Where God is in The Tent

This morning a friend preached from Exodus 33, about the Israelites’ reaction to when Moses went to meet God in the Tent of Meeting. He reminded us that the tent was there for everyone to enter, but only two did. He implored us to daily enter the Tent as Moses and Joshua did, because we, too, are dependent on God’s Presence and Glory.

I'm desperate for it. 

There are many days—many moments even--where I miss my turn in the Tent, where I miss my Divine Appointments and forgo the opportunity to enter God’s presence. Sometimes it’s because I let the day get in the way and forget to go out to the Tent of Meeting, but sometimes it’s because I go looking for the Presence of God in the wrong place. 

It’s true that God is everywhere present. Theologically, I believe the Presence of God manifests itself differently from how it did in those wandering desert days the Hebrews faced. After the Resurrection, after the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Presence of God is no longer in an isolated location, where a certain ethnic group and its leaders held exclusive rights.  We believe God is now with us all the time. 

Yet we still have to go looking. 

Also,  the presence of desert days hasn’t changed. I still have those. I am still wandering, asking big questions about what God has in store for me. Where I’m going--what’s next--and even wondering if He’s actually going to make good on those promises of a land that flows with milk and honey. There are days where I climb the mountain, and the vista doesn’t reveal that Land is anywhere close. 

Not that I’m sure I even know what I’m looking for.

I went up on that mountain so I could see for myself where we were going. I figured if I went up to the place where He was last—the place where Moses got the Law and brought it down—I’d find God, some clear vision, a way forward, something. I wanted a glimpse of the Promised Land for myself.

So I could get reassurance for myself.

No wonder I didn’t find what I was looking for. 

God is not at the end of a long climb propelled by my fear of what’s next. 

God is no longer where the rules and procedures carved in stone were handed down. God is not in the shrine that I built to those stone tablets, believing those rules are the very formula that will deliver me from suffering and to a land teeming with things I think I want.  

I come back to the sentence that has propelled me for the last three years: I surely have to be where God is. 

And this time, God is down in the tent, behind the pillar of cloud.

In a tent, behind a pillar of cloud – God is  in the place where I see the least of the land and where there are few people. God is in all the obscurity and mystery. God is in all that I cannot see and all that I cannot know. God is where I carry the weight of Glory, not the weight of worry about the future.

That tent is the place where God will speak to me, face to face “as a man speaks to a friend.” And like Moses, I can take to God all the things I was promised but still don’t know.

 All the things I still can’t see. 

When it comes down to it, I realize, like Moses, I want God’s favor more than I want answers. I, too, pray “Show me now your ways,  that I may know You in order to find favor in your sight.” I, too, remind God that I am one of His people. I remember that there are promises and there is work to do. 

God,  I’m ready. Please just show me  the way.

(And honestly, I, too, would like to know who is going with me.) 

God answers that for me as He did for Moses, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 

Yes, God is everywhere present. But if I am not in that tent, if I am not looking to meet God face to face, it means I am looking for something else. 

To get into the Tent, we must make an about-face, turning from our quest to secure our own futures with answers we got for ourselves. Taking the path to the Tent takes me off my well-worn path of worry, insecurity, and self-destruction. 

We go looking for the Presence of God so we stop looking for other things that don’t deliver. 

I see most clearly when I turn from all the other places where I’m seeking the affirmation and control that will bring me the future I thought I was promised.

When I repent.

 

I see most clearly when I enter God’s mystery—where I boldly walk into all that I don’t know. Where I remember who I am—which is one of God’s people who has been given Glorious Promises--promises of hope and a future!

I see most clearly when I enter the tent.  

Where I Take Communion 5 Times Before Friday

I. 

"A desire for communion has been part of you since you were born. The pain of separation...you continue to experience, now, reveals to you this deep hunger. All of your life you have searched for a communion that would break your fear of death. This desire is sincere. Don't look on it as an expression of your neediness or symptom of your neurosis. It comes from God and is part of your true vocation. Communion is your authentic desire, and it will be given to you.But you have to dare to trust that your deepest longing will be fulfilled. Dare to lose your life and you will find it. Trust in Jesus words:  “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel  will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29-30) 

-Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love 

II. 

