Choosing Love

A sermon for these strange and heartbreaking days, not unlike the strangeness and heartbreak of the story in John 11:1-45, the gospel lectionary text on Lent 5, Year A. Madison Mennonite continues to worship virtually with one another, and will do so for the indefinite future. How do we stay connected to one another and to our Source of Hope in the midst of great pain?

This is a story of love and pain. Of the way love and pain mix, sometimes a little too easily so that it’s hard to know which came first or if it’s possible to have one without the other.

John writes repeatedly in the text that Jesus loves Martha, Mary, and Lazarus in a unique way. One begins to wonder, hearing how much Jesus loved them, if Jesus sees this little family in Bethany as his “chosen family.” The people who see and know the sides of Jesus that the crowds don’t see. The people who, regardless of biology or law or tribal loyalties, have deliberately chosen to be kin for one another. To support one another as equals.

In other words, while Jesus is probably not closely, biologically related to Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, the four of them share a deep bond that is not broken by geographical distance, or by differences of opinion, or even by long periods of time spent apart.

This story is marked by pain. The deep pain that comes with death and loss. With questions if a family member has betrayed his beloved ones. With moments of raw and overwhelming emotion on display.

Love and pain mix, for Martha, Mary, and Jesus, as love and pain both become more real and more profound throughout the story. And it’s in sacred moments of complete vulnerability, where love and pain meet face to face.

Martha, runs out of her home, the sphere of her influence, to meet Jesus on the road. Martha starts to question Jesus’s love, saying, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She could have stopped there. It would have made sense. But instead of closing off and giving into her fear, she stays vulnerable in the moment, and says, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.” Martha owns her grief, but isn’t willing to turn her back on her beloved brother, Jesus.

Mary also runs out to meet the teacher, leaving her home and the comfort of those who grieved with her. She repeats her sister’s accusation, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And instead of closing off, she roots herself in her woundedness. Standing next to Jesus, and overcome with sorrow, she weeps. In this moment, Mary is trusting completely that this chosen brother will not judge her for the emotions that overwhelm her.

There is a sacred moment of vulnerability when Jesus’ own non-anxious presence crumbles and seeing the distress of his beloved sisters, Jesus begins to weep.

Soon thereafter, Jesus again is vulnerable in offering a public prayer – the intimate words most often reserved for his moments of solitude are now spoken aloud in front of a crowd. To speak “Lazarus, come out!” is the most vulnerable yet – what if he fails and Lazarus remains cold?

Within the context of this chosen family, love opens each of them to the possibility of being deeply wounded. To be vulnerable is to open oneself to the potential for harm or even death.

But in this story, vulnerability born of love results in the transformation of relationships. It results in bold witnessing of the good news. It results in new life.

The good news of this text for today is that Jesus stands with us in the midst of great pain because of Jesus’ great love for us. The love of God does not erase the possibility of pain or suffering or death. The love of God does say that these will not ultimately win out.

Much of our current, collective pain derives in a virus. A sickness with the consequence of driving humanity apart. We, too, have the choice to close off, taking our distancing to new levels of isolation and finger-pointing.

But if we take our cues from Martha, Mary, and Jesus, we will resist closing ourselves off and instead become more vulnerable to the world we love. And to the community that we love. More present to our chosen families.

For many of us at Madison Mennonite, this community is our chosen family. For those who are joining beyond our typical group, I invite you to imaginatively connect in this moment with those you would call your chosen family.

While we are separated from other kinship networks or biological connections, we find deep love and belonging within our chosen family. These communities are a respite from the world’s pain. These communities are a source of renewal, transformation, and new life. They are a place where we might be seen and known and loved even in the midst of wilderness experiences we never planned for.

We can expect this week and the weeks ahead to be filled with deep pain, particularly if we love the world enough to, as our Jewish siblings say, “sit shiva” with the world. With Martha, Mary, Lazarus, and Jesus, may our love lead to acts of great vulnerability and ultimately the world’s transformation. Where trust holds. Where relationships endure. Where wounds are tended and heal. Where compassion has the last word.

I pray this be so.

Peace Prayer: Fire

Approaching the fifth week of Lent, we engage our fifth and final element: fire. Like the other elements, fire has within its nature the potential to harm and destroy. To wipe out forests in a day. To raze homes and buildings in mere minutes. To burn animals’ delicate skin. To erupt and cover our planet with molten lava.

Perhaps, it’s mostly from our human perspective that fire seems so dangerous and destructive. And it’s true that fire takes human lives and has been used as a weapon of torture and capital punishment.

ash blaze bonfire burn
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So, what does it mean to pray for the peace of the fire? Does it mean that we hope that fire is tamed, controlled, domesticated? Or does it mean our perspectives on fire will be changed?

Fire connects to this week’s lectionary passage in the Gospel of John, chapter 11, when Lazarus is raised from the dead. Fire is cleverly hidden in the passage – you have to look harder for it than in other weeks. It is certainly in the ground, the rocks and hills that make up the landscape of Judea. But’s it’s also in the stone that covers Lazarus’s grave, which is then pushed away in an act of life-giving. That stone, birthed in fire, delivered its own miracle on that day in Bethany – where once death was a final and unyielding citadel, with the stone as its sentry, the stone now abandoned its guard in a defiant act of resurrection.

So fire, too, becomes a witness and actor in God’s foolish love of shalom.

O God, our rock in a weary land,
we pray this day for the peace of fire.

We praise you for the fire of the sun,
warming planet Earth,
kissing the plants and waters and our bodies
with steadfast love.
We praise you for the fire of the earth,
creating land for land animals to trod on,
for towering mountains to behold,
and deep canyons to ponder.
We praise you for the fire of our hearths,
delighting us with feasts of holy communion,
where friendships blossom and laughter abounds,
and where, in the quiet crackling and dancing of flames,
our soul’s deep questions find illumination and new life.

May your Spirit, like tongues of fire, purify all hatred and fear,
inspiring this world to burn with life-giving peace.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Peacemaker. Amen.

 

Peace Prayer: Dirt

We are facing our mortality more than ever these days, the threat of covid-19 looming large in every conversation, news story, or trip to the grocery store. How (when) will it affect me and the people I love? What will happen to those who are particularly vulnerable? Will we have enough toilet paper? Our fear and anxiety are often based, if hidden from our minds, in our fear of death – of losing control over our mortal, physical selves, and entering into the Great Unknown. We’re afraid of becoming dirt again, for to dirt we shall return.IMG_1753

At least in modern English, “dirt” is a negative concept. If something is dirty, it seemingly has lost its purpose and is fit only for the rubbish bin. When a person is dirty, it justifies isolation and exclusion until they are clean again.

How do we hold dirt, humus, the earth in a more positive light…where to return to stardust, to return to dirt is not bad but necessary for the continual renewal of the cosmos? In the midst of our fear and anxiety, can we “ground” ourselves in trust, that the Love which made us, is remaking us still, and will continue to use us “dirt creatures”* in the transformation of the universe? Can dirt be beautiful without being sanitized? Can mud, smeared on our blind eyes, give us hope to see again?

Great Creator,
who delights in the messiness of mud,
we pray this day for the peace of the dirt.

We praise you for the rich earth beneath our feet,
holding ancient memories of its time among the stars.

We praise you for the dirt’s revolutionary vocation,
breaking down what is spent in order to nurture new life–
dead leaves and moldy fruit,
last month’s casserole forgotten in the fridge,
our beautiful and bloodied bodies —
transformed into new beloved communities
of flesh and fiber.

We praise you for the inherent goodness of mud,
slathered on our world as a healing salve.

May your gentle hands shape the earth each day,
enlivening the dirt with your Breath of Life.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Peacemaker. Amen.

 

*When God forms the first human from dirt in Genesis 2, the better translation of what is formed (ha-adam apar) is “dirt creature.” The creature represents humanity in its fullness.

Peace Prayer: Water

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Photo: Valerie Showalter / Lake Mendota

Last week, on my day off, I walked from our house to the art museum on campus. For the first time, I realized that I could spot Lake Mendota on Speedway Rd. – just the smallest of vistas between various buildings, but there it was, still frozen and frosty white. Since moving to Madison, I have missed the presence of a body of water just outside my door. I never tired of sitting on our front porch in Linville, looking down the hill to Linville Creek and listening to its gentle current. Leaving that porch and that creek was hard; and the waterfall-themed white noise app I use at night rarely convinces my brain to shut off like Linville Creek did.

But this lake vista, a surprise sighting as I walked on the sidewalk along a street busy with cars, gave me pause – and delight. Each time I have driven up Speedway Rd. since, I have waited for that moment when my eyes catch sight of that sacred body of water, the “blood of the earth.”*

Loving God,
whose presence is like a stream in a desert,
we pray this day for the peace of the waters.

We praise you for the lifeblood of this watershed,
for Yahara, the Catfish River**
for Mendota, the lake “where the man lies”
for Monona, the “Teepee Lake”
for Waubesa, the “Lake of the Rushes”

We praise you for the snow and ice,
that encrust the world,
and slow our hectic pace.

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Photo: Valerie Showalter / Lake Mendota

We praise you for the gentle rains,
that awaken the earth in spring,
and nourish the crops in summer.

May your healing love cleanse the waters of this world,
from the aquifers below to the storm clouds above.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Peacemaker, Amen.

*pulled from a quote by Chuang-tzu, in Grounded: Finding God in the World by Diana Butler Bass.
**Names used by the Ho-Chunk peoples. (Mendota, YaharaMonona, Waubesa)

Peace Prayer: Air

This week, the scripture-inspired element for our Peace Lamp prayer is air.

“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

Spirit, who hovered over the face of the deep,
We pray this day for the invisible mixture of compounds we call air.
We praise you for air’s generative movement,
bringing life from the four directions,
carrying pollen and seeds,
giving reason for new growth.

We praise you for the way wind enlivens our world,
the ambling tumbleweeds,
the gentle breezes of the lakeside,
the way our kites take flight on spring afternoons.

We praise you for the oxygen that fills our lungs,
to sing our songs, 
to offer our praise,
and to simply be.

We pray this day for the shalom of the air,
that it, too, will benefit from your healing and liberating love.  
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Peacemaker, Amen.

grass beside the sea
Photo by Melanie Wupperman on Pexels.com