Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Drama

4/30/2015

Occasionally my four-year-old and I will do dramatic improvisations of biblical characters. For example, the other day, she said, "You be Jesus," so I played Jesus, first carrying the cross, then laying down on the cross, then being nailed to the cross (by her), then dying. Then my almost two-year-old tapped on my arm to raise me from the dead: I was resurrected.

It wasn't long before my four-year-old wanted to switch roles. She was to play Jesus and I was to play Mary Magdalene, she said. Suddenly we were outside the tomb, the rock was rolled away, and Jesus was calling my name, asking me why I was there. Then we switched roles again so she could play Mary Magdalene and wear a sparkling scarf on her head.

Bit by bit, my daughter, who loves both reading and performing, is learning the stories of the Bible. She's also learning, through our house church liturgies, that God's name is Thea, and that "she" is an appropriate pronoun for the divine. What will my biblically literate, feminist daughter make of her faith as she grows up? Where will the path she's on now lead her later in life? I watch her and see potential for wonderful things. No matter how she chooses to journey in the future, I suspect her adult faith life will be rich indeed.

111

4/21/2015

Thea,
I overheard the table conversation of some followers of the Way.
One said to the other, "All paths lead to God."
The other replied, "None come to the Father except through Jesus."
I bit my tongue, and wondered if I should share the good news of you.
In the end I remained silent, knowing that's what I would want if the tables were turned.
Give me the grace to love the hearts of those who believe only-through-Jesus,
and give me the grace to love the many paths that lead to you.
Amen.

93

4/3/2015

Thea,
I recounted Jesus' journey to Golgotha today,
and then I lay on the floor, prostrate, arms outstretched.
I was still for so long that my older daughter grew quiet.
If Jesus' crucifixion was indeed a ransom for the sin of the world,
then give me the strength to throw all my sins against the cross.
Remind me that this is the day when we remember
the unjust murder of a man
and teach me to love and protect all the living
with all my heart.
Amen.

92

4/2/2015

Thea,
your son, on the night before he died,
sealed a new covenant in bread and wine,
his body and blood.
Teach us to remember his covenant with you
in the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine.
Amen.

Living Lent: Both/And

3/27/2015

A friend of mine recently sent my children a collection of puppets and a doll. The doll is Snow White, and her skirt can be flipped up to reveal an upside-down Queen, poison apple in hand.

It didn't take long for my older daughter to become enamored with the Snow White/Queen doll. Soon she was weaving a play involving the Queen and me--I was to play Jesus.

QUEEN: Jesus, eat this apple!
JESUS: (Leaning head forward, moving jaw up and down.) Om nom nom! (Jesus' eyes roll back and he dies in his chair.)
QUEEN: Okay, eat this apple again so you're not dead.
JESUS: (Eats apple again and smiles.) All better.
QUEEN: Now come on, we're going for a walk. Pick up your cross. (Queen and Jesus walk across the room. Jesus buckles under the weight of the invisible cross.) Now put your cross down. (Jesus lays his cross down with a loud grunt.) Lay down. (Jesus scoots the Lincoln Logs out of the way with his foot and lays down.) No, put your arms out like this. (Queen positions Jesus' arms so they're stretched outward.) Now eat the apple so you die on the cross. (Jesus eats the apple and dies.) Wake up! Get up, boy! (Jesus rises.)

So what if the Queen were God? What if she were Jesus' parent, and she intended for him to die, and he obeyed her? Is that the kind of God Christians believe in (setting aside God's assigned gender for a moment)? Is it possible to imagine this Queen as benevolent? Is it possible to imagine God as evil?

What this play suggests to me that perhaps no one is all good or bad--not even God.

I'm going to chew on that a while.

Mystagogy

1/11/2015

We came as we were to the table of the Lord
wrapped in warm pajamas, I with an alb and stole on top.
We blessed your name, singing as we worked
readying the table for our little liturgy.
Candle, books, cloth, bread, wine:
pieces of your presence among us.
We crossed ourselves as I greeted all:
May the grace and peace of Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you all.
And then we prayed,
and we read,
and we sang,
and we shouted Halle Halle Halle-lujah!
We broke open your word together
and before we broke bread
we offered one another a kiss of peace.
Miriam jostled for access to everything,
soaking in a baptism of symbol
while Anastasia grinned and mouthed her part,
awe expressed loud in silence.
I had a flash of hope and wonder
at the thought of the day when my children will offer me
your child's precious body and blood
with their own precious bodies.
And I marveled at Anastasia's nod
when I asked her if she wanted me to baptize her
someday.
You have done great things for us, Thea,
and holy indeed is your name.
Amen.

9

1/10/2015

Thea,
you accompanied Jesus as he
wandered in the wilderness
for forty days and nights,
readying himself for his ministry.
Accompany me as I wander
through the desert, discovering
the lonely vocation of an artist;
lead me to your refreshment.
Amen.

Spirit Whispers: The power of story

8/17/2014

The following is the text of a homily I preached this morning at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish in Tempe, Arizona.

I’d like you to pause for a moment and think about your favorite book. Think about the title, the story, and the characters. Think about the actual copy or copies of the book that you’ve read, and where you were when you last read it. By a show of hands, how many of you have read your favorite book half a dozen times or more?

I reread one of my favorite books this week. My copy of Lawrence Thornton’s Imagining Argentina has yellowing paper, a splitting spine, and some of the most compelling characters I’ve ever met in words. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read and recommended Imagining Argentina to others. It’s a hard book to read, but the vision of hope it presents is powerful precisely because the heart of the book is so difficult. I find that lots of books and stories are great to sink my teeth into, but then there are those precious books whose stories sink into me, and my life is different—more thoughtful, more considered, more virtuous—for it.

When Fr. Gil announced several months ago that I would be preaching on August 17, I looked up the lessons of the day and practically jumped for joy. The stories of the Bible we hear today from the Old Testament and the gospel are two of my favorite stories from scripture.

Fast forward to earlier this week, when I read an e-mail containing a message from our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She wrote to ask the entire Episcopal Church to make today, August 17, a day of prayer for those in Iraq.

It would be pretty hard not to pay attention to all the stories of what’s going on internationally these days. The Gaza Strip has been a focal point of terror between Palestine and Israel. Iraq is in the news for its highly visible genocide of Christians, among others. Thousands of militants who believe war is the only way to end war are ending the lives of innocent people, while they simultaneously inspire the uprising of new war-mongerers on every side. The desire to maintain the purity of one’s own land is the driving force behind much of this violence and prejudice. Even in our country, young unarmed men and women are being shot and killed by those who only seem to see that these young people are on the wrong side of the American color divide. Children are being detained like prisoners on our borders, in limbo between a land they cannot thrive in and a land that treats them as chaff among amber waves of grain.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t slept well for weeks. These stories echo painfully in my heart. They force me to acknowledge that that simmering hatred becomes a blazing rage in manifold ways each day among people both far away and here at home, people who claim to be driven by the call of the law, or the call of God—people like me.

On this day of prayer for those innocents who are dying in Iraq, I see in today’s lessons stories that are less interesting than urgent, more deep than obvious.

The story of Joseph is an epic--we first meet him as a boy, Jacob's son. His many older brothers, in a fit of collective jealousy, throw him into a well, leaving him for dead. Then they change their minds, pull him out of the well, and sell him into slavery instead, figuring they ought to get something out of him. Joseph ends up in Egypt and endures prison and other grave hardships, with no hope but God's promise to help him. Eventually he becomes Pharaoh's most trusted advisor. When we encounter him in today's lesson, his brothers have just arrived, desperate for mercy from Pharaoh’s advisor in the midst of famine. They don’t know that the powerful man before them is their brother. As Joseph prepares to reveal his identity to his brothers, he sends everyone else away. In the end, all of Egypt, even the Pharaoh's household, hears his cries when he is alone with his brothers for the first time in years.

Next, in the gospel story, we hear about a Canaanite woman, a foreign woman, who comes to Jesus begging healing for her daughter who is possessed by a demon. At first Jesus ignores her, as if she weren’t even there. Then his disciples get antsy and ask him to send her away. To appease his friends, he gives her an excuse. She persists. He gives another excuse; she persists again, but this time she refers to him as master of the story that they’re creating through their dialogue, and it’s at that point where the story turns.

The difficulty with these stories for me comes when I try to put myself in them. I'm not powerful Pharaoh. I’m not wise, faithful Joseph. I’m not the woman begging on her knees for her daughter's life, and I’m certainly not Jesus.

When I put myself in these stories, the characters that resemble me most are the jealous, grudging brothers and the possessive, anxious disciples. I live a comfortable, privileged life. I don't easily relinquish my comfort, particularly for someone I don't like or whom I have no direct connection to. With all the horrors I read about in the news, whether in Gaza or in Iraq or in the United States, I perceive the selfishness of my fellow humans keenly, because it is that same selfishness on a grand scale that I practice on a micro-scale. I see in middle-eastern war-mongerers, as well as white-skinned insiders screaming at and threatening brown-skinned outsiders, unholy icons of the many ways in which my heart is hard and impenetrable. I cry over what I read in the news and in these scriptures, because I know how hard my heart is to break open, and I know it can't be any easier to break open any of theirs.

But here's the thing: Joseph's brothers, who sent Joseph to his doom, watched as God's grace broke through their evil deeds. God’s grace revealed not only their brother who had saved all of Egypt and surrounding lands from famine, but revealed their brother who loved them more than ever.

And then there’s the foreign woman from the gospel. By calling Jesus “Master,” she forces him to pay attention to her. Not only does he pay attention to her, but his understanding of what it means to be Lord is subverted by her. Through this woman’s unflagging persistence in the face of blatant rejection and humiliation, Jesus—God’s own chosen one-- perceives that his power as Lord is not just for the sake of “his people,” but for all who call on him for saving help. Through this foreign woman, God's grace breaks through the walls Jesus and his people had built against this woman, this outsider.

If God can accomplish mighty, gracious deeds through possessive, jealous, rebellious hearts like those of Joseph’s brothers, and if God's grace can break through the walls that Jesus' disciples and even Jesus put up to guard their selfish interests--then perhaps God's grace can break through right here in our midst.

What if the stories of war-mongerers and privileged insiders were subverted by stories more persistent and enduring than theirs? What if they were to see that they are indeed called by God--not called to hate and shut out strangers, but rather to love and to welcome and uplift them? I wonder, if we each take a moment to remember again our favorite books and stories, what we might discover about ourselves from them. What do we find most compelling? Do we embrace the bravery and outrageous kindness and selflessness that we encounter in our most beloved, imperfect characters?

What if we were to embrace Joseph’s love of those who had utterly betrayed him? What if you and I embraced Jesus’ humility in accepting that we, as citizens of the most powerful nation on earth, are accountable to more than just the people we call our own? What if we listened not to our own wisdom, but the wisdom that inspires us to become who we are called to be? Maybe the Word of God, Holy Sophia, would become incarnate in us as it did in Mary when she made her bold, unwavering, all-embracing “Yes.”

Perhaps, if each of us said yes to the wisdom in the stories that are most precious and compelling to us, we, like Mary, would become God-bearers in the world. Perhaps then, beginning with you and me, God’s peace would spread to all lands and peoples, and then perhaps the peoples of the world, both here and elsewhere, would come at last to dwell in the everlasting peace of God.

Amen.

Spirit Whispers: Philadelphia 11

7/29/2014

The Philadelphia 11, July 29, 1974

On this Feast of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, another celebration is underway: the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.

I am grateful for God's prophetic call on the lives of these women. I am grateful for their obedience to God--which manifested as disobedience to the unjust, unholy policies of their church.

I am grateful that these women paved the way for other women to respond faithfully to the call they hear from God without fear.

I am grateful for the first experience I had of Sunday liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, at which the first thing I noticed was a woman standing at the altar as an ordained deacon--and no one was rioting. No one even batted an eyelash (except me).

I am grateful that the presence of ordained women is normal in the Episcopal Church. I am grateful that the face of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Presiding Bishop, is a woman (and one of great wisdom).

I am grateful for this church that perceived its own call to be prophetically transformed after eleven women stood up, risking everything that mattered to them, to respond to God's will.

I am grateful that these eleven icons of Martha made it possible for me to sit more easily, like Mary, at the feet of Jesus and hear what he has to say.

Spirit Whispers: The Call

7/28/2014

Yesterday I completed the construction of a bridge spanning over two thousand miles and thirteen years. I sang Suzanne Toolan's "The Call" with two other young women during the 10:30 liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish. This is a song I learned at Historic St. Peter Church (now the Community of St. Peter), and it is a song that gave me a taste of the potential for liturgy and symbol to crash together to reveal the holy.

Leave all things you have and come and follow me, Jesus urges.

Thirteen years and two thousand miles later, I hesitate to leave behind all I've accumulated on this journey. My baggage is mine to keep.

But the invitation is so insistent, echoing softly even when I clang and screech.

Could I just leave it all behind me? Would I be doing it for the right reasons? What if everything changed as a result?

And come and follow me.

Spirit Whispers: Vulnerability

6/13/2014

Photo by Monty Carson.

This morning I took one of those silly little online quizzes that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. This one was called, "What Emotion Are You Guided By?"I knew it would only be ten or twelve questions, and I knew that it would either tell me what I wanted to hear or be way off (and either outcome was equally likely), but I have discovered that asking a question--even in an online quiz--can only yield more to think about.

So I took the quiz. Its answer? Vulnerability.

You are a very emotional, sensitive person. You act upon your feelings, even if it's hurting you, and your strong and vivid emotions tend to get the best of you. Being vulnerable is not a negative thing - it makes you more aware of other people's emotions and when they might be hurt. Trying to grow a thicker skin might be a good idea, but don't hurry. Keep your tender soul alive for as long as you can, it's precious.

Two things strike me: 1) Vulnerability isn't precisely an emotion, so I wasn't expecting that as a possible answer; and 2) now that I think about it, a number of people who have journeyed with me in recent months have pointed to my increasing vulnerability and what a vital part of me that is.

Don't hurry, it says. Keep your tender soul alive for as long as possible, it says. Being vulnerable is not a negative thing.

The trouble with vulnerability is that a vulnerable person is always in a position to be hurt--this truth comes to me from too much experience. Nevertheless, throughout the last seven or so months, I have aimed to become as vulnerable as I have ever been. Vulnerability doesn't just make it possible to be hurt; vulnerability makes it possible to heal. Vulnerability makes it possible to be honest. Vulnerability makes it possible to let one's ego go. Vulnerability makes it possible for Spirit to make a rich dwelling for herself in one's midst.

As a person of faith, and particularly as a Benedictine Canon, I find that many of my former desires have fallen away to make room for this one great desire: to love and serve God and my neighbor (as Jesus did, and as Spirit inspires me to do).

I can't predict the future. I don't know exactly what that love and service will look like in advance. I can't control any of it. I can only listen with the ear of my heart and respond. Vulnerability keeps my own voice from overtaking God's. Vulnerability makes the impossible possible.

Total vulnerability means that, no matter how my ego may feel about it, my whole heart is in God's hands, for better or worse.

Will I keep faith when I am thrown into the pit and later sold into slavery like Joseph? Will I keep faith when my family and my life are destroyed like Job's? Will I keep faith when I'm asked to stand up to Pharaoh like Moses? Will I keep faith when I meet my dead Lord in the garden like Mary? Will I keep faith when I realize that my role is to decrease like John? In what difficult and extraordinary situations will I find myself saying to God, "Here I am, I have come to do your will"?

And when I find myself as Pharaoh's most trusted advisor like Joseph, and when I find myself radically trusting God despite all my loss like Job, and when I perform unforeseen wonders through God's power like Moses, and when I run off to proclaim that God lives like Mary, and when I proclaim the one I love to be greater than I am like John, will my life's purpose find its completion and unbridled joy in God saying to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant"?

Spirit Whispers: Signs and Wonders

6/12/2014

Part of my spiritual practice includes lectio divina, or sacred reading. I read a few verses from scripture at a time and ponder them in order to hear God's voice speaking through them.

Today I read in the second chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, "This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."

It's so familiar from Christmastime that its oddness almost escapes notice.

Why would God's sign to the world be a just-born infant wrapped up like the dead, laid in a feeding trough for large animals?

Why would a bunch of sheep-herders run at the chance to see this so-called sign?

If you don't know that this child is destined from his birth for death, the mummy look doesn't make sense. If you don't know that by losing his life, this child will become food for all who hunger, this doesn't make sense.

How can this bizarre telling of a child's birth make any sense without knowing the whole story that is to come?

What signs and wonders does God leave for me to see that I don't yet understand? How do I develop the imagination to see what they could mean and to strive for what God is setting in motion?

Easter: Day 49

6/7/2014

The Rev. Br. Chad-Joseph Sundin

This morning my Benedictine brother, Chad-Joseph, is ordained as a transitional deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona at Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix.

As I reflect on my brother's call and ministry, I hear the music that God plays through his life, as God played the music of Jesus through Mary. He is a good and faithful servant; he empties his life so God's life might live in him, saying yes to the impossible as Mary did, protecting and up-lifting God's faithful servants without regard for his own image as Joseph did, becoming God's life-giving, light-imparting, nourishing presence in the world as Jesus did. I am one of many blessed witnesses to the working of God through Br. Chad-Joseph's life, because I am one of the many people who has looked at him and beheld God's gentle, undemanding, welcoming presence.

On this day when my brother receives the sacrament of Holy Orders, the Magnificat resonates in my heart.

John Michael Talbot, my favorite sacred singer from when I was a little girl, offers a Magnificat meditation that honors my brother's response to his call in a beautiful way:

Easter: Ascension Day

5/29/2014

Ascension Icon

On this fortieth day of Easter, Christians celebrate the ascension of Christ. It is a departure. Christ has been hanging around, helping the disciples on their post-crucifixion journey to recognize what this resurrection business means. In the end, though, he ascends so that they might ascend.

Ascension Day is a vulnerable day. It's a lonely day. It's a day when Christ's faithful followers don't know whether they're going to make it without being able to lean on their beloved in the way they always have. What are they going to do now?

Eventually, they'll stand up, with or without wiping away their tears. They'll get back to their holy work. They'll remember--in a most powerful way--Christ in the breaking of bread. And they'll encounter their beloved by slipping into the leadership to which he was, from the beginning, beckoning them.

Easter Tuesday

4/22/2014

Courtesy of biblicalarcheology.org

During evening prayer yesterday, I read the lection from the gospel according to Mark of the three women going to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body:

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

I wonder what the three women experienced as they walked toward the tomb of the one they so deeply loved. Heartache? Shock? Disbelief? Unrelenting grief? Were they stoic, determined to make the best of it, to do the tasks prescribed and move on?

And when they discovered that the tomb was empty, and that this young man in white was sitting next to the tomb, telling them their beloved had been raised from death, I wonder what they feared most. Would they be blamed? What could this mean? If he wasn't in the tomb, then where was he?

This morning, a friend of mine from theology school quoted Henri Nouwen, one of the gentlest voices of Christian spirituality from the twentieth century: "The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost."

In moments when my faith is strained to its limits, how strong is my belief that what belongs to God will never get lost?

Living Lent: Holy Saturday

4/19/2014

Jesus--crucified--dead.
The whole world fills the new tomb.
In stillness hope stirs.

Living Lent: Maundy Thursday Mystagogy

4/18/2014

"Maundy" comes from "Mandatum," which refers to Jesus' mandate to his friends to wash the feet of others just as he washed theirs at the last supper before his death. The act of washing a dinner-guest's feet was normally reserved for a slave, and it meant coming into contact with whatever a first-century Jewish person in Jerusalem might have stepped in or on--dirt, feces, bugs, waste-water, nettles, anything. The host of a dinner wouldn't make his own hands impure by touching the unclean feet of his guests.

And yet.

Nowadays, folks who are planning to have their feet washed during the ritual enactment of Jesus' foot-washing take pity on those who wash feet. They wash their own feet in advance, maybe even manicure them, making sure every last trace of "ewww" is gone.

I might have done this, too, but in the midst of preparing to sing many new-to-me hymns for liturgy, I forgot.

At my parish, anyone can have her feet washed. As the foot-washing ritual got underway, it looked as though everyone was choosing to do this. So despite my dirty feet, I went forward.

Exposing my feet, allowing the clean hands of another to wash them, was humiliating. And in my humiliation, a new gateway for grace manifested.

What a gift to receive the blessing of the holy other who beheld my uncleanness and loved me anyway.

Isn't this receiving and giving the entirety of the Christian call?

Living Lent: Homily, Lent III

3/24/2014

Many weeks ago I was invited by the vicar of St. Augustine's Church to give a homily at both Sunday liturgies for the third Sunday of Lent. Yesterday was the third Sunday of Lent, and these are the words that I shared with my fellow parishioners.

Lent III Lessons: Genesis 44:1-17 , Psalm 95, Romans 8:1-10, John 5:25-29

"From the wilderness the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as God commanded. And they camped, but there was no water for the people to drink." This is what we hear from the book of Exodus. God's people had been journeying for a long time. They were hopeful and excited about their newfound freedom from slavery in Egypt. But in the midst of their journey, tired and weary from walking, they found themselves in a place that had no water to quench their thirst. When they got upset about it, Moses got upset at them for being upset. And then God finally relented and gave the people a spring of water. The scripture writer notes throughout the story that God's people persisted in doubt.

There's something strange about this. Why would God bring God's beloved people out of slavery and then leave them out to dry, literally? They're in the wilderness, a place unknown to them, and they're thirsting. Thirst is no insignificant thing. Thirst, if left unquenched long enough, could lead to death. Thirst is such a fearful experience that there are psalms dedicated to it: in Psalm 42 we pray, "As the deer that pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for God," and in Psalm 63 we pray "My soul is thirsting for you, O God, like a dry, weary land without water."

For the people of Israel, a dry land was an unfruitful land. A dry people was a dying people.

And here we are, on the third Sunday of Lent, not quite halfway through our journey in the Lenten wilderness, and we find ourselves parched. My guess is that you, like I, have given up something for Lent (in my case, being the overachiever that I am, I gave up four things). If you're like me, your Lenten fasting leaves you yearning, sometimes bitterly, sometimes desperately, for the familiar comforts you gave up on Ash Wednesday.

This Sunday's lessons are all about water and thirst, and they may be the most important ones we hear during Lent. We think of Lent as a time to honor Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the cross by making sacrifices of our own, and Lent is that, but Lent also has something far more difficult to teach us.

The harder lesson of Lent is difficult to perceive when our fasting is overshadowed by our certainty that relief is coming. Unlike our voluntary Lenten fasting, for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, there was no timeline or guarantee of reaching an oasis. Their journey out of slavery in Egypt meant leaving behind all their known sources of refreshment, period. It meant taking the extraordinary risk that they might involuntarily and without warning have to abstain from water--an abstinence that, if prolonged, even for a few days, would have the power to claim their lives.

By leaving Egypt, they weren't just taking their lives out of the hands of Pharaoh; by seeking freedom, they were submitting their lives to the mercy of their God, their sole protector from the dangers of the wilderness. As they found themselves stopping to camp in a place with no water, they were terrified. They were so sick with parched mouths and deep thirst that they were no longer sure that the God in whom they had put all their trust would be willing or able to save them from death. They had already journeyed too far from Egypt to go back. Their lives hung by a thread, and they could no longer save themselves. Only God could. And that scared them.

Centuries later, when Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman, he was offering her God's new covenant: the promise that as long as she sought this new living water, rather than seeking water from the source she had always turned to, she would never have to fear dying from thirst the way the Israelites had feared dying from thirst in the wilderness.

The lesson from John's gospel isn't merely a story about the Samaritan woman. It's a story about us. We have been offered this same living water by God in our baptism, and yet what do we do? We build up storehouses of comfort around ourselves in order to make sure that we never have to rely on anyone but ourselves. Our lives get so cluttered by the comforts we take for granted that when we tear away some of those comforts during Lent, we feel a deep, uncomfortable emptiness. We taste a morsel of the same bitter fear that haunted God's people in the wilderness, and we can't wait to get back to the way things were. In the end, we would rather drink from the well that we've always known than trust in some guy who doesn't even know to bring his own bucket. We might give up what we cling to for a few weeks, but who among us is willing to let our comforts go indefinitely? If I let my sources of comfort die, I risk dying, too.

I'd like to suggest that we ask ourselves what we left behind in order to enter this Lenten wilderness, and whether we're willing to leave behind all the rest. Do we dare to empty ourselves of everything we cling to until all we have left is our aching thirst for God and the trust that God won't let us die? Perhaps, as we enter the second half of Lent, we can risk losing it all--every thing we think we need to be happy, all our enslaving attachments, every shackle of our obsessions--and move forward to the unknown, unguaranteed future. And maybe then, as we go forward bearing nothing but our thirst and radical trust in the face of terrifying dryness, God will lift up for us a spring of living water, and we'll be able to rise from our knees to unfettered, quenching, resurrected freedom.

Living Lent: International Women's Day

3/8/2014

In honor of International Women's Day, I was invited to offer a feminist, Christian reflection on the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. I invite you to read my reflection below or at the original post on the Sophia Network.

I remember growing up with the story of the woman at the well: the woman was 'bad' because she had five husbands, and Jesus decided to save her from her sin by offering her living water, which was obviously the water of baptism. Pretty straightforward: she changes who she is, accepts baptismal water, and she’s saved from her sinful ways.

