A 300-Pound Gorilla on Good Shepherd Sunday?

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is sometimes referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The collect and readings for this Sunday are so overwhelmingly about the Good Shepherd that it seems that a good preacher should not ignore this. But here’s the thing: I don’t really feel like blogging about sheep this week. Lots of my colleagues will do that and will no doubt preach very fine sermons about shepherds and sheep this Sunday. I look forward to it. 

I want to talk about the 300-pound gorilla in the room. 

Do you know the invisible gorilla test? You can read about it here. I've already ruined it for you, though. You can Google the video if you like; I'm pretty sure I am not supposed to post it here because of copyright laws, but it's easy enough to find.

Basically the original experiment is that the subjects in the study are told to watch a video with people dressed in white and in black, passing a basketball back and forth. They are asked to count the number of passes made by the players in white uniforms. So they need to concentrate. They need to stay focused. One. Two. Three...

And then a gorilla walks right through the middle of the players - there are maybe eight or so who keep moving around. (Well, to be more precise, it's some guy dressed up like a gorilla.) Half of the people don’t see him because they are so focused on the people passing the ball.

Half of them! Do. Not. See. A. Gorilla. I know that seems unbelievable. I know you assume that you would see the gorilla and you would now if you went and Googled that video because you can't miss it if you know to look. Knowing what the study is about I can no longer un-see that gorilla when I watch that video. Even so, I trust the study. More importantly, I know that sometimes I do not see what is right before my very eyes. Why? Because I'm focused (or even fixated) on the task at hand. And I most definitely know when other people do this. It's so amazing to me when that happens! How can you not see that?! 

We assume that we see what is reality. But in truth, we see what gets our attention. So why am I telling you this on a day that's supposed to be all about shepherds and sheep? Well, this is my point. When we are so busy counting sheep, there are things we miss. And there is a subtext here that rarely ever gets talked about during the Easter Season when we get (over?) focused on the gospel readings, and that is what is happening in these readings from Acts. I blogged about Peter last week even though the gospel reading was the story of Emmaus. The week prior to that we were tuned into Acts because of Thomas, and the others. But generally speaking, it’s harder to notice what's unfolding in Acts because we are so focused on Jesus. Which makes sense, of course. I'm not suggesting we not focus on Jesus! We are Christians and it is Jesus, after all, who was raised from the dead. We follow Jesus, not Peter or Thomas or the other apostles. And the task we have been given is to reflect on what that means to say that Christ is alive. And how, as one hymn writer puts it: 

Christ is alive! No longer bound / to distant years in Palestine / but saving, healing, here and now / and touching every place and time. 

Concentrate. Focus. First, we noted Jesus’ absence at the empty tomb on Easter Day. And then we saw him encountering Thomas on the Second Sunday of Easter. And then on the Third Sunday of Easter, known in the breaking of the bread. Did not our hearts burn within us? And now, on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we recall that Jesus is the Good Shepherd of the sheep. He knows us by name.

But here is the thing: in the meantime, there is this story slowly unfolding in Acts each and every week. And maybe it's possible to be so focused on Jesus that we miss it. Peter was boldly preaching on Easter Sunday about the God who “shows no partiality.” The same Peter we saw telling the servant girls by the fire that he did not know the man. As we have been reading through the second chapter of Acts, we've seen Peter, standing with the eleven. And he has found his voice. 

And then today we get a glimpse of the community that he helped to shape and that shaped his emerging spirituality: a community where no one claimed private ownership, where all things were held in common. There was not a needy person among them. Can you even imagine that? 

The disciples have changed. It’s like when you run into someone who used to have a beard and has shaved it off; or used to be clean shaven and now has a beard. Or has gained thirty pounds or lost thirty pounds. Or has gone gray or found their original color in a bottle. You look at them and you think: I know you, but something has changed. The disciples used to be kind of bumblers. But they have clarity and purpose and courage and creativity now. And the narrator is clear about what it is that has changed in them: it’s the Holy Spirit, working in and through them to do infinitely more than they could previously ask or imagine. 

What I would suggest, however, above all else, is that they are not so scared anymore. Faith (that is to say, trust in the living God) has cast out fear. Peter has stopped twitching every time the rooster crows.  He will no longer be defined by his past. Instead, he and the other disciples are now doing the work Jesus called them to do in the first place, when he called them by the Sea of Galilee. They really are fishing for people now. And healing the sick. And bringing good news to the poor. And announcing God’s salvation for the world. I truly understand that God shows no partiality...

They are putting first things first. They are baptizing and forming faithful followers of Jesus. They are devoting themselves to prayer and study and the breaking the bread. Which leads them to share their stuff. Not out of duty or obligation but with "glad and generous hearts." They are taking care of each other. Wow! 

We spend so much of our lives fearful of what will happen next. Well maybe you don't, but I do. What will happen if we do this or if we don’t do that. We might get sued or we might get reprimanded. We might lose our job. If we are not careful we start to measure our lives out in teaspoons. 

Those early followers of Jesus model for us a different way to be in the world. They are no longer afraid of what people will say about them or even do to them. The old Peter said: “I don’t know the man, I don’t know the man, I don’t know the man.” But now, filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter says, “let me tell you about my friend Jesus. Let it be known to you all that this isn’t about me, this is about Jesus Christ. The one you crucified. The one that God raised from the dead…” Alleluia! 

Now here is the thing about this 300-pound gorilla: I think it’s the Easter story we need to start living and telling again as we find ourselves in the midst of this pandemic. As horrible as it is on so many levels (and in other posts I've spoken of grief and loss and trauma and that's all true) this may also be an opportunity for the Church to rediscover our sense of purpose and true vocation.

My bishop has shared on more than one occasion with the clergy of our diocese recently that his spiritual director used to say (rhetorically) that maybe the Church needed to stop doing everything else and just learn to pray again for a year or so. Well, that is happening right now. We are all a bit more monastic right now.  I see it on Zoom and Facebook Live, of all places. Can anything good come from social media? Well, yes. Actually. Even in the midst of physical distancing, Episcopalians (at least in my diocese) are rediscovering the Daily Office by praying Morning Prayer and Noon Day Prayers and Evening Prayer and Compline.  

And relationships are being strengthened. We used to try to get our folks to church two or three Sundays a month for an hour or so. Now people who could not get to Church on Sunday are there (virtually) every week. We used to be nostalgic for the days when we had no competition on Sunday mornings from sports and family activities. Now we have no competition. And oh, yeah...in a lot of places they want to stay on for a virtual coffee hour. It turns out that coffee hour doesn't have to be just for weak coffee and too many carbs or catching up with our friends. It can be for building up the Body of Christ: for getting to know one another at a deeper level. For strengthening koinonia. 

Now there are definitely challenges and it's not ideal. But life is not ideal. We are, in these weeks of pandemic, discovering and rediscovering how to be Church and seeing that "wonderful and sacred mystery" alive and well is an extraordinary thing to behold. 

