in particular, reminds us that we are framing the issue the wrong way. If Jesus himself could be betrayed by a friend and suffer a horrific death, then we ourselves cannot assume that we are inoculated from pain or suffering, either. We can, however, be reassured by the knowledge that Jesus not only understands our suffering and pain, but is alongside us in those experiences. We can also determine that we ourselves are going to be part of the healing, rather than part of the wounding. We are not promised a reward when doing what we should, just as we don’t always get punished when we are doing something wrong. These kinds of situations occur more often than we would like, certainly.

It is said that “Hurt people hurt people.” This is a profound truth for many hurtful acts deliberately committed. Threatened people lash out, jealous people try to tear others down—and on and on it goes. This is the chain of pain that often gets passed down through generations. And let’s be honest: previous generations didn’t really know how to move toward healing, either. Trauma, revenge, and belligerence are handed down through generations just the same as hair color or blood type. The difference is, we ourselves can decide to break the cycle of pain, develop an understanding of suffering that it is universal, and even pray for those who seek to do us harm.

But, if we practice the gift of listening, and of honesty, we can decide how WE are going to react to the residual pain that reverberates in our souls from the pains inflicted upon us or upon those in our lives. Not by repaying wrong with wrong, and by letting go of the injury that has been done to us, trusting in God that the grace we receive through love that knows no limits can put in perspective the harm we have suffered. While there is life, there is hope, and while there is hope, there is forgiveness and peace.

May we all seek first of unchain ourselves from our own woundedness, and seek the assurance of Christ’s love for us, and determine to walk gently among each other and upon this earth, forging a new cycle of community and love—the very definition of God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on May 11, 2023.

We Had Hoped: Speaking to the Soul, April 20, 2023

Luke 24:13-24

We had hoped
that he would redeem Israel,
make Israel great again, a power among powers.

We had hoped
that he would cleanse us of sin
without changing us too much–
that he would keep out of politics,
hate all the people we do,
and keep us comfortable in our prejudices.

But instead,
he appears to us as a stranger,
slightly shiny around the edges,
but a stranger
making our hearts burn,
setting us aflame
for the love of the world
including all those we render invisible,
powerless,
voiceless,
and excluded from the table.

In the breaking of the bread,
he is at once revealed and vanishes,
lightning crashes at our feet
and rolls away the stone of our hearts.

He vanishes into those he renders visible
by his companionship and kinship,
and bids us welcome all to the table
where he is at once both host and guest.

This is the eternal life he gives:
to be his hands
pierced yet restored
that break bread
and hearts
open
tenderly
on the way to Emmaus
and beyond.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 20, 2023.

Thomas Speaks: Speaking to the Soul, April 13, 2023

John 20:19-31

What would you have done?
We all had heard Magdalene’s crazy tale,
but even after all the Master’s assurances,
fear seized us.
My brothers and sisters shivering behind locked doors,
while I was out in the streets and the garden
looking for our risen Lord, hoping
to see him kneeling in some thicket,
speaking to God like a child speaks to his mother.
Why they should be more afraid of a missing corpse
than of the horrors of Golgotha I cannot say.
I was looking for him,
looking, and scattering the resurrection news like seed.

I was the only one looking, hoping,
and yet the only one to not be found by him that night.
And so I missed his murmured “peace,”
his outpouring of Spirit and commission:
“Your forgiveness of sins forgives them;
your holding fast to someone holds them fast.”
But God knows we clung to each other in our grief,
and the whole town was muttering–
you could feel the rising fear lapping
at the foundations of our house.

An octave of days passed,
and this time I heard the melody of his voice
offering peace once more.
I was like a man parched with thirst
offered sweet, cool spring water.
My mind whirled.
And so I confessed:
“Lord, I cannot be sure that it is you
Unless I myself see the wounds you bear.”
And touching them, I was able
to find my place on the map of the good news.

Scars are proof of life and proof of God’s love.
The healing power of overcoming those wounds
make us who we truly are:
bearers of the image of Jesus,
the One who does wonders in our lives
by loving us, scars and all.
And with that promised peace,
holding each other fast in mercy and grace,
the world is changed.
And so I believe.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul, April 13, 2023.

