don't eat alone

Luke’s account of the Transfiguration intersected life this week, thanks to the Revised Common Lectionary, and I found a strange solace in the story I had not seen before. Sometimes, I suppose, tired eyes see new things.

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Maybe it’s just me.

Or maybe it’s that we are marking the second anniversary of the full descent of the pandemic on our country. And just as we begin to get some hint that things might ease up on the COVID front, we’ve watched Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine and listened as the governor of Texas told people to start reporting parents of trans children as child abusers. That’s just part of the news this week—and we haven’t even touched on any personal issues.

Maybe all those things are what lead me to see how exhausted Jesus and his disciples appear to be most every time we come to read our Sunday scripture. They are living in their own whirlwind of people wanting to hear Jesus, people wanting Jesus to heal them, Jesus trying to teach his disciples while those who disagree with him politically and theologically keep trying to trip him up and the Romans keep working to kill him.

In fact, it’s that last thing that sends them up the mountain. The disciples returned from trips to other towns and Jesus started talking about dying—well, being killed. After that, Luke says, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray. As I said, they were exhausted even before the hike. Once they got to the top, Jesus started to pray and the disciples fell asleep.

But then something woke them up.

Jesus’ face was luminous and he looked like he was dressed in lightning. Moses and Elijah were with him and they, too, were talking about his death—his departure—which, Luke says, he “was about to accomplish” in Jerusalem.

Peter and the others were still groggy, but they made themselves wake up to see what was happening. Peter, true to form, spoke up even though he had no idea of what he was saying. “This is great!” he said and, in his confusion, shifted into hospitality mode. “Maybe we should pitch tents for each of you.” Nobody else said a word. And then a cloud enveloped the mountaintop and God was in the cloud and said, “This is my Chosen One. Listen to him!” And then the cloud, the voice, the two prophets, and the lightning all disappeared and they were alone on the mountain.

When they came back down, they kept silent. Even Peter.

Maybe they kept quiet because they didn’t know how to describe what had happened. Or maybe they didn’t say anything because they didn’t have a chance. Once they got back to the bottom of the hill, the crowds descended on them. The other disciples were in a panic because they felt overwhelmed. Nobody seemed to care what had happened on the mountain. They wanted to talk about their stuff.

Life went on, as exhausting as ever.

Over the years, I have heard sermons on this passage that talked about the power of “mountaintop experiences,” those moments when God feels especially close and life transcendent. Those sermons made it sound as though Peter didn’t want to leave: “let’s build shelters for everyone and stay here.” Then the preachers went on to say that we had to learn to live in the valley of life because that’s where things grow. We can’t survive in perpetual transcendence.

That’s a lesson worth pondering, but I wonder about another angle.

The details we are given make it look as though the time on the mountain wasn’t exceedingly joyful or euphoric for the disciples. They woke from a dead sleep to find Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah about his death, then a cloud rolled in and a voice told them to listen to Jesus, and then they came back down the hill. They weren’t any less exhausted or any more confident than when they started climbing. They didn’t know what had happened. The best they could do was not talk about it. And yet, here we are twenty-one centuries later, reading the story, which means at some point they did figure out how to talk about it.

The fact that we have the gospel accounts means that they did tell others what they saw and heard that day, but it was after they had taken time to remember what had happened. They didn’t talk about their immediate reactions; they kept quiet and let it sink in. Also, when they came back to town, they walked into the middle of crowds and soldiers and, well, life.

My guess is some time after Jesus’ death and resurrection, as they began to try and figure out how to live without him, they thought back on their experiences with him. Maybe Peter, James, and John talked between themselves about what they saw and heard that day and then said to the others, “Remember the time we went up the mountain with Jesus and we came down dazed and nonverbal? Well, let us tell you what happened.” Then they were able to begin to see what it meant to them beyond the clouds and lightning and exhaustion.

And even then, what they saw and heard wasn’t easily explainable. Even this morning as we have read the story, we have not explained it; we have only brushed up against the lightning.

As I was reading this morning, I came across a sentence that said we are often tempted to try and “reduce the awesomeness of life to manageable proportions.” Perhaps what was at the heart of their silence was they didn’t want an explanation. They wanted to live in the awesome mystery of the moment.

That’s the invitation this morning, four days before Lent begins and two years into the pandemic that feels like it will never end: it’s going to be a while before we know what the living of these days means for us—but we can begin to learn from them if we will keep quiet and listen, and maybe look a little farther back to stories we have forgotten to keep telling.

