At a Distance

 

Our Holiest Week continues with these words:

 

Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. But Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards in order to see how this would end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’ ” The high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?” But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

 

Where do we stand at a distance from our faith like Peter?  Where do we observe church rather than seek to be church?  Where do we sit prim and proper in the pews on Sunday only to leave behind the words of the Sermon on the Mount as good advice for someone else?  Where do we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” even as we plot and plan our own fiefdoms that we rule over with an iron fist of opinions, money, agenda, my right to have it my way?  To be sure, I get if you’d rather watch puppy videos on YouTube than answer any of these questions.  Yet, the power of Easter resurrection is found in confronting our death denying and dismissing culture.  Death is not just when we breathe our last, it is a thread and theme through life.  Each day we grieve.  Each day we name the pain that persists without a remedy.  Each day we are called to see the very ones we are willing to sacrifice for cheaper labor to cut our grass, roof our houses, process our food and wash the sheets at the hotel where we go on that destination vacation.  We are Peter standing at a distance watching as people are treated as less than God’s beloved.  Open your heart and life to a story, Gospel Medicine of this holiest week.  Amen.