Table 1: Reddish Tints Toward Purple Tints
|
|---|
#FF4848 |
#FF68DD |
#FF62B0 |
#FE67EB |
#E469FE |
#D568FD |
#9669FE |
#FF7575 |
#FF79E1 |
#FF73B9 |
#FE67EB |
#E77AFE |
#D97BFD |
#A27AFE |
#FF8A8A |
#FF86E3 |
#FF86C2 |
#FE8BF0 |
#EA8DFE |
#DD88FD |
#AD8BFE |
#FF9797 |
#FF97E8 |
#FF97CB |
#FE98F1 |
#ED9EFE |
#E29BFD |
#B89AFE |
#FFA8A8 |
#FFACEC |
#FFA8D3 |
#FEA9F3 |
#EFA9FE |
#E7A9FE |
#C4ABFE |
#FFBBBB |
#FFACEC |
#FFBBDD |
#FFBBF7 |
#F2BCFE |
#EDBEFE |
#D0BCFE |
#FFCECE |
#FFC8F2 |
#FFC8E3 |
#FFCAF9 |
#F5CAFF |
#F0CBFE |
#DDCEFF |
#FFDFDF |
#FFDFF8 |
#FFDFEF |
#FFDBFB |
#F9D9FF |
#F4DCFE |
#E6DBFF |
#FFECEC |
#FFEEFB |
#FFECF5 |
#FFEEFD |
#FDF2FF |
#FAECFF |
#F1ECFF |
#FFF2F2 |
#FFFEFB |
#FFF9FC |
#FFF9FE |
#FFFDFF |
#FDF9FF |
#FBF9FF |
Table 2: Purple Toward Blue & Beyond (Some Tones)
|
|---|
"#800080" |
"#872187" |
"#9A03FE" |
"#892EE4" |
"#3923D6" |
"#2966B8" |
"#23819C" |
"#BF00BF" |
"#BC2EBC" |
"#A827FE" |
"#9B4EE9" |
"#6755E3" |
"#2F74D0" |
"#2897B7" |
"#DB00DB" |
"#D54FD5" |
"#B445FE" |
"#A55FEB" |
"#8678E9" |
"#4985D6" |
"#2FAACE" |
"#F900F9" |
"#DD75DD" |
"#BD5CFE" |
"#AE70ED" |
"#9588EC" |
"#6094DB" |
"#44B4D5" |
"#FF4AFF" |
"#DD75DD" |
"#C269FE" |
"#AE70ED" |
"#A095EE" |
"#7BA7E1" |
"#57BCD9" |
"#FF86FF" |
"#E697E6" |
"#CD85FE" |
"#C79BF2" |
"#B0A7F1" |
"#8EB4E6" |
"#7BCAE1" |
"#FFA4FF" |
"#EAA6EA" |
"#D698FE" |
"#CEA8F4" |
"#BCB4F3" |
"#A9C5EB" |
"#8CD1E6" |
"#FFBBFF" |
"#EEBBEE" |
"#DFB0FF" |
"#DBBFF7" |
"#CBC5F5" |
"#BAD0EF" |
"#A5DBEB" |
"#FFCEFF" |
"#F0C4F0" |
"#E8C6FF" |
"#E1CAF9" |
"#D7D1F8" |
"#CEDEF4" |
"#B8E2EF" |
"#FFDFFF" |
"#F4D2F4" |
"#EFD7FF" |
"#EDDFFB" |
"#E3E0FA" |
"#E0EAF8" |
"#C9EAF3" |
"#FFECFF" |
"#F4D2F4" |
"#F9EEFF" |
"#F5EEFD" |
"#EFEDFC" |
"#EAF1FB" |
"#DBF0F7" |
"#FFF9FF" |
"#FDF9FD" |
"#FEFDFF" |
"#FEFDFF" |
"#F7F5FE" |
"#F8FBFE" |
"#EAF7FB" |
Table 3: Blue Tints Toward Greenish Tints
|
|---|
"#5757FF" |
"#62A9FF" |
"#62D0FF" |
"#06DCFB" |
"#01FCEF" |
"#03EBA6" |
"#01F33E" |
"#6A6AFF" |
"#75B4FF" |
"#75D6FF" |
"#24E0FB" |
"#1FFEF3" |
"#03F3AB" |
"#0AFE47" |
"#7979FF" |
"#86BCFF" |
"#8ADCFF" |
"#3DE4FC" |
"#5FFEF7" |
"#33FDC0" |
"#4BFE78" |
"#8C8CFF" |
"#99C7FF" |
"#99E0FF" |
"#63E9FC" |
"#74FEF8" |
"#62FDCE" |
"#72FE95" |
"#9999FF" |
"#99C7FF" |
"#A8E4FF" |
"#75ECFD" |
"#92FEF9" |
"#7DFDD7" |
"#8BFEA8" |
"#AAAAFF" |
"#A8CFFF" |
"#BBEBFF" |
"#8CEFFD" |
"#A5FEFA" |
"#8FFEDD" |
"#A3FEBA" |
"#BBBBFF" |
"#BBDAFF" |
"#CEF0FF" |
"#ACF3FD" |
"#B5FFFC" |
"#A5FEE3" |
"#B5FFC8" |
"#CACAFF" |
"#D0E6FF" |
"#D9F3FF" |
"#C0F7FE" |
"#CEFFFD" |
"#BEFEEB" |
"#CAFFD8" |
"#E1E1FF" |
"#DBEBFF" |
"#ECFAFF" |
"#C0F7FE" |
"#E1FFFE" |
"#BDFFEA" |
"#EAFFEF" |
"#EEEEFF" |
"#ECF4FF" |
"#F9FDFF" |
"#E6FCFF" |
"#F2FFFE" |
"#CFFEF0" |
"#EAFFEF" |
"#F9F9FF" |
"#F9FCFF" |
"#FDFEFF" |
"#F9FEFF" |
"#FDFFFF" |
"#F7FFFD" |
"#F9FFFB" |
Table 4:
|
|---|
"#1FCB4A" |
"#59955C" |
"#48FB0D" |
"#2DC800" |
"#59DF00" |
"#9D9D00" |
"#B6BA18" |
"#27DE55" |
"#6CA870" |
"#79FC4E" |
"#32DF00" |
"#61F200" |
"#C8C800" |
"#CDD11B" |
"#4AE371" |
"#80B584" |
"#89FC63" |
"#36F200" |
"#66FF00" |
"#DFDF00" |
"#DFE32D" |
"#7CEB98" |
"#93BF96" |
"#99FD77" |
"#52FF20" |
"#95FF4F" |
"#FFFFAA" |
"#EDEF85" |
"#93EEAA" |
"#A6CAA9" |
"#AAFD8E" |
"#6FFF44" |
"#ABFF73" |
"#FFFF84" |
"#EEF093" |
"#A4F0B7" |
"#B4D1B6" |
"#BAFEA3" |
"#8FFF6F" |
"#C0FF97" |
"#FFFF99" |
"#F2F4B3" |
"#BDF4CB" |
"#C9DECB" |
"#CAFEB8" |
"#A5FF8A" |
"#D1FFB3" |
"#FFFFB5" |
"#F5F7C4" |
"#D6F8DE" |
"#DBEADC" |
"#DDFED1" |
"#B3FF99" |
"#DFFFCA" |
"#FFFFC8" |
"#F7F9D0" |
"#E3FBE9" |
"#E9F1EA" |
"#EAFEE2" |
"#D2FFC4" |
"#E8FFD9" |
"#FFFFD7" |
"#FAFBDF" |
"#E3FBE9" |
"#F3F8F4" |
"#F1FEED" |
"#E7FFDF" |
"#F2FFEA" |
"#FFFFE3" |
"#FCFCE9" |
"#FAFEFB" |
"#FBFDFB" |
"#FDFFFD" |
"#F5FFF2" |
"#FAFFF7" |
"#FFFFFD" |
"#FDFDF0" |
Table 5:
|
|---|
"#BABA21" |
"#C8B400" |
