This past week, I have been re-reading a favorite historical fiction novel called The Expected One. Similar to Dan Brown's approach with The DaVinci Code, Kathleen McGowan weaves together pieces of histories, stories, and images to create a compelling account of Mary Magdalene, her life in the teachings of The Way, and the aftermath of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.  The story, in may circles, is considered heretical, and the results of that heresy are played out in the modern story line of the book.  I am not a biblical scholar, so I'll skip over any thoughts I might have about which historical pieces are supported and which are creatively manipulated by the author, but I will share my experience reading it for the first time.

I was travelling on business when I was pregnant with Andrew and had two long cross-country flights.  After the first, I knew I would need something better than television and magazines to occupy time during my evenings in the hotel and on the flight home.  I picked up the book on my first evening, read about three quarters of it during my stay, and - on the third day - took the return flight home.  It was there, in a single front-row seat, adjascent to the flight attendant's station, that I found myself weeping overtly at the foot of the cross.  McGowans description of scene was vivid, and her care in expressing Mary's overwhelming emotions carried me directly into the moment. The roar of the engines and the scraping metal sounds of the wobbling  beverage cart drowned out the sound of my sobs, Mary's sobs, as Jesus died.  Had they not, I'm sure the passangers behind me would have thought that the pregnant lady in the front was about to come unglued.  The stewardess had her suspiscions and eyed me closely.

I write today, on Good Friday, having calculated that I have one hundred and one pages to finish reading after I sing the Agnus Dei at service tonight.  I know what's coming.  But I will still read into the night. And I will weep.  I will follow Mary's example, because I love Him. And because God reveals himself to those who love Him, as he did to Mary that first Easter morning.

May your Easter refelctions be blessed by these thoughts.

                                                                                                  - Blessings, Amy

The angels watched and waited, and as the Passover began in his thirty-third year, God was praised as a liberator, while the one who frees was taken into custody, swiftly tried, driven like a beast to the place of a skull, and nailed to a tree. And the heavens wept.
                                             - "Bo" Crowe

READING:
Jesus, seeing that everything had been completed so that the Scripture record might also be complete, then said, “I’m thirsty.” A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth. After he took the wine, Jesus said, “It’s done . . . complete.”
                                              - from John 19


REFLECTION:
In the beginning – or even before the beginning if that makes sense – there was God.  That’s it; God.  There were no stars to adorn the night sky… indeed, there was no sky to be adorned.  There was no sun to rise above the world’s horizon signaling a glorious, new day, and no world to greet this divine herald.  But that was okay, because God was perfectly content, complete, and whole.  God’s heart, you see, burned with a Light that warmed and illumined from the inside out, and God’s Spirit swelled with Joy. 

And that’s where it all began, with God’s Joy; because it eventually - and inevitably - overflowed its source.  Some say that God breathed Spirit into the void; others that God spoke into that void.  But if we had been there we would know that God laughed; God’s Spirit over­flowed with a rich, divine laughter that left life in its path.  God’s laughter echoed through the void and a universe sprang forth, a universe full of songbirds and sailors, mountains and mystics, daylight and darkness, rivers and raccoons, black holes and maypoles, damsels and their heroes, thunder and wonder, and all was marked by joy!

God gazed on this marvelous creation and laughed again… woops! More life.  God couldn’t help it – God can’t help it – for God to be is to create; to laugh joyfully again and again into any void that appears, filling it with life.  God gazed on this marvelous creation and was strangely attracted to one group of creatures that seemed very much like God; made in God’s image, per­haps.  So God befriended these creatures - women, men, and children alike – and even allowed them to stand in for God, charging them to care for the rest of the creation.

If all this sounds too good to be true, it was; for God’s chosen creatures, like God, were free, and in freedom chose to abandon God.  Foolish as it may seem, humankind turned from the light to walk in darkness; women, men, and children covered their ears to block the sound of di­vine laughter, the very laughter that alone could fulfill their lives and fill them with joy.

Was God angered by this choice?  No.  Was God tempted to end it all right there and show them just who was boss?  …Well, maybe for a moment; but when all is said and done God is God, and God’s heart was broken.  All of the creation, you see, including those special creatures, represents God’s own family; all of the creation is made from the very stuff of God.  So God wept at the sight of all the carnage called forth by humankind from the underbelly of creation: estrangement, exile, greed, anger, hatred, violence… was there no end to this malady, no end to this empty parody of life?

It seemed that there was no end… that there could be no end, unless God ended it.  So God watched and God wept.  For eons it seemed, God watched and wept; but through it all con­tinued to love these creatures, and strove within for a way to regain their trust, a way to demon­strate clearly that Divine Love knows no limits, and will settle for nothing less than fullness of life for each one of them.  Finally, in a flash of insight God exclaimed, I will become as my creatures; I will share their fate, regain their trust, and above all demonstrate that my love is theirs now and for always.

