Recipes for Living Glennis Gracey

As I was preparing this edition of Recipes for Living, I began to wonder what it would be like to do Jesus' life story. It occurred to me that it might be sacrilegious, but we sing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and I think that sometimes we lose sight of the fact that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. I decided to try it, prefacing with my beliefs: (1) that the account of Jesus is not to be read as history but to say this is how life is. What God did in Jesus, God continues to do. What God did then, God does now, for God does not change. (2) Every aspect of Jesus' life can be interpreted as applicable to ours, and if anyone ever had a "recipe for living," it was he.

The process for doing the stories is having people come to my house, and as we talk, I put notes in my computer. I ask questions and write a first draft, which becomes the working document. So if Jesus were sitting with me, I would ask, as I usually do, whether he wanted to start with the present and work backward, or if he wanted to begin with his birth and go forward. If we begin with his birth, wouldn't it be wonderful to talk with Mary?

I would love to know more about the angel's visit when Mary was told she would have a Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit of God! What were your thoughts, Mary? Your absolute faith in God is evident-"With God nothing is impossible," and in your song you indicate your astonishment that God reversed the culture's standards of importance by choosing that Jesus be born to a virgin who was humble, poor, and insignificant. After all, God could have sent him in any conceivable way- on a white charger straight out of the clouds- or ways beyond imagination. Instead, Jesus came into the world as all of us come, a helpless infant. God could have sent him to the rich and powerful, but instead God looked on "the lowliness of his servant." Were you fearful, Mary, that Joseph, to whom you were betrothed, would leave you? Were you ostracized by those who did not understand? They must have scoffed at your story. Did your faith ever waver during the long months of waiting?

Surely you must wonder at the glitter we sprinkle on our Christmas cards. I have children and remember the latter days of pregnancy. I can't even imagine what it was like to travel with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem in that condition! I don't know the distance, but the whole of Palestine was only 150 miles long and 50 miles wide, and these two cities were within that distance. Suppose it was 50 miles - from Osceola to Des Moines. The thought of alternating riding a donkey and walking however many days - how did you do it? Then you arrived only to discover there was no room in the inn, and you were given the shelter of a stable! Giving the best scenario, stables then as now must have been smelly and dusty. Oh, Mary, God did not make it easy!

What did you tell Jesus about that night? Did you tell him about the shepherds who were sent by the angels? What happened to the gifts of the Wise Men? Is it possible that they provided your means when you had to flee to Egypt? Did you tell Jesus about when you and Joseph took him to the temple to be consecrated and what Simeon and Anna said about him that they now could die in peace, for they had seen the One for whom they waited? Did the words of Simeon, that a sword would pierce your heart, have meaning, or did that become clear when you saw your son hanging on a cross? Luke wrote that you pondered all these things and kept them in your heart. I know how we are - sometimes wonderful things happen and maybe

we ponder them for awhile but we don't talk about them. When I was researching the subject of angels, many people I talked with said eagerly, "Let me tell you what happened to me!" And they would tell wonderful experiences that they had never told anyone for fear of being considered odd. When you pondered all that happened to you, does that imply that you didn't talk about them, even to Jesus?

You went back to Nazareth, and according to Mark, Joseph went about his business as a carpenter and you had other children- James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and girls whom he does not name. Did you think of Jesus as a special son, or did you consider all your children special? It is hard to believe that you were like us in becoming so busy with daily-ness that we lose sight of what God is doing in our lives, but you were human, too. It still seems unlikely this applies to you.

According to historians, you would have taught Jesus, in his early years, and then he was taught by rabbis in the synagogue schools. Their textbook was Hebrew scripture, which is our Old Testament, and, Jesus, according to the number of times you quoted from it in the New Testament, you must have been an exceptional scholar.

You surely remember when you were 12 years old and your family went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Here was your opportunity to listen to the teachers and ask them questions. It is told that you became so interested that you missed joining your parents for the return trip to Nazareth, and they had to go back to look for you. There is some evidence that you knew at that time that you had a special calling because when Mary chided you, as we mothers would, "Your father and I have been looking for you!", you reminded her that you had a heavenly Father as well as an earthly one. "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"

Jesus, I would love to know about your home life between the ages of 12 and 30. Did Joseph teach you the carpentry trade? How old were you when Joseph died, and as the oldest son, did you become the family's provider? We know that you and Elizabeth's son, John, were the same age. At about age 30, he came out of seclusion and became a well known preacher and baptizer. Crowds of people went to him, and you left home and went as well. John recognized you and told the crowds that he baptized with water but there was one coming after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.

John was baptizing for the repentance of sin, but you came from Nazareth in Galilee and, even though you were without sin, you asked to be baptized as well. When John protested that he should be baptized by you, your answer was, "Let it be so for now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." And then something significant happened! As you came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove came and lighted on you, and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." That is fascinating! There is no evidence that you had done anything beyond getting your education and fulfilling your family obligation. It would be wonderful to have this kind of affirmation as we go along!

You told us, Jesus, that when we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive power. If at your baptism you received power, is that the meaning of the temptation stories -that you went into seclusion to decide how to use it? We know that poor people were precious to you. I've been to your country. I know there are stones everywhere! Perhaps it occurred to you that you could use your power to turn the stones into bread and feed those who were hungry, but that would not have been the answer. You wanted to feed not only bodies, but souls. You could have attracted attention by doing spectacular feats, like jumping off the roof of the temple and having angels catch you. But you hadn't come to show people what you could do but who you are their Savior and Lord. Is this why you often said to persons you healed that they were not to tell anyone? (That is not characteristic of current healers.)

It has interested me that you did not become involved in any attempt to free the people from injustices under the rule of the Roman Empire. It has been suggested that one or two of your disciples responded to the invitation to follow you, because they believed that is what you were about- that possibly Judas' treachery was motivated by thinking that if he placed you in a position where you were forced to do so, you would declare yourself. The temptation stories in the gospels suggest that you could have gained political power. You could have ordered people to do what you wanted, but you wanted to change hearts, so by the peoples' own choice they would worship God and serve only God.

You gained notoriety at once, when you began to preach and particularly when people discovered that you were a healer. It was natural for you to return to Galilee, and on the Sabbath you followed your custom of going to the synagogue in your home town. Is this a clue that you did not intend to set up a new religion? "I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them” You stood up to read from the scroll of Isaiah and you chose a passage that identified your mission. 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recoveryof sight to the blind, to set at liberty the oppressed..." We who see your life in retrospect have an advantage over those who heard you that day, for we know that you lived in the spirit of that mission, as you later said, "I have come not to be served but to serve."

On that Sabbath, all was going well. Why didn't you accept the acclaim, Jesus? Why didn't you leave well enough alone? Instead you aroused their ire by reminding them that God's universal love extended beyond their own country and their own people. Suddenly, their admiration turned to such violent wrath that they wanted to hurl you over the edge of the cliff It is a wonder you escaped! You passed through their midst and went on your way, but there was an occasion when even your family wondered at your sanity. They went out to get you because people were saying you had lost your mind.

You left Nazareth and made your primary residence Capernaum, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the hometown of Peter. Peter was one of the first whom you called to be your follower. He, his brother Andrew, and the two brothers, James and John, sometimes called "the sons of thunder," were fishermen. Even in your choice of disciples, you were telling us something, weren't you, for you chose common, uneducated men. You constantly gave recognition to those the culture regarded as non-persons -women, children, prostitutes, and sinners. You chose to associate with people who were ostracized -like tax collectors. They were considered traitors because they not only collected taxes for the Roman Empire, but they had authority to assess them on a whim, keeping for themselves the amount above what the government required. People had no recourse but to pay what was demanded and the collectors were highly resented. The phrase "tax collectors and sinners," appears throughout the gospels. And you invited Matthew, a tax collector, to be one of your inner group!

Crowds of people came to listen to your teaching, for you taught as one who had authority. They quickly discovered that you could heal people of their diseases, give sight to the blind, cause the lame and paralyzed to walk, and even raise the dead. Those were the ordinary people, but within the crowds were students of the Law- Pharisees and their scribes. You were not the first one who had appeared, claiming to be the long-awaited Messiah, spoken of by the prophets. They attracted crowds and the Pharisees took it as their duty to check them out.

They soon noticed that you did not observe the Mosaic Law. This was the Ten Commandments received by Moses, interpreted and supplemented through the centuries. As early as Mark's third chapter, he tells that these groups of people conspired against you, looking for how to destroy you.

I confess, Jesus that I am not like you. I often tailor my remarks according to the group of people I am with, but you were not reshaped to suit the crowd. You were who you were and not only did you invite Matthew to be your follower but you accepted an invitation to dinner at his house. When the Pharisees asked your friends why you ate with tax collectors and sinners, you said, "I have come to call not the (self) righteous but sinners to repentance.”

And you seemed almost deliberately to infuriate them. You forgave sins, which only God could do! You ignored the Sabbath when someone had a need. You showed them the error of obedience to the law as an outward expression. It must come from the heart. Looking lustfully at a woman is as sinful as committing adultery, being angry enough to kill is as wicked as murder; for God looks not on outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. You blatantly accused scribes and Pharisees of hypocrisy, "You clean the outside of the cup and the plate but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

But what I love, Jesus is that you introduced a new law! You were a new law. You said that John, great as he was, was the end of the old dispensation and you introduced a new one - the kingdom of God! You gave just one commandment -love, and not only did you command it but you demonstrated it! I ask, "How, Jesus? How am I to love everyone?" and you answer, "As I loved. Read the book."

It is still hard, Jesus. I suppose I have confused loving and liking. Loving with your kind of love means wanting the best for the other person. When you said, "Even as I loved you," I know that it has nothing to do with worthiness to be loved. It is more in spite of than because of, isn't it? It is unconditional. I hear you saying that the problem is my own ego, my self. It is the self that caused Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden- the self that took precedence over what God wanted for her. It is the self that gets in the way of forgiving. The very thought of injuries puts self in the foreground, and then the injury, instead of appearing less, appears greater. "If you want to be my disciple, deny your self and follow me.”

"You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." When I am filled with anger, resentment, or envy, I am not free; but there is also freedom from being bound by culture. In fact, Jesus, your law is the reverse! Give (and you will not have less but more) and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap! For the measure you give will be the measure you get back. .. Lend, expecting nothing inreturn. .. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other also . . . Some have said, "That doesn't make any sense," but, Jesus, we had a Bishop who spoke of the common sense of humans and the uncommon sense of God. Your Spirit gives uncommon sense!

You totally reversed our set of values. You talked more about money than any other subject except the kingdom of God, and it was always in the nature of a warning. The story you told about the wealthy farmer illustrates it best. When he had an abundance of crops, he set about building bigger barns to store them. You said, "You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you and the things you have stored up, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures on earth but are not rich toward God.” On the other hand, when Peter asked so characteristically, “Look, we have given up everything to follow you. What's in it for us?" you answered, "Very much more in this age and in the age to come, eternal life."

"This age" is so much with us, Jesus that we forget this is not all there is. In fact, you gave new meaning to "death." You often referred to what we call "death," as sleep. One day you received word from your friends Mary and Martha, whom you often visited when you went to Jerusalem. They lived in Bethany, about two miles from the city. They sent word that their brother Lazarus was ill, you knew that he had died but you told your disciples, "Lazarus has fallen asleep." You went there and revived him, although he had been dead for four days. There is physical death to the body, but Jesus, your concern was spiritual death-death of the soulwhich is final separation from God. You died to save us from that death.

When I ask you why you came to earth, you point to my Bible. "I came that humanity might have life and have it abundantly...!came to tell about the kingdom of God...I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it...I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another. "

I remember my shock the first time I read, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household." So many things you are quoted as having said challenged the image being given to me by Sunday School teachers in my early years. In fact, I was 40 years old (like the Israelites I'd spent 40 years in the wilderness) before a man named Azel Smith became my Moses to lead me to read more with my heart than with my head. You said, "Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will beopened to you." You didn't say when and we are reminded that God's time is not our time.

Now I can look at those words and realize that this is what happens when we choose to obey the first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me." As you asked Peter, "Do you love me more than these?" you ask each of us. When asked what was the greatest commandment in the law, you restated the Old Testament command, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Because, strangely, when we give God, who is love, priority, our love for others increases, is more sincere and pure, uncontaminated by lesser motives.

I wonder why we have to search so long, why answers aren't clearer sooner. And I sense that you are smiling in full knowledge that I, for one, could be told nothing-by anybody. You told us the way to live. I can relate to God's saying, as parent to children, "Ifonly they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children forever." I had to learn the hard way, didn't I? But I treasure your words to Peter when you told him that he would deny you. You didn't go on to say, "And when you do you will carry that guilt with you from then on." You said, "And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Peter and I, so self-assured, so often saying the wrong thing, but you indicate that we are to use those mistakes. We can no longer be judgmental, because we are reminded that we, too, were weak when we should have been strong. We, too, made errors and so we are in a position of understanding, encouraging, and strengthening others who also are learning the hard lessons.

