Author: laurenlarkin

Another Excerpt from “Passionate Marriage”

Previous post here. From chapter 11, “Two-Choice Dilemmas and Normal Marital Sadism” (bold is me):

We have the fantasy that we have the choice between being anxious or not. Unfortunately, we don’t. Our choice is between one anxiety or another. Do something scary–or face problems from not doing it. Make an error by commission–or omission. Face the anxiety that things will change–or stay the same. Do (sexual) things you’ve never done–or forfeit that taste for life. Face the anxiety of growing up–or the terror of facing life as a perpetual child. Confront the fear of differentiation or the dread of marital living death.

These are examples of the two-choice dilemmas inherent in emotionally committed relationships. Such dilemmas arise from our human nature: we are fundamentally separate life forms who value both attachment and autonomy. … Once you realize you and your partner are in two separate ‘boats,’ you understand the nature of your dilemma: you want to steer your own boat–and your partner’s, too. We call this ‘togetherness’–as longs as you are steering for both of you. When your partner does the same thing, however, it’s called ‘control.’ If you want both absolute certainty of your partner’s course and certainty that you’re not controlling him or her–you’ve just run into a two-choice dilemma.

If you check your dictionary, you’ll find the phrase ‘two-choice dilemma’ is redundant–technically, a dilemma is a situation necessitating a choice between two or more unpleasant alternatives. However, many people think of a dilemma according to the dictionary’s secondary definition: a perplexing or awkward situation. In my clinical work I use the term ‘two-choice dilemma’ to highlight that (a) we often try to remain in our perplexing, awkward, and painful situations to keep everything in check, (b) a choice is often required to solve our situation, (c) we usually want two choices but we only get one, and (d) we try to avoid choosing (by remaining in difficult situations) to avoid losses inherent in giving up one option for another (i.e., solution). While not linguistically correct in all cases, clients have found the term ‘two-choice dilemma’ a powerful tool…

There is no point in staying dead in a living dead marriage; doing so is the main reason why monogamous marriage is not able to withstand the blows of alternative relational existences. Why are we letting some of our primary relationships kill us? Why aren’t we fighting to stay alive?

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David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage”

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been researching (heavily and obsessively, I confess) the concept of intimate relationships, specifically marriage and it’s variants. This week I’ve been reading “Passionate Marriage” by Dr. David Schnarch at a devouring and voracious rate. Schnarch is “a licensed clinical psychologist and certified sex therapist” (from the back cover). The book is, well, excellent; I’m enjoying every chapter. In fact, it’s even altered my view on the concept of monogamous marriage…for the better. Could marriage between two adults actually look like this? According to the book, it seems possible. Addressing the concepts of self-differentiation and the solid-self, enmeshment and emotional fusion, other-validation v. self-validation, intimacy and desire during sex (to name a few), the book offers a reconstructed idea of what a “good” marriage looks like, an idea I had not previously known was possible let alone actually existed. I recommend reading it (even tough I’m only 2/3 the way through), but not at work…he’s a sex therapist, and the case studies in the book will…ummm…make you wish you weren’t at work 😉

Here’s an excerpt from chapter 9 “Mental Dimensions of Sexual Experience” (bold is me):

We insist on being our spouse’s one and only–even in fantasy. On the surface it may seem like we’re following the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,’ but underneath it’s our narcissism demanding, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods! Worship only me!’ … We don’t want our partner fantasizing about anyone else! It’s not easy to accept, even if we do it, too. Realizing they’re doing it during sex with us adds insult to emotional injury.

Research indicates that, of all sexual fantasies, thinking of someone other than your partner is the most common. These are called ‘partner replacement’ fantasies. When confronted about their fantasies about other partners, many people assume it’s better to deny everything and be glad it’s hard to prove they are lying. They think partner replacement fantasies belong to the category of ‘the few things not said each day that improve a marriage.’

Wanting to be our partner’s ‘one and only’ in fantasy is not just an extension of the principle of monogamy. It has to do with being dependent on our partner’s validation. Our mate’s sexual fantasies play havoc with our reflected sense of self. Validation from our partner evaporates while he or she fantasizes about someone else. We can tell ourselves we don’t have to take it personally. But if we’ve spent our lives pursuing validation from others, we don’t really have much choice but to take it personally when we are not the focus of our partner’s fantasies.

What I’m describing isn’t a problem if you handle it properly. Granted, ti doesn’t feel good at first. But it’s part of marriage’s people-growing machine. You can persist in hating the fact that your spouse’s fantasies don’t always include you, or you can develop a more stable sense of yourself.

For several chapters we’ve look at what happens to marriages dominated by other-validated intimacy. To review the general characteristics of partners in these marriages: (a) they have difficulty introducing novelty into their sexual relationship, (b) they experience anxiety and resist change when their partner does something new, and (c) they have difficulty with maintaining a clear sense of self when out of synch with their partner. More important to our current discussion, they are likely to tune out their partner during sex and focus on body sensations to reach orgasm. Over time, they are more likely to experience sexual boredom and resort to partner replacement fantasies for sexual variety.

Here’s the paradox: the very thing that makes poorly differentiated people go crazy over their partner’s sexual fantasies predisposes them to do the same thing themselves! People wounded by the discovery that they are not their partner’s ‘one and only’ are likely to be fantasizing about someone else. Being dependent on validation from others, they have to lie about it even while they are complaining about their partner. And in the midst of all this, they want their partner to validate them and make them feel secure. Like the exercise wheel inside a squirrel cage, this process drives marriage’s people-growing machinery.

If this pattern rings true for you so far, consider the impact during sex: desire to fuse with your partner actually increases the likelihood of experiencing less intimacy during sex. Your heads are inevitably in different places. you can  feel your partner tune you out even if you’re ‘in synch’ enough to grind.

I’m not saying that there is anything ‘wrong’ with mind-wandering and partner replacement fantasies during sex. I’m putting them in context so you can use them productively. Mind-wandering during sex is probably inevitable–but you can reduce it significantly and increase the intimacy and potency of your sex. The benefit can generalize to the rest of your life, because it involves increasing your level of differentiation.

Humans will always fantasize; that’s not necessarily a problem. The difficulty is that the way we fantasize (and hide it) interferes with intimacy and wall-socket sex. Like hugging, kissing, desire, and monogamy, fantasies operate differently depending on your level of differentiation.

While predominately about sex, the concepts discussed above apply to a number of other aspects that often plague monogamous marriage. And, good Lord, let us hear lest we cease to sense the something-fierce need to overhaul and reconfigure monogamous marriage.

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Rain, Rain Everywhere: Homily on John 3:1-15

“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’” (John 3:5-8)

There is something absolutely marvelous about a standard downpour of rain. When the skies open up and release every single droplet of water from a supersaturated atmosphere, there is a magnificence that must be reckoned with.

You might not agree with me; but then again, unless you’ve spent nearly three years in the desert, you might not have the awe I have when rain falls. When you live in Western Colorado, in the high-dessert, you can get the clouds that look like they’ll release heavenly water, but they don’t. The clouds move on, blown by the dry winds and the grass and plants and other sensitive foliage turns browner. Or, you may casually watch a storm front dissipate before your very eyes as you watch it travel east to west, burned and dried out by the dry, dry, dry heat of the sun and air.

I love the rain. And we get some really great rain here. And last night, when the rains fell for a second time, and dinner was almost but not quite ready, I opened the front door and stepped outside. Large water droplets fell all around me, hitting the ground–liquid staccato allegro. Large water droplets broke into smaller droplets as they hit the ground, covering my feet with rain. I stretched out my arm and let the rain hit my hand, and in that moment I was struck by the renewing and cleansing and refreshing that this rain was. The earth was being watered: renewed, cleansed, and refreshed.

And I was reminded of my own renewing and cleansing and refreshing that is daily manifested in my own life as I remember that I am baptized. And not only baptized with water but also of the Spirit; by this baptism I have been grafted into the history of Jesus Christ and thus if into His history then my future is located therein where the promises of God are yes and amen and this is my present tense reality. Each raindrop seemed to carry with it sweet whispers of reminder that while I was born of the flesh at one point in time, I am born anew by the spirit and have been given eyes to see the kingdom of God and enter it, and the ears to hear the loving summons of my Savior that calls me outward toward you. Each drop, a soothing reminder that the promises spoken by God that are fulfilled in and by Christ are mine by faith. Each drop, a refreshing reminder, a new beginning that all that was and is washes from me.[1] As it is written in the second letter to the Corinthians: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…” (2 Cor 5:17-18b).[2]

While everything around us looks hopeless, while hatred and evil stomp and tromp around leaving what feels like an infinite number of victims in its wake, while our own lives and minds are plagued by turmoil, anxiety, stress, sadness, doubt, and maybe even disbelief that God actually loves and cares for us, we have been given a tangible reminder of God’s love for us. That Jesus Christ’s free and obedient giving of himself on the cross, his being lifted up on the cross is that event to which we turn our heads.[3] As John writes, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

And every time we recall our baptism of water and spirit, we are brought to this event of Christ being lifted up to die for our sins and to be raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). We are brought to the fulfillment of God’s promises that are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. We are brought to the heart of God’s love for us, you are brought to the heart of God’s love for you, for each and every one of you.

Rain, rain everywhere, and in every drop a thirst quenching drink: “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16).

 

[1] Karl Barth CD IV/2 p. 563 “…in relation to everything that [I] previously was or otherwise [am] it is a new beginning newly posited by God.”

[2] This particular portion of the sermon is me playing around with the insights and scholarship of W. Travis McMaken as found in “Definitive, Defective or Deft? Reassessing Barth’s Doctrine of Baptism in Church Dogmatics IV/4” IJST vol 17.1 Jan. 2015. pp. 102-114.

[3] Karl Barth CD IV/1 p. 166

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A Video Interview with John-Marc Ormechea

I don’t like being in front of a camera; I avoid it in fact. (Yes, I know the irony of saying that and being the woman who sent half-naked photos of herself through the Twitterverse earlier this year.) So, when my friend John-Marc Ormechea (otherwise known as @EpicTillich on Twitter), asked me to talk with him via Zoom my response was: hell no! Nah-ah. No way. Hard pass. But what I said was: “uh, sure.” And I mustered up all the courage in my 140 pound frame and sat with John-Marc and talked about my journey in Christ, Martin Luther (#swoon), and Liturgy as a beautiful feature of The Episcopal Communion. It was fun. I talk with my hands *a lot*. I choked up at one point (now you’ll know what I look like when I’m about to cry).  I’m *VERY* animated; everything is right there on my face to see (good news: I’m a bad liar because of this animation).

 

Anyway, here is that video. And, all my gratitude to John-Marc Ormechea for asking me to talk to him about things that I’m passionate about. I’m beyond honored.

 

 

You can find John-Marc Ormechea here: https://epictillich.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter: @EpicTillich. You’ll blessed as I have been.

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Intertwined

Our legs are intertwined Your right leg drapes heavy over my upper left inner thigh There is no movement It just rests as you sleep a deep peaceful sleep Skin to skin thigh to thigh like it was meant to be there since the beginning of time as if these two were created for each other I rest on my back experiencing the weight of your leg resting across mine Love Gratitude Thankfulness emotions that overcome my mind I turn I roll over bringing my right leg parallel to my left My thighs press  together in symphony with gravity not resisting with fight not pressing with intentionality just turning and rolling and resting my thigh on top of yours on top of mine In the process I feel your weight press against me more I pause and take in the wonderful sensation Union You and me intertwined My arm sleepily shifts with me and extends beyond me to embrace you You are fast asleep on my left arm pressed up against my breast and my right sweeps to grasp your back and pull you closer to me Closer to me than you already are if that is possible Your forehead meets my lips as I bring my head down to kiss you and I pause and inhale you You are the smell that I have fallen in love with the moment you first came into my world I am grateful for you So grateful I didn’t expect you I didn’t see you becoming intertwined with me but you did and here we are in my bed draped mutually across each other intertwined mutually with each other like lovers Lovers of the truest meaning of the word lovers Lovers Sensual sensual in the safest sense of the word sensual Skin touching skin Comfort and safety Freedom thus mutuality There is no fear here The love I feel for you is real love I love you and would lay my life down for you I let my lips linger over you enjoying this silent moment this moment you don’t know about This moment you are unaware of where I can love you with no reciprocal action Just love you from the bottom of me to the top of me toward the bottom of you to the top of you Love The warmth of your body radiates over mine as I have you in my embrace You stir I subtly and slowly pull back to give you space intending not to wake you up Lest I lose this moment forever I gently and slowly lean in one more time for one more kiss and risk letting relaxed fingertips of my right hand run gently, lovingly, and sensually over your hair all the way to the nape of your neck I smile I love you I steal one more kiss I love you I roll away and lay upon my back to let sleep take me over once again.

 

 

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The Parable as the World Right-Side-Out: Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16

“‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat’“ (Mt 20:12)

Do you know what this verse is the equivalent of in our vernacular?

“It’s not fair!” “Hey! That’s not fair!” These workers essentially whined and complained in an ancient language (now very dead) that is equivalent to my 3-year-old’s tantrum about nothing (absolutely nothing!) being “fair!” As a parent of three kids, I know all about the deep-seated human desire for fairness. Any parent here knows exactly what I’m talking about on a very visceral level. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the cry, “It’s not fair!!”, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be on a beach…that I owned. I’d be a wealthy, wealthy woman.

In the world of children, everything must be fair. But according to whom? “To me.” Each of my children is the arbiter of their own fairness. If they themselves are lacking, things aren’t fair. If Jack had the toy that Quinn wanted, and I took that toy from Jack and gave it to Quinn, you’d not here Quinn clamoring that things aren’t fair. He’d be just fine and content because he has what he wants and deemed to be rightfully his. The cry that things aren’t fair bursts forth from self-oriented hearts.

Good thing this is something we all outgrow, right?

If that were true, we’d not have this very passage in the gospel of Matthew (20:1-16). If the demand for retributive fairness weren’t a deep-seated human problem, this parable wouldn’t exist. But God knows humanity better than humanity knows its self. Even as mature, rational, intellectual adults we want what’s fair for us; we want to keep what we’ve rightly earned. We want what’s ours. And everything about that natural human disposition should be disturbed and rattled to the very core by this parable.

So let’s take a few minutes to look at it.

“‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.” (Mt 20:1-4)

Any time Jesus begins a story with, “The kingdom of heaven is like….” Sit down. Sit down because everything you know to be true is about to be radically and completely altered. Everything you hold in your heart and mind as true is about to be turned on its head. Following these introductory words by Jesus about what the kingdom of heaven is like, you can guarantee that whatever you knew to be true, that everything that you think should be, isn’t. In Matthew, when Jesus utters these words, everything is about to get real; and that realness isn’t what you, the hearer, are expecting or wanting.

In the utterance, is an intentional confrontation. The utterance, the parable itself (which it is), is an intentional confrontation with you because it’s a “speech event.” And as an event, it does not happen in a vacuum, but occurs in time and space and incorporates people. And unlike the event of a command that demands an answer, the parable is plea.[1]

A plea, in the form of this parable, is released into the air by the one who spoke the world into existence, the one who is the incarnated Word of God. The plea goes forth creating exactly what it intends to create: hearers seized by the word itself and brought to its right conclusion, those who have heard and have now believed, and those who have responded; the faithful.

In the parable as plea, as speech event, God’s word, Jesus’s word, renders to dust that which belongs to the dust—the things we’ve made, the things we hold true, the things we believe apart from an external reorienting event. And in the midst of the dust, the word recreates from nothing that which is pleasing to it: a new creation, a new people, a new way to life. The parable, and including this parable that we’re looking at, is the penetrative word that pierces our existence and our timeline (parting space and time) and brings forth by lexical labor and delivery the kingdom of God that it is speaking of.

The parable isn’t merely a story about a better place and a better time; it is that better place and time now. And we, who have ears to hear, are the recreated participants in this new place and new time, that better place and that better time.

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Mt 20:8-16).

As we go about our life thinking that we are living a life and living in a world that is right-side-out, the word event, the parable spoken by Jesus, grabs our lives and our life and our world and exposes it as actually wrong-side-out. In this parable, in this Word event there is an exposure; the parable exposes. And not only does it expose, but it alters, changes, and corrects; it is in the word event, in the parable, that the world is now right-side-out, now we are right-side-out.

And what’s this parable in Matthew 20 exposing and righting? Inequality. In the kingdom of God there is no hierarchy of persons. There is no claim on our own to our rights, to what’s ours. Just as we do not incur any punishments for our misdeeds and we are all equalized, so, too, in the reception of grace without merit or the promise of reward. According to Jesus, no person is better than another no matter what the earning potential.[2]

This parable offends us and utterly and completely reduces us to dust—we cannot comprehend it. The Judge, whom we encounter in this parable and whom is Jesus Christ[3] the vineyard owner, exposes our retributive default and posture toward fairness and “according to me” equality. When we come up against the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, we have no recourse to our rewards and merits. The Word of God levels us all. We bring nothing to the table. “We are [all],” to quote Martin Luther, “beggars.”

There is no boasting, no room for any boasting of our ourselves in Christ, in the realm of the vertical. And if there’s no room there for boasting in the vertical, then there’s no room for boasting in the kingdom of God, in the horizontal. As we are freed from the tiresome toil of earning, of seeking our merit and reward with God, we gain freedom from the same tiresome toil of earning and seeking our own merit and reward in our actual lives. While he’s writing about Genesis 11, I believe what Helmut Gollwitzer says is very applicable here,

“…we cannot by our own power break our fetters, cannot get rid of our intoxication…we need another great help. The Creator, who made the good beginning, must make a new beginning. He must come with new gifts, in order that the old gifts of our abilities and our work do not continue to be a curse to us. A new spirit must set us free from the errors of our old spirit. The whole Bible is a cry for help of this new Spirit from the creator, and the whole Bible is at the same time the euangelion, the glad news, that God does not only…confront the evil will of [humanity] with his judgment, but that he has opened his heart to us, and made possible a new way of good life, of fellowship, of avoidance of destruction. Into this new way he desires to lead us all by his Spirit.”[4]

The Word of God doesn’t just convict us; it creates (recreates) us. In Christ, by faith alone we are recreated by the Word of God, by the ever-recreating Word of God. Even now, by the word of God, I am brought to death, into the death and judgment of Adam and am brought to life in Christ (1 Cor 15:22). I can, with St. Paul, say, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 1:21). In this dying that is gain, and living that is Christ, I no longer have to be out to get mine; and, even more than that, I can be about the business of making sure you get what you need. I am now very much able to see to the needs of my brothers and sisters over getting what I’m owed. I am now very much moved not only to merely accept that the last will be first and the first will be last, but I, being of the first group, can actively promote the wellbeing and meet the needs of those fellow humans who are in last group. I am now given a new way to see fairness: not as what is fair to me but to you. I can (and must!) use my language (and my actions) in a new way, to advocate for you, to cry out on your behalf, “This isn’t fair!”

