This Weekend

Remarks as prepared for delivery...heh. :)

Good morning!  Okay, I want to start today with a little audience participation.  Thank you, Doug, for reading the Scriptures this morning.  Let’s go with the second reading, the one from First Corinthians.  Raise your hand if you have ever heard these verses read – or preached on – before today.  Go ahead.  It’s okay.  I know we’re Lutheran, but you’re allowed to raise your hand.  Ok, good.  No, don’t put them down.  Keep them up for a second.  Okay, keep your hand raised if you have ever heard these verses read or preached besides at a wedding.  Okay, hands down.  The introverts can relax again. 

Ok, here’s the thing – I hate destroying people’s illusions, but here we go…these verses are not actually about weddings or marriage.  I mean, they’re not bad advice for people getting married…this is what it means to love somebody…but I’m not married, and there’s a couple of these that I had to lean on pretty heavy this week in my own life.  Instructions on how and why to love people are not limited to the kind of romantic love that we most often mean when we’re talking about weddings and marriage.  It’s not even limited to family.  Think about this for a second – think about a person in your life who you are not married or otherwise related to, but whom you love.  Somebody that you have genuine, Christian, nonromantic love in your heart for – maybe it’s a good friend, or a teacher or coach, or student or athlete, or a coworker or whatever.  Somebody that you just – you care about them.  Think about that person for a second, picture them in your mind, take a second to reflect on just how glad you are that this person exists on the planet and is in any way part of your life. 

And now answer this.  Is that person perfect?  Do they ever annoy you?  Or not return a phone call or text message?  Do they ever show up late, or not be ready to work, or forget to do what they said they would, or say something offensive, or in any way just…irritate you from time to time?  Of course.  But you still love them.  You would still do anything for your best friend, or your old football coach, or whoever.  And so you need these verses, telling you how to love.  This isn’t just hearts-and-roses-weddings-and-Valentine’s Day kind of love.  This is in-the-trenches kind of love.

It’s the kind of love you need in a church. 

Which is fortunate for us, because it turns out that’s exactly who Paul was addressing this to.  This whole section that Doug read today follows right on the heels of where we’ve been the last two weeks – St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthian congregation.  The first week was, “Here are all the different spiritual gifts people have to be used for the common good – they are: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues.  Last week was, “Even though they are all different gifts, like different body parts, they are all useful, and used together and in a coordinated fashion, make the Body of Christ able to do its work, and that’s pretty awesome.  But even better than all of that, Paul says, and here’s where we get into this week’s reading, even better and more important than any of the aforementioned gifts, is love.  I’m going to read this again, and quote from the New Living Translation:

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing… Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!  Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!  But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless…Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”

Now, notice that I skipped over the whole “love is…this that and the other thing…”  I did that because I wanted to come back to it and focus on it for a minute.  Now that we know that love is more important even than our spiritual gifts, Paul wants to tell us how, exactly, we are supposed to love.  Fine, we can love people, but what does it look like?

Here we go.  Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

And remember, this is about the love that we have with our family, our friends, our spouse, and the whole Body of Christ…and it’s also about how we love our enemies.  In the gospels, Jesus says “Love your neighbor,” but he also says, “Love your enemy.” 

This is how we are to love – our neighbors and our enemies – our parents and our children – our bosses and our employees – our friends and the people we can’t stand and the people we don’t really know – the people who go to our church and the people who go to a different church and the people who don’t go to church at all.  This is how we are supposed to love others, because it is precisely the way that Jesus loves us. 

“Love one another, as I have loved you,” Jesus says, in the Gospel of John.  And this is how he has loved us.  

So, up until this point, I’ve been talking about how we’re supposed to love other people.  But I want to switch gears for a minute.  Think about yourself now.  Instead of thinking about a person that you love, think about Jesus and you.  You’ve done some rotten things this week haven’t you?  When you think about it, you know it’s true.  You’ve made bad decisions and hurt other people and not done the things you’re supposed to and yelled at the dog or the kids or your best friend or the waitress.  You’ve wasted time or told a lie or wanted something that isn’t yours or cheated on your tax return or cheated on your spouse.  

What do you suppose Jesus thinks about all that?  He doesn’t like sin – that’s true.  He wants us to follow his will for our lives, and not do things that hurt ourselves or other people.  And yet, even when we sin, Jesus is patient and kind.  Jesus is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  Jesus does not demand his own way.  Jesus is not irritable, and Jesus keeps no record of being wronged.  Jesus does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Jesus never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.  Jesus.  Loves.  You.  Hear that, okay?  Jesus loves you.  Whatever it is you’ve done – whenever it is that you’ve failed at loving other people – Jesus still loves you.  

