An Easter Spirituality

I'm sorry it's been quiet over here on the blog lately. I just haven't been thinking very many deep thoughts in the past few weeks.

Paradoxically, I'm working pretty hard this spring at not working so hard. I'm trying to cut back my work hours a bit, particularly in my ministry role, in order to settle back into a healthier and more sustainable rhythm of life after a tough winter.

My spiritual practices these days consist less of intentional study and theological imagining, and more of stillness, solitude, and sabbath keeping. Wonderful disciplines, but they don't yield a whole lot in the way of blog content.

I'm finding great hope this year in Easter, and resurrection, and the way those seasons in the Christian calendar have coincided this year with the arrival of spring. After winter in Manitoba, the grass is slowly becoming green and the buds of leaves are becoming increasingly visible on the trees. The sound of birds singing outside the window drifts in on warm spring breezes, and the Canada geese have returned to the city in droves. The new life of spring is emerging, after a long winter. And with it comes the reminder of a different kind of new life--the resurrection life promised to the people of God.

It's not always clear what resurrection life will look like, when it will arrive, or how much longer we must tough it out before one day we will realize with surprise that hopefulness and joy have replaced fatigue and disillusionment. It's not always clear that our prayers for the future will be answered with exactly the same 'yes' that we were hoping for.

But, as it does every year, spring has arrived in Winnipeg, and I am inviting this rhythm of the natural world in as gift, a reminder that in God's economy life wins over death, and the darkness has not overcome the light.

So, a few weeks ago I bought a spring daffodil plant, and watched for a week as tiny new buds grew and turned to blossoms.

And today it is finally warm enough to sit and read out on the balcony, and to notice overhead the tiny green buds showing up on the overhanging tree branches. I look forward to passing time with this particular tree, sitting with my feet up enjoying the simple pleasures of fresh air and sunshine, watching the tree grow, just as it did last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

This, right now, is prayer for me. Prayer that relieves me of my words, that holds me in God's embrace, that whispers promises of renewal and hope and beauty yet to come.

Words will return, no doubt, but sometimes it's good to step aside from our go-to spiritual practices, and to listen to the Spirit's gentle invitation to come and sit awhile, to explore our spirituality from a different angle. To trust that the heart, too, has something to teach us. To feed our longing for beauty, to acquiesce to the desire for something simple and effortless.

To watch resurrection, and to delight in it, and to know that, for now, that is enough.

On Crucifixion and Keeping Watch

"What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them.

"Crucify him!" they shouted.

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

Something is bothering me today, on this Saturday of Holy Week. Yesterday, on Good Friday, Christians around the world entered into the narrative of the crucifixion of Jesus and came face to face with the reality of his death. 

Today, we wait, sitting with the discomfort of inactivity, of helplessly remembering the body laid in the tomb, of trying to go about the paces of our daily routines while in reality this story wants to turn our world upside-down, if we will allow it to. 

Yesterday, we heard about the chief priests, elders, and teachers of the law who bound Jesus and handed him over to Pilate. We heard the shouts of the crowd, demanding the release of insurrectionist Barabbas, and shouting for the crucifixion of Jesus. We read about the crown of thorns, the charge against him: "The King of the Jews," and the insults hurled at him. We read his final cry, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" And we listened as "with a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last."

As a Christian, I'm left wondering what it means to be the disciple of this man who was crucified. I look around for his disciples, looking for some kind of example to follow, but they're conspicuously absent by this point, having fled. 

We're supposed to be disciples of Jesus; we're supposed to follow his example. But how far do we go, before we too can be excused, can flee from what's ahead?

In real life, this week, people have nudged me toward choosing crucifixion not once, but twice. 

The first time was early this week, when I was sharing about a particular experience this winter--one that had been excruciatingly painful to walk through at the time, involving a dying and a letting go of sorts--and about how God has recently and unexpectedly brought about a restoration of some of what was lost. In response to the story, someone commented about how lucky I am to be able to "really live" like that, when so many others are merely going through the motions. And said how much they'd like to trade places with me. While the intention was good, all I could hear in their comments was a rebuke to the part of me that never wants to live through that particular kind of pain again, for not being faithful enough. "Crucify him!"

