Earlier I spoke with the children about the walking stick I picked up in Ghana. The carved bird cranes her neck backward to balance the egg on her tail-feathers, and it symbolizes the proverb of securing the future by looking to the past. I told them to learn from the past but prepare to become something different. In the words of Søren Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Taking a quick look back before we move forward is why we’re all here, right? So far, during this season of Lent, we began with an announcement of Jubilee in Mary’s song. That’s the idea of a cosmic reset of the balance of power by God with the expectation that it will have a very real and lasting and systemic impact on our economy and our way of relating to one another, to God, and to all of creation.
Jesus preached that in his first sermon. They didn’t like it. Grace can be threatening when we realize that it has nothing to do with our worthiness and everything to do with God’s willingness. It’s threatening because we realize that we have no control over God’s love and the things that we thought made us lovable or good or right are simply things we have done in response to God’s love.
The threat of grace, the threat that God might not destroy the unworthy (or worse, invite the unworthy in), has left us in a pretty awkward space. We’ve been asked to let go of this fear and create space for hope, and that has brought us into a very holy space of vulnerability.
If you're just walking into this episode, welcome to the tension of Lent. Welcome to the edge of the abyss of unanswered questions where we think we know how the story goes because we know how the story ends.
At least, that’s what we think we know. We think we know that there are these events that we celebrate the same way every year, and that’s all there is to it and all there should be. Yet I would suggest that when we think we know all the answers we are about as far from the truth as we could be.
That’s the way it has been in my life. In younger days I reached levels of independence – car keys, an apartment, working and paying my own way through college – then each of these peaks revealed valleys unknown. With every degree, I told myself I had learned so much and then realized I had only learned that there was more to learn than I would ever know.
Sometimes I have found that I – even now – look to my past as a model for what to do next. That’s about as silly as a caterpillar staying in a cocoon. It’s a path of fear rather than hope. The thing is, it’s not as though the caterpillar can choose to stay in the cocoon. Instead, the caterpillar is participating in something that it simply does out of instinct. We don’t know what it’s like for them, but we know what it would feel like for us. Most of you have probably heard that quote from the Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu, “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”
The hope of new life in the presence of death is the promise and the command of scripture for us today. Isaiah calls out through the ages to remind us to celebrate what was good in the past, learn from the bad, and give thanks to God that we made it through the ugly.
In order to do this, the Prophet pulled out the biggest event possible – their primary identity story, the exodus from Egypt – as a way to say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” For many it would remind them of David’s reflection on God’s promise of salvation in Psalm 126:
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them."
The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.
So it is with us when we remember God’s activity in our lives. So it is with us when we remember the story that is at the core of our identity, even though it happened thousands of years ago. So it is with us when we hear Paul counseling followers of Jesus through the centuries to say our faith teaches us that even when we suffer we are participating in the holy and eternal work of God.
Just like the caterpillar who thought the world was ending, our faith helps us see that our suffering is not the end. Paul is also letting the church know that whatever you suffer, Jesus suffered more. I’ve always taken this to mean that, because Jesus suffered, we can trust God to understand our suffering, yet Paul is saying something a little different. He’s saying that in our suffering, we are the ones participating in the suffering of Christ.
Some have taken this too far by saying that you can become more united with God by suffering in a similar way to Jesus, but I don’t believe God is into that. What I believe God is saying through Paul is that letting go of our expectations makes us vulnerable. Becoming like Christ in death means submitting to the future that God has in mind.
It means embracing the idea that my worldview is only relevant to understanding the past, and the unseen future can only be free from the mistakes of the past if I am willing to let them go.
This tension between the past and the future is what filled the room when Mary anointed the feet of Jesus. It may have smelled like sweet perfume, but it was bitter to Judas. Of course, we don’t really know what he thought or felt. He gets portrayed in so many ways, but he’s clearly the villain. He’s clearly the one who personifies evil. This guy doesn’t even care about poor people, in fact, he steals from them!
What a jerk, right? Yet this story is not his story. This story is about the One who came to demonstrate that God is, was, and shall be active and present in the world. Clearly, this is not a dismissal of the need to care for people in poverty (even though that is how it is so often used). In fact, the admonition of Judas is a clear mandate to care for those experiencing poverty after Jesus is not the one physically doing it. I would even submit that care for people experiencing poverty is being offered as the way in which we may experience Christ after his death.
What is clear is that Mary knew where Jesus was going and what would happen next. Just like Rosa Parks didn’t just one day get tired, this is part of a bigger experience and Mary knew her part. Jesus had just brought Lazarus back to life, and the Jewish authorities wanted him to stay down. If Jesus had not been preparing to go to Jerusalem, then they might have succeeded. Mary knew this. She knew what would happen next, and the nard she bought for her brother’s burial was being used to prepare Jesus for his.
Mary gets it. She understands. Do we? Do we understand that the past is only an indicator that God is, and the future is filled with so much joy and wonder that it will make our jaws drop, our bellies laugh, and our mouths proclaim what God has done? Do we understand that the pathway forward is through release and vulnerability? Do we truly believe that the ambiguity of unanswered questions gives us more to hope for than just doing the same thing we’ve always done?
As a congregation, I would say that we do, at least most of the time. When we don’t, by the grace of God, we have one another to lean on and a table where we taste and see the goodness of God’s love for us and all of creation.
We also have this season we call Lent, which invites us to let go of our fears and till the soil of our hearts to make space for love to grow. This Sunday and next will be your last chance to add those fears you want to let go of or boldly add a commitment to deeper faith to our collaborative art project, our “Tree of Life.”
The paper cranes they have been made into will be sent forth on Good Friday, and fresh flowers and newborn butterflies will replace them on Easter. As we close our reflection on the scriptures I want to share with you the words of another woman who understands the mission of Jesus, my friend the brilliant poet, Sarah Are:
People throw around the phrase, “Let it go”
like a child throws out laughter— Easy and light.
I wish that’s how I knew it.
I wish it felt that simple.
I wish that’s how I knew it.
I wish it felt that simple.
Instead, I have to talk myself into a better frame of mind.
I have to drag one foot in front of the other until I’m closer to love.
I have to sing my mother’s words in my head until I can’t hear anything else.
I have to drag one foot in front of the other until I’m closer to love.
I have to sing my mother’s words in my head until I can’t hear anything else.
And I pray for letting go that feels like taking off shoes—a sort of coming home.
I pray for letting go that won’t always involve a battle between heart and mind.
I pray for letting go that moves like muscle memory, but it never does.
Letting go has never been as easy as holding tight.
Why is that?
So now and again I stand in the rain
and let the clouds teach me a thing or two about release.
And when that doesn’t work,
I think about the way my mother’s body broke so that she could let me go—
Yet another body broken for me.
I think about the way my mother’s body broke so that she could let me go—
Yet another body broken for me.
And when that doesn’t work,
I find myself on my knees—a sort of coming home, And I pray,
Teach me a thing or two about grace.
Teach me a thing or two about letting go.
I find myself on my knees—a sort of coming home, And I pray,
Teach me a thing or two about grace.
Teach me a thing or two about letting go.
And I inhale.
And I exhale.
Air drawn in.
Air let go.
And I recognize God in my lungs, and I can’t help but laugh, Easy and light.
And I exhale.
Air drawn in.
Air let go.
And I recognize God in my lungs, and I can’t help but laugh, Easy and light.
Comments