Scars and Locks April 18, 2020

When I was taking my biology class in Grade 9, it seemed like there were two kinds of students.  The ones who got right into the poking and prodding of dissected frogs, and the kinds (far fewer) who stuck their noses in the textbooks.  I enjoyed the Latin and the lists but not the smells or the sights of squishy things pickled in formaldehyde.  That science class seemed to go on forever, and I was relieved to get to high school where I could safely indulge in physics and chemistry, and the closest I got to biology was the adjoining door between the two science classrooms or the friendly chit chat between the two teachers.  I thought the biology teacher was wonderful, but not her subject matter.  My classmates thought I was weird for having such a squeamish attitude, especially the ones who grew up on the farm.  Even my mom, who hated collecting slimy wet eggs from under the hens first thing every morning was less squeamish than me.  So this scripture passage in a time of social distancing is hard to fathom.  Touching Jesus’ wounds would be hard enough at the best of times, but right now when we are not able to touch anyone, it’s unthinkable.

No wonder Thomas isn’t recorded as taking Jesus up on his invitation.  He spoke rash words in haste to stop the other disciples from badgering him with what he thought were ridiculous claims, and like most rash words, they came back to haunt him.  But also to heal him.  We can relate to Thomas for we too are inundated with claims and con artists, false news and clever phone calls designed to catch us unawares.  I have lost track of the number of phone calls I have recently received on my cell phone, saying that they are from Croatia or Dominica.  They hang up immediately and I fight the temptation to call back because that’s what the scammers hope, then they can charge long distance rates and rake in the cash.  Once it was a crying woman on the line sounding like she was in a panic too.  Turns out this was happening all around mainline Vancouver.  There are even people becoming famous on the internet for taking calls from scammers and playing with them, stringing them along and wasting their time so that the scammers don’t have as much time to get other victims.  The impact is real.  Seniors are especially targeted, and with the internet, it feels like we have to be increasingly diligent.  More like Thomas than otherwise. 

And yet Jesus said that we who believe are the blessed ones.  We who learn to trust in something we have never seen, who learn to turn to God with the innocence of a loving child.  Who may not always have concrete evidence or proof pickled in formaldehyde.  We who like Mother Theresa, roll up our sleeves despite our doubts and do the things that God would have us do to make this world a better place.  We who persevere despite what the doubting Thomases of the world might say or ridicule us for doing.

Today we are all locked in rooms of isolation and anxiety.  We do not know what the future will hold both for us as individuals but also for us as a community, a nation, a world.  On one hand, we are coming together for things like the “One World Together at Home” or the Friday night thank you parade honking for health care workers and grocery store employees, on the other hand we are seeing protesting demanding that curfews be lifted and jobs be reinstated.  Or the policies of companies like senior’s care facilities or meat-packing plants.

How do we deal with the doubt and the anxiety?  Sometimes we, like the disciples, need to lock ourselves in our rooms.  But God enters our isolation, God disrupts our assumptions of what the world is really like, God shakes up our understanding of what is real and what is important.  God is present right where you are, in this very moment.  In your space! 

Take a breath, a deep breath into your belly.  Look around you for five things you can see.  A crack in the ceiling, this piece of paper, Five things.  Breathe.  Four things you can touch like the doily or table cloth.  Breathe.  Three things you can hear, ticking clock or maybe a goose flying back north.  Breathe.  Two things you can smell, the smoke from your candle perhaps.  Breathe again and notice one thing that you can taste, not just yet.  Maybe the bread and juice that we will be sharing shortly.

We have an opportunity to practise this simple form of prayer, 5 sights, 4 touches, 3 sounds, 2 smells and one taste whenever we feel locked up and anxious.  We can practise opening ourselves up to God more intentionally in our day.  And we can remember that Jesus became present and real to Thomas not through his perfection, but through his wounds.  When we see wounds, we know the experience is real.  When we share wounds, we have the ability to heal.  When we admit to God and a trusted friend or family member that we are hurting or afraid or anxious, we can learn that we are not alone in our struggles.  There in our locked rooms, God is with us.  In life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone, halleluiah!

