Where Water Shows Up

Growing up most of my life in central Kansas, we often travelled to southwest Kansas to visit family.  We always made our way through Dodge City, Kansas, and drove across the Arkansas River.  It should have been named the "Former" Arkansas River or the Arkansas Riverbed, because there was never any water in that place in all of the years we drove through there.  Each time we went through Dodge City, I always made sure I got to the window of one of the family station wagons we owned through the years, and looked to see if there was any water.  Had the water finally shown up?  It never did.  My childhood wasn't damaged nor was I deeply hurt over this fact it was just a curiousity that I always looked for the water and could never find it in the Arkansas River!  Where was the water?

We don't have to look far for water in the next two parts of the Holy Week drama.  The challenge to the human dilemma of discipleship comes full circle according the the traditional Holy Thursday and Good Friday scriptures in the next 24 hours. 

3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, 4got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. 5Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.…(John 13:3-5)

24When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves." 25And all the people said, "His blood shall be on us and on our children!"…(Matthew 27:24-25)

It is interesting to me that the two scriptures with deep meaning for tonight, Maunday Thursday and Good Friday, include seminal moments of teaching about the human experience and being a faithful disciple. 

Jesus, during the Last Supper, takes the place of a servant among his disciples, and the cohort with him, to wash their feet.  It is his deepest teaching moment among many about who you serve and when you serve.  His point of teaching about the position of those who would lead the movement he had started begins at the place of humility and understanding that in order to change the world our first instincts as humans are to be in the place of providing service to one another. 

The water he uses to wash the feet of his disciples cleanses and purifies the thoughts and aspirations of grandiosity from the hearts and minds of the disciples.  I'm sure they were profoundly moved to confusion, discomfort and heartache in this deep showing of love.  Jesus' occupation of the place of a servant to show the way of discipleship, leadership and kingdom love will never be irrelevant in country that continues to lift up slick market saavy personality as the way to happiness and contentment.  I acknowledge it is a hard place to be on Maunday Thursday.  But, it is our place.

Several years ago a colleague asked me what interesting thing I might do on Maunday Thursday.  I explained that my church members were too uncomfortable with an actual foot washing so we were going to do something I had done before around Maunday Thursday.  We were going to pass a bowl and allow people to wash the hands of their neighbor.  He quickly dismissed it by saying, "I always thought that was too much like Pilate washing his hands of Jesus."  I've had a spiritual PTSD moment around hand washing ever since!  Now its foot washing or bust on Maunday Thursday with Holy Communion!

Pontius Pilate holds a mirror to the human condition, though.  We never outrun our ability to turn our backs on Christ in either word or deed.  Holy Week teaches us that from Palm Sunday to the moment we sing Halleluiah, on Resurrection Sunday.  We'll never set aside the need to practice our faith in a Holy Week journey that suggests after 2000+ years, we're basically still the same folks who very humanly and, at times, weakly, seek to follow the Christ who has occupied our hearts in transformative love.  There will always be the need for a Holy Week that moves us from Hosanna to Holy Thursday and from Good Friday to Halleluiah!

Along the way, Jesus shows up with water in a basin and reminds us of the new mandate to "love one another as I(Jesus) have loved you.

Pilate also shows up on this journey holding a basin of water and reminds us that God's Day, Good Friday, is not complete with humanity washing its hands of Jesus blood.

Look for the water this weekend.  Be reminded of our humanity and our need for the stone to be rolled away once again.

Acknowledging Loss in the Midst of Creating Life

Gathering with General Board of Global Ministries' directors the last twenty-four hours we have heard about the heartbreak of Pakistani Christian missionaries and families losing children to suicide bombers.  We have also acknowledged the loss of one of our beloved missionaries in Africa, Tshala Mengo, in a bus accident on the other side of the world.  We have been reminded that while the work of the missionary is full of joy and fruitful work it is also harrowing and dangerous at times. 

Hearing these stories and being touched so deeply during our opening worship as directors I connect quickly to the harrowing journey Jesus and the disciples were on, particularly as we begin the Holy Week journey with Christians all over the world.  Missionaries serving with the General Board of Global Ministries do so all over the world.  We have used the phrase the last couple of years in connection to this saying we send people, "From everywhere to everywhere."  Like Jesus and the disciples, these missionaries and their families humbly, lovingly and simply work to lead within the communities and regions they are sent to improve people's lives and live out the gospel in both word and deed.

I would invite you to remember these amazing servants of the gosple on this Palm Sunday, imagining both the humility and the great power of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem where he would give of himself, completely, to change the world.  Take time to pray for the missionaries of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries that they may continue with great humility and courage, preach the gospel in word and deed wherever they are located and serving throughout the world.

Finishing to start

Just finished a sermon series that engaged the competencies for the Kansas Leadership Center with scripture and some of our specific challenges as a church community. The purpose of the series was to lay some groundwork for the upcoming opportunities for our church community to rethink our vision and what we have been doing not only the last few years, but also the last decade or so.

We've asked the Pleasant Valley UMC church community the question: When you think about your community, what concerns you the most? We've gotten lots of feedback. Some of it complaining about the church but we have also had some wonderful comments about the concerns and hopes of different individuals in the community.

I am excited about our collective "Hope for the Future." I am excited as we as a church community and the different core groups of leadership in the church as we converge around the adaptive possibilities of engaging, understanding and serving our surrounding community.

Inceiving Healing or thoughts on the movie "Inception"

I loved Inception. It was complex, cool, exciting, cathartic and even made sure the Hollywood-ending would itself drag on into conversation beyond the movie theatre. Watching with the eyes and heart of a pastor, I was interested in the loose emotional-ends that collide in the dream scape of the major conflict of the movie. Emotional loose-ends connected to characters, Cobb and Fischer.

Dom Cobb, the main character, has lost his wife and feels the guilt of her loss. His only way beyond that guilt is to find a solution so powerful that he can get home to his children. The only way to do that is to come face to face with his wife deep in the subconscious world where the movie takes place. Like anyone in need of release of this grief but holds on to it, he has locked it away in the layers of a self-created reality which has the potential to create behaviors, reactions and emotions he can't even determine where and when they will turn up.

Fischer is the heir to a fortune and has come to his dying father's side. Only in the last moments does his father seem to communicate with him his "disappointment" in his son. He is left in the hellish position of having no emotional resolution with his father and faced with burying him and taking control of his enormous global company. It is the manipulation of his subconscious that becomes the rich battleground for the future of his father's competitor's power and is the place where Cobb can confront his own history.

In the end, Cobb finds release from his guilt by being pulled deeper into the subconscious than he had gone before in order to complete his mission. In doing so, he faces his grief, lets go and in doing so saves Fischer and completes his task which may give him the opportunity to reunite with his family. In the meantime, Fischer may have found resolution for his own life. We'll never know.

Grief is a funny thing and every person handles it differently. Inception gives us a fictional and sci-glimpse of the power grief plays in these characters lives as they dig into the layers of the subconscious to find and manipulate it's origins. This lays the groundwork for the conflict that reminds the viewer of the power of healing and release that conflict in the soul can bring. Inception provides a glimpse of this healing and release when Cobb is shepherded in this process by a young, gentle and wise soul named Ariadne. I'll need to see this movie again to make sure if I am anywhere near a truth here. I'm just thinking out loud and taking a shot in the dark. Or a layer of the dark!

I enjoyed the show and could run with about 20 different blogs. I was struck by the theme of grief and the major character it played in setting the stage for people to eventually find freedom, restoration and, ultimately, hope for their lives.

New Days and New Shades

Always a time for reflection the New Year always gives us time to think and hopefully rethink who we are and what we are doing. We resolve to do some new things or change some of the things we have been doing. I am resolving to do two things this year: Work on family relationships and work on living healthier. Ultimately, these two things mean that I will simply have to carve out time for the two. They are goals worthwhile and connected. Spending more time with my wife and three boys means deeper and richer relationships that will last longer because I am taking care of myself by changing what I eat and how often I exercise. I am always thankful for new starts and new opportunities and "new ideas." Also, I have to practice what I preach, literally. Since I am preaching for three weeks on spiritual foundations for making change; "RESOLVE TO EVOLVE," I am doing it.!



I'm looking forward to 2010 being an opportunity to work on some things that will make my life more rich for the long-term rather than simply right now. New days and new shades within those relationships that are most important to me.