Little But Fierce: Speaking to the Soul for September 15, 2022

  

Whoever is faithful in a very little 

is faithful also in much…- Luke 16:10

 

Some pray for faith to move mountains;
but overlook the gnarled and knotty pine
that grasps the cliff face
with roots as strong as talons
that persistently turn that mountain into soil,
daredevil defying gravity and wind
its needles whistling a laughing alleluia.

 

Some pray for the faith of a mustard seed,
forgetting, in the parable
it was an ugly, humble weed
better located outside the garden wall.

 

Lord, let me pray for the faithfulness 
proclaimed by the honest little flower
that’s blooming in the pavement crack
or garbage dump; the dandelion,
maned all in white ruff, who
though spurned, has nourished the bees all season.

 

This is my prayer: 

to be brave enough to offer my heart
like a flare of blue in an autumn sky
without calculus of renown or esteem.

O Lord, make me faithful 
like little, overlooked things.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire, first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on September 15, 2022

The Way Prayer Rises: Speaking to the Soul for September 8, 2022

 

The way the air holds warmth 

like a brimming teacup, tenderly
lifting the turkey vultures so high
their grace is all you see, as they trace
lazy lemniscates 
                     forever,
                           forever,
                               forever,
balancing on a thermal delicately,
black-winged angels gravely waltzing 
           atop the head of a pin

The way the painted sunflower bows
her head under the weight of the bumblebee
and the tickseed heads bristle with hyphenated seeds
that will scatter their blessings over 
the living earth
     and prepare a table before the goldfinch
        in the presence of those who treasure her

The way September’s grasshopper
rasps his way from ditches to gravel roads
his battered wings extolling his travels even as
newborn monarchs iron their wings
     under a radiant, dog-summer sun
          and shadows with edges like knives

The way the redbud leaves dance–
a line in the canopy shifting green to citrine
affirming the beauty of repair, healing, and resilience
like a vein of gold repairing a broken pot
      made more beautiful
            for the continued life it offers

is the way prayer rises and falls

-- This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on September 8, 2022.

Loving the Neighbor: Speaking to the Soul for July 7, 2022

Luke 10:25-37

But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

He thought he was being clever, that lawyer. He wanted the teacher to explain to him the limitations of his obligation to others. So then Jesus told a story, as he was wont to do.

He chose his characters to shock, but not directly provoke—if he had wanted to do that, he would have made the two righteous passersby a judge and a lawyer. But Jesus wasn’t just speaking to the lawyer—he was speaking before a rapt crowd, and he had a point to make about the obligations that bind any community together. However, it was still shocking—the idea that a Samaritan, an outsider, one whose heritage and religion were impure in the eyes of good Jews—could also be “good” and do the compassionate and righteous thing.

We hear this story today and we don’t hear that tension in what was then the oxymoronic term of “Good Samaritan.” “Samaritan” in our understanding has become shorthand for a “do-gooder,” the same way we now misunderstand “prodigal” when we speak of the Prodigal Son. We also forget the risk that Samaritan was taking in caring for someone who, if conscious, might have treated him with contempt, merely because of a 700-year-old-feud.

The poet e.e. cummings captures the emotion from the perspective of the Samaritan in his wonderful poem “a man who had fallen among thieves,” which updates the story into modern times. He imagines a dozen “staunch and leal” citizens scurrying away from the man laying by the roadside, appalled by the gore of the scene—and their unvoiced contempt for the victim. But the narrator is moved to pity, despite himself, and acts to carry the man to safety:

Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars.


As we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan today, though, we can look around and see the work of those who understand the universality of the definition of “neighbor” that Jesus is demanding of us. We see it every time bystanders leap into action against these episodes of gun violence that are more common than muggings on the road to Jericho. We unfortunately saw it on Monday, when “neighbors” identified and took care of the toddler left screaming in the streets of Highland Park, Illinois, a child orphaned in an instant when his parents died in yet another mass shooting. We see it in those who tried to shield others or help them get to safety as shots rang out to terrorize an entire community and an entire nation yet again—and on a day in which we celebrate our mutual connection as one nation, one community. Those who help each other in these times of extreme crisis don’t pause and think about the calculus of whether those who need aid are worthy or not, or members of our own community. They see a desperate need, they acknowledge their mutual obligation to confront suffering, and they respond, regardless.

