Confessions of a Pharisee Baptist

I was late for chapel at this past Synod Assembly. Not late for a good reason—not because of Richmond traffic or an electrical outage or the dog eating my docket. I simply lollygagged with Tom over breakfast and realized I was running late after the fact.

“I’m gonna be late for chapel,” I rush us out of the booth. “It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, though,” I assure myself (and a speeding Tom) on the drive over. “I’ll just blend in with the other students late for chapel too—right at the first hymn or sneak in if the sermon’s already started.” It wasn’t that long ago that I was in seminary… I know how these things work.

Only, this wasn’t my seminary, so I didn’t know the back route. When I open the door, twenty minutes late, the door I peak into is not at the back—it is the front where all eyes were focused. And not only are there no late seminary students (turns out it is just chapel for the commissioners) but I am not going to be able to “sneak in”—everyone is already lined up for communion by intinction.

No problem. I can’t believe I missed the whole service, but I’ll just zip around to the other door and quietly slide in the back—I’ll at least get the benediction.

Only when I walk in the back door, Elder Fred sees me sneak in. “Go, go,” he says, pushing me toward the front, as if it would be appropriate for me to partake after the line was gone, after the presiding minister had even served the pianist.

Are you kidding me? I can't just run up and quick take communion.

I try to register this on my face when I look at him and bee-line for a back pew.

“Jess, go, quick,” he tugs on my elbow, pointing to the front of the chapel, whispering loudly enough that others have now noticed what’s going on.

But I haven’t done all the stuff. No worship or confession and pardon, no liturgy or prayers—I just jumped out of a rental car three minutes ago!

Fred keeps pointing to the front, so I dropped my computer in the pew in which I longed to quietly sit without being noticed and walk up the center aisle past all those who were properly on time. I wait—in a one-person late-line—for the pianist to finish partaking and for the minister to notice me standing and waiting. He comes back with the bread and the juice but gives no official words—no “This is the body, this is the cup” that might pass for some sort of symbolic summary before I partake. He just stands there waiting for me as I pinch off a piece of bread, dip it into the cup, and eat.

I slide back to my pew.

How could I have done that? I didn’t examine myself. I didn’t reflect on the cross. I didn’t even pray.

And there I sit, thinking about the missed procedure. I think I’m a Calvinist—that God reaches first. But then I want the invocation, prayers of confession, call to worship—my stuff before God. And there I sit, a Pharisee Baptist.

And grace is thrust upon me.

"there are days"
by Thom M. Shuman

there are days
when i go through 3 pens
crafting my to-do list:
from the moment
the alarm shoves me
out of bed
until my pillow
rocks me to sleep,
i am going and doing and running,
cleaningwashingshopping
cookingservingclearing -

and then,
Jesus comes in the door,
sits me down at the table,
pours me a cup of coffee, saying,
"Be still. Shush. Listen. Learn."

there are days
when i am all ears
pondering the Word,
listening to God whisper,
being lullabied by the Spirit,
sittingreflectingdoingnothing
silenthushedthinking

and then Amos interrupts
my alone time,
saying,
"You wanna learn something?
Come sit at the feet of the poor;
they'll teach you more about
faithhopelovelife
compassiongracegentlenss
than you'll ever need."

there are days....

(c) 2007 Thom M. Shuman

I can't believe we're already on week 6! I was quite sure we still had two weeks to go until I jumped into yesterday's meditation.

Janice sent me this great reflection on how these weeks have been: Holding my cup daily feels like holding hands with God to cross the street (you know, make it thru the day or life).

There's a book called, Sleeping With Bread, by the Linn family that tells their story of using the Examen. The examen is asking a form of the two questions: what is life-giving? what is life-draining? (usually done daily, so each question is about the day, but it can be used about a longer time period or a certain aspect of one's life). Used regularly, the examen will help you see patterns of those things which you need to keep holding on to for life and those things that you should probably let go. Joyce Rupp's book is a journey in this as well--holding onto God who gives us life.

In Christ,
Jess

Last week's study on the broken cup seemed to strike a cord in several folks--here's one more follow-up thought from Ann:

"I, too, had a difficult week of last! I know we all have 'old difficulties' out there popping in & out of our lives...but when they are presently in our arena, I will have to say this study has a great timing for me. Everyday is meaningful & sometimes (esp. last wk) I find myself going over the whole morning again. Mainly so that my aging mind will remember! I am very grateful that God called me to this study. It's like nothing I have ever done before. I appreciate everyone's comments and am praying for our group everyday."

