Love your neighbor as yourself?

A lawyer asks Jesus what the most important rule in Scripture is, and he responds by quoting Deutoronomy:

"Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength..."

You can almost see the Pharisees grinning as they think of all of the ways in which they have done a better job of that than the rest of the world.

But Jesus continues, adding a second: "...and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself."

Their grins disappear.

These two sentences have spawned centuries of speculation, rule-making, and charitable giving.

But some of us are more perplexed than anything by that second command: how am I supposed to love a neighbor as myself if I have a hard time liking myself?

I've written before on the trouble with self-negation and the Church, and since then I've thought about it quite a bit.

And yesterday, something occurred to me:

What would happen if you flipped that command on its head?

What if that verse really read "love yourself as you love your neighbor?"

Does that change how you would respond?

"Sister, you are a preacher."

It all started when I walked to the podium, opened the Bible to Jeremiah, and, knowing what came next, smiled. There appeared, again, that strange feeling that this was, somehow, right.  Jeremiah 1 was already imprinted on my heart in a way that only the Spirit can be responsible for. My sermon said, more than once, "we are Jeremiah--and we are Jeremiah together."

And it was better than I could have ever imagined.

On Tuesday, for my Preaching Foundations class, I preached my very first official sermon as a seminarian. (Okay, it was more like a 13-minute homily-ish-thing, but I'm still claiming it as a sermon.)

Preaching, for me, is always an odd experience. I tend to lose myself in what I'm saying, and sort of forget that there are real people listening.  If I didn't have a manuscript in front of me, I would have no idea what I'd said once I sat down. (This has legitimately happened before.)

But this passage, in particular, worked its way into my soul and stuck there. My own story is so wrapped up in this call narrative that Jeremiah's words became my own, and I claimed God's words to Jeremiah. 

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you."

Apparently, it showed.

My professor and two local pastors evaluating me were oddly enchanted with what I had to say. Having seen the video of my sermon, I'm going to go ahead and blame the Holy Spirit and its penchant for doing unexpected things for that, because that sermon itself wasn't particularly special. But that's also a dangerous claim to make, because when it was over, one of the pastors said to me:

"Sister, you are a PREACHER. Don't ever shy away from that."

My first reaction was "aw, thanks!"

A split second later, I realized what she had really said, my eyes got wide, and I thought "oh dear--I'm a WHAT?"

See, I knew quite a while ago that preaching was something that I could do. Public speaking doesn't phase me after eight years of speech competitions and organizational leadership roles. It's physically possible and not overwhelmingly terrifying.

The question was always whether I should. Is this what God would have me do with my time and brain power and emotional energy? Or should I be focused somewhere else?

So, I messed with the seminary's requirements for my degree program and took this preaching class. I had a strange feeling that by the end of the semester, I would have some idea whether I should be doing this on a regular basis or not. (Those unexplainable gut feelings lead me to make some of the most insane decisions I could ever think of, but I usually wind up following them anyway.)

And so it begins. At some point (but not until this summer) I have to make a choice between my current program (seminary plus social work) and the regular seminary program. I have to decide where the energy and brain power and time will go.

And if preaching is to be a part of this call, then so be it.

"You shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord."

You see, this is one of those moments when I am incredibly thankful for my complete inability to see where this is going. College-student-Sarah would have been absolutely terrified by what I'm doing right now, and high-school-Sarah would have thought that I was simply insane. But all of this makes so much sense in retrospect that I can't imagine myself doing anything else, even though I really, really want to some days.

And so, I wait. I continue to wait, and ask, and wait some more.

God, where do I go from here?

It is finished.

Over. Done. No chance to change anything, to tweak something, to do it over.

I like those words. It's nice to have finished projects, well-written papers turned in, and a pile of clean dishes rather than a sink of unwashed dishes.

But those three words, while I love them when I get to say them, are a bit harder to deal with when they come from Jesus.

Because when Jesus says those three words from atop a cross, I am no longer in control. I no longer get to say what my life will look like, and I don't get to choose the easy way out anymore. Those three words, spoken more than 1,800 years before I was born, shape my entire life.

Those three words change everything.

Yesterday was Good Friday--the day that Christians mark the death and burial of Jesus. If you read any of the gospel accounts of what happened on that original Good Friday, then you'll know that it wasn't particularly good for Jesus. But Christians call it 'good' because the day that Jesus suffered and died is also the day that he told us "it is finished."