Peter's denial came near the end of your earthly life, Jesus. Opposition by the religious leaders had continued to rise. But you didn't stop. You might have stayed in Galilee and been safe, because the fierce opposition was in Jerusalem. You knew exactly what was going to happen and told your disciples over and over, but they did not understand. You evidently decided that the time had come, for in your prayer you said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you." This was when you received word that Mary and Martha's brother, Lazarus, was critically ill. You didn't leave immediately, but a few days later you told the disciples that you were going. They reminded you that it was a dangerous decision. The Jews were trying to stone you when you were there before. They did not understand why you would be going there again. But you said, "This illness is for God's glory."

Calling Lazarus from the tomb was the final straw for the chief priests and Pharisees. From that day they planned to put you to death. At this point in your life, Jesus, you demonstrated the greatest power of all-not to use the power you had. You deliberately made yourself vulnerable, but you said, "No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one’s friends."

It must have been important that you synchronize the upcoming events with the Passover, which had been observed since the time of the exodus, when the Jews were released from slavery in Egypt. In order to persuade the Pharaoh to let God's people go, God sent a series of plagues. On the night of the final plague- death to the first born- the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice an unblemished lamb. They were to take the blood of that lamb and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they ate it. The angel of death would see the blood and pass over the house. Thus they would be released from slavery to a nation that worshipped many gods, and be free to go to the land promised to Abraham and his descendents.

This was your powerful message, wasn't it? That you became, as John identified you early on, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." As in Moses' day God saved the "chosen people" by the blood of the sacrified lamb, so you saved us from the power of sin by your blood shed on the cross. "The Son of Man came...to give his life as a ransom for many." This is hard to understand, Jesus, but a verse that has been called "the gospel in miniature" is "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life." We cannot comprehend it intellectually. We accept on faith.

I can hardly bear to read the last chapters of the gospel, Jesus. I would like to think that I would have been one of the women who followed you and your disciples, providing for you out of their resources, those who came with you from Galilee, and were with you to the end. But would I? I don't know. I am sure the services, when we try to replicate Palm Sunday by waving a few branches, or Maundy Thursday when we light candles and read passages of scripture, don't mean to me what they should. It is imitation and I don't experience you there. I have even taken part in a foot-washing service but you were not washing my feet nor I yours. I'm sorry, Jesus. I wish it were otherwise.

I can picture you in the Garden, where you often went to pray when you were in Jerusalem. You knew how close it was to the time of your arrest. You sent Judas to tell your opponents where they could find you. You knew what lay ahead. There are sects within the Christian community who disbelieve that you were human, for human and divine cannot mix. But your humanity was evident throughout the gospels. When you fasted for 40 days, you were hungry. When you healed, energy went out from you. You became tired and needed rest.

At this time it is particularly evident, for you were struck by the horror of what lay ahead. You even knew that your disciples would desert you! "You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, 'Iwill strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered."' You separated Peter, James, and John from the other disciples and asked them to go with you a bit further, telling them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stayawake with me."You threw yourself on the ground and prayed, "Father, if it is possible, let thiscup pass from me; yet not what I want, but what you want. “You rose and went to your disciples only to find them sleeping! "So you could not stay awake with me one hour? The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. "(I say that of myself sometimes, Jesus. A poor excuse on my part.) Once again you went further and affirmed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done."

By this time Judas, leading the mob that carried torches, swords, and clubs, had come through the city gate and up the hill I have stood on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Old City. It is possible to see the gate through which the mob came and not hard to visualize and imagine the sounds made by that hateful crowd as they came through the gate and up the hill Judas identified you as the one they were seeking, and you pointed out their cowardliness. "Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness."

From that time on, Jesus, it is hard to trace what happened for the gospels do not agree. It becomes clear that the Jews had one goal-nothing less than crucifixion would satisfy them, but they could not do that according to their law. This was the Roman means of execution so you had to be sentenced by Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. He found no cause for your death sentence. His wife warned him to have nothing to do with you, because you were innocent. She had been told this in a dream. There was a custom that the governor release a prisoner at the time of the festival, and Pilate brought out the notorious Jesus Barabbas. "Whom do you want me to release?" In spite of all this, Pilate gave in to the mob that shouted for your crucifixion. This is not a surprise. You indicated the type of death you would suffer when you spoke of being lifted up. "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up...And I when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself" And that was true, Jesus. A Roman officer who took part in the execution ritual exclaimed at the end, "Surely this man was innocent. Truly this man was God's Son!"

