Good News Will Make You Crazy

In Common Prayer, a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, authors Shane Clarborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro have compiled a variety of devotional resources.

Their prayers for Monday of Holy Week are based upon the story in Mark 14:3-9, of the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus - a radical act of devotion. They include these words of Emmanuel Katongole, a contemporary Ugandan theologian.

Mary represents the ‘rebel consciousness’ that is essential to Jesus’ gospel. Wherever the gospel is preached, we must remember that its good news will make you crazy. Jesus will put you at odds with the economic and political systems of our world. This gospel will force you to act, interrupting the world as it is in ways that make even pious people indignant.

They close with this prayer:

While we sat in darkness, Lord Jesus Christ, you interrupted us with your life. Make us, your people, a holy interruption so that by your Spirit's power we may live as a light to the nations, even as we stumble through this world’s dark night. Amen. 

In closing, I leave you with this blessing for Holy Week:

May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ go with you, wherever he may send you;
may he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm;
may he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you;
may he bring you home rejoicing, once again into our doors.

Father Showers

Availability and Vulnerability

There are two simple words at the center of the Rule of Life for the Northumbria Community – availability and vulnerability. Since discovering that Rule several years ago, I have tried to live my own life with availability and vulnerability.

Let me backtrack. Many years ago, David found a prayer book developed by the Northumbria Community in England. The Northumbria Community is a geographically dispersed community that has its home on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.  It is shaped by a spirituality based in the history and experience of the Celts. What holds that community together is their Rule of Life, summarized by the values of availability and vulnerability. As Richard Foster states in the introduction of Celtic Daily Prayer:

These are vows that extend both vertically and horizontally: available to God, available to others; vulnerable to God, vulnerable to others.

While I make no claim to be a member of the community, nor have I ever visited there, I have tried to adopt those values into my life, with their challenge and hope. I continually find myself returning to them over and over again, because they seem to be at the core of my struggles to live a life centered on God. This year, I will consciously bring those challenges of availability and vulnerability into this week between Palm Sunday and Easter.

Holy Week was a time when Jesus was fully available to those who needed him, while becoming totally vulnerable to the fear and cruelty of those who controlled the religious and government institutions. In his acts of availability, such as washing the disciple’s feet, Jesus turns around the expectations of his friends by caring for them. In his interactions with those in power, he refuses to return violence for violence, hatred for hatred. During this week, we recall his betrayal by one of his disciples, beatings by soldiers, abandonment by his friends, crucifixion by an oppressive state, and death.

So, in continuing on my Lenten discipline of what if it’s all true, what can I hope to learn from Jesus tragic, and ultimately triumphant, journey? I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But if I can find a way to stay available and vulnerable to reliving his story, I hope to be able embrace those values more fully in the power of resurrection and Easter.  

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is my favorite Sunday in church, even more than Easter, which traditionally is the high point of all the liturgical seasons. Like opening day of the baseball season or the beginning of any event or life experience, Palm Sunday sets the stage for what is to come. It is a clean slate, everyone starting fresh with expectation, excitement, and passion.

Palm Sunday is always the Sunday before Easter. It commemorates the triumphal entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, to celebrate the Jewish festival of Passover with a feast. The event is reported by all four Canonical Gospels: Mark 11:1-11, Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19, all of which recount the event with amazing similarity.

As Jesus made his entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the crowds lined his path with palm fronds. This is the beginning of Holy Week with His arrest on Holy Thursday, His Crucifixion on Good Friday, His resting in the tomb on the Sabbath Holy Saturday, and His Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Today Palm Sunday is often celebrated with a procession, the blessing and distribution of palms to the congregation and a reading of the Passion usually from the Gospel according to Matthew. In the past, when palms were hard to obtain, pussy willows and other bushes were substituted. That’s why Palm Sunday is also known as Passion Sunday or Willow Sunday.

In some churches it is customary to make crosses out of the palms. I think it is a nice tradition. Having a cross to keep for the year is much more manageable than finding a place to store palm fronds as a reminder of our faith. I have been making palm crosses for years and it is not as hard as it looks.

On a personal note, my Dad died on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. Since my Mother had predeceased him by 8 months, that Palm Sunday was a new beginning for me. I was now in charge. I would no longer be able to solicit their advice, be comforted by them or be guided by their experience in person. I would only be able to remember them and reflect on what they had instilled in me from memory. They are, however, always with me in spirit.

The Bible gives us the opportunity to keep Jesus with us in spirit too. By following a yearly tradition to observe Palm Sunday and what follows, culminating with Easter, we are reminded of the significance of Jesus’ experience. As we head into Holy Week, it is important to remember Jesus’ sacrifice and know that his death was a new beginning for us that started with Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday gives us the strength, passion and faith to face the pain and joy that we will experience in the near and distant future. This SPF protects us no matter what.

Joan Shisler

Lent and the "Three Legged Stool"

As a child, a cradle Episcopalian, Lent was mysterious, dreaded and made little sense. As children, we were told that we must give up something for Lent. No, giving up helping to wash the dinner dishes did not count. We had to give up something we liked, such as candy. So for me it really was chocolate! The Sunday before Ash Wednesday, our Sunday school teachers would chart the things each child was giving up. Then each Sunday we report to the class on our progress. Few, if any of us, ever kept our fast for the entire 40 days. When we reported that we had failed, we were treated like sinners - told to repent, pray and try harder the next week. Why we were doing all this was never explained - or at least it did not stick with me. Something about helping us to better understand how Jesus suffered and to just have faith. Lent was dreaded. It stood for dreary, sometimes scary music, bare altars, meatless meals on Wednesdays and Fridays and church school on Wednesday afternoon as well as Sunday. Looking back on it all, it is amazing that I remained an Episcopalian.

Then this Sunday afternoon my grandson reminded me once again why I am an Episcopalian. He is participating in the confirmation class for teens. This week's lesson was on the "Three Legged Stool" theology of the Episcopal church based on Scripture, Tradition and Reason. After our discussion, I was thrilled to realize he "gets it" and understands how important these three legs are to an Episcopalian. He understands Lent and many other aspects of the Episcopal church far better than I did as a teen because along the way people have taken the time to use the "three legged stool" to explain our faith to him and not simply state as I received, "You just have to believe and have faith".

As an adult, I have applied the "Three Legged Stool" to my personal practice of Lent. At first it was an unconscious or subconscious exercise, but now it is very purposeful. No more giving up chocolate. Now I look forward to Lent. It is a time I set aside for personal renewal and spiritual growth. I do not give up something, but try to add something to my spiritual journey. Just as I evaluate my secular life at the beginning of each new year, I do the same during Lent for my spiritual life. I take a good hard look at my journey and new horizons for myself. I use the parts of the three legged stool. For scripture, I make this a time to read something that will aid my scriptural understanding. This year I am reading "The Last Week" by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan about what the Gospels teach us about Jesus' final days in Jerusalem. For tradition, I am trying to better understand "my neighbor" in two areas of the world by reading "Neighbor", by Ben Daniel, a book about illegal immigration and the book "Haiti" by Philippe Girard. Armed with this new knowledge, I rely on meditation and prayer to help me better glimpse the path God wants me to follow for this next part of my life. Using the "three legged stool" I have come to believe that you find God in the "stranger " and a part of the kingdom of God lies within ourselves. During each Lent I do not give up something, but ask God to guide me as I seek him and his kingdom. .

Dandy