Due to our uniquely American obsession with guns and violence, the question at the heart of Jesus’s 2,000-year-old parable is posed to each of us, daily, tragically. One can even wonder if the failure to ask ourselves the same question, and our failure to view each other through the lenses of mercy and compassion, lies at the heart of what makes these horrific events so commonplace. We speak so easily of rights, but shy away from mutuality or concepts of obligation that lie at the heart of community. The gospel is centered on this challenge to us.

Jesus makes it clear. Who is my neighbor?

Everyone.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on July 7, 2022.

Naming Our Demons: Speaking to the Soul, June 16, 2022

We may not think we have any common ground with the story of Jesus’s healing of the man with a multitude of demons in this Sunday’s gospel passage of Luke 8:26-39. Most of us no longer believe in demons, so we think we have nothing to relate to in this story. It’s too pre-scientific. It’s too fantastic. But maybe we shrug off this story due to a lack of imagination, a lack of understanding of the importance of metaphor and analogy that Jesus certainly utilized in the stories he told, and that the gospel writers used in the stories they told about Jesus.

For instance, I notice that Jesus asks the demons—not the man, whose lack of conversation reveals his loss of identity except by his illness—what their name is. And they answer “Legion.”

Those hearing this story from Luke’s gospel at the time of its writing would probably have been interested in hearing another healing story about Jesus, but at that word, I imagine their ears pricked up and they suddenly became very alert. Jesus and his contemporaries KNEW what a legion was. Most of the people in the known world two thousand years ago, from Scotland to Egypt, knew what a legion was. A legion was an invading army—a force of six thousand Roman soldiers, shock troops who would roll over a weaker people and place them ruthlessly under Roman authority and keep them subjugated. Jesus himself would die at the hands of the Roman authorities who held the leashes of the legions.

With the revelation of the name “Legion,” suddenly there is another element mixed into this story to its original audience. Suddenly this is more than simply about uncleanliness or mere illness. It’s about oppression, and suffering to which everyone hearing the story can relate. By naming the forces holding that man captive as “Legion,” the point is driven home as to the helplessness he exhibited in the face of the occupying forces that had seized control of him-- body, mind, and spirit-- and had taken away his voice and cut him off from all that he held dear.

Demons are things that take away our sense of agency, that try to convince us that we are helpless and powerless. So let's name it: Our demons too, even in the year 2022, are legion. Our demons, just like those that afflicted this poor nameless person, are forces of oppression, chaos, and division. Our demons claim power by convincing us we are helpless before them. And just as Jesus demands their name before casting the demons out of the poor man who is held captive, it is important for us, too, to name our own demons as such—to name them, so that we may rebuke them and take up the fight against them in the name of love and community.

What if we understood our modern demons as those dysfunctions, illnesses, and delusions that destroy community? The names we use for these demons may be different; but they are, indeed legion. There’s alcoholism, drug addiction—meth, fentanyl, oxycontin being just the latest scourges-- or even mental illness, which remains stigmatized even as we struggle still to recognize it as a medical condition rather than a personal failure.

But it goes on. Our modern demons also include the institutional demons of gun violence, homelessness, indifference to the suffering of others, especially when it is inflicted in our name. Then there’s grinding poverty and demonization of the poor, racism, xenophobia, dehumanizing or even “demonizing” those who are different from us—and I would argue that another demon is our tolerance or claimed helplessness in the face of those demons.

There is one thing all these demons have in common: they destroy relationships and the ties of community. And putting back on our lens as disciples of Jesus, community is one of the holiest works and tasks that we are called to embody.

For Christians, community does not just mean the group of insiders in each parish or denomination. Christian community is understood as being OUTWARDLY focused. Each group of Christians is tasked with not existing for its own sake, but for the life of the world, to draw all the world into the radical idea that we are all God’s children, all beloved, all worthy of dignity and respect and peace and wholeness—what our Jewish friends encompass in a beautiful and often misunderstood word when we use it: shalom. Another name for God—and for the love-as-action-and-justice that conquers the demons that plague us.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on June 16, 2022.

