It's All About Love -- Maundy Thursday thoughts

John 13:1-8, 12-15, 34-35: Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” . . . After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. . . .I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”


    It’s about love.  It’s all about love. Not surprising, really, since “maundy” and in “Maundy Thursday” means “commandment,” referring to Jesus’ commandment: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But as I was preparing for today, Maundy Thursday, it was what is commonly called Jesus’ “Great Commandment” that kept coming to me, and particularly the last part:  “love your neighbor as yourself.” And I thought about how that may be the hardest part of the commandment to do – to love ourselves. And yet if we don’t love ourselves, as Jesus commands us, are we really then able to love others – love our neighbor?
     Researcher and writer Brene Brown has said that if we cannot accept help from someone else without judgment, then we cannot give help to others without judgment. This makes sense when you think about it – but it really floored me when I first heard it. Often underlying our unwillingness to let others help us is a self-judgment that this means we are deficient in some way if we need help. That means we attach judgment to the act of helping. So if we help someone else, at some level we are judging them deficient because they need our help.
     Maybe this insight says something about Jesus’ act of washing his disciples’ feet. Peter won’t let Jesus wash his feet. But Jesus tells him, “’Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’” By washing their feet, Jesus was showing love to them, and showing them how much he loved them, as well as modeling what they should do for each other. But what if Peter took it the other way – as a sign that he was deficient. Maybe Peter was one of those, like so many of us, who can give help, but cannot accept it from others. But, says Jesus, if you cannot let me help you in this way, then you cannot help others – because instead of an act of love, giving help will become an act of judgment. And that is not the way of Jesus.
     In order to be the disciples we are born to be, we have to come to really believe that we are beloved, imperfect children of God. So we can accept the help that comes our way, by those who are the hands of Christ to us, washing our feet, feeding us bread for our hunger and wine for our thirst – with gratitude. Then we can love our neighbor, love one another, as Jesus loves us.
     It’s all about love.

Wednesday's Gifts -- thoughts for Holy Wednesday

John 12:1-11:  Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 
     But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected. “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. 
     “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
     Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.


     This story, often retold in Holy Week, comes soon after Jesus calls Lazarus from the tomb. There is, perhaps, no greater image of turning around, of embracing new life, of change than this – a dead man, choosing to come out of the darkness of the cave when called by Jesus, shedding the trapping of death and emerging into the light.
     And it changes not only Lazarus himself, but his family, his sisters who experience the wondrous change of having their dead brother returned to them – their mourning turned to dancing, their grief to joy.
     But it changes things for others as well – it scares the Pharisees and priests to death. In the Fourth Gospel, this is the reason they begin to plot against Jesus. All the other stuff Jesus has been up to was a nuisance, but this miracle is a whole order of magnitude from what he was done before. Raising someone from the dead – that is truly god-like. Now Jesus is a serious threat to their authority and order.
     So for a time, Jesus withdraws from the public eye. His days are numbered, and he knows that. But then comes the time of the Jewish Passover celebrations, and Jesus turns towards Jerusalem for the last time.
     This is the backdrop for our story for today, when Jesus stops again before going to Jerusalem at the home of this family he loves; this family whose life he has changed in so many ways – by his teaching, his presence, and by being the instrument of bring new life and light when they were in the midst of darkness and death.
     And as we are offered another glimpse into the home of this family, we see people whose lives have been changed, offering themselves each according to their own gifts. Martha, we are told, “served.” Sometimes, she has learned it is time to sit and learn at the feet of Jesus. But now was the time to act. To serve and nourish Jesus and those who follow him. Her brother Lazarus, just by being at the table, stood as witness to wondrous life-giving power of Jesus. And his very presence at the dinner table went against social and religious norms – as he would likely have been considered unclean. So his gift was public witness to the change in his life, and Jesus’ welcome of him at the table was also an act of extravagant welcome.
     And then there is Mary, who is often conflated in our minds with Mary Magdalene, though likely a different person altogether. Mary responded in her own, unique way. She entered the room with her hair unbound and took a bottle of perfume worth a full year’s wages for most laborers, knelt down by where Jesus reclined at the table, and poured it over his feet. Then carefully, lovingly, wiped it in with her hair. And the scent of the perfume filled the whole house, driving away any lingering stink of death – joining everyone as participants in this act through that powerful sense of smell. A smell that will linger, long after Jesus is gone.
     It’s an act of extravagant love. It isn’t practical. It isn’t sober, or responsible, or maybe even tasteful. It certainly didn’t follow the social or religious norms of the day. Women of the day didn’t touch men except their husband or children, and then only in private, not in front of others. Women didn’t allow those outside of the family to see their hair, let alone touch them with it.
She anoints him on the feet – not on the head as one would anoint a king or priest, but on the extremities, as one would anoint a body for burial. After Jesus’ death, his body will be anointed in secret, in the dark, by men afraid to make public their faith. But this night, Mary does it right in front of everybody in an act both intimate and tender.
     We don’t know why she did it. The narrator gives his opinion on Judas’ comments, but not on Mary. Perhaps having been touched so recently by death, and hearing as she must the murmuring in the street as the Pharisees sought Jesus to arrest him, perhaps she too sensed that Jesus’ time was limited, and so did what we so often wish we had done – she didn’t wait for Jesus to die to acknowledge how precious he was to her, the gift he had given her, by giving something very costly back to him – pouring it right out for him as his blood would pour out for us – both acts of love that transcend death.
And it’s worth noting that on Maundy Thursday Jesus will take Mary’s act as an example, by himself kneeling at his disciples’ feet and washing them. So Mary’s act of extravagant love changed Jesus in a way, too – as she is the first to live out Jesus’ commandment to love each other, by showing that love to him.
     Extravagant acts of love are often seen as crazy, or rude, or improper – and at least one person was offended here – Judas. And this story sets us up for what will happen tomorrow when Judas betrays Jesus.
     Judas here asks the infamous question – why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? And Jesus’ answer is so often misunderstood, used as an excuse not to act:  “You always have the poor with you, you do not always have me.” But there is ample evidence in all the gospels that Jesus doesn’t think poverty is just the natural order of things, that he supports the status quo, that he doesn’t think it’s worth bothering to take care of the poor or others in need. But it’s convenient to read this sentence, out of context, this way – to excuse our own inaction, to excuse the power structures that keep the poor poor.
     But scholars have long pointed out that Jesus, the rabbi, the Jewish teacher, was quoting from Deuteronomy where we are commanded to take care of the poor:  “Give generously to [the needy among you] and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.” (Deut. 15:10-11).
     Judas tries to set up an either/or situation – either give to the poor by giving them practical assistance with money or do acts of extravagant, impractical, but soul touching love. But Jesus says it’s not either/or – it’s not one or the other – it’s both/and. You must help the poor, but you can also do this. Food for the body is important, but so is food for the soul.
     And all these ways of giving in return for the gifts given and lives changed by God in and through Jesus Christ – giving gifts of our time and talents to make practical offerings like cooking or serving food for others; using our treasure to take care of the poor and those in need; speaking out and giving public witness to the ways Jesus has touched and changed our lives; and also using our gifts to do things that lift spirits and show love in beautiful, but impractical ways – all are needed to help change the world. And each of us, according to our own gifts, are empowered in some way to do just that – change the world. Not save the world – that’s Jesus’ job. But change it, or at least our corner of it.
     When are lives are touched by God, we become agents for change in the world – each in our own way. We are given the gift of change – of new life, of hope – and can give our gifts to change the world for others. Maybe only for a moment, maybe for a lifetime. Someone once said that “change comes bearing gifts” – and those gifts can be us.

