Dirty Feet...

(photo from www.gsxr.com)

I hate feet. There, I said it. I don't like anything about them. I don't want to see them. I don't want to touch them. I hate feet. I might have seen one or two pairs in my whole life that were fairly cute, but for the most part...no. Mine are no exception. I don't do foot massages, so don't ask. I like having my feet rubbed, but I pay someone to do that so that there is no fear of having to return the favor. Did I mention I don't like feet? But...

There is one time during the year when I set aside my hatred of feet for a little kingdom work. Maundy Thursday. It's the Thursday before Easter...the beginning of the Triduum...the Big Three...Holy Thursday, Good Friday, through to Easter Sunday. There are lots of special services during these three days, and one of them is the Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday) service...which, if you are so inclined, just happens to include a service of foot washing. Have I mentioned that I hate feet?

Once a year, or once every other year if I rotate the Maundy Thursday service with a Seder meal, I gather up tubs and towels, a little splash of bleach in some warm water, not my good jeans in case the bleach water splashes on me (bleach because I hate feet, but I hate germs even more, and bleach is lethal to germs), line up a couple chairs, invite the ones that want to have their feet washed to come up, and I wash them. I did say that I hate feet, right?

Why do I do it if I dislike it so much? I do it because Jesus did, and it's one small self-sacrificing gesture that I can make to love folks on his behalf. In the book of John, Jesus does this for his disciples. Now, let me take just a second and mention why that was important. Folks then didn't have Sketchers, Shape Ups, Work boots, Rockports, or anything like that...they wore sandals. The roads weren't paved, they were dirt. Sandals + dirt roads = stinking, dirty, nasty, ugly feet. Therefore, the teacher didn't wash feet, the slaves did. As soon as you came into the house, if the host was a good host, a servant would come and wash the dirt of the road off of your feet. It was a gesture of hospitality.

So, this one night, Jesus got up, took off his good robe, wrapped a towel around him, knelt down in front of each of them, and washed their dirty, nasty, stinking, ugly feet. Jesus. The Son of the Living God. First Born of all creation. Author of the Universe. Second person of the Trinity. Took a slave's place and washed the dirt off of their feet. Dang it Jesus, why feet? Have I mentioned that I don't like feet? Couldn't you have washed their hands?

So what? Why is this important? It's what he said next that makes this important. He said that since he had done this for them, they should do it for each other. Not necessarily because their feet were filthy and nasty, but as a sign of love and humility. That's why I do it. I set aside my disgust at touching someone else's feet to remember that I'm not all that.

Where I stand each week, it's easy to get the big head. Several of my colleagues have fallen victim to that and developed a sense of entitlement with their position. Jesus would throw a fit about that. But it's more than just washing each other's feet. This is why we feed the hungry, why we serve as volunteers, why we go out of the way to help. It's HIS example that we're trying to follow, and I just think that from time to time we need a reminder. I know I do.

So, I wash feet. I could just wash one set of feet and then have that person wash the next person's, but it wouldn't be the same. I wash all of the feet. I can't think about it or I'll wig out, I just do it. Thank God I can serve in other ways most of the year, I don't mind at all. But I have to say that, for me, washing feet is the most powerful example of loving each other in his name.

Here's the challenge for today...find your least comfortable area and then find some way to use it to serve others. It's humbling. It's powerful. It's kingdom work.

Peace

Jamie

Because of Him...

(photo from www.amashni.wordpress.com)

I would love to be accused of that. Just saying. I would love for folks to say that because of me, they are coming to see him. Scripture actually says, "On account of him," but that just didn't really sound like me. Maybe it was curiousity, I don't know. Maybe they had heard about what had happened and just wanted to see for themselves. Maybe they had been walking with the crowd, grieving, and throwing dust into the air as they carried his lifeless body to the tomb.

On account of him, though, now folks were coming to get closer to HIM. Yep, that's what I want to be accused of. I've been accused of a lot of things in my very nearly 40 years....nearly burning the house down when I was 4 because I thought I needed a smoke, didn't like it, and threw it in the trash...scraping the car fender along the TV antennae pole when I was 12 because I was trying to wash the car before dad got home from work...tying my bicycle to the back of the 3 wheeler when I was maybe 13 because my chain had broken...walking past a tobacco sucker that was way down on the ground and I was tired, and it was hot, and I just didn't want to bend down to pull it...swapping out going to Intro to Botany lectures with a buddy of mine, I'd go Tuesday, he'd go Thursday and we'd compare notes...I've even been accused of righteous pruning by asking some folks to find another place to worship, because the spirit they brought to the church was nothing but negative. Sad part is, they're all true. Every one of them. But that's not what I'd really like to be accused of.

I'd really like to be accused of what he was accused of...on account of him. I would like to be accused of leading a life that made folks just a little more curious about this Jesus guy. John says that not just because of HIM, but on account of him, folks were coming to see HIM. I would like to be accused of having the same effect on folks that Lazarus had, that because of me, folks were coming to HIM. But there's a problem, and it's a big problem. It's a freakin' huge problem.

For Lazarus, the reason folks were coming to see HIM because of him, was that HE raised him from the dead...which means, for me to have the same "because of him" effect on folks, I have to die and be raised again...which sucks. Unless, I could get by without physically dying and being raised. I mean, I'm all for a trip to that big construction site in the sky, but not really looking to go today. So what if, I died to the old me and let HIM raise me to a new me? That might just work.

I try, but it's tough. It's hard to let go of the old me, because the old me used to have a whole lot of fun. Not that I don't now, it's just different fun. Like I've said before, I never was a real hellraiser, but to quote Hank Jr. "Me and my rowdy friends done settled on down." So what if, this new me is so much different from the old me that folks actually come to check out what's going on?

That would be cool, and that, my friends, is what we are called to.

Peace,
Jamie

His Soft Side...

(photo from www.plainfielducc.org)

Sometimes, and I'm being totally honest, theology wears me out. The constant arguing between this group and that group over interpretations, literal vs. metaphorical, context, audience, all of the things that are part of our theological discussions sometimes just wear me out. Then you have to throw in questions about God: where was God in this story...what was going on that caused God to act/react in a certain way...and sometimes I get lost in the complexity of this God story if I let myself.

But then there are times when you don't have to ask God questions, you don't have to wonder if this is a text we need to take literally or metaphorically, there's no need to argue interpretation...it's just there, simply. I like those sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I love wrangling with the difficult stuff, but every now and then, it's nice to take a break and just let a text speak for itself.

And that is what I found this morning. Two little words: "Jesus wept." John 11:35, the shortest verse in the bible. It's found in Lazarus' story, well one of his stories. You see, he had gotten sick, and his sisters sent word to Jesus that he was sick. I've wondered why Jesus waited two more days to go to him, especially since he loved Lazarus and his sisters the way scripture says he did, but the story tells us. He waited because he knew that Lazarus was going to die, but that he wouldn't stay dead, at least not this time. At least four days after hearing that he was sick, Jesus finally showed up.

You can almost feel the emotions in this story, and don't we need that sometimes? Jesus had lost someone very close to him, and since he was fully human as well as fully God, it hit him kind of hard. It does the same to us when we lose someone close. It doesn't say why he wept, only that he did. We can assume that it was because of his love for this family. Some might say that there were other reasons, I don't know. But today we see a very human Jesus in the midst of a very real loss.

He was a rebel, no doubt. He totally bucked the system for sure. He stood up against an empire, and told the folks around him that life as they knew it was not what God had intended for them. But today, in this story, he has lost one of his closest friends and we get a glimpse into his softer side.

Tim McGraw did a song about grown men crying. There's nothing wrong with it, even if you're Jesus. But in this story his tears didn't last long. They took him to the tomb, he commanded them to roll away the stone, and he yelled to the body, "Lazarus, come out."

We could wrestle with the question that was asked that day, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" We could do that and it would make for a good discussion, but today, let's just give him a minute. Lord knows we need that sometimes. Today, let's allow him into our pain and brokenness, those moments in our lives that drive us to tears, let him cry with us, and then wait for his healing word to be spoken. Sometimes, it's as simple as "You are forgiven." Always, though, it's "I love you."

Peace,

Jamie

Throw Him Out...

(photo from www.melodyranchstudio.com)

I mentioned the other day that I was born about a decade too late to catch all of the westerns on TV, but I did watch them in syndication as a kid. One of the things I loved to watch was the old saloon scenes, you know the ones. Somebody gets in a fight, the whiskey has been flowing free, so before long it's a full fledged brouhaha, and somebody is going to get thrown through a window out onto the street.

I loved it. Now I know it probably wasn't real glass, and that there were some Hollywood special effects probably involved, but just the idea of taking the rascal and tossing him out the window was great. I have to admit, there have been times that I've wanted to do that, even as a pastor. I'm not proud of it, just being honest. Just for the record, though, I never have.

But...there were some that did. If they didn't like what you were doing or saying, they would just throw you out, and to be thrown out then was a major deal. There is a story in this morning's life journal readings about that. There was some guy who had been born blind, and some other guy healed him, and then these other guys didn't like it, so they threw the used-to-be-blind guy out of the synagogue. I know! Can you believe it?

It started simply enough. Jesus and the guys, or guys and gals, were walking along and they saw the blind man. The disciples wanted to know who had messed up so that he had been born blind. Was it his sin? Or was it his parents'? You see that was what they believed then. If something bad happened to you, it was because you had done something bad. I'm just glad no one thinks like that anymore (Insert shameless attack on Pat Robertson's comments on Haiti and John Hagee's comments on Katrina here).

It boils down to this: Jesus had healed the man's eyes, so he was becoming a follower. He wasn't ready to call him Lord yet, but he was getting there. When he actually stood up for Jesus against the powers that be, they got mad and threw him out. Well, well, well. It happens, don't kid yourself.

If you stand up for the same things Jesus stood up for, somebody is going to get mad. Their problem was that this healing took place on the Sabbath. That's where all the trouble started, but I've already done the breaking the rules thing.

I love stories like this, and here's why. If you keep reading in John 9, you'll get to a place where Jesus learns this guy has been kicked out, goes looking for him, and finds him. Isn't that cool? Then, Jesus, like he does so many times, turns this whole thing into a teaching moment. He says that those who are blind will see and those who see will become blind.

I told you, he came to turn the world on its ears, and by dang, he did it. The question now becomes, can we keep up the momentum? Can we continue standing against systems and institutions that would rather throw you out than try to understand God working in your life? Can we continue opening blind eyes? Can we continue going after those who have been thrown out of other places? I'm game.

I know what will happen though, and I'm ready. I'm going to keep on, saying the things I say, doing the things I do, standing up for the underdog, and fighting for the marginalized, until I wind up laying on my back in the street picking glass out of my hair. But that's ok too. Jesus will find me.

Peace

Jamie

Letters in the Sand...

(photo from www.background-wallpapers.com)

I wonder what he was writing. You know, as he bent down with her standing in front of him, and both of them surrounded by this angry mob...I wonder what he was writing in the sand. Maybe he was making a list of the things she had done wrong, I don't know. Oh, oh, oh, wouldn't it be funny if he was making a list of the things THEY had done wrong...you know, the men standing there with stones in hand? That would have been hilarious. That's what I might have done, you know, if I were Jesus and some group of men brought her to me. Only I wouldn't tell them what I was doing, I'd wait to see how things went, if needed, I could pull that ace out of my sleeve.

I wonder what he was thinking while this was going on. We know what THEY were thinking. THEY were thinking that she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, and what the heck, we haven't stoned anybody today. We can imagine what she was thinking: terrified that her life is about to end, abandoned, angry that he wasn't there facing condemnation with her, but what about Jesus? What was he thinking? I'm sure this wasn't the first time he had been dragged into something like this. But this time it seemed different. He might have been thinking, "When are they going to get it? How many times do I have to tell them that this is not how Father wants them to live?" We all know it takes two to tango, yet where was her lover? Why didn't the angry mob drag him to Jesus too? Maybe Jesus was wondering that very thing, I don't know. I'm just thinking. I would have wondered that.

And there she stood...alone...ashamed...condemned in the eyes of men...waiting to hear him agree with the angry mob. After all, he knew the rules, and this angry mob knew that he knew them, so all he had to do was drop the gavel and it was all over for her. Everyone there knew that. It was the law. Moses had given them the law and you couldn't break the law.

You see, this very story is why I love being a Jesus follower. The other ones are cool, but if I had to pick one story out of all of them...only one that I could read and preach for the rest of my life, this would be it. Why? Because this is one time out of many when the law condemned, but Jesus said "To hell with the law." I love it! He knew what Moses had said. He knew that if she was guilty this group had every right to stone her, according to the law. He also knew that those angry men were just as guilty of just as many sins, so who did they think they were judging her??!!

"If any of you have never messed up, you can throw a rock at her. Throw it good, aim straight at her head. Hit her hard. But...if you have EVER messed up, you had better not throw one." That wasn't exactly how he worded it, but ok. Then he went back to writing in the sand.

I don't know what he wrote...but I know what he said: "Where are they? Is no one left to condemn you? Then neither do I. Go and sin no more." What he said was that his love for her was stronger than any of man's laws, that God's love for her was greater than the things she had screwed up in her life, that she was just as good as anyone else, and that this was a new beginning...and by dang, we know people who might like to hear that.

What are we writing in the sand? Letters of condemnation because they aren't like us? Love letters because, like them, we have been forgiven much? Rules? Laws? Freedom? Traditions? We've never done it that way? I don't know what he wrote in the sand, but whatever it was said, "I love you."

Peace,
Jamie

Holy Chicken Batman...

(photo from www.clker.com)

I wasn't a comic book fan growing up, really. I mean, I had a few, but I don't remember having a childhood hero from the pages of Marvel like a lot of folks did. I grew up watching the Incredible Hulk, the original one, with Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby. The Hulk wasn't scared of anything, but he wasn't really a hero for me. I missed all of the old westerns by a decade, so I didn't really have a gunslinger hero. A sports fan I wasn't, even as a kid, so I didn't have any sports heroes. I did love watching CHiPs, because Ponch and John didn't seem to be scared of anything. I had a Luke Skywalker action figure (no it wasn't a doll, so hush), but still, at nearly 40 years old, I've never watched Star Wars all the way through.

Childhood heroes are great to have. They give us someone to look up to, and might be a positive example for us to follow. But what do you do when that hero has a moment of weakness? Or at least appears to? I mean, would Lucas McCain back down from a fight? I think not. Would Starsky and Hutch hide from the criminals? No way. What about Luke, Han, the Princess, Chewy, Obi Wan, and the droids? Not on your life.

My dad told me when I was a kid that if I ever started a fight at school I would be in trouble when I got home. He also said that if I ever didn't finish one, I'd be in trouble when I got home. Luckily, I haven't had to worry about it so far. But others have, and one of those is someone we might not have expected to back down from anything.

John talks about it. It's one of those stories in scriptures that we might just read over. There's nothing that really stands out in it, just a few lines in a much bigger story. But today, those few lines jumped out at me. Here is what it says:

"After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposefully staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life." Jesus seems to be running from the very thing he will set his face toward later on. But for now, the time's not right.

On the surface, it looks like Jesus is just running scared, but I don't think that's what's going on. I mean, yeah, they were trying to find a way to kill him, but he knew that would happen when he started out. If you're going to go against the system, you've got to be ready to make a few enemies. He certainly did, and lots of others have too...Dietrich Bonhoffer, Martin Luther King Jr., Dusty Miller, Janani Luwum, and a host of others who's "right time had come." These folks gave up their lives rather than back down, and later, we would see Jesus do the same thing.

So the lesson for me in this passage is that this is just one more example of our need to look a little deeper into a text to get the message buried in it. Jesus wasn't scared of the Jews, like this story would lead us to believe, Jesus wasn't done yet. Had he died prematurely, there would have been lots left undone. He was anything but a chicken. Are we as willing as that to stand up for what is right? To fight for the underdog? To reach out to those on the margins? If not, we should be.

Peace

Jamie

Holy Water...

(photo from www.eternalremont.blogspot.com)

When I was in Israel in 2006, we were staying at Ginnosar, in a kibbutz. It's just north of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, which really isn't a sea at all, more of a large freshwater lake. If you're not familiar with the village, you may be familiar with what they found there: the Jesus boat, a first century Galilean fishing boat. But that's not what I'm writing about today.

While we were staying there, I slipped down to the lake one day and filled up a water bottle with water from the Sea of Galilee, and slipped it into my suitcase. I wanted it because I knew that the water in that lake would eventually flow into the Jordan River, and water from the Jordan River, to some, is the holiest water on earth. I wanted to bring it back with me so that, when I did a baptism, I could use some water from Israel. It's just kind of neat to be able to say that you were baptized with water from that area.

The water itself is nothing special, it's just water. But the signifance it has, we have given it, much like the healing pools of ancient Jerusalem. There might have been some chemical difference about some of the water that might have eased aches or something like that, but it's healing symbolism came from those coming to the water seeking healing. There's one story of one particular healing pool, and I just absolutely love this story.

Jesus and the guys, or guys and gals, were coming into the city one day and happened to come in by the sheep gate. As they did, they wandered into, or around, the Pool of Bethesda, one of the most famous healing pools in the city. Now, it's ruins but it is still a beautiful place.

I love the story about this pool, and the healing that took place there on that day for several reasons. The poor guy in this story hadn't been able to walk for 38 years. He felt that if he could just get into the water after it had been stirred (it was stirred by a spring but the people of the time thought it was done by some angelic force) he would be healed. Without fail though, every time he tried to make his way into the water after it was stirred, someone would beat him in, and only the first one in received a healing. Jesus asked the guy if he wanted to be healed and, of course, he said yes. So, we might think that Jesus would help him into the pool like any good neighbor would have done, but no. Jesus just told him to pick up his mat and go home. That's it, no holy water needed.

But as awesome as that is, even that is not what hits me when I read this story. You see, there were folks watching as this took place, and what they saw was not the healing, but the fact that this guy was packing his mat on the Sabbath. Yeah, I know! They totally missed what had just happened. They didn't notice that this guy had been unable to walk for 38 years and now he was packing his mat, headed to the door, on his way home. What they saw was that he was breaking their law. How stupid is that?

It breaks my heart that this still happens today, and it does, so let's not pretend. Jesus is still healing folks without the assistance of whatever means we have put in place for healing, but so many times we miss it. What we see, instead of a soul given a new birth, are the tattoos and piercings, the nose rings, eyebrow rings, loud music, flip flops, shirt tails untucked, long hair, and well...you get my point. Go back and read the story again: John 5:1-15. It really is a cool story.

Jesus didn't go through all of the rituals...he didn't offer the prescribed sacrifices in the temple...he didn't follow the rules (actually, he very seldom followed THEIR rules)...but what he did was give a guy who might have begun to lose hope, a second chance at life...a new beginning. Now he didn't have to live with the shame of who folks thought he was. He didn't have to beg. He didn't have to sit and wait, hoping he could slide in before someone else did. He got up, picked up his mat, and walked. All because Jesus told him he could.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could see those things happen today? Well my friends, we don't have to look far, but we do have to look past our expectations of other people.

Peace

Jamie