I am a large man.
Big -- though I refer to myself often as "the big fat brute!" (if you've read Asterix and Obelix, you'll get the joke), I am in very real terms 'solid'. I can dead life close to 230 pounds and at one time could bench 50 pounds more than I weigh.
I grew up being rough and tumble. Never broken a major bone (not for lack of trying, though I've broken my nose 7 times, two knuckles on my right hand and more toes than I care to count), and never bothered to go to the hospital when bleeding profusely.
But I am cursed with contact allergies, especially to that lovely 'parfum' ingredient in most deodorant and anti-perspirants.
So, when my longtime favourite came out with 'new and improved' I was leery; and for good reason. Two days, and my underarms looked like -- well, like I was seriously reacting to whatever was 'new and improved'.
So I decided to try 'Axe'. Now, I'm not a big fan -- I'd used it when I was younger, but had quickly grown out of smelling like...well, like someone who was trying way to hard to be cool.
But I tried it again.
No sooner had I let loose a couple of seconds of aerosol in each armpit than I was accosted by a unique burning sensation, usually indicative of a severe reaction.
No sooner had that happened than my wife was treated to the lovely sight of me running around the living room flapping my arms like I was going the chicken dance to a great polka band, hooting like a monkey.
(the neighbours, on the other hand, have come to regard this as normal).
A soothing shower, some calamine, and some benadryl later, and I can at last put my arms down.
Aside from the two J-shaped red streaks in my 'pits where the seering stench of pain wreaked its ungodly havoc.
Lesson learned: it's manly to stink.
Slightly less so to run around the house dancing like a demented baboon.
So note to those of you in church on Sunday: stand upwind until my achilles' heel becomes my achilles' healed.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Easter 6 Sermon
When I was younger, a friend of my mother’s was trapped in an abusive relationship. Her husband beat her, threatened her and her children, controlled her in terrible ways and made her life almost unbearable.
One evening I overheard my mother talking to this woman. My mother asked, “why do you stay?”
And her friend replied simply, “he says he loves me.”
There is probably no word more mis-used or mis-understood in the whole of the English language than ‘love.’ People ‘love’ chocolate (and I’m going to avoid pointing at my wife at this point!), they love sports, money, vacations in Mexico, their car, their hairstylist, and we all know that most men just love beer.
We also know that with a divorce rate approaching 50%, love for beer and chocolate is often considered far more important than love for one’s spouse. There are appreciation days for ‘beer lovers’ and ‘chocolate lovers’ and ‘shopaholics’ – “free love” was my the anthem of my mother’s generation, the Beatles sang “love is all you need” and there’s a sign outside a store I drove past the other day called “The Love Boutique” (I somehow don’t think that’s a therapy group).
But, interestingly enough, if someone hangs out a sign promoting ‘love for families’, or ‘support for families’ we risk being immediately labeled as exclusive, fundamentalist, misogynistic, or some combination of all three. Or maybe for a better example – because I know that most people have, to a complete stranger, proclaimed their love for something like a kind of music, an author, beer – next time, say to that stranger, I love Jesus, and watch the reaction that you get.
Yet even in our own ‘church world’ love seems a difficult goal to attain. I’ve been to many different churches, across denominational boundaries, and I see the same sin repeated as people treat the church of Jesus Christ worse than they would treat almost anyone else – withholding money, or time, or help as a form of punishment when they don’t agree with something, but still demanding inclusion, consideration, and care.
My school – Lutheran Theological Seminary Saskatoon – has borne the brunt of that, as people who still attend Lutheran churches and demand Lutheran pastors withdraw their support because they imagine the Seminary as a den of iniquity dedicated to teaching heresy.
On a broader note, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is facing much shorter budgets as benevolence to the Synod has been stopped by many churches, often on the recommendation of their pastor as a means of punishing the national church.
At a synod event in Saskatoon I met a pastor who was actively encouraging other pastors and churches to stop giving. I’m curious, but believe first and foremost that people have a right to their own actions, so I asked him: “why?” And he replied to me that “I just love this church so much I hate to see it ruined, so I’m protesting the most effective way I think I can.”
I can’t fault that. Even I don’t always, agree with the national church – but I asked him if he realized that he was hurting poor people. “What?” he said. And I pointed out to him that those who get salaries still get paid – it’s the missionary and support programs that get cut, and in the Seminary it drives up our tuition costs and cuts student aid.
