When I think of Psalm 23 and Jesus as the Good Shepherd as described in the Gospel of John, I think of a strong, kind male figure who guides and protects the flock of sheep. It’s an image that was created for me as a child, through the scriptures and by children’s books. This kind, strong shepherd is whitewashed. The stains of living outside with the sheep, in rain and in mud, and the dirt and blood of helping sheep birth their lambs—these realities in the life of a shepherd weren’t included in the pretty clean children’s versions of the story.

The writers of both Psalm 23 and John 10 would have had a more realistic image of a shepherd in their mind. The grime of living outside and living with animals as well as the danger of being a solo person in the wilderness who had to defend the animals against thieves and wolves, were both most likely vividly in the spiritual imagination of the writers. Shepherding is a hard, dirty, and lonely job.

This week’s main scripture tells the story of two of Jesus’ disciples who meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus. The story is formative to the Christian experience in part because if its ordinariness: it is simply a story of meeting and of presence; the disciples are not given any special powers or instructions. The story goes that the disciples meet a stranger and are so consumed by their grief that they do not recognize Jesus. While blinded by that intense grief, they still invite the stranger to walk with them and eventually to share a meal with them. It is a story about welcoming the stranger, the presence of Jesus among us in those whom we meet, but it is also a story about grief and our need to feel heard and cared for as we process loss and are transformed by our experiences.

Currently, Ben, Gideon and I are splitting our time between Somerville, MA, and Strafford, VT. We just bought a house in Vermont and are slowly moving up there as we also slowly shift our lives from busy city lives to slower country lives. Down in Somerville, MA, the past week has been warm and balmy. The trees went from budding to leafing almost overnight and there are flowers everywhere. There is a real sense of spring that gets into all of your senses. 

Up in Vermont, however, spring is coming along more slowly. Last night in Vermont I was lulled to sleep by the sounds of spring rains. The air is foggy here and the rain continues to fall. It is mud season with muddy roads and mud everywhere, a brown grayness of a waking place, a place that isn’t much of a morning person. 

In my prayer time this morning, I found myself smiling at the analogy of these two places (Somerville and Vermont) and the people that the scriptures have been describing. It’s as if Mary Magdalene came to the disciples and said, “Spring is here!” and they looked out their Vermont window and said, “We don’t believe you.” And then when spring came to Vermont, their friend Thomas, who was in Canada gave them a call. The disciples said, “Spring came!” but Thomas didn’t believe them. “I have to see it for myself.”

We are the locked door
The stone not rolled away.
You invite us to cross through waters,
Walk dry roads
Look towards transformation
In every wilderness
You believe we can

Quakers have at least one remarkable story of faithfulness and controversy when it comes to Palm Sunday. In 1656, James Nayler, a prominent Friend and founder of the movement, reenacted along with several other Friends the scene described in Matthew 21:1-11. Many of these Friends took off their garments, that is all of their clothes, and spread them in front of the donkey carrying James Nayler.

"Come Out!" (from "Unfolding Light" by Steve Garnaas-Holmes)
 

Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
—John 11.43

Come out, you who have been entombed
in silence, in fear, in condemnation,
come out!
Come out to the one who loves you.
You who are afraid for your life, 
who are afraid of your life, 
you who are ashamed,
you who have been bound, 
come out into your own life...

I first heard the song “Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord” when I was in college. I was exploring my Christianity in my college’s Christian fellowship and its lyrics “Open the eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see you” gave me words to describe to others in the group the core experience of my Quaker faith. The song became my prayer in waiting worship, as I centered down and turned my attention to God’s presence within. 

Reading this scripture and reading about the Living Water, the needs of the woman spiritually, socially and physically, as well as the way that Jesus stands up against the social and political norms of his time, I almost immediately thought of the resistance at Standing Rock and its motto “Water is Life.” As you can hear in the musical selections for this week, there is much attention given to God and water. With 70% of our bodies made up of water and a percentage only God knows of our bodies filled with the Holy Spirit, the simile of Spirit as water, as living water, is very much alive in our contemporary world. 

This past Wednesday my Facebook feed was flooded with positive messages of resistance, solidarity and hope. Friends participated in varying actions ranging from wearing red, to striking and attending marches. All of these actions were done in celebration of International Women's Day. So deviating from the Revised Common Lectionary, I felt led to offer scripture for this worship that celebrates the strength, intuition, compassion and wisdom of women in the Bible.

The season of Lent is a time of acknowledging the work we need to do in ourselves and in the world. It is a time where we say out loud our faults and seek genuine repentance. It is a time of wrestling with the evil and injustice we find in our lives, in our own hearts and in our world. If sin is defined as broken relationships with God, with others and with ourselves, then Lent is a time of acknowledging those broken relationships and its a time to work on healing and mending. 

