Jason Gaboury's Blog, page 2

Lent Exercises: Fight - Responding to Jesus' Disruption

I have a reputation for liking a good fight.  When people on my team say, “well, this will be fun for Jason,” it’s a signal that there’s a conflict to resolve.  Sometimes this reputation can be a problem.  I once sent a message to a colleague with the title, “wanna rumble.”  They later informed me that the title caused them to feel sick and avoid opening the email.  I apologized and, hopefully, learned my lesson.  

Still, I do like a good fight.  To be clear, I abhor violence, and don’t much like interpersonal conflict.  A good fight is different.  A good fight happens when we lean into conflict because something important to both of us is at stake.  It happens when we love someone enough to say, “I think you’re headed in the wrong direction.”  A good fight clarifies what we hold to be true, good, or beautiful, or worth fighting about.   

 

This week we’re reflecting on opposition to Jesus.  Religious and political opposition to Jesus didn’t emerge from nowhere.  At the end of Luke 19 is the story of Jesus ‘cleansing’ the temple, driving out money changers and those who were selling things.  In this action Jesus challenged an income stream for the temple. He’d disrupted worship.  Jesus challenged greed.  

In today’s passage in Luke 20:1-8 we find Jesus in conversation with the priests and temple leaders.  The last time Jesus interacts with this group in Luke’s gospel, he’s a boy of twelve.  

That day Jesus was able to sit in the temple and engage the teachers, amazing them with the depth of his insight.  Since then, Jesus has only grown in wisdom and in authority.  

The chief priests challenge Jesus asking who authorized him to disrupt their worship.  Jesus’ answers with a question.  Where did the chief priests think John the Baptist’s authority came from?  Jesus’ reference to John the Baptist is important.  John was famous for calling people to repentance, a turning away from evil and a turning towards God.  

 

The boy in the temple was precocious and admirable.  The man confronts their practices and summons them to turn back to God.  Why is it that the keepers of God’s space can’t recognize God’s call?   

There’s a little of the temple leaders in all of us.  It’s one thing to be impressed with or even comforted by Jesus.  It’s another thing to let Jesus flip over the tables and drive out your money changers.  

 

I like a good fight.  Jesus fought with the temple leaders because they mattered to him.  Jesus disrupts us in our complacency, selfishness, and sin, because we matter to him too.  

 

Imagine your life and habits as a temple.  What is the center of worship?  What sustains that worship?  Imagine Jesus entering your life and habits.  Can you imagine Jesus disrupting rhythms in your life or calling you to turn towards God?  How would you like to respond to Jesus?    

 

 

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Lent Exercises: See - A Reflection on Healing and Identity

Snow was coming down hard.  I was standing on the sidewalk of the mostly abandoned strip mall shouting.  The man ahead of me stepped into the snow.  “Dad…” I called out, “where are you going?”  He called back, “who the F*#@ are you to tell me what to do?”  

 

The cold snow blew in my face causing me to squint.  A single icy tear squeezed out of my right eye.  

“I’m the son of an alcoholic!” I shot back as he wandered further into the snow.  “You hear me… you’re an alcoholic… and you think I have problems.”  

 

This was a low point in a complicated relationship that took years to heal.  Still, whenever I reflect on John 9, I’m viscerally reminded of being a 14-year-old standing in the snow.  

 

John 9 is the story of a man who’d been born blind, but received his sight when Jesus placed mud on his eyes and sent him to wash it off.  There are two theological tension points in the story that lead to conflict.  The man receives his sight on the Sabbath after Jesus made mud and the man washed.  (Both activities were prohibited on the Sabbath by religious leaders because they were considered work.).  Jesus’ healing confronts this perspective.  His “work” invites the religious leaders to see an act of healing and celebrate God’s restoration. That they can’t see it, except as a problem reveals their spiritual blindness.  

 

The second theological tension point is the assumption that the man’s blindness, particularly his being born blind, had something to do with his sin.  The disciples ask Jesus whether the blind man, or his parents sinned to cause him to be born blind.  After hearing the man’s testimony about Jesus and his restored sight, they say, “You were born entirely in sins, and you’re trying to teach us!”  

This last line that brings me back to that cold night.  

In formal debate this kind of response is called ad hominem, (at the man).  It’s a powerful (and painful) way of changing the subject.  When this happens, my first response is to be angry, defensive, and respond in kind.  As you can see above.  But Jesus’ way is different.  

Jesus explains that the man was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him.  Blindness is not sin or punishment.  This man, seeing or unseeing, shares the same call as every human being; to reflect God’s work.  You and I are called to reflect God’s works.  The truest thing about us is not our sin, traumas, or vulnerabilities.  We can know God.  We can reflect God’s work.  

Neither Jesus nor the man respond to the personal attack in kind.  The sign and testimony are for the very people who respond harshly.  It is an invitation to see, to recognize, to have life. 

 

The way of Jesus liberates me from the need to protect myself or lash out.  It can even transform a traumatic experience into a space for reflection. 

What healing or restoration do you need from Jesus today?  

How do you respond to the idea that the truest thing about you is your capacity to know God and reflect his works?  

 

What is Jesus inviting you to “see” today?  

 

 

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Lent Exercises: Give - Competing Perspectives on Value

This week the US Senate is in confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.  Her story is inspiring.  The daughter of schoolteachers Ketanji discovered an aptitude for learning and for oratory when she was still in high school.  She attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School and served in a number of judiciaries.  She is poised to become the first black woman in to serve on the supreme court.  

 

There’s something so American about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s story.  On one hand it’s a story of opportunity, of breaking through institutional barriers through diligence and hard work.  It’s a story of transcending the limitations imposed by racial assignment, gender, and class.  On the other hand, her story is also a marker of the institutional barriers we don’t like to talk about.  

 

As I reflect on the American-ness of this story, I’m struck by what happens inside me.  I too believe the American mythology.  I believe success is just around the corner if I really am willing to work hard enough.  I believe there is some hidden genius within if I’m just diligent enough to cultivate it.  I believe I can breakthrough to the “good life,” if only…. 

 

The way of Jesus invites me into a different story.  In today’s reading (Mark 12:41-44), Jesus sits by the treasury of the temple watching people bring gifts.  Jesus watches as rich people offer large sums as a part of their worship.  These donors are the elites of Judean society.  They are the patrons, decision makers, influencers, and leaders.  They are the people that people like me aspire to be like.  

Jesus doesn’t disparage their offerings.  Instead, he notices a poor widow.  No one would have noticed her or her offering.  Her two small coins together weren’t worth very much.  But Jesus points to her offering as more than all the others.  From Jesus’ perspective the value of one’s contribution isn’t determined by how big it is in the eyes of the world.   

 

I wonder what the widow thought as she brought her offering.  Did she think her little gift wouldn’t make any difference?  Did she feel, in her body, the cost of the daily bread her gift was going to cost her?  Did she look at the rich patrons making gifts and think, “it must be nice,”?  Did she dream about how her life might have been different, or whether she might still be able to marry and change her status? 

 

For all its strengths, the American story values the powerful and wealthy.  Our value is tied to our ‘success’.  Jesus’ story is different.  He applauds the barely visible acts of the ignored, foolish, and marginalized.  This is good news for the vast majority of us who’s stories will never make headlines.  Your small acts of generosity, service, or contribution matters way more than you think.  As mother Theresa used to say, “we all want to do great things, but we are called to do small things with great love.”  

How might you do a small thing with great love today?  

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Lent Exercises: Money - Confronting the Temptation of Wealth

There’s a story that is told about St. Dominic, 13th century founder of the Order of Preachers.  On a visit to Rome, Dominic was given a tour of the church’s treasury.  The cardinal who was giving the tour, expecting Dominic to be impressed, said, “well, I guess the church can no longer say, ‘silver and gold, have I none.’” Dominic paused, “true,” he said, “but, neither can she say, ‘rise and walk.’”  

 

I like this story.  It’s cheeky.  It’s insightful.  It puts its finger on a vulnerability all of us face, the temptation of wealth.  

 

Mark 10:17-31 tells the story of a man falling down before Jesus asking, “what must I do to inherit eternal life.” In context the question being asked is not, “how do I go to heaven when I die,” but “how do I participate in God’s life now and in the age to come.”  Clearly, this man recognizes Jesus as an authority on God’s life, ‘eternal’ life. 

 

Jesus’ first response is to point this man to the Torah.  This is significant.  God’s life and the way to participate in life with God were not novel ideas.  This man knew the Torah.  He kept the law.  Jewish spirituality is wonderfully concrete.  A Jewish friend lovingly chides me, “It seems to me people in your tradition, (Christians) argue too much about abstractions.  Go do some positive good.  Help the poor.  Be a mensch (a person of integrity and honor).”  

 

The man confesses keeping God’s commands.  Jesus doesn’t contradict him.  Instead, Jesus looks at him with love and says, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

 

Notice that Jesus’ invitation is more practical, specific, and tangible than our (Christian) practice is usually comfortable with.  If a person comes to our communities and asks what they must do to have eternal life, we are apt to say, “put your faith in Jesus.”  This isn’t wrong.  Still, I can’t help but notice Jesus’ invitation here is much more concrete.    

 

Go sell your stuff.  Then come follow me.  

If we want God’s life we will, at some point, have to confront our attachment to wealth.  In 1998 I had the privilege of being able to put Jesus’ invitation to the test.  I sold or gave away most of my belongings.  Paid off the consumer debt I’d accumulated.  And spent the next few years living as simply as possible, serving students and serving the poor.  Few seasons have been as spiritually transformative.  

 

Few of us have the privilege to divest so thoroughly.  With two daughters about to enter college it would be irresponsible for me to do that now.  Still, the invitation of Jesus comes through.  If I long for God’s life, I have to confront my attachment to wealth.  

Why not give anonymously and generously today?  See if you experience God’s life.

 

 

 

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Lent Exercises: Embarrassed - Responding to Radical Acceptance

Everything was going great, until Heather asked if I wanted to see an unfinished room above her garage.  It was a really cool space.  The only problem was that it didn’t have a floor.  So, you needed to walk on these wooden beams, so that you didn’t crash through to the garage below.  

In my defense, the beams made for very tight walking quarters, (did I mention the teenage hormones) and in a moment of graceless and awkward teenage boyhood, I stepped off the plank and pushed my foot straight through the garage ceiling.  

As I pulled my foot out of the ridiculous hole I’d created, I looked below and could see Heather’s dad… looking up at me… fuming.  I thought I was going to die.  

Have you ever done something so awkward, so graceless, so embarrassing, that it hurt just to have people look at you?  

 

I always think of this story when I read the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man in Mark 2:1-12.  In this well-known story a man is brought to Jesus for healing.  His friends can’t find a way into the house where Jesus is teaching.  So, they dig through the roof and lower their friend through the roof.  Every eye in in the community is now fixed on Jesus and on the man as he lies suspended before him.  

 

There are layers of complexity in this simple story.  Jesus’ first response is to say, “your sins are forgiven.”  This befuddles the religious leaders in the crowd, who start grumbling.  Mark points out Jesus’ response is to the friends’ faith.  This befuddles Western individualistic readers who are struck by how passive the paralyzed man is.  The friends dig through another person’s roof because they can find no other way through the crowd.  It’s fascinating that the crowd would not make space.  The physical healing isn’t really the point of the story. Before healing the paralyzed man Jesus asks, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?”  The expected answer is that the second would be easier to accomplish, but that’s clearly impossible.  This passage shows Jesus’ profound authority. 

Perhaps it’s the embarrassing memory, but I can’t help blushing as I imagine what it’d be like to be lowered through someone else’s roof.  Hanging there, exposed, vulnerable, and unsure stirs my fears of rejection, embarrassment, and shame.  I see the fuming face of the houseowner and want to hide.  Perhaps that’s why Jesus’ speaks of forgiveness.  

 

What must it have felt like to hear a declaration of forgiveness while in the very act of damaging another’s property?  How liberating to have Jesus’ first words speak of acceptance, not rejection?

 

Can you imagine yourself in this scene?  What emotions stir for you?  How does it feel to hear Jesus’ words of forgiveness?  Is there a response you want to make to Jesus? 

 

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Lent Exercises: Expand - Learning to Love as God Loves

Tensions between the NYPD and the black Brooklyn neighborhood I lived in were simmering.  After one of our neighbors, a man my age, was shot and killed by undercover cops, the tension was thick.  The funeral procession turned into a protest.  The protest turned into a losing confrontation with police.  

 

I was about fifteen feet from the police barricade when the violence started.  There was never any contest.  Mounted riot police corralled protesters, while others bound hands with zip ties.  Helicopters hovered overhead.  

The scene I’m describing took place in the spring of 2000.  I was a young campus minister learning to love and serve students at a historically Black campus nearby.  Scenes like this have become far too common since then.  Though an older campus minister, I’m still trying to love and serve communities across difference.  

In Luke 4, Jesus claims to fulfil the words of Isaiah’s prophecy.  

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 

These words are powerful for their immediacy.  Jesus’ ministry isn’t abstract, idealized, and disconnected.  God is with him.  God is interested in the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed.  Jesus’ ministry is directed towards the vulnerable.  

 

Everyone listening grasps this appreciatively.  After all, most in Jesus’ audience saw themselves as poor, oppressed, and captive.  They inferred that Jesus’ message and ministry was for them.  Until it wasn’t.  

 

Jesus challenges his listeners with stories of God’s generosity towards a Sidonian widow and a Syrian official. Suddenly, the crowd wants to kill him.  Jesus’ stories are too much.  We love a God whose priorities are on the poor, as long as the poor don’t include the ones we fear or dislike.  We love a God who sets captives free, until the captives are people we want in custody.  We want the year of the Lord’s favor, until God’s favor turns toward our enemies.  

 

The way of Jesus is not the way of this world.  Jesus’ vision of the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed are larger and more expansive than ours.  Followers of Jesus learn to love like God loves.  

 

Perhaps this scene in Nazareth, or the one I described at the start of this post, stirs something in you.  If so, this is a good opportunity to enter into prayer.  Jesus isn’t interested in baptizing our perspectives.  He is interested in transforming them.  Imagine yourself in the synagogue with Jesus.  Imagine Jesus’ words challenging you.  Notice Jesus’ love for you, and for the crowd, even as they turn on him.  What do you want to say to Jesus?  

 

How is Jesus inviting you to grow in love?  

 

 

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Lent Exercises: Temptation - Trust and Delayed Gratification

You’ve probably heard of the Stanford marshmallow experiment.  The experiment, designed to measure delayed gratification, was originally done at Stanford University in 1972.  Children who participated in the experiment were shown a treat (a marshmallow or pretzel).  They were told that they could eat the treat, but if they waited for the researcher to return, a wait of fifteen minutes, they would get two treats.  Not surprisingly, children who were better able to delay gratification were, generally, higher performers later in life.  

 

The marshmallow experiment seems to reinforce something we already know.  Delayed gratification is important for success.  If we want to perform at a high level we’d better develop and hone our ability to resist temptation.  

 

Matthew 4:1-11 tells the story of Jesus at the start of his ministry.  For forty days Jesus is in the wilderness, fasting, and facing the temptations of the devil.  Jesus is tempted to prove his identity as the “Son of God.”  In each temptation the devil seems to hold the marshmallow in front of Jesus.  “Command these stones to become bread,” is promised relief to a body famished by forty days of fasting.  “Throw yourself down,” comes with a presumption of God’s intervention, now, no more waiting.  “All these I will give you…” dangles earthly power with all its privileges.  

 

In each of these temptations we see Jesus combating the very same tests his human ancestors faced in their wilderness.  When Jesus succeeds against the temptations of bread, false worship, or presumption, readers familiar with the story of Israel recognize that the ancient struggle between tempter and humanity is entering a new stage.  

 

While inspiring in its depiction of Jesus, the temptation story leaves us wondering where we fit.  When I was growing up preachers loved pointing out how Jesus responded to temptation with scripture.  They inferred that if only I memorized enough bible verses, I too would be able to resist temptation.  This strategy didn’t make much sense to me.  Growing up as deeply in church as I did, I knew more bible than most of my friends.  This did not give me great advantages when it came to resisting temptation.  Is the ability to resist temptation an innate capacity, something the marshmallow experiment can measure but not create?  

 

It turns out that the ability to delay gratification or resist temptation aren’t fixed capacities.  Subsequent experiments discovered that a child’s ability to resist temptation depended on their assessment of the trustworthiness of the experimenter.  When researchers demonstrated trustworthiness to children before the experiment, children trusted them and were better able to delay gratification.  When researchers broke trust, children took the reward they could see.  

 

What must Jesus have understood about God’s trustworthiness?  What do I understand about God’s trustworthiness?  Perhaps the ability to resist temptation has more to do with recognizing God’s faithfulness, than it does trying to manufacture some of our own.  

 

Imagine a conversation with Jesus.  Tell him about your temptations.  How does he respond? 

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Lent Exercises: Imagine - Discipling our Theological Imagination

In a church racked with sex scandals we need a new theological imagination.  This morning another large Christian organization crossed my newsfeed with an apology to women who experienced sexual harassment. These stories are heartbreaking.  They trigger disappointment and shame.  

Articles, like the one I read this morning, rightly appeal to accountability and organizational best practice as a solution to harassment.  This is good.  Clearly, shared ethics and, ‘good intentions,’ are insufficient.  

 

And yet… it’s not just our organizations that need renewal.  When our theological imagination colludes with the impulse to sexualize others, or to blame women for the sexual behavior of men, we need renewal.  

 

John 4:1-30 tells the story of Jesus’ interactions with a woman at a well near Samaria.  This passage is a clear example of our need for a new imagination.  Popular preaching and teachings of this passage often focuses on the woman.  She’s had five husbands.  She’s there in the middle of the day (not with the other women early in the morning).  She tells Jesus she has no husband, perhaps suggesting she’s sexually available.  These readings reinforce the woman as temptress.  They see Jesus as ‘redeeming’ her from this negative stereotype.  

 

The application of this kind of reading often goes something like, “This woman has tried to fill her life with things that won’t satisfy her, (sex and relationships), but Jesus invites her to find her true satisfaction in him.”  

 

But what if our imaginations were shaped a little differently?  What if we knew that women couldn’t initiate divorce, or a marriage for that matter?  What if this woman’s relational status was the direct result of the choices of men in her life?  Would she still be a temptress?  Would it still be fair to say that she was looking to ‘fill herself’ with the wrong things?  

 

Or consider that Jesus asks her for a drink, despite an ethnic hostility that kept Jews from sharing with Samaritans.  Or consider that Jesus invites her into a dialogue, inviting her to reflect on an image, (that of living water) he’d later offer in the middle of the temple (John 7).  

Try imagining the scene with these thoughts in view?  Does the woman at the well become a little more three dimensional?  Can you relate to her multiple identities and experiences? 

 

Now, imagine Jesus speaking with her from a posture of curiosity, humility, and respect.  What do you notice?

 

Finally, imagine you’re there with Jesus.  Imagine Jesus turning and speaking to you in a similar way.  What invitation does Jesus have for you?  How does it make you feel?  What insights about Jesus emerge from your reflection? 

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Lent Exercises: Awkward - Why a Wedding is a Good Image for Life With God.

Weddings can be awkward.  At the first wedding I remember, my then 9-year-old, brother successfully caught the wedding garter.  In our family tradition, this small (largely symbolic) undergarment is tossed to the unmarried men.  Then the bride tosses her wedding bouquet to the unmarried women.  The man who catches the wedding garter is then teased and goaded as he slides the small elastic garter up the leg of the woman who caught the bouquet. 

Neither me nor my brother knew this tradition at the time.  The look of horror on my little brother’s face as his task dawned on him was captured in the wedding album.  

