Easter 7 B + Walk in beauty + 5.14.21
M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Acts 1:15–17, 21–26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9–13; John 17:6–19)
“Now I walk in beauty. Beauty is before me. Beauty is behind
me. Above and below me…”
This was the chanted song, part of a traditional Dine
(Navajo) prayer that we learned this week in an online retreat in which I am
participating. From Alene’s time living among the Navajo we have our own
version on our dining room wall: “Before me may it be beautiful, behind me may
it be beautiful, around me may it be beautiful, below me may it be beautiful, above
me may it be beautiful, may it all be beautiful.”
These words echo in my heart this week as I think of Jesus’ words, praying to
God on behalf of the disciples in John’s gospel. This is one of my favorite
portions of scripture. You can sense Jesus’ tender love for the disciples and
his other followers. You can sense that he is entering the liminal time when he
will willingly walk towards death for them, and for us. In the complete section
of John that we read over the lectionary cycle, Jesus first prays for himself,
then for his disciples (what we hear today) and then for all the believers to
come, including us. He wraps us all with care. And he says this phrase that so
many Christians have grappled with over the years- they are not of this world.
What does it mean to “be of the world”? I imagine it depends
on your definition of the world. Is it the beauty of God’s good creation, the
abundance of sea and rivers, mountains and fields that Jesus is separating
himself from? No. Nor is it the embodied joys of life- eating, embracing,
working and building up a good honest sweat, the life of the mind. Playing,
pushing our bodies to do new things, walking and feeling joy in our bodies or
something similar if we cannot walk. No, those things are not “the world’ that
Jesus refers to here either.
Instead, Jesus seems to separate himself from the aspects of
the world that would deal death. In his case, trials that include an angry mob
out for blood and arbitrary appeasement of an oppressed people – bread and
circus gone dark. The injustices that separate us from God. The fears. In an
episode I watched of Father Brown recently, English country Catholic Priest Father
Brown encounters a Nazi-sympathizer in the 1950’s and he says something to
effect of: “What I see in people like you is fear. Fear of new people who have
different ways.”[1] That fear is death -dealing. It is
the same fear that accompanies much of the racism that we see in our country.
But the good news is that we are not of this world. We as
Christians do not have to fear the attack on the body. We have our immortal
soul. Now of course it is natural that we still do have those fears. We must
recognize a need to be gentle with our nature.
This is a time of fear in our country. There are many things
going well. Just this week we heard that fully vaccinated people don’t require
masks-although I suspect I will use one from time to time. While the pandemic
is far from over and we have sobering news from India and other parts every day
to remind us of that, we nonetheless are seeing heartening progress towards
opening up of various activities that have been off limits for so long. And yet
it is very natural that we will feel afraid. Is this safe? We have been told
for over a year that it is not. And yet we who are not of this world must find
a balance. We do not need to be so urgent about our desire to return to the way
it was before that we throw caution to the wind. But also, Jesus treasured us
and gave his life for us so that we could be open to moving forward.
So, let us be open to this new moment. Not so as to push
ourselves beyond what we can handle, but neither holding back due to fear.
Remembering that we are blessed, and we are walkers on the way of beauty and
love and not in the world of fear.
And there is wisdom in community. In the Acts reading today
we see the communal discernment around the replacement of Judas by Matthias. Of
course, you might wonder at the choice to draw lots – it seems a bit random.
And some have pointed out that of the many siblings of Christ of different
genders who palled around with Jesus, only two cis-gender men were selected as
replacements of the fallen disciple. Maybe they just couldn’t quite handle Mary
Magdalene in that role yet- who knows? Anyway, the most important part is they
trusted the Holy Spirit to guide, and we trust that she did just that in
selecting Matthias.
In the online retreat I am taking, this week’s spiritual practice is slow
discernment. What a wonderful spiritual practice in the middle of this rush to
re-enter. You may not have a choice based on your job or school. But if you
can, take re-entry slow. Pray on which aspects of “this world” you wish to
return to and how. We at the church will welcome you in person or online with
open arms in your good time. But be gentle with yourself, knowing that wherever
and however you go, you walk in beauty, if you just take time to slow down and
be present to it.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment