I-YOUniverse

Our Lady of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego

2:09 a.m.

A prayer journal

No trumpets on street corners here. Just notes for a sort of science project.

My father was converted from Catholicism, maybe as a young adult, I think. His oldest sister Margaret led her siblings into the Baptist faith, then reverted. She told me that was because, when a young woman serving as a missionary in a Baptist school in Mexico, she had been accosted by the missionary principal of the school. My mother whispered to my wife in the kitchen that Dad had never been baptized by a Baptist minister. So the font gets pretty murky. (Bottom line: God doesn’t care about who, when, how you’re baptized—only the state of your heart.)

The news tonight was all about the government bailout of Wall Street. A trillion dollars.

Typically, I wake up at night. Tonight I pray mostly for my African friends, although there’s an ominously empty place in my gut;  if I stayed there, I’d wonder, “What are we facing?”

But I do my best gently to focus on my prayer word mercy, short for the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

I’ve got the words of the Rosary down now. I can say it all without reference to the book, except the final prayers “Hail, Holy Queen”; and “Memorare,” which apparently is optional. One of many how to’s is here.

The story of Guadalupe

Ten years after Cortez conquered the Aztecs, a baptized Indian passing the site of a temple to an Aztec earth goddess saw a vision of the dark-skinned Blessed Virgin, who asked him to build a church on the site. The skeptical bishop asked for proof. The Virgin told Diego to fill his tilmo, or blanket, with roses. It was December, not the month for roses. When he emptied them out for the bishop, they found a beautiful image of the Virgin on the tilmo, which now hangs in the basilica on the site. Scientists who examined it report the image is extraordinary and unexplainable. The Virgin of Guadalupe was a primary factor in the evangelization of the Indian peoples of the Americas. A sociologist says Mexico really is a conglomerate of disparate groups united by their love of her.

What really happened?

No one knows. What we have is the story, the original in a native Indian language, and the Spanish bishop’s testimony.

It’s impossible for the scientific mindset to grasp such a tale as any way real. The same science dismisses the incarnation and the resurrection.

So we bracket that discussion, which is like finding the square root of pi.

Back to praying

For two days I’ve been praying the Sorrowful Mysteries: the agony in the garden, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion.

I discovered a web-based radio service Pandora here. So I figure how to get from head to heart is music, right? Ave Maria! Pavarotti, Charlotte Church, Bobby McFerrin.

As I progress, I read the scripture account of the event remembered in the Mystery (for example, of Gethsemane) to begin. Maybe I sing a hymn, like “Into the Woods my Master Went.” Then I say the Our Father, the Hail Marys, and the Glory be.

One set takes about 20 minutes.

During that I put the image above on screen. I grew up in El Paso with those people.

That process gets to my heart.

Today as I prayed for my friend, I said something like, “For the sake of my friend I’m praying the first decade of the Sorrowful Mysteries, the agony in the garden, the spiritual fruit being ‘thy will not mine be done.’ About halfway through or more often, I give myself an oral reminder “For my friends, the agony” etc.

Is it all “vain repetition”—the fatal blow of my childhood faith to this sort of thing. The other was “idolatry.” You heard again and again how the old ladies in Juarez, Mexico, kissed the feet of the statue in the Cathedral. Repetition?

Outcome

I read somewhere that Larry Dossey M.D. began his investigations of prayer by going into his office, shutting the door, and shaking some prayer gourds or something. Well, going into his office and shutting the door sounds like Matthew. I’ve always wanted to approach a surgeon and ask: “I’ve decided to test the validity of surgery. Mind if I cut up on you a bit, see if it works?”

Dossey didn’t know much about the thousands of years of prayer tradition. Neither do most of the rest of us.

I believe myth is to faith what math is to science. So the story of the Aztec earth goddess isn’t surprising or disturbing to me. There are valid questions, though.

You ask your questions when you buy your ticket. Then, you gotta stow them in the overhead bin and buckle up.

William Congdon, crucifix 64, 1973.

webpage here. (I didn’t see permissions policy or copyright notice. I’ll be glad to abide by one if copyright holder lets me know.)

I’m learning to pray using the Catholic Rosary as a “method”—the word John Paul II used to describe the Rosary in his encyclical here. The page I refer to as I say the Rosary is here.

This morning I said the Rosary entire, all 20 mysteries, just to see what it’s like. I don’t know if experimentation takes away from the merit of the thing or not. But I don’t much care about merit, to be blunt. All that stuff about the goodies you get for saying the Rosary demeans it, just from my viewpoint.

