On grief

 Edited

One of the things I do is conduct funerals. And at a funeral, one of the things I often do, on behalf of the family, is to tell the story of the deceased. To offer the eulogy (Greek: to speak well [of the dead]).

This has not always been the way. Until 2000, the Church of England funeral service made no provision for a tribute or eulogy. Until 1980, the deceased was not even named, beyond our brother/sister, the focus being presenting the congregation with their own mortality and the sure and certain hope that Jesus has defeated death. After 1980, the deceased got a mention by name, but only at the point, towards the very end of the service, where they were commended to God.

But the population is no longer sure or certain about death having been defeated, and we do not want to be confronted with our own mortality, and so we want a funeral to be a celebration of a life, and the Church has sought to navigate a middle way, to help people move towards the hope they have mislaid.

And so, before a funeral, I meet with the family, and help them to do some detective work, to piece together the life we will remember. What do you know about your father or mother, your husband or wife, before you were a part of their life? And at every funeral, the congregation, even family members, find out something they did not know.

The story of siblings Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, told in the Gospels, is such an example of family history. Here are some parts of their personal histories that might be news to you. Some scholars (see, for example, Mary Stromer Hanson) believe that Martha was a minister, who in our language and context might be the parish vicar. Twice, she is described as ministering in the same way that is used of Moses in relation to the people he led out of Egypt, and of the apostles, and by Paul of those in whose homes the churches he wrote to meet. Some scholars believe that Mary was a peripatetic evangelist, or in our language a missionary. The biographer Luke describes her as ‘sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning from him,’ which is a way of saying that she was one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices, or disciples, one of the seventy-two he had recently sent out ahead of him to every place he intended to go. Lazarus is unmarried, is not the head of the family (that is his sister Martha) and does not speak. Some scholars believe that he was significantly disabled, which would also imply that his sisters were what today we would call his carers.

These overlapping, interwoven lives resulted in tensions between them, as for so many families. Once, when Jesus was travelling about, having sent seventy-two apprentices ahead of him to every place he was about to go, Mary among them, he arrived in their town and entered their home. The biographer Luke tells us that Martha was anxious about the demands her ministry placed upon her (perhaps due to the added demands of caring for Lazarus though Luke does not mention him) and asked Jesus if he shared (if he could relate to) her anxieties? She asked him to tell Mary, when he next came across her in whichever place she had gone (for neither Martha nor Jesus address Mary, and neither does she reply to them, suggesting that she is not present), to return home and share the burden with her sister. But Jesus would not, instead helping Martha see things from the perspective of her sister Mary, and at the same time to refocus on the essentials of her own ministry and family commitments. If extraneous things are left undone, they are left undone.

I am not Jesus, but people confide such sibling tensions to me all the time. This is common to family life, especially where there are elderly parents or other family members with additional support needs.

The biographer John recounts the events surrounding the death of Lazarus. And like the traditional Church of England funeral service, the focus is not Lazarus but his sisters who survive him (Lazarus having neither wife nor children).

John recounts their grief, which is uncontainable. He also notes the way in which it flips their behaviour. Martha, who ministered in her own village, leaves the village behind in search of Jesus on his way. Mary, who had left the village to carry the good news to other parishes, cannot face leaving home. Again, while grief does not follow a formula, this is not uncommon. They will need support to find a meeting place, common ground, literally and metaphorically at the boundary edge of the village.

John also recounts the empathy Jesus shows, and his engagement with his own grief at the death of a friend. The outpouring of his grief is described both as noisy and noiseless, making a sound like a stallion and shedding wrenching silent tears. John describes Jesus as stirring up his spirit, and as stilling his spirit. Like a horse-whisperer, he trains his grief, so that something wild, untamed and free, becomes something useful, something he can partner with, something that can carry him from where he is to where he will be. This is a masterclass in grief-work, in acknowledging what has been lost and fashioning a new future that is different (and it is different, even though in this instance Jesus will resuscitate Lazarus).

John also tells us that the other mourners (unhelpfully translated as the Jews: but they are all Jewish; these are better translated as the Judeans, in contrast to Jesus and his closest apprentices, who are Galileans) pass judgement on Jesus. Some see his grief as evidence of how much he loved Lazarus; while others are critical: if this man heals the sick, why could he not bother to heal his own friend before it was too late?

It is important to recognise that these Judeans are, themselves, grieving, and that grief can skew how we relate to others. We want people to make allowances for us but may find it harder to make allowances for them. While grief is raw, we can be hurtful. In our pain, we can inflict pain. Again, this experience is readily recognisable, one that a vicar comes across all the time, that calls us to help family members navigate this liminal space. Grieving people need to be gentle on themselves and others. We are all grieving people. We all need help to not lose sight of this.

Luke and John are both master story tellers, and between them help us to weave together a story of a family, a story that takes in each member, and brings together life and death under the care of Jesus, in sure and certain hope not only of the resurrection of the dead at some future point but of the remaking of our world every time it comes to an end.

For those of us who belong to the Church, this is our family, our story. Our tensions, our grief, our faith, and our hope.

And we rehearse this story again and again in our own lives.

 

Martha, Mary and Lazarus

 

This week I have been thinking a lot about the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, recorded by the biographer John (11.1-12.19).

The siblings Martha, Mary and Lazarus are an unusual family in their cultural context. None of them have married. Martha is the head of the household. Martha and Mary are both highly articulate, while Lazarus is non-verbal. He likely lives with some form of disability, perhaps both physical and intellectual.

The biographer Luke tells the story of Jesus sending seventy or possibly seventy-two disciples ahead of him to every place he intends to go (Luke 10). In this context we are introduced to Martha and her sister Mary, though Luke does not mention their brother Lazarus.

Jesus enters the household of which Martha is the matriarch. Luke tells us that Mary has sat at the feet of Jesus and learned from him. This is a culturally specific way of saying Mary was one of his disciples. In the context of Luke 10, she is one of the seventy (two) who has been sent out by Jesus. She is not there in the house, but somewhere else, on the road, in another place Jesus is yet to get to.

Luke tells us that Mary is distracted by her tasks as a deacon. The point is not that she is in the kitchen, where some believe women belong, while her sister is shirking those traditional womanly duties. The word used of Mary is also used to describe Moses overseeing the whole descendants of Israel whom he has brought out of Egypt. It is used to describe the apostles who oversaw the church. The implication is that Mary is ministering in her village, leading a community that is based in her home. And the task is a challenging one.

Therefore, when Jesus comes into her home, she takes the opportunity to ask him to speak to her sister Mary, next time he sees her, out on the road, and tell her to come back home and share the work in the village with her sister Martha. Martha explicitly asks Jesus, does it not cause you any anxiety that my sister has abandoned me, has gone off gallivanting around the countryside leaving me to lead this community on my own?

Jesus responds, Martha, Martha, you are anxious about many things, but only one thing matters. That thing is to respond to Jesus in the way he asks of each one of us. He is not asking Martha to carry a burden she cannot carry alone, in her own strength, to do more than she is able; but neither is he going to ask Mary to abandon her own calling to follow him on the road. [1]

Now let us return to John 11. Lazarus has died, and his death has turned the world of his sisters upside-down. Martha, whose calling is to minister among her own neighbours in her village leaves the village behind and goes out on the road in search of Jesus coming to them. Mary, whose calling is to go ahead of Jesus to every place he was planning to go cannot face leaving the house. In relation to their calling, the actions of each sister has flipped.

But what happens? Jesus brings them together, the thing that Martha had asked of him and that he was not prepared to do for her at that time of her asking. They meet, at the meeting-point of their own distinct callings, at the edge of the village. And there they beat witness to the glory of God, the invisible made substantial.

At the place where neither sister is at peace with themselves, on account of their grief, there they are brought together. There they are built together, Martha and Mary, and Lazarus, who was dead but is now called out of the tomb.

And this is not the resurrection of the dead. This is resuscitation, albeit miraculous resuscitation after four days, an astonishing miracle. But Lazarus will die again, and resurrection remains beyond a future horizon.

But for us who are yet to go beyond that horizon, we still find ourselves on the edge of the village. Still find ourselves wrestling, at times, with our calling, and the overwhelming nature of the challenges we face, when called to serve our neighbours and play our part in the mending of the world, however that is expressed in and through our lives. Still find ourselves frustrated with other people and their apparent lack of understanding, or willingness to come alongside us and help share our load.

We all find ourselves here, sooner or later.

We all find ourselves tightly bound, and, if we are honest, stinking like a corpse.

And we all get to see, with our own eyes, the substance of God made one in substance with our flesh (or human flesh made one in substance with the glory of God).

[1] see Mary Stromer Hanson, The New Perspective on Mary and Martha.

 

Beggar's belief

 

Jo and I are just back from a week in Corfu. Last Sunday, we walked the coastal path from Nissaki to the picturesque Kalami Bay. Here the foothills of the Pantokrator tumble into the sea through groves of olive trees too numerous to count, each one, seemingly, the kingdom of a robin, that most territorial of songbirds. The path itself, strewn on both sides with cyclamen, spears of striking pink against the dark green, is rarely level, but rises and falls, falls and rises again.

The biographer Mark records the account of a man by the roadside, as Jesus was leaving Jericho (Mark 10.46-52). We are told that the man has lost sight, literally, of what is most precious. He now finds himself at the lowest point, for Jericho is the lowest inhabited place on the face of the earth, and this man is sitting by the road that leads out and even further down. This is, it turns out, exactly where he needs to be.

But what, or rather, whom, has this man lost sight of? The first answer to this question is, he has lost sight of Jesus. And yet, all is not lost, for, here, at the lowest point, he is aware of what he has lost and needs to regain. Here, he sees with renewed clarity what is at stake. And here, he cries out for mercy, taking upon himself the identity of a beggar.

The man calls Jesus, Son, or descendant, of David, that most renowned king who reigned over the golden age of Israel. And in response, Jesus stood still, stopped in his tracks. What has this man seen, this seemingly blind beggar, who sees what his own apprentices have failed to see, again and again? Call him here, Jesus says, and the crowd understand that this call strengthens the heart. Raises the dead, even.

The man leaps up, throwing off his cloak, throwing overboard the guise of a beggar, and stands before Jesus, who asks, What do you want me to do for you?

What do you want me to do for you? Is it not obvious? No. It is never obvious what someone else wants, or needs. It is not a thing to be assumed, but, rather, to be heard, and Jesus stands still, holds space for this to happen.

Master, let me see again. Go, says Jesus, your faith has made you well.

But the man does not go, not from Jesus. Rather, he goes with him, on the Way, that leads to Jerusalem, up, up, rising out of the rift valley, the road climbing far above, to a rock that looks like a skull, a place of execution.

What insight does the man regain? First, he sees Jesus, sees him for who he really is, sees him in a way that his own closest apprentices have yet to grasp.

But there is more. For in seeing Jesus for who he is, the Son of the Highly Exulted King, the man regains a clarity of sight into his own identity. For he is Bartimaeus, the Son of Timaeus. Bartimaeus means Son of Timaeus, which is to say, Mark names him twice over, to underline the fact. This man truly is the Son of Timaeus, or, as Timaeus means, the Son of the Highly Valued One.

Which is to say that Jesus and Bartimaeus see one another as when one looks in a mirror. The Son of the Highly Valued One sees himself, for the first time in who knows how long, in the eyes of the Son of the Highly Exulted King.

For when we see Jesus for who he truly is, there we also receive the gift of seeing ourselves as who we truly are. Who we are, but have forgotten, somewhere along the way.

The way up must first lead us down. And even the up on the far side of down leads to the cross, to death, and resurrection beyond, in this world as well as the next.

To know yourself you must be willing to take up the outer garment of a beggar, one crying out for mercy at the lowest point of all. And then, though only then, having encountered the living Mercy of God, you must be willing to throw that garment off, to throw that whole identity overboard. For at the most fundamental level of all, you are not a beggar at all, but highly valued, and the son or daughter of the Highly Valued One.

When did you lose sight of this, of the love of God for you and of your very life, your one, precious, unrepeatable, valuable beyond understanding, life?

 

Trauma

 

Further notes on Mark 10.17-31

Having presented us with the account of a man who managed many estates, who was desperate to become one of Jesus’ apprentices but unable to take hold of the thing he desired, the biographer Mark records for us Jesus’ conversation with those who were already his apprentices. Those whose number the man longed to join.

Jesus employs a culturally familiar aphorism to convey how hard it is for those who manage the business concerns of others – many estates – to live under and participate in God's sovereign will. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle – that is, impossible for humans, but not for God.

For anyone, to enter into this experience is like passing through a small gate, easy to miss. But for those who manage many affairs, it is incomparably harder.

The insurmountable problem preventing the man from embracing the thing he most desires is not greed. Here is a man whose actions show that he loves God wholeheartedly, soul-fully, mindfully, with every fibre of his being; and loved his neighbour as himself.

He is not a camel who is unwilling to pass through the eye of a surgeon’s needle, but a camel who has tried and failed, because it is impossible, for anyone other than God.

The insurmountable problem preventing the man from embracing the thing he wants most of all is that he has taken on an identity that is more than he can continue to bear and has become so traumatised that he is – ironically and tragically – unable to let it go. He has become traumatised by playing the role of redeemer to too many people.

This is often the tragedy of those who manage the affairs of others, whether businessmen or women or politicians, who come to see themselves – and often, themselves alone – as a saviour figure.

The same is true of churchwardens and clergy, along with the patriarchs and matriarchs of family units. Those who believe that if they do not do what needs to be done, the world will fall apart; for no one can do it as well as them.

Jesus saw the man and loved him. This is how Jesus always sees those who are weighed down with many burdens, often self-imposed, burdens that distort our character until we are, increasingly, unlovable. Unlovable, and yet loved. For this is how God sees us, with eyes of love, for Jesus can only do what he sees the Father doing.

Jesus looks on the traumatised man with compassion.

He loves him, and longs for him to be free of his burden. Free to heal, to grow strong again. To be who he was created to be, and not what he had become.

This is how God always beholds us, seeing us in our trauma, loving us, and moving to set us free.

This is why Jesus does not ask the man simply to surrender the estates he manages, but also to surrender the capital he would receive in so doing. Not because he is bound by greed, but because he is bound by the role of redeemer, of patron. Because he needs to be radically cut off from that false self.

This is not to say that we have no responsibility to help meet the needs of our neighbours, of our families, of the poor. We do (Jesus rebukes those who have the means to help but refuse to do so; he does not rebuke this man, or any trauma survivor). But we are not their – or anyone’s – saviour.

It is to say that Jesus is the master surgeon who rightly diagnoses our condition, who understands our trauma – often exacerbated by our own crude attempts to heal ourselves – and who holds out the very quality of life we long for. Whose love is not conditional on our being able to receive it or respond.

It is to say that the God who is one with Jesus can, alone, take that needle’s eye and make it wide enough for a camel to pass through.

The man was not able to become one of Jesus’ apprentices at that time, though this is not to say it was a once-only offer, or that he did not get there in time. We do not know. We do know that at that point of first invitation he experienced both shock and grief, as is often the case when a trauma survivor is offered the path of healing and growth, of integrating a difficult past within a healthier future.

If that is where you are today, that is okay. But you do not need to stay there forever. Nor do I. May you know the love of God which pushes out our fear, until we are able to step out from the roles we hide inside and step into the life that is waiting for us.

 

Redeeming

 

Notes on Mark 10.17-31

The biographer Mark records the account of a man running up to Jesus as he was going on his Way (this is a play on words for journey and way of life), falling on his knees and imploring to apprentice to this Master in living life with a sense of permanence.

Jesus asks the man some questions, to gain a sense of what he has already learnt and put into practice. Seeing the man’s heart for others, and wanting the best for him too, Jesus instructs the man to exchange all he holds, give the money to the poor, and join Jesus as his apprentice. The man is shocked and departed with a sense of bereavement at an opportunity he felt unable to take hold of, because he held the tenancy of many estates.

According to the Torah, the land belonged to God. God was the owner, who distributed the land as he saw fit. The people of Israel were tenants in possession of the land, each allocated an ancestral portion, according to their tribe.

If poverty forced you, it was possible to sell your tenancy to another member of your tribe. You were not selling the land, which belonged to God, but your tenancy rights, for a period of time. Essentially you were leasing out the use of the land.

Every fifty years, at the year of jubilee, tenant possession returned to the original tenant or, if they had died, to their heir. The fellow tribesman who had benefitted from the land received no payment. However, the right of redemption meant that, if you were forced to sell your tenancy, but then your circumstances improved, you had the right to redeem it back at any time before the year of jubilee. In such circumstances you paid your fellow tribesman the equivalent of the rent for the years still left on the lease (so, up to fifty years).

Your nearest relative also had the right to redeem the tenancy you had sold, at any time. In such circumstances, they took on the administration of the land, until the year of jubilee.

The man who sought to be an apprentice of Jesus held many estates. In other words, he had bought the tenancy rights of several members of his tribe, who had fallen into poverty. This was a way, provided by law, for him to care for the poor. At some point, he would have to surrender the tenancies he held (though at this point in their history, the people were not counting strict fifty-year cycles).

Jesus instructs him to allow the nearest relatives, the kinsman redeemers, to buy back the tenancies he held. This would release a significant sum of money (especially where there were many years left on the lease) and Jesus instructs him to give that money to those most destitute.

The man has already acted to support those who have fallen into poverty, but Jesus now asks him to divest of what he holds, to return simply to his own ancestral portion, allocated to his family by God. For then, he will have a heavenly storehouse, God’s storehouse.

It is a radical act of trust, that God is good and will provide.

And the man is unable to take that step.

But the encounter Mark records reveals Jesus to be the one offering himself as Redeemer, to take on the tenancy that the man finds himself unable to administer, living a life with a sense of permanence as opposed to a fear of loss or failure.

When life is overwhelming, as it sometimes is, and as my children’s generation seems to find it more often than not, Jesus still holds out the invitation.

 

Malformation

 

Reflection on Job 19.21-27 and Luke 10.1-12

There’s a story in the bible concerning a tribal chieftain of the ancient near east called Job, who, in the prime of his life loses everything. His children are killed when a building collapses. His livestock – his livelihood, his wealth, his resources – are stolen by violent men who murder those employed to care for the animals, also leaving their dependents fatherless. Quite understandably, Job’s wife falls into a deep depression.

Four friends of Job do something beautiful beyond words. They come to him and sit with him, in silence – for there are no words – for seven days and seven nights. Simply holding him in meaningful connection through their presence.

And then they open their mouths and put their feet in it. They try to control, to correct, Job’s thoughts and feelings. To belittle them. They attempt to fix their friend. To explain and justify what he has gone through. Every which way, it is ugly as hell.

Eventually Job has had enough. He calls on them to be silent again, and emphatically states his belief that, even having lost everything, he would see God restore to him all that he had lost.

If I wanted to get rich quick, I would put a swear jar in my church for every time I asked someone how they were and they replied, oh, you know, there’s always someone worse off.

This is abuse, beloved. This is how abusers seek to exercise control over their victim. By conjuring up a hypothetical someone to diminish our emotions and responses to our emotions. To belittle us and invalidate our experience. (Even if the hypothetical someone existed, it would not help them one bit to be told, oh well, there’s always someone doing better than you.)

But we have had these words spoken over us so many times over so many years, have internalised them and spoken them over ourselves, that when I call it out as abuse, I am questioned or dismissed, and when I call it ungodly, I am told that I am going too far.

This is also spiritual abuse, because we have been taught that this response is how we put others before ourselves, as mature Christians ought to do. But Jesus said we are to love our neighbour as – or in the same way as, or according to the same measure by which, we love – ourselves. For the extent to which we are able to accept and love ourselves is the extent to which we are able (the limit on) to love our neighbour. If we habitually belittle ourselves, we will habitually belittle them.

If you came to me and told me that you were expecting a baby but that it had died in the womb, or that your sister had cancer, or that your marriage was falling apart, or that you were waiting for the results of medical tests, and I said to you, oh well, there’s always someone worse off, would you feel heard? Would you feel valued? Would you say I was being pastorally sensitive? Would you come away glad that you had spoken to me, feeling that even if there was nothing to be done – no answers – that somehow you felt more at peace? No, you would not.

And yet, we say these very words to ourselves all the time.

Read that again.

In the Gospels, Jesus sends out his apprentices ahead of him, to every place he intended to pass through. He instructs them to seek out hospitality, and to be present to whoever welcomes them. He also instructs them not to insulate themselves against the emotions, but to remain vulnerable – no excess resources, no financial get-out-of-jail card, not even shoes to shield them from feeling the ground beneath their feet. On entering a house – on being invited into a life – they are to proclaim peace. They are not to seek to control or fix, but to be led by the one who has welcomed their presence, validating whatever they place on the table.

And Jesus promises them that healing will come, wherever it is needed, through their vulnerable presence with their neighbour. Through meaningful connection.

 

Let go

 

Jesus’ greatest interpreter was a Pharisee known as Paul, from Tarsus in what is now Turkey, who had trained under Gamaliel, who was the head of the rabbinical school of thought named for his grandfather Hillel. In correspondence with the church in Corinth, Paul wrote:

‘...For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the presence of God...So let no one boast in humans. For all things are yours, whether [three master-teachers known to the church in Corinth, whose teachings – way of life – they argued about] or the world or life or death or the present or [that which will happen to you in] the future – all these things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’

(1 Corinthians 3.18-23)

I am struck by how Paul reframes the things we – according to the wisdom of the world – try to control, as things that belong to us – that are intrinsically proper to our being – over which we have neither control nor the need to control them. Instead, Paul invites us to receive them as gifts, and to enter deeper into the mystery of these gifts.

I am struck by the inclusion of death in that list. As something to embrace, not fear. We are mortal (or, as Paul lists more fully, we are human creatures on the earth, who experience birth and death and the passage of time). And Jesus chose to embrace death, walking into this mysterious unknown adventure before us, transforming it – as so with life, with the world, with the present and the future – into its fullest, most complete, perfect expression. Not the end, but a new season. (To put it another way, death is not the consequence of sin, death as separation from God is the consequence of sin.)

The invitation is to let go and enjoy the incomparable gift we have been given. To go deeper into what it means to be human, in the imagination of the One who gave us life.