The question is, what will we do next? What will we do when we are able to return to our buildings? What will we have learned? If we aren't careful, before you know it we may be sharing everything in common, not out of duty or obligation, but with "glad and generous hearts." Or at the very least re-setting priorities so that we put first things first. And be careful, because once that happens we may start "leavening" the world around us as we find our own voices again. And acting boldly with resilience and courage and hope. 

Here's the thing: we can tell people with our lips that Jesus is risen from the dead. We can tell them that the tomb is empty or that Thomas put his hands in Jesus’ side or that Jesus was known in the breaking of the bread. We can even tell them that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. And we should do all of those things. But until people actually see us living like Easter people - until they see us changed - Easter will not much more than an idle tale. When they see us coming and they think, "alleluia, Christ is risen indeed" then we will know that like those early followers of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has taken hold of us. 

The story we see unfolding in Acts during these fifty days is about what it means to form an Easter people - a people after God's own heart. A community focused on the risen Christ. Not on the past, but on the present. A community where people are finding their voices and living their lives not rooted in fear, but in trust. Now here is the thing: not everyone will be able to see that. Even if it’s right before their very eyes. But that is not our concern. Our concern is to be living it out. Our work is to become an Easter people. And maybe even to be as obvious as a 300-pound gorilla about it. Our job is to proclaim Easter with our lives, not just our lips. And then those with eyes to see, will see, and those with ears to hear, will hear. 

The Grace to Cry and Wait

“Judas, Peter”

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves
but if we find grace to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask each again
do you love me                       
              Luci Shaw in  A Widening Light: Poems of the Incarnation

St. Peter's, Gallicantu - Jerusalem ("Where the cock crowed.")

Notice that Peter, the Good Friday denier, has something to say in the reading from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles that is appointed for the Third Sunday of Easter. 

I realize it's easy to miss. This is after all, the week when the Gospel reading is the story on the road to Emmaus, a favorite among many preachers. And a favorite of mine, to be honest. Such a brilliant Lukan Easter narrative. And so liturgical,unfolding like the liturgy of Word and Sacrament, which gives Episcopalians goosebumps.

Even so, I call your attention to Peter, who is a new man in Acts, a man who has found the grace to cry and wait. And then learned to love again. 

Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the multitude, "Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him." And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.                                   

Peter has found his voice. The same Peter who said, “I don’t know the man, I don’t know what you are talking about, you must be mistaken.” That Peter now stands up and raises his voice and says: “let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that Jesus is Lord.” He has discovered that the heart of the matter is about forgiveness, and that with forgiveness new life is possible. 

What does this have to do with us? It suggests two things to me which are really two sides of one Easter coin. First of all, our God is a god of second chances. The whole point of Easter is that death does not get the final word. The whole point of Easter is that even at the grave we make our song. The whole point of Easter is that forgiveness triumphs over vengeance and love defeats fear. 

God does not desire the death of sinners, but that they might turn and live. This is not just a New Testament idea. But it culminates in the Easter story, which more than anything else reveals who God is, from the moment when God first brooded over creation until the day when there will be a new heaven and a new earth and every tear will be wiped away. 

That leads to the second side of the coin, and that is that Peter models for us what true faith in such a God looks like. It is way too easy in this life to get stuck. And when we get stuck, it can lead to despair. Judas hangs himself because he cannot imagine that God will really forgive him or make things new again. And so he is bound up in fear and guilt over what he did, and unable to imagine the possibility of what God may yet do in and through him.

In contrast, what makes Peter a saint is not that he always gets it right. The Scriptures are very clear that he does not get it right very often, in fact. But he trusts that God is a God of second chances, of new beginnings. He trusts that the rooster’s crowing can become a lesson in humility that leads to life, not humiliation that leads to death. He trusts in the grace to cry and wait, knowing that God is love. So the risen Christ asks Peter (and us) "do you love me?" (See John 21:15-22.) Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my sheep. In other words, the whole law and he prophets hang on two commandments: love God, love neighbor. 

This is not a cliché! In fact it takes us to the very heart of the gospel: we are not called to be perfect. but to live as a forgiven people. Love shows us the way forward. We are called, with God’s help, to repent and return to the Lord when we mess it up, and to begin again. And again, and again, and again. To learn that, and to live it, is to enter into more fully into the Paschal Mystery and to become the “Easter people” whom God is calling us to become.

If we find grace to cry, and wait, after the voice of morning has crowed in our ears clearly enough to break our hearts, he will be there to ask again, do you love me? 

Trusting Thomas

My Greek is not what it once was. But I will say that my original plan was to go on from seminary to do graduate work in the New Testament. So I took as much Greek as I could toward my M.Div. And I do know what pistis means.

The translation (below) of this Sunday's Gospel Reading is my own. But really it's primarily offered to make it clear that pistis and apistis (which appear six times) are not about belief and doubt in an intellectual way but rather are about trust or lacking trust. This is probably more my own attempt to channel my inner Eugene Peterson ("The Message") and offer a paraphrase than a literal translation. In any case, here goes: John 20:19-31, Rich Simpson Version...

It was still Easter Sunday—later that same night. The disciples were together, with the doors locked, because they were afraid of the religious authorities. Jesus came, and stood among them. “Shalom be with you,” he said.

And then he showed them his hands, and his side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw him

He said again: “Shalom be with you! As my Abba sent me, so I now send you.”  And with that, he breathed on them, saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive another person's sins, they are forgiven. If you hold onto another person's sins, they are held fast.”

Now one of the twelve, Thomas, (the one called Didymus, which means the twin) wasn’t with them when Jesus came. And the others kept telling him, “we’ve seen the Lord!”

But he said to them: “unless I examine the marks of the nails on his hands, and put my finger into the place where the nails were, and my hand in his side, I will not trust you.”

A week later they were in the house again. This time, Thomas was with them. Again, the doors were locked, and again, Jesus came and stood among them, saying: “Shalom be with you!”

Then he turned to Thomas, and said: “put your finger here, and look at my hands. Reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Let go of your mistrust; only trust!”

Then Thomas answered him: “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said: “have you trusted because you have seen me? Happy are those who trust without seeing me!” 

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of the disciples that are not recorded in this book. These are written down so that you may trust that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God—so that trusting him, you may have life in his name.

Unfortunately too many of the lessons drawn from today’s gospel reading in Bible studies and sermons over many years about “doubting Thomas” are not very helpful. I would go even further and say that a misreading of this text can be dangerous to your (spiritual) health! 

The root of the problem has to do with how we understand “belief” and “doubt.” From the time of Descartes, the Enlightment has had a huge influence on western Christianity. Whether we grew up Catholic, Protestant, or somewhere in the middle, most of us have been taught to think about belief in terms of the content of our faith. In this way of seeing the world, “faith” became a synonym for either our acceptance or rejection of various Church doctrines: the Creed for example, or what the Church teaches about the Trinity, or the Resurrection, or the Virgin Birth.  Sometimes we have gotten the message from this story (whether it is explicit or implicit) that we shouldn’t be “doubting Thomases…but should only believe.”