I figure I’m a sinner and I’m standin’ in the need o’ prayer—any how any where any time. Especially contemplative prayer.

Growing up I heard lots of people pooh pooh Catholics and ritual prayers. But I noticed that often our Baptist prayers were rote. People said the same words over and over again and again. Only we never thought through what we said, never paid any mind to the beauty or cadence of our words. It wasn’t ritual; it was rut.

Well, no sermons.

One, my fingers are sore after sliding paper clips 200 times through thumb and index finger. It’s a cloudy, rainy day. Arthritis likes to come out and play anyway on such days.

Two, it took one hour, 21 minutes. I’m lucky enough to have that much solitude. Most people don’t.

Three, I did announce each Mystery (event in Jesus’ life) and spiritual fruit prayed for three times, not once, so that I’ll learn them. The unfamiliar ones I read through the description of, which is on the website (above).

I like the pictures. But the people are all white. Not a Middle Eastern complexion among them. So they somewhat hindered my reflection. I had to keep reminding myself that Jesus looked like a terrorist is supposed to look like. The same is true for everyone around him.

Do I feel a deep sense of peace, or of God’s presence? Not particularly.

The thing about ritual is, you gotta put it in place, use it until the edges fray a bit. Then, some day when it’s the last thing on your mind, ka zam!

You feel the Holy Spirit. You’re suddenly on Cloud 9.

However—it’s a big however—the Spirit is there as you’re building the house, there during every boring day, just as fully as the day when the air tingles and your feet don’t touch the ground. Those FX are spiritual cotton candy, lots of fun, but not essential. And every carnivore on the midway, including Satan, has a large display of them.

Nobody was praising God for the cotton candy at the cross.

If you Google Protestant or Anglican rosary, you’ll find many good historic efforts to make the Rosary acceptable to non-Catholics. I spent just a few hours and came up with this biblical version. The hymns from Revelation 4 and 5 also serve well. The Mysteries are a wonderful summary of Jesus’ life and teachings, especially the new Luminous Mysteries; I have suggested alternatives for the final two Glorious Mysteries, which deal with the Assumption and Coronation of Mary.

I do not mean any irreverence to the traditional Marian prayer. Personally, I’m going to stick with it for now. The Dominican site www.rosary-center.org  has a great summary with beautiful paintings to illustrate each step of the Marian version.

But this very simple process illustrates that we’re a lot closer to each than we think.

In Place of Hail Mary:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:16-17 (KJV)

OR

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (from Ps 51)

OR

What does the LORD require of us
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
     and to walk humbly with our God? Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

In Place of Longer Prayers:

The Prayer of St. Francis OR  23^rd Psalm  OR

When we cry “Abba! Father!” the Spirit bears witness that we are children of God. The Spirit intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8.)

OR                                                                                                                    

 The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
     of whom shall I be afraid? …
One thing I asked of Thee, LORD,
     that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the LORD
     all the days of my life,
to behold thy beauty, LORD,
     and to inquire in thy temple. …
not cast me off, do not forsake me,
     O God of my salvation! …
If my father and mother forsake me,
     do thou, LORD, will take me up.
Teach me thy way, O LORD,
     and lead me on a level path … from Psalms 27:1-14 (NRSV)

According to the riches of his glory, may God grant that we be strengthened in our inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ dwell in our hearts through faith, as we are being rooted and grounded in love. May we have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. from Eph 3:16-21 (NRSV)

May the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
     did not regard equality with God
     as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
     taking the form of a slave,
     being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
     and became obedient to the point of death–
     even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
     and gave him the name
     that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
    our knee and every knee should bend,
     in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and our tongue and every tongue confess
     that Jesus Christ is Lord,
     to the glory of God the Father. from Phil 2:5-11 (NRSV)

May we be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as we bear fruit in every good work and as we grow in the knowledge of God. May we be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may we be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled we to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.  from Col 1:9-12 (NRSV)

Some of my friends and colleagues in ministry will be sure I’ve gone off the deep end! Though I doubt many will notice, fewer will care.

I said my first Rosary today.

Yesterday I ordered from San Antonio a Mexican Rosary, simple wood beads. By the time I paid shipping it was $20.00. Mexican, in honor of my grandmother Dolores Mercado and aunt Margaret Dickson.

