Joy is like the rain (song)

It rained today, and I thought of the song "Joy is Like the Rain" by Medical Mission Sisters.


I saw raindrops on my window
Joy is like the rain.
Laughter runs across my pain
Slips away and comes again
Joy is like the rain.

I saw clouds upon a mountain
Joy is like a cloud.
Sometimes silver, sometimes gray
Always sun not far away
Joy is like a cloud.

I saw Christ in wind and thunder
Joy is tried by storm.
Christ asleep within my boat
Whipped by wind, yet still afloat
Joy is tried by storm.

I saw raindrops on the river
Joy is like the rain.
Bit by bit the river grows
Till all at once it overflows
Joy is like the rain.

Remembering Jesus

In less than two weeks, I will (God willing) be going to Scotland with a professor and fellow seminary students.  We will stay in the Iona Abbey for a week, where we will worship, work, and dialogue with Christians from around the world.  I am excited for the ecumenical experience, and that this will be my first time traveling to a foreign country (besides Mexico) without my family--and Scotland, at that--and that it will be my first time being in a monastery (unless you include the Redemption House).  Following that will be a week traveling through Edinburgh, Sheffield, and Market Harborough, England.

To prepare for the trip, we are required to read about Iona.  Today I read the following quote by the community's founder, George MacLeod:

Suppose the material order, as we have argued, is indeed the garment of Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost?  Suppose the bread and wine, symbols of all creation, is indeed capable of redemption awaiting its Christification?  Then what is the atom but the emergent body of Christ?

The Feast of the Transfiguration is 6th August.  That is the day we 'happened' to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.  We took His Body and we took His Blood and we enacted a Cosmic Golgotha.

MacLeod supposes that the universe is God's garment, and that bread and wine are symbols for this garment.  I recently suggested that the curtain of the Jewish temple was the garment of God, and that its tearing could have signified God's grieving the death of Jesus.  If the universe too is God's garment, symbolized by bread and wine, then breaking bread is our way of tearing garments to grieve the death of Jesus. 

I wonder if we can take it further.  Paul writes, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26).  The church teaches that proclaiming the Lord's death means proclaiming the reconciliation between God and humanity, between God and the universe, even, and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus' death.  Some early church theologians like Irenaeus taught that when God became a human in Jesus, the very matter of humanity changed, that the Word became flesh so that flesh might become Word; in other words, God became human so that humans could become like God.

In even other words, the atoms of God mingled with the atoms of creation, and thus God bound Godself with the universe in a way never done before.  (Or perhaps God had done this before; maybe it had been this way from the beginning, but Christians see this union in the incarnation of Christ.)  So when Jesus died, in a sense God and the universe died with him, but when Jesus was raised from the dead, every atom in the universe was resurrected too.  This is called deification, the process by which humans and the world become holy. 

This means, then, that to proclaim Jesus' death also means to proclaim the deaths of other people, and of other beings.  When we take communion, we proclaim that many people in this world die.  In the quote above, MacLeod proclaims the deaths of the victims of the atom bomb and of war.  The author of the book I was reading wrote how ironic it is that, while the church takes communion, many people in the world die of hunger.  When we break bread together, we tear God's garments and grieve the death of all people.

We may also proclaim the deaths of animals, stars, and worlds, because all matter finds its home in God.  The origin of the word "matter" could be "mater," which means "origin, source,  mother."  Matter is the original substance of something, the first thing that begets the following thing.  We were created in God's image, revealed fully when God put on flesh, so we share the same matter with God.  When God took on flesh, God mingled with carbon and oxygen and nitrogen and many other atoms.  The Incarnation suggests that every atom finds its home in God.  God is the Mother of us all, people and plants and proteins; God is our matter; as a matter of fact, God is The Mater.

If we share matter with God, then when our minds, hearts, bodies, and souls ache, does God feel that ache too?  Does God rejoice when we are joyful and happy?

There is more to communion than proclaiming Jesus' death until he comes.  In Luke's Gospel, when Jesus eats the Passover meal with his disciples, he takes a loaf of bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19).  Jesus does the same with the cup.  Christians take communion to remember Jesus.

What does it mean to remember Jesus?  To name a few possibilities, it could mean remembering the life of a remarkable man, his teachings and actions, and all the good God did through him.  It could mean remembering his death and resurrection and how they bring us peace.  It could mean remembering Jesus' work among the world today.

Literally, to re-member something is to put it back together again, like re-assembling a Lego person who has lost his legs, arms, and head somehow.  When we break bread, we mend Jesus.  When we grieve his death, somehow he lives among us.  If remembering is bringing to life, then forgetting is dying.  When we do not remember Jesus, he remains broken in us.  When we do not take communion, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection wither.

It is as though Jesus needs us to keep breaking bread in order to live among us.  That, if we stop, then we forget the story, and maybe even forget who we are.  That gives us much responsibility, maybe too much.  If we forget Jesus, then perhaps the universe will have to remember him.  What makes Jesus worth remembering?  What would the human race, the world, the universe even, be like if we forget him?

Surely God remembers Jesus, and will remember us.  Nehemiah weaves the prayer "Remember me, O my God" throughout his book, and I wonder if his prayer is one that we pray, or will pray.  When our lives have ended, when existence reaches its limit, who is there but God to remember us and bring us back to life?  Yet the strange thing is that Jesus asks us humans to remember him.

In remembering Jesus, we live.  In sharing a meal together, we feast on God, and the life of God springs up in us. Could this be true even when we eat together and not consciously or publicly remember Jesus? 

Unlike the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in John's Gospel, before the Passover, Jesus does not share a meal with his disciples, but washes their feet.  This suggests that foot washing is, for John, communion.  Instead of breaking bread, we rub toes and soles; instead of drinking wine, we pour water.  God puts all power in Jesus' hands, and Jesus uses that power to clean and refresh his friends, to welcome them as a host welcomes his guests.

A few days ago, while I was walking, it began raining.  I wondered if God was baptizing me.  Does God baptize the world with rain?  I was walking through an alley, and the water rushed downhill, soaking my shoes and socks.  It seemed like Jesus was washing my feet. 

"Remember me, O my God, for good."

Tonight in the Resource Room at ESR, I hung out with Ezra and Nehemiah.  I would call them my friends, but I am only beginning to get acquainted with them.

For my Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah class, I am writing a paper on Ezra and Nehemiah.  As thrilling as Chronicles is, Ezra and Nehemiah have compelled me.  The most moving sections of Ezra and Nehemiah to me are what scholars call the memoirs.  One writer, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, says the memoir form is unique to Ezra-Nehemiah in the Hebrew Scriptures.  For example, Ezra writes, "When I heard this, I tore my garment and my mantle, and pulled the hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled" (Ezra 9:3).  It's a shocking action, but one that clearly defines Ezra's character and emotions.  Throughout his book, Nehemiah repeats variations of the following line:  "Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people" (Neh. 5:19).

Other writers in the Hebrew Scriptures write in the first person; for instance, the authors of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.  Because their writing in the first person welcomes me to occupy their words, I am drawn to these books.  But these books are not memoirs because they are not autobiographical accounts of someone's life; rather, they are poetry, praise, prayer, wisdom.  (Although the Teacher's observations in Ecclesiastes sound like memoir:  "I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind" [Ecclesiastes 1:14].)

Telling other people about our lives is, for most of us, the most common way we speak.  When we tell each other how our day is going, it is memoir-ish.  The first sentence of this blog post is memoir-ish.  Many of peoples' Facebook posts are memoir-ish. 

Memoir shares the same root as memory, whose base "men-"/"mon-" means "think."  This suggests that when we think, we are remembering.  I remember, therefore I am.  When I think, I am remembering experiences, whether in the form of words, thoughts, emotions, or something else, and perhaps sometimes I create new experiences in my rearranging those memories.  When I think, I re-member scattered pieces into a living whole.

That's what I do when I tell stories, or so I think.  I connect various memories of my life into a cohesive narrative.  Often stories are not told chronologically.  The purpose of telling many stories is not so much to give the facts about what happened, but to understand what happened, and I can understand what happened by how I arrange those events.  Each event means something different in a different context, and so by changing the order of the events, I change the context, thus discovering and creating new meanings from those events.

For example, I recently wrote a story about a road trip I went on with friends to Kansas.  If my purpose was simply to tell what happened as it happened, the most accurate way I could have ended the story would probably have been with our parking in front of the Redemption House in San Diego.  But my goal was not to recite the facts; I was telling a story, and in telling the story, I wanted to focus on my experience of being welcomed by strangers.  It's not that I changed the facts; I tried to be as accurate as possible.  Instead, I rearranged the facts.  I could rearrange the facts in a different order and the facts would be the same, but the story would be different.

