John 20
The Empty Tomb
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

I am not one to get up early. If I had my way I would sleep late everyday. I like sleep. I try to sleep as much as I can. But then there are those nights when the world just seems so wrong, so off, so empty that sleep seems far away. How can one sleep when everything has gone wrong? When all of one's hopes, dreams, and plans have come to an abrupt end? Why sleep when you have to wake up to that slow sad realization that everything has changed - your life has fallen apart?

It was nights like those that came to mind as I read the Resurrection passage here. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.. I picture her unable to sleep since the crucifixion - unwilling to accept the horror and get on with life by subcumming to such an everyday habit of life as sleep. So while it is still dark she goes to the tomb.

The experience of the past few days cannot be processed. How could she ever come to terms with what happened? He had promised a new Kingdom and a new and more glorious way of life. He had challenged what was wrong with the world and offered hope to the suffering. He had encouraged her as a woman to follow him. How could he let this happen? How could it all just be over?

I picture Mary going to the tomb because there was no where else she felt she could possibly be. Annointing spices were a good reason, but like so many others across time, she had to return to that which she had lost. The life, the promises, the man. Life cannot go forward, she can't get back what had been lost. The grieving process has hardly begun and so all she can think to do is go to the tomb. Be as close as she can to that which was lost.

To find that the stone had been moved.

Anger, rage, confusion, fear. How does one handle the torrent of emotions? How does one respond to this new affront? At this point how can there be any hope of a happy ending?

Easter for us is a time of joy. It is the symbol of hope and of life. The first day of the week is a time of celebration, time to express our joy. But I wonder what extremities of emotion those who discovered the empty tomb experienced before the truth was fully revealed.

I pray for a blessed Easter for all who read this. And I pray that the joy and celebration will not just be a veneer on the realities of life. I pray that the trappings and the traditions will not just be perfunctory elements this year, but instead be personal and transformative. May the message of Jesus and the hope of the Resurrection permeate your life and meet you in the midst of whatever you are dealing with. May Christ be celebrated for conquering death, setting captives free, and healing the brokenhearted.

He is Risen.

May we be able to answer with all that we are - He is Risen Indeed!

Labels: Easter, Holidays, Via Crucis Gridbllog

In reflecting on Good Friday, I was reminded of W.H Auden's poem "Horae Canonica" which is a procession through the divine hours on Good Friday (in its own way). This section stood out to me -

From W.H. Auden's Horae Canonica -

What we know to be not possible,
Though time after time foretold
By wild hermits, by shaman and sybil
Gibbering in their trances,
Or revealed to a child in some chance rhyme
Like will and kill, comes to pass
Before we realize it: we are surprised
At the ease and speed of our deed
And uneasy: It is barely three,
Mid-afternoon, yet the blood
Of our sacrifice is already
Dry on the grass; we are not prepared
For silence so sudden and so soon;
The day is too hot, too bright, too still,
Too ever, the dead remains too nothing.
What shall we do till nightfall?


The wind has dropped and we have lost our public.
The faceless many who always
Collect when any world is to be wrecked,
Blown up, burnt down, cracked open,
Felled, sawn in two, hacked through, torn apart,
Have all melted away: not one
Of these who in the shade of walls and trees
Lie sprawled now, calmly sleeping,
Harmless as sheep, can remember why
He shouted or what about
So loudly in the sunshine this morning;
All if challenged would reply
-'It was a monster with one red eye,
A crowd that saw him die, not I.-
The hangman has gone to wash, the soldiers to eat;
We are left alone with our feat.


The Madonna with the green woodpecker,
The Madonna of the fig-tree,
The Madonna beside the yellow dam,
Turn their kind faces from us
And our projects under construction,
Look only in one direction,
Fix their gaze on our completed work:
Pile-driver, concrete-mixer,
Crane and pick-axe wait to be used again,
But how can we repeat this?
Outliving our act, we stand where we are,
As disregarded as some
Discarded artifact of our own,
Like torn gloves, rusted kettles,
Abandoned branch-lines, worn lop-sided
Grindstones buried in nettles.


This mutilated flesh, our victim,
Explains too nakedly, too well,
The spell of the asparagus garden,
The aim of our chalk-pit game; stamps,
Birds' eggs are not the same, behind the wonder
Of tow-paths and sunken lanes,
Behind the rapture on the spiral stair,
We shall always now be aware
Of the deed into which they lead, under
The mock chase and mock capture,
The racing and tussling and splashing,
The panting and the laughter,
Be listening for the cry and stillness
To follow after: wherever
The sun shines, brooks run, books are written,
There will also be this death.

Today we celebrate the goodness of the day God died. For Christians this day defines who God is, for others this day proves that our religion is untrue because gods don't die. What strikes me today is the ordinariness of this day. I had my morning coffee, I will fix dinner tonight, I will take my daughter to playgroup. Perhaps Good Friday doesn't disrupt my life enough. Our church is holding services/events on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday this year. So Good Friday must be remembered in the ordinariness of everyday life.

