Reasonable Questions?

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apostles, critical questions, Jesus, resurrection, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, troubled

I think it must have been difficult for the disciples in the period between the resurrection of Jesus and the time when He was no longer present on the earth. In Luke’s gospel this morning we hear Jesus saying, “Why are you troubled? Why do questions arise in your hearts?” (LK 24:35-48)

They were just simple fishermen, not used to the miraculous. Maybe they had seen healings during the time that Jesus was with them, but rising from the dead?? Not so simple. I wonder if I would believe in a resurrected master even if my longing would want it to be true. And Jesus was rather selective about those he appeared to during the post-resurrection time. My question to God sometimes is: Why wouldn’t I be troubled or have questions?

Today might be a good day to try to put myself in the place of the disciples at this time, taking the opportunity to answer their questions: What might it feel like to be in this state that swings from desperate loss to amazing recovery of faith in seeing Jesus again in the flesh—and back again to a time of loss? See how long you can stay there, what it feels like and then what causes you to still believe as you do without seeing him…I think that might be an instructive time for all of us…

And Then the Blazing Sun…

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apostles, blinded by the light, Jesus, light, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, transfiguration

It was 7:43 EDT this morning when I saw the outline of the sun through the trees on our back hill. I don’t know whether to call it a mountain or not. It seems very high and I don’t know what it would take to scale it—or how to get around it and where I would be if I found myself on the other side. I often think about that but go no further than my thoughts because if I asked someone and got an answer of how to get around it, the mystery would be gone and I would not know what to do without the wonder of it all. This way, the way of not knowing, was swallowed up this morning in a blaze of glory as the full sun moved into focus and became the only light. The brilliance was all I could see and the shining was all that was left. Normally I (and others) would pull a curtain to minimize the light—but I have no curtain hanging there now as I’m in the midst of shifting elements of my bedroom. (And really, why would I ever want to miss anything happening outside?) I could have moved my chair but that would call for more shifting and still the light might obscure everything.

So I just sat until the sun had moved past the perimeter of the window (knowing, of course, that it is I who was moving as the earth moves around the sun). It was a metaphor, to be sure, and I have often been “blinded” by the sun. Today, however, I sat and consciously experienced what was happening as I sat surrounded by darkness. The shimmering brilliance was all that I could see and it was difficult to stay in it—in the way we are told not to look directly at the sun without special glasses during an eclipse. I thought about all the places in Scripture that speak of apparitions: the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountain, for example, where Peter, James and John were blinded by the light and when they looked up, they saw “only Jesus.” Can I say I am changed by this experience of light? Will I remember how nothing else was visible but darkness in the presence of that light? Who can say what awaits…maybe if I ask about or try to scale the mountain. What might I learn to see then?

Invitation

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apostles, excuses, fishers of men, following, fulfillment, Jesus, the kingdom of God is at hand, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The temperature outside could be construed as NOTHING. It reads 0 degrees F. Not too hot. Not too cold…just a perfect place to start building a day. (How ridiculous a mis-reading! One could easily get frostbite if not bundled up from head to toe.) The bluejays on the deck are already hard at work tap, tap, tapping away at the suet cakes. How they survive the day without broken beaks and roaring headaches is a mystery to me! Let me start again…

This time I could use the temperature outside as an excuse for inaction. It looks like a beautiful day outside. The sky is blue and the sun is shining…but it’s so cold as to make it impossible to move from my chair: a day to lament arthritic limbs and a headache at least serious enough for some over-the-counter drug…Excuses abound…

There is, however, a tiny beating sound inside of me that indicates discomfort with inertia. I can hardly hear the sound but I know there is more to this life than this chair and my rocking…rocking. I wonder if perhaps this is a moment like it was the day Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment: The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe…” It is Mark who is recounting this day when Jesus passed by the Sea of Galilee and seeing Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea, he said to them, Come after me and I will make you fishers of men. (MK 1) They left their nets that day and became the first apostles, following Jesus to the end. No more sitting around looking out the window, wishing it was warmer outside. No more watching the birds and wondering about their headaches, just getting out of their chairs and getting to work—following that voice that is the best invitation ever offered.

Check It Out

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apostles, Jesus, judging others, Nathaniel, Philip, St. Bartholomew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

We know very little about most of the men that we call apostles, the ones closest to Jesus during his “public life.” (Today’s saint is even less well-known because he is sometimes called Bartholomew and sometimes Nathaniel!) There are two things in the gospel for today (JN 1:45-51) that caught my attention. The first was right at the beginning where Philip sought out Nathaniel to take him to meet Jesus. Today’s passage begins with Philip saying: “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law.” My question was about who the “we” is/are and what is the evidence they had. When Philip gave him the slightest background (“Joseph’s son, from Nazareth”), Nathaniel was obviously not interested, asking “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip didn’t give up, however. He invited Nathaniel to “Come and see.” By his persistence we can intuit prior encounters of others.

I presume Nathaniel was surprised when Jesus saw him coming and said, “Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him” Then addressing Nathaniel directly, he said, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” And that was enough for Nathaniel to believe that Jesus was the one they would know as “Son of God.”

Admittedly, the gospels are rather sketchy, not giving us full descriptions of events and conversations. My “takeaways” from the above encounter are the following:

#1: How quick we are to judge people by where they come from and what is the status of their family, and #2: How important it is to trust other people while also judging for ourselves by checking out what they have told us.

A Saint’s Life

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apostles, Gospel, Jesus, Kingdom, St. James, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is the feast of St. James, one of the original twelve companions called by Jesus. The “Saint of the Day” of franciscanmedia.com tells us that James was known to be less than a perfect image of what we might imagine a saint to be. One of the two brothers that wished to claim the seats on either side of Jesus in the kingdom of heaven, James and his brother, John, were often called “Sons of Thunder” by those who knew them. But personality is not what gets one a high place in the afterlife, it seems. What’s really important lies elsewhere.

The way the Gospels treat the apostles is a good reminder of what holiness is about. There is very little about their virtues as static possessions, entitling them to heavenly reward. Rather, the great emphasis is on the Kingdom, on God’s giving them the power to proclaim the Good News. As far as their personal lives are concerned, there is much about Jesus’ purifying them of narrowness, pettiness, fickleness.

The Speed of Life

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accept, apostles, Henry Van Dyke, living in love, love, surrender to life, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time, time is eternity

I’m sitting this morning in a place of contradiction: considering the assumed slowness of time for the apostles who are waiting for “they know not what” (see yesterday’s post) and wondering how we could possibly be in the month of June this quickly. Time becomes a concept much less comprehensible than it used to be (dare I say “when I was young?”). There’s nothing I can do but watch it pass and surrender to life – whether or not I finish a day with everything crossed off my list.

As I sit in this situation and evaluate my willingness to accept it and move forward, a long-ago quote floats through my mind. Since I can remember only snippets of it, I resort to “my new best-friend,” the internet, and find even more than I expected.

Henry Van Dyke wrote: Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.

My satisfaction with finding this quote is in the wonderful last clause that I don’t think I ever heard! Wonderful because it erases any frustration or concern about conquering time in the aforementioned surrender to life. Living in love is a noble goal and a great work in this moment in our beautiful but violent world. If we can add our quotient of love to the energy of the planet, we have a better chance of seeing it – and us – survive. And isn’t that reason enough to try?

Still Waiting

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apostles, Ascension, by heart, salvation history, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, upper room, waiting, words of Jesus

I’m thinking again today about that upper room that housed the apostles in their time of waiting after the Ascension, the departure of Christ from physical presence on the earth. (See blog post of 5/30.) I don’t know that I have ever considered it in such a visceral way but I have so many questions now that will only be answered in my imaginings. Where else could I go for information? There is so little specificity in most of the gospel stories that it’s difficult to get a good sense of what happened in what was only meagerly presented. I’m not interested in theological treatises for answers.

Here’s what I mean. If I consider the “upper room” as the same or similar to what was mentioned at the time of the Last Supper, I see a long table as the focal point of the room. What happens then if the apostles want to sleep during their nine days of waiting? And how did they pass the time up there? I trust that prayer was their major occupation but when did they eat? And where did they get food? Should the gospel writers be talking about upper rooms instead of one room?

This may sound like silliness and I don’t mean to be irreverent but sometimes – for some of us who are concrete thinkers – it’s helpful to know all we can about the events of our “salvation history.” As I type that sentence I hear the often repeated adage: “Just take it on faith.” In reality, I guess that is what we’re always called to do. There are lots of places to go for the research of scholars through the ages who have written theological tracts and spiritual writers who have delved into the words of Jesus. Ultimately, however, it is a question of letting go of the need for certainly about facts and giving ourselves over to the acceptance of the love that we have come to know “by heart.”

Today is a good day to take a break and place myself in the silence of that upper room for awhile, waiting with the others for the outpouring of the Spirit that will surely come when we have made ourselves ready – perhaps in a week’s time…or maybe even today! And then who will I be? What will the fire of God ignite in me? I guess I’ll wait and expect/accept whatever comes…in God’s time, not mine.

Waiting

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Acts of the Apostles, apostles, Ascension, beloved one, Holy Spirit, I am with you always, Jesus, stay, the promise of the father, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wait

The lectionary readings on this day (Feast of the Ascension) when we consider the completion of Christ’s mission on earth are among the most familiar of the Church year. What then can be said that does not sound prosaic but rather at least interesting at such an important moment? Although the events of this day were likely earth-shattering for the apostles, of course, I wonder if the important lines that we read are not about what happened on that day but rather appear as two brief directives that move us toward what involved a preparation on the part of the apostles.

In the first reading (Act of the Apostles 1:1-11) after recounting the events of the past 40 days, Jesus “enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait…” Then in the last reading from the gospel (Luke, 24), Jesus directed them to “stay in the city…” In both cases, they were waiting “for the promise of the Father.” How could they possibly know what was ahead for them?

Wait, he said. Stay. For most of us, waiting is not the easiest task. Nor, I would be willing to wager, was it so for these friends of Jesus who had been with him in good times and bad and now, at his departure from the earth, must have been thrown back into a place of not knowing once again. But wait they did, going back into an upper room, perhaps the best symbol of encounter in the events of all their time together.

Have you ever waited for something, not knowing exactly what you were waiting for or what the outcome of your waiting would engender? Maybe you were told Christmas would bring you a great gift this year…or, as an opposing thought, perhaps you have heard a weather report of an impending storm and are waiting for the outcome. How is it possible in either of these situations to wait with some modicum of patience?

Waiting for God to speak can also take patience. Hunkering down in stillness to hear “the still small voice of God” takes practice and perseverance. Maybe you are waiting for courage or the answer to a burning question or simply to know that God considers you a “beloved one” each and every day.

As we wait for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit once again at Pentecost, may we recall the words of Jesus who said at his departure from this world and who promises to us: “I am with you always, until the end of the world.”

St. Matthias

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Acts of the Apostles, apostles, St. Matthias, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is the feast of the man who replaced Judas in the company of the Apostles. I wondered this morning what it must have been like for Matthias to step into the role. Was he immediately accepted by the others? Was there jealousy from “outside the circle?” I quickly found an answer in the lectionary text for today from the Acts of the Apostles, in the only section where we ever hear about Matthias (1:15-17, 20-26). The text notes that the replacement had to be “one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us…”

That makes sense, of course, since the best candidates would have been those who walked with and served with the ones who had also listened to and learned the lessons that Jesus imparted to his closest followers. I’m seeing Matthias today as someone who was willing to be in their company just for the privilege of walking with Jesus – without any name recognition from the crowds or any reward for his service. Because he was chosen by lot “by the Holy Spirit” and for his consistent presence among them, I presume that the eleven would be comfortable with him. Hopefully any “ego” had been stripped from the group by then about rank and position. I wonder if Matthias himself was secure in his new role. Being included in the day to day decision-making and other tasks left to those in the inner circle must have necessitated a bit of an inner shift for them all. Did he need a “buddy” to make him comfortable in the day-to-day?

We often don’t think of the small things for those whose whole lives had been turned upside down more than once because of Jesus, but they were human, after all, and their life together after Jesus had to be a challenge. We might consider that on days when our service of God is a bit of a bumpy road. Recourse to the faithful, persevering Matthias might be just the thing to keep us moving forward and grateful for God’s choice of us.

The Call to Follow

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apostles, Come follow me, Jesus, Luke, Mount of Beatitudes, prompt, Sea of Galilee, St. Andrew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is the feast of St. Andrew, chronicled in the gospel of Luke as one of “The Twelve” – those first named people to hear the call of Christ to follow him. When I read that text from Luke 4, I often wish for more. It’s rather difficult to think of fishermen, schooled in their trade and living what was probably a stable, familiar life, putting down their nets at that very short and rather cryptic directive (“Come, follow me!”) with a willingness to do whatever it took to respond. Wasn’t there more conversation? Didn’t they ask about where Jesus came from and where they were going? About what his “offer” meant? At least some of them had families. Were they being asked to abandon those loved ones? For what?

Today when I read the lines and had the same curiosity, I was flung back in spirit to the Mount of the Beatitudes, one of my favorite places visited on my trip to Israel in 2015. From that most beautiful, peaceful, holy hill I saw at a bit of a distance the Sea of Galilee, spread out like a welcoming blanket over the land below. There was even a boat with one or two tiny dots of what were probably fishermen occupying the small craft. How I wished to be one of those people, taken back in time to the moment when Jesus first appeared on the scene. Something stirred in me, akin perhaps to the feelings of those first responders, that made my heart say “YES” without thought of consequence or even of meaning. Holy places can have that effect sometimes. I find, however, that the response must be made on a daily basis – and sometimes even moment to moment. I suspect that Andrew and the others with him came to know that truth, but it seemed that the deal was sealed at that first encounter.

We all come to God in our own time, in our own way, with God’s own impetus or prompt. We may be born into a tradition, as I was, or have an experience that is so overwhelming as to leave us wanting more, but always – if we are to persevere – the fires have to be stoked on a regular basis.

We are here in New Hampshire with just such a purpose. It is well begun. The 18 of us, sitting in a circle last night, began a search together for a new certainty of that fire of love that will surely help us to pass on something of the spark that holds us on the path to a deepening sense of the presence of God in and among us.

The circle awaits. May God be praised by our willingness!