I thirst (Maundy Thursday 2017)

He has sweat blood, he has been betrayed, tried, and scourged. He has carried his cross, fallen, been nailed hand & foot, and been raised up to die in one of the most excruciating ways possible.

He has forgiven his murderers, promised a thief paradise, given the care of His mother to a beloved disciple. And he has, in these last moments, felt the loss of that presence which has been closer than His nearest human breath throughout his ministry.  

Utterly alone. Forsaken. And now, ‘I thirst.’

There is a primal need to thirst, a yearning, a desperation. We are, after all, creatures that are 2/3 water. What those of us who have done a Ramadan fast – especially in the summer – remember is not the hunger, but the desperate need for water. That is why what I call ‘intermediate forms’ of fasting allow liquid as they deny – or curb - our food.

Think about the words we use when we have nothing left: our tank is empty; we are spiritually dry; someone is ‘dried up’. It is no coincidence, I think, that early Fathers sold everything and fled to the driest place on Earth, the place that would keep them right on the edge of death, to face their demons and strip right back to the essence of their relationship with G-d.

Thirst is bone deep; thirst is need; thirst is a desire for life – even from the cross. And Our Lord’s thirst isn’t a passive thing: it is not ‘I am soooo thirsty,’ or the Spanish ‘Tengo sed’ – ‘I have thirst.’ He thirsts – it is active; it is a desire on the hunt.

But for what? He physically thirsts, clearly – Jesus was fully human, and it had been…rather a tough day so far, with the words of the Psalmist to fulfil before it was accomplished.  Thus, the vinegar on a sponge. But, as always with Our Lord, there is so much more.

Just as we use thirst figuratively: we thirst for knowledge, thirst for righteousness, thirst for justice, so does He. But again, for what? Augustine offers us a possible answer in a phrase I saw every year during Lent when I regularly attended the Oratory: sitit sitiri – G-d thirsts to be thirsted for. Perhaps. But there is something unsatisfactory in this – this mutual longing feels incomplete; it lacks connection; it smacks of unfulfilled relationship – and no little emotional manipulation. Thirst for G-d or else YOU are dehydrating Him!

But if we flip back to earlier in the gospel of John, we get a glimmering. Picture the scene: a hot day in Samaria, a well, and a woman approaching it to draw water for her family. A young man sitting there commands her, “Give me to drink.” Left unsaid, “I thirst.” We all know her response, “Seriously? You, a Jew asking me, a Samaritan, for a drink?” (Not quite KJV, but still.) His response is an unexpected one: If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.

The therapist in me loves this line, because when someone tells you what they would give you, more often than not, they are telling you what they want from you. Jesus will give us living water, and there is a not-so-faint echo of the later And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament. 

Our Lord doesn't just thirst for us to thirst for him. He thirsts for us.

The us He knit together in our mother’s womb, the us He dreamt we would be when He created us. The us that not one of us could create, but that these fragile bodies of ours contain. As Dag Hammarskjold said, “I am the vessel. The draught is G-d’s. And it is G-d who thirsts.”

Ah, we may think, great! The draught is G-d’s, I am the vessel, there’s this whole pour your life out as a libation thing. All I have to do is be like the guy in the parable of the talents who puts the talent in the ground and gives it back to the Master unchanged – conveniently forgetting just how well that worked for him.

But there’s a catch. We have this treasure of G-d’s draught in earthen vessels. And earthen vessels have a habit of leaching and changing that which they contain. Every choice we make through the free will granted us changes the draught of G-d’s contained within us for better or for worse, makes it bitter or sweet.

Oh, we think, I’ll ignore the niggle of my conscience just that one time. I can’t forgive him, so I won’t try. I’ll miss out that little kindness. I’ll tell that little lie. I’ll keep quiet about that wrong I know is happening, someone else will take care of it. But those ‘slips’ become habit, and many littles soon become a tsunami of sin. Or, as @absurdistwords once noted in a Twitter thread, you can only play Devil's advocate for so long before you realize that the Devil actually has you on retainer.

And so often, it is more subtle than that, isn’t it, especially when you’re working for the Church? Of course twisting that person’s arm was the right thing to do, it was for G-d. Of course I know what THEIR spiritual path should be, all the while ignoring how far I’ve come off course. I was right to ostracise them, they’re a heretic. The obsession with bums in pews whilst neglecting the souls of those sitting in them. I was right to offer fraternal correction in public, his humiliation is G-d’s will. The creeping spiritual arrogance, the pride that we, at least, are doing G-d’s work. We would do well to remember Hammarskjold’s admonition: It was when Lucifer first congratulated himself upon his angelic behaviour that he became the tool of evil.

Or, to put it in Holy Week terms: Where in our journey do we avoid reaching Golgotha, refusing to get up the first, second, or third time we fall? Where do we demand the resurrection without the crucifixion, or, playing the martyr, refuse to allow G-d to take us down off our cross, so He can move us from crucifixion to resurrection?

