Jesus

Jesus Christ: Liberator

I have had a great year as a student at Creighton University. Earlier this year, as I was fulfilling some undergraduate theology credits for my master’s program, I was enrolled in an amazing class with a professor who inspired me. The class was Theology 331, Jesus Christ: Liberator, a christology class. Here is one of the answers I gave on our final exam last May. Who is Jesus?

Mt St Francis last supper

“For me, in the figure of Monseñor Romero, Christ passed through El Salvador.” This one line in a documentary has stayed with me since I watched it. This is the Jesus I have come to know in my life, through my readings of scripture and story and narrative. The Jesus who reaches out to those left behind or discarded. I first met this Jesus as a seven-year old whose mother had died. That poor lost little girl was tended to by three nuns when she made her first communion in second grade. They saw her grief and worry and brought her to the table.

I have seen that Jesus who cares in a very special way for the poor all over the world as I have walked the halls of congress with my own disabled sister as we advocated for food and nutrition policy, for sustainable development, for increased funding for HIV/AIDS patients.

I have seen that Jesus in Iraq and Syria as he walks in the refugee camps and tends to newborn babies whose parents have nothing and no one to turn to. I have heard others tell his story in the form of kidnapped and murdered priests, just like Oscar Romero.

Mt St Francis Love like FrancisAs I have participated in this class and read all three authors, I have read the words out loud to my precious husband. “Look! Do you see this? This is what I keep saying over and over! You cannot profess to love God and not love your neighbor. These two are inseparable! That neighbor on the side of the road who looks scary is obviously in need of help. We can’t walk by her like the others.” What would Jesus do seems so cliché…but how do we answer that question, cliché or not?

That question and so many others rise from the depth of a heart that has not been immunized against empathy and compassion by the consumer society around me, but inflamed by the lack of justice in our laws and institutions. Sometimes it has been a lonely journey to walk. To sit in church and hear about Jesus week after week, but only in the sense that he is some kind of ideal absolute, is not what has given me cause to step out and walk with him. That Jesus is an idol, a statue on the shelf that I cannot reach.

The Jesus in this class is the Jesus that asks me to open my eyes and look around to see that others need this hands-on, give-me-a-hug, wipe-my-tears-away, human contact that reminds them that they, too, are human beings, made to love and to be loved. This is the Jesus who tells me to conscienticize myself: ask the questions of why is the world like this? What have we done to make it this way? What can we do to liberate and heal it? See. Judge. Act.

From my first reading of the entirety of scripture upon discovering Micah 6:8, my faith finally had the simplicity of six words to guide me: Act justly. Love tenderly. Walk humbly. This is the praxis of Jesus that his life demonstrated and I believe him when he tells me in Matthew 25 that our judgment will be based on this. Even when we don’t call on his name and step out in this way not expecting to see him in the moment, he is there, and we are loving him by loving our neighbor.

This is the Jesus who calls out the rich who withhold from the poor and can’t understand how serving the common good is how we all develop fully as persons, and the hypocritical church leader whose letter-following legality keeps people out and denies them hope.

This is the Jesus I have met in the community of this class. This is Rutilio Grande, Oscar Romero, Pope Francis, anyone who stands against the commodity form and sees their lonely neighbor as a person in need of human contact and comes into her life as friend. I have met this Jesus in this class and will always be grateful that I had the chance to share him with others.

Dona nobis pacem.

Julie and Julia…in church

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him. (Psalm 28:7)

That was our call to worship this morning in church. Mike read verse 8 as well, but as I look at the words on a bright and sunny Sunday, it is this verse that speaks to me.

My heart does trust in him and he does help me. I believe that. Every day. But what happened in church today reminds me anew just how much he helps me.

What happened? Well, Jesus walked in again.

I was getting ready to sing with Mike and Nicole and Stan on the opening song for the 10:55 worship service. The countdown was ending and we were standing on the chancel, mics in hand, ready to launch into Mike’s anthem Undefeated, when she walked right in front of me.

