Author: Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Like most people I have many identifiers. Currently I call myself writer, author, minister of Word and sacrament in the ELCA, and child development specialist. I am also a mother, widow, wife, sister, and daughter. My pronouns are she/hers.
Faith, Love, worship

Vulnerability Creates Love: Thoughts from Maundy Thursday

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez


  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13: 34-35*

In a chapter entitled, “Places We Go When the Heart is Open,” author and professor Brené Brown writes “there is a debate among researchers about whether love is an emotion.” [1]

Some researchers lean toward love being an action or an intention more than emotion. And some, like Dr. Brown seem to think love is a bit of both—a descriptive word for an emotion and its accompanying feelings as well as a verb full of actions.

Yet love, whether an emotion or action or both remains elusive. Author and social critic, bell hooks, writes in her book All About Love that:

“Everywhere we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, and in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together. This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise.” [2]

Today, as we begin the service of the three days, we hear once again the story of Jesus giving the disciples a new commandment, not an additional commandment added to the other ten, but a new commandment.

34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Yet in order to know who to love as Jesus commands, we must return to what Jesus has been showing us throughout the story of his life here, the story of his ministry on earth.

We know Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. Extortionists and soldiers.

We know Jesus healed people considered the “throw-aways.” The ones banished to the edges of their communities. Forced to beg or worse in order to survive.

We know that Jesus also healed the un-seen. People who did not count as much. Whose humanity was somehow lesser than others, children and women.

We know that Jesus taught all people—regardless—about what it means to be human and in relationship with one another and with God.

And we know that Jesus taught and lived a form of unheard-of-equality. He himself was no greater than his followers. Jesus was no greater than the servants serving him. No greater than human beings suffering enslavement.

Brené Brown writes “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.”

Jesus shows himself often to be vulnerable. In our text this evening, Jesus kneels as the servants and enslaved do. He disrobes. And while he is not fully naked, without his robe he is less protected, more vulnerable. Then he makes an offering to his disciples, his beloved disciples. And the offering is one of trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

In this action of love Jesus moves the disciples (all but one disciple that is) away from all that damages the tender roots of love: “shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection.”

And while Jesus does not say it in the Gospel of John, he does say something very important about love in Luke, chapter 10 in the parable of the Good Samaritan:

 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Love your neighbor as yourself brings us back to Brene Brown’s work. She believes from her research that “we can love others only as much as we love ourselves.”

This love thing for others does not happen unless we are willing to be vulnerable with ourselves and others. And only if we are willing to heal the soil in which love cannot grow for ourselves and others. And only if we treat our own bodies with the tenderness that Jesus washed the feet of his friends, even the friend who betrayed him!

To love then is not easy. It is as layered as the gospel writers of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John as well as the Deuteronomist say it is. Love takes our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength. Not so much as to love but as to heal the blame, shame, disrespect, betrayal and withholding of affection that dampens and even kills love.  So yes, bell hooks, is correct. The picture of love is bleak in this world we live in. But it was also bleak when Jesus lived on this earth. And yet, he held hope for all creation that love was and is possible. And if Jesus showed us that love is still possible then I believe we too can remain hopeful and with open hearts for ourselves and others. Amen.

[1] Brown, Brené (2021) “Places We Go When the Heart is Open,” in Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.

[2] hooks, bell (2001) all about love: new visions.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

*The above post is based on John 13:1-17, 31b-35 and was originally heard as the Maundy Thursday sermon on April 17, 2025 in the midst of the congregation of St. Johns Lutheran Church, Rock Island, Illinois.

Liturgy, Prayer

Washing Feet

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

 Jesus… got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.  ~John 13: 3-5, NRSVUE Adapted

Each week chefs use our congregation’s professional kitchen as commissary for their businesses or in volunteering their time and talents to feed people at our two weekly community meals. One chef, even when he cooks as a volunteer, puts on his chef’s jacket and dons an apron to cook for people who are unsheltered, addicted, insecurely housed, formerly incarcerated, or living in fear of deportation. In changing his attire, this chef combines the work of his hands and heart with a visible sign of who he is as a servant to others.

What this chef does is not new. Jesus took off his outer robe (an act that gets the disciples attention!) to serve others. Until this moment, Jesus led these men as a healer and teacher. But in this new act, Jesus shows that leadership is first and foremost an audacious act of serving.

So, Jesus takes off his outer robe. Ties a towel around his waist so as to not dirty the clothing he still wears. He pours water into a basin and then kneels on the ground before his disciples. Perhaps Jesus makes a welcoming gesture for the disciples to sit before he takes their feet, foot by foot. Dipping them in the basin, washing heels, arches, balls, and toes. Drying them. The twelve staring in disbelief. Knowingly washed by a man who can heal their every wound yet in this moment insists on doing this common, unpleasant, and demeaning work.

What would it be like if our leaders today followed Jesus’ way? Many of our current crew in the United States shun servitude out of fear and excessive shame. Feeding shame while perpetuating human evils–grandiosity, denial, rage, arrogance, exhibitionism, contempt, perfectionism, and withdrawal. 1 Experts tell us that shame-based leadership is really based on “the fear of disconnection” from others yet the use of powering over behaviors actually makes real the feared disconnection. Leadership however that is based on serving others connects people through self and other compassion. 2

The congregation I serve, St. Johns Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois, believes in and practices servant leadership. Yet last year we decided not to wash one another’s feet as is the Christian tradition on Maundy Thursday. We did so because we are a smaller congregation full of elders. This worship reenactment felt overwhelming to the various groups involved–worship staff, altar guild, and the worship & music committee. Something however wasn’t quite right in skipping over this liturgical moment. We still wanted to embrace Jesus’ serving behavior. We still wanted to follow Jesus’ example.

After much discussion and prayer, our Altar Guild designed a liturgical set using an old wooden chair, a pair of sandals, a water pitcher, basin, and towel placed in the lower transept. The worship team, with the creative help of one of our retired pastors, wondered together what liturgical words and song would best help us integrate servant leadership into our bodies, hearts, souls, and minds. Here’s what we came up with:

FOOTWASHING LITANY

We begin by singing an antiphon from the 9th century. The Taizé Community adapted the text and their founder, Jacques Berthier, wrote the music. The words are:

Where true charity and love abide, God is dwelling there; God is dwelling there.

Then we begin a liturgical dialog between the worship leader and the assembled congregation.

Leader: Jesus, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

Assembled: Peter said: “Lord, are you going to wash my feet? You will never wash my feet.”

L: Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

A: Then Peter said: ““Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

We sing again, the same song.

Where true charity and love abide, God is dwelling there; God is dwelling there.

L: After Jesus had washed their feet, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master.

We pray.

A: Help us Lord, to seek to serve more than to be served.

We end this liturgical scene in song.

Where true charity and love abide, God is dwelling there; God is dwelling there.

Notes:

  1. Potter-Efron, Patricia and Potter-Efron, Ronald. Letting Go of Shame: Understanding How Shame Affects Your Life. ↩︎
  2. Brown, Brené. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. ↩︎

Image by Ray Shrewsberry • Ray_Shrewsberry from Pixabay

Healing, Trauma, Trauma recovery

From Hurting to Healing

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

Life has a way of hurting. The unhealed pain of other people impacts our very existence. Nature, despite human taming and because it, will have its own way. No one lives then without wounds whether buried, forgotten, open, mending, or scars. Two truths:

Every human being hurts.

Every human being can heal.

If we all hurt, then why does the ongoing pain of others so often go unnoticed? And when we do notice why do we tend to stand, literally and metaphorically, an arm’s length away (if not more)? Distancing ourselves while also adding commentary as if their pain is an abstraction? Secretly relieved it is not us.

Because a distinct symptom of human unhealed pain from traumatic experiences of any size, duration, and intensity is disconnection. In disconnection, our relationship with ourselves, others, the world, and the Divine is disrupted. This chasm causes us to struggle with experiencing our own emotions, empathizing with and having compassion for others, and the Divine seems to vanish.

Disconnection, also called dissociation, is not a conscious choice. Often this separation from self and others is a lifesaving one. It is our wonderfully made bodies working to protect us from harm during an fear filled event. Yet if left unattended disconnection causes us and others further suffering.

Research tells us that the prevalence of unhealed pain from traumatic experiences in the United States is estimated to be 60 to 67% of the population.[1] In other words, more of us suffer from the unhealed pain of traumatic experiences than do not. The immensity and commonality of our suffering then demands that the act of ongoing healing be included in our thinking, meditations, prayers, and subsequent actions as a basic need for all humankind. That means you as well as me.

Let’s be clear: Healing takes courage, work, resources, healers, and time. The work of healing earns its worth however in the reconnection our minds to our bodies, hearts, and souls. Our true selves and our common humanity are uncovered and embraced so that we see once again or for the first time the pain of others. Reconnection then creates the space within us to accompany others–friend, family member, stranger–toward healing as our empathy grows and shifts into action. This action is called compassion.

Our healing then is the beginning. Our accompaniment of others, the mission we are called into as human beings on a spiritual journey with the Divine.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/washington/testimony/2019/t20190711.htm

Image by Luda Kot from Pixabay

Hope, Lyme Disease, Self-Care

Slivers of Self Care

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

I wake in a pool of exhaustion. My chest hurts. My body resists movement, thought, or feeling. I stay in bed repeating,

“I am on my own side this day. I am on my own side this day. I am on my own side this day.”

Tears form. I am so moved by this small gift to myself in the midst of chaos.

There is hope, I realize, in what my son’s Lyme-informed therapist says about personal boundaries, about speaking truth, about future. Although I do not know how yet or when hope will arrive in its fullness. Just that this small glimmer found in repeated words brings an almost imperceptible expansion to my thinking, feeling, and being this day.

Yesterday morning drinking tea, watching the day rise I repeated a different set of words to myself, the windows, the wind outside,

“May I slow down. May I slow down. May I slow down today.”

Words remaining with me throughout day’s many hours. The push, push, push replaced by a new tempo forged in repeated words. As if time values my very being. Small slivers of self-care in less than forty-eight hours.

Tomorrow a new day.

Image by TianaZZ from Pixabay

Healing, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Trauma’s Dance

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez
The Dance Of Anger

On vacation rereading Harriet Lerner’s The Dance of Anger. First found on a bookstore shelf during college years. Title speaking to me. Enough to buy a copy then and again now.

Reflect on how we lose ourselves in crisis, grief, and trauma’s afterlife. Seized by the past with future ceasing not in reality but in imagination. It’s a trauma induced de-selfing. Inflicted on our beings. Impacting our relationships.

Causing overfunction in flight or fight. Underfunction in freeze. Our relationships controlled by the remains of our battered selves. Spinning with trauma’s ongoing truths feeding past’s patterns even if thought eradicated. A rising fueling internal and external turbulence. Stepping toward us with sorrow, sadness. Leaving a wondering of how to stop the incorrigible dance pointing toward destruction within and around. Anger’s waltz keeping pain’s memory fed and alive. Each step minimizing compassion for me.

Lerner writes of shifting anger’s you to I. Blame belonging to you. Shame to I. Mine to heal with love leading to a knowing of where I begin and also end. You existing only outside the boundary of me.

So what if I said, “I want different music, a different dance?”

A new step. A beginning. The first in finding myself again.