On Tuesday, Communion at lunch with a Sister, when we didn't know how much we needed that. When we didn't know how much pent up sorrow and confusion there was. When we didn't know that everything would be different and how hard that would be sometimes. When we didn't know that everything would be different but now it's better than ever. When we find that His body was broken so that we might live reconciled here. When eating together in the sunshine brings more laughter and tears and truth and love and mystery and understanding than anything else we've done in months. Do this in remembrance of Me.

III. 

On Tuesday evening, Communion again with a great friend who reminds me how to break the bread. How to pour out my wine--my own blood in the death of my flesh-- as a drink offering. When we see Communion for the Ebenezer that it is. When my friend reveals to me that the unfulfilled longing for Communion is a place of pain I'll always carry, but that it's where I enter the sufferings of Christ. That each time communion is broken, I must remember this is the Father and the Son's pain, too. Then we drink the wine to remember that resurrection always follows suffering and death. New life flows, but we can't have it without the suffering first. When I take communion, I take part of the body that was broken to break me free from the fear that binds. I drink the blood that washes me clean of my unbelief. The bread and the cup are now forms that mean everything. Do this in remembrance of Me.

IV.

I went looking for a better anchor, so that I was more prepared when the Enemy swamped the boat next time. This weekend, the ship almost sank.Captain and crew nearly thrown overboard by waves of accusation, division, and deceit from the Enemy. We made it to the other shore, but we are still soaked and bedraggled. But a better anchor--a verse, a memory, a habit--wouldn't have stopped the storm. We needed Jesus for that. We needed to go together to wake Him up when we were afraid. We needed to enter together the presence of the One who could stop the storm. We needed to stop and pray. We need to run together to the table to break the bread and take the broken body into our own because it broke us free from the shackles of division and accusation. We needed to see we were drinking from the same cup. On Wednesday, at lunch, we, sisters, resolve to do this. To come together next time. Do this in remembrance of Me. 

V. 

On Wednesday evening, when I had a meal and prayed with a friend, offering and receiving encouragement like at that Final Dinner. In this world, we will have trouble. Take Heart. He has overcome the world.  On Wednesday night, when the sharing of quirky favorites is a delightful surprise--a spontaneous adventure that keeps me smiling the next day. Delight, Surprise, Adventure and Spontaneity that are signs of Life and the One who made it.  Communion when, as I reclined and rested, I looked across the table to find two other friends also feasting on the familiar. Do ALL THIS  in remembrance of me. 

 VI. 

Communion today, Thursday, when a Brother meets me for lunch. We enter the Holy Mystery of it all together: the mystery of how so much brokenness can still bring life and healing. The mystery of how it will all turn out. The mystery of having all that we need and never feeling like it--of eating the Bread of Life and still being hungry.  Where we wash each others feet with encouragement, humility, and transparency. Where, despite the odds and circumstances and scripts that should prove otherwise, despite all that bristles,  we know to our core that we are on the same side and for each other. Where how it all works--sin, atonement, and salvation--how it all works is a mystery to us, but we know that at the table and at the Cross there is love and grace enough to cover all the words we have left to say and all the work we have left to do. Do this in remembrance of me.

40 Day Bare Face: Day 37 - Wounded and Scarred

When You came back, Jesus, they recognized You by the marks. Those of us who didn’t believe it’s You knew it was when You the held up Your hands, and when You turned around and revealed the lattice pane of lacerations on Your back.

The thing is, You had wounds that made scars long before the studded whips went to work on Your body. Maybe Your deepest wounds didn’t come from the side-piercing spear, the nails, or the thorn punctures whose white remains freckle Your forehead.

The wounds that made the scars by which we recognize You were made on Thursday, too.

And while, in my days, I’m unlikely to be struck by a soldier or be put to death at the hands of the state, Your Thursday wounds are the ones I know really well. It’s the scars from my Thursday wounds that I search for on Your body, so that I can see for myself that there is life where that flesh died.

On Thursday, Your friends and family broke Your heart like You broke the bread when You were with them.

On Thursday, Your closest relationships were broken by fear, confusion, fatigue, goodbyes, and betrayal.

On Thursday morning, You left Bethany, saying goodbye to Your closest friends. You entered a city that never welcomed You, never understood You, and within 24 hours, would cry for the freedom of a murderer at Your expense.

Neither Nazareth nor Jerusalem was Your home, but You went anyway.

On Thursday afternoon, You ate Your final meal with Your most beloved friends—friends who couldn’t love You back. You knew it. You loved them and washed them and taught them and prayed for them, and You knew—You knew—they would flee, deny, and betray You. And You arranged their sacred meal and brought them along with You into Your darkness anyway.

You took them to the Garden, and when You needed them most—when You needed them to pray for and watch over and be present with You, they slept. They slept.

You knew we’d fail You, and You still begged us to be with You.

In that Garden, You let the one who betrayed You—the one who gave up on You and sold You out—You let him kiss Your cheek. You let him close when You should have held him at arm’s length. Or never gone anywhere near him.

You knew this would hurt—hurt with unspeakable viciousness—and You embraced us.

Despite all Your work and teaching with Peter, He still flew off the handle and attacked the soldier. That soldier was there to arrest You, and You restored his ear. Later, You helped Peter exchange his sword for the keys to Your church.

This is the Peter You warned. The Peter who didn’t know his own limitations—who, when foretold that he’d fall apart and deny Your friendship—dismissed Your warning and then still disowned You. After walking with You for three years, he disowned You three times.

There. There. I see the scars made by the rash and the careless. I see the scars made by someone who should have known better. By someone who had great promise and couldn’t keep his promises. I see the scars made by one of Your favorites.

On Your body I see the scars of false accusation. Of injustice. Of having Your voice taken from You. Scars of the wounds that come from Your right to defend Yourself. Of rejection and humiliation. Of being misunderstood and mocked for being who You are. Who You’ve always been.

These Thursday wounds were only the beginning.

These Thursday wounds made Sunday scars, but they were part of Friday's plan that made new life possible every Monday thereafter.

It's crazy to me that You chose to keep Your scars on Your after-Sunday body.

How does that count as making all things new? 

When we see your scars, our scars, we are reminded of wounds we both made and witnessed.

But perhaps when You see our scars, your scars, you are reminded of wounds you have both healed and reconciled.

Perhaps these new scars are part of our newness in You. Maybe they are part of Your mark that identifies Your people.

Perhaps they are how we'll identify each other. Perhaps as we return to each other as You returned to Peter, in an upper room like the one where you broke bread with a broken heart, we'll know you're real and we're real. We'll know it because we can see everyone's scars.

We'll look at each other and see the wounds we made and sustained as we broke each other's heart.  And as we survey the scars, we'll remember that you held out a pierced hand to Peter as you, in three different ways, assured him You knew he loved You. As You restored him in love unto Yourself.

Dear Jesus, make us new.

Let us see our Thursday wounds as Sunday marks of healing.

And let us begin our restoration work in your name on Monday.




--
Visit my blog: www.crossingthestrand.blogspot.com

40-Day Bare Face: Day 36 - Beautiful

"The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy." - Yves Saint Laurent


Holy Week. Wednesday. 
Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14, John 12


I  can  hear Martha telling Mary to take the figs and honey out to the table and come back with the empty plates.

I can see the anguish on Mary's face when she returns and puts the plates in the sink. Tears spilling over she tells Martha that He's talking about leaving again, about how His time has come.

And she doesn't know what it means, but she's known it all along.

She knew all  along that this man--this extraordinary man--was her treasure. She knew that any time she could get with Him was precious. She knew He couldn't stay.

Part of that was His coming and going from their house. He didn't stay long and was often surrounded by people. His visits were too short.  But when it was just the four of them--and because of Him it got to be four again--oh, how they laughed. The air in the room rang with His laughter for days after He left.

And when He taught all those people, it didn't matter what else was happening. It didn't matter if there were chores or if no one else at His feet was a woman.  Her heart and spirit rang with that truth until He came back--like He was near her the whole time. She couldn't bear to miss a moment.

But this time something's different. Something's off. His burden is heavier. He's more urgent. He's saying a lot of goodbyes. He's giving final instructions. There are fewer stories and more pleas.

He hardly touched His dinner.

And there the figs sit. He loves figs. He was just here last week and He and her brother ate the whole jar. They joked about how her brother came back just for the figs. Her sister had to buy more just for tonight.

Why doesn't He want the figs? 

This is when Martha sees there is something seriously wrong, too.

Simon's dozing. Peter's all riled up with James; they aren't even listening. John's talking to Him and the others are sort of in and out. She catches her brother's eye through the doorway, and he sees her concern. He turns his palms up and shakes his head; he doesn't know what this is about, either.


As she listens to Him, she feels her stomach tighten and a knot form in her throat. She can't bear to see Him like this.

John leans his head back and closes his eyes.

What if this is it? 

What if this is the last time they'll see Him? 

He looks up and see her standing there, His sigh slides into a smile. She grips the doorframe as a wave of love and then grief threatens to topple her. She has to do something. 

She goes to her room and gets the jar from her dresser. With both hands,  she carries it to the table. It makes a loud crack when she snaps it open and immediately the scent fills the room. 

Just like His laugh. 

That got everyone's attention.  Suddenly she's standing there, with broken alabaster, and all the men are staring at her. She looks to them and then back to Him, and His eyes are welled up and He nods and smiles at her again. 

She tips the oil over His head and it runs down the sides of His face and into His beard. It starts to drip onto His tunic. 

"What is she doing??" 

"If that were my daughter..." 

 "How inappropriate..." 

He puts His hand on her shoulder as she kneels. She empties the rest of the jar on His feet. 

All she can smell--all anyone can smell--is that perfume. 

Her brother doesn't say anything, but scratches the back of his head. He's used to her by now.  But the hair? She's using her hair to wipe His feet. 

Now He and she are both crying. Tears and oil darken both tunics and both faces. 

I can hear Judas saying "Enough. This is enough. She is out of line." The rest chime in with claims of waste and shame. 

And then He shoves the tears away with the back of His hand, and looks right at Judas: "No. THAT'S enough. YOU'RE out of line. In her beauty, she has done a beautiful thing. She heard My heart and answered Me in the only way she could. With everything she could. Back off. You can deal with the 'poor' another day."

He brushes the tears from her cheek and says, "Thank you, Beautiful one. Thank you." 

As He stands up to go, He lifts His arm to smell His sleeve. He chuckles. "Thank you, again. I'm going to smell like this all week."

40-Day Bare Face: Day 34 - Loosed

I am doing everything I know how to fully enter Holy week this year. I am tracking Jesus, reading the different Gospel accounts, using my imagination to put myself in the events of the final week of a Man who knows it’s His final week as one.

I keep reading all these posts and articles about Jesus clearing the temple on Holy Monday. They range from reckoning with the force atypical of Jesus’ ministry demeanor (Was He angry? Was He urgent? What was that about?)  to standing triumphantly in “cleared” temple courts, thankful that Jesus loved us enough to expel all the profiteers.

I just really saw that going differently. Those money-changing businesses had likely been there for years. There were sophisticated connections and systems in place that benefit more than each table owner. This random Guy from out of town (and most people in that courtyard were from out of town) enters and with some rant about prayer and thieves, tosses the place. Then He leaves.

At which point, the tables are righted and business resumes as usual—only now they have to redouble their efforts to make up for lost profit.

Sure, after the difficulty of the last few weeks I wan to claim total victory. Temple thieves are smashed! They are never coming back!

 It’s tempting to congratulate myself on spending the season “clearing out my temple with Jesus.”

It would be tempting to call this “bare face” a “cleared temple” (instead of another whitewashed tomb).

To take comfort in all my “progress”.

This morning, I finally managed to carry contentedness away from the mirror.  I even noticed it as I walked out the door. An hour after I got to work, a co-worker made a comment about my bare face that suggested there was something wrong. In my head,  I went right to: “This is why I wear makeup. So people don’t have to see me like this.”

Don’t I know better yet?

Let’s be honest. There is a big part of me that is just waiting for the Maniac with the homemade whip to leave so I can go back to doing what I do best: vying for my security by profits from my own schemes and efforts;  and brokering my own grace with God and others in the currency of approval.   Clearly, everyone’s still in business. Why shouldn’t they be? They’ve been there for years. I’m tied up in their elaborate exchange rules, unable to find my way to the inner courts of God or people without them. I continue to pay them tribute in habitual ways I can’t even recognize.

Yet,  there’s an even bigger part of me that yearns to be free from all that.

That knows these extortionists don’t belong there.

That has hope Someone else is in charge around here.

And then I glimpse it.

I survey the mess after the temple thrashing and I see that some of the booths—the booths where I secure my success and broker my approval—were actually badly damaged. I am going to have to work hard to reinstall them. And I don’t think I’m going to do that.

No, my temple courts aren’t clear. But this bare-faced season, this temple thrashing, has made its mark. Cords that bound me have been loosed and I think some of them might have even been broken in these short weeks.

 Because every ferocious act of righteousness undertaken by Jesus on our behalf makes its permanent mark.

And on Friday, we anticipate a ferocious act of Love.

This ferocious act of Love  has already snapped the cords that bind us to our brokers of power, approval, and security. In fact, it gave us a New Temple.  One without inner courts and outer courts and taxes and the need to pay our way and earn our rights. We don’t have to go back.  Because of Friday—because of that Maniac display of Love and Ransom—we  live in an eternity with no money changers and no need for them.

And we walk through our days on this earth with a God who is so outraged by the idols and enemies that rob us of our joy and closeness to Him, He’ll never leave them alone. The ferocity of that Love and Righteousness means He’ll come back to the courtyard and throw them out again when we ask Him to.

And even when we don’t.

40 Day Bare Face: Day 33 - Expectant

Today is Palm Sunday, and I don't get it.

I don't really get what we're celebrating, really, or why we're following the example of the people who didn't get it. As we read the account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, we see that the people waving palm branches and singing to celebrate Jesus' coming had no clue what they were actually cheering for.

Those people, that day, understood nothing but were right about everything.

They celebrated the reign of a new king.
They celebrated the arrival of the messiah, as prophesied.
They celebrated, because, from that day on, everything would be different.

And everything was.

But it was also no different from any other Sunday before or since.

They were still oppressed by the Romans.
They were still waiting to be made whole.
They still slogged through days suffocated by desert heat, driven by hunger and thirst, and capped by the bedtime knowledge that tomorrow would be exactly the same.

Its hard to put myself in that moment of triumph when Jesus comes through the gate.  I'm not falling for it. I can't play along because I know how the rest of the week is going to play out for the Guy on that little donkey.

All the singing and all the cheering doesn't change that 

there is still a lot of dying to do this week. 

They, the cheering ones, don't know that they're banking on someone whose death-row ticket has been fast-tracked. They don't know that come Friday, they're going to be left bereft and bewildered. 

But on that day, they will get everything they ever wanted.

And most of them will have missed it. 

Forget it. Hand me a palm frond.   Let me join in.   I am just like these people.

I sit at the gate and watch for God and wave my giant frond--each blade an expectation for who God will be, how He'll look, and what He'll do for me. I wave my expectations boldly, like I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm seeing. 

And in part, I'm right. I do see God on the move. 

But I'm cheering for the wrong reasons. I'm not cheering because I have seen a hope-restoring reminder of things to come. I'm cheering because I think I've finally gotten what I wanted. I am cheering because I think I know how the rest of the week will play out.

I know that there are promises--plans, even, to give me hope and a future, and I have that right. 

The problem is that I have filled in my own fine print. You see, the promise of a good plan, the promise of a real savior, the promises of Love, Peace, and Freedom weren't enough for me. They didn't feel real unless they had details. So I deduced my own. I drew conclusions based on my inventory of my broken places and my circumstances. I did the "math" on what kind of "fruit" my "obedience" was supposed to produce.

When God comes, He will look like this. And He'll do this.

Not four days after I feel like I've gotten a handle on things am I, too, left bereft and bewildered at how it all actually turned out. My Hope gets denied, betrayed, and arrested. My hope, the one built on those details, gets sentenced to death in the middle of the night.

Just because I know all the prophecies and promises doesn't mean I have a clue what is going on.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

He has also set eternity in the human heart; 

yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

So I set this Palm frond on the ground. I let the Guy on the little donkey--the Guy who's weeping for the City that still doesn't get it, the guy who brought Lazarus back to life yesterday--I lay out the expectations so He and his donkey can trample the leaves.

So that nothing blocks my view and I can see Him in all his Glory.

So that I can see His Glory for the mystery that it is. 

So that I can see that the Guy on the little donkey is a King--a King who is come to do exactly what He said He would do, only in His time, and in His way. 

And so that I have my hands free to receive

more than I could have ever asked or imagined.

Hosanna.

40-Day Bare Face: Day 30 - Barer Still

“Then what is it that you want??” my friend pleaded, a little exasperated. 

“I don’t know. I want to matter. I want my work to matter. I want to feel like I’m free to do the work that brings me joy and life--work that is based in my strengths--and not feel like I have to fight for the ability or permission to do so. 

I want a place here.” 

And then I felt sucker punched. I know better.

The combination of my friend’s next words and a stirring in my spirit knocked a reminder back into my senses: 

I do matter.

And I have a place here.

But not because of anything I do or have done. 

I know better, but lately that isn’t enough. 

It’s hard to remember that I matter in the absence of the affirmation and acknowledgement that I crave. When someone else hears “Well done” for work I thought was “mine”. 

Then I’m embarrassed because I’ve been told that I’m not supposed to need those things to be happy. The Christian life is one that’s supposed to be fulfilling when we “fix our eyes on the unseen” and when we “work for God not for men.”  

But it’s hard to remember when all that work is riddled with failures  and actually worsens insecurities. When I get stuck on feeling overlooked and I forget I wasn’t doing that work for recognition’s or perfection’s sake in the first place. 

It’s hard to remember I matter when I don’t fit in. When the pattern of my life doesn’t match other people in my gender, in my age group, in my profession, in my lack of “real” profession, in my denomination, in my lack of denomination…When I don’t fit the mold that other people seem to fit and they seem happy. When my natural sensibilities seem to be at odds with what’s expected of me. When it feels like I’m the only one who loves what I love with the fire that I do, and loves the way I love. When all that loving barely dents the loneliness. 

It’s hard to remember I matter when it seems like my questions go unheard. When it seems like I’m the only one asking them. When I’m the only one who fears we’re blindly accepting practices and values we don’t have to. When I see a problem coming and it’s dismissed like I’m crazy.  When it feels like I’m the only one who’s concerned we’re not asking enough questions. Or even the right ones. When all those questions don’t bring any solutions or me any peace. 

Go ahead. Point out the 50 counter examples that came to mind about how my assessment of worth is flawed. Fire away with the Christian platitudes and verses that answer all this Point out any successes, or better, chastise me for not giving the family and community that loves me enough credit. Even if you’re right, and you probably are, we still have a problem. 

I still couldn’t see it. And even if I can see it after you explain it to me, I won’t remember it tomorrow. I know a lot of verses, and I’m fluent in platitudes. I even got an “A” in Theology. (really.) 

 Correct thinking won’t save me. All that “truth” still hasn’t set me free. 

The only Truth that sets me free is a person. 

How can I forget that in Christ I have been made complete? 

How can I forget in light of the Cross? 

Nothing. Else. Matters.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter because in a week from Friday, Someone hung Himself on that gruesome Cross and made a final declaration of whom and all that matters.

 And I am His Beloved. 

And I can run back to that cross for answers. I can see that the Man who hung there, saying what He did, doing what He did, is Lord of my days. It’s for His glory that I work. It’s by His provision I have what I need, it’s with my hand in His that I walk through these painful places. 

And that shall be enough for me today.