I found several sites where you can make your own Rosary. That strikes me as totally cool. I can imagine, if this impulse lasts, that I’ll make a Rosary and put into it all the devotion and love I can. I don’t have any desire for one of the expensive, jeweled pieces of which there are many.

First, what was it like?

I hooked ten paper clips together and added five loose ones, one for each decade. Following a chart, I recited the prayers, and announced the Joyful mysteries, milestones in Jesus’ early life. You’re supposed to focus on these, rather than the words you’re saying. But I did well enough to say the right words in the right order.

I’m amazed the paper clip chain worked fine. I hope to know how to say the Rosary by heart when my Mexican Rosary comes in the mail.

It was a very mechanical process: how to hold the paper clip so I didn’t get mixed up as to which one I was counting, which prayer to say, etc. There are some differences in how different Catholics say their Rosary. I just want the standard version.

I was surprised at the welcome and peace I felt. I instantly understood why Catholics hang on to the veneration of Mary. There is a softness, a sweetness, about her that deeply blesses.

Whoa! You’re a Baptist, a son of the Radical Reformation, not even a protestant. And you’re saying prayers to the BVM Blessed Virgin Mary???

Frankly, I’m intentionally not thinking theologically at the moment, turning off the analytical mind and welcoming God as Catholics do. The Feminine of God my tradition has totally ignored and shut down; I’m interested in exploring Her (whatever).

It’s also time for the walls between our traditions to come down, for us to welcome one another to one table, where one Lord presides.

Interesting nuggets:

• an Old English word for prayer is “bede” related to “bid.” So the beads of the Rosary themselves remind us of prayer.
• the Rosary was probably the response of the poor to the monks’ weekly recitation of the 150 psalms in Latin. The poor didn’t know Latin, so they substituted 150 repetitions of the prayer they knew: “Hail Mary…”

This kind of prayer helps to quiet the “monkey tree,” the mind that chatters right through times of silence. I’m hoping to learn a lot about prayer.

If future experiences with the Rosary turn out to be as helpful as my first, it will become a permanent part of my prayer life.

I welcome hearing about any experience you have with saying the Rosary, or other prayers.

Growing up Southern Baptist in El Paso, Texas, in the 1950s and -60s, my father converted from Catholicism, I was imbrued with dislike, suspicion, even hatred of all things Catholic. In seminary taking a class on the classics of Christian devotion, I discovered that the ancient churches of Rome and Byzantium held vast riches of devotion and spiritual formation next to which Baptists had few.

There was Pilgrim’s Progress, of course. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. That I didn’t find until grad school. Streams in the Desert, My Utmost for His Highest. Other than that, flat modern stuff from the denomination.

The Imitation of Christ, published by Moody Press, despite its publisher, was too medieval and sacramental for me. Now I can’t get enough of it.

Then, in seminary I took Classics of Christian Devotion with Glenn Hinson. Hinson has been hounded by fundamentalists as a heretic. May we have many, many more heretics. He wrote among many others a book called Seekers After A Mature Faith, which surveyed resources on spirituality. In the course I accepted the assignment of presenting Augustine’s Confessions.

The pastorate is not especially conducive to spiritual growth or depth. So now in exile, I’m playing catch up, reading, learning, praying.

Today, I think for the first time, I prayed the Stations of the Cross. I was perched on a stool in the kitchen, Celtic Daily Prayer, pp. 251-264, opened on the stove top, a cup of coffee in hand, beside a sink full of dishes to be washed.

I’m not much for devotion that lingers with masochistic delight over the torture Christ endured. I didn’t see Mel Gibson’s The Passion. That’s not based on the Gospels. An Aramaic original doesn’t exist. To create one is to claim more for the product than is merited, in my opinion.

As I read aloud the sections, I tried to slow down, let the reality sink in as much as possible. I broke up as I read:

Lord, you were stripped of the robes  You wore,
but You were the same—it didn’t change You.

I waited a moment until I could read more.

Crucifixion is so alien to us; we can’t fathom that kind of death. So celebrities pose in mockery. A chocolatier creates the crucifixion chocolate for Easter. We get our daughters fine gold crosses on gold chains.

I recall on my Emmaus Walk, they asked me to drive a nail into a cross. I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it. I was the last. Several men huddled around, explaining, encouraging. Finally, I caved to the social pressure. But I’ve always regretted that. For me.

The cross is unimaginable.

