Tag Archives: Gospel of Luke

A Chasm Has Been Fixed – Great. What’s a Chasm?

There are some strange words in the Bible. Actually, you can find a lot of them. I suppose a collection of books that spans thousands of years will deliver a handful unfamiliar terms.

Among the strange words: chasm.

I dare you to use this word in ordinary conversation today. No, I triple-dog dare you! First, what is this word?

Chasm appears but once in the Bible, referring to a gulf, or a great big separation. In Luke 17:26 it describes the empty space that stands between the rich man and Lazarus (the poor man) in the afterlife.

Can you imagine it?!! A monumental gulf between the rich and the poor? As if.

The rich man likes it not one bit. “Yo, Abraham,” he bellows from the fiery side of the chasm, as though Abraham is the bouncer. “Can you fix this chasm? Get me across?”

“Nope,” comes Abraham’s reply before reminding the rich man how he spent his life on earth ignoring Lazarus, stepping over his suffering body each day. The rich man’s control on earth did not accompany him into the afterlife.

On the news, I have seen this rich man. I have seen him cut programs that will primarily impact the poor and leave him and his ivy league cronies in the safety zone of wealth. I have seen him.

He has sent innocent immigrant families into a dangerously chaotic panic, even though these many (not all) of these families have improved my community with their hard work and dedication. I know this rich man.

The problem, as you well know, goes beyond the chasm between the rich and the poor. The more troublesome chasm in the United States runs between truth and baseless lies, between those who are loyal to President Trump and those who are less impressed with the past two months.

The real problem is not the chasm, but the fact that the chasm exists at all.

What is a chasm? It is the human presumption that “they” are wrong and “we” are right. No matter who is cast as “they” and “we”, the chasm is hugely problematic for the poor.

The gospel writer of Luke consistently points to the injustice of those who are left systemically poor. It is the unique spirit of this particular book. The writer concludes this chapter by insisting that not even a resurrection could fix the chasm that stands between the rich and the poor, which is a dismal forecast, yet more than 2,000 years later, seems correct.

Not even the resurrection of Christ reduced the gulf between the rich man and Lazarus. Not even religious wars or world wars or the invention of the internet. Not the expanse to the west or even into outer space fixed the chasm between those who have enough and those whose children will not survive past the age of one because their water is unclean.

Chasms are stubborn that way. Fed by the fertilizer of fear, the chasm between the rich and the poor, between versions of the truth, between political sides is not a far-away problem, but a here-and-now-problem.

  • How might the way that you speak of “them” and “us” affect the chasm? Who is listening and learning from your rhetoric?
  • Is there a news source you have not explored, a side of the coin you might explore in order to keep the chasm from expanding?
  • Name it. What are you afraid of as you stand on your side of the chasm? What is it about “them” that incites fear in you?

If the Bible teaches us anything, it is that hate and bitterness are not change agents. Only mercy engenders change.

Mercy. There’s a word. That word makes avalanches of appearances in the Bible. It is spoken and acted out repeatedly. Perhaps mercy could make more appearances among us today, beginning in our homes, on our devices, and among our next-door neighbors.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

A New Way to See Your Life, Part Two

(Photo by 蔡 世宏 on Unsplash)

You come home from work replaying in your mind a heated argument with a co-worker and you snap at your child when he asks what’s for supper. After watching your daily dose of breaking news, you join your friends for coffee to discuss how terrible the world has become. For the thousandth time, your spouse left bits of toothpaste in the sink tonight, even though your spouse knows it grosses you out. You are so angry you won’t even say goodnight.

We live our lives with people, including and not limited to strangers, friends, co-workers, news reporters, and family members. In systems thinking, connection with another human being creates what is called an emotional system. An emotional system can shape your behavior. Your frustration from work goes home with you and you snap at your child as you snap the dry spaghetti noodles, even though your child had nothing to do with that encounter at work. Watching the news makes you anxious, so you share that anxiety with friends, making yourself and others more anxious. You are grossed out by the toothpaste in the sink, but know you will resurrect an old argument if you bring it up.

Any relationship you have with another person (spouse, parent, child, co-worker, boss) can create intense emotions, even if the subject is toothpaste. When emotions flare up, we tend to bring a third person into the mix. Picture this. You have a tough conversation with a co-worker and at the end of the day, you can’t stop thinking about it. So when your child asks, “What’s for supper,” instead of responding “Spaghetti”, you pass along some of your anger by shouting, “SPAGHETTI!” It’s not your kid’s fault your day was stinky, but it was an easy way for you to pass along some of your anxiey.

Or, you keep watching that “breaking news” show all day (seriously all day?) until it’s time for afternoon decaf with your friends. “Can you believe that president/senator/CEO/principal/football team/liberal/conservative #&*&^(&(@! What is this world coming to?” Anxious news-watching generates more anxiety when we sit with other anxious news-watching people, but it makes us feel better (for a little while). At least we’re not the only anxious ones.

Or you call your mother to complain that your spouse is basically still nine years old and unable to handle toothpaste, instead of peacefully suggesting toothpaste tablets directly to your spouse when you aren’t both too tired.

This is called triangling. Instead of dealing directly with the person with whom we have conflict, we take our anxiety outside of the relationship to calm ourselves down. Not all triangles are negative, yet some can become destructive. Roberta M. Gilbert suggests these are common ways we find ourselves in a triangle:

  • Talking against the boss, the minister, or the teacher to people other than the boss, the minister, or the teacher;
  • Gossiping;
  • Having an affair;
  • Taking a morbid interest in other people’s problems, and
  • Thinking more about a child or anyone else than one’s own marriage or life. (Extraordinary Relationships A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions, p. 53)

At our more mature moments (when we are rested and fed), we recognize our dangerous position in a triangle. We feel yucky when a friend gossips and we join in. We try over and over again to stop the affair. These unhealthy practices distract us from the real work that needs to be done on our own selves. Yes, you are a work in progress and therefore it takes work to be you. It takes hard work to notice your feelings without letting them take over. It takes hard work to admit when you acted immaturely. It takes hard work to be a responsible, non-blaming human in the 21st century…and in the 1st.

A story in Luke’s gospel illustrates. Jesus has come to visit the sisters, Martha and Mary. Martha is preparing food in the kitchen while Mary sits and visits with Jesus. Martha is ticked and Mary is enjoying herself. Instead of asking Mary to help in the kitchen, Martha passively agressively creates a triangle with Jesus. “Jesus, tell my sister to grow up.” (paraphrase mine). Jesus says nothing to Mary, instead addressing Martha. “Mary is doing what’s best,” he explained to the sassy sister, avoiding being triangled in the drama that is sisterhood.

It takes guts to avoid an unhealthy triangle. (Leave it to Jesus to nail it.) Can you spot a triangle in your life you don’t like? How might you directly address the person with whom you have a conflict?

Glossary

Emotional System: “In difficult relationships, emotions reverberate from person to person, very much like the excitement caught by a herd, beginning with one anxious individual who perceives danger.” (Extraordinary Relationships A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions, p. 9)
Triangle: To calm a relationship between two people, a conflict often spills out into a third person. Or, when news makes us anxious, instead of processing and dealing with the news maturely, we raise the level of anxiety by inviting other people into it.
Conflict: Relationships move from close to distant and back again, from up to down and back again. In between close and distant, up and down are periods of conflict. Conflict is not negative, but instead offers an invitation for people to grow closer if handled honestly and maturely.

Advent Week 3: Waiting and Waddling

(Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash)

A woman instinctively knows how to waddle. At a particular point in pregnancy after she can no longer see her toes, she finds herself sliding one heel forward and then the other while jutting out her hips. How does the waddler come to know such moves? It simply happens.

Suddenly, Mary the mother of Jesus began to waddle. We know so little of Mary from her brief appearances in the Gospels, but we can be sure she spent nine whole months waiting and some of those months waddling. She was human and therefore she carried her child in the most human of ways. For nine months, she experienced all the mysterious moments pregnant bodies experience: waddling, indigestion, and tiny elbows to the ribs, while waiting for her child to be born.

What is unique to Mary is how she only sort of knew what she was waiting for. She had no idea what a Messiah would look like or sound like. She had never been pregnant before, and no woman had ever been pregnant with the Son of God before. Would he have skin and bones or some divine substitute? Dark hair or blond and curly angelic locks? Would he cry? Would he nurse? Would his diapers be any less disgusting? Shortly before Mary pondered and treasured the words of the shepherds, she had practiced pondering and treasuring while she waited for the birth of the mystery inside her body.

Although Luke’s Gospel moves quickly from Gabriel’s announcement to Jesus’ birth, Mary endured nine whole months of waiting in between. Throughout the nine months, she knew almost nothing of what was to come. And there was no Google to help her out.

If you are like me, I am astonished at how often I turn to a search engine. Google is a quick fix for the discomfort of not knowing something. In my week at a hermitage, it took a couple of days to let go of my knee-jerk reaction to hastily Google any question that popped in my head. When will the sun go down tonight? What is that mean bird with the red feathers and are they all bullies or just this one? I wonder all the books this particular author has written and does she have an Instagram account? What supplies do I need to take up kayaking? How much sugar is in a naval orange? Why do I care how much sugar is in a naval orange? Why do I think I need to kayak when I mostly like to gaze at water from a distance?

In that one week, I Googled nothing. The multitude of questions I couldn’t answer myself went unanswered and I was just fine. I could wait until I was home to learn what I needed to Google, although I forgot most of my questions anyway.

Could it be that there are times when waiting helps us let go of the irrelevant questions? When we must wait: for a diagnosis, a family member to come home, a job interview, a pandemic to go away, do we become more focused on the questions that truly matter?

It seems significant that Mary pondered while she waited. She did not demand to know what was coming next. Pondering requires waiting and trusting that the answers will come when they will and no sooner. You do not ponder on Google, you ponder when Google is not an option. You ponder when you must endure the wait as you live in the genre of mystery.

We are constantly waiting for one thing or another. We wait to know or understand something, or we wait for the birth of something new. For nine months, God waited for the world to catch a glimpse of God’s intense love for the people who perpetually turned their backs on that love. God had pondered what love might look like dressed up as a baby. And then Mary waited and then she waddled. And finally, when the wait was over she held God’s love and then began a new wait, pondering the simple question of what would happen next.

PRAYER PRACTICE

Light a candle and picture the places and times you often wait. The next time you are waiting in a checkout line, or waiting to pick up a child from school, or waiting for your partner to be ready to go, or waiting for your appointment to begin, before you pick up your phone, repeat your phrase and say a prayer. What might you ponder for that one moment while you wait?