The open door of Easter

 "On the first day of the week, Mary of
Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark, and saw the stone
removed from the tomb." --John 20: 1

“Anyone who does not welcome the kingdom

of God like a little child will not enter it.” –Mark 10:35

The last time I was at the hospital (volunteering with the chaplain’s office) I found myself standing at an open door knocking and even after I was greeted and invited, I was a little anxious about going in.  And I keep thinking about that moment and the woman who I was going to visit and somehow, this Lent, she has become for me an icon of Christ. And that is a story I need to share.

To begin with, when I volunteer, I get a list of names and room numbers. That is it.  Occasionally the chaplain will mark a name or two that he particularly wants me to visit, but most of the time it is just a list. I try to visit as many of the names on the list as I can, but often there is one particular person who really needs a visit and I won’t know who that is until they start talking… or crying. And 45 minutes later I know, that person was why God got me to the hospital that night.

But some nights half the names on my list have already been released, or they’re asleep, or they have family visiting and don’t want to be interrupted. And nights like that can leave a person feeling a little confused about their chosen ministry and a bit unnecessary.

This last time was more like that.  The first 5 rooms I visited were empty. The next door I came to required me to get dressed in a paper gown and latex gloves –to avoid carrying in germs. I knocked on the door; someone was there, but he didn’t speak English. I apologized for my lack of language skills and made the sign of the cross. He understood that and we prayed together anyway (the Our Father). And three minutes later I was out of the gown and throwing away the gloves and checking my list for the next name.  She was asleep. And the next was finishing a baked potato and watching NCIS reruns and didn’t really need anything (specifically not a prayer). But, thank you, very much.

After wandering the hospital for over an hour with about the same level of success, I came to her room.  The outer door was open and when I knocked I heard a voice, but couldn’t understand what they said. And there was a kind of porcelain or tile sounding echo in the sound, like the voice was coming from the bathroom. I checked the name on the door. It was the right person; the right room. So, I knocked again, and called her name. This time I heard that same echoing voice but much more clearly. “The door is open. Come on in,” she said.

But, I didn’t. I felt like it wouldn’t be right.  She was in the bathroom. What if she wasn’t fully dressed yet? What if, she thought I was a nurse come to help her –in the bathroom?

I peered into the room. A light was shining out through the open bathroom door.  I knocked again. Still standing outside, I called in an introduction and said why I was there. I was halfway hoping she would tell me to go away; Thank you, very much.  

            But instead –in a very welcoming tone—she said, “Come on in. It’s okay. Please come in.”  As I stepped into the room, she came out of the bathroom, smiling with her hair all up in a towel.

            “My first shower in over a week,” she laughed. “It felt so good to wash my hair. You can’t imagine.”  And I nodded in agreement[1].  As she walked past me to her bed, adjusting the towel, I noticed something else: tattoos up and down her arms. Not just a couple, but several on each arm; and on the back of her neck as she turned to move a pole with some tubes and a monitor.  And when she sat on her bed, ankles crossed, I noticed that her legs too were decorated with tattoos.

            Here was this woman, who looked to be in her late thirties, early forties; slightly heavy, maybe 5 feet tall, reminding me of a young Shirley Booth, with little about her to draw your attention –except that her arms and legs were covered with tattoos. And one other thing.  She had this smile.

            “Would you like to sit down?” Her smile seemed almost beatific. Perhaps it was the shower, or perhaps she had just received good news from her doctors, or maybe she’d just finished a very nice bowl of Jello.  

I pulled a chair over near the bed and sat down.

She rubbed the towel against her hair and it came undone.  Long, dark strands of still damp hair fell down over her shoulder and suddenly there was something else one noticed about this woman.  People are never as simple or as plain as they seem. If you really look at people, really open your eyes, they will always amaze you.  Always surprise you. Don't get distracted by what you see on the surface. Don't let the tattoos get in the way. We all have them --some are just more obvious than others.
Sitting on the bed, she dried the ends of her long dark hair with the towel and told me about why she was in the hospital, and about her family who took such good care of her and about how busy she was even here in the hospital.  And all the time she was smiling and laughing, and making me feel like I was someone she was so very glad to see.

After a brief chat, she told me she needed to call her husband.  “We’re very busy at work right now, and he called to ask me something but I hung up on him as soon as the nurse told me I could shower.”

I tried to make a joke about her husband being so busy because his best worker was in the hospital, but she laughed and corrected me. “I don’t work for him.  He works for me. And I gotta make sure he isn’t goofing off.  But, before I do, I would really love it if you would say a prayer.” 