Wise Guise: Speaking to the Soul for September 16, 2021

Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37

This Sunday all of our lectionary readings are about wisdom: wisdom as a housewife who makes her household prosperous; wisdom in those who immerse themselves in studying scripture; wisdom in those who seek to do good and make peace; and wisdom in the guise of a little child being appreciated and welcomed and valued.

At the time of our gospel reading from Mark in the first century of the common era, children were looked upon as potentiallyvaluable in family economics. Children were an investment: expensive in terms of time, care, and nurture at the outset, but upon growing up (at that time as soon as they entered their teen years or thereabouts) they were expected to pull their weight in the household economy. Infancy and early childhood were times of great danger for children, and many did not survive to age five—all the way up to my own parents’ generation. I used to tell my history students that the baby boomers in the industrialized world were the first generation to not regularly experience the death of siblings in childhood. Adolescence as a developmental condition was not even invented until near the 20th century, with the development of the sciences of psychology and psychiatry. For most of human history, you were a child (and relatively overlooked, expected to be “seen and not heard”); then somewhere around age 12 (earlier if your family was poor) —bam!-- you were an adult and expected to start pulling your own weight in the household. Period.

Yet underestimating children and their acumen is a fool’s game. In the exhausting days of raising children, I and my friends would sometimes be startled by the wisdom that would come out of our children’s mouths. I am personally not allowed to tell any of these tales about my own children, but I remember some that I have come across elsewhere.

One six-year-old complained to her mom, “You keep telling me not to talk to strangers, but how am I supposed to make new friends?”

One kid of a particularly frazzled pair of parents had wanted to go to the playground for days. Finally he said, “If we do it now, we will never run out of time.” (I wrote that one into my phone.)

One little guy was having a hard time getting away from a kid who pinched and yelled at pre-school anytime she didn’t get her way, and yet he still kept trying to be her friend. “I know she has a hard time being nice. That’s why I will show her how,” he said.

And in a reminder, as if we needed one in these days, that we need MORE science education in elementary school, not less: “The early bird catches the worm,” a mom told her third-grade daughter who loved to be up at night, trying to get her to get up earlier. The daughter replied, “The night owl catches the mouse, and there’s more nutrition and calories in a mouse.”

One kindergartner would come home from school, and every day his dad would ask him how his day was. Every day, the little guy would proclaim it was a great day. Finally the dad asked him how every day was so great, and the little boy solemnly replied, “Because I decided it was going to be great.”

When Jesus places a little child in the midst of the disciples, and compares welcoming one of them to welcoming him, he is reminding us of several points of wisdom. Wisdom is never mere knowledge, but a way of living with kindness, compassion, mercy, and attention, as we see just from those wise remarks coming out of the mouths of babes. Wisdom is not discounting anyone based on their age or any other characteristic but realizing you can learn from anybody: even those who might be irritating can teach you patience and kindness. Wisdom is being open to seeing others not as potential competitors or “less-than,” but as fellow children of God. Wisdom is making time for taking care of yourself, as Jesus did when he would visit friends or go off for some prayer time alone.

The Wisdom of God is so important in ordering our lives that the Psalter begins by specifically naming wisdom as a blessing beyond all others. The reading from James reminds us of specific characteristics of those who cultivate and seek the wisdom of God: purity, peaceableness, gentleness, being willing to yield and not insist on your own way; being merciful, productive, impartial, sincere.

Welcoming little children—with all their joy and purity and sometimes noise—is the same as welcoming me, Jesus reminds us. That’s no small thing.

We could all use some more wisdom. And it often comes in the voice of a little one.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on September 16, 2021.

Being Open: Speaking to the Soul for September 2, 2021

Mark 7:24-37

Just like all of us, Jesus needed periods of rest. And by now, the only way he was going to get that was by going away, by going to places outside the boundaries of Israel and Judea, by physically propping a “Closed for Business” sign between himself and the persistent crowds. So he went up to Lebanon, to the city of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, an ancient city, originally founded by the Phoenicians, the people who gave us the alphabet. And yet, even there, immediately he is approached by a woman of the area, who falls down before him at his feet, a position of both worship and pleading. It’s also a wise position, strategically, because it is impossible—and incredibly rude– to ignore someone who has thrown themselves at your feet.