This meditation was adapted from a sermon given by Rev. Christine Ng at Central Congregational Church on April 6, 2014.

Three More -- thoughts this Holy Tuesday

Matthew 23:12-15:  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 
     “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”

     These words of Jesus in his last week in Jerusalem echo through this Holy Week centuries later.
     Last Sunday, a man opened fire at a Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas. The suspect was well known for his participation in racist, anti-Semitic hate groups. And last Sunday that hate apparently boiled over and left 3 dead – not the Jews he was aiming for, but 3 Christians – all apparently devoted to their families, to their churches and to serving their communities.

     The were trying to help. They were living out their faith. A family doctor taking his teenage grandson to try out for a play – who had prepared to sing the song “You’re Goning to Miss Me When I’m Gone” for his audition. He sang it to his motion just before he left in his grandfather’s truck.
     A occupational therapist for children with visual impairments visiting her mother in the assisted living facility there -- a place called "Village Shalom" -- Village of Peace. They were living their lives in ways that made people’s lives a little better. In the words of their faith, they were making the kingdom of heaven visible on earth – each in their own way.
      Then a man filled with hate shot them down, shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in their faces. Was it revenge, was it a statement, did he think this act would persuade others to convert to his cause, did he think he had something to prove to others like him who live in a hell of hate, not a kingdom of love? Did he think he was doing it in the name of God? We may never know.
      But whatever his motivation, the effect was likely much different – not because it was Christians, not Jews, who were killed – but because his actions served not to divide (one of the goals of hate), not to show that “they” were to blame, that “they” were not as worthy as “us.”  Instead, all it showed was that we are all connected. That there is no “us” and “them.”  We are all connected. Aim the hate, shoot the gun, at one of us and we all bleed.
      The lives and deaths of William “Popeye” Corporon, Reat Corporon, and Terri LaManno touched their communities, and our nation. Three more. Three more who must not be forgotten. This has got to stop. And are we not the hypocrites Jesus flails with tongue, if we do nothing to keep it from happening again?
      Three more. Think of them when you see the three crosses of Calvary this week.

For more on these three victims, here is a link to a New York Times article on them:  here

Turning Tables -- Holy Monday thoughts

See more work by the artist Balage Balogh here

Matthew 21:12-17:  Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, 'My house well be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'"
     The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant. "Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him. "Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”

     I love Holy Week – conceptually it encapsulates the journey of life and faith so we can experience the full range of emotions each year – and learn from that practice in a way that can help give us perspective on our own journey. The exultation and joy of Palm Sunday are important – they give us something to hold onto as times become more difficult as the week progresses.
     And as we move now to Holy Monday, things begin to get dicey. Jesus is causing trouble – it’s something he does very well. That is an aspect of Jesus we often forget – or want to forget. The peaceful, almost serene Jesus depicted so often is nowhere in evidence here. This is Jesus the rebel, full of passion and righteous anger. Why?
     I remember learning about this story in Sunday school as being about what should or shouldn’t be done in church:  Prayer, yes – selling animals or conducting business, no. It was about propriety, decorum. I always thought that was odd – because in making that point Jesus was overturning tables and causing a general mess – like a bull in the proverbial china shop. It was only much later that I learned that the money changers and sellers of livestock for sacrifice preyed on the poor. They were robbing those who came to worship God. This story isn’t about what is or isn’t appropriate for a house of worship, it isn’t about decorum, it’s about justice. And the propriety of righteous anger, and even disorderly conduct, on behalf of the poor and oppressed – even in a house of worship.
     So now, I think of this story whenever someone complains when social justice issues are raised in church – as though that wasn’t an appropriate topic to be discussed in worship. Sometimes, we need to overturn the carefully constructed tables in our churches – in our lives – to reveal what is going on beneath the surface – the things we may not want to think about, may not want to see. And express our own righteous anger, even if the religious authorities don’t like it.
     And yet – Jesus’ actions that day didn’t stop these practices at the temple. I’m sure that after his death they went on, just the same. It may even have been business as usual the very next day. So what did Jesus accomplish – except giving the authorities one more reason to fear him and kill him? So this is also, I think, a cautionary tale. Sometimes direction action like this is the only way to get the point heard, to begin the process of change. But such action can also put people so much on the defensive that it makes meaningful change almost impossible. Sometimes to get around a roadblock you have to go around – not straight ahead. And it takes prayer and discernment to figure out the past way through.
     What issues are you passionate about? What can you do to help work for meaningful change?

What Must be Done -- Palm Sunday Meditation

Meditation based on Mark 11:1-11
(and inspired by Jan Richardson)
given at Central Congregational Church on Palm Sunday 2012

After the donkey and her colt,
After the procession,
After the waving branches and the road covered with coats,
After the hosannas and the Hallelujas and the cheering, noisy crowd,
After Jesus entered through the gates of Jerusalem,
After all of this, only Mark, in a few bare words, tells of how Jesus went into the temple, looked around, spent so much time that when he was done it was already late, so he left.
Just left.
     He didn’t teach. He didn’t preach. He didn’t heal, or confront, or challenge. He didn’t mix it up with the priests and the scribes. Jesus simply looked around, and left.
Went back out of Jerusalem, back to Bethany where he started the day, and where he seemed to be staying.
And at the end of this day, the crowds seem to have disappeared – leaving Jesus to walk back to Bethany with only the twelve by his side.
It’s an oddly quiet, and anti-climactic ending to the story. What began like a procession and a celebration, became more like a pilgrimage.
And in between the fierce energy of the first part of the story with the preparations and the process, and the quiet, subdued quality of the end is the temple of Jerusalem – the holiest of places for the Jewish people, central to their religious practice and identity.
It’s a place that must have also held a lot of memories for Jesus. The gospels differ in their account of how much time Jesus spent in the temple in Jerusalem. More than likely he made the Passover pilgrimage to the temple every year with his family, so perhaps he had sweet memories of attending those celebrations with his family.  And it is to this place that Jesus returns on this day when he is greeted at the gates of Jerusalem like a king.
       When Jesus walked around the grounds of the temple, I wonder what he saw? Did he see himself as a boy, running up the steps with Mary and Joseph? Did he see, as the Gospel of John says, himself at age 12, deep in conversation with the teachers? Was he remembering, as the Gospel of Matthew tells it, Satan taking him up to the top of the temple and urging him to jump so that angels could catch him?
       We’ll never know, of course, but Mark, I believe, gives us a clue in the verses that come next. Mark tells how, the very next day, Jesus leaves Bethany again, in quite a mood. He curses a fig tree that had no fruit to feed him, storms up to the temple, overturning the tables and chairs of the merchants and money-changers as he went, indicting those who turned what should be “a house of prayer for all the nations” into a den of robbers and thieves. And the crowd, according to Mark, watched him, spellbound.
      And, according to Mark, this was the last straw. In Mark it was this act at the temple that made the chief priests and the scribes afraid of him, had them looking for a way to kill him.
      I think we can guess what Jesus saw that Palm Sunday at the temple by what he did the next day. Jesus looked around at a place that should have been a place of worship and prayer, a place where God’s love and compassion for the people shone, a place where he would feel at home, and close to God. But what he saw was corruption: common people, the poor, overcharged and swindled of their money to feed a temple structure that gave them little or nothing in return.
       And I imagine Jesus looking around, seeing all this, and knowing, in his heart, what must be done – what he needed to do. The temple system was corrupt, infected, sick – and it needed a different type of healing. No gentle treatment would do – what was needed was something more radical – like debriding a wound – clearing away the dead tissue, draining infection – to expose healthy tissue underneath so it could heal.
       But such healing is painful – and looking around the temple, knowing what must be done, I think Jesus knew what the reaction of the temple authorities would be, I think he knew the cost – and that he would be the one to pay it.
       And so, it was a somber Jesus who walked back to Bethany that evening with the twelve. I imagine the scene around the dinner table that night. The disciples around him, clueless as usual, excitedly recalling the events of the day – the faces of the crowd, the celebration. Planning for the future. They were finally in Jerusalem, now something’s really going to happen. I mean – what a welcome!
       But Jesus, unusually quiet, smiling a little, perhaps, at their enthusiasm, but not participating. Eating his meal. Planning his next move. Seeing where it would lead. Praying in his heart that God would give him the courage and the strength to do what must be done – to see this job through to the end. It’s a time in between – a liminal space – between the celebration and the betrayal, between the journey to Jerusalem and the journey to the cross and beyond. And Jesus would have prepared for it as carefully as he prepared for his entry into Jerusalem – riding on a donkey’s colt.
      The tone at the end of this story in the gospel of Mark is bittersweet. The crowd shouted, “Hosanna” – “Save us” – but they didn’t know what they were asking for. Tomorrow he would begin to show them, begin to teach them, and as the week progresses – they would see the cost. Tomorrow he would travel again the physical path, cross the threshold into Jerusalem, but it would be much different because this time he would be crossing the threshold that would lead him to the cross.
       But that night, in the time in between, after the branches had been put down, and the shouts of “Hosanna” and “Halleluja” had long since vanished into the air, Jesus took a different journey, a pilgrimage through an inner landscape, a sacred path of prayer and preparation, so that when the sun rose on the new day, he would be ready to set his feet on the next path God had set before him, no matter how hard it would be. So he would be ready to do what must be done – tomorrow.

