Finding my Own St. Jude Journey: A Lesson in Prayer

In hospice chaplaincy, I pray a lot. I pray the rosary. I pray the Hail Mary. I pray special occasion prayers in the Greek Orthodox, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish traditions. I even have learned to pray special Novenas with patients for whom certain Saints have particular power and connectedness to their living, or to their dying.

At times, I even pray for myself. This can be the most neglected prayer, particularly in the hustle and bustle of a busy clinical day – when Bible Studies, devotional materials and singing groups need to be organized; Sacraments arranged; and my most favorite moments of all, just sitting and being present with another, hearing a response to the question, “How are you?”

My life has been filled with hustle and bustle. The sacred and the mundane. With three week-long hospital stays, a thoracic surgery just before Thanksgiving, and a few complications, little time was left to, “think theologically” about “where God is working.” Or to wonder, “what I’m hoping for in the midst of my illness journey.” And best yet, “where I find meaning in the midst of all this.” Questions similar to those I find myself asking my own hospice patients and families with the hopes of finding solid ground amidst change using whatever faith or spiritual tradition might prior have offered comfort or peace. Yet, as I sat with a chaplain and dear friend of mine during this last hospital stay, I found myself thinking, exploring, and pondering just these questions, finding no answers, but more questions – just the nature of God, really.

For most of my faith journey, I have experienced the tactile nature of God through others – God’s grace through the kindness of others, love through the communion of saints, generosity through the caring kindness of my friends and family. You get the idea. And while I could wax and wane theological, what strikes me most is how God has shone God’s self most profoundly through the anonymous. My dad’s incredible secretary, “A,” is a devout Catholic, and a truly miraculous woman. A cheerful voice on the other end of the phone when I call my dad, the woman who scanned and mailed many a college application, printed out directions to college tours, helped with train, plane and bus tickets, and gave me advice when my dad couldn’t talk. Her daughter – an incredible pastry chef – even baked my 21st birthday cake. (Trust me, it was delicious). This woman is a distinct part of my memory growing up, and has worked miracles in my life I’m likely unaware of.

Here’s where the story begins, and “A” comes in…On Thanksgiving night, the lung I had a surgical biopsy on suffered complications again, I ended up back in the hospital. Unbeknownst to me, my dad emailed “A,” to tell her how I was doing, and asked her to pray for me. When the day was over, and the crisis blew over, “A” had sent my dad an email assuring him that she had prayed to St. Jude, and he had always taken care of her when things were hopeless. “Don’t worry, he takes care of everything,” she wrote back in a single line, no flowery comforts, just a single assurance.

St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, the saint for the hopeless and the despaired. He is also known to intervene when things are most dire. St. Jude, tradition has it, suffered martyrdom. Now, while my situation was by no means dire, nor hopeless, the lesson came in the form of a sincere and deeply held faithful prayer from a woman who knows me. This gesture was a lesson in prayer for this chaplain, and caused me to step back and ponder the intentionality of my own prayer life, having struggled with the question that is frequently asked of someone going through a significant life event – “How can I pray for you?” Having shied away from this question a few months ago, not having the language, nor the breath to answer, I now do, thanks to the courage, humility and faith of a woman who prayed without ceasing a Novena, not from my tradition but from her own.

To pray is to participate in collective wholeness, collective solidarity – it is to enact the communion of saints, to lift another member of the broken body up one step closer toward wholeness, if even for a moment. What matters not as much is the language used – if it is perfect, theological in nature, holier than thou or recited in perfect form, but rather that a prayer is lifted, that God’s name is spoken, and the person’s intentions mentioned from the heart. For as Christian Scriptures say, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.” Granted, this scripture can be taken to include social justice causes, worship, ministry with the sick and the occasional rush hour prayer, but regardless, God is in the midst of each lifted intention, each hand held outstretched in humble sincerity.

So where is St. Jude in all of this? I am by no means a lost cause, but rather one in progress, and that is exactly what the St. Jude novena is all about for me. A prayer of journeying, of moving from one lily pad to another, to another, to another with God. As a life of faith is a journey of change, of being both lost and found. Of being the one sheep out to pasture and the 99 who have been found by the shepherd, to borrow from the parable of the Lost sheep (Matthew 18, Luke 15). In my lostness, I have been deeply found. In my sojourning, I have found newness in my faith through the prayers of friends and family; not through the language of my own faith, but rather through language that feels at times both utterly foreign and perfectly at home to me – a Reformed Christian educated by the Presbyterians, and finally influenced by Puerto Rican Sikh, Buddhist American Baptist and Unitarian Universalist CPE Supervisors.

And so, I begin my St. Jude Journey – a lesson in prayer, to find my lily pad journey with God. From one ending, to a new beginning.

God Winks Through Song

This morning, I spent my time having a “redo” CT scan of my lungs and heart at Yale-New Haven Hospital, part of my now seemingly lengthy diagnostic process (where is Hugh Laurie when you need him, and why does the diagnostic process take longer than 42 minutes? Come on! House always got it done in a TV episode…but that’s another story). Over the last few weeks – eight to be exact – I’ve been looking for those moments of clarity, where reality collides with the Divine, where call and vocation collide with the last eight weeks, and today felt like that “aha” moment. Well…it felt like a cool moment, maybe not that Mountain Top moment that everyone speaks of, but certainly a great one, and here’s why.

Today’s mountain top moment came in the form of a horn-rimmed, sweater-vest wearing radiologist. Likely somewhere in her late 60’s-early 70s, she wore kind, road worn features and spoke with grace and kindness, despite also having just visited Albert Einstein’s hairdresser…I didn’t bother to ask for a referral! What was the joy, blessing, wow! moment for me, was her unexpected love of hymn-singing. As I was getting my things together after my scans were finished, Dr. horn-rimmed glasses and sweater-vest stayed behind, holding the door to the booth open with her shoulder. Her soft-spoken and gentle voice had a certain lilt to it, song-like, unexpected. She asked what I do to give me joy, for a living, never asking me “what I have, why I’m here, what’s wrong with me.” (though lets face it, she has access to my chart, so duh, she already knows…damn, so much for our sweet pastoral moment! But I digress…)

A moment went by as I debated sharing whether I was a Starbucks Barista, or an ordained minister and hospice chaplain (yes, this debate really did happen, and yes, I do this in real life…I’m 27. Its a fascinating sociological study to look at the responses I get as a) a young woman, b) an ordained minister, c) a chaplain, and d) wearing oxygen along with the best of octogenarians. Now you see why I tell people I’m a Starbucks Barista?), before I told her the truth. Immediately, her expression changed. Her face lit up, and her mouth broke into a huge smile, revealing gentle creases around her eyes beneath her horn-rimmed glasses.

“Do you like hymn singing?” She asked in her gentle lilt. Off we went on our favorites, from Come Thou Font, to How Great Thou Art, to Holiday and Funeral Favorites. I was about to begin a rave on John Wesley, when she began to sing, “God be with You ’Til We Meet Again.” The deep memories of this hymn came flooding back as tears began to pour from my eyes as a complete stranger wearing an argyle sweater vest and beautiful horn-rimmed glasses sang one of my favorite hymns from my childhood, a hymn I sang in my church choir played over and over by my choir director who is now seated at the right hand of God the Father after her own health struggles.

A phrase that comes to mind is “God winks.” Those glimmers and glimpses of the Divine we get, when God tries to get our attention, to remind us of Divine grace, providence and reassurance in those deepest of wilderness periods and in the good moments too. Today, God winked, and shrugged, whispered and yelled too, in the form of a Yale-New Haven radiologist with a deep love for argyle sweaters and hymn singing. What happened was an exchanging of burdens, and a lifting of spirits. In that moment, God winked, and the communion of saints came together – despite the fact that I was patient and she was physician, our faiths brought us together, and we could sing together a prayer of gratitude to the God who guides, protects, loves and enfolds. And in a way, that radiologist’s song was a prayer – for me, for my journey, my work as a hospice chaplain, and I hope, for herself and everyone whom she meets after me.

