Morning Rounds and Evening Musings

It's been busy, folks. As usual. And I have several things swimming around in my ahead that I plan on writing about soon, but in the meantime, here's a few of the things that I've been up to while not blogging:

• An incredibly weekend with former college roommates in Denver where we talked, walked, ate, slept a little, nursed Erin back to health (well, not all the way) drank delicious wine, talked, laughed, talked--you get the picture. These relationships are so restorative for me, and also leave me with the feeling that such community and intimacy should be possible here in ATL too. More on that later...
• Preached my first sermon! (for real, that is:)
  
• As a result of that sermon, was invited to speak to Daughters of the King, a women's group of the diocese. Crazy!
  
• Pulled every item of clothing off the shelf in my closet, in an effort to find a decent pair of jeans, yet again. My favorite ones (that I've owned for three months thanks to Christmas money) somehow got a hole in the butt. Nice. My biggest frustration with being poor? Not a big house or a car or nice furniture. JEANS. Why can't I have decent jeans?
  
• Hosted a couple I knew from Nicaragua who are checking out Candler.
  
• Found a work-out partner to get me going to the gym again. The pool may not be opening due to water restrictions, which totally bums me out and ruins not only my summer work-out plans, but my ability to escape the relentless Atlanta summer. Awesome.
• Got rejected for one of the summer fellowships I applied to
• Made an appointment with a) a therapist to work through some vocational discernment/insecurity issues and b) a spiritual director to learn how to pray again.
  
• Wrote two sermons, took a Hebrew exam, read 4 books, wrote 4 reflection papers, translated 8 chapters of the Bible from Hebrew...
• Spent a delightful weekend with Wes on the coast of FL, getting ridiculously sunburned and enjoying the water and sand.
  
• Worked 20 hours at CARE International. Love the organization. HATE the job. My supervisor is a genius who decided--after I spent a whole day putting together a document for her--that it was all wrong and made me re-do it, making me spend an additional two hours in the office. Brilliant.
  
• Officiated at my first service.
  
• Sang happy birthday to my brother-in-law on the wrong day, and then completely forgot to say or sing anything on the right day.
  
• Spent an inordinate amount of time frustrated at our current lifestyle--Wes is busy. I'm busy. And it seems it's just going to worse as board exams, and then clinical rotations gear up this summer. Joy.
  
• Hosted friends for Easter
• Hung out with our some-times roommate Emily, who we love having around.
  
• Celebrated the Resurrection!
  

That snapshot of my life may explain why there's been no snapshot into my thoughts. Coming soon, though. Coming soon.

"This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it? A burning bush, I mean. With God in it. Telling you exactly what to do. In a world where God so often seems hidden, so absent, so far away, a burning bush might be just the thing the world needs—let’s be honest, just the thing I need—to be convinced. Convinced that there really is a God. Convinced that God really has something for me to do. Convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could know what God is up to, who God is, and what to do with my life.

It was enough for Moses. It was enough to bring liberation to the Israelites from slavery. What could be better than hearing God tell you in plain words the task that lay ahead? What could be clearer than traveling through the wilderness with God guiding in the fire and the cloud? It would be kind of hard to miss God at that point, right? It seems that the Israelites, and Moses, had it easy.

What I would give for a burning bush right now as I’m bumbling my way through seminary, without a clue as to what comes next. It would be nice to have a cloud guiding me down the path, a voice out of the fire, a miraculous natural phenomenon to get my attention and erase my doubts about my uncertain vocational path.

And beyond the personal, vocational level, it would be nice to have a burning bush to consult in matters of morality, when taking sides on a controversial issue. Wouldn’t it be easier to act, easier to make decisions if only God would show up, trumping the confusion? Surely Moses’ brave confrontation with Pharaoh would have been impossible without the burning bush—who would attempt such a thing by their own initiative? How else could Moses and the Israelites know that what they were doing was God’s work and God’s will?

Clearly I was born in the wrong generation, in a time when burning bushes and clouds of fire and smoke no longer appear. A time when God prefers to keep hidden—and to keep the plans God has in store for me, for you and for our world clouded with mystery, not clarity.

With a call as clear as Moses’ surely none of us could go wrong. Moses didn’t go wrong. He heard God say “I’m your God! Go!” And he went, right?

Well, maybe not quite.

There were a couple of objections and a little bit of confusion. It seems that seeing a bush full of fire and not burning, and then hearing a voice come out of it is harder to discern as God than one might think. Or at least it was for Moses, who decided to go a little closer to figure out what was going on only to hear a voice call his name. Of course, it doesn’t take long before the sandals come off and Moses, being a pretty observant kid, figures out who’s talking to him. Suddenly he feels less curious about being called to by a very intelligent and miraculous bush and a little more…terrified.

And then, even once he gets his wits about him, and gets that clear and direct word from God about what he is to do, where he is to go and the task that lay before him, there are the objections. “But, who am I?” “But they’ll think I’m crazy and won’t know that you’re the one involved in all this—what am I supposed to tell them?” “Besides, I’m not a good speaker.”

