Station Eleven, Jesus is nailed to the Cross

The soldiers take big nails and drive them into Jesus' wrists and feet.  He has done nothing but good, yet they crucify him.  The soldiers have their counterparts today.  Some countries torture, brainwash, water-board, beat, electrically shock and humiliate their political prisoners and seldom do the people protest too strongly.   Instead, many people turn to Facebook where they can spew venom, invectives and callous hate with seeming impunity.  Torture doesn't have to be as deliberate as driving nails into someone's flesh.  It could be an ill chosen word, a thoughtless action, a comment on a Facebook page, or, sometimes not to act is to act. 

Sometimes we discriminate against others. Even without thinking, we judge others because of their color, intelligence, income level or name. We forget that we are to live as a brother or sister to all people. Sometimes we use harsh words when we speak to our children and family members. We can find it easy to look for something that isn’t very important and make it very important.

An organist for a local Roman Catholic church was living with a secret:  He was gay.  He was a dynamic musician and brought much life to the church liturgies and was an instrument for growth in the parish.  When he contracted AIDS and became too ill to continue serving his parish, he quit, word spread quickly and the church was scandalized.  The priest said "If I knew he was gay, I never would have hired him."   There was no forgiveness or compassion.  His father was even the deacon for the parish.

Sister Karen Klimczak of Buffalo ran a halfway house for ex prisoners.  She took in a new resident who was struggling with drug addiction.  His name was Craig Lynch.  It was Good Friday, 2007 and when Lynch saw Sister Karen's cell phone on a table,he strangled her and took her phone to sell for drug money.  Sixteen years earlier Sister Karen predicted her murder and wrote a letter forgiving the person who would one day take her life.  The letter was found in her belongings after her death and read in court at Lynch's sentencing:

“Dear Brother, I don’t know what the circumstances are that will lead you to hurt me or destroy my physical body.  No, I don’t want it to happen.  I would much rather enjoy the beauties of this earth, experience the laughter, the fears and the tears of those I love so deeply!  Now my life has changed and you, my brother, were the instrument of that change.  I forgive you for what you have done and I will always watch over you, help you in whatever way I can. . . . Continue living always mindful of His Presence, His Love and His Joy as sources of life itself — then my life will have been worth being changed through you.” 

Deputy District Attorney Frank A. Sedita stood up afterward and said, “There’s been talk of forgiveness, but, Judge, forgiveness is for God. Sentencing is for court.”  Lynch received the maximum of 25 years to life.  At that, the other nuns and co-workers of Sister Karen stood up and hugged the family of Lynch. 

Forgiveness can be hard, but, forgiveness is also very easy; Living with hate is very hard.  It is an endless downward spiral with the gravitational pull of a black hole but, it is surprisingly very simple to step out of.  Just like the cross - a symbol of death can be a symbol of life, compassion and forgiveness.  But, only to those with eyes to see. 

Almighty Father, help us look again at the people around us. Help us see the hurt and pain in others. Help us make amends for the harm we have done.Clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name.  Amen.

Seek Ye First

I sketched out this little improvisation with the intention to transcribe it but got lazy half way through the first verse.

The Tenth Station of the Cross; Jesus is stripped of his garments, by Maggie

His clothes are stripped away and he is left naked before the crowed.  Stripped of the little that is his.  Stripped of dignity.   Forced to feel shame.  Humiliated. 

I had a normal and happy childhood, I thought.  I didn’t know I was different until other kids told me.  I was adopted by an American couple.  They came to Korea and chose me out of a nursery of a dozen other children.  Children can be merciless and hurtful.  They made fun of my slanted eyes and made up names about me and my heritage.  I felt my dignity was being taken away from me through emotional assault and humiliation.   I am able to forgive the mindless abusers who reduced and denied my humanity.   They didn’t really know what they were doing, they didn’t know the scars they were creating inside me that would last a lifetime.   They did however teach me to have a profound respect for those who are different.  Jesus didn’t allow evil to strip him of his dignity on the cross.  He has taught me to honor this humble house of flesh in which God is at home and we are garbed in spirit-strength and dignity. 

God, help us to keep ourselves pure and clean. Help us say things that build up the people around us. Help us overcome worldly desires that we may become more like Jesus. Help us set a good example for others to follow.  Amen.

The Ninth Station; Jesus falls the Third Time, by Mary.

At one time, I had everything and my life was filled with happiness and promise.  Then, one day I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  I fell the first time.  Eight months later my husband left me because he was afraid that in time he would have to take care of me as my condition worsened.  I fell the second time.   Later that year a mugger outside the hospital slashed my palm with a knife, I had to have surgery and it took a long time to heal.  I fell the third time.  I even fell a fourth time when I became addicted and dependent upon pain killers.  During this time however, I discovered a purposeful religious life.  I found out that I could help other people and that by sharing my story, I could inspire others.  Wrestling with my grief, pain and anger, I found my destiny.  The old saying goes three strikes and you’re out but not for Jesus.  He got up and kept going.   I too had to keep going.  I discovered that life is to live intensely.  It doesn’t matter how many times you fail or fall, or even how many lives you touch.  No matter how many times you fall, courage is found in getting up again.  The road of life may be long and hard and strewn with pain and suffering, but the destination and destiny is in living life to the fullest.    I thank God that I have the strength to keep getting up and going on because with every turn in life I discover beauty and something worth living for, especially when I discover it is in living for others that I discover that life is worth living. 

Thanks to our beautiful prison ministry here at our loving church, I can forgive the mugger, I can forgive my husband, I can even forgive myself for blaming God for the MS.  They were all blood stained gifts to the discovery of love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.  They have made me a better person and in turn, helped me to make other people, better people.

O God by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Eighth Station; Jesus Meets the Women, by Christine

Forgetting his own pain, Jesus consoles the woman who are weeping for him.  If we reflect on the millions who are facing death from hunger, those imprisoned, those living under bridges, the jobless, we too may feel like crying, but tears do not produce comfort or bread.

When the institutional church fails to practice the justice it so movingly proclaims to the world, we are diminished as Christians.  How many tears must a woman shed for her sons?  How many tears are being shed today by mothers for their children; by sisters for their brothers; by daughters for their fathers?  The tears of women around the world water the earth every day.   As I got off the bus which took me to visit a loved one in prison, the women gathered in the waiting room with tears, fear, anger, and eagerness.  Some of them shared their stories and some of them brought their children.  Their tears were real and so was their faith. 

I volunteer for the wonderful prison ministry here at our church and it was the week of Thanksgiving.  I was hired to play the guitar for a special Thanksgiving Mass to be held that week in a local jail.  The local Bishop and priests were invited to say Mass for the inmate population.  Over fifty priests showed up and the press was there to take pictures of the church living its ministry to the poor, oppressed and imprisoned.  The tiny chapel could only hold about sixty people.  Only ten inmates were invited to attend this Mass.  If there were not so many priests present for this ministerial photo-op, there would have been room for more inmates to attend.   I can only imagine, if Jesus were there, as in the temple, he would have stormed in and knocked over the tables and maybe even punched a few priests in the noses.   Jesus wasn’t angry over money changing hands that day as much as he was angry that the vendors displaced the poorest of the poor from being able to enter the temple to pray.   

Like Jesus himself, the women and children and the inmates are like grain to be ground by the millstone of injustice.  The powers and principalities will one day be vanquished, but in the interim, there is solace in mutual love and steadfast resistance.     

Jesus, as you carry your cross you see a group of women along the road. As you pass by you see they are sad. You stop to spend a moment with them, to offer them some encouragement. Although you are have been abandoned by your friends and are in pain, you stop and try to help them.  Sometimes we act like children. We become so absorbed in ourselves and in what we’d like that we forget about the needs of others. We take them for granted, and often ignore their needs. Help us to think more about others. Help us to remember that others have problems, too. Help us respond to them even when we’re busy or preoccupied with our own problems.

Look up.

You may not see them in the sky just yet, but drones are on their way. And without legislation regulating their use, local police departments won't need a warrant to secretly track you or your family 24 hours a day.

Thankfully, legislators in Virginia aren’t waiting around to witness the abuse of power that using drones this way creates. They passed a bill in February that halts their use for two years, while privacy protection can be properly addressed.

But bigwigs in the drone industry, afraid of losing business, launched a smear campaign against the bill this week, putting it in severe jeopardy. Governor Bob McDonnell could kill the bill or sign it into law at any moment, so we have to act fast to push back against the corporate lobbyists.

This bill could be the first domino to fall on drones in the U.S., for bad or good. If we win in Virginia, states across the country can follow suit to stem the tide of unregulated drones. But if the drone industry wins, the warrantless use of drones could spread across the country. Act now to keep profits from trumping privacy.

Help pass the first law in the nation to say "no" to drones. Sign the petition telling Virginia’s governor to support the moratorium on drones.

The use of unmanned aircraft to spy on Americans is a growing national problem. Drones are already cheap and readily available on the market, and now the federal government is calling on the Federal Aviation Administration to open domestic airspace to drones by 2015.

In the past, Governor Bob McDonnell embraced Department of Homeland Security funds for drones with open arms. But mounting pressure from his own party against drones, his national aspirations, and the potential for a huge media moment could mean that the governor is ready to change his stance.  Let him know now that  he has the opportunity to make Virginia an important national example of protecting Americans from abuse of government power.

Drones may be useful surveillance tools for law enforcement, but they pose a newly grave threat to our privacy and could usher in an era of constant monitoring of our movements when we leave our homes. And contrary to the claims of drone manufacturers, the Virginia bill accounts for public safety and emergency preparedness while simply calling for reasonable regulation in use of this new technology by law enforcement.

With federal bipartisan legislation about drones being introduced this month on Capitol Hill and over 30 state bills about drones pending around the country, victory in Virginia would set the national stage to prevent a scary surveillance society in the present and demand the same for the future.

Go to this site to quickly sign a letter from the ACLU to Governor McDonnell:

https://www.aclu.org/secure/tell-gov-mcdonnell-sign-drones-bill

Building Membership

A few weeks ago I began a litany of seven observations as to why people don't go to church.  The first reason had to do with how we do our best to keep people out of our little social clubs.  The face of Christ is revealed in every person that we meet but I suspect that even He, given his politics and the people he hung out with would not be welcome in some of our houses of worship.  Here I will discuss a very simple solution.

How many hours per week did Jesus spend in the office? He didn't. He went out to where the people were. That is what we and our clergy need to do. I knew a Presbyterian pastor who spent five days a week from 9 to 5 sequestered away in his office.  Most of his time was spent on homily preparation (which were quite boring).  His church is now closed.  In five years time, he brought no one into the church.

I also knew a priest who would prepare his homily on Saturday around three o'clock – one hour before the four o'clock mass.  His homilies were always magnificent and not because he was exceptionally good at extemporization, or that he quickly perused canned homilies for ideas, but because of how he spent his week; He was rarely in his office.  Instead, he was in everyone else's office. When not in the rectory he was out visiting people. He attended every single event that was held at the church. If he couldn't attend some gathering or meeting he would at least show up when it was over and always provided an opportunity to make himself available to the people. He knew everything going on in everyone's life and when he preached on the weekend, he always incorporated stories of the people in the parish and how the life of the parish sinuously intersected with the Gospel teachings. His every waking moment was preparation for his homily and his homily was always a charge to to everyone to walk the Gospel walk.  It was all quite simple.  His church went from three Masses per week to five in a fifteen year span.  Two of them were standing room only.

Have you ever noticed how people love to talk about something which they are passionate about? Sports, movies, music, a trip, politics, their job, family? People love to talk about what they love.  The priest in the aforementioned story loved people.

I once attended a music convention for the National Association of Pastoral Musicians and I left re-energized and newly inspired to do my job. I came home from the week long convention and told everyone about it and invited them to join me next year. The following year, no one joined me and that was okay but when I came back, all I could do was to reiterate how magnificent the experience was.  The following year one of my choir members joined me and when she returned all she did was rave about how magnificent the convention was and how inspired she became.  Indeed she was a changed person and became more active in the church.  Not only in music but in other ministries as well. The following year three more choir members joined us and the next year four more people joined us and they were not even in the choir.  Not only were we reaching out to people but so were my choir members as they began talking about the convention to music directors and choir members from other churches.  One year we had about 35 people go to the convention.  Energy begets energy.

One of the conundrums that churches have is that they like to talk about their problems and issues. When Jesus stepped out of the boat and walked on water, he invited Peter to join him but Peter was skeptical.  When he saw the storm and the high waves, he had doubts and indeed he failed. That is what our churches do, too.  They look at the storm and they talk about their failure.  We need to feel as big as the sky because it is just a storm. Have you ever seen a storm on the ocean from a distance?   It is just a storm.  I’ve never seen a saddle fall off a horse so the church needs to learn to become one with the saddle.  To not be afraid of the storm, the horse or the saddle.  Ultimately, to be one with the Gospels.

So, some of us come up with new ideas and gimmicks in a churlish attempt to attract people to our churches and often times they fail. If not immediately, eventually. One of the reasons is our methods of PR. Putting an announcement in the church bulletin only reaches the people who come to church and who read the bulletin.   Many people are also not interested in our movie night because they have Netflix.  Others are not interested in our educational programs because either they are too busy or we fail to inspire them to apply what they learn from those programs.   Algebra and geometry are perfect examples.  If you teach only the formula, it is difficult to understand.  But, if you teach real world application, they become valuable tools.  Just ask any construction worker or home owner who likes to fixit themselves. 

There is a church who about 25 years ago had a women's club who made it their mission to spend the year talking about their church to people in the community seven days a week. It could be a passing comment or an invitation, but they would talk about the church, the people, about the activities, the coffee hour, what they did as far as ministries and they wouldn't be preachy about it, either. The church saw significant growth over a period of five years all because of simple physics: Energy begets energy. As people joined, they too, from example, talked about the church to other people, made invitations and even more people joined. Soon the church was filled with life and many active groups. Then they stopped their outreach and enjoyed the fruits of their labor. The children of that growth spurt are now grown up and gone, those new members are now elderly and the church is now struggling, not seeing any new growth.

It is not enough talk to our friends and family members. We already know them and they probably already go to church if not the same one.  We need to reach out to the stranger and the lepers among us. I never understood fear and prejudice, that's not how I was raised but our parole shelters, AA meetings and food pantries are bursting at the seams with people who don't go to church but may partake in its largess.  I know a wealthy church who sponsors a weekly soup kitchen and they serve about 200 people each week.  Strangely, none of those 200 attend that church.

Jesus sat with ordinary people. He even sat down with even the disreputable.  Public opinion was never a problem with Jesus. He was a genuine human person, a real brother to the poor, the weak, the sick, the alienated. He was not a benefactor, or a patron, or a philanthropist - but a brother. 

In this lies the greatness of Jesus. To have real power and influence one does not control or manipulate. One serves and builds and loves.   Some people may come for the movie night or the free food, but what will make them come back is the listening ear and the welcoming embrace.

Immanuel, a name which means "God is with us."  It does not mean that God solves our problems, shows us the way out of our confusion, or offers answers for our many questions.  It means he is with us, willing to enter with us into our problems, confusions, and questions.  

I used to answer a suicide hotline and the first skill we were trained in was listening, being quiet and being present.  My greatest successes and breakthroughs were when I said nothing.  Henri Nouwen wrote, “The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.”
  
