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Wednesday Evening
Scripture tells us that Jesus and his disciples worked in and around Jerusalem from Palm Sunday through the early part of that week.
Much of their work remained as it had been for all the years they had shared their journey. Preaching, teaching and healing those who came to hear Jesus, to experience his authority and power, filled their days and continued on into their nights. Perhaps there was a greater sense of urgency on Jesus' part. But between the increased numbers of people in town for the Passover and the tensions brewing among the Temple authorities which added to their own ever-present exhaustion, the disciples could easily have brushed aside any concerns they had that something felt different, not quite right, even ominous. Jesus' messages focused on servanthood, the kingdom of God and watching for the trials and tribulations to come, all of which were well-received, Chief Priests and Pharisees excepted, of course. Jerusalem was their territory. Confrontations between them and Jesus were inevitable and had been expected. Having faced violence here before it had been a risk to come at all. But Jesus had insisted, here they were and any potential threats seemed to be at bay. It was unlikely any troubles would erupt with so many followers of Jesus close at hand.
Then something unexpected happened.
Unlike so many times before, as the daylight neared its end, Jesus rounded up the disciples and led them to Bethany, just outside the city, to rest privately for the evening. No crowds, no fitting themselves into a gathering of strangers filled with tax collectors, laborers, shepherds and tradespeople, sitting around a table eager for refreshment, both physical and spiritual, after another long, grueling day of life. They would have time together to eat, rest and pray with Jesus by themselves. None of them could remember the last time this had happened. It felt good to be away from all the noise and excitement, all the people jammed into the narrow streets of the city. Many of the twelve had families with whom they would not be spending this sacred time. To be able to pull back from their work, if only for an evening, was a luxury they didn't think they would be afforded, especially tonight. They would savor it, cherish it, for a long time. Who knew when they would have this chance again?
As Jesus and his disciples walked along, several of the twelve began to feel the shift. They glanced back at Jerusalem, then looked to Jesus, and a new awareness took hold of them. But only for a moment. In an instant, it was gone. Jerusalem was loud and bustling and Jesus was simply as worn out as they themselves were.
Tomorrow evening the Passover would begin. Who knew what miracles Jesus would perform? Perhaps this would be the night Jesus claimed his full power. Maybe they would witness the Messiah of God coming into his glory and see God's kingdom established on earth before their very eyes. What would that be like? What would the Chief Priests and Pharisees say to that? What would Rome do in the face of God's almighty reign? Time would tell.
But for tonight, they would rest.
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To Jerusalem
What do you do when you are the Savior of the World, have a little over a week left to impart your message to your disciples and still have to make the journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover?
If you are Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant rabbi and preacher, it appears you keep going about your business, even as you know you are about to face your own death.
On our calendar Palm Sunday arrives this Sunday. For Jesus and his disciples their journey to Jerusalem marked returning to a city that had attempted to stone Jesus earlier in his ministry. The twelve closest to Jesus had strong memories for that time. This place frightened the disciples even to the point of questioning Jesus' intention to return to Bethany, outside the city, to visit Lazarus, Mary and Martha to raise Lazarus from the dead. They had all survived that visit, Lazarus was brought back to life, his sisters were grateful to Jesus for saving their brother, but more ill will had been stirred up among the religious leadership. Jerusalem held great religious significance, but also intense political rivalries and fear that each Passover would only remind the Jewish people of a freedom from bondage that would never come again.
They were not alone on the road Thousands of Jewish pilgrims would be making their way to the city for the holiday. The road would have been hot and dusty, a grueling trip at best. Jesus' work with the twelve was almost completed as they traveled toward the City of Jerusalem, but His sense of urgency in letting His disciples know what they were about to walk into was clear to Him, if not to them. "And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him, and after three days he will rise (Mark 10:32-34)."
As they all continue walking, only James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to Jesus to ask him for leadership positions as his closest allies when he comes into his glory. "But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized (Mark 10: 38)?" The two men assure Jesus that they can fulfill these obligations, but Jesus tells them that he cannot promise them any kind of permanent positions next to him because those places are prepared by someone else.
Next on their journey Jesus stops to help blind Bartimaeus, a fellow traveler on the side of the road looking for a handout who instead receives healing and a new way of life as a follower of Jesus.
