[29] Resurrection is a Process (Easter Sunday sermon 2011)

¹Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid her.”

³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵The beloved disciple bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following, and went into the tomb. Simon Peter saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.

¹¹But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid her.”

¹⁴When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

¹⁵Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

Supposing this stranger to be the gardener, she said, “Please, if you have carried Jesus away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take her away.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She turned and said in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).

¹⁷Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Divine Parent. But go to my siblings and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Parent and your Parent, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that Jesus had said these things to her.

(John 20:1-18)

Resurrection is a Process

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb...” (John 20:1)

A couple Wednesdays before Easter, I learned that the West Somerville churches were having their Easter sunrise service at 6am. I balked, because sunrise on Easter Sunday was at 5:50am this year, and Easter sunrise service is supposed to begin in darkness, moving into light both liturgically and literally.

Ian T. suggested that the women would have waited until the sun was up before heading out to the tomb.

I said, "If the person I loved most in the world had died two days ago..."

"You wouldn't wait for the sun to rise?" Ian filled in.

"I don't think I would have been sleeping very much..." I said. I knew in the moment that it was a lie, as grief doesn’t tend to make me insomniac, but it seemed like the thing to say.

I’ve never had a desperate grief for a physical body -- my griefs have been for relationships...

But I can imagine being haunted by the image of the person you love most in the world dying -- cruelly, brutally, alone... You watched, but you could only watch from a distance -- you couldn’t hold their hand, place a cold cloth on their forehead, smooth the blankets, couldn’t do anything to ease their pain. Of course you would want to tend to their body after death -- to offer that care that you couldn’t offer in the last moments of their life.

So what do you do if you find that body gone?

Simon Peter and the beloved disciple -- they are content with the knowledge that the body of their lover is gone. They lock themselves in an upper room, hiding their grief away from those who had killed Jesus, curled up tightly with others who share their grief.

But Mary does not leave the tomb. Her grief is a gaping wound, as open as the empty tomb, no stone to seal it up. She weeps. Her grief will not be contained in an upper room, rather it pours out into the ground.

We hear, in verse 8, that “the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and saw and believed.” Now, I don’t know what it is that the beloved disciple believed, because the sentence continues: “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.” But they certainly believe that the body is gone, that the tomb is empty.

Not Mary. She looks into the tomb again.

And this time she does not find it empty. She sees two angels. And they ask her why she is weeping.

Now, it’s arguably a foolish question. They are sitting by the very linen wrappings that mere days before were cradling a dead body. Surely they understand.

But perhaps they don’t. Perhaps they, like us, know the punchline of the story. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ is with us now. Alleluia. Alleluia! (Can I get an Amen?)

And what is there to grieve when this is the Gospel? Why are you weeping at this very evidence of resurrection and triumph over death?

In Luke, the angels send Mary away -- “Why do you look for the living among the dead? She is not here but has risen.” (Luke 24:5b-6)

But not in this story. No, in answer to Mary’s anguished plea, Jesus shows up. The Resurrected Christ, symbol of new life and triumph over death, shows up. Here. At this tomb.

I keep thinking of the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5), who lived among the tombs. Jesus shows up in the places of death -- for “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31).

So that is the first point I want to make: That God comes and meets us in our places of brokenness and grief. Maybe you feel full of resurrection life this Easter Sunday -- or maybe you are still deep in grief. Regardless of where you are, God meets you right where you are.

Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: “Noli me tangere. Because I have not yet ascended to the Divine Parent. But go to my siblings and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Parent and your Parent, to my God and your God.’ ”

This whole “ascending” thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Yes, Divinity is transcendent, but Divinity is immanent as well. Is the Good News that Jesus sends Mary out to be the first apostle with really, “Jesus is Ascending to God?”

Elijah was taken up into Heaven in a whirlwind with a chariot and horses of fire. Enoch did not die but got taken up by God. Ascension’s a pretty elite club, but I don’t think I’d call it Good News with capital letters.

But Jesus doesn’t say, “I will Ascend” -- though, spoiler alert, She will -- Jesus says. “I am Ascending.” Present participle. Progressive tense. It’s a process.

Jesus is back, but different, still in a liminal space.

“I am Ascending.” I am not here, I am not there, I am in transit.

Jesus sticks around for 40 days post-Resurrection -- a good Biblical number.

