Not one of *them*!

My mother talks about the moment when, in college, she had the sudden realization that she was a Gentile. “I knew I wasn’t Jewish,” she remembers, “but it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that I was one of those nasty Gentiles!” She shares this memory with a smile at her own naiveté. Having grown up in a Christian household reading the Bible and being fascinated with Jewish tradition, my mother’s experience was surprising but safe. Surprising because she suddenly realized she was a Gentile, one of those “others” who are often looked on with suspicion throughout the Bible. But safe because the Gentiles were already “in,” had already been accepted by the followers of Christ long, long ago.

This coming Sunday, we will hear the story from Acts 11 of Peter’s vision, in which he is called to serve the Gentiles: “As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” The passage concludes: “When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”

My mother’s realization, while humorous now, is safe because her group is already included in the Christian sphere. If this passage from Acts—and the whole movement of the book of Acts from a band of small followers to the ends of the known world—tells us anything, though, it is that the Christian community should have no bounds. None. That’s why St. Luke’s practices the profound hospitality of inviting absolutely everyone to the communion table. As Reverend Jennifer says, “This is Christ’s table, and Christ turns no one away.” May we live with confidence the Easter faith that welcomes all to God’s table, even us Gentiles.

You Shall Be ~

by Kathy Douglass

I hired a hedge man a week ago. My little yellow house with the purple door is bordered on the south side by a laurel hedge. It seemed like a great idea when I bought the house. I liked the privacy and shade it offered, I liked the sense of security that comes with a hedge. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this hedge has a nickname: Goliath. It’s giant, it’s brawny, it’s mouthy, and it’ll cut me right in two if I don’t take the first swing. A friend recommended a gardener, and by Friday evening I’d made an appointment for Sunday afternoon. My first thought was that I’d better spend a few hours on Saturday trimming the hedge before...the...hedge…man...came…to…trim…the…hedge. I didn’t want him to see how scraggly and overgrown I’d let it become.

A few weeks ago, I gave myself a bit of a pedicure. Pampering? Taking good care of myself? Going all girly? No. Prepping for the Maundy Thursday foot-washing. If anyone is going to see my feet, they are going to be clean and shiny, blister-free and soft as a baby’s bottom. You know, ready…to…be…washed.

I am seeing the dentist in a few days. You know where this is going. Let’s just say that my little box of minty floss and me are spending lots of quiet evenings together.

My mom tells a funny story: when she was a young girl in the 50s (sorry ma), she and her brother had an every-Wednesday-after-school routine. They’d clean up the house, vacuum, polish the stair-rail, straighten the magazines and newspapers, spritz the mirrors, hang up all the clothes, wash, dry and put every dish in its proper cupboard, and sweep up every speck of dust. Why? Because Dorothy Simon, the cleaning lady, was coming by on Thursday to do…just…that. My nana did not want dear Mrs. Simon to think they were a “messy family.”

C’mon, admit it. You do it too. Do your best to “present” yourself.

We can be such a mess sometimes. What a relief to say it out loud. I’m a mess sometimes. You’re a mess sometimes. We’re a mess sometimes. This is not news. It just takes a few “let me clean this up” episodes for us to recognize it. And those episodes are available, well, “on demand”. We demand to be seen in a certain light. A light that’s lovely, a light that masks our most obvious flaws, a light that says, “ooh, would you take a look at her, at him.”

The truth is, we are known and loved and accepted as we are -- as… we… are. There is a Redeemer, and He’s had his heart set on us since before the foundations of the world were laid (Ephesians 1:4). A heart set to love and transform, heal and redeem. His heart is set, but ours still wavers now and then. We’re not always so sure we’re what He had in mind… so we trim and primp and mop up so we can be presentable, loveable, worth it.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God lays out His kind invitation: “Come, let us reason together”, says the Lord. “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be as crimson, they shall be like wool”. How, exactly does that happen? I don’t know. All I know is that there is an invitation with our names on it. And this is no black-tie affair we’ve been invited to. “You shall be white as snow”. Seems to me that God understands His invitation is to the messy. And that helps me breathe a bit, and loosen my grip on the “do-it-myselfing”. We respond to His invitation. He transforms us as we respond.