And because he was directly quizzing students as to how open they were to his position, I asked him a question of my own: “how do you expect to gain support from Seminary students when we’re the ones you punish because you’re upset?”
This is a never ending cycle, one that’s played itself out in most churches I’ve ever associated with, regardless of denominational affiliation. Love stops when money is involved – or vice versa, I’m not entirely certain which.
I think that’s because in our society, love, like money, is more often seen as a means of control or power than a giving relationship, so we associate the ‘love of God’ with some sort of ultimate power that the church can control.
Even in the Lutheran church, we’ve been guilty of promoting the kind of love that seeks control. After all, even in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the apostles “if you keep my commandments, then you will abide in my love” – for generations pastors have pounded the pulpit to exhort people to love Jesus by living by his (church-interpreted) rules. We reap the harvest of that in massive quantities – empty pews, empty hearts. By trying to turn love into something that exists in the head – a doctrinal statement, a catechetical tool – the church authorities denied that love needs to exist in relationships, not only between individuals, but first and foremost between God and believers.
But it’s funny, because look at the first lesson for today, the story from Acts 10. There’s a small line there, simply that says “the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues.” I’m going to let you in on a little-known fact: that anywhere in Scripture where you read the words astounded, amazed, or astonished, those are examples of God acting in our lives as God wants to act, not as we want God to act. If you actually wanted a more realistic translation, you could probably say that those believers were horrified that the Holy Spirit had been given to Gentiles.
In the reading from Acts the church is just a few days old, and it’s repeating a chorus that we still sing today: “even them? But they’re sitting in my pew! We don’t do things that way!” In the lesson for today, the very first members of that group are already composing their letter of protest to the council.
It’s tempting to view Peter’s exclamation as a rhetorical question, directed to no one in particular, but the truth is it’s directed at those smug, self-satisfied believers who protest at the Gentiles: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?” Peter opens up for the gentiles – those who were unclean (and remember, all of us here would be gentiles) the one commandment that Christ gave to him and the other disciples.
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
I think that part of the disconnect in our understanding of love as Christ preached it is that many Christians think that they are called simply to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and that when we achieve that belief, it somehow separates us from those who don’t. But as the philosopher (and, I might add, Lutheran) Soren Kierkegaard noted, “Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but a life to be lived.”
Every so often I encounter someone who feels apart from the church, who’s stopped coming because they’ve seen human relationships at work in the church. Astounding, I know. Human relationships that are illogical, often hurtful, occasionally self-centered and usually kept politely in the background until they simmer over.
“Aren’t we supposed to be better than this?” I’m asked. Another way I hear this is “Christ is good, but Christians are hypocrites”. It must be a beautiful gift to be holy, ‘cause it often seems to me that the holiest people are the ones who stay outside the church. My response, to everyone who feels that they’re disillusioned by the humanity they encounter in a church, is twofold. The first is to tell them to read the Acts of the Apostles. Because only a very optimistic person could read in Acts a portrait of a church without flaw, without bickering and infighting. The second thing I say is this: “if you don’t do this or ever act in that way, why are you not involved and trying to change it by modeling your way?”
In calling us to ‘love one another,’ Christ is challenging us to look beyond ourselves. And you know, when we do the results are astounding, because then God really does work in the world the way he wants to, and not the way we want him to.
For all the bad things and negativity we hear about, consider the amazing things that have been
done by those same groups of human believers (and you’d better believe there was a great deal of bickering at the time): ministering the victims of plague, building the first universal hospitals, the first universities, societies dedicated to the care of the sick, the suffering, and the dying – the list of amazing works of love that have been done by Christians far outstrip the negative that can be dug up.
We stumble when the resurrected Christ is worshipped, but not followed. Jesus called the disciples out of slavery or servanthood – committed to the ideas of serving a master and clinging to his every whim – and into abundant life as friends.
We follow Christ, but not Christ who stands aloof and powerful, dictating who goes where and when what should happen; but rather Christ who stands in our midst, calls us ‘friends’, and bids us to go forth into the world and show that world what love really is.
Not a sacrifice or life of drudgery or legalism or rules – because that is abuse, just as rampant in spiritual terms as in physical realities. Love used as a goad – as a means to get someone to change something that we don’t like – is not love at all. No one should serve out of fear.
But love – love as practiced by God, who loved the world so much that he gave his only Son – is joy. Love lived out is the resurrection, in which we are called to rejoice.