It was Jesus. I had first met her a year and half ago when she walked into church on a weekday. We had an amazing half-hour encounter that was such a bright spot in my life at that time, that I put it down in words. Hit that link and read it. Jesus did walk into church that day!

Julie and Julia in churchTo see her again today was like an affirmation that in this new year, I was right to continue to trust God, and my oh my! he would still be there to help me. After the service ended I rushed over to Nicole to tell her about my Jesus sighting. Nicole was just as excited for me, and then I took a quick glance toward the pews as I removed my in-ear monitor, and there she was!

I thought she was leaving after the previous service, and maybe she had been, but there she was. She was sitting at the end of the same pew Steve and I had occupied at 9:25, and now at the end of the 10:55 she was there with Marti Bloes, our elder for Caregiving. How appropriate! The King of caregiving next to our elder of Caregiving.

I rushed over and said to Marti, “Her name is Julia! But everyone calls her…”

“Peg,” she filled in before I could finish.

“But I call her ‘Jesus’ because that is who she was to me a year and a half ago when she first walked into my life.”

She brightened up when I said her name, and could not place me. She is still the sweet, befuddled elderly lady she was that long ago summer day, but I knew more than that. I told the story to Marti and she smiled as well.

I grabbed my phone, searching on my blog for that story. I wanted to remind her of what she had said and done for me that day. I apologized for describing her as “a white-haired, elderly woman,” and she smiled.

And I kept reading:

And then she told me about how she had refused counseling after her husband died because she knew she herself could get through the grief and come out on the other side without help…until she couldn’t. She spent one hour with a counselor who just listened; that amazing gift of presence is so important!! And at the end of the hour that counselor wanted to tell her one thing. She said, “Peg, there is nothing you can do about this now. God owns it. He will make all things right in their time and your time here is not done yet. Let God have this grief because he knows what to do with it. It’s his. Let him have it.”

She thanked the counselor and they never met again. But Peg would put her head down on the kitchen counter every morning after that for a year and just thank God for what was his and not hers. And daily she would start to feel different from the day before, until one day God spoke to her and said: “I have given you a new heart.” And she believed it.

And then she looked right at me and said, “He will give you a new heart because you have thanked him for it over and over again.” And she was standing there, speaking clearly, not befuddled, not struggling to come up with a name, clear-eyed, clear-minded and all I could see was Jesus. It wasn’t Peg after all. It was all I could do to keep the tears from streaming down. She was there to comfort me.

It was quite the new year’s gift this morning after worship. I am pretty sure I will see Julia/Peg/Jesus again. She lives in the assisted living facility up the street. She feels a need to come back to church, and I am glad it is mine.

When I came home, I stood at the sink to wash up a few dishes and looked out the window at the tall pine trees that stand in the north yard. Yesterday, the strongest branches were still holding on to deep globs of snow. Only the strongest branches can hold on to that weight, I remember thinking yesterday. The rest of them have let go of their loads and have sprung back up to the sun.

Now looking back at the story of Peg from a year ago, I am seeing that differently.

“Let God have this grief because he knows what to do with it. It’s his. Let him have it.”

The big globs of snow that I had been holding on to, that had been pulling my branches down with their weight, were grief: grief at the loss of a dear pastor and friend, grief at the loss of a little sister taken too soon, grief at change I wasn’t ready for. I wasn’t holding on because of strength; I just didn’t know what to do with it.

And now I do. Just give it over to God. It’s his. And like the snow, it melts away. My branches reach back to the sun and, oh!, how I feel the light and the warmth on my face.

And my heart leaps for joy.

So Jesus walked into church today

Peace hands worldI get a daily email from Sojourners called verse and voice. This was today’s verse:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. – Psalm 139:1-3

And this was the prayer that went with it:

All-powerful God, we pray that you might send us your Holy Spirit. May that Holy Spirit help us to model a pace of life that strives to keep in step with the movement of the Spirit. May the comfortable be discomforted by Your Spirit. May the afflicted find rest in your Spirit. God, help us walk together in our journey here on earth. Amen.

So many days these verses and prayers cut right to the center of what is on my mind and heart for that day. It can be a bit unnerving to think that others know what I need prayer for! But it happens so often.

