Followers of Jesus across the globe come together on the Friday before Easter to pay special attention to what happened to Jesus on the cross. Reservoir invites you to share in this holy time and the events surrounding it which are at the very center of our faith.
The Good Friday Reflection and Liturgy below will guide you through this special time of reflection, meditation and prayer.
Good Friday Reflection
Good Friday Liturgy
Reports tell us that last night in Georgia, a troubled, violent, young white man killed eight people: six of them Asian American, and seven of them women. This violence follows a dramatic rise in hate crimes and attacks against Asian Americans and Asian Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, including Asian American elders. And this has taken place within a year in which hate crimes against AAPI, and especially Asian American women have risen sharply.
This violence is an assault against the victims, an assault against all members of the Asian American community, and an assault against the image of God in all people. Violence against Asian Americans, and the old American proactive of othering, stigmatizing, and targeting Asian Americans and others is an offense against Jesus’ vision for humanity and our shared dignity as God’s beloved. As I preached last Sunday, there are so many ways to hate God.
Reservoir Church has a vision of seeing into being God’s Beloved Community among us and throughout the earth. We continue committing ourselves to becoming a deeply anti-racist church. And our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team and Asian American members and leaders will likely have more to say and share in the weeks to come.
On this day, though, we grieve with the families and communities of all those who have suffered and still suffer race-based and gender-based violence. We call for ongoing repentance from any forms of stigmatizing, othering, or assaulting the bodies or worth of any group of God’s beloved children. And we offer you the voices of two of your pastors – mine and now Lydia Shiu’s as well – in love and solidarity.
Peace,
Steve
Friends —I’m on a continued journey of realizing my racial ethnic identity and some days I don’t know how I feel. I’m sharing with you, for now, how I am feeling today. I may have more words later, maybe even requests or call to action. Right now, this is what’s on my heart…
I’m so used to, maybe because of my culture or maybe because of external expectations, enduring pain and suffering silently. Who am I to complain? What about all those who have suffered more? But for now, I am sad. It hits home. It feels close. Learning that the victims of the shooting in Atlanta yesterday were Korean American made me wince. The pain, loss, hatred feels like it’s coming closer and closer to me. Though the reality is, it has always been there. The otherness of me.
I can’t help the anger and grief towards the fact that rhetoric from our past president and other leadership who use words like “China virus” probably contributed to horrific acts like this. Asian Americans make up about 5% of the American population. But made up of people, mothers and sons, beloveds and communities. God, do you care about the minority? Do you hear the small voices crying out? In other words, do we care? Do we hear them?
Lydia
#StopAsianHate
When Jesus taught his students to pray, one of the phrases he encouraged was to pray to God: your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. When Jesus taught about God’s ways being done on earth, he usually called it the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ Kingdom of God teaching, we get pictures of dynamic and radical faith, hope, and love expressed in private and public life. Cuban-American theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz encouraged the word kindom instead of kingdom for our era, since God’s will on earth looks more like a healthy extended family than a patriarchal power system. But maybe the clearest and most compelling language for this vision came from the American Civil Rights leaders of the 50s and 60s, Dr. King included. They called it Beloved Community.
Beloved Community is about inclusiveness and belonging, socially, economically, and spiritually. It is a vision of community that can be as small as a household or as large as the whole earth. Regardless of size, it’s community of opportunity, justice, and the giving and receiving of love. Participation in communities of love, respect, and belonging buoys our spirits and helps us love and be loved well. And it helps us live freer, healthier, happier lives in all aspects of our being.
Reservoir’s vision for 2020-2025 is to continue to become the Beloved Community that we are called to be. Last fall, through scripture and story and public art, in our Sunday services and community groups and our “Do-It-Yourself” retreat, we began to examine this theme. We think there is still so much for us to learn and practice and grow into together.
We are delighted to share this vision as a community and look forward to continuing to live and tell stories of Beloved Community in and around Reservoir not just this year, but for several years to come.
Reservoir will continue to become the Beloved Community we are called to be, one that is:
We’ll keep sharing stories of God’s inspiration for this vision and of places and people where we see it happening. Please share the stories you live and see and long to see as well.
This week in our Lenten focus on What is Most Important, we read Micah’s vision of Beloved Community. Micah tells us that God’s Spirit is moving to empower us to walk with God; to live in peace and wholeness with one another; to gather in joyful, inclusive communities of profound belonging; to see victims become survivors; to ensure the safety and security of all people in their own skin and homes and communities; to transform all our ways into violence into those of peace. There are so many ways for us to welcome this move of the Spirit, so many ways to love and grow and become.
May it be, beloved friends. May it be.
Steve
A Grounding Center, A Daily Practice
I’m convinced that all people need a daily practice that provides time and space for reflection on our lives, the cultivation of character and peace, and grounding in our deepest values and relationships. There are many forms of such daily practice taught both inside and outside of world religions, paths both ancient and modern as well. And the Bible is not the only text that can help us in the grounding. I have personally found my daily practice in the tradition and faith of Jesus. And Lent is our church’s most focused annual opportunity to cultivate such a practice. The minor prophets have some material that is hard to read, but each week there are ideas and phrases that have carried enormous power across the centuries – power to shape lives and movements and cultures for good. There are lines in the guide this year that have reshaped history. There are a couple of lines in this year’s guide that anchor my own life purpose. This Lent, I invite you into this daily practice together with your church community to see what will ground and grow you there, to center yourself in what is most important each day.
Learning to Read the Bible, Even with its Texts of Terror
To ground in any ancient tradition, we will come across material that is accessible and inspirational, alongside that which seems outdated and offensive. The Bible is no different. There are a few texts so troubling and violent that feminst scholar Phyllis Trible has called them “texts of terror.” The minor prophets contain none of these texts of terror, but they have material that is troubling. To be faithful to God, we cannot reach such texts as the ancients did. We are invited to read them afresh, with the help of the loving Spirit of God, who makes all things new. The text I preached this past Sunday from Hosea isn’t one of these texts of terror, but it’s not far afield. In it, a woman simply labelled as a prostitute is used as a metaphor for a wayward nation, and God is said to threaten the ones God loves with punishment. Suzanne Watson, Ryan Daniel Dobson, and the team behind the 2019 film Hosea reimagine this text through Gomer’s perspective, asking provocative questions about what love feels and looks like, even when life knocks us far afield from love. Love involves the relentless pursuit of the good of the beloved, and love involves the willingness to feel and experience another’s pain.
As a pastor, I want you to have freedom to read the Bible with your mind and heart alive. I want you to recognize when you understand and love what it says. And I want you to be free to argue and push back with the text and with God when it troubles you. The Bible, on the whole, is a faithful witness to the living, loving, life-giving God. But some parts need more interpreting and repurposing than other parts.
Perfect Love Drives Out Fear
By reading even some of the harder texts of the Bible, we’re trying to learn with the Spirit of God to purify our tradition, so to speak, so that all that is left in it is love. The prophets themselves criticize major themes of the religious tradition they inherit. They say that God loves mercy, not sacrifice, even within a Bible that has other texts that commend sacrifice. So the prophets invite us to continue to critique our religious tradition.
I do this by disbelieving what the prophets themselves say about God’s desire to punish disobedient children. Along with I John, chapter four, I believe, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.” I believe that God judges and God disciplines, but I do not believe God punishes. The talk of punishment in the prophets is partly ancient religious culture, partly a metaphor for the natural consequences of unjust living, and partly a personification of the very real anger of God. But it isn’t a literal description of God’s character or ways in the world. You do not need to fear that God wants to punish you when you screw up. God loves you, and God seeks to drive out fear in your life, inspiring you to higher levels of faith, hope, love, and dignity.
The Emotional Life of God
What the intensity of the prophets’ talk about God does is show us that God is not impassive as the Greek philosophers believed a god must be. God is so invested in this world that God feels what we feel and is emotionally responsive to what happens in God’s creation. The scriptures consistently teach this about God, and the emotional life of Jesus enfleshes it as well. God is not a distant and mysterious force. And God is not an aloof monarch. God is much more like a loving parent. Loving parents feel protective and disappointed anger. Loving parents face heartbreak when their kids go astray. And loving parents pay attention, nurture, sing over, and remain devoted to their children. As is God to you and me and all God’s children.
I hope that the rest of our six weeks with the prophets keeps helping you grow a daily practice, engage the hard parts of our faith tradition, learn that you needn’t fear a dark side of God, and know that God is emotionally engaged and responsive to us all still.
Steve
Hi, Friends:
I’m so excited to start Lent with all of you this Sunday. Below I’m reposting my “three ways to get ready” from last week. Before you read that and mark your calendar, here are three other things I want you to know.
I was blessed to be able to get my first dose of COVID vaccine this weekend. I was bringing my elderly mother-in-law for her first shot, at a clinic where my mother works part-time. Because I am an immediate family member of an employee there, they allowed me to be vaccinated as well. Though my shoulder was sore for two days, I am so thankful for the opportunity to participate in our public health fight to protect us all and restore a more normal public life again. While all vaccines are personal medical decisions, of course, I do encourage you to go ahead and get vaccinated whenever you are able and it is your turn, as our collective, timely participation in the vaccine campaign will help us all!
One of our church partners, Asha, has done the most extraordinary public health work throughout the pandemic. Drs. Jean and John Peteet, who have both been to India with me to consult for and partner with Asha, are co-authors on a great paper highlighting what Asha has been doing over the past year. I encourage you to give it a look. As one part of our Beloved Community commitment to radical generosity, Reservoir gives 10% of our church tithes and offerings to partner ministry and organizations. Asha is one of our five leading partnerships, so everytime you give to Reservoir, you give a little bit to Asha as well.
Yesterday, we told Reservoir parents, caregivers, and children’s and youth teams that our pastor Kim Messenger who oversees our whole kids and youth ministry, will resign from her position at the end of December. Kim has done fabulous work for us over the past decade for which we are so grateful. She has decided, though, to move toward a lifestyle of less public church ministry and fewer weekend leadership commitments. Yesterday, I shared with our parents and kids teams more extensively about my appreciation for Kim, and our process for ensuring we preserve and grow our kids and youth ministry in the months and years to come. As more details come together, I’ll share them with you all in this space as well. Meanwhile, please pray for Kim, our kids and parents, and Reservoir leadership as we appreciate Kim’s years of service and navigate this transition.
And lastly, a reminder of three ways to prepare this week for Lent!
“Prophets are people who come so close to God, and God comes so close to them, that they know what is most important.” We hope this Lent to lean toward God and to discover or rediscover what is most important.
“Prophets are people who know the most important things. They know which way to go. They are the ones who show us the way.” Our church doesn’t try to define what should be most important for all of us; we don’t tell you exactly which way to go. But we believe that as we lean toward God in prayer and listen to the prophets, the Spirit of God will be our teacher and guide and show us each some of what is most important as well as show us the way forward.
“Sometimes people forget who they are. They hide from God and pretend God isn’t there.”
Peace,
Steve
Our season of Lent begins in two weeks. Let me share a few simple ways you can get ready to participate.
“Prophets are people who come so close to God, and God comes so close to them, that they know what is most important.”
We hope this Lent to lean toward God and to discover or rediscover what is most important.
“Prophets are people who know the most important things. They know which way to go. They are the ones who show us the way.”
Our church doesn’t try to define what should be most important for all of us; we don’t tell you exactly which way to go. But we believe that as we lean toward God in prayer and listen to the prophets, the Spirit of God will be our teacher and guide and show us each some of what is most important as well as show us the way forward.
“Sometimes people forget who they are. They hide from God and pretend God isn’t there.”
Lent is an opportunity to explore the intersection of finding ourselves and finding God again.
One part of Reservoir’s vision for becoming the Beloved Community is empowering wholeness, love, and justice in people and communities, promoting whole life flourishing. Lent is a season where we focus together on our relationship with God and invite God to grow that wholeness, love, and justice within each of us. I look forward to sharing this season together.
Peace,
Steve
Hi, Friends:
Each year, in the weeks before Easter, our church embarks on a season of spiritual formation called Lent. We open some time and attention to look reflectively at our lives, to welcome God’s guidance and teaching, and to see what growth may come of that. For centuries, Jesus followers have marked this period of anticipation for Easter through prayer, fasting, and giving. It’s one of my favorite times of year in our church’s life together.
This year’s Lent, we will be guided by some of our ancient tradition’s most impassioned and most obscure voices, known as the minor prophets. In the Christian Bible, there are 12 minor prophets. They are called “minor” not because they are unimportant, but because the collections of their writings are shorter. We’ll read bits of several of these prophets together. I’ll share a little more about them over the next couple of weeks.
The past year of our lives has been overwhelming at times. So much is changing, so much is being revealed, so much has come undone. Some of us have regrounded during this season; we’ve been discovering again what is most important. Others of us are unmoored; we’ve lost touch with what is most important and we’re not sure how to find our way forward. Most of us are hanging on, waiting and hoping for better days to come. This season of Lent will be a time to lean in toward God in faith, listen to the prophets, and let the Spirit of God reground each of us in what we and God consider to be most important.
Our Sunday services from February 14th through Easter will focus on this material. Many of our community groups will discuss the guide for the season. To help you in your personal engagement, our staff team is preparing materials that will be ready for pickup the weekend of February 14th. These will include a printed copy of a daily guide as well as several other objects and reminders of recommended spiritual practices. We’ll share more details the next two Sundays and in the next two weekly newsletters as well.
During Lent, in addition to our community groups, we’ll offer an Introduction to Spiritual Direction class. Spiritual direction is a way of listening to God, yourself, and others that opens up greater interior freedom and space for the movement of God.
If you’ve wondered how to deepen your relationship with God and also be impactful in the world around you, this class might be for you. Guided by Jesus and a myriad of contemporary voices, you’ll explore how generous listening can usher in healing and a greater sense of belonging to yourself, one another, and God. This class will require a commitment of attendance, reading, contemplative spiritual practices, and practicums of one-on-one and group spiritual direction. All 8 sessions will be held on Sundays from 1:00-3:00 p.m., from February 14th through May 23. RSVP via Eventbrite, by February 11th. One of our pastors Ivy Anthony will lead this class, along with a great team of spiritual directors and directors-in-training in our church: Naomi Boase, Stephanie Choo, Josh Davis, Vernee Wilkinson and Cate Nelson.
Peace,
Steve
Members and friends of the Reservoir Church community,
For many reasons, we don’t put out statements about most contemporary events. But given the level of shock, fear, and outrage many have experienced this week, as our senior pastor, I wanted to share a part of my own reaction. There are three ways I see this week’s events in our capital, as they connect to our faith and our community.
Last Gasps of a Failed Presidency
In November, President Trump was lawfully, democratically voted out of office. Though he and his supporters have fought those results and defied all democratic norms of peaceful transition of power, their time is up. Wednesday’s failed violent coup attempt is the expression of anti-democratic, white nationalist terrorism, aided and abetted by a failed presidency and the Christians who have continued to support it, even in its resentment-stoked, narcissistic dying gasps. Most of us as children were taught what it means to not be a sore loser. Many of us learned that when we fail, we should take a long, hard look in the mirror and see how we need to change. Some very powerful people and forces in this country have never learned these lessons. Regardless, one way or another, this presidency is over in the next two weeks.
A Tragic and Dramatic Failure of Christianity in White America
As a Christian, and as an ordained minister of the good news of Jesus, it has been important for me to publicly rebuke the words and actions of Donald Trump over these last five years. One reason that is so is that so many Christians and so many white Christians in particular have continued to back this man. In 2016, the majority of white Christians of all the major American Christian traditions voted for Trump. In 2020, 80% of white American evangelicals voted for his reelection. Prominent Christian leaders have “prophesied” and prayed in support of Trump’s power, policies, and presence. While it’s easy to focus on and point the finger at Donald Trump, many of us have some complicity in the brokenness and troubles of this nation we should reflect on. While our church has moved forward and beyond this world, the white-dominated evangelical renewalist cultures that our church was founded within in the 1990s have supported a form of faith in public life that is utterly unprophetic: that ignores racial and economic injustice, that denies science, that loves power and privilege, that is cruel to opponents of their ideology, and that stokes the resentments that fueled Wednesday’s sedition. I believe that Christians, and particularly white Christians in America, have a responsibility to bear a different public witness to the true good news of Jesus. For so many of you – people of color as well those whose religious and cultural background isn’t Christian, this form of faith hasn’t grown in your gardens. And it has in some cases only marginalized you and done you harm. I am so sorry.
One of the best ways I know to live faithfully in response to the troubles of Christianity in America is to week after week, both personally and as one member of the Reservoir community, do our best to prayerfully live and teach a gospel of faith, hope, and love, of justice, healing, and renewal, as we will continue to do.
Further Revelation of Old, Deep Needs for Repentance and Healing
Wednesday’s violence in our Capitol took place on January 6th. In some parts of the Christian world, that is Christmas. In others, it is Three Kings Day. And in many, it is called Epiphany, the day of God’s appearing. All of this Christmas season celebration that traditionally culminates on this day is about revelation. God reveals the depth of God’s love and solidarity with humanity by becoming one of us. The Magi reveal the deep significance of Jesus by worshipping him as a king. Among the other things that happened on Wednesday is that more of the troubled and violent fabric of our nation and ourselves has been revealed. We are a violent nation. We are a racist nation. We are a troubled nation. We aren’t only these things, of course. We are more than that. Yet we are still these things. The worst aspects of this country’s founding sins of racism and violence still trouble us deeply.
All of these troubles are of course so large, much bigger than any one person or any one church. If you need to take a break from the news or just rest or hydrate or take a walk or call a friend, do all those things. Additionally, let’s join together in praying for a peaceful transition of power this month in our nation. Let’s also pray for this country, whether we are citizens or residents or just passing through. America still needs deep movements of repentance, reconciliation, and healing. And let’s redouble our efforts locally to form a community of love and justice and renewal, a church that bears witness to good news of the love of Jesus, the gift of community, and the joy of living for all people. Let us be and grow the Beloved Community among us, in hopes and prayers that God will empower much larger efforts to do the same across this nation and world.
Much Love,
Steve.
Hi, Friends,
Happy New Year! One of my kids showed me a meme that said we are now living in a year whose name tells us 2020-won. Get it?!? I’m going to go old time religion here, though, and curse that gloomy outlook of despair. This year, as with all years and all times, God is with us to together walk into a year of possibility for love, life, joy, and justice.
As Ivy shared in Sunday’s spiritual practice – which featured this beautiful rendition of and visual response to Auld Lang Syne – may what sustained us last year carry us in this one. And may we see the many new opportunities God gives us for faith, hope, love, and freedom in the year to come!
Additionally, let me celebrate your generosity as a congregation one more time. In the final week of 2020, you made additional year end gifts to the ministry of Reservoir Church, so that we will end last year above budget. Given the rocky year we had, that feels like its own miracle and puts us in a good position to continue online ministry in 2021 and also prepare for more in-person ministry, worship, and community together.
You also gave $20,000 last month to our Neighboring and Justice fund, which enables us to launch our Beloved Community Fund with sufficient resources to bless many individuals and families this year.
Last week, Reservoir Church also received thanks and praise from several partners in public life. The American Red Cross thanked us for surpassing 30 blood drives and nearly 1000 donations of blood in 2020. That included a visit from Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and First Lady Lauren Baker, who both donated at Reservoir this past weekend. The City of Cambridge election commission also thanks and appreciates our church for serving as a polling location for two election days this year as well. And Greater Boston Interfaith has extended appreciation for Reservoir’s engagement in legislative accomplishments on public safety reform and health care equity and access.
This Sunday, I look forward to speaking with you all as we start a winter Sunday mini-series in the parables, called “Stories Jesus Tells Us.” I hope to see you there at 10:00 on Zoom or anytime later over YouTube.
Let me know if there are ways I can be praying for you, friends. It’s a joy to do so.
Peace,
Steve
Part 6 and the last in my series this year which asks, “Why Did Jesus Die?”
Why was God so invested in humanity that God became one of us, born a child in Bethlehem? Why was God so committed to life on this little planet of ours that God entered into the story as a poor, Jewish child in a backwater town, on the Eastern edge of the ancient Roman empire? The shortest and oldest answer to this question is God became like us, so we could become like God.
