Sacred Space

   Alistair Eberst writes, "St. Cuthbert's Island adjoining the shore of Lindisfarne is a wonderful parable of quiet, for it is always in sight of the main  island, and yet for hours and hours at a time it is completely cut off. It seems designed especially to experience a day of solitude, long enough to limit your freedom, but not as inaccessible as the life of the true hermit. Here Cuthbert, and most certainly Aidan before him, escaped from the pressures of community and of missions and turned their face towards God."1
   Traveling to a sacred place might be easy for some, but I'm on a budget. I haven't found any local prayer huts or protected islands to escape to regularly. When we were newly married and had an infant daughter I determined to get away for a night and spend the time in prayer and quiet, so I went to the church camp an hour away with my tent and sleeping bag. I built a fire, and something in the smoke triggered my allergies. I got so sick I decided to go back home where I could spend the night in prayer and quiet without choking to death. My wife, whom I'd abandoned for the evening, found that quite humorous.
   My suspicion is that there are sacred spaces that are much closer to home than a church camp or St. Cuthbert's Island, and much more accessible. Any story scripture tells about  the ministry of Jesus will do. I find that I can go to one as a place apart, enter the story, and speak and be heard.
When I read about a dinner being given in Jesus' honor (John 12:1ff) I simply take my place at the table. Martha is serving, Lazarus is there recovering from death, and Mary is anointing Jesus' feet with expensive perfume, wiping them with her hair.
   Judas is there too, carping about wasting the perfume instead of selling it as a fundraiser for the poor, and it's obvious he's taking a swipe at Mary for being so wasteful. Jesus reprimands him: "Leave her alone. It was intended," he says, "that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial." John says that meanwhile a large crowd of Jews began to gather and plot Jesus' death.
   It seems like a lot of things are going on during this "simple dinner of honor." My first inclination is to take sides with one of the groups present. Which is most appealing? Martha serving food, Mary pouring perfume, Judas complaining, Jesus defending, Pharisees plotting? I know the story, so I know how it plays out. But what if I didn't?
   When my imagination comes into play I see Judas' response to Jesus' "Leave her alone ... It was intended." There is a quick look of defiance on Judas' face. It's not the reaction of a disciple/learner. One would expect appreciation for the instruction. But maybe Jesus does sound a bit harsh, more so than if it were simple instruction. The fact that Jesus knows what is "intended" - surely by God - infers that Judas doesn't have the insight Jesus does. Or perhaps Jesus can read him all too well.
   So now, imagining again, I feel a tension in the air. Martha's service is interrupted, as is Mary's attention to Jesus. The disciples look first at Judas, then back at Jesus, and it becomes quiet. And I enter into the sacred space of choosing.

Pastor Mike


1 Eberst, Alistair. "St Cuthbert's Island." Celtic Daily Prayer. 2002: HarperOne, p. 453.

Kids

I'm intrigued.  News reports say that Walmart is planning to spend 3 billion dollars over the next 10 years to strengthen the US economy. The agenda includes supporting new technologies, underwriting new businesses - a long list of investments. It's a sizeable goal, and obviously Walmart is doing quite well financially. As business people the company leaders expect the investment to pay off in the long run. New jobs mean more money back into the economy, which means more jobs.

With an estimated 50,000 children coming into the country from places like Guatemala,  the government is balking at spending 3 billion dollars to assist them. Actually the proposal is to spend 1.5 billion to assist them, with the remainder going to beef up the border patrol to keep additional kids and adults out. That remainder seems to be a bone thrown to the anti-immigration crowd which wants to block the border completely.

I can't do the math very well. But it would seem that $1.5 billion is enough to provide and underwrite food, clothing, and medical care for 50,000 kids over 10 years. That would be 150,000,000 a year, or 3,000 a year per child for 10 years. Put the first year of expenses to work, invest the rest, and the principle grows exponentially. Give  a financial incentive to cities around the country willing to set up staffed residence homes.

Maybe the idea isn't at all feasible. But don't try to convince me Walmart can come up with the money and the government can't. If these kids aren't on our conscience now, they will be in the future.

You Are Always With Me

I'm confused, once again, by my morning devotional scripture. This isn't unusual. In fact if I'm not confused by the scripture passage for the day I'm confused by lots of other things. But this one verse raises a question for me. It comes in Luke's account (15:11-31) of Jesus' teaching about the lost son. In this parable the younger of two brothers pesters his father for his share of the estate while the father is still alive, and the father "divided his property between them." The boy fritters it all away and then comes crawling home, broke and hungry, whereupon the father throws a big party.

The older son has his nose out of joint: "Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!"

Certainly the point of the parable is that God's love is forgiving and inclusive, regardless of the offense. The teaching comes on the heals of the parables of the lost sheep and  the lost coin; in both cases there is heavenly rejoicing because a repentant sinner has been saved. It's a concern to some that the confession of the younger son doesn't flow so much from a sense of sorrow for what he's done wrong as from the fact he's starving to death and there is food to spare back at home. And it's also a matter of how we interpret parables that determines how much meaning is packed into them.

So as Vernon Doerksen states, "It is well, at this point, to distinguish  between parable, allegory, simile, and metaphor.  A metaphor equates one object or person with the other. For  instance, John's Gospel contains no parables, in the usual sense, but it  gives many metaphors of our Lord, such as, "I am the good shepherd”  (10:11) and "I am the true vine" (15:1). 

"A simile does not equate the two, but it does draw out a comparison. ... The simile and parable are very close together in a parable such as, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman  took…” (Matt. 13:33).

"One further form is the allegory. An allegory is a story where  every point is important. The classical illustration is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. A Biblical example is allegory in Galatians (4:22-31).... Thus in an allegory every detail of  the story has its counter-part; whereas, in a parable there is usually but  one central truth." (1)

So back to the malcontented brothers in Luke 15. The one central truth is, again, God forgives and embraces, regardless. Even whole-hearted repentance isn't required. But there is a strange (to me) follow-on to the story. The father says to the older brother, "My son, you are with me always, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

And my question is, did Jesus see himself in the parable he told? I  know I tend to teach and preach in the context of my own learnings and challenges; the questions I struggle with wiggle their way into my lessons and sermons., Was the awareness of God's insistence on forgiveness part of Jesus' own growth in wisdom and stature and in favor with God? Was it a revelation of maturity, not unlike the times of temptation in the wilderness or the retreats in prayer from the crowds? How human was our Lord?

(1)  Doerksen, Vernon D. The Interpretation of the Parables. Grace Theological Journal 11.2 (1970) 3-20   Copyright © 1970 by Grace Theological Seminary.