“God be with you till we meet again,” dear one, and thank you God for reminding me of your grace, for that God wink and nod today. Most unexpected, and certainly most needed. May God bless that incredible Saint, may God bless her hands, guide her and protect her, and most importantly, make her day filled with song and joy.

Amen.

Finding Faith In Others in the Midst of Tragedy

[A few weeks ago, this was reblogged on my sister denomination, the CRC’s website…in the midst of a move, a lack of internet, a car accident (I’m fine…but my poor car isn’t), and the need for some monastic and re-centering time, I’m now plugged in and grounded again, so here it is.]

And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds,”
he also adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

This past Sunday, I preached on Hebrews 10:11-25, which was the lectionary text. For the majority of my “career,” I have found great value in lectionary preaching, both for its theological and pastoral challenge, but mostly, for the fact that it allows this hard-headed preacher to lay down her insistence on being right for the sake of the perfection of God’s message to God’s people. This text was rather difficult to preach in the wake of a week of violence—violence in Paris, Beirut, Yemen, violence against refugees, black and brown bodies, white bodies, men, women, children, earthquakes in Japan, natural disasters, and ongoing, never-ending verbal violence. A text that offers a litany of “let us” statements didn’t seem to speak to me, and my concern was that it wouldn’t speak to anyone else.

As it turns out, this very text was precisely what a breaking, broken, hurting world and church just might need to hear. Not to heal (as, let’s face it, that’s a much larger project, and not for a single Sunday), but to bind the wounds that are festering, burning, and bleeding after a week of assault and injury and insult.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews encourages the reader that though Christ has gone to the cross for the sins of the world, the work is not done, but rather just begun. This passage suggests that Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection don’t simply end with our approach to worship Christ for going to the cross for us. Instead, this event invites us to renew our commitment to Christ as we leave the altar of his sacrifice.

In a world of iPads, iPhones, billboards, fluorescent lights and 140 character snippets, it is hard to pin down what faithfulness looks and feels like, truly and deeply. The writer of Hebrews understands this. Our passage both affirms the struggle and hope, encouraging us to hold fast to our faith in the promises of God. Most importantly, when we step away from the cross, the new altar established by Christ, we do not leave alone, but are forever accompanied by the company of the cloud of witnesses.

See, faith is not supposed to be a self-isolating journey, but rather one where we are invited into community. That is part of the “let us” invitations Jesus is extending. We are invited to faith in God, not just for ourselves, but in support of one another—when we are struggling, and when we are joyful; when we need a boost in our spirits, and when we need to do so for one another. We are invited into community, not only so that we can give glory to God—the God who gave his only Son so that we could be together again –but also so that we can inspire one another in faithfulness. The cross of Christ is never a source of individual faithfulness, or a competition of “my faith is stronger than yours,” but a communal witness of encouragement and hope.

So come here. Let us come and gather round, understanding that we are called to hold fast to our faith not in isolation, but in community with those around us. Thanks be to God, Amen.

“Red Cup Gate 2015” Keeping Christ In Christmas? (Or…Was Christ there in the First Place and We Have Just Lost Him?)

[Reposted from “The Twelve: Perspectives Blog…Find it here! http://blog.perspectivesjournal.org/2015/11/15/the-red-cup-phenomenon-keeping-christ-in-christmas/]

Let’s get something straight, right off the bat. I love coffee. My morning has not started until I have a cup of coffee in hand. What is more, there is something deeply theological, not to mention pastoral, about gathering around a table with a cup of tea or coffee. There have been times when I have experienced the melting of derision and the meeting halfway over a cup of joe. I have my preferences when it comes to coffee houses, environments, types of brews, dairy vs. nondairy, the ethics of coffee, and the like. Many of my friends do as well. But the type of cup my dark roast is delivered in matters very little to me, as long as I can sit across from someone and leisurely take the time to hear the peaks and valleys that comprise their walk through life.

