Ritual (not Ceremony) for Holy Week

Ritual is about opening to the moment with symbols and action.  It is about transformation that can happen at that time.  It is about naming tough things and questions and not avoiding discomfort.  It is inviting greater awareness and change.  

Holy Week should be mainly a time for ritual and potential for change - not just ceremony. Ceremony is about honoring what has taken place with no expectation for change.  It is about accomplishment or completion.  Although it is necessary to remember much about faith and events during Holy Week, there is also a special invitation to transition into something new. Ritual offers a chance to move from belief systems to embodied knowing (Jim Clarke, Creating Rituals: A New Way of Healing for Everyday Life). 

Ceremony has many symbols; ritual few.  Ceremony has many words; ritual few. Ceremonies distinguish between a few people involved and the witnessing community; rituals involve all people in embodied action.  Ceremony is about comfort; ritual is about engaging the shadow (anything you do not like about yourself) (Clarke).  

The rituals of Holy Week ask us to journey without clarity about destination. They invite us to uncomfortable experiences.  The ritual of Ash Wednesday began this journey.  We used one powerful symbol (ashes) and a few stark words (“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”).  All received, and all were asked to engage the reality of that we do not like: death. 

Holy Week should be a time of unknowns.  If we give ourselves to how God can work with us in this journey to the cross, it should be scary.  To open to the necessity of that experience for understanding Easter is hard.  Such is the reality of a faith that is personal; of a God wanting you to trust and know love as Jesus did.  

May you have the strength - or weakness - to open to this time of ritual.  May you feel the power of a worldwide faith community that does so with you.  May you trust how Jesus, who is with you in this struggle, holds it and you so that you can be transformed.  It will be complete. And there will be ceremony.

Calling: No Other Choice

 

John 6 is the lengthy passage in which Jesus feeds the five thousand, walks on water, and explains the bread of life.  Each of these merit much attention.  But what also needs attention is how the passage ends, with Simon Peter answering the “So what?” question.    

Throughout the chapter, Jesus shares the mystery of God by using ordinary things: bread, fish, water.  He tries to get the disciples to understand how the kingdom of God relates to the here-and-now, but also what is required to have eternal life: belief in the Son.  Jesus mentions the need to believe in Him four times (29, 35-6, 40, 47), then stresses the importance of eating His body and blood to live forever (53-8).

Jesus knew that not all believed (64).  His teaching had led to a moment of decision.  He clarifies the choice once again: “’For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.’  Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” (65-66). 

They had followed to that point, but Jesus is saying that it is time to go deeper; to follow AND believe.  When it gets harder, it is too much for many.  

But Simon Peter stays, saying: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (68-9).  His commitment is important not because he has total clarity about God, Jesus and eternal life, but because there is so much he can’t know. Although he knows Jesus is the Holy One, he can’t fully know what that will require of him.  But it matters not, because he has come to believe. In following, his belief will be lived out.   

Simon Peter decided to keep following because of who Jesus was and what He was doing.  He had seen and experienced something that prevented him from returning to old ways.  He did not know exactly what that meant, but he knew too much to go back.  He wanted more.    

What did Simon Peter know?  He knew he was called.  He knew that was mysterious.  Maybe he knew it was OK to be scared.  Perhaps more than anything, he wanted the bread of life - and he knew no one else had it (68).    

Calling invites us to say yes to a purpose bigger than ourselves; to shed old ways that are too small; to trust in new ones that will teach us who we really are. Saying yes requires belief AND following into the unknown.  It is the bread of life that makes that possible. 

“None of Your Business” (Following the Questions)

During our trip to Israel and Palestine, we met with lifelong peacemaker and former Archbishop Elias Chacour.  After he shared his story of commitment to nonviolence, forgiveness, and reconciliation, one in our group asked him:

"How do you reconcile Jesus’ saying that ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11:30) with the tough work of reconciliation, forgiveness, and sacrificing that you live out?"