At faith-sharing group the Tuesday before Easter, I ostensibly led us in a discussion about Resurrection, and one thing I said, as we telescoped in time both before and after Jesus’ resurrection, was, “What if post-Easter Jesus stuck around not just to do trauma recovery grief work with the disciples but because Jesus didn't want to leave?”

It occurs to me now: What if Jesus stayed for 40 days because She wasn’t ready to leave yet -- not in an “I have unfinished business” kind of way, but in that way where preemies in incubators aren’t ready to leave the hospital immediately?

I’ve heard/read/discussed a bunch of Easter Sunday sermons this year, and one of the themes that has stuck with me is the idea that the Resurrected Jesus is unrecognizable.

I often invoke the image Tiffany used in a Children’s Time one Easter -- about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly … it is still the same creature, yet so incredibly different that you would never think they were the same.

It’s easy for us to imagine the Resurrected Jesus walking around on Earth as just the same as the pre-Easter Jesus, to interpret all the stories of the disciples not recognizing Jesus as being just because this is so surprising (the disciples expected to never see Jesus alive again), or because their eyes are still blurred by tears of grief (literally and/or metaphorically), or because Jesus is playing some game of hide and seek.

All of these explanations hold some appeal, but I also think Jesus genuinely looked different, in a very real way.

The Resurrected Christ shows up in locked rooms -- and also cooks fish on the lakeshore. She is both corporeal and non.

What if She is still in the process of becoming Her Resurrected self?

Nadia Bolz-Weber said, “when Mary Magdalene stood at the tomb she didn’t encounter some perfected radiant glowing spiritual Jesus that first Easter morning.” Nadia reminded us that Mary mistook Jesus for a gardener and said, “I like to think that Mary Magdalene mistook the resurrected Christ for a gardener because Jesus still had the dirt from his own tomb under his nails.”

She talked about how we clean up Jesus, and ourselves, for Easter -- just like we do for Christmas and all the other Sundays, but we seem to especially want to be shiny and impressive for Easter. We want to look nice. And she said, “God isn’t about making you nicer. God is about making you new.” Now, I’m not inherently opposed to outward performance of the resurrection life we know internally to be true -- and yes I realize I basically just called Easter bonnets a sacrament -- but I do think she has a point. Incarnation is a hugely important part of my theology, and Incarnation is not all shiny new clothes and perfectly coiffed hair. Incarnation is blood and sweat and tears. Incarnation is messy and breakable.

Nadia finished her sermon by saying:

if there is anything impressive about following Jesus it’s that you are loved so powerfully by God that God has swept you up into God’s own story of death and life and life after death. And if there’s anything impressive about Christians, it’s that we are a people who still have the dirt from our graves under our nails, while we stand here shouting Alleluia! Christ is risen.

We are a Resurrection people -- an Easter people in a Good Friday world, you may hear often this season. But Resurrection is a process. It’s not something that just happens one Sunday and boom, we are transformed once and forever.

At faith-sharing group that Tuesday, I mentioned the Harrowing of Hell. I grew up low-church Protestant, and I still don’t really believe in the Harrowing of Hell, but I’ve been coming to a greater appreciation of the power of story -- of the fact that Christianity isn’t a series of propositional statements but rather a collection of stories, stories that get told and retold and have so many different meanings and resonances to so many different people at different times in their lives. And the Harrowing of Hell is admittedly a pretty bad-ass story: Jesus descends into the place of death and darkness and oppression and suffocation and torture -- and Jesus busts open those looming wrought-iron gates that keep the people trapped, and Jesus cries out, “YOU ARE FREE!”

And that’s something like what happens to all of us with Christ’s resurrection -- God’s insistent and definitive “no” to death.

We are freed from the power and bondage of death.

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, Jesus Herself likewise shared the same things, so that through death She might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Now, this “You are free” is a performative utterance -- like, “I now pronounce you married.”

A new reality has been enacted. And you have choices about living into that new reality.

We have the fullness of Eastertide to begin that process, to journey with the Risen Christ and the surprised disciples.

And so I close with a quote from Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
(from "The Summer Day")

[28] "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." [Luke 7:36-50; H!PS: Luke & Us; Feb. 22, 2011]

My friend Rae let me know about Hosanna! People’s Seminary, and so I’ve been a part of their Luke and Us women’s preaching circle since September. It meets once a month via the magic of technology, and I preached tonight.

Luke 7:36-50

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and Jesus went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.

³⁷And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸She stood behind Jesus’ feet, weeping, and began to bathe them with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing Jesus’ feet and anointing them with the ointment.

³⁹Now when the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw it, he said to himself, “A prophet would have known who and what kind of woman this is—a sinner.”

⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

“Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.”

⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a creditor. One owed the creditor the equivalent of two years’ wages; the other, two months’ wages. ⁴² Both were unable to pay, so the creditor wrote off both debts. Which of them was more grateful to the moneylender?”

⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the greater debt canceled.”

And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

⁴⁴Then turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

⁴⁸Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹But those who sat together at the table began to ask among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

     -NRSV, edited with help from The Inclusive Bible and my best friend

A religious leader invites Jesus to dinner. While Jesus is reclining at the table, a woman identified only as a “sinner” shows up. She stands behind Jesus’ feet, weeping, and her tears fall on Jesus’ feet -- which are still dusty from the outside as we learn later that Simon was remiss in his host duties and didn’t offer Jesus any water for foot-washing (desert plus sandals? you get the picture). She washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and then dries them with her hair. She then goes on to kiss Jesus’ feet and anoint them with ointment.

This is a strongly embodied interaction. The woman doesn’t come to Jesus with an eloquent plea for forgiveness -- or an eloquent screed against the Pharisee -- or an eloquent statement of faith. She just shows up.

She draws near to this person Jesus, even though the atmosphere is hostile to her.

She stands behind Jesus, perhaps feeling hesitant, but she also doesn’t hide. When her tears fall on Jesus’ feet, she doesn’t apologize for the interruption, she moves with it into an offering of love.

Simon is appalled that this sinful woman is behaving so intimately with this rabbi, especially in public, and thinks this must be a sign that Jesus isn’t really a great prophet, because of course a prophet would have recognized her sin and recoiled from her touch.

Jesus, of course, has a very different perspective.

A couple chapters earlier, some Pharisees and other religious scholars asked, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” and Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Luke 5:30-31a).

Of course, all of us are in need of healing and forgiveness, but unlike Simon, the sinful woman in this story recognizes her need.

Whereas the woman experiences Jesus’ forgiveness like the debtor who had two years’ wages worth of debt forgiven, Simon would have experienced a statement of forgiveness as a much smaller burden relieved -- and, actually, I think it equally likely that Simon would have been insulted by the idea that he had anything he needed to be forgiven for.

The woman is transformed by this forgiveness. “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” She has been saved. The weight of all that sin and guilt has been lifted from her. Like the woman in Luke 13 [verses 10-17] who had been bent over for 18 years, this woman has been released from her bondage.

Being “saved” is not a simplistic transaction -- insert repentance, or statement of belief, or whatever … receive free pass to Heaven. Rather it is a transformation. We are released from the death-dealing forces which have kept us trapped, released into abundant life. The stress and turmoil which have weighed us down, which have confused our path … these are wiped away, like water washing dust and dirt off our feet. We are given a new lease on life -- except that a lease implies debt, and this new life is a gift, no repayment required.

However, while nothing is required of us, it would be inappropriate for us to sit smugly with our gift, making no motion to behave in a similarly gracious fashion toward others.

Jesus reminds us, “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” It is easy for us to feel like the debtor forgiven of a relatively small amount -- and to therefore be stingy in our generosity toward others. Who invited you to this party? What will you buy with my spare change if I give it to you? We erect barriers to keep people in their place, administer tests to decide who goes where...

But God meets us where we are, just as we are -- and calls us to meet others likewise. God meets us in the dusty, dirty feet of Jesus. God meets us in the tears of an unnamed woman.

God meets us in all the mess of our bodies, in all the mess of our lives. And all God asks is that we show up, that we allow ourselves to touch and be touched in return -- to be transformed by that connection … and to live out that peace in our lives.

“Your faith has saved you” isn’t about statements of faith you sign onto, it’s about faith in the transforming power of God … faith in the power of that connection.

“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Amen.

God as Lover

At Sacred Eros last night, we talked about language, and one of the topics we got onto was language for God. The facilitator mentioned America's Four Gods: What We Say about God--and What That Says about Us and the fact that one model that wasn't present was God as Lover.

One participant mentioned that she was raised Catholic and she thinks many of the greatest saints understood God as Lover. I was dubious/surprised and asked whom she would list. (In my head I thought, "Julian of Norwich? John Donne?")

She listed:
* St. Francis of Assisi
* St. Thérèse of Lisieux
* Thomas Aquinas (I might be remembering this one wrong -- could be another Thomas; edit: though another person has since confirmed his inclusion in this list)
* St. Catherine of Siena
* St. Faustina

The facilitator mentioned Milton.