So now what? Are we to despair? Is it impossible for us to sweeten this draught? Will we forever embitter it? Again – can you tell I’m currently reading Markings? – Hammarskjold points the way through the prayer Our Lord taught us:

Hallowed be thy name 

*NOT MINE*

Thy kingdom come

*NOT MINE*

Thy will be done 

*NOT MINE*

Give us peace with thee

Peace with men 

Peace with ourselves

And free us from all fear.

Free us from fear? Ah, now that might be a way forward, since all sin is, somewhere, based in fear. But how, in these darkest of times? 1st John tells us: perfect love casteth out fear. But how do we poor humans find perfect love? By falling into the arms of the one who spread them on the cross for us.

Relying on our own meagre human resources, we will soon make the draught undrinkable. But through surrender to Divine will, we become the finest vintage imaginable, the one He intended us to be. And then, He can lift up our vessel and quench His thirst: not by drinking as we drink, but by putting it to the lips of our thirsty neighbour – the sick, the poor, the refugee - those lives He means us to touch & heal, pouring out our lives as a libation until it is accomplished. 

Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise - Maundy Thursday reflection 2016

Truly, I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise. 

Huh, I thought, as I considered what to say today. Unexpected words to an unlikely person – Our Lord speaks to a thief, to a man who had nothing to do with him until that moment, either for or against. Not a disciple, not an apostle, not a Pharisee. An unknown thief who admits his own sins, understands their consequences, and speaks out for an innocent man at the last possible minute receives eternal life. 

Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, I mercy asked, and mercy found. 

Sobering, isn’t it? Because that exchange turns everything we so often believe about salvation upside down. 

Oh, we pay lip service to the ‘anyone can be saved right up to the last moment’ – unless you’re a diehard Calvinist, of course – but that isn’t what we practise. Just watch and listen to how often we claim to know whether or not someone is saved and will go to Paradise, or, even more egregiously, how often we put ourselves in the Lord’s place, claiming that we know exactly what they need to do to be in Paradise with Him – as if G-d wasn’t at work in their lives already. 

How often that ‘knowing’ has to do with their lives looking exactly like ours: same denominational team shirt, going to our church as often as we do, praying like we do, sharing our political ideology, hating the same people we do. 

My most recent experience of someone else’s certainty about my spiritual life was Ash Wednesday, when, after a couple of months’ absence, I went to mass down the road. Just as I sat down at my computer, less than 30 minutes after the end of mass, an email from one of the priests hit my inbox: 

Dear Irim, 
 As you know, Holy Communion is – amongst other things – a celebration of union with all who believe the same Faith, both across the globe and across history. You, yourself, have told us that you frequently attend a non-Catholic church on Sundays. If this is the case, then I must ask you not to present yourself for Holy Communion in a Catholic Church. If, on the other hand, you no longer attend non-Catholic churches on Sundays and Holy Days then, like anyone else who has returned to the Faith, you are of course most welcome.

May G-d bless you during this holy season. 

Suffice it to say, G-d blessing HIM wasn’t what first came to my mind. But once I could see past the shock and ensuing anger, my first thought – and almost the first sentence in my written response to him - was, You can’t make that judgment; you have no idea what my spiritual life has been for the last two months. 

 But more critically, as a Catholic who believes in the Real Presence - that communion IS the body and blood of Christ, I saw that with his request that I accept myself as excommunicated latae sententiae, he was literally placing himself as a barrier between me and G-d. 

In that moment, I understood that every time we judge someone’s faith journey, every time we insist it look like ours, every time we try to force theirs into a shape that WE think is right, we place ourselves as a barrier between another and G-d. Can there be any greater sin than that? 

 As with all sin, it is born out of fear and ignorance: fear that our own journey may not be the right one or that we are faltering, and ignorance of how G-d is working in their – and our - lives. We tend to forget that salvation is a relationship, a process…not a fixed point.

But this Maundy Thursday, which coincides with the Jewish holiday of Purim, when nothing is as it seems and G-d delights in turning all things on their heads, let’s turn that fear and ignorance upside down. 

 First, let us focus on the one journey to G-d we truly have any business conducting – our own. Let’s face our fear, destroy our ignorance by taking that hard look in the mirror, shining the light in dark corners, build our relationship with G-d rather than stand in the way of someone else’s. Christian, convert thyself. 

 Then, let’s turn our way of encountering others upside down – instead of trying to bring them where we are, let’s do as Our Lord does from the Temple to the well to the cross next to Him: meet them where they are. Let us listen deeply, hear their story, hold space for them to discover how G-d is speaking in their lives. Let us help them find their path to G-d rather than have them walk ours. 

Because the G-d who created a dynamic, interconnected universe containing supernovas, plankton, and everything in between is hardly likely to be found waiting at the end of a single path for a certain type. Instead, a G-d so profligate, so extravagant, will be found everywhere, unfolding in everything, delighting in surprising us. 

