grace God salvation redemption

What if she said no?

/ a samaritan woman / 1 Comment

Have you thought about what would have happened if, when approached by Gabriel, Mary would have said “umm…thanks, but no.”

Unthinkable, right? After all, Mary had been specially chosen. Besides, God clearly knew her answer would be yes (or so I’ve always been told); otherwise, God would not have chosen her.

Right?

Hmmm. Maybe not.

In the image of God, male and female, was humanity created – and with free will, to boot. After all, free will had come into play in a big way before (think Abraham, Sarah and Hagar as a good example) and history kind of got rearranged. Eve and Sarah have long been blamed for leading men astray. (Funny how free will gets forgotten there!)

Mary could very well have said “no, thanks, and have a nice day” when Gabriel came to call.

annunciation tanner detail

Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation

Had she said no, would God have given up on this creation of humanity as a sort of failed prototype, feeling that humankind was a little too feisty, a little too uncontrollable? Or had Gabriel been dispatched with a Plan B? Was it a case of “if Miriam says no, then go ask Salome, in the next village, she’s also a good Jewish girl, and hopefully more agreeable than this one” or would it be “well, your loss; we’ll wait a while to proceed with the Messiah business…another millennium or so.”

Mary – indeed, women in general – played a critical part in the Incarnation. Sure, God could have popped out Jesus fully grown in the middle of the Temple one day, but it wouldn’t have had the same effect. God could have said “tough, it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be,” but that wouldn’t jive with God’s gift of free will.

Now, I’ve always felt very strongly that women are called to full inclusiveness in Christian leadership because Jesus was inclusive in His ministry. Some denominations have women in leadership roles; others do not. Those who don’t ordain women count among their chief reasons that 1) Jesus, our Savior, was a man, and 2) Jesus didn’t call women to be apostles.

I’ve touched upon reason #2 before in this blog in writing about Mary Magdalene, Apostle. In my mind, though, the first reason loses all validity when you consider that Mary could have said no.

We do consider Mary to be an integral, necessary part of the Incarnation, don’t we?

If Mary had not agreed, Salvation would have taken a detour. (Unless, of course, the Holy Spirit said “that’s ok, we’ll find another woman.” Ouch.)

Mary’s participation was vital in the redemption of humanity. Jesus died for our sins; Mary gave birth for our sins.

 

Advertisement

An Epiphany at Pentecost

/ a samaritan woman / Leave a comment

I had an Epiphany on Pentecost.

My “ah-ha!” moment occurred during Fr. Matt’s sermon.  Now, I’ve heard many sermons on Pentecost.  They’ve all focused on things like the birth of the Church, the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the empowerment of the disciples and the like.

But Fr. Matt pointed out something I’d never considered before: Pentecost happened during a meeting.  

meeting-808754_1280 image from geralt on pixabay.com

Well, I about fell out of the loft chuckling.  A meeting! Known to so many of us as that great interrupter-of-productivity, that drainer-of-energy, that breaker-of-plans.  There’s not a soul on the planet who hasn’t, at one time or another, prayed for an excuse to avoid sitting in a meeting. Aw, shucks, I’ll have to miss the meeting, I have to bathe my cat / have a root canal / go to my niece’s dance recital.

It wasn’t just the meeting idea, though, that brought about my Epiphany.  It was the realization that yes, there IS power in group intention, and I’m seeing it coming out of the spiritual closet after hiding out for a while.

The apostles had been sequestered for some days after Jesus’ ascension, wondering what the heck was going to happen next.  They’d already seen incredible miracles.  But…what next?  They were hanging out in the upper room, praying, talking, eating, and yes, meeting.

mosaic-409427_1280 photo from music4life on pixabay.com

Paul, in Acts, tells us of the arrival of the Holy Spirit.  Call it a Hollywood moment or not, but clearly something happened.  Whether it was an arrival of God in the Holy Spirit, or whether it was an awakening of God / Spirit within is something I’ll leave up to theologians to quibble over.  But something stirred, woke up, brought, quickened, sparked SPIRIT inside of everyone there.

And I wonder what their shared intention had to do with it.  They were there, in community, together, all focused on receiving whatever direction they were to receive.  They were focused on surrender, to following whatever the path was.  I don’t doubt they were frightened and probably quite clueless.

What next?  And then, something happened.  Whether you call that something the Holy Ghost, Spirit, or whatever – something Divine that was greater than any one of them brought them all together in shared intention and empowered them.

Acts tells us that they went out among the people that very day, preaching and baptizing thousands.  Was it their shared experience – their meeting – that enabled them to lean upon each other spiritually, enhance the spiritual strength of the whole, and thereby be in a position to receive this incredible gift?

One way or another, consciousness rises.  Sooner or later, humanity realizes that God is indeed in each of us.  When we read the story of Pentecost, we should remember that this is what the story is about; that relying on Spirit – God – within ourselves gives us strength to do that which we would not otherwise do.  Joining with others to focus intention, prayer and awareness raises this consciousness as a whole.  I believe this is a path for humanity that we need to follow.  We are a wonderful collection of unique, individual souls with a glorious diversity of gifts and personalities.  At our core, we are all expressing God, for we are all made in the image and likeness of God from the very being of God.

The color of Pentecost is red.  This is the same color as the root chakra in Hindu and yogic traditions .  (If you’re not familiar with chakras, they are energy centers in the subtle body; a quick internet search will give you an overview.)  Each chakra is important.  The root chakra is one of energy and empowerment, and well suited to Pentecost.  For without the energy, empowerment, and passion of the Spirit that was awakened during that Pentecost meeting, the story of Jesus would never had made it out of the upper room.

