Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost 2020

Matthew 15:10-28

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13 Jesus answered, “Every plant that God has not planted will be uprooted.

14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” 15 But Peter said to Jesus, “Explain this parable to us.” 16 Then Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
21 Then Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But Jesus did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 Jesus answered her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 Jesus answered her, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 The woman said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Healing God,

We are needy people.

Above all, we need measures of your love and care.

Give to us, even the crumbs…

All that you have promised.

That we might share even that with a starving world.

Amen.

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You’ve heard me mention before from this pulpit that the first time I ever wore my clerical collar was at a rally for marriage equality in downtown Chicago in 2013. It was a strange feeling, putting on a piece of clothing that held such importance for me for the first time while getting ready to put myself as an ally into a place and during a time that had such importance for so many people that I love so much. The whole moment had a heightened feeling of consequence. It was as if I understood in a much deeper way the weight and the heaviness and the significance my words and my actions have when I wear this collar.

I put my shirt on carefully and purposefully that morning.

I still take a little bit extra time and a little extra care every time I button up my clerical and put my collar on. I do so even prayerfully.

I’ve also mentioned before from this pulpit how I grew to really dislike parades. We grew up watching the big Thanksgiving Day parades in New York, but as a Texas band kid who had to march 4th of July parades in 100° heat and bowl game parades in college, I find very little redeeming about parades as a participant. Don’t get me wrong, parades are still nice to watch, I just don’t love marching in them. Although, I will admit that my experiences are fairly singular, so please don’t let my dislike of them sour you on parades if they’re your cup of tea. They’re just not mine.

So it’s a bit of surprise, then, that I would wear that same shirt with the same collar a few months later, the first weekend of June, at Chicago’s annual Pride Parade. Placing myself in a position to march alongside my colleagues and beloved friends, to do the thing that I had grown to greatly dislike. But also again putting my self and my body in a position of ally-ship with those friends and colleagues of mine that I love so very much and care for so deeply.

Ultimately, my love of my people, I hold dear far outweighed whatever residual disdain I may have still been carrying with me about parades.

Ultimately…it was love that won out.

It was important to me to demonstrate that I know and recognize that the church has done a tremendous amount of harm to the LGBTQIA2+ community, and showing up to march in Chicago’s Pride Parade as a person who, at that time was studying and learning to be a pastor, I was committing myself to apologize for the harm done by people and institutions that this collar represents, and I was demonstrating I would not be that kind of leader, nor would I lead that kind of church.

It was another holy moment for me. One filled with the same kind of gravitas and consequence I feel every time I wear my collar.

But then something else happened…

We started marching. The parade started.

And all of a sudden, I was swept up in pure joy and unashamed and unmeasured happiness and light and beauty and whimsy.

The energy was pulsing and the music was blaring, and everyone was caught up in this giant, magnificent, jubilant celebration.

It was completely beyond my ability to describe.

Pure joy.

And folks will tell you, and I can confirm in my own experiences, that every. single. Pride Parade everywhere is that same expression of exuberant and beautiful joy.

And what folks who know will also tell you…is that the first Pride didn’t have all the blaring music and bubbles and streamers and jubilation.

The first Pride was, quite literally, a riot.

On June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a violent clash erupted between an excessively aggressive police force and LGBTQIA2+ individuals after an unannounced police raid went badly wrong and violence escalated between the police and the bar patrons.

And the very next year, 1970, the first Pride Parades took place in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Out of something so painful…out of so much hurt and grief…something beautiful was able to grow and flourish.

That’s a long lead-in, but our 2 readings from Genesis and Matthew both highlight what can happen when space is made for beauty to grow, especially from places of hurt and pain and ugliness and grief.

Sarah and Abraham were old, y’all. Like, much older than anyone in our congregation. Maybe you personally know someone who’s passed the century-mark. The point is, they were way past what would be considered to be child-bearing age. And we know that Sarah herself, at least up until this point, hasn’t been able to have children. That’s why we have Abraham and Hagar, and Hagar gives birth to Ishmael.

