Prairie Musings

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (Easter 6C, John 14:23-29).  The peace of the Lord be always with you…[“And also with you.”] We say this every week, don’t we? Do you remember where exactly in the liturgy this happens?...Right at the beginning of the service of Holy Communion. Right at the start of the celebration of the Sacrament of Christ’s on-going presence. Jesus promises us his presence in today’s Gospel reading, and he promises to send us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to teach us and remind of what Jesus has said to us. What is it that Jesus has said to us? One of the first things that comes to mind is Jesus’ summary of the law: “love God, love your neighbor as yourself.” The second thing might be what we call the Great Commission: “Go to all the world, making disciples and teaching.” But you know, based on number of occurrences, can you guess, t...

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).   (Easter 5C: Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35) This is an emotional weekend for me: my middle son, Joey, is graduating from high school, and those of you who know me well will not be surprised to find that at any given moment you’ll see me breaking into tears of joy because I'm so proud of him, or tears of excitement because I'm so happy for his next step in life at Doane University this fall, or tears of despair because he'll be moving away to his dorm room and I'll miss him so...SO…this weekend my brain is overflowing with all the great memories of Joey throughout the years. Like many kids, Joey loved bugs and spiders when he was younger. For his 5 th birthday, he got a bug science kit that included these great, giant, green ...

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces….But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. This reading from Isaiah, the Suffering Servant hymn, is found in the Good Friday liturgy in the earliest known lectionary, from the 5th century. It draws parallels between Jesus and the annual Day of Atonement ritual in ancient Israel. This was (and still is) the holiest day of the year for Jews, the day when the High Priest would take two goats, sacrificing one on the altar, and putting his hands on the head of the other to lay on it the collective sins of the community, then releasing it into the wilderness, where it would carry off the sins, neither the goat nor the sins to ever be seen again: God had put the sins of the people away, cast them out. If you ask the average American Christian o...

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (John 12:3) Psychologists tell us that our sense of smell is more powerfully linked to our brains, and our memories, than any other sensory perception. I certainly believe them. For me, one of those potent olfactory memories is the smell of that pink bottle of Johnson’s Baby Lotion. Sometimes it’s hard for me to fight back the tears, even though my youngest child is 13, when I smell that moisturizer—all I have to do is close my eyes and I see my kids fresh from the bath; I hear the music of their giggles as we play the stinky feet game, and I rejoice in the gift of love and I marvel in God’s sacred miracle of new life. Today’s Gospel reading gives us another story of anointing with perfumed oil, one that I don’t doubt stayed with the disciples just as tangibly as baby lotion does with me: Mary pours her perfumed oil on Je...

Maundy Thursday, 2018, John 13:34-35 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. What are we doing here? This night, when we celebrate the origins of our weekly Eucharistic celebration, is the perfect night to ask that question. What are we doing here? It’s appropriate that we ask it of ourselves, because I guarantee you it’s a question more and more people, especially the growing percentage of our population who are “nones” and don’t have any affiliation or experience with a church, are asking themselves about us. I once read an analogy by someone who said we Christians are in grave danger of being like an old boating club. Visitors walk into the club…At first they are engaged by the interesting stories about boating they hear, and the fascinating boating artifacts and antiques they find sitting around the club, but thes...

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (1 Cor. 8:1 NRS) Did you notice in today’s reading from Paul, it almost sounds like the Corinthians communicate via Twitter? It’s as if Paul’s letter to them is full of echoes of their own tweets: “all of us possess knowledge,” “no idol in the world really exists,” “there is no God but one,” “food will not bring us close to God.” The disciples in Corinth are trying to justify their actions with little sound bites. What actions exactly are they justifying? It was a common pagan practice at that time to sacrifice an animal to some deity or another, burn a bit of it in offering on the altar, and either sell the rest of the animal in the marketplace or use the meat at a festival or social event. Because of this, Corinthian Christians who ate meat could be eating food that was sacrificed to an idol. There were many disciples in Corinth who were not going to let that stop them from enjoying a nice steak or cause them to turn down an invitation t...

How many of you have already started preparing—or at least planning—your Christmas feast? You all know I’m the chef at our house, and my preparation is well under way. I went to Costco yesterday and bought what my daughter Maggie called a “log of beef” – so big it could be the one delivered to the Flintstone’s car, if you remember the opening sequence of that cartoon, and it’s already encrusted with salt and pepper in my fridge. As someone who loves to cook, I know that sharing a meal is about sharing ourselves—and I also know it takes a lot of preparation beforehand so that I can be fully present during the meal and not running around the kitchen. This Fourth Sunday of Advent is our last chance to prepare for the Christmas Eucharistic feast–our annual celebration of Christ’s incarnation, of God’s presence on earth as one of us. As part of our Advent preparation here, we’ve been reading and watching C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,” and there’s a banquet scene in ...