Sins? Gone. Death? Over. You? Loved beyond measure.

But they also make me nervous. There's no chance in those three words for me to make it up to Jesus, (as if I ever could anyway.) There is no me in that sentence at all. Those three words say to me "I've done everything for you. There is nothing more to do for your salvation. There are no brownie points to earn, no extra credit to be gained, no more love to seek out. It's finished."

This is the heart of the Christian faith--trust that when Jesus says "it is finished," he means it.

So today, we sit between Good Friday and Easter. We occupy that space where it is finished, but more is coming. It's the already and the not-yet. Because tomorrow, we learn that not only does Jesus finish what we could not do for ourselves, but he goes one step further.

Tomorrow, we learn that we have hope beyond anything we could possibly imagine.

Maundy Thursday - no excuses.

John 13:34 - "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

I never knew what Maundy Thursday was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure I never bothered to go to a Maundy Thursday service, unsure of what to expect. What in the world does "Maundy" even mean?

Google is a wonderful thing, because today I learned that in Middle English, the version of English commonly spoken a few centuries ago, the word maunde meant commandment. Thus, today is literally "Commandment Day." What commandment, you might ask?

"Love one another."

As we journey through Holy Week, we are meant to fix our eyes on Jesus as he journeys towards the cross. We spend our time looking at what Jesus does, where Jesus goes, and how Jesus lives as he (quite literally) walks to his death.

This is good. Don't stop doing that.

But Maundy Thursday is, at its roots, a day to think about how we interact with one another. We ought to take time to think about the implications in our day-to-day interactions of Jesus' last days. We are commanded, once again, even in the midst of conflict, heartache, confusion and fear, to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples.

Just let that sink in for a moment. Remember that Jesus spent three years teaching, correcting, eating with, and listening to his disciples. Remember that he washed the feet of the one who sent soldiers to arrest him in exchange for cash and even fed him at his table.

But that raises a brand-new question: what does that love look like for us?

For Pope Francis, "love one another" looks like celebrating the Maundy Thursday mass in a high-security juvenile prison outside of Rome, washing the feet of teenage inmates.

For some, "love one another" means standing outside of the Supreme Court building with signs supporting marriage equality.

For many pastors, "love one another" means sitting with the sick in hospitals, homes, and hospice houses. It means planning and tweaking and pouring that love into liturgy, songs, and sermons to edify and teach the people of God this week.

But for many, it means absolutely nothing. Nothing changes. We look at the cross, just like we did last year, and say "oh, how nice of Jesus to die so that I could really live." We might even shed a tear or two.  But still, we go home ignorant of the millions of unwashed feet, empty stomachs, and fearful hearts that fill the world. We still throw out our leftover food, never thinking that perhaps we ought to set a few more places at the table tomorrow and invite some strangers over for dinner. We still leave that extra bedroom empty, just in case someone eventually visits, while our childrens' classmates go 'home' to another new place and another new set of foster parents. We still buy our Hershey's chocolate and buy our Nike shoes, even though they were likely produced with child and/or slave labor. We still think "maybe when I'm less busy, I'll volunteer somewhere."

The world still revolves around me, my family, and my needs.

We don't often stop to ask what family really means, who we truly are, and what needs we really have.  Is family fundamentally biological? Is our identity in where we live, the things we do, and the roles we play?  Who gets to determine what 'normal' means?

After spending a week on the US/Mexico border learning first-hand what life looks like for undocumented immigrants (both in the US and those who were deported back to Mexico), one of my professors told our Systematic Theology class that "as people training for ministry, you have no excuse for ignorance."

I would argue that no Christian has an excuse for ignorance, because Christ commands us to "love one another, just as I have loved you."

Culture shock, restlessness, and movement.

Well, it finally happened. I hit the culture shock wall, and I freaked out a little. (Okay, I freaked out a lot.)  It's an odd sort of feeling to think that in the place where you look so much like everyone else, you feel least at home. I'm tall, white, blonde, a lifelong member of the RCA, I eat olliebollen, and I own wooden shoes. I should feel right at home in Holland, right?

Wrong.

I felt more at home in India than I do in Holland.

I see so many deeply embedded cultural assumptions in Holland, so many practices, that make me cringe--physically or mentally.  I see the RCA as a denomination continuing to walk in this circle of isolation, and I see immense disconnect from reality.