Christmas is one of my favorite times of year. Last year, I spent it decorating palm trees in San Francisco, sipping on iced lattes. This year, I’ll be again freezing my bum off in the northeast clutching a Starbucks red cup. A red cup, you ask?

This week, Starbucks has become the center of scrutiny for its choice of a plain red cup as its holiday container, rather than its typical ornately decorated holiday fare. According to the Starbucks’ website, the corporation has traditionally used the container to “tell stories with its holiday cup designs. But this year, we desire to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.” The solid, simple red and green cups have evidently sparked outrage among many, including many Christians, as they seem…rather un-Christmasy. Nowhere do they bid you “Merry Christmas,” or show signs of good cheer, with some even going as far as to claim that Starbucks “hates Jesus”

While I can understand the frustration of many—not having “Merry Christmas” all over these cups removes the public notion that the “Keep Christ in Christmas” movement fights so hard to preserve. Yet in a way, the simplicity of these cups might symbolize exactly the type of ministry Christ lived. Now, let me back up and justify that statement. I’m not attempting to compare our risen Lord and the largest coffee corporation in the United States. But embracing the simplicity and quietness of this holiday is radical, and is a movement toward inclusivity, as opposed to the exclusivity of writing “Merry Christmas” all over a cup. Christ’s ministry throughout the Gospel displays a radical inclusivity, whether it is the Son of Man sitting with the woman at the well, working on the Sabbath, eating with tax collectors, or healing the man with leprosy. Jesus didn’t print his actions on a stone tablet, stand on a soap box, or write them on a Starbucks Cup (if that had been a thing). Rather, he acted as he saw fit, quietly at times, and publicly in others.

Would Jesus want “Merry Christmas” printed on a Starbucks cup? I don’t know. But I try to think of those words and the exclusive implications they might have for some this time of year, those for whom “Merry Christmas” does not seem to apply. For the first time, this new cup design is inclusive and open, without explicit references to a particular faith tradition.

In the run up to Advent and Christmas, what matters most is not a red or green cup and what fills it or where one purchases said beverage, but rather how, where, and with whom one chooses to consume it. The effort spent to purchase a cup for someone in need of cheer and pastoral care is more significant than a pre-printed generic holiday greeting.

So this season, whatever your feelings on “red cup-gate,” perhaps it is just the excuse to initiate a conversation with someone new, to reconnect with long lost friends, or to hear about the other. So much can happen with the help of a cup of coffee, seeing the face of Christ in another, and the movement of the Holy Spirit. And all of that can happen, regardless of the cup’s color.

Wounded Healer

[This is a repost from my writing on the Christian Reformed Church, North America (CRCNA) website. You can find it originally posted here! http://network.crcna.org/chaplaincy/wounded-healer]

Henri Nouwen coined a phrase that is frequently used in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) circles: as pastoral caregivers, we ought to aim toward the goal of being wounded healers, not the walking wounded.

When I hear this, all I can think of is the TV show “The Walking Dead”, but I doubt this is what Nouwen was getting at. He thought long and hard about this deeply theological, scriptural concept.

Over the course of my five units of CPE, this phrase appeared and reappeared. It was not until my final few units of CPE, and then again in my role as a hospice chaplain, that I really caught a glimmer of what Nouwen was getting at. To be the walking wounded hints at the idea of pastors’ wounds becoming a hindrance to their personhood, and their “pastorhood” as well. And in the end, their ability to feel the working of the Divine is hindered. The still small voice of God muted.

Wounded healers are strong in their weakness to borrow the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians. Their scars and wounds are not a hindrance to the furthering of the Gospel and the mission of the church, but rather a source of connection with those in need. As a mentor of mine put it, wounded healers are able to use their woundedness as a source of great and deep empathy, both emotional and spiritual. Wounded healers acknowledge their own need for healing, for self-care in the healing process, and that healing happens over the course of a lifetime, and isn’t just one chapter in life’s book with God.