But isn't that as it should be? That the death of Christ should influence and change everything? That enacting the ritual of the everyday should be imbued with the significance of Christ? That there is something different about changing the diapers, cutting the grass, or doing the dishes because of this death?

But that change occurs in two ways. At first those habits seem so ordinary as to be meaningless. In the shadow of cosmic redemption dramas, our daily actions seem so pointless and boring. Yet at the same time in light of the call that cosmic drama gave to each of us, those actions now take on new meaning. They become part of the drama, a way of identifying with the story. Acts of remembrance and service and hope.

So I will walk through my everyday rituals today in hope. In knowing that this day is good and that this death has changed the ordinary forever.

Labels: Reflections, Via Crucis Gridbllog

"You broke the bonds
And you loosened the chains
Carried the cross
Of all my shame
all my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for"

- U2, I Still Haven't found What I'm Looking For

So I was listening to my U218 CD in the car and these lines from the most preached on U2 song ever caught my attention. I had just been looking at the images from the life of Christ visual we are using in our Maundy Thursday service and recalled this image from Nicaragua. So often we get so caught up in the personal affront to Jesus - the beatings, the torture, and the via crucis - and the personal freedom it grants us without placing it in context.

Jesus did come to loose the chains of injustice. He came to set the captives free. His people were living under oppression. A military government controlled them and occupied their land. Jesus came to offer the way of peace and love even amidst that lack of freedom. A revolution more radical than any violent uprising, more subversive than any secret army.

I like the reminder the painting gives of how oppressive military regimes still exist in our world today - and Jesus carries the cross for them too. He came to set captives free and loose the chains of injustice for Israel and for the nations. He suffered for their freedom. He suffered so that they may have hope.

I believe that. I believe the way of Christ is possible. I believe love and peace and justice can be lived out. But I still haven't found it. I haven't seen "justice become a light to the nations." I haven't found what Christ came to establish.

Which is why I work for it. Which is why the via crucis is not just a personal affront or a personal hope, but an invitation into an entirely new way of being. A life where walking with Christ and carrying the cross with him involves caring for the things he cared about. Working for the same goals. Seeking justice. Rescuing the oppressed. Living the life of love and peace.

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007]

Labels: Reflections, Social Justice, Via Crucis Gridbllog

THE AGONY

Philosophers have measured mountains,
Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.

Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man, so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments, bloody be.
Sin is that Press and Vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through every vein.

Who knows not Love, let him assay,
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.


by George Herbert 1593-1633

For my contribution to today's Via Crucis Gridblog, I am to take a look at Jesus' introduction of the Eucharist. In recent years, when I reflect on the Lord's Supper those concluding lines of Herbert's poem come to mind. I am low church and have always been low church. Communion held little mystery for me most of my life. If I happened to be in "big church" on the first Sunday of the month, I would take it. The main focus always seemed to be confession of our sins - using the ritual as an opportunity to make sure we were right with God and others. I don't see that as a bad thing, but it was devoid of any mystery.

So it was meditating on Herbert's words that got me thinking more about the beauty and significance of participating in the Lord's Supper. This was a way of experiencing God's love and extending that love to others. This is an act that binds us together - we take and eat in the way Jesus did. We remember his sacrifice, his love, and his teachings. We can come to the table with a common act to bind us together.

Which is why I have a really hard time understanding when people use this act to exclude others. I'm not ignorant of the theological differences or the traditions of men the church has created regarding the ritual, but all too often they support judgementalism instead of love. You weren't baptized in this church, we can't celebrate Christ together. You aren't an ordained male, so I can't remember Christ whenever we eat and drink with you. We think you are a sinner, so we won't serve you communion until you start acting like us. You haven't said the magic words of the sinner's prayer yet, so you can't partake of Christ's love. We are right you're wrong. We're in, you're out.

Ecumenical groups like the Emerging Church are faced with decisions here. We say we like "centered" as opposed to "bounded" sets when it comes to things like doctrine. So Emergent doesn't have a set doctrine that can be used to exclude. But what about communion? At the Emerging Women gatherings we take it together, but still have to acknowledge that it could be an issue for some. At the Glorietta Gathering, I had people refuse to take communion from me (was it the setting, my not being ordained, my gender???). In other groups the decision is to forgo communion altogether because of the strong opinions surrounding it. Forgo communion. Say we are too different to acknowledge that we are part of the same body. We don't follow the same Christ. Our traditions and fences are more important than God's love.

I know many disagree with me, but I see communion/the Eucharist/ the Lord's Supper as an open table. Whoever wants to celebrate Christ for whatever reason can take part in the ritual. It is a way of claiming what is common, what binds up together, what makes us one body. To me it is about love and faith as opposed to institutions and traditions. Yes, I am low church, ecumenical, and emerging (all evil words to some). Yes, I know that this is seen as a complex issue. But this is where my journey has brought me - how I have come to see the deeper significance in this act of breaking bread and drinking wine together.