So Sarah’s gone her whole life up to this point, carrying around this grief and this pain of not being able to have children. And you need to know that’s a deeply hurtful thing to weigh on your soul, especially for women. 1 in 8 couples in the US struggle with infertility. And that number is growing rapidly in recent years. It’s not uncommon at all. I know it’s a hurtful thing, because we, too, struggled with getting pregnant. (But we talked to our doctors, got a referral and some tests done, tried a few different things, and now we have a beautiful 1-year-old who’s…mostly…a joy to be around…he’s much more pleasant when he sleeps as long as he should…truthfully we’re all more pleasant when we get the sleep we need…) And look, I don’t want to gloss over it either. We sought help and we were lucky and we were very fortunate that it worked for us. There are some for whom it doesn’t work.

But what I found is that certainly in our joy, but most especially and most poignantly in our struggle, that God was there.

That’s probably the greatest gift of Lutheran understanding to our human condition—that God is most especially present in our times of struggle and hurt and pain—because God, in Christ, was crucified on a Roman cross. God died…so that we would be assured beyond a shadow of a doubt that God knows…God has felt…God has experienced…the deepest and the most painful parts of us humans.

So, it’s into the midst of this hurt and grief that Sarah’s carried around, and honestly, probably mostly reconciled with at this stage in her life…here comes God into the midst of this, bringing up old wounds and deep hurts, promising children. And so it’s no wonder Sarah chuckles to herself, honestly, it was probably more of a…*ppfffttt*…a dismissal of the whole thing. And honestly, if it were me, it’d probably be mixed with a little bit of anger at God for digging around in a wound that very well may have been scarred over at that point.

But the promise is made nonetheless. And later Sarah does give birth to Isaac.

Out of something so painful…out of so much hurt and grief…something beautiful was able to grow and flourish.

In our gospel reading, maybe you struggled with the words you heard come out of Jesus’ mouth. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel…it is not good or fair to take food from the children and give it to the dogs.” Did…did Jesus just call this woman a dog…?

Well…yes…truthfully… At least that what’s recorded as having been said, and the original Greek bears this out, so we’re not even saved there by a textual interpretation.

It’s important to know that, particularly in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus very explicitly understands his ministry as singularly for the Jewish people. The gospel of Matthew was written to a predominantly Jewish community, so this was seen as good news. Jesus was a Rabbi, he never stopped being Jewish. “Christianity” wasn’t even a thing until 70 years after Jesus was crucified and raised. The Jesus movement was a reform movement within Judaism. Even Paul’s version of being a Christ-follower was understood as being within the constructs of Judaism. And it wasn’t until about the year 100, that Christ-believers in Antioch started calling themselves “Christians.”

Which is to say, that this Gentile woman from Canaan would have been outside the promises of God anyway. And if you remember your biblical history, you’ll remember that God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites, and allowed the Israelites to conquer the Canaanites, and frankly, to murder them. And so the Israelites justified their horrible actions by saying it was God who approved of their plan, so how could it be wrong…but if you were a Canaanite, I bet you’d be pretty skeptical…

So when this Canaanite woman hears Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi, calling her a dog, you can bet it ticked her off. But then she counters with this beautifully back-handed line… ”Yes, Lord…but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table…”

Give me a crumb, Jesus. Just a morsel.

My daughter is tormented…give us just a measure of what we’ve heard you can do.

And in this moment, Jesus is changed.

God changes God’s mind.

God, in Jesus, is human, after all…and as humans, we change. The Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney says, “To be human is to learn and grow and change, to open up our hearts and minds, expand our beliefs and relinquish our biases.” Jesus shares this with us.

Give me a crumb, Jesus. Just a morsel.

We’re not celebrating communion every Sunday during this pandemic, but we remember what a crumb, what a morsel, feels like in our hands. We know how sustaining, how healing, a crumb can be.

Jesus proves his own words in this gospel story, “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of one’s mouth that defiles.” We would do well, I think, to watch what we say more carefully. Our tongues and our ways of speaking to one another get us in a lot of trouble.

And through her persistence, this woman’s daughter is released from her torment.

Out of something so painful…out of so much hurt and grief…something beautiful was able to grow and flourish.

