Andrew's View of the Week

I started this blog as an experiment with loosely defined goals.  The major goal being that I write something each day about how I am feeling in the journey. Today is it difficult to put words to the page and part of me just wants to skip today – to run away.

Last night I attended Maundy Thursday service and did the ancient rituals.  Sadness hit me at a couple of levels.  One there is the whole thing about Jesus about to be killed in a most horrific way.  Then there is the sadness that there were so few of them in the room.  I am a bit of mystic in my tendencies and spiritual practice so I value a good ritual but I fear I am an exception.  Even among my fellow church members few find the same value and comfort in performing the ancient practices of communion, foot washing, prayer, etc.  The fear that struck me in the middle of the service was that when I am in my dotage, there will be no one else to attend the ritual with me – that I’ll be all alone in my faith.  Then I was ashamed of my selfishness and tried to block that thought from my mind.

I fear that the world will crush me and my brothers.  I fear that it will take away from me my fellow believers and deny me the comfort of a simple meal – one that means so much to me.  Would it hurt them to share the cup just once?  My mind wants to scream in pain.

Today is a day that I struggle to write –  to find words to express anything meaningful.  My thoughts swirl around what must the followers of Jesus been feeling and doing through this day after his arrest.  Where did they go?  Did they fear for their lives? Did they think that the revolution of Jesus was over?  What pain were they feeling in their minds and souls?  Questions.  Never answers.

Failing to come up with anything else, I’ve decided to do what Jesus’s disciples did on this day.  I am going to run away and hide.  Oh, I will attend the noon service but otherwise I am taking a mental vacation and pretend that I’d don’t know anything about what has happened this week or what is about to happen on a cross on a hill at the hands of soldiers.

I like food.  Lunch is one of my favorite meals.  A shared lunch is even better. There is nothing like food and conversation.  Dinner is good too but I don’t really like breakfast that much – starts way to early in the day.

One of the reasons I like stories of Jesus is that they often involve food, a meal and conversation among friends.  Cool.  If I was alive back then, I’d hang out with Jesus over lunch.  Bet he knew the best places to go and he hung out with some cool folks.

Tonight my church will be holding its traditional Maundy Thursday service.  It is a time to hear the old story, the one we tell and retell every year about the last supper and the betrayal of Jesus to the authorities.  Our service will include elements from all the Gospels, a bit of story telling by the pastor, a sharing of communion, and a hand washing ceremony.

I’ve done these for years in different places and in different ways but each time I remember Jesus choose this path on purpose.  He could have done a million other things – from running away to leading an armed rebellion. But he did neither of those things.  Instead he led by example and did what he wants to his followers to do: teach, feed the people and serve one another.  He chose a path of non-violence.  I try my best to remember his lesson and follow his example.

In the gospels Jesus washed the feet of his disciples as a symbol of how to serve.  Just a note (foot note?), foot washing was important then since you walked everywhere in sandals on dirt – there weren’t walk thru foot washing places.  In Jesus’s foot washing the master becomes the servant, the first becomes last.  Our local church has translated foot washing to hand washing since it is hard for some of our older members to get down on hands and knees to wash feet so we keep it on the table top but still manage to get water everywhere.

One of strange things I noticed among our congregation is the willingness to serve but the reluctance to be served.   Tell our bunch – go wash their hands and off they go, water and towels flying everywhere with no hand left unwashed.  But tell them, you sit there and let them wash your hands and oh my do they stiffen up – can you spell uncomfortable?  I leave the meaning of that up to you.

The other important activity for tonight is the sharing of the bread and wine, communion, the last supper, the holy meal …

Meals were very important in Jesus’s day.  They held a symbolic meaning that we have lost.  In the stories of Jesus there are two important meals, the feeding of the five thousand and the last supper.  Borg and Crossan assert that the last supper is an echo of the larger mean when the five thousand were feed.  The meal was about community, just distribution, serving and loving one another…

Well, I’ll not dive into a long windy academic explanation but will say this: For me the importance of the meal is the connection – the connection with people, a story, a feeling – and about receiving strength. Food strengthens the body giving me the physical energy to continue, while being in community with others strengthens my soul and give my heart the courage to move another step.

