Yesterday I asked you to explore and experiment with your values ~ identifying the five to seven that make you, you!  If you struggled with that, let me ask a few questions ~ when have you felt most alive in your life?  Describe those moments.  When have you felt least fulfilled or even angry?  Describe that time.  Who inspires you, and is there a value on the list that you can pinpoint that is part of that individual?  Then what are you most proud of in your life?  What values made that moment possible?  Continue to reflect on the story beneath the story, because the molecules that make up the narratives you share (both aloud and in the quiet of your own mind) are your values colliding and combining within you and with the world around you. 

Values that Matter

 

So far this week, I have asked you to listen to the stories you tell about yourself to others and where you inherited that story from.  Today, I invite you to reflect on your values.  Read through the list below and circle the words that jump off the page.  Then go back and whittle down to five or seven that are the most important.  Remember, you don’t need to defend these ~ all these values are needed and necessary in the world.  But you are the only you in the world that can bring your particular values forward right now in your unique way.  Here is the list:

 

Authenticity                             Achievement                  Adventure

Authority                                 Autonomy                      Balance

Beauty                                     Boldness                        Compassion

Challenge                                 Citizenship                     Community

Competency                             Contribution                   Creativity

Curiosity                                 Determination                Fairness

Faith                                        Fame                              Friendships

Fun                                          Growth                          Happiness

Honesty                                   Humor                           Influence

Inner Harmony                         Justice                            Kindness

Knowledge                              Leadership                     Learning

Love                                        Loyalty                          Meaningful Work

Openness                                 Optimism                       Peace

Pleasure                                   Poise                              Popularity

Recognition                             Religion                         Reputation

Respect                                    Responsibility                Security

Self-Respect                             Service                           Spirituality

Stability                                   Success                          Status

Trustworthiness                       Wealth                           Wisdom

 

Hold these values as a gift of God’s presence in you.

Still Editing God

 

Yesterday, I invited you to pay attention to the story you tell others about yourself.  How did that go?  Honestly?  Maybe you were cautious about selecting your words ~ not wanting to boast/brag/berate yourself.  Maybe you held back, not wanting to bring your fully beloved and beautifully broken self out into the light.  Maybe you didn’t have the energy to do this because we all live in a world that is exhausted, underslept, overcaffeinated, and overwhelmed.  Today, consider the stories you heard from your parents growing up.  Were your parents optimistic, pessimistic, or a little of both?  What about your relatives?  I remember I would go to family reunions with kin who were farmers.  And there was always too much rain or not enough rain.  My uncle especially loved to use some “salty” language about his vegetable garden.   Consider what narratives you caught from culture?  You are a mixture of what you’ve absorbed from others and the conclusions you’ve come to in life through your experiences.  Continue today to listen to the story you tell yourself about yourself.  Do you use words that are biting and bitter?  Do you tell yourself that if only others would listen, the world would be a Willy Wonka chocolate factory of joy?  Keep listening to the stories that define you.  Do you ever feel like your stories sometimes confine you?  I know I do!  What threads/themes do you see woven in your life?  List those.  Is there a rhythm that has been pulsing, a beat that has been playing all along in your life?  Does your life have a theme song or a soundtrack?  Let’s keep listening to the story we tell and hold that in the story of Christ, whose resurrection love teaches/tells us that brokenness is never the last word and that God is still editing our lives.  Amen.

Put Down the Mask

 

Just as the season of Lent lingers, so does the season of exploring and experimenting with being an Easter-ing people.  Lent is forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday (February 18-April 5 this year, not including Sundays.  If you are wondering why, it's because we live on the other side of the first Easter; so we do not count Sundays in Lent.  Every Sunday is supposed to be Easter Sunday, even in Lent.)  Lent lingers like a house guest that hasn’t caught on to the social cues that you’d like them to leave.  Even when you turn off the lights and start cleaning up the kitchen, Lent comes in and has the gall to start drying the dishes, patiently/persistently waiting for you to listen to your shy soul.  Lent prepares us to roll back the stones that block and barricade our lives.

