Reason Breeds Insanity

Because I probably should live in the desert.

Check out this article on monasticism.

I am also practicing my mad blogging skills.
That was for you, Sarah. 😉

I am reading a book called This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley. He writes, appropriately for Lent: “When we read the stories in Acts of the first disciples, words like suffering, persecution, and martyrdom quickly come to mind. We shouldn’t be surprised. Their stories echo many of the same elements of their leader’s story, and Jesus warned that His followers could expect exclusion, rejection, and insult on His account. My story isn’t like that though. Is yours?” It isn’t that I think a Christian people should walk around with their chins on their chests, depressed all the time, but I think there is something to be said for giving up comfort for a Kingdom that is so important people have given everything for it. We think that giving up chocolate is revolutionary when so many have given up lives, both figuratively and literally.

McKinley goes on to write: “the apostles suffering was different. Stephen was stoned to death for preaching. Peter and John were jailed for healing people. The key distinctive is that these Christ followers chose to risk suffering and death rather than live in safety.” It makes our concern for the Ten Commandments Plaques pale in comparison. However, I have to hand it to the Mosaic Fanatics that while I don’t agree with them, at least they are fired up! There is something to be said for intentionality. I am in the same boat as the average Christian: I have a pretty comfortable lackadaisical faith. I haven’t put my life on the line for the Kingdom. I haven’t done anything that might even cause me a modicum of discomfort. McKinley asks: “What is the role of suffering as an intentional lifestyle in spreading the gospel of the Kingdom?”

Isaiah 55:10-11
“[My word] will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” I like to think this passage has a lot to do with Jesus being the Word, the ways in which he emptied himself on the cross, and how that emptying effected humanity by not returning void to God. I think Jesus achieved his purpose. The Word did not return empty but accomplished God’s desire—to turn [Their] people back to the spirit of the law. Even going further, Jesus is like the precipitation—through Him, the world has been fortified, fed, and nourished. All creation blooms through his presence.

Matthew 6:7-15
I am reminded of the Sacred Way by Tony Jones and the Jesus prayer: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison imas. Praying the Lord’s prayer along with this refrain of ancient meditation changes me: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy on me. I am reminded through Jesus’ words that I am but one of many seeking his Kingdom on earth. I am lifting my prayer beside the prayers of other believers. This passage also forces me to think again about the communal nature of redemption. Forgive us our debts. As we forgive, forgive us. The grace we give is the grace we receive. The sins of others that we forget are the ones that are forgotten of ours. I guess I don’t mean forget, but the sins of others that we shoulder and accept the shame for are the same ones that Jesus accepts the shame for of ours. We are called to forgive. By being gracious are we, too, watering the earth so it can bloom? Is that part of the word not returning empty?

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Leviticus is one of my favorite books. Really. This is not sarcasm. So many rules, so little time. So many rules, so twisted by humans. I love these verses because they remind me that the whole point of all of these rules, all of these regulations is to show us how to “be holy because, I the Lord your God, am holy.” I think everyone should make it a point to read Leviticus over and over until we can read past the letter of the words until the spirit of the words becomes intrinsic. Once we become intrinsic we can live them without having to rely on exploiting them.

Matthew 25: 31-46
Part of being holy is following verses 35-36. I think that is what all of the rules in Leviticus are about–showing us how to do this holiness thing while becoming closer to God. I think what interested me the most about re-reading this passage along with Leviticus is that I have recently been reading most Scripture through a social justice lens. Reading this story through the verse in Leviticus that says: “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favortism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly,” makes me conscious of my own folly. I frequently give partiality to the poor. Perhaps it is perceived as pity not compassion when I favor the poor. Showing this type of grace to all people, consistently, is the trick. Without perverting justice.

We talked at church today about temptation, which has been the focus of the readings so far. One quote that Dave used in the message sticks out in my mind: “The honor of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life.”–Oswald Chambers My question for myself today is: do I honor Jesus Christ with my bodily life?

I went out last night with my friends from SBUX. Sort of a small goodbye. We went to the Heorot and had cheap pizza and good beer, then Steph and I went to the Vagina Monologues (sorry Sarah, but I had already wasted the evening…I couldn’t bear to use up Sunday afternoon as well!). I am always amazed at how the monologues about abused women affect me. The actors did a couple of new ones this year that Ensler wrote in repsonse to the war in Iraq and the acid burnings of women in India and Pakistan. They were so moving. Ensler words move me, not because they are her words, but because she is writing them on behalf of women who still in 2007 have no voice. How in 2007 can women still be silenced? How can it shock people to learn how women are treated in some cultures? The largest hush came over the crowd when the statistics for rape were recited. I think most peopel were shocked at how many women are raped in the US each year. Violence against women is something we don’t discuss enough and something we definitely don’t do enough about.

