Author: pilgenfritz

Three Men and a Parable

It has to be one of the most perplexing of parables:

The Parable of the Dishonest Steward, Luke 16:1-13:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. ² So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

³ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me?

I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

⁴ I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ ⁵ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ ⁷ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

⁸ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. ⁹ And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

On Sunday, May 17, I was grateful to have guest preacher, Charles McCollough with us, to help us untangle the parable. Charles is a UCC pastor, theologian and sculptor. He worked for the national staff of the UCC in adult education and social justice. His book, The Art of the Parables, examines Jesus’ parables using his own sculptures (see the sculptures in the scripture text above) which draw on the work of William Herzog (Parables as Subversive Speech).

It is true gift for any preacher when whatever was shared, is shared back and my dialogue with Charles about this parable and the sculptures he had made, prompted two responses.

Denis Streeter and has been writing poetry for 15 years and writes 2-4 poems a month, and always provides me after I preach with very insightful reflections and critiques. Charles’ sermon prompted Denis to write a poem in response which arrived on my cell phone during lunch with Charles and Carol McCollough.  They were amazed as was I.  A preacher’s dream – someone who not only heard, but remembered and integrated in their own life and situation a scripture and sermon.  Denis caught the heart of Charle’s refections on the text:

“The Dishonest Steward”
The orator says
Let’s put this in a cultural historical context
This was written in the time of the Roman Empire
So rendering to Caesar what was Caesar’s was not much choice
So Jesus was creating a parable of a corrupt system
Something anyone could relate to, by showing how life really was
The guy swindling his master is found out
And told he’s fired
So he thinks…
What can I do?
I can’t dig and I won’t beg
I’m financially ruined
So he thinks…
I know!
I’ll reduce the debt by 50% for one and 20% for another
He does and the master is impressed by his shrewdness and let’s him keep his job
And why not?
His master is more likely to be repaid
You know
Lower your interest rates…
It’s in your own interest
It rewards a shrewd even devious nature
Jesus is saying
Look we live in a corrupt system
I’m just pointing it out
You know it’s true
Nobody really did that
Counter-intuitive
So how do you live in this world
Well some scholars say this
Some scholars say that
Let’s put this in a cultural historical context
No one can decide what to make of the parable
Just work around the edges like the grand equivocator
Theologians, philosophers, historians
Are rewarded for seeing the “big picture”
Even when it doesn’t say anything
Working around the edges
It’s a devious nature that sucks in the intellectuals
Reaping rewards
Certainly beats digging and begging
Who wants to get their hands dirty
Well…what about knowing the system and working within it
With your own…some would say…God given gifts
What about working with clay
Sculpting your own images
It doesn’t have to be clay
It could be poetry
The sculpting of ideas, shaping of words
Make something different
Delve into the mud and create
Iconoclast your way
Remold and cast away
You will not lose your interest
And you may keep some change.

Denis Streeter  5/17/15

Burton Smith is a computer architect, church choir member and something I didn’t know, a Biblical scholar as well! He shared another take on the parable with me on Sunday and wrote up some comments for me to share:

I came to a different understanding of the “parable of the dishonest manager” than the one in your sermon this morning.  Basically, I prefer to read the parable backwards, as follows:

Verse 9 mentions “dishonest wealth” rather than dishonest management of it. Could Jesus be talking about Caesar’s wealth?  And what is this allusion to a welcome in the “eternal homes”? Maybe the welcome is in the next world rather than this one.

In verse 8, what kind of master is it that is in favor of the forgiving of debts? I think I know who it was Jesus had in mind. But in what way was the manager’s behavior “shrewd”? Could it be that he was beginning to store up riches in heaven by giving his master’s “dishonest riches”, over which he had full but temporary control, to his fellow human beings?

The manager’s stated motive in verses 3 and 4 is to make the master’s debtors grateful enough to feed and house him later. Simple enough. He was probably as surprised as we are when the master tells him in verse 8 he had acted “shrewdly”. Verses 5-7 increase the shock.

Verse 2 implies the master disapproved of the manager’s behavior, but the master’s call for an accounting at the end of the manager’s tenure reads like judgement had already been passed. Perhaps it was the manager’s life itself that was ending; in either case, he would not be able to redress his pursuit of “dishonest wealth” once his tenure ended. And this may explain Jesus’ words in verse 9.