 

We live in a culture where vulnerability is seen as a liability.  We deny and dismiss our own biases and brokenness.  We don’t like to admit that, like Lazarus, we are bound by the wounds and wants that keep us up at night.  And lest you think that you are beyond shadow boxing with yourself; lest you think that you have dealt with your own demons that make every day Halloween; I want to invite you this week to listen to the stories you tell about yourself to others.

 

Do you tell stories about how you have it all figured out, and people just need to listen to you?

Do you tell stories about how someone else has done you wrong, and your life is always singing the blues?

Do you tell stories about how you continue to succeed even when others are out to get you?

Do you tell stories about how you are such a bumbling, stumbling idiot that, amazingly, you can dress yourself?

Do you tell stories that cause you to puff out your chest or hang your head or maybe you find yourself on the sidelines silently praying that people will notice you, and at the same time hoping they don’t see you, because you don’t know what you’d say?

 

We are complex, contradictory, and compartmentalized people.  We often think that we should be further along than others in our comparison-addicted culture.  Then, in the stillness of the night, when all the words we say to someone else, or we replay the words we absorbed from others, we wrestle with our shadow. 

 

Easter lingers even longer than Lent.  Easter is fifty days.  Easter began a month ago and still has a month to go until Pentecost on May 24^th.  At the halfway point, can you and I listen to the words that fall from our lips and the ones that we think but don’t dare say aloud?  Sometimes we can put on the mask of kindness while in our minds we are fuming and frustrated.  Sometimes we let loose our tongue with anger and judgment, thinking we are prophetic or righteous.  Sometimes we don’t know what to think, say, or do, or be in this world today. 

 

Pause and breathe in.

 

You are the beloved of God.  Full stop.  Period.  This claim was affirmed at your baptism and can be celebrated with every splash in the ocean, washing of your hands, and sip of cool water as the weather turns warmer.

 

How might you live as God’s beloved Easter-ing person this week?  Let that question interrupt and intercede in your life this day and in the days to come.  Amen.

Prayer

 

What Creation Preaches

 

The unfathomable cosmos came into being at the word of the Eternal’s imagination, a solitary voice in endless darkness. The breath of God’s mouth whispered the sea of stars into existence.
God gathers every drop of every ocean as in a jar, securing the ocean depths as God’s watery treasure.

Let all people stand in awe of the Eternal; let every man, woman, and child live in wonder of the Creator/Gardener/Composer of the symphony of life.  Psalm 33

 

Creation is God’s first testament.  Before there was a Bible, there was creation.  The world around was alive with the glory of God.  Before people read the Bible, birds preached through songs, while the stars above drew people’s attention to the vastness and unknowingness of the world.  Before people gathered around a book with leather binding and tiny print that is getting harder for me to read, it was a campfire under starlit nights that called people to ponder the meaning of life.  To be sure, I can be lost in wonder, love, and praise while gardening or mowing my grass or hiking in a forest.  This is not my everyday experience.  Too often, I am sheltered (and I think I am shielded) by cars, roofs, and walls.  Too often, this constant disconnection from the earth leads to disorientation and even dis-ease within me.  I can be lured to believe that rain, which is needed and necessary, is an inconvenience to my plans.  I can be lured to think that I can weather and withstand every storm ~ but some are stronger than a hurricane or hurt worse than baseball-sized hail.  I can be lured from interacting with the world, which continues to be how God shows up and sings out each day.

 

Today, I invite you to go outside.  You can go for a walk.  You can wade in the water.  You could sit on a chair on your porch/lanai/under a tree.  The invitation is to pay attention to what you are seeing/smelling/hearing/tasting/experiencing.  Let your five senses be open to the One who can be encountered in more ways than we can explore or exhaust in one life.  Let your mind, heart, and soul find alignment with the world that is mysterious and marvelous.  Let Creation connect to you, because you are part of creation.  Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor says, “The body is a great focuser, whether the means is pain or pleasure. The body is a great reminder of where we came from and where we are going, on the one sacred journey that we all make, whether we mean to or not.”  Today, connect with the creation with which we are caught in a web of mutuality.  You cannot exist without water, or the nutrients of the carrots that grow in the dirt, or the oxygen invisibly floating around you/yet sustaining you, trees to absorb your carbon dioxide, and the sun that warms your skin.  Listen to our original Gardener, who is still tending the garden of your soul.  Amen.

