Lent... the least of these

I began getting calls yesterday while I was teaching. First to call was mama...”Are you home? Have you seen them?” Then Leisa and Gary each called to tell me about them because they thought they might belong to one of our daughters. An old, old mixed breed neutered male with a young dachshund male were sitting at our bridge on Lower Flat Creek. When approached, the old dog was friendly but the doxie would growl and show his teeth, protecting his beloved companion. Then they would run away. The old dog has many fatty tumors hanging off his body and on his front paw. Their claws are overgrown but they have been fed and not on the road too long because they are not starving.
They were headed up Edna Roberts Road when I came home. I stopped the car and called. The old one came to me tail wagging. I picked him up, put him on the blanket spread on the back seat, and turned to the doxie. Still baring his teeth, he hopped in the car and snuggled down for the ride up the hill to our house. He was so fierce that I wrapped him in the blanket to bring him inside to the back porch to join his companion. Shaking and frightened, the doxie refused the offers of friendship and growled when I put out my hand. After food and treats he relented and let me touch him. By bedtime he was my new best friend.
Looking in the old dog’s face will break your heart. Wise eyes, sad eyes, eyes that know our capacity for kindness and cruelty and in spite of that, the old dog is friendly to strangers. Watching him try to walk or lay down with his swollen body and front paw is a reminder that courage and perseverance are not virtues limited to two legged creatures.
I wonder what Jesus saw in the face and eyes of the woman who bathed him in perfume. She was judged and dismissed by those who saw what she had done as a waste, a useless offering that could have been sold and used for acts of peace and justice... to feed the poor they said. But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He saw it for what it was... a gift of grace and mercy offered as a way to lovingly care for him. His sharp reminder to those who questioned her judgement puts us all in our place.
It is easy to see the big picture, poverty and injustice represented in large groups of people, but more difficult to care for those closest to us... our irritating older parents, our smug know-it-all teenager, our whiny toddler, our tired spouse, the frustrating co-worker who tells us how to do our job. What I want to pour on their heads is boiling oil, not sweet perfume. “Remember,” Jesus says, “I will not always be with you.” And neither will they. Parents die and leave an empty place in your life. The teenager grows up and leaves home as does the toddler. Our spouse carries their own grab bag of worries and sorrows that we do not know as does that officious co-worker.
“As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me”, Jesus reminds us. So I call Alison for the name of the contact person for rescue work with doxies and I clean up the poop and pee on the back porch. I help the old one up the steps and play with them both. All our tails are wagging. I am the least of these along with you and the old dog. And today I will remember to pour perfume on the persons in my life who need it, even those who left the dogs by the side of the road.

Holy Week Monday... Revival time

As a young child, I sat through many revivals listening to the visiting preachers hold forth in the pulpit verbally wrestling with the congregation as they sought to save souls lost in sin. Revivals were a twice a year feature of my childhood faith instruction. A visiting preacher would come to town for a week of prayer and preaching. In our little church, the week before the services were devoted to cottage prayer meetings held in members homes. We met and prayed for the upcoming revival, the preacher and our community, petitioning God for a successful meeting.
The week of the revival, the hometown preacher would take the hired gun preacher to visit during the day all those who were standing in the need of prayer. Lunch and the evening meal were provided by the ladies of the church, each serving their best food to the men of God on a mission. Conversation, depending on the visiting preacher, could be light hearted and funny or deep and serious. Some of the best church stories I have ever heard were told around the table by revival preachers. Did you hear about the bride who forgot to practice walking up the steps in her bridal gown? As she walked up the steps, she forgot to lift the hem of her dress and walked up the skirt, ripping the bodice from the skirt. As the sound of the ripping fabric echoed through the sanctuary, the bride’s voice could be heard in the silence... Oh, shit (a perfectly acceptable word in our rural community) and the congregation lost it. The visiting preacher said standing there without laughing was the hardest thing he had ever done.
Many times I have sat in the pew nailed to the seat by the preacher’s rhythmical speech and pointed questions. You take your life in your own hands going to an evangelical Pentecostal style worship service. Confrontation always comes before comfort and your peace of mind is not their concern. Your soul’s salvation is. Confrontation and pleading continued as we sang the trademark invitation hymn... Just As I Am... all the verses and then some... as we waited for the Spirit to move someone down the aisle. Revival worships were dangerous and resting in the bosom of the Lord was not an option.
The first day of Holy Week according to the gospel of Matthew reminds me of those revival services with Jesus as the visiting preacher. His in your face style that day with the religious leaders was a no holds barred approach that pushed back. No turn the other cheek theology here. He was on a roll after turning the temple upside down on Palm Sunday and was ready to stake his claim as the Son of God. This angry confrontational Jesus was not just speaking to the Pharisees and Sadducees of his day. He is speaking to us and challenging our understanding of who he is. Story after story in this Holy Week sermon with pointed questions at the end leave us gasping for breath as he leads us to the final riddle question... “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” We are forced to answer, to take a stand, to walk the aisle as the choir sings “Just As I Am” or to walk away. There is no middle ground... no fence to sit on.
So this week I will be once again answering this question as I have heard the call since I was a child. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is my way home to God. Jesus loves me. Thanks be to God for his life and death and resurrection that conquered death. I am his and he is mine. Holy Week faith is not for the fainthearted or the fence sitters. We all, like those who were there for that revival sermon long ago, have to answer the questions one way or another. Like Peter we claim him as Lord and then disavow our knowledge of him. The gift of Monday in Holy Week is the chance to start over. It is a revival indeed.