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Mark 6:30-46

³⁰ The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. ³²And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. ³³Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. ³⁵When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; ³⁶send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ ³⁷But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii^* worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ ³⁸And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ ³⁹Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. ⁴⁰So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. ⁴¹Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all.⁴²And all ate and were filled; ⁴³and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. ⁴⁴Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men. 

⁴⁵ Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. ⁴⁶After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

Here we have the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  What transpires in this passage is clear.  And as I read the passage, I find two messages, one stated clearly and one implied.  I do not know if we believe in miracles in these days of science.  How do we distinguish a modern miracle from a coincidence?  But dividing five loaves of bread and two fishes among five thousand cannot be a coincidence.  Nor do I find anything in the passage to suggest a metaphor, another favorite piece of modern sophistry to explain what we, in an age of science, struggle to understand.

I must examine myself daily to appreciate the altar to science that I build between me and my God.  I find that my work on that altar makes it grow higher and stronger almost by the hour, and I am afraid that I cannot, without faith and love, tear it apart.

For me, the second message comes through seeing just what Jesus does through faith and love.  When he is trying to rest and take care of himself and his disciples, he nevertheless feels compassion for a great crowd.  He becomes the shepherd to a flock of five thousand, speaking to them and feeding them.  Nowhere in the passage does he ask the lepers to seat themselves in a separate section.  He feeds the flock both spiritually and physically. And then, not having rested himself, he does not disperse the flock but sees it members safely off before retreating for his own spiritual nourishment through his prayers.

Psalm 119

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law! *
all the day long it is in my mind.

⁹⁸ Your commandment has made me wiser than my enemies, *
and it is always with me.

⁹⁹ I have more understanding than all my teachers, *
for your decrees are my study.

¹⁰⁰ I am wiser than the elders, *
because I observe your commandments.

¹⁰¹ I restrain my feet from every evil way, *
that I may keep your word.

¹⁰² I do not shrink from your judgments, *
because you yourself have taught me.

¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste! *
they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.

¹⁰⁴ Through your commandments I gain understanding; *
therefore I hate every lying way.

¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lantern to my feet *
and a light upon my path.

Lenten reflection on Psalm 119:97-105
Janet Kaplan
 
Dearest all,
 
The anonymous writer of today’s psalm, the longest one in the Bible, has much to teach us about the nature of prayer.  The psalmist writes in supplication to God and in praise of God, oftentimes in the very same verse. The psalmist addresses, seemingly at once, God (the “you” of the psalm) and the law (in Hebrew, torah, which can refer to the five books of Moses in the Old Testament or the torah given to Moses by God in the wilderness). The writer of Psalm 119 boasts more insight than all the teachers, more wisdom than any enemy, more understanding than the elders—and then seems to grow humble enough to write that God’s torah, God’s word, “is a lamp for my feet.” Such duality! Or is it?
 
We’re in a world that seems utterly topsy-turvy. The news grows more dire, we’re asked to “self-quarantine” or to practice “social distancing,” to avoid all means of transportation except for our own cars, if we own them, or to go only where our feet can convey us. We’ve gone from not partaking of the holy wine or of one another’s precious hands during the Lord’s prayer, to having a shuttered church…. Or is it shuttered? I suppose that depends on what we mean by “church.”
 
I’m not going to lie. My life feels so upside-down right now that if Deacon John had assigned me  a section from the book of Job, I’d have written it in a heartbeat. On the one hand, on-campus classes were cancelled for the rest of the semester, which means that I don’t have to schlep to work but can teach online from home. On the other hand, just two days after this news came, one of the four family elders in my care had a stroke and is now in the hospital being treated for that—and for bacterial pneumonia, too. Now, of course, I have plenty of time to visit her in the hospital and to visit her sister, my other aunt, who’s been homebound for nearly a year.
 
The emergency room was as packed as ever with the desperately ill. Frantic nurses and attendants, all of them gloved and masked, monitored, took vitals, changed bedpans, whisked the direst into isolation, wheeled new patients in on stretchers…. No one wanted to be there, and yet somehow there we were, together in the messy, precarious, dangerous heart of God’s world. Two days later, with a room finally assigned to my beloved 89-year-old Aunt Rhoda and enough testing to make the diagnoses, and with her resting comfortably enough to complain about the food, I took my exhausted self home. I decided to take the local R train most of the way from Queens to Brooklyn, hoping to avoid the Friday evening rush-hour crowds. The subways were emptier than I've ever seen them during a rush hour, with maybe one or two people per long bench in the car I happened to enter. Suddenly, a man with a guitar and an amp began playing--Beatles, Jim Croce, Bob Marley. And then “How Great Thou Art.” How Great Thou Art!--with magically gorgeous strumming, singing and even whistling. In a moment, we were all stunned out of our fear and self-protecting corners, just listening, tapping out the rhythms, humming, singing along, smiling together.
 
When I got home I did what every hospital staff and visitor was advised to do: I stripped down, threw all my clothes into a laundry bag, showered, got warm, ate a good dinner, and went to bed early. I hugged my guy, our cats hopped onto the bed to welcome me home kitten-style, and I fell asleep. Am I afraid that I might have caught something unthinkable? Kinda… Is the coronavirus horrible? Absolutely awful. But at this moment I feel utterly grateful for my life and its blessings. After all, in this one little life, I’ve gone from wretched alienation from God to the unshakable experience of God’s presence and grace through Christ. I have an at-home silent meditation practice of Centering Prayer. I’m loved and, more often than not, I know it. Through the most miraculous miracle of all, God is steadily opening my heart to return that love, and more. And I have a church, our church: from the Greek, kyriakos, “belonging to the Lord” and ekklēsía, community, “church.”
 
Duality. Good and evil. Life and death. Right-side up. Topsy-turvy. The whole story. Job never stopped praising God. Jesus gave his life for us. When we wish one another peace on Sundays, we’re offering God’s peace, or, in Hebrew, shalom—a word that means peace and, also, wholeness.
 
I suppose that all of this is to say that I miss each and every one of you—even (especially!) those of you I haven’t met yet. And yet we are together, even now, where we always were, one in Christ.
 
Shalom,
Janet

Genesis 45:1 - 15 

⁴⁵ Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.²And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.⁵And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. ⁷God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. ¹⁰You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. ¹¹I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.”¹²And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. ¹³You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ ¹⁴Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. ¹⁵And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Sometimes family be like that.

After being abducted and sold into slavery by his brothers, then falsely accused and thrown into prison, Joseph finds himself in a position of power. A position that brings people from across the region to him in hopes of favor. It is in this position that his brothers, unbeknownst to them, come face to face with Joseph again. 

Joseph erupts! He can no longer conceal his emotions anymore, sends all of his underlings out of his presence and after revealing his true identity to his siblings he cries so loudly that almost all of Egypt hears him. We aren't told if these are tears of joy or of rage or of pain, but I would assume they are a mixture of all of these emotions pent up over the years.

But at the end of this outburst he calls his brothers close, wraps his arms around them and tells them not to dismay. Ultimately, that all is forgiven.

What would I do? Who would I have become in that situation? Would I welcome my brothers in with open arms? Would I use my my new found power to retaliate and seek some retribution? I like to think that I would be magnanimous and forgiving, but a modicum of self-reflection and humility would reveal that I might just as likely be unsympathetic and vindictive. Certainly my behavior towards my own brothers, for far less severe slights as Joseph endured, would belie any pretense of sainthood on my part.

And yet I am continuously given opportunities to choose the more honorable path. The path that Joseph took. To embrace my brothers & sisters (the family I was born into & the family I have chosen) and say, "I forgive you" or more often than not, "please forgive me."