Ezra and Nehemiah are a scattered collection of documents, memoirs, prayers, genealogies, and other forms.  Reading the books feels like walking on an uneven sidewalk, with some blocks slanted upward beside tree roots.  Tamara Cohn Eskenazi believes the editor of the books arranged these documents intentionally, and the trick, or the challenge, is to discover what the editor was trying to say.

In the story I wrote, the meaning becomes clear at the end, in which I say good bye to Ryan, who had welcomed us, and drive myself back into Guymon, Oklahoma, in the rental car for the first and last time.  Ezra-Nehemiah ends with Nehemiah summarizing the work he did for God, and writing, "Remember me, O my God, for good" (Neh. 13:30).  This suggests that, if we connect Ezra and Nehemiah as one work, the entire book is an account of the efforts of the people of God, especially Ezra and Nehemiah, presented to God as a prayer.  Ezra-Nehemiah is a Psalm, perhaps the first recorded prose poem.  Ezra-Nehemiah are not just editors, compiling this history of God's people, but priests, offering them to God to remember, to arrange, to reunite, to have the final say about the meaning of the story. 

The Tearing of the Temple Curtain

Lately I have been thinking about the tearing of the temple curtain at Jesus' crucifixion.  In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, at the moment Jesus cries with a loud voice and breathes his last breath, the curtain of the temple is torn in two.  It is torn "from top to bottom" (Matt. 27:51, Mark 15:38), suggesting that God tears it.  In Luke's Gospel, the curtain is torn in two before Jesus cries with a loud voice "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46) and before he breathes his last breath.  Luke mentions the tearing of the curtain in the same sentence as a description of darkness covering the land.  John's Gospel does not mention the tearing of the temple curtain. 

Growing up, the way I understood the tearing of the curtain was that, as soon as Jesus died, God split the curtain in two, showing that God and humanity are no longer separated.  The curtain in the temple enclosed the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant, which signified God's presence, was once placed; only the high priest could enter that space once a year. With the curtain split, and with Jesus' death, now all people could have direct access to God.

When writer Peter Rollins spoke at ESR this week, he gave his interpretation of the curtain's split.  For him, the curtain represents a prohibition, whose very presence creates in us a desire for something to give us fulfillment.  But the things we desire lead to our death, as we learn from Adam and Eve.  Thus, Jesus' death and the split curtain reveal emptiness; God is not in the Holy of Holies, as we believed.  Instead, God is on the cross.  Looking into an empty temple directs our eyes back to the cross, which can fill us with remorse over our sin of killing an innocent man, our crucifying God, a sin we continue whenever we scapegoat other people, whenever we condemn strangers.

Here is a third interpretation of the torn veil.  The first place in the Bible in which clothing is torn is in Genesis 37.  Joseph's brothers are so jealous of him that they strip him of the robe his father Jacob had given him as a gift, throw him in a pit, and then sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelites.  When his brother Reuben looks in the pit and finds Joseph missing, he tears his clothes (Gen. 37:29).  The brothers then kill a goat and dip Joseph's robe in its blood, and show the robe to their father, Jacob.  When Jacob sees the robe, he tears his garments and mourns (37:34).

Just as he thinks Joseph was torn to pieces by a wild animal, Jacob tears his garments to pieces.  Tearing one's clothes thus signified grief; in this case, mourning over a loved one's violent, undeserved death.  Because the curtain of the temple clothed the presence of God, the tearing of the curtain can be understood as God mourning the death of God's son Jesus who, like Joseph, was stripped of his clothes.  Unlike Joseph, though, Jesus was killed.  Jesus' death so grieved God that, like Jacob, God tore God's garments and wept. 

Satisfy Us in the Morning with Your Steadfast Love (sermon)

Here is a sermon on Psalm 90 that I preached today at West Richmond Friends Meeting.


Psalm 90 is a song, a prayer by Moses.  He begins by describing the immensity of God, who has been our home throughout all generations:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Then, Moses contrasts God with us humans.  When Moses says, “You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals,’” Moses calls forth to memory when God created the world and the first people.  After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God cursed them, saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Moses continues to describe the dustness of human existence, comparing it to a dream that is swept away, or grass that flourishes in the morning and fades in the evening.

For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

Here Moses connects our finitude with our sins and with God’s anger.  If you are like me, Moses’ description of God’s anger and wrath may seem overwhelming.  If I were to write a prayer to God, I would not focus on God’s anger and wrath, of which I have not experienced much, if any, but rather on God’s kindness, mercy, patience, and love.  Moses knows about such characteristics of God, but Moses had also experienced God’s wildness.