"#DFA800" |
"#DB9900" |
"#FFB428" |
"#FF9331" |
"#FF800D" |
"#E0E04E" |
"#D9C400" |
"#F9BB00" |
"#EAA400" |
"#FFBF48" |
"#FFA04A" |
"#FF9C42" |
"#E6E671" |
"#E6CE00" |
"#FFCB2F" |
"#FFB60B" |
"#FFC65B" |
"#FFAB60" |
"#FFAC62" |
"#EAEA8A" |
"#F7DE00" |
"#FFD34F" |
"#FFBE28" |
"#FFCE73" |
"#FFBB7D" |
"#FFBD82" |
"#EEEEA2" |
"#FFE920" |
"#FFDD75" |
"#FFC848" |
"#FFD586" |
"#FFC48E" |
"#FFC895" |
"#F1F1B1" |
"#FFF06A" |
"#FFE699" |
"#FFD062" |
"#FFDEA2" |
"#FFCFA4" |
"#FFCEA2" |
"#F4F4BF" |
"#FFF284" |
"#FFECB0" |
"#FFE099" |
"#FFE6B5" |
"#FFD9B7" |
"#FFD7B3" |
"#F7F7CE" |
"#FFF7B7" |
"#FFF1C6" |
"#FFEAB7" |
"#FFEAC4" |
"#FFE1C6" |
"#FFE2C8" |
"#F9F9DD" |
"#FFF9CE" |
"#FFF5D7" |
"#FFF2D2" |
"#FFF2D9" |
"#FFEBD9" |
"#FFE6D0" |
"#FBFBE8" |
"#FFFBDF" |
"#FFFAEA" |
"#FFF9EA" |
"#FFF7E6" |
"#FFF4EA" |
"#FFF1E6" |
"#FEFEFA" |
"#FFFEF7" |
"#FFFDF7" |
"#FFFDF9" |
"#FFFDF9" |
"#FFFEFD" |
"#FFF9F4" |
Table 6:
|
|---|
"#D1D17A" |
"#C0A545" |
"#C27E3A" |
"#C47557" |
"#B05F3C" |
"#C17753" |
"#B96F6F" |
"#D7D78A" |
"#CEB86C" |
"#C98A4B" |
"#CB876D" |
"#C06A45" |
"#C98767" |
"#C48484" |
"#DBDB97" |
"#D6C485" |
"#D19C67" |
"#D29680" |
"#C87C5B" |
"#D0977B" |
"#C88E8E" |
"#E1E1A8" |
"#DECF9C" |
"#DAAF85" |
"#DAA794" |
"#CF8D72" |
"#DAAC96" |
"#D1A0A0" |
"#E9E9BE" |
"#E3D6AA" |
"#DDB791" |
"#DFB4A4" |
"#D69E87" |
"#E0BBA9" |
"#D7ACAC" |
"#EEEECE" |
"#EADFBF" |
"#E4C6A7" |
"#E6C5B9" |
"#DEB19E" |
"#E8CCBF" |
"#DDB9B9" |
"#E9E9C0" |
"#EDE4C9" |
"#E9D0B6" |
"#EBD0C7" |
"#E4C0B1" |
"#ECD5CA" |
"#E6CCCC" |
"#EEEECE" |
"#EFE7CF" |
"#EEDCC8" |
"#F0DCD5" |
"#EACDC1" |
"#F0DDD5" |
"#ECD9D9" |
"#F1F1D6" |
"#F5EFE0" |
"#F2E4D5" |
"#F5E7E2" |
"#F0DDD5" |
"#F5E8E2" |
"#F3E7E7" |
"#F5F5E2" |
"#F9F5EC" |
"#F9F3EC" |
"#F9EFEC" |
"#F5E8E2" |
"#FAF2EF" |
"#F8F1F1" |
"#FDFDF9" |
"#FDFCF9" |
"#FCF9F5" |
"#FDFAF9" |
"#FDFAF9" |
"#FCF7F5" |
"#FDFBFB" |
Table 7:
|
|---|
"#F70000" |
"#B9264F" |
"#990099" |
"#74138C" |
"#0000CE" |
"#1F88A7" |
"#4A9586" |
"#FF2626" |
"#D73E68" |
"#B300B3" |
"#8D18AB" |
"#5B5BFF" |
"#25A0C5" |
"#5EAE9E" |
"#FF5353" |
"#DD597D" |
"#CA00CA" |
"#A41CC6" |
"#7373FF" |
"#29AFD6" |
"#74BAAC" |
"#FF7373" |
"#E37795" |
"#D900D9" |
"#BA21E0" |
"#8282FF" |
"#4FBDDD" |
"#8DC7BB" |
"#FF8E8E" |
"#E994AB" |
"#FF2DFF" |
"#CB59E8" |
"#9191FF" |
"#67C7E2" |
"#A5D3CA" |
"#FFA4A4" |
"#EDA9BC" |
"#F206FF" |
"#CB59E8" |
"#A8A8FF" |
"#8ED6EA" |
"#C0E0DA" |
"#FFB5B5" |
"#F0B9C8" |
"#FF7DFF" |
"#D881ED" |
"#B7B7FF" |
"#A6DEEE" |
"#CFE7E2" |
"#FFC8C8" |
"#F4CAD6" |
"#FFA8FF" |
"#EFCDF8" |
"#C6C6FF" |
"#C0E7F3" |
"#DCEDEA" |
"#FFEAEA" |
"#F8DAE2" |
"#FFC4FF" |
"#EFCDF8" |
"#DBDBFF" |
"#D8F0F8" |
"#E7F3F1" |
"#FFEAEA" |
"#FAE7EC" |
"#FFE3FF" |
"#F8E9FC" |
"#EEEEFF" |
"#EFF9FC" |
"#F2F9F8" |
"#FFFDFD" |
"#FEFAFB" |
"#FFFDFF" |
"#FFFFFF" |
"#FDFDFF" |
"#FAFDFE" |
"#F7FBFA" |
Wed., April 4, 2012--Wednesday of Holy Week. In Mark’s gospel, it’s the day that Jesus is in Bethany, having dinner at Simon the leper’s house, when a woman comes in "with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head."
"The fragrance filled the whole house," another gospel says, and I have no doubt. Apparently nard is an incredibly volatile oil, and if it’s used for anointing dead bodies, its odor has to be strong, to compete with the smell of the body.
That’s what she was doing, Jesus says, "anointing my body beforehand for its burial."
I love this story and it challenges me. First of all, it’s important to read this story from Mark on its own terms. Luke says the woman was "a sinful woman," aka a prostitute. John’s version names her as Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ sister, whose house is where the dinner took place. Tradition has combined all these versions and says that it was Mary Magdalene, the sinner, who poured the ointment over Jesus. More recent research on Mary Magdalene (entirely apart from The DaVinci Code) reveals a much more complex and challenging picture of her. (I recommend Cynthia Bourgeault’s The Meaning of Mary Magdalene as just one of several very good studies.)
