Being retired for a whole two weeks one thing I'm finding is time to just plain muse about stuff.
A friend emailed me and asked, "Do you feel guilty about not going to work."
To which I responded emphatically, "NO!"
To which she re-responded, "Couldn't you just feel a LITTLE guilty?" (The answer is still, "no.")
That little conversationette has been on my mind. My work was done. It was time for me to go and for the next God experience to unfold in my former parish.
I think I understand what she was saying underneath the questions. "Don't you miss us?" "I like you and you like me, why can't you stay a little longer." (That means, "until I think you're ready to go.")
As that's been banging around my head this little section of John's resurrection narrative came to me. Mary Magdalene went to Jesus' tomb (other gospels have more women there) and found it empty. She runs and tells two of Jesus' followers (disciples) the body must have been stolen. Peter and a disciple who is called either the beloved disciple or simply the other run to the tomb, see it as she described with the grave clothes neatly folded -- signs that it was not a snatch and grab body theft. They do not understand what's happening.
Then comes this section in which Mary Magdalene sees Jesus -- the first appearance of the risen Christ according to John. The section of this story that has bemused me is when Mary, rapt in joy and adoration, tries to hold on to him. He says,
"Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father . . . ." Jn 20: 17I think the conversation with my friend has helped me understand this resurrection piece. Jesus told the disciples what was going to happen to him -- about his death and resurrection. They didn't believe him, but now it has happened. One of the things that he told them, and John makes a point of it, is that he has to leave because he has done what he was sent to do and God has another who is coming to be with them. For ease of language we say it is the Holy Spirit. The Greek is a complex word that can mean, guide, comforter, counselor, teacher.
In other words, God has a plan. Jesus is the center post as Christians hear God speak. But Jesus is not the entire plan. Even Jesus, as the clear revelation of what God wants us to know, is only part of the plan.
Mary wanted to hang on to the Jesus she knew, even though he was now changed -- in a very different state. (I'd call rising from the dead after a brutal murder a very different state, wouldn't you?)
Jesus says it's time to see what God has in store for you next, that you can trust God HAS something in store for you at the uneasy change points in life and if is for good, not evil.
As Jesus has done, so believers (like me) try to learn and follow.
Jesus work included being a friend of people no one else was interested in. Jesus helped people in their crisis moments. I hope that is what I have done as a Pastor.
I'm sure Mary felt somewhat like my friend, "How can you leave us? Don't you feel guilty about not going to work?"
Jesus answer to her is my answer to my friend, "No. How can I feel guilty about accomplishing what I have been sent to do? You may think I should stay, but the BOSS says it's time to go. The BOSS really does know what's best."
Jesus answer to her is my answer to my friend, "No. How can I feel guilty about leaving when I know with absolute assurance that God still has a plan for you and will send the next installment of what is needed for you (for a congregation, for any of us facing unasked for change in our lives) to become fuller what God has created you to be?"
I do not feel guilty about quitting. It was time. God has a plan and my part, with that group of seekers was done. With the time change last Sunday and most churches having relatively early services I missed church Sunday for the first time in a LONG LONG time and I don't feel guilty about that, either.
Well, okay, I feel a little guilty about that part.
Pax vobiscum!
About hanging on to the Jesus we know . . .
ReplyDeleteWe continue to do that. We want the Lutheran, or Baptist, or Roman Catholic or, dare I say, Islamic God we have come to know. Knowing a facet of God, we try to make that all of God.
But God continues to be the One, the Unknowable, who shines light in our darkness as God knows we need. And that sometimes means we have to change our way of being God people.
Problems arise when we don't do that. And, it seems, problems often arise in religion for this precise reason.