Live in joy – not because you choose to – but instead, because you are chosen to by Christ, who first loved you and took so much joy in your presence that he did, in fact, lay down his life for you.
Go, and bear fruit – fruit that will last because it is sown in grace and grown in joy, reaped in obedience and gathered in love. By that fruit, you show that you are truly friends.
Amen.
One evening I overheard my mother talking to this woman. My mother asked, “why do you stay?”
And her friend replied simply, “he says he loves me.”
There is probably no word more mis-used or mis-understood in the whole of the English language than ‘love.’ People ‘love’ chocolate (and I’m going to avoid pointing at my wife at this point!), they love sports, money, vacations in Mexico, their car, their hairstylist, and we all know that most men just love beer.
We also know that with a divorce rate approaching 50%, love for beer and chocolate is often considered far more important than love for one’s spouse. There are appreciation days for ‘beer lovers’ and ‘chocolate lovers’ and ‘shopaholics’ – “free love” was my the anthem of my mother’s generation, the Beatles sang “love is all you need” and there’s a sign outside a store I drove past the other day called “The Love Boutique” (I somehow don’t think that’s a therapy group).
But, interestingly enough, if someone hangs out a sign promoting ‘love for families’, or ‘support for families’ we risk being immediately labeled as exclusive, fundamentalist, misogynistic, or some combination of all three. Or maybe for a better example – because I know that most people have, to a complete stranger, proclaimed their love for something like a kind of music, an author, beer – next time, say to that stranger, I love Jesus, and watch the reaction that you get.
Yet even in our own ‘church world’ love seems a difficult goal to attain. I’ve been to many different churches, across denominational boundaries, and I see the same sin repeated as people treat the church of Jesus Christ worse than they would treat almost anyone else – withholding money, or time, or help as a form of punishment when they don’t agree with something, but still demanding inclusion, consideration, and care.
My school – Lutheran Theological Seminary Saskatoon – has borne the brunt of that, as people who still attend Lutheran churches and demand Lutheran pastors withdraw their support because they imagine the Seminary as a den of iniquity dedicated to teaching heresy.
On a broader note, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is facing much shorter budgets as benevolence to the Synod has been stopped by many churches, often on the recommendation of their pastor as a means of punishing the national church.
At a synod event in Saskatoon I met a pastor who was actively encouraging other pastors and churches to stop giving. I’m curious, but believe first and foremost that people have a right to their own actions, so I asked him: “why?” And he replied to me that “I just love this church so much I hate to see it ruined, so I’m protesting the most effective way I think I can.”
I can’t fault that. Even I don’t always, agree with the national church – but I asked him if he realized that he was hurting poor people. “What?” he said. And I pointed out to him that those who get salaries still get paid – it’s the missionary and support programs that get cut, and in the Seminary it drives up our tuition costs and cuts student aid.
And because he was directly quizzing students as to how open they were to his position, I asked him a question of my own: “how do you expect to gain support from Seminary students when we’re the ones you punish because you’re upset?”
This is a never ending cycle, one that’s played itself out in most churches I’ve ever associated with, regardless of denominational affiliation. Love stops when money is involved – or vice versa, I’m not entirely certain which.
I think that’s because in our society, love, like money, is more often seen as a means of control or power than a giving relationship, so we associate the ‘love of God’ with some sort of ultimate power that the church can control.
Even in the Lutheran church, we’ve been guilty of promoting the kind of love that seeks control. After all, even in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the apostles “if you keep my commandments, then you will abide in my love” – for generations pastors have pounded the pulpit to exhort people to love Jesus by living by his (church-interpreted) rules. We reap the harvest of that in massive quantities – empty pews, empty hearts. By trying to turn love into something that exists in the head – a doctrinal statement, a catechetical tool – the church authorities denied that love needs to exist in relationships, not only between individuals, but first and foremost between God and believers.
But it’s funny, because look at the first lesson for today, the story from Acts 10. There’s a small line there, simply that says “the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues.” I’m going to let you in on a little-known fact: that anywhere in Scripture where you read the words astounded, amazed, or astonished, those are examples of God acting in our lives as God wants to act, not as we want God to act. If you actually wanted a more realistic translation, you could probably say that those believers were horrified that the Holy Spirit had been given to Gentiles.
In the reading from Acts the church is just a few days old, and it’s repeating a chorus that we still sing today: “even them? But they’re sitting in my pew! We don’t do things that way!” In the lesson for today, the very first members of that group are already composing their letter of protest to the council.