The ordinary and the extraordinary seemed to have merged for the disciples. Was it so commonplace to be a part of Jesus' life that they no longer heard His words or their implications? Had healings become so usual that the disciples just assumed a few would happen every day? Perhaps those closest to Jesus were simply used to his language, aware of the danger they were always in, but also caught up in the mystery and power of this fist century celebrity with whom they had aligned themselves. Perhaps they were also weary and fearful that if they listened more closely to what Jesus was saying they would be too frightened to forge ahead. Ironic, then, that the only two who spoke to Jesus after hearing His profoundly prophetic words of what the days ahead would hold, chose to discuss their place with Jesus after all the messiness was done. The bickering among the twelve for position in Jesus' kingdom would eventually catch up with them at the Seder table later in the week.
I often wonder what Jesus thought as he laid his head down to rest that night. Would the disciples understand what he was saying to them in time to become the leaders Jesus needed them to be? How many more times did he need to tell them that he was about to be arrested and put to death? How would he get through any of this without knowing they were still with him? Perhaps prayer was his only answer, the one that gave him the comfort to fall asleep, rise the next day and continue on to Jerusalem.
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Grace To Be Ourselves
Brett Favre, quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, announced his retirement this week. At a news conference yesterday his simple explanation for the move was that he was tired. At thirty-eight and possessing graying hair, Favre and his family have been through multiple tragedies and upheavals in the last few years, but he kept on playing, even the day after his father died.
Having given more to the game than most and played the game with more joy than anyone, Favre had a right to his reasons and wanted his loyal fans to hear those reasons from him, not filtered through the media, which has been known to have quite vivid imaginations regarding the facts at times. Favre was emotional during the hour broadcast from Lambeau Field, home of the Packers and all they have accomplished. It seemed he embodied every uphill battle and triumph the team had delivered to the people of Wisconsin during his sixteen seasons.
What was quite wonderful, and rather poignant, was that of all the records that Favre holds - most yards passing, most starts, most passes completed among them - he claimed none solely for himself. He believes everything he did was a team effort and the whole team deserved credit for what are labeled publicly as his achievements. And what matters most to him is that he is leaving at the top of his game by his own standards, not anyone else's.
That said, Brett Favre is the first to tell you his is not perfect. His battles with prescription drug dependency and alcohol abuse are well-known and almost cost him his marriage and family.
But between the public hero and the private man who struggled to work through his issues to reemerge in wholeness and health lies grace. In this respect Brett Favre, Jesus and the rest of us have grace in common.
Grace is one of those words that gets tossed around like a Frisbee at a church social, so for the record, my dictionary and I are defining grace as, " unmerited favor or generous courtesy granted." Take your pick. Either way, grace is something we cherish when we are the recipients and something we have a lot to learn about offering up more often. So I think it is important to take the time to say that we may not be as familiar with how grace functions as we may pride ourselves.
With that settled, please know that I am not calling Brett Favre a messiah in any way, shape or form, nor do I believe he had a messiah complex. I don't think Jesus did either. Jesus lived His life with humility, kindness, faith and a complete boldness that was unheard of in His time and unmatched in our own. His public ministry, marked by frequent run-ins with religious authorities and filled with conflict, also contained instances of insightful teaching, miraculous healings and speaking events that drew crowds simply by word of mouth. The level of warmth and acceptance He felt for the marginalized people of His culture - women, children, tax collectors, prostitutes - drew controversy, but didn't distract Him from His work and did little to damage His image with the general population. People loved Him for who He was and what He brought to their lives: hope.
Meanwhile, scripture tells us that Jesus did struggle with this work He was called to do, and even more so, the brutal end he foresaw for His own life. Frustration with the disciples is evident. They can't be blamed for not quite getting the full depth of Jesus' thoughts and ideas. We have barely scratched the surface of that ourselves and we possess two thousand years of hindsight. I am fairly sure Jesus didn't blame them either. Having grown up in the Temple, Jesus also never left his faith behind to pursue or create a new religion. He understood, better than most, the power religious institutions can have over people. So even in his verbal scuffles with Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees He knew they were trying to preserve a history and a people which had known more slavery than freedom, while He was pointing the way to a newly-defined freedom in God's love. Crowds followed Him day and night, hardly giving Him any opportunity for sleep, let alone personal reflection and prayer, but for these and the many people who were never able to grasp what Jesus was offering them, Jesus only had mercy and compassion.