I have to say my three favorite monologues are funny ones, though. The Angry Vagina, The Little Coochie Snorcher that Could, and The Woman Who Loves to Make Vagina’s Happy are all hysterically (literally) funny and poignant. Of course they are coarse and border on being crass, but what is a little lowbrow humor between friends? Besides, if you can’t laugh at the thought of a vagina being angry at a dry wad of cotton (a tampon), what can you laugh at?

Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7
Were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge really right next to each other in the middle of the garden? Because that would suck to have to walk right past the forbidden one to get to the one you could have. I think it would be sort of like being a child and being forced to walk past the candybars on the way out of the grocery store. Also, every time I read this passage it bugs the crap out of me that it says she gave some to her husband WHO WAS WITH HER! Why do women get the bad rap? If Adam was there, why didn’t he say stop, Eve, don’t eat it, Eve, I’m not eating it, Eve, or something!

Romans 5:12-19
Hmmm… Paul, so many words, to say so little. Adam sinned and was disobedient, so people were condemned. Jesus didn’t sin and was obedient, so people were justified. At least Paul puts some blame on Adam?!

Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus was tempted but didn’t give in. Is that the connection? That and he was hungry, too.

Obviously, I am not feeling very intelligent today. I didn’t get much sleep.

Isaiah 58: 1-10
I have to admit that when I first started reading this passage of Scripture, I thought of those wonderfully compassionate and ever so loving people who parade around the streets carrying placards that say, “Turn or Burn” or “One Way, God’s Way, My Way.” I also thought of Fred Phelps and his incestuous tribe who caravan around the country proudly clutching signs that say, “God Hates Fags.” I also thought of people like Pat Robertson who blame everything on the sins of the world. Did you know that one of the reasons that Hurricane Katrina happened is because Ellen is from Louisiana and she has her own show?! Interesting.

By the time I made it to verses 3 and 4, though, I wanted to stand up testifying, shouting, “Amen, Isaiah! You preach it!” While I am not much for giving someone a bullhorn and asking them to shout out the sins of the people, I am interested in why it seems like sometimes our prayers don’t quite accomplish what we want them to. For me, and thanks to my friends who have pointed this out, I know that I frequently make a plan and then pray for God to love my plan as much as I love it. Frequently, I find myself saying to God, “I have fasted and you haven’t honored it, I have humbled myself and you haven’t even turned your head!” Me, me, me…

When I got to the second half of verse three, I had an amazing humbling experience: “Yet on the day of fasting, you do as you please.” I had to stop right there. I do as I please. I do as I please. Yes, I do as I please and call it God’s will. A lot. As long as no one gets hurt, it is God’s will, right?! While I have no workers to exploit, and I don’t strike people with angry fists, I do as I please. Isaiah’s words challenge me even further: “You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.” What does it mean to fast, then? I have tried emptying myself of the world. I have tried filling myself up with things holy. I have tried depriving myself of food, of excess, of all those things that I perceive to be hindrances to my relationship with God. So what else is there?

Isaiah says that fasting is “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” and “to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter” and “when you see the naked, to clothe him.” What does that look like for me? What does it look like in Muncie or Hartford City? What does it look like in 2007? Sometimes I want to say, but I am one woman, what can I really do? I wrestle with this question daily. Where do I fit in to the solution of these problems? Again, it seems to be a circle. I get love, I give love, I get love….Sometimes the love only comes from giving it?

Verse 5: “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself?….Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” Obviously, fasting is a lifestyle. Do I live a fasting lifestyle? Not so much, it is becoming painfully clear.

In verses 8-10, I see hope. Once we (it is a collective mandate) begin to fast like this, to pour ourselves into others, our “light will break forth like the dawn” and our “healing will quickly appear” and “the glory of the Lord will be [our] rear guard.” Pouring out is filling up? Our rear guard. That just struck me. So I have to go out and do this type of fast, this Jesus love and grace thing, and then the Lord will come behind and bless it? I have to have faith? Going out ahead? How do I know if what I am doing is the right thing if the Lord doesn’t come along until after I’ve done it? As the rear guard? What does it mean to be our rear guard? Hmmm… I’m scared, but Isaiah promises that if we spend ourselves on the hungry and satisfy the oppressed, then our light will rise in the darkness. I’m still scared, Isaiah was just a human like I am. He could be wrong, right? Okay, I know he isn’t but it sometimes feels better to think that it’s possible.

Matthew 9: 14-15
Maybe that is why Jesus and his followers don’t have to fast, as the disciples of John understand fasting, while he is with them. They are already fasting in the way of the Lord. They are living the lifestyle not just giving a day of fasting. They are giving to the hungry, freeing the oppressed, and taking care of the needy. Jesus says, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” Perhaps Jesus is saying that when he is gone, the disciples will have to be more disciplined in order to accomplish the same type of Kingdom lives. To display Jesus’ love will be more difficult once he is gone. They should revel in their lifestyle of fasting while he is there to empower them. Why don’t I feel empowered? I just feel confused.

I think I might being feeling a bit Lent-y now. Thanks, Pastor.