In our Council Meeting this week, for our Devotional Time, I asked our Council to talk about when they encountered moments of joy or surprise or blessing during this time of pandemic, in recent months and weeks. What was interesting is that everyone was able to name where they had seen beauty springing up in the midst of so much uncertainty and loss.

There’s no shortage of grief and pain, hurt and loss, during this pandemic.

But I wonder where you’ve experienced joy and beauty.

Can you point to a time? Can you point to maybe a handful of instances?

We don’t always have eyes to see beauty and joy in the moment.

But what if we could learn how to be more attentive to it?

What if we could strive to see the world through those eyes of blessing, noticing even the crumbs and morsels of joy and happiness?

As we heard a couple of weeks ago, it may not seem like much more than a few crumbs of bread or some tiny little morsels of fish…but we heard what God can do with those…

Where have you seen beauty, church?

Where have you experienced joy in this struggle?

It’s there…even if it’s just the crumbs…

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost 2020

Matthew 14:22-33

22 Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after Jesus had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning Jesus came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, here I am; do not be afraid.”
28 Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

30 But when Peter noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Healing God,

When storms rage and our doubts rise up,

Reach out and save us.

Call our names

And remind us we are yours.

Amen.

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At camp, every week, they would host a ruthless battle of grit, fortitude, grace, and nerves. This epic show of strength happened across the country, I’m sure, but for me, it happened at both church and Confirmation camp and at Boy Scout Summer Camp.

I have to say, the fierce competition was a bit more palatable at our church camp, Briarwood, in North Texas, than it was at Scout Summer Camp in a more northern clime, but it was tough nonetheless. And I, not because I have a single competitive bone in my body, but because I have a penchant for being goofy and certainly when I was younger, I’d do almost anything to draw attention to myself, I’d always sign up for this contest of sheer will and courage.

I’m talking about, of course, the Polar Bear Plunge…or the Polar Plunge, as you might know it.

The idea is really quite simple. Everyone wakes up ungodly early, before the sun; dresses for this fierce battle in their swimsuits; gathers around the pool or pond or lake; and jumps in the chilly water after it has cooled overnight and the sun hasn’t had a chance to warm it.

There aren’t really winners, per se, in this competition, unless you count the ones with more brain cells, smartly remaining dry around the perimeter of the body of water, laughing hysterically at those of us stupid enough to think that this was in any way, shape, or form a good idea.

Chicago has it’s own Polar Bear Plunge, by the way. I’m not sure at what point in my years I started developing more brain cells, but in our 4 years there, I never did take Chicago up on her offer to go running out into Lake Michigan pre-dawn on a morning at the beginning of March.

It was probably when I watched them preparing the spot for the Plunge on North Avenue Beach by driving an excavator out on the beach…to break up the ice along the shore.

Yeah…that was probably the moment I decided I didn’t really need to sign up for Chicago’s Plunge…

We have a tendency…a smart one…mostly…I think…to carefully assess the risk before engaging in any given activity.

Sure, I could run out into an iced-over Lake Michigan in my swimsuit, but why do that when I can watch others do it on my TV from my 75° apartment?

Sure, I could jump out of this airplane with this piece of nylon strapped to my back, but why do that when this ground I’m standing on feels so firm and steady?

Sure, I could speak up and say something when I see harassment or bullying happening…but why insert myself or get involved in something that doesn’t directly concern me…?

Right? Right…?

(I did say it’s mostly a smart tendency…not always… There are many good reasons to speak up when you see harassment or bullying happening…and I think we would all do well to muster up a bit more courage when we do see it.)

A well-known quote, with which I bet a good number of you are familiar, from author and professor John Augustus Shedd, notes that “A ship in harbor is safe…but that is not what ships are built for.”

The thing is, we are mostly safe on the shore, or in the boat, or in the basket, in Moses’ case, but that isn’t always where we’re called to stay.

Moses’ basket was his safety, but it’s in being given up that his life was saved and he would then grow up to be the great liberator of God’s people. Had Moses’ mother not set her child adrift, he would certainly have been murdered under Pharaoh’s orders. And it’s Moses that would learn to stand up to Pharoah and lead God’s people out of slavery and oppression and into God’s new vision of freedom and abundance.

