"But the Lord Helped Me"

Palm Sunday, the Sixth Sunday in Lent, is a cry for help.

In churches around the world, the words of Psalm 118 will be heard in worship services this week. One word in particular will predominate - "Hosanna." It comes from Psalm 118:25, a word that comes to the English language through a few other languages from its likely place of origin, two Hebrew words that in combination comprise a powerful request of the Lord: "Please, save us now!"

For expediency's sake, many worship services will abbreviate the Psalm, including exclusively the verses prescribed in the lectionary, verses 1-2 and 19-29. When we do so, we skip over some very important ideas, verses that actually inform the subsequent cry for salvation, verses like 10-14:

All nations surrounded me;

    in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;

    in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

They surrounded me like bees;

    they blazed like a fire of thorns;

    in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,

    but the Lord helped me.

The Lord is my strength and my might;

    he has become my salvation.

Listen to the pain the poem describes. The Psalmist has felt such intense, relentless trauma, like bees buzzing in an angry swarm. They describe their experience not just as trying to walk through a patch of thorn bushes, but a patch of thorn bushes that are also on fire! They have been pushed hard, pushed to the point of falling. 

And at the same time, listen to the strength, the resolve, the power of the poem here. "I cut them off! ... I cut them off! ... I cut them off!" A repeated refrain, a statement that celebrates an act of overcoming, made with a slashing gesture through clenched teeth.

And notice, it is not the Psalmist whose power was at work here. No, it was the Lord's. God is the one doing the saving, then, now, and always. The adversity was cut off "in the name of the Lord." The Psalmist does not celebrate their own strength, but rather that "the Lord is my strength." 

I am not strong, says the poet, but God is. And God's strength is sufficient to get through what needs getting through. Even if it is a forest full of burning thorn bushes. 

And of course eventually, Psalm 118 gets us to the "Hosanna" and the "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord" and the "Bind the festal procession with branches" stuff. And it is so good to celebrate this sacred day - the ushers handing out leaves purchased from a worship supply store, you self-consciously waving the leaves above your head during the opening song while the kids self-consciously parade around the room, then not quite knowing what to do with it for the rest of the service, (or if you are a kid smacking your sibling with it when your grown-up isn't looking), picking it up again for the closing hymn and waving it again but a bit less energetically, taking it home with you and putting it on the kitchen counter until it gets dry and brittle and then throwing it away. You know, the Palm Sunday liturgy. It's all good.

But maybe this year, when you receive that store-bought palm, maybe you can recall a time when life felt like being surrounded by a swarm of angry, buzzing bees. Maybe the slender points of the leaflets will call to mind a season when your life required you to walk through a burning hedge of thorn bushes. Maybe for you this year that "Hosanna" can mean something deep, something you feel at the very core of your being. 

Maybe this year Palm Sunday will remind you that when you need help (and yes you do need help - all of us do), God will help you. 

I am not strong, but God is. "With the Lord on my side I do not fear. What can mortals do to me?" (v. 6) And so now I give thanks, for the Lord is good. God's steadfast love endures forever.

"They Shall All Know Me"

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." - Indira Gandhi

The fifth Sunday in Lent invites us to open up to what God has to give us, if we will allow ourselves to do so. 

...this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

 I love the symbol of the raised, clenched fist. It is a symbol of protest, of resistance. A raised fist says, "I shall not be moved." There are times to raise our fists in the face of evil, injustice, and oppression, in whatever forms they present themselves.

But there are other times we clench fists. We do so to fight, to punish, to protect ourselves from our enemies and close ourselves off. We clench fists and flex to warn, to show that we intend to do harm. Fists clenched in anger and animosity are very different from fists raised in resistance.

It is difficult to receive an offered gift with clenched fists. Impossible to shake hands. Clumsy to caress a cheek. Bizarre to blow a kiss. 

The prophet Jeremiah wants us to know that God has something to give us, a new covenant, an unmediated connection, a true relationship. And apparently, God intends to just write it on our hearts, so that there will truly be no "haves" and "have-nots" in God's family. Every single one of us is getting this gift, given freely and directly from God.

Are we ready to receive it? Are we open to it? Are our hands, hearts, minds, voices ... are we uncovered and emptied out, laid bare and vulnerable enough to actually receive what God is offering us?

At our best, the church is a community in which it is safe to unclench our fists, to receive one another, to embrace our siblings without fear of judgment or betrayal. We don't always attain that way of being, of course. But we're working on it. Some would even call it "Reign of God" work, which is (as followers of Jesus know) already among us.

God has something to give us. All of us. ALL of us. (Did I say "all" of us?") Grace isn't something that God gave you and now it is up to you to give it to everyone else. "They shall all know me!" God has given everyone this amazing gift, and all you have to do is realize that, recognize it, and celebrate it. 

My prayer for you on this Fifth Sunday in Lent is that you would open yourself up to God, and allow yourself to receive the life-changing gift God is giving you. And then, to understand the implications of this profound truth - God is doing the very same thing for each and every person you encounter.

