Blog
Faith-in-Flesh
Evil is well worth our anger, our outrage, our fury, our deep indignation. Violence too is a worthy recipient of our defensiveness, our horror, our disquiet, even our fear. To rage against the injustices of the world is an appropriate response of Christian faith.
And yet…
Carrying all that rage and fear around on our shoulders as if they are the yoke of Jesus is not faithful living. Holding anger tightly within our bodies—in a knot in our backs, in the tension of our hips, in the shallowness of our breath—is not a spiritual practice. Allowing fear to establish a residence in our guts, hunching our shoulders permanently forward to guard our hearts, fatiguing our minds with the obsession of resentment—these are not the disciplines to which Christ calls us.
If we were called to a faith of rage, we would be followers of Peter with his sword swinging wildly in the Garden of Gethsemane.
If we were called to a faith of fear, we would be adherents in the church of Ananias and Sapphira with their hands clenched tightly around security and their hearts racing with anxiety.
If we were called to a faith of self-righteousness, we would be siblings to the sons of Zebedee in our clamor for seats of judgment and control.
And if we were called to a faith of stiff necks and tense backs, we would be known by the sign of a millstone rather than the sign of the cross, weighed down by worry, tripping over our own doubt.
Instead…
We are called to a faith of radical love and abundant life. We are called to displace the bitter anger from our bodies with a strong backbone of love, the kind of loving backbone that moves easily to make room and holds steady to protect joy. We are called to exhale fear from our guts, to breathe in the expansiveness of hope. We are called to throw off the burden of anxiety from our shoulders, so that we have room to bear the light yoke of Christ.
Anger and fear and heartache have their place in faith—God knows!—but when they sink their roots into our bodies, psyches, and nervous systems, we are hindered from faith. So we choose to love from our physical core, trading fear for community. We love from our hips and our backs, releasing resentment in favor of hope. We love with our whole bodies, because Christ did too. We love, and God is known.
cross-posted with Witness for Justice
Recognition
On that same day, two disciples were going to a village called Emmaus and talking with each other about all that had happened. While they were discussing these events, Jesus came and walked with them, but they didn’t recognize him. He asked what they were discussing, and the disciples stopped for a moment, looking sad – Luke 24:13-17 (adapted)
On the same day that Mary, Joanna, another Mary, and several other women went together to Jesus’s tomb, two disciples left Jerusalem and headed to Emmaus. On the same day that the women didn’t recognize the angels, the two disciples didn’t recognize Jesus.
Grief has a peculiar way of twisting perception.
So does disappointment.
To believe fervently in the divine anointing of a leader, to follow him and learn from him and feel empowered by him, to believe “This is it!” and throw yourself into a movement, only to have the leader publicly destroyed and the community scattered … it takes the breath out of your spirit. It cuts deeply into your identity, spoils your appetite for possibility. It yanks you so far into yourself that any external awareness is muted, even distorted.
Friends look like strangers when you feel isolated by grief.
Strangers look like enemies when you’re displaced by the unexpected.
You feel like a caricature of yourself, unable to recognize God through the fog of self-doubt and shame.
It’s not uncommon to lose sight of others when you’re going through it. Too often I have not recognized and appreciated a beloved child of God in front of me when I’m disoriented by anxiety. Mary, Joanna, the other Mary, the disciples … their hearts were so focused on grief that they momentarily didn’t recognize joy.
Thank God that didn’t stop Jesus from showing up. Thank God, it still doesn’t.
Prayer: Risen Jesus, forgive my tunnel vision of fear. Living Jesus, do not abandon me when I get lost in my own head and heart.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional
Bad News
The spirit of the Holy One is upon me, because the One has anointed me and sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of divine favor, and the day...
Advent’s Harvest
Where the ground is frozen, raspberries will ripen. Where the street is empty, dancers will parade. Where the embers are cold, a phoenix will soar. Where hope's heart is broken, compassion will bloom. on Jeremiah 33:10-11
Let It Count
Let it count in our favor, O God, that it's been a rough year. Let it be to our credit, O God, that we can still find a prayer— or at least a swear in your direction, which should also count. Put a "plus" in our column, O God, for all the strikes against us. Let it...
About Those Chickens
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for God gives sleep to those who are...
Begrudged Blessings
The Lord restored the fortunes of Job, [giving] Job twice as much as he had before. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 donkeys. He also had 7 sons and 3 daughters. - Job...
Today
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear God’s voice, do not harden your hearts.” Take care, siblings, that none of you has an unbelieving heart that turns from the living God. Exhort one another every day, so long as it is called “today.” - Hebrews...
Another Creed
We believe in one God: the Source, the Holy, the Mystery. We believe in one among us, Jesus Christ: Word of God, Illumination of Light, and Rock of our foundation. For our healing, he came from heaven and was born to Mary: Blessed Labor from Blessed Labor, Living Love...
Known
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. ... It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. - Psalm 139:1, 13-14a (NRSV) We are formed and reformed continuously, shaped by...
Witnesses to Love
13,000. That’s how many Palestinian children have been killed in Israel’s ongoing military campaign against Hamas, as estimated by UNICEF this spring. 1,195,070. That’s how many deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic,...
