Morning Rounds and Evening Musings

"‘If you love me, you will keep^*16 my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

John 14:15-21

Here we are. The fasting has ended, the sugar highs from jelly beans and chocolate eggs have worn off. No doubt there are empty Easter baskets scattered around your house, and that green plastic grass can still be found between the couch cushions. Christ has risen! Christ has risen indeed! But as we round the corner from Easter to Pentecost to that not-so-nearly exciting Ordinary time, Easter seems less and less relevant.

Six short weeks after Easter—and how many years after the actual event? It’s no wonder the high is wearing off. It’s a good thing we commemorate that long-ago resurrection once a year or else we’d really be in trouble. But what does resurrection mean for us six weeks after Easter? Six months? Two thousand years after Easter?

It means that Jesus is still with us. I’ve seen him. And so have you.

The gospel reading for today takes place before Jesus trial, death and resurrection, but hints of our story’s ending—an ending we celebrate this season—are everywhere here. It’s Passover dinner and after a few formative years of following Jesus--of eating, traveling, evangelizing, preaching and learning together-- Jesus drops a bombshell on the disciples: “Little children, I am with you only a little longer…where I am going, you cannot come.” (Jn. 13:33) Jesus says he’s leaving, and then in the passage we read for today, reassures the disciples that he’ll be with them—that they will not be orphaned, that they will in fact still see him. A paradoxical promise, to say the least and not the most upbeat way to start off the most important Jewish holiday of the year: “Boys, it’s been great, but I’m going to die and you can’t come.” Of course, this was confusing for the disciples and we hear their angst in the questions that follow his announcement: “but where are you going? Why can’t I come, I’d do anything for you, Lord? How will we know the way without you? What do you mean you and Father are the same? How will we follow you if we cannot see you?”

This is a critical moment for the disciples, who being so spoiled by the living, breathing Jesus can’t imagine being a community of believers any other way. How will they see and experience Jesus—like he promised if he’s leaving? That’s the same question we often ask, isn’t it? Not only are we millennia removed from being physically present with Jesus at a Passover feast— sometimes the evidence that Jesus was ever here, or that he continues to work in our world seems missing. Even in our churches--even in this church-- in our families and our workplaces there is conflict and disappointment, and brokenness. Wouldn’t it be easier to deal with that brokenness if we could be with Jesus—if we could ask questions and he could answer, in flesh and blood? Sure, there was that Easter thing awhile back. Thank God for that! Now we can look ahead to the future kingdom where all this stuff will be made right, where we can experience Jesus like the disciples did in this passage, only clearer. Thank goodness we can cling to the resurrection of Christ as assurance of our future in heaven where brokenness will be healed. But what about today? What about next month or next year? Isn’t there a way to experience Jesus now, despite the muck and mayhem of our lives? Don’t we ask the same question the disciples asked Jesus: Can we go with you? Can we continue without you? You say you will be with us but how will we know?

Of course we already know Jesus’ answer. We can go with Jesus. We can see him, right here and right now. And the key to understanding how is on both ends of this passage, where we hear Jesus talking about commandments? “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and again in verse 21, “they who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me…”

I puzzled over these statements as I was preparing my sermon this morning. They seemed out of place, like Jesus was just throwing out some handy catch-phrases the disciples could pull out on a rainy day. What could following the law, doing the right thing have to do with Jesus being with us after the resurrection?

But I think what these bookends imply that it is in loving each other that we see Jesus. What are the most important commandments Jesus gave us? Love God and love your neighbor. When we love each other we participate in Jesus’ work, we continue it. When we love each other, we see the resurrected Christ.

Love is a sticky word, I know. It’s far too easy to think of love as all about flowers and bunnies and saying nice things to each other, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus was talking about. Love is an act of the will—it’s an active, self-giving discipline that requires imagining the world as God intends it, and working toward that end. Resting on the foundation of Jesus’ resurrection, his presence becomes a daily reality—we see him when we welcome visitors to this place, even if they walk in off the street. We taste him at the altar, sustaining us with his very self—we know him when we provide for each other—a meal, a ride, a listening ear.