The second time, in a separate conversation, I had made myself pretty vulnerable, talking about how another particularly devastating experience had resulted in some pretty unhealthy consequences in its aftermath. We were discussing what we might learn from the experience, and I had articulated that I thought that we should be cautious not to choose ministry at the expense of people's health, that we should be careful when assuming that God was calling us to something if the only way that we could do it was to sacrifice the well-being of those involved. And the response, presented as if it should be taken humorously, was, "Well, except for the crucifixion..." As if, as followers of Christ, choosing health in ministry is a failure to follow Jesus well enough? As if perhaps God might, after all, prefer that we sacrifice our health? "Crucify him!"

Yes, we worship the Crucified One. Yes, Jesus followed God and lived for the values of the Kingdom of God, even to the point of his own death. But does that make crucifixion an end that we should strive for, or a sometimes unfortunate side-effect of commitment to God's upside-down kingdom in a world that espouses very different values? It strikes me that it wasn't God shouting out for Christ to be crucified, but the crowds. And we don't usually laud the crowds for their wisdom and foresight, for joining their voices to the cry because they knew the crucifixion of Jesus to be God's good and perfect will. I don't think that the text is an invitation to call out for one another's crucifixion.

There's another example in the text, much quieter than the loud shouts of the crowds, that I find hopeful as I search for a way to respond to the reality of being a follower of the crucified Christ:

Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene,

Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. 

In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs.

Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

In the end, it was the women who stayed with Jesus to the very end. It was these women, the ones who had cared for his needs all along, who went up with him to Jerusalem. It was they who saw him breathe his last, and who were there to see the tomb where his body was laid. Later, it was these same women who would return to anoint his body and prepare it for burial.

What if, instead of getting caught up in the drama of crucifixion, and instead of urging one another on toward the cross, we took as our example these female disciples of Jesus? What if we walked with those who found themselves in painful situations, doing our best to care for their needs, to remind them they aren't alone, to bear witness to the sacredness of the moment and then to care for the needs of the aftermath?

What if, instead of urging others towards crucifixion, we were those who "keep watch with those who work, or watch, or weep this night...tend the sick...; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for Your love's sake"?

On Vulnerability and Ministry

It's ten thirty at night.

It's ten thirty at night, at the end of a long week, when I should be in bed. All day, something has been niggling at the back of my mind--an unsettled feeling that I just can't shake. The mild, almost imperceptible sense of anxiety, of being off-balance, started with an email I sent earlier today--a perfectly normal email, which I've been over a hundred times in my mind, an email that in no way merits any feelings of discomfort. It was seriously just another email--one of probably hundreds I've sent this week.

Why is it, then, that it's at ten thirty at night when I should be in bed that the flash of insight comes to me and it finally dawns on me what this unsettledness has been about all day? I was, in fact, just getting into bed when it occurred to me what was really going on. Suffice it to say, I'm no longer in bed. 

You see, the email I sent was connected to a meeting I went to earlier this week. A meeting in which I shared pretty openly about a situation that occurred months ago now that was, at the time, pretty traumatic for me. A meeting in which, for a few minutes, I allowed myself to wear my emotions on my sleeve--not a move that I make regularly or easily. I'm generally a pretty composed person. I usually keep my emotions fairly tightly in check. I prefer it that way.

And it wasn't until I got into bed tonight, and picked up the excellent book that I've been reading over the past couple of days--The Vulnerable Pastor by Mandy Smith--that it finally clicked. It's not about the email at all, really. 

I have a vulnerability hangover, if that can be a thing. 

That familiar feeling of vague unease is not about an email, but about the side effects of sharing a part of my experience that has apparently left me feeling exposed and vulnerable. I was convicted that talking about my experience was the right, the necessary thing to do. And I still am.

But two days later, it seems that the side effects are catching up with me. Suddenly, I can't say normal things to the people I met with the other day, because I feel an insecurity I didn't feel before. Couple that with another meeting today that involved a certain amount of stepping into an uncertain situation and being brave, and by the end of the day I'd had enough.

I don't want to be brave anymore. And making oneself vulnerable, or acknowledging one's weakness, IS brave, no doubt about it. It would be far easier, I think, to hide behind strengths, real or exaggerated. I'd give anything right about now to wrap myself up in competence and intelligence and an "I've got this" attitude, and to stuff the overwhelmed and tired and uncertain parts of me deep down where they can't be seen by others.

But 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

God doesn't need me to wrap myself in competence. Ministry, after all, is about God's goodness and grace, not first of all about my competence. Which is a good thing for me, and something I'm regularly grateful for. Because I don't need to get it right every time. Because it's not about my ability to love perfectly, or to articulate grace compellingly. It's about inviting people to experience God's love and grace for themselves, and then knowing when to step out of the way. 

But maybe vulnerability also takes practice. Like with exercise, it's a muscle that when stretched can be sore afterward. Like with learning an instrument, it takes time to become proficient, and there are many stumbles over rhythms and imperfectly pitched notes along the way.

And maybe the momentary discomfort of vulnerability is worth it in the end. Life, after all, isn't without pain.  So, I'm not ready to give up on vulnerability yet. Sure, I'll pick different reading material tonight. There is a time to rest weary muscles, to respect these signals from the heart and mind that they've been stretched enough for now, to choose to be gentle with oneself. 

But, in the end, we're all vulnerable, and as a pastor I would do nobody any favours by pretending that I have it all together. Because none of us do. And God loves us immeasurably, even in our imperfection. That's good news that needs to be modelled more often.

Can These Bones Live? A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

This sermon was preached at the Pinawa Christian Fellowship for the 5th Sunday in Lent. It is based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14 and John 11: 1-45. It has been abbreviated and edited for posting on the blog. Doing what you love is the best thing. Being able to do it in the congregation where you grew up among people who have loved you faithfully since you were just a little girl is better still. My sincere thanks to the PCF for inviting me to join them for worship this morning!

It’s been a long, cold winter in Manitoba, and we’re longing for spring.

We grow weary of this Lenten road that we’ve been traveling, and we yearn for the fasting to end and the feasting to begin.

We hurt for friends and neighbours battling serious illness, aching with grief, wrestling with anxious thoughts and dark moods, and struggling to find hope enough to make it through another day, another night.

We look around us at a world in which refugees risk their lives to find asylum, in which violent assaults are daily headlines in places not far from home, in which armed conflicts continue to simmer up and boil over with alarming frequency.

We look around us, and like Ezekiel, we recognize a valley of dry bones, and we sense deep within us a voice that is murmuring, “Can these bones live?” And we hear our spirits responding, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

“Can these bones live?” is a legitimate question, and like Ezekiel, we would do well not to jump too quickly to a pat response—a hearty ‘of course’ in the face of the evidence of encroaching death. We would do well to look around us from time to time, to dare with the prophet to notice the valley full of bones, to say together with the psalmist, “Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice.”

Because the truth is, not every valley leads to a meadow filled with wildflowers. A friend recently lost her job, suddenly and unexpectedly, right at the time when she should have been looking forward to retirement in a few years. Now, suddenly, she finds herself wondering what employer might want to hire someone at her stage of life, and worrying about what the future might look like. Can these bones live?

The gap between the amount allowed a single adult on Income Assistance for housing costs, and the cost of safe and affordable housing on the open market in Winnipeg continues to grow, and it’s an uphill battle for many of my friends to find appropriate places to live, where their basic needs for food and shelter can be met so that they can focus their energy on addressing needs for community, for meaningful work, for self-esteem. Can these bones live?

Ezekiel was a prophet in the first half of the sixth century B.C., during the Babylonian Exile. In 597 B.C., the armies of the Babylonian Empire had conquered the city of Jerusalem and forced the Judean king and many of its leaders into exile. By 587 B.C., the Babylonians had destroyed the Temple and deported another wave of leaders, including the prophet himself. Living in Babylon, far from the Promised Land, knowing that all that they had loved and held dear lay in ruins, the people of God faced a kind of suffering that is not unfamiliar to displaced people today—not only the loss of physical security and comfort, but the threat of loss of their communal identity and a crisis of faith. Had their God been defeated by the gods of the Babylonian Empire? Could Yahweh truly be God, even after the Davidic dynasty and the temple and the city of Jerusalem had all been lost? Can these bones live?