Jesus calls Peter out of the boat. Now, it’s worth noting that Peter asks for it, right? “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” But still, Jesus obliges. Jesus beckons Peter out of the boat, into the waves.

We’re told not to make waves, not to rock the boat…but when has change happened without a little waving and rocking?

The connection statement between our reading from Exodus and Moses’ story to our Unraveled theme is When our plans for our children unravel.

Certainly, Moses’ mother could not have imagined that she’d set her son adrift in the river. But neither could she have imagined that he’d be rescued and taken in by Pharoah’s daughter. Or that her own daughter, Miriam, would find a way to reunite mother and son, at least for a time, by orchestrating that Moses’ mother would be his caretaker for Pharoah’s daughter. She certainly could not have imagined that her boy would grow up to be the great liberator of God’s people from the yoke of slavery in Egypt.

Or maybe she could have imagined…

After a year of being constantly surprised, I’m learning how to not underestimate my son, Oliver. He will always prove me wrong.

I am also learning that no imagination is too big when it comes to the dreams we have for our young ones. I deeply hope they learn from us that they truly can do and be anything. And I hope we truly learn that ourselves about our young people. I hope we learn to trust that ourselves.

When I think of our young people starting a school year in just over a week…my honest reaction is one of trepidation. I’ve been praying constantly for our young people, and you, their parents, and our educators and administrators… This is a tough nut, y’all. And there aren’t many good answers at all.

By the way, if you’ve been praying about ways that you can help out and serve our community during this time, see the latest announcement in our Thursday afternoon eBlast for how you can help out at Armstrong Elementary. It isn’t for everyone, but it’s an opportunity if you’re available and interested.

There aren’t good answers, but I really do think most of us are doing the best we can. And so I also think about what our young people are learning during this time. This generation is going to be the most resilient group of people our world has ever seen. They’re learning adaptation, and problem-solving, and flexibility…they’re going to blow us away.

Young people now are seeing their parents get energized around an issue…whether it’s racial justice, or senior care, or healthcare accessibility…some of our Gen Z and younger are learning how to be activists…and they’re really good at it. I’m being challenged in ways I’ve never thought about by folks younger than me.

Some young people are learning new technology at a ridiculous pace. Rarely does a Sunday go by that our screen-sharing during our intergenerational faith formation time doesn’t get a few annotated comments from our young people.

It can be risky to step out of the boat…but church, remember who calls you out in the first place. The storms are raging all around us, but still, in the midst of all that tumult, Jesus is there.

And not only is Jesus there in the midst of the wind and the waves…but when we falter…and we will falter, church…we will find our faith shaken and we’ll quickly start to question whether or not this was truly a good idea…when we falter…Jesus will be the one reaching out to save us.

This life is a risky business.

It isn’t for the faint of heart.

But we do not do it alone.

“A ship in harbor is safe…but that is not what ships are built for.”

Dare to risk.

Make waves. Rock the boat.

Wade into the waves sometime…

The water’s…mostly…fine…

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost 2020

Matthew 14:13-21

13 Now when Jesus heard about the beheading of John the Baptist, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of abundance,

In an abundance of things in our lives to grieve,

In the midst of an abundance of broken plans,

Overturned realities, and uncertain futures,

Remind us that you are enough.

Give us living water. Give us food to sustain us.

Give us your very self.

And remind us that we, too, are enough.

Amen.

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What have you missed most from the time B.C. – Before COVID-19…?

Is it date nights? Movie theaters? Playgroups? Eating out? (I’ll tall ya, I really miss going out to eat…I think our dishwasher’s getting tired of us…) Is it Happy Hour with friends? Worship? Haircuts?

What do you miss most?

The thing I miss the absolute most in all of this…is travel.

We love going places and seeing new things and we’re anxious for a time when we get to do that again.

Throughout our summer series, as we’ve been exploring the theme of Unraveled, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reflecting on and even grieving what’s been lost during this time. And appropriately so, right? When we undergo significant losses like all those I just mentioned, we need to acknowledge that loss and we need to grieve that loss so that we can then move forward from that place.

But as we set out planning this series, I wanted the whole arc of the summer to have a sort-of movement to it. As I was reading through the Unraveled materials and looking through the Revised Common Lectionary gospel readings for the summer, I not only tried to pair stories that made sense together, but I tried to give the series a thematic movement—I wanted us to move from a place of the acknowledgment of the loss that’s occurred, the grieving of that loss, and then moving us forward from that place of loss, toward a place of hopefulness, toward a place of reimagining a new future and maybe even recapturing some what’s been lost, if even in a new and different way…if even as part of a new normal.

Because the thing is, church, it may still yet be some time before we’re able to do many of those things again. There’s so much we don’t know yet about what our new normal will look like.

But that doesn’t mean that we should live without hope. That doesn’t mean that we should live without recognizing the blessings and the positives and the good within this time of loss.

What I’m suggesting is that the 2 aren’t necessarily at odds with one another. It’s not a time of loss or a time of goodness…but while this is certainly a time of loss, goodness is present within that. We hold these 2 things in tension…keeping our eyes open for the good within the disappointment and loss.

The Samaritan woman that came to Jesus in the heat of the middle of the day had certainly experienced a great amount of loss. “I have no husband,” she tells Jesus. To which he replies, “Correct…you’ve had 5 husbands and this one you’re with now is not your husband.” A lot of aspersions have been cast on this Samaritan woman from the gospel of John from people throughout history. A lot of folks have taken Jesus’ words to mean that she’s some sort of immoral individual, they’ve made her out to be some sort of prostitute or adulterer…but modern scholarship says that reads too much into these words. That nothing in this story indicates that this woman of Samaria is any of those things. Reputable biblical scholars attribute her lack of a husband to being a widow, being divorced, being unable to bear children, or maybe a confluence of all three…all of which would have made her among the most vulnerable in ancient society.

Whatever the situation, certainly this Samaritan woman has experienced a great deal of loss in her life…a great deal of pain…she’s trudging through a great deal of grief.

And it’s into this that Jesus engages her in conversation. And not just pleasantries and small talk, but Jesus and this woman get into some high-brow, heady theological discourse—worship practices, the nature of God, salvation—Jesus gets down into it with this woman.

And by so doing, Jesus elevates her status.

See not only was Jesus, a man, engaging this woman in conversation…which would have been frowned upon…but Jesus, a Jewish teacher, converses with this Samaritan woman…the author notes for us, “Jewish people do not share things in common with Samaritans…Jesus and this woman are crossing all kinds of boundaries here: gender boundaries, religious, cultural, social, ethnic, and political boundaries.

And it’s in the midst of all this boundary-crossing and this time of loss, that Jesus offers the Samaritan woman something…a gift in the midst of loss, a blessing in the midst of grief.

“Those who drink the water that I give them will never be thirsty…it will be in them a great spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Jesus…give me this water…

There are blessings to be found in the midst of this loss. We can discover new ways of enjoying the things we’re used to.

But what about being given something you didn’t know you needed?

What does it feel like for someone to see you so clearly, and for them to give you something that doesn’t just satisfy you thirst…but that quenches your soul?

What is it like to be given something that goes beyond material wants and gets at the very heart of what you need…even something you didn’t even know you needed…?

This is that water.

This is the meal that Jesus shared with those 5,000.

It goes beyond mere hunger and thirst…it gets at the heart of our needs as humans.

Jesus is offering refreshment for your soul.

It’s healing. It’s wellness. It’s compassion, and mercy, and forgiveness, and love.

It’s an unraveling of shame.

The shame of the Samaritan woman who was ostracized from her community. “Come and see! Someone who told me everything I have ever done!” Come and see! Someone who sees me! Who sees past my shame. Who can see who I truly am!

The shame of having nothing more to offer a multitude than 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. The shame associated with scarcity, of feeling that there’s not enough…the shame of feeling as if you’re not enough… “All ate…and were filled. And they took up what was left over…from the broken pieces…”

There’s plenty in our world to grieve.