What has happened is that over many decades and even centuries, what we think of as the “traditional” reading of this story about “doubting Thomas” can lead us to conclude that the Church isn’t a place for “doubters” or their questions. The problem with that goes deeper than simply excluding inquisitive types from the Church. If we teach people that “faith” is about “right belief” (and then when people aren’t sure about what they believe on every matter of doctrine we tell them “don’t doubt, just believe”) we end up with, at best, passive Christians. Worse still, compartmentalized ones who can't figure out how to connect what they know about science and history and literature with their faith. Worst of all, members of the Church Alumni Association. 

I think that’s a subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) form of manipulation and coercion that has very little to do with authentic Christian faith, however. I’d go even further. I think from the perspective of Biblical faith, it is a form of idolatry that leaves us more golden calves than we know what to do with. 

So I want to challenge that "traditional" reading of the story and suggest that the deeper and truer meaning lies within the story itself, waiting for us to rediscover it and to hear it with fresh ears. It is more than a little ironic to me that in so many sermons on Thomas he is disparaged, because that clearly isn’t what the text says. Jesus doesn’t disparage or ridicule Thomas. Jesus meets him where he is and invites him to do what he needs to do to come to a deeper understanding of the resurrection. I think we are invited to hear this text anew on this Second Sunday of Easter and not to disparage Thomas but to see his example by way of encouragement, and by way of inviting us to see in him an example of Easter-faith.

This alternative reading becomes possible when we remember that the Greek word, pistis is really about trust. The opposite of faith in this sense is not doubt, but fear. Notice that is precisely what is going on in this story: when it begins the disciples are locked away in fear: they fear the religious authorities. They are afraid those authorities will come and do the same thing to them as was done to Jesus, and they will die at the hands of Roman imperial power. Yet at the end of the story, faith (that is trust) has cast out fear, allowing the disciples (including Thomas) to be empowered by the Spirit to continue the work that Jesus began. 

Pistis is about trust and even more specifically about where we place our trust. Do we trust Caesar or God? Are we yet able to trust one another in the community that bears Jesus’ name? Do we trust that we are made in the image of God, and that in the resurrection that image of God is restored, freeing us to trust our own best selves? Jesus’ words to Thomas use both the negative and the positive form of pistis—that is: “Thomas, do not be untrusting; but learn to trust.” And I think that’s a word of good news for us.

Christian educators and psychologists of religion tell us that the first and most basic stage of faith development, foundational for all the rest, is to navigate trust issues. If a child learns to trust her parents, then she will move on to other challenges. And if that trust is violated or abused or lacking, then almost certainly the child will get stuck—perhaps even well into adulthood—until she can find ways to move beyond this impasse. It will leave a mark. That’s why all forms of abuse, especially in the Church, are so sinful and destructive. Not just sexual abuse but abuse of power, of clergy or Christian educators who think they are infallible. When we violate a sacred trust we cause so many layers of damage. That’s why we have worked so hard at making our congregations safe spaces, to that our children and our children’s children can learn trust rather than fear: trust in God, trust in community, trust in self.

If Christian faith is in any way akin to being “born again” or “born from above” (in the Johannine sense) then it is the same way in Christian community: after birth comes growth. But the first stage of Easter faith is about learning to trust; from there we can begin to grow into “the full stature of Christ.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that doctrine doesn’t matter. I'm just saying that imposing our doctrines onto this text distorts it's meaning. Faith here is not about belief; it's about trust. What I am saying is that I think St. Anselm had it exactly right: faith seeks understanding. Faith (that is, trust) comes first, just as it does in this story. It isn't the last word but it is the first word.

Faith is about putting our trust in this Jesus whom death could not destroy. Only then—as we grow within a loving Christian community and listen together to Holy Scripture, and to the breadth and depth of the catholic tradition, and to our own wisdom and the wisdom of others that grows out of our experience and in our walk with Christ—do we clarify our beliefs, which are always subject to modification and change as we continue to grow.  At best, our beliefs point us toward God. But we should never confuse our beliefs about God with the living, inscrutable God. When we do, we are in danger of allowing our beliefs to become more important to us than God. 

The Bible has a word for that:  idolatry. A Church that insists on “right belief” as the requisite to life in Christ—whether on the “right” or on the “left”—falls short of the mark. A Church that lists seventeen things you need to believe in order to walk through the door and then labels some as “orthodox” and others as “revisionist” if someone questions numbers six, eleven, and thirteen is, quite frankly, not a Church that I have any interest in being a part of.  

The Church’s mission is to proclaim the good news of God’s love to all the world, and then to share with Christ in the ministry of reconciliation. That is what today's collect makes clear: 

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here is the “good news” that I hear in this twentieth chapter of John’s Gospel on this second Sunday of Easter, in the year of our Lord 2020 - that I think speaks directly to us who are not gathered in our congregations this week but, like the disciples are huddled away in our homes: we can work on trust issues, together. If you’ve ever been on a ropes courses, you know it is possible. In community, with companions who will support you and cheer you onto things you didn’t think possible; you may even risk falling from high places into outstretched arms that will not let you fall. That, I believe, is the direction that this text means to point us in. We must not be afraid to take risks in order to grow together. I like the story that some of the rabbis tell about the Exodus: that God did indeed part the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army in hot pursuit, but only after the first Hebrew slave put his foot out and committed himself to that path. Like the Abraham story that is foundational for all Biblical faith, what is required on our side of the covenant is trust.

You may remember that in the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus is talking about how he will go to prepare a place for them, and he says to the disciples that they know the way to that place. Thomas is the one who dares to speak up: “Lord, excuse me…we don’t know where you are going, so how can we possibly know the way.” Jesus’ response to Thomas in that moment is not a weapon to be foisted on seekers, but a reminder to those who do put their trust in Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Keep your eyes on me, Jesus says, and you will get where you need to be.

So, too, in this post-Easter resurrection account from the twentieth chapter of John’s Gospel. Again, it is Thomas’ who is willing to express his uncertainty and to give voice to his confusion. And maybe to ours as well. Viewed in this way, Thomas is a person who calls us to live more fully into the meaning of our Baptismal Covenant by inviting us “to put our whole trust in Christ’s grace and love.”  Viewed in this way, faith is not passive acceptance but active engagement. Peter may get a whole lot more “press” than Thomas does in the gospels. But I nominate Thomas not as “the doubter” but as “the truster” who is not afraid to ask the tough questions in order to get where he needs to be.

What is important as we go through this Easter season is not that we gain an intellectual grasp of what resurrection is or is not, about what kind of body we will have when we are raised from the dead or for that matter about what kind of body Jesus had when he was raised from the dead. Rather, the heart of the matter is about whether or not we are on “the Way” with this Jesus, who is not dead in the tomb but among the living in the world. This risen Christ who still invites us to follow him, not only to the Cross but beyond the Cross into full and abundant life. 