So that’s what I make of this parable. By the way, the content of verse 11 supports my thesis, I think. What does it mean to be faithful with the “dishonest wealth”? Jesus tells us over and over: we must give it to the poor and follow him. The world and everything in it belong to God, and so verse 12 reminds us that if we cannot be faithful with what belongs to God how can we expect a reward of our own? We are all managers of the wealth we think is ours, but God is our master and expects us to behave shrewdly with his riches.

Dialogue. Discovery. Insight. The heart of what parables are all about.  Stirring up new ways of looking at our lives.  And why the world of parable interpretation knows no end.  So grateful for these three men, three takes on a parable.

And now, the most important part.  What about you? What’s your take?

As Denis invites us,

What about working with clay
Sculpting your own images
It doesn’t have to be clay
It could be poetry
The sculpting of ideas, shaping of words
Make something different
Delve into the mud and create
Iconoclast your way
Remold and cast away
You will not lose your interest
And you may keep some change.

It was a good night for “The Flyin’ Hawaiian”.  Top of the 4th, Red Sox right fielder, Shane Victorino, hit his first homerun of the season. Goes home happy, upping that .163 batting average by a few points.

And no, not such a good night, for the Seattle fan who stripped off his shirt, jumped the chain-link fence and ran across the outfield before being tackled by three security guards.

But other than those two moments of excitement, a pretty humdrum Thursday night at Safeco Field.

We’d left early in hopes of beating the rush hour traffic.  Did not.  Stop and go to Sodo.  Wound our way up, and further up in the parking garage.

Emptied keys and wallet, pens, tickets, notepad, grocery list, sunglasses into a little plastic bin.

Stood in line to get a plastic cup of beer and a Mariner’s hotdog.  Wondered why it costs $2 more than the plain old hotdog.  Loaded my home team dog with generous dollops of mustard and relish.

Found the way to our seats balancing sloshing beer and dripping mustard down steep concrete stairs.  Hoped not to spill mustard and beer all over my shirt.  Failed at that.

Looked out between shoulders of blue and white Mariner’s tee shirts as the opera singer from New York soared the National Anthem out over the outfield wall.

Joined the crowd in a loud cheer.

At last, all settled in our seats.  Cups of beer in cup holders.  Hot dogs in hand.

And then…..well…..

Morrison grounds out to pitcher.

Zunino grounds out to shortstop.

Seager grounds out to first.

Yet another lazy fly ball.  Yet another can of corn.

The mow pattern is about the most refined piece of work out there tonight as one team jogs off and another onto the field.

Yet another assortment of swings and misses.  Foul ball, after foul ball, lobbed into the stands.

Then, I remember.  What I’d forgotten in the novelty and anticipation of a night out at a game.

It’s baseball.

This IS what happens.  A heck of a lot of nothing.  Most of the time.  A lot of sitting around and waiting for the possibility of what may.  Or on a night like this, may well not.

It’s a month left until school ends.  Summer, yet to begin.  The humdrum days of May. Work, school, marriage, life. Days, when the anticipation of what may spring has not yet sprung.

May.  Somewhere between the possibility of what may happen and yet again, what may not.

Not the brilliance of October nor the exuberance of July.  Just dear old May.

The kind of year when you too may get the urge to jump the fence and tear off across the field with what may be nothing more than the desire, the ache and restlessness in you to make something, please, anything happen.

Or yes, maybe the month, when you may look back on 20 years of late night practice after late night practice, starting way back there in 3rd grade on “Tony’s Tigers” Little League Team.  The years of hamstring, back and yet another knee problem.  Back surgery that took you out most of last season.   And here, tonight, back after 15 days on the disabled list.

Who could have guessed?  That here on a spring evening in May, it may just happen to you.  The years of practice and amazing grace coming down to this. Your bat hitting the ball just right.  A homer to left flying high over the wall.  Hey, it just may be, you’re not finished yet.  Just may be, you are only beginning.

And yes, a good month, to sit in the stands with a hot dog and beer on a beautiful night with a good friend.  The lights of the city sparkling in the distance.    A little girl in a bright pink dress dancing in the stands.  And no, not much of anything happening on the field.

