ANNA LISA GROSS
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Anna Lisa Gross' blog. For the Mexico Permaculture AdVanture, click here. For publications, see writing.

Pedal Priestess

A Life Worth Saving

12/28/2015

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Mark 10:35-45

"...Dame Stephanie Shirley remembers “I was clutching the hand of my 9-year-old sister, and had very little idea as to what was going on. What is England and why am I going there? I was lucky, and doubly lucky, to be later reunited with my birth parents. But, sadly, I never bonded with them again. But I've done more in the seven decades since that miserable day when my mother put me on the train than I would ever have dreamed possible. I loved England, my adopted country, with a passion that perhaps only someone who has lost their human rights can feel. I decided to make mine a life that was worth saving, and then I just got on with it.”
 
Scripture is filled with stories of the foreigner, downcast and marginalized transforming the mainstream community. ...

In Matthew and Mark a woman anoints Jesus' head, while in John, we read “Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
 
Mary anoints his feet and suddenly Jesus is kneeling before the disciples in the very next chapter. These days we usually anoint for healing, but most biblical anointings are to commission kings. Earlier in the gospel of John, chapter 6 verse 15, Jesus refuses to be anointed king by the people gathered by the Sea of Galilee, after the feeding of the multitudes. But as Mary anoints his feet, she prepares Jesus for his first kingly act - a grand entrance into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. Soon after, king Jesus kneels and washes the disciples feet. Now do you know about feetwashing in 1st century Palestine? It wasn't an odd religious ritual then, it was a run-of-the-mill moment of hospitality, performed by a woman or a slave of the household. King Jesus kneels as a woman, as a slave, and turns the world upside down....

Some of us don’t like to call Jesus king, because we don’t use those regal words or mindsets today, but Jesus is an upside down king, he became king by his feet, not his head. Jesus lords under us, he never lords over us. We honor Jesus’ teachings and live lives worth saving as we dive into this upside down world with Jesus where slave becomes master and master becomes slave. We must renounce each and every worldly power and privilege that we have ever lorded over one another. They have no place in Jesus' upside down kindom.
 
It is only through mutual vulnerability and ability that we can strive for the radical equality of the kindom of God. We live into our ability when we wash another’s feet, claiming the power and the right to cleanse another in the manner of Jesus. The honor is so astounding that we are inevitably humbled – the task of a slave is now the glory of God. Jesus knelt as a slave to demonstrate that we all have the power to participate in one another’s healing and ongoing journey toward wholeness...."

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Treasure in heaven

12/22/2015

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The rich young man is doing all the right stuff, following all the commandments, checking all the boxes, crossing off all the to-do list items until he comes to the one thing he cannot part with - his wealth. It’s funny, we often think that with money we would find freedom and joy -- the kind personal benefactor who pays our salary no matter what we do would finally give us freedom, right, to do the things we love to do? But this rich young man reminds us that money can be the exact thing that blocks our freedom and joy. To be more specific, our clinging to money can be what keeps us from embracing freedom and chasing joy. This rich young man is doing all the hard stuff - staying faithful with his word and deed, treating others with respect, following every commandment - but he has given away his power to his wealth.
 
We let money mean all kinds of things to us. We let it mean security: through access to health care, reliable and independent transportation, private and consistent housing, all kinds of insurance, retirement savings. Since we’ve designed a society in which these things add up to security, and we’ve designed a system in which money buys all these things, money really does mean security to us.
 
I think that’s why Jesus comes up with this phrase “treasure in heaven.” He’s trying to use what matters to the rich young man to offer him a new future. Treasure matters, stocking up on treasure makes this man feel safe and good, so Jesus offers him a way to imagine that giving away his worldly possessions will still give him a treasure stockpile somewhere. And we humans are driven by reward – we have jobs to contribute to the world, teach students, heat houses, and so forth, but the paycheck matters too. We assume people are motivated more the more money they get, that the more we get paid the harder we work. That’s true in some cases, but overall people work hardest when they can see tangible, satisfying results of their work.
 
So this passage from Mark is tricky for many of us to read because we’re not comfortable doing good works in the world so we can have the biggest treasure chest in heaven. It just doesn’t fit most Christians’ (definitely not most Brethrens’) ethical viewpoint. We do good in this world because it is good to do, because our faith teaches us to, because it serves the world - not because we get paid for it later. I remember playing the game Generosity with my grandma - have you heard of it? It’s like the game of Life, but the cards have scripture on them and instead of earning money in the bank, you’re earning money in your heavenly treasure chest. It made me really uncomfortable and I thought I should keep it a secret from my parents because I had some sneaking suspicion that they would disapprove. I was right, they were rather scandalized by the game and for good reason. The game of Life and the game of Generosity are totally individualistic. Yes, you can put pink and blue pegs in your car game piece, but you’re still moving through the game world for yourself, acquiring as much wealth as possible. Whether you put it in your bank account or your heavenly treasure chest really doesn’t matter....
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Jesus knows the rich young man leads a faithful life in nearly every way, but he wants the man’s life to be worth more to him than his money. Since the man’s faith is in his money, Jesus tries to speak in a language the man will understand, promising true riches in heaven. Jesus isn’t saying that gold or money are actually worth anything, or that we should treasure them on earth or in heaven. Jesus simply wants to shake up this young rich man’s faith in money, so that he can put his faith in something real instead.
 
What do you have faith in that isn’t real? Most of us have the same struggle as this rich young man. Money seems pretty real, you can occasionally hold it in your hand, or representations of it like bills and cards. Can you hold God in your hand? Jesus? The Holy Spirit? You faith community? The love of your family and friends? Prayer? Hope? Peace? Isn’t it funny how pretty much all of the most important things in life are impossible to hold in our hands?
 
When that makes us nervous, we’re vulnerable, we want something to hold on to. We reach for money for reassurance, we reach for food for comfort, we reach for the remote for distraction, we reach for the internet for companionship, we reach for guns for security, we reach for stereotypes to build our own self-esteem. You can hold your wallet, a donut, the TV remote, your computer, a gun, you can’t hold God, faith, hope, love, peace.
 
So we find tokens, because we need something to hold on to some days. We give birthday presents and wear wedding rings and write love letters and send sympathy cards to hold love in our hands.
 
We carry rosaries or wear crosses around our necks to hold our faith in our hands.
 
What does real mean, after all? Real can mean true, and real can mean tangible. But they’re not always the same thing. Love and faith aren’t tangible, but they are real.
 
We can’t hold God in our hands. We can’t even hold the divine human Jesus in our hands, though he is a tangible expression of God. We held the Body of Christ in our hands last Sunday, but we also hold the Body of Christ in our hands when we touch one another. As we gather in Jesus’ name, he is here, the Body of Christ remembered in this room.
 
So we have to hold each other, because we hold love, faith, God in our hands when we hold one another...."

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Let the little children come

12/11/2015

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Mark 10:13-16

"...Children aren’t necessarily more ethical or noble than adults – kids and adults can be kind or cruel. But kids are better at seeing the difference between fake and real, because they are real. Their kindness or their cruelty is real, not strategic or manipulative like adult kindness and cruelty can be.

We trust this in the littlest children. Babies get our complete trust. Pretty much everyone loves eye contact with babies. Some infant you’ve never seen before, any race, any gender, can catch your eye and you feel like a winner. A thrill goes up your spine and you make ridiculous faces to keep this baby’s eyes on you, to inspire a smile.
If a stranger over the age of two stares at you it’s uncomfortable, you wonder what’s between your teeth. If a stranger over the age of nine stares at you it’s awkward, you wonder if your fly is unzipped. If a stranger over the age of thirteen stares at you, it’s scary, you wonder if you’re about to get mugged. But babies get us cooing and grinning.

Priest Richard Rohr tells a story about a young couple putting their newborn in the nursery for the night. Their four-year-old son says, “I want to talk to the baby!”
“You can talk to him.”
“I want to talk to him now and by myself,” the four-year-old announces.
Surprised and curious, the parents listen at the door.
The four-year-old says to his baby brother: “Quick, tell me where you came from. Quick, tell me who made you. I’m beginning to forget!”
 
What did you know when you were born that you have forgotten since? Maybe you could remember God knitting you together in your mother’s womb, perhaps you knew just how whole and holy you are, how God created you blessed, to be a blessing in this world. You were loved unconditionally by your creator, hopefully by your parents. You hadn’t made any mistakes yet, you weren’t responsible for your messes or noises or flaws.

We look for unconditional love for the rest of our lives, because early on we learn that we disappoint people, and it changes us. The little children don’t ask who among them is the greatest because early in our lives, we all trust our inherent greatness. We’re not worried about status because it hasn’t occurred to us that we are anything but beloved.
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And we’re not any less beloved now. God loves us even more completely than our parents can, though hopefully our parents have always tried, hopefully we always try to love unconditionally. But God really does it...."

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    Anna Lisa Gross is a pedaling priestess with a pen.

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