During Lent this past winter, I began a series of six reflections on the question: Why did Jesus die? Shockingly, as the coronavirus shut down set in, I never finished! While that feels like 9 years, not 9 months ago, Christmas seemed a great time to finish the series, as the last entry is all about the incarnation: God taking on a body, becoming a human being like you and me.
To sum up where we were during Lent, way back last winter:
This Christmas, we finish with the final thought in this series. God became like us, so that we could become like God.
This was first written by the second century pastor Iranaeus, born in Turkey, but later bishop of Lyons, in modern day France. He wrote, “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through his transcendent love, became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.” Other founding fathers and mothers of the faith echoed this sentiment in the centuries to come. They were responding to scriptures in the New Testament that speak to the transformative significance of God becoming a human being in the person of Nazareth, as well as scriptures that speak of the exalted future of humankind: becoming heirs of all God has with Christ, being transformed from glory to glory, and the like.
In the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, this teaching has become central doctrine. It is often labelled the doctrine of deification or divinization: the divine destiny of human beings in Christ Jesus. Just as we were all created in God’s image – people who would in particular ways have the character, authority, and beauty of the living God – God will fully restore that image through this life and beyond the grave in the life to come. With God’s help, we will again be like God.
For modern people who find this language of deification or divinization foreign or off-putting, another way of stating the same concept is to call this the doctrine of our new humanity. With God’s help, we will again become fully human, our own unique selves fully infused with the love and wisdom of God. With the help of God, we will be the full measure of who we were meant to be.
How does this work, though? How does one human who lived so very long ago have anything to do with the exalted destiny of you and me and the whole human race?
Well, it is more of a mystery than a formula. But the life and teaching of Jesus indicates at least two ways we can ponder how this can be so.
First, there is the cosmic, historical dimension. Jesus was every bit the real person that we are. He had the same complex, glorious, and sometimes embarrassing digestive system we do. He bled when he fell, cried when sad, laughed when amused. He had favorite foods and people. All the things. But Jesus’ best friends and his biographers, and the many followers and scholars of his life that followed insisted that he was more than just this, that in his life, they saw the love and kindness and power and wisdom of God. Christian theologians have a formula to describe this complexity; they say Jesus was fully human and also fully divine.
As a result, we say things like God took on a body, was made incarnate. We say God spoke through Jesus. We say that when Jesus was executed, God died on that cross. For those of us that believe Jesus expressed a unique human-divine union, what this means is that God has brought all the limits and sins and mortality of humanity into God’s nature. And God has brought the boundless love and life and immortality that is God’s into our nature.
I call this a cosmic, historical dimension because it is cosmic: it is a big, sweeping spiritual mystery you cannot prove or disprove, but can believe if you’re so inclined. And it is historic: it is something God has done in human history that has opened up new possibilities for our current connection with God and our post-mortem union with God.
So that’s all pretty high level mystery. But there is a persuasive dimension to this as well. Jesus told his disciples: you are my friends, not my servants, because I have shared everything with you. And then he also told them: you are my friends, if you do what I have commanded, which is to love one another as I have loved you. It’s a particular friendship into which that Jesus invited his 1st century best friends, as well as all friends of Jesus to come. Listen to what I have to say, learn what God is like through me, and love as I love. That will make you friends of God. It will change you. It will make you, in your own unique way, like me.
This is a more down to earth picture of divinization, or walking into our full humanity: learning to be a friend of God, by following the ways of Jesus, and seeing over time what we become.
In the same place we read Jesus speaking about love and friendship (John 13-17), Jesus says that this is not work we have to do alone. Jesus says we will not be alone because the One-who-comes-alongside will be with us. This word in Greek is “paraclete.” It often means an advocate – one who represents or defends. It can also mean a consoler or counsel – one who comes alongside to aid and comfort. Jesus says God in invisible form, what we call Holy Spirit, will be there for us in these ways to continue to woo us, to encourage us, and to give us strength and help to listen to Jesus, to follow his ways, and to become the God-infused, fully human version of ourselves.
This is why Jesus lived and this is why Jesus died, God becoming like us, so that we can become like God.
This Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I hope we all can remember and welcome this intention of God for us. To show us what God is like, to join us in our story, and to invite us to join God in God’s story in and for and through us too.
