This is not a typical blog post, but the Jubilation Newsletter included the following thoughts for our congregation, but somehow the format got jumbled and these words were presented as one long continuous paragraph. I know that I can go on... but a 1000 word paragraph is a bit much. Here are the same words, but this time with a chance to stop and breathe.
Notes from Norm
This edition of Jubilation is coming out a little
later than usual. One of the reasons is that yours truly has been particularly
busy in the last couple of months with funerals. We’ve all been busy with funerals, as dear
friends, pillars of our community, loved ones and companions on the journey,
have died. We know in our heads that
death is part of life, and we may not be afraid or in denial, but it still
takes a toll on our hearts.
When there are many deaths in a family or a
community, we are often given the opportunity to share the comfort and wisdom
of our faith with someone who is searching or grieving. They look at us in the eye and ask if it’s
going to be okay? Is death the end of
everything? What does your God have to
say to me in my pain or worry?
What does our faith have to offer in the face of
death? The promise of a heavenly abode
if we are worthy? A refuge in our
grief? A connection to thousands of years
of tradition? Perhaps some or all of
these things resonate with you. But I
think that there is something more basic to our faith, more fundamental than
the promise of Jesus’ Father’s house with many rooms; truths that can resonate
with others and that we can feel deep inside our bones.
By the time you read this, Ash Wednesday will have
passed. Some of you may have attended
one of our services, or taken a moment to have ashes rubbed on your
forehead with the words, “You are dust
and to dust you shall return” spoken to you in love. Essentially, those words are saying “You’re
going to die” How can that possibly be
said in a loving way?
There are many teachings in our Christian faith, but
for me, there are two central stories. These
stories are not the only important stories or lessons and they may not even be
the most important, but they are central to our Christian faith. The centre, not around the teachings of Jesus,
but around the event of Jesus. The first is the Christmas Story. This story, as simple or fantastic as it may
seem, asserts that Jesus is somehow both Divine and Human: He is us, but he is also something
eternal. Some may read the Christmas
story as an assertion that the one that we follow is better than any others,
because he is the “Son of God”. I don’t
think that the Christmas Story is intended to prove the superiority of our Jesus, instead I believe that the Nativity Story, the
Christmas assertion is that there is more to our humanity that we know: That God, the eternal, is with us in the
human experience. There is no aspect of our experience or
existence that is “God-Free”, God is with us in the human experience. The eternal is present in the mundane.
On Ash Wednesday we are reminded that we are dust, but
that dust is not simply the dirt that builds up behind the couch, it is also stardust. It is the stuff of creation. It is the stuff of which the baby Jesus was
made. We are made of the same stuff as
the cosmos and if the Jesus is both human and divine, then we are made of the
same stuff as God. This has been
important to me as I realize that the very human experience that we go through
in death or in grieving the death of a loved one, is not all there is to us, we
are not just mundane grief, we are also glorious. We are not alone.
The other central story is the Easter Story. I may not be in the majority here, but I feel
very strongly that the story of the resurrection is not a story about our hero
(Jesus, again) coming back from the dead to prove that he is mightier than all
the others. If that were the case, then
upon emerging from the tomb, Jesus would have done a victory lap and confronted
Pilate and Herod; he would have “Lorded it” over at all those who doubted or failed to stand
up with him in his time of persecution and execution. Instead, Jesus went to those who were lost,
hurt, grieving and afraid and he showed them that he had been transformed. Transformed:
Remember how Mary failed to recognize him in the garden; how the couple
on the road to Emmaus had no idea of his identity or how Thomas needed to touch
the wounds to be sure that it was Jesus?
The risen, resurrected Jesus was still Jesus, but he was different – his
dust was also stardust. In the
resurrection, Jesus showed us that death is not the end of anything, no matter
how final and government-sanctioned it may be.
Scripture and Christian tradition insist that resurrection is not just
for Jesus, but for all of us – believers
and non-believers alike. We are all dust;
we are all stardust.
These stories reveal truths that lie deep within our
hearts and bones: that death is not the
end and that it is our destiny to be one with God. In short, God is part of us and we are part
of God. The veracity of these “truths”
is not guaranteed by the historical accuracy of our scripture, instead the
truth of the stories is confirmed by the feeling in our bones – we know that
there is more, we just don’t know how to describe it or talk about it.
What has been particularly important to me and to
others in the past couple of months is that we are transformed by our
experience of death, not erased. And the
love that we share with others, does not end, it too, is transformed.
So, I know that this isn’t my usual “Notes from
Norm” not a lot smiles or chuckles, but our faith is not always about smiles
and chuckles… it is about love, transformation and finding ways to trust and
express those truths that we feel deep in our bones. Love Matters.
We are not alone and we ain’t seen or experienced it all….
In love,
Norm
No comments:
Post a Comment