It’s May.

It’s baseball.

Sure, you could have stayed home and watched re-runs.  Or finished the novel even though you looked ahead and already knew the ending.

Or gone out to the ballpark for the possibility of what may happen.

The little girl in the pink dress is swinging to “Three Little Birds” as Bob Marley reminds us, that indeed, “every little thing is gonna be alright”.

And it just may be.

The bases loaded and yet another can of corn that brings the final out.  The slow jog off the field, others on.  The circle dance of grounds crew brooms.

And something, although I can’t say how or when it happens, happens.  I’m no longer sitting here in the impatient expectation of what yet may be but in the wonder of what already is.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  One other thing did happen Thursday night.  That surprise 9th inning Red Sox rally that took them jogging off the field with a 2-1 victory.

It may be a better game next time.

Then again, it may not.

But as we wind our way in the blue and white crowd to the parking lot, I think, baseball may not be as bad as I thought.

Not such a bad place to be, in the possibility of May.

Last week our congregation voted to support a resolution calling for support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions or BDS movement, which seeks to use economic and political pressure to force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.  The United Church of Christ will vote on a resolution to support this same resolution when our General Synod meets in June.

In our conversation here on May 3, members shared articulate and passionate comments. Their personal experience in the Middle East. Their feelings about the situation of the Palestinians. The use or misuse of the word “apartheid” to talk about the situation of the Palestinians in occupied territory. The need to remember the suffering inflicted on Israel. The nature of complexity.  The feeling that this resolution would not do anything to support a lasting peace. Questions about the political motivations of the BDS movement. That more dialogue is needed before a vote. The need not to isolate others in our interfaith dialogue.

A good conversation and what felt like the beginning of a longer one that is needed. A ballot was taken and our congregation voted 84 in favor of supporting the resolution, 4 against, and 10 abstentions.

A couple of years ago, I bought a SodaStream. Sparkling water is my favorite drink of choice and after years of hauling plastic liter container after container home from the store and then tossing them into my recycling bin, I was intrigued by the opportunity to make my own sparkling water.  No more mass accumulation of plastic bottles.  Just a Co2 cartridge I took back periodically to have refilled at the local drug store.  I loved my endless supply of sparkling water and felt quite virtuous and very “Seattle” because of my environmentally supportive purchase.

What I didn’t know, until the discussions on this resolution, is that SodaStream operates a factory in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. My virtuous purchase now not so virtuous. SodaStream, unbeknownst to this naive consumer, has in fact been the subject of a boycott by the BDS movement for years.

My quick internet search showed that supporters of SodaStream note that 500 of the 1300 plant employees are Palestinians and paid competitive wages for Palestine.

Others counter that SodaStream benefits, along with the 300 other companies operating in settlements in the West Bank, from depressed wages made possible, in part, by Israeli occupation.

In any case, SodaStream plans to close its plant and move it to Lehavim in the southern Negev this fall.

Is the specific controversy about SodaStream over? Or for others, like me, only beginning?  And what about my SodaStream that my congregation has just voted to boycott?

Liberal Christians are criticized, fairly, for not talking about sin often enough.  Our congregations bear the scars of those who for one reason or another have had a run in with churches calling them “sinful” or in need of redemption because of who they are or what they “believe”.  In our liberal church welcome of “whoever we are, wherever we are on life’s journey”, sin often gets downplayed.

But maybe its times like this that we need to bring back that old fashioned word again.  Right here, looking at the SodaStream on my kitchen counter is where sin makes sense to me again.  Not in the sense of “miserable wretch am I”, – but “unclean man am I” caught in a web of broken relationships. Immersed in a divided and complex world of competing notions of the “good” that are often up to no good.

No, there is no getting “off the grid” when it comes to opting out of injustice.   I am caught in the web of it.  And now, wondering what to do about it.

This is not an “abstract” or “theoretical” issue for me. The places we talked about on Sunday are places I have traveled. I have been on two study trips to Israel/Palestine. I’ve walked through refuge camps outside Bethlehem and celebrated Shabbat in Galilee. I’ve talked with Israeli settlers and Palestinians about the terrors both have witnessed. I have listened to Jewish and Arab families talk about the death of their children. I have heard story after story of suffering and seen amazing glimpses of resilience and hope. I have seen the ongoing divides of the history of hurt that cripples this land and throws it back on cycle of violence after cycle of violence.

