Deacon Ordination Ceremony number two

Today I attended the ordination ceremony for deacons within the (Catholic) diocese of Lansing. It was a delight to be present to see the men that we had gotten to know this past year take the next step on their journey. At the same time, it felt a little bittersweet. Despite Matthijs having joined with these men in their training for much of this past year, he is not yet allowed to become a deacon.

This is now the second time this has happened. When we decided to move to Lansing, Matthijs was no longer committed to Amsterdam. Because one is ordained to a specific place, the bishop could no longer ordain him in and to the church in the Netherlands, despite having been approved and trained there. Last year around this time he witnessed his fellow classmates become ordained.

The hope was that he could "transfer" into a program here. Yet, once again, the question has not been whether Matthijs would be able to serve God and the church well in the capacity of deacon. Instead, place is still an issue: our visas are only temporary. Perhaps there is still a way to make it happen, especially as we do intend to stay here for the next five to ten years, but nothing is certain.

One of the things I am growing to love about the office of deacon in the Catholic church is how much the wife of the aspiring deacon plays a role. A man cannot become a deacon unless his wife is fully in agreement, recognizing that the work of deacon can take a man away from his family and that it is a burden (and joy) that both husband and wife will share. It is not uncommon for a wife to request that the process of becoming a deacon be delayed until the children have left the house. I, too, am playing a role in Matthijs not yet becoming a deacon, although in a different way: our choice to move here to allow me to do campus ministry has caused Matthijs to be without place.

I am thankful for how patient and gracious Matthijs has been about the waiting, especially as I know it remains difficult for him to know how best to serve God and the church here in Lansing. At the same time, the wait has allowed me to witness his dedication to serving God, his enthusiasm and curiosity about so many different possibilities, and his desire to find a good fit, which has led to much deliberation and contemplation.

We are not sure about what is next. I am learning to be okay with that. It helps that (like a good Protestant?) I consider the words spoken to the deacons apply to both Matthijs and I: "Receive the word of God, of which you are a herald. Believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach." No matter what one's ordination status is, these are powerful and encouraging words to live by. 

Vacation and distancing myself from work

I'm not entirely sure what I should do about work while I'm on vacation. Because I like my normal life and my work and I feel that things are fairly balanced and I'm doing well, I don't feel like desperately need to "get away from it all." But generally balanced and fairly well is hardly the ideal (neither is being frequently annoyed with others), so some healthy distancing from work is definitely in order. The question, though, is what the healthy balance is.

During vacation, I learned that having internet on my phone at all times was great for exploring the area and not having to stress about getting lost. It was not great for all of the times that there was a little icon on my phone saying that I had mail. Disallowing my gmail to update itself automatically would have been wise, as would a better "out of office" message. I don't mind looking at my email on vacation (it makes returning a lot less stressful), but I don't want email to get in the way of my being able to create a healthy distance and rest.

At times I felt guilty for thinking about work and taking the struggles that I had there with me on vacation. It wasn't until I was sitting in a church (the fourth or fifth one by then - churches are an essential part of my concept of vacation) that I realized that I had been mistaken about taking my troubles along with me. The challenges I have at work are part of my life, and I do not have to squash that part of me. Vacation should less be about ignoring these challenges and more about finding a way to put them in perspective. Spending time with God - a natural response to visiting churches and walking too much and delighting in the wonder of the world and the goodness of vacationing with Matthijs - allows the stresses and challenges and worries to become less overwhelming. Giving space on vacation for work helps me to remember to trust God more with the difficulties and allows me to remember and dwell on all the wonderful things that I love about my job.

Cleaning someone else's dishes: another way of doing community

Last week, Matthijs and I stayed at friends of his in San Francisco. It was good, both the city and the  hospitality of Chris and Eva.

As I was cleaning up the dishes one night, I realized why I was enjoying this vacation in a different way than normal. Vacation is about getting to do things that we don't do as much as we'd like to, like exploring a new city, walking through beautiful nature, and spending lots of time talking to each other (about everything) over good food. Resting and getting away from normal life is thus an important part of how I understand vacation. At the same time, doing the dishes at their house reminded me of something I had also been missing: the easy intimacy and comfortable sense of community found in sharing (living) space. 

Doing the dishes felt symbolic both of sharing space and life together (Matthijs and I had helped wrap enchilladas for the dinner they were hosting the next day) and of having enough freedom to create and order the space in a way that fit me. The freedom was further extended to knowing that I could go to my room any time to read (or even read with them around) or skip out on the conversation to play/read with their daughter, Alma. It felt close without feeling forced or overwhelming.

Creating community - or perhaps better said, creating space where community can form - is part of my job as a campus minister. It seems strange thus to talk about it as something I miss, especially I do experience Campus Edge as having a strong community (even for me) and have started making friends. Yet, I still miss the natural intimacy that develops from living with others in intentional community. As I had met Chris and Eva only at our wedding, the sense of community was even more special, while also reinforcing my belief that gracious hospitality and sharing normal life together is more than enough to create good community.

Once again experiencing the joy and wonder of the community has reminded me how much I want that to be part of my life again, and soon. 

Time for a vacation?

Last night as I was lying on bed, overly tired from the day, I told Matthijs that "I hate everybody." He proceeded to inform me that he didn't qualify as everybody, while simultaneously warning the cat about my mood. Have I mentioned recently that Matthijs is good for me?

And, of course, I don't hate everyone. The words are simply a way of expressing both my being overwhelmed and frustrated by the challenge of human beings in relation with each other. It's also my way of saying that I need some time alone, far enough away from others to recharge. 

It feels like my ability to recharge from caring for people and interacting with people's messiness has decreased in the last while. The "I'm finding it crazy hard to motivate myself to do what I should" mood has also increased in length and frequency. A vacation is definitely a good idea to replenish my energy and desires.

I come from a culture where we learned to "suck it up" and "live with it". To some degree, saying that I need a vacation feels selfish and even a bit frivolous. Lots of people don't or can't have vacation. After all, if you farm or have your own business, vacation is often exceptionally complicated, if it's even feasible. Having a fragile economic or political situation also makes vacation pretty difficult. So when so many people don't get vacation, why/how can I need one? The short answer is that I don't need one. 

At the same time, God gives gracious gifts, and for me that includes paid vacation. It's a blessing, a way to refresh my soul so that I might come back more able and open to doing ministry. The refreshing my soul is good, as my attitude makes a huge difference in ministry (for a comparison, see this article of how a dean's way of being affects everyone). I also am learning that it matters a lot that my spiritual life is in order (i.e., I definitely shouldn't hate everybody). I am not the only one to believe that, as this article on the pastor's personal holiness points out. 

It is not so much that how I am doing spiritually encourages and challenges those I lead, it is more that I can not pastor people well if I am not constantly turning myself towards God so that I can listen well, be humble, pray for and love those God has given me. When my turning towards God focuses too much on my own frustrations and tiredness, it's hard to turn to God with and on behalf of others.

Holy Saturday: the not quite in-between day

Ever since reading, Alan E. Lewis's Between Cross and Resurrection: a Theology of Holy Saturday, I have deeply appreciated the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. These words by Tish Harrison Warren capture some of the wisdom I found in that book:

"This day in Holy Week provides liturgical space for us, as a community, to recognize that because of Christ’s victory over emptiness and death on Sunday, we can sit patiently in ache, in ordinariness, in unresolve, in fallow times when God seems silent."

The rest of her article can be found at http://thewell.intervarsity.org/blog/holy-ordinary-saturday

Holy Saturday is for me a day to pause by the darkness of the resurrection that has not happened. On this day after the crucifixion, the initial shock would have worn off enough for the disciples to recognize that they have awoken to a world where everything they believed has shifted. It is a fitting day to remember and empathize with those whose faith is shifting and/or for whom the hope and joy of Easter feels absent.

To help you do that, Kathy Escobar does a wonderful job of writing about helping those whose faith is shifting: http://kathyescobar.com/2015/03/09/friends-of-faith-shifters-things-that-help-things-that-hurt/
Rachel Held Evans wrote a good article about the difficulty of Easter joy for those who doubt: http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/holy-week-for-doubters.

The Reproaches of Good Friday

The end of the Good Friday service in the OudeKerk in Amsterdam would include the song: "Het Beklag van God" (God's complaint). I always found it powerful, although startling and a bit disturbing: the song asks how it is that we, God's people, would reject Him. As the songbook attributes the text to a rather well-known liberal Dutch songwriter (Huub Oosterhuis), I assumed that the song was uniquely Dutch: moving, provoking, and perhaps questionably orthodox. As much as the words reflected Scripture, it seemed to put words into God's mouth, which makes me uncomfortable.