It’s tempting to view Peter’s exclamation as a rhetorical question, directed to no one in particular, but the truth is it’s directed at those smug, self-satisfied believers who protest at the Gentiles: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?” Peter opens up for the gentiles – those who were unclean (and remember, all of us here would be gentiles) the one commandment that Christ gave to him and the other disciples.
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
I think that part of the disconnect in our understanding of love as Christ preached it is that many Christians think that they are called simply to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and that when we achieve that belief, it somehow separates us from those who don’t. But as the philosopher (and, I might add, Lutheran) Soren Kierkegaard noted, “Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but a life to be lived.”
Every so often I encounter someone who feels apart from the church, who’s stopped coming because they’ve seen human relationships at work in the church. Astounding, I know. Human relationships that are illogical, often hurtful, occasionally self-centered and usually kept politely in the background until they simmer over.
“Aren’t we supposed to be better than this?” I’m asked. Another way I hear this is “Christ is good, but Christians are hypocrites”. It must be a beautiful gift to be holy, ‘cause it often seems to me that the holiest people are the ones who stay outside the church. My response, to everyone who feels that they’re disillusioned by the humanity they encounter in a church, is twofold. The first is to tell them to read the Acts of the Apostles. Because only a very optimistic person could read in Acts a portrait of a church without flaw, without bickering and infighting. The second thing I say is this: “if you don’t do this or ever act in that way, why are you not involved and trying to change it by modeling your way?”
In calling us to ‘love one another,’ Christ is challenging us to look beyond ourselves. And you know, when we do the results are astounding, because then God really does work in the world the way he wants to, and not the way we want him to.
For all the bad things and negativity we hear about, consider the amazing things that have been
done by those same groups of human believers (and you’d better believe there was a great deal of bickering at the time): ministering the victims of plague, building the first universal hospitals, the first universities, societies dedicated to the care of the sick, the suffering, and the dying – the list of amazing works of love that have been done by Christians far outstrip the negative that can be dug up.
We stumble when the resurrected Christ is worshipped, but not followed. Jesus called the disciples out of slavery or servanthood – committed to the ideas of serving a master and clinging to his every whim – and into abundant life as friends.
We follow Christ, but not Christ who stands aloof and powerful, dictating who goes where and when what should happen; but rather Christ who stands in our midst, calls us ‘friends’, and bids us to go forth into the world and show that world what love really is.
Not a sacrifice or life of drudgery or legalism or rules – because that is abuse, just as rampant in spiritual terms as in physical realities. Love used as a goad – as a means to get someone to change something that we don’t like – is not love at all. No one should serve out of fear.
But love – love as practiced by God, who loved the world so much that he gave his only Son – is joy. Love lived out is the resurrection, in which we are called to rejoice.
Live in joy – not because you choose to – but instead, because you are chosen to by Christ, who first loved you and took so much joy in your presence that he did, in fact, lay down his life for you.
Go, and bear fruit – fruit that will last because it is sown in grace and grown in joy, reaped in obedience and gathered in love. By that fruit, you show that you are truly friends.
Amen.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Sermon -- May 10, 2009
Monologue – This ‘John’ Fellow
(note: being challenged to do something different, I invite you to take a step back with me into the city of Capernaum, on the shores of the sea of Galilee, where we meet an old fisherman tending his nets….)
Oh, I’m sorry…..I didn’t see you there…eyes aren’t what they used to be…used to be able to see all the fish in this here sea, clear on down to the bottom on a good day, I did!...Oh! oh, I’m sorry. Forgot for a minute what we was talkin’ about…ah yes..you asked me about John.
Well, let me tell you, John was somethin’ else growing up….Zebedee – their dad – couldn’t ever get him an’ his brother James to behave. They was always fighting. I mean, I remember back when their little sister got in some trouble some years back – messed up with that Samaritan feller? Well…if you remember what Simeon and Levi did when Shechem messed with their sister – you know, convinced the group of them to get circumcised and them, when they couldn’t even walk, went and kilt ‘em? Well, let me tell you….tch…well, at least Shechem got to die at the end of it…John and James…well, they weren’t so kind, if you take my meaning.
Yet those boys were hard workers – had to be, with a big fishing business like their dad run – hired men and everything! Tell you what; those boys had it made for them, but their dad was a hard taskmaster; made them do just as much if not more as thems that got paid for it.