And so that’s why we love others, just like this.  We hang in there, and we keep on loving, even when the situation is tough.  Even when other people aren’t acting the way we’d like them to.  Even when we keep getting burned.  We keep our heart open, and our hand out to help.  We keep loving.  Because that’s what Jesus does, and that’s what he asks us to do.  

Now, hear me on this. Keeping no record of wrongs, never giving up, enduring through every circumstance, etc doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to address conflict and try to improve a relationship.  And it certainly doesn’t mean that you have to tolerate abuse or mistreatment.  Nowhere does Paul say, “Love is being a doormat.”  There will, from time to time, possibly be people in your life that you need to no longer interact with, for reasons of safety or sanity, and don’t let anyone tell you that, “if you really loved me...”  No.  

Even Jesus knew when to walk away.  In the gospel lesson for today, Jesus is getting mocked, and harassed, and physically assaulted.  After he stands up in the synagogue basically announcing that he’s the Messiah, in his own hometown, people come after him.  They’re basically saying, “Who the heck are you to say that, you’re just Joseph the carpenter’s son!”  Jesus responds with, well, a good summary is, “Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t believe me…same thing happened to Elijah and Elisha…” And then the Bible says, “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.  They got up, drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.  But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”  

Jesus loved them, but he wasn’t a doormat.  He walked away for the sake of his own safety - but he still loved them, and that’s good news.  Because I think we also, often try to drive Jesus out – out of our town, out of our life.  Who are you, Jesus, to tell me how to live?  Who are you to be God “that way?”  I want God to be like “this” or like “that”, and you’re not doing it that way.  Get out.  I’ll handle it myself.”

Ever said that?  Or thought that?  I have.  There have absolutely been moments in my life when I’ve said, “God, you’re doing it wrong.  This is what needs to happen, so get to it.” 

And the good news, the Gospel, is that even when we’re doing that to Jesus, trying to drive him out because we don’t like the way he seems to be running things, he keeps on loving us.  He keeps on being patient and kind, not envious or boastful or rude.  He doesn’t demand his own way or get irritable or keep record of our wrongs only to beat us over the head with them later.  He doesn’t rejoice over injustice, as though we “had it coming”, but he rejoices when truth wins out, never giving up, never losing faith, always hopeful, and enduring all circumstances.  That is Jesus.  That’s how he loves you, and how he loves me.  That is how he loves every single one of us, and it’s how he asks us to love one another, as the body of Christ.  

Three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love.  And the greatest of these is love.  Praise God that his love never fails.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit…Amen.

Leftover Love

I've been coming to terms, more and more lately, with the idea of how much things change and relationships shift and one day you realize that your world is permanently different than it used to be 5 or 10 years ago, and perhaps different than you ever dreamed it would be. 

At least, it is for me. 

There's not even necessarily a good or bad judgment to this fact, simply an acknowledgement of what is.  There are things that I will never again see, places I will never again go, and friends that I will never again see.  And I've been wondering, and struggling, with how to accept that and let go of it, to love and honor the past as blessings from God in that time and place, and not wallow in the sadness of "change". 

The hardest part, of course, is the relationships.  As my move away from Iowa and my home congregation becomes permanent, how do I let the people go...how do I process the fact that individuals who were so important to me, are people that I will never share a cup of coffee with again?  As I leave seminary, how do I deal with the fact that people who have "made my day", every day, aren't next to me to count powerpoint slides in class or say something incredibly profound or smile at me from across the room?  As I become absorbed in a career, and more and more demands are placed on my time, how do I deal with losing those who re-energized me? 

I stumbled across this poem written by Hrabanus Maurus that has helped.  It has given me words to entrust all the people I love to Christ, to honor them as gifts, and to await the day when I will see them again.  I just love this:

Then live, my strength, anchor of weary ships,
Safe shore and land at last, thou, for my wreck,
My honour, thou, and my abiding rest,
My city safe for a bewildered heart.
That though the plains and mountains and the sea
Between us are, that which no earth can hold
Still follows thee, and love’s own singing follows,
Longing that all things may be well with thee.
Christ who first gave thee for a friend to me,
Christ keep thee well, where’er thou art, for me.
Earth’s self shall go and the swift wheel of heaven
Perish and pass, before our love shall cease.
Do but remember me, as I do thee,
And God, who brought us on this earth together,
Bring us together to his house of heaven.
~ Hrabanus Maurus

I also think part of the struggle for me is that I have no one and nothing to replace the people that I love, who have been part of my daily life.  Wesley Hill, writing for First Things, explores "Celibacy and Friendship 'After 30'", by discussing a New York Times article that explains how difficult it is to find meaningful relationships as a single adult.  He raises a lot of issues (and in the end, admits that he doesn't have it all figured out), but one thing that really struck me was the idea that, "a big part of what we celibate people are seeking isn’t just to be the recipients of sacrificial love but to be able to give it—we want to be able to make soup for someone who’s sick, not just have someone who will make soup for us when we’re sick." 

