Reflection #3

Before Annas, Ciaphas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod

Jesus was led about a lot once he was arrested. He was tied up and ushered in front of different people. It struck me that when he later says to Peter "When you were young you were able to do as you liked...you went wherever you wanted to go, but when you are old..others will take you where you don't want to go", he was speaking from the heart; to lose your liberty, to no longer be independent, but to be forced by others, to do what you don't want to. Jesus had experienced that very thing. He had been compelled to stand in front of all these men.

And as I pictured scene after scene where Jesus is led into the presence of these people it struck me how much they would want to display their power. They would be there in their robes of office, seated on their thrones or whatever the equivalent thing was, surrounded by servants, all the trappings of power and privilege and authority. They would want him to see how important they were, how what they said went. How dare he, who does he think he is unsettling their rules and structures. Overturning their tables. Questioning the things that they had decreed. We'll show him who knows best.

And as I looked I became aware of Jesus beginning to grow in stature. He grew and grew and grew until I could see the universe contained in him, stars and planets and galaxies. Annas became smaller and smaller until he resembled a "grasshopper". I heard God's words to Job

"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?...Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east?...Can you direct the movement of the stars - binding the cluster of Pleiades or loosening the cords of Orion?...Do you know the laws of the universe? Can you use them to regulate the earth?"

All authority over everything has been given to me.

But Jesus opened not his mouth.

Reflection #2

Jesus washes the disciples feet

"Jesus knew he had come from God and was returning to God and that authority over everything had been given to him ... so..."

It's such a small word isn't it ...so... Logically what follows this word should almost be self evident from the previous statement but it isn't - it really isn't at all.

John doesn't write about the body and blood statements Jesus made at the last meal they had together, he tells a remarkable story instead.

Disciples' relationship with their Rabbi was like a slave and a master. The disciple learned from the Master by serving him. We know that the disciples made the preparation for Passover; they were sent into villages to buy food for the group; they took turns to serve. The Babylonian Talmud tells us that "all acts a slave performs for his master, the disciple performs for his Rabbi, ...except untying the sandal."

Feet were considered unclean. Washing them was demeaning. Shameful. Humiliating. Only slaves would do it. Even Jewish male servants wouldn't do it. It could, however, be allocated to women, children or Gentiles.

For a master to belt his robe was unthinkable. Only lower class servants and slaves belt their robes. To belt your robe was to indicate that you were going to become a servant.

He had been given authority over everything ....That means he had been given authority over everything... SO

He got up. He took off his robe. He wrapped a towel around his waist. He poured water into basin. He began washing the disciples feet. He dried them with the towel he had around him.

We some times say - what is the cultural equivalent? It's offering someone a cup of tea or coffee when they come to our house

No it isn't. It's the cultural equivalent of the queen giving up all she has, moving out of Buckingham Palace into a council estate in Possil and spending the rest of her life serving the community there in what ever capacity she can. It's the cultural equivalent of David Cameron walking out of Downing Street and becoming a community activist in Toxteth. And then it's more radical even than that. Because this is GOD.

Jesus sat down and asked;

"Do you understand what I was doing...?"

Reflections on the Passion #1

I have to admit I've found it really difficult to blog recently. I think some of it is related to the focus of my prayer in the past weeks. Blogging about the Passion feels kind of out of sync with where we are in the year, but I also feel that when I'm praying God is very present and that he gifts me, out of his grace, insights and experiences that I find quite hard to articulate. As I've progressed through the exercises I feel that I've become less and less able to verbalise what it is that God is doing and showing me, but I have experienced it as full of incredible grace and generous love.

I thought that what I might do is share some little reflections on what has been moving me, I think, otherwise, that I might come to a complete halt on my blogging.

#1

Jesus anointed at Bethany

Jesus has just announced that he is about to die; one of his disciples is in the process of seeking to betray him; the religious leaders are desperately plotting to capture him and kill him secretly; Jesus knows what he has to say to his disciples the next day; he is in the home of a family he loves and he is having the second last meal of his life; he knows what his disciples and those who love him will face shortly; he has to live out this final act of his public ministry and then what ...? Jesus has to live this by faith even though he is God he is fully human. This is not a foregone conclusion although Jesus believes he will rise again he has to set his face towards it and choose to follow it.

I imagine Jesus conflicted by all of these thoughts and concerns surrounded by his friends and disciples yet alone in really knowing what all of this means for him and for them. His disciples talking and eating, maybe not fully aware of the turmoil Jesus is going through. But the woman...Mary, who sat at Jesus feet...

Mary sees him. Really sees him. Understands what is happening and the most loving gesture she can make is to take a beautiful jar of expensive perfume and pour it over his head. It is a gesture of love, empathy, understanding and devotion. It is a selfless act to acknowledge what Jesus is experiencing.

The disciples see waste - Jesus sees understanding and concern. The disciples measure the act in terms of it's monetary worth - Jesus measures the act in terms of its self giving. She has honoured him and he reflects honour back to her. "...throughout the world, this woman's deed will be remembered and discussed"

By anointing him in this way she is proclaiming him to be the King. The Christ. Hebrew kings were not crowned, they were anointed and the fragrance acted like a crown on their heads, giving an aroma of the holy. That smell of the anointing perfume would remain on Jesus over the coming days, Gethsemane, Caiaphas' house, before the Sanhedrin, Herod's palace, the Praetorium, the cross. The aroma clung to him proclaiming, wherever he went, that he is the Messiah; the Holy One of God.

The Lost Son and the Seeking Father

Easter was a bit odd for me. I knew that I was still finishing off the second "week" of the Spiritual Exercises so was still meditating on aspects of Jesus public ministry and knew that I would be coming back to pray with Jesus passion and death in the third "week" which would be a few weeks after Holy Week.

And so for the past few weeks I was left hanging with that thought "Let's not let Jesus do this on his own", as I continued to contemplate Jesus ministry, the increasing hostility of the religious rulers, leading inexorably towards his passion. Now I am officially moving into the third"week" I don't want to lose some of the insights I've had in the second week where the grace I have been seeking is to "See Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly.

In the first "week" when I was considering "sin" and how it would feel to be utterly disconnected from God, I sat with this passage for some time. I imagined the son coming to his 'senses' - smelling the pigs, hearing his stomach growl with hunger, looking at the mud and the state he was in - and setting out.

I had shamed my father saying to him in effect, "I wish you were dead". I shamed him in front of the whole community and then when I got what I wanted I squandered it, the money that he had worked all his life for, without a single thought or concern except for my own desires. Then, finding myself starving, feeding pigs of all things, I realise that in my father's household servants are better off than I am. I set out on the long road home and while I'm far off.....................

............I am met by the most insignificant person in the household who says to me "Get lost! You're dead to us. You have dishonoured your family and shamed us in front of the community. You made a choice." And I am cast into complete destitution.

And I deserved this, I brought it on myself. The community would approve of the father's actions - he did the right thing. But I have lost connection with my true self - the self that I understand because I am my father's son, I am part of this community and my actions have excluded me from love and warmth, comfort and belonging.

The feelings sitting meditating on this passage in this way, was complete brokenness and loss. Grief at being separated from the Father.

As I prayed more recently, seeking to see Jesus more clearly, I returned to this passage and this time I imagined the son setting off; hesitating, doubting whether this was the best thing to do, stopping and considering turning around again, considering just giving up and dying. His feelings are shame and self loathing. How could I have done this thing, shaming my father in this way.

Then I see my father running - lifting up his robe and running - my father is shaming himself in front of the whole community. To lift up his robe and run is considered shameful in the culture and here my father is shaming himself in his absolutely reckless, loving desire to get to me.

His response to my shame is to shame himself; to take my shame from me by taking it on himself.

Jesus presents a new image of God; the Father who shames himself to get to us. Whose love has no limits, whose love is all generosity and compassion.

Jesus - the very image of God.

Holy Week

Don’t give up before Easter.
We have come so far
Don’t give up before we get there.

This is an ongoing story
We don’t say, ‘Goodbye and see you again next week.’
It’s not as simple as that.
Next week, none of us might be here
fickle as a crowd at Passover

This is the story everything moves towards:
stables and wildernesses, mountaintops and bedsides.
So far the gospels have simply been introductions;
introductions to this story of the cost of love.
Everything leads here.

Let us not let Jesus do this on his own.
Let us accompany him.
Let us be here as he faces the temple and the anointing,
the betrayer and the denier,
the bread and the wine.
Let us not let Jesus face these on his own.
It is the least we can do
in response to what Jesus does for us:
giving of himself,
completely.

So this service does not end today
but continues tomorrow and each day this week.

You cannot have Easter without the passion:
stones don’t roll unless the tomb is filled,
dawn doesn’t break unless the darkness rolls in,
resurrection doesn’t happen unless crucifixion is first.
You cannot know how to celebrate Easter
without first living the passion.

So let us journey with Jesus this week
Just as we expect him to be here for us
may we be there for him
to keep the faith alive.

May we hold on for him
when he has to let go
This is a journey of faith
may we have the hope to travel it.

Go now
come back soon
it has only just begun.



copyright Roddy Hamilton

"Who is this?"

Been spending more time with gospel narratives in my continuing quest to "see Jesus more clearly"; the passage where Jesus walks on the water (following on from my previous post) and when Jesus is asleep in the boat during the storm and the disciples are fearful.

It's an interesting thing but I've found on many occasions during my retreat, that as I pray with passages or themes that God "gifts" me with an experience of the thing I'm praying with. The really curious thing is that I often don't see it until I start to reflect back with my Spiritual Director (who I meet weekly - the exercises are a guided retreat), and it becomes blindingly obvious - in an "Ahh! that was what that was all about!" kind of a way.

I realised that on reflection, what had been a very difficult week on many fronts, was an experience of buffeting from many quarters. I was in a storm and so reflecting on what Jesus was doing during this time was very helpful.

What did I see?

Well I saw that if God appears asleep - it doesn't mean he doesn't care, it just means he's not worried.