And their mother…oy…now that lady had some serious expectations for those boys…tried school, but got kicked out for fighting. Tried to apprentice them to the Romans, but they’d already gotten in trouble for fighting with the Romans! That blessed woman – every idea she had, they had already beat her to it, if you pardon a pun. Nowhere in the city could you find any two tougher men – tougher family, really. There was their father, who the officials had to deal with when the boys got into trouble...but if the officials were really unlucky, they had to deal with their mother! More than one proconsul experienced the rough edge of Mrs Zebedee’s tongue, let me tell you! Wild family.
Of course, it didn’t get any better when Jesus showed up. Nope, not one bit. He showed up and took the boys with him, left their blessed father sittin’ in the boats with naught but his nets and hired men! Now that’s family obligation for you….just run right away. The next time we seen ‘em, we could hardly recognize ‘em! Hardly any calluses on their hands. Kids running round their feet – that would never have happened back when they was young, they knew kids belonged with the women…wasn’t necessarily a change for the better.
Of course, they even went by a different name, by then…Jesus had watched ‘em, and paid attention as they went about their ways, an’ he went and named ‘em ‘Boanerges’ – that ‘sons of thunder’ in the old tongue, don’t ya know – on account a’ them always being ready to fight. But even then, I could sees that they was doing something different, already. Before when they’d fight, now they was ready to listen – but still, you could see in John’s eyes when the old temper was comin’ to bear – even those other ‘postles could see it, and backed off a little bit when they seen it coming.
And I was there, one day, when their mother got it into her head that Jesus was a pretty good place for the boys to be…he was popular, always lots a’ people hanging around him…so one day, she grabs her boys by their collars and drags them over – picture that, them two big boys and herself, no taller than a child – marchin’ right over to Jesus. Well, she pulled herself up to her full height, and started telling Jesus just how good her boys were – how big, and strong, and how good they were at obeyin’ orders and such – no choice, with that mother – and how, when Jesus ‘had his kingdom,’ that she done wanted them to sits on either of him – his counsellers, can you imagine it?
Well, Jesus looked at her the way nobody ever did, not even the big Roman proconsuls when they come, and told her that if her boys were going to rule anyone they had to be a servant first! Her boys! Servants! Tor, her jaw dropped so much I thought she was gonna have to tie it shut again!
But John and James stayed with Jesus, and you know they did good. Then that whole business happened in Jerusalem and we didn’t see them again for a while, but then a few days ago I run into John when I was down for the Passover. He was sittin’ and teaching in the Temple, but not teaching what the Pharisees had said – he was teachin’ ‘bout Jesus! Couldn’t hardly believe it, myself!
While I was sittin’ on the edge of the crowd and listening, I watched as one of them young priests came up to him and asked him what he was doing – and John just looked at him and kept right on talkin’ as if he wasn’t even there! That young man, then, he spat on John and hit him so hard he fell over, right there on the Temple floor. I started lookin’ around for a suitable place to bury the boy – ‘cause I figured that if Elijah wasn’t going to come down for the boy hisself John was gonna send him up to meet ‘im – but John just got up, shook himself off, and went off with his students, leaving that young man standing there all alone.
Now, I just about figured that this wasn’t really John, so I went to introduce myself and tell him about some cousin he might have. But lo and behold, he called me by name! It was him! I didn’t waste any time asking him ‘bout the old days and pretty soon we was catchin’ up pretty good.
So I asked him pretty straight, ‘why’re you not fighting any more? Lost your nerve?’
And John looked at me and that thunder flashed in his eyes just like when he was younger and I took to quakin’ ‘cause I figured the beatin’ that priest had missed was a’comin’ to me. But instead he took my hand – my own hand, with all its calluses and scars from hauling fishnets – in his own, which was soft on account a’ him teaching all the time – told me ‘bout what he’d found in Jesus.
“Gaius,” he said, like he’d just seen me yesterday, ‘I received the Holy Spirit.”
Well, I just ‘bout died right there ‘cause my friend was possessed. But then he told me something else:
“There are two ways of being in relationship with people. One is with closed fists, like I used to. (make two fists). It works, and people do what you want. But other people meet you with fists, too. And you can’t ever meet more than halfways (bang fists together). And that hurts after a while, and neither you nor they want to do it anymore. So you fear the hurt, and fear that the other person might be stronger than you. So either keep hitting harder (hit harder) or stop altogether.