In short, the vision of human flourishing that's implicit in how the majority of west Michigan works is not a vision that I want to adopt. It's narrow, it's rigid, and it's crumbling. It stands on a foundation of similarity and conformity, not diversity and engagement.

And yet, I can't leave--at least not yet.  I have somewhere between a year and a half and three years before I graduate from Western, and the Spirit will not give me peace about going anywhere else. (Believe me, I. have. tried.)

So here I sit, in my ridiculously oversized apartment, wondering what's next.  I'll spend the summer in Holland, working at the library and visiting the beach often. The sun will help, I think. Hopefully, I'll learn to play nice with the RCA, even when I would rather scream and/or smack my colleagues upside the head with my hardcover Bible.

Perhaps I just need to take up kickboxing.

But as I sit here, there's also a restlessness in my soul. I want to travel, to engage the world that God loves so much--and the world that I've come to love. I want to go.

I've never wanted anything more than to sit among God's people in other cultures, other nations, and other languages, and learn from them what it means to "belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to [our] faithful savior--Jesus Christ." (Answer #1, Heidelberg Catechism)  And I know in my heart of hearts that I have so much to learn.

And so we have two competing impulses: to go and to stay. 

Perhaps I'll find a way to do both--after all, I've never been one to play by the rules.

Called.

Two years into this seminary journey, I am slowly coming to terms with this idea of 'call'--that I have been, somehow, plucked out of my small little life and dropped into the middle of Holland Michigan to prepare myself for ministry.

If you've kept track of my journey over the past few years, you'll know that I've spent much time and energy telling myself "don't worry--this will all blow over soon and you can go back to your 8-5 job and not think about Jean Calvin ever again." 

Because most days, including today, the thought that I will one day be responsible for a congregation terrifies me.

Precisely for this reason, Jeremiah 1:4-10 and I have issues--because every time I read it, I get this strange feeling that God is speaking to me.  The words jump out of pre-exile Israel and hit me smack in the kardia.

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
⁵ ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
⁶Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a child.       ⁷But the Lord said to me,
‘Do not say, “I am only a child”;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’
⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.
¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’

 To be clear, I make no claims to prophecy--let's face it, I can barely handle the idea that I'll someday answer to "Pastor Sarah." 

But God's words to Jeremiah resonate in a part of my soul that I can't yet find.  "Do not say 'I am only a child,' for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you."  God and I have had this conversation so. many. times. 

It's almost as though there's a grieving process attached to fully accepting this call and living into it--as if I have to let go of the life that I wished I could live, with an easy 8-5 job and a cozy mine-all-mine living space, and realize that my life is no longer my own to direct or control or even make 5-year plans for.

That's not to say that I have no part to play in where I end up or how I get there.  That's not it at all.  But accepting that I am called to Christian ministry means living today in such a way that I will someday be prepared to put on that stole and a "Pastor Sarah'" nametag without having a panic attack.

That means taking my theology classes far more seriously than I do today.  That means really investing time and energy into my internship.  That means taking the steps I need to to be healthy in as many ways as possible. That means not using the dual-track program as a cop-out for all of this preparation, and actually learning my Greek vocabulary.

One of the supreme ironies in all of this came from my Preaching class two weeks ago.  Our professor printed weeks from the lectionary (the schedule of Bible readings that lots of churches use), and randomly handed them to us.  These were the passages that we would be assigned to preach our first sermon on for the class.

What passage is at the top of the list for August 25, 2013?

Jeremiah 1:4-10.

I have three other choices, too, of course--Hebrews 12, a Psalm, and something from one of the gospels. Perhaps I'll choose one of those. But looking at that lectionary page, I had to laugh.  I'm absolutely certain that God was.

Thanks for your grace as I figure all of this out, friends. Perhaps someday you'll be able to tell my congregation that I was once terrified of them, and probably still am.

Today's nerd alert is brought to you by...

...atonement theories.

Only my seminary and pastor friends will understand this, but as I was smack in the middle of belting 'In Christ Alone' in worship this morning, I had this thought:

"Why did I never notice that this song is so heavy on penal substitionary atonement?"

Cue internal facepalm.

Systematic theology will burrow its way into your brain, my friends. 

boring updates.

Since last weekend, I've written at least 10 thought-provoking blog posts--all of them half-finished and unpublished.

Writing is how I process information best, but it seems that I can't quite get to the end of a thought before something else takes over my brain.  Things like classes, reading, remembering to eat.  (One can only live on peanut butter sandwiches and CLIF bars for so long, after all.)

So instead of something deep, thoughtful, or eloquent, you get instead a list of my classes and a few life updates.

1. Two weeks in, I've made my way back to a 'normal' sleep schedule, and have actually been woken up by my alarm for two days in a row.  If you've ever experienced jet lag, then you understand what an accomplishment that feels like.

2. I've enjoyed some amount of free time this week, which was incredibly helpful in processing India and my grandmother's death.  I'm still not at 100%, but feeling much less overwhelmed by it all.

3. I'm still trying to figure out the difference between 'west Michigan nice' and genuine compliments on things like papers, my hair, and other such things. Michigan is an odd, odd place sometimes.

4. When you're stuck in west Michigan, surrounded by snow and people who are 'west Michigan nice', a great conversation with someone who understands the insanity that is your hometown can make you feel a lot less crazy.  Such a conversation was had this week, and thoroughly enjoyed.

Finally and without further ado, a list of my current courses for those of you who wish to know such things:

BL102 - New Testament Foundations
BL101 - New Testament Greek/Greek Exegesis
FR122 - Entering Christian Ministry (Peer Group)
MN101 - Preaching Foundations (yeah, they're letting me preach!)
MN105 - Pastor as Person
MN331 - Dual-Track Cohort
TF114 - Systematic Theology II

--

That's all, folks!

On Grief

Just before I left for India, my last remaining grandparent passed away--my paternal grandmother.  I was in Michigan, which meant a quick trip home for her visitation and back here in time to catch my flight. I came back from India just in time to start classes again, so there's been little time to think, not to mention grieve. 

Grieving on your own like this is an odd sort of thing, though. There comes a point when all of the lovely and well-intentioned "I'm sorry"s just aren't enough, and you wish for a different sort of empathy that can only come from shared experience. It's the silent waves of never-agains, the I-wishes, the should-haves, the remember-whens, and the flash-photographed memories that make this hard.

I purposely didn't allow myself to do any of that in India, because I wanted to take in as much as possible without connecting it to that grieving process.  That it worked, I'm glad.

But now, I'm one week in to another semester at seminary and still haven't made the time to do any of that processing. My family has a massive head start, which means that they've already made it to the fighting-over-possessions stage.  Meanwhile, I'm 300 miles away and still back at "wait, what?"

And so I try to envision, once again, at what the new normal will look like after so much turnover. New pieces keep getting added to an ever-changing puzzle picture, and I sit here praying "Lord, what's next?" 

And instead of "go," I hear "sit, and stay a while."

Week One

Last week, I was standing in a small scarf shop in India talking liturgical colors/seasons with friends, deciding whether the orange or the pink scarf would be better for spring, and knowing that I had to come back to Michigan that night, silently scheming ways to return to India.

Today, I sat in the atrium at Western Theological Seminary watching the snow fall.

It's hard to believe that an entire week of spring semester has passed already.  I think I was asleep through most of it, to be honest, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the reality that this is, in fact, my life.  I've given in to the necessity of things like laundry, dishes, and vacuuming. I'm slowly succumbing to things like Greek vocabulary and New Testament reading.

But as I start a new semester, there's a strange tension lingering between how I want things to be and how they really are--the 'should be' and the existent.  Lately, I find myself daydreaming far more often than I ought to about the world, particularly my world, in better shape than I find it in. It's encouraging to know that such a world might be possible.  But there's a fine balance between hoping for a better world and becoming bitter at the world you see, and I'm really good at falling all over that line.  I'm not lying when I say that every fiber of my being wishes it were in India, but I'm also fighting to be present here.

So as I conquer jet lag, clean up my terribly messy apartment, find some semblance of a routine and hope that it stops snowing someday, I also hope for a world without daydreaming--a reality that I'm excited about and not slightly terrified of. 

...

 

And speaking of slightly terrifying things, standing on this bridge in Kerala was exactly that. This bridge is made entirely out of old pipes and tree limbs, tied together with rope. We fit eight people on it for a photo, and we honestly thought for a while that we would end up in the river.  But we got a fantastic photo out of it, don't you think?