Why the seminar on Henri Nouwen now? Advent approaches—a period of expectation, of great hope and joy. The holidays are already in the air. It is a period for many where wounds and pains are all the more prominent, and where companionship is more needed. This is the time for the wounded healer’s presence of strength in weakness, empathy in the midst of healing, and woundedness as the starting point for service.

As pastors, people, and children of God, it is our responsibility to acknowledge the suffering of others and have the willingness to sit in the midst of this experience. As Nouwen says, “compassion is born when we discover in the center of our own existence not only that God is God and man is man, but also that our neighbor is really our fellow man.” In this acknowledgment, we come face to face not only with our own humanity, but also see the loving and compassionate face of Christ in another.

As the holiday being to press in, acknowledge the strength, beauty, and power of your role as a wounded healer, as the sharing of an experience, or the sharing of empathy to another. Acknowledge the life-giving nature that the scars you bear, whether visible or invisible, may give not only to you but also to another.

Thanks be to God, as God uses each and every one of us, just as we are, in precious community!

Home…

When I was a child, I was obsessed with the show, M*A*S*H. So much so, that I wanted to become a doctor and join the Army like Hawkeye Pierce and BJ Hunnycutt. For most of the 6th and 7th grades, my wardrobe was smattered with shades of khaki, and my notebooks were tattooed with M*A*S*H quotes, and I faithfully got up early on Saturday mornings with my dad to watch reruns on FX. Suffice it to say, I was either pathetically obsessed with these mythical characters designed as a protest to the Vietnam War (despite their portraying the Korean Conflict) or I aspired to have my own opportunity to escape to somewhere foreign.

Little did I know when I was an early teen that I too would have my own foreign escape, though for me, it wouldn’t be foreign but very much domestic, and in the end, it would teach me that the place I desired to be was in a land far far away, but rather very much at home. My journey to San Francisco at times felt like a M*A*S*H-ian foreign assignment, with tents, foreign troops speaking unfamiliar languages and lobbing shells with the intention to maim and harm, and the wonderment of a new climate and culture. But while there, life stood still. Growth and progress did happen, but in the back of my head, a yearning for exactly the thing I never wanted grew – home.

The premise of M*A*S*H is that while many of the secondary characters come and go, Hawkeye Pierce stays for all eleven seasons, despite having accumulated enough points to rotate stateside. At some points in the show, he even goes a bit, shall we say, bonkers, going to the peacemaking conferences, having dreams where he reenacts scenes from his childhood, and is frequently subordinate to his superior officers when he believes the war is unjust (which in the real military, would get him court marshaled). I can relate to Hawkeye’s sense of righteous indignation, having served as a resident in a state hospital and educational system, as a single person hoping to impact change in a large machine, and more recently, having found out that the board certification process shifted around just after my residency began, directly impacting my ability to get a job (yet jobs are required to become board certified).

Yet all the while, like Hawkeye, homesickness grew like a burning hunger, and by the end of residency, with no employment or board certification on the horizon, I knew home was where I needed to be – where God needed me to be. The very last scene of M*A*S*H is perhaps the most beautiful in that Hawkeye leaves on a chopper, while BJ drives away on his motorcycle. Meanwhile, on the hillside, someone, presumably BJ, has written “Goodbye” in white rocks. Both know that they are parting ways, and finally able to nourish the gnawing hunger that has been eating away at them after many years away at war. For me, coming home felt ominous, and yet, it was exactly where I needed to be, as when I came home, I was greeted by God, and by Call.

San Francisco was a year of discernment, a year in the wilderness, a year for growth, breaking, shaping and molding. But perhaps most importantly, it was a year of going away to learn that I was supposed to be in the very place, with the very people I had been so eager to leave behind. And in returning, I would emerge from the wilderness place an entirely different person in relationship with God, and with others, only to discover that the spinning I was feeling in my call would change and evolve as well.

With all this said, I have taken a new Call, and one that doesn’t check all the boxes I desired, but does indeed check all the boxes that I believe God has for me, and I believe that is what is most important. When I began my fourth unit of CPE, I wanted more than anything to be back East, near “my people” (aka near my clergy support people, my cardiology team in NYC, and just close enough but far enough away from my family), and to be a transplant chaplain. And as God would have it, eight weeks from the end of CPE, I am none of those things. But I am something so much greater. I am a hospice and home care chaplain, and as many have testified over the past two weeks as this call has quickly developed, “this call is perfect for me.” As I view it, call is a spiritual union between God and two parties – the minister/chaplain and the people calling her/him, and over the course of the last two weeks, many people close to me, and even some who barely know me oddly enough, have affirmed the Godly perfection of this call, despite the fact that it checks almost none of the boxes I had desired initially. At first, it was part time, but then became full time after our first meeting together. It is rather suburban-rural, and a bit further way from NYC than I might love, but I have fallen madly in love with the place and people. I won’t be a transplant chaplain, but I will be working with amazing residents and families who have already touched my heart, and I have already seen and felt God through the Holy Spirit work in ways that indicate this is exactly where I am called to be for such a time as this. To fully give myself over to a place in service, just as Christ gave himself over in service to his disciples and to the world for the sake of HIS CALL.

I remember when I was a candidate for ordination, and my mentors were describing what call felt like. For some, images or stories related to a particular call would reoccur over and over again, as if God were trying to insist on the certainty and perfection of a particular place. For others, close friends, family members or mentors would affirm a person’s call over and over again until God’s still small voice would ring true and feel right. This resonated for seminary, my call in California, and now, again as a full time staff chaplain.

Clearly there will be struggles, hardships, and difficult moments – just as Hawkeye and BJ faced their own from time to time, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. But as I have always said with ferocity, if God calls, certainly He will equip me for the journey. And by His grace, He will always be there, as shepherd, guide, mentor and companion. Not only for my sake, but for the sake of all those whom I will walk alongside.

Thanks be to God for wilderness periods, for breathers in the darkness, for 3000 mile moves, and foreign assignments. But most of all, for random APC postings and email leaps into the freefall, as that is how I ended up with the next chapter of my ministry life, and I absolutely can’t wait to embark upon it. Ready or not, here I come!

For All The Saints

Today is All Saints Day, and for many, including my dad, it is a monumental day in the church year. Celebrated in the local church, it remembers those Saints who have died, both past, and in the last year.

On this Sunday, my dad remembers that he again died to Christ a second time. For him, it is a tender and significant remembrance marker of when he became an adult Christian, despite having been raised and nurtured in the church by his parents. This day allows us as a Church to remember all those who have left us, and in the process, also to remember that moment or moments when the Holy Spirit captured our hearts and called us to the service of the Church.

My home church’s contemporary service, The Gathering, will celebrate communion today. Maybe at your church too, many will come to Christ’s Table to be nurtured, fed, and made whole. At the table this Sunday, not only will we gather to remember Christ, but we also will bring with us the names, memories, and love for all those who have gone to feast in glory in the company of the Holy Trinity.

As a child, I remember on this Sunday the singing of “For All the Saints,” a hymn written by an Anglican Bishop, first printed in 1864. Though the hymn has eleven stanzas, the one that stands out to me most is the seventh (which wasn’t sung frequently, if ever):

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one, in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

This stanza speaks to the saints who spoke different languages, celebrated with different sorts of loaves and cups, and held to different confessions. Despite these differences, they are one—all created in God’s image, all beloved in Christ, all blessed with faith by the Spirit, all believing with the same heart, and all were gathered numerous times at Christ’s Table, just as many of us will be today.

May we, this Sunday, remember all the Saints, their contributions to the Church and God’s Kingdom, and may they be inspirations and guideposts for us as progress-makers in the days and weeks, the years and decades to come. Amen.