Her words were so sudden and so sincere, I was stunned. I don’t know if I had ever heard anyone say that to me before.  Opening my Bible, I read her a few verses from psalm 63:1-8, and then closing my eyes,  offered a prayer asking God for healing, for consolation and for the faith to put our trust in His will, in His love, no matter what.  And when I was done, she said:

“That was beautiful. Thank you so very much.  I hope you’ll come see me again.”

She had her phone out and clearly, she was ready for me to go. She had a husband to call. Leaving the room, I was filled with a strange sense of renewal and rebirth. Though I had been with this lady only a few minutes, I knew she was the real reason I had come to the hospital tonight. But I also knew that tonight, this hour or so of ministry, had really been not about what I had to offer, but what I had to receive. When I came to volunteer that evening I was feeling a little useless, a little foolish, and yet a voice called out to me: Come in. The door is open. That is what the kingdom of God is, in a nutshell; an open door. That is the message of Easter.  Jesus opened the door for us. And I’m pretty certain God doesn’t ever close it. Not even when He is washing His hair.  Because of Christ, that door is always standing open. If we don’t enter, it isn’t because God doesn’t welcome us, it’s because we don’t welcome Him. Because we’re too busy being afraid or too busy being important or too busy judging others or judging ourselves, to welcome (like a small child) Him and His always open door. 

Lord, through His cross, Your Son opened the door of salvation.
This Easter, open our hearts to receive that saving grace
and give us the courage and the faith
to welcome that open door.

Amen.

---

[1] Going bald, I have noticed that hair washing doesn’t provide quite the same thrill (or comfort) it did during my hirsute youth. 

On Dying to self and welcoming Christ: more thoughts

“Anyone who does not welcome the kingdom

of God like a little child will not enter it.” –Mark 10:35

“Welcome” is the word that troubles me in this passage. For me, it creates an image of the kingdom of God coming to us, coming for us, and what matters most is not was how prepared we are, but how we receive it. Will we let go of all that we cling to so that we can open our hands and receive it, or will we (like the rich man) go away sad because we have a great many possessions and letting go can be very hard.

Before I go any further, I want to say that I owe this meditation to a friend who commented on my last post (on dying and Lent). She reminded me that dying to our identity can be particularly hard when that identity is a false one that we have chosen for our self. We can become so wrapped up in our chosen identity that we might refuse to let it go.  Her kind note inspired me to go back to Mark’s gospel and reread the story of the rich young man, partly as a way to engage in a conversation with her, but partly to see if there was something I had missed. And as I did, my eyes strayed and I noticed something interesting; something I had missed. I noticed the ending of the seemingly unrelated story just before it (about the disciples trying to stop some apparently unsupervised children from coming to Jesus). It ends with this:

“Anyone who does not welcome the kingdom

of God like a little child will not enter it.”

Seeing that, I realized: These two stories are together for a reason.  Like most readers, I tend to accept that the stories in the Gospels are structured basically in a chronological order to tell a story from beginning to end as best they can.  I don’t tend to think of the author(s) trying to construct their narrative in a thematic or pedagogical style. And so, when things like this happen, I assume that is a sign of God’s authorship.  God wanted to say something that required these stories to be next to each other and so through fallible memory or through happenstance or through inspiration, the earthly author has divined a profound lesson by placing these unrelated tales next to each other.  Separately they are interesting vignettes from the life of Christ, together they become a profound lesson about the kingdom of God.

Let me move backward, as my eye did when it strayed; starting with the rich man, who is called the “rich young man” in Matthew’s version of the story. This man (young or not) comes to Jesus to ask how he can inherit eternal life.  After a brief discussion of the law, Jesus adds this:

“You lack one thing. Go and sell what you have,

give to the poor; you will have treasure in Heaven;

then come and follow me.” (Mk 10:21)

“Follow me…” Jesus is inviting the man to join Him, to –right then and there—enter into the kingdom of God, but we are told that instead the man “went away sad.” It was overwhelming to him, I would assume. The Lord was asking too much, it must have seemed.  Or the man simply lacked the faith.  We don’t know. Nor do we know if he later reconsidered and did as the Lord told him.  All we know is that he went away sad, “for he had many possessions.”

            And we can argue over what he should have done, or what we might have done in the man’s place, but what we have in that previous story is the answer; he should have welcomed the kingdom of God like a child –openly, freely, eagerly!

