Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ (John 14:6)

Today's reflection is by Kori Pacyniak,
member of the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

Growing up in a Polish Roman Catholic household, Holy Saturday began with the blessing of the baskets filled with all the fixings for Easter Breakfast – ham, bread, boiled eggs, horseradish, salt, pepper, and something sweet. The blessed food would be eaten on Easter Sunday after the Resurrection service. Since Holy Saturday was a day of fasting, it seemed like minor torture to sit through a service with this basket of fragrant food sitting next to me and not being able to eat anything. Afterwards, we’d make a pilgrimage among the local churches, visiting the ‘tombs’ that were created. Many of the churches dedicated an area of the church as a tomb with parishioners keeping vigil from Good Friday through Easter Sunday. It was eerie but powerful, visiting the ‘tomb’ and pondering what it might have been like for the disciples who had just lost their friend and teacher. We at least have the solace of knowing that the resurrection will come. Nonetheless, there is a heaviness to Holy Saturday, the feeling of ‘remaining.’

Sometimes, we can’t see or feel God’s presence in our lives. Sometimes it seems like we have been abandoned, that we are in the darkness, the emptiness between death and resurrection. But we have solace in the resurrection, in the knowledge that no matter how lost we feel, how dark the world around us seems, we have life and guidance through Christ. In the words of Thomas Merton:

I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me
Nor do I really know myself,
And the fact that I think I am following your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you
Does in fact please you.
And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
You will lead me by the right road
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though,

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
And you will never leave me to face my struggles alone. Amen.

God looked down from the holy height, from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die. (Psalm 102:19-20)

Today's reflection is by Joshua Anderson, member of the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at MIT 

 Time and again in the gospel readings during Lent, Jesus has stepped in and broken apart the prison of societal roles based on people’s background and past choices. The Samaritan woman at the well, the man born blind, the woman whose pain lasted 12 years and who “had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors” (Mark 5:36, NIV). In disregarding or destroying society’s expectation, he brought these lonely, outcast people yearning for release into a relationship of equals and restoring them to full membership in their communities. There are times in my life when I’ve felt imprisoned by someone else’s narrative for what a person with my background and my characteristics should be or do. Like unnamed crowds who lived around the characters I mentioned, people around me would not have noticed that I felt trapped or would have felt that there was little chance of successfully articulating a new narrative. The disciples confront a similar feeling of helplessness in the face of society’s narrative as they watch Jesus’s arrest and trial. They didn’t know how to rescue Jesus from the role that powers benefitting from the Roman Imperial occupation had fit him into. Jesus’s death at the hands of the inexorable Roman Imperial system seems to confirm that the world has won. That there is no way to rescue this man who called his friends to live abundant lives of radical equality and justice from the literal and metaphorical prison in which society held him in his last days. That he will never get the experience he gave to so many others of being lifted up to a relationship of radical equality. Unlike the disciples, we know that God’s work on Easter is coming.

Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. (Ephesians 4:15)

Today's reflection is by 

Thea Keith-Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT

When we were babies, we discovered who we are by observing others. Did they smile when they looked at us? Did they laugh when we laughed? Did they help us when we cried? As we move into adulthood, we feel more independent, but we still constantly respond to the words and the body language of the people we encounter. We still find our identities in the web of our relationships.

Peter comes into that meal in the upper room with a clear sense of who is: a disciple of Jesus, the promised Messiah. But for Peter to be the disciple, Jesus must behave like the teacher. If Jesus behaves like a slave and washes people’s feet, then who is Peter now? We hear the depth of Peter’s identity struggle in his vehement and confused response: “You will never wash my feet!” and then barely seconds later, “Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”

We look down and see Jesus, kneeling before us to cradle our dusty, beat-up feet and gently wash them clean. We look down, to see him looking up at us with eyes that see clearly and with absolute love. We look down to see our truest selves, reflected there in our Savior’s gentle gaze.

I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly. (Psalm 40:10)

Today's reflection is by Thea Keith-Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT

Towards the end of college, I reconnected with my faith in Jesus and started wearing a cross necklace every day. I quickly discovered that the cross acted as a magnet for panhandlers on the subway. It had the opposite effect on many of my college friends. A classmate questioned my objectivity towards the Bible. A science major asked me how I could possibly be against evolution. One guy assumed that I was intent on a courtship towards marriage, which made it very awkward when I asked him out on a date.