This woman is an outsider on three important levels. First, she is a woman, approaching a strange man whom she does not know. Second, she is a Gentile, of Phoenician and Syrian heritage. Third, the inhabitants of the region of Tyre were typically prosperous, as it was a busy trading hub with a highly lucrative economy as compared to the poorer agricultural area from which Jesus came around Galilee, and so its inhabitants were often looked upon with resentment by their neighbors.

So Jesus responds in a way that is not exactly welcoming—maybe it’s the exhaustion talking. Or maybe he is a little resentful of her forcing herself upon him as he is seeking some peace and quiet. So Jesus tries to turn her away, and he even implies that she and her people are dogs, fit only to cringe outside the doors of the children of Israel. And maybe Jesus, fully human and worn out and frustrated, hopes that like a dog she will slink away.

But the love this woman has for her daughter, and the fear this woman has for her daughter, has led her this far in powering through all the obstacles of race and gender that should keep her completely powerless. Perhaps she anticipated that this Jewish holy man would reject her, as expected, and had prepared her counterarguments with that probability in mind.

“Maybe I am a dog, sir,” she responds, humbly, refusing to be thrown off by any attempt to provoke her. “But even dogs are grateful to accept whatever scraps and crumbs fall their way.” And in this way, she draws Jesus up short, and leads him to reconsider. He himself has just gotten finished arguing that nothing on the outside of a person can make them unclean. And now, standing before him, is living proof of exactly that message.

What we see here is that Jesus really is fully human, and that’s vitally important for us. We have hope because God became fully human in Jesus, and Jesus, just like us, got frazzled and hungry, mourned for his friend Lazarus, and got tired and frustrated. That’s the reality and the comfort of the incarnation when we take it seriously. Jesus emerges from this encounter, just like his tempting in the wilderness and his baptism, changed. He has been reminded that God’s love for the world shows no partiality and admits no lines of division. No one is outside the bounds of God’s grace. No one.

The Syrophoenician woman reminded Jesus and reminds all of us, every single day, to be opened to a crucial reality—a reality still coming into being due to our own resistance and fearfulness. A reality that therefore can never be repeated enough to break through our human tendencies to exclude those different from us. That challenging reality is that God’s reconciling, healing love truly has no limits.

God’s love is a generous, abundant love. God’s call is a generous, abundant call to all. This reminds us that our discipleship too must be open to all. We don’t exist as a community of faith merely for ourselves or for those who are similar to us. We exist as a community of faith to serve as disciples and witnesses to the world outside these doors, both when we are acting as a community and when we are acting as individuals. Even when we think no one is looking.

Being open to the movement of the Spirit of God in our lives is the foundation of salvation and discipleship, but it’s also scary. It means being open to God’s will wherever it may lead us, and we like to be in control of where we are going. It means being open to being surprised. It means being open to acknowledging that God’s ways are not our ways of exclusion and setting people up for failure. God’s ways are always about regeneration of heart and spirit, embracing the vulnerability of being open.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on September 2, 2021.

Indivisible: Speaking to the Soul for August 27, 2021

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Many years ago, a sweeping history of Australia was published called The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding, by Robert Hughes. It told the story of how England shipped convicts to Australia’s harsh terrain in the 18th and 19thcenturies, making it a continent not only wrested from its indigenous people but built by basically convict labor. One could be sent to Australia for seven or even fourteen years for stealing a loaf of bread—just like the “crime” that was the centerpiece of Les Miserables. Those who were deemed to have broken the law were seen as unredeemable.

Some might say everyone who breaks the law is a criminal who deserves to be punished—and even cast out. Those who say things like that, at the same time, we probably all know people who behave unethically while using the law as a cover, and also people who break the law in order to follow what they consider to be the greater dictates of their consciences. Laws are meant to strengthen societal bonds and relationships—not tear them apart.

In our gospel for this coming Sunday, Jesus’s critics are scandalized by the fact that Jesus’s followers do not perform the ritual washing of the hands all the way to the elbows that was the tradition that developed from the Torah over the centuries. Yet, their criticism stems not from concern, or the wish to help someone who does not know better. Instead, their criticism means to cast doubt on the holiness of this holy man and his followers. If they don’t even wash their hands before eating, how good of a teacher must this Jesus be?