But I was also conscious that God defies our easy characterisation of him. We try and resolve the "Who is this?" question by trying to impose some order on God. We try to contain him in some way. "It must be a ghost." Ghosts we understand, but a God who walks across a lake, through a storm, well that's a whole concept we can't seem to get our heads around. Because God is surprising, unexpected, uncontainable. When we try to impose restrictions on God we actually bind ourselves.

Jesus walks across the water, defies the disciples categories and then Peter... I love Peter - he dares to meet God in the storm; to meet God in the place of non-restriction; to meet the unbound God. He asks to come to Jesus in the storm, on the water, to come to where God is. Jesus says "Yes. Come!" I imagined at that point that there was joy from Jesus and maybe just a hint of relief. Someone wants to defy the easy categories and walk out to where I am; someone who is willing to take a chance, cast off the self imposed restrictions.

"Do not be afraid, take courage. I am here"

I sat on the bus travelling to Glasgow (again) and gazing out at the blue, blue sky; lifted my eyes to the hills and saw the snow shining in the sun, the trees almost ready to come to life - the tiniest buds forming; saw the geese flying across the sky; the dull green of the grass almost ready to shake off the restrictions of winter; felt the warmth through the window. And suddenly I was longing to be out in it, just like Peter, didn't want to be confined by the bus, to be gazing out from behind the glass. Longed to be in the midst of it - in the storm, where the life is.

And I heard Jesus shouting over the wind and the waves "Yes. Come!"

"Who is this?" is not a question I answer once - it is the journey.

Seeing Jesus More Clearly

The 'grace' that I am seeking in the second 'week' of the Exercises is the Ignatian prayer - that I might "See Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly". As usual Ignatius has real insight - to see Jesus more clearly is the thing that helps us to love him more, and as we love him more, then we seek to follow him more closely.

In practice this means that I have spent the past couple of months imaginatively contemplating passages from the gospels that show me Jesus. Last week I had a few passages that I was meditating on through the week, but one of them stayed with me and each time I came to pray, the images from this passage would come to me. They become like memories, powerful experiences of Jesus. The passage was Matthew 14.13-21 and I saw it in 3 parts.

Firstly - I was in a grove with Jesus and the disciples, we were eating and talking and laughing, it was hot but there was a breeze from the lake and the trees provided shade. We looked up and were being approached by some people, as they drew nearer we recognised them - they were friends, the disciples of John. Jesus and the others rose, greeting them with a kiss and inviting them to sit.

They told us that John was dead.

They began to tell us how it happened - Herod's boastful promise, that he never expected to have to keep, but his bluff was called and it was more important to him to save face than do the right thing. John's disciples had just come from burying John and had come straight away to find Jesus.

I watched Jesus face. What was he feeling?

Sorrow and grief - John and he were inextricable linked from before their births. Cousins, only 6 months apart; both with miraculous conceptions. John, who Jesus grew up with as a boy travelling together to Jerusalem for Passover; John who Jesus publicly aligned himself to in his baptism at the beginning of his ministry; John who he spoke warmly of and defended; weeping over Jerusalem because they killed the prophets; encouraging John in his imprisonment - the blind see and the lame walk. John the prophet to his Messiah.

Anger - that John should die in so pointless a way - for the vanity of a man who was corrupt and weak.

And something else - Jesus realising that this went further because it fore-shadowed something that he knew he would face one day soon.

"As soon as he heard, he left in a boat for a remote place, to be alone"

Jesus weighed down by sorrow, anger and a sense of his own life coming to an end - looks for a place to be alone, to pray.

Secondly - Yet when he gets there he is confronted by crowds of people. What is his reaction? He wants to be in a remote place because he needs time to grieve, to reflect and to come to terms with his cousin's death. What is his reaction?

He has compassion on them.

Not only does he feel compassion - he embodies compassion by healing their sick; by staying with them until evening; by feeding them rather than sending them away hungry. He demonstrates his care for his disciples - making sure they get into the boat to cross the lake; and then waiting himself to send the people home.

In his grief, in his anger, in his turmoil he puts the needs of others before his own. He doesn't count equality with God something to be grasped, he humbles himself. He is not among us as someone who is served but comes to serve. Jesus, the very image of God, embodies radical, costly love.

Thirdly - I stayed with him on the shore as the darkness gathered and the stars appeared and the last of the people made their way home. A breeze was beginning to spring up - quite softly. He stands alone, looks out over the lake and sees the boat with his disciples getting smaller as it moves away from him. Only then he turns and begins to climb. When he has climbed some way up the hill, he sits down. He is alone. He thinks about John, allows himself to dwell on his memories; he turns his face to the Father and the Holy Spirit and lays himself bare. He knows what he has to face and it comes to him - full force - he knows where this is leading. He stays with this and takes comfort from the Godhead - loses himself in that relationship; the love and community within God. And stays there until eventually the wind begins to whip at his clothing. Then he looks out and sees the boat being tossed on the rising waves.

Jesus rises and pulls his head covering around him and makes his way down the hillside towards the lake. A storm is rising; he sets his face and walks into it.