At any rate, here in Mark, the woman is unnamed, and yet Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her." What a radically different view of "fame" than our culture has!
I love that this woman doesn’t care what other people think (and wish I had a little more of that!). She just knows she loves Jesus. The men who were there at the dinner groused about the waste, how the ointment should have been sold and given to the poor, and they "scolded her." Thanks, guys. They are used to making decisions about what to do with resources from a place of fullness, carefully, frugally meting and measuring out in piles–this one’s for food, this one’s for taxes, this one’s for the church, this one’s for the poor, ...
My guess is this woman didn’t usually have much choice. If she had anything, it got spent on the most urgent need. I don’t know how or where she got this alabaster jar of nard, but I get the feeling it was all she had to give. But she didn’t give it from a place of scarcity. She gave it from a place so full of love and light and abundance and generosity that, of course, the fragrance filled the whole house. Her gift filled the whole house.
And then Jesus gave all he had. And the fragrance filled the whole world.
It’s only Wednesday. I need to pace myself, make sure I get everything done, for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter. This pile of energy is for this, this one’s for this, .... I keep this unnamed sister in my heart, drawing upon her courage, her generosity, her love, and think I can catch a whiff of that fragrance...
The light is different in Holy Week. And I’m not just talking about the light during this spring equinox time which is a kind of border light–on the border of the sun’s journey in our sky between the equator and the northern pole, though there is something to that. I’m talking about the atmosphere in these stories of the last week of Jesus’ life, from the entrance into Jerusalem, to the cleansing of the temple, to a dinner in Simon the Leper’s home where the unnamed woman pours perfume on Jesus’ head to anoint him for his death, to that upper room where the supper took place, to the dark garden and the torchlight of soldiers and betrayal. The light is different, harsh as the council meets, and then again in the governor’s palace, where Pilate interrogates this intrusive prisoner and then releases him to the soldiers’ early morning abuse and torture. By the time we get to the 9 a.m. crucifixion, it’s as though the sun will never shine in the same way again, as the adrenaline and horror pounds through our heads and distorts our vision. We can hardly begin to imagine what it must have been like for him. Then of course there’s that darkness from noon until 3; and only after that do a few rays of twilight dare to return while they bury him.
As we listen to these stories, not only is the light different, but it’s almost as if our attention is drawn into focus and then out again. There is a circling around the center, a going out and a coming in, a contrast between inside and outside, until at last everything is gathered in, like a great stone sinking in a pond.
We start outside the city, in Bethany and Bethphage, where Jesus finds the colt he is to ride. Then the great, riotous procession into Jerusalem, with that odd figure somehow out of place, riding on a donkey. He comes into the city and enters the Temple, where he looks around, Mark tells us, but, "as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with twelve."
