DAY OFF

One of the more fascinating characteristics of God in Genesis 1 is one many of us miss. God rests on the seventh day.

In other words, God takes a day off.

Sunday's lection is one of so many passages in the Gospels on the observance of the Sabbath Day. So many sermons have been preached and will be preached on this topic. (Sunday's passage reminds me of one of Albert Einstein's famous quotes: If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, then you don't understand it.)

Friends, God needs a day off. =)

All of us need a break. Actually, almost all of us. There are people who are born wealthy and who will die wealthier without ever working one minute of their entire lives. They represent one third of the world's richest people. This post is not about them.

There are Church Workers whose official day off falls on Mondays. But they have never, ever, had a single day off. Even the land needs a Sabbath. And so does Mother Earth.

Please, take a day off! If God needs one, then so do God's children.

*art, "Is Jesus Sleeping?" from the blogspot godwantsmore.

TRINITY SUNDAY

May 26th is Trinity Sunday and many homilies will focus on explaining a mystery. Of course, a lot of us know that this "mystery" was discussed, debated, and formulated around the 4th century by privileged, propertied, and powerful Christian men. It is no wonder that if you ask people to imagine the Trinity, most will conjure up three male figures. All white!

Many of us grew up with these centuries-old, andocentric doctrines that made our heads hurt. Many of us grew up with doctrines that did not make sense, that created walls instead of bridges, that separated peoples instead of bringing them together, that made our faiths, our beliefs, our skin color, our sexual orientation, our class--our way of life sinful, less human, and outright wrong!

There are still so many people who are convinced that the hardships they face every single day are tests and trials from God. There are more who believe that God has a grand plan just waiting to be disclosed in the future, if not on earth then in the hereafter. There are those, quoting scripture no less, who sincerely proclaim that every elected official, including tyrants, dictators, and children of tyrants and dictators, are God's chosen. Then there are those who insist that the Bible is their exclusive "land title" and have killed, dispossessed, disenfranchised, and displaced peoples in its name.

May 26th is Trinity Sunday and many homilies will focus on explaining a mystery. Maybe some homilies will focus on the female imagery for the divine in Sunday's lection from John 3. Sunday's lection challenges us to imagine God as a woman. Sunday's lection challenges us to imagine God giving birth. Sunday's lection invites us to imagine God nursing her children.

God has a womb. God has breasts. God is a mother.

Friends, Sunday's lection challenges us to imagine God beyond the boxes we have created to contain God. Maybe the Trinity is a circle of nursing mothers, a family of sisters, a discipleship of equals.

Imagine.



*art, "Trinity," Kelly Latimore, 2016, commissioned by Mark Bozzuti-Jones (available at the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).
 

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE

"You'll Never Walk Alone" was part of Carousel, Rogers and Hammerstein's 1945 Broadway musical. Many artists have covered this song. These include Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Lettermen, Elvis Presley, and, my favorite, The Righteous Brothers. Sunday's lection reminds me of the song.

If Pentecost happened 50 days after Jesus’s resurrection in Acts, in John it happened on Holy Week. (The Spirit comes on Easter evening.)

Sunday's reading is part of the gospel's Farewell Discourse. Jesus, bidding his disciples goodbye, promises the coming of the Advocate or Comforter. Jesus knows the sadness they feel so he promises them someone who will take his place: someone who will do more for them than he did; someone who will help them bear their sorrows; someone who will always be there for them; someone who will always lead them to seek truth-- the truth that sets people free.

Someone who will make sure that, through life's storms, they will never, ever, walk alone.


*art, "Pentecost," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (Cameroon), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.
The Righteous Brothers singing "You''ll Never Walk Alone."
The Ed Sullivan Show, November 7, 1965.

MOTHERS AND GOD

 

Students of the Bible call John Chapters 14-17 Jesus’s "Farewell Discourse". Jose Rizal's "Mi Ultimo Adios" is akin to it. Jesus gives his before his crucifixion. Rizal writes his before his execution. Both die because of love.

In Sunday's lection from John 17, Jesus knows that Golgotha was hours away. He knows that his followers will be like sheep without a shepherd. He knows that he cannot protect them anymore. Jesus knows. And so he commits them to God. The God who is like a mother in the gospel. The God with a womb.

The church is the community that Jesus committed to God. It is not a building. Never has been, never will be. The church is people who love, like Jesus did. Those who love unconditionally. Like Jesus's mother in John. Like our mothers.