And I wonder if it isn’t in our willingness to articulate the questions that God meets us, and leads us as Jesus does in this story, to a more lively faith that casts out fear and invigorates us for mission.

Notice where the story ends: Thomas proclaims of Jesus, this crucified rabbi from Nazareth whom God has raised from the dead: “My Lord and my God.” That is a powerful witness of faith - of trust. Not doubt. And one more thing: 

Jesus did lots of other stuff in the presence of the disciples that have not been recorded in any book. These are written down so that you may have trust—that you may trust that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God—and that trusting him, you may have life in his name.

My Top Ten COVID-19 Learnings (So Far) - Real World Version

My last post was a Top Ten List of COVID-19 Learnings that focused on my vocation as a priest in the Episcopal Church. While there may have been some helpful things in there for people from other faith traditions (or of no faith tradition) it was addressed primarily to people who are a part of congregations generally and even more specifically who serve as leaders, ordained or lay, in those congregations. 

I ended that post by pointing to an article I came across recently in The Guardian, which can be found here. The writer spent two decades in prison. She shares here what that isolation taught her about life, and writes:

Solitude challenges you to look at things differently. Before prison, my worldview had been rather limited and selfish. I was known to throw terrible tantrums as I tried to bend reality to my will, but peace depended on my bending to reality. Life wasn’t all about me. I had to learn what was within my control and what wasn’t. I also discovered that time exists in relation to an emotion or experience, and it slowed or sped according to my ability to be present. So, I learned how to flow with it, not rushing nor procrastinating, but fully engaged in whatever was before me…What did that look like? It was as simple as just paying attention. I read books carefully. I listened to others deeply. I stopped mindlessly flipping through the channels of my mind. I gave my full attention to every activity, no matter how small it might be. Full engagement strengthened my gratitude, and gratitude strengthened my will.

That has implications for church folk like me, but it's really about navigating life. And it provides a good segue to this follow-up post. Here is my alternative Top Ten list, intended to take a broader view, and for a wider audience.

1. We need to acknowledge that grief is real.  We have all experienced loss in the past month and that needs to be named. Adrenaline will kick in for a while but eventually it brings us back to loss. What we are living through, as a planet and as local communities is really hard. We move through loss differently - based on our own biographies and capacities. For a time we can focus on the tasks at hand. But denial is not just a river in Egypt. We need to allow ourselves to feel our way beyond "this isn't happening" to those stages of grief that include sadness and anger and fear and isolation. And then, try not to get stuck there. Richard Rohr (and many others) have noticed that pain that is not transformed is transmitted. So we need to pay attention to the pain that we and others are experiencing. It's real.

2. We will all die. How is that for a cheery segue?! Yet it is even more certain than taxes. Yet we all swim in the water of a culture that acts as if death is a failure. We say that so and so "lost their battle to cancer," suggesting that death won! Death always wins! At least penultimately. (This is my "real world" edition so I won't preach an Easter sermon here but the point is that even in my faith tradition there is no Easter without Good Friday!) The point is that when people live a good and long life we often feel it is not enough - if only they'd eaten less red meat! Then what? They might have gotten another month or two? It is, of course, a far more bitter pill to swallow when someone dies before their time. Billy Joel may have been overstating it when he sang that only the good die young, but we all know that plenty of good and even great people die young. So a global pandemic - a plague, if you will, is as good a time as any to remember that we are mortal. We are creatures, not Creator. We are dust. We breathe in and we breathe out. Until we don't.

3. We therefore only have today to live. This is the good news we discover once we face our own mortality; that living is a gift. Over the past twenty-five years I have had exactly two spiritual directors, both of them very talented and wise Episcopal priests. The first, Pierre, was a former Jesuit (Roman Catholic) who had become an Episcopalian. The second, Curtis, is a monk with the Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal monastic order. When I say this, I don't mean to minimize their incredible giftedness. But essentially there is just one theme to which each of them in his own way has constantly brought me back. Now. So far as I can tell, this is the wisdom at the heart of every great spiritual tradition. It is also at the heart of twelve-step programs. We cannot change what happened yesterday, or last year, or when we were growing up. Nor can we control what will happen tomorrow, or next year, or when we die. There are some more and less healthy ways to learn from the past and to anticipate tomorrow. But as we breathe in and breathe out, on this day, that is real. And the more we are able to be in touch with that, the more we can give thanks for "the sacramentality of the present moment." (Jean-Pierre de Caussaude.)

4.  Slow down, you move too fast. Again this is not a new learning for me but it's one I forget too often. I have mostly been a driven person, most of my life, and that's a part of my make-up. (Although I do find in the latter part of my fifties has made this way less true than it was when I was thirty. Another post,for another time...) Driven people have "places to go." Fast. I became a father at twenty-seven years old. I can remember walking with my son, Graham, who never wanted to go in a straight line or get to where we were going fast. I might have felt like the goal was to walk to a park where there was a swing and Graham would be happy when we did that but he was just as happy seeing all there was to see "on the way." He, and later his younger brother James, became teachers of mine because they slowed down my pace. And I saw things I would otherwise have missed. That has been happening for me again on daily walks. My pace has moved from driving on the Mass Pike speeds to walking, and I don't move as fast as I once did. It's amazing what you notice when you slow down.

6. There is beauty all around us. When you do slow down (especially in April in New England) you notice signs of new life. Certainly in nature. You hear the birds of the air, and you see the green blade rising as the earth comes back to life again. But it's also in people. We have some neighborhood kids who have taken to writing inspirational messages in chalk on the sidewalk, and painting stones and leaving them around with one word messages like joy, and hope, and love, and peace. New England is not known for it's southern hospitality. Normally, if you walk past someone who is coming the other way it is not considered (too) rude to look away. Really warm outgoing people look up, and smile. I'm only kidding a little bit. I always experience culture shock in the south. But that's been different lately. A lot of people are out there walking and slowing down and I think craving human interaction. And so people smile even if you only see it in their eyes since they are wearing a mask. People say "hello in there" even if it's from a safe, responsible distance. Life really is beautiful.

6. My life can be even simpler. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not really into "stuff." We have a nice home but we still mostly have the furniture we bought when we were newlyweds. I drive a Hybrid RAV-4; I love that car but it's quite practical. I only buy new clothes when the old ones wear out or don't fit any more. We do love to travel, and being in seclusion has not taken away my desire to travel more. In fact, I can't wait to go somewhere. My passions are good wine and good food and I'm happy to go out for those, but more often it's home-cooked for us. I do still believe, more than a month into being secluded and more than ever, that life is too short to drink cheap wine. During this time I've resumed a very old habit (going back to seminary) of baking bread. In other words, I don't feel a call to Franciscan poverty but I do feel a rekindled awareness to commit, or recommit, to living simply so that others may simply live. I am even more aware than ever that I don't live on the edge of poverty, and therefore even more grateful for daily bread. It is enough.

7. Ayn Rand was an idiot (and so is Rand Paul.) Every political and social theory has something to teach us, I suppose. But libertarianism is for selfish juvenile narcissists. John Donne got it right: no man is an island. No woman either. We need more than individual rights and this pandemic reminds us just why public health and good social policy and the greater good matter. Should we worry when individual rights are restricted? Of course. But individual rights are not the only good. We rely on one another and there really are "essential" workers out there to whom we all owe a huge debt of gratitude now and when this is behind us. And when we don't pay those essential workers a livable wage; shame on us. We have to have a serious conversation in our neighborhoods and in this nation about our core values. And that's got to be about more than a distortion of the second amendment that leads to a fetishization of guns and a fixation on individual liberties over the common good. That is never what made this country great. Not even close.

8. Leadership matters. I'm not talking about partisan politics here but this does follow from number seven. Politics is one place where leadership can be exercised, or abused. It is not the president's fault that COVID-19 exists or even that it has spread. But it is his fault that he failed to listen to the scientists and it is his fault that he failed to act, and it is his fault that he has used his briefings to replace his rallies, to berate and belittle the press who are trying to do their jobs. He seems to be immune from learning from his mistakes. In contrast, I would offer two governors from two different parties and with two different styles: Andrew Cuomo of New York and Charlie Baker of Massachussetts. Neither one is perfect. But both are smart enough, and both understand, either by who they are or by what they have learned to be non-anxious in the midst of a crisis: to listen, to learn, to lead. Of course there are many others in less visible places. And there are other governors out there - again from both parties. But I offer these two as examples of what it looks like. We can argue policy after this is all over but the thing is that you could sit down in a room with Andrew Cuomo and Charlie Baker and have an intelligent conversation about policy because both of them are leaders. As a nation we need to have that again in Washington.

9. It is indeed a small world, after all. We need bridges, not walls, to survive together. Even if you shut down flights from China to the United States, viruses can come in from Europe. Even if you shut down Europe, viruses can travel from coast to coast. We can get through this time of flattening the curve, but when it's all over we need to find ways to be more committed to global health and the work of the World Health Organization, not less. We need to be more committed to the work of the United Nations, not America first. What happens halfway around the world has the potential to affect the whole planet and this includes climate change, pandemics, the economy and just about everything else. We are connected. No man or woman is an island; no nation, either.

10. Simple acts of kindness bring meaning to our days. No one reading this needs me to tell you this, I'm sure. But we can all do with reminders. We need to be gentle with each other - always but especially now. Everything feels "magnified"- both good and bad. If someone is really struggling but can't get their stuff together and takes it out on someone else, that spreads as surely as COVID-19. And if someone offers a kind word, a smile, a roll of toilet paper, that spreads too. In the midst of big challenges, it is still the little things that make all the difference. In the midst of physical distancing we can all find ways to reconnect socially. Not too long ago I walked into a virtual bar with three high school friend on Zoom. We toasted each other and had a drink together and we told old stories. Would we have preferred to meet up in person? Of course. But even in normal times the logistics of that happening when we live in Virginia and New Jersey and Massachusetts and Vermont. So we carved out forty minutes or so and we had a beer together. Simple and powerful. For me there have been similar stories with extended family at Easter; I thought our table was shrunk down to two but in fact we "saw" more family than we ever could have fit in our dining room. Finding ways to connect with family, friends, and strangers doesn't negate hardship but it does begin to make meaning.

My Top Ten COVID-19 Learnings (So Far) - Church Version

The past month, for me, began with some period of feeling totally numb and paralyzed. It all felt so surreal for a while, like death does. Like something you'd wake up from and discover it was just a dream. But a month has now passed...

We're still in uncharted territory. That's an overused expression, but I think it actually works here. These weeks have been different from the days after 9/11, or of personal loss, or of the days after the Boston Marathon bombing. At least for me they have. I have no real reference points from life before COVID-19 to make sense of this post COVID-19 experience. 

I must add (as I do whenever I'm asked how I'm doing) that I am so clearly experiencing all of this from a place of incredible privilege. Both my wife and I are working remotely, from a comfortable home, with no loss in income and probably lowered expenses. We may feel stir-crazy, but we have our health and we are safe. Our nest is empty; yet as much as I miss our grown sons every single day, I'm glad they have their own spaces, and their own work, and that they are also safe. My heart goes out to colleagues with young children who are doing what I'm doing but also trying to balance that with parenting and sharing space. I'm sure that's overwhelming. Not to mention those who are out of work, and those who are unsafe in their own homes, and those who are sick and dying.

All I can really reflect on is what I can see, from where I stand (or in fact, most of the time, sit.) But as time goes on, my brain moves on from disbelief to questions. What is there to learn from all of this? What am I noticing about myself and others in the midst of it? I'm pretty confident that there is no going "back to normal" again and I'm embracing that. But what I am trying to do is begin to get some sense of what a "new normal" might look like, even if it's premature to flesh that out yet.

What has happened for me beyond those initial early weeks of feeling like I'd been hit by a train has been a desire to begin to just pay attention. I write these posts mostly for myself anyway, because writing helps me to think and also to remember. But perhaps others will find some resonances here as well, which is why I'm happy to share them. I would be grateful to hear how your experiences and learnings are both similar and different from mine. 

I am certain that as soon as I click "publish" on this post I'll have second thoughts, and third thoughts - or at least new insights. This is not finished. I'm not reflecting back on something that happened, but trying to reflect on something that is very much still unfolding - something we are still in the middle of. We've been trying to flatten the curve but what happens if we try to "get back to normal" prematurely and the whole thing starts up again? There are a lot of unknown unknowns.

But I also need to do this kind of interior work, beyond immediate crisis management. I prefer this stage, if that's what it is, to immediate crises, which I find so incredibly disorienting. Perhaps this post will spark some conversation, even if it's mostly internal dialogue with myself. So here goes:

1. I have never been prouder to be among the clergy in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. I've been a priest in this diocese for twenty-two years. Throughout all of that time, we regularly gather four times a year: for a fall and winter clergy day, to renew our ordination vows on the Tuesday in Holy Week and for Clergy Conference. This year we renewed our vows on Zoom in a truncated, but very powerful liturgy. There, and in the weekly video-conference meetings our Bishop has been hosting, I've seen vulnerable, authentic, real human beings. No grandstanding, or at least very little of it. For those who don't spend a lot of time with clergy, this is a welcome and perhaps new thing. Our preacher at Renewal of Vows reminded us that there has been a leveling, and we are all learning together There is no room for an aging priest to lecture a baby priest on "how things used to be, back in the day." This has been a great gift. Often when I'm in a congregation I'm there to preach or there with the bishop who is preaching and presiding. It's rare for me to see so many colleagues "in action." I've joked that every time I go on Facebook, several of them are live! Each has found different ways to respond, not surprisingly. Some are more comfortable than others with social media platforms. But all are seeking to be faithful in a difficult time and I have incredible respect for that. It's allowing us to strengthen community.

2. Keeping the Sabbath holy really is possible, and it has never been more important to do so. I never thought I'd say this, but I am missing my commute on the Mass Pike. Really. Because in that space, in my car (usually with music playing) I had transition time built in to each day. Occasionally I'd take calls, but I tried to never do that in both directions. Working from home seems great, and it is in many ways. And I'm grateful for work that can be done this way. But there are less clear boundaries between work and home life. My wife has also been working remotely, so we are sharing our living space in new ways. For me it has become even more necessary, therefore, to create a "space in time" when I'm not at work,  which has the danger of becoming 24/7. There is a reason we limit our kids' screen time, and Zooming from 8 am to 6 pm may be necessary for a season. But it isn't good on the eyes, the body, or the soul. My colleagues in parochial ministry are working harder to figure out how to spread the good news right now and I watched them take on Holy Week in powerful ways. Yet this makes rest even more vital, and it's not something our culture - even too often church culture - values. But we must learn to mark time in new ways so that we don't confuse work and life. If God could rest on the seventh day and say "enough" and if our Jewish friends can keep the Sabbath holy, so, too can we who claim to follow Jesus in the Way of Love. And we must.

3. Virtual coffee hour may be more fun than the way we've always done it.  I keep hearing from lay people and clergy alike that they are not only trying to make worship work on-line, but that they are also doing coffee hour as well. Now over the past seven years, I've been a guest (and not the pastor) at many coffee hours. (The ones in person, I mean.) The coffee is almost always too weak for my taste and there are always way too many carbs and sugar on the table being pushed by someone who proudly baked them. No one wears a name tag because "we all know each other" here. (I've perfected the blank stare at this comment, when I have no idea with whom I'm speaking. Sometimes I say, 'I'm Rich Simpson" and they say, "I know who you are!") So coffee in your own home, with a screen and lots of people with name (tags!) attached: is this how they do coffee hour in heaven? It also breaks up the small group of insiders over in the corner. And it makes gossip much harder although if you wish you can still have a side-bar chat. But in all seriousness (and I am being quite serious now) as with number one this is about building authentic community. I think when we do get back to gathering in person some people may still prefer to do coffee hour virtually. But the real challenge will be to remember what we've learned and do it in new ways.

4. Church really is about the people, not the building. I learned this in Sunday School. And yet too much time at too many vestry meetings is focused on the buildings, and trying to maintain buildings that worked in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. We get sidetracked from doing the work to which we are called in the twenty-first century. The disruptions that this pandemic is causing in detaching us from the buildings for a season may help us eventually to remember this truth and act on it, as long as we don't rush back there as quickly as possible at the end of all of this to sit in the same pew we've always sat in. The building is made for the people; not the people for the building. And the buildings are meant to serve the larger ministry, not be the only ministry. It has always been true, but it's a hard truth to reach gradually. We have a congregation in our diocese - one of the healthiest and most interesting - that had to deal with the collapse of one whole side of their building one year. They moved out and into a pub on Sunday mornings. Kudos to them. But it's much harder for a vestry to decide to do that if it isn't because of a catastrophic event. In most mainline denominations we need fewer buildings to do the work to which we are called in this time and place. If we do this right we may find ourselves more open to that possibility. But we cannot be in a rush to return to "normal" or we'll miss it.

5. Disruptive change levels the playing field. My friend and colleague who preached this year at our Zoom Renewal of Vows Service noted that since we are all in uncharted territory, it matters less who has been ordained for forty years and who has been ordained for two months. None of us learned how to do this work in seminary. Which means that we are all now learners together. That's a wise statement and I've been in too  many settings where the "old timers" love to tell the newbies how things should be done, or how they used to be done in the "glory days." And, to be honest, the reverse happens too: where people ordained a minute and a half seem unaware of how much they still have to learn and that it takes the Holy Spirit a while to make a priest, longer than just the time the Bishop lays hands on their head. This kind of experience challenges our myopia and makes us learners together, always with God's help. I learned the language about seven years ago when I transitioned from parochial to diocesan ministry of traditioned innovation and disruptive innovation. Simply put, there are times when gradual change rooted in the cultural context works, and I admit I'm way more comfortable with that kind of incremental change. But there are times when disruptions cause radical, more revolutionary change. When change is forced. This is normally not the kind of change the average Episcopalian likes. But sometimes, when we can't always get what we want, we get what we need.

6. Regardless of what General Convention may say, there is life after 1979. I was attracted to, and welcomed into, a Eucharistic-centered denomination shaped by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It's clear in the vision behind those liturgies that Holy Eucharist became the normative liturgy for Sundays. And not without costs. Because while I admittedly came in after the fact, I saw the pain that what felt like a disruptive innovation to many congregations caused. They liked Morning Prayer three Sundays a month! And generations of Episcopalians had been shaped by the 1928 Prayerbook and the ones that came before it. It seemed to many of those folks that The Episcopal Church was becoming "too catholic." As I said, I came in after all of that. So I will mourn the loss of this relatively new norm of weekly Eucharist, but it's upon us for lots of reasons, and this pandemic has given us a glimpse of what is to come. Watching folks freak out about that as if without the Sacrament they can't be Episcopalians is troubling. Eucharist is important, to be sure. But we are a tradition rooted in Word and Sacrament and perhaps we have neglected the Word a bit over the past forty years. We will get beyond this pandemic but when we do, we still won't have enough priests to serve every congregation in every building every week. So we will need to imagine worship in new ways. This pandemic is giving us a jump start. It also reminds us that Eucharist-centered has made us clergy-centered, or at least clergy-dependent. But lay people can lead Morning or Evening Prayer or Compline. And we can still be the Church. We may or may not need a new Prayerbook to do that; but we need a new vision.

7. A greater awareness of, and solidarity with, those for whom isolation is the norm. I was walking by an older woman the other day, working in her yard, and overheard a conversation she had with a neighbor who was walking by. She said, "well, this is not that different for me...pretty much my norm." She looked healthy, but probably late seventies or early eighties. She was not housebound, but what I heard her saying was that she doesn't get out much. As my own walk continued I prayed for those in Nursing Homes, and hospitals, and all for whom social distancing is normative for their lives: the lonely and forgotten. As a pastor I got a glimpse into that when I'd visit shut-ins. But most of us don't think that much about it until we get there. Maybe there is an opportunity for us to remember when we get back to going to and fro, that there are many who don't have that luxury. John Prine, who died of this disease recently, has an incredible song called Hello In There. He laments in that song how old trees grow stronger and old rivers grow wider, but old people just grow lonesome. Perhaps our experience with loneliness during this time will make us more willing, going forward, to say "hello in there, hello."

8. We need to flex and exercise our resiliency muscle. I used to Chair the Commission on Ministry, back in the early part of this century and my current role keeps me close to the ordination process. I have often said there is one trait I look for above all others in potential priests, and it is resiliency. Ordained ministry is not so much about how smart we are, or how skilled we are; it's about how we bounce back from disappointment or hurt. The more narcissistic and conflict-resistant the potential cleric is, the more concerned I get that they will never learn how to flex this muscle. This pandemic has forced us, however, to all try new things and to break out of long-established patterns. I heard one priest speaking of his own prehistoric brain and how it hurt for him to be on Facebook Live. But he was doing it. He was trying it. If we can learn from what we have learned, we may all be more resilient after this pandemic ends. I spend a lot of time with clergy but I think that this is a life-skill; one I hope my kids have. And yet unlike math or history, it's a lot harder to teach. Life is the teacher here. There is a prayer of thanksgiving in The Book of Common Prayer (page 836) that thanks God for disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on God alone. I think that kind of wisdom has something to do with resiliency, especially when our temptation is be ashamed ourselves, or to blame someone else.

9.  Learning new skills is possible. This relates to the one above. but I think it's different. The opposite of resilient, I think, is to become bitter and brittle. When we go that way we are unable to learn new things; we long for the past when we are convinced that life was so much better. Nostalgia doesn't open us up, however, to doing new things. Flexing our resiliency muscle creates space within us to take some risks and to try new things. And even when we fail, to learn and grow.  Failure may be a better teacher than success. I've been learning to bake sourdough bread. I mostly learn by reading and mostly I've got decades of successes in the kitchen; I can show you pictures of beautiful plates of food I've posted on Facebook to prove it, too! But sourdough is a real challenge. Recently I watched a Youtube video which pretty much showed me that even when I thought I'd had some success I'm mostly doing it wrong. But here's the thing: my work days are busier than ever but my workplace isn't an hour away. Sourdough bread takes patience and some time but it's not labor intensive. My mother just bought an I-Pad after learning how to Zoom across three generations. It turns out you can teach old dogs new tricks. They just need to be willing to try. Like learning to ride a bike, or playing the piano, or learning a foreign language. It's much more about a willingness to try (and fail) than to be super-talented. Most of us aren't super-talented.

10. Return to purpose. I think this is the payoff, really, and I've buried the lead. We do a lot of things in the church the way we do them because we have always done them. Why do we do that Church Fair or Apple Festival? Because Jesus started it on the last night of his earthly life, right? Maybe because we can no longer balance the budget without it. Maybe because we don't have the imagination to think about doing something new. Bake sales are notoriously ineffective ways to raise money, I've learned. The bakers go out and buy everything to donate and then show up and buy their friends' baked goods, who return the favor. I'm not saying there is not a purpose to doing this; the purpose may be fellowship. But if the purpose was to raise money there are much better ways for congregations to do that,. And again I know congregations; that's what I get paid to think about. But it's true in my own life and it's true in other kinds of work. We can get on autopilot. We can forget what we meant to do be about. The word purpose includes the root, pur, which is related to the word pyr, as in pyrotechnics. That is, purpose is about the fire in our bellies. Theologically, purpose is about the fire of the Holy Spirit and of Pentecost. Purpose returns us to our "why?" Why do we do what we do? Whom does it serve? Is it life-giving?

In closing, and on this last point in particular, I commend to you the wisdom I found in a recent article published in The Guardian, which can be found here. The writer spent two decades in prison. She shares here what that isolation taught her about life, and writes:

Solitude challenges you to look at things differently. Before prison, my worldview had been rather limited and selfish. I was known to throw terrible tantrums as I tried to bend reality to my will, but peace depended on my bending to reality. Life wasn’t all about me. I had to learn what was within my control and what wasn’t. I also discovered that time exists in relation to an emotion or experience, and it slowed or sped according to my ability to be present. So, I learned how to flow with it, not rushing nor procrastinating, but fully engaged in whatever was before me…What did that look like? It was as simple as just paying attention. I read books carefully. I listened to others deeply. I stopped mindlessly flipping through the channels of my mind. I gave my full attention to every activity, no matter how small it might be. Full engagement strengthened my gratitude, and gratitude strengthened my will.

The Light of Dawn

"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb . . .”  (John 20:1) 

There’s an old Hasidic tale that goes like this:

The rabbi asks: “how can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends, and the day begins?”One of his students suggests that it is dawn when, from a distance, you can distinguish between a dog and a sheep.“No,” the rabbi responds. “You know it is almost dawn when you can look into the face of human beings, and you have enough light in you to recognize them as your sister or brother. Until that time, it is still night, and the darkness is still with us.”

Notice that Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb just before dawn.  She has come very early on Sunday morning to do the work that could not be done on the Sabbath; to prepare her friend’s body for burial. But it is still dark outside. After discovering the body is not there, and as the sun comes up, she looks into the face of a gardener. In her grief she is initially unable to see the face of Jesus. But then she does. And her life is changed for good. 

That is the power of the Resurrection. And that is the good news of Easter. The tomb is empty. Jesus is not there. But as Mary turns to speak with a stranger, she sees her friend, and she hears his voice. 

By the dawn’s early light, she sees the face of Christ in the face of the gardener. How do we know the hour of dawn? When it is light enough for us to see in the face of the other a brother or sister.

Almost all of the Resurrection narratives take the same shape. My personal favorite is the story about those travelers on the road to Emmaus. It's later in the day in that story. But there, too, it is in the face of a stranger (and then in the breaking and sharing of the bread) that their eyes are opened and they see the face of Christ. Were not our hearts burning within us? Which I think is a way of saying that the heart often knows what is real before our minds can process it. 

We know too well the darkness of the world and of our own lives, a darkness that provides cover for so much fear and pain and death. Most days, we feel (or at least I confess that I feel) powerless against all of that darkness.

It took me a long time to get used to the Easter Vigil as a liturgy. I grew up with a more Protestant Easter Sunrise Service. And that also has meaning and beauty. But after multiple trips to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem I have come to see how important that holy fire is, especially to Orthodox Christians and by extension to those of us in the west for whom the Easter Vigil has become meaningful. In the west we tend to associate the candles with Christmas Eve and singing Silent Night in a dark church very near to the midnight hour, just a few days after the Winter Solstice. But the meaning is the same at Easter and throughout the liturgical year: the Light of Christ has come into the world. We who have walked through darkness have seen this great light. And we know in our hearts (and sometimes in our heads, too) that the darkness cannot overcome it.

Although this year we won't huddle around that fire, we will do so again, as Christians have done for centuries. We will light that Paschal candle which burns not only throughout the fifty days but at every Baptism and every funeral throughout the year. It reminds us of who God is, and of whom we are called to become. With God's help.Whether at Christmas or at the next Easter Vigil, we'll light our little beeswax candles again and watch the flames dance, little tiny reminders of of what the dawn brings. We light our candles and the light shines in the darkness. 

So we pray on this Easter for enough light to take hold in us that we might see Christ face-to-face; that we might see our brother, Jesus, in the face of our friends and family. And then, in practicing that, to look for him alive in the world in the face of our neighbors, and eventually even in the faces of strangers. When we can see God there, then we, too, will know it is almost dawn.

In that learning we rediscover Easter faith that could never be boxed into buildings in the first place. Yes, there is grief, to be sure at what we have lost this Lent and Holy Week. But we can still pray, even now (especially now) for God to make us an Easter people. And not for our own sake, but for the sake of this world. We pray that the light of Christ might continue to shine in and through our lives as all until the whole creation is made new, and the dawn breaks, and we make our song again:

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!