 

Weddings can be awkward.  They stir powerful emotions.  They make us think of our singleness or marriage. They draw us together and remind us of our separation.  Weddings give us a chance to see ourselves.  We see our hopes, longings, and loves reflected back to us in this couple, under these circumstances.  Perhaps that’s why Jesus’ first sign was at a wedding.  

 

John 2:1-11 captures the scene in all its awkward humanity.  The wine runs out, a hospitality nightmare.  Jesus’ mother asks him, indirectly but clearly, to do something.  Jesus complains that ‘his hour’ has not come.  Nevertheless, he heeds his mother’s request.  In the end, Jesus provides over a hundred gallons of excellent wine.   This becomes the first of seven, ‘signs,’ in John’s gospel pointing to Jesus’ identity. 

 

There are layers upon layers in this story.  The wine is a symbol of God’s kingdom.  Its abundance is a symbol of God’s generosity.  The jars it was made in are a symbol of the ceremonial cleansing necessary for communion with God.  The quality of the wine is a symbol of God’s generosity.  This whole sign is thematically and rhetorically connected to Jesus’ crucifixion, where Mary, wine, and the ‘hour’ all return forcefully. 

 

Why would John (or Jesus for that matter) pack all of these rich themes into an awkward moment at a wedding?  Perhaps Jesus understands us better than we think.  Weddings can be awkward because, humanity is awkward.  We long.  We love.  We connect.  And, in the midst of our brightest moments, we’re negotiating embarrassing family, longing and grief, and the limits we wish we could transcend.  

Jesus reveals his glory at a wedding.  If we can meet God in the midst of our awkward and vulnerable, where can we not meet him?  Can you imagine a God who longs to provide for you in the midst of your messy humanness?    

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Lent Exercises: Guiltless - Religious Judgment and Jesus' Compassion

It’s a well-known story.  Jesus’ opponents come to him, dragging a woman who has been, “caught” in the “very act” of adultery.  They ask him if they should stone her, according to the law of Moses.  

The whole story is a set up.  If Jesus tells them to disobey the law of Moses, they will have grounds to dismiss him as a teacher.  If Jesus tells them to stone the woman, they will undermine his popularity with the vulnerable communities who flock to his teaching.  

Jesus draws on the ground.  Afterwards, he stands and says, “the one of you who is guiltless, let that one be first to throw the stone,” and goes back to drawing on the ground.  One by one the crowd leave, until it is just Jesus and the woman.  He asks if any of her accusers has condemned her, and hearing her reply, says, “neither do I condemn you, go and do not sin…”. 

Preachers and commentators on this story emphasize Jesus’ creativity in responding to the trap set for him, and his compassion for the woman.  Too few, in my view, notice the missing adulterous man.  It is not possible for a woman to commit adultery by herself, where is the man she was supposed to be with?  Jewish law required witnesses to put someone to death.  How is it possible that this woman could have been condemned with witnesses, but here the witnesses seem to only have seen the woman?  This isn’t simply a set up for Jesus, the woman too, must have been set up for the purpose of trying to entrap Jesus. 

This kind of lawlessness, that pretends to be righteous on one hand, while turning a blind eye to exploitation on the other, is abhorrent to the God we see reflected in Jesus.  Creative thinkers imagine Jesus, writing on the ground a list of the sins of the men who are gathering around, stones in hand.  I imagine, Jesus simply writing Exodus 20:16, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  The accusers’ witness is false, not because the woman is necessarily guiltless, but because they are actively exploiting a set of circumstances in which she is carrying exclusive moral responsibility for the decisions of others, particularly men.  

It seems to me that the tendency to push blame and responsibility for sexual wrongdoing towards the vulnerable hasn’t changed much.  The more I read this story, though, the more I see Jesus providing for the vulnerable, exposing exploitation, and offering hope.  

I find myself in this story on multiple levels.  I suspect you do as well.  Too many of us know what it’s like to bear solo responsibility for the exploitative choices of others.  Most of us carry vulnerability or shame when it comes to our sexual attraction, orientation, identity, or practice.  We know the judgmental religious stare.  

Imagine being in this scene with Jesus.  How do his words and actions speak to you?  How do you want to respond?  

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