Baptism Words (written in 2008)
The writer/guru James Houston reminded me that Christianity is always dialectic, meaning that once you start saying that Christianity is “THIS!”, you must always remember that it is also “that”. Any principle we hold true is itself held in tension with other ideas.
When people have preached free grace in the past, there has always been a quick response to it, a “that”, saying that “if you say grace is free, people will presume upon it-they won’t take sin seriously”. The tension. My sense now is that the message that is most predominant is the “that”, so I think we need to think about “this”.
My friend Mike preached a sermon the other evening about the baptism of Jesus. He had us place ourselves in Jesus’ shoes for a minute, imagining the impact of the Father’s words to him at that crossroad moment. “This son is my beloved. With him I am well pleased.” As I have pondered that, I have come to think that these words, humanly speaking, must have been the impetus for all of Jesus ministry from the time he stepped from the river. They enabled him to walk from his baptism to his death.
I believe there were probably other motivations. His love for us, perhaps? But I think the driving compulsion in his mission was the love of the Father. His deep connection to God. It was his sonship that constantly spoke to him and reminded of who he was and what he was about.
The shocker in Mike’s sermon was that he said that God’s words to Jesus in his baptism are God’s words to us in our baptism! “This son is my beloved. In him I am well pleased.” “This daughter is my beloved. In her I am well pleased.”
I wonder then if everything we do following our baptisms- our mission, our calling, our vocation, our living…whatever, is deeply rooted in the same connection? I am a son of God. The father’s loving joy, his pleasure in us is really the only compelling thing. It is the heart of things.
We might be compelled by other “compulsions”. Guilt. Fear. But they don’t draw us to the Father. If anything, they push us away. They may produce remorse and conformity, but not real repentance, and not love.
God’s message to sinners is “come home”. He says it over and over. Our baptism words are reiterated every week in the invitation to his table. “Children, come.” It doesn’t seem to me that he threatens his sons and daughters with being disowned if they don’t straighten up and fly right. I can’t imagine ever telling my son he can’t be a Malone anymore. How much more…?
Human nature is punitive. It is natural to want to threaten, to exclude or cut off. We are afraid to show any love to the wayward, because it feels as if we are condoning what they do, or that we might be infected by them in some way. This exclusion and shunning is intended to compel a person to change or come back. “He or she must feel the weight of what they are doing. They must taste the consequences.”
“How deep the Father’s love for us…except you.”
“There is a wideness in God’s mercy…except for you.”
Does that really soften the heart, or restore? If anything, I think it hardens. “If you preach the law, you inflame sinful passions,” the man says.
When Peter professed that he would follow Jesus anywhere, Jesus chided him. “No, Peter, before the dawn you will deny me three times.” He knew that this disciple (son) would turn on him in a matter of hours. What words would you expect to follow? On the economy above, I would think Jesus would threaten in some way. “Peter. Sorry. You’re out.” Or at least he might give him the cold shoulder for a while.
But here is how it goes. “Peter, before the dawn you will deny me three times. Do not be afraid. I go to prepare a place for you.”
What?
This is, I believe, the sequence of God’s conversation with his children:
“You are my beloved son. I am well pleased.”
“(Your name here), you have denied me by (your sin here).”
“Do not be afraid. You are my beloved son. I am well pleased.”
I believe that is this sequence of words is compelling. They soften our hearts, lead us to repentance, and draw us home to the Father. I believe that prodigals eventually want to come home, they just don’t believe that they can. Everything in them screams that they are out. The church is saying they are out. The voices in their head whisper “shame”. Their brothers and sisters say “shame”.
And Jesus says, “come”.
What does it say when the wayward are allowed to stay and hear that week after week? What does it say when the prodigal SON is allowed to take the cup to his lips, even while he is a PRODIGAL son?
How deep the Father’s love for us. Period.
There is a wideness in God’s mercy. Period.
Is this presumption? Is this audacity?
Yep.
Monday, April 11, 2011
While Steve is sleeping.....
This morning we are enjoying a much needed morning of quiet. During our days at the hospital last week we were able to find a palatable rhythm of meds that seems to keep the pain at bay and help Steve to feel more present and rested. We have added an 'anti- anxiety' pill to his roster which leads me to wonder when/if I will need one.
At this point I am finding hours of solitude and quiet as my anti-anxiety drug. If I can just have a 4-6 hour stint of sleep and a morning of quiet I am back on my feet, open to the day, feeling resilient and grateful. My friends have promised to tell me when they think i might need something stronger.