What was the hardest part, Jesus? The physical torture of the flogging nails driven through your hands and feet, torture inflicted by those who may have sadistically derived some pleasure from their brutality? Or the social devastation when one disciple betrayed you, another denied ever having known you, and all forsook you and fled when you were arrested? There was also humiliation, for crucifixion was the sentence for the most despicable criminals. Common people who passed by did not know the whole story, so there was jeering and spitting, no sympathy. Was it any comfort that the women did not desert you-that your mother and your disciple, John, was there?

Or was the hardest the spiritual separation from the Father when you took on our sin and cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Some of what we humans have done to one another is almost inconceivable- so horrible we can scarcely bear to read about them, but you took those on yourself. We might say you took on sin, from the least to the worst. But sin is sin, isn’t it? Disobedience is disobedience. There is no lesser or greater. How solemnly we read your words from the cross when you said, "Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing." Jesus, give us the kind of love required to do likewise!

Your words from the cross as quoted by gospel writers have been combined and sermonized. By the time we have lived for many years hearing the same words, they finally fail to have an impact on us, but each had a depth of meaning! When you said, "It is finished," you surely meant not just your life but what you had come to do. You said in your prayer, "I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do." In your cry to the Father, when you felt forsaken, you were quoting from the 22nd psalm written centuries earlier, and that psalm closes in faith and triumph. Is this what you were reminding those who heard you? That even though the present seemed hopeless, victory was ahead? It was written, "The ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship him."

That surely would seem unlikely to the disciples at the time. For three years their confidence had grown. They had reason to believe that you could not be conquered. You had outwitted your opponents at every turn. You had shown your power over nature, over evil spirits, over disease and even death- but now, what? At one point they are shown hiding together behind a locked door for fear the Jews would do to them what had been done to you!

They had failed to note that whenever you told them what would happen to you, "I must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, "you added, "and on the third day be raised." When the women went to the tomb, taking spices they had prepared for embalming your body, they found it empty and angels told them that you were not there, you had risen! It is not hard to imagine their shock and unbelief. How would I react if someone I knew to be dead suddenly was alive and stood before me?

Even though it could not have seemed so at the time, there seems to be a sense that you were in charge of the entire process. "Do you think I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled?" There was something more to be accomplished than what took place in those hours. A current writer, Lesslie Newbigin tells that the earliest representations of the crucifixion do not show you as a "drooping, defeated, pain-drenched figure, a symbol of abject submission and defeat." Instead, they picture you with "head erect, the warrior beating down the powers of death and hell, the victorious challenger of all the powers of evil." This is how Saint Paul interpreted what you had done. "The last enemy to be destroyed was death. Death has been swallowed up in victory...Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ!

After your resurrection, you were with your followers for many days. You appeared behind the locked door, you walked with two to Emmaus, you materialized as the men were fishing and you served them breakfast. The apostle Paul summed up that you appeared to Cephas (Greek name for Peter), then to the 12, then to 500 brothers and sisters at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles. "Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

And then came the Ascension. Your disciples were with you and you instructed them in matters pertaining to their going on when you were not physically present, and as they watched, you were lifted up and disappeared in a cloud. While they were still gazing into heaven, two men in white robes stood by them and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

As John concluded his writing, so I conclude: "There are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." But may I tell you, Jesus, what is so amazing to me about your life? Of all the miracles from beginning to the end of your story, including the crucifixion/resurrection and ascension, the most amazing is what came next. Fifty days after Passover, at the festival of Pentecost, what you said about your spirit came to pass. You had told your disciples that you would not leave them orphaned. "If you love me you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever...It is to your advantage that I go away, for if Ido not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but ifI go, I will send him to you...The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you... You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses...to the ends of the earth...To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit (gifts/talents/abilities) and the one who believes in me will do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father...And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. "

It happened! The Spirit of God, your Spirit, Jesus, came, making you present - not pasttense!! Through the Spirit, the church was born- its birthday is Pentecost when the Spirit came in a strong wind and tongues of fire. The acts of the apostles, as recorded in the book by that name, give evidence that your promise was fulfilled- an open ended promise: "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Even now! Thank you, Jesus!