It’s out of this context of exile, of big doubts and bigger questions, of the loss of all that was familiar and safe, that Ezekiel finds himself deposited by the Spirit of the Lord in this valley filled with bones. Many, many bones. Dry bones. Bones that had not lived for quite some time. As Ezekiel gazes at the valley filled with white bones, bleached and dried by the heat of the sun, he hears the voice of God, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

Ezekiel is wise enough to defer to God on that question: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then God asks Ezekiel to do something that’s hard for me, as a preacher, to wrap my mind around: preach to those very same dry bones. And this is the message that he’s to give them: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”

And, when in an act of stunning obedience Ezekiel does what the Lord has asked, dem dry bones come together, toe bone connected to foot bone, foot bone connected to ankle bone, ankle bone connected to leg bone, and on and on until the neck bone has connected to the head bone. And as he watches, dem dry bones become less dry, and then tendons and flesh appear on them, and skin covers them. And Ezekiel watches in wonder as the unlikely takes shape right before his very eyes: Can these bones actually live?!

The bones standing before him may now be covered in flesh, but they don’t yet have the breath of life in them, so Ezekiel prophesies once more as the Lord commands him: “Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” And, lo and behold, breath enters the bones, and suddenly a vast army stands before Ezekiel.

In the midst of this vast army of living, enfleshed bones, God tells him the meaning of the vision. These bones are the answer to the question of the people of Israel: Yes, this weary nation of exiles can still have hope. Yes, God is still God, even in the face of great losses like the loss of their homeland, the loss of the Temple, the loss of the great Davidic dynasty. Yes, these bones can live. They will live!

“Yes, I am going to open up your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel…Yes, I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land, and you will know that I am the Lord.” Yes, these bones can live.

In the weariness that we feel as we reach the end of this season of Lent, in the hurt of those we love who are wrestling with the darkness of grief or illness or anxiety, in the longing of refugees for a place to settle and make a home, in the headlines of another young Aboriginal woman who has been violently killed, and in the pain and destruction of conflict and war, God’s answer to us is still the same: Yes, these bones can live. 

For the good news of the gospel, the good news that resounds throughout the Bible, the good news that fairly bursts out of each of today’s lectionary readings, is this: God has never given up on his people. God is serious about his project to make all things new, to restore his beloved world to its intended glory, to bring about the healing of the nations.

“I am the resurrection and the life,” declares Jesus. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

If there is a lesson in Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones, if the story of Lazarus tells us anything, it’s that we don’t dare reduce the good news of Jesus to the promise of resurrection on the last day, although we can certainly proclaim that hope. But the fact that Lazarus walks out from the tomb after four days, out of the stench of death, has everything to do with the fact that the good news of the Christian gospel is that the Kingdom of God has come near to us even now, even here—that we need not wait until the last day.

Sometimes, when we look around us and all we can see is dry bones, it’s hard to see with eyes of faith the unfolding of the Kingdom of God in the present time.

We live in a world that is all too familiar with the appearance of a valley of dry bones. But in the midst of a valley of dry bones, our Scriptures today invite us to live as resurrection people in the here and now. We are invited to speak over the valley of dry bones a different message—the message that our God is in the business of bringing life to the dry, dead places in the world. We’re invited to live in the hope that God is among us, even meeting us in the unlikeliest of places like a stinky, sealed tomb where a man has been lying dead for four days. Like a valley filled with dry bones, bleached by the sun. Like in a manger in a stable in the quiet little town of Bethlehem. Like on a cross, between two criminals, condemned to death.

 

Spring is a good time to keep our eyes peeled for signs of life, for new green shoots emerging from the soil of decay, for the first crocus blooms and the first robin’s song, for the love embodied by friends and neighbours, for grace and forgiveness when we least deserve it, for the freedom to be vulnerable and to be loved nonetheless.

Dem dry bones are real, and we dare not ignore them. But can these bones live? Our answer is a resounding ‘yes!’

Amen.