Borrowed Space

Jesus ate his last meal in a borrowed space. The upper room where Jesus and disciples had their supper was a guest room – in Greek, a kataluma. This word is used in only two places in the bible – in the story of his last night on earth and in the story of his first night on earth.

In Bethlehem, his parents sought shelter for him in a kataluma, and he had his first supper there in the stable where he was born. In Jerusalem, he had his last supper in the same kind of borrowed space. He sent his disciples to find a guest room for their Passover, and they did as he instructed, talking to the owner of the house, making sure the room was set up, and then getting the supper ready.

They must have done this hundreds of times, negotiating for places to eat and spend the night. After all, as far as we know, Jesus had no home of his own, at least not during his time of ministry. Instead he traveled around, making himself at home wherever he could find a welcome.

And he still does that; he still seeks a place where he will be welcomed. Only now, our church has become the kataluma, the guest room, and we are the disciples who are invited to share a meal with him.

He is still borrowing space, only now that space is in our lives. Open your hearts and make room for him. Open your hearts and welcome the Christ. Open your hearts, so he will be at home in you and then you will be at home in him.

And as we invite him into our midst, so he invites us -- knowing as he does so, that we have betrayed him, denied him, and failed him – knowing all that, and still loving us, calling us, forgiving us.

Prepare your heart to welcome Jesus. Lots of things crowd out the God space in our lives. Let those things go. Make room for Christ so your life becomes Christ’s borrowed space.

Washing Feet

We come with our bare feet exposed – one of the most vulnerable parts of our body. We offer them to the pastor and it is an amazing experience both physically and spiritually. The warm water flows over feet that have been crammed into shoes all day, and the feeling of soothing release is wonderful. And another person –one that we have not paid to massage our toes and paint our nails, one how does this only in love and obedience – cradles our feet, pours water over them, and gently dries them with a freshly washed towel. We usually keep ourselves fashionably covered, protected from view and exposure, encased in something fashionable that gives us our external sense of identity. But here we are with our bare feet, given over into the hands of another. It is a kind of radical intimacy. And we are served and honor and humbled, all at the same time. It is a powerful act that brings us to our knees. And we are bound in a new way to each other and to Jesus, who is so present in this act.

Worship

Last week, I sat next to an 11 year old boy in church. He goes to church on alternate weekends when he is with his father and stepmother.

He started out by timing how long his toddler brother would last -- four minutes as it turned out. When it was time to sing, he did not open the hymnal but he did look on with me. I don't know if he was singing or not, but I think he was humming along sometimes. During the confession through the scripture, he took the bulletin apart and start carefully folding it. I thought he was making a paper airplane but I was wrong. During the sermon, he handed me a lovely origami butterfly, made out of the page in the bulletin with the church's prayer list. I don't know that he thought this was significant but I did. I thought of all those people on that list, cocooned in illness and trouble and loss, and the folded paper seemed to me a prayer for all them. It was a prayer that they would be transformed, that there would some new life and beauty for them, and the prayer was shaped by the hand of a little boy.

I don't know what he got out of that service, but I do know what a blessing it was for me to sit next to him.

A Perfect Breakfast

This morning, I had an egg for breakfast: a lovely brown egg, freshly laid by one of my brother's hens, perfectly poached in clear well water, and eaten at the table with my mother there and my father in the next room, all of us in the house built by my great-grandfather. It was complete nourishment, feeding me body and soul.

Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

The Author(ity) of Healing

Mark 1:21- 28

We are early in the Gospel of Mark, only in chapter 1, and already we have learned a lot about Jesus. He is the Son of God (v 1); he is mightier than John who was attracting the whole of Jerusalem (v 7); he God’s beloved and God is well pleased with him (v. 11); he can withstand the temptations of Satan (v 12); he calls disciples and they follow immediately (v 16); his teaching surpasses that of the most learned men of the day (v 22); and he can cast out demons (v 26).

These events have a common theme, it seems to me – power. Jesus has a profound power that flows from God and disrupts the lives that it touches. People recognize something different in him and some embrace that difference and some turn away and some try to destroy him. It was this way in the beginning and, God knows, it is still this way. Some in our world embrace Christ and his power to change the world, some turn away and ignore or discount this holy power, and some try to destroy the goodness of God that comes through belief in Christ.

When Jesus entered the synagogue in Capernaum all those centuries ago and began teaching, people were astounded and amazed. This teaching was like nothing they had ever heard before. As Mark reports: He taught them as one having authority. In Greek, the word translated as “authority” is exousia. It has multi-layered meaning but it all centers on the notion of power. It can mean physical and mental power -- the ability or strength with which one is endued, which he either possesses or exercises; it can mean the power of authority which creates influence and the power of right which conveys privilege; it can mean the power of rule or government, the power of one whose will and commands must be submitted to by others and obeyed. In the synagogue, Jesus demonstrated authority in the fullest sense of the word. He demonstrated a power unlike any they had seen before.

They had likely witnessed situations before like that involving the man possessed of an unclean spirit. There were many in ancient times who acted as exorcists, many who claimed to be healers. But Jesus’ authority disrupted the very heart of religious tradition. Here he was in the synagogue, on the Sabbath, teaching and healing in ways that put him into direct conflict with the religious leaders.

And the people could hardly believe what they were seeing and hearing. Even the unclean spirits, the demons, obeyed him. Right at the start of his ministry, in his first public action, Jesus took on the forces of evil.

The gospel does not record the words that he said to the people in the synagogue that day -- only the words that he spoke to the demon. That exchange between the Holy One of God and the unclean spirit is itself a central part of the teaching. Because Jesus would go on for the next three years to teach about the power of God to overcome the forces of evil and heal the world. He would go on to claim the authority of God in his work of restoring God’s good but fallen creation.

As the preacher and scholar Fred Craddock observes:

Jesus is the strong Son of God who has entered a world in which the forces of evil (Satan and demons) are crippling, alienating, distorting, and destroying life. According to Mark, the powers that seek to sabotage God’s creating and caring work not only cause disease but also disturb the natural elements and even insinuate themselves into the circle of Jesus’ closest friends. But with Jesus comes the word of power to heal, to help, to give life, and to restore. In Mark, a battle is joined between good and evil, truth and falsehood, life and death, God and Satan. (Fred Craddock, John Hayes, Carl Holladay, and Gene Tucker. Preaching Through the Christian Year, B; p 92)

And here is a question for us to ponder: Is that battle won? Can we say that we live in a world where good and truth and life and God have triumphed? It is a hard question because we want to answer yes but there is too much evidence to the contrary. Just from yesterday’s newspaper: there were reports of sexual abuse of children by their priest and two other reports of child pornography; tenants of a housing project were voicing concerns about crime and mismanagement of the property; there were reports of two drug cases, several robberies, a stabbing and a shooting, and an arrest in a fatal hit-and-run. And these are only our local “evils.” Multiply this by every city, every nation, and it is all too clear that the battle between good and evil still goes on.

The world is a mess but what can we do about it? What authority do we have to change things? That is a question that goes to the heart of faith. When someone is baptized here, one of things we ask is: Do you renounce evil and its power in the world? To renounce evil and its power in the world is to claim the authority of Jesus to speak truth, to bring healing, to confront the powers that be, to teach with our lives so others can learn a new way of life. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, Jesus is the author of our faith, and through him we are given God’s word of authority. In the face of the world’s “no,” we can speak God’s eternal “yes,” the same “yes” that was spoken at the tomb on Easter morning. The resurrection, after all, is the ultimate healing, the demonstration of ultimate authority over evil.

We can sing an Easter hymn this morning because we are Easter people. We are those who have been taught by the example of Jesus’ own life, death, and resurrection. We have been given authority over evil; we have been given power to heal our wounded world.

And so I ask you again to claim this authority and power: Do you renounce evil and its power in the world? If so, say I do.

Amen.

© Martha C. Highsmith

Sage Advice

The meteorologists and scientists tell us that we are experiencing climate change. It is hard to discount their advice this year: the temperature tomorrow is forecast to be in the 60's -- this, the first day of February in Connecticut. We are cooking our climate, and the effects are one year of unbelievable snowfall followed by this year of June-uary.

This weekend I made pesto with sage that I picked that day from my kitchen garden. I still have collards and kale growing. My garlic is coming up. The vegetables do not know that it is winter. they are growing and flourishing in this odd New England January. And I am eating pesto fresh from my own garden in a time when all should be covered in a deep blanket of snow.

P.S. The pesto was wonderful and I made fresh pasta to go with it.

Labyrinth

At the start of this new year, I walked an outdoor labyrinth as a way of focusing on the path set before me – whatever it is – in the days of 2012. It was a cold day but not bitterly so, warmed some by the thin winter sunshine. The trees were all bare and I could see the wounds from the damaging October snowstorm. As I turned the circle around and around, I was sometimes facing forest and sometimes glimpsing a row of houses through a bare thicket.

The path of the labyrinth was edged by stone blocks and covered in pea gravel. I could see the footprints of others who had walked the same way, and I knew I was joined with and to them in prayer. Among those footprints were the tracks of a large dog and a small one, sometimes on the path and sometimes not. Did the dogs walk with their owner or did they come on their own? I also saw the prints of deer in several places, and some small tracks that I could not identify – maybe a raccoon.

I loved the act of walking the labyrinth with the wild things. It was as the psalmist said: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6) There we were, all of us creatures made by the breath of God, walking and praising in our own God-given way – me and the dogs and the deer and the others.

Baptism of Jesus

Getting the Word

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

Mark 1:4-11

We live in a world awash in words. Always in the background, there is talk radio, 80 gazillion channels on TV, magazines, electronic bill boards, email, text messages, cell phones – a never-ending barrage of words. With words so common and present, is easy to forget how powerful they really are. We say “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” and forget that words can wound and wound deeply, and that they can also bring healing and joy.

If you doubt the power of words, think about what happens as a result of words like these:

“I love you. Will you marry me?”

“The biopsy was positive. You have cancer.”

“I’m sorry. Your job is being eliminated.”

“Oh look, you’re having twins.”

Just words, but getting words like these has the power to change everything.

Another danger of the overload of words in our world is that we often tune out; we may be hearing but we stop listening, we stop paying attention. And in the midst of all our daily noise, the word we most need to hear is in danger of being drowned out, or we are not in the right place to be able to hear it. As the poet T.S. Eliot wrote in a much quieter time: “Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.” (Ash Wednesday) You know the old question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? A parallel question for us might be: If God speaks in the world and no one pays attention, does it make any difference?

Well, the Bible has a very clear answer to that, and the answer is yes. Yes, words are powerful; yes, words make a difference, whether we are paying attention or not. The Hebrew term for “word” – dabar -- is also translated as action, thing, or deed. To speak is to act. And that is especially true for God’s Word (the one with a capital W).

Consider this: In the beginning, the world was created not with a gesture or a planning document or a coincidence. The world was created with words. In the first chapter of Genesis, there are 14 times when God speaks. As we read this morning: God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God spoke into being and named day and night; the sky; the waters; the dry land; plants; stars, moon, and sun; living creatures of every kind; and finally human beings, us.

Out of the chaos of nothing, when there was only a formless void, wild and waste, God’s Word brought order and life. The Word changed everything.

And that has been the pattern throughout all of holy history. When God’s Word comes to the people, things will be changed. The Word disrupts the status quo. Where there is chaos, the Word brings order. And the reverse is equally true: Where there is complacency, the Word stirs things up. As the psalmist said: “ The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire, shakes the wilderness, causes the oaks to whirl, strips the forest bare.” (from Psalm 29) We may have a nice little spiritual routine but then the voice of God thunders in our lives and what was routine is seen as the rut it has become, and our comfort and boredom are stripped away.

I suspect that when we seek a word from God, though, it is not that kind of word! We long for the easy way. It is hard to pray as medieval preacher John Donne once did:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you

As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

But here is the truth: Unless God breaks, blows, and burns within us, we are just the same old stuff. The act of making new, the act of creation -- in the world, in the church, in our hearts – means a break from the old, a powerful blowing of the wind of the Spirit, and flames of fire that destroy all that gets in the way of our holiness. It means change.

And that is what happens in baptism. Baptism is not just about sweet babies, antique christening gowns, and family gatherings. Baptism is not just a nice little ritual of dabbing some water on someone’s head. Baptism is the powerful act of God’s Word, changing everything.

When Jesus came to be baptized, the heavens themselves were torn apart. It was an answer to an ancient prayer from the prophet Isaiah on behalf of the people: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood
 and the fire causes water to boil!” 
 (Isaiah 64:1-2)

In Jesus’ baptism, the barrier between earth and heaven has been torn open. God has spoken. And God’s creating, powerful voice has named a new reality. God has said to and of Jesus: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” There is an echo here from “in the beginning,” when God spoke and all was changed, and God saw that it was good.

And we are baptized, that voice descends on us, too. We are created as God’s own children and God is well-pleased; God sees that we are good. Everything is changed. The power of sin is broken. The old life is gone, destroyed, stripped away.

We get God’s word, and it is a word, the word, that became flesh. And getting the Word in baptism means we become part of the Body of Christ; we, too, become the Word. And we may be the only Word of God that some people every get.

The world will not always pay attention to the Word that we speak, to the Word that we are. But that does not lessen our power. It does not diminish our calling to create something new.

God speaks and everything, including us, is changed. God speaks and something new comes into being – in the world, in our church, in our hearts. And God sees that it is good, and God is well-pleased. And in God’s house all say “Glory!”

© Martha C. Highsmith