Today’s were no different, but I didn’t really give them too much thought until Julia Ann walked into the office.

She was elderly, with a great head of short white hair that in my current state of active alopecia – handfuls comb out of my head every morning – made me a bit envious. It’s quiet here today because most of our staff are out at a conference. The day-to-day office worker bees were here though: the support staff! I happened to be walking through the copy room for something and she came in through the other door. I asked if I could help her and she said she came to look at our church because an old friend had invited her to a class and she wanted to know where she would be going. I smiled and said “That’s great!” (I was also thinking what a good friend she has and wouldn’t our pastor be glad to know that our people are inviting others in!) And then it got interesting…

I asked her the name of her friend. The poor woman searched her brain and it came up empty. She was so embarrassed that this blankness came over her and she just couldn’t come up with it. We both laughed and she said, “Don’t tell her I forgot her name!” I said, “Don’t worry. I can’t tell her if I don’t know it either!” It was just so funny. She couldn’t think of the name of the class or the name of the friend or the friend’s husband and out of that came the most interesting conversation.

In trying to come up with the name of the friend, she went through how they knew each other from years ago and then lost touch. Not too long ago their paths crossed again and they were talking about church which prompted the invitation. But then she went on to tell me about how her dad died when she was little and her mom worked all day, every day. She was of that generation when days off and five-day workweeks weren’t the norm. A teacher of hers would take her to Sunday school and teach her the bible stories we all know. She taught her about Jesus. She was given a bible with her name engraved on it. She raised her own children in the church and they were baptized. She was widowed about five years ago. It was a long conversation we had, about thirty minutes. And all the time she was so befuddled, trying to remember the name of her friend.

She told me her name was Peg and I introduced myself, Julie. She said, “That’s my name too! Julia, but everyone calls me ‘Peg.'” I said my middle name was Ann with no “e” on the end, and she said hers too! It was just such a weird thing. And again, she kept trying to pull the name of her friend who had invited her to West Hills out of her brain, but it just wouldn’t come.

She went on to tell me that after her husband died, she remembered that little bible she had received as a child and wondered where it had gone in all the moves of their life. As she was going through her husband’s things to give away to family or to donate to Goodwill, she discovered a small box in his desk. Inside the box were several small things, including her childhood bible. Her husband had an eye for the valuable, not just monetarily, but for the memories and meanings attached to things. She took this as a message from him to hold on to that word and its promises. Again, all this was very befuddled and hesitantly offered and she kept trying to remember the name of that friend.

And then she told me about how she had refused counseling after her husband died because she knew she herself could get through the grief and come out on the other side without help…until she couldn’t. She spent one hour with a counselor who just listened; that amazing gift of presence is so important!! And at the end of the hour that counselor wanted to tell her one thing. She said, “Peg, there is nothing you can do about this now. God owns it. He will make all things right in their time and your time here is not done yet. Let God have this grief because he knows what to do with it. It’s his. Let him have it.”

She thanked the counselor and they never met again. But Peg would put her head down on the kitchen counter every morning after that for a year and just thank God for what was his and not hers. And daily she would start to feel different from the day before, until one day God spoke to her and said: “I have given you a new heart.” And she believed it.

And then she looked right at me and said, “He will give you a new heart because you have thanked him for it over and over again.” And she was standing there, speaking clearly, not befuddled, not struggling to come up with a name, clear-eyed, clear-minded and all I could see was Jesus. It wasn’t Peg after all. It was all I could do to keep the tears from streaming down. She was there to comfort me.

And then Peg was back, reaching for the handle of the door. “I am so sorry to have taken so much of your time. You have work to do.” And I reached over and hugged her – probably scared her! – and I said, “I know why you came here today. You came just for me.”

Oh Lord, you searched me and you knew me. You discern my thoughts from far away.

God, help us walk together in our journey here on earth.

I know it was Jesus. And her name was Julia Ann but people call her Peg. And in my grief over so much, he sees it, he knows it, he owns it. And he’s giving me a new heart.