Many of us began Lent with crosses of ash on our foreheads. Some of us have explained to a friend that we can’t share a dessert or some other experience because of a Lenten fast. Many of us also joined in Palm Sunday processions that took our congregations outside the doors of the church. Lent seems quiet and inward, but it can also be a time when our faith becomes visible in new ways.

We have three more reflections coming in this series. Before we turn to the great holy days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, I want to thank you for sharing this Lenten journey with us. I hope this has been a time for each of us discover the truth within us and share it with the world. May God give us the grace to move through the awkward moments towards the freedom and joy of living with integrity.

Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:21)

 Today's reflection is by Kari Jo Verhulst
Lutheran Chaplain at MIT and Pastor at University Lutheran Church

It’s been a long, hard Lent this year, full of rough headlines and harsh silences. The untimely deaths of students at MIT and Harvard; the life-altering violence that shattered Fort Hood, Franklin Regional High School, and now the Jewish Community Center in Kansas. The gnawing sense that what is happening in the Ukraine, Syria, and Egypt is only going to get worse. And those are only the big-fonted stories. Add to these countless fine print or wordless experiences of struggle, longing, and bondage.

It’s been a long, hard Lent this year, and I am so glad it is Holy Week. This is the week that I get to act out my own sense of longing and sorrow through the words and stories and songs that tell of Jesus’ journey to the cross, and how his bearing of such sorrow weds the Godhead with the Creation that groans for the day when it will be set free from its bondage to decay.

The 14^th/15^th century mystic philosopher Julian of Norwich spoke of this as a “oneing.” She imagines that as Jesus hangs on the cross—the preferred Roman instrument of torture and humiliation—he is opened up to “every sorrow and desolation” and sorrows along in kinship. The poet Denise Levertov writes of this way:

The oneing, [Julian saw,] the oneing

with the Godhead opened Him utterly

to the pain of all minds, all bodies

—sands of the sea, of the desert—

from the beginning to the last.

I pray that you, also, will get to join your struggles with the way of the cross this week. And that through this, you will know the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. (1 John 3:2a)

Today's reflection is by Cameron Partridge
Episcopal Chaplain at Boston University

Toward the end of high school I went on a family trip down the middle fork of the American River, near Sacramento California.  For two days we learned how to steer as a group, how to push forward, how to reverse out of a jam, when to stop and let the current take over.  One section of the river included a class five rapid—“the Shoot” I believe it was called—into which we moved forward with a mixture of care and abandon.  At first we steered to the left, then to the right, paddling madly to avoid hidden vortexes.  At a certain point we shifted from our seats to the bottom of the boat, holding our paddles straight up in the air.  We hurdled through a kind of spin cycle and were spat out at the bottom, soaking but exhilarated.

 

Each Holy Week we journey into the Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection, a metamorphosis beyond our wildest imagining. We enter assured that we are indeed God’s children now, even as we don’t know what we will be on the other side.  We may paddle into this week with great gusto, but ultimately we must cede to the current, as we sit together on the floor of our little boat.

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. (John 4:24)

Today's reflection is by Lucas Mix, Researcher in Theoretical and Theological Biology, Harvard. You can read more from Lucas on his blog: dacalu.wordpress.com

What does it mean to worship God in “spirit and in truth”? The phrase comes from John 4:24 and I think it has something to do with a fullness of attention.  Spirit means both the Holy Spirit and the breath of life.  Have you ever been so intent on something that you held your breath?  I think we are invited to that kind of intensity when we worship God: fascination and devotion. For me, “in truth” conveys the idea that we not only have a desire to please God, but the ability to do so.  To worship in truth is to make a proper and acceptable offering of our life and love.

Has there ever been a moment in your life when you were fully wrapped up in love and service? For me it comes in moments of conversation about God and reality, the rare moment when I manage to express the truth that is in me while hearing the very soul of another.  It also comes in moments of simple, concrete service – like cleaning a bathroom for a neighbor.

When have you worshiped in spirit and truth?

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

For today's reflection, I would like to share with you the great Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

- Kari Jo Verhulst, Lutheran Chaplain to MIT and Pastor to University Lutheran Church 

So, friends, every day do something

that won't compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias….

Listen to carrion—put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts….

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn't go.