Earth Day and Easter

 

Happy Earth Day ~ consider the soil in your soul ~ the good earth from which God fashions and forms you into being.  Consider the water that renews and re- stories you.  Pause ~ how can water help you write another story that is soaked by the sacred of God’s baptismal promise to you?  Consider the birds singing, the tree of your life growing in the forest of others.  Slowly read these words:

 

God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning, and Professor Night lectures each evening.

Their words aren’t heard, their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth: unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.  Psalm 19

 

Day and Night have something to teach and tell us.  Too often, we are tripped up and trapped by an either/or view of the world.  We classify and compartmentalize everything (and everyone).  Yet, day and night each preach and proclaim truths for our life, the Psalmist says.  Day can teach us to notice and name what we might miss when the sun sets.  Daytime can help expand our gaze beyond the intimate and immediate ~ to the horizon.  Daytime is when the subtle, even subversive, details come into focus.  And daytime can blind us if we stare at the blazing sun too long.  Daytime can lure us into complacency, especially when the surroundings are familiar.  We can push our bodies too far during the day, thinking that “we’ve gotta make hay while the sun is shining.”  Such overstimulation from over-caffeination causes our souls to grow weary and worn down.

 

Night can teach us to slow down and focus our attention on the next step, because we cannot see for miles and miles.  Nighttime reveals the stars that are always there, but are shut out because of the brighter sun.  Nighttime invites the body to reset, renew, and rest.  Night sharpens our hearing.  Night can also be when all the things we said and did that day come back for a visit ~ not always in a way we welcome or want.  At night, we can rehearse and replay a meeting where our jaw was set on edge or face the uncertainty of a medical condition.

 

What else would you add to the above lists?  What are the blessings and brokenness of day and of night?  What causes your soul to leap in joy in day and at night?  Ponder what Madame Day and Professor Night are trying to tell you?  Listen.  Lean in.  Learn from the power of every hour, for each moment is saturated and soaked with the Sacred.  Amen.

What Tree Would You Be?

 

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.  Psalm 1

 

I often wonder if the Psalms were written while the prophet/poet was wandering in the wilderness of the world.  Psalm 1 draws on the image of creation ~ God’s creativity seen in clouds and heard in birds and felt in breezes with the sun on our face, which in turn can infuse and inspire our imaginations of faithfulness.  When we read the Psalms inside under the hum of fluorescent lights and the breeze from air that has been filtered and conditioned with chemicals to keep us cool, we might miss the metaphor.  Please don’t hear me complaining, I couldn’t live in Florida without air conditioning!  Yet, the Psalmists lived closer to the earth, soil, dirt, and dust from which we are all made.  The soles of the Psalmist's feet touched the sandy soil of the earth, felt the fear of storms raging in their face, and knew the beauty of a starry night where no light pollution could drive away the darkness.  The Psalmist was intimately interwoven with creation.  The very first Psalm draws on the image of your life being like a tree.  This gives the reader pause:

 

What kind of tree would you like to be?  A redwood?  A sugar maple producing delicious syrup?  A dwarf willow that creeps on the ground rather than reaching for the sky?  An ordinary tree that blends into the background?  A palm tree waving in the salt sea air?

 

What would the bark of your tree feel like, look like, taste like?

 

What about the rings of your tree?  Have there been years of tremendous growth when the circle in your soul is wide and years of scarcity where the ring is narrow/tight, trying to conserve energy?

 

Today, go out and touch a tree, listening to the wisdom of creation ~ absorbing the holiness of this part of God’s creation.  Consider what is nourishing your soul?

 

Where are your roots twisted and tangled with others in the forest of life?  Your tree is connected to those in our church, neighbors, friends, family, and people whose path you cross now and again.

 

What fruit comes from your tree?  Is your fruit sweet or savory or maybe you are in winter right now, where there is no fruit, as your roots are conserving energy?  Is your fruit ready or still slowly ripening? 

 

Let this metaphor infuse and inspire your imagination, deepening your faith in these days. Amen

Resurrection and Creation

 

As we celebrate Earth Day this week, I love how the resurrection mystery and marvel happen outside the confines of air conditioning.  Resurrection doesn’t happen in cramped and confining buildings, but in the beauty of God’s creation.

 

Consider John 20, which we heard on Easter, where the setting is a garden, echoing Genesis 2 and 3.

Consider Luke 24, which we heard on Sunday: Jesus appears to Cleopas and his friend, partner, or companion on a dusty road of life.

Consider Matthew 28, The Great Commission to the disciples (who let’s face it had serious doubts about the resurrection ~ which can give us hope) happens on a mountain, echoing the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)

Consider John 21, where Jesus cooks breakfast on a beach for the disciples, trying to process the pain and promise of being an Easter people.

 

Creation amplifies one of the formational and foundational truths of Easter because creation displays and helps us discover/discern the cycle of birth, life, death, and resurrection each year, called “The four seasons”.

 

During Lent, I invited you to ponder the season of your life connected to the image of a grape vine.  I offered a brief description of how a grapevine goes through the seasons.  Here is a reminder:

In Winter ~ the grapevine is pruned.  It is common to remove 80-90% of the biomass during pruning.  But great care is used not to cut the buds that will be next season’s growth.  It takes a prayerful, careful eye and skill not just to whack randomly on the vine, but to notice the small green shoots that need the nourishment of the winter resting to begin to grow.

In Spring ~ the buds now burst and break forth in growth.  The bud swells and reveals new leaves.  There is a flowering that happens.  The vine continues to absorb water and nutrients through the roots as the leaves undergo photosynthesis ~ note there are no visible grapes yet.

In Summer ~ the grapevine flowers begin to bring forth young grapes that will swell, ripen, and gain color and flavor.  Vine growth slows down as the focus shifts to sending all the energy, nutrients, and resources to the fruit.  There is a slow ripening on the vine that cannot be sped up.

During Harvest season, it is all hands on deck ~ trying to get the fruit off the vines ~ note that this is the busiest time.  And note, this is where modern life tells us to live all the time!!

In Autumn ~ the grapevine begins to rest, the vine slows down to conserve energy.  The leaves change colors and fall away.  This is a dormant state of rest for the next season.

 

Do not forget that there is a weathered and worn fence that supports the vine.  This is what holds you up every season.  The fence may look different.  Your fence is made up of friends and family, authors who give us new ideas, and the church as a safe space to be who you are and what you are.  The fence can also be out in creation, breathing in God’s love next to a tree that has weathered many storms and sunny days. 

 

Today, consider how resurrection happens outside and venture out to stand in the sun, soaking in the vitamin D that we all need ~ because our souls are solar-powered.  May the One who wrote the truth of life into the seasons be felt, experienced, seen, and encountered this day and this Earth Day week.  Amen.

Prayer

 

Beyond Certainty

 

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. ¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

Part of the mystery of being a resurrection people is not only the tension that the beauty and brokenness, the grief and good news, sit side-by-side, but that Jesus is there too.  Note that initially, Mary doesn’t notice Jesus.  Mary has come to her own conclusion, and the jury in her mind has reached consensus: Jesus’ body was taken by tomb thieves or some cruel Roman trick or some other nefarious reason.  Oh, I have concrete conclusions too!  I know, just know, that those people are evil, don’t try to tell me differently, I shout.  I know, just know, that if we could all value diversity, the world would be a better place.  I know, just know, that if people would really practice their Easter-ing faith and see each person as beloved, I would be out of a job because who would need church!?! 

 

Easter disrupts and disturbs my certainty.  Easter surprises my concrete conclusions.  Easter messes with what I think is true beyond a shadow of a doubt by telling me something I never considered to be true: death can still be emptied of its fear; love can rule even alongside the free will to choose evil.  Pain and praise are both moments to encounter the Holy in Easter-ing ways.  Christ is there in the grief and good news, saying your name.

 

Speak aloud your name right now.  Go ahead, say it, and may you also hear Christ saying your name this morning.  Christ is so close you can feel his presence, and your skin can feel the wind of angels’ wings.  You, like the disciples, can still feel Jesus bursting and breaking into the walled-off rooms in your mind, heart, and soul, breathing on you, and saying, “Peace”.  Your life is infused and inspired by a grace that will never let you go, especially in the weeping before realizing what the empty tomb fully means.  Because we never fully know what we don’t know, we never fully exhaust all that Easter can mean.  Faith is mystery and marvel and meaning always evolving toward the One who knows and calls your name.  Do you hear it?  Do we dare to live this way?   Amen.

Holding Space

 

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. ¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

We’ve wept with Mary.  We’ve stepped into the empty tomb and heard the echo that brokenness is never the last word.  We’ve explored and experimented with the contradiction of faith being one foot in the mystery/marvel of the empty tomb and one foot in the hurting world.  Today, I invite you to pay attention to the angels who ask, “What breaks your heart?”  Easter isn’t just some triumphant militaristic conquest of the world.  Remember, Rome still oppressed people after the first Easter.  Remember, crucifixion still happened after the resurrection.  Remember, Jesus comes back with the wounds of the hurt on his hands and body.  Easter can embrace the beauty and brokenness of your life, our community, our country, and our world.  When the angels asked, “Why are you weeping?” that wasn’t a challenge.  The angels didn’t hand her a tissue for her issue or tell her to get over it.  The angels did what Peter and the Beloved Disciple could not: hold space for hurt.  The angels made room for grief.  Some angels still do this for us.  Who helps you hold space and place for ache today?  Who weeps with you over our world, our brokenness, and heartbreak?  Who is the angel with you as you seek to be an Easter person in the world?  Take time not only to name names, but to connect!   The angels truly wanted to know what Mary was feeling, and so do angels to this day.  Connect, call, and be in community with those who listen and lean into your one wild and precious life in these days.  Amen.

The Easter Paradox

 

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. ¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

Yesterday we wept with Mary over the state of our world.  Mary the Tower (which is what Magdalene means) stood at the juxtaposition of grief and good news.  Outside the empty tomb, in the presence of angels, is where we find ourselves every day.  Remember, during Lent, I shared the quote for Frederick Buechner, who said, “Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.”  This is where faith leads us ~ to a place where grief and good news are side-by-side in tension.  There are experiences and evidence of the terrible and the beautiful over the course of weeks and days in your life.  For me, I hold the realities of war, relationship ruptures, brash bullies, and social discrimination alongside places and people who are compassionate and caring ~ even when the two contradict and seem to cancel each other out.  Life is not some math equation we are solving, but an experience we are living.  I hold both the hurt and heart-warming truths.  I hold the tears and the laughter.  I hold the honest brokenness and beauty of friends and love.  Both are true.  Both are part of being an Easter-ing people.  Today, write down your griefs/pains and your experiences of good news of God’s grace and love.  Today, name and notice the shapes of your tears and the sounds of holy interruptions.  To be an Easter-ing people isn’t endless brass blaring, chocolate consuming, or lily aromas wafting in the air.  Easter-ing is the ability to hold together the twin truths of beauty and brokenness, saying, “Here I am, God.”  May this be our prayer posture today and in the days to come.  Amen.  

Mary The Tower Weeps

 

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. ¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

The mystery and marvel of Easter can never be confined or contained within one day; there is a whole season of prayerfully seeking to be an Easter people.  For fifty days, we explore and experiment with what it means to “Easter” as a verb in our lives.  This is even more important as the memory of the empty tomb fades into the background and the world moves on.  Tending and keeping Easter is important, as each day the stories we absorb offer us more evidence of how far we must go for the resurrection realm to interrupt and intercede in our world.  The headlines you read this morning were more than enough to convince you that there is still too much brokenness in our world.  Wars.  Famine.  Dehumanization.  Political bickering rather than dialogue.  Systems breaking down, hurting people, and treating the earth as a means to money rather than God-crafted and created.  And you have evidence in your own life that resurrection didn’t magically make everything better.  Your own struggles and stress: physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.  We want to shout, “Come on, God!  I sang with all my heart at the top of my voice, “Christ the Lord is risen today!”  Please!!”  I return to this image of Mary the Tower weeping outside the empty tomb.  Hold this.  Step into the scene.  Mary shows us that before we can encounter the mystery of resurrection, we are invited to be honest with our grief.  Grief can make us feel lonely, lost, and isolated.  Mary is alone.  Peter and the Beloved Disciples failed Pastoral Care 101 when they just left her there to deal with her own emotions.  It breaks my heart that two of the disciples of Jesus forgot their connection to Mary.  To be sure, part of the suffering in our world has always been our denial and dismissal of seeing each other as fully reflecting God’s image.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, economic oppression, and cultural wars are all based on a us-versus-them way of the world.  Much of our world and ways of being are based on scarcity, that there is not enough for everyone, so some of us have to, must, need to get ours while the getting is good.  What you read this morning is evidence of a world that worships at the altar of individualism.  Is the war impacting me and my wallet?  Is this famine close to me or do I have a comfortable distance?  Is it someone I love who is losing his/her/their rights? 

 

Mary wept.

 

I weep this morning for a world of disciples who continue to refuse to see that resurrection isn’t about personal belief, but about communal lament, healing, reconciliation, and living differently.  What griefs do you carry this morning?  Name, notice, and join Mary outside the tomb.  Reach out to me and others so that we might weep together.  May God’s love enfold and hold us as we continue to live into a life where resurrection and Easter-ing are what guide and ground us.  Amen.

Prayer

 

Still Pondering Easter

 

There is a mystery to the marvel of resurrection.  There is an unknowing-ness that we cannot fully understand; we are called to stand under.  No sermon can capture, no hymn fully expresses, no matter how many times we celebrate Easter, we keep coming back with curiosity.  We say to Easter, “Tell me more”.  Listen to these insights from Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor on Easter:

 

The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out, that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point. In the end, that is the only evidence we have to offer those who ask us how we can possibly believe. Because we live, that is why. Because we have found, to our surprise, that we are not alone. Because we never know where he will turn up next. Here is one thing that helps: never get so focused on the empty tomb that you forget to speak to the gardener.  Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor

 

What did you witness on Easter morning?  Note this may not have been with your eyes, but with your nose, ears, sacred imagination, or shy soul.  Rewind and remember what you felt and carried out of Easter service.  Remember, I asked you the question, what are you searching for?  Has there been any glimmer or glimpse of an insight in response to that question?  What you witnessed might be different than what I observed and absorbed on Easter morning.  Maybe I was struck by the beauty of the sunlight that warms all the earth, regardless of whether the person can produce a baptismal card or pass a theological test.  Maybe I was amazed by the peacefulness I felt, or the color of the flowers, or the joy of singing in harmony for a few fleeting seconds.  Maybe this Easter didn’t stir your soul, maybe, like the disciples, you felt less amazed than last year or angsty because of the world.  Maybe the sermon wasn’t up to par, or the Peeps tasted different.  The truth is, every Easter is different because you are different every Easter.  Jesus doesn’t have to appear at 9 am and 11 am just because that conforms to our worship schedule.  This isn’t some play where Jesus misses his cue if you leave the building on Easter a little less enthusiastically.  Maybe the Resurrected One appears in the restaurant or at coffee with a friend or sitting outside today, letting the sun baptize your face.  The truth is, Mary initially wasn’t plotting and planning a resurrection…she was attending a funeral.  Sometimes God upends our expectations in beautifully baffling ways.  Maybe it is your lawn crew today who shows you the face of Christ, or the fellow volunteer, or a red robin pecking at the seed you left there.  Remember, you can’t predict resurrection; you simply are asked to hold the promise of God’s possibility that brokenness is never the last word.  Alleluia and Amen.

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.