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007]

Labels: Via Crucis Gridbllog

Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007 - Palm Sunday

I'm going to be participating in the Via Crucis Gridblog 2007 this year. From the site - "Last year, more than 50 bloggers around the globe came together to share their reflections in a grid blog called Via Crucis during the week often called HOLY WEEK and in the week after EASTER. The name for this rag-tag effort comes from the Latin words for the Way of the Cross - Via Crucis. The response was astounding to this experiment in distributed global media, which was designed to draw on the creativity, diversity, and theological understanding of the blogging community to a moment in the story of folks practicing faith."

I have signed up to post reflections on particular days and particular stations of the cross and stations of the Resurrection. Why am I doing this? Mostly to force myself to look deeper into the events of Holy Week. Too often I am caught up in the busyness of the time and don't pause to reflect. I hope that this will be a blessing to others as well. If you want to find out more about the gridblog or the schedule or join in - click here.

And we begin with Palm Sunday. For a long time, I viewed Palm Sunday as a "meant for kids" sort of story (like Noah's Ark or Jonah- none of which should really be taught to children in the warped ways they usually are). But the whole donkey, praise songs, and construction paper palm branches made this a "perfect" Sunday School story. Even as I grew older nothing more was added to those elements except the occasional debate on if the praise was genuine or done mockingly. And yes we had the kids at church today bring in palm branches, and yes we will burn them for ashes for next Ash Wednesday. But for the first time ever, the story was unpacked for me with all of its historical socio-political meaning. It leaves the realm of sweet children's story and becomes charged with revolutionary significance when placed in that context. But I'm not posting about that here. Mike preached on it and has posted about it here. It's fascinating and really helps one see the big picture.

What caught me though was what happened after the Triumphal Entry. After the cloaks and the palm branches were laid down. After all the "hosannas" were shouted.

Matthew 21:12-13 - "Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers."

In my church experience growing up, this passage was generally interpreted as why we aren't supposed to sell things in church. The kids can't have the bake sell and a book table was out of the question (or at least the church council had to debate whether or not such activities turned the church into a "den of thieves" or not.) It was all about making the church (I mean temple) into a holy place of worship. It usually was paired with a sermon about how we need to give God our best by wearing dresses and ties to church. Fun stuff like that.

Sometimes the passage was used as a polemic against consumerism and the evil and inappropriate stuff one can buy. My favorite representation of this comes from Jesus Christ Superstar. I should probably just say right away that I love that musical. I listen to it constantly during Holy Week - it is my preferred method of reflection and worship at this time of year. That shocks some who see it as heretical and/or blasphemous, but I think its great. And I love the various interpretations different groups make on the story. So for the Jesus in the Temple story there is this great Christmas consumerism portrayal as seen in the picture. The original movie version had Jesus throwing out weapons and drug dealers. And I've also seen it portrayed as a Wall Street stock exchange. All about greed and consumerism missing the point of true worship. I like that interpretation and see it as a necessary message to the church today (as least the church in America), but I am finding myself most resonating these days with the interpretation that sees the passage through the lens of justice and poverty.

Most of the Jews coming to the Temple for Passover were poor. Oppressed people under heavy taxation from their overlords who would have struggled to even make ends meet. But they had to have an animal to sacrifice during Passover. So the "thieves" gouged them in he temple. They charged insane exchange rates for the coins. They sold the doves and lambs at prices the poor couldn't afford, but were forced to pay anyway. That pissed Jesus off. This is the guy who said, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" and all that good stuff. People were being oppressed IN GOD'S HOUSE and he got angry. The tables were upturned and the system of injustice was disturbed. For how long, I don't know. The people obviously didn't heed Jesus call to turn from greed and violence to the way of peace and love and they paid for it in 70AD. But when Jesus encountered injustice he didn't, couldn't, remain silent.

So why do we bother debating if the kids having a bake sell during the coffee hour would profane God's house when we could care less that the coffee we guzzle every week was made by slaves. Why pout about the commercialism of Christmas and not give a thought to the children beaten in sweat shops who make our stuff. Or why do we shy away from speaking up if it might involve getting involved politically or (God forbid) disagreeing with the political party we've sold our soul to. Jesus turned over tables to protest injustice and exploitation of the poor - why can't we spend a couple extra bucks on our coffee or write a letter to congress? If we can't follow the example of Christ, was really is the point of saying we are a Christ follower?

So those are my Palm Sunday thoughts. My - "wow there's a lot more happening here than construction paper branches and a donkey" reflection.

May Holy Week expand your boxes. May you approach the familiar with fresh eyes and see this story anew. May this story not exist to make us feel good, but may it force us to change our worlds to change the world.

Shalom

Labels: Reflections, Theology, Via Crucis Gridbllog