A novel idea, this.  A novel and, perhaps, dangerous idea; for God to become human, sharing its risks, its frailties!  So God called together heaven’s brain trust – rank upon rank of angels - and ran the plan by them.  An excellent plan, so far as it goes, one angel remarked.  But it’s too dangerous; it has no safeguards.  What if something goes wrong?  What if you are re­jected, or worse assaulted by these ungrateful creatures?  No, we angels cannot recommend that you follow through with this plan.

But God thought otherwise, and as if to avoid a change of heart, swiftly left the assembly, shedding divine robes in haste; rich, blue robes whose stars – all save one - were strewn helter-skelter on the floor.  Before the angels could respond, however, before they could block the door and reason with God to stop this foolishness, the stars burned holes in the floor, and the angels, peering through in curiosity, looked down on a pasture shrouded with darkness and scattered here and there with sheep, and on a small band of shepherds warming themselves by a fire.  Sensing their fear the angels spoke gently to the shepherds.  Don’t be afraid, one began, we mean you no harm.  In fact, another chimed in, we bring good news, joyful news; for this very night a savior is born for you, your - oh, what’s their word; oh yes - your Messiah.  Turning in fear to flee this dreadful apparition, the shepherds froze in their tracks at the sight of one last star shin­ing in the night sky illuminating their village; and then they heard, drifting on the night wind from somewhere in the village, the sound of a newborn baby… laughing.

The angels watched anxiously as this vulnerable infant grew to be a man; for some thirty-three years they waited; watching with baited breath the life of– oh, for God’s sake!  A Galilean peasant! Jesus of Nazareth. How could such a bumpkin command a hearing, how could this peasant Jesus convince anyone of the profundity of God’s love? So they waited and they watched, with little hope that the light of God become human would long shine. And their despair deepened.

The angels watched and waited, and as the Passover began in his thirty-third year, God was praised as a liberator, while the one who frees was taken into custody, swiftly tried, driven like a beast to the place of a skull, and nailed to a tree. And the heavens wept.

Unable to contain their grief, rank upon rank of angels descended through the clouds to hover above the cross, their tears washing the blood from the limp, lifeless body of Jesus.  The light has gone out, one angel said.  God gave everything there is to give, but nothing could withstand such brutality… darkness has overcome the Light.  So the angels wept - lost in darkness - the day God died.

I rise to taste the dawn, and find that love alone will shine today.                                                                      
              - Ken Wilber






READING:
This is how much God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son.  And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.  God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.  He came to help, to put the world right again.  Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it.  And why?  Because that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

This is the crisis that we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness.  They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God.  Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure.  But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.
                                      - John 3.16-21 (The Message)


REFLECTION:
We of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) …whoa Nellie! This title requires some explanation. It would be easy to read this title as a claim to be the only true disciples, but that would be a mistake. We firmly believe that we are not the only Christians, but Christians only, serving humbly beside Christians of any other stripe or color.

Anyway, we Disciples recently lost a saint – a truly awesome man! – Fred Craddock, who both inspired and humbled us all. He inspired us with some of the best preaching around; and he humbled us with his commitment to serve “The least of these” in practical, hands-on ways. How he managed to write as prolifically as he did and still find time to serve others remains a mystery God alone can penetrate.

Dr. Craddock begins his commentary on John 3.16 with the caution that it is easy to trivialize this verse. Boy! He could say that again. Most of us know this verse in some form, and most of us trivialize it by reading our meanings into the text. We typically think of God as loving… unless you cross him (sic); in which case God can be a harsh judge. And we trivialize it by thinking of the salvation of the Christ as a pie-in-the-sky reward in the distant future for confessing that we believe this statement about Jesus.

We do this, however, at the expense of its context in John’s theology, losing any chance of recognizing the profundity, subtlety, and radically challenging content of this verse. We need to step back and tease out John’s thought on the nature of the God who loves the world, and what he means by salvation.

I invite you to try this in preparation for Sunday’s worship. Reflect on your notion of the God who loves. Is that all God does? What is this God like? And what is this love John speaks about? Is it sentimental and weak, or profound and powerful? And try to summarize what you think of as salvation. Then on Sunday we will examine this verse, and the passage in which it is nestled, with a view to discard any trivializing tendencies, and catch a glimpse of something both inspiring and challenging that can be embraced by all, including those who think long, hard, and reasonably about spiritual things… and expect preacher types to do the same. Join us, won’t you? 