And yet, in all that he thought, said and did, He didn't take credit for His knowledge, insight, teaching or preaching abilities, but always pointed back to God as His Sources of being. It may have been easier to smile and say, "Thank you," but He didn't. We remember Him today as One with authority, but also great humility. We remember Him as a man of grace, a man who gave unmerited favor and generous courtesy to those least deserving and those most in need of its transformative power.
And so, we are back to Brett Favre, expressing humility in the face of great opportunity to take all the credit, smile and say, "Thank you." Instead he chose the grace of shared experience, shared victory and shared credit with the people who helped him make it all possible. He chose grace, giving favor to those who had not asked him for it. He offered generous courtesy when no one would have faulted him for doing otherwise. He chose grace.
We too have the opportunity to express humility in the face of opportunities to take all the credit, smile and say, "Thank you." But instead, we can choose to extend grace to others at times when unmerited, unearned favor or generous courtesy may take some effort on our part. The effort is worth it, particularly when we may be blessed with grace we have not merited or earned, or have generous courtesy extended at a time when someone else makes the effort for us.
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Primary Moments
Tuesday was a big day in United States politics.
In case you haven't heard we here in the US are in the process of figuring out who our next president will be. Final elections won't be held until November, but state primaries proceed through early summer, determining how many delegate votes each candidate will bring to their party's convention.
Senator John McCain earned the Republican party nomination last night, winning enough votes for Mike Huckabee, also running for the nomination, to concede defeat. Democrats, many of whom believed they would awake this morning to Senator Barack Obama defeating Senator Hillary Clinton for the party''s top spot, were met instead by Senator Clinton's three primary wins in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas. Her hopes live and the Democrats still have a choice to make before the final leg of the campaign trail commences.
Presidential politics are usually more cut and dried, but this year is different. We have no incumbent president or vice president running for the job of leading the country. Many of us are discouraged over our involvement in the Iraq war, our own sagging economy and the general downward turn the country has taken during the last seven years of the Bush presidency. We want change, and people seem to be waking up to the fact that this is a democracy and we all have to participate to make it function like one.
Because this year is different, we have choices and we appear to be exercising them. More people are actually discussing politics again, stating their opinions, saying who they like and why. Some people are also listening to each other, considering what points they may have missed about a particular candidate. It's been a long time since we Americans cared enough to carry on a conversation about the future of our own country. We are desperately in need of this thing called hope.
We are also desperately in need of this thing we call faith.
Although it is said that religion and politics don't mix, I would contend that faith and politics cannot be separated on an individual, a more personal level. I don't so much care about large scale religious battles over land, communicant members or Best Church Band of 2008. My interest settles on those simple conversations we have when our guard is down and we feel we can trust another human being with a small part of our souls. These moments of personal exposure can be fleeting, but hold deep wells of hope for what we can mean to each other as God's people.
Consider how you may express your faith in a study group at your church. Would you be ready to quote scripture or a memorized passage from a prominent author familiar to most people sitting in the circle around you? Is the level of intimacy you feel with your fellow worshippers strong enough to withstand differences of opinion between political candidates or scriptural interpretations? Would you be willing to tell the person next to you that a mistake you made in your personal life may cost you your home or your family? Yet every day these kinds of truths are told and intimacies are shared among perfect strangers on commuter trains, in grocery store lines and at public restroom sinks. We find it easier to be ourselves, speak of our beliefs and our lives with people who know nothing about us and who likely will never see us again.
We keep certain boundaries around ourselves when we believe we are around good church people who expect us to be a certain way, sound like them or believe the same things they do because we believe in God, just like they do. We don't want to admit that famous author makes no sense to us, or that the political candidate another is supporting does not speak to our values. We don't want to fully admit who we are because we are afraid of being judged, even if we may be equally judgmental of someone else.
My point is that even though we like the idea of religious freedom in our country, the same we we value democracy as a whole, we don't much like to have discussions that embody that freedom because then we would have to actually think about what we believe. Agreeing with the group at church functions or sharing what we really feel and believe with total strangers in public places brings about the same result: we stay hidden, our faith stays stagnant, never integrating with our actions and allowing us to live fully as God's people.
I have heard mentioned that our faith, though personal, is not private. But living a public faith takes courage, resilience and the willingness to listen. Not everyone shares the same religious beliefs, even people sitting in the same pew with us on Sunday morning. Faith, like democracy, is not a spectator sport. Challenging each other, through discussion, education, open-mindedness and faithful observance to grow what we believe beyond a childhood memory of "Jesus Loves Me" is part of who we are called to be for and with one another.