Over and over again, God endures these objections, and even answers them. God goes with Moses, sends him along with the power of God’s name—the “I AM” will go with him. God will do through Moses what God intends to do for Israel—liberate and free them from oppression and slavery. But not without a fair amount of risk on Moses’ part.

All of this makes me think that maybe following God wasn’t as easy for Moses as I would like to think. And let’s not even talk about the Israelites after their liberation, complaining that it was better before God intervened, unable to be satisfied with manna from heaven even though God was with them the whole way in a cloud and in fire.

But, of course, none of this—none of our doubt or objection or weakness in the face of what God calls us to do—none of it is news to God. And that’s why we have the story of the burning bush in the first place. See, this story wasn’t written for Moses, to help him interpret his experience with God in the bush. And it wasn’t written for the generation of Israelites that were liberated from the oppressive powers in Egypt. This story was written much later, as a documentation of the stories of the burning bush and the exodus, the plagues and the Hebrew boy found among the reeds—the stories passed down by Moses and the Israelites to their children and their children’s children. It was written for the generations after these miraculous experiences. It was written for us.

In fact, it was not just written to be read as a friendly reminder of our history with God, or of the miraculous things that are a part of that history—though it does tell us that. This text was recited in Israel’s Passover celebration—part of the liturgy, part of what they practiced together as a community not to remember those miraculous events of the past or to get nostalgic about the days when God appeared in burning bushes and when the waters of the sea parted before them. No, this text is about the future. It’s about the possibilities of God’s redemptive purposes for the generations after Moses. It’s about the creative imagination it takes to see God when there is no burning bush. This text is subversive, one of our dangerous stories about confronting the powers that be when they go against the freedom and justice our God intends.

I wonder what kind of imagination it took for Martin Luther King to see God calling a nation toward civil rights for all people.

I wonder what objections Ghandi before he followed his call to liberate India.

I wonder what kind of fear the bishop of Philadelphia felt when he ordained the first eleven female priests to the Episcopal Church in the 70s, when everyone else was against it.

I wonder how hard it was for Nelson Mandela to see where God was in the midst of apartheid

I wonder about the doubts Rosa Parks had when she took that seat in the front of the bus

And I wonder what Moses thought to himself on the way home from that strange encounter. And I suspect the same doubts, fears, objections and difficulty in seeing what God was doing through him for Israel plagued his thoughts as he approach Pharaoh’s palace to demand the Israelites’ freedom.

Burning bush or not, it’s never easy to follow God. It’s always ripe with fear, scary. Because God’s purposes are always big. And because God refuses to take care of things alone—enlisting Moses in God’s service was surely a dangerous and risky thing for God too! For God to partner with us requires patience and courage from God’s end as well. For we all have a capacity for failure, fear, confusion—and great courage, imagination and faith knowing that God of the burning bush, God of the exodus and God of manna from heaven goes with us as God went with Moses.

Moses’ burning bush experience is ours too. From it we hear God’s voice to us—calling us to confront all that opposes God’s redemptive work in our world.

Burning bush or not, the question for us is the same as the question God posed to Moses: “Will you go?” “Will you follow me?” “Will you join me in what I am doing—will you be a part of my plan for redemption and liberation?” “Will you confront the evil regimes—the pharaohs of our own day:

The pharaoh in the healthcare and environmental policy system

The pharaoh of societal acceptability that keeps us from noticing the stranger in our midst—the immigrant, the homeless person with a sign on the corner.

The pharaoh of consumerism and of complacency

The pharaoh of violence and war.

The pharaoh of our declining education system

The pharaoh of our economic system

Can you see it? Can you see what God is up to? Will you respond to the voice from the fire and the presence in the cloud?

Addressing these systemic, huge problems seems crazy, I know. And dangerous. And maybe a little analogous to a shepherd in Midion approaching the king of Egypt with a word from the Lord.

Now go! For the God of your ancestors, the great I AM, will be with you.

Sometimes Good Friday feels anything but good. The tenor of Holy Week with its darkness, solemnity and contemplation are difficult to face—all culminating in a day devoted to the crucifixion, an unimaginable death full of unjust suffering. But however much discomfort we feel coming face to face with the cross and with death, we cannot help but see it all around us.

A seemingly never ending war in Iraq, where thousands of soldiers’ and innocent victims’ lives have been lost.

Random acts of school violence—Virginia Tech, University of North Carolina—claiming the lives of students at their prime.

Corrupt politicians caught who use money and power to buy sex.

Whole species going extinct as forests fall and oceans are polluted—all in the name of economic growth.

Broken marriages

The death of our parents and friends—however slow, sudden, or premature.

Single parents working several jobs to pay the medical and grocery bills.

Depression.

Addiction.

We are all too aware that our world is a Good Friday world.

This is not only a day for sentimental remembrances of our Savior’s great sacrifice. This day embodies the truth we know about the world—it is broken, fallen, prone to sin. Today we are given space to sit in this Good Friday world, space to acknowledge the world as we sometimes cannot help but see it—filled with destruction and death.