To close I want to creatively quote from the 2nd letter to the Corinthians and the letter to the Philippians,

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:16-18)…Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel (Phil 1:27)”

We have been recreated and ushered into the divine kingdom by the creative and apocalyptic word spoken by The Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Let us and care for and love each other as we have been cared for and loved by God.

 

[1] Eberhard Jüngel. “The World as Possibility and Actuality: The Ontology of the Doctrine of Justification” Theological Essays. Translated by J. B. Webster. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989. “A plea makes a command without force. Unlike a command, it gives time. It accords freedom which the one to whom a plea has not been made never has. It leads to the differentiation of actuality by possibility. And so pleading ought to be the constitutive element of proclamation….In a plea, God’s love finds its most appropriate expression; and this love reconciles the world to God having made possible the possible and impossible the impossible, by reducing the latter to nothing and by creating the former anew from nothing.” 120.

[2] Rudolf Bultmann “Theology of the New Testament” vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner, 1951. “[Humanity] must become like a child, who, knowing no such thing as appeal to any rights or merits of his own, is willing simply to be given a gift (Mk. 10:15). (…) Jesus rejects all this counting up of merit and reward: The worker who went to work in the last hour of the day is rewarded just as much as the one who had worked all day long (Mt. 20:1-15). And Jesus also refuses to regard the misfortune that befalls individuals as punishment for the special sins, no man is better than another.” 14.

[3] Karl Barth CD III.1.40. p.37 “This is the right of the Creator with which we have to do when we encounter Jesus. It is by His right as Creator that according to the dominant conception of the New Testament God comes to be the Judge of men. He does not have to become or to make Himself the judge. He is it from the very outset. He is it as God the Creator, who as such can claim that the creature should be responsible to Him; who has the authority to decide whether it justifies its existence, i.e., whether it satisfies the right of the One to whom it owes its existence.”

[4] Helmut Gollwitzer “The Way to Life” p. 4 . He is speaking about Gen 11, but I believe the point holds here.

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Many Strands

My hair is long, curly, and thick.

I grab a curl, a lock, and

Twirl it around my finger.

There are many strands.

I feel its weight and density.

I wrap it around my finger a few times.

I pull it back a bit—to get a

Better look at the individual

Strands wrapped around

My finger—

“A part of me,” I think.

I pull the hair toward me,

And I sniff:

Residual Chanel #5 lingers,

It’s the end of the day.

The brown, black, red mingle

Twisted on my finger.

This hair has grown

On my head since the

Beginning. From the moment

I could grow hair.

The hair I touch, though trimmed

And cut over all these years,

Is part of the same hair

That was present when I was born;

One continuous stream of me.

The strands wrapped around

My finger…

Cause me pause.

I think for a moment.

I remember. I feel. I cry.

And the tears fall from my

Pressed lids

Passing through my eyelashes

Onto my cheeks—

The wet washes through

The light powder I just applied,

Dragging along the mascara,

Leaving a trace of black behind.

(I’d say there’s a “tear’s trace”

But that colloquialism is taxed.)

Reflexively, I pull my

My hand toward the rolling tear.

And it’s caught–

As was every tear

Prior to that one

In and by the strands of my hair

Twirled around my finger.

Every tear over these

Decades. Caught.

Caught and comforted

In the bed of my spindled hairs

Wrapped around my finger.

The individual strands of hair

Intertwined around my finger

Hold the turmoil and sorrow of

All the decades past.

The tears that have been

Shed, caught and absorbed

In the strands of my hair.

Each strand holds a key to

My life; each strand holds a

Secret worth keeping.

All of the strands intertwined

Together create a rich yet

Shallow resting ground for

The Pain and sorrow

That I’ve seen and known.

This hair, this beautiful

Hair has become the final

Resting place for so much

Sadness. Yet, all these strands

Have combined to form my

Story: the Good, Bad, and the Ugly.

My hair is long, curly, and thick.

There are many strands.

I grab a curl, a lock, and

Twirl it around my finger.

