Maundy Thursday Reflection

 "It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." -John 13:1-17

Maundy Thursday. The day we remember Jesus' Last Supper with His disciples. The day we remember the example that Jesus set for us: to have a lifestyle of service towards others. Jesus set an example before us and said we would be blessed if we followed suit. Right before his crucifixion and the insurmountable suffering he was about to endure he spends his time serving his followers. How often do we serve others, let alone when we know we are about to suffer? What is even more beautiful in this moment is that Jesus washes the feet of the man he knew was going to betray him.

This passage of Scripture was impacted my life tremendously throughout the past few years. When my wife and I first became friends we led a shoe drive for Haiti that ended with a foot washing service with different small groups on our college campus. Following that semester I worked for the nonprofit YouthWorks where we ended every week of the summer with a foot washing service. These services often resulted in tears being shed and many unexpected signs of grace among the groups. I even got to witness a student, who at the beginning of the week had been antagonistic towards the trip, come up to the other staff to ask if she could wash our feet. It was an eye opening experience. After two wonderful summers of working for YouthWorks I married my best friend and we incorporated foot washing in our ceremony as a way to reflect our decision to have mutual submission and service towards one another. Due to all of this Maundy Thursday has become one of my favorite aspects of Holy Week and is a wonderful reminder of the importance of Communion and serving one another in our daily lives.   

 "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them" -Jesus 

How can we do these things--find ways to symbolically wash peoples feet--both during this Holy Week and beyond?

Jurassic World: Control and Community

In the midst of my busy schedule of this past weekend I was able to take a break and see the new movie Jurassic World and having only seen the first Jurassic Park movie I found that it was a very good film that did a great job at connecting to the first movie by adding to the story and making funny references throughout. Overall I was very impressed with this very fun movie and my fiance and I walked away from it with a deep, philosophical conversation.We felt that the movie did an excellent job at appealing to people's adrenaline rushes they get from a good adventure as well as providing very insightful commentary to our society today. Jurassic World was an excellent reminder to us of how much we, as a society, try to control everything and even at times 'play God'.

We try to control our schedule. We want to control our food intake. Where we shop. What we wear. Who we hang out with. Where we live. Here in the states we all have a set plan that we must follow or for some of us who desire to be spontaneous we have the freedom to control how spontaneous we are. We even go as far as trying to control nature and the animals that God has created; the movie does an excellent job of communicating this very message to us. Although I wonder how many will overlook that for the awesome CGI, epic giant dinosaur fights, and the tiny bit of romance. All of these things are great things, but why is it that we are always trying to control things in life?

One of my favorite lines of the film is when the park owner, Masrani says, "The key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control." This is shown all throughout the film that when they try and control the dinosaurs and plan out what will happen, things simply do not happen how they want.

I have noticed this with my own life. When I try and control exactly what will happen and when it will--and trust me, I am a huge planner and often try to do just that--things typically do not go according to plan. There have been times where I have tried to plan a spontaneous, romantic date and it goes no where according to my plan. It still ends up being a fun goofy date but, nothing like I planned. 

When I chose to go to MVNU to study Youth Ministry I had no intention of staying in the same community that the university was in afterwards. I had all these ideas of where I wanted to control my life to be at, however, because I let God have control I ended up staying in this incredible, often overlooked and undervalued, growing, little college town. I never would have been able to plan or control that I would one day end up working part time for a coffee shop where I would meet the most incredible people. There was one day I met an Amish poet who wanted to share his poems with me. Another time I met an elderly woman who I was able to sit with during my break and learn all about her bar tending years in her youth and how she was an american pool champion and had traveled all over the US competing unofficially. I never would have met incredible baristas that are willing to talk theology, religion, and spirituality with me and not try to argue against my more liberal leanings. Life truly does seem more fun when I surrender control and let God lead.

Another beautiful element involving control that Jurassic World exhibited was the idea that those who wanted to seize control were not really the true leaders. It was those who gave up control that ultimately were given the authority to lead. It was those who did not want to control others that were the ones who were trusted to lead. This very idea of control was also very connected to community and our instinctive need for it. In the film (SPOILER!!!) the Jurassic World staff are keeping a new genetically modified dinosaur in captivity and isolation until it is ready to be presented to the public and this creature ends up out smarting them and escaping from its cage in order to reek havoc and kill those who kept it in isolation. Early on in the film they share how they assumed it would be okay to keep the dinosaur in captivity and isolation because the raptors that Chris Pratt's character raised and trained were brought up in captivity. Pratt's character explains that it worked for them because they grew up with siblings in a pack. They had others with them to learn from. They had community. When we isolate ourselves and are forced to be without others we can fall into destructive patterns. When we are completely isolated we are much more susceptible for destruction and our downfall. At the end of the day this is just another beautiful reminder that we desperately need community. We need others. We are made to be with people and not to live alone. Our survival skills will not be enough if we are alone.

Oftentimes in the Christian community it can be easy to fall into American materialism and assume that we need to be in control. I think there are many who identify by the term "Christian" and yet try to live a life where they can control everything. There are those who try to gain the upper hand because they think this title gives them the right to do so. That, however, is simply missing the point. If we look to Jesus, the one we are called to imitate and follow as our Rabbi, we can see that this life is not one of control. Jesus himself, part of the Holy Trinity, did not view control as something to focus on, but instead humbled himself to serve others. That is what we must do. This is so wonderfully shown in Philippians 2:5-8 which says,

  

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

So let's stop trying to play God and control things. Stop trying to fight nature. And stop trying to be alone. Let's embrace community and nature and live life accepting we cannot always be in control and life will still be okay.

Be the Change in Your Community.

Since the very first "Bible Lesson" that I wrote myself I have found that I am passionate about the verse Matthew 25:40 and in a larger spectrum I am most drawn to passages of Scripture that proclaim good news to the poor, oppressed, marginalized, etc. It is this very reason that I am drawn to books such as When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, The Hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns, and A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans to name a few. This is also why I am so often drawn to liberation theology and firmly believe that as those who claim to follow the Resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we have a duty to love and serve the marginalized, poor, least of these, etc. It is not merely something good we might do, nor a legalistic set of rules, but it is how we live out this lifestyle of the Kingdom. There is so much disunity, dysfunction, and brokenness on this side of the Kingdom and so that alone shows the need for the Body of Christ to bring change in the world.

I bring up all of this because I have found that there are certain causes that people say everyone needs to contribute and be main advocates for. I have often been told that if I truly believed in Matthew 25:40--which I hope I do since I have it tattooed on my wrist--then I needed to put most of my focus on advocating and speaking up for this one certain group. You fill in the blank. Sometimes I wonder if helping the least of these has been used to guilt people into supporting certain causes or advocate for certain groups.

I am not saying that those people are wrong or that those certain groups do not need help and advocacy, but what I want to argue is that not everyone is called to every single group. Some people may feel led to work with promoting a pro-life from birth to death mentality, some may feel led to work with the homeless, some may feel led to work with those marginalized in the LGBTQ community, some may feel led to adopt, some may feel led to foster, and some may feel led to work with providing education to third world countries. All of these are groups and settings that we should support and be in favor of, however, I would say that people should choose where they are being led to put their focus.

In our overbooked, over-scheduled life we cannot take part in every cause and we cannot fully devote ourselves to every marginalized group. I believe that we should always be standing with the marginalized in whatever context we are living/working and that we should focus on ministering to those specifically in our context. It is also important to know where, with the help of the Spirit, we can be most effective with the skills and gifts that God has equipped us with. Instead of trying to tackle every social issue out there, we need to pick the ones we have been equipped to work with and encourage those who are called to other issues to pursue those.

As the Body of Christ we need to follow the pattern of Jesus when He said,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to let the oppressed go free,

 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” 

(Luke 4:18-19 NRSV) 

We should be striving to share the good news of liberation from oppression that Jesus provides. We should be striving for a holistic understanding of transformation that cares about each person's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. We need to proclaim this good news to those who are marginalized in our context. We need to use the gifts that we have been given to impact our communities. 

So who are you called to minister and serve? Who needs liberation in your community? What has God given you a passion for? Homelessness? Human Trafficking? Gender Inequality? LGBTQ issues? Abortion? AIDS/HIV? Orphans? Lack of education? World Hunger? Thirst? Whatever it may be, what it is that breaks your heart...go after it. 

Let's stop getting overwhelmed by all the issues in the world and thinking there is not a change we can make. Let's instead act on what we can, live out our passions, focus on the change we can make in our own communities, and advocate for the issues we have been given a passion for, while empowering others to advocate for the issues they feel led to stop.

If we work together, as the Body of Christ, with all of our different passions and gifts, we can truly make a difference and help usher in the Kingdom.