The Long Walk Home

Go Here First! Luke 24:13-35

The “doldrums” is a popular nautical term for when a boat is stuck in windless waters. The boat just floats, bobbing along, going nowhere. And before there were engines to motor your way out of them, all you could do in the doldrums was wait it out. It’s super frustrating, and sometimes, even life threatening, if you didn’t have enough provisions to get you through. There is an area around the equator known for them, about five degrees above and below it, where there is no wind to move you along. It’s hot. It’s dreadfully boring. It’s tedious.  If you get caught in the doldrums, you simply float along, and wait. 

Often, this term, “the doldrums” has been used to describe depression. It’s a place of no activity, of waiting, of bobbing along until something changes. It can be disheartening, frustrating, and sometimes, life threatening. 

But for even those of us who aren’t cursed with the dreaded noonday demon, we’re all in our own doldrums these days. This virus has us stuck in our houses, sitting on our porch swings, waiting in the drive throughs, floating along, waiting it out.

Now, some of us are being extremely productive. You’re cleaning out your basements and rearranging the furniture, you’re organizing your tax receipts and scrubbing the baseboards. You’re reading all those novels stacked by your bed and finishing that quilt and those mittens you started ages ago. 

For others of you, life has gotten even more hectic. You’re working from home and teaching the kids. Or you’re going in to work, and your workload has increased exponentially.  For some of us, the stress has been multiplied.

But some of us, we’re paralyzed. We’re stuck. We sleep too much and stay in our pajamas, we let the dishes pile up, we eat all the Lucky Charms, and we forget when we last brushed our teeth. 

And some of us are stuck in our worry, not sleeping enough, forgetting to eat, rocking back and forth in our chairs of anxiety. How will we pay the bills, how will we get through the day, will there ever be an end to this pandemic?  

Whatever the case, I am getting the feeling that all this quarantine business is starting to get old for all of us, whether we’re doing too much or not enough. We’re stuck. Brene Brown says that both over- and under- functioning are results of our anxiety, that they come from the same place of being unsure, uncomfortable, and stressed. Whether we’re stuck trying to think up new projects to keep us occupied, or we’re stuck trying to make it through the stress of the day, or we’re stuck in our own personal anxiety, scanning Instagram and then Twitter and then Facebook and back again for some sign that the winds are starting to move, the waves are starting to crest, but no, we’re all in the doldrums. 

My kids just want to stare at screens. They lose time. They forget how long they’ve been watching or playing, and they forget to eat, they lose their minds. They get bored. They cry, “what can we do?!” And then reject every option we offer. They’re in the doldrums, too.

It’s strange to be in the doldrums during the Easter season. We should be excited and active, moving and praising and accomplishing and sharing and participating in the changing of the world. I mean, it’s Spring after all! But here we are. In the waiting. There’s not much we can do, except wait it out. And we humans are not very good at waiting. We want to be entertained, we want to be distracted, we want something to do. 

Theologian and spiritual thinker Richard Rohr, calls this a liminal space. It’s a space of time separate from the usual, separate from what we once knew, and yet we have not yet arrived at what will be. 

He says, “We keep praying that our illusions will fall away. God erodes them from many sides, hoping they will fall. But we often remain trapped in what we call normalcy—“the way things are.” Life then revolves around problem-solving, fixing, explaining, and taking sides with winners and losers. It can be a pretty circular and even nonsensical existence. To get out of this unending cycle, we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of “business as usual” and remain patiently on the “threshold” (limen, in Latin) where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed. If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy. The threshold is God’s waiting room. Here we are taught openness and patience as we come to expect an appointment with the divine Doctor.

Some native peoples call liminal space “crazy time.” I believe that the unique and necessary function of religion is to lead us into this crazy, liminal time. Instead, religion has largely become a confirmation of the status quo and business as usual. Religion should lead us into sacred space where deconstruction of the old “normal” can occur. Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. Cheap religion teaches us how to live contentedly in a sick world, just as poor therapy teaches us how to accommodate ourselves to a sometimes small world based on power, prestige, and possessions. A good therapist and a good minister will always open up larger vistas for you, which are by definition risky, instead of just “rearranging the deck chairs” on a sinking Titanic.”

This liminal space is where we are now. It’s betwixt and between. It’s the doldrums. A space of waiting. And a space of tremendous opportunity.

That’s where two disciples find themselves, on their long walk home from Jerusalem. They’re headed to Emmaus. We’re not sure why. Maybe to go back to life as they knew it before Jesus came and turned their lives upside down. Maybe they’re going back to their tax collecting, their fishing, their scrambling to pay the bills and put food on the table, to return to their life as they once knew it. 

Confused by recent events, perplexed by the stories of Jesus’ resurrection, frustrated and saddened and made hopeless by his death, the disciples are walking to Emmaus, back to what they once knew before Jesus came and called out to them and gave them a new purpose and a new focus and a new fire burning within their hearts. All that has been replaced by confusion. Why is the tomb empty? Is Jesus alive? Where is he? We saw him die. We laid him in the tomb. We saw the humiliation and the gore and the hopelessness of his broken body hanging on the cross next to two thieves. We heard the laughter of the soldiers, the triumph of the religious leaders. What is going on? What is happening? 

It’s all uncertain and unknown. They’re in an unprecedented time. And all they know to do now is to just go back home, start their lives over again, go back to what is known. 

So they walk. They walk and they talk about the weekend’s strange and heartbreaking events. They try to process their grief. They tell stories. They’re in a liminal space, neither here nor there, betwixt and between, on the road, in process, walking, neither in Jerusalem where all this has taken place, nor home, where normalcy resides. They’re leaving and they’ve not yet arrived. They’re in the doldrums, a place of waiting and uncertainty, of watching and observing and being confused and a little frightened. They’re waiting. And they’re waiting. 

And Jesus comes to them. In this liminal space, in the middle of their doldrums, where things are confusing and frustrating and heartbreaking and so unclear. What are they to do next? Where are they to go? What now? 

Jesus asks them what they are talking about and they “stood still, looking sad.” They stop moving. There is no ebb and flow. No gentle rocking of productive waves. They are mired in their grief. 

But Jesus finds them. Jesus tracks them down. 

Jesus walks with them. Jesus goes with them in their grief. Jesus listens to their stories. Jesus tells his own. And nothing really happens. They don’t even recognize who they’re talking to. They walk and talk and tell stories in their grief. And when night comes, when Jesus is about to leave, they ask him to stay. To stay with them in their sadness, stay with them in their loss, stay with them in their grief and their waiting. And so, he stays. What a strange thing for a stranger to do, to stay with a couple of morose, sad, depressed people whom he’s never met. What a strange thing for a stranger to do, to walk with them in their doldrums, to wait it out with them, to join them in this liminal space. Jesus does all this, and they still don’t recognize him. 

It’s hard to see clearly when you’re in the doldrums. So hard, in fact, that I’ve made some pretty destructive decisions just to get myself out of the doldrums. Just to promote any movement at all, I’ve made some awful choices, just because I couldn’t sit in the uncomfortableness of the stillness. 

But, as Richard Rohr tells us, these doldrums, this liminal space is a place of great opportunity. It’s a time when we stop the meaningless movement, the constant distractions, and we sit, and we wait. We tell the stories that mean something to us. We sit in the mystery and the confusion. We wait for God to come to us. 

And God does. God will. And God has. 

We just don’t recognize God yet. 

Jesus isn’t recognized by the disciples until he shares a meal with them, until the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. That is what snaps them out of the doldrums, that is what opens their eyes and enables them to process what they’ve experienced throughout this long walk home. 

While you’re in the doldrums, you can’t tell what is meaningful and what’s not, you can’t see what is life changing, or transformational, you can’t make sense of what’s been given to you. Like my son who just wants to grow up fast, but can’t tell when it’s happening, liminal spaces are places of growth that we can’t measure quite yet. 

The doldrums give us space to be, to see, to stay in our confusion and our doubt, our frustration and our loss. But when you’re out of them, you can look back and say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” Were we not being changed and transformed while we waited it out in this liminal space? 

And then poof, Jesus is gone. Jesus gives us a glimpse, just enough to get us out of ourselves, out of our navel gazing and our contemplation, and then he disappears. Gone. Just like that. But with this new encounter with the risen Christ, we have new stories to tell, new things to ponder, new steps to take. 

After the doldrums, once you’ve gone through the waiting and the frustration and then the encounter with resurrection, then you know what to do. After sitting in this liminal space for awhile, Jesus opens himself up to you, you recognize him in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. After you hear the stories and tell the stories and walk along, trying to make sense of it all, you know the next steps. For the disciples, it was to turn around and go back from where they came, it was to race back to Jerusalem, back to community, even in the dead of night. 

Our next steps will reveal themselves to us. They will. We just have to wait it out in the doldrums. Christ will come. 

Until then, let us tell and listen to the stories. Let us sit in the mystery. Let us feel all the things we are feeling. Let us ride out the doldrums. Let it be ok. 

The disciples take a long walk home, and Jesus chases them down. Jesus walks with them. Jesus listens to their sorrows and tells and retells their own stories. Jesus reveals himself in the real life tangible, tastable bread and wine. Jesus empowers us back in to community. But for right now, Jesus is with us in the doldrums. 

Thanks be to God.

There Is Resurrection in the Scars.

Read this first! John 20:19-31

I still have a scar on my forearm from the fourth grade. I was playing with squirt guns with my neighbor and as I ducked her onslaught, I fell backwards into a window well in my backyard. Somehow, my arm went right through the glass. I looked at the big gash in my arm and said, “Mom?! I think I need a bandaid.” The second she saw the wound, she screeched for my dad, “Paul!” And he raced over with towels to stop the bleeding. I needed two rows of stitches and couldn’t go swimming for the rest of the summer. 

At the same time, or I think it was the same time, or somehow, for some reason, I conflate the two things, my parents were talking about divorce. I remember my mom thinking about taking all eight of us kids up to Marion, Indiana, to live with our grandparents. I remember my mom crying with her friends at the bottom of the driveway. She went to mass every morning. I remember my dad working a lot. They saw therapists. My dad got a new job. And then, eventually, at the end of every week, there were flowers and new sun catchers that reflected the light in rainbows on the kitchen walls. 

I was only in fourth grade, the same age as my son now. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I just remember that things were really hard and really scary and really uncertain for awhile. That and I couldn’t go swimming for the whole summer. It felt like a long time. 

I still have that scar, that reminder of that tough summer, a story, etched in my skin like an engraving, a testimony that says that my family got through a really tough time and came out on the other side, not unscathed, but somehow more whole.

There are other scars, of course. The tendonitis that is still there from my cross country days, the trauma of middle school, how I still worry about how I’ll pay my bills, the deep hole left from the death of my little brother. I have calluses and stretch marks, wrinkles and piercings, sunspots and grey hair. They all tell me where I’ve been, and also, that I can survive wherever it is that I’m going. 

And I’ve caused some wounds myself. I’ve broken some hearts and caused some tears. My kids will have their own cuts and bruises, heartbreaks and devastations. They’ll have their stories, etched in their skin and worn on their hearts. 

I guess that’s why I like tattoos. They tell stories on our bodies, just like scars do. They’re symbols of beautiful resilience, indicators that pain and beauty are not exclusive. 

And that’s why I love Thomas. That’s why I love this resurrection story. Because in it, bodies matter. Because in it, doubt is ok. In it, peace is offered, and in it, resurrection doesn’t mean perfection. It’s something else. It holds both belief and doubt. It holds both fear and boldness. It holds both the broken and the whole. Together. 

Thomas gets such a bad rap. But, I bet you could all guess, he’s my favorite. He’s my favorite because he doubts, because he needs fleshiness, because he is out there doing something while everyone else is huddled inside, cowering, paralyzed, licking their wounds.

He’s been out there, outside, in the world, although it doesn’t say what he’s been up to. Maybe he goes right back to his life before Jesus came, or maybe he’s out there proclaiming that Jesus is still Lord even though he’s dead, or maybe he was wandering around the shore of the Sea of Galilee, wondering what to do next. Whatever the case, while all the rest of them are cowering behind locked doors, he is out there, doing something. 

He’s out there, and he misses the big announcement, the big hoopla, the fireworks and the parade and the regular program interruption that Jesus is alive, flesh and bone, walking around, entering rooms, talking and showing his scars, alive.

So he rushes in. And his friends tell him, “You missed it! Jesus is alive, flesh and bone, walking around, he came in this room, he showed us his scars, he breathed on us, really breathing, real breath alive!” 

And Thomas says, “um. no.” Nope. Negative. Nada. No way. No no nonono.

And they say, “yes, oh yes. Seriously. Honest to God. Cross our hearts. For sure. Really. Yesyesyes.”

So Thomas, not wanting to argue with them, says, essentially, “I need to see it to believe it.” 

To believe.  “To hold dear, esteem, trust” - the etymology of this word seems more freeing to me, rather than defining belief as the simple logical affirmation that something is true. But to hold dear. To hold in your heart. To believe. 

Thomas just can’t believe. His heart is so broken, he can’t hold this in his heart. His savior is gone, crucified in the most horrific of ways, the one he questions for directions, the one he was going to follow into Jerusalem to death. His savior, his friend, his hope, his whole life, gone.

And I wonder how Thomas felt, that long long week, still wandering around, still trying to keep relationships with folks he clearly thought were going cookoo. He must have felt a bit like a pariah, an outsider, “the nonbeliever.” Did they whisper about him behind his back? Did they ignore him? Did they tell him he was going to hell? Did they kick him out of their schools and megachurches? Did they gloat with bumper stickers and tracts with bad theology? Did they stop inviting him to their potlucks? 

I wonder if Thomas felt isolated. Alone. Lost. Without community. 

Because he didn’t understand what they understood. And they didn’t understand what he understood.

And I wonder why Thomas would need to touch Jesus’ wounds in order to believe? Why his wounds? Why would he want that, instead of saying, I don’t know, “Unless I hug him, or wash his feet, or have communion, or play a game of pinocle with him, I won’t believe.” Why the wounds? What is it about Jesus’ wounds that Thomas needs? 

Maybe it’s because Thomas is in so much pain himself. Not only has he seen his Lord crucified, not only did he miss the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT, but he’s gone a week feeling alone, left out, isolated. I could imagine that Thomas was about to give up the whole gig. Go back home and do whatever it was he was doing before Jesus came along and ruined everything. 

Go back home with the scars and the shame and the doubt from not just Jesus’ life and death, but from this last week of separation from his community.

And then, finally, Jesus comes. He comes, even though the doors to Thomas’ heart were shut and locked. In he comes and he speaks directly to Thomas in words that he can hear. 

“Come. Come and touch. Touch my hands where the nails were. Feel the scar in my side where they cut me open. Look in to my eyes - see the pain and betrayal and abandonment and isolation that I have once felt - See, and touch, and believe.” 

Jesus comes to Thomas - and to the disciples - and to the rest of us, through the one way that finally binds God to us and us to God - through suffering. He comes to us all, tells us all, see the holes in my hands, the wound in my side. Through the pain and remorse and humiliation and isolation that we’ve all felt in our lives. “Come,” Jesus says, “Come, touch the pain, because I’ve felt it too. And I’m with you through it all. Peace be with you.” The resurrected Jesus is recognized, not by his fabulous new beach body, not by his suddenly smooth skin or shining white robes, not by his post-resurrection mansion or his sporty new car, but by his wounds. Jesus is known by his wounds.

“And you know what, Thomas?, “Jesus says, “ You know what? There’s gonna be a whole slew of people who believe who don’t get to be this close to me, to my pain, to what I’ve been through. They’re not going to get the real fleshy me in the real fleshy world. And they’re still going to hold me dear. Boy, are they blessed. They will see their own scars and their pain and their wounds and they’ll see me. They’ll see me in their scars. Peace to them. Peace to you.”

I think it’s important to note that Jesus says, “Peace be with you” before he shows them his wounds. “Peace be with you. Have peace. Be at peace. I’m going to show you a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened in your life, but take care, have peace, hold both the peace and the memory together.”

Peace to those who’ve experienced terrifying, horrific things in their lives. Peace to you, who’ve seen death, who’ve felt despair, who’ve felt lost and lonely and isolated. Peace to you.” “I’ve been through that, too,” Jesus says. “We’re not so different, you and I, save one thing, I went through it all, all the bad and all the feels and all the pain, and I offer you peace.” 

Peace to you who can’t see your loved ones in the hospital, peace to you on ventilators, peace to you wearing masks, and delivering the groceries and caring for the sick, peace to you who are worrying and sitting alone inside. 

Peace to you, who’ve lost a loved one, or experienced divorce, or were innocent and spent years on death row. Peace to you, who worry about feeding your children, or wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety. Peace to you who don’t have retirement plans. Peace, amidst your addiction, amidst your worry, in the middle of a pandemic. Peace to the ten year old you who’s worried about her parents and the bills and where she’ll go to school next year and who can’t swim for a whole summer. Peace to you. Peace. To you. 

And sometimes that peace is so easy to miss. So easy to doubt. So difficult to see past the pain and the hurt and the wounds still gushing, or just now healing, or formed in a tough, hard scar. But you’re blessed. Because you want to see, or you need to see, or you have seen, or you thought you saw this one hazy, shaded, fuzzy memory of a time. Maybe you saw once and yet you’re still hiding behind closed doors. Maybe you’ve always wanted to see, but never could.

You don’t see and you still believe - or are trying to believe, or you want to want to believe -  you still set your heart on this one thing, that Jesus came to give you life, life abundant, or that there’s still hope in the world, or that love exists. That somehow, though everything in the world seems contrary to this thought, you set your heart on Jesus, or on hope. or on love, or maybe just on stubborn persistence. You come in to community. You eat and drink and touch wounds and have peace. You have peace and hold me dear, as I hold you. Have Peace. Peace be with you.

Those scars are your peace, those places that have healed over and left their mark, those places that tell our stories of getting through the hard times and out to all the resurrections on the other side. These scars are the stories we carry that tell us that we’re not alone, that we’re both broken and whole. That’s what resurrection looks like. It comes after a total death. It still carries the scars. It is embodied. It is real. It comes with peace. 

As we enter in to the unknown, as we step out of these doors into a new world of resurrection, after the pandemic is over and the vaccine has been made and the economy has recovered, we will still have our scars, and they will tell our story for the rest of our lives. Life is going to be different. Some things can’t go back the way they were before.  We will have our mistakes, those places where we’ve wounded each other and ourselves and our earth. We will have hurt and brokenness. But it comes with Christ’s peace. Through it comes resurrection.

Reach out to the holes in his hands and the wound in his side. Reach out to touch Christ’s pain. In it you will find your own resurrection. You will be both broken and made whole. Peace can be found in the scars.

Thanks be to God.

There Should Be Trumpets

Read This!

You deserve lasers. And smoke machines. A big stage. 

You deserve well produced videos in high definition. You deserve YouTube channels and scripted dramas. You deserve arias and organs, or a big band with a drum set and a lead singer in tight jeans. You deserve something more than my face on a fuzzy computer screen, my words, rambling on. I should at least have something polished and profound to say.

There should be trumpets. There should be spiraled hams with the pineapple rings on top. There should be Easter egg hunts and fancy dresses and ridiculous hats. There should be ticker tape parades and baton twirlers and ribbon dancers. A marching band with feather plumes and polished leather boots. There should be somersaults and handstands. 

There should be overflowing church parking lots and picnics in the park. There should be shouting and rejoicing in the streets. Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! 

There should be cancelling of debt and freedom to the captives and healing for the sick. There should be political revolution and racial justice and homes for the homeless. Polio should be eradicated, along with homophobia, sexism, and billionaire tax breaks. There should be environmental renewal and peace on earth. Christ is Risen after all, Christ is Risen indeed. 

Instead, we have a quiet morning. We have frost-bruised tulips. We have cloudy skies and tiny backyards. We have bored and bickering brothers and cracked Easter eggs. We have quarantine. 

We have social distance and disrupted schedules. We have masks and gloves and runs on toilet paper. We have record unemployment and high anxiety and so many graves. We have mourners mourning alone. 

We have Zoom meetings and anxious nights and too much screen time. We have crippling self-doubt and insufficient sermons and infrequent tooth brushing.

Christ is Risen? Christ is risen indeed? 

The world is not as it was. Everything has changed. It’s a new paradigm, a dramatic shift, nothing will ever be the same again. 

Instead, we have a deep dark morning. We have a woman, alone, walking toward the tomb. We have a stone removed. Thinking the worst, she races towards Peter and the other disciple to tell them that Jesus is gone. His body is gone. We have confusion and fear. We have frustration and anger. We have a race to the tomb. We have discarded grave clothes. We have a mysteriously folded face cloth. 

Peter and the beloved disciple enter the tomb. They see nothing where something should have been. The beloved disciple sees and believes. But we’re not sure what it is that he believes. He believes Mary’s words? He believes that Jesus is gone? He believes that someone has stolen the body? Does he believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead? He sees and believes…something, but in the same breath, in the same sentence, “they do not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” We have belief and misunderstanding in the same breath. We have both doubt and faith. Confusion and certainty. 

And then they go home. They simply go home. 

There are no choirs of angels; there is no shining light. The Roman Empire doesn’t fall apart, the religious structures don’t shatter. Oppression still reigns. The earth isn’t healed. Somewhere a woman goes about her day, makes the bread, fetches the water. Somewhere a man tends to his goats, checks on his fields. Somewhere a child goes hungry and a beggar asks for bread. Somewhere a slave is whipped, and a soldier prepares for war. And Peter and the other disciple see the empty tomb and they go home. They simply go home. 

Mary stays to weep. 

Christ has risen from the dead, has left the tomb, Christ is somewhere…out there…in the world. And yet the world keeps turning. Siblings keep bickering. Tyrants keep ruling. The earth keeps groaning. People are sick and poor and broken and tired. Christ is out there, somewhere, and Mary stays to weep. 

There should be earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and lighting from the sky. Prison gates should be opened and feasts should be shared. Sicknesses should be healed. The voice of God should come from the clouds, commanding everyone’s attention. Christ is risen after all. Right? Christ is risen, indeed?

Instead, we get weeping and confusion. We get despair and grief, racing disciples and empty tombs. We get a sunrise. We get two strangers, dressed in white, suddenly sitting in the tomb, filling it up with light. Mary sees these two angels and they ask her, “Mary, why are you weeping?” As if there isn’t enough to weep over. As if the earth has stopped turning and the people have stopped sinning and everything that has been broken has been made right again. But it’s not. The world still mourns. People still die. Abusers still abuse and swindlers still swindle. 

Why are you weeping, Mary? Because Jesus is dead, and now he’s gone, and my world is over.  Why are you weeping? Because what we hoped for has been lost. Because our world is shattered. Because everything has changed. And now, with Jesus gone, there’s no moving forward, there’s no moving past this, there’s just emptiness and the silence of God.

But she turns. Mary turns around, and she sees a gardener. “Why are you crying? Whom are you looking for,” he asks. There is confusion and pleading. There is no recognition of the man she loves. There is desperation and desire. “Sir,” she says, “if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 

And then he says her name. He simply says her name. There is no wand waving, no sleight of hand, no Jedi mind trick. Still no trumpets. Still no marching band. Still no choirs of angels singing from the sky. He simply says her name.  And suddenly there is recognition and surprise. There is shock and delight. There is embodied experience, fleshy and real. She grasps for the real. She wants to hold on to it, to have it, to keep it safe. 

There is no long and satisfying embrace, no delightful ending, no orchestral crescendo, no running of the credits. There’s no walking into the sunset, happily ever after. There’s simply more mystery, a gentle rejection, a confusing koan. Jesus says, “Do not hold on to me,” when that is all that Mary is aching to do. “Don’t hold on to me,” he says, “Because I’m not done yet. I haven’t ascended to my Father and your Father, my God and your God. Go tell the others.” 

How hard must it have been for Mary to let him go a second time? Now that she sees him in flesh and bone once again, now that she has him in her sights, now that the unthinkable has happened, how did she let him go? How could she leave him again? 

But Mary does. She does as she’s told. She is the first to see Christ alive again, and she leaves him. She leaves him to share the good news. She is the first to profess Christ raised from the dead. She is the first preacher. This is the first sermon. “I have seen the Lord,” she tells them. She doesn’t get a purple robe or a pope’s mitre, she doesn’t get a cathedral with parapets and balustrades and flying buttresses. She doesn’t bring the brass band with her; those angels have disappeared. She comes as herself, a lonely peasant girl. She simply tells her story. Christ has said her name. She has seen the Lord. 

This Easter, there are no chocolate bunnies, no family get togethers, no Easter egg hunts or overflowing baskets. There are no crowded churches, no operatic arias, no overflowing collection plates. This Easter, there is a quiet morning. There is coffee at the table. There are grocery store workers and gas attendants, there are janitors and bus drivers. There are postal workers and local government representatives.There are doctors and nurses with bruised faces and weak knees. There is the budding forsythia. There is the peeking of crocuses through last year’s leaves and weeds. There’s Zoom meetings and social media. There’s singing from porches, and there are letters written by hand. There’s slowing infection numbers and ceasefires and neighbors helping neighbors. There’s mask makers and food donations and pizza delivery. There’s online school and adaptive teachers and resilient kids. There’s sourdough starters and herbs planted and birds at the bird feeders. There’s waiting. There’s contemplating. There’s an end to busyness for busyness sake. There’s reflection and renewal. There’s sleeping in and walks in the park. There’s seeing one another’s suffering. There’s doing what we can to help. There’s weeping and groaning. There’s frustration and anger. And then there’s a new day. It’s all a resurrection.

Jesus’s resurrection changed everything. The whole world shifted. No, it wasn’t tilted off its axis; corrupt powers and principalities didn’t suddenly fall. The sky didn’t part. The seas didn’t calm. People were still people. But a woman heard her name. A peasant recognized her Lord. She preached the first sermon. A butterfly’s wing made ripples in a quiet pond. And the world was never the same. 

They all had to decide what to do with this news. They all had to decide how to respond to her story. They all had to fit themselves into this new paradigm. Would they believe? Would they doubt? Would they do a little bit of both? Would they struggle to understand? Would they still mourn and weep, even as they rejoiced and celebrated? 

They didn’t parade it through the town. They didn’t shout it from the rooftops. They sat in awe. They stayed at home. They wondered and questioned and doubted and believed. They pondered what this all might mean. They made bread and broke it. They poured wine and drank it. They did the laundry and washed the dishes and scrubbed the bathroom tile. They went back to work. They mended the nets and counted the fish. 

They told the story in quiet whispers. They didn’t ransack the emperor’s palace or raise an army. They didn’t plot to overthrow the government or disrupt the economic system. They watched and waited. 

This is how Christ entered in to the world again, person by person, story by story, one life, one name, one testimony at a time. And that is how the world is changed. 

Christ is risen. Christ is risen, indeed.

Thanks be to God.

When We Almost, Maybe, Sorta Kinda Get It Right

Here First! Matthew 21-1-11

Someone, on Facebook of course, defined surrealism as this feeling like you’re overreacting and under-reacting to the same thing at the same time. 

And that’s what these last three weeks have felt like. 

Surreal. 

I’m either freaking out about the virus coming to infect the ones I love, putting them all on ventilators, firing them from their jobs, taking away their health care and their livelihoods and their sanity. Or I’m telling myself that this is no big deal and it’s just going to blow over, the kids will be back in school soon, everyone is just overreacting with their masks and their gloves and their hoarding of all the toilet paper. 

I feel both of these things at the same time. Like Goldilocks, nothing ever feels quite right. Nothing ever feels like I’ve found the exact right fit, the exact right way to be, the exact right level with which to function.

The experts and the model makers and the predictors of such things tell us that this is the calm before the storm. They say that next week, it’s going to get bad. The death toll will rise. People we know will get sick, if they aren’t already, and the medical system will be taxed to its limit. 

Meanwhile, the best thing we can do is sit tight, sit still, stay put. It’s the most loving and considerate thing to do - to do nothing. Don’t go to the store, don’t visit the grandparents, no playdates or playgrounds or going out to eat. Stay put and be. Wait it out. Hang on. 

I’ve been swaying between over-functioning and under-functioning, between panic and complacency, between ignorance and too much information, all week. I’ve been focused on my kids at one minute, and then distracted by Facebook the next. I’ve caught up on the laundry but let the kitchen floors go. I’ve called all my parishioners and checked up on everyone, and I’ve also stared at the blank wall, wondering what in the world I’m going to tell you this week.  

I’ve been hopeful and optimistic one minute and then negative and despairing the next. To be honest, this is not that much different from normal life for me, just much more focused and intense. Much more concentrated. So I’ve been trying to be easy on myself. Sleep when I’m tired, walk when the weather is nice, do the work when my kids let me, take it one moment and one breath at a time. But most of the time, I’m just trying to cope, trying to get through the next minute, trying not to beat myself up too much for trying too hard or not trying hard enough. 

I have all kinds of self-deprecating thoughts: I think I should have gone to nursing school, so I could be helpful during this time. I think I could be doing more, like my friend who does drive-thru meals for those in need on the South SIde. I think about all the ways I’ve failed and forgotten and messed up and now I’m at home, waiting for the storm to pass over.  If I had some skill, if I could be useful, I wouldn’t be such a waste of space, such a useless blob drinking coffee on her sofa while others are out saving the world.

I’m never quite comfortable in my skin. I’m always doing too much or not enough. I’m always wishing I’d made better decisions or hiding beneath my covers for another half an hour. 

But then there are those moments, those oh so brief moments, that come at us in a flash, that we wish we could bottle up and keep forever. They’re snapshots, tiny specks, minuscule moments of joy or happiness or contentment that we want to hold on to, but they’re like the wind, they just fly right through our fingers. 

Just the other night, after a day of not getting enough done, after a day of too much screen time and not enough studying, after spending too much time on the internet and not enough time cleaning or exercising or somehow or other being more “productive,” Dan and I were invited by the boys to play with them. 

They wanted to make a movie. So, we created this whole scene, videotaped it, turned the Swiffer duster into the boom mic, legos and race car tracks into props, and dramatically filmed the events. Of course, because they want to defy their peace-loving and pacifist parents, they decided to create a war scene, with empty gatorade bottles as the ammunition, and Jonah’s bedroom as the battlefield. We laughed and entered in to the game. We gave them our full attention, we played along. We filmed and shouted and giggled and lobbed a few bottles ourselves. And then it hit me: I was doing the exact right thing at the exact right time. I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. It was a moment of peace and joy and contentment and fun. 

It was brief. It was passing, but I took a moment to acknowledge it, to claim it, to hold on to it for as long as I could. I wanted to be present for it. For just a moment, I wasn’t in a surreal either/or of indecision and action, between a surge of energy and total exhaustion, I wasn’t over or under functioning, complacent or bouncing off the walls, I just was. It felt…right. I felt like I’d gotten something right, I was on the right track, I was doing what I was “supposed” to be doing. 

Our reading today is one of those snapshots. In between the drama that has led up to this day, and the horrors that will come after, we have this moment of praise. We often put the two together, Palm-slash-Passion Sunday, and rightfully so, the one leads to the other, the one is the final step before the events of Jesus’s death unfold, before they tip over like a line of dominoes. The triumphal entry leads to the crucifixion, or at least puts the inevitable events on fast-forward. The crowd that is now crying out “Hosanna!" will change its mind. They’ll soon shout “crucify him!” They’ll deny him soon enough. 

But not yet. For now, as much as they can, as much as they are able, as much as they can comprehend, they get it. They have this moment of clarity where they get it right. Or partially right. Or a little bit right. Or almost right. Or at least, not wrong. 

They’ve been vacillating between “Jesus the messiah" and “Jesus the heretic,” they’ve watched him heal and preach, and they’ve been fed and taught. They’ve been shown resurrection, and they’ve asked and wondered and questioned and condemned and asked again, “Just who is this man from Nazareth?” 

And they’re going to keep on asking, all the way up to his death, past his death. Who is this guy? Who is this guy who turns the tables and heals the sick and tells strange enigmatic stories about farmers and lost children and seeds and found coins?  And so, for just half a second, for just a brief moment, while Pontius Pilate is riding his white horse into town with his troops and pomp and circumstance, the crowd gathers around the service gate from all over, shouting “Hosanna! Save us!” to Jesus, who rides in through the back door on a donkey. They spread out their coats like a red carpet. They tear limbs off of trees. They greet him and welcome him as their savior, king and messiah, they shout and cheer. They call out and praise. 

For just a second, the crowd gets it right. They have their moment of peace and joy and contentment and hope. Their focus isn’t diverted. They aren’t distracted. They are of one mind. They have a break from the surreal indecision about what they should do during these trying times, and they have a moment of clarity, and in it, in that moment, they get it right. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the one who will rescue and restore Jerusalem, he is the one to redeem the people, the king, coming to bring peace and justice to the land. They name him the best they can. They get it right. Or at least mostly right. Or maybe a little bit right. Or at least, not wrong. And I want us to take a moment, take a snapshot of this moment, and see it and acknowledge it and live it and embrace it. 

At this moment, full of hope and confidence and assurance, the crowd understands Jesus, at least a little bit, and they praise him like he deserves. 

Jesus is who they say he is, and for once, the crowd gets it - at least, a little bit — but he ends up rescuing and redeeming in ways no one is expecting. Even though Jesus tells them himself, even though he predicts the events to come, they don’t believe it. But for now, in this moment, Jesus is everything they’ve been hoping and praying for. In this moment, they are surrounded by hope and peace and light. 

And I wonder, what do the disciples think of all this? Do they think they’ve won? Do they think that Jesus just had that last part wrong, that part about suffering and dying? Did they breathe a sigh of relief that finally their Messiah has come to set things right? Are they relieved that the crowd is finally on their side?

And what does Jesus think? Does he just go along with all this palm branch waving and cloak laying? Does he shake his head and sigh, frustrated that they’ve got him all wrong? Or does he smile a peaceful smile, knowing and accepting what’s on the other side of this, knowing what’s inside those gates, knowing the suffering that is ahead for him? 

Does he enjoy the moment when the crowd finally gets it, or gets part of it, or some of it? Does he take a snapshot of these people calling out to him, encouraging him, naming him as he truly is, the Messiah, the one who comes to take away the sins of the world? Does he take a moment and cherish it? Does he hold on to it? Does it give him strength to endure what is to come?

Most of the time, during this time of isolation and quarantine, we go about our days, sleeping too much or too little, folding the laundry or letting it collect in a pile at the end of our beds. We reheat the leftovers, watch the cable news, knit or garden or rearrange the couch cushions until it’s time to sleep again. We worry too much or not enough. We plan too much or too little. We flail around, never getting it quite right. 

But there are moments that sneak up on us, moments that tear a rift in our daily confusing, distracted, unfocused lives and get us to take a breath and notice the good. They’re these hopeful moments when we feel like, for just a second, the world makes a little bit of sense, for just a second, we’re finally getting something right. These moments are fleeting. They’re short. But they are palm branch moments when we know we’re on to something. They are the moments, oh so brief, when we are filled with gratitude, when we know from whom our help comes, when we know to whom to turn for salvation. They are moments that we don’t entirely understand, we don’t know how or when they’re going to happen, but like the crowd, we get it right, just for a second. 

We’re outside of the surreal. We’re in the real. And we honor it. We wave our palms and lay down our coats and call out to Jesus to help us, to save us, to comfort us in the midst of the hard stuff coming up on the horizon.

The crowd is going to mess this up. We know what is to come. Like Peter, they’re going to fail and deny Jesus and they will call for his crucifixion. They are going to screw this up.  Things are going to go from bad to worse. But not today. Today, they are going to welcome the King with all the pomp and fanfare they can muster, they will honor him with everything they have, they will lay what they have before his feet, they will call out to him in praise. Today, they’re going to get it right. 

Let’s take a minute, just a minute, to acknowledge that we’ve gotten it right. At least once in our lives, we got it right. We found the balance. We figured it out. We had joy or peace or contentment or the right answer or even the right question. It won’t last forever, but it’s enough for now. Let’s pay attention, let’s acknowledge, let’s take a minute to appreciate it when we get it right, or partially right, or a little bit right, or almost right, even when we’re soon going to get it so wrong. Hosanna. Save Us. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.

Thanks be to God.