            Interestingly enough, at the very end of this chapter that is the image we are given.  Mark 10 ends with the story of a blind man named Bartimaeus.  Read it.  This blind man learns that Jesus is near and begins calling out to Him. As with the children at the beginning of this chapter, the disciples try to manage this scene. In fact, they rebuke the man for yelling.  But the man keeps on, and Jesus calls him over.  And when Jesus does, he throws off his cloak and springs up eager to meet the Lord –not unlike a child when Grandma comes for a visit, or they find out there’s no school.  But even more interesting is this: as soon as his sight is restored, the man “immediately” begins to follow Christ.  He gives up all he has in the world, his little piece of security –the place and the people he knows—and follows Jesus. Immediately. Like a child.

            Reading the Bible has opened my eyes to the beauty of God’s word, but again and again and more importantly it has opened my heart to the truth of it. 

            Too often when I seek something out, seek some sacrifice or some holiness even, I find myself rejecting it as soon as it arrives. This Lent was a bit like that. I had good intentions, but… overwhelmed, I turned away and often grew sad. But, it isn’t over yet. There is still time to make a good Lent.  In fact, there is still time to welcome it –like a child.

 

Lent and the practice of dying

“I will place my heart law within them

And write it upon their hearts…” –Jeremiah 31:33

“Unless a grain of wheat fall to the earth

And die, it remains but a grain of wheat…”  --John 12:20-33

 I’ve been thinking for some time about that grain of wheat.  It is an image that speaks to my soul.  It feels like something inexhaustibly true; as if that is exactly how God will write His law upon my heart –upon our hearts.  He will give us opportunities to die, to die to something, to our ego, to our security, to our dreams, to our appetites, to our self, and each time we die to something –no matter how small—God will write another piece of His law upon our hearts.

            This morning I read the passage in Mark about the rich young man (10:17-22). The young man comes to Jesus asking Him what he must do to “inherit eternal life,” and Jesus reminds him of the commandments.  The young man affirms that he has followed all these, and Jesus tells him this:

“One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give

it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven;

then come, follow me.” (10:21)

And it is then, scripture tells us, that the young man went away sad.  Because Jesus was asking him to die to his wealth, his power, his place at the table.  Apparently, the young man had received God’s law, thus far. He had lived a life honoring that law –thus far.  But now Jesus is asking him to take the next step; to die to himself, to let go of everything that protects him and keeps him safe from the hardships of life and the insecurities of the world, and “come and follow me.” And he went away sad.  Dying is hard. Letting go of control and security and comfort (and potato chips –for me!) is very hard.  I imagine the young man was looking for some kind of affirmation from Christ, and maybe an easier kind of dying.  But the easy that Jesus offers us, looks too much like the cross.  We tend to not want that. We tend to turn away from it, trying to rationalize our decision to hold onto things like wealth and treasures and comforts, not because we are bad people, but because we need them, or we plan to use them for some future good or just in case!

            It is hard to die to our wealth, yes; but even harder to die to our identity.  This is the “rich” young man, and Jesus is asking him to go and sell everything he owns and give it to the poor.  He will no longer be the “rich” young man in the eyes of the world. He will no longer be a man of importance and distinction.  He will no longer be the self he has become.  His charity, his righteousness, his success –they are his; they are who he is.  But Jesus is asking him to die to himself; to let go of that identity and come and follow Him.  And the promise is this: if we die to ourselves, if we fall to earth –like that grain of wheat—then, we will bear much fruit.  We will become a fruitful vine.  And I’m wondering if it isn’t through that fruitful vine that God reaches out to the world; and through that vine taking root inside us that God writes His law upon our hearts.  But for that vine to take root, there must be a death. And dying can be hard gift to receive –as we see in the rich young man’s reaction.

            But there is no sign that Jesus has given up on this rich young man. What we see is that Jesus looked at the rich young man with much love (cf. 10:21).   And that Jesus understands how hard it is for the rich to let go of their wealth and enter empty handed into the Kingdom of God: harder than a camel passing through the eye of a needle.  

So we must put our trust in God’s love, and in God’s patience. And we must day by day learn little by little to let go.  Most of us are not going to be Dorothy Day or Francis of Assisi. We are not going to simply let go of everything in one glorious gesture of dying to our old lives. For most of us, we must trust in God’s patience as He waits for us, like the soil waiting for the seed.  Trust that God waits for us to let go that we might receive the gift He has instore for us; in fact, that He might write it on our hearts.  

Lent is a time to practice dying.  And I was told by a priest last week (during confession) that it is never too late to begin a good Lent.  This was a difficult Lent for me, but I finally started mine.  And I have already failed --twice-- and started again. And like that other wonderful example from Mark’s gospel, I continue to pray:  Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. (9:24)