Saturday Waiting

A version of this post appeared earlier this month as a 21st Century Congregations article for the diocese I serve. It's been edited here, for this holy day and this context.

We are a people shaped by the Paschal Mystery: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.  

Those familiar words flow easily off of our tongues. The challenge is for them to become not only what we profess with our lips but how we live our lives, in our vocation to become an Easter people.

This Holy Week we have been discovering some new ways to proclaim this old truth, because the fact of the matter is that God is (still) making all things new even as the Church takes a break from gathering for public worship. It was never our public worship that made Easter true. Rather, knowing that the Lord is risen indeed, we gathered with grateful hearts to make our song and to give thanks. 

We will do that again. But for now, our buildings will be empty. Like the empty tomb.

For many years now, I’ve been fascinated by Holy Saturday. As a parish priest, there are so many liturgies to plan for that by Easter morning, when we proclaim that Christ is risen, often the clergy need a nap. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil are all complicated liturgies. And often more than one each day. And then Easter morning. And then our Bishop rightly reminds us to keep up the Momentum the following week and through the fifty days! Fair enough.

But tucked in there is a little one-page liturgy that I used to use with the altar guild and those who would be participating in the Easter Vigil later on Holy Saturday. I’d plan to take a few minutes for us all to catch our breaths and then the altar guild would decorate and we’d do a run through of the Vigil on Saturday morning. You can find the liturgy on page 283 of The Book of Common Prayer . Check it out if you don’t already know it.

It is small, but mighty. It’s totally unpretentious. In fact it’s probably the most humble little liturgy in the entire BCP: the "little engine that could" service. The rubric at the top of the page reminds us that there is no celebration of the Eucharist on this day between the observance of the crucifixion and the Vigil.

Holy Saturday is about waiting. A simple collect asks God that “we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life.” Readings, a brief homily, and then “in place of the Prayers of the People, the Anthem, “In the midst of life.” Then the Lord’s Prayer and the Grace. That’s it. The Anthem comes from the Burial Office – you’ve got to turn the page to 492 to get there.



            In the midst of life we are in death;

           from whom can we seek help?

           From you alone, O Lord…

Saturday waiting. On the Sabbath day. It seems to me to be an appropriate metaphor for this Easter in particular. We know about death. We see too much of it in our lives. Yet we live in hope for new life, for the promise of the empty tomb. We are shaped by the good news of Easter and called to live toward that love that never fails.

But so much of our lives is in-between. Waiting for the school bus. Waiting to hear the results of a lab test. Waiting for it to be safe enough to re-open our churches and our favorite restaurant. Waiting. Waiting. 

Waiting can raise our anxiety, and make us fearful. Yet we can also wait in hope. In the midst of life we are in death, but we know where to look for help. And so we wait for the coming of the third day, so that we might rise with him to newness of life. We can practice waiting toward Easter. We can practice waiting in ways that open our hearts to the new thing God is calling us toward, rather than the old thing which allows us to return to “normal.”

This is a time of incredible grief and loss. And also of trauma, which affects us each differently. My own personal coping mechanisms: prayer, getting enough sleep, getting some exercise, blogging and especially cooking don’t seem to be enough. Or maybe more accurately are only just barely enough for one day at a time.

Holy Saturday waiting. We don’t know where we will be in July, or in October. No one is sure how far out to cancel things. But here is the truth – the truth of embracing the Paschal Mystery: we never know. We are only now more acutely aware of what is always true: that we get one day at a time. Going back to the Sinai Wilderness, God has been working hard to teach God’s often stubborn people that lesson again and again with the bread. Give us this day, our daily bread…

We are not God. That job is taken. We are not masters of even our own lives. We preachers have some sense of what to say in our congregations on Good Friday. And we have some sense of what to say on Easter morning. But right now we are living in-between. We are waiting.

May that short, simple liturgy point us toward waiting in hope, and with courage, and with love, trusting that all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Just not on our timetable. 

Why This Friday is Good

In the first track of the album, “Wrecking Ball,” Bruce Springsteen’s tone is a mix of irony, sarcasm and anger as he sings: 

I've been knockin' on the door that holds the throne / I've been lookin' for the map that leads me home / I've been stumblin' on good hearts turned to stone / The road of good intentions has gone dry as bone / We take care of our own…

From Chicago to New Orleans / From the muscle to the bone / From the shotgun shack to the Superdome / We yelled "help" but the cavalry stayed home / There ain't no-one hearing the bugle blown / We take care of our own

Then follows a barrage of questions: 

• Where are the eyes, the eyes with the will to see? 
• Where are the hearts that run over with mercy?
• Where are the hearts that run over with mercy? 
• Where's the love that has not forsaken me?
• Where's the work that’ll set my hands, my soul free?
• Where's the spirit that'll reign, reign over me?

Now this is not a commercial to buy that album, although if you don't have it, you should, because it really is very good. It is to say that those hard questions take us to the very heart of our faith and to the heart of why it is that we call this Friday good. 

Where are the eyes? Where are the hearts? Where’s the love? What is the work, guided by the Spirit, to which we are called?

Jesus says: if you love God, then you will love your neighbor. And conversely, when you show love to your neighbor, to even the least of these among you, then you are doing it to me. You cannot separate love of God from love of neighbor because they are two sides to one coin.

On the last night of his life, Jesus gives final instructions to those who wish to follow him. In washing their feet, he says: love one another, as I have loved you. Clear enough? Well, just in case, before he takes his last breath...

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Those who mean to follow Jesus are called to “take care of our own.” But we need to be clear that “our own” extends beyond the walls of any church building or national boundaries in all directions: north, south, east and west. “Our own” includes all of God’s children, created in God’s own image. Everybody. No exceptions. 

The disciple took her into his own home and made her his own mother. We never stand at the foot of the cross alone. Jesus invites us into communion not only with God on this Friday, but with one another. The spiritual journey that takes us deeper into the heart of God is never a private matter; it is a matter of opening our eyes and our hearts to neighborly love.

Jesus stretches his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross so that everyone might come within the reach of his saving embrace. And then, so that we might reach forth our hands in love to everyone we meet. Behold your mother. Behold your son. Take care of each other. 

The empty tomb is God's yes to all of this, yes to love which is stronger than death. But it shouldn't come as a surprise because in his living, and in his dying, Jesus is about the Way of Love from the beginning to the end of his life. 

God so loved the world…that death is conquered. God so loved the world, that Christ is victorious over sin and death, so that neither height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will ever again be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 8:39)

• Where are the eyes with the will to see? 
• Where are the hearts that run over with mercy? 
• Where's the love that has not forsaken us? 
• Where's the work that’ll set our hands, our soul free? 
• Where's the Spirit that'll reign over us?

Behold your mother and behold your son. Behold your father and behold your daughter.  If you love God, then take care of each other.