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.  Facebook is great, usually, and my phone works, as well as my writing hand.  And so I keep in touch (mostly) with the people I care so deeply about.  But they are now "phone friends", the kind that you want to spend three hours talking to, and so you put them on your to-do list until you can find three hours, and somehow, you never do.  They are no longer the friends that you call and say, "I'm headed your way, do you want meet me in an hour?" or "I'm bored, want to go see a movie?" or even "I haven't seen you in a while - let's do lunch on Tuesday."  And that happens.  But while the people I care so deeply about have been relegated to "long-distance friends", the space in my life has not been filled.  "Giving love" to those whom I care about, long-distance, is so hard, and I have no real recipients - or at least, that's how I feel.  The ones I love have not been replaced, they are simply missed. 

Yes, Christ calls us to leave home and family, and not put our hand back to the plow.  But it is also not good that we be alone.  And I just don't know how to balance those two right now.  Someone once said that "grief is just leftover love", which I think is a beautiful way of looking at it.  As I by necessity become more separated from so much that I used to know, I realize that I've got a lot of leftover love to go around...

A Theology of Pedicures

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.²The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper ³  Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.  ⁵   Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.  ⁶ 

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’  ⁷Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’  ⁸Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’  ⁹Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’  ¹⁰Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.  And you are clean, though not all of you.’  ¹¹For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’  

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?  ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am.  ¹⁴So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.  ~ John 13:1-15

Well then.  I've really struggled with these verses for a long time.  Because on the one hand, Jesus is really clear here: Wash one another's feet.  I did it for you, you do it for others.  Hop to it.  And we don't have a whole lot of really specific commands from Christ.  Lots of "love one another" type stuff, but less "pick up a towel and a bowl of water and wash people's feet".  So, I feel like we should definitely take this seriously.

On the other hand, Jesus washing his disciples' feet had huge cultural connotations that I just think are really, really lost on people today.  In the first century, the task of foot-washing fell to either the individual in question, or a household servant/slave.  It was dirty and gross and disgusting (lots of walking around barefoot or in sandals on dusty, unpaved roads), and the whole thing reeked of what amounts to a caste system.  So, it wasn't just that Jesus was doing something sort of gross and personal for his disciples, he, Jesus - God incarnate - was taking on the job normally given to a slave.

Now, in modern (particularly Western) society, washing feet just doesn't make that kind of cultural statement.  If we insisted on washing someone's feet - taking care of their own personal hygiene for them - it would pretty much just be weird - not really culturally shocking or making some kind of grandiose "serve your neighbor" statement.  In this time and place, washing the feet of one's dinner guests would be meaningless at best.  At worst, it might turn others off to Christianity.  (If I become a Christian, do I have to let other people touch my feet all the time?)

Jesus said "do it".  But it's meaningless, and I don't think God tells us to do things just for the sake of doing them - the things we do serve a purpose.  But he did say "do it."  So now what?

Some traditions or congregations have adopted practices of doing "foot-washing displays" on Maundy Thursday.  Everyone can come up and have their feet washed in the Communion line, the same way we do ashes on Ash Wednesday.  Some recognize that people have personal space issues and so they set up "hand-washing stations" instead.  Some just have a few people (any number from a small family to 12, representing the disciples) go sit up at the chancel and have their feet washed while everybody else watches. To be perfectly frank, I find these to be worse than not doing it at all.  It reminds me of kids being ultra-good the week before Christmas in hopes that Santa will think they've been doing it all along.  No part of the Church views foot-washing as a "sacrament".  It strikes me that, if we're supposed to be doing it, we're supposed to be doing it for real, not just in an awkward showy way on Maundy Thursday. 

But how?  What are gross things we ask "the servants" to do, nowadays?  Laundry? Cleaning the bathroom?  Doing dishes?  Could we do them for one another?  Would it speak to those we love the same way Jesus' service spoke to his disciples?

Cue the Sister's Wedding. 

I had never had a pedicure until last month.  For a variety of reasons ranging from "I hate my weird, awkward feet" to "I'm cheap" to "this is so self-indulgent and there are children starving in Africa", I'd just never really gotten around to it.  Plus, I feel like it's one of those things that, after a certain point, everyone assumes you've done, and then when you go and you've never done it before, it's just weird and everyone wonders what's wrong with you.  But my sister wanted me and my mom to go with her and get our nails done for her wedding.  Since she asked me to do it (fine, I'll put aside my personal issues) and she was paying (yup), I did it.  Why not, right?

First off, my sis called and got them to do my pedicure for 50% off since, you know, there's only half to do. The "foot" I have on my prosthesis is basically painted with French tips and looks gorgeous, so there was no need to touch it. Still, I was worried it was going to be awkward.  But the lady doing it was totally chill about the whole thing.  She worked hard to make both feet match, and I didn't feel wierd at all.

As she started in on my foot (after it had soaked for a while, she hit it with a scrubby and file and I don't-know-what-all), I thought to myself, "I would never want to do this, especially for hundreds of random strangers all day long."  My mom must have had the same thought, because she asked: "What made you want to have a job like this?  It's so gross."  The woman doing my foot responded, "85-90% of women hate their feet.  I like this because it's something I can do to make them like their body a little more." 

Wow. 

Wow.  We're made in the image of God (and we can debate all day long about what part of  us particularly is the "image" - that's not the point here).  In a recent magazine article I read, 97% of women "say something mean to their body at least once a day".  We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we hate ourselves - our hips, our waist, our hair, our feet, our skin.  But God made us, and God loves us.  If we hate our bodies, aren't we hating what God made?  Maybe this pedicure lady has it right - maybe taking on weird, gross tasks to help people love themselves a little more is really a worthwhile endeavor.  So many of us need it. 

In this day and age, maybe "washing one another's feet" is less about providing cleanliness and hospitality, and more about showing love and approval and contentedness.  Maybe "love your neighbor as yourself" can be "love your neighbor so that she can love herself."  Maybe - at least for some people - something as simple as a pedicure is less about self-indulgence and more about learning to love ourselves in a healthy way, learning to see ourselves as God sees us. 

Thoughts?

And if so, what are some ways that we can "wash one another's feet" if we're not professional pedicurists and it's not Maundy Thursday?

Update

So graduation turned out to be pretty okay.  I was sitting (mostly) by friends, and it turns out that we're all friends on a day like Graduation Day, so, yeah...

The service was...eh...mostly good.  Between Baccalaureate and Graduation, they managed to put together some decent worship.  My fam was around, so I had dinner with them afterward, and then got up the next morning to open at work. 

Excellent. 

Now I've just got a couple days left until I head home for my sister's wedding.  Eh.  I feel like every support system I have is systematically being stripped away.  In a way I suppose this is good, because it's forcing me to rely on God in ways that I don't know that I've had to before.  People who were my close friends are just sort of...not...anymore.  The friends I have that I'm still close to are so far away, and it sucks not having them around to be with.  By the time I get back from the wedding, another of my friends here on campus will have left to start her new job.  I'm really happy for her - I'm just going to miss her.

And I think that's part of my struggle with going home for this wedding.  I say "going home" because that's where my parents are, but really, Kansas isn't home for me.  I lived there the last three years of high school.  I haven't been there longer than 2 or 3 weeks since I was a college sophomore.  The people that I'm friends with from high school no longer live there, and the high school classmates that still live there I'm no longer friends with.  I'm headed to my parents' house where they are basically the only people I know or care about, to be drowned in the fact that everyone else but me has the one thing I really want.  

I suppose that's covetous or jealous on my part, and I wish it wasn't.  Because I'm trying really hard not to be jealous or bitter, it just hurts so much.  It's like being the last puppy at the pound, or kid at the orphanage.  Everyone else gets picked except you, and not only do you know it's happening, you're actually having to watch it, and what you want more than anything is someone to pick you.  Should I be joyful and content nevertheless?  Probably - I have the "one thing needful", after all.  But what do you do when your heart is so broken it can't break anymore?  How do you be joyful and content then?

I was deep into Psalm 51 last night, because I just have a bad attitude and a bad heart about so many things right now.  Sin, death, and the power of the devil are just so oppressive.  So often when we talk about freeing the victims of oppression, we mean the ones who are being sinned against by other people.  But what we often don't talk about is that those who are doing the sinning - to be trapped in jealousy and covetousness is every bit as oppressive - it's just that you're being oppressed by the devil himself, rather than somebody else.  And that's almost worse.  Maybe. 

It's days like this that I wish (modern) Lutherans hadn't ditched the tradition of private confession and absolution.