Marked with Love

John 13:34-35 is the lectionary text this week, but since we're doing a series on Acts, I won't get a chance to expand on this very valuable analogy.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

If this short teaching from Jesus could be summed up in an image it would be the basin and towel with which he had just washed his disciples’ feet.  He had stooped and taken their feet in his hands,  cleaned the dust and dirt of the day from them and with care dried them.  And then he had instructed them to go and do likewise.  They are to make themselves known as followers by acts of humble service and loving care.

It is by a love like this – humble, willing to serve, possibility even willing to die – that should set the disciples of Jesus apart and make them visibly marked as his followers.

As the parent of an 8-year-old I have become very familiar with marks that set individuals apart.  I’m talking about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the image on the flank of everypony in Equestria: the cutie mark. Each pony is marked with an image that represents their special gift. Often the gift and the cutiemark that it represents are way each pony serves their community.  The pony who’s marked with butterflies loves and cares for animals and nature.  The pony marked with apples farms and feeds the town. 

Cute though the marks – and the message – may be, the series’ emphasis on relationships, welcoming strangers, second chances, making friends out of enemies and discovering the way each one can contribute to the strength of the community has been a great seed for conversation about those things.  There has been much speculation in my household about what each of us might have as a cutie mark if we were ponies.  What one image sums up each of our special combinations of gifts and interests in a tattoo-like mark?

As Jesus’ disciples we know that we do each have gifts which we have been given by God.  These are the things we’re good and the things we love.  The things that work together with the gifts of others to build community and show God’s love to the world.

The love by which Jesus loved his disciples and the world is a powerful love.  We are charged with bearing that love in our lives now.  Jesus passes his very love onto us and we are branded.  And the way we put that mark on display is through the humility, service, care, compassion and non-violent acts of just peace.  Whatever each of our particular ‘cutie marks’ might be we are all marked and can be identified as Jesus’ disciples by his love.

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Finally, because the internet, these. 

  

  

I Doubt It

This past Sunday was the most fun I've had during a children's time in recent memory - although I usually do enjoy it.  The story was 'doubting' Thomas.  With the children, I played the game 'I doubt it' inspired by a piece of writing by Amy Yoder McGloughlin over at Practicing Families blog.  I shared some 'facts' about myself and I encouraged the children to call my bluff if they didn't believe what I told them by calling out 'I doubt it'.  I was a little surprised how much they got into it.

These are the facts I shared :

- I was so smart that I started kindergarten when I was 3 (not true - and they knew it)

- I have a little plane which I like to take for flights around Seattle on sunny days (also not true, although I wish!)

- I own a camel (not true, although I have ridden a camel)

- When I was born, I was came out yellow (true but the kids were on a roll with their 'I doubt it's by then)

- I have blue skin (obviously false...or is it?)

Well, it might be sort of tricky, but I do have blue skin. I have a tattoo of a blue cross on my wrist (pictured below).  I couldn't prove or disprove any of the other things, although I could probably dig up a picture of my jaundiced infant self.   But I could and did show the children my tattoo where my skin is blue.  I offered to let them touch it if they wanted to.  A few kids took me up on it.  A few were vocally still doubtful that it was real.

Like his friends and fellow disciple, Thomas is not ready to believe that Jesus has risen from the dead - even though their friend Mary has already seen him - until they see for themselves, feel his breath, touch his hands.  When the disciples tell Thomas that their dear friend Jesus was with them, Thomas - who loved him and had followed him, but wasn't with his other friends when Jesus came to see them - said 'I doubt it.'  The friends all got to have that first shocking experience him when he offered peace, and the breath of the Spirit.  But Thomas' response:  "Good one, you guys.  I’m not going to believe it until I see Jesus with my own eyes." He loved Jesus and he wasn't going to be fooled.

Jesus also loved Thomas, so when he came to visit again, he doesn't get angry with Thomas, or scold him.  He invites Thomas to look really carefully.  Even to touch him – just like the children could examine and touch my blue skin.  It was okay with Jesus that Thomas wanted to do that - to make really sure.  

Not having the advantage of Jesus' presence with us in the skin, we're perpetually in the state that Thomas was in.  And in fact I think our congregation is one that has always been open to doubt, to questions, to skeptics.  We faithfully follow the Jesus we know and love in the midst of this doubt.  Even though we weren't in the room, we accept the commission: "Just as the Father sent me, so I send you."  At the same time, I am encouraged to live into the invitation to belief, in that balance there is blessing.

Detective of Divinity - Easter 4 Children's Story – The Good Shepherd

John 10:11-18 – The Good Shepherd

Props: Detective Gear, sheep, staff and shepherd for evidence box

·         Recall with the children the ways that we’ve looked for clues about Jesus in past weeks – we’ve always had Jesus right there as the biggest clue

·         Today we’re looking for clues about Jesus and what he’s like – and about what God is like – in a story that Jesus tells (these clues might be very familiar if you’ve spent time in the Atrium)

·         Put on detective gear and look at the clues together:

o   the first clue: sheep – what do we know about sheep?  They really need someone to take care of them.  They’re not very smart.  They run around in packs – herds – with other sheep.  They’re vulnerable – that means they can’t protect themselves.

o   the second clue: shepherd’s staff – one way to protect them.  Hook them out of the way, scare away mean animals like the big bad wolf, guide them all together

o   the third clue: shepherd – biggest clue – the one who cares for all the sheep, keeps them safe, knows each of their names and calls to them, they all know his name too and know to follow

·         The story about the Good Shepherd was Jesus’ clue to how much he loves and wants to protect us and care for us.  A clue to how special we each are to God.

Detective of Divinity: Easter 2 Children's Story (Lectionary Year B)

John 20:19-31

Props:
trench coat, detective hat, magnifying glass, box for evidence, small model or picture of a door, empty jar for ‘breath’, figure of Jesus with marked hands and feet or picture of hand and feet or picture of Thomas touching Jesus like the one above

• Ask children if they remember the story from last week. Remind children about what it means to be a witness and about how Mary was a witness to Jesus.
  
• Put on costume props and invite the children again to be witnesses and look at the clues together.
  
• Talk about the disciples who were not yet witnesses.
  
• Look at the clues in the evidence box:
  

the first clue: a door – the door was locked because the disciples were afraid that they would be associated with Jesus. Jesus was killed and maybe they would be in danger too. But Jesus got into the room even though the door was locked tight

the second clue – Jesus! The hand and feet of Jesus were scarred. The disciples could see that it was him, the man who had been badly hurt and killed – he’s alive!

the breath in a jar – Jesus breathed on them – a dead person can’t breathe! And he told them that it was his Spirit

• Say: “Thomas had to see all of these things to believe that Jesus was alive. Just like Mary didn’t believe it until she heard Jesus say her name.”
• Say: “Jesus told Thomas that his disciples might need to believe even though they don’t see – which means we need to look for clues to Jesus in the stories we hear, in the way we see people acting, in the love we feel”
• Pray: “God, help me to see the way you and your Spirit are with me always. Amen.”

Detective of Divinity: Easter Sunday Children's Story (Lectionary Year B)

Through this season of Easter, our congregation is worshiping with the theme "Witness to the Light" based on the numbers of times in Acts and John people are named as witnesses to Christ's ministry, his death and his resurrection. They see and tell. Usually we have the benefit of using Leader magazine's resources but since this year they didn't publish Easter materials, I was tasked with coming up with my own Children's Story for the worship series.

I was somewhat inspired by Bryan Moyer Suderman's newest album Detectives of Divinity to think about the ways that the biblical witnesses have the clues set before them...and how we do too. So the first Sunday of Easter, I'm starting with Mary Magdalene, witness to the risen Jesus, and having the kids help me look for the clues she found that he was alive.

I'll post the story every week until Pentecost.

Easter Sunday – John 20:1-18

props: trench coat, detective hat, magnifying glass, box for evidence, stone, bandages, figure of Jesus

· Ask if children know what it means to be a witness

o meaning one: to see something with your own eyes

o meaning two: to tell about what you’ve seen

· Often the word ‘witness’ in association with police or detective or the courtroom – like being on the ‘witness stand’ when a witness tells about the crime that they saw.

· Put on costume props and say “Today I’m going to be a detective and you are going to be the witnesses and together we’re going to look for the clues that Jesus is alive – just like in the story from John 20”

o the first clue: a rock – Mary saw the rock rolled away and that was her first clue that Jesus was missing. Talk about where there was a stone out of place in the story.

o the second clue: the cloths that wrapped Jesus’ head and hands – these were left in the tomb but the body wasn’t there. Talk about what the cloths were for and the disciples who saw them.

o the third clue: Jesus himself – Mary thought he was the gardener but she learned that it was Jesus himself. Talk about Jesus’ conversation with Mary.

· Ask: “What did Mary do when she figured out all the clues?” She was a witness who witnessed; she went and told her friends what she had seen: ‘Jesus is alive!’

· Say: “Even though we don’t see Jesus, we do have clues that God is at work in our lives: in the Bible, in the love we feel and receive from our friends and family, in the stories we hear at church and in Sunday school, and in many other way. We just need to keep looking.”

Jesus at the sauna

John 13:1-15
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

Someone asked me recently, after I’d written my last post, how it is that my life lines up with the liturgical calendar. I replied that really, it’s probably more likely that in my awareness of what is happening in the liturgical calendar, that I notice when things happen in my life that are relevant to that. Something like that happened today.

One of the things that I love (and I mean LOVE) about Korea is the public bath or tchimchilbang.  Not only can you can sit and soak in the various tubs, shower, scrub and sit in the different temperatures of sauna in the women’s (or men’s) only area. You can also, in the common area, wearing gender assigned pink or blue shorts and t-shirts provided by the sauna, eat at the restaurant, work out on the weight equipment or cardio machines, watch tv, go online, sit in a massage chair, get your nails done or any other variety or personal services.  And more.

It is an awesome place to relax and so much better than my cramped shower room at home. I try to go at least once a week. I never feel self conscious about my body or about being naked; after you go once you realize that bodies – even Asian women’s bodies which are sexually idealized by western media – come in all shapes and sizes. But I do feel a little conscious of being a very pink and western woman in the otherwise all Korean setting. This is never more true that when I bring Naomi. Who also loves getting naked and wastes no time stripping, jumping in the tubs and playing, often with joyful noise – in the water, hopping from pool to pool, slipping and splashing and otherwise drawing (completely obliviously) as much attention to her noisy, adorable pink and blond self as possible.

So…when I go on my own I try to blend in, keep to myself, take advantage of not having to watch like a hawk a child who has no qualms about slurping the draining water off the floor (I know…so gross). Today was no exception. After a very satisfactory run and 20 or so minutes spent in the hot water, I found a stool and shower in a corner and started my scrub.* It’s pretty common for women to come together and when one can’t get her own back, her friend will scrub for her and then vice versa. It’s definitely preferable to trying to scrub your own, and when I’ve gone with my friend Rora and it works out nicely. No awkward stretching, no missing the area right in the center where you just can’t quite reach.

This morning I was doing the awkward stretching and reaching but in spite of that was quite happy with the scrub experience. I was thinking, in my corner, that I was inconspicuous, but I was surprised in my ablutions when a young women approached me and gestured to me an offer to scrub my back. Almost before I could indicate an assent she’d begun the best back scrub I have ever had and at the end poured the cool water from the basin in front of me over my back to clean all the suds and dead skin off the freshly scrubbed area.

I thanked her as fully as I could with my small vocabulary, then I gestured to return the favor. She refused. As I was about finished, I did a final shower rinse, collected my various soaps, hair products and scrubbers, wrapped up my hair and went out to change. And as I got dressed and brushed my hair and packed up my belongings, I could think only of Jesus. Specifically of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

Maundy Thursday was yesterday and I didn’t do anything to mark the date. I didn’t even remember it until my encounter today. Yet Jesus managed to take the form of a Korean woman offering to scrub my back as a reminder of the day. Like him, she refused to let me wash her. She made a pure act of service to someone whom perhaps she saw as a stumbling and struggling foreigner, or perhaps was just a simple thing she’d have done for anyone. In any case, I came away with new and grateful skin and a new and grateful heart. Thanks be to God!

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* In the Korean spa, there are four or five pools in the center of a large, stone tiled room. All around the room, in addition to a few stand-up showers surrounded by stations, are low shower stations along a marble shelf about a foot off the ground. Each shower station has a detachable shower head, a mirror and usually a plastic basin or two and a short plastic stool that nicely forms to one’s butt. Women go to the sauna several times a month to soak and scrub every inch of their bodies with small abrasive mitts. The cutest is when moms bring small babies. The last time I went there was a family with the absolutely fattest and happiest baby ever with her mom and older sister. That splashing baby totally made my week.

The trouble with Easter

I am finding it difficult to write the Easter message this year. There are a number of friends and members of my congregation who are weighted with burdens that will not some how magically disappear when the sun rises on Easter Sunday. There are some who will continue to live in the liminal space between Good Friday and Resurrection. Last Sunday my friend and fellow pastor Sarah Klaassen reminded us in her sermon that our Lenten task – our Christian task – is 'to accompany shadows.' We are a people who do not choose the happy and easy road, but who walk the way of the cross. We forgo the pursuit of happiness in favor of walking the dusty road with Christ. On Good Friday and throughout Lent this is, if not a welcome message and challenge, an appropriate one. But on Easter, full of budding flowers, sweet hot-crossed rolls, and loud Hallelujah choruses, where does the lingering grief and confusion still fit?

I often feel this way around Christmas as well. A celebration of light and joy when, for some, life seems full of darkness and sorrow must feel particularly oppressive. My pastoral colleague Jonathan often says, ‘What you see depends on where you sit.’ I think it may be difficult to see and hear a story of resurrection when you’re sitting in the tomb next to death, or addiction, or depression, or unemployment or homelessness or any number of losses and traumas that we bear in ourselves or on behalf of another.

For this reason I think I will speak from Mary’s perspective this year. Mary Magdalene who first encountered the risen Jesus, also first encountered the confusion and fear of the empty tomb. Where is the body? Has someone taken him? Why is the stone moved? Who are the strange and white robed men? Who is this man, the gardener and does he know what has become of my Lord? I weep with Mary who ‘as yet did not understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead.’ (John 20:9) And I will try to proclaim with her ‘I have seen the Lord!’ even though I, like she, may not recognize him right now.

**The image above is by Chinese artist He Qi, entitled 'The Empty Tomb'