 

 

 

 

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Water into Wine: Homily on John 2:1-12

“‘Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’”

 

In this moment, a moment that is comprised of a series of statements, I hear a question. Now, anyone in my theology classes won’t be surprised to hear that or be surprised to hear this: sometimes, deeply imbedded in statements is a yet still yet deeper question. Here, at the wedding of Cana, is not merely a story about water being turned into wine in order to prevent shame falling on the bridegroom’s family, or is it merely a list of historical facts about an event, it’s about a deep seated human question: does God care? Does God care even about this small thing?

 

And the resounding answer according to this text is: yes.

 

Everything about the wedding at Cana is ordinary. Very, very ordinary. We’ve made a big deal of it because it’s Jesus’s first performed miracle. But it’s not that extra-ordinary. The miracle here is merely the transition/the transubstantiation of water into wine. Water, by the word of Christ, becomes wine. That is what happens here. Nothing more; nothing less. For the man Jesus who is the Christ, who is God, this is nothing. Yet it’s here in this very basic act of turning water into wine (basic for God) where Jesus demonstrates his glory. God’s love for God’s people manifests even here.

 

This event reminds me of the prayer that we pray every chapel service: the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray according to the scriptures. Specifically from “The Lord’s Prayer”: “Give us this day our daily bread.” God cares deeply about our days-in and our days-out. We are exhorted by Christ to pray for our daily bread; and it’s not merely “spiritual” bread, but the very substance that nourishes our fleshy bodies. The concept of bread in this prayer is all about that very food you eat every day. And God cares about that. The nitty-gritty of our lives is God’s own concern.

 

Every minute, every moment, goes noticed. Every moment crosses God’s screen. Imagine that. Imagine for a moment that God of very God thought it worth God’s time to change water into wine. Take that moment. Think about that fact. Think about that very minuscule act for us. Water into wine.

 

Think also about the fact that ”joy” took over. It’s water into wine at a party, a celebration. Jesus didn’t say, “all right folks, wrap it up, wine’s gone; take your party else where.” Instead, Jesus intervened, albeit in the smallest way, and made the celebration and the joy continue. Whether or not joy was the divine goal in this event, the celebration and joy of the attendees of this wedding banquet played a part in it. Isn’t that amazing?

 

God cares. 100%. God cares about you and your daily ins and outs. The God that threw the universe into order has deigned to turn water into wine. And that God did this is because God cares very much about you. God cares so much that God will throw God’s self aside in the advent and crucifixion and resurrection of God’s son, the Christ for the world.

 

When you think all else has failed, it is Christ who hasn’t. All of our desires and our failures can plague us. But it’s the small things, the daily bread and the water into wine that keep us moving from day to day. These small things are important. Because the more we have these small things the more we have evidence of Christ for us, we have the hope that this is not all…that there’s more.

 

In the very small acts we meet God face to face. And we meet a God who cares. We meet a God who loves us to the core–down to the deepest core of our being. We meet a God who loves us and cares about us to such an extent that even the smallest needs of ours are God’s, too.

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The Lamb of God

The following is the edited manuscript for a homily delivered yesterday to high-school students. It is nothing but a thing; however, hubris leads me to share 🙂

Also: yesterday, while I was tweaking and putting final touches on the homily prior to delivery, I was poking around one of my favorite blogs and read a recent (as in just posted) book review by my friend Juan C. Torres on David W. Congdon’s The God Who Saves. But why am I bringing this up? Well, I smiled as I read Torres’s book review because there was a pleasant (albeit slight) overlap in what he was emphasizing from Congdon’s book with a portion of the conclusion to the homily I had written the night before.   Considering Congdon (as well as Torres) says it better and with greater perspicuity than I ever could, I figured it would be beneficial to post the book review here and you can read it for yourself.* Enjoy 🙂

 

“The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29)

Jesus, he is the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. (A direct reference to the first Passover lamb whose blood was shed and whose blood was used to cover the door frames of the faithful.) According to the John, Jesus is the one who actually takes away the sins of the world.

