Hosanna! Hosanna! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!

Hosanna!  Hosanna! 

Crucify him!  Crucify him!

Palm Sunday always makes me wonder:                                                   

How the crowds could be shouting, 

‘Hosanna!  Hosanna!’ one minute,

and, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’  five days later?  

How is it that a politician who attends mass every day (Hosanna!)                                        

gets caught embezzling from the city coffers? (Crucify him!) 

How is it that parents present a baby to be baptized one month (Hosanna!)

and drive home drunk the next? (Crucify him!)

This week invites us to examine our consciences. 

As Holy Week approaches, we walk with Jesus as he heads toward Calvary.

How many nails have we pounded into the cross?

Every time we neglected to respect the dignity of every human being.

Every time we have closed our eyes to injustice.

Every time we have borne false witness.

Every time. Another nail.

 Crucify him! 

One Grain. One Seed.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,

 it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.      John 12: 24

 One grain of wheat. One seed.

This is an easy analogy for disciples in an agrarian age, but less so for those of us who forage for our food on gleaming supermarket shelves. Bet even if you failed botany, you know this: that one sunflower seed will produce one sunflower plant containing hundreds of seeds and one pumpkin seed will produce one pumpkin containing hundreds more pumpkin seeds. A seed must be buried (die) in order to bear fruit. 

So it is with us. In this analogy, Jesus us speaking not only about his own upcoming death and resurrection, he is speaking directly to you and to me,  In it, our Lord urges us to die to our own self-interests and to live into God intends for us to become. 

Dying and birthing are equally holy endeavors. In dying, Jesus gave himself up for us, and gave us new life. In dying to self, we choose to say "yes" to a new way of being.  Our first steps may be trepid, cautious, and yet with each tremulous step, GOd allows us to glimpse the world as it could be.  Each step deepens out rootedness in a world in dire need of sustenance and nourishment.  Each step draws us more deeply into the heart of Christ. 

This week, as we continue our journey int he wilderness, let us encourage one another to take yet another step as we journey toward wholeness and holiness. 

Traveling Time

The Text:

The Hebrews 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 Hebrew Wilderness                         by Liz Meade c. 2011

The Whispering:

We can be so fickle sometimes. In this passage, the Hebrews complain about the conditions during their wilderness wanderings. They had been enslaved by Pharoah for generations, cruelly oppressed, but God heard their cries and freed them. Yahweh promised them a land flowing with milk and honey; promised them freedom, hope and new life. God was escorting them to the Promised Land.

Desert time is time deliberately carved out for us to realize and to remember our utter dependence on God. In desert times we come to reclaim our identities as children of the Living God. In their desert times, however, the Hebrews murmured, complained, and even worshiped a golden calf. "We detest this miserable food."
And yet, through it all, God accompanied them.

The Church of the Holy Nativity now finds itself in its wilderness time,, and through it all, God will accompany us. It is not a maintenance time; it is a traveling time. Let us walk with courage as we faithfully seek God in the wilderness, and discover what God has in store for us in this fragile mystery that is Interim Time. God will be with us through the opacity of it all.

God's Gifts to A Freed People

The Text: 

Then the Lord God spoke these words: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and up out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods but me.                                                                                                                                                  Exodus 20:1

Israel, 2012

The Whispering: 

Greetings from sunny Florida where I am at a working conference with other Interim ministers. My take-away is that CHN is a very healthy place!

You may or may not agree with the Ten Commandments taking up space on the walls of  public buildings, but there they are. And while we  may have  memorized all of them and think they are a good idea (or not), I wonder if we ever really consider this first verse.

These are words of a people freed!!  

The  Commandments are God's gift to a newly liberated people!

They could have been called, "Ways to Live a Life."

Two questions to ponder this week:

     1.  What and where are your "Egypts?"

     2.  How has God liberated you??