My SodaStream on my kitchen counter, now brings it all back to me. What do I do? Post a picture of the refuge camp I visited in Beit Sahour next to my SodaStream? Get rid of the SodaStream and let someone else pick up the responsibility for owning it?  Stop refilling the little Co2 cartridges?  Keep supporting an industry on occupied territory that my church has supported boycotting?

Maybe it doesn’t matter.  Maybe the harm has been done. I already bought my SodaStream.  But maybe I can’t get off the hook so easy. Maybe this is right where I need to be. Maybe sitting here today in the not-knowing.

And if I can’t get out of the web of injustice, but how might I get further into it so I might find my way through?

The worst thing about the “resolutions” we pass is when we have our brief conversations, feel vindicated or defeated, and then move on.  The possibility of these “resolutions” is when they become an opening for deeper dialogue and engagement.

Maybe the occasion to prompt another study trip to Israel and Palestine? Maybe an occasion to gather our SodaStreams on the communion table, and listen to their stories?

Maybe, to listen to our own. Our hurt and displacement. Our longing to be instruments of hope and peace. Often not knowing how. But wanting to make a difference. To bring about change. To bring some water to the desert.

Maybe talking about our SodaStreams, a good place to start.

Sailors Wanted:

Uncharted Waters:  A five-week exploration of navigating a new season with faith and trust. Fridays Afternoons – 3:45 – 6:00 p.m. May 22, 29, June 12, 19 and 26 at the Center for Wooden Boats on South Lake Union. Experience needed:  None.

It happens in so many ways. A new job. A new family. The birth of a baby. Retirement. Re-location. Re-orientation and Dis-location into a way of being you have never experienced before.

Bob Perkins and I have been exploring how the practice of sailing can help us feel our way into situations of change.  Last fall we tried on one small group experience with folks here at University Congregational UCC and this spring are trying on another.

Here’s our invitation – and if this feels like “you” – we’d love to have you consider joining us.

In a small group of 8 this spring, we will be exploring how the practice of sailing can help us enter more deeply into such times of spiritual transformation that is life in “uncharted waters”. The challenge and opportunity. The fear and disorientation. The hope and excitement. To listen for and discern where God is calling and at work.

The first hour of each class will be spent on the water and a second hour in small group conversation about the particular changes in our own lives. No sailing experience is available.

Space for this small group is limited. If we’re unable to offer you a spot in this class, do know that we expect to offer it again in the future. Please send us a paragraph on the “uncharted water” you are experiencing today, and why you are interested in taking part in this small group. Members will be expected to attend each session and to have read, First You Have to Row and Little Boat.

Cost: $75 (Due at the first class. Scholarships are available.)

For more information contact Peter Ilgenfritz (pilgenfritz@universityucc.org, 524-2322) or Bob Perkins (bobcperkins@gmail.com).

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For the past two Sunday evenings Simon de Voil and I have been leading a series of experiential, contemplative worship experiences in conjunction with a gorgeous art exhibit in our church chapel.

Simon and I met 8 years ago when he was on staff at the Iona Community and the leader for the youth pilgrimage from our church to Iona.  Simon’s a gifted songwriter, musician, and will be ordained as an Interfaith Minister in June from One Spirit Seminary in New York City.   It’s been a great gift to our church community to have Simon back with us leading worship.

For our second service, we explored anointing.  Anointing is an ancient practice used for blessing, healing and protection.   We began by a symbolic washing of hands – a washing away of what is in the way of our receiving the gift of anointing – doubt, hurt, anger, exhaustion.

It has been a powerful experience to explore organic, intimate ways in a beautiful setting to deepen our connection to the Holy.  A powerful experience to create a safe place for us to go to deep places of worship together.

I hope you might join us this Sunday, May 10 for our final service in which we will focus on “Healing”.

Bill died that morning. I met that afternoon with his family at the local coffee shop. Heard the stories of the beloved husband, grandfather, step-father.

