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.