I discovered today, though, that the Reproaches of God are actually an ancient text. Furthermore, the words are really from Scripture (Micah 6:3, Jeremiah 2:21, Isaiah 5:2 and 40 and more: see the Catholic Encyclopedia). Although the juxtaposition of these Old Testament texts to the context of Jesus' death is a bit unorthodox (and some have even argued that the words used in this way come across as anti-Semitic), I have found that juxtapositions often surprise us, causing us to see the text in a new way. I thus think it is worth hearing, reading, contemplating and sharing.

The following is the first part of the text (credit to be given to Jeffrey Pinyan):
"O my people, what have I done to you?

How have I offended you?  Answer me!

For I brought you out of the land of Egypt,
but you brought out* a cross for your Savior.

Holy is God!  Holy and mighty!  Holy and immortal!
Have mercy upon us!

For I led you through the desert for forty years,
and fed you with manna,
and brought you into a land of plenty,
but you prepared* a cross for your Savior.

Holy is God!  Holy and mighty!  Holy and immortal!
Have mercy upon us!

What more should I have done for you, that I did not do?
Indeed, I planted you, my precious chosen vine,
but you have become terribly bitter to me.
Indeed, you gave me vinegar to drink in my thirst,
and have pierced your Savior’s side with a lance."

Follow this link for more of the text.

You can also listen to a Latin version of the text (the Improperia) on youtube.

Interpreting the story of the woman at the well (John 4)

I remember reading in college an interpretation of the story about the Samaritan woman (John 4) where the she was considered a prophetess. I didn't entirely find the argument convincing, but I do remember finding something enticing about it. I liked how seeing the woman in a positive light changed how I thought about what was happening in the text.

One of the defining moments in the story is when Jesus asks the woman to get her husband. Her avoidance in answering the question and Jesus' response ("you have had five husbands and the man you are living with now is not your husband") makes it obvious to the reader that her marital state is not good. We immediately brand her with the Old Testament variation of a Scarlet A. We read into the text that anyone having had five husbands (and now living common-law!) is a Sinner.

But could her "not good" marital status translate into something else and, if so, how does that change how we understand the story? James McGrath does a wonderful job of pointing out the biblical texts we should use to help us interpretthis text, so I will include them here, instead of trying to say them in my own words: 

"We are told that the woman has previously had five husbands, and that the man whom she now has is not her husband. Unless Samaritan law was very different from Jewish law, and their culture likewise radically different, there is no possibility that this meant that the woman had divorced five men. Women could not initiate divorce in Judaism, and in this patriarchal cultural context, a woman who divorced a couple of husbands would not be likely to be taken as the wife of yet another. Are we to imagine either that several husbands have divorced the woman, or more plausibly, that the woman has been widowed multiple times?

Several stories do feature women who were widowed more than once and would have been known in the original hearers’ context. Gen 38 narrates the practice of levirate marriage—the responsibility of a man to marry his (childless) brother’s widow (Deut 25:5-10). An even closer parallel to John 4 is in the Book of Tobit (Tobit 3:8), where a woman named Sara loses seven husbands to a demon on each wedding night. The story suggests that a serial widow may struggle to remarry—a man might fear that some curse or demon was associated with her, and that his own life would be at risk if they wed. Such beliefs would of course leave the woman in a more vulnerable position, though she might still become a concubine.

It must be pointed out as well that neither divorce, remarriage, nor concubinage were considered immoral in this time period, and so the widespread slandering of the Samaritan woman from the story, so popular in sermons, is inappropriate."

     James F. McGrath, "Woman at the Well", n.p. [cited 25 Mar 2015]. Online: https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/tools/ask-a-scholar/woman-at-the-well.aspx

Assuming the woman is not sexually immoral does not change the not good-ness of her situation. Being divorced or becoming a widow five times, and now having no man willing to marry her, would be a cause of shame. It is possible that being childless was part of that shame, as not bearing children could explain the high rate of divorce and/or remarriage.

In the midst of the woman's shame and complicated situation, Jesus spoke to her, answered her questions, saw her with all the complications, and invited her to be the one to share the gospel with others. Many people today suffer shame for the things that others have done to them or the situations they have been forced into (e.g., sexual abuse), yet we as a church find it much easier to talk about how guilt, as our tendency to brand the Samaritan woman as a sinner shows. But I believe we lose something there. The text proclaims loudly that the gospel given by Christ changes everything for those who know shame. Even more, those who know shame might be uniquely gifted in passing on the gospel to others.