But What does that mean? What does that even mean in light of the very real fact that we sin, that we fall way short of the mark in our own lives and in relation to our neighbor, that in any direction we look we see the real-time effects of broken human beings impacting all the different aspects of creation? What does that mean when in the 2000 plus years since Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, there seems to be very little evidence that the “sin of the world” has been taken away. As you and I live and breath, we wonder this.

But yet John proclaims with confidence: Jesus takes away the sin of the world. So, what does it mean that Jesus takes away the sin of the world? The “takes away” is more like: “over comes.” There isn’t an erasure of the activity of sin, for we still sin. But, in “overcoming” there’s evidence of struggle and victory; there’s an outcome and a victor. In overcoming there is victory. “Overcoming” provides hope because “overcoming” says that even in this ever present darkness of our broken reality, the final word (the victory) doesn’t belong to that darkness, it doesn’t even belong to us (initially). It belongs (first) to God.

And John has already told us what that word is, what that promise (fulfilled) is: God has overcome the world and sin. And how? The “how” is answered in that Jesus is who he is: because Jesus entered this world to change it, to overcome sin like light piercing and extinguishing darkness (John 1:5).

“Here is the place for the doubtful concept that in the passion of Jesus Christ, in the giving up of His Son to death God has done that which is ‘satisfactory’ or sufficient in the victorious fighting of sin to make this victory radical and total” (cd IV.1.254)

Whatever havoc sin and brokenness and darkness wreak in our actual timelines and in our lives, Christ is bigger and so is the possibility he creates because Christ is the victor and his victory is both “radical and total.”

Christ is the Lamb of God who overcomes the sins of the world. And the entirety of the life of Christ is oriented toward this victory, this overcoming not merely for himself but for us. His victory is our victory and we stand (by faith) on the substantial promise that “all things are possible with God” (Mt 19:26) and “What was meant for evil God will use for good” (Gen 50:20) and “Nothing can separate you from the Love of God” (Rom 8:38-39). We, by the very active and persistent love of God expressed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, are no longer held captive to sin and the world; the captives have been set free.

In this moment in John 1, John the Baptist saw and proclaimed that not only would Messiah come but that the Messiah had come. And in the wake of the arrival of the Messiah—who is Jesus—the world began to undergo upheaval—not only would wrongs be righted but firsts would be last, and those who were held captive would be set free. In light of this, we are freed not merely unto ourselves but for the benefit of others. We are set free to upright that which has been for too long upside down. Because of the victory of Christ in overcoming sin and the world and that victory being ours, we ourselves become a missional community standing on the promises of God and pointing to the Christ, the messiah, the one who has come to be the lamb of God to seek and rescue the lost.

 

 

*On Twitter you can follow: Herr Juan C. Torres (@postmoltmannian), Herr Dr. David W. Congdon (@dwcongdon), and the mastermind behind DET, Herr Prof. Dr. Travis McMaken (@WTravisMcMaken). I follow all three and am better for it 🙂

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Tell Me

Tell me this isn’t all there is.

(I fear that it is.)

Tell me there’s something beyond this.

(I fear there isn’t.)

 

Tell me to take heart.

(For I feel it grow weary.)

Tell me there’s a reason to go on.

(My energy wanes.)

 

Tell me my life is precious.

(I need to remember why.)

Tell me my life hasn’t been worthless.

(I can’t silence that voice anymore.)

 

Tell me with sweet silence.

(The cacophony in my head.)

Tell me with lavish love.

(My hearts floods with fear.)

 

Tell me Jesus loves me.

(My doubt stomps about.)

Tell me Christ longs to hold me.

(I long for that sweet embrace.)

 

Tell me there will be answers.

(The questions rage.)

Tell me it’s not all for naught.

(This darkness looms.)

 

Tell me…

(I bow my head.)

Just tell me…

(Words fail me but tears don’t.)

Please, just tell me…

(Please.)

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0