Wednesday, April 1, 2020  (today’s lectionary)
Aren’t you Abraham’s children? Don’t you remember with wistful, distant joy the hot fires of Nebuchadnezzar scorching your beards, the sounds of singing far across the Red Sea, music of trumpet, flute, lyre, harp, bagpipe and song, the hot dust of the desert sunset, manna falling from the sky? Don’t you remember the One who is praiseworthy and exalted above all the ages?!
Jesus stands strong against the hot, heavy wind of these men, who argue with him and want him dead. He wants them to remember, fall down on their face. We might fall on our faces too. Toward the east, toward the west, toward the sun, toward the moon … just remember! Instead, this waffling and this self-doubt, and this sin.
This cowardice.
“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. You are descendants of Abraham, but you are trying to kill me.”
So easy to just … give up. Sit, and sin. Sit in shame in the noonday sun, perched on the dock of the bay, wasting time. Those white birds fly in the surf, they live without thought for tomorrow. But they have not given up, they don’t think like that. They think with their bird brains, with their instinct, and on most days that thinking serves them well.
Not so the Israelites, not so the Jews, not so the early Christians or the Romans or the Greeks. We who have inherited their mantle, their multi-colored coat soaked in blood, we think differently with our muddle brains. And standing cowering in my inheritance I wonder, after all, is Jesus the Christ, and does he deserve my allegiance? Still, I expect eternal life, life after death in God’s glorious  kingdom. Jewels and Cadillacs all around.
I could be caught out any time in personal revelation, like the blessed white girl Ruby Turpin, but in the mean time it’s too disappointedly simple to settle into my own middle-brain muddle, such endless, complacent confidence in my images, my thoughts, my ideas, my plans, my future, my life … eternal. In this ego-fried-up mush mess, faith in Jesus the Christ does not always flow so smooth. Not so, not like a spring-flood river straight down through the greenwood.
But Jesus isn’t going anywhere. My doubts are sending him away to greener pastures. If anyone has eternal life, he does. If anyone knows how to communicate with me (or you or any of us), he does. Jesus is the smartest man who ever lived. Dallas Willard lived long enough to know that and say that. And Dallas Willard was mighty smart himself.
David, you are troubling yourself this morning, and caught in your thoughts. Again. How is your breathing right now? Are you even looking at your watch when it tells you to … breathe?
I like getting caught up in my thoughts, and my words (your words?) that flood the page. It’s fun for me. I feel a-flight. I feel the wax melting in my wings, and my breath catches, and I hope you’re here!
Great! Don’t worry about flying too high. Don’t take the conclusions that rise up in your flowing fountains, too much to heart. The questions you ask, keep asking them and listen for my answers, not so much your own.
My brain is not “middling.” Nor “bird.” My brain is where you came from, Davey-Boy.
Shh, Jesus! Listen to the murmurs of the crowd coming up the walk. We’re kind of vulnerable here, what if they walk right over us, through us, or drown us in their muttering and mush? Maybe we could wander over here under the tree, away from the nightclub mob.
What, and get lynched? I think we’ll stay away from trees, thank you very much. No, they are just looking for an honest man. Want to stand out and present yourself that way? Their lanterns sway, their voices whisper threats, but just look inside their eyes. They are desperate, Davey, looking for once and for all just to see an honest man.
Last night on TV I heard a teenage girl call herself a coward, because she would not stand up and be killed to save her father. She lived, of course, while her father did not. And she would not forgive herself. I don’t really think that shame will be helping her be more courageous in the future. Words just don’t get to the heart of the matter. So I won’t call myself a coward. I’ll just stand here, Jesus, and let you take the lead. Onward! Into the fiery furnace.
April Fool’s Day today, by the way. And on this strange first day of the “cruelest month,” I love you. Stick with me, and we’ll be nobody’s fool.
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