Something niggles at me when I hear this story these days. Questions crop up all over the place, and I’m ready to accuse Jesus for daring to approach her the way he does. Why is Jesus, a Jewish man, talking to a non-Jewish woman? Isn’t this act of intimacy just as scandalous to any observer’s eye as the woman’s five husbands are? Jesus’ act would have been like a man of European descent approaching a woman of African descent during the 1950’s in the Deep South of the United States. It simply wasn’t done. And if it was done, anyone who saw it would immediately ask why. Why is Jesus risking his reputation to talk to this woman? From a different angle, one might ask why Jesus is exercising his power over this woman in this way (for he is indeed in a position of power over her)? He could compromise her at any moment and probably get away with it, because he is a clever man living in a patriarchal world. I find myself angry on the woman’s behalf, that Jesus would presume to talk to her as he does, risking her reputation further. He could be any man with any intention, as far as she knows.

I imagine myself in the woman’s position for a moment. I look at the foreign face of this person who stands at the place that quenches my thirst and the thirst of those whom I love, and I wonder why he’s in my way. Why is he talking to me? Is he going to try to take something from me? Am I safe? I am nervous and I am prepared to run if he tries to touch me.

Instead of reaching toward me in power or gawking at my feminine figure, he looks at my face. Recognition alights in his eyes. If he’s like the others, he will regard me as nothing, a piece of flesh, an unholy other. I wait, preparing to make my hasty retreat, wondering if my bucket can help me fend him off if he tries to attack me. He doesn’t move. He continues to look at my face, as if I am the living well and he is refreshing his parched lips and mouth with the story of my life. He takes time, setting aside his ego to make space for my story—and then he tells it to me as he has perceived it.

It is strange, because no grown man has ever made the effort to learn my story. It is always the man’s story that matters, that needs to be told. I am a woman, and therefore I am a thread in a man’s tapestry—many tapestries, in my case. Why is this stranger bothering with me? What does he want?

Again, the threat of harm puts fear in my heart, but still, he takes nothing from me—not even my bucket for claiming a drink. He offers me a gift instead—no favors required.

As I become the woman in this story, I am able to ask the myriad questions that lead to greater understanding about Jesus - the Christ. I perceive that this Christ is one who offers rather than takes; this Christ is one who silences his heart in order to hear the stories buried in the heart of a complete stranger.

Is this what the follower of Christ is called to, then? To take risks, to cross boundaries, to silence egos? To listen so I might learn from this other who has almost nothing in common with me, religion and societal rank included?

Thursday Night Mystagogy

1/26/2014

Photo by Thad Botham

A dozen or more holy bodies gather in an oval, looking at and past the sacred, central flame to behold the divine spark in one another.

Thursday night invites something a little different at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church. The community that gathers then has many names. St. Brigid's. ECMASU. Young People and Families. The Thursday Night Community.

There are nearly as many children as adults in the community. The adults are powerful, each in their own way: well-educated, thoughtful, driven, accomplished. They are students, parents, doctors, teachers, professors, and even brain guys. For countless reasons, these people come together to share words, silence, and nourishment with one another.

It may be those three things--words, silence, and nourishment--that best characterize this community's fellowship.

~~~

I was asked by the pastor--without advance warning--to be a minister of the holy bread during the eucharist last Thursday.

Surprising things like that happen. A moment of need arrives, and suddenly someone finds herself being called on to serve. Not because she's uniquely qualified to do so, but because she has offered her presence in that community, and her presence is enough. Anyone who shows up can serve, if they are willing.

Anyone who shows up can serve, if they are willing.

Anyone who shows up can serve, if they are willing.

The Thursday Night Community is a gathering of folks who, more importantly than anything else, choose to show up. If they're called, and if they're willing, they serve. Their presence is Christ's presence. Their willingness is Christ's willingness. Their service is Christ's service.

The Thursday night gathering is a rehearsal of the reign of God.

~~~

Time slowed when I stood up to serve the community last Thursday. I strained my ears to hear the words that I would speak to the others: Body of Christ, Bread of Heaven. As I moved around the oval, I looked at each person's face, and a few raised their eyes to meet mine. What a shock of communion it is to meet eyes and hold another's gaze from mere inches away, while offering a precious morsel of food! It is as intimate as dancing. (My best friend, Betsy, would get that.)

I don't know what it all meant to me, or what it may have meant to the others there, but I can say confidently that last Thursday was game-changing. Perhaps it was initiation--a sort of baptism by fire.

I just know I won't ever be the same.