Dear People of Christ Church,
Easter is late this year, but I still find it impossible to believe that Holy Week is already here. Last week I wrote in this space about an event at the state house I attended, and this week I was in the legislative water again, this time at a meeting at St Mary’s, our Roman Catholic neighbor, to prepare for a conversation the governor is hosting on Saturday at Government Center on School Street (2pm-4pm). The meeting I attended was hosted in coalition with REACH, our local anti domestic violence organization, (reachma.org) about a program President Obama is encouraging states to adopt. Unfortunately, the “Secure Communities” program promotes neither security nor community—it would send the fingerprints of any person arrested (not convicted, mind you—just charged) to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who then would have license to initiate deportation proceedings even against those guilty of no crime. The program has already had a chilling effect in efforts against domestic violence in places where it has been implemented. Anything that makes someone hesitate to call the police does not promote security. So I encourage you to attend the meeting (after our parish clean up) if you are interested in learning more.
This week I found myself “praying with my feet,” as Rabbi Abraham Heschel said of social advocacy. I’ve also been praying with hands and heart--sharing communion in a wide variety of contexts, at coffee tables, kitchen tables, and hospital tables. Monday, I visited parishioner Mary Ellen Oberdorf, who fell over the weekend and broke her ankle quite severely. She has traveled to Pennsylvania to recuperate with her daughter, in the midst of contemplating a permanent move there as well. I’ve had time this week to share communion in the homes of Muriel Nurse and Vivian Travis, and we also shared communion at our daytime book group at the Kerr home. We don’t often think about it on Sunday unless we’re sending a pastoral visitor out, but the sacraments we celebrate here on Sundays don’t just stay in our building. As Christ goes out, so do the sacraments.
There is nowhere in our lives that Christ does not want to go—Christ goes with us to the hospital, Christ goes with us to work, Christ goes with us to the voting booth and with us to our graves. That’s what Holy Week reminds us of—from Palm Sunday’s heights of celebration (which has its own political emphases as well), to Maundy Thursday’s unsettling intimacy of foot washing and food sharing, Good Friday’s desolation at the cross. Christ goes there because we go there.
This week, peering toward the mysteries of Holy Week, take one last Lenten pause and see where Christ has been going with you. See how that Presence enfolds you when you pause to pay attention. If you feel desolate, pray for a knowledge of that presence and ask for reassurance. Let go of the guilt, let go of the anxiety, let go of the exertion. See where Jesus is now. Then next week, maybe, we’ll be ready to go with him through the betrayal, through the cross, and into the resurrection.
