Easter is a Way of Life

Forty (or so) days ago, I wrote in this space about Ash Wednesday-for Christians, the beginning of a long Lenten journey culminating in the holy days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. This Lent has, in fact, felt very "Lenten"-Waltham has suffered from violence and pain in the shooting death of Tyler Zanco and the revelation of the connection between the Boston Marathon bombers and the homicides that happened in our city in 2011. We live in a world where profits win out over people and the vulnerable are often left with even less. We don't need Good Friday to remind us that there is sin in the world. We can do that ourselves-no calendar or extra church attendance necessary. 

What we can't do all on our own is get out of it. That's where the grace and transcendence of God comes in. As a Christian, I'm committed to the notion that there is a way out of all of this: that in the person of Jesus Christ God did something new in the world. Jesus forgave from the cross-betrayed and in pain, still he forgave. That's where Easter comes from. Somehow-some mystical way-the world changed on that day.

In forgiveness, in love, in restorative justice-that's where we are invited to be partners in God's healing of the world. The Christian faith doesn't have a monopoly on this-whether the Jewish idea of tikkun olam--repairing the world-- or the freedom that comes from the Buddhist commitment to end suffering through transcendence of the self, there are plenty of examples of people of all different faiths doing this work. As a Christian, though, this is the language I speak, so it's Easter I'm committed to.

Easter is wherever we offer love instead of hate. Easter is whenever we put someone else's good above our own. Easter is when someone finds housing after having been out on the street. Easter is when someone has the courage to leave their abuser and begin a new life. Easter is money raised to pay for a funeral, Easter is the One fund, a scholarship for a child on the other side of the world. Easter happens in the State House when legislators find a way to work together, when human persons win over the influence of money and the desire for power. Easter is when the murderer is forgiven, when hungry people are fed. Easter is marriage equality coming state by state 45 years after Stonewall. Easter is when we meet another person exactly where they are, not wanting to change them but being willing to be changed.

Easter isn't just a day-Easter is an action. Easter is a way of life. Easter isn't just about the curious spiritual experience of some wandering disciples. That day showed us that the power of God is stronger than the power of hatred. No matter how we are divided from one another, no matter what evil we suffer, it doesn't have the last word. Easter can be slow work, and we don't always see it. But person by person, day by day, the heart of God is with us. Amen, Alleluia.

What Holy Week Asks Us...

Dear People of Christ Church,

By now, you've heard my pitch about why you should do Holy Week, so this year I'm not going to give it. The fact is, I don't know why you should do Holy Week. I'm thinking about why these stories still have something to say to us so many years later. Maybe in some of these questions you'll find your answer. Maybe in these questions you'll discover that Holy Week has already come to you, and you want to go there with others in worship as well.

Tonight, at our Maundy Thursday service, we read the story of the Last Supper. Jesus alarms everyone by kneeling on the floor to wash the disciples' feet, Peter says: "Lord, you will never wash my feet." He fears the vulnerability, the intimacy this will create. Now, I wonder how often we still try to shut God and each other out of our lives; is it that we'll never let anyone see us cry? Never admit how much something hurts? Never tell another how they've hurt us?

Late into the night, we sit in Vigil with Christ in the sacrament. Church-speak calls it an "Altar of Repose," but there isn't much that was restful about that last night for Jesus. When we sit and pray with him, we stay awake-one of us will be in witness there all night, trying to offer our prayers and presence. What is the long night that you're experiencing now? Whose long night are you sitting with, in support of someone you love?

Friday, we reverence the cross, a sign of torture and suffering. Jesus goes to the cross in taking on the worst of human cruelty, taking it on for love, unwilling to respond to violence with violence. What is at the cross for you? What is the pain that you are trying to keep for yourself? Is it possible to share it with God there? Or does the cross hold something else? Is there something that God is longing to share with you, some work in the world that you are being asked to take up your cross to accomplish? Is there some witness to God's peace, some relationship to nurture that God asks of you?

Saturday, we celebrate. We really, really celebrate. But first, we watch and listen. With the new fire at the front steps, we remember the light of Christ that could not be extinguished. We hear the stories of the Old Testament where God stayed with God's people, again and again, offering life out of death and comfort in suffering. We renew our baptismal promises and ring in Easter with bells and rejoicing. What will be raised for you?

Sunday-we celebrate some more! We celebrate for weeks and weeks, into Easter's Great Fifty Days.

Thanks be to God!

Blessings, Sara+ 

Where _is_ Jesus?

Dear People of Christ Church,

This week in our Tuesday 6:00 group, we had a conversation about Jesus.  We were kind of all over the place. We were responding to this quote from our book, The Restoration
Project:  

If you were to imagine that Jesus is with you right now, where would he appear? Would he be  beside you, a companion on the way? Is he ahead of you, leading to an unknown destination? Is he behind you, holding you up in ways known and unknown? Or is he in front of you, holding you in his gaze, teaching or commissioning you for some work only you can do?  (p. 85).

Where is Jesus?   
In a literal, spatial way? I didn't quite have an answer.
The answer is...all over. Jesus is in the sacraments, feeding me. Jesus is kind of laughing at me when I spin out wild story lines of anxiety and self-criticism, gently inviting me to be quiet and be loved. Jesus might sit next to me when I meditate, when I'm fidgety and can't focus.  But is Jesus the person, the first century Nazarene Jew really there? I don't know. Where is Jesus?
I don't know...maybe he stepped out to fill the bird feeder or turn over the compost?  

It's much easier to encounter God in the abstract; praying with the Spirit who "intercedes with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). It's easier to imagine God as Creator, bringing life out of nothing in primordial banging planets, then receding from consciousness.  It's easier to imagine Jesus walking dusty roads long ago, turning upside down the consciousness of those he met. I love the Emmaus Story when Jesus walks with the disciples and they only realize it was him as they are eating-and then he disappears.  

But here's something. This morning, with the Sisters of Saint Anne, we celebrated Eucharist in the chapel surrounded by huge paintings of Jesus from artist Janet McKenzie-her rendition of the Stations of the Cross. We read her book, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit a few years ago in our daytime book group. McKenzie's Jesus doesn't have much in common with the Good Shepherd in our window. Her images are dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed. They're honest, his face in pain but also love, a body in motion, but also deep exhaustion and a moment of rest. We don't after all, know what he looked like, but chances really are not that good that he was blue eyed and blond. It's not just the "more accurate" picture of the paintings that makes you pay attention-it's texture, nuance, and light. Jesus is somehow there in those paintings. I have traditional icons in my prayer space both at home and in the office, but I don't quite encounter Jesus like I did this morning.   

So there's that. I sometimes wish I had the kind of spirituality where I could just go for long walks and have Jesus by my side in glorious and mutual back and forth conversation.  Usually it's more subtle than that, and for the most part I'm OK with that (you may be relieved to know that the Donatist heresies settled the question as to whether the piety of the priest impacts whether the sacrament works-it doesn't-so you are all OK even if I edge into theological danger zones!)

Either way, the life of Christ in the church is as real as my own kitchen table, the pattern of death and resurrection near to me as my heart. And for that I am grateful, even if I can't put it on a seating chart, locating the transcendent love of God with the right preposition.  Maybe someday. Where is Jesus for you?

Blessings,
Sara+