Like God-with-a-Womb.

This is why we have hope despite all the pain, the suffering, the greed, the indifference, and the evil around us. This is why we believe that a new world is possible. There are those who love unconditionally. There are those who are willing to offer their lives for others.

Like our mothers.



*art, "Madonna " by Catlett, Elizabeth, 1915-2012 (available at the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

NO GREATER LOVE

Lord. Savior. Rabbi. High Priest. King. Messiah. Good Shepherd. Son of God. Son of Man. Brother. Most of us are familiar with these terms that are all ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament-- terms we ourselves use to describe who he is for us.

In Sunday's lection, the Gospel of John offers another one. Friend.

Friendship. What does it mean? What is its greatest motivation? What is its greatest expression? Friendship is almost always experienced as a circle. It is a relationship of equals and of mutuality, of accompaniment and of solidarity.

Friendships are based on decisions. We choose our friends. Friendships are neither based on emotions nor on relations.

Agape is always a decision. It is always a choice. Agape is neither based on emotions nor on relations.

Thus, agape's greatest expression: no one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. Not lovers. Nor family. We choose to offer our lives for the people we choose. Including those who do not know who we are.

Jesus did. Many have done the same. How about us who call ourselves Friends of Jesus? Can we? Really?


*art, "Love for One's Neighbor," National Museum of Scotland (vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

GOD IS A FARMER

 

More often than not, we read this passage like we do the Parable of the Sower. We ask, "What kind of soil are we?" We want to be the good soil that brings forth grain. We lose sight of the Sower. Yes, we lose sight of the Farmer.

In Sunday's lection from the Gospel of John, we ask what kind of branch we are. We want to be the branch that bears fruit. We lose sight of the vine. Moreover we lose sight of the Vine Grower. Yes, again, we lose sight of the Farmer.

God is the Vine Grower in today's passage. God plants the vine. God does the pruning. God does the cutting off. God is a farmer.

During Jesus' time, farmers and fisherfolk comprised the bulk of the population: 7 out of 10. (Nothing has actually changed.) Then and now, farmers and fisherfolk are among the poorest of the poor. Dispossessed farmers and dislocated fisherfolk were worse off.

In First Century Palestine, the poor could afford only barley bread and fish, dried, smoked, or salted. These were what the urban poor, slaves, and peasants had when they were able to eat. The masses were slowly starving to death. Have you ever wondered why the majority of Jesus's stories and sayings in the gospels are about bread and fish, farming and fishing, and farmers and fisherfolk? Have you ever wondered why Jesus's Gospel is the Gospel to the Poor?

Unfortunately, we lose sight of farmers and fisherfolk. And we forget that the lestes-- badly translated as robbers and bandits in English Bibles; better translated as rebels and freedom fighters--were composed mostly of dispossessed farmers, fisherfolk, and runaway slaves!

But God does not forget! God always takes sides. And farmers and fisherfolk are closest to God's heart.

God is a farmer. God plants. God prunes. God cuts off branches that bear no fruit, and throws these to the fire to be burned.

*art, "True Vine," from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

I believe most of us know Psalm 23 by heart. We are not talking about one or two verses here. This is a whole chapter from the Bible that most of us have memorized since Kindergarten. This is one chapter that has given courage to so many when they were afraid. This is one chapter so many people have held onto when they crossed over to the life beyond. Shepherd works as a metaphor for God in the Psalm. The good shepherd will never abandon the sheep. The sheep will never, ever, be alone.

In Sunday's lection from John 10, Jesus talks about sheep and shepherds. Sheep do know the voice of their shepherd. Sheep do follow their shepherd in and out of the sheepfold. Sheep do run away from those whose voice they do not know. The good shepherd wil never abandon the sheep. The sheep will never, ever, be alone.

Lest we forget--then and now--women make up more than half of the world's shepherds. Let's stop imagining that the good shepherd in the Bible has to be male. Rebekah, Rachel, Miriam, Zipporah and her sisters were shepherds. The shepherds who visited Jesus when he was born were probably all women. Most importantly, many faith communities celebrate Mary of Nazareth, the mother of the Lamb of God, as a shepherd!

My dear friends, for many among us, the good shepherd is a woman.

*image: Palestine: A Bedouin Shepherd spinning yarn in the Sharon Region.