In conversation today, bff listed:
* Gregory of Nyssa
* Teresa of Ávila

I'm now really curious whom else people might list -- and they don't have to be canonized saints (or even operating within the Christian tradition -- we discussed Sufi mystics a bit last night).

Feel free also to just discuss the concept of God as Lover -- historically, personally, whatever (bff and I discussed nuns as Brides of Christ, for example, which moved into discussion of women's sexuality and self-understandings thereof).

Edit: Running list of mentions by other people:
* Margery Kempe
* Hildegard of Bingen
* St. John of the Cross
* "My Beloved Is Mine and I Am His" by Francis Quarles
* St. Augustine
* Patti Smith
* Mechthild of Magdeburg
* Gertrud of Helfta
* Agnes Blannbekin
* Heinrich Seuse ("who is particularly interesting as one aspect of how he understands his relationship with Christ in terms of a knight serving a lady")
* the "Jesus is my boyfriend" subset of contemporary Christian music
* Robinson Jeffers's "Roan Stallion"

"God was never alone."

Laura Ruth and I had dinner at the Burren tonight.

We mostly talked about how I'm called to serve the church.

She said she trusts me re: worship. She said one reason for this is because language is so important to me. She said the other reason is that I am so concerned to make a space that is "anxiety free" for people, to allow them to "fall into worship."

She asked me why I do so much church, asked if I have words for that.
I said people frequently ask me that and I can stumble through an answer, but I have yet to come up with a good answer.

I talked about how I'm really attached to Christianity -- and that I think that's largely because it's what I grew up with, that I'm not deeply invested/interested in investigating the truth claims (that's the phrase I was looking for! -- I kept saying "faith claims" and saying I knew that wasn't the phrase I wanted) of other religions -- and I talked about how when I was in college I wanted good sold argumentations for things like the Resurrection. (I said that my mother would sometimes say, "You know it's called faith for a reason," to which my response was: "I made the God leap; for everything else I want strong argumentation.") She asked me a follow-up question about this later, and I said that I've made peace with it somehow, that I stopped fighting it and it became something that I believe, that some of it was reading the arguments of "people wouldn't have made these claims if it didn't happen" and being sufficiently satisfied with those apologetics, and some of it was being in places like CWM and finding meaningful the layers of metaphor and meaning of Resurrection and "practice resurrection" and the importance of the Incarnation and how it says that we are created bodies and bodies are good and important. Laura Ruth said -- I think in connection with this part of the conversation -- that I haven't stopped engaging with these things, that that's one of the reasons I'm so good at liturgy etc.

My friend Lorraine has been reading Marcus Borg's Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, and she recently blogged about something Borg says on page 6:

Thus, for Christians, Jesus is utterly central. In a concise sentence, Jesus is for Christians the decisive relevation of God. Slightly more fully, Jesus reveals, discloses, what can be seen of God in a human life and what a life filled with God looks like. This affirmation defines what it means to be a Christian.

Having that in my recent history, I was inspired to talk about how going to church stuff -- be it worship service or book study or prayer group or whatever -- shows me different ways of doing this thing called being Christian. I had never thought of it that way before, but after I had said it I thought it made so much sense.

Laura Ruth talked about how I synthesize the intellectual and the emotional/experiential and my own experience and those of other people. I was thinking later that this makes a lot of sense. In college (and since) I talked a lot about interpreting liberals and conservatives to each other, living in that liminal border space, moving between two sides and trying to help both sides understand each other. I'm also really big on organizing things, making things flow, making them comprehensible; and proofreading and editing things, making them more clear and easy to understand -- which I had never thought to connect to other issues of accessibility until tonight but which now seems an intuitive connection.

Before she had to leave for another commitment, we talked a little about The Shack (which I finally read because she said of it, "it's terrible tripe but fantastic theology"). I talked about how some of it -- like the idea that God can't just be one person, because God is love, and love can only exist in relationship, and so if there was a time at which God was not in relationship then God could not be Love -- is stuff that's good to be reminded of but which isn't new to me, so I didn't have the "earth-shattering" reaction I've heard a lot of people had. I also said that I felt like a lot of the stuff in the book was good -- like the idea that just because God uses bad things toward good ends doesn't mean that God caused the bad things to begin with -- I found myself after I closed the book feeling like there were lots of big things that didn't get addressed -- like how do you balance the fact that God does intervene sometimes, why did Jesus Incarnate at that particular historical moment, what exactly does the salvific moment on the cross or at the resurrection mean, what about judgment day. I said I was willing to believe that the answer is: "It doesn't matter. What matters is loving and being in relationship."

Laura Ruth asked if I'd read A History of God, and I said no but it's on my list.
She said that the Old Testament talks about there being lots of gods, our God is just the greatest of them. She said, "God was never alone."

Before we parted, I thanked her for all the "nice is not a big enough word for what I want to say" things she said. She said, "As a pastor, I get to tell people true things. Isn't that wonderful?"

[Christianity] perfected bodies and (wedding) feasts

Shapely Prose's A Sarah posted:

One of the reasons I grudgingly remain a Christian, is because of a particular story that Christianity tells about bodies. Now, I hardly need to point out that not all the stories Christianity has told about bodies are good ones. A lot of them are crap. Maybe most of them; I don’t have an exhaustive understanding of Christian stories about bodies, but of the ones I come across, most are terrible. But there is, I think, a strand of the Christian tradition that is very body-affirming. For example: You might not know this, but there’s actually good reason for viewing the notion of a “soul” going to “heaven” as an interloper in the Christian tradition. Well, maybe “interloper” is too strong. But many theologians would say that, at best, it’s a belief that’s become an unhelpful distraction simply by being so focused upon. (Like, it actually doesn’t say in the historical canonical creeds that Christians’ souls will go to heaven when they die; it says only that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and then ascended into heaven, where he’s hanging out until he comes again.) (Er, I’m paraphrasing.)

Arguably, the FAR more consistent and long-established Christian belief about life after death is EXACTLY NOT that some immaterial vapor of selfhood will go into a happy place in the sky. Rather, it’s that our bodies will be resurrected and perfected.

Aieee! Perfect bodies. I’ve gone to church since I was a wee tot, and have now made a job of it — and yet when I hear about bodies being “perfected,” what springs to mind is not the Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead. No, it’s diets. It’s bikini season. Clear complexion products and spray tan and so forth. I fill with dread and anxiety and self-loathing.

But in the Christian theological sense, “perfected bodies” means mostly that our bodies won’t be in pain or die again. (Well, you have people like St. Augustine who also specified that everyone would be 33 years old in the resurrection, but that’s sort of an academic point.) More interesting than what the bodies won’t be, is what they will be, according to this particular flight of the Christian imagination. Namely, they will be ours. Recognizably. They will be physical bodies, the same ones we have now, just… transformed, somehow. They’ll be even more what they are now, more alive, more there. Their longings and yearnings will be fulfilled and satisfied. The delightful tangibility and vulnerability that comes with being fleshy won’t go away, but it won’t any longer be an occasion for danger and harm. It has even been speculated by at least one Christian theologian (and yes those are weasel words, and no I can’t remember who said it but I swear it’s in my seminary notes!) that our perfected bodies will retain their scars. The reasoning was that it makes sense that anything which testifies to suffering’s having been overcome will be preserved.

And what’s one image in the Christian tradition that has consistently been used to describe this new, redeemed, embodied life that awaits? Obviously not immaterial souls becoming harp-playing angels on clouds. Nope nope nope. A feast. A feast, where nobody is left out and everybody has enough. A feast where – if I may extend the image in a manner I think is faithful to it – there are no good foods and bad foods… no popular table and no nerds table… no foods that look gorgeous on the plate but are the result of cruel and world-killing technology… no need to make eating into a locus for control in the hopes of finally, finally being worthy of love. Just a beautiful, intimate, abundant, joyful, and peaceful meal with your close circle of friends. Except that the circle is extended to every creature, and the Holy One is sitting with us at the table too.

She goes on to talk about some of the ways in which the "wedding night" imagery is problematic and then to her great credit says:

Ah, that’s where I see the whole “ordered appetite” thing come in. And, you know, I can *almost* cut my tradition some slack here. I mean, if you’re saying that both gastronomical hunger and its fulfillment, and sexual longing and its fulfillment, reveal something about the very goal of the whole cosmos… well, suddenly, it seems pretty important to put in a bunch of provisos about how there are right and wrong ways for those appetites to be ordered. Because we don’t want to say that just EVERYthing that someone might theoretically do sexually, or EVERYthing you do related to your meals, is redemptive and good. A meal can be the occasion of exclusion and harm, even accidentally. So can sex. So can a bunch of other embodied longings.

Well, better make a whole bunch of rules to make sure that people only do the right things with their appetites, and not the wrong things, right?

Uhhh, sure, go ahead. Make a list of ordered and disordered appetites. And rules. And good people and bad people. And good bodies and bad bodies. Knock yourself out. EXCEPT REMEMBER THAT a big horking part of the Judeo-Christian narrative has to do with the guardians of “order” always being tempted to use that order to shore up their own power. And meanwhile – at least as I read the Christian Bible, but I’m not alone – God has pretty consistently cast God’s lot with those who’ve been othered by the authorities of the day.

Seriously, that’s like, um, kind of the whole freaking plot of the Bible, over and over and over and over and over again. The guardians of order say, with some plausible reason, “These are the conditions necessary for God to find favor with people!” And then God says, “Aww, nice try, mates, and I can totally see how you got there… but turns out I’m not so simple. ‘Scuse me a sec… Hey, you outcasts over there! Come join the party!”

At the end, she writes:

I can’t write about this without mentioning a memory that I shall cherish for as long as my memory functions. It illustrates everything I’ve just been trying, in fits and starts, to describe.

In the early ‘aughties I lived in a sort of pacifist anarchist Christian commune. One of the things we did — in addition to dumpster-diving, protesting war, and gardening — was provide a place for families with children who needed somewhere to stay. (At the time, in the city where I lived, most regular shelters and agencies wouldn’t place parents and children together.) One young woman, a high school student, stayed with us for more than a year. She’d been kicked out of her house when she got pregnant and decided to proceed with the pregnancy.

One day – when she was getting near her due date – she and the baby’s father announced they would be getting married. “WHAT!? CONGRATULATIONS!” we exclaimed. “WHEN?!” Whereupon this woman said somewhat dejectedly that they’d just get it taken care of the next day, because it’s not like they’d have any family who’d want to come.

At this point the matriarch of the community BEGGED her to let them try and give her a beautiful wedding. The bride happily said yes. And what I saw come together in the next twenty-four hours… I just don’t know how to describe it except that it felt like God was a sprightly and eccentric auntie throwing a wedding for her favorite niece. Somehow the news spread throughout the whole neighborhood. Little things just came together. For instance, the next morning my friend Christy and I found gorgeous entire bouquets of fresh flowers in the dumpster behind a florist, which we used to decorate the basement chapel. The intentional community down the street baked a wedding cake using, for the toppers, boy and girl chocolate Easter bunnies that they happened to have gotten on clearance. One of the other moms in the house worked as a caterer, and she made piles and piles of pupusas and heaps of black beans. Other neighbors brought chicken and I don’t even remember what else. A very psychologically troubled friend of ours who had some musical gifts sang “Danny Boy” as a solo. The preacher from the storefront church half a block away offered to do the ceremony. And the eighty-five-year-old grandfather who lived up the street — the sort who’d sit on his front porch in all but the worst weather so he could greet everyone as they passed – asked the bride if he could give her away.

ALL THIS HAPPENED IN ONE DAY.

It was both a feast, and a wedding night. And to me, it was a very scripturally-appropriate foretaste of the future of justice and peace that I try to work for. But I’ve often reflected how it satisfied exactly nobody’s rules for proper behavior or ordered appetites. Nobody. Certainly not wedding experts. Certainly not most religious people, who would have frowned on the bride (and perhaps only her) for having sex. Not the young woman’s family, who were angry she proceeded with the pregnancy. Not the vegans in our community, because of the chicken. I mean, they handled it with good humor and everything; I’m just saying if *they* had been in charge there probably wouldn’t have been chicken, you know? The wedding probably wouldn’t even have satisfied the government, seeing as how the groom didn’t speak English, couldn’t understand a word the preacher said, and didn’t actually repeat any vows. Hell, as a feminist I wasn’t thrilled in principle that she was being given away!

Didn’t matter. There was some power that had gone out ahead of us, ahead of all our rules, and brought us together in a place of peace… in a way that none of us could have anticipated. It was a gift *precisely* *because* it didn’t just spring up out of our fastidious adherence to rules.

Well, that’s my take, anyway. It’s also a long way of telling how I eventually found my spot in a liberal Christianity where a love of embodied life (in its lumpiest and bumpiest and earthiest sense) is at the heart of my faith… a Christianity that expects God to be especially at work in the lives of people with the “wrong” kinds of bodies, who have or are believed to have the “wrong” kinds of yearnings, longings, appetites.