“But if God abides in us, then we find, just like Jesus on the cross, that an open hand lets you hold onto things better (open hands), and means that you don’t have to be afraid that the other person is stronger than you. You can overlap with them, and because you both love God you can love each other and trust each other.
“But you can’t be like that if your soul is angry, or if you hate. Jesus showed me what can be accomplished when our hands are open, even if they’re nailed open – because when we can see God who loves us that much – clear through from one hand to the other – we can love our brothers and sisters – this means you – even more than we ever thought possible.
“To love that much means that you’re willing to be vulnerable, and to be that vulnerable you must trust that God loves you more – so even you can love more than you can feel hate.
“Look at the way a tree goes – you can’t break a branch clear off a tree, because the wood won’t let go that way. It’s fibers are so tied in together – just like we’re tied together when we abide in Jesus – that you have to tear mightily to separate it. But if it withdraws – if the branches gets sick – then it can fall off itself, because the tree can’t support that kind of drain. So it breaks.
“The fruit that we bear as disciples is that kind of relationship – when we love God so much that it’s easier to love each other because we’re not afraid. And we can love God that much because God first loved us even more.”
And let me tell you, those words burned clear through my brain and stuck there like mud.
(sit back down). So I’m just putting some things together, ‘cause I hear there’s some believers goin’ through to Ephesus in the mornin’. I’m going with them, ‘cause this kind of words, they’ve got to spread. It won’t be easy, oh, I know – because I’ve got struggles and stuff of my own that I’m carryin’ along.
But John tells me that if I can lay them down, Jesus will pick them up.
After all, his hands is always open.
(note: being challenged to do something different, I invite you to take a step back with me into the city of Capernaum, on the shores of the sea of Galilee, where we meet an old fisherman tending his nets….)
Oh, I’m sorry…..I didn’t see you there…eyes aren’t what they used to be…used to be able to see all the fish in this here sea, clear on down to the bottom on a good day, I did!...Oh! oh, I’m sorry. Forgot for a minute what we was talkin’ about…ah yes..you asked me about John.
Well, let me tell you, John was somethin’ else growing up….Zebedee – their dad – couldn’t ever get him an’ his brother James to behave. They was always fighting. I mean, I remember back when their little sister got in some trouble some years back – messed up with that Samaritan feller? Well…if you remember what Simeon and Levi did when Shechem messed with their sister – you know, convinced the group of them to get circumcised and them, when they couldn’t even walk, went and kilt ‘em? Well, let me tell you….tch…well, at least Shechem got to die at the end of it…John and James…well, they weren’t so kind, if you take my meaning.
Yet those boys were hard workers – had to be, with a big fishing business like their dad run – hired men and everything! Tell you what; those boys had it made for them, but their dad was a hard taskmaster; made them do just as much if not more as thems that got paid for it.
And their mother…oy…now that lady had some serious expectations for those boys…tried school, but got kicked out for fighting. Tried to apprentice them to the Romans, but they’d already gotten in trouble for fighting with the Romans! That blessed woman – every idea she had, they had already beat her to it, if you pardon a pun. Nowhere in the city could you find any two tougher men – tougher family, really. There was their father, who the officials had to deal with when the boys got into trouble...but if the officials were really unlucky, they had to deal with their mother! More than one proconsul experienced the rough edge of Mrs Zebedee’s tongue, let me tell you! Wild family.
Of course, it didn’t get any better when Jesus showed up. Nope, not one bit. He showed up and took the boys with him, left their blessed father sittin’ in the boats with naught but his nets and hired men! Now that’s family obligation for you….just run right away. The next time we seen ‘em, we could hardly recognize ‘em! Hardly any calluses on their hands. Kids running round their feet – that would never have happened back when they was young, they knew kids belonged with the women…wasn’t necessarily a change for the better.
Of course, they even went by a different name, by then…Jesus had watched ‘em, and paid attention as they went about their ways, an’ he went and named ‘em ‘Boanerges’ – that ‘sons of thunder’ in the old tongue, don’t ya know – on account a’ them always being ready to fight. But even then, I could sees that they was doing something different, already. Before when they’d fight, now they was ready to listen – but still, you could see in John’s eyes when the old temper was comin’ to bear – even those other ‘postles could see it, and backed off a little bit when they seen it coming.
And I was there, one day, when their mother got it into her head that Jesus was a pretty good place for the boys to be…he was popular, always lots a’ people hanging around him…so one day, she grabs her boys by their collars and drags them over – picture that, them two big boys and herself, no taller than a child – marchin’ right over to Jesus. Well, she pulled herself up to her full height, and started telling Jesus just how good her boys were – how big, and strong, and how good they were at obeyin’ orders and such – no choice, with that mother – and how, when Jesus ‘had his kingdom,’ that she done wanted them to sits on either of him – his counsellers, can you imagine it?
Well, Jesus looked at her the way nobody ever did, not even the big Roman proconsuls when they come, and told her that if her boys were going to rule anyone they had to be a servant first! Her boys! Servants! Tor, her jaw dropped so much I thought she was gonna have to tie it shut again!
But John and James stayed with Jesus, and you know they did good. Then that whole business happened in Jerusalem and we didn’t see them again for a while, but then a few days ago I run into John when I was down for the Passover. He was sittin’ and teaching in the Temple, but not teaching what the Pharisees had said – he was teachin’ ‘bout Jesus! Couldn’t hardly believe it, myself!
While I was sittin’ on the edge of the crowd and listening, I watched as one of them young priests came up to him and asked him what he was doing – and John just looked at him and kept right on talkin’ as if he wasn’t even there! That young man, then, he spat on John and hit him so hard he fell over, right there on the Temple floor. I started lookin’ around for a suitable place to bury the boy – ‘cause I figured that if Elijah wasn’t going to come down for the boy hisself John was gonna send him up to meet ‘im – but John just got up, shook himself off, and went off with his students, leaving that young man standing there all alone.
Now, I just about figured that this wasn’t really John, so I went to introduce myself and tell him about some cousin he might have. But lo and behold, he called me by name! It was him! I didn’t waste any time asking him ‘bout the old days and pretty soon we was catchin’ up pretty good.
So I asked him pretty straight, ‘why’re you not fighting any more? Lost your nerve?’
And John looked at me and that thunder flashed in his eyes just like when he was younger and I took to quakin’ ‘cause I figured the beatin’ that priest had missed was a’comin’ to me. But instead he took my hand – my own hand, with all its calluses and scars from hauling fishnets – in his own, which was soft on account a’ him teaching all the time – told me ‘bout what he’d found in Jesus.
“Gaius,” he said, like he’d just seen me yesterday, ‘I received the Holy Spirit.”
Well, I just ‘bout died right there ‘cause my friend was possessed. But then he told me something else:
“There are two ways of being in relationship with people. One is with closed fists, like I used to. (make two fists). It works, and people do what you want. But other people meet you with fists, too. And you can’t ever meet more than halfways (bang fists together). And that hurts after a while, and neither you nor they want to do it anymore. So you fear the hurt, and fear that the other person might be stronger than you. So either keep hitting harder (hit harder) or stop altogether.
“But if God abides in us, then we find, just like Jesus on the cross, that an open hand lets you hold onto things better (open hands), and means that you don’t have to be afraid that the other person is stronger than you. You can overlap with them, and because you both love God you can love each other and trust each other.
“But you can’t be like that if your soul is angry, or if you hate. Jesus showed me what can be accomplished when our hands are open, even if they’re nailed open – because when we can see God who loves us that much – clear through from one hand to the other – we can love our brothers and sisters – this means you – even more than we ever thought possible.
“To love that much means that you’re willing to be vulnerable, and to be that vulnerable you must trust that God loves you more – so even you can love more than you can feel hate.
“Look at the way a tree goes – you can’t break a branch clear off a tree, because the wood won’t let go that way. It’s fibers are so tied in together – just like we’re tied together when we abide in Jesus – that you have to tear mightily to separate it. But if it withdraws – if the branches gets sick – then it can fall off itself, because the tree can’t support that kind of drain. So it breaks.
“The fruit that we bear as disciples is that kind of relationship – when we love God so much that it’s easier to love each other because we’re not afraid. And we can love God that much because God first loved us even more.”
And let me tell you, those words burned clear through my brain and stuck there like mud.
(sit back down). So I’m just putting some things together, ‘cause I hear there’s some believers goin’ through to Ephesus in the mornin’. I’m going with them, ‘cause this kind of words, they’ve got to spread. It won’t be easy, oh, I know – because I’ve got struggles and stuff of my own that I’m carryin’ along.
But John tells me that if I can lay them down, Jesus will pick them up.
After all, his hands is always open.
Monday, May 4, 2009
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