Brandon Woosley

Living in the Desert

We’re in the latter stages of the season of Lent, which is a season inviting us to reflect on Jesus’ time of being tempted in the desert by Satan. His temptation season parallels both the time Israel spent between Egypt and Canaan, and our lives lived between being set free from slavery to sin and entering into the fully realized Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ victory over temptation is the event of the three which informs the other two: we see how Israel was meant to live, in faithful dependence on God, and how we are set free to live because Jesus is Messiah.

I’m thinking about all of this tonight because we are listening to Jeremiah 31:31-34 tomorrow morning (actually, now, this morning) in worship – a passage in which the Lord gives Jeremiah a word of hope to Israel about how they will live in yet another desert phase – the dry phase after exile from the promised land because of their failure to be faithful. The other side of that desert is the coming of the Messiah, but they were little able to see that at the point Jeremiah comes speaking to them. As we, too, can often barely begin to imagine what it is like to live free from the brokenness that besets our world.

But one day, that freedom will come. Even in Lent, we rejoice on Sundays.

Correction

I was wrong when I said that only 7 of 8 days had set record highs around here. Turns out the day that I didn’t think made it actually did. 8 days in a row, and tomorrow projects to be 9.

So, what will our summer be? Longer and hotter than usual? Early, then moving to Fall in August? My mind is officially boggled.

The Wonder of Weather

For the last week, the Chicago area has had an unbelieveable streak of warm weather. How unprecedented it truly is has been hitting me slowly over the last few days, as I have heard facts like:

7 of 8 days in this stretch have set records for high temperature; if the 8th day had set the record, too, that would have been the longest stretch of consecutive days with a record high temperature in Chicago.
Today, Chicago was warmer than Havana, Cuba and Cabo san Lucas, Mexico and Cancun.
The low temperatures during the last week have been 10-15 degrees higher than the average high temperature for these dates.

As these bizarre days of warmth have piled up, I have realized that I can’t take the weather for granted. I can’t fall back on any of the tired cliches about what March weather in Chicago is like. Every one of those cliches is a statement of boredom at the variety of weather, and God’s provision within it. Well, for me, I think that’s the case. You might be different. But a week of totally un-likely, unbelievable weather has caused me to actually pay attention to the mundane again. Praise God.

Life Together

This was a communion Sunday in our congregation. We have traditionally taken communion sitting in the pews, passing the elements out to the people on trays. Now, for a variety of reasons, we are frequently using the practice of intinction to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Today was one of those intinction Sundays, and so the members of the congregation came to the front of the sanctuary to receive the bread and dip it into the cup, which I was holding.

Many of our people have told me that they value this manner of celebration because they feel more personally connected to the sacrament, and I have felt that I understood this perspective. This morning, though, I had a more vivid experience than I have previously had when administering the sacrament. Today, as each person came forward to dip the bread into the cup, I was particularly aware of those ways that I have been privileged to be a fellow traveler with them as their pastor: sitting in a hospital room as a spouse returned from surgery; talking in their home or my office during a special season of trial they had faced; lunches spent discussing the gifts they were recognizing in their lives, and how they might use them; joining together in an exhilarating moment of shared ministry. In each of these recollections, I was reminded of the presence of Christ Jesus with us, joining us together in those moments, making us one with Him and with one another.

I will only add that it was a sweet sensation to be caught by surprise, to be given a view of another layer of the way Jesus is at work in and among us. It was a gift. Thanks be to God.

In Praise of The Kid

Today is a special day for me. The Chicago Cubs pitchers and catchers reported for Spring Training, which means it is now baseball season in my world.* However, it’s also been a sad couple of days for many baseball fans: on Thursday, Gary Carter died, less than a year after his doctors discovered brain cancer. I’ve been sad about this too.

*For most of you, baseball season will start when the actual season starts in April, or perhaps a few weeks before in late March, or perhaps sometime later in the year if you are not gripped by baseball. To all of you, I say: you should try my way of doing things. You see, not only does baseball season start now, but Spring has begun. It’s a happy place. Granted, our winter has been more like spring this year, but we’ll probably get one more big snow, and lots of you are going to be plunged back into the winter that never happened. I’ll be enjoying Spring.

Being sad about Carter’s passing surprised me a little. He started his career playing for the Montreal Expos, a team that meant nothing to me*, and then he moved to the New York Mets, who were in the midst of a season of spiteful rivalry with my Cubs.

*Well, not nothing. That’s what it meant to Bud Selig and Jeff Loria. But not much, since I am a Cub fan, and didn’t spend much time thinking about the Expos. I did always love their funky M logo.

Gary Carter wasn’t the most unlikeable member of those Mets (that, of course, would be Doug Sisk) (Just kidding, Doug!), but disliking Mets was what we did. As I’ve been thinking back to those years, my recollection is that the thing I disliked Gary Carter for most was his sincerity. Almost anything you read about Gary Carter will talk about his joy at playing, and that was annoying (as an opposing fan). But that was pretty much it – the man was happy to be a baseball player, he seemed completely sincere about it, and he was really good at it. I look back at that now, and I’m reminded one thing: I had some dumb ideas as a kid. I suppose we all did (or do, for the many teens who just love to read what I write – hi, young adults!). Dislike someone because of their sincerity and joy? I’d rather now celebrate him for those same things.