You see, Jesus and the twelve were outsiders, not residents of Jerusalem, so they had to be out of the city before dark, when the gates were closed. They had a place to go in Bethany, to Mary and Martha’s house, but all the others, the poor, the powerless, those who worked in Jerusalem but couldn’t afford a house there, those who begged or set up stalls at the gates, all these "others" had to go outside the protection of the city walls at night. They were called "the daughters of Zion," the unprotected, the vulnerable.
The next day, according to Mark’s account, Jesus and the twelve came back into the city, into the Temple, which was supposed to be the seat of God, and Jesus threw out the money-changers and animal sellers. "And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city."
At the dinner at Simon the Leper’s (that phrase in itself blurs our focus a little), the quintessential outsider–a woman of questionable reputation–enters into the house and anoints Jesus’ head with costly perfume. Everyone else wants to throw her out, condemn her for wasting the ointment that could have been sold for the poor, they said, but Jesus says that this outsider, this woman whose name we are not even told, will be remembered –by name–whenever the gospel, the good news, is told.
The circle gathers around Jesus and the table for the Passover dinner, and one within the circle goes out to betray him. After dinner they go out to the Mount of Olives, to the dark garden there, and Jesus goes apart from the sleepy circle of disciples, to pray, to plead that a different path might open up, another circle might swallow him in.
Then as the soldiers come, and the betrayer walks into the middle of the circle to identify Jesus with a kiss, the circle disperses and Jesus is taken into the inner Council circle. This place is a false center, Jesus knows, and so he does not really engage with them, centered as he is in a true-er, deeper Reality, and even as he is taken into an even more inner circle, he knows that this is not the true center. Pilate thought he was the center of power; Jesus knew he wasn’t even in the same circle.
We know what happens next. Jesus is nailed to the center of a cross, at the intersection between heaven and earth, and tradition says, his is the cross in the middle of two thieves. More likely, there were hundreds of crosses up along that hill, billboards for the Empire as warnings. And finally, Jesus enters into the Heart of Darkness, into death, placed into the tomb of one who had finally recognized which circle was the true center.
The challenge for us this week is to discover where this story–the whole story-- lies in our lives. Is it at the center, or will we keep it at a distance? Do we only dabble in it for an hour or so on Sunday mornings and then step out of it as we "re-enter" our lives? Or is it a story that we know "by heart," in our core, so that our eyes can adjust to its focal length, the center of its circle radiating out from our center? Will we let this One whose wave length, energetic signature, and harmonic vibration comes from the very heart of Reality, will we let this One in? The door only opens from the inside. It’s up to us to let him in.
So come to the table. Come take this One in. Let the story and its power become part of you. Let us keep the feast. Amen, and amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
 Wednesday, March 28, 2012– It’s the week before Holy Week, so probably not the ideal time for a pastor to start a blog, but–hey!–perhaps it will help me organize my thoughts. You can probably be the judge of that! In December, people always comment about how busy I must be with all the services and the special events; but Advent is a walk in the park compared to Lent and Holy Week. I confess that I’ve fallen into the trap of taking on what I hope are wise and useful practices during Lent instead of giving something up. After all, who needs more struggle and gloom in a world that’s too full of it anyway? However, I’m re-thinking that. I know how to add things on, how to power through the weeks with added obligations, knowing that once Easter’s here, I can let go of those "extras" and get back to a more sane schedule. Ha! Who am I kidding? The discipline I–and maybe you–really need is the discipline to pare down, to stop stuffing things into my schedule (or my mouth), to leave a little space for the Holy to have some breathing room in me. I’m not sure that giving up ice cream is the way to do that, but it’s at least a reminder to be a little empty. I love the reminder that trees give us during February and March (usually), which is that without the distraction of leaves and blossoms and such, you can really see the structure–the trunk and branches–that stands underneath. What is it that the paring away in Lent might reveal about us? If you’ve given something up for Lent, the end is in sight! I hope whatever discipline you may have taken on has indeed "taught" you something (that’s what the word means) about yourself or about God. That learning is worth taking with you through Easter and beyond, as we "begin again." Every day, every moment, every breath, is an opportunity to begin again, but Easter-- for those of us who find meaning and power and grace in the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection– Easter is the "mother" of all beginnings! May you be blessed on the journey.
Christians sometimes say that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and the God of the New Testament is a God of compassion. But the passage from Jeremiah which Tom read for us this morning should make us think twice before making such a simplistic statement--
"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt–a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband. But this is the covenant that I will make [with them]. ..I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."
It is a promise of deep compassion and of incredible grace and hope for a people broken-hearted and in exile. We Christians have the custom of tracing the history of the covenant God has made with God’s people as starting with the promise to Abraham and Sarah, then the covenant God made with Noah after the flood, symbolized by the rainbow, not to destroy the earth by flood again, then through this passage in Jeremiah, where God promises to write the covenant on our hearts, and finally through Jesus, the "new covenant." These various renewals of the covenant were necessary, of course, because the people broke it, as God puts it so bluntly here in this passage in Jeremiah. And, I must confess, I often wonder if we Christians have not also broken the covenant God made with us through Jesus. Have we been faithful covenant partners?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week about what it means to know something by heart, to live from the heart. My friend Joe Schaaf has a long and distinguished career teaching at various progressive schools and institutions. At one of our Sunday evening Bible conversations, he told us that "the rule" at at least one of those institutions was, "There are no rules. You’ll only know what the rules are when you break one." My husband Bruce uses a similar philosophy in his classes at the Career Development Center. On that first day of class when you’re supposed to talk about classroom rules, he says, "There are no rules until you break them. You’ll know what the rules are when you break one." The new students protest, thinking it’s not fair or just a trap, but the students who have had him as a teacher before nod knowingly. "You’ll figure it out," they say.
