Category Archives: Narrative Lectionary

There is Crying in the Bible

There is no crying in baseball…although I would not mind if Yankee fans shed a few tears tonight. Otherwise, there is no crying in baseball, but there is indeed crying in the Bible.

Jesus cried in John 11 at the death of Lazarus. In the Greek, the word for weeping describes tears falling down Jesus’ face. He cried (a different Greek word) out to the Father to awaken Lazarus from the dead, and God the Father did. Other times, Jesus cried out to God for justice, or comfort. Some of his cries shed tears while other cries were heard and heeded by God the Father.

Jesus cried. It is what humans do. Overcome by joy or sorrow, our faces leak, as Bob Maloogalooga, one of my favorite movie characters observed. When the psalmist wrote that you are intricately made, perhaps he also had in mind the well of your emotions. Crying, Jesus taught us, is a human response to life.

Back in 1 Kings, there is crying. The prophet Elijah was sent to a widow. He asked her to help him and later he helped her. She had a young son who was ill to the point that “there was no breath left in him.” (1 Kings 17:17).

She blamed Elijah. “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!”

Elijah asked for the boy, laid him down and cried out to the Lord. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”

This reminds me of a prayer Will Willimon cried out to God. Just before entering a hospital room where a young boy was gravely ill, where despair held everyone captive, and hope was absent. He cried out to God, “Don’t you make me go in there and lie for you!”

Cries speak the depth of who we are. They pull from the corners of our most honest self, the corners we mostly leave untouched.

Cries connect you with the God who hears them, as both Elijah and Jesus show you. There is crying in the Bible. There is crying in life.

There is no cry that goes unheard by God, who became a human who cries, who tenderly gathers up your cries and holds them for you.

Even the potential cries of Yankee fans, God will hear them. At least I think so. Some things I do not know.

What prayer might you cry out to God?

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Follow Directions

Last week, Marcus taught Sam how to grill hamburgers. One step at a time, he guided Sam through the directions. It reminded me of the famous hamburger helper story in my family. I was the same age as Sam when one day I was asked to make dinner. It was the worst hamburger helper in the history of hamburger helper.

What could be hard about making hamburger helper, you wonder? Fair question. This dish involves only a few easy directions.

Nothing is hard about making hamburger helper, in fact.

What is hard is eating hamburger helper when the cook forgot one important direction: add water.

Directions matter.

The Palm Sunday reading for Sunday is from Mark 11:1-11. The story of Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem is told in each of the four gospels. Matthew’s gospel specifies both a colt and a donkey carrying Jesus. What? I don’t understand, either. Luke’s version leaves out the palms. John’s version is the shortest, barely mentioning the donkey’s colt. (Is that what Matthew meant? Who knows.)

And then there is Mark. Mark is the earliest of the gospels and typically the shortest. But this story is an exception. John’s gospel wins the most abbreviated storytelling award, while Mark slows everything down in Chapter 11.

In painstaking detail, the writer draws our attention to the directions. Jesus gives two of his disciples these (unusual to Mark) detailed instructions:

  1. Go to the village
  2. Find a colt that has never been ridden.
  3. Untie the colt.
  4. “Bring it.” This is hilarious to me. The other gospels finish the sentence, “Bring it to me.” But here in Mark’s gospel, Mark reverts to his hurried writing and doesn’t even finish Jesus’ sentence! I love it.
  5. Explain to anyone around that Jesus needs the colt and will bring it back.

The latter part of Step Five is the thread I’m pulling for the sermon on Sunday.

Aren’t these directions remarkable! For a gospel writer whose most worn-out word is “immediately,” these are thorough instructions.

Digging around in the Scriptures, you find a treasure trove of directions.

  • Eat, drink and be merry.
  • Welcome the stranger.
  • Remember the Sabbath.
  • Love the Lord your God.
  • Love your neighbor as yourself.

And on and on and on. But the directions for the two disciples – how to acquire the colt for Jesus: “bring it.”

Directions matter. The colt made the point that Jesus was a strange sort of royalty. He was a king born in a manger whose baby gifts were essentially burial anointments. This is no ordinary king, proven by the donkey colt who served as lowly transportation. Kings rode regal horses, not donkeys.

The two disciples nailed the directions. They could have been in charge of the hamburger helper and we would have all eaten better that night. Leading up to the procession, had they left out any one of the instructions, the story would be different. Had they not untied the colt, for example, or not explained themselves to bystanders. This may have been a different story.