Think of the PTSD someone would experience who actually saw a human being nailed to a board, hanged, left to die a lingering death from exposure, suffocation.

What good does it do, to meditate on atrocity? What good does it do?

(more…)

Part 1

It’s been awhile since I spent serious time with Shakespeare, which I find cleansing, rigorous—aerobic exercise for mind and spirit. So I recently tackled Antony and Cleopatra, reading and re-reading.

Then I hear the newsbyte that John Edwards has had an affair. Damn! He was talking about the poor, like no other presidential candidate.

Is this getting old, or what? Maybe if we can find a public official who hasn’t had an affair, he or she should get the headline.

Having read John 8, I’m not one to throw stones. But I’d like to understand what’s going on here. That’s why we read classics like Shakespeare, isn’t it, to understand the human condition?

So we begin. Married to Fulvia, later to Octavia, Mark Antony is having the time of his life—with Cleopatra. He says to her:

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch / Without some pleasure now. 1.1.46-47

Sounds like a guy planning his retirement, doesn’t he?

At the same time, he recognizes that the affair is doing damage:

I must from this enchanting queen break off:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. 1.2.127-129

Of course, he doesn’t do it.

During the decisive battle at Actium, Cleopatra flees and, abandoning his forces, Antony follows her. His soldier Scarus says:

We’ve kiss’d away / Kingdoms 3.10.7-8

I never saw an action of such shame;
Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before
Did violate so itself. 3.10.22-24

Antony confesses,

…  I / Have lost my way forever. 3.11.3-4

He dismisses his soldiers, rejecting their arguments that they should stay with him. Realizing he has reduced himself to a thing, he says:

 Let that be left / Which leaves itself. 3.11.19-20 

He confronts Cleopatra with her total control over him:

 O’er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me. 3.11.59-61 

Just as a cloud “that’s dragonish, / a vapour sometime like a bear or lion,” vanishes before his eyes, he is disappearing:

Even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct
As water is in water. 4.14.11-13

Next, he calls on his servant Eros to kill him. Instead, Eros himself suicides. Antony fumbles, wounding himself but remaining alive for yet one more love scene with Cleopatra. Rather than being taken to Rome as a prisoner, Cleopatra has servants bring in vipers to bite her to death.

Shakespeare paints a fascinating, indepth portrait of persons who are poisonous for each other.

In Part 2, I’ll share my own reflections.

I guess you could say this is about the guys who keep the light and power on.

When people are reading the Bible through, I tell them, “Don’t be surprised if you bog down about Exodus 21 through Leviticus to Numbers 8 or so.” This is the most mind numbing material I can imagine, instructions for building the tabernacle in the wilderness and for carrying it about from place to place. There are detailed descriptions of items in the tabernacle and long lists of offerings.

My advice: skim it or skip it until later.

It baffles me to read in my study Bible notes that Jewish children are often introduced to their faith beginning with Leviticus.

Today, for example, my read through passage was Numbers 1-8: the census, the order of march, the Levites broken down into the Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merarites.

YAWN

If you’re Moses or Aaron, you get good parts in the play:

The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things, so that he and his sons forever should make offerings before the LORD, and minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name forever.

1 Chron 23:12-13 (NRSV)

The Aaronites pack up every item: the altar, the firepans, the snuffers, the bowls, and so on, placing everything in its covering of fine leather. Then the Levites get to carry it.

But here’s where it gets dicey: if they happen to look at it or touch it, ZAP! They’re dead meat.

Most of Raiders of the Lost Ark is Hollywood CGI. But in depicting the holy (that which is contained within the ark) as more deadly than an A bomb, the movie is true to the Old Testament.

The ark is properly transported by poles run through rings at its corners. When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, however, he brought it on a cart. The result:

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.

2 Sam 6:6-7 (NRSV)

So, here you are, roaming the desert, listening to stories of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, Rachel and their brood. Your job in the salvation history of your people?

Carry some leather packets around on poles. But never touch or look at what’s inside or die instantly.

BORING DANGEROUS

How’d you like your resume to read: I carried a leather packet around the desert for 20 years, period.

But, in fact, they saw it differently.

Those packets, carried about on poles, represented for the people the presence of God, leading the march.

