by Christine Sine
For Love of the World God Did Foolish Things. As you can imagine I have thought a lot about this over the last couple of weeks and I find myself asking some challenging questions as a result. Who are the witnesses that our “foolish God” has sent to proclaim the message of good news? God doesn’t choose the rich and the powerful, or the famous.
Slaves Become Chosen People.
Think of the slaves that became a chosen people and I wonder who are the slaves today that are God’s chosen ones? Are they those enslaved in the sex trade? Is it the children enslaved to grow coffee and tea or mine diamonds and gold? It’s easy to get irate at these forms of slavery and imagine that God wants to create chosen people of these marginalized ones.
Then however I think of those who are enslaved in poverty because of our desire for cheap goods and services – the farmers who often get only a pittance for their produce, the minimum wage earners who do not earn a living wage without working two or sometimes three jobs, the factory workers in China who often work in even worse conditions. I wonder how long will their cries for freedom rise as prayers before God until they are set free? I wonder too what am I can do to help them break out of their slavery.As I walk through Lent this year I wonder: Are there ways that I can become a spokesperson for people on the margins whose poverty I contribute to by my consumer choices?
Despised Are the Best Advocates
Next I think of the shepherds, the despised in their society whose testimony was not admissible in court and I wonder who are the despised today whose voices we do not listen to. Is it the homeless living in increasing numbers on our streets? Or possibly the indigenous people whose voices have been silenced in so many of our countries. Is it the George Floyds and Breonna Taylors and so many other black people who have lost their lives and family members to gun violence? Or is it the children crying out against yet another gun massacre here in the U.S.? What can I do to make sure I listen to the possibly exciting news about God they are wanting to proclaim?
Foreigners Welcome
Not surprisingly, my next set of witnesses that our “foolish God” sends are the wise men, foreigners from a distant land. They too challenge me to expand my vision – who are the foreigners – immigrants at the border, those of other faiths or other races. Who are the foreigners kept out by walls – not just physical walls of which there are 74 in the world, but also those excluded by the walls in my mind that tell me these foreigners are not worth listening to. How can I educate myself more effectively about their viewpoints and build bridges not walls?
Forgotten Ones Come First .
Next I am reminded of the women who were the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. We so easily forget them or disparage them. Especially Mary Magdalene. She has been so maligned over the centuries. Instead of the awe due to the one who was the first witness to the risen Christ and was know as an apostle to the apostles, we condemn her as a prostitute, an accusation for which there is no evidence. Who do we misjudge today? Is it people of other sexual orientations whose viewpoints we are closed to and on whom we heap condemnation? Is it the poor that we condemn by fallaciously saying “they don’t work hard enough”? Or is it those in prison, gang members, drug addicts? We all have our lists of “condemned” people, those we want to keep hidden in our society. How can we make sure their stories are listened to with acceptance and love? Perhaps they are the “foolish ones” God has chosen to lead us on the next step of our journey.
Unlikely Leaders
“Can any good come out of Galilee” the religious leaders say when Jesus comes on the scene. I am sure they kept saying it when Galilean fishermen became the leaders of this new movement too. “A little child will lead them” says the prophet Isaiah. The wisdom of children who embrace everyone they meet and want to share generously with those around them, could lead us into a new way of looking at the world. Our foolish God has always chosen unlikely leaders, people that most of the world would reject as uneducated, irreligious, unworthy, too young. God takes such people and molds them into a new community. How too can I be open to God’s unlikely leaders and look not to the rich and powerful but to the marginalized and the poor who are God’s primary spokespeople?
As I continue to walk through Lent I am asking myself what new practices I should take on in order to be open to the “foolishness of God” in choosing people like me and you, the poor and the marginalized, the forgotten and the foreigners. I am looking for new ways to engage the unlikely people of God all around me.
by Christine Sine
At the end of my interview with Drew Jackson for The Liturgical Rebels Podcast he asks: what does poetry have to do with our own journey and formation as people? What is it for in that sense? It’s a great question for us to ponder during this season of Lent. So much of the Bible was written in poetic form. yet we often ignore both the poetry that others have written and the poetry that wells up inside us.
Drew goes on to explain:
I’ve just been really intrigued by that question in terms of how poetry connects to our own transformation and formation. It really comes back for me to the need to let go of a need for answers. That is such an important part, particularly of the spiritual journey of learning to let go in that sense, because it’s learning to let go of a need for control, which is really, really hard for us to do. And I think particularly for us in religious spaces, the church has, especially in the West, been shaped to give people answers, right? Give people the answers that they need. And so I really, I think that what we need right now in the church is much more an invitation into the mystery of it all. And I think poetry is a doorway to that. So yeah, if you’re listening, my plea is sit with some poetry and see where it takes you and see how it leads you into the mystery. I know that poetry can often be intimidating for people. I think that’s particularly because of how it’s been taught to us in school. You don’t necessarily have to come to a poem and say, what does this mean? You can just let it linger for a while and see what rises in you.
I tell people, you know, just read a lot of different poets, see what resonates. In the same way that you listen to music, you listen to different artists, not every song, not every artist is gonna resonate with your heart and that’s okay. But you don’t stop listening to music because you didn’t like one song. You keep listening and you keep listening. And I would say the same thing about poetry. Just keep reading. keep reading and you’ll find the poems and the poets that sing to you.
When poetry sings for us we not only want to read more poetry, we also want to write it…. and for me that also means combining it with photos and visual images. I hope you enjoy this video of several of my prayers combined with photos I have taken over the last few weeks.
I think that this interview with Drew is perfect for weekend meditation.
Skink Lizard
(“Yum, a delicious mulberry”)
Skinks are common in our garden, but they are not as attractive as Bobtails (aka Shinglebacks or Bluetongue lizards). Since the skink, who lives under the house, made an appearance during my meditation time, he is included here. I find it difficult to name reptiles as friends, but I do like Bobtails. It is probably because my brothers and I made it a habit, on our childhood farm, to capture local wildlife and keep them as pets. Turtles, wild ducks, bobtails & other lizards and gilgies (a local small freshwater crustacean) were included in our menagerie. Their captivity usually only lasted a few days before the animals easily escaped. When we were children we were always pleased to see a bobtail because, according to my father, “When bobtails are around, snakes aren’t”. As an adult I suspect he wasn’t right. But he was right in another piece of his advice on bobtails, “Don’t let them bite you – they don’t let go.”
Bobtails, according to local Noongars, are tasty, particularly their tails in which they store fat for the lean times. On the other hand you have to be pretty hungry, they say, to eat a skink. Unfortunately, bobtails too commit car suicide and, because they are much slower than bandicoots, they seem to quickly come to a tragic end in an urban environment.
The only negative aspect to having skinks and bobtails in a garden is that they luuuv strawberries and will eat them just before the fruit are ready for me to pick and eat. The photo shows a skink gobbling up a mulberry.
Bobtails adapt their colours to the environment and are very well camouflaged. Notice the orange soil colour on the desert bobtail above and the garden brown on the garden bobtail. They are very tricky to see in the garden and often make one think ‘snake’ and step back with great urgency. They greet intruders with an open mouth, a vivid blue/black tongue and deep throaty ‘hiss’. In the strawberry patch or just along a path, bobtails present a fearsome sight when they hiss and stick out their blue tongue our to the blue.
Unusually for reptiles, bobtails hatch their eggs internally and nurture their hatchlings in a primitive placenta before giving birth to live young. The ‘birth’ ends parental responsibility for the lizard hatchlings! Once born baby bobtails are on their own. I am pleased to share my prayer space with Bobtails and Skinks. What message do blue tongue lizards bring to prayer garden?
Bob Tailed Lizard
(In our garden)
My Blue Tongue (James 3:3-12)
Why is the blue tongue lizard’s tongue blue?
Was he punished because he cursed his neighbour?
Did he hold his tongue too long and remain silent when he should have spoken?
Is he sending a message, “Don’t mess with me, I’ve got a blue tongue”?
Makes me think of my tongue:
…….I know my tongue both sings praises and pronounces curses
…….I know I say things I shouldn’t and don’t say things I should
…….I know my words have steered my ship into some rocky shoals
…….And I have inadvertently (or vertandly) started some fierce fires
…….I know I that out of the well of my mouth has come brackish water
…….Instead of life sustaining fresh water for others,
Maybe next time I look in a mirror my tongue will be blue too.
It’s ok, I checked, my tongue is not yet blue…
Thanks my shingleback friend and teacher for reminding me to
Mind my tongue.
This course will be given live on May 11th. It will be interactive with contemplative garden practices and much laughter involved.
Consider the Wilderness of Life.
Jesus is with us in the wilderness of life…Jesus is with us in the wilderness of the world we live in the marketplace of real life. How does this make you feel? Where have you felt the love of Jesus in your regular life this week? Take time to thank Him.
Jesus is in the wilderness with us in Churchland….In the wilderness of Churchianity too!
In what ways would you like to see Jesus” clean house “ ?
Take time to pray for the Church in your country and take time to pray for your own church community.
The Gospel Reading for this week is John 2:13-25…When Jesus goes to the temple and cleans house! What does the Holy Spirit highlight for you today as you read or listen to the passage?
JOHN 2:13-25 NIV
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a]
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.[b] 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25 He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
JOHN 2:13-25 First Nations Bible
13The time of the year had come for the ancient Passover festival. Creator Sets Free (Jesus) made his way to the Great Spirit’s lodge in Village of Peace (Jerusalem). This was the custom for all the families of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel). He came into the area in the lodge called Gathering Place for the Nations. It was here that other nations could come to learn about the Great Spirit and his ways.
14As Creator Sets Free (Jesus) entered the lodge, he saw people sitting at money tables. There were also others who were trading, buying, and selling the cattle, sheep, and doves for the ceremonies—inside the lodge!
It was so crowded that there was no room for the people from other nations who had come to learn about the Great Spirit. They were not honoring the purpose of this holy place. 15So Creator Sets Free (Jesus) took some leather straps and made a whip. He cracked the whip to startle and move the animals, and to drive all the people from the lodge. He tipped over the tables, which scattered their money on the floor. 16He then turned to speak to the ones who were selling the ceremonial doves.
“Go!” he roared at them. “Take these things out from here. Do not make my Father’s sacred lodge into a trading post!” 17The ones who walked the road with him listened and remembered the ancient prophecy, “My desire to honor your sacred lodge burns like a fire in my belly.”
18“What gives you the right to do these things?” the tribal leaders said to him. “Prove yourself and show us a sign!” 19“Tear down this sacred lodge,” he answered, “and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20The people shook their heads and said to him, “It took forty-six winters to build this great lodge. How could you raise it up in three days?”
21They did not understand that he was speaking about the lodge of his own body. 22After he was raised up from the dead, his followers remembered what he said and then believed the ancient Sacred Teachings and the words he spoke to them. 23During the Passover festival many people began to believe in him because they saw the powerful miracles he was performing. 24But he did not trust himself to them, for he could see right through them. 25He did not need anyone to tell him about human beings, for he knew the hearts of humankind.
What do you notice that you haven’t before?
What questions come up for you?
What are the invitations from Jesus in the passage?
Maybe you were like me growing up.You weren’t really allowed to have an angry Jesus or to show or express anger yourself! This passage gives me freedom to express my frustration with what is happening in the world
I want so much to cleanse the temple right now.
I don’t even go to “regular “church!
But I want to go in and turn over the tables of the pastors and leaders who are mixing politics with worship
Those who are afraid and
Who are teaching their people to be afraid too!
Those who are teaching their people to BE HATERS rather than to love
To use guns rather than to serve and wash the feet of the marginalized.
I really want Jesus to come and cleanse the temple again, please!
WE NEED IT.
I realize that I too am afraid.
I am afraid of who I am becoming…a person of fear rather than faith
A person who is filled with anger rather than love and peace
A person who is finding it VERY hard, extremely hard, to love my enemies and believe in God’s best for them .
I need my temple court cleared of all the clutter! Cleared of the animals of fear and bitterness and hate!
I need the tables I have erected for protection to be overturned so that I can truly love.
I need the court of my heart cleared so that there is room for others not just myself. Even for those who feel like my enemies!
“Jesus is angry about this, and many use this passage to justify violence because Jesus appears pretty violent here. But note that he’s violent toward things, not toward people. He’s liberating animals and trying to liberate the poor from their oppression. Of course, the religious leaders want to protect the building, the temple, but Jesus is redefining the temple. He identifies his body as the temple (John 2:21). The new temple is the human person; we are the body of Christ.
We see Jesus making this great revolution, transforming religion from a concern for sacrifice to earn God’s love to trust through which we know God’s love. And where does that trust happen? In the human heart.”
Father Richard Rohr
What sparks your attention in this quote?
Lent is a time for cleansing and clearing out the wilderness of our lives…
What is in the wilderness of your regular life like at the moment? The stuff that is getting in the way of your relationship with Jesus?
Draw out a picture of a table or find one in a magazine and write down the things that are blocking your heart and cluttering the temple of your life right now. Or just sit and look at your coffee table or a table near you. What tables need to be cleared away, turned over, in order to have more space for other people, and for Jesus? What have you been filling your temple court with rather than space for love and worship? Ask Jesus to show you and allow him to cleanse you!
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1JOHN 1:8-9
“Cleansing the Temple” by Malcom Guite, Sounding the Season
Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found,
Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath.
”If we are to become living sanctuaries worthy of the indwelling of God’s Spirit, to become the body of Christ, we must work as Jesus did to cleanse or dismantle the structures of oppression and exclusion that threaten our houses of prayer. We must embrace the Jesus with the whip as well as the babe in the crib or the one that hangs limp on the cross. For the temple may be destroyed but he will rise after death.”
Rev Loren McGrail, United Church of Christ / National YWCA of Palestine
LISTEN TO SERMON by Father Richard Rohr on this passage from John
by Christine Sine
Yesterday we went live with the second episode of my new podcast, a discussion of poetry as a spiritual practice with Drew Jackson. Facebook decided my post contravened their rules and regulations. I didn’t think it was that radical, but I don’t want you to miss this great interview with such an exceptional poet. I thought the it was. spectacular interview!
Here is a second soundbite to grab your attention.
Please consider not only listening to the podcast but also sharing it with your friends and publicizing on social media. Please help me get the word out more broadly.
by Bill Borror
Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.
Sylvia Plath
What do we really want? Sometimes it is straightforward:
A nap
A sandwich
For it to stop
For one more…..
But frequently we have trouble connecting our desires and our needs. Jesus asks a guy, who has been ill for thirty-eight years and who spends his days waiting for a miracle, if he wants to be healed (John 5:1-9)? Is Jesus is being “Captain Obvious,” or does he perceive a deeper malaise in the man than his physical paralysis? According to the gospel of John, the man chose to lie on a mat waiting for the miraculous periodic angelic stirring of the water, without any way of getting to the water even if said angel should decide to stop by. On one level, of course he wants to walk, but he also seems comfortable in the role of “sick guy by the pool that no one helps.”
Our desires exist because of some kind of deficiency. And because nature abhors a vacuum, a lot of our energy goes into filling those empty places. The problem is like toddlers trying to make a square fit into the circle space of a shape sorter, we often try to fill the holes in our soul with things that are never quite going to be able to fill the void. As Pascal most famously stated, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each person which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”
Lent is an opportunity to recalibrate our hearts and minds through willful acts of devotion and sacrifice. It’s a reordering of our loves to seek the things that truly satisfy our deepest longings found only in God. It is our yes to Jesus’s grace-filled asking “do you want to be well in your soul?”
The Liturgical rebels is now Live. The second episode – Poetry as Spiritual Practice with Drew Jackson is now available. Don’t miss this interview with an amazing poet.
In this second episode of The Liturgical Rebel I am in conversation with Drew Jackson about poetry as spiritual practice and how it can help us express the laments and joys of life while enabling us to sit longer in the questions life raises not looking for answers but sitting in the mystery of all things. His poetry is part protest, part Biblical commentary and provides a fresh as he weaves the Biblical narrative with contemporary issues of justice, lament and hope.
We will also discuss his amazing sensitivity to to women in the gospels and how poetry enables us to access our anger and see it as an invitation to uncover the mystery of life and let go of a need for answers and control.
Link to episode 2 – Poetry as Spiritual Practice on Buzzsprout
Drew has published 2 wonderful books of poetry: Touch the Earth and God Speaks Through Wombs. (NOTE: As an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount if you purchase through these links.)
For more information about Drew Jackson visit him at his website drewjackson.com or join him on Instagram or on Facebook.
Find out more about Christine Sine on her website Godspacelight or join her on social media: Instagram; Facebook; X or YouTube
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!