The way of imagination

     A lot can happen in a week.   Just ask Jesus.   While Jesus is, rightly, the centre of attention in the Gospel narratives of Holy Week, I’d like for us to consider this morning the “elephants in Jerusalem”, i.e. the disciples.   What were the disciples experiencing during the final seven days of… “the-Present-Age phase of”… the life of Jesus?   A lot happened for the disciples during Holy Week.   Dreams tittered on the brink of fulfillment, only to be dashed to smithereens and then resurrected in a new form, all in the space of eight sunsets.   Then again, the Bible tells us that God “made the heavens and the earth” in the space of a week… the transition from an empty, watery chaos to an ordered cosmos teeming with life was also quite a change – and perhaps the Genesis story is a worthy template of how life so often goes.   Our lives frequently swing to and fro between chaos and stability, between job loss and the beginning of new c...

       “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem…” (Mark 10.32).   It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry as one reads this passage (you’ll see what I mean).   Once again, Jesus takes the Twelve aside and tells them what is going to happen to him in the capital – the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes who, in turn, will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him, spit on him, flog him and kill him; and after three days he will rise again (10.32-34).   Surely, the disciples will finally understand that they are not marching to victory, but rather to defeat.   Jesus will not be enthroned “in glory” as the Son of David/Son of God; rather, he will be condemned by those who hate him, he will be humiliated, tortured and killed (and after three days he will rise again).   Now it’s time for either laughter or tears (or a combination of both)…      Following upon this final prediction...

     Lent 2025, day 29.   I’m escorted into the by-now-familiar unit, the one with the densest population in the facility.   As I enter, I meet “Vietnam”, dressed in a trench coat and a cap, wearing a smile.   I smile back and grasp his hand, gesturing for him to join me at the table.   He sits, his Vietnamese-English dictionary in one hand, a pen and a scrap of paper in the other.   A painfully slow conversation ensues, but I’m used to it.   He scratches words onto the paper: “Me…long time…want…talk to somebody, but…can’t…”   I understand; Vietnam is alone on this side of the Pacific – no one can easily communicate with him.   I’ve been trying to teach him the Lord’s Prayer dans la langue de Shakespeare , but it’s slow going.   He teaches me how to pronounce his name; he is ecstatic when I finally get it right.   He goes on to write down the name of his wife and those of his two teenage children back home.   He must ...