The way of imagination

  “…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12.24)      It’s a dark day.   Jesus is dead.   The disciples are numb with shock, dazed and confused, scared for their lives.   As the tomb was sealed, the sun had descended below the horizon and darkness had shrouded the city of Jerusalem, providing a mixed blessing – it was dark enough to hide the apostles, but too dark for them to dare to dream.   Psalm 130 serves, I believe, to capture the disciples’ mood at this time: Psalm 130 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord .     Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive     to the voice of my supplications! If you, O Lord , should mark iniquities,     Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you,     so that you may be revered. I wait for the Lord ; my soul waits, ...

       Lent 2025, day 39.   It wasn’t your typical Good Friday service.   The 15 detainees arrived in the visiting area in waves.   Finally, everyone was assembled and a motley crew began to (ostensibly) commemorate the death of Jesus of Nazareth – Muslims, Sikhs and Christians together, from all around the globe.   Indeed, during this time of prayer and recollection, each individual had a very different experience and understood something uniquely personal.   Isaiah 53 was read in French, the Psalm in English and St. John’s passion narrative in Spanish.   During the “Laments of Christ against his faithless church” [1] , we sung the refrain, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom”.   We ended this liturgical moment by forming a circle, joining hands and offering spontaneous prayers of gratitude to Christ and supplications for each other, each pray-er addressing his God in his language.      Follow...

     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 ...

       When I first began thinking about what to “take up” for Lent this year, I admit, spending many hours in a detention facility was not on my radar.   However, as providence would have it, Ash Wednesday found me undertaking my second day in a federal facility designed to detain, for an indefinite period of time, migrants whose status is “unresolved”.   In case you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, Sam.   You’re a Canadian citizen!”, let me explain.   The reason I often find myself “behind bars” this Lent is that I’m working as a chaplain for a facility run by the Canada Border Services Agency.      What have I learned about holiness while behind (many) locked doors?   Well, it seems to me that compassion is more frequently “caught” than taught.   Spending my days among detainees has given me a small taste of the discomfort, frustration, anxiety, anger, desperation and fear that are the daily lot, not only of detainee...