The table fellowship of Christians implies obligation. It is our daily bread that we eat, not my own. We share our bread. Thus we are firmly bound to one another not only in the Spirit but in our whole physical being. The one bread that is given to our fellowship links us together in a firm covenant. Now none dares to go hungry as long as another has bread, and anyone who breaks this fellowship of the physical life also breaks the fellowship of the Spirit.
                                                              — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

READING:
When they finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Simon replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Take care of my sheep.” He asked a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was sad that Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” He replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
                                                              - John 21.15-17 (CEB)

REFLECTION:
A friend recently shared with me that while most of us claim to harbor God's love in our hearts, that love is worthless unless we give it expression. Unless, that is to say, it flows through our lives into the lives of others. You know, into the lives of those pesky neighbors Jesus was always on about! My friend’s sentiment rang true to the life and message of Jesus, which I found mystifying, since my friend is Muslim. This twist in the conversation brought the words of Thomas Aquinas to mind, "One may never have heard the sacred word “Christ,” but be closer to God than a priest or nun." But that is not my point, so I will move on.

If we love God we will reach out to our neighbor to offer nurture and nourishment; or, to use the language of the New Testament, we will feed God's sheep. Fair enough; but what does that mean? What do we have to offer? Peter must have been haunted by that question as time and again Jesus challenged him to show his love for the risen Lord by feeding his sheep. What do we have to offer our neighbors? It is the same for us in our day as it was for Peter back in the day: address their needs; share from our bounty; offer personal, material, and spiritual support.

I must admit, that challenge makes me nervous, especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner. You see, I want to have that choice drumstick all to myself at the family feast, just as my cousin Richard used to manage (every year! Thanksgiving and Christmas.) I want to sit down at the thanksgiving table, thank God for the many blessings in my life, then keep them all for myself (especially that choice piece of turkey!) But - no - I'm supposed to share, just as Peter was to share. And If that’s not enough, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offered his two cents on the issue. “It is our daily bread that we eat,” he said, “not my own. We share our bread.“ I’ll have to admit, this is not a bad reminder as we approach the season of gratitude.

So, how do we express our love for God; how do we offer thanks for our many blessings? By feeding God's sheep, as Peter learned. Ann Weems seems to have learned this lesson, and speaks of it in a poem entitled Feeding Sheep. Perhaps if we interlace her words with Peter' story we will get a clear sense of what we should do next week:

When they finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said, “Feed my lambs.” There were no conditions… Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Simon replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Take care of my sheep.” He said, “Take care of my sheep… feed my sheep.” There were no conditions… Least of all, feed my sheep if they deserve it. Feed my sheep if you feel like it. Feed my sheep if you have any leftovers. He asked a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was sad that Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” He replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” No conditions… just, “Feed my sheep.” Could it be that God’s Kingdom will come when each lamb is fed? We who have agreed to keep covenant are called… to feed sheep.

No conditions, just feed my sheep. No conditions, but I still have one question; may I please have the drumstick?

We continue this week with a sermon series entitled, "God's Cameo's: Finding the Spiritual in Reel Life" and we will discuss a movie which is currently running in theaters now, The Fault in Our Stars. 

I will attempt to give you a quick synopsis of the movie (without having to give a spoiler alert in case you have not seen it yet) which is based on the book of the same title by John Green. The central characters are two teenagers, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, who are dealing with cancer. They struggle with the deep questions of life and even though their lives are filled with uncertainties, they find joy in the world around them. While this movie will cause even the strongest person to cry, it is filled with an underlying love that is so deep that you will leave the theater with a heart full of hope.

Our text this week comes from John 15:1-8:

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper. He removes any of my branches that don’t produce fruit, and he trims any branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit. You are already trimmed because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine. Likewise, you can’t produce fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything. If you don’t remain in me, you will be like a branch that is thrown out and dries up. Those branches are gathered up, thrown into a fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified when you produce much fruit and in this way prove that you are my disciples."

This text brings such imagery. A vine can take on many forms. It can be long and sinewy making it difficult to clear. It can be luscious and thick creating a beautiful covering on a fence. It can be dying in places and needing to be trimmed. Whatever the vine looks like, Jesus tells us in this text from the book of John that he is the central vine and we have been created as branches reaching out from this central vine. The vine provides the strength for the branches and gives the nutrients that sustain them. The vine does not exist without the branches reaching out.  What does this vine provide for us to keep us moving forward and reaching outward? Hope? Love? Strength? Compassion? I think our list could be exhaustive.

The Fault in Our Stars has so many teaching opportunities that we could focus on but Sunday morning we will narrow our focus on just a couple. Love and hope. Hazel Grace and Augustus show us that even through suffering, they continue to reach out through basic human relationships. They show us that even through suffering, love and hope remain. 

If you have not seen the movie you may watch the trailer here: