February 22--Alone With Jesus

. . . Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a high mountain by themselves. While they watched, Jesus’ appearance was changed. His clothes became shining white, whiter than any person could make them. Then Elijah and Moses appeared to them, talking with Jesus. . . .

. . . Peter did not know what to say, because he and the others were so frightened.

Then a cloud came and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!’

Suddenly Peter, James, and John looked around, but they saw only Jesus there alone with them . . . (Mark 9:2-4, 6-8).



It is Transfiguration Sunday, and we have been here before. Some version of this story from one of the synoptic gospels proclaimed every year on the Sunday before the church enters the season of Lent. We take it for granted.

The disciples do not.


What Peter and James and John see on this high mountain alone with Jesus frightens them to the core. The disciples are so frightened, in fact, that they actually follow Jesus’ instructions not to tell anyone what they have seen . . . a command they have no trouble breaking earlier—and later—in Mark’s gospel. Even Peter, who is normally eager to express his opinion or make a prediction about who Jesus is and what the Jesus movement should be doing “d[oes] not know what to say” in this moment of terror. He can only tell Jesus, “It is good that we are here,” and then mumble something incoherent about making tents for the three luminous figures who have just appeared in front of him.

To these three disciples—who think they know Jesus pretty well by now—the transfiguration of Jesus, in which he takes his place among the giver of the Law and the prototype of the Prophets, is a terrifying experience. They spend the rest of their lives trying to make sense of it, not even telling the story until after “the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (Mk. 9:10).


To many churchgoers today, this story is commonplace, another one of those “miracles” we either accept on faith or explain away as an interesting metaphor for our own “mountaintop experiences” of feel-good spirituality. But there are a few people among us who have experienced something dramatically similar to this moment of transfiguration—this moment of seeing the human face of the living God right in front of us and being told to listen!—in all its glory and all its terror.


A good friend of mine felt it in church last Sunday . . . and no, she was not delusional! She just knew she was experiencing something deeply profound, something that felt like the voice of God telling her to listen, something that felt like a “call” . . . but she had no idea what it meant. She was afraid, but she was calm in her fear. It was as if something was falling into place, something was being revealed that was deeper than anything she had ever known, something was being asked of her even though she could not articulate what it was.

And after talking with her, I realized that it may actually be more important to focus on the moment after the transfiguration, as powerful as the original event may have been for the disciples and for my friend. Because when it is all over, when the voice of clarity fades, when the shimmering robes evaporate, Peter and James and John look around and see only Jesus, there, alone with them.


They do not understand that Jesus will die and that they will abandon him. They do not understand that this time “alone” with Jesus is so very precious . . . that it will not last forever . . . that they will become even more frightened than they have been just now.


But they are alone with Jesus, for just this brief moment . . . and I like to imagine that they are at peace, even though they have not understood anything that has or will come to pass. They simply know it is a big deal, that God is with them, and that they will not ever be alone without Jesus.


They will not ever be alone “without Jesus.”

It is a terrifying thing to confront the power of God that transcends the ages, to follow Christ to his death, to hear the voice of God demanding that we listen without clear guidance about what is being said.

But I would suggest that the power of the transfiguration, as it leads us into Lent, as it leads us into crucifixion, as it leads us through the lonesome valley of death and darkness and despair is that we will never be alone without Jesus. We will never be alone without the physical presence of God in our midst. We will never be left without some reason to hope, without some reason to trust, without some reason to expect a future resurrection.


With this assurance of God's eternal presence, then, may we enter boldly into this season of Lent, this time of repentance, this time of transformation, this time of releasing what needs to die within us and among us in order to allow the spirit of God to rise again. We are not ever alone in our calling.

Not ever.

Not ever.

Not ever.

Amen.



Gusti Linnea Newquist


(additional lectionary texts for this week: 2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6)


Dear friends, it is with great joy and a twinge of sadness that I announce my departure from these pages. I will be leaving Boston at the end of the month in order to accept God’s call to serve as the next Co-Pastor of St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona (pending the election of the congregation, the approval of the presbytery, and my subsequent ordination). I have been grateful for this time to share my thoughts with you and even more grateful to those of you who have shared your comments with me.

My sister Harvard Divinity School alumna, Elizabeth Fels (MTS ’08) will pick up the blog beginning next week.

January 25--From Repentance to Hope

"The Lord spoke his word to Jonah again and said, 'Get up, go to the great city Nineveh, and preach to it what I tell you to say.' So Jonah obeyed the Lord and got up and went to Nineveh. It was a very large city; just to walk across it took a person three days. After Jonah had entered the city and walked for one day, he preached to the people, saying, 'After forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed!' The people of Nineveh believed God. They announced that they would fast for a while, and they put on rough cloth to show their sadness. All the people in the city did this, from the most important to the least important. . . . When God saw what the people did, that they stopped doing evil, he changed his mind and did not do what he had warned. He did not punish them" (Jonah 3:1-5, 10).

Jonah was not the first Hebrew prophet to speak God’s justice to Nineveh. The prophet Nahum also addressed this city of bloodshed, this city of violence, this city of imperial expansion that had led the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel 700 years before the birth of Christ.

"How terrible it will be for the city that has killed so many," Nahum proclaims in righteous anger. "It is full of lies and goods stolen from other countries. It is always killing somebody. . . . Many are dead; their bodies are piled up—too many to count. People stumble over the dead bodies" (Nahum 3:1, 3b-c).


If Nahum is like any one of us who has been deeply wounded to the core of his being by a violent oppressor, he wants God to punish his mortal enemy without mercy. If Nahum is anything like me, he expects justice to look something like vengeance, he wants his oppressor to hurt as deeply as he and his people have been hurt, he feels his justified outrage turn into simmering anger, he puts that anger into the mouth of God.


"'I will pull your dress up over your face,'" Nahum says to Nineveh, supposedly on God’s behalf, "'and show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame. I will throw filthy garbage on you and make a fool of you. I will make people stare at you'" (Nahum 3:5b-6).


Nahum’s language is as bad as it sounds: murder and rape and shame employed as tools of divine justice.

Is this what God tells Jonah to say? Is this the call to repentance that leads all of Nineveh to comply? Is this the kind of punishment God decides to withhold?


It is a shocking message, indeed, for we who claim to worship a God of peace.


But those of us who have suffered extreme violence at the hand of another—whether it be rape or bombing or the insidious damage of mental or spiritual abuse—those of us who have been violated to the very core of our being know that it is just plain honest in the midst of our agony to admit we do pray for this kind of justice to roll down like waters. To admit we do want this kind of righteousness to flow like a mighty stream.


“It is not right what they have done to us!” Nahum reassures a broken people. It is not right what they have done to us, the preacher declares to a broken world.


Nahum did not expect Nineveh to repent upon hearing the news of God’s anger. But Jonah did.


“’This is why I ran away to Tarshish,’” Jonah complains to God when Nineveh repents. “’I knew that you are a God who is kind and shows mercy. You don’t become angry quickly, and you have great love. I knew you would choose not to cause harm!’” (Jonah 4:2b). How could you let my enemy off so easily!


It can be easy to blame Jonah for running from God’s call. It can be hard to understand his frustration with God’s mercy. Unless we understand the modern-day parallels.


Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Ghandi speaking repentance—and mercy—to the British colonialists. Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Martin Luther King speaking repentance—and mercy—to racist White America. Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Sister Helen Prejean speaking repentance—and mercy—to death row inmates awaiting execution. It is really, really hard.


For some of us reading Jonah this week, God may be challenging us to take the hard step of speaking the truth in love to those who have hurt us, asking them to change their hearts and minds, trusting God’s merciful love to restore us all to new life.

For others of us reading Nineveh this week, we hear God’s call to repentance, to acknowledging that others have good reason to hate us, to changing our hearts and minds, to committing to a new way of life.


And for me reading Jonah on this particular day, in this particular week, I cannot help but hear God’s merciful and joyous celebration over the people of the United States, who continue to repent of our racist heritage, who continue to say we don’t want to live that way anymore, and who ask God to continue walking with us to the end.


Surely God’s concern for Jonah, God’s concern for Nineveh, God’s concern for every one of us will correct us when we fail, will applaud us when we succeed, and will sustain us every day of our lives yet to come.


May it be so now and forever. Amen.

Gusti Linnea Newquist

(Additional lectionary texts: Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20)

January 11--A Baptism of Repentance

“John was baptizing people in the desert and preaching a baptism of changed hearts and lives for the forgiveness of sins. All the people from Judea and Jerusalem were going out to him. They confessed their sins and were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothes made from camel’s hair, had a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. This is what John preached to the people: ‘There is one coming after me who is greater than I; I am not good enough even to kneel down and untie his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

At that time Jesus came from the town of Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. Immediately, as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven open. The Holy Spirit came down on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with you’” (Mark 1:4-11).


I really love this translation of the baptism story. It comes from the New Century Version of the Bible . . . one I picked up this summer because I wanted something small and light and easy to carry for travel. I had never heard of this version before.

I like this translation because it gives a full meaning to the Greek word usually translated as “repentance.” So often we equate repentance with badness: I did wrong. I confess. I promise not to do it again. But metanoia is about transformation. A new heart. A new mind. A new life. And it is happening all the time.

A baptism of true repentance can be a powerful, powerful thing. A drug dealer can decide to turn his life around. An addict can seek help in recovery. An abused spouse can leave a toxic relationship. An old cynic can learn to love. God can make a way out of no way. God can transform every part of our lives.


The great debate in biblical and theological scholarship around this baptism story has been about why Jesus needed to be baptized. If he was truly without sin, scholars wonder, what was the point?


But baptism is broader, I think, than the individual sins we do or do not commit and our need for forgiveness from them. Baptism is just as much about the sin committed against us and our need to be healed from it.

Jesus certainly did “take on” the sin of the world . . . and not just as a priestly sacrifice on our behalf. He was betrayed, denied, despised, rejected, beaten, oppressed by an occupying power, spat upon, tortured, killed. Perhaps his baptism was about trusting God to transform the sin committed against him. Perhaps his baptism sustained him as he encountered that sin, as he stared that sin down, as he felt abandoned, as he died.


We who follow Christ have a deep, powerful, transforming message to proclaim through baptism. God will not rest until our hearts and lives have been changed. God will not rest until good comes from evil. God will not rest until resurrection comes from crucifixion.

In baptism we acknowledge that we need to be transformed, every one of us, whether we have done wrong or whether we have had wrong done to us. In baptism we accept our human limitations and admit our need for God’s transforming grace. In baptism, we admit that evil exists in the world, that we are a part of it as perpetrators and as victims, and that we don’t want to be anymore. In baptism we bring every broken part of who we are, offer it to God, and ask to be reborn through the life-giving water of the Holy Spirit. Whether we were baptized as infants or adults, and whether or not we have formally participated in that public ritual of transformation, we can trust God to make us new, to change our hearts and lives.


May we experience this kind of repentance throughout the new year. Amen.


Gusti Linnea Newquist


(additional lectionary texts: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29:1-11; Acts 19:1-7)

January 4--Waiting for the Light

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” –John 1:5

Sunday was amazing.

Seventy two degrees, a soft wind, and absolutely nothing to do. The perfect ‘winter’ day for short-sleeve -clad torsos to soak in the sunshine . . . for cousins to fly kites at the park down the street . . . for grandmother to join granddaughter in casual conversation about the precious gift of life and the peaceful joy of returning to our master in death.

So much light and love . . . so much warmth and comfort . . . it is hard to believe the shortest day of the New England winter was only a week ago. That ice storms and piles of snow and frigid temperatures defined my life until the morning of Christmas Eve. All that is far away as I linger in bare feet and turn on the ceiling fan for a bit of cool air and prepare for the year to turn in this very different part of the country where I have celebrated Christmas with family.

But I have not forgotten the darkness.