[God] said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And [Moses] said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

Ex 33:14-16 (NRSV)

Psalm 16 is often considered the testimony of the Levites, who had no land in Israel; the Lord was their inheritance:

5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
     you hold my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
     I have a goodly heritage.
7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
     in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the LORD always before me;
     because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
     my body also rests secure.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol,
     or let your faithful one see the Pit.
11 You show me the path of life.
     In your presence there is fullness of joy;
     in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalms 16:5-11 (NRSV)

I’m a full decade past the retirement age of the Levite (Num 4.47). I gave my working life to the church. And I can tell you, there is no place on earth more haunted by demons. It collects stinkers and hum dingers by the bushel.

So I’ve done a bit of reframing. I did my time in the church. It often felt like Leviticus reads, lugging people’s baggage around the wilderness.

But I gave my heart to the Lord and to the good souls I always found here and there, inside and just as often outside the camp.

Let me tell you: it’s enough, way more than enough.

The early Bible study some friends and I do on Thursdays today.

1  We’re trying out Skype. We all know:

To err is human but to really f—- things up,

it takes a computer.

 My friends in Africa, my wife and her colleagues at Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care, and I are working on making reliable audio and video connections for case conference, fellowship and prayer time. This morning at 7, noon in Yaoundé, we planned to connect. IF the technician got my African friend‘s computer back to him.

My laptop sat prominently on the dining room table, ready for us to meet. Everybody oohed and aahed over our plans. I tried several times to connect, but was never successful.

Time: 7 a.m. We end at 8.

2 My wife left for work. There was a loud buzz, then a mechanical

Voice:              “Did you hit your panic button?”

Me:                  “What?”

Voice:              “This is your home security company. Somebody at your address hit the panic button on the key chain alarm. What is your emergency?”

Me:                  “There’s no emergency.”

Voice:              “What’s your all clear code?”

Me:                  “Armageddon.”

Voice:              “Thank you.”

I’ve been wanting to check the security system, anyway. I have this goofy plastic pendant that I can’t wear under my shirt because it makes me break out. “Kirk, to Enterprise.” Other than that, except for a few blinks, we’ve got nothing to show for our monthly security payment.

Time:               7:10 a.m. We end at 8.

3 The computer goes into its version of the northern lights. That’s either asleep or hibernation. I never know which.

Now I show everybody the Celtic Daily Prayer website: www.northumbriacommunity.org/.

(Clearly people I’m HTML-challenged; screw it. 30 minutes trying to master the damn link, while the message rips off like a breath in a blizzard.)

Time: 7:30 a.m. We end at 8.

4 One friend shares how much of a blessing his prayer book is. He dashes off to the car to get it. Another digs through her purse for a slip of paper to write the web address on.

 Me:        “Not to worry, I’ll email you a link.”

 Relief.

 I talk about how I’ve been doing Celtic Daily Prayer for four or five days now. (I’ve got a doctor’s appointment coming up. Of course, I’m not anxious about it.)

 Then free (old, conservative, solid) Bible software: http://www.e-sword.net/. Then how I prefer a cheap disc for the NRSV.

 By now my friend’s back from the car with the Book of Common Prayer, an older edition than the one I use (1979). Daunting if you’re not used to it. So I mention the lectionary home page.

 Bells and whistles. Bells and whistles.

 I find a prayer for children that might be helpful.

 Time: 7:50 a.m. We end at 8 a.m.

5 God ripped my heart out.

 I can’t talk about our prayer concerns. You know them way too well, anyhow. But suddenly the geek circus we were showing off tooted, tooted, blinked, blinked, forgotten.

There we were. Prostrate before the mercy seat. Waiting for the still small voice.

Elijah killed about 950 pagans for the Lord. He was a righteous man, who prayed and for awhile it didn’t rain; prayed again, and it began to rain, to pour. He fled for his life from a queen he thought was wicked, anyway.

Fled to a cave. Waited for the earthquake, storm, lightning that were his stock in trade. None of those came. Only a whisper: “What are you doing, here, Elijah?”

Me:                  “Laptop! Software! Internet!”

Whisper:          “What are you doing, John? Pay attention! To really f—- things up, it only takes…you. You needed to pray. Desperately, you needed to pray. At last, you did.”

Time:               7:57 a.m. We end at 8.

 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane.”

Matt 26:36 (NRSV)

Some words are so redolent, so full of beauty and meaning, that your eye can’t slide past them without pausing.

Bethlehem, “house of bread,” is such a word—Bethphage and Bethany, two others, the first meaning “house of figs”; the second, “house of the poor.”