But Good Friday is about more than the brokenness of the world out there and the systemic violence, corruption and sin we see in it. It hits a cord deep within us as we relive the shouts of ‘crucify him’ ‘crucify him’ and as we sit in disbelief at the turn of events on that day so long ago—a betrayal, an unjust trial, mockery, the pain and the horrible, undeserved death of Jesus—all at the hands of humans just like us. Of course it’s easier to deal with Christ’s death and with our Good Friday world if evil exists out there; if violence, and greed and corruption are done by those people. So maybe Good Friday hits a little too close to home, the drama is too real not because of what we know about ‘those people’ but because of what we know about ourselves. Good Friday acknowledges humanity at its worst. We know that we are not different from the betrayer, Judas, or the complicit Pilate or the criminals crucified next to Jesus, or the crowds exchanging the life of a murderer for the life of their Savior. Good Friday forces the question: Where do I fit in this horrific story? Would I have recognized Jesus as Savior and Lord? Would I have stood by? Would I have been the Roman centurions or the disciples? Would I have been ignorant of the significance of Christ’s death?

Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

My own sin seems manageable if I can conceive of sin as the things I do wrong. But if I acknowledge that there is much I do wrong without knowing it, sin suddenly seems dauntingly scary. But of course, we all know that there is plenty we do out of ignorance. In fact, we acknowledge our ignorance and failures every week in the confession we repeat together Sunday after Sunday “Forgive us for what we have done, and for what we have left undone.” Implicit in the confession is our potential for ignorance—there are things we do not do right, there are things we should do and we don’t and there are things we do wrong we don’t even know we are doing wrong. However much we may struggle with confronting the image of a man on a cross, dying a horrible death made all the more horrible and ironic because he was perfect, we cannot help but acknowledge this crucifixion as “an enactment of the worst that we are.” In it we see the potential for our own ignorance, and we know that it is not enough to blame the brokenness of the world on those people out there. Of course we want to move past Good Friday, to deny it and get on to Easter. But it is into this realization of our brokenness that Jesus’ words from the cross speak:

Father forgive us, for we do not know what we are doing.

We are just like all those who truly didn’t know what they were doing that day—mocking the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, not understanding the truth of the words they said in cruelty: are you the messiah?’ ‘let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God’, the crown of thorns, the sign above his head making a mockery of this backwards ‘king of the Jews.’ 2,000 years ago humanity was no different than it is today. And still Jesus’ words of forgiveness cover them.

Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

In those words we see Jesus as Savior and Messiah. In those words we hear a proclamation of forgiveness for all who were involved in his death, and we hear Jesus embodying the words he has spoken for the last three years—love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, forgive 70 times 7 times. The words Jesus spoke throughout his life echo in his plea for forgiveness from the cross—and in them we hear the affirmation of everything we know about this upside-down victory achieved through death and forgiveness rather than conquest and punishment. Just like his life, Jesus’ death tells us exactly who he was. His identity as Savior of the world—Savior of those who resist him or those who simply don’t know who he is—this identity is confirmed at the cross, confirmed in words of forgiveness to everyone who watched his trial and crucifixion as bystanders, or who actively participated in it.

Father forgive them, for they do not know not what they are doing.

We find ourselves able to cope with our own ignorance, able to cope with the brokenness we see everywhere. We hear ourselves being forgiven—and forgiven not just for the things we are aware enough to ask forgiveness for, but forgiven for the things we do without even knowing it. Our transformation starts on Good Friday. Jesus’ words mark more than incredible forgiveness of the unspeakable evil that occurred that day. They cover each of us who has sinned in any way, and they speak to power of the cross, where ignorance and evil are met with forgiveness and grace even in the face of the world at its darkest. When Jesus forgave Pilate and the criminals at his side, when he spoke words meant for Judas and the jeering crowd, for those who rejected him without knowing the gravity of their action—in all these people we find comfort knowing that Jesus came face to face with the worst of me and you and instead of punishment or anger we hear sweet words of forgiveness and we see the mightiest of all being brought low, making a bridge between himself and a broken world. We are included in Christ’s absolution. We are made members of a kingdom hidden in death and suffering, initiated from the most unlikely place—hanging on a cross, beside common thieves`.

In our Good Friday world full of death and pain, words of forgiveness don’t negate the cross. Christ suffered and died. We are sinful, the world is broken. As much as we endure this day only because it leads us to Easter, deep down we know that we never really leave Good Friday because it is the world we live in. But it is in these words from Jesus that we begin to see some of the goodness of Good Friday. I for one, take comfort in the fact that in the midst of my compulsion to get it right, in the face of my difficulty in seeing myself as I really am—so often ignorant of the ways I separate myself from God—stands Jesus, his words from the cross encompassing my ignorance and yours, the criminals at his side, the centurions with nails in hand, Pilate the unjust judger—none of us understands who Jesus is fully, but we can see him as Savior through this short phrase:

Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Thanks be to God.

Wes and I have been trying to outsmart this squirrel all day, but he is mightily determined. I've been writing at our dining room table and since we've removed the screen, he still managed to get on top of the feeder for a split second, only to go tumbling off. Hopefully, we've won.

Oh, and a parental advisory--please excuse the language :)

God who stood trial under Pilate