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+ 

From April 4: Love & The Resurrection

This is article was printed in the Waltham News Tribune on March 29, 2013.


When this piece is printed, it will be Good Friday-the day Christians observe the crucifixion of Jesus. The cross is the central symbol of Christianity; it seems to be everywhere. The cross is a reminder of Jesus' refusal to respond violently to those he could have fought, and a sign of his forgiveness of those who caused his suffering. The cross is a powerful image for Christians. At the same time, the crucifixion is not the central event of the Christian faith. That's Easter, the resurrection of Jesus. Our faith is about life, not death. Life in the face of death, life that means that love will not be defeated.

We begin preparing for Easter on Ash Wednesday, the day that begins the season of Lent. At my church on that day, we hear words from the Prophet Joel: "Even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart. Gather all the people, the aged, the children, even the infants at the breast." Everybody is welcome. Everybody counts. We are created by God for love, and even when we fall short of God's desire for us we are still forgiven. The prophet Joel teaches that there is no one left outside, and it is never too late to come home.

The message of Easter is that simple: the love of the One who created us is bigger than our fear, bigger than our hatred, bigger than our violence. The love of God brings wholeness out of fragmentation, hope out of despair, and peace out of war. The women who followed Jesus went to the tomb to look for Jesus' body that day and the tomb was empty. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Their teacher was raised. Love will not be defeated.

Was a dead man resuscitated? Was his body stolen? What "really" happened? We don't know, and there are as many ways to believe as there are those who practice the faith. The most important thing is that we can be part of that love: love manifest in the way Jesus chose the margins over the center, the outcast over the respectable folks. God in Christ was, and is, alive. The love of God is alive to rich and poor, left and right, gay, straight, and transgender (as we hope the Supreme Court will affirm in response to the arguments of this week!); alive to the joyful and the sorrowing. And every time we choose love, we participate in that grand drama of life and love that is the resurrection. Every time our hearts are opened to another, every time someone stands up for peace and justice, every time we forgive, every time we share what we have with those who have less.

This Easter at my church, we'll celebrate baptisms and Eucharist, we'll sing joyful songs and shout Alleluia. God, I believe, will be present in water, wine, and bread. But God is also present today, and tomorrow, and in every dark corner of suffering and pain. God is present, in love that will not be defeated. Happy Easter!

From March 28: Holy Week

Dear People of Christ Church,


Come to Church!

Tonight at 7, tomorrow at 12pm or 7pm (kids' Stations of the Cross at 6); and Saturday at 7pm and Sunday morning as usual. I'm reprinting some of the background info on Holy Week from the brochure I put together; to read more about each service, check out the brochure linked here.

What is Holy Week?
Holy week is the week between Palm Sunday and Easter. It begins with Maundy Thursday, continues on Good Friday, and culminates in the Great Vigil of Easter on Saturday Night. These are sometimes called by the Latin Triduum (meaning "three days."). They are, technically, one service-there's no final blessing or dismissal from Thursday's opening until the end of the Great Vigil on Saturday. Often times the observance during the week might include the Stations of the Cross or a simple Eucharist on Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday, and a service called Tenebrae is held on Wednesday. At Christ Church, we have Stations (lead by a lay person) on Tuesday, are home on Wednesday (St Paul's in Brookline has a lovely Tenebrae service a few of us attended several years ago), and then have church Thursday-Sunday. In 2013 a children's Stations of the Cross is added in on Good Friday at 6pm.


Why Holy week?
Holy Week is, spiritually and theologically, the high point and center of the whole church year. Having gone through the journey of Maundy Thursday, the depths of Good Friday, the watching and waiting of the Vigil-the celebration of the Easter resurrection is that much more powerful-and honest. Our liturgies aren't museum pieces; they draw us into a deeper truth of our faith. They are in some ways a mirror of our own experience. Jesus Christ was fully human. Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself. (Philippians 2: 5) Jesus emptied himself and took on all of the uncertainty, pain, and suffering of human living. Nothing human is alien to the heart of God because of Jesus' closeness to us. This week, Jesus enters the depths of human love, and also human grief and suffering. This week is about us, not just about God. "Wash each other," Jesus tells us in Scripture, and as we do, we wash Christ himself. This week, we observe and participate in this sacrificial closeness God has to us.

Where do the services come from?
Our liturgies come from the pilgrimage diary of a fourth century Spanish nun, Egeria. We owe our own Book of Common Prayer liturgies to the discovery of her account of her travels. Egeria was a remarkable woman who wrote and traveled at a time that many women couldn't do either. We know she was Roman, so she was a convert to the Christian faith. Our celebration of Maundy Thursday goes back even further, to the account in Scripture of Jesus' last night as described in the Gospel of John, when he washes his disciples' feet as he models servanthood. It is also the time we remember the institution of the Holy Eucharist; we say the same words from the Gospel on Maundy Thursday and every time we celebrate communion: This is my body, this is my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.

Look with compassion dear God, on this your family. Be with us especially this Holy Week, as we observe the events of Christ's Passion. Lead us into your truth and guide us in your righteousness as we await the One who will rise in glory. Amen.

Blessings,
Sara+

From March 21: Archbishop of Canterbury

Dear Peopl of Christ Church:

We have an Archbishop!

No, it’s not worldwide-leader envy, we really do have a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who succeeds Rowan Williams, who served from 2002 to 2012. And while he has no “authority” in the usual power-over sense vis a vis the Episcopal Church in the US, he is still the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, of which we are a part and, thereby, our Archbishop. He was “enthroned” today, and there’s an excellent BBC article that describes the service and links to a photo gallery and other info about him. here –you can also read the 40 page bulletin from the service here.
A former oil executive, he comes from a much more evangelical background than Rowan Williams, and has five children and was only ordained priest in his mid thirties—he was bishop of Durham for less than a year before being chosen Archbishop. He is said to have particular gifts in reconciliation, and he will need them. I’ve written over the years quite a bit about our place as Episcopalians in the global Anglican Church, and today, I have to say that I care both more and less than I used to (see the ecrier blog ).
I’m still trying to clean the beautiful red Tanzanian dust out of my formerly black Sunday morning shoes, and of course the people who I met there---truly brothers and sisters in faith—are part of the reason I find myself caring more about Anglicanism. At the same time, I have to say I also care less—the institutional formality of how we are related and what it means is just not part of what Anglicanism means to me. What it means is that our Holy Week services go all the way back to the early church. What it means is that worship in our own language is important. What it means is that we have a generosity of belief that encompasses disagreement on matters theological as well as political (as well as the vast majority which are both). We can also all think it’s kind of cool that he’s being officially installed by a woman (though ironically the English church doesn’t even have female bishops) and that he sat on a 1,000 year old “throne” and kissed a 1,500 year old book as part of the service. That’s our heritage over here, too. But for once I’m not going to stress over who’s in and who’s out, or who’s on what “side” of history. So I’m happy to take Archbishop Justin on those terms (and follow him @ABCJustin and check out the twitters at #ABC105)—enjoy the show!

Speaking of the show!

Don’t miss out on Palm Sunday and Holy Week! Better than a “show,” this Sunday and next week we walk through the last week of Jesus, participating in our faith in a way that is always new and always the same. Read more about those liturgies here.

From April 5: Holy week

Welcome to Holy Week! I hope to see a lot of you in the next few days (a lot as in, "many" of you, and also, "frequently!")
Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter. They are, technically, one service-there's no final blessing or dismissal until the end of the Great Vigil. The word "Maundy" comes from the Latin, mandatum, which means commandment-
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)
In the liturgy, we wash each others' feet-we are each others' servants. Men and women, older and younger-we are all called to serve each other. Is it awkward? Of course. Don't come in a skirt. It's a level of nearness we don't frequently experience with our friends, much less the person you sit behind in church. But is it holy? Absolutely. The disciples didn't understand what Jesus was doing at first, either. When Jesus kneels at Peter's feet, he says, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Peter is confused-an act of submission by his Lord? No way. Jesus says, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Does Peter get it, later? Much later, he does-after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, he understands just how different a Lord Jesus was. Not one who wants domination and power, but a Lord who wants to be on the floor, kneeling in front of us, comforting and consoling. A Lord whose only command is love.

The foot washing takes place between the sermon and the prayers of the people. The liturgy continues with Communion. After Communion, we strip the altar. All the hangings, all the chairs, all the cushions and candles come out of the sanctuary. We do this to prepare for Good Friday, to remind ourselves of the abandonment of Christ, and the utter absence and desolation of that day. Everyone who is present in the church is invited to help strip the altar-it's not just a performance by the clergy or leaders of the service; it's shared by us all.

For Good Friday at Christ Church, we follow the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. It differs in some significant ways from the regular Eucharist we celebrate on Sundays. Instead of the Prayers of the People, we hear a series of collects (aptly named "the Solemn Collects) that offer prayers for the church and the world, for those who suffer and those who seek faith). After the collects comes the central moment, the entrance of the cross. The cross we use is not an elaborate one-it's not made of nice wood, or stained a beautiful color. It's two rough sticks, bound together, that Paula found in the woods. After the cross enters, we are all invited to reverence-to bow, to kiss, to kneel, or just to stand and wonder at the mystery of that symbol, an object of shame and violence transformed into life and love. On Good Friday we don't celebrate the Eucharist. The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor has said that Good Friday is the quietest day of the year-part of that silence is not celebrating the sacrament. In recognition of our need to be fed, however, we do share communion (the bread and wine having been consecrated at the service on Maundy Thursday).

The Easter Vigil is just that-a Vigil-we enter a darkened church, after lighting the Pascal candle from a fire outside the church and then we process in singing, and hear the stories of our salvation from the Hebrew Scriptures. Halfway through the service, Easter begins!-we ring in our celebration with bells and more light (each of us will have to bring our own bell to ring). This year we have the special blessing of sharing in baptism for Jesse Foster-Stout and Rob Atwood, so blessings to them as well! The service continues with a festive Eucharist, with incense and wonderful Easter hymns. The alleluias will be back!

Holy Week is, spiritually and theologically, the high point and center of the whole church year. I often joke that if you only come to church a few times a year, these are it-you can skip the whole year if you come now. I'm kidding, but this is what our faith is really about. Having gone through the journey of Maundy Thursday, the depths of Good Friday, the watching and waiting of the Vigil-the celebration of the Easter resurrection is that much more powerful-and honest. I'll see you tonight, when it all starts. Bring your friends!

Ordinary becoming extraordinary

Blessings on your Holy Week! I look forward to seeing you for all our liturgies this week. Tonight, we'll tell the story from the Gospel of John, when Jesus washed his disciples' feet as they met for their last meal together. Tomorrow is Good Friday--but of course there doesn't seem much "good" about it, since it's the day we remember the crucifixion.

Good or not, though, the truth of Good Friday is that it's real. Suffering and death are real. Our liturgies aren't museum pieces; they draw us into a deeper truth of our faith. They are in some ways a mirror of our own experience. Jesus Christ was fully human. Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself. (Philippians 2: 5) Jesus emptied himself and took on all of the uncertainty, pain, and suffering of human living. Nothing human is alien to the heart of God because of Jesus' closeness to us. This week, Jesus enters the depths of human love, and also human grief and suffering. This week is about us, not just about God.

As he washed the disciples; feet, Jesus invites us to share the self-emptying love he showed in his ministry--wash each other, he says, as I wash you. He gives us an example to follow. But something else happens, too. "Wash each other," our faith tells us, and as we do, we wash Christ himself. This week, we observe this sacrificial closeness God has to us.

But isn't this all of this a little obscure? We all bathe regularly, so what's the point of foot washing in church once a year? We all see the cross every Sunday, so what's the point of going up to it and kneeling in front of it? Or, even more bizarre, kissing it? The answer, I think, is that it's because liturgy helps us to enter the truth of that mystery of God become human, and was willing to suffer death. In our liturgies we have these very ordinary things that become extraordinary signs of God's presence with us. Foot washing and reverencing the cross aren't "sacraments" strictly speaking, but they are (if you'll work with me a little here) sacrament-ish. Like the bread and wine of communion that satisfy fill hungers we didn't know we had, the liturgies of Holy Week bring us into the mystery of Christ's ministry and death in a bodily way that invite us into truths deeper than our own intellectual reflection. That reflection is a crucial part of the life of faith, but it's not the whole story.

On Sunday, we will celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The depth of our solidarity with Christ in his suffering now will also be the depth of our joy in rejoicing with him in the victory of life over all death. Thanks be to God!

Blessings,
Sara+

From March 25: Looking towards Holy Week

Next week is Holy Week: A high point of drama in the church year, leading toward the biggest holiday of the year--a holy day, Easter. I find myself feeling a little like Jesus might have as he sat at the table with Martha and Mary and Lazarus and his friends, in the Gospel story we heard for Sunday. They are having dinner together--Jesus has returned, in his inexorable walk toward Jerusalem where the confrontation will take place, a confrontation between him and the empire, the religious hierarchy and his own example of peace and equality. He knows that it's coming, but he doesn't quite know how it's going to go down--I feel a little like that about Holy Week, too, though of course I'm not confronting the powers and principalities of death and sin in such a dramatic way.

Still, I know something is going to happen. Our liturgies don't just tell us "about" what happened to Jesus, they bring us into the reality of those events in a material, as well as spiritual, way. We don't hear a story about some other people having washed each others' feet, we wash the feet of those who gather here, now. My Priest's Handbook (yes, that's the name of it) says, "If the time between Palm Sunday and Easter seems endless, it is meant to. Time is suspended as we ponder and celebrate the great mysteries of our redemption." (D.Michno). These liturgies, from the sweeping high of the Palm Sunday procession to the low of the reading of the Passion on that day, to the contemplative foot washing of Maundy Thursday and reverential procession of the Good Friday cross, to the exuberant Alleluias! of the Easter vigil bring us through these events. And it takes a long time. Our liturgical experience is designed to "get us" both in our intellects, as we think about the events of Christ's passion and resurrection, but also in our bodies and in our hearts as we enact those mysteries.

There is an independent spiritual reality to these liturgies--or, rather, liturgy--the great "Triduum," or "Three Days" of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil are, technically, one service. There's no final blessing or dismissal until the end of the Great Vigil of Easter. Sitting here a few days before Palm Sunday, we know it's coming, but can't predict what it will really be like. I can edit and re-edit the bulletins--I could even start writing the sermons (though let's get real--there's little chance of that happening yet), and still, I won't know what it's really like to encounter Jesus at the last supper until I am on my knees in front of someone's bare feet. I won't really know what it's like until I go.

But I know I won't be going alone; as St Paul wrote to the church in Rome, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 26-27)

That Spirit is with us... but for now, we have a few more days of regular old Lent. Like Advent, the other purple season, it's one of preparation--we have a few more days to reflect on what we need to bring with us, or put aside, as we meet Holy Week. What do you need to do to get ready to go there with Jesus? To join in that parade with the palms, and then to acknowledge the depth of betrayal of the Passion play as we all shout, "Crucify him!"? Where do you need the Spirit to accompany you?

Blessings,
Sara+

Holy Week

I hope you are having a blessed Holy Week. In many ways, this week is just like any week. Easter is coming and we are all busying ourselves with shopping lists and guest invitations, as if it were any holiday. All of the “church talk” around Holy Week can seem awfully abstract and seems perhaps less connected to what’s going on in our own day to day lives.

Yesterday, we shared a service of healing and reconciliation, a time to spend some more time in confession of our sins, and also some time to pray for each other individually. Tonight, we’ll tell the story from the Gospel of John, when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet as they met for their last meal together. Tomorrow is Good Friday—but of course there doesn’t seem much “good” about it, since it’s the day we remember the crucifixion.

Good or not, though, the truth of Good Friday is that it’s real. Suffering and death are real. Our liturgies aren’t museum pieces; they draw us into a deeper truth of our faith. They are in some ways a mirror of our own experience. Jesus Christ was fully human. Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself. (Philippians 2: 5) Jesus emptied himself and took on all of the uncertainty, pain, and suffering of human living. Nothing human is alien to the heart of God because of Jesus’ closeness to us. This week, Jesus enters the depths of human love, and also human grief and suffering. This week is about us, not just about God.

As he washed the disciples; feet, Jesus invites us to share the self-emptying love he showed in his ministry—wash each other, he says, as I wash you. He gives us an example to follow. But something else happens, too. “Wash each other,” our faith tells us, and as we do, we wash Christ himself. This week, we observe this sacrificial closeness God has to us.

But isn’t this all of this a little obscure? We all bathe regularly, so what’s the point of foot washing in church once a year? We all see the cross every Sunday, so what’s the point of going up to it and kneeling in front of it? Or, even more bizarre, kissing it? The answer, I think, is that it’s because liturgy helps us to enter the truth of that mystery of God become human, and was willing to suffer death. In our liturgies we have these very ordinary things that become extraordinary signs of God’s presence with us. Foot washing and reverencing the cross aren’t “sacraments” strictly speaking, but they are (if you’ll work with me a little here) sacrament-ish. Like the bread and wine of communion that satisfy fill hungers we didn’t know we had, the liturgies of Holy Week bring us into the mystery of Christ’s ministry and death in a bodily way that invite us into truths deeper than our own intellectual reflection. That reflection is a crucial part of the life of faith, but it’s not the whole story.

So I hope I will see you tonight and tomorrow.

On Sunday, we will celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The depth of our solidarity with Christ in his suffering now will also be the depth of our joy in rejoicing with him in the victory of life over all death. Thanks be to God!