Terrapin Station

If I ran the zoo...

No, no, no...it's "if I were preaching"

Or maybe it's "what I need someone to preach to ME this Christmas"

Anyway.  That's what the RevGals are thinking about on this Friday, December 23: what message will they bring to their congregations this Christmastide? 

Here is what I have heard in the last week that grew into the idea really makes it Christmas for me this year. Darned if I can remember where I watched or heard or read it: 

God became a human person. Most religions' deities stay comfortably where they are, but not this God, our God, the God named I AM. 

God loved us so much that God became a human and lived and died like a human.  And you know, human life can really be awful. Especially when Jesus was born, in ways that I doubt we in the 21st century western world can really imagine.  Infant mortality, murders by dictators, rape, incest, child abuse (wait, this is from yesterday's newspaper...)

What really transfixes me on this incarnation idea is not the lovely (? ask Mary about the adjective) birth part...babies don't really remember much of that as they grow...but the not-so-lovely life and death part. 

Whether you believe that Jesus' death on the cross was God's plan, or that it was not necessarily God's plan but was still what happened (all in the name of redemption, of course) -

it was horrible. It was the worst and most painful and humiliating way to inflict suffering and death in the first century. 

In this year when my loved one has been betrayed by his body and by modern medicine so miserably (all in the name of healing, of course) - 

I see that incarnation just a little bit differently. 

I have said for years that when I see God, the first thing I am going to do is kick God in the leg, because the ways most bodies break down as we age and die seems like such a betrayal. 

Sure, I know of people who have lived happily and vigorously to age 78, and then died suddenly in their sleep. "What a great way to go." But we all know that is not the prevailing way, not in this Great Age of Medical Innovation that keeps us alive longer and longer to receive more and more exquisite tortures intended to help us.

(You see why no one is actually going to let me preach this...right?  That's why I blog). 

Here's the money line:   Jesus didn't know what was going to happen to him...but he signed up for it anyway. He accepted the job and essentially said, "okay, whatever this ends up meaning for me, I'm going to work to overturn the rotten rule by people and introduce the kingdom of God on this planet." 

In the years following Jesus' death, we have tried to carry on what he taught and planned. We seem to have gotten off track a good bit, as we fuss and stew about church schisms, resolutions and covenants. We forget about the infant mortality, murders by dictators, rape, incest, child abuse...that would likely have been of more interest to Jesus than policies and procedures and what color the paraments are this week. 

The challenge of Christmas is to think how we will live. How we will use our wild and precious lives to bring the kingdom.  And to know that whatever pain, loneliness, illness or torture we may confront and experience, Jesus knows what that's like; he's been there. 

What do I have to do, then?  For years I've been unable to watch TV commercials that show abused animals - I have to leave the room.  Same for children in poverty.  I sponsor some women and children through various agencies, but it's all very safe and comfortable, and I wonder....

And recently I read something by Pema Chodron that advised to embrace the thing you fear.  Smile at your fear.  Lean into the sharp places.  There's a lot I am afraid of.  But I'm going to take a step and see what volunteering at the animal shelter might be like.  There's a training session in January. 

I've always said that when I see Jesus, the first thing we are going to do is hug, and he's going to say, "Mary Beth!  I've been looking all over for you!" and then we will sit down and play jacks together. I do realize that the Trinity means that Jesus and God are the same person. I need to work on connecting that in my head and in my heart. No kicking.  Just loving. 

Picture found at Theology Lived website, produced by the Office for Faith and Learning at Biola University.

The Good Shepherd

My best idea of the Good Shepherd is encapsulated in two of my previous posts, one here and one here. 

But it's always good to get some new ideas, so I'm headed over to the Preacher Party to get them. 

Breakfast with Elastigirl, check!  A great check.  Orientation for outgoing students, check. 

An overcast day; rain in the future.  Good day for floor mopping.  Reading with dogs.  Praying for those preparing for worship tomorrow, those watching the swine flu situation, those who serve them in many ways.  Shepherds all.

A piece of broiled fish

Over at RevGals' Eleventh Hour Preacher Party, the preachers are gearing up for their various mornings/afternoons/days of sermon writing.  Several are talking about the gospel, partially reproduced here:

Luke 24:36b-48
24:36b While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

24:37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

24:38 He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?

24:39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

24:40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

24:41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"

24:42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish,

24:43 and he took it and ate in their presence.

I love the question that Kathryn posted at Tuesday's Lectionary Leanings, the RGBP preliminary discussion:  "Perhaps this week it's time to ask our congregations what are their equivalents to the piece of broiled fish...what real, concrete behaviours might demonstrate unequivocally to a dubious world that Jesus is alive in his followers."