"Look at the serpent of bronze and live"

 The fourth Sunday in Lent is a reminder that God is with us.

 The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” (Numbers 21:5)

The complaint came to Moses as the people were making their way through the wilderness, having been liberated from slavery in Egypt but having not yet arrived in the Promised Land. There were some mixed feelings among the people, naturally. I'm sure there was a lot of joy for being free, and at the same time a lot of anxiety and fear; they knew neither where they were going, how long the journey would take, nor what to expect when they got there.

And so, they complain. Naturally.

Many have noted the contradiction: the people complain both that there is no food and that the food tastes terrible. This, of course, is more than just a fun detail of the story. The contradiction means that the complaint wasn't really about food. Theirs was a fear they could not articulate, for it was too big, too complicated, too difficult to name. And so, they complained about the food.

What happened next is so strange, it is almost comical. The Bible says that the Lord sent poisonous snakes that bit the people, killing many of them. And though there is nothing in the text that explicitly indicates a causal connection, we cannot help but read the killer snakes as a consequence of the people's complaining.

In response to the snake predicament, God has Moses make a snake out of bronze and attach it to a pole. The idea is that people look at the snake on the pole and they won't die from the snake bite. "Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it upon a pole, and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live." 

If we are being honest, this is completely hilarious and bizarre to think about. It offends our 21st century scientifically informed perspectives. Which is, of course, precisely the point. It is a mistake to try to resolve that offense, to ease that tension. There is something to learn there; it is the space into which the Holy Spirit speaks.

That snake-on-a-pole makes another appearance in the Hebrew Bible, when King Hezekiah was cleaning up the temple:

He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.(2 Kings 18:4)

It seems that the bronze snake had become more than a reminder of God's presence. It had itself become the object of worship. The people had forgotten the iconic, sacramental identity of the bronze snake. They had forgotten what the bronze snake pointed to. "Nehushtan" just means "a thing made out of brass." 

Rev. Dr. Katie Nix says that "the sin of this story is the belief that the people knew what they needed better than God did." It is always helpful to remember that God is God, and that we are not. And this is especially true during wilderness times.

In times of high anxiety and fear, when the future is uncertain, we rely on tangible reminders of God's presence. We lean into means of grace - prayer, worship, an image to look at or an object to hold, those kinds of things - as a palpable touchpoint that functions sacramentally, reminding us of God's active presence within, among, and around us.

And these objects or actions are so very helpful, but they are just reminders. The reality to which they point is much, much bigger. It is easy to slip into thinking that God isn't present when things are unfamiliar. When we are worshiping in a different sanctuary, or when we are grieving the loss of one dear to us, or when the very pattern of human interaction seems so completely different than it was a decade ago. 

It is in times like those that we cling to the bronze snake up on the pole and forget why Moses made it in the first place. So remember, this Lent, that God is with you always, everywhere, at all times. We may be afraid, anxious, uncertain, and yet the things around us are but nehushtan, and that God is present with us no matter where we are, no matter when it is, and no matter what. 

"I Am the Lord Your God"

The third Sunday in Lent invites us to remember the story.

Exodus 20 is one of the two places in the Bible where we read what are commonly known as "The Ten Commandments," and it is the appointed lectionary text for this week.

In the past I have been asked if I support the posting of "The Ten Commandments" in public places. My answer has always been the same. Unequivocally no. But maybe not for the reason you think.

To be sure, posting "The Ten Commandments" in public places is problematic because the "public" who occupy those places do not all ascribe to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that should be reason enough. But for me there is another compelling reason to avoid the practice.

Posting "The Ten Commandments" in public places separates them from the story. It relegates them to a mere list of things not to do, rather than a chapter in the story of God's love for God's people in the world.

Writing on Exodus 20, Terrence Fretheim points out that "This covenant is a specific covenant within the already existing covenant with Abraham." The story had already begun, and was entering a new chapter. The beginning of Exodus 20, before the "commandments" themselves, is as important as the rest, and maybe more so:

"Then God spoke all these words, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery..."

The people are already "God's people" by the time they get to Mount Sinai. The story has already begun. God has already been at work to save the people, to redeem them from slavery in Egypt. In that sense, these "commandments" are not given as a way to earn God's favor. It isn't: "Do these things and God will love you." Rather it is: "God loves you so much and in response you should do these things."

Too often, we approach the commandments of God as if they are video game maneuvers. If we jump up on these platforms in this particular sequence and collect up these specific coins, we will be rewarded by advancement to the next level. But the love of God doesn't work like that. 

We are already in relationship with God. God created us. God has chosen us. God has set us free. And God is here, in our midst. 

That is our story, the story of our relationship with the Lord. But not only ours. It had already begun by the time we show up. And the story will continue long after we are gone. May we remember the story, and live in gratitude for our small part of it.