Bethany, among the poor, is where Jesus stayed the night before his final confrontation with religious authorities. The next day in powerful action parables he cursed the fig tree and cleansed the Temple. (Mark 11.1-14)

 Alone

Gethsemane is another word, which needs nothing but itself. It’s found in today’s gospel reading of the Daily Lectionary, BCP. Here, in an ancient olive grove named for the olive presses that might have stood there in the garden, Jesus spent the night before his arrest, praying.

Though he longed not to be, he was alone. (NRSV brackets the angel of Luke 22.43.) From the larger group of 11 men and others perhaps, he invited Peter, James and John to go a little farther with him.

Some people have a vocation to go deeper with God in prayer, if they will.

Despite his repeated requests and warnings that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” the disciples fell into a sleep heavy with grief and confusion. They did not understand, yet they surely must have sensed their Master’s mood was grim, even before he told them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death.”

 Moment of decision

The real moment of decision did not come during the trials before the high priest or Pilate or Herod. It didn’t come when Pilate asked the crowd, “Which man shall I release to you?”

No, it came now in this quiet garden, here on the side of the Mount of Olives.

 Precedents

Maybe he recalled the prophecy of Zechariah, how in the end time

the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives.

Zech 14:3-4 (NRSV)

Or perhaps he remembered how David fled Jerusalem,  ascending the mount, bare-foot, his head covered, weeping. (2 Sam 15.30)

Whom did he identify with more—the triumphant Son of Man, or the failed aging king?

 Before they are useful

 Jesus knew what awaited the fruit of these trees. The first to be produced was light, fruity virgin olive oil. Further pressings produced lower grade oil used for lamps. Prized as a cosmetic, as an emollient and medicine; blended with spices, it provided the basis for the holy oil to light the Temple and  to anoint prophets, priests, and kings.

But Jesus knew what stood between the oil of such glorious usefulness, and the fruit developing on the tree. Raw olives are too bitter to eat. Immature green olives, struck or picked from the tree, are brined or soaked in water or oil.

Those allowed to mature are crushed by a huge millstone. The resulting mash is pressed through screens, vegetable matter and water are then removed.

In this verse John acknowledges in a similar image that Jesus knew self must die on the cross:

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

John 12:24 (NRSV)

 A Post-Easter realization?

The gospels agree that he repeatedly predicted

The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.

Mark 9:31 (NRSV)

Is this actually a post-Easter realization? Did he never wonder (as most of us would), there alone in the darkness: “What if I am wrong? What if there is nothing more?”

 Blowin’ in the Wind

Perhaps a light wind stirred. It was months before the olive harvest. Did the breeze unveil cream-colored blossoms now and then among the thick gray-green folliage? Did their fragrance scent the night air?

What passed through his mind?

We are told he prayed, ”Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

The cup of wrath. Staggering. Drunkenness. Vomit. Judgment. Not at all like the cup of salvation he had so recently shared with his closest friends.

He groaned—groans too deep for words.

 Intimations of Life

Perhaps he gripped the twisted trunk of a stump before which he knelt. Perhaps from the old ax blows he saw new foliage sprouting. Perhaps he remembered what Job said:

There is hope for a tree,
     if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
     and that its shoots will not cease. 

Job 14.7 (NRSV)

Perhaps.

 Unveiling Jesus’ psyche

How did this account of Gethsemane come to be told? Jesus’ friends lay all asleep. He was alone, but for the wood, the leaves, the blossoms.

Did the Risen Christ tell the story, fill in the gaps the disciples didn’t know or couldn’t remember?

Here’s what we know: he came from that place, put on trial the greatest legal system known to humanity, and won eternal life for us and all our kind.

The best words about Gethsemane

The best account, apart from the glimpses preserved in the gospels, is in the words of Sidney Lanier, writing in 1880 (according to Oremus):

Into the woods my Master went,
clean forspent, forspent,
into the woods my Master came,
forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to him.
the little grey leaves were kind to him,
the thorn tree had a mind to him,
when into the woods he came.

Out of the woods my Master came
and he was well content;
out of the woods my Master came,
content with death and shame.
When death and shame would woo him last,
from under the trees they drew him last,
’twas on a tree they slew him last
when out of the woods he came.

Drew Smith’s insightful piece James Dobson Misrepresents Barack Obama’s Views on Religion gets me. (You’ll find it at CC blogs.) Having lived all my professional life as Southern Baptist clergy in the warlock’s cauldron of “The Conservative Resurgence” or “The Controversy” (which it is depends on whose side you’re on like the War of Northern Aggression or the Civil War), I have strong unhealed emotions about schism.