Be like the fox who

makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter. (Isaiah 59:14)

Today's reflection is by Cameron Partridge
Episcopal Chaplain at Boston University

Many have now condemned comments made last week by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, linking the Church’s support of LGBT people with the murders of Christians in Nigeria.  In a phone-in radio interview Welby described the murderers’ rationale: “If we leave a Christian community here we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians." He continued, “I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America.” 

John Aravosis boiled Welby’s logic down to this:  “he said that Anglicans must discriminate against gays, lest bigots in Africa think Anglicans themselves are gay, and then gay-bash them."

I stumble over all of this.  How The Episcopal Church’s embrace of LGBTI people can be condemned by conservatives and lampooned by anti-religious commentators in the same moment. How in the headlines of this story, Nigeria becomes “Africa” writ large, as if all African countries are interchangeable.  How race, religion and sexuality are pitted against one another, as if one could never be LGBTI, Christian, and Nigerian at the same time. 

If justice is not to be rejected, if righteousness is not to be rebuffed, if the public square is to become a place of authentic encounter and learning, then the complex intersections of human lives must be upheld, even if they confound the categories that so many prefer to keep separate.  

When you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. (Galatians 4:8)

Today's reflection is by 
Thea Keith-Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT

In the movie The Examined Life, the disability activist Sunaura Taylor describes the experience of being judged because of the things her body cannot do. Because her joints are fused and her muscles weakened, she needs to do many tasks differently or to ask for help. To purchase a cup of coffee, she has to choose between carrying the cup in her mouth or asking someone to carry it for her. The first time she went to a coffee shop alone, she sat outside a long time trying to find the courage to go in.
 
Taylor makes a distinction between being impaired and being disabled. Her body may be impaired from carrying out certain tasks on her own. But she only becomes disabled when her community refuses to accommodate her body as it is.
 
We assume people should be self-sufficient, so we disable anyone who cannot play by our rules. We are frightened by the reality that all of us need help: we needed help as children, we will need help again as elders, and at any time we could need help if we become impaired by injury or illness.
 
When we listen to the truth of others’ lives, we can begin to unchain ourselves from the assumptions that oppress others and ourselves. We can begin to turn away from the false masters of power and independence, and join our brother Jesus in worshipping God alone.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

Today's reflection is by Kori Pacyniak, member of the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

”One who is content in what he has, and who accepts that [one] inevitably misses very much in life, is far better off than one who has much more but who worries about all s/he may be missing. For we cannot make the best of what we are if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not.” -Thomas Merton If I commit to one thing, does that close the door on other possibilities and opportunities?  A life divided is a life not lived out to the fullest. God wants us to flourish. God loves us unconditionally and has plans for us, plans to use our talents to our fullest potential. Our hesitation can prevent that, it can keep us from fully experiencing the love and joy of God — to be surrounded and even overwhelmed by that unconditional love. It scares us because it is beyond the realm of human experience. Can we even conceive of God incarnate embracing us, kneeling down to tenderly wash our feet, taking away all our fears, insecurities and sins, leaving us with a feeling of pure, unadultered love? I can’t. Not easily. The simple thought of it threatens to bring me to tears. God does not ask us to do the impossible. God only asks us to give ourselves wholly to the possibility of what She might have in store for us. It is like a dance. To stand at the edge, listening to the music, feeling that tug, moving slightly to the music, but not quite participating. When God stops in front of us and holds out a hand in invitation, it is up to us to take it, to join in and get swept up in the whirlwind of the dance. We cannot worry about what others will think, of whether we’ll know the steps or not — there is no need to worry. God will lead us in the dance and we only need to follow, to let ourselves be spun around and grasped firmly in a loving, secure embrace before we spin out of control. Dancing is about trust, about letting go, trusting that your partner won’t drop you when they dip you, lift you, or flip you. Trusting that you won’t slip and fall —but if you do, God will be there to pick you up because the dance goes on.

Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. (Genesis 18:31a)

Today's reflection is by Jesse Belanger

Member of the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

Do you remember that phase of growing up when you started to realize that, even though it had always come naturally to look up to and listen to the adults in your life, it was actually possible for you to talk to them as well? Not merely speak, of course, but communicate, discuss – even debate – as two people with equally valid investments in the topic at hand. I remember that bit of coming of age, and how strange it seemed to me that my voice could matter to anyone with more experience, or knowledge, or power.