Transformation comes in time, it does. We’re all at one point or another in the “becoming” process. Transformation takes some growing into. So does accepting the truth about how we are seen by the One who invited us to be transformed.

The hedge will need to be trimmed again next spring. There will be more blisters between now and the next foot-washing. And I have to go back to the dentist. This “becoming” isn’t over, not quite yet.

We show up mouthy, blistered and un-flossed… and find ourselves welcome and embraced.

White as snow, white as snow

Though my sins were as scarlet,

Lord I know, Lord I know,

I am clean and forgiven

Through the power of your blood,

Through the wonder of your love

Through faith in You, I know that I can be, white as snow (lyric by Leon Olguin)

Disposable

I have found it very difficult to write my contribution to the blog. I am usually a very task oriented person and get commitments completed early. Then I don’t have to think about them any more. This has not been the case with the most current blog. I have found myself avoiding my computer, for if I am there I should sit and write my blog. If I sit and write my blog, then I have to look at the feelings I am experiencing. May of these feelings are rooted in deep anger and hurt. I really would prefer not to look at or feel them. I do not enjoy turmoil or pain. I would rather experience peace, tranquility, and joy.

I know what it is like to struggle emotionally and financially, I know what it is like to feel abandoned. When I see other people experiencing this it makes these memories and feeling come to the surface for me. I hurt and I get angry. I feel empathy for them.

It is upsetting to see adults only thinking about their own wants, usually in the form of self gratification, shunning their responsibilities. They don’t think about the impact of their actions on the people around them, their spouse, children, family, friends, and community. All they think about is their “wants” and not the “needs” of others. Or is it they just don’t care.

Of course people who don’t think about the ramifications of their actions are not truly adults. They are children. Children in a candy store grabbing treats, and toys for self fulfillment. They are thieves who steal the emotional wellbeing and security of everyone around them. They are spoiled children, bullies, and criminals. They do irreparable harm to the innocent.

We live in the disposable generation. If we don’t want it anymore we throw it out. Give it away. Recycle it. Maybe someone else would like it. In our present society families and relationships are disposable also. Throw out the spouse and the kids, they will be fine. Don’t believe it, they will not be fine. They will experience a life time in mistrust, pain, and insecurity. And for what? Someone else’s happiness and gratification. How selfish is that! People are not stuff.

How many times in the Bible is the word touch used? Jesus healed by touching people. Did he hit, emotionally abuse, walk away? He embraced the sick, poor, homeless, widowed, outcast. He healed. We as Christians are supposed emulate Christ.

Jesse Manibusan, a local Christian song writer, says it best:

"Open My Eyes"

Based on Mark 8:22–25

Open my eyes, Lord.
Help me to see your face.
Open my eyes, Lord.
Help me to see.

Open my ears, Lord.
Help me to hear your voice.
Open my ears, Lord.
Help me to hear.

Open my heart, Lord.
Help me to love like you.
Open my heart, Lord.
Help me to love.

Bridge
And the first shall be last,
and our eyes are opened,
and we'll hear like never before.
And we'll speak in new ways,
and we'll see God's face
in places we've never known.

I live within you.
Deep in your heart, O Love.
I live within you.
Rest now in me.

This link shows Jesse performing his song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbihOyKIvi8&feature=related

Let us open our eyes and follow Christ’s teachings.

Resurrection Thoughts... (picking up the broken pieces)

by Judy Bevilacqua

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;a broken and contrite heart. Psalm 51:17

I thought about the idea for many years: a large mosaic that would someday grace our outdoor entranceway. Finally, about 2-1/2 years ago, I eagerly began the work. My daughter Gina helped me create the design. It was colorful and Italian in spirit, bearing the greeting: “Benvenuto,” Italian for “welcome.” Hospitality is important to me, so it was work I believed in. It started out innocently enough, as, I suppose most life-changing events do. My ignorance was bliss. Enlarging the design and mounting it on strong wood wasn’t difficult. I had been years collecting broken tiles and dishes. (We’re hard on dishes at our house!) And I had even brought tiles home from a vacation to a pottery center in central Mexico.

So the work began: hammers, tile-cutters, and goggles. There was blood and band-aids, nicked knuckles and frustration over cutting problems and confusion over glues. But it was satisfying work…even if slow. PAIN-fully slow. Oh, did I mention slow? In my mind, I had the mosaic grouted, framed and hung by the following Spring. But only a few square inches were completed by then. Other priorities and duties sapped my strength and filled my brief leisure hours after work. Before long I couldn’t even see the mosaic, it was buried under piles of rubble and debris in the utility room, neglected and forgotten.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” Proverbs 13 says. It’s true. My heart was sad. Life was hard. My employer for whom I’d cared for over 19 years, was failing. Then suddenly, she was gone….and with that a sudden retirement. Not quite as I’d imagined, abrupt and aborted. I felt oddly unprepared for what I thought would be a hopeful season – now so tainted with sadness. Then illness followed, 60 days of a mysterious virus no physician could determine. I languished all February and March in my plaid pajamas on the couch, my hearing all but gone. This event fell during Lent last year. Perfect! Then in early Summer, I learned of my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. And late Summer, brought the devastating loss of my 5 month old grandson…..and the world turned inside out. All I knew of faith was tested. Deep underneath all this debris, in the darkness, lay all my broken pieces. I was the mosaic. Life was imitating art. God not only held the glue. He was the glue. But still I was “undone” – with no means or energy to make sense of it. My heart lay dormant for many long months.

Then….one morning 2 months ago, I awoke to yet another gray day. Only inside me, on this morning, there was light and color, and an unexpected friend: energy! I didn’t know what to make of this. Where did it come from? Oh, Grace! Just when I thought you’d lost my address! The first thing I did was go to the utility room and turn on the space heater. I couldn’t wait to uncover the mosaic and begin moving my broken pieces. I longed to coax out a pattern in the chaos: a sky and some hills, a dragonfly and a salamander, flowers and trees and wine grapes, ripe for harvest. Two Sundays ago, our scripture reading was a love song: “See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…” I could only smile knowingly and give thanks and praise to God!

And so this Season of Lent draws to that hard familiar close. Christ is crucified, His body broken for us. There are pieces strewn all over the ground: 30 pieces of silver, pieces of broken dreams, shattered shards of hope, fractured bits of faith. And the Father-Creator’s hand moves over all that is formless and void, dark and sad and deep. Once again, the Spirit of God brings beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, inexplicable light of Resurrection after Lenten darkness, wholeness after brokenness, and out of chaos, brilliant clarity in the Light of Christ. All this from broken pieces. Alleluia!

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life - (or maybe a mosaic!)

Two Holy Saturday Poems

Two poems for this special day in the church year.

Vigil ~

by Kathy Douglass

A poem for the night

before the Morning

Have I come too late to the cross?
Such regret
They’ve taken You

They’ve carried You,
They’ve cradled You so tenderly
Across this savage hillside to a tomb

And there, with myrrh and aloes sweet
They bathed your head, your hands, your feet
Balm for fatal wounds suffered as ransom,
Your life for mine

They’ve shrouded You, enveloped You
Buried You behind a stone
I am undone
I am alone

Have I come too late to the cross?
Such regret
That all that I had meant to say
Might now remain unsaid
I was silent
You are dead

I fall upon my knees and press my face against this stone
And cry out to the night
That I was loved, that I was known
That I was lifted from my shame, my guilt
To stand beside You,
Lover of my soul
You called me friend, You called me bride
That I had found my shelter in the strength of your embrace
That I had tasted mercy
That I had tasted grace
And though You said You’d die for me
I died, with your last breath
There is no life for me if not for You,
I am bereft

I beat my fists against this tomb that tears your life from me
And whisper what I pray that You can hear

That I believe

---

Holy Saturday: A Sonnet ~

by Ian Doescher

In silence and in desolation I—

Abandoned by my friends and now alone—

Can find no words to speak, no tears to cry,

But thoughts within me cut me to the bone.

The Sabbath day is here, and yet, no rest

Will calm the inner chamber of my soul.

The morning sun is in its splendor dressed,

And yet its light does nothing to console.

For yesterday they crucified my Lord:

The candle snuffed, the promise turned to dust.

The teacher, healer, leader we adored

With nails was giv’n to death’s voracious lust.

When all around me sings a song of sorrow,

How can I look with hope upon tomorrow?