May we be reminded of the compassion of Christ as we delve into this week's study.

Grace and peace,
Jess

On suffering from Dietrich Bonnhoeffer in Letters and Papers from Prison:

"It is a good thing to learn early that God and suffering are not opposites but rather one and the same thing and necessarily so; for me, the idea that God himself suffers is far and away the most convincing piece of Christian doctrine."

This came as a comment that wouldn't post, but Lisa Cooper brings up a good question:

"I'm having a hard time this week. I seem to be digging up lots of old, deep hurts and inadequacies, and it's rather uncomfortable. Is anyone else having trouble? On a positive note, I feel like I have always known that God is there and comforting me in my dark times, because so often I haven't felt like there was anyone else. He has been my constant since childhood. I feel so blessed with my gift of Faith." Lisa

I'm not much of an artist, but in the spirit of overcoming the idea that everything I do must be done well, I've forced myself to do art. So I draw, paint, and color lopsided creations and fully accept them how they are. As I was drawing my cup of tears this morning (the theme for the week for the Cup of Our Life), I noticed something new about my cup. The cup I'm using is a wooden chalice-like cup I picked up in Iquitos, Peru—a blood-wood, it is called—kind of like a reddish mahogany. I guess because I was drawing it and paying attention to its lines, I noticed that one side of my cup is light with golden red tones, and one side is dark with lots of darker shading. I know so little about art I often am frustrated trying to figure out how one draws light—it’s much easier to draw darkness.

Last week, our reflections for the study were on the chipped cup—the idea of accepting our flaws and weaknesses. I’m a recovering perfectionist. Naming my flaws and weaknesses is, well, a strong-point for me. Accepting them is not. Which is huge theologically because it makes it hard for me to accept grace as well. So I didn’t have a lot to write last week—though plenty on which to reflect.

I appreciate the light and dark of my cup—and the metaphor it contains.

From the chipped cup to the broken cup, on to another week. Here's a reflection from Carolyn:



On pain and suffering

I approach this portion of the study with trepidation. I beg to disagree with our author-that great pain and sorrow is contingent on how we view brokenness, and we may not be able to receive pain “rightly” so that it transforms our lives. Life’s pains can be the holes of a living hell. Sure, God gives us grace, strength, and support. Our experiences with the crucibles of pain and sorrow become the point where our faith will be ground out of us or a hearty strain of belief will survive to flourish. The tsunamis of horror and hurt that knock us over, remove the comforts that surrounded us, and take the living breath out of us are so unknowable, so unexplainable, that holding on to Belief is all that holds us up until the waves reside. Still I cannot fault any human from screaming “Why” with all they can muster. Why the honing, the sharpening, the cutting, the pruning, the firing for perfecting children created by a loving God? Reynolds Price says, “It’s a serious thing, agreeing to watch a loved one through so much pain and humiliation that you are helpless to cease, much less stop. You cannot refuse it but it breaks down something in you that will never heal.” I do pray for healing or scars we can live with.

In church today the sermon was about how tenderly God cares for us during our depressions, pains, shame, and hardship. God’s love is not entirely about our triumphs and transformations. The brokenness is with us but so is God. I decided my cup needed a change this afternoon. I removed the stones that have anchored it for three weeks and out we went to the backyard. The cup and I spent time in the sunshine by the fishpond and in the shadow of the woods behind the house. I filled my empty cup with pieces of colored glass from the birdbath. The cup is resting in a sunny window at the moment. Who knows what it will hold during the next three weeks.

Speaking of space, here's a reflection from Donna Baker:

"I really like the book and the devotions and I am reading from "The Message" which is just great too. I am starting to feel like God is calling me to my "spot" on the gazebo early in the AM. I saw the sun coming thru the trees the other day, and it was awesome there in the early morning with my little candle lit and thinking about the thought for the day. I seem to be more aware throughout the day to listen and try to receive things from God. I felt God nudging me today and got up at 6am (I never wake up at 6am) and went to my spot. This is one of the growth things that has been lacking in my life, and it is making me feel God's presence."