Before I left, I held out my hands. Offered to say a prayer.   We joined hands.  Everyone that is, except one in the circle.  The young woman to my left, Aci, the girlfriend of Bill’s grandson. Everyone was looking at her.

“She’s Muslim”, the mom said.

I turned and looked Aci in the eye.  Said, “This is a just a thank-you prayer, a way to say thanks.”

She looked cautious, hesitant, but reached out, and held my hand.

Eyes open, looking around the circle at each one gathered, I gave thanks for Bill. His life, for all he is and has been to those who have loved him. Reminded us of the promise of the Love that holds and never let us go.

At the end, Aci smiled, “That was cool.  I liked it.”

Tuesday’ coffee shop encounter was not the first time I have navigated between worlds of diverse religious experience.  I spend a good deal of time translating the language and experience of faith to others in ways they can understand. Finding ways to show that the circle is wide. That in all of our particularities and differences we can also find ways to join hands and come together.

Last week I was invited to attend a conversation with theologians and pastors from the World Council of Churches and United Church of Christ exploring “multi-religious belonging”. 30 of us had gathered from India, Korea, Canada, Europe, Native American communities. Throughout the U.S. – from Hawaii to Arizona, New Jersey to New York.  From United Church of Christ, Greek Orthodox, Presbyterian, Affiliated Baptist, and other traditions.

Last summer the World Council of Churches hosted a conference for theologians to reflect on the experience of Christians throughout the world who participate in more than one religious tradition.  The conference in Cleveland was a follow-up and the first conference that brought together theologians along with church leaders to reflect and discern on what some call “spiritual fluidity”.

I was invited to attend to talk about my experience as a Christian pastor who for 12 years participated as an active member in a Zen Buddhist community.

My experience in Zen led me back to myself, led me through a deep spiritual transformation. It changed me, opened and enlivened my Christian faith. Changed how I pastor.

Sure, there are deep practices in Christianity that echo some of what I found in Zen – contemplative prayer, silent retreats, the Benedictine hours. But not an easily accessible Christian tradition that practices daily sitting in silence together. Not a practice with the rigor, asceticism, and discipline that Zen provides. A willingness to step into the darkness and sit there that Eastern practice allows. Now stepping out from my experience with my Zen community, I’m looking for ways to understand and reflect upon it.

The reality is that in many ways, many of us have had profound experiences in other religious practices and traditions that have shaped our faith.  The engagement has changed and is changing the church.  What does it mean for the future of the church and what being a Christian is all about?

The stories that we heard and shared revealed that our experiences are particularly rooted in our own contexts.  While multiple-religious participation is often criticized in the west as “shopping mall” or “consumerist” faith – taking a bit from here and there – the truth is that the practice of multi-religious practice is often not a choice but something that we marry into, are born into, called into.  Not something trite but deep practices that change and have changed us profoundly.

I want to invite you to share your stories here on this blog post. Your stories of having your faith, life, changed by your engagement with another faith tradition or practice.

I’ll be sharing more about what I learned and my own experience as well.

And “like” the group “Hyphenate-Religion” on Facebook and get in on the conversation.

One million visitors in Washington D.C.

No march or protest.

No 4th of July fireworks or President’s Inauguration.

One million visitors.  Here to see the blossoming cherry trees.

To stroll, picnic, take pictures and delight in the joy of a spring that has at last arrived.  The cherry trees at their peak.

Ever since the Emperor of Japan sent the first 3000 trees in 1912, April in Washington D.C. has meant the Cherry Tree Festival.  The exact date set by that one particular tree that every year is the first to bloom.

Sure, there is the prerequisite parade and festivities, tee shirts and music, but these clearly not the main attraction.  Not why we all have come.  The main event, the trees themselves.  Dotting the mall in brilliant white blooms by the Washington Monument.  Sweeping the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial in a necklace of elegance.

A picture perfect weekend.  Sky blue.  Mid-60’s.   Doesn’t matter that the Capital dome is under construction.  The mall torn up.   The reflecting pool drained. We are here for the trees blossoming in brilliance.

On the mall, we find our own little cherry tree.  Share a picnic.

Stroll the path around the Tidal Basin packed with tourists.   But we have nowhere to go.  Nowhere to be but here, under the trees, delighting in the joy of trees alive in color, a crowd rejoicing in the gift of this spring day.

