As I sit to write this reflection, Peter is having his final zoom meeting with his class, and the rain outside this morning seems appropriate for the feelings of the day. There’s some relief – it’s not been easy for any of us (though my Spanish is improving – I just learned the word for worm, lombriz). But there’s also grief – it’s hard to say goodbye to friends and a beloved teacher, even when (maybe especially when) you haven’t seen them in person in 2 months.

On the table is a bouquet of lily of the valley cut from our yard. Lily of the Valley are some of my favorite flowers – the way the bright white peeks out amidst all of the deep green, and the sweet smell of the blossoms. I watch for them each spring and I’m glad they are blooming now.

There are some gospel hymns about Jesus as the lily of the valley; I did some research online this morning and learned that the flowers are considered a sign of a return to happiness, or renewal of love. I also learned that they are very fruitful – apparently a single root can grow 50 bulbs. One site claimed that as spring flowers they are a symbol of the second coming. They’re also associated with May Day, and the labor movement. Who knew one flower could mean so many things?

I can remember as a little girl going with my grandmother to my great aunt’s house – the house they both grew up in - to dig up some lily of the valley from the yard to transplant at my grandparents’ new home. I don’t know if it was in connection with any symbolism, or if she just liked them, but now they remind me of her.

I’m grateful for the reminder today – of roots, of nourishing love, of growing things, of new life. And I’m reminded that sometimes it seems to take forever for things to grow – so much happens underground, hidden before we see shoots and leaves and blossoms.

One of my favorite stories from the Frog and Toad books for children is about a garden. Frog gives Toad some flower seeds and tells him that if he plants them, he will soon have a garden. It is hard for Toad to wait. He yells at the seeds to grow. He wonders if they are afraid to grow. He waters them, he reads to them, he plays music for them, he finally falls into an exhausted sleep and wakes up to tiny green plants poking through the soil. Sometimes it seems to take forever for new things to grow.

I’ve had several conversations this week about how much waiting and uncertainty are part of our pandemic experience, and also how this pandemic magnifies issues we had before, as a society and as individuals. My prayer is that even in the waiting, when many things seem hidden or even afraid to grow, good things will be magnified too – the kindnesses we show each other, the wonder of ordinary things like worms in the dirt and lily of the valley peeking through the dark green, the small daily ways we seek shalom.

I was reminded this week of this prayer for growth and of lament from Mechthild of Magdeburg. Mechthild was a Christian mystic who lived in Germany in the 1200s.

Lord, my earthly nature is stood before my eyes

like a barren field

which hath few good plants grown in it.

Alas, sweetest Jesus and Christ,

now send me the sweet rain of thy humanity

and the hot sun of thy living God head

and the gentle dew of the holy Spirit

that I may wail and cry out the aches of my heart.

Amen.

The Unexpected Staircases of Life

It’s been almost exactly five years since our family arrived in Chiapas, Mexico, for ten weeks of our sabbatical during the summer of 2015. Our intent was to study Spanish at a language school in San Cristobal de las Casas, a beautiful colonial town nestled in the mountains.

We arrived on May 10. We remember this because it was Mother’s Day. We didn’t realize this at the time, but Mother’s Day is always on May 10 in Mexico. And Mother’s Day is an even bigger deal in Mexico than it is in the United States. Despite this, however, friends of Mariano and Rosy Avila met us at the airport and welcomed us into their Mother’s Day celebration. They fed us well, gave us our first taste of agua de sandria (watermelon water), and showed us around the airport city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

Late in the afternoon, we headed up into the mountains to find the house that we had rented for our time in San Cristobal. It was about an hour away, and I still remember the first glimpse of the city as we pulled around the bend on the mountain road and looked down into the city nestled in the valley below. San Cristobal is a beautiful city.

It quickly became clear, however, that while our hosts traveled frequently to San Cristobal, they were not familiar with the neighborhood where our house was located.

Now—I like to be in control. Especially with unknowns—at least as much as possible. So I had researched fairly thoroughly where this house was. I had printed a map. I had written out directions—in both English and Spanish. I had even downloaded a map onto my smartphone that gave us real-time step by step directions.

So when our host looked at us as we pulled into the city, clearly hoping that we knew where we were supposed to go, I looked back at him for a moment, a little distressed that he didn’t know even the main direction we needed to go, but then quickly pulled out my trusted smartphone app. I started directing him down narrow roads, slowly weaving closer and closer to our intended destination. I was even navigating an incredible maze of one-way streets. I was feeling good about myself—that I had thought of downloading this map app that worked even in Mexico.

We were getting close. Had made our way through downtown and toward one of the surrounding neighborhoods. We were making our way along a long road through a valley neighborhood of homes backed up along some farmland when the app told us to take a sharp left. Our driver slowed and began to make the turn, and then stopped. The road before us rose at a sixty-degree angle and was not a road as much as it was a staircase. Rising up about four hundred feet.

No matter—there were five or six streets farther down that could take us to our destination. Surely we’d be able to drive up one of these. But in each case we were met with a staircase rather than a road. The house we had rented was clearly at the top of this hill/mountain, but there was no way I could find to get there. So much for my app—I was no longer in control.

We didn’t know it at the time, but there are only three ways to drive into this neighborhood. Two from the back side and one from the direction we had come. And to use this last one, you need to take just the right combination of turns starting about a mile back from where we now found ourselves stuck. Thankfully, our host stopped trying to listen to us, asked a couple of people on the street, and soon made his way up this hidden access way.

Other friends of Mariano and Rosy were already at the house waiting there to greet us, wondering what took us so long in getting there, and then quickly filling our cupboards with some essentials to get us started in this new place.

Looking back now five years later, we’re still incredibly grateful for the amazing hospitality these people showed strangers on a Mother’s Day long ago. And we’re reminded that sometimes we think we’re in complete control, have it all figured out and know right where to go, and then we turn a corner in life and are met with a staircase that comes seemingly out of nowhere and makes the way forward suddenly seem incredibly and unexpectedly hard.

The book of Job is a hard and difficult book to make sense of. We’re left in many ways with more questions than answers. In the end, however, after God has declined to explain to Job why all this bad stuff has happened to him and instead essentially tells Job to trust him without knowing the explanation, Job makes an extraordinary statement of faith: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). When those staircases suddenly appear before us in life—especially those we cannot understand or even begin to explain—and the way ahead seems incredibly hard, it’s important to remember that God can indeed do all things, and no purpose of God can be thwarted.

Entering into the Chaos

One of the places I was looking forward to most on our trip to Israel was the Jordan River, the site of Jesus’ baptism. The story of Jesus’ baptism has become an important story in our life together at Boston Square as we seek to be mindful each week of the gift of baptism, as we seek to grow in our awareness of our baptismal identity.

This year I got to preach the story from the gospel of John, where Jesus, having recently been baptized, invites some of John’s curious disciples to ‘come and see,’ to come and spend the day with him. As I worked on the sermon, I tried to imagine the scene – the light sparkling off the water, a warm sunny day, and I was very curious when we were in Israel to see if the scene would be anything like I imagined it. It wasn’t really. We pulled into a parking lot full of buses and you couldn’t see the river. Instead what you saw were people. Crowds of people from all over, dressed in every way imaginable – there were the huge tour groups dressed in matching brown safari vests, there were pilgrims from Eritrea in beautiful white dresses and suits. And doves flying all over the place.

To get to the river you had to go through the crowds, down terraces with benches, to a roped off section of the river, which was also full of people, some being baptized, some dunking themselves, children splashing each other and no clear order about who should go where when. The water was the color of hot chocolate; it was the people who sparkled in it, not the water itself. There were the sounds of splashing and singing and praying and shouting in lots of different languages.

Pastor Bill, before we went down to get into the water, reminded us that in scripture water is often associated with chaos. In the creation story God takes the waters of chaos and makes shalom, the garden, with everyone and everything in right relationship. And in Jesus’ baptism, he entered the chaos, the mess of this world, to be with us and to restore shalom. We were then invited to get into the water (if we wanted to) as a way of saying ‘I am willing to enter into the mess, the chaos, in Jesus’ name, so I can bring shalom, good news to the world.’ Did I mention that you couldn’t see anything in the water? That it was brown? There were steps built under the water for you to wade in, and we couldn’t really reach the bottom…

Some of us are reading the book Liturgy of the Ordinary together, and the first chapter is mostly about baptism, about remembering each day as we wake up in the morning, that we are beloved children of God. As the title suggests, there’s an emphasis on the ordinary. The author quotes Martin Luther who reminded his church folk to consider their baptism as a garment to be worn daily. I’ve been thinking about that as I get dressed in the morning – I’m clothed in Christ. And I’ve been thinking about the chaos of the Jordan River too. Remembering that Jesus is with me in the murky waters of my mind, in the emotional turbulence of another day of online school, in the uncertainties ahead. Jesus is with me in the chaos and invites me to be in it with him, to follow him into the waters each day, remembering that I am clothed in Christ and God’s beloved child.

Mensa Christi

Before Jay and I left for Israel I read this quote from a prayer by St Columba, one of the Celtic Christian Missionaries who traveled and worked in Ireland, Scotland and England: This day is your love gift to me.

I copied it into the journal I took with me on my trip, as a prayer to receive each day, each part of the trip as a gift of love. This day is your love gift to me. When I read it to Jay, who knows I can be a pretty anxious traveler, he asked, “what if something goes wrong? Is that part of the love gift too?” “I think so,” I replied.

And I noticed it this morning as I was paging through that journal in preparation for writing this reflection today. This day is your love gift to me. It was easy to receive each day as a gift in the excitement of our trip – seeing new places, receiving good teaching, eating good food, not being in charge of anything or anyone other than myself....

One of my favorite places we visited was a site called ‘Mensa Christi’ – a place on the shore of the sea of Galilee where there was a large flat rock, like a table (mensa), where Jesus may have met the disciples for breakfast after his resurrection. It’s the place associated with John 21, where Jesus had the difficult conversation with Peter, when he asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” and then said to Peter again, “Follow me.” I was so excited when we visited that I couldn’t resist getting into the water, wanting to be like Peter jumping out of the boat with eagerness to see Jesus!

I have a deep appreciation for Peter – for his bold words and actions and especially for his failures and mistakes. I find Jesus’ love for him and work with him so reassuring. Jesus doesn’t give up on Peter. He keeps calling him, “Follow me.” And I feel a deep connection to this story – it was preached for Jay’s ordination at Boston Square and for my installation at Boston Square too. I tend to connect it to my call to ministry, to hear in it a reminder of Jesus’ grace and how my first calling is to love Jesus, to love his people, to follow Jesus.

But of course it’s not just a story for people called to ordained ministry. Those words, “follow me,” are Jesus’ invitation to each of us. And Jesus invites us over and over, each day, to follow him. In whatever our circumstances, Jesus is inviting us to follow him, to love him and others.

I’m reminded of this of assurance of pardon that we sometimes use in our liturgy at Boston Square: These are words of Jesus. They are strong and true, so believe them: “I have come so you may have life in all its fullness.” “Go in peace; your sins are forgiven.” “Come, each one and follow me.”

In some ways our lives have changed so much since Jay and I traveled to Israel, and in some ways they haven’t changed at all. Each day, whether something goes wrong or not, is a love gift from God. And in each day, Jesus is inviting me to follow him.