 Just as He did a few weeks after Ash Wednesday, when, after said priest saw me in the Lady Chapel whilst I was praying, I received an email from him. Having a no-holds-barred draft left over from our earlier correspondence, I rolled up my sleeves as I opened the email, ready to go all in – then read: 

After you had finished your devotions I looked for you in church and in the lodge to say hello but I couldn’t find you. I hope you are well. 

 And I knew I had a choice: stand between him and G-d, or give up my chance to show him what’s what – and let me tell you, that draft email WAS a masterpiece - and walk beside him. No, he had no idea how G-d was working in my life. But then, I had no idea how G-d was working in his. What I do know is the conversation that emerged from his two sentence email, the child of correspondence fraught with hurt and anger, moved us both towards G-d, not away.

 V’nahafoch hu – it was turned upside down. But that uncertainty, that flipping, is nothing to fear. On the contrary, as the Maccabeats remind us, it is cause for celebration: 

So raise your glass if you see G-d in hidden places, 
He's right in front of you… 

…emerging all the time to say those unexpected words to unlikely people: Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise. May we be among them.

It is finished: Τετέλεσται

It is finished. Consummatum est, as proclaimed on status after status of Catholic students finishing their exams. Or the single word in the Greek – Τετέλεσται, ‘It is finished,’ which also has echoes of fulfilment. The verb tense is significant – the perfect tense in Greek, meaning that a completed action has continuing consequences – in this moment, this word, the sacrifice of Our Lord, now completed, continues to redeem humanity today.

The perfect tense applies to our lives as well. All that ends in our life - school, jobs, relationships, ways of being - has continuing consequences in the present, finding a way to new beginnings in the future.

But in this moment, beneath a darkened sky, as G-d hangs on the cross, speaking a word of utter finality, no new beginning seems possible – simply an endless, bleak emptiness into eternity. But even so, this end must come.

Our endings must come too: we lose people we love. We lose jobs in a world that identifies us by what we do, rather than who we are. We can no longer live in a way, in a story, that is now far too small for us: ‘I was abused.’ ‘Nothing good ever happens to me.’ ‘I am a Christian, so the world will always persecute me.’ Those stories may no longer suit us, but they have become our identity, the only way we know ourselves. And so, even though we know the ending must come, we hold on tightly to what we know, fists clenched, arms wrapped around ourselves, keeping the known old in and the mysterious, frightening new out – frozen like Lot’s wife: desperately unable to hold on to what must – or wants to - leave, and with closed hands, desperately unable to receive the grace we need, to trust that a new beginning will come.

We are in good company: in Gethsemane, Jesus too, tries to hold on, depicted vividly in Jesus Christ Superstar:

I only want to say if there is a way
Take this cup away from me
For I don't want to taste its poison
Feel it burn me, I have changed
I'm not as sure as when we started

In Our Lord’s agony, we find echoes of our own journey when endings come upon us: betrayal, anger, doubt as He bargains for things to remain as they are: 

Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations

Tried for three years, seems like thirty

Could you ask as much from any other man? 

As he progresses to contemplating the ending – ‘BUT if I die’ – he begs for the certainty that we seek in our lives:

Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?
Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain
Show me there's a reason for your wanting me to die
You're far too keen on where and how and not so hot on why

Before finally accepting the ending that is coming:

Why then am I scared to finish what I started?
What You started, I didn't start it

God, Thy will is hard, but You hold every card
I will drink Your cup of poison

Or as we know the more traditional, acquiescent line from the gospel, not my will, but thine be done. Our Lord, fully human as we are, wants to cling to what He knows: bargaining, raging, grieving, but finally accepting, because He knows that to do more, to carry on when it is time to move on, will have grave consequences for the future. This sacrifice does not just end something: it consummates a marriage between Him and His bride, the Church, consummatum est – ending one story in preparation for a new, larger one. It is not just finished, it is fulfilled: Τετέλεσται.

For us too, in ways large and small, Τετέλεσται – though we so often cannot see the seeds of fulfilment through our devastation at the finishing – and the fulfilment may be some way in the future. We may resist finishing because we are afraid that the end means that the love, the joy, even the difficulties of the situation will vanish from our lives – but the perfect tense reminds us that life is not so; even if the situation is ended, its essence has woven itself into our being. Or we may try to make an ending sharp, short, surgical, denying it matters, pretending it never happened, locking it away. Both keep us bound, but Our Lord shows us the way to live an ending that sets us free: a way of grieving, of unfolding our arms and opening our hands through intimacy with the Father, sharing with Him our darkest, deepest, most uncomfortable feelings at this loss, from resistance to rage to abandonment, asking ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’

After the storm, in that barren, uncertain place where we thirst, when we finally know the truth, accepting that it is finished – even feel ourselves unravelling as we open our arms on the Cross with Our Lord and let go – let us remember that though the relationship, job, time that is ending may be the stuff of our lives, it is not our lives – it did not form us in our mother’s womb, breathe life into us, it does not know the number of hairs on our head. Our lives are elsewhere, and every single one of these smaller acts of letting go prepares us for the ultimate act of surrender, where we give up our lives – Τετέλεσται - so that we may truly live, through the words Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.