What does it mean that Mark puts Chapter 11:1-11 into slow motion? What might God stir up in you if you take your time through these verses? (Those are your directions. Oh, and remember your baptism – add water.)

As Yourself

“Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.‘ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28b-31

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been in a wrestling match with Jesus’ two words: “as yourself.” How would this verse sound if these two words were dropped and Jesus’ instruction was simply to love your neighbor? What is Jesus up to by shaping your love for others based on how you love your own self?

So…how do you love your own self? What does it look like to love yourself?

  • Do you forgive yourself? Or do you replay that mistake you made so long ago?
  • Do you beat yourself up emotionally if you make a mistake? A mistake with your family or at work? Are you kinder to others than you are to yourself?
  • How do you look at your body? Do you recognize its beauty or do you regularly wish you could trade it in for a different model?

How do you love yourself?

If you dig around Jesus’ words here in Mark 12, you quickly discover he is not saying anything new. In fact, his words are among the most ancient of words. First, he quotes the Jewish Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, the most important commandment of the Jewish faith: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is a helpful reminder that Jesus was not Christian, he was 100% Jewish. This Jewish command shaped his entire life.

Then, Jesus goes even further back to Leviticus 19:18b. Leviticus 19 is a how-to for loving your neighbor. Before and after this command are rules against slandering your neighbor, what to do if you impregnate your slave, instructions to love the elderly, and a command to love the immigrant. Tucked into a chapter outlining rituals and morality is God’s command, “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself…”

Now the question is not, why did Jesus add the two words ‘as yourself,’ but why did God add them? Why does God’s guide for loving your neighbor demand that you look not only outward but also inward?

Perhaps because loving your neighbor and loving yourself are inextricable. You cannot love your neighbor without also loving yourself. Let’s think of some examples.

  1. If you give yourself away again and again by doing service for your neighbor, but do not take care of your own body in the meantime, you will get resentful, worn down and even sick.
  2. If you care for the needs of your neighbor without ever recognizing your own social and emotional needs, your care for your neighbor may become shallow.
  3. If your main purpose in life becomes caring for the needs of others by ignoring your own needs, your co-dependency will drive others away, or debilitate the person you think you are helping.

In a nutshell, nothing good comes of loving your neighbor without loving yourself. Those two words, “as yourself”, cannot be removed from the equation of how to love your neighbor. How you love yourself matters for your neighbor!

  1. If you step back from the hustle of caring for everyone else, you might notice you have more genuine love for your neighbor if you rest.
  2. If you pay attention to your feelings, you may notice your helpfulness might be for show, and not out of sincere love for your neighbor.
  3. If you slow down, you might realize the people you are helping may not want so much help! How might not-helping actually be more helpful? This is tough news for moms, I know!

As yourself.

You, beloved one, matter enormously to the Creator. Take a breath and notice. Loving yourself is of great service to your neighbor.

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The Real Invitation

During their afternoon naps, Cornelius and Peter had unsettling dreams.

In Acts 10, Cornelius, who was not a Jew, envisioned an order from the Lord to seek out Peter, a Jew who was part of the new Christian movement. It was unsettling for Cornelius to imagine seeking out Peter.

In his dream, Peter envisioned an invitation to eat what his Jewish dietary laws forbade, which was extremely unsettling.

Cornelius sent for Peter to come to his home, both of them unsettled.

Together in the same room, Cornelius asked Peter to tell him the Jesus story. Peter did, preaching what he called “peace by Jesus Christ.” (10:36) The problem posed in this story is this: peace by Jesus Christ can be unsettling.

Peace by Jesus Christ invites very different people together. Let’s imagine.

Imagine you are part of the gathering of very different people. Imagine the gathering as the meal of Holy Communion. Imagine at your right is the person with political views the extreme opposite of yours. This is that outspoken, obnoxious, Facebook commenting person. The person you would rather never see, let alone commune beside. And that’s not all!

On your left is the family member you avoid all year long except that one holiday where you are forced to see that person in order to please your mother. The old hurt that exists between you and this family grows like mold. The scene you are imaging gets worse.

Across the table from you are the kinds of people you demean with your friends. They are wrong in every way, an insult to an otherwise orderly society. You curse these kinds of people because your favorite news source has conditioned you to see them as a threat. And now here they are, unsettling you at the table.

Who the heck created the invitations to this meal, you wonder, unsettled? How could this group of people be expected to sit together, eat together, pray together? Ridiculous, you mumble under your breath, along with other words.

And then you remember the invitation, which didn’t seem unsettling until the moment you found your place with these people, who have also found their place at the table, at the invitation of the dark skinned and shaggy haired host.

The invitation is not to people who look or live like you. The invitation is to people who are broken like you. Mercy is the equalizer at this table, Peter discovered when his unsettling encounter with Cornelius became peace by Jesus Christ.

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Prepared Enough

There are ten bridesmaids in the parable in Matthew 25:1-13. Five are called wise and the other five foolish. Late into the night of the wedding, all ten are waiting to meet the bridegroom. Where is the bride? We have no idea, which is a hint that the parable is not a true story. In a true story, the bride is somewhere.

In this parable, the five bridesmaids are wise because they planned ahead, anticipating that the bridegroom would be late. They prepared by bringing extra oil for their oil lamps. The five foolish bridesmaids only brought what they expected they would need. They brought enough oil for a bridegroom who knew that 15 minutes early is on time and on time is late.

This dude was extremely late. Late. Late. Late.

All the bridesmaids took a nap while they waited. When someone shouted that the bridegroom was on his way, the five foolish bridesmaids woke to realize the oil in their lamps were running out. They asked their wise friends for more oil, but they declined, sending the foolish out to find an lamp oil shop in the middle of the night.

Did you know there are podcasts for people who enjoy planning and planners? Entire podcasts giving tips on daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly planning, as well as highlighters, markers and pens. On Monday, I listened eagerly to a podcaster’s pen recommendations. Eagerly!

Planning, however, can pose a problem. If we are too eager to plan our days and lives, we cling to the oil in our own lamps. We cling to the routine, cling to the comfort, cling to our own plans and favorite pens.

The parable wakes me up to recognize life is not an adventure to be planned. When people arrive asking for oil, they are not a disruption but an unexpected part of the adventure. I like to think I would have been a wise bridesmaid in the story. But unlike the wise in the story, I would have shared my oil and not sent the others out into the night to pointlessly look for a 24-hour lamp oil shop.

Blessed are those who plan without growing too attached to their plans. And blessed are those whose plans include a radiant response to the unexpected.

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Logs, Specks and Blame Validation

We all know them: Christians who bubble over with judgement, who hold people to impossible standards, whose words of criticism set a bushel basket over the gleam of Christ’s mercy. Not only do we know them, we are them.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”

Matthew 7:5

Ugh! It might be the disturbing image of a log lodged in a person’s eye that makes this verse unforgettable. How careless must a person be to end up with log in the eye? The logistics baffle me.

Sure, Jesus is being hyperbolic. Stretching the illustration to ridiculous proportions, he wants you to realize that at the very moment you are judging someone, you are ignoring the many reasons you could be judged.

I know, I don’t like it either!

Today I learned a new term: “blame validation”. It means that first we find someone to blame and then we create reasons to justify it. We live out our toddler years again and again when we point blame and judgement far away from our own selves.

  • The country’s deficit dilemma? It’s those politicians on the other side.
  • The murder of Tyre Nichols? It was ___ fault. Not my problem.
  • My own home state is facing extreme legislation related to gun laws and abortion. Blame validation fills the space between each line of the bills.
  • The toaster waffles are gone? It’s my brother’s fault.

While it may appear to make our lives easier to point blame and judgement, it actually makes our lives more complicated. Judgement is corrosive to our hearts. Where compassion is needed, we paste over the corrosion with self-righteousness. Practicing blame validation, we continue to come up with reasons to justify the blame. This is particularly dangerous if we hang around people who agree with us.

This is always a good question for self-reflection. Who do I visit who does not agree with me politically? Visiting with people who are willingly to challenge you in a respectful way will always make you wiser. They will help you see the log you somehow got stuck in your eye. If you are courageous enough to keep the conversation going, you will then help them see the speck in their own eye. The following week, the roles will be reversed: you with the speck and your conversation companion with the log.

In Matthew, chapter seven, it helps to keep reading. Jesus follows up the log and speck illustration with instructions for prayer.

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock; and the door will be opened for you.”

Matthew 7:7

And a few verses later, the “golden rule”.

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

Matthew 7:12

Jesus moved from warning against judgement, to instructions to pray persistently, to the ancient law to love your neighbor as yourself. We may want to rephrase that verse to say, “judge your neighbor as yourself,” but that would put us out of bounds. As much as we feel drawn to the judge’s seat, we do not belong there. Ever.

Notice yourself today when you slip into blame validation. Then check your eye for a log.

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Treasuring

In perhaps the longest sermon Jesus ever preached, he gave a lesson on prayer. In Matthew 6, Jesus covered how to and how not to pray. He illustrated insincere prayer as attention-seeking and wordy. Sincere prayer, on the other hand, happens in the dark corners of the world and in our hearts.

Prayer from the heart and treasure, it seems, are related. What you pray unveils what you treasure. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

Look around your heart. What are you treasuring these days? Truly treasuring? Do your prayers tell the secrets held in the dark corners of your heart? Do your prayers reach the dark corners of the world?

Take a moment now to pray, for your words are a treasure to the God who shines mercy into dark corners.

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Watering Can

Today, I imagine God carrying around a watering can.

Do you have indoor plants? For Mother’s Day last year, Marcus gave me a cute, mint green watering can with a big spout that creates a gentle rain shower. Along with the watering can, he gave me a container of pretty succulents which I somehow managed to murder. But the watering can remains cute.

Most preachers have water on the brain this week as we prepare for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday and the story of Jesus being watered by John. Jesus came up out of the water and a voice from heaven proclaimed, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

We water what we care for: plants, people, animals, our own human body. Water sustains creation.

And there is something in that water.

I imagine God carrying a watering can filled not with water but with mercy. A splash of mercy here, a deluge of it there. Water for the person who will struggle today with addiction. Water for the family contemplating end of life decisions. Water for state legislators who face unlimited demands and limited resources. Water for tired teachers. Water for hectic emergency rooms. Water for the young mom who needs more sleep.

God’s watering can, of course, is not a cute mint green can, but human beings like you. Mercy comes from among us, pouring through our words. Our watering cans get clogged with judgement and scarcity and resentment. And mercy trickles out too slowly.

If you are the one in need of mercy today, even a trickle from the watering can might do. If you have mercy to spare, may it pour out of you in abundance.

Photo Credit: Photo by Hitomi Bremmer on Unsplash

An American Advent: The Story That Leaves Us Hanging

You are a gingersnap away from An American Advent turning into Christmas. We have now sledded through Habakkuk, Esther and Isaiah.

  • First, we reflected on a word in which I encourage deeper reflection before you sit among differing opinions at the Christmas dinner table: justice. Justice happens when people work toward the same equitable goal. Justice is a touchy topic in America today, often confused with political positions.
  • We spent time with Esther, who bravely believed she need not wait for someone more important to make things better. On the news, America’s messes are the fault of politicians, which lets the rest of us off the hook. We complain as we wait for the important people to make it better. But Esther would not wait.
  • Last week we named how hard it is to begin a new tradition when we prefer old, familiar patterns. For example, how are the patterns of your family of origin troublesome when you gather for the holidays? When God’s people were caught in an old pattern of rebellion, Isaiah proclaimed the coming of a new pattern – one of love that would begin in a manger.

Finally, the Narrative Lectionary reading for the last Sunday in Advent is reserved for Joseph. We know so little of Joseph, it seems a strange way to conclude Advent. Only a dozen or so verses are dedicated to him in all the Gospels. The Bible calls Joseph “righteous.” We gather that he both knew the rules of his religion and followed them, as was expected. If we imagine Joseph’s religion to be a path, Joseph knew the way because he knew the rules.

What happened in Joseph’s dream in Matthew 1:18-25 might seem a likely prelude to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. An angel appeared to Joseph to explain Mary’s pregnancy. (Either Joseph caught on quick, or the angel’s words here are abbreviated. Explaining a virgin conception in a single verse?!) In his dream, Joseph needed to understand why his fiancé was suddenly pregnant, however, this dream is not only about Mary expecting! This dream is the beginning of Jesus upsetting the righteous.

Throughout his life, Jesus upset righteous people like Joseph. He stepped onto people’s religious paths and begged them to see God as more than a religion for the righteous. God loved God’s people dearly, more than God loved rules. God loved the people more than God could put into words. So, God squeezed God’s tender love into one Word: his own Son, who would later be executed by the righteous for not following all the rules.

But this is an Advent devotion! Let’s not speed ahead to Good Friday.

This is An American Advent devotion. You are reading this in a time when many Americans have mixed up our politics with our religions, neither of which proclaim the birth of God’s embodied love. Both your political party and your own religion at times will disappoint because both are human inventions. The Word made flesh is our only hope.

  • The leaders of your political parties are not your saviors and they will not set you free. Only the Word made flesh sets you free.
  • People who follow the political party that opposes yours are the very people you need to work together for justice. If you draw a line in the sand between you and those with whom you disagree, the Word will annoyingly erase it.
  • Sitting back and blaming the leaders tricks you into believing you have nothing to offer to make this nation better. The Word proclaims hope through ordinary people like you.
  • Old patterns, even deep divisions between people on the left and right, can change. For you, it might begin at the Christmas dinner table. The Word is present when we pass the peace along with the mashed potatoes and gravy.
  • Religion is more than rules. At its best, religion pushes the faithful to recognize God’s love for all people and all nations. This Word has no margins.

Your wait through Advent is but a few more days. Despite our political disagreements and the old relationship wounds acquired during the pandemic, a few songs will unite us in the week ahead. Together we will sing of the angels, the shepherds, and the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. Our own cries of blame and bitterness will quiet into a silent night while candles real and battery-operated outshine our divisions, if only for a moment.

Christmas is the story that leaves us hanging. The Word made flesh does not fix our America. The Word made flesh instead insists on hope: hope that justice calls us to work together; hope that ordinary people can heal extraordinary division; hope that peace can indeed be passed with the mashed potatoes and gravy.

Blessings on your Christmas, that the Word made flesh might make an appearance at your Christmas dinner table dressed like you. Amen.

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An American Advent: New Things I Now Declare

New traditions are a bugger. Early in our marriage, I had no idea. I imagined my husband and I would start some of our own traditions. Perhaps weekly movie nights would be our thing, and a predictable and seamless sharing of holidays with our families of origin. Each Fourth of July, host our friends and serve our own unique meal, and each night share highs and lows with our kids.

Why are new traditions such a bugger? Because human beings are creatures of habit and practitioners of patterns. It’s why long-term diets are next to impossible and saving or spending money differently only gets harder with age. We learn one way and tend to stick with it.

Family patterns are no different. If you spend time with your family of origin (the family in which you grew up) this Christmas, you will notice patterns if you are willing to pay attention. Arguments begin the very same way. The same person will exasperate you and you will react in the same way you always do. Family patterns are the deep ruts of country roads.

This weekend’s Narrative Lectionary reading for the third Sunday in Advent has to do with patterns. God’s relationship with God’s people had developed a deep rut kind of pattern. God loved the people, the people turned against God, God opened God’s arms and they returned to God. God loved the people, the people turned against God…wash, rinse and repeat.

Into this old, endless pattern, the prophet Isaiah breathed a new one. Speaking for the Lord, Isaiah said, “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

The new pattern emerged several hundred years later with the birth of the one for whom we wait this Advent. The Messiah dared to break the pattern. God’s people could not turn away from a God who needed holding, needed feeding, needed loving. God stepped out of God’s power to step into your life for good. The pattern of humanity turning away from God was broken, not by God’s people finally getting it right, but by God declaring a new pattern.

If God can change the pattern of God’s relationship with God’s people, why in tarnation is it so hard to stick with a new tradition?

I’ll tell you why. Because the forces at work in our families of origin are powerful beyond measure. The traditions of our family and the habits that then become our own are forever our default. Like an addiction, those old habits take over the wheel whenever we feel too tired to steer ourselves.

But there is hope! In Isaiah 42, the Lord named the new pattern, which I think is the hardest step. Naming a new pattern challenges not only the existing pattern but everyone who has a stake in it. If you decide to host Christmas and cook lasagna when your family of origin has only EVER eaten ham, then you are in for it. But you’ve named the new pattern; you have the steering wheel: lasagna, baby!

New patterns are magnets for resistors. But if your new pattern matters to you, and you sincerely explain it to your family, then please keep driving. You must know the way, and eventually the others may come along. If they don’t because they insist on ham and only ham everlasting for Christmas, then more lasagna for you. You’ve created a new pattern because it matters to you, and although you would prefer that your family of origin enjoy it with you, not every new pattern continues that way.

The pattern God declared in Jesus Christ, however, cannot be discontinued. The pattern of God’s love wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger smooths out the old ruts of our lives. No new tradition, or old and worn tradition can undo God’s desire to be with you.

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