Lose-Lose Lose-Lose

The first is my profound belief that nobody wins, everybody loses. In denominational schism everybody’s a loser, especially outsiders who are weighing whether Christ makes a difference or not. Mike Warnke asks, if a 1000 member church splits in two, how many people will go to the two churches? Not 500 each, but maybe (if God forgives us) 100 each. Net loss of 800 little lambs and mothers with child, for each of whom we will give account to God.

Is there Any Sorrow like my Sorrow

The second is a feeling of sorrow. Dr. Ben Bruner, my deacon at First Baptist Church Richmond, was married to the great great granddaughter of one of the women who founded the Woman’s Missionary Union. She said, “It’s like an unending funeral.”

My wife Sandy and I went to only one annual meeting of the SBC, Dallas 1985. The news photographers were lined up to film the moderates walk out, if they lost the presidency. The moderates lost, and all the paparazzi got was a handshake.

R.I.P. S.B.C.

But that year the SBC died for us.

People crammed in the convention center two hours before the meeting began, shoulder to shoulder at 6:30 a.m. Someone began to sing “Amazing Grace,” “What A Friend,” all the old songs we loved. Then, the doors opened and we did a hardball political hatchet job or hated those who did it.

My parents gave money they didn’t have. They went to church every time the doors were open. Baptist churches raised my mom from alcoholism. My dad started a church in our home. I was baptized at age five. (Good thing we know we don’t practice infant baptism, or it might get confusing.) I got my college education at the Baptist Student Union, and two seminary degrees at SB institutions, much of the cost borne by the SB Cooperative Program.

Fifty Ways to Leave

Cut us, my wife and I bled Baptist.

From the national denomination, to the state conventions, to the regional associations, even to individual churches: whether you were liberal or fundamentalist mattered more than whether you were saved. Pastors’ get togethers were consumed not by prayer but by the latest rendition of who did whom.

At last, Sandy and I walked away. Left the only fellowship of men and women we’d known. Left the institutions we believed in, and were willing to give our lives to.

We couldn’t fight any more.

Not soon enough for our son, who now speaks of religion, if ever, with disgust.

Wherever You Lead, We’ll Go

I had to pray, “Lord, those who built the SBC built it for you: the foreign and home mission boards, the seminaries with their magnificent libraries, the colleges, the conference centers–all of it–even the Annuity Board. I took out my retirement savings and put the rest in God’s hands. I hope God knows how to deal with true believers. I never will.

But I prayed, “God bless them and use them  as you will for your glory.” It still is a very hard prayer, especially if them is specific, not general.

Now, Lord, I prayed, wherever You lead I’ll go. I never dreamed You would send me away from Southern Baptists. My wife is a United Methodist elder in full connection (I have rehearsed that, so I can say it easily).

My Church Membership’s in my Boots

Me? My heart belongs to Jesus. My church membership’s in my boots. That’s where the 16th century Anabaptists kept lists of scriptures that they knew by heart because carrying a copy of the Bible around could get you killed.

The Schleitheim Confession (1527) is one of the earliest Anabaptist confessions. A significant theme is Vereinigung, which John Howard Yoder notes can mean union, atonement, reconciliation. As a past passive participle it means, “to be brought into unity.”

Thus, the same word can be used for the reconciling work of Jesus Christ, for the procedure whereby [sisters and] brothers come to a common mind, for the state of agreement in which they find themselves, and for the document which states the agreement to which they have come.

trans. John H. Yoder (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1977), p. 20.

Vereinigung is Good Enough for Me

John 17 records Jesus’ prayer that all who believe (belive and belove) in His Name may be one as Father, Son and Spirit are one. I repeat His words, may all be one.

I offer a prayer for my Anglican sisters and brothers, who are heading into the abyss. I ask God to forgive me the part I played, for it takes two sides. I’m not important enough to have done much damage. But if I did any, it’s way too high a price to pay for being right. And only God knows who’s right and who isn’t.

I believe, as we see one denomination after another cannibalize its own bleeding flesh, that we are watching the death throes of a way of life God has used in the past, and could use again.

If only we put God in the driver’s seat, and our love of power and preeminence and doctrinal purity in the trunk under the spare. But if we must do that, we’d better not have a flat. The spare will be eaten to bits in no time.

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.