And three years ago, when we last read this pericope, most of us viewed handwashing in a much different light than we do now, as deep into COVID19 as we now are. Most of us, before COVID19, gave handwashing a half-hearted effort at best. And now we have all been taught to scrub our hands up to our elbows while singing “Happy Birthday.” Twice.

Jesus reminds us that purity for purity’s sake, stripped of context, becomes an idol on its own. Jewish purity laws were, and in some communities still are, very strict. Sometimes, keeping the law becomes a display of false piety, unmoored from the spirit and purpose of the law at its inception—it wasn’t to make a big show of yourself; it was to demonstrate care for the neighbors and our willingness to be obedient before God. It was about indivisible community, not individualism.

Ultimately, this argument is about authority and tradition. Jesus points out that tradition is all well and good—until it starts interfering with mission. We’ve lost our way when purity is valued over efficacy—when purity is valued over helping people.

We have been given a similar opportunity to demonstrate that lovingkindness and sense of appreciation of the value of our neighbors’ lives. We have the opportunity to live by grace—in humble acknowledgement of the grace we ourselves have received, honestly acknowledging the profligate love that is at the root of such radical acceptance and forbearance. To see no one as unredeemable.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on August 27, 2021.

Prayer, day 3126: Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16B)

With joy, we come before your altars, O God
and lift our voices in song and praise

for your saving love!
Bread of Life, you offer yourself to us
for the life of the world:
strengthen us in wisdom
to abide in you, and you in us, Blessed Jesus.
There is no place we find ourselves
that you are not our companion and shepherd, Lord:
for God so loved the world
and all of us within it
that we are given your Son in reconciliation and love.
By your grace, redeem us, O Savior,
and unify us to serve the cause of love always.
Merciful God, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
purify us and consecrate us, we humbly pray,
and place the hand of blessing
over all whose hope is in You.


Amen.

No Turning Back: Speaking to the Soul for August 19, 2021

John 6:56-69

It was all good when Jesus was passing around the bread and sardines.

It was fine when Jesus was poking his finger into the eye of the elites, the powerful.

But Jesus’s talk about drinking blood and eating flesh bursts through the earliest taboos in Torah. So now, Jesus’s teachings HAVE proved too hard for some of his followers. They have not signed on for this. To drink blood and to eat flesh is unimaginable. They asked for bread, and Jesus seems to be giving them stones. Worse than stones, actually, they think. Jesus speaks matter-of-factly to them about bewildering mysteries when they were asking for another miraculous sign. “Moses,” they said, “laid out feasts in the wilderness. We want bread just like that.” They wanted manna, which they called the bread of angels, but Jesus instead gives them riddles. And so, many leave.

But a few remain—then and now. “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” The ones who leave and the ones who stay do not yet understand that, better than loaves and crumbs, Jesus is offering himself to them—and to us.

Too often, we fall into the silken trap that undergirds our modern world—the stubborn insistent voice that insists that each person is in control of his or her own destiny. Other people will get there first, and there won’t be enough to go around. We are driven by fear of scarcity, fear of the Other. We scramble after manna and ignore the feast Christ offers us.

Jesus, however, reveals a different standard for defining reality. Jesus comes into the world as part of God’s proclamation “God loves, therefore we are.” God freely sends God’s Son into the world as the Incarnate Word through love.

There it is in John 3:16—“ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Jesus is the sign and representation, the icon of God’s love for the world, love that feeds and sustains real life, not just existence. The is no turning back from an embrace that pure, that holy.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on August 19, 2021.

The Rebel Jesus: Speaking to the Soul for August 12, 2021

Ephesians 5:15-20

All year round, not just in March around “St. Paddy’s Day,” I am a fan of Irish music, and of course when one talks about Irish music, the Chieftains are often the first to come to mind. In 1991, they put together an album of “Christmas” tunes with a tasty collection of guest artists. While some of these songs were traditional, some were written by more contemporary singer-songwriters. One of the tunes that made it onto the album was one Jackson Browne wrote especially for this occasion: “The Rebel Jesus.”

In this song, the narrator gently criticizes the commercialization of Christmas, and in a way, Christianity itself. At the end of the song, the singer calls himself, “a heathen and a pagan,” but nonetheless he identifies himself to be “on the side of the rebel Jesus.” The “rebel Jesus” who didn’t just urge us to go along with the injustices of the world, or to throw a few sacks of coins into the lap of beggars, but who freed beggars from their marginalization, who dined with outcasts, and who called the powerful down from their thrones (as his own mother predicted).

In our epistle reading this coming Sunday, St. Paul likewise urges Christians to own their counter-cultural heritage, to live fully and counter-culturally according to Jesus’s precepts of peace, justice, and hope in action. Such a commitment leads, without a doubt, to Christians living as, “strangers in a strange land,” whether in the context of 2000 years ago or now.

We in the US especially are often prone to assume a dominant Christian culture. Even people who are not particularly religious absorb a milieu that is nominally Christian. Our exclamations may include “Oh, my God!”—it even made it into Valley Girl-speak in the 1980s. Most people know that a “Judas” is a traitor, even if they never darken the door of a church. And of course, we see politician after politician posturing outside or inside the doors of churches, regardless of the way in which they live their very public lives. Tepid shows of piety for the sake of access to power is practically an American tradition. Probably as many business deals have been concluded at coffee hour at famous churches as have been concluded on the 18th fairway of the local country club.

Still, the reading from Ephesians reminds us that the Christian way of life is countercultural—and what is countercultural is often seen as foolish, at best, rather than wise. Living according to Christian precepts in a non-Christian culture such as that of the first century Mediterranean world made you outcasts—and outcasts quickly sank to the bottom in a culture based on family, tribe, and nation. Are we that much different?

As Christians, even living in a context awash with a mixture between secular and religious life, those of us who resolutely identify as Jesus-followers are STILL called not to conform ourselves to the world, quasi-Christian or not. That is, we as Christians are challenged not to bow to the expectations of a society founded on values that often fly in the face of the radical love and care that Jesus demonstrated time and again in the gospels. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians attempts to build a spirit of urgency, because most first generations of Christians believed Christ’s return to be imminent. But, even two thousand plus years later, we are challenged to embrace the radical ethos of the one who was crucified as a rebel against imperial power, rather than being a prop to it.

The 20th and 21st centuries have been marked by a pronounced loss of faith, hope, and love. Some acknowledge this by moaning about how “evil” these days are, and imagining that they are punishment from God for one perceived societal sin or another. Interestingly, the television preachers who trade in this kind of fear-mongering always pick an alleged “sin” from which they themselves feel safely insulated in their “personal” relationship with Jesus, which also demands nothing of them in terms of living as a person “FOR” others, as Jesus himself was wont to do.

While the days may be evil, they are evil due to our forgetting of the obligations we owe to each other as children of God and fellow pilgrims upon this earth. Yet this world is also a beautiful world, filled with wonder and love and loveliness. For this, Christians are instructed to give thanks to God always.

We are not supposed to stomp around hating this life, but are called to transform it through our action. This has great implications for those who are growing weary of attempts to reform our justice system and confront the systematic oppression built into our relationships often with each other.

Throughout the scriptures, we see a three-fold pattern that emerges for living a life in God: weep; hope; act. As we have discussed previously, much of our society now is directed at distraction and entertainment, which would be fine, except when we then become unable to sit with ourselves and our thoughts and values and examine them to see their effect on us and upon the world around us. Too often, it seems that many of us lack the ability to be empathetic to the suffering of others, especially if the action required to alleviate that suffering might make us uncomfortable or disturb the status quo. Wisdom can lead us to the place where we are able to weigh the costs and benefits of action against our calling to Christian love and radical acceptance and celebration.

We are called as self-identified Christians to be followers not of a corporate, buttoned-down savior. We are called to be followers of “the rebel Jesus”—rebel because he preached liberation to the captives; sight to those who were willfully blind, especially to the suffering of others; and hope to those who were told to suffer in silence rather than challenge the thrones and principalities that profited from human division and misery.

This is how the world is reconciled and redeemed: through the love that overturns powers and assumptions of privilege. It is a love that calls us to open our hands to received God’s good gifts rather than remain with clenched fists and closed hearts.

Lead on, O Rebel Jesus.

This was originally published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on August 12, 2021.