The Servant Girl at Emmaus
(A Painting by Velázquez)

She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his—the one
who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he'd laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face—?

The man they'd crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don't recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching
           the winejug she's to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,

swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

Denise Levertov

 Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

This week I got to thinking about the kids sharing their memory verses with the congregation on Family Sundays. When was the last time you memorized Scripture? Or anything??

Memorization has gone in and out of fashion in schools and churches over the decades, but I grew up in a time when memorizing Bible verses and poems was taken for granted. Texts have a way of becoming part of us, of getting inside of us and are available to us when we need a tether, an encouragement, a reminder of sacred reality.

Pascal said, “In times of difficulty, always keep something beautiful in your heart.” Memorizing a passage or poem, for me, allows me to live with it as if with a good friend, walking with it, breathing with it, learning from it, and often feeling consolation from it. Both things are important…the discipline required to memorize and the selection and value of what I choose to commit to memory.

I am curious what texts you try to keep in memory. And why. And when have you recalled it? It might be a poem, or a line from a book, it might be imperfectly recalled, but nonetheless permanently in you… What is it? And why?

 Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

A post-resurrection prayer for us all:

Lord God, 
when the hungry are fed,
the sick healed,
the lonely made family,
the outcast brought in,
the sinner forgiven,
the tyrant transformed,
and the enemy reconciled, 
we know your work by the fruit it produces.
May our lives bear fruit
worthy of your name. 
Amen.

(Book of Common  Prayer for Ordinary Radicals)
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

The Last Supper account in John’s gospel contains a curious picture. The evangelist describes the beloved disciple as reclining on the breast of Jesus. What is contained in this image? A picture of how each of us should be focused as we look at the world.
            When you put your head on the breast of another, your ear is just above the person’s heart, and you are able to hear his or her heartbeat. Thus, in John’s image, we see the beloved disciple with his ear on Jesus’ heart and his eyes peering out at the world. 
            This is an image, a mystical one. Among other things, it is a picture of gentleness. What it shows, however is not a saccharine piety, a sweetness hard to swallow, but a softness that comes from being at peace, from being so rooted and centered in a love that one can look out at the world without bitterness, anger, jealousy, the sense of being cheated and the need to blame or compete with others.
            In John’s gospel, it is also a eucharistic image. What we see there, the image of a person with his ear on Jesus’ heart, is how John wants us to imagine ourselves when we are at communion. In its reality, that is what the eucharist is, a physical reclining on the breast of Jesus. It is also an image of how we should touch God and be sustained by him in solitude. 
                                    Ron Rolheiser
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

Coming from the Mount of Olives, instead of riding a warhorse like Pilate, Jesus rides a donkey, and not even a full grown donkey, but a donkey's colt. His entry was from the opposite direction and the opposite manner, presenting Jerusalem with a stark contrast between the way of war and the way of peace. Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your king is coming to you;

righteous and having salvation is he,

humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey

The Good Shepherd is walking towards his crucifixion and resurrection..
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

I’m going to offer you the beginning of a Lenten reflection for this week and the link to the full essay if you’d like to read more. I was reading in John 11 this week about Jesus’ response to the death of Lazarus and this really stirred me:
 
“I’ll be honest: the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is a hard one for me.  At many levels, I don’t understand it.  I don’t understand why Jesus dawdles when he first receives word of Lazarus’s illness.  I don’t understand why he allows his friends to suffer for the sake of “God’s glory.”  I don’t understand why he tells his disciples that Lazarus is “asleep” rather than dead.  I don’t understand why he sidesteps Martha’s tortured accusation: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  I don’t understand why Jesus raises just one man, leaving countless others in their graves. And I don’t understand why Lazarus virtually disappears from the Gospel narrative once his grave clothes fall off.  Why is he never heard from again?

In many ways, the story is shrouded in mystery.  But today, this week, now, I cling to the two words in the narrative I do understand:  “Jesus wept.”  Thank God — Jesus wept.  For me, this is the heart of the story as we (have lived) through the Covid-19 crisis: that grief takes hold of God and breaks him down. That Jesus — the most accurate revelation of the divine we will ever have — stands at the grave of his friend and cries.

