"When Tables Are Overturned" (John 2:13-22)

It isn’t always to be found

in the quietness of our Lenten retreat,

or staring in a mirror at a forehead

marked by an ashen symbol of the cross ... 

startling as that is to see.

It isn’t always to be found

in these forty days, is it, O God?

In our reflection ...

or in our kneeling in repentance ...

or in our prayers for re-created hearts?

“Do away with your selective hearing," 

Jesus shouts,

"and your selective sight, 

and your selective compassion

and your selective worship."

"Do away with your tables,

so carefully placed, 

waiting with shiny currency ... 

perfect to make an unfair exchange.

Do away with the expensive sacrifices …

too expensive for those

who are most needy."

In this Lenten journey,

when we still don’t understand

and when we see no need

for the clearing of those things, 

we see you, Jesus,

methodically making a whip of cords 

and we hear you shout –

yes, SHOUT at us!

"Do away with the distortion of worship!

Cleanse the holy temple!

Take these things out of here!

This IS my Father’s house!"

There might be a time

during this Lenten journey of ours

when our tables are overturned,

our money is scattered,

feathers fly,

and we find ourselves

scrambling.

There might be a time

when all we have left

is worship with no agenda

other than to worship our Lord,

and the forming of words

in our hearts of "injustice" and "love"

by the One

who shouted them at us

in the marketplace.

When tables are overturned

and money is scattered, ...

when righteous indignation

of our Lord is seen and heard, 

the least, the lost and the lonely,

the fear-filled and the grief-stricken

become visible

and we become a voice

in this gouging world.

When tables are overturned, 

we might begin to overturn

shattered lives. 

When feathers fly,

all might begin to soar.


(c) 2012  anna murdock

Lent, Wilderness, and Forty Days

It is my wilderness …

  a place to which I am being led.

   It is my forty days …

yes, my forty days

    to endure and to seek,

to trust and to pray,

  to be surrounded by

   very tending angels.

       

It is my aloneness,

    and wilderness and forty days.

I would hope that

   you too might allow it 

      if and when it comes …

      for there is a Holy Presence here.

      

 The wilderness is born

    out of a great silence 

    that hopes for a sudden glimpse

  of God in worship

    when all others around me

    are following their worship bulletins

      so carefully … so dutifully … 

      so worshipfully … so very well.

It is my wilderness.

    It is I who sing the hymns,

     with parched lips.

    It is I who reaches out for the morsels

       that the Spirit hands to me

       when I am so malnourished.

It is my wilderness.

It is I who listens for shouts 

   yet am satisfied

  with holy whispers.

It is my response to God to live into,

   not others to discourage.

The words, “Get thee behind me….”

  are on my lips, on guard and ready

  for one more attempt 

       to change direction.

It was my wilderness, 

… my forty days,

… my seeking, 

… my journey, 

… Your leading.

Holy One, you are in it all

   and in that, I do trust

   these unknown steps

  during these forty days.

Amen.