Meanwhile, the locals head out to their own neighborhood streets lined with white blossoms.  Young entrepreneurs sell lemonade and family photos.  A crowd of joy.  Smiles.  Greetings.  Simply strolling.  Pausing for pictures under row upon row of trees.

In Japan, each season of the cherry tree’s cycle of life marked with ritual and reverence.  Here, in America, a delight in cuddling blossoms, taking goofy pictures.   Perhaps, in our own way, we all understand.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  The news full of yet another weary round of war, death, injustice and suicide.

Are we ignoring it all here, as we linger amidst trees?

Maybe.

Or maybe come back to the grim realities and present duties that await us all with a different perspective for having wandered here.  The time to put it all down for a little while.  To rest in beauty.  Take refuge in trees.

Maybe, in fact, not ignoring at all.  The trials of life.  The burdens and anxieties that keep our eyes down, close to the earth.  Maybe, here, find a wider holding.  This wider holding of beauty, delight, community, joy.  This present grace that carries, cradles, releases, heals what we cannot ourselves.

Perhaps it’s all here.

Perhaps, this our joy.  Another way to be.

All too soon, it will be over.  Another weekend or two and the petals will fall.  Flowers of snow on a spring afternoon. So, our lives. Fragile. Beautiful. Fleeting.   All too soon, coming to a close.

But perhaps, today, it’s not too late.

Here in Seattle, the city blossoming in a thousand shades of green, yellow, purple and white.

Maybe, just the day to put down a burden and pick up joy.

A simple, ancient delight.

Get outside.  Amidst this canopy of color.  Stroll in beauty.  Nature’s delight.

Breathe deep the fragrance of a flowering spring.

Perhaps, no, not too late for blossoming.

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Thanks to the photography team of Anna, Mark and Nancy Horton and Tsuneko Nakatani for the joyful and silly array of pictures to mark a weekend of beauty and delight.

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain;
Wheat that in dark earth for many days has lain.                
(John Crum, “Now the Green Blade Rises”)                                    

They sit gazing at him up there. So proud of him. How can it be that in just four months he will be gone? These 18 years have gone by so fast. They sit here wondering who they will be when it is just the two of them again looking at each other across the kitchen table….

She is tacking the Time Magazine cover inside her locker – the picture of the polar bear on the melting ice pack and the headline, “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” She is. While her friends worry about who is going to the spring prom she is worried about her future and the future of the world and she doesn’t want to forget what’s going on…

She stands looking at her body in the mirror. “YUCK! I HATE it!” Whose body is that anyway? I want my old body back!”…

They sit holding hands across the table, looking in each others eyes, now welling with tears. This time the treatment didn’t just work. The cancer is coming closer. They are worried, scared to death honestly, and want to be anyplace than here in this place…

Change is at the heart of human experience.

Change, at the heart of the Easter story.

We have heard it said that the work of grief clears the room for the newness of God to take root.

Heard it said that the gifts of confusion – and the anxiety, anger, fear that accompany it – loosen the soil so a new shoot, a new way, can break forth.

Sometimes, it seems like an idle tale. Change, full of the spin of pain that is getting us nowhere.

We don’t hear in the story how it happened that the women met the living Christ. We only are told that they did. That they met the living Christ in a way they never had met him before.

And while they can’t tell us exactly what happened, we can see it.

See it on the faces of the women and men who have followed them on the journey through grief and confusion and met a living God who has set them free in wonder, into the new that is God.

There is something – a force, a power, a presence, a name – call it what you will – that is life and love. We can’t force each other to get it, experience it, see it.

We can only witness to its presence – when we let it rise in our faces as it rose in the face of Jesus who let go of his life into the new that is God.

See it in the faces of the parents who let go of the child they used to know, the relationship they used to have together, and who are getting to know this new man their child has become and each other in this new season of their lives.

See it in the face of that passionate young woman, meeting head on the crises of our time – not with a with furrowed brow and anxious spirit, but with a heart broken open in love for God’s world.

See it here in the girl who sees a woman looking back at her in the mirror, smiling now, “You are beautiful.”

See it in the couple who look into each others eyes in love to embrace the life they have been given today.

Maybe, it’s not an idle tale.

Enter the story of change that is Easter.

Look in the mirror.

See your face set free in wonder and hope.

Now, before the story is complete in you, act as if it is.

Share your heart, life, compassion, generosity.

Trust before you know.

Believe before you can see.

Love is come again,

to you, to me, to us all,

like wheat that rises green.

Why Good Friday?

Why sit with others on a Friday evening and remember what you don’t want to remember?  Feel what you don’t want to feel?

Betrayal, Agony, Loneliness, Accusation, Mockery, Desertion and Death. These are the experiences of this day.

Experiences that are part of all of our lives.

Sometimes, some days.

Maybe, for you, especially today.

The feelings of this day, the emotions that linger in the air.  Experiences not merely of someone who was crucified 2000 years ago, but ours.

The boat slips around the leeward side of the island.  The wind dies. The sails tight to the wind, crumble and fall.  The boom rocks listlessly midship.

The water once turbulent and white-capped, now glassy clear reflecting upside down views of the pines.

The neutral zone.  Life between what had been and what yet might be.

Aching for the past.  Dreaming forward, beyond what we can see.

We sit on the side of the boat, rocking back and forth, trying to catch any small puff of wind.

Anticipation becoming impatience.  How long must we be here?

Castigate each other silently.  How did we – did you – make such a mistake?

What did we do to deserve this?

Sneer jealously at other boats out there sailing while we drift listless.

Dead on the water.

The neutral zone at sea, the neutral zone of Good Friday, a most uncomfortable place.   A dangerous time. Tempted to head back to what has been – or move too quickly forward to what has not yet had time to form.

As we try frantically to dream, curse, plot and plan our way through we are brought up short. Reminded again that the only way out is through.   Through this aloneness. This pain. This day.

Numbing, avoiding the pain, does not lead to our salvation.

Instead, a good time to take stock.  To look at where we have been and what has brought us here.

On Good Friday evening, we will gather, where we do not want to be.

Look at what we do not want to remember.

Empty out the pain, the hurt. Voices from other nights, other seasons that still linger and diminish us.

Take an expression of this night that is our feeling.  Images from our dreams, the news, the headlines that we turn from.  Our own closeted pain.  We are a mixture of all of these:  Betrayal, Agony, Loneliness, Accusation, Mockery, Desertion and Death.

Sit together, in the hearing, the remembering of the story.

But tonight, not alone, as we too often are.  Tonight, together.  And if there is any hope in this night it is this.  This pain, this hurt, this not-knowing is not ours alone.  But ours, together.

Tonight, not to tack on any premature hope or happy ending. If we did, our hopes would be too small. Our “ending” not improbable enough.

We must do the impossible instead and wait.

Wait.

Not to fix.

Not to undo.

To hear the story of the hurt that reminds us of our own.  The silence, the diminishing candlelight. The cawing of crows. The violins that one by one drift away until there is only one.

Were you there..?

Were you there…?

Easter, it is said, comes.

But not yet.

And Good Friday, the way it comes.

***********************

Our Good Friday service is on Friday at 7:00 p.m. at University Congregational United Church of Christ in Seattle.   Here with us or at home, we hope you will join us in marking this night. The way through, how Easter comes.

It’s like this, I said,
you can live in your certainty –
the way you want her to act
and how she should look,
the father you wish she had –

The imagination of the black
haired girl and freckled boy
you will have together
three years from now
after you have settled down –

How you want her to grow
and would like her to change
and how she will help you do the same
in all the ways you want.

You can do all that, I said,
and never get exactly
the life you dreamed –

Or you can let go –
into the mystery –
recognize, that here, in fact, is someone
with whom you want to go –
set sail into the wind,
and let it take you
where it will.

To set out for Tahiti –
and end up in Tacoma –
it happens that way
sometimes,
but what is important,
what really matters,
is that you want to go –

Despite everything you fear –
into this great unfolding –
to see together
just what might happen.

Maybe, it will have something to do
with how you dreamt it would be –

Or maybe not much at all –

But for sure, you will never learn,
unless you go.

Out there –
where you do not know –

Out there –
where the wind will carry you –

Peter Ilgenfritz
March 26, 2015