We, do not aspire to suffer with others.  On the contrary, we develop methods and techniques that allow us to stay away from pain.  Hospitals, nursing homes, rest homes, funeral homes, they all often become places to hide the sick, the suffering, and the dead.   Suffering is unattractive, repelling and disgusting.  The less we are confronted with it, the better.  It is something we want to avoid at all cost.  Among some people, compassion is not among our most natural responses.

But, in times of trial, if someone were to say to us, "I do not know what to say or what to do, but I want you to realize that I am with you, that I will not leave you alone," we have a friend through whom we can find consolation and comfort.

 
What really counts, is that in the moments of pain and suffering, someone stays with us.  More important than any particular action, or word of advice, is the simple presence of someone who cares.  They show solidarity with us by willingly entering the dark spaces
of our lives.  For this reason, they, like God, are the ones who bring hope and help us discover new directions.  From the Beatitudes, Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn."  Not because mourning is good, but because they shall be comforted.
  Do our churches comfort or have really good card parties and pot lucks? 

Courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is dong what we need to do or is the right thing to do.  Even in the presence of fear.  Many people are afraid of bees because bees can sting and it hurts. Some people will even kill a bee on sight not realizing or, with little concern, that these industrious little insects are responsible for most of the fruit and vegetables which we consume on a daily basis. Something we hate and fear so much is also extremely valuable to us. Some of the people we hate and fear are strangers and lepers and, just like bees, they can bring value to our churches but first we need to go to where they are because they certainly won't come to us.  They have a perception that the church is full of hypocrites.  Hate begets hate and the people who bash the church the most are the people whom the church has had a history of turning away.  It is simple social physics.  hate begets hate.  Energy begets energy.

My sister was a Jehovah's Witness and instead of going door to door, she spent every day at the parole shelter assisting the men with transportation, support and navigating the DSS.  She brought over 50 men into her church. Some of them got jobs and some additionally got married in the church.  Many of them brought skills of construction, plumbing and electrical experience and volunteered their services to the church and its membership in appreciation for the kindness, grace and mercy it offered.  Energy begets energy.

I recently attended a one-day retreat where there was a panel of five clergy who talked about why they chose the church as their career.  A lot of the priests talked about their passion for Jesus.  One priest had an inner city church and talked of her (Episcopal) passion for the people.  At the end of the retreat, the panelists fielded questions from the assembled.   A question was asked "Is it possible to turn Jesus into a 'Golden Idol?'"  The woman priest said "Absolutely. It is easy to worship the messenger but fail to hear his message.  Just look no further than the Crusades where we killed people in Jesus' name."   The only priest who passed on answering that question was one from an affluent parish who had admitted to have been attracted to the church because of his love for liturgy, pageantry, candles, mystery, couture finery, documents and education.  He never once mentioned people in any of his answers.

It was also interesting to note that none of the clergy had a eureka moment or were struck by lightning when they fell in love with church/Jesus/ministry.  They all said it was a gradual process. One salient life moment they all had in common was that  there was one person in each of their lives who first made an invitation.

I know, strangers can be scary to approach but some of the greatest saints were murderers first. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. Imagine what could happen if all people did something. Jesus said in the book of Revelations that if a church is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, it is like spit in his mouth and he will spew it out.  I suspect that many churches today are lukewarm.

We turn to God when our foundations are shaking only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.  If the foundation of our churches are shaking we can let the walls crumble around us or we can go out into the world to get help. So with that in mind, do as St. Vincent de Paul suggests, "If a needy person requires medicine or other help during your prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind.  Offer that deed to God as your prayer.  Do not become upset or feel guilty because you use your prayer time to serve the poor.  God is not neglected if you leave him for real service.  You should prefer the service of the poor to making your prayer. For, it is not enough to love God, if, your neighbor does not also love  God."

-Malcolm Kogut.