That's the big question, no?  What does it take to prove something like a resurrection of the body?  I hope to read some good sermons on this later today, and to hear one tomorrow. 

Forewarned:  I'm taking this in a personal & non-theological direction (I think). 

It might not come as a surprise to regular readers here that I have food issues.  I've talked occasionally about exercise and Weight Watchers.  Over the years my various behaviors have included eating too much, eating too little, eating odd things at strange times, you get the picture & you don't want the details. 

The food issues also manifest in feeding issues, which go back in my family for a few generations.  "I love you, therefore I feed you things that you like, and then you are happy and then I am happy."  yeah.  How's that for a whole story I made up in my head!?  (I have written before about Byron Katie and the stories we tell ourselves.  It has been a transformative process for me to use her Work to look at every issue and problem I have with other people as MINE, my thoughts about them being the thing  I can learn from.) 

Where I do NOT have trouble with food is when I eat and cook with other people.  It's when I'm alone that things get wonky. 

And so from the story of Jesus eating the fish with the peeps, I receive the reinforcement that we are meant to be in community; eating, working, worshipping.  Sometimes when I am distressed I hide away; and that does not serve anyone well.  I have to get out: for exercise, for meals with friends, for church, for eating togther (which can include coffee or a beer),  for fellowship.  It's in the simple acts of being part of a group that I am able to be made whole. 

Jesus showed his disciples that he was still part of their group, and that they needed to carry on as a group. 

Here's a nice quote from a BBC news article that helps to sum it up: 

But what is interesting is that with both Christian and Jewish faiths, the focal celebration and worship surrounds a meal. We say grace before a meal because food is a gift from God.

But it is about more than just the physical diet. It is also about the spiritual diet. The Christian faith takes a holistic view.

My procrastination for the day (or maybe just the first!) :  Due to conversation in the comments at the Preacher Party, I spent a lot of time googling strings like "what did Jesus eat" and "ancient israel fish recipe."  None of them called for broiling, but maybe that disconnect comes from the fact that, to me, broiling means putting it into an oven and heating from the top down.  Without an oven...with the cooking apparatus the disciples had - maybe frying would have been a close approximation.  Therefore I give you this recipe for Sayyadieh, Fisherman's Fish with Rice. 

4 Tbs. olive oil

3 medium onions, finely chopped

900 ml / 1-1/2 pints water

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 kg / 2-1/4 lb. fillets cod, coley, haddock, hake or other non-oily fish

450 g / 1 lb. long-grain rice

50 g / 2 oz. pine nuts

the juice of one lemon

Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large saucepan, and fry the onions until brown. Add the water, salt and cumin. Simmer until the onions have almost melted. Add the fish and cook gently for 10 minutes. Remove fish and keep warm. Now take from the stock in which the fish has been cooked sufficient to cook the rice in a separate pan until it is tender and the stock absorbed. Spoon the rice into a shallow dish and lay the fish pieces on top. Gently fry the pine nuts in the remaining tablespoon of oil until tender, and scatter them over the fish. Meanwhile simmer and reduce the remaining stock, adding the juice of a lemon. Pour this over the fish and rice or serve it separately in a small jug. Serves 4-6.

 

I do have a friend who is an expert in foods from the time of Jesus and will pose this question to him...see if he has another idea. 

Ciao!

Thinking about that Lectionary

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 - Moses gets SHOWN the Promised Land, but is never allowed to enter it.  I used to think this was God just being mean!   I've heard it explained that it was because Moses got mad at the people and broke the first set of tablets (at the Golden Calf party). 

Now I think the why doesn't matter so much.  Really, as we approach the end of our lives, we'd like to feel we've made a difference, no?  We'd like to look at our children, grandchildren, friends, work, churches, and say, "It will go on without me, even better than before."  And that's what Moses gets here. 

Then, from 1 Thess 2: 6b-8:  "As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. 8We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us."

I am intrigued as to what kind of burden the apostles could have been.  Financial? Physical?  Really annoyingly preachy?  This sounds like kind of a threat!  But I love that they loved the Thessalonians so much that they not only shared the Gospel, but THEIR LIVES.  To me, that is the definition of a community of Acts...that they share their lives together, know each other's joys and sorrows.  That's what the church is called to be, and often is not.  And it's individual Christians that make it happen, by allowing themselves to be known...

Last night a friend from church choir said to me, "you look better than you have.  You look much less stressed than you have been looking."  My first thought was, "Rats!  I'm not hiding it well at all!"  Driving home, I considered that maybe I am allowing myself to be and look myself at church;  it's a safe place for me.  And my friend is loving and concerned.  Why do I have to hide it at all? 

I don't. 

Phew.

Open Hands

I had the delight of hearing Elastigirl preach on that tough Gospel text Saturday night, and we wondered together (a good model for me). 

What I took away was this: 

"How do you face scary transitions?"

(head down, teeth clenched, full steam ahead, lalalalala here I GO...)

"What if you faced your next transition by throwing up your hands and crying,'Lord!  Help me!"

(Oh...I could start out by kneeling, opening my hands, and saying, 'Lord, help me.'")

(I will try that today.)

"Jesus Loves You, and I Forgive You"

A phrase that means something specific, and pretty snarky, to me.  Which I am considering posting in my front yard on a sign.

Origin of this perversion of a nice sentiment: When I was little (under 10 I think) my parents, sister and I went to some sort of charismatic renewal conference in Kansas City, MO.  The conference hotel was the Radisson Muhlebach, which was old and veeeery fancy...I remember being terribly impressed by the brass and glass mail chute, just like in the Eloise books.  (We never stayed at motels/hotels, or if we did, it was everyone in one room in a Motel 6.  With breakfast from a cooler.) 

So, my parents were at this conference all day and Nancy and I were at the kids' activities.  I don't remember them very well, except the part where an older girl came up and told me she didn't like how I was looking at her (or something), and then hit me in the arm.  I was shocked!  and horrified!  Not really hurt, but my feelings were hurt. 

I sought out one of the peer leaders of the group and told her what had happened.  She had a sort of far-away look in her eyes as she told me, "Just tell her that Jesus loves her, and you forgive her." 

Um, thanks for the advice, but no.  I wasn't going looking for that girl again to tell her anything. 

And the phrase has stayed with me, and I mostly say it with my teeth clenched. 

To the present day:  Ken works very hard on our yard, struggling to find plants that will do well in so much shade, and has recently planted about 300 caladiums.  In the front corner bed, he had some particularly large and lovely ones.  Which have been:  Stolen.  Dug up and run off with.  There were about 10 of them taken.  Now, there is nothing in that particular bed. 

We'd given up putting flowering plants there, because passers-by would pick them.  But this!  I am really angry and aggravated. Do we call the police to report the theft of $15 worth of plants?  Do we give up planting things? 

Or do I put up my sign?  and try to mean it?  comments sought and welcomed. 

Now, off to church, where I clearly belong. 

Timelessness

I found this in The Hymnal 1982 the other day at number 459.  I love what it says about how big and how timeless Jesus is, compared to all my running around. 

And have the bright immensities received our risen Lord,
where light-years frame the Pleiades and point Orion's sword?
Do flaming suns his footsteps trace through corridors sublime,
the Lord of interstellar space and Conqueror of time?

The heaven that hides him from our sight knows neither near nor far;
an altar candle sheds its light as surely as a star:
and where his loving people meet to share the gift divine,
there stands he with unhurrying feet; there heavenly splendors shine.

Text:  Howard Chandler Robbins, 1876-1952
Music:  Halifax, George Frederic Handel, adapt. David Hurd

Let Me Be Your Cradle

Just came from a wonderful concert of La Novella Baroque Ensemble at our church.  I wrote about its director here.  The concert was gorgeous, as expected.  And for a special treat, at the end the group invited us to take out our Hymnals and sing with them "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming." 

I told Ken, "My favorite kind of concert:  one featuring insanely beautiful music that I could never begin to make, that also invites me to sing a little bit!"

We heard several chorales harmonized by J.S. Bach, and the words of this one are so lovely I want to share them with you.  As translated by Brad Bennight, here is 'Ich steh an deiner Kripper hier':

I stand here at your cradle,
O Jesus, my life,
I come, bringing and giving to you
what you have given to me.
Take it, it is my Spirit and my Mind,
Heart, Soul, and Strength, take it all
and may it be pleasing to you.

I was in the deep darkness of death,
you became my Sun,
the Sun which gave
light, life, joy and bliss.
O Sun, the true light
of my faith,
how beautiful are your rays!

I look at you with joy
and cannot fully see,
and because I cannot see further
I remain here.
O, that my mind would be a chasm
and my soul a broad sea,
that I may grasp you.

My only one, I wish you to be
my Saviour
that you may carry
all of my burdens with me.
Indeed, let me be your cradle,
come and lie in me
with all of your joy.