I know when I hear the word ‘commandments’ my skin crawls a little bit. I know what’s coming—a guilt trip about all the ways I’ve fallen short. Christianity and its obsession with keeping commandments takes all the fun out of life, right? Rules, rules, rules. I get so tired of being told (and trying my darnedest) to be good. To do the right thing.

But these ‘rules’ Jesus is talking—love God and love each other-- are about much more than being good. They are part of Jesus’ promise. They are the means through which Jesus will continue to be with us. Can the we continue to see Jesus after the resurrection, after the ascension, when there are no more dinners with Jesus or Sermons on the Mount? Jesus gives us a resounding ‘yes’—love each other. The Easter message is that the one who died is alive, and that our life is grounded in Jesus’ resurrection. We live—and this means really live not in a bodily, biological sense, but in an abundant realization of being with God—We live because Christ lives.

My most powerful experience witnessing people living into that abundant realization of Christ’s ongoing presence occurred in El Salvador where I lived last summer. I worked in an Anglican church there and I was all too ready to be a part of this resurrection life, ready to single-handedly continue the work of Jesus in the world. I worked at The Church of the Holy Trinity, which sat on the outskirts of the capital city with about 25 members—all of whom are displaced refugees from El Salvador’s brutal, 10-year long civil war. All of the parishioners had lost husbands, sons and brothers to the fighting and were relocated to this housing project when the conflict in their hometowns became too severe.

But as I sat bumbling through bible study lessons, teaching the kids duck, duck goose, serving communion and visiting parishioners in their homes a funny thing happened. I saw Jesus everywhere, and he was serving me. I tasted him in the meals offered to me—meals that cost only a fraction of an hour’s work for me, but equaled a day’s labor to the people who served me. I saw him in the tears of women still mourning their husbands’ death. I touched him in the wrinkled hands of the church maintenance employee, who also happened to be the oldest woman in the parish. I knew him—the resurrected Jesus, alive and well-- when I saw joy in the midst of violence, when I experienced acceptance amidst my awkward language skills and strange culture. I experienced the power of the resurrection, not because of what I was doing, but because they loved one another, and I got to see it.

It is the resurrection that gave these people, my teachers, a hopeful vision of the world, a community that declared abiding love in everything they did. If anyone is familiar with brokenness, it is them. And if anyone knows what it means to experience new life, it’s them. How did they experience the resurrected Jesus in their community? Well, I can tell you how I did—they loved. They loved me, an outsider, they loved each other. They broke bread together, they ate together, they prayed together. And through all that, they remained poignantly aware of Jesus’ victorious resurrection—a resurrection that conquered the death and brokenness of their lives. Resurrection means Christ lives, with us every day.

I have seen Jesus. And I know you have too—seen evidences of the resurrection all around you, in the faces of each other, in the loving actions of your family members, friends and neighbors.
So what does resurrection mean 6 weeks after Easter? 6 months? 2000 years after Easter? Resurrection life means loving and living because Jesus lives, it means being who we already are—people in the presence of God. Easter people.

Today was my last day at work for CARE Int'l. Know what I did? Sat on my couch. Did my dishes. Wrote a sermon. Edited another sermon. Shopped for shorts online. Went for a run.

Oh yeah, and didn't get PAID. I haven't worked in a month anyway because my supervisor was in Istanbul for work. Her job rocks. Mine--when I actually get to do it--sucks.

So, sayonara CARE! Thanks for nothing (except a great resume pad and a few hundred bucks)

I have to write a sermon for a wedding tonight. What I want to write is two sentences: "Get ready. This will be the hardest thing you've ever done." I probably won't end up writing exactly that, but I might try to slip it in there somewhere.

Wes and I celebrated 2 years of marital bliss last week. And I can honestly say that our celebration followed the hardest month of the 24 we've experienced as husband and wife. I'm not sure exactly why, only that two weeks being separated while on our respective Spring Breaks, sandwiched by two terribly busy weeks for both of us left us individually frazzled and scattered, and made us both feel rejected and unaffirmed by the other person.

I knew marriage would be hard. I'm a realist. I was ready. I knew there would be days where you would wake up and not feel so in love with the person you promised "to love and to cherish...until death." I just didn't know that those times would come only a few short months after we were no longer officially newlyweds. Don't get me wrong, I love Wes and I am so glad I married him. But there are days, O my are there days, when marriage is just. plain. hard.

Wes and I have unusual circumstances that contribute to these waves of difficulty--unmanageable schedules, difficult finances, limited time, and heightened stress levels. Most of the time we manage it just fine. But last month, something went wrong. It began with one disappointing conversation after Wes discovered he wouldn't be able to come to service where I was the officiant for the first time. That must have unearthed some serious fears about my future life with Wes (fears I didn't realize were surfacing until a couple weeks after the fact). Fears that I had married someone different than the person I found myself waking up to two years later, married someone who was committed to being home, committed to making professional sacrifices to be a dad to his kids, and a husband to his wife. I married a man who wanted to see me succeed, who wanted a partnership in the true sense of the word--a partnership that meant both of us did the laundry and cleaning, the parenting and cooking, the working and playing.

I couldn't find that man for the month of March. He was there, for sure, trying the best he could within the confines of the work he had to do and the requirements being made of him. But's what's worse, I was afraid he wasn't there anymore. Third year of medical school will be the worst yet, and then another year, and another and residency and bye-bye all those dreams of a happy egalitarian household! During Holy Week and the week after Easter, as we focused on the sacrifice Jesus made for us, I felt like I was making too many sacrifices of my own and I didn't think I was a good enough person to continue making them for the next six years. But in the midst of my self-centered focus on my own needs, I learned that marriage isn't always partnership, that sometimes you give and give and sometimes you feel crappy about it. Sometimes you fight and sometimes you wonder "what the hell did I get myself into?" Sometimes the negativity feeds itself and it takes a vulnerable conversation on a bench in the Springtime to say "I don't feel loved. I'm not having fun. And I want to. I love you, but I want to be in love with you" and to realize that all either of you needed was to hear that you mattered to the other, that you were loved, that your life together is worthwhile, and life-giving and joyful.

One of my professors who is also a therapist said in class the other day, "when the !@#% hits the fan, that's when couples are married. Not on the wedding day. It takes hard stuff for a couple to learn what it means to be a 'we'. Far too many marriages fall apart because they've said 'I Do' to a marriage of cake, rings and dancing. But that's not what marriage is about."

I realized last month that breaking my vow "to love and to cherish" really didn't take too long. I'll break my vows again, and so will Wes as we learn more about being a 'we'. And that's really the whole point of the wedding ceremony, isnt' it? The language we use describes a Utopian marriage. Kind of like the language of heaven, of God's eternal kingdom. This act of human promise making is incredibly bold--to make claims about our life that we'll never be able to keep. Kind of like the covenant we make with God to love and to serve, the covenant made at our baptism to renounce sin and seek our Savior. None of our vows--to God, to each other--none of them will we keep completely. But the language of covenant, and the utopic, eschatological (sorry for the seminary word!) language of the wedding ceremony draws us to the One who always keeps promises. Our failures remind us of our mortality and simultaneously, at God's fidelity.

And so, as Wes and I continue to work together (and it is work!) to keep our marriage vows, to love each other the best we can, it is my prayer that on year three and year ten and year forty, that we will know God better because of our marriage. That our failures and our success, our highs and lows, our difficulties and our joys will draw us ever closer to the One who holds us together.

I think I've written my sermon.

I had dinner with a good friend last night, and she was telling me that her husband was getting on her case, asking her to put her laundry away sooner instead of leaving in the basket all week. She said she realized that the reason she doesn't put her laundry away sooner is because she hates being faced with shoving clothes into overflowing drawers and jamming hangers into her closet. "There's just no space for all these clothes," she said. My response was "hmmm. It sounds like you need another dresser or something." "No, Lauren," she said, "what I need is to get rid of stuff!"

We then joked for awhile about becoming so attached to our stuff that we needed a storage locker, a bigger house, etc. instead of taking that as a sign that it was time to purge. But I've been thinking about that conversation a lot since last night, and have been struck with how difficult this whole simplicity thing really is. Accumulating (even when it begins to drive you crazy!) is so natural, so easy! So, I'm thankful for the reminder--my closet could probably use some purging as well. Clothing swap, here we come!