Darkness has defined so much of our lives for so many months that it has seeped into our very bones, especially if we live in New England. Those of us who are not native to this part of the country may resist it at first. (I still remember the shock of that first year of steady but stark decline in daylight hours from late fall to Christmas week.) Eventually, though, it becomes part of the rhythm of our lives year after year . . . something we may even embrace as a comfort at times . . . the deep call of nature to a season of restful hibernation in the midst of the frenetic pace of a culture that never sleeps.

Darkness may actually be a welcome friend for those of us who are sensitive to light, who burn easily, who find too much sunshine and hot weather to be even more stressful than cold, snowy winters.

“All things came into being through the Word, and without the Word not one thing came into being,” John’s gospel tells us in the lectionary text for today. “What has come into being in the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:3-4).

It blows my mind to imagine a God who created all these things that have come into being . . . the darkness, the light, the different kinds of people and animals and plants who need different kinds of climates in order to thrive. It blows my mind to remember the darkness and cold of New England as I rest in the radiant sunshine of the American South. It blows my mind to pray to a good and generous God who created all of it, who loves all of it, who redeems all of it, who knows that we need light in the midst of too much darkness, that we need darkness in the midst of too much light.

I am grateful for the light of this fleeting alternate reality, the warmth of this southern weather, the wisdom of this moment with Grandma, the faithful reminder that these things exist, even as I prepare to return to Boston. The memory of lightness will sustain me through the long, cold winter yet to come.

Which is the mystery of faith.

God has come into our world in just this way this Christmas season . . . an alternate reality, a constant comfort, a wisdom of age mixed with youth . . . one brief moment of spiritual ecstasy before returning to our normal lives. The darkness is still with us; it will not ever go away completely, nor should it. But the memory of this light sustains us through everything that will come in the months and years and lifetimes ahead.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us . . . full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). May this truth be a comfort to us in this season of darkness and light, giving us hope, and filling us with joy, reminding us of the Creator even as it speaks of the Redeemer. God is with us, in all the seasons of our lives. Amen.

Gusti Linnea Newquist

(additional lectionary texts: Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20; Ephesians 1:3-14)

December 14--Trusting the One Who Calls

"Rejoice always, pray constantly, and give thanks for everything--for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Don't stifle the Spirit; don't despise the prophetic gift. But test everything and accept only what is good. Avoid any semblance of evil.

"May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May you be preserved whole and complete--spirit, soul, and body--irreproachable at the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. The One who calls us is trustworthy: God will make sure it comes to pass" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24).


Now that I use a cell phone with caller ID, I screen my calls ruthlessly. An unknown caller will go directly to voice mail. A known caller? Well . . . depends on my mood. You just never know what you'll hear on the other end of the line . . . or if you'll be ready to hear it.

Take today, for example. Three phone calls came in. The first one from my boss. Check. I answered that one right away! The second one from a tutoring client. Could be good news or bad. I answer. Good news! An 'A' on her research paper! Definitely worth picking up.

The third one? Unexpected. We had parted ways angrily over two months ago. I figured I'd never hear from him again. But there it was, his name on the screen. Do I pick up? Yes. And the path to an honest reconciliation begins. Worth it? I think so. We'll see in the weeks and months ahead.


Three different calls. Three different reactions. Three different opportunities to work and celebrate and heal old wounds. Three different opportunities to trust the connection with the person on the other end of the line. Three different opportunities to trust the divine connection linking each one of us to the other.


But it is not always easy to trust the one who calls. The co-worker, the student, the alienated friend . . . the holy mystery we call God. We do not know--we cannot know--the true intentions of the caller. We do not know--and cannot know--exactly how we will respond . . . especially if the call requires us to change our lives, to heal our wounds, to heal the wounds we have caused others.


God's call is dramatic for some of us, like that of the Apostle Paul blinded on the road to Damascus. His call led to a passionate missionary zeal among the community of Christ in first century Thessalonica and other communities all across the Mediterranean. It was not an easy call for Paul, to be sure. He faced torture and imprisonment and a lifestyle resembling the most dysfunctional traveling workaholic. Certainly not the idyllic spiritual sanctuary we aspire to in our own Christian walk!