Such a no-rules "rule" is based on the belief that there is a fundamental, innate wisdom within each of us, that, if lived within a community that encourages and nurtures that innate wisdom, will emerge and order the life of that community. Indeed, in a recent daily devotional I received from the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC, I read this from author Elizabeth Canham–
True education consists in the drawing out and validation of the wisdom deep within each person...When we allow for the innate capacity to make connections, when we share insight instead of locating wisdom in a few experts to whom we give power and authority, then community building can begin and we will hear the liberating gospel in our time and place."
(Inward/outward, 3/19/12)
Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas–When you give rise to that which is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not give rise to it, what you do not have will destroy you. (70) (Trans. Stevan Davies) "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts," God says through Jeremiah.
On the other hand, I happened to be visiting one of our members this week in the care facility where she is currently living, and the aide who was caring for her had the television on to one of the daytime shows on MTV. While I only watched maybe 10 minutes of the show, it was clear to me that the organ governing the action of the young people in the show was considerably south of their hearts, though they would have thought it was a show about "love." No rules, really? Is that a good idea?
"No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’" [says God through Jeremiah], "for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord..." The thought occurred to me that perhaps, maybe, could it be, that this is what God is doing through the growing number of people who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" ? That the sense of knowing God is indeed written on our hearts, which means, of course, not the organ that pumps blood through our bodies, but is the center of will and intention, the core of who we are, our "selves," if you will? It is indeed innate, but religious institutions have too often merely become external, rule-enforcing agents, and that clearly doesn’t work.
But institutions–especially living ones, do serve a purpose. I read a baby boomer dad’s reflection on what he assumed his children knew–in this particular case, it was the words to a Beatles’ song–but when they asked who was singing, he realized that they didn’t know it and he wondered what else in their education, what other things that were important to him, that he knew by heart, he had failed to pass along. He thought of the Christian story. "One does not learn the story by osmosis," he said. "It has to be told. After all, the Christian faith is always just one generation away from extinction." (Martin Copenhaver, StillSpeaking Daily Devotional, 3/21/12)
What do you know by heart? The law or Torah which God promised to write upon the hearts of the people of Israel and Judah was not simply a list of do’s and don’ts, "not a laborious burden to be borne," as one commentator puts it, "but [it] creates delight and joy." (Texts for Preaching, Year B, p. 230) What is the deep, innate wisdom that is at the core of your being? Most of us don’t take the time to find out. Most of us, as one wise woman said, are just phoning our lives in. What do you know by heart? It may not be a list of statements you "believe in." It may be a deep trust, an intimacy with a Wisdom and Love that you simply know you are part of, which is more like "knowing" in the biblical sense. It may be a melody or an image.
"Connection is why we’re here," says University of Houston Professor of Sociology Brene Brown. In a TED Talk a couple years ago, she told about her research into the nature of connection–why it’s easier for some of us and almost impossible for others. Dr. Brown is, by her own admission, a researcher story-teller. "If it can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist," her dissertation advisor told her at the beginning of her doctorate, and she felt that she had come home. She’s a hard-nosed, data-seeking, don’t-bother-me-with-fuzzy-ideas kind of woman, but her research necessarily involves people’s stories.
She found that when she asked people about their experiences with connection, that along with the heart-warming, inspiring stories of connection were others that told of the most excruciating experiences of disconnection. When she asked about love, at least some of the stories were of heartbreak. When she asked about belonging, she’d also hear of painful experiences of not belonging. And what ran through all these other stories–these other stories of disconnection and heartbreak and disconnection-- was a sense of shame, which she defines as the fear of disconnection–Is there something about me that makes me unable to be connected? We all experience shame, she says, and if you don’t think you do, you’re lying to yourself or you’re incapable of human connection. What came with this sense of shame, she found, was an excruciating feeling of vulnerability. So, she set out to research it, find it out, deconstruct it, and outsmart it. [Bear with me, now, because this actually does connect with both our scriptures this morning!]
In thousands of pieces of data collected over 6 years of research, Dr. Brown found that the difference between those who felt connected and those who struggled with connection was a sense of worthiness. Those who felt connected thought they were worthy of connection, worthy of love and belonging. So she decided just to look at those who felt worthy. She gave the file of those people the title, "Whole-hearted people." She went into intensive data analysis mode for 4 days ("My husband took the kids and left the house, she said, because I get into this Jackson Pollock frenzy and just spread out all over.") And what she found these "whole-hearted" people had in common was a sense of courage–courage, as distinct from bravery. Courage comes from the Latin word cor which originally meant To tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. These people had the courage to be who they were; they had compassion toward themselves. They experienced connection because of their authenticity, they let go of who they thought they should be and embraced who they actually were. And the surprising, amazing thing she discovered is that these whole-hearted people embraced their vulnerability. "They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful." They saw vulnerability not as comfortable, but as necessary. They were willing to breathe through their vulnerability– while waiting for their mammogram results, or after their pink slip had arrived, or in telling someone that they loved them–and that willingness to breathe through their vulnerability was fundamental, as opposed to clinging to control or predictability.
Dr. Brown says that this finding blew her out of the water. Her usual modes of controlling and predicting were useless. It caused a breakdown, she said, which her therapist renamed as "a spiritual awakening." She did go into therapy for a year, researching herself, if you will, but really doing battle with this vulnerability, this vulnerability that’s involved with our fear and shame, but which is also the birthplace of connection and creativity. It was a year-long street fight, a slugfest, she said, "which I lost, but I won my life."
"Why do we struggle so much with vulnerability? Here’s what I learned," says Dr. Brown. "We numb vulnerability. But the thing is, we can’t selectively numb an emotion. We end up numbing everything. What’s the evidence for this? We are the most addicted, most in debt, most obese, most medicated adult cohort in U.S. history. When we try to numb our vulnerability, we also end up numbing joy, gratitude, happiness. So we’re miserable, and we try to numb that. It’s a vicious cycle.