I was surprised to read the following in the book that Steve gave me for Valentine's this year, A Year with Rilke. I do not understand it all, but I agree with the last sentence and have found it true and fortifying as I learn to navigate in this foreign land of 'cancer.'
"It seems to me that all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we feel as paralysis because we can no longer experience our banished feelings. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us, because we feel momentarily abandoned by what we've believed or grown accustomed to; because we can't keep standing as the ground shifts under our feet. That is why the sadness passes over like a wave. The new presence inside us, that which has come to us, has entered our heart, has found its way to its innermost chamber, and is no longer even there - it is already in our blood. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be persuaded that nothing happened, and yet something has changed inside us, as a house changes when a guest comes into it. We cannot say who has entered, we may never know, but there are many indications that the future enters us in just this way, to transform itself within us long before it happens. That is why it is so important to be alone and attentive when you are sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than any loud and accidental point of time which occurs, as it were, from the outside."
from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Rilke
At this point I am finding hours of solitude and quiet as my anti-anxiety drug. If I can just have a 4-6 hour stint of sleep and a morning of quiet I am back on my feet, open to the day, feeling resilient and grateful. My friends have promised to tell me when they think i might need something stronger.
I was surprised to read the following in the book that Steve gave me for Valentine's this year, A Year with Rilke. I do not understand it all, but I agree with the last sentence and have found it true and fortifying as I learn to navigate in this foreign land of 'cancer.'
"It seems to me that all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we feel as paralysis because we can no longer experience our banished feelings. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us, because we feel momentarily abandoned by what we've believed or grown accustomed to; because we can't keep standing as the ground shifts under our feet. That is why the sadness passes over like a wave. The new presence inside us, that which has come to us, has entered our heart, has found its way to its innermost chamber, and is no longer even there - it is already in our blood. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be persuaded that nothing happened, and yet something has changed inside us, as a house changes when a guest comes into it. We cannot say who has entered, we may never know, but there are many indications that the future enters us in just this way, to transform itself within us long before it happens. That is why it is so important to be alone and attentive when you are sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than any loud and accidental point of time which occurs, as it were, from the outside."
from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Rilke
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Ranier Rilke
This is the poem we read to our girls at their high school graduations, but the whole family returns to it again and again:
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Saturday Update
I know the news has been slow this week. We finally got out of the hospital yesterday afternoon after a five day stay.
It turned out that my shortness of breath last Monday was caused by a big blood clot that broke off from my leg and saddled my lungs. We didn't know how dicey it was until after the main crisis had passed, and we were in the ER for 12 hours. This was apparently miracle #1 in this process. So, they admitted us because treating the clot became the #1 priority. It was a foggy week while the various doctors have worked to find a good balance in all the medications I'm taking.
We came home yesterday, but with an oxygen machine. I also have to give myself shots in the stomach once a day for the blood thinner.
The good news (if you want to call it that) is that chemo will start up again on Wednesday.
On the home front, all the kids are here this weekend, so the house will have plenty going on.
We have to take a moment to mourn my 1989 Dodge Pickup. Margaret had taken it to Auburn while her van was in the shop. Last night, driving it back home, it caught fire and is no more. She got out safely, along with her stuff, and had a front row seat for for the bonfire. She was able to salvage the Ram hood ornament. Thanks to David Carrigan and Jon Becker for hauling down the road to rescue her.
Things are wild here.
It turned out that my shortness of breath last Monday was caused by a big blood clot that broke off from my leg and saddled my lungs. We didn't know how dicey it was until after the main crisis had passed, and we were in the ER for 12 hours. This was apparently miracle #1 in this process. So, they admitted us because treating the clot became the #1 priority. It was a foggy week while the various doctors have worked to find a good balance in all the medications I'm taking.
We came home yesterday, but with an oxygen machine. I also have to give myself shots in the stomach once a day for the blood thinner.
The good news (if you want to call it that) is that chemo will start up again on Wednesday.
On the home front, all the kids are here this weekend, so the house will have plenty going on.
We have to take a moment to mourn my 1989 Dodge Pickup. Margaret had taken it to Auburn while her van was in the shop. Last night, driving it back home, it caught fire and is no more. She got out safely, along with her stuff, and had a front row seat for for the bonfire. She was able to salvage the Ram hood ornament. Thanks to David Carrigan and Jon Becker for hauling down the road to rescue her.