But God's call is ordinary for most of us, like that of the Thessalonians urged to live holy lives and to love one another. Just when we think we've accomplished that goal, God shows up through an apostle or a prophet to "exhort [us] to even greater progress" (1 Thess 4:9). It is a lifelong journey of seeking--and doing--God's will.


In Advent we hear the call once more, preparing ourselves to respond "in perfect holiness." The One who calls us is trustworthy; the One born among us is faithful; the One dwelling within us is preserving us--in spirit, soul, and body--so that we may participate in the glorious reign of God.

May it be so among us and within us as we look forward to Christmas.

Amen.


Gusti Linnea Newquist

(additional lectionary texts: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Luke 1:47-55; John 1:6-8, 19-28)

November 9--Always a Bridesmaid

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to wait for the bridegroom.” –Mt 25:1


(lectionary focus: Mt 25:1-13)


A well-meaning family member recently gave my older cousin a self-help book: Find a Husband After Thirty-Five (using what I learned at Harvard Business School). We rolled our eyes and groaned when we saw it . . . then of course devoured it cover to cover! A twelve-month plan for the thirty-something singleton to get herself to the altar with the man of her dreams. “Saturation” tips for online dating. Research development for “product improvement.” Culminating in, believe it or not, a full-scale “marketing plan” with an upscale product roll-out, advertising strategy, and “man-agement” training. This has got to be a recession-proof industry if I’ve ever seen one!

Of course, preparing for the Son of Man is something quite different than slogging through the dating scene in search of a mere mortal. We’re talking about an apocalyptic event to usher in a new era of justice and peace, where the last shall be first and the powerful shall be humbled and the oppressed shall be set free. We’re talking about a radical reversal of fortunes that terrifies some and liberates others. We’re talking about an event that most of us say we want but that few of us believe might actually happen in our lifetimes. We’re talking about a serious theological commitment to the power of God to transform the world, not frivolous romantic yearnings exploited by a consumer culture.

But that’s just the point, isn’t it? It’s exactly the point.

Jesus has asked us to seek this coming reign of God with the same intensity and passion and longing with which we seek a life partner. Jesus has asked us to long for this radical re-orienting of the entire cosmos with the same dedication and yearning with which we crave human companionship. And Jesus has demanded that we stop sulking around in our loneliness and despair—to stop waiting for the fantasy of the peaceable kingdom to drop magically out of the sky—and instead get off of our rears and out of the house and actually do something to make the world ready for its arrival.

We do not know when this event will actually take place. We just know that it has been promised, as if a betrothal. And we know that we want it desperately. In the meantime, Jesus has asked us to do whatever it takes to be prepared for this coming reign of God, including using what we can learn from Harvard Business School!

So what might that something be? How might we keep our lamps trimmed and burning? How might we roll out our marketing plan in preparation for God’s eternal reign?

Maybe we can get started by doing some of the other things Jesus asked us to do, like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and healing the sick. Maybe we can get started by committing ourselves over and over again to a culture of peace and a forgiveness of debts. Maybe we can get started by committing ourselves over and over again to loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us. Maybe we can get started by taking one small step at a time to love God and to love neighbor.

The wise bridesmaids among us will know that this takes hard work and dedication, that we will need to replenish our oil, that we will need to seek support from our companions on the journey. The foolish among us may think it’s just a romantic getaway, rather than a lifelong commitment through the good times and the bad.

We all get tired as we wait for The One, preparing for a kingdom that is already here but yet to come in fullness. But we can do what it takes to make sure we have enough oil to keep us going after we've fallen asleep. Because the longed-for consummation will finally come, even if it seems so incredibly impossible. And it will be a joyous feast for everyone to share.

“So always be ready, because you do not know the day or the hour the Son of Man will come.” For now, we are all bridesmaids waiting for the groom. But one day soon we will all be brides. Amen.



Gusti Linnea Newquist



(additional lectionary texts: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)