LENTEN LINE 14: THIRST

 

Thirst --- so basic, so animal, so surface, so carnal --- just meet the need, quench the thirst. 

Quenching is a need we, in our water-available-with-ease society can meet quickly and easily.  Enter a home and the first question upon settling in is “Can I get you something to drink?”

 

Jesus will thirst and the Centurion will lift upon his spear a sponge soaked in vinegar, a stark, cruel image that further informs the ugliness, the torture of the crucifixion.

 

The poet titles her book of poems, written after the death of her partner of many decades, THIRST.  

The title speaks to the loss that is an ache, her longing for what is no more, the desire for her beloved. 

 

For what do you thirst?

 

Who can quench it?  

How is it quenched?

 

Will you thirst again?

LENTEN LINE 13: Take

 

As a youth my experience of communion involved coming up front to the communion rail and seeing  pieces of broken shortbread placed in metal dishes...very safe and very contained.  

Communion and what the sacrament symbolizes is so much more than safety and containment.  Communion is sacrifice, service, love that is bold and without boundaries, grace freely given and freely received.

Spare me the already cut loaf of bread that the clergy neatly pulls apart. Me, I want the actual loaf as is so I can tear into it, I want the effort, I want the crumbs to go everywhere, I don't want it to be neat and clean.

Communion is about a gift offered.

Communion is about a response to the gift.

We TAKE communion --- we open our hands or our mouths and the bread is place into our open palms or mouths, we open to receive.

Take;

Receive;

Share

Each central actions to living the discipleship life.

LENTEN LINE 12: I anoint you......

Earlier this week I was speaking to and in conversation with a group of Duquesne University students who are members of the campus's Saint Vincent Depaul Society. These late teens and early twenty-somethings spend every Sunday evening in Downtown Pittsburgh providing food, socks, coats, clothes and materials to persons who are homeless,

I confess prior to meeting these young persons I had bought into what is accurate statistically and that is that today's younger generations have the highest numbers of claiming no religious identity nor church membership affiliation. Yet, here is this group  actively ministering to persons in poverty, individuals with mental illness, the groups whom we cross to the other side of the street to avoid or never make any eye contact.  

This group of Generation Y-ers are doing more discipleship then many lifers in the United Methodist Church so I asked them why and whey this particular service?

They answered, "it's a need we see all the time and we thought we would try to meet it in a hands-on, in-person, human to human , body to body way."

I know the focus in this season in on gearing up for the celebration of the resurrection. I'm a big fan!  I try to practice resurrection every day.  The resurrection impact is because first there was the Incarnation, the Divine enfleshed, becoming all that it is to be human and in doing so proclaiming that a body is a very good thing...all bodies a grand gift with experiences and lessons to teach all of us. 

Although I've never been a "touchy-feely+ type, I think the church needs to reflect more and minister more from an embodiment theology, to celebrate bodies and all that bodies do --- doing this would lighten us up in our dos and don'ts in regard to sexuality and identity and to our invitation, welcome and full involvement of persons with disabilities. 

I want the church to do more of a broad focus on having more all-sensory worship experiences instead of so much over-reliance on seeing and hearing.  Let's bring a little more smell and touch and taste to worship.

I want the church to do more anointing .  Anointing is so intimate and close and connected, at times forehead to forehead, as one draws close to hear the person's need and desire. The small vial of anointing oil that I carry with smells of frankincense and myrrh...just wonderful.  

In recognition and celebration of bodies, Anne Lamott writes:“My understanding of incarnation is that we are not served by getting away from the grubbiness of suffering. Sometimes we feel that we are barely pulling ourselves forward through a tight tunnel on badly scraped-up elbows. But we do come out the other side, exhausted and changed.”  Let us then be people who journey one another through human to human and body to body.

LENTEN LINE 11: IN REMEMBRANCE

 

Extravagance --- an initial reaction to the word is a "tsk-tsk, how wasteful or a most often silent inner rebuke and outward slow shake of the head.  Most times extravagance is met with strong criticism.

Is there ever a time when extravagance, to quote Martha Stewart, is a "good thing?"

All four gospel narratives tell the story of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany days before his death.  NOTE: When any story is re-told in multiple gospels....pay attention, for this one you may want to remember, this one most likely will be on the final exam.

The telling I like is the first telling, the one from Mark's gospel.  Mark, the earliest of the written four gospels was placed down on papyrus during a time of great persecution, quickly scribed because there was not time for colorful, detailed stories and profound teachings ---- just time to tell it and tell it quickly, make your point and then proceed.  Therefore, I find it interesting that Mark's telling of the anointing at Bethany includes the identity of the host, Simon the Leper, and adds an ever more important element as the indignation and criticisms rise toward the woman who burst in, broke a jar of expensive ointment and poured it on the head of Jesus, anointing him for his burial. 

Jesus, always on the side of those on the outside of things, the wrongly and easily labeled, speaks and says, "Leave her alone, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

Do we?

There are times when our love for Jesus and our acts of discipleship must be extravagant, done in ways that have heads shaking, gossips talking and love lessons being lived. 

I think the community of faith needs to stop always playing it safely which also sadly hints at playing it stagnantly. 

It was a Children's Sabbath Sunday. We made it a point to invite ALL the children, those we knew for they were a part of us and the ones in our urban neighborhood that we needed to know. We decorated the sanctuary with balloons, stuffed animals and baby blankets and children's "blankies" as the paraments. The sermon was a drama based on Sandy Sasso's children's book, IN GOD'S NAME, where different aspects of creation, the animals and the waters and the trees, offer names of God's identity based on their experience of God.  

As we readied and rehearsed for the service, at each practice I asked the parents and grandparents to provide snacks for the kids.  We had a lot of milk and cookies...it was glorious!  During one post-rehearsal connection over cookies and milk a couple of kids suggested we should have milk and cookies in church more often. DING!!  A GREAT IDEA!

Foundational to the church is table.  I hope that all have had the opportunity to sit at table with a child and share in milk and cookies.  

We went for it.  

Parents made chocolate-chip cookies, we bought gallons of whole milk (gave no thought for waistlines nor lactose intolerance), members of the children's ministry team poured milk into Disney characters decorated cups and carefully placed cookies on plates. 

At the appropriate time, I expressed that we were going to celebrate being at table in the way kids do best....milk and cookies. I stated this wasn't communion, no cookie would be consecrated.  This was just sharing and celebrating in the way kids enjoy. As the organist played up-beat songs from a children's level play list, adults accompanied children around the sanctuary assisting them in passing out milk and cookies. 

Who would not receive a homemade chocolate chip cookie and glass of milk from a smiling, giggling child??!!?!  In that congregation, more than I thought. Certain members were furious, they glared and stared. I am certain the District Superintendent's (my boss) phone rang frequently that week. 

Extravagance?  Perhaps not, yet, a definite action to re-mind us of the belovedness of every child; a moment that I hope each child who participated in that service still  remember for the time we "stirred it up a bit" in worship. 

A wise elder in one of the first congregations I served gave me that advice: "Honey, stir 'em up!"  I have and I plan to continue so to do.