When God first called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, Moses saw a burning bush whose leaves were not consumed, and he hid his face from God’s presence.  Later, Moses witnessed God’s power when God divided the Red Sea, through which the Israelites escaped the Egyptian armies.  In the wilderness, when the Israelites created and worshiped a golden calf instead of God, God was so angry that God's anger could have consumed the Israelites.  But Moses interceded, asking God to turn and have compassion on the people, and God listened.  Moses knew the power of God.

For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Moses draws a boundary around human existence.  But this boundary is not only quantitative; Moses describes what those years of life are like.  Our days end like a sigh, and are full of toil and trouble.  Again, Moses reminds us of the curse of death in the Garden of Eden.  When God cursed the ground, God said to the humans, “In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.”

Throughout the first half of his prayer, Moses has been describing the vanity of human life compared to the vastness of God and God’s power.  At the moment when God’s anger seems unbearable, Moses does not retreat, but makes a request:  “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”  In other words, teach us to live each day with intention and meaning so that our innermost being may be wise.

Turn, O LORD!  How long?
Have compassion on your servants!

Just as Moses asked God to turn and have compassion on the Israelites in the wilderness, here Moses is asking God to turn and have compassion—but this time, his prayer is grander.  Moses is not simply asking God to forgive the Israelites for worshiping an idol.  Rather, Moses is asking God to reverse the very curse of death.

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

I believe this is the heart of the psalm.  Although human existence is short and toilsome, Moses prays that God would satisfy, fulfill our deepest longings with God’s steadfast love, which endures from generation to generation, as long as God endures.  Moses prays that God would satisfy us in the morning, which is the most vulnerable and precious time of the day.  The morning is both the end and the beginning.  It follows our dreams, in which we may have wrestled with angels or been bewildered, and the morning comes before the sun has risen, before the challenges and joys we may face.  The morning is both the obscurest and clearest time of the day.  It is a time of transition, and is the foundation of the day, and it is at this time that Moses asks that God would satisfy us with God’s steadfast love so that we may sing for joy and celebrate life.

It is good news that Moses prays this.  It teaches me that I, too, can pray this when my life seems to have little meaning, when I have lost count of my days, when each day seems full of challenges.  It teaches me that in spite of death in its various forms, I can hope and pray for joy and gladness for all my days. 

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

In contrast to the result of the curse of death, work that was toilsome and troublesome, Moses prays that God would prosper and establish our work so that it brings joy, so that it bears fruit.  It is related to a life that is satisfied with God’s steadfast love.  May God give us such meaningful, fulfilling work.

Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses, and it can be our prayer.  But I would also like to think of Psalm 90 as a prayer of Jesus.  Today is Palm Sunday, when much of the Church remembers when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, which meant that he was Israel’s king, and that the reign of God was at hand, a reign which came not through force or violence but through peace.

In many ways, this reign of God answered Moses’ prayer, reversing the curse of death.  Jesus brought life to people.  He healed the sick, fed the hungry, proclaimed good news to the stranger, clothed the naked.  Through Jesus, all were satisfied in the morning with God’s steadfast love.  Yet 2,000 years later, we know that the curse has not been reversed.  People still pray Psalm 90, asking for God’s satisfaction.  How can Jesus have said the reign of God had come?

I think it is like how last Wednesday was officially the first day of Spring.  But if you told that to anyone, no one would believe you, especially with this storm today.  Yet we know that Spring is coming, and has come.  Something has turned.

The work which God had established for Jesus’ hands led him to his death.  In the Christian calendar, the week following Palm Sunday is Holy Week, in which many Christians remember how Jesus suffered. The kingship of Jesus, and even the reign of God, is not glorious, as we may have expected.  Rather, it comes in humility.

That is why I think we can read Psalm 90 as a prayer of Jesus.  Surely, Jesus knew that God was his dwelling place, that God was from everlasting to everlasting.  Jesus knew how fleeting is human existence, and that God turns us back to dust.  Jesus experienced the wrath of death when on the cross he prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Jesus did not live as long as most people live. 

At the same time, God had established and prospered the work of Jesus’ hands.  Jesus had counted his days and lived with wisdom.  And three days after Jesus died, early in the morning, Jesus was satisfied with God’s steadfast love, and he rejoices and is glad all his days.

We live in an in-between period, in a time when it is Spring and yet not quite Spring, when the reign of God has come and yet is not fully here.  We are awake, and the sky is alight, but the sun has not yet risen.  How do we live in this time?  We can pray:

God, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.



Verses are from the NRSV.