The Grace of Easter-ing

 

By now, the thrill of Easter with its trumpets and tympani has subsided.  By now, the joy of Easter is starting to lose its new car smell.  And by now, in the Bixby household, all the jelly beans are gone!  The hope so sure a few days ago as we belted out hymns now feels like it is on the clearance shelf next to the deeply discounted box of Peeps (why is that candy still around?!?).  We long for peace to rest and reside for more than a few moments.  We desire a grace that hovers so close but often feels elusive from our control ~ which is one of the fascinating and frustrating parts of grace.  Grace, like Easter-ing, isn’t interested in conforming to our ways.  Grace has her way of working in our lives.  Grace has her way of interfering and interrupting at the most inopportune times.  So slowly pray this prayer of blessing from Kate Bowler with me:

 

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week… Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” —John 20:19, ESV

 

Oh God, we stretch out our hands to you in this early Easter darkness.
We need you to pull us up and set us on our feet again, for we are weak and tired.

God, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Spirit, have mercy.

 

God, on that first Easter morning while it was still dark, one woman went alone to the tomb to do what could be done to honor you, though hope had drained away. Two bright angels met her there, and then – how is it possible? – you were there. fully alive, beyond belief.

 

Blessed are we who stretch out our hands to you in doubt and grief, in sickness of body and mind and spirit, our prayers not fully realized, rejoicing… anyway.

For that is what makes us Easter people: carrying forth the realized hope of the Resurrected One, singing our alleluias great and small, while it is still dark.

 

Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

Hearing Your Name

 

Outside the tomb on Easter, Mary heard her name.  From the tomb where death was contained, life broke out in new ways that called Mary’s name.  From the unmanageable ache of grief, a seed of unimaginable love/possibility was planted.  Let the blessing that echoes off the empty tomb stir within you today awakening you to be an “Easter-ing” person in creative, daring, loving, and life-giving ways:

 

The Magdalene’s Blessing For Easter Day—Jan Richardson

You hardly imagined standing here, everything you ever loved suddenly returned to you,
looking you in the eye and calling your name.

And now you do not know how to abide this hole in the center of your chest, where a door slams shut and swings open at the same time, turning on the hinge of your aching and hopeful heart.

I tell you, this is not a banishment from the garden.

This is an invitation, a choice, a threshold, a gate.

This is your life calling to you from a place you could never have dreamed,
but now that you have glimpsed its edge, you cannot imagine choosing any other way.

So let the tears come as anointing, as consecration, and then let them go.

Let this blessing gather itself around you.

Let it give you what you will need for this journey.

You will not remember the words— they do not matter.

All you need to remember is how it sounded when you stood in the place of death
and heard the living call your name.

 

Listen, friends, for today, God calls your name.  Amen.

The Easter-ing Way

 

While the scent of the lilies still lingers on this day after Easter, while the leftovers from brunch still sit in our fridge, while there may even be a few jellybeans left over from yesterday, the invitation of Easter is not just one moment or one day but a way of life.  Easter is not a noun, but a verb.  We would be better to say we are an “Easter-ing” people, even though spell check will never stop underlining that word with red.  Easter-ing is about embodying and practicing a way of life that trusts brokenness is never the last word.  Easter-ing was already planted in the disciples’ hearts at the Last Supper ~ bread broken open symbolizing how Jesus broke open God’s love.  Then, a cup of wholeness, reconciliation, and healing was found in the sweet wine that lingered on the tip of their tongues.  Life is lived at the intersection of brokenness and beauty.  This was the truth of Ash Wednesdays: you are human and holy; you are dust and divine; you are scratched and sacred.  Both.  Not an either/or test to choose, but both as the place we live life each day.  Easter honors that Christ came back with the wounds of the crucifixion.  Both the pain and the possibility of God not being finished.  This week, we will explore and experiment with the Easter-ing way of life.  We seek out ways to partner with God’s resurrecting love in whatever way we can.  Here is a wonderful quote from Father Richard Rohr:

 

I often wonder why so much of human life seems so futile, so tragic, so short, and so sad. If Christ is risen, why do people die before they begin to truly live? Why has there been nonstop war? Why are so many people imprisoned unjustly? Why are the poor oppressed? Why do we destroy so many of our relationships? If Christ is risen, why is there so much suffering? What is God up to? It really doesn’t make any logical sense. Is the resurrection something that just happened once, in his body, but not in ours?   Father Richard Rohr

 

Let your soul today roam free in the wideness of God’s mercy/justice/love to practice resurrection.  Be seen as foolish by those who have only keyboard courage.  Be seen as weak by those who think only in terms of “might makes right”.  Be seen as loving by those whose hard hearts of pain can’t possibly practice this because they are trapped in their own cages of certainty.  Easter didn’t instantly and immediately make everything magically better.  Caesar still oppressed and openly hurt people.  People still struggled to live.  Pain and ache and death still happened.  And.  And (which is an important God-opening word), there was a new promise that such brokenness was never the last word.  Easter-ing is our way to live life in the beauty of such tension that is as true today as it was 2000 years ago.  May the Easter-ing God show up in glorious ways that defy gravity with a grace we need now more than ever.  Amen.

Midday Night

 

A Good Friday Blessing in the midday night

O dear God, we’re in darker places than we’ve ever known

God, light the way for this whole sad earth, for the helpless ones, and for me.

 

Night has fallen on the light of the world and betrayal seems the order of the day.

Love itself is handed over to brutal ignorance and cunning that loves the dark.

O God, You still chose to feel what we feel— how it is to die totally alone, ghastly to behold in your outstretched arms of the cross. Are You gathering to Yourself every hideous thing in this world right now? Every failure, travesty, and wrong?

God have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Spirit, have mercy.

 

Blessed are we who show up at the cross today with a prayer for God to turn things right side up again! Blessed are we who bow and wait for the morning of the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

 

God have mercy. Christ have mercy. Spirit have mercy.

 

Open your hands. receive it– love that comes gently as the dawn. 

 

Our service today is at noon in the sanctuary and online.

Knowing and Known

 

The Courtyard Scene by Ann Weems

Over and over again we sit in our courtyards, our mouths speak what our hearts are full of...

we do not know him (we whisper)

We do not know him (we say as we read the news)

We DO NOT know him (in the face of Christians who hate and harm)

WE DO NOT KNOW HIM (we say in fear of the uncontrollability of this week)

 

KNOW HIM
Know Him

know him

 

These words are not just then and there, but still echo emphatically, filling time and space, heaven and earth; and yet the saddest part is when the cock crows in our world today, with headlines that break our heartlines, we don't have the ears to hear At least Peter had the ears to hear and the heart to weep.

 

I hope to see you tonight as we share the sacred story, feast at Christ’s table, and participate in the shadows, letting our shy souls loose in the uncontrollability of this week.  Service is at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary and online.

Resonance

 

The basic mode of vibrant human existence consists not in exerting control over things, but in resonating with them. Hartmut Rosa

I would say, resonance isn’t about pulling the strings; it is about feeling the reverberation of the chord deep within that connects mysteriously/uncontrollably with others.  Think of a shared moment of singing in church when our diverse, different voices find harmony with others ~ who may have different theologies, politics, experiences, and understandings of this world.  Remember the quote from Monday that a world where everything is planned out is a dead world. 

 

When the chord is struck, we feel the reverberation within us.  The chord is both outside of you and now vibrates within you.  Just hold the holy mystery of this.  We are affected by that which is beyond you, and in turn, you respond (maybe physically with shivers down your spine).  Rosa talks about emotion as a movement outward.  Emotion escapes when elicited.  In that moment, we are changed. 

 

When was the last time you had a resonant experience?  Could be a piece of music, art, poetry, painting, or walking in nature? 

Recall from Monday that if we could control/know everything, the world would lose its aliveness, but when the world is reduced to a code on a computer (zeros and ones), the world becomes mute and cold. 

 

Today, find a moment to resonate and let the world reverberate.  

Uncontrollable? We've got a five step plan for that!

 

There are four dimensions of controllability, according to Rosa.  These four are: making “it” visible (whatever “it” is that feels uneasy or makes you queasy, or when life leaves you wheezy, or you think this sentence is cheesy).  After we make the uncertainty visible, we define and describe (which is to control and confine).  Third, we make it reachable and accessible.  Our culture loves to give you a five-step plan to reach your goal.  Once something is attained or achieved, we enter step four of managing it.  Books start to be mass-produced and marketed, “experts” develop, and consultants come in to “help”.  Finally, we want “it” to be useful for our own advancement, even if it is at the expense of someone else.  The four steps of making it visible, defining/confining the uncertainty, developing a plan to turn our vulnerability into controllability, once we attain or achieve the idea that we have “it” all in order, we manage it with puffed-out chests.

 

Because we have accepted this framework as what is normal, the next logical/linear step is to believe the world is controllable.  If we just follow the above four steps, we are infallible and in charge.  And if you fail, falter, find yourself on a cross because you dared show an uncontrollable, unconditional, unceasing love of God that doesn’t play by rules ~ welp, that’s on you.  And moreover, we will turn the tragedy into a triumph in our theology and say that God was paying a debt, so you’d better show some appreciation and pray this prayer so your soul can get to heaven.  Again, my shy soul is shuddering at that last sentence.  But it reminds us how we have turned the uncontrollable into a process for people to get their golden ticket into heaven. 

 

The truth is, Hartmut Rosa tells us, if the world is uncontrollable, our first response is anxiety.  We know that mental health is now receiving more and more focus because our bodies, minds, and souls are stuck between a world that preaches and teaches and markets to us controllability and a world that won’t bend to our will.  We all have a low-grade fever from ungrieved ache of losses that have piled up in our souls.  This is the week to be honest and heartfelt about the humanness.  This is a week where our brokenness may not find instant blessedness.  Hold this today.  Pray for your uncertainties, your questions, and what is stirring in you on this day of our Holy Week pilgrimage.  Amen.