High Holy Days

/ a samaritan woman / 1 Comment

I sing at our local Jewish temple, which is Temple Gates of Prayer in New Iberia, Louisiana.  This is a small congregation, deep in the primarily Christian area of south Louisiana.  The temple, over a hundred years old, is within walking distance of churches that are Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Church of Christ and Methodist Episcopal, with other denominations in the area (just not within walking distance).  I have sung there for over 10 years, and feel very blessed to do so.

Temple Gates of Prayer New Iberia Louisiana Temple Gates of Prayer, New Iberia, LA

When people learn this, they want to know how this Christian musician wound up singing at a Jewish church.  Just lucky, I say. I was in the right place at the right time when their previous vocalist retired, and I was willing (and excited) to tackle something new.

And so it was that I encountered a whole new world of music and of worship.  I learned the Sh’ma and the Bar’chu. I learned that while vowels weren’t exactly an afterthought in Hebrew,  they probably weren’t on the tablets that God gave Moses.  I also learned that different rabbis write transliterations (phonetic spellings) of the same word in many different ways!

I write this in the middle of High Holy Days, which encompass Rosh Hashana (the new year), Yom Kippur (Day of Attonement) and Shabbat Shuvah, which is the Shabbat that falls in between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  For Gates of Prayer, this time also marks the arrival of their new student rabbi.  As a small congregation, they are served by rabbinical students.  This year is extremely unusual as they have the same student as last year, Alex Kress.  (Most of the time there is a new student rabbi every year.)

This personnel change is unusual; most churchgoers, regardless of denomination, are used to having a spiritual leader for longer than 9 months at a time.  The rabbis may change, but the congregation must stand on its own as a community. They do so, and embrace each new rabbi with open arms and open hearts.  (This being south Louisiana, I must add “open kitchens” as well!) The rabbis become a part of the community, and I think they leave a part of themselves here.

Over the years, I’ve been asked questions members of my “Jewish church family” and my “regular church family” (and other curious souls).  I’ve often heard comments / questions about my level of participation in the service at Gates of Prayer.

“You read along with the prayers?” Yes, of course.  Prayers all go to God, regardless of where I’m standing when I pray.  The prayerbook I use doesn’t matter.  Prayer comes from the heart.

Perhaps the biggest lesson of the many I’ve learned from my years with Congregation Gates of Prayer is simply this: There is much more that draws us together than that which separates us.  We pray for peace, for compassion, for redemption and forgiveness. We pray for those we love, and we pray for help in loving those who may be hard to love.  We pray that we may be better people..  Being Christlike is doing (following) mitzvah.  Love God, do good, follow the commandments.

It’s all good.  It’s all God.

Offer it up

/ a samaritan woman / Leave a comment

Offer it up.

I can’t quite remember when my young self first encountered this spiritual concept, but I believe it was somewhere in between “Who made me?” “God made me” and Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy… By the time I was in the 3rd grade, the idea of “offering it up” for the repose of the souls in purgatory was ingrained in my psyche.  I wasn’t too sure what “repose” meant, but I well knew by then what purgatory was.  According to my teacher, it was a place where I was going to spend a LOT of time.

I had learned that suffering and misery were the currency of the spiritual realm.  No amount of suffering was too much.  In fact, no amount was ever enough, so I’d better learn to “offer it up” for some other pour soul and hope that I’d have someone else suffering on my behalf when it was my turn to be stuck in purgatory for a few millennia.

It would be several years before I dared to question this spiritual Ponzi scheme.  After all, I asked Sr. Rose in 10th grade, if Jesus paid our debt for us, why does anyone need me to make deposits in the Bank of Purgatory?  I wasn’t (regardless of what Sr. Rose thought) trying to be a smart Alec.  I simply couldn’t follow the logic of the “offer it up” concept.

It would be decades before I came to my own conclusion: We weren’t depositing spiritual currency, hoping to earn interest.  Instead, we were receiving a windfall of Grace.

My mistake was to interpret “offer it up” as a way to be pious in misery.  That always struck me as proud.  How magnanimous, to think that one could help to spring souls from their purgatorial prison! “Oh, how I suffer!” Then, there was the idea that someone other than Christ could redeem souls, even if our suffering were but a few pennies towards the payment.  A god who wanted our suffering did not seem to be the same God who regularly filled my backyard with climbing trees and flowers, or our pond with fish, or the sky with a never-ending picture show, or my family’s hearts with love. How could this “god” want to collect our suffering?

After rejecting this misery-monger god for some time, I realized I really had it all wrong.  God does want our misery, but God does not want us to be miserable.

Offer it up.  No matter what misery and pain we have, God will take it.  God will take our misery into the comforting arms of amazing love and grace, for only there can our pain (and we) be transformed. Offer pain, sorrow, misery, disappointment, loss.  Offer it all, not as penance or payment, but rather as release.  Who are we to think that we can bear such things alone?  What must we think of God, to imagine that God wants us to steep in this misery and pain? Life can be hard enough even with Divine help! Who do we think God is, to say that God gave us Christ, the Lamb of God – oh, and by the way, there’s still an outstanding debt and you can make a payment on it by suffering.  No, God can take our misery and pain and carry it all with us and for us when our human strength is simply gone.  I’m not being Pollyanna here, I’m being a realist.  There are painful, terrible things in life. Only God can take these offerings that blind us with pain and bear them, until we are able to start to see a bit beyond the darkness, and once again start to see the climbing trees, flowers, and the skies.  Come to think of it, only God can do that.

And God can only do that if we choose to “offer it up.”