Chacour’s reply: “None of your business.”  He went on to explain that how he does so is deeply personal and hard to articulate; that maybe one shouldn’t try to; and that it gives a spiritual grounding beyond what can be expressed.  Its about personal relationship with God, and calling.      

As we traveled to our next destination, the person who asked the question observed that Chacour’s answer reminded him of Mother Teresa, and what she said when asked how she was able to work so tirelessly for the poor.  Her reply: “I don’t even understand the question.  I simply love my husband.”  

The questions we ask are important.  They say a lot about what we want.  The answers, non answers, and redirects are just as important. They can lead us to what we really need.  That might be something so far from our field of vision that a surprise response is needed to turn our gaze in the right direction. An indirect reply can be a gift.

Later in our trip, a pastor in Bethlehem told us about a colleague who returned to Palestine after attending seminary in the United States.  He came home full of esoteric theological knowledge that was irrelevant to people living in conflict.  He said: “I came back with all the answers to questions no one was asking.”  I thought of a quote at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum attributed to a surviving rabbi: “The question is not Where was God?, but Where was humanity?”

Understanding what most needs our focus can be hard.  Questions are important.  But often they are a beginning, not an end.  Answers, or curve ball replies, may lead us where we don’t expect to go.  We need to follow, let our questions mature, and trust that they can lead us to deeper understanding.  That can help us know self, others, and needs of the world better.  

What’s your question?  Are you ready to follow?            

Why I Went to Israel and Palestine

In February, I joined 13 others on a pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine led by the Telos Group, which seeks to change how American Christians understand conflict in the Holy Land.  Telos is pro Israel, pro Palestine, pro Jesus, and pro peace.  

The trip exposed us to sobering realities, diverse perspectives, and witnesses for hope on all sides of the dispute.  They humanized the tensions and politics in this place through stories, emotions, and expressions.  As we remembered Jesus’ radical witness at the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum and Jerusalem, we were also being taught by these brave people - these “living stones” - as they applied faith and trust in the midst of conflict and fear.     

Along the way, fellow pilgrims asked me: Why did you come?  A response did not come easily, although the reasons felt clear in my heart and soul.  The words that came out were about openness to experience, willingness to be vulnerable and challenged, and that this trip felt right for where I am on my journey. As our pilgrimage unfolded, a truer explanation came for why I was there.  

I live between black and white.  I have one foot here and one foot there.  I move in diverse communities, able to feel at home and offer something to others while accepting the tension of seeing things less clear cut than some.  My identity is bridge builder; common grounder; calming presence.  As we retraced the footsteps of Jesus, and tried to stand in the shoes of modern day Israelis and Palestinians, that took on new meaning.  

The region’s challenge is enormous because common ground is needed in both outer and inner ways.  Nations need peace to honor basic needs and freedoms. Communities need acceptance allowing for relationship with the other that can reduce fear and increase hope.  Individuals need space for the tough work of forgiveness and love, especially when all they have ever been taught is hate. All of this requires hope and a willingness to stand in the space between black and white - between “us and them” - with trust, patience, and commitment.  

In past years, my calling has become helping people and communities with calling, discernment, and transition.  This means being with people in the spaces between awareness, knowing, and action.  It is geared toward welcoming the gray areas, helping people be more comfortable there, and eventually seeing how much color can actually be found.  Palestinians and Israelis need help in between.  Leaders need help in between.  Americans of faith need help in between.  

We all need help in between seeking paths to peace - in this region and our own lives.   

I know now why I went to Israel and Palestine.  I was led there because I am learning to honor how God moves through me to help those in between; to help them in new spaces they can’t control; to support leaders when the vision is not yet clear.  I was also there because I need help in between.       

I will continue my pilgrimage.  I will stay with what breaks my heart, and what I think breaks Jesus’.  I will pray that I can be helpful to those in between.  I will trust that this trip came at the right time, for important reasons, and that God is at work in that.  I’ll also trust that God is working in me to understand implications of this trip for my own life, family, and communities.