Even now, adult life presents situations to all of us where we are inclined to voice a concern to someone with more power, but fear the repercussions of doing so. Yet this passage from Genesis, where Abraham speaks out to God – challenging his plan to destroy the wicked and righteous alike in Sodom, reasoning with him to be less reckless – assures us that there is nothing wrong with respectfully using our voices when something seems to be going amiss. It reminds us that whether our conscience calls for us to open dialogue with a family member, community member, or even God Himself, we need not be afraid: righteousness is in taking it upon ourselves to speak.

She [Wisdom] goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought. (Wisdom 6:16)

Today's reflection is by Mario Melendez Ministry Associate at the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

I admit that when I hear the word ‘wisdom’ I do think back to a line from Star Wars “Attack of the Clones”, when Obi-Wan Kenobi is having a meeting with a friend and he is told: “I should think you Jedi would have more respect for the difference between knowledge and…wisdom.” While we can certainly increase our knowledge of literature, science and other disciplines by reading books, listening to stories, asking advice from mentors, etc., can we increase our wisdom? If we look back at our lives until today, can we say that we are wise? And what is wisdom? In addition to the famous passage from Proverbs 8:25-31, we are told the following about wisdom: “Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.” (Proverbs 3:13-15) One of the fascinating and important things about the concept of wisdom (Sophia) is that she allows us to explore the feminine side of divinity in unique ways. Thomas Merton said that wisdom is “the great stabilizer for peace” and that “living with wisdom” is a life of peace in Christ. As we continue the season of Lent and we start to get closer to Easter Week, let us try to live our lives in wisdom. Let us pray for wisdom and be able to smile in the spirit of Sophia centered in the love of Christ.

O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. (Psalm 43:3)

Today's reflection is by Thea Keith-Lucas,
Episcopal Chaplain at MIT

The pool is one of my holy places. As I travel through the water, my muscles take over and my mind quiets. Anxieties slide away and decisions seem clearer.

The other day I shared a lane with a young man who could zip right by me. He stopped and called to me, "Do you know you don't have to turn your head that much to breathe? It's like you're trying to look all the way behind you."

Who asked him? This is my quiet time, to do my own thing in peace. I managed a grudging thanks and then kept swimming.

The really annoying part was that he was right. When I first tried turning my head less, I ended up with water in my mouth. But after I while I got it, and my stroke felt stronger.

My relationship with God often feels like my own private place. When someone pushes me to grow in my faith, my first impulse is to push back - even if I know they only say it out of love, and especially if I know they are right.

Lord, help me to listen for your truth in the voices of the people you have sent to guide me. Let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. (Genesis 32: 30b)

Today's reflection is by Cameron Partridge Episcopal Chaplain at Boston University

On June 4, 1924, British mountaineer Noel Odell peered from the base camp of Mount Everest at two tiny, moving specks. For a moment George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine climbed toward its then untrodden summit before being obscured by fog. Seventy-five years later, Mallory was found at 27,000 feet by a team of climber-researchers. They read an Anglican service of burial before building a rock cairn around his body. “No one can see my face and live,” God declares to Moses (Ex 33:20). The Gospel of John goes further: “no one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18a). The declaration “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved,” may seem to defy this trend. Yet its speaker was no longer Jacob but Israel, renamed for having “striven with God and humans, and prevailed” (32:28). Perilous as it is, the vision of God is the object of our hope: “When [God] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). Whether veiled in time or unveiled in eternity, perceiving God pulls us through a doorway. We are never unchanged.

O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you. (Psalm 38:9)

My faith sets me free.
I am not alone.
 
Today's reflection is by Ashley, member of the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at MIT

I don’t have to remember everything.
I don’t have to carry it all myself.
 
I am not alone in knowing my regrets, my struggles, my fears.
I am not alone in dreaming my dreams and celebrating my victories.
 
I am not wholly dependent on those around me.
I can stand on my own, but I don’t have to.
I can fall down, dust myself off, and get up again.
 
I don’t have to have it all figured out.
I don’t have to figure it all out. Not today. Not tomorrow.
 
I am loved and cherished.
I am known, and I can be free.
 
Free to take a deep breath and stop for a moment. Or two.
 
Free to listen.
Free to loosen my grip and let it go.
Free to do the right thing instead of being right.
Free to say “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you.”
 
Free to challenge myself.
Free to believe in myself and others.
 
Free to be less fearful and more brave.
Free to be less rigid and more flexible.
Free to break old habits and try new ones.
Free to have fun and delight in life.
 
Free to love and be loved.