Tag Archives: Love

“Betrayed with a Kiss and a Sword”

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Jesus asked the piercing question of the disciple-turned-conspirator: “Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?” (Luke 22:48)

Why a kiss? Would not a slap or pointed finger or clinched fist be more appropriate means of betraying Jesus into the hands of his opponents? But, no! Judas betrayed with a sign of affection!

Upon closer reflection, however, Jesus’ question is appropriate for all who claim allegiance to him. We rarely, if ever, hear expressed outright hatred or denunciation of Jesus. Yet, we all betray!

Most often our betrayal takes the form of declared affection for Jesus. Here are a few ways we betray Jesus with a kiss:

  • Singing “O How I Love Jesus” while hating those who are different
  • Declaring “Jesus Is Lord” while prioritizing partisan politics above the common good
  • Claiming Jesus’ forgiveness but holding grudges and seeking vengeance
  • Affirming love for God while despising neighbors near and far
  • Singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children, All the Children of the World” while failing to provide all children with access to education, medical care, safety and love
  • Proclaiming “God is Love” with anger in our voices and hate in our actions
  • Assert that Jesus is ‘the way, truth, and life’ and refuse to obey his command to love one another as he loves us
  • Saying “Lord, Lord” and failing to do what he says, go where he goes, and welcome those whom he loves

Judas resides in all of us!  We, too, betray with a kiss!

But Judas wasn’t the only disloyal disciple present in the garden when Jesus was arrested. Luke tells us, “One of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear”(22:50).

Jesus responded resolutely, “No more of this!”

The kiss and the sword have much in common as forms of betrayal. History is replete with efforts to violently defend Jesus.

The Crusades were fought in name of loyalty to Jesus. Scientists were burned at the stake under the guise of protecting religious doctrine. Preachers used the Bible to promote slavery! Klansmen terrorized and murdered with burning crosses and prayers of devotion to Jesus. The Bible has been used as a sword of discrimination against women.

Defending Jesus with physical, verbal, and emotional swords is a pervasive means of betrayal. Could these be subtle contemporary examples of betrayal with swords?

  • Using Scripture as a weapon for exclusion, hatred, and discrimination
  • Promoting hatred of Muslims, immigrants, gays, and others in the name of defending the Christian faith
  • Applauding the Sermon on the Mount while defending possession of assault weapons as a “God-given right”
  • Proclaiming God’s preferential presence in “the least of these” while advocating public policies that damage the poor, vulnerable, and powerless
  • Increasing spending for weapons of war while decreasing support for education, healthcare, housing, and food for the under resourced

But the final word in the Christian gospel isn’t betrayal! It’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing.

In Matthew’s account of Judas’ betrayal, Jesus calls him “friend.” Judas’ kiss may have been betrayal, but Jesus’ response was one of steadfast love.

After admonishing the disciples against violence, Jesus healed the victim. The final word was/is healing, not violence.

From the cross, Jesus spoke the ultimate response to all forms of betrayal: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Whether betrayed with a kiss or a sword, Jesus forgives, reconciles, transforms.

Moving from Grief’s Tears to Love’s Smiles

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It’s been three and half months since Linda’s death. The grieving continues!

C. S. Lewis in his classic A Grief Observed writes that grief is like a bomber flying overhead. At times you are only faintly aware that it is there. Then, without warning it drops a bomb, shattering your world once more. The sobbing and disorientation return.

Those waves of grief come unexpectedly, like a sudden bolt of thunder on a clear day! They are triggered by a site, or fragrance, or a rediscovered memento, a reminder of an experience from the past.

Painful images of Linda’s diseased-induced distress, anguish, confusion, disorientation, and fear open the floodgates of grief’s tears. They trouble me, sometimes torment me!

Experts remind us that the memories with the most painful emotion attached to them are the hardest to heal.

Those negative images accompanying our journey with dementia are difficult to dislodge from my memory.

But healing is happening!

Our daughter created a collage of photographs of happy times over our sixty years together.

Collage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The collection of joyful images sits in my sunroom where I spend much of the day. Other photos are attached to the refrigerator.  Two months ago, those photos brought tears, too. They reminded me of what had been but can be no more.

Yet, something important has been happening.

The painful images from the last few years are slowly being balanced by memories from six decades of love and laughter.

Our new community chaplain, Kathleen Miko, stopped by this week for a visit. Since she had not known Linda, I pointed to the collection of photographs and explained why they were there.

Kathleen observed, “I notice that you smile every time you look at those photos.”

I hadn’t realized that gradually grief’s tears are being replaced with smiles of gratitude for love shared.

I know that more bombs of sadness will fall, waves of grief will come crashing over me.

Yet, grief’s tears are slowly giving way to love’s smiles.

 

“Glimpses”

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A week has passed since Linda’s death and I have begun the process of adjusting to the new norm without her physical presence. Though the house is vacant and quiet, the reality of the love we shared for sixty years remains.

One of the most comforting and profound experiences of the last week has been a poem written by our daughter, Sheri, which she shared at both of Linda’s memorial services. I learned that she wrote the poem over the ten years of Linda’s disease and that she would write a new stanza every time her mom entered a new phase of dementia.

Each stanza represents a stage in the long journey and chronicles the progression of the losses experienced, including the present reality of her absence and our anticipation of resting in the loving arms of God in whose presence Linda now lives.

I share the poem with Sheri’s permission.

                     Glimpses

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of a future reality that will come to be.
A lost word, a confused look,
An expression I mistook.

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of the mom who still knows and loves me.
Embarrassed by her lapse and my forgotten name,
I brush it aside because I love her all the same.

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of the mom she used to be.
A smile, a giggle, a twinkling of the eye
Remind me of a taken-for-granted time now gone by.

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of my mom slipping away from me.
I try and try to connect once again
To little avail, though; this is how it’s been.

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of where my mom will one day be.
In the arms of the God who loves her so much,
In the arms of the God she did always trust.

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of my mom happy, as she is meant to be
Cradled in love and joy and peace
After all these years, she is finally free.

Glimpses, mere glimpses I see
Of a world without my mom physically
Close in my heart she will always be
Until that very day God cradles me.

(Written by Sheri Carder Hood)

The Ugliest Word

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Ugly

During an interview in the 1950s, the famed journalist Edward R. Morrow asked Carl Sandburg, “What’s the ugliest word in the English language?”

I know a lot of ugly words! Many are considered profanity and aren’t spoken in polite company. Admittedly, those crude words have become more acceptable in public discourse and popular entertainment. I won’t mention them here. You know them, I’m sure.

But the Pulizer prize winning poet didn’t select a profane word. This master of the use of words chose this as the ugliest word: EXCLUSIVE! 

Well, I’m not so sure about that! Many find the word and its implication quite attractive. After all, we seem to prefer

  • to live in exclusive neighborhoods,
  • drive exclusive cars, eat at exclusive restaurants,
  • vacation at exclusive resorts,
  • attend exclusive universities,
  • occupy exclusive leadership positions,
  • shop at exclusive stores,
  • be inducted into exclusive organizations,
  • be part of an exclusive religion,
  • worship an exclusive God,
  • belong to an exclusive church.

I suspect that the ugliness or beauty of the word depends on whether we are among the included or the excluded. The included have power, privilege, prominence, prestige. They determine who is in and who is out.

But if you’ve ever been among those who are excluded, you know how ugly the word is! Being excluded stings, embarrasses, devalues, demeans, rejects, isolates, marginalizes, coerces, bullies. It hurts to be excluded!

Jesus must have considered exclusive to be an ugly word and an evil practice. At least, he redefined who’s in and who’s out. He turned the tables on the excluded and the included.

The excluded became the included: the nobodies, the poor, the disreputable, the powerless, the sick, the imprisoned, the vulnerable!

Those who considered themselves the exclusive found themselves on the outside– religious legalists, political power brokers, the rich, the morally pure, the piously judgmental.

In God’s upside-down kindom, no one is excluded from the reach of divine compassion and presence. Those we exclude from our circles of compassion, justice, and hospitality are the very ones at the center of God’s circle of hospitality.

If exclusive is the ugliest, I wonder what the poet would consider the most beautiful word in the English language?

I don’t know about you, but a word that comes to my mind is WELCOME! When combined with ALL, the beauty is magnified: ALL WELCOME! WELCOME ALL!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book on Its Way!

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PrintThis week I sent the final draft of manuscript, Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia through a Spiritual Lens, to Abingdon for the their review and editing. The book is the outgrowth of the journey Linda and I have been on for more than ten years.

Dementia is seen in our society almost exclusively through a medical lens where the focus is on symptoms, lost capacities, and grief. Such a narrow lens contributes to the current fear, stigmatizing, and marginalizing of people with dementia.

The book seeks to broaden the lens by locating dementia within God’s Story of creation, liberation, restoration, incarnation, and salvation. We are all more than our limitations, capacities, and losses. We are beloved children of God, created in the divine image, redeemed by God’s grace, and incorporated into a new community.

I am honored that the Foreword is written by Warren Kinghorn,  a psychiatrist and theologian, who teaches in both the Medical School and Divinity School at Duke. His short Foreword is worth more than the book itself!

The book should be available by August. The royalties from its sale will go to support ministries with people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia and those who care for them.

I Won’t be Attending General Conference But . . . .

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UM-General-Conference1920x485-1024x259I’m going to miss an important event in Methodist history–the called session of the General Conference in St. Louis, February 23-27.

A lot is at stake as delegates wrestle with ways to deal with the important matters of homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture. The decisions made will chart the denomination’s future for decades.

Missing the conference makes me sad! I feel some guilt for my absence.  Although as a retired bishop I have no official duties,  I do feel responsible to be present in support of colleagues and delegates.

I know from previous General Conferences that significant things happen apart from the formal sessions. Old friendships are renewed and new ones formed. The vast diversity of the denomination is on full display.

Great music! Outstanding preaching! Challenging speeches! Profound worship!

I’ll miss all of that!

I must forego the experience. But, I’ll be pursuing my current primary vocational calling, care-partner for my wife of 57 years.

What I will be doing seems small and insignificant when compared to the history-making decisions. Nothing I will be doing will get publicity or make the history books.

I’ll be doing little things–holding Linda’s hand, combing her hair, feeding her, brushing her teeth, assuring her she isn’t alone, just sitting quietly as she sleeps.

There are important connections between what I’ll be doing and what’s happening in St. Louis.

We both will be doing sacred work!  Both will involve strong emotions, including grief and disappointment. God will be present with us!

Both have to do with what it means to love! Who to love! How to love! What it means to love faithfully, as Christ loves us!

Love isn’t an abstraction for me. She’s lying in the bed nearby, with her hand in mine. Love, in the final analysis, is an embodied practice rather than a pontifical pronouncement.

I hope love isn’t an abstraction in St. Louis. May it be embodied in

  • ears that listen attentively,
  • tongues that speak tenderly and truthfully,
  • hands that clasp and serve joyfully,
  • arms that embrace hospitably,
  • hearts that beat compassionately,
  • minds that exhibit the mind that was in Christ Jesus,
  • actions that manifest the breadth of God’s love and justice.

I won’t be trying to convince Linda that she is wrong, or less than, or inadequate, or sinful, or outside the norm.

Instead, I will be trying to empathetically enter her world, see the world as she is seeing it, assure her that she is valued amid her confusion, and loved unconditionally by God and by me.

I genuinely pray that what happens in St. Louis will be akin to what will be happening in our home, and in the countless homes across our world as people seek to love one another as Christ loves us, regardless of

  • race,
  • ethnicity,
  • political affiliations,
  • theological perspectives,
  • sexual orientation, or
  • physical and intellectual capacities.

I won’t be physically present in St. Louis, but I’ll be watching and praying. . . . and continuing to love!

 

 

 

Linda’s Birthday

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Birthdays are occasions to declare that people are stories rather than symptoms; and sharing love is the abiding theme of our stories. In the sharing of love, our stories intersect with God’s Story.
Thank you, Linda, for your remarkable story of love! Being part of that story is the greatest joy of my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

as Linda moves deeper into her dementia

An Unexpected Communion

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It happened shortly after a visit last week from Karen, the hospice chaplain and friend who visits Linda regularly. We sat in the sunroom and listened to Linda as she mumbled  incoherently but keeping time with the music playing in the background.

As she always does, Karen ended her visit with a short prayer, calling Linda by name and asking Jesus to continue to be with her.

Shortly thereafter we returned Linda to her bed for her evening meal. As the caregiver, Arlene, slowly and gently placed the pureed food in Linda’s mouth, Linda slowly and clearly spoke these surprising words, “Have. . .  Communion. . . today.”

Arlene called to me to come from the kitchen where I was preparing Linda a dish of her favorite dessert, ice cream. She told me what Linda had just said. I asked if she wanted to have Communion. But, by this time, her thinking had moved on and her speech returned to scrambled words.

I ran to get grape juice and wafer which I keep on hand. By the time I returned, Linda was sound asleep.

Early the following morning before the caregiver arrived, I gave Linda her morning medication. She seemed especially alert, looking intently at me as I smiled and said, “I love you!”

I asked, “Linda, would you like Communion?” No visible response, only calm silence. I retrieved the chalice with grape juice and wafers.

Standing beside her bed, I sang “Jesus Loves Me” and “Amazing Grace.” Then I recited Psalm 23 and parts of Romans 8. She remained in uncharacteristic silence, even reverence. I prayed the Words of Institution from memory.

“We are remembering Jesus. He loves us and is with us now,” I said as I dipped the wafer in the cup and placed it on her tongue.

A slight smile and a glimmer of peace appeared on her face. “Thank you, Jesus, for loving us and being with us,” I prayed as I peered through my tear-stained eyes. She quickly drifted into a serene sleep.

It was a holy, transcendent moment of keep connection with God, one another, and “the great cloud of witnesses.”

The experience confirms the mystery of the Sacrament as well as the puzzle of the human mind. I don’t know for sure what triggered Linda’s comment, “have Communion today,” but I suspect it was Karen’s presence and prayer.

I really don’t know if she understood any of my words as I recited Scripture and sang familiar hymns. I can’t comprehend what was happening in her world as I placed on her tongue the signs of Jesus’ self-emptying love.

This I do know: There was more going on than can be intellectually understood by either Linda or me.

Furthermore, the most important ministry is PRESENCE! The chaplain’s attentive presence likely kindled an embedded memory and a connection that cannot be broken by brain disease!

 

 

“She’s Been Loved to Life”

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Clasping hands 2Linda entered Bethany, the memory care facility, in May 2015. It was a painful decision for us.  The subsequent eighteen months were the most excruciating I have experienced as she declined cognitively and physically.

By April 2016, she had lost 20 pounds and was becoming increasingly frail. After extensive medical evaluation, Linda was approved for hospice care.

She remained in Bethany for another six months. Confusion, fear, disorientation increased. She was gradually forgetting how to eat and walk. Her weight loss continued.

She was unable to perform minimal personal care, which made her ineligible for “assisted living.” She had to either be transferred to skilled nursing or taken home with full-time care.

I wanted her home! I asked the nurse practitioner for a prognosis of time remaining. Understandably, she was reluctant to project a time. But she said, “Perhaps six months to a year.”

It is now October 2018, thirty months since Linda was admitted to hospice care.  Although she can no longer walk and is confined to the bed and dependent for her personal care, she is more peaceful and less fearful.

“I would never have thought that she would still be with us!”  The nurse practitioner said with amazement during a recent visit.

As I stroked Linda’s hair and caressed her forehead, a pleasant smile and twinkle in the eyes appeared.

The usually stoic nurse said with evident emotion, “She’s been loved to life!”

Tearfully I responded. “We are determined to provide three things for her–physical and emotional safety, appropriate comfort, and the assurance that she is loved just as she is.”

“It’s obvious that she has all three. I just wish everybody could have what Linda has,” remarked the experienced and compassionate nurse.

I feel enormously blessed that Linda and I are both surrounded by love, and it is love that gives us life.

We are blessed with two daughters who love their mother with the unselfish love they received from her; and their families, including our grandchildren, share that love.

We have the help of caregivers to whom caring for Linda is a sacred vocation.

A couple from church bring a meal each Thursday, simply because they care.

A neighbor couple drop in almost every day to lend support.

I, too, wish everyone could have what we experience! Is that not what God desires for the human family–safety from unnecessary danger, comfort amid loss, and unconditional love and care?

We all need to be “loved to life!” Isn’t that why the church exists?

 

Splitting Asunder What God Joins Together—Truth and Love!

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A battle rages within The United Methodist Church! It’s ostensibly between “Traditionalists” and “Progressives” over homosexuality, authority of Scripture, and adherence of doctrine. But I propose that the conflict may expose an underlying, festering heresy: the severing of truth and love.

“Traditionalists” seek to preserve the truth of the Bible and doctrine as contained in historic creeds and the Articles of Religion, and they call for enforced adherence to established norms.

“Progressives” advocate for continuing divine revelation and the prioritizing of love as the core of Christian doctrine, and they call for expanding the circle of inclusion.

The stage is set for the apocalyptic showdown at General Conference in February 2019. The weapons of inflammatory rhetoric, proof-texting, political strategizing, and either/or dichotomies have been mobilized.

It’s either truth OR love, doctrinal faithfulness OR cultural accommodation, biblical authority OR philosophical relativism, traditional marriage OR sexual sin, my way OR the highway!

Let’s be reminded that dialects are integral to the gospel as viewed through the Wesleyan tradition

  • faith AND works
  • knowledge AND piety
  • personal AND socialtruth-and-love
  • justification AND sanctification
  • doing no harm AND doing good
  • sin as person AND systemic
  • church as local AND Universal
  • doctrinal standards AND theological exploration
  • sound doctrine AND holy living
  • discipleship as belief AND practice
  • truth AND love

In the Bible and Christian tradition, truth and love are inseparable, integral to one another. They are conjoined twins, each giving life to the other. Either without the other is neither authentic truth nor Christian love. When they are severed, the gospel is truncated with calamitous consequences.

In the name of defending truth, people have been persecuted, jailed, banished, and killed; and countless people have been demonized, demeaned, marginalized, and ostracized.

In the name of love, people have engaged in all kinds of exploitative, degrading, dehumanizing behaviors and activities; and devastating personal and social evils have gone unchallenged.

Methodists have long struggled with the tension between maintaining sound doctrine and living Christlike love. John Wesley’s sermons, “On Schism” and “Catholic Spirit” document his own internal battle. He holds fast to the church’s doctrines grounded in Scripture and Tradition while giving priority to holiness as “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.”

For Wesley, the truth of doctrine lies in the character produced in its adherents. Lives filled with the love of God and neighbor are the evidence of doctrinal truth, not biblical prooftexts or scholastic arguments. And the truthfulness of one’s love is how closely it resembles the self-emptying love (agape) of Christ.

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” is an often-used mantra in the academic world. The statement from John’s Gospel, however, has a condition attached to knowing the truth.

Here is the statement in context: “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciple; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free’”(8:31-32).

The truth that sets us free is not abstract formulation about Jesus. It is relationship with Jesus. In Jesus Christ, truth and love are perfectly and inextricably joined. Truth and love flow from relationship with the One in whom the two are one.

What does this mean for United Methodists searching for a way forward as a denomination. I certainly don’t have a definitive answer as to the best institutional configuration for the future.

But I am convinced that splitting into “traditional” and “progressive”, “conservative” and “liberal” is NOT the way to bear witness to the unity of truth and love. The dichotomy implied in those labels is false, a betrayal of the One who is Truth and Love. To form denominations around those labels would be to institutionalize heresy.

Truth and love are woefully lacking in our polarized, deceitful, and violent world. Untruth and hate are being normalized in the prevailing culture. Our social fabric is being ripped asunder. The common good is being trampled underfoot.

The witness of a community that embodies truth AND love is sorely needed. The church can’t be that witness by splitting asunder what God joined together in Jesus the Christ.

We need “a come to Jesus” meeting and declare to the world that Truth and Love are inseparable in Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, we can together find our way to truthfully love and love truthfully.