Twice a month I meet with a study group that calls themselves the “Sunrise Seekers.”  Seekers because they are seeking – knowledge, answers, coffee …

Sunrise because they get up way too early in the morning and often actually see the sunrise but for some of the year they are up before sunrise as the meeting starts a 6:45 am.  Yes, A.M., morning, early, cold, dark, before breakfast (and hence the coffee except that I am tea drinker so I have to bring me own cuppa tea) – but its one of the few times during the week that I can get time away from work to attend a study meeting.

This is the group that first showed me to the book, “The Last Week.”  Currently we are studying the book one chapter at a time.  Today we discussed Thursday and of course I’ve got to write about Wednesday.  So now with my head full of ‘Thursday’ talk I have to switch back to writing about ‘Wednesday’.  Confused?  Good, let’s continue.

One of the things that jumped out at me during reading Borg and Crossan’s chapter on Wednesday was the section on “Atonement: Substitution or Participation?”  First I noticed that the subheading was all in caps so it must be important.  As a reader I always respond to bigger print as being important to the text (there, that is all the literary analysis you’re getting today).

Second thing I noticed was that I was emotionally drawn to the word “participation.”  I have to agree with Borg and Crossan, Jesus is calling us to participate in his ministry and mission to bring God’s kingdom to earth.  We’ve been given the job of healing, teaching, caring for the poor and sick.  I have trouble with the notion that somehow the single fact that Jesus died atoned  for all my sins without me having to do anything.  I might buy into the notion that somehow Jesus’s selfless act shows my path towards redemption and life eternal – maybe.

But …  How do I say this without seeming conceited?  I don’t feel like much of a sinner.  Okay, that time in the third grade, well, I am sorry, I stole the cookie.  Guess I am now bound for hell.  I don’t want to deny that I haven’t done a few bad things that I’ve had to apologize for but on the whole I am one of the nicest, most generous and caring guys I know.  Jesus, dude, it was a cookie, don’t die for that…

But … there are things more evil than me.  There are people and institutions that are unjust, that feed on the weak and corrupt this world.  There are things I can do to make this place better.  There are people I can help – wrongs to right.  If I have sinned in anyway it is that I have not done enough to help my brothers and sisters.

I can buy the notion that Jesus took this journey during his last week to show us the way towards justice and restoring this world to the kingdom that God intended it to be.  I can accept that Jesus is calling me to a participant in healing the wounds of the world.

I can accept that Jesus died to show us how much we must sacrifice.  I am not sure I am that strong but I can start the journey and walk as long as my strength holds.

Now I am really having doubts about this blog.  Is it such a good idea?

It is taking far more energy than I thought it would and I’ve not been able to get near the goal I set out for.  I could spend a life time just dealing with the stories I’ve read up till now – and there are still six days left till Easter.

Maybe that is why most Christian churches these days largely ignore the events of Monday through Wednesday and focus on the end of the week.  There are other reasons but I’ll avoid being cynical today.

There are two elements in understanding any story in the Bible, the intellectual connection and the emotional connection.  As a Methodist and would be scholar I tend to approach the Bible from an intellectual perspective and try to turn it into a scholarly exercise by rationally understanding every word in the text and all the nuances of those words – what do they mean now, what did they mean then, how did the meanings change, what are the elements of the translation?

But yet it is the feeling – the emotional response I get to these stories that most affect me.  Sitting in a Good Friday service, it’s not the intellectual notion that Jesus died for us but rather the overwhelming sadness I feel for the story that truly connects and informs my soul.  Don’t think about it, feel about it.

So for today I am leaving the intellectual analysis on the road side and just reporting my feelings.

The story is overwhelming.  Jesus is like a whirlwind on Tuesday – we see the fig tree he cursed, dead; Jesus’s authority is challenged; Jesus challenges the religious authorities, etc.  Plus we get a number of basic Christian stories and teachings, “Render unto Caesar,” the story of the vineyard, the wife and the brothers, the great commandment, the widow and the coins and prophesies of the apocalypse.

If I were following Jesus around on Tuesday I’d be a little worried.  What is going on here?  Is this guy right?

Reading the story today I am more than just a bit overwhelmed and more than a bit sure that I don’t understand but a fraction of it and after reading Borg and Crossan a little concerned that my traditionally held views and understandings might be wrong.

Emotions for the day? Fatigue, confusion, and doubt.  The emotional question is, “can I carry on with this?”