Devotions for the week of: April 8, 2020
Reading:
John 19:25-27 (NRSV)
And that is what the soldiers did. Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
I love poetry. Perhaps this is why I cherish the book of Psalms, as so many other Christians have across the decades. When I think of poetry, I remember one evening in university in which our poetry instructor, Dr. Patrick Hicks, shared some advice with our small group of students on the essence of what makes poetry good. “Poetry,” Dr. Hicks told us, “expresses what is evident, honest, and true. Good poetry is often about the most ordinary of things. What makes it good and extraordinary is the ability to be keenly and deeply honest about the subject at hand.”
This year is the 50th ordination of white women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Thanks be to God that it also marks 40 years for people of color, and just 10 years for people from the LGBTQ+ community. When I reflect upon the subject of ordaining women such as myself into ministry leadership, I so often recall a stunningly honest and powerful poem that I encountered through the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests for Worldwide Ordination. Inspired by the words of a nun named Frances Croak Frank, the poet Irene Zimmerman composed a piece called “Liturgy” regarding the faithful qualifications of women for the role of leadership in the ministry leadership. It reads as follows:
Liturgy
All the way to Elizabeth
and in the months afterward
she wove him, pondering,
“this is my body, my blood!”
Beneath the watching eyes
of donkey, ox, and sheep
she rocked him crooning
“this is my body, my blood!”
In the search for her young, lost boy
and the foreboding day of his leaving
she let him go, knowing
“This is my body, my blood!”
Under the blood-smeared cross
she rocked his mangled bones,
remembering him, moaning,
“This is my body, my blood!”
When darkness, stones , and tomb
bloomed to Easter morning,
She ran to him shouting,
“this is my body, my blood!”
And no one thought to tell her:
“Woman, it is not fitting
for you to say those words.
You don’t resemble him.”
On this day in which we reflect upon Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, we remember all of the faithful women–across all times and places–who have spoken as faithful witnesses to the good news of God. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in the world today, including through the mighty and beautiful workings of the human body, in all of its rich diversity. God is not constrained to the limitations we so often seek to put upon ourselves through issues of sex, gender, age, race, social class, and societal norm; and when we open our eyes and our hearts to tender compassion of our Creating God, then we shall truly see the body of Christ is working together in all of its glory.
Reverend Alex Smith
American Lutheran, Webster/Our Savior’s, Waubay
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