Ashes and Stones -- An Ash Wednesday Meditation

A Meditation that will be given by Rev. Christine Ng today based on John 8:1-11:  "Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’"

       “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Those are the traditional words of Ash Wednesday. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.
       It’s a strange kind of holiday, isn’t it? Ash Wednesday. No pleasant greeting cards. No beautiful decorations or favorite songs. No festive parties or fancy clothes or wonderful food – that was last night if you celebrated Marti Gras or Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday is more like the morning after.
       Plain. Stark. Painful perhaps. With images of ashes and the reminder of death. “You are dust, and to dust you will return.”
       Dust. Earth. Holy ground. You are.
       It is one of the beautiful paradoxes of this day, that as we are reminded of our own death, and brokenness, we are also reminded of our connection, our relationship, to each other, to all God’s creation, to God.
       The cross of ashes on our foreheads mark us all – rich and poor; famous, infamous, homeless; whatever our skin color, whatever our past, whatever . . . today we are just another person with a smudge of dust on our head, but connected in this act to all those around us with dirty foreheads. Because we are all human, all broken, and one day, all of us will die. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
       The ashes, the dust, connects us also to the earth from which it came. And to all of the earth, and its creatures, we are related. We share with the earth the very elements of life. Out of those elements we were created, it is the very stuff of life, and of death. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We are part of something bigger than ourselves – we are part of all God’s creation – and part of the cycle of life, death, renewal that is all around us. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
       But this dust, this earth, it is holy ground. And as it is put on us we are reminded that so are we. Holy Ground. Beloved by God. The sign made with the ashes is the sign of the cross. A reminder of our relationship to God. A reminder of God’s love. A reminder of death, but also that death does not have the last word.
       Because for all it’s imagery and reminders of death, this isn’t a holiday, this holy day, isn’t about death – it’s about life. As we are reminded, confronted even, by our own mortality, the fact of our own death, we are called to live to the fullest the life between now and then. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But now – right now, you are wonderfully, gloriously alive. It’s a gift. A blessing. How will you live it?
       I love the way Joan Chittister put it:  “Lent is a call to weep for what we could have been and are not. Lent is the grace to grieve for what we should have done and did not. Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not. Lent is not about penance. Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us, right now. Lent is a summons to live anew.”
       And Ash Wednesday, as the ashes are placed in a cross on our forehead, is when it begins. A moment cut out of time – a moment of grace, when we can know ourselves, know our own brokenness, know the brokenness of others, and know we are all forgiven, blessed, beloved. And a moment when we can recommit to living whatever time we have left as the children of God we were created to be.
       Ash Wednesday is a moment when we hit rock bottom – the place where we can go no further down – down the road to despair, down the road of brokenness. Rock bottom can be a hard, painful place to be – but it is also a good place to turn around – to begin taking the paths that lead to healing, reconciliation, grace.

       The woman accused of adultery in tonight’s scripture reading was at rock bottom. Almost literally – as she was about to be stoned to death. And Jesus didn’t judge her. Instead, he stooped down – placing himself on her level – or perhaps even lower depending on whether you see her fallen on the ground or standing before him – different translations describe this a little differently. But either way, Jesus wasn’t standing over her in judgment, but bending down to write on the ground, on the earth.
       Why did he do that? What did he write? And he did it not once, but twice. The text doesn’t say. But I have my own midrash on this story – I like to think that the first time he wrote of the woman: “Beloved. Blessed.” But the scribes and Pharisees, who should have been able to read it, still didn’t get it, so Jesus said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
       Then Jesus bent down again to write in the dust of the earth. I imagine he wrote: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” A quote from the Hebrew Bible, the scribes and Pharisees would have known very well. In that moment, the men who would have condemned the woman for her sin, for her brokenness. In that moment, those men were united with her in glimpsing their own mortality, in knowing and confessing publically by their actions, their own sin, their own brokenness.
For the woman in this story, this was a moment of grace, of acceptance, of forgiveness, of healing. A moment when she was given the opportunity to turn around and live life anew. She hit rock bottom, but Jesus lifted her up, set her on a new path.
       But this was just as much a moment of grace for the men who would have stoned her. And so, holding in their hands the rocks and stones they would have used to do harm, to kill, they hit rock bottom themselves. And one by one, they turned around, they walked away – and I like to think they took the rocks and stones with them.

       I wonder what they felt, as they held those rocks in their hands? Because even rocks, no matter how hard, or smooth, with the passage of time, become dust themselves. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Did the rocks remind them of their own mortality – how close they came touching death that day? And did that reminder make them see that they did not want to live the time they had left, however long or short, as instruments of pain or death?
Did that small piece of earth, broken off from the land, remind them of the glimpse they had of their own brokenness, and their choice to turn around and take a path of life, of reconciliation? Or perhaps, did it remind them of the words I imagine Jesus wrote in the dust of the earth, “Beloved, blessed,” and know that those words applied both to the woman, and to them? As they apply to us all. Did they see in the rocks their own experience of grace, of forgiveness not only for what they had done, but for what they were about to do? An experience of unconditional love. An experience that changed everything.
       This is a day about ashes and stones, death, and life. A time when we can feel ourselves hit rock bottom, and know that God is there, God is with us. But rock bottom may be painful or hard, but it’s a good place to turn around, mark that from this point forward, and for as long as we live, we will take a different path – a path illuminated by God’s grace. It begins now. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” And you are held in love of God in the space in between. Amen.

Spiritual Integrity

The following is the sermon given by Rev. Christine Ng at Central Congregational Church on February 9th, based on Matthew 5:13-20.

     You are salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are. You. Salt. Light. Not you can be, or you should be, or you will be. You are. Salt of the earth. Light of the world.
     The Season after Epiphany is a time to think about how God is revealed – how God shines forth, like the star that guided the magi to the Christ child. This Epiphany we’ve been exploring our 2014 theme of “Come, Grow Share,” and in the process we’ve looked at how God is revealed in us: in who we are, and in how we are together. And from the scriptures we’ve discovered our true names: Beloved, Blessed – and we’ve considered how we can grow into those names to help make the kin-dom of God visible on earth.
     Today’s scripture is also about our identity, about who we are in God, in Christ. But instead of describing us by name, Jesus describes us by our function. It’s like when we describe ourselves by our occupation or vocation: I’m a teacher – or I’m a nurse – or I’m a mother. Because what we do is part of who we are – though not all of it. It’s not a complete description, and we are often several things at once.
     The descriptions Jesus gives of us here is also incomplete – but we can still learn something from it about ourselves, about who we were created to be: We are salt of the earth. We are the light of the world.
      Let’s talk about salt. It can be a little harder to hear this description of us as positive today, given the messages we are being given all the time about how bad salt is for us – that we need to cut back on salt, go on low or no salt diets. But it’s only in modern times that an excess of salt has become a problem.
     Through most of human history, salt has been something special, something precious. Saltworks, where salt is extracted from the water or earth have been found dating back to 6,000 years before the common era (BCE). The quest for salt led to the development of major trade routes around the world. Some cultures traded salt for gold – equally by weight. Makes a little more sense of the phrase “worth his/her salt” doesn’t it? Our word “salary” comes from a latin word used to describe trading for salt.
The Celtic word for “salt” means “holy” or “sacred,” and salt is used in the rites and rituals of many cultures and religions. For the Hebrews, salt was a sign of the covenant with God: it was sprinkled on offerings to show their trust in God. In Christianity, it was even traditionally used to consecrate a new church.
     Why was salt considered so important? Think about what salt does. It gives flavor to what would otherwise be tasteless or bland. It helps make food come alive for our senses. It also preserves food – and is one of the first ways humans learned to do this. When we eat salt, it encourages us to drink water; it regulates our thirst.
     Modern science has also discovered that the human body contains about 8 ounces of salt, it’s in our very cells, and we need salt to live. It helps our nerves and muscles function correctly. And as a society, we’ve learned that salt helps our cities function, by melting snow on roads and walkways.
     Salt is distinctive, precious, and necessary. It helps bring out the flavor of life and makes things function smoothly. And we, Jesus tells us, are salt. Hmmm.
     And then there’s the next description. Light. I remember when I first really read this passage it shocked me. “Light of the World”? It says we are “light of the world”? I thought that was another name for Jesus.
        In John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” True. But in Matthew’s Gospel, written much earlier, Jesus looks right at his disciples, right at me, right at you, and says, “You are the light of the world.” Who me? “Yes,” Jesus says, “you.”
     A few weeks ago, we saw how for the prophet Isaiah we are mirrors, reflecting God’s light on the world. A beautiful image. But in Matthew’s Gospel, this is no reflected light we are shining. It’s light that is within us, each of us.
    John Philip Newell describes how Christian writers out of the Celtic tradition thought of this kind of light as being the light described in the first creation story in Genesis. God said, “let there be light,” and there was light, before God created any external sources of light like the Sun or the stars. That light of the first day of creation could only come from one source, from God – and they believed that divine light permeates all of creation, including us – connecting us with each other, with all of creation, and ultimately with the One Source, with God.
     Our modern creation story tells a similar tale -- of the Big Bang, and of how all the elements of our bodies were created in that process, so we are all connected, we are all stardust.
       As an aside, it has been amazing to me this week to hear about Bill Nye, the Science Guy’s debate with Ken Ham about evolution verses creationism. It astounds me that in the 21st century this can still be considered debatable. It seems to me that placing religion and science as opposites shows only ignorance about both.
     Which brings us back to light – the light that banishes the darkness of ignorance. Jesus says we are to let our light shine before others, placing it up high where everyone can see it. As Jesus describes it, our light is like a lamp that can illuminate a whole house, or a shining city that provides a beacon, like a lighthouse, to travelers on a darkened road. It’s a light that can make visible how God is working in the world, and so bring hope.
     And all this matters, says Jesus, for the kingdom of heaven, the kin-dom of God. It matters. We matter. What we do matters. We are salt. We are light. Distinctive, precious, necessary, bright. This is how we live into God’s commandments to love God, to love each other. It matters, because without it – if the saltiness of life is gone, if the light is hidden – we will not see the kingdom of heaven here on earth.
     But there is much both within us, and around us, that works against this – that leaches away the saltiness, that covers up our own bright glow. And it can be frightening and alarming, how easily and how quickly we can accept the blandness of life, accept the dimming of our light. Because so often we hear the message – who are we to spice things up? Who are we to shine? And we begin to think: I’m small – just one small person – insignificant. What can I do? Small things. So, it doesn’t matter, anyway. Why bother? Why try?
     And as I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that what Jesus is talking about is integrity. Integrity means being honest and true to what you are – as in having personal integrity. Integrity also means being complete and whole, functioning well – as in a building that has structural integrity. Salt and light are elements that provide spiritual integrity to our world – making it complete, distinctive, living – that make earth function as it functions in heaven. And each of us plays a vital role in that.

     It’s like those balsa-wood bridges kids make in school. Did any of you make those? You take small pieces of balsa wood and glue them together, connect them to build a bridge – and then there are competitions to see how much weight the bridge can hold. I remember them using books – piling them on the bridge. Apparently now more often they use a more accurate weight scale to measure force, but the concept is the same.
     And if the bridge is engineered well, if it’s architecture is sound, if all the small parts are connected, and performing their proper function, then the force or energy put on it just flows through the structure – the bridge holds. But no matter how impressive the bridge looks, if even one necessary piece is out of place, is missing, isn’t thoroughly connected, then the bridge will collapse and isn’t good for anything. Being balsa, it’s probably not even good for kindling.
     It seems to me that the kin-dom of heaven Jesus is talking about is like one of those bridges. We matter, each in our own way supporting the whole – providing spiritual integrity to the structure – making the kin-dom work. And if all the parts are connected in this divine architecture, then the Spirit flows through us unimpeded – and out into the world; and no matter how much stress is put on it, it holds.
     But for this to happen, for us to see the kin-dom at work, for us to play our part, we need to have spiritual integrity ourselves. We need to be true to who we are – we are beloved, we are blessed; we are salt, we are light. Not just on Sundays – but in all aspects of our lives. And we need to be connected to others, in spiritual community, working together for the kin-dom, working for, as the scripture says, the glory of God.
     And this begins by recognizing that Jesus wasn’t giving us a command – you should be salt, you should be light; and Jesus wasn’t talking about sometime in the future – you will be salt, you will be light; and he didn’t make it conditional – if you do this, then you can be salt; if you do that, then you can be light. Jesus said you are salt, you are light. Now. Right now. Just as you are. See it. Recognize it. Grow into it more and more.
     Because the stronger each one of us becomes spiritually, and the stronger our connections to each other in this divine architecture we call the life and the life of faith, the more the Spirit’s energy can flow through us and the kin-dom of heaven with it’s love and compassion and justice becomes more and more real in our world.
     So take a moment and think about what you’ve done today, this week. How have you been salt or light this week? Did you make someone laugh in joy? Did you smile at the cashier in the grocery store until they smiled back? Did you give a gift? Call a friend? As you sat in traffic, did you wave to someone who was waiting, letting them get in front of you? Did you see something that needed doing at home or around the church, and just do it yourself? Did you welcome a guest? Did you make something beautiful, or delicious, or special and share it? Did you volunteer to help? Did you lift up or praise someone else who did something nice, something good? Small things, maybe, but each small thing providing spiritual integrity to our lives, to our world.
       You may not have thought of it that way at the time – but if you can start seeing everything you do through God’s eyes, with God’s vision; see how what you do is salty, how it’s bright; you will see how it’s all connected – connected to your faith, connected to God. This is one of the things we mean when we talk about “spiritual growth,” because the more we see this, the more we will live with spiritual integrity – the more we can find ways to make things more salty, more light. And the kin-dom grows.
        So the next time you sprinkle salt or other seasoning on your food, the next time you turn on a light, let that act remind you of who you are: you are salt, you are light. Amen.

Change -- a Meditation on the Occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

“One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation desires. They end up sleeping through a revolution.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase “change just for the sake of change” – almost always used as a negative, as in, “we don’t want change just for the sake of change” – because I’m coming to believe that is exactly what we need in order to develop the mental flexibility Dr. King was talking about in the quote above.
And we desperately need it – now more than ever. Our world is changing so fast it’s like our society is on a bullet train. Around 1900, Buckmeister Fuller noticed that the amount of knowledge in the world doubled about every century. By the end of World War II that had been cut to just 25 years.  Experts now say that on average it’s now about every 12 months! In some things like technology the pace of change is even faster. And other social changes are following a similar trajectory.
On a more personal, individual level the one constant really is change. Now firmly in “mid-life” this is more obvious to me. Our bodies change – sometimes it seems almost daily. Our family dynamics change as children become adults, have their own careers, their own children. And I notice I see things differently now than I did even a decade ago – including myself.  I once remarked that I went from being “Betty’s daughter” to “Jenny’s mom.” But it occurred to me recently that it is in this time of my life that I am better able to see just me. So not all the changes that come with age are bad.
But they are changes just the same. Sometimes exciting, something scary, often unsettling. And we have to deal with them. And I think too many of us don’t deal with them, or deal with them badly. We hold on to the old for so long that when we finally give in and accept the reality of the change – often that was happening without us – it is more traumatic, or causes more anger, or is just flat too late. Too late for us to catch up. Too late to find our way. We’ve been left behind. We look around and wonder where everyone else has gone.
It’s like, as Dr. King suggests above, we’ve been sleeping and awaken suddenly to find the revolution has happened without us. We’ve become disoriented, disconnected, obsolete. And those awakening sleepers who take a long time to open their eyes can cause a great deal of anguish and havoc as they reorient themselves to the new reality. We’re seeing this play out on a daily basis in our larger social and political sphere – take, for example, those who continue to fight with every weapon at their disposal against same-sex marriage, even though a majority of public option supports it and the courts are rapidly changing our laws to reflect that.
Adaptability to change is necessarily for our survival as a species, and for our success and happiness, if not also our survival, as individuals. But where and how do we learn that skill – dealing with change? It’s a practical issue; it’s a societal issue; it’s a spiritual issue.
I’m coming to believe that church is one place we can, and should, learn how to deal with change. That’s not a commonly held belief. Many people I talk to see the church as the one bulwark against change – the one place where in a changing world things will remain the same, remain familiar. That may be a comfortable view of the church, but it is not a realistic one. It is also a liability for the continued survival of the church. If the church sleeps through the revolutions happening all around, it will find itself irrelevant and obsolete.
        But I think that attitude is also a misunderstanding of Christianity – after all, Jesus was no advocate of the status quo. Jesus was all about change – changing our hearts, changing our minds, changing our ways (a.k.a. repentance), changing our world. Jesus didn’t call us to him, or to God, to escape the reality of the world, but to help us deal with it with compassion, challenge, and hope. Jesus waded right into the waters of change and stirred them up. Dr. King, acting out of his deep Christian faith, did the same. That’s not a peaceful or comfortable place to be, but it is living water, and no matter what, God is there.
        But there’s another aspect to this: When we are awake to the reality of change, we are also alive to it’s possibility. If we don’t experience life and society as constantly changing, we may not recognize that it can or should change. So when we see entrenched problems, we see injustice, we see need we just shake our heads, thinking: “That’s just the way it is.” No it’s not. That’s just the way it is now. It can be different tomorrow. We can make it different tomorrow.
         Or worse, we can label all change as bad, since it's not "the way it's always been" (which, of course, is usually not even true). The status quo, however illogical or unjust, can become enshrined under the heading of "tradition." So how we deal with change is also a social justice issue.
         The church already teaches about change in a number of ways. It's  the reality underlying the changing liturgical seasons: Advent gives way to Christmas, which changes to Epiphany, and so on. We teach it with the movement from death to new life in the resurrection. We teach it through scripture, which is full of lessons on change. But perhaps we can and should do more, should find new and different ways to share this lesson, and so help our congregations develop more mental and spiritual flexibility to weather the inevitable changes in their own lives and their world, and to be the instruments of that change where it is needed.
          Change just for the sake of change – yes – but for our own sake, and the world’s sake, as well.

Not So Scary -- Come and See

Text of a Sermon given at Central Congregational Church by Rev. Christine Ng on January 19, 2014 based on John 1;29-42

I’m going to use a scary word. Ready? Evangelism. Ready to leave yet? No? Good. Because it’s really not that scary.
I think most of us have a negative reaction to the “E” word because of experiences with those who knock on our door to hand us copies of the “Watchtower”; or accost us in train stations to tell us that we need to accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior; or because of folks like Lynette, who I worked with as a Girl Scout Camp Counselor when I was in high school, who was genuinely upset that I would be going to hell because I didn’t see God and Jesus the same way she did – and spent the summer trying to convince me otherwise.
But the gospel story we heard today is all about evangelism, and there’s none of that king of stuff going on – but there is a lot of pointing. Not finger in your face pointing – but pointing out. Noticing and sharing.
Noticing, paying attention to where God’s presence is seen or felt. Sharing that experience with others. It’s where evangelism begins.
In the story today it begins with John the Baptist seeing what he never noticed before – no matter how long he’d known his cousin Jesus. It’s certainly not the only time in scripture that people don’t see what’s been right in front of them all along; don’t recognize it’s true identity or worth; until something happens to reveal that to them – or someone points it out. It will happen again in just a few weeks when we hear the story of the transfiguration that concludes the season after Epiphany.
So there’s John, who has been going around saying that someone who ranks ahead of him is coming, someone special. And then the Holy Spirit points out to John that the special someone was his own cousin Jesus. He hadn’t noticed before.
So what does he do – he tells his disciples about it. He shares what he saw and then points Jesus out to them. That’s it. Andrew, one of those disciples who goes to check out Jesus, later does the same – he tells his brother Simon what he has seen. He points the way to Jesus. The very first act of discipleship in the Fourth Gospel is to see and share – or to use more “churchy” words – John and Andrew witness, they testify to what they have seen. They do evangelism.
This is a very important concept in the Fourth Gospel. The Greek word for “bearing witness” or “testifying” happens only once in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and not at all in Mark. But in John it shows up 31 times.
But there’s a third element to evangelism in this story too – invitation. And we see three different examples. First, just by pointing Jesus out to his disciples and testifying to what he saw John invites them to go check it out for themselves. Then when the disciples approach Jesus and ask him a question, Jesus doesn’t answer it but instead issues an invitation, “Come and see.” Then after spending time with Jesus, Andrew goes to his brother Simon and testifies to his own experience, that he has “found the Messiah,” and then the text says “he brought Simon to Jesus.” And by that I don’t think the text means he dragged him kicking and screaming or in chains. I think he issued the same invitation Jesus did, “come and see.”
Noticing. Sharing. Inviting. That’s it. Not threatening, not coercing, not intimidating, not wooing, or wheedling or pleading. It’s not stalking someone until they try green eggs and ham. That’s not the Biblical model of evangelism. That’s not what Jesus taught. Just simply “come and see” – an invitation saying that you are welcome to come and see for yourself, make up your own mind.
That makes sense. I know if someone tries to force me to do something it becomes something I really, really, really don’t want to do. If I am forced to do something, it’s hard for me to give it a chance, to be open to it. I suspect I’m not the only one.
I read this story  about a woman named Margaret and her dog, Patches, the Yorkshire terrier. Everyday when Margaret would open the medicine cabinet Patches would run and hide – under the bed, behind the claw footed bath tub, behind the recliner or the sofa.
Someone had told Margaret that Patches would live longer, have better teeth and a more beautiful coat if she would give the dog a tablespoon of castor oil every day. So every day Margaret would drag Patches out from whatever place he was hiding, hold him down, pry open his jaws, and pour a tablespoon of castor oil down his little doggie throat. It was a miserable experience for both of them – but it was for his own good, right?
Then once, during their daily battle royal, Patches’ rear paw hit the bottle of oil and sent it flying across the kitchen floor. Margaret put Patches down so she could get the mop to clean up the mess. But when she came back she found Patches lapping up the spilled oil. It wasn’t the oil Patches hated, it was being held down, forced to take it. Patches didn’t like being forced to do something any more than I do.
I believe that the more obnoxious and coercive forms of evangelism not only turn it into a dirty word for many faithful Christians, but pushes away precisely those who may want or need the good news we have to share. And I think that the author of the Gospel of John, sometimes called the “Fourth Evangelist,” knew that – as did Jesus. Because that’s not how they teach us to do it: “Here’s what I saw, felt, experienced. Come and see.” That’s it.
How many of you have invited someone to try out a favorite restaurant? Have any of you told someone about a good doctor you know, or a movie you liked? See, we invite and testify all the time. But how often do you say something like, “I go to Central Congregational Church over on Royal Lane. Want to come?”
I think another reason many of us are uncomfortable with inviting people to church is that we have this idea that religion is a private matter. But that’s a misunderstanding of Christianity – which has always been personal, but not private. Just the act of corporate worship, of coming to church, is a public act of testimony. And, as the text this morning shows us, testimony and invitation are important acts of faith, of discipleship.
Other times, I think we’re afraid to mention anything about church or religion because we might get into a complicated theological discussion.
We’re not sure we are up to the task, that we have the “right” answers. But notice, Jesus didn’t answer the question asked him in today’s story, he just said, “come and see.” All we can do is testify to our own experience, and invite others to see for themselves.
Then there’s my favorite – I’ve heard it a lot since I’ve come to Dallas: “Everyone I know has a church.” Yes, and . . .? So that means you can’t tell them what your church means to you? So that means you can’t issue a simple invitation? Do you think they will be insulted if you just say, “want to come some time”?
The practice of trying to lure someone from their church is sometimes called “sheep stealing.” That’s not evangelism as Jesus taught it. Jesus didn’t walk up to John’s disciples and say, “don’t follow him, follow me.”
But the longer I live in Dallas, the more I realize that there are more people who say they have a church than actually are really part of a church. Often you have no idea what their relationship is with their church. No idea if they have found what they are looking for, to use Jesus’ question, if the only time they've attended that church was on Christmas Eve five years ago. And I have found few folks are offended by an invitation – even if they turn it down.
When I first came to Dallas I got a phone call from a woman at a local Episcopalian church inviting me to visit their church. It was a cold call. I hadn’t filled out any card saying I wanted to be contacted me. She was just telling me that the church was there if I needed it and issuing the invitation. It was unexpected; but lovely. When I told her that I had, in fact, come to Dallas to pastor a church, she wasn’t embarrassed or put off, she just said, “Wonderful. Would you like us to pray for you and your ministry or for anyone else?” I’m not sure cold calling someone like that, is the best way to go, or worth the time and effort, but she sure left me with a good feeling about that church. So maybe it was worth it after all.
Your simple invitation, even if it’s turned down, plants a seed – a seed you may never see it grow, but it’s enough that you planted it. Sometimes people need to hear the invitation several times, in different ways, before they answer it. Advertising specialist say 7 times is the magic number, but I think it depends.
We talk a lot about welcome here at Central. About practicing the extravagant welcome of Jesus. It’s something we always need to work on, to improve, because it’s essential to our practice of faith and our identity as a church. Our new Welcome Team is just the most recent way we are trying to do that. Greeting is the most important job in the church, and one anyone of any age can do.
But this scripture is an example of how, to practice true welcome, we can’t just stand at the door and wait for folks to come on their own. How will people know to come if we don’t let them know we are here? How will people know they are welcome here – no matter who they are on where they are on life’s journey – if we don’t tell them? There needs to be something, or more importantly someone, to point us out, to point the way. Like John did for Andrew, and Andrew did for Simon. And sometimes, like Andrew, you have to go out to connect with others to issue the invitation.
As I’ve said before – this is why it is so important that we do the Pride Parade. It’s witness, it’s testimony, it’s invitation, it’s evangelism. It’s letting people know we are here, telling them they are welcome, and inviting them to come and see. It’s reaching out to people who have heard the opposite message over and over.
We may soon have another wonderful opportunity to testify to God’s extravagant love and to invite others to come and see. Along with another open and affirming church in our neighborhood, Midway Hills Christian, we have been approached by the leadership of Northhaven United Methodist Church to help gay and lesbian members of their church be united in marriage before God – something the polity of the United Methodist Church does not allow but ours does. And we have invited them to come here to be married, to come and see how we practice the welcome of God, not so that Northhaven members will leave and become members here, but because witness and invitation are essential to who we are as Christians. Because we are an open and affirming church, treating all God’s children as equal before God. Because the very act of welcome is an act of discipleship and social justice.
On this weekend when we remember the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we might even say that the heart of the civil rights movement is welcome. Making sure all people are welcome – at the lunch counter, at the water fountain, in schools, in neighborhoods, at the front of the bus, at the top of the social and economic ladder. And working, doing what we can, so that no one has to fight for that invitation, but knows that it is open to all, because all are equally beloved children of God.
There are a lot of people in our community whose experience of Christianity and the church has been very negative. Their experience is that Christians are at best naïve and at worst downright cruel. That Christianity isn’t life-giving, it’s soul-destroying. That the church isn’t a place of safety, it’s a place of danger and pain.
But I hope that you who are in our pews here today have had a different experience. I hope you have seen a different Jesus, a different Christianity, a different church. Maybe, like John the Baptist, you too have come to know Jesus as the one who takes away – takes away shame, takes away burdens too heavy to carry, takes away despair. Hopefully you’ve felt that this is a place where you can get to know that Jesus, and connect with God through others seeking the same thing.
Think about it. Think about one reason you like this church, notice one reason you like to come here. Just one. I invite you to share that one reason with someone this week – maybe start during coffee hour, just for some practice – it’s a friendly audience. And think about one person that you can just ask, “want to come?” No pressure. Not so scary. Come to a social event like the pot luck dinner next Friday. Come to worship some Sunday, any Sunday. Come and see the African children’s choir, Asante, that will be back with us in February.
It’ll be great. Come and see. Amen.

A Gift for Epiphany

Today is Epiphany, the day traditionally set aside to remember and celebrate the journey of the magi, the wise men, to see the baby Jesus, bearing gifts.

And so I have for you today, a gift, a poem by Jan Richardson for this occasion. Enjoy.

Wise Women Also Came
by Jan Richardson

Wise women also came.
The fire burned
in their wombs
long before they saw
the flaming star
in the sky.
They walked in shadows,
trusting the path
would open
under the light of the moon.

Wise women also came,
seeking no directions,
no permission
from any king.
They came
by their own authority
their own desire,
their own longing.
They came in quiet,
spreading no rumors,
sparking no fears
to lead
to innocents’ slaughter,
to their sister Rachel’s
inconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came,
and they brought
useful gifts:
water for labor’s washing,
fire for warm illumination,
a blanket for swaddling.

Wise women also came,
at least three of them,
holding Mary in the labor,
crying out with her
in the birth pangs,
breathing ancient blessings
into her ear.

Wise women also came,
and they went,
as wise women always do,
home a different way.


If you enjoy Jan Richardson, you might want to check out her blog post for Epiphany this year, and her on-line retreat for Women's Christmas (which some folks celebrate on Epiphany) at http://sanctuaryofwomen.com/blog/womens-christmas-the-shimmering-hours/