One of the reasons that is hard to do is that we live in a culture addicted to the immediate. Most of the opinions voiced on television or written in the newspaper are about what happened today, not what happened last month or last year or the year before that—and they are happy to provide concise, repeatable explanations for everything.

But we rarely learn from things as they are happening to us. And simple explanations do not leave room for the awesomeness of our unexplainable universe. We need time to be silent, to reflect, to remember the stories, and to retell them so different details can rise and fall and open our hearts to greater compassion and understanding.

As we look ahead to life beyond the worst of the pandemic, for instance, perhaps we would do well to remember—to put together again—what life was like before words like COVID and omicron became so familiar. I’m not talking about being nostalgic, or simply wishing the pandemic hadn’t interrupted everything. What about those days is worth remembering? What moments were clothed in lightning or clouds? What exhausted us? Where was God for us in those days? What from that time has sustained us?

What stories are worth telling again?

In the days and months to come, some of those things may come back. Chances are some may not. Life is not going to go back to the way it was any more than it did for Peter and James and John after they saw Jesus blinged out in his lightning and talking with Moses. The days to come may also continue to be as exhausting as the ones we are living. And, just like Jesus, we are all going to die.

One of my favorite prophets, Mavis Staples, sings, “Death is slow, but death is sure,” and then she says, “Allelu, allelu”—that’s the gospel truth: death is sure, and so is love. Alleluia. We can be tired and tenacious, exhausted and encouraged, perplexed and amazed. Death is not that last word, love is—that is the story we keep telling—and learning from—over and over, even though we can’t explain it. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

Over the past week or so my depression has made a presence of itself—life feels increasingly heavy and deflated. I can point to some circumstances that are contributors, but one of the difficult things about living with depression is it doesn’t require a cause to make itself known.

The lectionary passage for this week is part of a sermon where Jesus says those who are mourning are blessed because they can look forward to laughter, and that those who don’t know grief have got some hard days coming.

Well, the hard days are here. Here’s what felt worth saying today.

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I’ve been reading a book called The Geometry of Grief by Michael Frame and he made the statement that beauty and grief were next door neighbors: they are not identical, but they live on the same street. He says that what makes something beautiful is the combination of it being familiar and a novelty at the same time—you think you know what you are going to see and it catches you by surprise. Grief, he says, is much the same—you think you know how life is going to go and then you are caught by an irretrievable loss. Moments of deep joy and deep sadness come from the same place.

I wonder if Jesus had something similar in mind as he made his parallel lists in the verses we read this morning.

As I read over the passage it struck me that Jesus had to work hard to get any time to himself—right from the start of his ministry. There are forty verses between the passage we read last week about Jesus calling Peter, James, and John to follow him and the verses we are looking at today. In those short words there are at least two healing miracles, a couple of theological discussions with those who didn’t feel like Jesus was doing it right, a party at Matthew’s house after he was called to be a disciple, and an attempt to get away to pray. When he came back into town, the crowd was waiting. They were clamoring to get close to him to get what they needed.

Rather than getting frustrated at everyone jostling for position, he began to talk to them about four things: poverty, hunger, grief, and social standing. He went down the list twice. The first time he talked about feeling blessed; the second time he talked about feeling miserable.

–how blessed are you who are poor because the realm of God is yours;
–how blessed are you who are hungry now because you are going to have enough to eat;
–how blessed are you who are weeping now because you are going to laugh;
–how blessed are you when you are marginalized because those divisions don’t matter to God.

Then he said

–how miserable for you to be rich because you are trapped in your comfort;
–how miserable to have all you want to eat because you are going to end up hungry;
–how miserable for you who don’t feel loss because sorrow will find you;
–how miserable for you when everyone says nice things about you because you can’t live on flattery.

It feels like Jesus is choosing sides–making a list of who’s in and who’s out in God’s eyes—but if we go back to the idea of grief and beauty living on the same street, we can see more to the story.

Generally, when we read the gospels we are left to imagine Jesus’ tone of voice. I could tell that some of the commentators I read this week thought Jesus was scolding the crowd, but others imagined that he was describing what it was like for the two groups of people. As I read and re-read the passage, it struck me that Jesus wasn’t complimenting and cursing people as much as describing their reality. To say it another way, those who have been caught by surprise by poverty, hunger, grief, and marginalization have a chance to be on the receiving end of compassion and care, and thus are blessed to know how to help others in a way that humanizes both the giver and the receiver. Those who live in a place of excess and comfort find it hard to change for fear of losing what they have; they don’t want a surprise, only what is safe and familiar—and that won’t last.

I’ll give you a concrete example. After my father died, I felt grief I had never known. Ginger’s father had died a year and a half earlier. I said to her, “I feel like we could call everyone we know whose father died before mine and say, ‘We’re sorry. We meant well, but we had no idea this is what you were dealing with.” I remember my first day back at work. At that time, I worked as a trainer in an Apple Store. I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t concentrate. Everyone at work was kind, but I could tell they didn’t get it—and I understood that. One person whose father lived with a chronic illness that made death an inevitability hugged me and said, “I know how you feel. Let’s go get a cup of coffee.” We walked next door to the coffee shop, got our drinks, and sat silently for ten or fifteen minutes. And it helped.

On the other side, do you remember how many of us were driving around trying to find toilet paper and paper towels when the pandemic first hit two years ago? The impulse when we found some was to buy all we could so we didn’t run out. And that was the heart of the problem. The issue was not that there was not enough to go around. It was that people hoarded out of fear of running out or out of greed in hope of reselling it (and I’m sure there were other reasons). But if we had all continued to buy the paper products as we had done so before the pandemic—which is to say if we had thought beyond putting ourselves first—there would have been enough to go around.

It seems like a simple enough truth about life, doesn’t it? Yet it’s one we have to keep coming back to.

One of the recurring themes any time a messenger from God shows up in scripture is the first words they say are, “Don’t be afraid.” We tend to imagine the messengers started that way because the people weren’t used to having an angel in the room, but their words are more far-reaching. When folks were out snatching up toilet paper, they were driven by fear: what if there is not enough for me?

When we begin to accumulate things, we often begin to be afraid of losing them. The more we have, the more we have to take care of—and, often, the less we take care of each other. It’s not that those who live in poverty or who go hungry are not scared, but Jesus is saying they are not as controlled by their fear because they have to learn how to share and how to depend on one another.

Here’s a statistic to illustrate the point: the state of Mississippi is fiftieth in per capita income: the poorest state. It is also second in per capita charitable giving. Mississippians give 7.2% of their income away to various causes. Connecticut is sixth in per capita income; we are forty-fifth in charitable giving. We average sharing 3.2% of what we have.

I share those numbers not to induce guilt, but to ask what we are afraid of. Jesus looked at those around him who just made sure they were fed and safe and had more than they needed and said, “That must be miserable because you and I both know that won’t last.”

We are all exhausted. The pandemic has made frustration and fear far too familiar. It is difficult to see beyond where we are right now. As we hear Jesus’ words, let us remember that to take solace in our comforts will not silence our fears. To move beyond our fears so we can be surprised by joy means sharing what we have and asking for help. It means we are in this together. The way hungry people are fed is by someone else sharing their food. The way poor people survive is by others creating opportunity. The way grieving folks are comforted is by other grieving folks sharing their sorrow. The way those at the margins find a place to belong is by others widening the circle.

We are not defined by our circumstances, but by the way we respond to them. We can be miserable and trapped by our fear, or we can be open to the surprise of blessing. May we be people who choose the blessing. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

In her essay “Soon This Space Will Be Too Small,” Jordan Kisner writes,

Even if we are not fated to circle a single story for our whole lives, perhaps we are obliged to follow a single thought all the way until we have finished it. Thoughts can take years.

This a weekend that retells the beginning of the story Ginger and I are telling in our lives together and the lectionary story of Jesus calling Simon, James, and John to drop everything and follow him. At the heart of both is the single thought I can not exhaust: we are loved; we are really, really loved.

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There was an ice storm in Fort Worth, Texas this weekend.

I know that doesn’t matter much to folks here in New England, other than to feel sorry for them, but it was a sentimental moment for Ginger and me because thirty-three years ago on this very weekend we had our first date in Fort Worth, Texas—where we lived at the time—and there was an ice storm.

We met the weekend before on a youth retreat. She was a sponsor with one of the church groups and I was leading the music. Neither of us expected for the weekend to be life changing. And then we met each other, had our first date going to see Lyle Lovett in an ice storm, and the rest is history.

Whether we are talking about couples or long-time friends, the “how we met” stories are always worth telling.

Our scripture this morning reads like one of those stories, but the more times I read this story, the less I think this was Jesus’ first encounter with Peter, James, and John. The way Matthew and Mark tell the story, it reads like Jesus was walking through town picking up disciples like he was picking up groceries. For them to be willing to just get up and go makes me think they knew the day was coming. I don’t know another way to explain how Jesus could just walk up and say, “Follow me,” and the guys just walk away from work and family and everything else.

Luke takes a little more time to let the story unfold. Though Matthew and Mark say Jesus had begun preaching, Luke has him in the middle of a crowd when he encounters the fishermen. Almost every time there is a crowd in the gospel accounts, they are hungry—for words, for food, for hope. Jesus comes upon Simon and James and John who are washing their nets after a disappointing night at work. Their day is ending.

Jesus got in one of the boats, sat down, and asked them to push out a bit so he could talk to the crowd. Many years ago, Ginger and I went to Israel and Palestine and stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Our guide told this story and remarked of Jesus’ understanding of acoustics: talking from the water to the shore made his voice louder. More people could hear him.

What Jesus asked of the men was inconvenient and imposing. They were cleaning up. They had to get back in the boat and take him out and then sit there while he preached. When he finished, he told them to row our further and drop their nets. Simon was less than hopeful, but said, “Because you asked, we’ll do it”—another clue that they were already acquainted.

And they caught so many fish that the nets began to tear and the boats began to sink and, based on Simon’s response, it all felt like a metaphor for how Simon felt about the whole thing: he dropped to his knees and said, “I am not worthy of this. Go away from me.”

Jesus’ response was, “Don’t be afraid. Now you are going to fish for people.”

Luke says they docked the boats, left everything, and followed Jesus. They didn’t walk away from their jobs in frustration after a fruitless night of fishing. They walked away from two boats loaded with fish. From a winning fish lottery ticket. But instead of the fish, they saw the mass of hungry people that Jesus saw as well.

I read a phrase this week that stuck with me: ordinary devotions, which means in our lives we may “undergo the same realizations, write the same notes in the margin, return to the same themes in one’s work, relearn the same emotional truths” because “such revisitations constitute a life.”

The thing Jesus kept coming back to with Simon (whom he also called Peter) and the others was that they were wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved. We see that theme repeated over and over in the gospels. They appear to have bet their lives on being with Jesus, because when he was executed they were devastated. We observe the crucifixion already knowing about the resurrection; the disciples were not so fortunate. Peter followed Jesus as he was taken into custody and ended up in the courtyard outside the place where the trial was taking place. In the course of conversations around the fire, he denied knowing Jesus three different times.

After Jesus’ death and a couple of days of regret and remorse, Peter went back to what he had walked away from. “I’m going fishing,” he said. And they got in their boats and fished all night. I wonder if Peter made the connection. At dawn, someone called from the shore and told them to try again—and they caught so many fish that the nets almost broke and the boat almost sank.

And Peter said, “It’s the Lord,” jumped in the water and swam to shore.

I think that in that moment Peter not only recognized Jesus but he remembered the ordinary devotions Jesus had returned to over and over. Jesus believed in Peter more than Peter believed in himself. In their first encounter, Jesus had to get them to look up from their nets to hear what he had to say. They were so wrapped in the repetitive details of their days and the demands of their work that they had to be shocked into awareness of who was right in front of them. The boat full of fish helped them see that there was more to their lives than they had ever been able to see—and Jesus was offering to show them who they could become. The second time, they were wracked by despair and guilt and grief that they had to be astounded in order to remember that love is stronger than whatever we might have done.

At the end of the second encounter, Jesus asks Peter the same question three times—do you love me?—and then, when Peter says yes, Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.” Though he’s switching metaphors, I think he’s saying much the same thing as, “Fish for people,” and that is, “You know what it feels like to feel hopeless, or caught, or despairing, or guilty, or like nothing will ever be the same again, and now you know what it feels like to know you are wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved. Go tell everyone you can what that feels like and tell them they are included.”

In other words, “Fish for sheep.”

Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey—whether in the boat or on the shore, feeling on top of the world or at the bottom of the pile, wracked by guilt, buried by despair, clinging to hope, hoping for change, longing for normalcy, or just drowning in daily details—Christ’s invitation is still the same: come fish for sheep. This is the story we keep returning to so we can relearn that we are wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved. This is the ordinary devotion worth repeating, the old story that has new things to say every time we tell it—and we need to tell as many people as you can. Amen.

Peace,
Milton