Cleaning house at Easter

To hear Brandi read this instead, click here: https://youtu.be/ATB818q76gU

Here we are, walking through Holy Week. I hope this week is full of long pauses as you contemplate all the ways our Maker has gathered you from far away places, held you in intense pain, and loved you when shame blocked you from seeing the good. Our God is better—I think—than we think God is. I pray this week you find yourself pondering that very good God, enjoying God’s presence, believing God’s large love for you.

There are lost of reasons not to believe any of it. Some of us have survived horrible pain, lived through unspeakable loss, and our suffering is so overwhelming that thoughts of God’s goodness feel mocking and thoughts of heaven’s healing feel too little, too late. If you are there then I am so sorry. I pray the pain lifts, that it doesn’t bare down in the same crushing way forever. But I hear you.

For others of us, the behavior of Christians and church folk has caused us the worst pain we have endured. We feel confused and baffled by the hate, the apathy or the selfishness of church leaders and their friends. We wonder how a religion based on forgiveness, on a God who responds to pain with compassion and with-ness, who creates a welcoming community for those overlooked and rejected by powerful people, turned into the churches that now line our streets. We wonder how we got here, so far from the words, ethical vision, social sacrifice and practical theology of Christ.

Here is the beautiful thing my friend Russ, a writer, reminded me of today: between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, Jesus confronted abusive hypocrites in the temple. In the week that would become Holy week, a few days before he died, Jesus brought his outrage to the public eye, telling religious abusers that they were blaspheming the name of God, and had no place in God’s kingdom. That reminder brings me profound comfort this week. I am not crazy. You are not alone. Jesus is also disgusted by the way religious folk often ignore the pain of others, or actively cause harm by blaming wounded people for their wounds. Jesus was for survivors, and rejected the abuse of oppressors. When his time was short and fleeting, he used part of it to name the status quo of the synagogue as evil, and reminded us instead that God’s church is meant to be a place of refuge, care and healing.

If you wonder inside the church, asking how much longer you should stay or be aligned with systems that protect those who wound, I see you. If you wonder outside the church, unable to go back because your body and soul tell you it isn’t safe, I see you. Jesus cleaned house back then, and I take comfort in knowing Jesus will again. In the meantime, I pray none of us will confuse our Messiah for those who seem uninterested in our stories. Jesus cares, gathers us, defends us, creates spaces of belonging for us. I pray you see that this week. Jesus goes into every place that harms you to make a place you can belong. Happy Easter.

Week Seven: God, restored in you

“Jesus is not some impossible horizon in the distance, far removed from the realm of possibility or your everyday life. He is very near. This is the nearness that union with Christ brings; you are in Christ and Christ is in you…Christ now set you free to be your true self: the self you are by grace, not the self you are by nature…Jesus came from heaven in order that the image of God might be restored in you.”                                                                                                         -Rankin Wilbourne

“When we walk with God, all things become new.”                 -Mary Wineinger

“There must always be remaining in every life, some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful.”                                -Howard Thurman

“Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not meant to be a crumb.”    -Mary Oliver

4/13 Isaiah 54:1-8; Mark 12:10-11

4/14 Ps 18:25-36; 20

4/15 Isaiah 55:1-12