Things are wild here.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
April 5 Update
Hello dear blog followers,
I (Melanie) am writing because Steve is feeling poorly and we are back in the hospital today. Steve had been coming out of the chemo cave and actually had a good day on Sunday. However, yesterday after a walk, Steve couldn't catch his breath. After an ambulance ride, chest xray, ct scan and a long night in the ER we discovered that Steve had quite a significant blood clot in his lung. They are now treating the blood clot and we will probably be here a couple of days.
Ironically, the lung and fluid level seems improved.
I have been reading alot of George MacDonald lately. During our first hospital stay I read The Golden Key to Steve. Here is a quote from the story:
I (Melanie) am writing because Steve is feeling poorly and we are back in the hospital today. Steve had been coming out of the chemo cave and actually had a good day on Sunday. However, yesterday after a walk, Steve couldn't catch his breath. After an ambulance ride, chest xray, ct scan and a long night in the ER we discovered that Steve had quite a significant blood clot in his lung. They are now treating the blood clot and we will probably be here a couple of days.
Ironically, the lung and fluid level seems improved.
I have been reading alot of George MacDonald lately. During our first hospital stay I read The Golden Key to Steve. Here is a quote from the story:
"Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.
'That is the way,' he said.
'But there are no stairs.'
'You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.' "
'That is the way,' he said.
'But there are no stairs.'
'You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.' "
Thank you for your sustaining prayers,
Melanie
Monday, April 4, 2011
Buechner
I thought I would put up a few things I have written previously. Chemo makes for some interesting dreams, but not much lucidity.
A year or so ago I went on a Frederick Buechner binge. This was from his autobiography (I can't remember the name of it).
Buechner is responding to his grandmother's stoic view of "Le Bon Dieu" (the good God), who is more of a mild presence than anything like the intensely personal yet all encompassing God of his own experience:
"But she was also wrong, Le bon Dieu, she would say with that faint little smile, half ironic, half wistful, and if her smile never quite dismissed le bon Dieu himself, what I think it did dismiss was anything like the serious possibility that through flaws and fissures in the bedrock harshness of things, there wells up from time to time, out of a deeper substratum of reality still, a kind of crazy, holy grace. "You should face reality," she wrote, and in terms of what was humanly best, this was perhaps the soundest advice she could have given us: that we should stay and, through sheer...endurance, will, courage, put our lives back together by becoming as strong as she was herself. But when it comes to putting broken lives back together- when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls- the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do- to grit your teeth and clench your fist in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst- is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus' sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle's eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He doesn't not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even for Le Bon Dieu himself, a helping hand."
A year or so ago I went on a Frederick Buechner binge. This was from his autobiography (I can't remember the name of it).
Buechner is responding to his grandmother's stoic view of "Le Bon Dieu" (the good God), who is more of a mild presence than anything like the intensely personal yet all encompassing God of his own experience:
"But she was also wrong, Le bon Dieu, she would say with that faint little smile, half ironic, half wistful, and if her smile never quite dismissed le bon Dieu himself, what I think it did dismiss was anything like the serious possibility that through flaws and fissures in the bedrock harshness of things, there wells up from time to time, out of a deeper substratum of reality still, a kind of crazy, holy grace. "You should face reality," she wrote, and in terms of what was humanly best, this was perhaps the soundest advice she could have given us: that we should stay and, through sheer...endurance, will, courage, put our lives back together by becoming as strong as she was herself. But when it comes to putting broken lives back together- when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls- the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do- to grit your teeth and clench your fist in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst- is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus' sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle's eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He doesn't not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even for Le Bon Dieu himself, a helping hand."
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Saturday Update
Chemo started on Wednesday, and it ran the course they predicted. That stuff really puts you down for about 48 hours. It's sort of like a cave.
But yesterday afternoon I started to re-emerge a bit. This morning I am sitting in a chair, which seems like a big improvement.
They will run two more courses of this, then take a two week break and a cat scan to see how it is working. So, our job is endurance, and trying to eat enough before each treatment. Melanie is feeding me, and paying attention to all the various drugs and things that I need at regular intervals.
Thank you for lighting all those candles, saying prayers, and so many offers of help. Kyle and Benjamin are here today building a tree house for the boys...one of things on my to do list this Spring.
But yesterday afternoon I started to re-emerge a bit. This morning I am sitting in a chair, which seems like a big improvement.
They will run two more courses of this, then take a two week break and a cat scan to see how it is working. So, our job is endurance, and trying to eat enough before each treatment. Melanie is feeding me, and paying attention to all the various drugs and things that I need at regular intervals.
Thank you for lighting all those candles, saying prayers, and so many offers of help. Kyle and Benjamin are here today building a tree house for the boys...one of things on my to do list this Spring.
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