Let me be clear: in focusing on Jesus’s tears, I’m not ignoring or minimizing the raising of the dead, the conquering of the grave, the unbinding of the bound.  I am a Christian because I believe in resurrection.  I believe it as metaphor and as symbol.  I believe that God can and will bring back to life all that is dead, buried, forgotten, and festering within us: old wounds, hardened hearts, stubborn addictions, fierce fears.  I believe that God is always and everywhere in the business of making us more fully and abundantly alive — alive to love, alive to hope, alive to each other, alive to Creation.”
 
Debie Thomas' Lectionary Essay: "When Jesus Wept."
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

Isn't what we do with the offering plate obvious? Well, maybe not. 

We pass it from person to person to "take up a collection," right? No, we do not. In church we do not pass an offering plate to "take up a collection." People "take up a collection" at the office to defray expenses for someone's unexpected emergency. We often see people at the side of the street, at intersections and off-ramps, "taking up a collection" to help bury one's son or other close family member. Perhaps you have seen this, or some other "collection" appeal like it. 

In church, we do not "take up a collection." Rather, we receive people's offerings as an act of worship. As beings created in the image of a giving God, it is deep in our nature to give also. God has given generously to each of us. Giving is a part of worship; put something in the plate. 

Regardless of whether you place a financial gift in the plate, as the plate is passed, please intentionally touch the plate as a symbol of the offering of your life to God's Kingdom. Friends, I want to remind you that this is not a dues collection mechanism set to beautiful music. The passing of the plate is an act of worship and as you place your hand on it, intentionally make an offering of your life as an act of worship of our God who loves us and is faithful to care for all our needs. 

The offering has now gone from a "let's hurry up and get this over with" moment to a time of unhurried response to God. It is our "yes" to God, what we have to offer in that moment. I want to invite you to "come to the plate" in a similar way that we "come to the table"—deeply aware of grace. This is the plate of 5 loaves and 2 fish. Come and see what God can do with what we give!

Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

Lenten reading for those in the wilderness 

Always come back to the solid place

You must believe in the yes that comes back when you ask, "Do you love me?" You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it.
   You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. But you already know you will not find them the answer to your deepest question. Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame. All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.
   You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God's love even when you do not feel it. Right now you feel nothing but emptiness and the lack of strength to choose. But keep saying, "God loves me, and God's love is enough." You have to choose the solid place over and over again and return to it after every failure. 
              Henri Nouwen     The Inner Voice of Love
 
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
                                                          John 15:4-5

We have only one task: to abide. To tarry, to stay, to cling, to remain, to depend, to rely, to persevere, to commit. To hang in there for the long haul. To make ourselves at home. 

Debie Thomas writes "But "abide" is a tricky word.Passive on the one hand, and active on the other. To abide is to stay rooted in place. But it is also to grow and change. It is a vulnerable-making verb: if we abide, we'll get pruned. It's a risky verb: if we abide, we'll bear fruit that others will see and taste. It's a humbling verb: if we abide, we'll have to accept nourishment that is not of our own making. It's a communal verb: if we abide, we will have to co-exist with our fellow branches. We will have to I've a life that is messy, crowded, tangled. A life that's deeply rooted and wildly fertile."

Lent is a time to abide, to surrender our ferocious independence and consent to live in the Vine.

Abide, friends.

Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation 

Blessing for Ash Wednesday

God, today my finitude is rubbed on my forehead.
The reality of my limits, my fragile body,
spoken over me like a curse:
from dust I was made
   to dust I will return.

Some days I need to be reminded
that I am not the perfectibility project
I set out to be.
I am full of bounce and brimming with hope.
All woes, solvable. All problems, a distant whisper.
When I don't feel like dust,
Bless me, oh God,
in the ways I trick myself into believing
that my life is something I've made,
that all my accomplishments and successes
and mastered mornings
add up to something independent of you.

But on days like today, when my head hangs low,
sunk with the grief of my neediness,
Bless me, oh God.
When my joints don't work as they should,
when I grow sick or turn gray too soon,
when my body betrays me...
or perhaps is doing exactly
what it is supposed to do.
Tell me again how you made me:
   from dust to dust.

Blessed are we, a mess of contradictions,
in our delusions and deep hopes,
in our fragility and finitude.

From The Lives we Actually Have by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie

Welcome to Lent—

Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation