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

lent readings, week 6

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/XOcShIQlAeM

Spring has sprung. There are new buds on every tree, warmer air and more light as our days wind down. When the natural world comes alive, it beckons us to join in the fun. It is refreshing, isn’t it?

Confession: I find it disorienting. I’m vaccinated, my kids are in school again for the first time in over a year, and the beauty of new life thrives nearly everywhere I look. I should feel hopeful, eager for new beginnings. Nevertheless, I mostly feel like a miscast extra in a movie about beaches and flowers and fun. I am the Eeyore in the Hundred Acre Wood. That’s not exactly right. I don’t feel only sad or gloomy. I just don’t feel like Spring has sprung inside of me. Resurrection might take a while.

 I witness the glory of our earth rebirthing itself in relentlessly miraculous, effortless ways. But I don’t resonate. I see it. I want to feel it. But I’m not quite there. I acknowledge my own disconnect in hopes that it gives you a place to land if you feel the same way. How do the blossoms and the 50 shades of green land on you?

For the follower of Christ, Easter celebrates resurrection, and it is easy to think suffering that ends in victory is the whole story. From my vantage point, Easter reminds me of a lot of other truths too, not the least of which is the importance of Embodied Solidarity. Theologically, this term connotes the incarnational work of Christ. Simply put, the God of the Bible was ultimately unwilling to “stay out of it.” Indeed, as Eugene Peterson writes, God “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood,” so that we could see His “glory with our own eyes,” inviting us to trust God’s claim that He knows, loves, and will not abandon us. Jesus, the man, is God, incarnated. This is good news.

It is also costly news. Embodied Solidarity is not just a gift to us, it is an invitation for us. We weep with those who weep. We comfort those who mourn. We speak up for those abused. We sacrifice our own comfort for the restitution of others. We lament injustice and know it robs our neighbors of joy. I think this is why Spring is not springing easy. I am gutted for our Asian American friends. They have been maligned, mocked, blamed and now killed by folks who think they honor God. I embody solidarity with these friends, and joy is hard to find right now.

When you love hurting people, the hurt tends to rub off on you. I hurt for kids who feel confused about their identities or belonging as they begin to re-enter friendships. I hurt for women who have lost or left their jobs in order to keep their kids alive at home. I hurt for Black brothers and sisters who believed things were different this summer, and now feel betrayed by folks who would rather rant about Critical Race Theory than honor the experience of a fellow human. I hurt for the families of front line workers and victims of COVID-19, whose trauma is lasting. I still feel the dying that came with so much hate, so many lies, so much blame in the last few years. Embodied solidarity knits us together so that I can’t be ok if you aren’t ok.

And yet, joy abounds. Lifting my eyes to the beauty around me helps, even if it hurts a little too. The earth offers evidence that our lives are not linear. The God who made trees die a little so they could be reborn a lot also made you and me. We are cycling through, finding hope and despair simultaneously, finding healing and new hurt at the same time. Feeling joy even when we know pain all too well.

If Spring’s outrageous new life makes you wince, just take a breath. New growth out there means new growth can happen in here too. There is room in you to accept what has been and to hope for what might come. As we approach the death and resurrection of Christ, consider how embodied solidarity shows up in you. It is profoundly encouraging to know you are gathered and held and reborn by a God who wants to be with you. This encouragement also invites us to go and do likewise. If you practice embodied solidarity with those who hurt in your community, be gentle with yourself. Spring brings good news, but it might feel a bit jarring to remind yourself to look up and behold the miracle of new life before you.

PS Art helps too. This poem offers us permission to wince and rejoice as we cycle through each part of our lives.

 “Don’t Hesitate”

by Mary Oliver

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

To Ponder:

“The future orientation of Christian time reminds us that we are people on the way. It allows us to live in the present as an alternative people, patiently waiting for what is to come, but never giving up on our telos. We are never quite comfortable. We seek justice, practice mercy, and herald the kingdom to come.”                 -Tish Harrison Warren

“We spend too much time trying to fix the things we don’t like rather than simply reconciling everything to God….But I’ve come to understand that true justice is wrapped up in love…God’s love and justice come together in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, and we can’t be about one and not the other. They’re inextricably connected.”                                               -John Perkins

To Read:

Mar 24 Ps 9:7-14; 17:6-11

Mar 25 Ps 3:1-5; 21:3

Mar 26 Micah 7:18-20

Mar 27 Ps 28:1-2; 40:1-11

Mar 28 Luke 6:20-31

Mar 29 Ps 102:1-4

Mar 30 Isaiah 54:1-8

week 7 lent readings, 2020

In April 6th’s The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about the impact of pandemics through history in a piece called, “The Spread.” In it, she traces the Christian roots of the word quarantine. This week, as we experience Holy Week in unfamiliar ways due to the disorienting quarantine, it is helpful to read her words:

The word ‘quarantine’ comes from the Italian quaranta, meaning ‘forty.’ As Frank M. Snowden explains in “Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present” (Yale), the practice of quarantine originated long before people understood what, exactly, they were trying to contain, and the period of forty days was chosen not for medical reasons but for scriptural ones, ‘as both the Old and New Testaments make multiple references to the number forty in the context of purification: the forty days and forty nights of the flood in Genesis, the forty years of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness...and the forty days of Lent.’

For Christians who celebrate Holy Week, not unlike Jews who celebrate Passover, it is both a time of celebratory gratitude and a gruesome reckoning of what salvation costs. For Christians, the Sundays that bookend Holy Week are all smiles: Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’ Triumphant ride into Jerusalem, when he was worshipped as the Messiah and recognized as the One for whom Israel waited. Easter Sunday, of course, offers us a collective chance to rejoice in the resurrection of Christ. His conquering of death practically changed humanity, allowing us to live with the knowledge that we are justified to our Creator and redeemed by God, unified and sustained forever.

Easter is a time to celebrate, but Holy Week is a time to grieve and reflect.

This QuarantinEaster, I find myself resonating a lot more with the dark middle of Holy Week than with the festive Sundays on either end. All is not well with us. Whether physically, mentally, medically or spiritually, many of us cannot improve our situations. The experience of profound powerlessness is frightening. Although we think it will end, we aren’t at all sure how it will change us, or if we will even survive.

This is why I am so thankful for the 40 days that pop up over and over in Scripture. God, in the Bible, relentlessly shows us that the journey through life is difficult. Most of us go through large swaths of time where we struggle to find our bearings, to know how to keep ourselves or others healthy, or to understand why we face what we face. Answers don’t come. Indeed, Jesus, the man whose life we trace during Holy Week, faced a dark night of the soul that lasted for days. He was lost, scared, and dreading the path ahead. Weakened, he asked for friends to be with him, to pray with and encourage him. They didn’t. As the days unfolded, his people, his community, scattered.

Maybe his days of intense struggle purified Jesus, just as the forty days of quarantine might purify us. The end is not in sight though, and for now, even at Easter, we face the confusing grief of uncertainty. This Holy Week, I am greatly comforted by the idea that Scripture prepares us for (and Jesus also faced) long periods of hardship.

I invite you to resist the temptation to reduce “Easter” to the Sunday Celebrations. This quarantine is likely more than a time to pause or regroup or finish projects that enhance your life. It might also be disorienting, confusing, frightening and dark. If you follow the way of Christ, then I hope you will hear the invitation and affirmation that the same Jesus who arrived and later resurrected to cries of Hosannah also cried his guts out in the dark, scared and alone. His life invites each of us to bring every piece of us to God. The Hallelujahs and the What the Hells?. The moments of victory and the moments of terrified despair. The moments of feeling comfort and the moments of feeling utterly abandoned.

We call it Holy Week, and this year, during quarantine, I will believe that every moment—good, bad and ugly—is Holy.

To Ponder:

“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

To Read:

Apr 7 Isaiah 54:1-8

Apr 8 Ps 18:25-36; 20

Apr 9 Isaiah 55:1-12

Apr 10 Ps 32:1-5; 38:1-11, 15-18

Apr 11 Isaiah 61:1-11

Apr 12 Matthew 5:1-12