As for giving something up or taking something on as is the tradition of the season of Lent, I noticed a lot of folks on my Facebook feed asking others what they were doing. While this is not a comprehensive list of all the things you could do for Lent, here’s a survey of some of the posts I’ve seen:

One of my first memories of Quaker waiting worship (without my family) is the memory of worshiping in silence on a mountain top in western Maryland. I attended Quaker summer camp from ages 9-15; seven years of sleep-a-way wilderness Quaker camp. It was on those mountains in western Maryland and later in southern Virginia where I first contemplated the existence of God on my own. My unit, made up of 7-16 boys and girls would head out for a few days of hiking. When we reached a pinnacle, the top of what ever mountain we were climbing, or simply a place with space to sit and a good view, my counselors invited us into worship. We would sit looking out over the great expansive beauty around us and listen for that still small voice inside our hearts. 

I have to laugh a bit at the end of this passage from Matthew which reads “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” for this week I have been anything but perfect. In the whirlwind of the last few days traveling between Baltimore, Boston and Vermont, my life has been more chaos than perfection. Throw in my husband coming down with a nasty virus, three snow storms, trying to feed everyone on the go and my 3 month old demanding more cuddle time than sleep—I lost my mind and my temper a few times in the last couple of days, leaving me feeling guilty and ashamed. 

God in small and silent ways, has been telling me to breath, to rest, and to release. I've fought that message most of today, trying to write in the airport and in between my son's naps and now, watching my parents delight in playing with their grandson, I understand God's message more fully. Release and be present. So instead of a full worship today (and apologizes for the lateness of this post) I encourage you to center in and take a moment to be present; to release the tensions and worries and stresses of your week and turn your attention to God.

I posted last week’s worship just before the news of the immigration ban was shared with the public. Last weekend my Facebook page was peppered with people organizing, protests at airports around the country, teach-ins scheduled, and the general feeling of mass action. The ACLU’s success at getting a stay on the immigration ban was celebrated enthusiastically while at the same time news from Standing Rock and the newest appointments in D.C. have been keeping many folks on high alert. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people posting about calling their Congresspeople or organizing worships or inviting each other to different events. The words from this week’s passage from Isaiah 58, “Shout it aloud, do not hold back, Raise your voice like a trumpet,” feels in line with the call to action that is needed right now in the United States. This passage is accompanied by Matthew 5:13-16, again speaking to us to stand up, to raise our voices, to work for change and justice and love. 

As is my weekly practice, I read through the passages for this week last Monday and felt overwhelmed by the depth and possibilities that they hold for our exploration. People have written whole books on the Beatitudes alone, the passage of Matthew 5:1-12. Where do I start? I’ll start here. One thing I love about pairing the passage of Micah 6:1-8 and the Beatitudes is that there is a flow from God’s condemnation to God’s instructions for redemption to God’s blessings of the redeemed. It is a strategic plan, a kind of map for those of us who don’t know quite what we can do right now. It teaches us how to navigate God’s Justice System, with God as prosecutor, jury and judge.

I attended my first peace march in D.C. with my father. My dad had marched against the Vietnam war and had been politically active in voter registration and union organizing when he was young. I knew him primarily as a high school science teacher but echos of his activist past had made it to my cultural imagination, like when I unearthed a newsclipping with a picture of him participating in a teacher's strike from his early years of teaching. As daring as he might have been in his twenties, my Dad made it clear to me that I wasn’t allowed to go to D.C. for this march by myself; it wasn’t safe for a teenage girl to travel by herself into a march of thousands (even though I argued that the other highs school aged Young Friends were going without parental supervision, I think he was right in the end). But rather than keep me home and not letting me attend the march, my dad agreed to come. 

Jesus's message to love our enemies is not an easy one. Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in a book I read many years ago (and now can't quite locate) that Jesus didn't say we must like our enemies but Jesus did say we must love them. The act of loving is that, an act, not a thought; it is a subversive act that interrupts systems that expect violence to be met with violence. It is hard work that Jesus calls us to do and yet it is rewarding and transformational.  Jesus experienced this and so did MLK.-- the power of loving someone who does not want to be loved, who does not expect to be loved.

Today, January 6th marks the celebration of Epiphany in many churches and it is the holiday where as the Christmas story tells us, the persons of the Magi or the three kings, reach Jesus and present him gifts. It is a story of God speaking through these strangers, speaking through gifts, speaking through the stars and speaking through dreams to revel to the world (not just to Mary and Joseph) that Jesus is the Messiah. We use the word epiphany in our common language to mean a sudden insight, a eureka moment, a light going on in your head, a revelation, just like the Magi had about Jesus’s role in the world. 

As expected, tons of posts about New Years Resolutions have been popping up on Facebook. There have been doe new things though then the normal “eat healthy and exercise more often” resolutions that are so stereotypical. Ive seen friends post about donating regularly to organizations that might be endangered by the Trump administration, or to read more books written by people of color. There have been hopes to organize more or join a movement; to attend a rally or do a small act of random kindness.