Lord, In Your Mercy…A Prayer for a Hurting People

What a week it has been. Churches burned and violated. More people fleeing their native lands for safer territory out of fear, and even in our own country, several children shot in the head by someone they did not know in the presumed safety of their parents’ custody (better question, is there ever a reason for anyone, child or adult to be shot or maimed?). What a week it has been.

With this in mind, and under the purview of the Twelve Blog, I decided to lift up a Prayer for a Hurting People, asking for God’s Grace, for God to hear Our Prayers.

Lord in your mercy,
Hear our prayers.
What a week it has been.
With shootings, deaths, continued uncertainty
and periods of wandering in the desert
with many searching for a more permanent-temporary home,
This week has brought it all.
It has brought the final roll call of brothers in blue,
more raising of arms and words between your sons and daughters,
and even the burning of another one of your gathering places in St. Louis,
a sanctuary for all those in need.
Lord, in your mercy,
hear the cries of your children,
brokenhearted on bended knee.
Merciful father-mother,
Draw close to your creation
Wrap your protecting and guiding arms around it,
As only you know what is just and right in such a time as this.
Give us grace and discernment,
Vision to truth and wisdom,
Words to comfort,
Presence to nurture and cultivate where bonds are broken.
God of the Resurrection,
Hear our prayers for reconciliation and peace.
Soften our hearts to love the beauty in our brothers and sisters,
As we are all created in your image,
And you called each and every one of us Good.
Help us to love gently,
Show mercy first and foremost,
And stand up against injustice.
Lord of Liberation,
Lord who mends broken bodies,
Lord who weeps with his broken and wounded communities,
In your mercy,
Hear our prayers.
Amen.

Mark 10: What Happens If (and when) We Get It Wrong

[Read the Original Version of this post on The Twelve: http://blog.perspectivesjournal.org/2015/10/18/what-happens-if-and-when-we-get-it-wrong/    where I am a guest blogger every Sunday for the next few months!]

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:35-45

Today’s Gospel text, from Mark 10, focuses on an interaction between Jesus and two of his disciples, James and John. The text picks up without any preface or appropriate introduction, with John and James approaching Jesus with a very particular request: “Teacher Jesus, we want you to do everything and anything we ask you to do.”

I find the request of the two disciples to be blunt and, shall we say, bold. Yet the pastor in me understands them, and apparently so does Jesus. “You do not know what you are asking,” he responds. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

Jesus tries to fill the two men in on the fact that their request is not his to grant. But their persistence is admirable. Perhaps in the end, what they ask of their humanly divine teacher is off base. Still, Christ refuses to give up, on James and John, and on us.

What happens if, and when, we get it wrong like James and John? We are human, after all. It is normal to get it wrong every now and again. Barbara Brown Taylor put it perfectly,

Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure. When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages, or alienate our children, most of us are left alone to pick up the pieces. Even those of us who are ministered to by brave friends can find it hard to shake the shame of getting lost in our lives…We spend so much of our time protecting ourselves from this exposure that a weird kind of relief can result when we fail. To lie flat on the ground with the breath knocked out of you is to find a solid resting place. This is as low as you can go. You told yourself you would die if it ever came to this, but here you are. You cannot help yourself and yet you live.” (An Altar in the World, 78)

Jesus does not wipe away his disciples’ desire to draw near to him, despite the fact that their means are less than praiseworthy. Instead, he aims to teach them, allowing for a sigh of relief and a moment to pick up the pieces. In other words, Christ is not the “lesson-teacher”, but rather is in the midst of the lesson, and is the one who draws near to pick up the pieces with us when we get the message wrong. Jesus does not wipe away the other ten disciples’ anger, but dwells in the midst of it. In my chaplain opinion, Jesus lies flat on the ground in it, rather than ignoring the humanity of the response. In Christ’s own humanity, he recognizes the eagerness of his disciples and shares with them his purpose…again. What he shares with them is that greatness is honed less through work, and more through servitude and humility, through getting it wrong, through the scraped knees, picking yourself up, and listening for the still small voice of God.

James and John’s desire to draw near to Christ resulted in them treating Jesus like a genie who grants three wishes, rather than the Son of God who was there to serve not be served. In the process of missing the mark, they fell down, and likely scraped their knees. This does not constitute failure. They messed up in their eagerness. They gained new insights, both about themselves and about the potential of their God in Christ

You see, failure—if we let it—is never failure, but rather growth in disguise. Because of Christ, we live each and every time as changed people in the New Creation, having gotten it wrong in many different manifestations, permutations, shapes, and forms.

I wonder if all that James and John really wanted was to draw closer to Christ, especially having just come to the realization that their beloved teacher was to be crucified and was soon to be leaving them. But their execution was off. Christ, in his divine patience, saw not their poor execution, but rather the persistence of their faith.

May we, on this Lord’s Day, and in the week to come, feel the grace and closeness of God the Creator, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit moving in and through our daily lives, meeting each and everyone one of us, just where we are, the Divine’s beloved. Amen.

Finding Community after Seminary Through the Theology of the Communion of Saints (Repost from The Twelve)

Preface: I have been guest-blogging on “The Twelve” (find it here…and I recommend you check out all the other awesome bloggers! http://blog.perspectivesjournal.org) each Sunday for the past two Sundays, and will be doing so for the next eight or so…), and this was last Sunday’s blog post. I thought I would share it here for all who may have missed it! 

Confession time: I used to be a very orthodox pastor. And perhaps I still am at my core.

But after working in the midst of suffering, dying and death—truly the definition of theological murkiness, with nothing that I could look up in the index of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion for reference—I decided that, God and I would just have to wing it. Theological themes and terms like, providence, theodicy, and the communion of saints came up, and were embodied, if not clearly defined. I as new pastor and person had to walk with God, patient and family, and rely on knowledge hammered into me over the course of three very dense years of seminary.

But the communion of saints—a theological concept glossed over quickly in systematic theology second semester of first year—became the single most significant term for both pastor and person. Communio sanctorum, in Latin, is the spiritual union of members in the Christian Church, and refers not necessarily to holy persons, but rather to holy things, in particular to the graces and gifts people share with one another.

In times of strife and stress, these holy gifts and graces become particularly marked, whether they are meals, cards, or phone calls. These small gestures become holy, and for the elderly or the young, they are life-changing and even can be called life-saving. One couple, who had been waiting in the hospital for a lung transplant for over nine weeks called a laughter filled phone call from a college roommate life-saving when people around them had been sterilizing their interactions. Truly a sign of holy things, and fruits of the Spirit among them.

Even in the Reformed tradition the Communion of Saints appears and is strongly defended—in the Heidelberg Catechism, citing Hebrews 8, 1 Corinthians 12, and 1 John 3. In each of these examples, the Catechism makes the claim that anyone who is united with God is united in Spirit. And if this is such, we are One People, One holy catholic church as the Apostles’ Creed states. Then we must be in fellowship, truly and completely, with one another.

I too had received the holy gifts of the Communion of Saints. As a new resident of California, a recent seminary graduate, newly ordained minister, and 3000 miles away from family, the saints appeared in the form of nurses and physical and occupational therapists on my units. They cooked and prepared meals for me, prayed for me, and checked in on me. O my final days at UCSF, they prepared a progressive potluck in the different nurses stations and an origami chain of love notes to say goodbye. They became my family away from home, prayed for me when I had job interviews, illnesses, joys and crises, and constantly protected me, just as I them.

Confession time: Perhaps I still am a very orthodox pastor. And, orthodoxy looks different on the ground, when things look gray and murky, and theology meets humanity, meets community. If there is one thing the communion of saints has taught me, it was this. It is about the creation of truly holy things out of genuinely ordinary things, and that is precisely what our God does, each and every day, if I just take the time to pause and watch it happen.