Biblical Marriage? Jacob part 3

I love doing weddings! Some ministers don’t, but I  get to bless couples in a deeply real, meaningful way.  But I would have hated to deal with Jacob’s wedding.  Is this what people mean when they talk about ‘biblical marriage’?

We hear stories all the time about bridezillas or dictatorial mothers, but here we have the father of the bride deceiving his son in law in a nasty, underhanded manner.  Some folks might say it serves Jacob right as he was a nasty trickster himself, stealing the inheritance from his twin brother Esau.  But two wrongs don’t make a right. And maybe there is more to this story that can be applied to our lives in meaningful ways.

One tool that is helpful in understanding family patterns is to make a genealogy family tree.  Family backgrounds and behavior patterns can impact a new couple’s life together, especially if they are not aware of it.  So if Jacob and Rachel came to me for marriage prep, they would have to draw their family tree.  It’s quite complicated.  Abraham has several brothers and at least one half sister, which he marries.  That may seem shocking to our modern ears, but remember that Egypt, the biggest super power of Jacob’s time, was ruled by dynasties of pharaohs who were descendants of the Gods and rather than dilute the sacred DNA, the Pharaohs often married their sisters or half-sisters.  They didn’t understand the dangers of inbreeding any better than the royal families of Europe 200 years ago who spread hemophilia to most of their descendants.

So Jacob’s family tree starts with Abraham.  Interesting aside is that this family unlike many ruling families of the time, did not claim direct descent from God or multiple gods the way the families in Greece, Rome and Egypt did.  No, they recognized that God created them like God created many people and did not claim special status over other people.

There are three brothers in Abraham’s family and at least one half sister.  Abraham leaves home to make his own fortune in the world, suggesting that he was not the first-born going to inherit Terah’s business.  He struggles to have children – Lot is his heir, son of his brother Haran.  Abram’s first born is Ishmael, whose mother was a surrogate mother for Sarah.  There’s no sense of whether Hagar consented to this or not.  Sarah finally has Abraham’s second child Isaac, and bullies her husband into sending Hagar and Ishmael away so that Isaac has no competition for the inheritance.  Isaac is also treated badly by his wife who tricks him into blessing Jacob instead of Esau.  A pattern of disrupting the status quo of the eldest son for the youngest is established in this family.  Rebecca, Isaac’s wife is the granddaughter of Nahor, the other brother of Abraham.  More inbreeding.  And Jacob is sent to find a wife from his mother’s brother, a great-grandson of Terah marrying a great-great granddaughter of Terah.  Yikes!

Convoluted and complicated.  Now, biblical marriage four thousand years ago did not say this was the ideal relationship or that everyone should have multiple wives or play favorites amongst their kids.  But this does show a realization that marriage could be more than just a business deal which is what Rebecca and Isaac’s seemed to be, but men falling in love!  No word about what the women felt at all, although when you read on, they are quite competitive for Jacob’s favors.  They are still determined to do their wifely duty of providing children for the tribe, something else quite foreign to our modern minds.

So these stories may be of biblical marriage, but they are primarily focused on the biological survival of the family.  But there’s another view of biblical marriage, that of a relationship that is modelled on the relationship between God and Jerusalem, God and the Hebrew people, and in our New Testament, Jesus and the church.  It sees marriage as the building block for a heavenly and holy relationship.  A relationship filled with the fruits of the Spirit – love, hope, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  That’s a biblical marriage too, and we don’t have to be married to work on these fruits of the spirit.

I’d like to challenge you all to do your family tree and look for patterns – do you come from a family of tricksters or a family that plays favorites, or some other pattern?  Are you bringing these patterns into your current friendships or relationships?  Are you ready to challenge the negative patterns to aim for a more spiritual focus?

Jacob, visiting his relatives, discovered that it wasn’t so nice to be on the receiving end of a trick.  He may have thought, ‘oh, so that’s why mother always did this’ and similar ah-ha moments.  This visit would help him unlearn the pattern and be aware of it.  He decided with God’s help to stop being a conman and start orienting his life around God.  And we can remember that when someone says ‘I believe in Biblical marriages’ that there are many kinds of biblical marriages that we don’t tolerate in today’s society, but marriages based on love, peace and kindness are cherished in God’s community.