Help Ourselves and Others to be Free

Dear Friends,
   
In the movie The Son Of God, Jesus stepped into the tomb of Lazarus, stood behind Lazarus’ head and put his hands on the shroud where the head and shoulders of Lazarus joined to breathe new life into his dead friend.

In the Gospel, Jesus did none of these things. He stood outside the tomb and wept, respectful of the reality of death symbolized by the stone rolled across the opening of the cave. 

                It is striking that, at this point, Jesus gave three instructions:
                      to the people gathered around, He said: Take the stone away.
                      (after praying,) Jesus called out: Lazarus! Come out.
                      Once again, to the people, He said: Unbind him and let him go free.

Only God could raise Lazarus, but Jesus invited the community to participate in two other significant actions. The people were invited to take away the stone and to unbind Lazarus, newly restored to life.

In this Gospel, are we bystanders?  Disinterested  spectators? Do we weep and then go away? Or do we enter the freeing of others from those things from which they can’t release themselves?

Not all binding is bad. Wives and husbands bind themselves to each other in marriage, priests through ordination and women and men religious through the vowed life in community bind ourselves to Christ and to the Church. You and I can bind ourselves to the achievement of a common purpose. But the binding of Lazarus is a binding in death. I hope we are compassionate enough to unbind others from the many deaths people experience: the death of hope, the death of a loving relationship, the death of enthusiasm.

Lent is the time to give over our energies to stand with Jesus outside the tomb and be ready to do what He asks of us. In this Gospel account, our call is clear: to unbind those unable to unbind themselves. After raising  Lazarus, Jesus went on with his journey to Jerusalem. He did not stay. Can we be ready to do that, too?  Unbind them, and then go on.

Here is a wonderful irony to nibble on all day long:  Being bound to Christ is to be free.

~Joan Sobala, SSJ

Take a Fresh Look

Dear Friends,

Call these “glimpses”- not full blown studies but opportunities to have a fresh look at biblical women and men as we draw closer to Holy Week and Easter. Two nameless people – the woman at the well and the man born blind encounter Jesus in separate stories in the Gospel of John.  We hear their stories on the Third and fourth Sundays of Lent. The fact that they are nameless is an invitation for us to take on their personas, to become the Samaritan woman and the man born blind.

The Samaritan woman came to the well at noon, at a time when other women would not be there. She could not bear to interact with other women  because her five husbands stood in the way. Jesus was different. He was thirsty and asked the woman for water. He had no vessel to get it for himself. She ended up asking him for living water, which will quench her thirst once and for all. What of our history drags us down and limits our interactions with the people of our town, city, street? What do we do when we encounter Jesus? Do we share water - ordinary water and the water of life? Do we brave our past and go to the people we know to tell them that Jesus is the awaited one?

The nameless man born blind was shepherded by his parents until this day when Jesus found him, and opened his eyes. Then, the man’s parents left him and he was, by himself,  subjected to  interrogation by the Pharisees. (Later Jesus would also be left alone, and questioned in a  cruel way.) The nameless, now-sighted man kept growing in conviction as he answered their questions. Eventually, Jesus found him again, and revealed himself as the awaited Anointed One.

It’s a very long journey from blindness to sight. Most often we carry our blindness alone, accommodate to it until Jesus stands before us, touches us, urges us to take the next steps if we want to see.
In our daily living, we can  become more remote like the woman at the well, or more comfortable In our blindness. More  intractable. Or we can become connected to others by sharing thirst-quenching water and insight.

It is not enough for us to take what the water giver offers. We need to become the water giver. It is not enough for us to see. We need to move away from social prejudice, cultural obsessions and blindspots toward a sense of connectedness with the people and with the earth.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages;
we are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet, it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability… and that it may take a very long time.”
( Fr Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to his cousin, Marguerite Teilhard, July 4, 1915)

~Joan Sobala, SSJ

Will You Leave Your Comfort Zone For Jesus?

Dear Friends,

    The third year of civil war in Syria is beginning. I think most of the refugees whose homes are left behind are destroyed. The homes of Moore, Oklahoma were a bundle of matchsticks after the tornado there last year. A house key is among a person’s most valuable possessions. Home is a very important part of human experience and longing.

    Home is where the heart is.

    “I’ll be home tonight,” the voice says over the phone, the electric current between speaker and listener intense.

    “Country road, take me home,” sang the late John Denver.

    The notion of home is so vital to us that we try to make homes for ourselves wherever we are, for our families, and our pets. For our God, we set apart space that seems sacred to us. There, we build altars, shrines, temples and churches.

    Peter, in the Gospel of the Transfiguration we heard last weekend, expresses the human urge to honor the Holy One by building a kind of home for God up there on the mountain.

    “Lord,” Peter says, “it is good for us to be here. Let us build tents for you and Moses and Elijah.” But it is not to be. Peter’s speech is cut short by the voice from the bright cloud which said:

    “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

    “Listen to him,” the Holy One says, and Peter, in his heart, listens. “No,” No, no home, no tents.
No lasting place of comfort. No place to linger.

    They would have to go down the mountain, away from this blessed moment.

    Sometimes in our 21st century lives, we too, experience the Transfigured Jesus, and we want to stay. But in the company of Jesus, we need to come down the mountain and head with Him away from our desires, our comfort zones and the securities of life, toward Jerusalem, death and, remarkably, new life.
   
“Get up! Don’t be afraid”, Jesus tells us. I will be with you, he assures us. But now, the transfigured companion of our life journey looks ordinary again. Is this really He?  Will we go with Him down the other side of the mountain and beyond? That’s the question of the second week of Lent.
   
~Joan Sobala, SSJ

Put Guilt in Perspective

Dear Friends,

We say that Lent is a time of preparation for Easter. It is, above all, that. On the other hand, so much of Lenten literature talks about sin, the forgiveness of sin, and when possible reconciliation with people and most especially, reconciliation with God. How do these ideas work together?

The way we prepare for Easter is to clean up the internal mess of the year, or perhaps, the internal  mess we have been carrying along for a long time. Whichever we work at, the job is arduous and time-consuming, so be ready. The new clothes of Easter are part of our faith tradition. We put on the new when  we’ve done away with or diminished the sinful, the destructive in us and have welcomed Christ and His way.

One factor related to the internal mess which we don’t find discussed much is guilt. The late, great American humorist, Erma Bombeck, hit the nail on the head when she told her audience: “Guilt is the gift we keep giving ourselves.” That’s often the case. Many of us seem to have accepted guilt in our lives as we have accepted the shape of our hands or the color of our eyes.

The writer Michael E. Cavanaugh says that “Guilt is the feeling of discomfort or shame we experience when we have done something we consider wrong, bad or immoral. Guilt can be either a help or a hindrance to emotional and spiritual growth.” 

Deep down, we know that when we behave according to what our conscience says is right and good, we do not ordinarily experience guilt. Coming to grips with the many ways guilt can distort us is useful and hard. We don’t want to admit that friends, spouses, children and parents can feed the guilt that threatens to overwhelm us. It goes the other way, too. We can add strength to the guilt others experience.

At times, we want to suppress guilt. Other times we wallow in it. Will guilt rule us or not? Sometimes , we use God as a club.  “If you don’t do what I say, God will get you…” we say,  or something similar.
How can we handle guilt in a constructive way? Three things are important:

1.Acknowledge the feeling of guilt. “I feel guilty when… I feel guilty that…”
2.Determine whether the guilt is appropriate or not. (Get help to sort out whether it is or isn’t.)
3.If it is, make amends, so that you can feel at one with yourself and at one with others.

If it is not appropriate, let go of it. Send it away on the winds and be clean.
Our communities, other individuals, our God can help us in the process of dealing constructively with our guilt. But the first step in the process is ours.

During this Lenten season, put guilt into perspective.
God did not save us only for us to overwhelm ourselves.

~Joan Sobala, SSJ

The Homeless Jesus (Timothy Schmalz)

Dear Friends,

The Son of God opened last Friday at a theatre near you, the latest version of the life of Jesus Christ. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t speak about it as one who has. I plan to, for the sake of talking with parishioners who will also see it. The film producer Mark Brunett  is quoted in last Friday’s Democrat and Chronicle ,pointing out that “people now more than ever feel ‘a big desire for Jesus‘ and the ‘need to reconnect.’”  Do you?

Then there is The Homeless Jesus, a life size bronze statue of a homeless man, lying on his side on a bench, apparently sound asleep. There’s room on the bench to sit next to him. The first time you notice the man is Jesus is when you see his uncovered feet which bear the holes of the nails. The sculpture is the work of artist Timothy Schamlz. Find him and his work on the net. Do you know this Jesus?

Which of these art forms draws you to God? Neither? Both?  Something  else? The liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil are worship , that’s true. But they also embody the artistic. Do they draw you to God?

My hope for your Lent and mine is that we use Lent as a time to draw near to God, become intimate with God, using whatever biblical, cultural, life tools are at our disposal.

Intimacy is a word we either like and use, or we don’t. If we don’t like it, it may be because the word “intimacy” has some negative connotation in our minds, e.g. illicit sexual relations or familiarity with a crime. But in its best meaning, intimacy is characterized by friendship or pronounced closeness, and it’s in this sense that we can talk about intimacy with God.

Intimacy with God is not something we have to create. It exists as soon as we exist. Our life’s work is to discover  or rediscover it.

“You are more inside me than my most intimate part,” Saint Augustine wrote. “You are the interior of my interior.”

Not me, you say.
I’m not good enough, valuable enough, important enough.

We want to run away, and sometimes we do.

But God says to us, over and over again:
   
I’m here.
I love you.
I want you.
Will you walk toward me even as I run toward you?

Why is it so hard to move toward God?

Maybe this is the work of Lent this year, to move toward  God . In order to do that work, we need to remember a couple of things:

•We don’t have to find God. God is always in touch with us,
even when  we don’t want to be in  touch with God.
•We don’t need to be wordy with God.  Think about the times when you and a loved one are in the car together,not talking but aware of each other. “Being  with” is all that’s needed.

This Lent, pray, fast, give alms, as you have, perhaps, done for many years already.
But this year, let these important practices come from a heart deeply in touch with God, a heart deeply attuned to God, a heart  intimate with God.

This year, sit with the homeless Jesus on the bench. Touch His foot. Make your commitment to Christ then and there.
~Joan Sobala, SSJ

Get Ready for a Season of Grace

Dear Friends,

Since the seventh century, Ash Wednesday has been the beginning of the season of preparation for Easter which we call Lent, but the imposition of ashes (made from last year’s palms) didn’t become common until the tenth century. Start your observance of Lent on Ash Wednesday, if you can.

A woman with a poetic bent, named Elizabeth Anne Vanek  made these Ash Wednesday connections:

You thumbed grit

Into my furrowed brow,

marking me

with the sign of mortality,

the dust of last year’s palms.

The cross you traced

seared, smudged skin,

and I recalled

other ashes

etched

Into my heart

by those who loved too little

or not at all.

For forty days beyond Ash Wednesday, early Christians fasted. They could only eat fish, fruit, vegetables and bread made only of flour and water. To add a measure of interest to their meals, early believers created  a bread they called “bracellae” which they shaped in the form of arms crossed in prayer. This helped remind them that Lent was a time of prayer and penance. The bakers sprinkled the tops of this pastry with salt.

When  monks introduced these breads to the Northern countries of Europe in subsequent centuries, the Germanic people coined the word “pretzel” from “bracellae” (which means little arms.) 

Here’s a twist for Lent this year:
   
Buy a bag of pretzels, and have one a day (like vitamins) as a sign of your willingness to take in and live out the practices of Lent.

When you have guests for dinner, let the first course be a pretzel each, with some conversation about why you are serving it.

If you are part of a committee, take pretzels with you to the committee meeting to enjoy and to be a conversation starter.

Think of other novel times to serve pretzels. After all, we are not called to give up humor and creativity for Lent.

Let us pray:
Make us new, gracious God, and hear our prayer,
for You are good and loving. Bless our work and prayer this Lent,
That our lives may show forth Your cross and Your glory.   
Amen.


Get ready for a season of grace,

~Joan Sobala, SSJ

Restore a Weary Heart

Dear Friends,

Winter can overpower us with its relentlessness, especially this year. Even in other years that are not as bitterly cold or snowy, by the middle of February, let’s say, we get weary.

We can have a weary body, but not a weary heart. Weary bodies are restored with sleep, food, rest, relaxation. Bodies seem to get weary faster than hearts do, but when hearts grow weary, restoration takes longer. When I am weary of heart, for whatever reason:

• I cannot think clearly
• I cannot muster hope
• I want to quit
• I miss important signs
• I putter, eat more, cry more, coast
• I congratulate myself on a just weariness

In the worst of heart weary times,

• I want to close down, walk away.
• I say to God: You do it. I can’t. I don’t want to. I won’t.

       
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men and women shall fall
exhausted; but they who wait for God shall renew their strength, they shall mount up    
with wings of eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
    (Isaiah 40.30-32)

Renewed strength doesn’t come unless I reach out to

• notice when someone picks up a piece of what I am supposed to do
• let the word of comfort someone offers me really touch me
• remember how often in Scripture we hear “Do not be afraid”
• tell others I am heartweary  and accept their ministrations

I don’t need to tell God about the times when I am heartweary, as if God doesn’t know it, but I may need to admit it to God and remember

The steadfast love of God never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “God is my portion," says my soul, “therefore I will hope in God.” (Lamentations 3.22-24)

I can be overcome by my heartweariness. I can wallow in self-pity, grow breath-deprived in the stagnant air of a barricaded heart, or I can

• put some blinking lights on a lilac bush, so God can see me
• watch a homely, spiny cactus bud in March
• taste the Eucharistic bread and cup as real food and drink to revive me

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden light. (Matthew 11.28-30)

Lent is coming. Set aside weariness. Indeed, fast from weariness. Feast on the strength the Holy One gives without cost.

~Joan Sobala, SSJ