Joyce Rupp writes, "How much easier it is for most of us to give than it is to receive" (p 55). The Gospel lectionary passage for this week is Luke 7:36-50, the story of a woman weeping, wiping off her tears from Jesus' feet with her hair, and annointing them. The passage points out the woman is a sinner, and a Pharisee stands nearby assessing the situation. How much easier to be the assessor in control than the one overcome with emotion at the feet of Jesus receiving the gift of grace.

May you be open to the gift of grace!

Blogging hasn't been this much fun for me since the first few times I made entries! I love the community aspect of this. And to add to it, first thing on this Monday morning, I received an email from someone in the Cup of Our Life study who requested that I post this anonymously:

"I was holding my cup this morning and doing my breathing prayer. 'I listen, You are here' and for some reason the vision that appeared in my head was when I transfer a file on the computer to a folder. I just drag, click and it's in there! Everytime I do that I can't get over the simplicity of that action and how much is transferred or "enters" with just a simple action. The simple action of just remaining open and listening and God will be in me. God's entrance is just a click away. I usually start my day with a list of things to do, usually written. I have started adding the task for the day to this list."

Thanks for that powerful reflection!

God in the ordinary. As I sum up the week on my Saturday reflection, what stands out most from the week is the call to notice something ordinary and learn from it. This stands out because it seems to me (this week at least) that it is at the heart of spiritual formation. Those who are deeply disciplined in their spiritual lives and have much fruit to show from it don't leap from one mountain top to another--they walk, sometimes plod, along with God in the ordinariness of life. And from that, the Holy Spirit is able to open their eyes to the more extraordinary. This gives me faith in my ordinary plodding.

Grace and peace,
Jess

Maria emailed me today with this reflection for posting:

"I am enjoying the study very much. Despite the fact that 'my cup overfloweth with things to do,' I have kept my appointment every morning with God. I have really enjoyed the reading, reflecting, quiet time, and even journaling. I have written 12 pages so far!

As I read today's section, I was thinking about how I had to come to my special spot in my house to meet God, with my cup emptied of all of the duties and deadlines, the things to do, in order to have Him fill my cup with His Living Water. Today I pray for my cup to overflow with the Living Water instead of the other stuff."

Thanks for a good reflection, Maria--may all our days be filled with Living Water.

"Like the cup with its boundaries,

we, too, need parameters

so that our life does not seep away

into endless busy-ness

and unguarded, unfocused activity"

(Cup of Our Life, 22).

A few years ago, when I was taking the clock off the wall in my office, it got caught on the hook, and in my prying, all the hands fell off. While those funny, "Who Cares!" clocks with all the numbers falling to the bottom make a good joke, they still actually do tell time. My clock now told me nothing. And while I replaced the clock (with one that I very gently take on and off the wall each spring and fall), I kept the old clock. I never actually did it, but I had plans to hang the clocks up next to one another, writing on the face of one, "EST," and across the face of the other, "God's Time" or some other clever phrase to illustrate the point.

Why do I check the clock? To make sure I'm staying on task, getting things done, accomplishing something, regimenting my day properly. But somehow I doubt that's really what God intended for me to be doing several times a day, especially considering an accurate clock like I have in my office didn't even come into being until sometime in the last few hundred years, which means people survived for an enormously long amount of time without pulling out their sundial every 15 minutes.

So maybe I was connecting with that when during my breathprayer this morning for the Cup of Our Life study I took down the working clock and switched it with the God-time clock. It seemed right for the start of a new study--like an ebenezer of sorts marking the removal of a distraction for the space and time reflection.

For those of you in the study, what are your spaces and times for reflecting looking like?

I read a quote from Oscar Wilder the other day:

"The response we make when we 'believe' a work of the imagination," Wilder wrote, "is that of saying: 'This is the way things are. I have always known it without being fully aware that I knew it. Now in the presence of this play or novel or poem (or picture or piece of music) I know that I know it."

YES! I want to shout--yes! That is the experience of really believing a work--to know the truth of it. I love books--mostly fiction but also plenty of reflections on life and gazillions of books on ministry that somehow I want to osmosis into my brain and then into the congregation. The two things I love most about books are that they can either carry you away to a completely different world that allows full escape from the day-to-day or they expound in some profound that very day-to-day experience.

At the risk of sounding overly minister-like, I couldn't help but think of that quote in light of Scripture. God's Word does that same thing. How many times have you read a passage and realized the truth of it--not only for those in the passage but for your own life. "Go, serve in the ministry," says God. "But I'd suck at that. I don't have the patience and look at my sins! Plus, ministers are so boring, and-by the way-I'm a woman," says Moses-Jess. My imagination makes small troubles as big as giants better than any Israelite, I can open my mouth with something foolish faster than Peter, and I can out-sulk Jonah 2-to-1. I also might, on a really good day, be able to pray with the Psalmist's words or sing praises with Mary. Scripture, in the process of telling the Truth, also opens us up to the truth of ourselves, the truths we had always known without being fully aware.

To truth,
Jess

“The spiritual life is a journey about change. It is not limited to a set time and place of prayer. Rather, it involves all of our life, every moment of our existence. God is always ‘happening' in our lives. We need to consistently nourish, restore, and renew this relationship.” (Joyce Rupp)

When I originally started this blog, I had this vision of a helpful place where we could explore together the places where faith and day-to-day life intersected, which kind of leaves things wide open since faith and all of life intersects (re-read above). But I also had the idea this could somehow be a learning spot--a time where I/we reflected on things we maybe didn't learn about in Sunday school. That, and well, pretty much stuff Tom is always asking about at home that seemed like stuff more people might want to know about. What does Lent mean? Tell me more about Advent. Why do we have different colors for the church year? What's for dinner?

I envision this blog to be a combination of contemplation and education.

Joyce Rupp is going to give us just such a combination. Her book, The Cup of Our Life: A Guide for Spiritual Growth, is a 6-week study on cups and life--chipped cups, open cups, broken cups, cups of compassion and blessing. The plan then is to use this space as a platform through which anyone who wants to do this study as a group can share thoughts and reflections.

So regular readers--be you members at First Pres or residents of far away places--I'll try to keep the entries over those six weeks reflections anyone can read, but the book will be my focus--or better yet, buy the book and join along.

Heads up early so you can order it in time--I'm thinking we'll begin in June.

By the way, chicken's for dinner.

Peace,
Jess

Covenant
by Margaret Halaska, published in Space for God by Don Postema

God
knocks at my door
seeking a home for his son.

Rent is cheap, I say.

I don’t want rent. I want to buy, says God.

I’m not sure I want to sell,
but you might come in to look around.

I think I will, says God.

I might let you have a room or two.

I like it, says God. I’ll take two.
You might decide to give me more some day.
I can wait, says God.

I’d like to give you more,
but it’s a bit difficult. I need some space for me.

I know, says God, but I’ll wait. I like what I see.

Hm, maybe I can let you have another room.
I really don’t need that much.

Thanks, says God, I’ll take it. I like what I see.

I’d like to give you the whole house
but I’m not sure…

Think on it, says God. I wouldn’t put you out.
Your house would be mine and my son would live in it.
You’d have more space than you’d ever had before.

I don’t understand at all.

I know, says God, but I can’t tell you about that.
You’ll have to discover it for yourself.
That can only happen if you let me have the whole house.

A bit risky, I say.

Yes, says God, but try me.

I’m not sure—
I’ll let you know.

I can wait, says God. I like what I see.

You know those Worst Case Scenario survival guides? Well, they made one of those for Presbyterians. They—as far as I can tell, a group of silly Lutherans that started the whole trend with, The Lutheran Handbook—have now created, The Presbyterian Handbook. In addition to practical information like, “How to Survive for One Hour in an Unair-conditioned Church,” (sit still and pray—it got Jesus through 40 days in the desert), there are theological helpful-hints like a brief reference guide to different denominations and beliefs and plenty of comical assists such as recommending one not make change from the offering plate.

The book is clever, sometimes funny, and pointedly honest about what to do in specific situations (a crying baby, for instance—no staring, or "How to Forgive Someone")—a handy little reference book in some ways, a comic book in others.

The handiest section by far this particular Ash Wednesday is a How To section on memorizing Scripture. Which gives me one more plug on our First Pres journey through Lent in memorizing the resurrection story. I hope you First Pres-ers will consider joining in the journey.

For everybody, I’m also going to use Lent as a letting go, which is going to include any contemplating on the blog. So Monday mornings, you can look for meditation spots or Scripture passages, maybe a good quote or two, but I’ll skip the musings.

To the journey,
Jess

On Joy:

"Joy shows from the eyes. It appears when one speaks and walks. It cannot be kept closed inside us. It reacts outside. When people find in your eyes that habitual happiness, they will understand they that are beloved children of God." Mother Teresa

Joy and understanding be yours,
Jess

So Sunday morning just before walking into the 11 o’clock service, a faithful Contemplative Pastor reader asks if I’m feeling better. “Growl,” says I. I think there was also the word, “No,” in there. Not a nice, “No,” as in, “But thanks for asking,” but an ugly no, as in, well insert your own imaginative and ugly response. And then we walk into worship.

That’s a bad place to be when you’re a minister, having just been about as grumpy as you could be to a friend and then have to stand there with a smile on your face to lead worship. Ooosk.

I don’t have the words to get from there to here. There, is that bad feeling of having heard my own response. Here, is what I wish I would have said. “Not really, but I will feel better.” Maybe it was the sermon on promises, maybe it was being forced to sit for an hour in front of people feeling like a fake, maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Who knows. But eventually I got from there to here.

And somehow all of our lives as believers got wrapped up in it. Are you feeling better? No, (pause) but I will. Are you healed, joyful, at peace (fill in your own spiritual goodness blank)? Maybe, but even if the answer is no, the follow up in Christ Jesus is hope. We will. Sunday’s coming, and we will.

Thanks be to God!

Okay, here’s something that happens when you’re so sick your options are either bed or propped up in an easy chair with a flipper. You catch up on a lot of movies. A LOT! I’ve watched Pirates of the Caribbean II, March of the Penguins, The Polar Express, 40-year-old Virgin, the Devil Wears Prada, and Employee of the Month in the last, hmmmm, 48-hours. Quite clearly, we don’t have cable. And also quite clearly, we don’t have cable because I don’t have a good filter for what I watch (you can see, it definitely went downhill). Maybe it’s simply coincidence, but the last three—quite popular, trendy, A-list-for-the-cool-people movies, seem to have a common thread: how do I hold in one hand being a genuine friend of the nerds and hold in the other hand fitting in with the cool people? There’s some sort of search for the authentic that rejects the backstabbing fashionista life-style that, to quote Miranda Priestly, “Everybody wants.”

I don’t have too many deep thoughts on this—cold medicine sort of prohibits such things—but after watching all these movies and reading Rob Bell’s interpretation in, Velvet Elvis, that Jesus calls all the B-team people, I think the church has something to offer to people trying to find their way out of the “becoming someone I can’t stand in the process of moving up the ladder” state we can find ourselves in. I hope that would be the experience people have of church, that we’re a place free from a culture of haves and have-nots. Would that this were the case. It would seem one step closer to how Jesus has called us to live.

I used to have this very bad habit in my daily devotions. I would miss one day, and then feel like I needed to make up for it by doing both days of reading. The thing was, one day missing wasn't such a big deal, but sometimes it ended up being three or four days of Scripture readings, so then it was significantly more time consuming. If days were missed, it was likely because my schedule got busy (yes, ministers have the same bad habits that you have), so I was already busy and then having to play catch up, which led to skipping it more until I was, say, a month behind or something ridiculous and I'd pretty much give up entirely for awhile. It's not like I wasn't still reading Scripture or praying or doing things that enriched my spiritual life, but my daily devotional--my disciplined activity--would fall by the wayside because it was difficult to catch up.

Finally it struck me... this is crazy! Catching up is a compulsion, not a healthy understanding of how deepen my spiritual life or to be in relationship with God. And it transformed my ability to keep up with a regular, daily devotion.

Enter blog writing. Christmas gets busy, a few weeks fly by with no blog entry. And then I think, "I'll have to have a really good blog for the new year, for this new start," and no earth-shattering thought comes to write about (not that any of these are in any way earth-shattering anyhow) or I can't figure out a way to make up for a few weeks of no entries, and pretty soon it looms in a way that I can't even write anything for a long time.

All that is to say, I may be the only one reading these anyhow, and if I--perfectionist Jess--am willing to extend grace to myself and jump back into the weekly writings, please (to any other readers) be willing to extend that grace as well--to me and to yourselves in whatever compulsions enslave you as you start off a new year!

Grace and peace,
Jess