In this battle against vulnerability, she concludes, we try to make every uncertainty certain. Look at religion these days. Not much room for mystery or uncertainty there. What does the billboard on Rt. 7 in Hoosick, NY say now? "The Holy Bible–Inspired. Absolute. Final."(in contrast to the signboard out in front of the Unitarian church in Burlington I read this week, which said, "Unanswered questions are much less dangerous than unquestioned answers.") Make every uncertainty certain. Look at politics. Absolutes. Unchanging. Fundamental. We also strive for perfection, Dr. Brown says, in our bodies, our houses, our children (Hear all those tiger mothers roar!) "Our children are hard-wired for struggle when they come to us," Dr. Brown says, not for perfection. We shouldn’t comment about how perfect they are or should be, but how worthy of love and belonging they are. And finally, we pretend, she says, we pretend that what we do doesn’t affect others, either as individuals or as corporations or as nations.
What we need to do, Dr. Brown urges us, is to "let ourselves be seen, love with our whole hearts and with no guarantees, practice gratitude and joy in the midst of our vulnerability, and believe we are enough." (TED x Houston, June 2010, youtube)
OK. What does this have to do with Jeremiah’s covenant written on our hearts by God or Jesus’ saying that his hour has finally come, when he is to be lifted up, that is, crucified? Can you think of a more powerful image for vulnerability than crucifixion? the ultimate experience of heartbreak? It turns out that the key to our connectedness with others is our willingness to be vulnerable and to have the courage, the whole-heartedness, to live that way. It is written on our hearts, if you will, hearts that we know are too easily broken.
"Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?" Tina Turner sang. You might even remember the King, Elvis Presley, singing about Heartbreak Hotel, "at the end of lonely street." We all know what it’s like to have a broken heart.
If and when you find yourself on the road from heartache and loss to who knows where,
[asks John Bennison], what do you do and where do you go? Where is that place to experience, acknowledge, and accept things for what they are? Where’s that place one might come to truly know, with the assurance that we’re not alone in our heartbreak? A place with a sense of some abiding presence and caring fellowship, that can even carve out of heartache and heartbreak a hallowed space to dwell, if only for a while? (Words and Ways, 3/25/12)
I hope Second Congregational Church is such a place and will continue to be even more of a place for us and for all the whole-hearted and broken-hearted. God is still speaking, still writing on hearts and creating new ways to connect with the people and world God loved and loves through vulnerability and self-giving power. "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will put the law within them and write it on their hears; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, [Jesus said] it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Let us "let ourselves be seen, love with our whole hearts and with no guarantees, practice gratitude and joy in the midst of our vulnerability, and believe we are enough." May it be so.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Hats to borrow for next month’s celebration are available for try-on in Room 6 after worship. Write your name on a post-it and put with your chosen hat. Your hat will be in room 6 for you on Sunday April 15th. If you want to decorate it, feel free to take it home this Sunday.
Books are in for the newly forming on-line discussion group. Richard Rohr’s “Falling Upward: Spirituality for the Second Half of life.” See Lorna to pick up your copy. Anyone not already signed up is welcome to join by signing up in Webster Hall (near the big Red Heart).
test of using nggallery 
[caption id="attachment_1460" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="skit on addiction"]  [/caption]youth group
“John 3:16.” You have no doubt seen that on signs held up at sporting events or other occasions on TV, or on billboards in states that allow such things. You may have had to memorize this verse in Sunday school if you are of such an age when you were taught to memorize things. John 3:16. Do you know it? It’s usually recited in King James language. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” For many Christians, that is as good a summary of the Christian faith in one verse as there is. That says it all for them and they believe it should say it all for any who might hear it. That’s why I chose the sermon title I did–“Too Big to Ignore.” We probably ought to be able to identify the verse, first of all, and secondly, be able to say something of what it means to us. People who know little else about Christianity may at least have seen or heard of “John 3:16.”
Let me see if I can “unpack” this verse in terms of what traditional, or maybe popular, Christianity means by it. First of all, it starts with the love of God–“God so loved the world...” Amen. Then “....that He gave His only begotten Son...” Jesus is the one and only Son of God (as opposed to Caesar, by the way, or any number of other world rulers, who were said to be “Son of God.”) The Eastern or Orthodox Church split from the Western or Roman Church over how he is the son-- Is the Son of the same substance as the Father or is he inferior? This was part of the huge “trinitarian” conflict in the 4th century, but the western church held fast that the Father and Son were of the same substance. Further, the traditional or popular understanding of “gave” is that God “gave” this Son to be killed for the sins of the world.
“...that whosoever believeth in Him...” Believe is the critical word here. “Believes what?” Believes that Jesus is the Messiah. Question-answer. Do you believe it? Yes or no. This is a true statement that you either believe or don’t. And if you do, the verse goes on–“whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish”–we’re talking hell here. If you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, you shall not go to hell when you die, but rather “will have everlasting life,” you’ll go to heaven. What more needs to be said?
Jeff Bethke, the young man whose YouTube video we saw at our church retreat-- “Why I Love Jesus and Hate the Church”-- has gone viral, speaks to all sorts of groups of young adults ages 18-29 who largely resonate with his message. He actually is a member of a church–the mega church Mars Hill in Seattle–and freely admits that he formerly was addicted to pornography. In one video I watched briefly, he told the crowd that he was sure some of them were carrying sexual sins with them, like he had, some of them very serious. “So serious, in fact,” he said, “that God had to be murdered for them. But the thing is, God loves you so much that He was willing to do that.” I have to admit I clicked him off at that point. It’s a real failing I have–close-minded I admit–but I just have very little tolerance for talk of necessary murder–of God or anyone else, and especially by God of Jesus. But it’s not just Jeff Bethke who said it, it’s an extremely common way of talking about the death of Jesus. In fact, I checked the Mars Hill website and one of the sermon titles was, “How I Murdered Jesus Christ,” with plenty of scriptural references to back it up. In fact, we all “murdered Jesus Christ,” just so you know.
Now, I understand that this awful thought, this chilling statement of our sin and depravity, makes the love of God all the more amazing, all the more generous and awesome. “Love so amazing, so divine,” as we sing in the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “demands my soul, my life, my all.” Otherwise, hell awaits us. Heaven is lost.
God’s love is so amazing, generous and awesome, and in response to that love, we are called to love as well–with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength–and our neighbors as ourselves (whom we also should love). But let me suggest some other ways to understand John 3:16 and the verses around it which we read this morning.
First of all, we ought to know the context of this verse, as it’s very dangerous to lift verses from the Bible out of their context, as though each one were simply a separate pearl strung together with others on a string. This is part of that multi-layered and almost dream-like conver-sation that Jesus had with Nicodemus, one of the Jewish rulers who came to him at night. “Rabbi,” Nicodemus addresses Jesus, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, apart from the presence of God.” And then Jesus replies with that confusing statement, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above [which can also mean born again].”
John talks about Jesus having come down from God into the world and then being “lifted
up” to return to God. He is “lifted up” beginning on the cross and then in the resurrection and finally in the ascension. Only after all that will you understand what you’re seeing when you see Jesus, John says. We may not buy the triple decker universe–the ups and downs–of the ancients, but we need to understand that this is how John talks about Jesus “coming from God” and then returning to God.
“So must the Son of Man be lifted up,” he has Jesus say, if he is to return to God. “For God loved the world in this way....” “God so loved the world...” Former UCC President John Thomas said that just as we talk about “a face only a mother could love,” so is “ours a world only God can love.” (Sermon, 3/9/09, in UCC News) You know what kind of a world that is–a world in which innocent civilians are killed in acts of violence and rage and woundedness, a world in which children’s bellies swell with hunger and leftover food is thrown out by the ton and overflows landfills, a world of unbelievable beauty and devastating wreckage and ugliness. The world we see every night on the news and every morning in the papers. The world we encounter in our homes and communities, the world we know is inside us. God so loved the world. God so loves the world.
To show us the nature of that love, God came to live among us, took on human form, in Jesus of Nazareth. In human flesh, God healed and cast out demons, ate and drank with all sorts of people, called women as well as men to a life of service, of community, of boundary-crossing and bread-breaking, loved God and neighbor so completely and fully that he was willing to be executed in the most cruel and humiliating way to expose the powers that be and to manifest the love of God that does not turn away from our suffering but enters into it, hangs alongside of us in the midst of our crucifixions and deaths. God so loved the world. God so loves the world.
Because you see God is still speaking. God is still loving the world and hanging on crosses and breaking bread and healing broken bodies and souls not just for some otherworldly reward but for the quality of life that is eternal right here and now. In John’s gospel, “eternal life” isn’t simply about quantity of life, but the character of our life, the quality of our lives that ring True, that resonate far deeper than just the surface. People perish in all kinds of ways, not just in some hellish afterlife. There are plenty of hells here on earth. Christ descended into all of them. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
“This love costs God dearly,” John Thomas goes on. The light still comes into the world, and people still love darkness rather than light. But this light also costs us, exposing us for who we are as those who do both what is evil as well as what is true. How often have you wished that the bathroom light wasn’t quite so bright? Lent exposes us,” he says, “This, John says, is the judgment.”
Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown writes that “The very presence of Jesus in the world is a judgment in the sense that it provokes [people] to judge themselves by deciding either for Jesus or against him.” (Gospel of John, Anchor Bible Series, vol. 1, p. 147), that is, deciding that this way of life is the way to becoming truly human. “The idea is that Jesus brings out what a [person] really is and the real nature of his [or her] life. Jesus is a penetrating light that provokes judgment by making it apparent what a [person] is.”
John’s community may have needed that clarity, that clear distinction between light and dark, overwhelmed and oppressed as they were. For us, it’s not quite so neat, and the danger of verses like this is that they may lead us to moral arrogance. We’re part of the light. They are part of the darkness. We know that sometimes we walk in the light; at other times we’re in the dark, and much of the time in gray middle.
And it’s not just a matter of “what we believe,” not just a matter of the statements we make about God or about Jesus. The word used here is pisteuo, which can mean what you are convinced of, but also what you trust in. “What you are convinced of you ‘agree with,’” one preacher writes (Tom Are, Jr. Journal for Preachers, Lent 2012, p. 6) “It’s an intellectual thing. What you trust shows up not just in your thoughts, but in your living.” “Preach the gospel at all times,” St. Francis said. “If necessary, use words.”
“This is how much God loved the world [Peterson puts it]: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him[–by trusting in him, and in the God who lived and acted through him, we might say]–anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” (The Message)
We’ve spoken of the growing and even predominant number of people who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” “The dominant thing we have to prove to spiritually-seeking non-Christians in a post-modern world,” writes Brian McLaren, “is not that Christianity is true. We have to prove that it is good and beautiful. And if they are convinced it is good and beautiful, they will be open to it being true.” (Cited by Adam Copeland in Journal for Preachers, Lent 2012, p. 18)
“God so loved the world that God gave the only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” We are called to love the world as God loves it–not naively, not nostalically, but as John Thomas says, “with all its beauty and ugliness, its grace and grime, its virtue and violence.” The One Great Hour of Sharing offering that we receive today is but one way that we pledge to stay engaged in the world and not retreat from it. God is still speaking, still becoming flesh in many sons and daughters, the light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and this IS good news. Amen, and amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Bruce and I had dinner with, and saw the pictures of, a friend of ours who recently returned from a trip to India. On the last night of their stay, the group our friend was traveling with went to the Flower Festival that is held once a year in one of the nearby temples. That morning, literally millions of brightly colored flower petals had been plucked from fields and gardens and gathered, by color, in great baskets. At the appointed hour, in honor and reverence of the god of abundance, the baskets were overturned and the flower petals poured out from the balconies of the temple onto the ecstatic worshippers. Our friend had taken a short video, which gave us barely a glimpse of the sheer joy, exuberance, and abundance of the celebration, which lasted over 2 hours. It looked something like children playing at the sea or lakeshore, dancing in the water, though this water was made of flower petals, and literally shoveling and throwing gold and red and magenta drops at one another, while joyfully chanting the name of God. “It was overwhelming,” our friend said, “life-changing.” “Lost in wonder, love, and praise” is another way to describe it, as the last words of our final hymn will say.
It reminded both Bruce and me of the story of the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned the water in the 6 jars for purification–each containing 20 or 30 gallons–into the finest wine and had the wine steward serve it to the wedding guests after the other wine had run out. It’s also a story of the overwhelming abundance and goodness of God, and it’s the story that John tells just before the story we read this morning about Jesus’ overturning the money-changers’ tables in the Temple. While the other gospels tell this story as part of Holy Week, as the event that solidifies the Jewish authorities’ determination to have Jesus arrested, John places it here at the beginning, in chapter 2, putting Jesus first on the authorities’ radar.
Hearing this story in the context of Holy Week makes it part of the ratcheting up of emotion and danger. But hearing it here at the beginning of the gospel, and particularly right after the story of the wedding at Cana, opens up some other possibilities of meaning and insight. Having just performed a sign that pointed to God’s abundance and joy, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the great festival of freedom, the Passover, and finds the temple filled with people doing business. The Temple was the house of God, it was said, the one place where God could be found, and there were obligations to worshiping God in the Temple, namely, offering sacrifices. The business being done in the courtyard of the Temple was necessary business, they said, as travelers to Jerusalem needed to change their money into Temple coins to buy animals for sacrifice.
Picking a golden flower petal off his robe and with the taste of finest wine in his mouth, Jesus knows that this is not what the true worship of God is about. It’s not about confining the Holy to one building–as big and glorious and impressive as it is-- and it’s not about maintaining an elaborate structure and system, getting lost in the minutia and the busyness, instead of getting lost in wonder, love, and praise.
And here in John, Jesus not only turns over the money-changers’ tables and drives out the animals, but when asked by the authorities what sign he could show for doing these things, Jesus replies cryptically, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They, of course, think he’s talking about the building of stone which has taken years to complete, but Jesus’ followers–those particularly in John’s community–remembered this years later, and knew that he was talking about his body. They understood now that Jesus was saying that God’s dwelling place was not in the Temple but in the Word made flesh, in the resurrected body of Christ, which they were a part of and which was “loose” in the world.
Fr. Richard Rohr writes that “When God is seen as ‘outside’, the sacrificial system will remain. However, when God moves inside, you are the temple and sacrifice is no longer required. The only sacrifice now is me.” (Cited by Peter Woods in “I am listening...”, 3/5/12) “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” the apostle Paul wrote. What matters if God is inside you–and me–is the integrity of the heart, not mere compliance with the law. What matters is how permeable we are to God–to allowing God in and allowing God to flow out from us. What matters is being willing to be emptied so that we can be filled with God.
“Lent is the great spring cleaning of the Christian life,” one writer says (Alyce McKenzie, Patheos, 3/5/12) “In the early church, Lent was viewed as a spiritual spring, a time of light and joy in the renewal of the soul’s life. It represented a return to a life in which God was once more center and source.” How different an image that is from the traditional notion of Lent as a time of darkness and deprivation, of self-loathing and depression even, which St. Augustine had a good deal to do with and was perfected during the Middle Ages.
In recent years there has been a shift away from “giving up” things in Lent to “taking on” practices, from giving up meat or chocolate or alcohol to taking on habits that we should be doing all the time–praying, or daily reading of Scripture or other spiritual writings, or acts of kindness and service. This Lent we’ve used these rainbow streamers to remind us of different practices– practices of discernment, or sustainability, or spaciousness–with growing lists of suggestions of things to do, things to practice, out in Webster Hall.
But it occurred to me last Sunday, after our 15 minutes of announcements before we could even begin worship, that maybe practices of “giving up” aren’t such a bad thing for our congregation. We know how to take on–more things to do, because there’s always more to do; more good causes to support or learn about, because there are an endless number of good causes; more good deeds to do, because there are always more good deeds to do. But do we risk becoming like the money-changers in the Temple that Jesus overturned? Do we risk getting so caught up in the business and busy-ness that we miss the joy, we never let go into the ecstasy, we never get lost in “wonder, love and praise”? How can we clear out space for God? Might saying “no” be a practice of spaciousness, for if we say “yes” to everything, if we never say “no,” our “yes” becomes meaningless.
“The heavens are telling the glory of God,” the psalmist sings. Speechlessly heaven and earth sing out God’s praise. And the structure of life that Torah, or the law–dharma, as the Buddhists refer to it–provides, is intended to be “soul-reviving, wise-making, heart-rejoicing, eye-enlightening, forever-enduring,” the psalmist goes on to say. There is joy and wonder and wisdom built into the very fabric of the universe, but we have managed to pollute it, domesticate it, fill it up with “stuff,” and business, and lose sight of the Divine which is present in every moment, in every person, in creation, in you and me.
My guess is that deep down what most of us hope to experience–or at least catch a glimpse of–when we come to church on a Sunday morning–in addition to the fellowship and the food, what we really long to experience is God. I hope we do, even occasionally. But, of course, this isn’t the only place where God can be experienced. God is in our homes and at our places of work and school and play, on ski slopes and mountain paths, on city streets and quiet country roads. Perhaps what the church can be, as one preacher suggests, is a way station for rest and nourishment, a “vocational counseling center” to help us all discern what God is calling us to do and be in the world, and place where we can learn and practice how to be vessels of God’s love and light in the world.
“Are you tired?” Jesus asks, in Eugene Peterson’s wonderful translation. “Worn out? Burned out on religion? Walk with me and work with me.... Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” the psalmist says (Ps. 51), “and put a new and right spirit within me.” The cleansing of the Temple. Spring cleaning for the soul. May we indeed let go of our busyness long enough so that we can be “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” Amen, and amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
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