There’s plenty in our lives to cause us despair.

But there’s also incredible beauty. And incredible opportunity.

And in-breaking of the reign and dominion of God.

Where have you seen blessing during this time, church?

I don’t know when I’ll get to travel extensively again…I hope sometime soon. But I do know that while I’ve been spending more time at home, I’ve been able to watch first steps being taken. I’ve been able to sing new songs, and try new foods, and learn new sounds.

Hope abounds.

Hope endures.

Hope does not disappoint.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost 2020

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

24 Jesus put before the crowd another parable: “The dominion of heaven may be compared to householder, a lord, who sowed good seed in the field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the servants of the householder came and said, ‘Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ 28 The householder answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But the householder replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
36 Then Jesus left the crowds and went into the house there. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” 37 Jesus answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son-of-humanity; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of God’s dominion; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son-of-humanity will send the angels, and they will collect out of God’s dominion all causes of sin and all evildoers,

42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous shall shine like the sun in the dominion of God. Let anyone with ears listen!”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Nurturing God,

In the midst of the unraveling happening all around us,

We long to be planted in your field,

And nourished with the refreshing rains you send.

In the midst of the struggles within ourselves

Between wheat and weeds,

Keep us mindful that, above all, we are yours.

Amen.

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Have you taken time out to sit with your thoughts over the past 4 months?

Whether early in the morning with your coffee, or late at night after the kids are finally asleep, or some other time, have you taken time to just stop, breathe, and sit with your thoughts?

How’d that go for you?

What was it like? Did you like it?

Or is your mind, like mine, a pretty scary place to be right now?

New case numbers, hospitalizations, “What was that meeting I had today?”, checking in with this friend or that loved one, “I’m sorry, we’re doing what for school this next year?!”, safety precautions, how to stay healthy, “I really need some time off, but I can’t go anywhere!”……

It’s a lot. A tremendous amount, actually.

How do we keep it together in the midst of all of this?

How do we sort through what is needful and what is helpful, and how do we manage well all the other stuff that if it builds up and comes out sideways, it ends up manifesting itself as frustration, anger, grief, anxiety, hurtful words, and other painful things?

When I think of untangling, I think of a ball of yarn or string or twine. I think of the strands of Christmas lights that you just throw in the box at the end of each season and so you have to unknot them all and lay them all out before you can put them up again. I think of my headphones, that no matter how hard I try, no matter how carefully I wind them around my hand and place them gently in my bag, it’s always a 10-minute ordeal to pull them out and untangle them so that they’re usable again.

Part of unraveling is that it allows us to disentangle.

Like separating the wheat from weeds, the disentangling—the unraveling—allows us to sort through what is needful and helpful and set aside that which is not.

I mentioned last week that sometimes it’s not so helpful when the gospel writers insert their explanations of Jesus’ parables into the gospel narratives. This is one of those times. See because the writer of the gospel of Matthew’s explanation is so…simplistic. You read the 2nd half of the gospel lesson and everything is so neatly packaged, everything’s explained, so like, what’s the use of preaching, right?

Jesus hardly ever explained the parables he told, and that’s exactly the nature of parables. Parables are mysterious. They invite us into their story and ask us to consider what God might be saying to us. And it’s never the same each time. And it’s certainly not the same for every person. So how do we hold together this idea that parables have many different facets, and many different entry points, and many different exits, and many different interpretations; while at the same time holding on to this rare occurrence of Jesus’ explanation of a parable? It can tie us up in knots trying to figure it out.

On the one hand, we’d love to take Jesus at his word; that the children of the kingdom are the wheat, and the children of the evil one are the weeds, and at the end of the age the evil ones get burned up and the good ones are collected by the caretaker.

That the world is simply wheat and weeds, you’re either one or the other, and that’s that.

Like, that’s pretty cut and dry, and it fits nicely with my ideas about how the world should work. It fits nicely with my ideas about justice. How great it would be if all of Jesus’ teachings came with such a handy interpretive key and instruction manual, right? How wonderful it would be if all of life came with such a cut-and-dry instruction manual… Life would be so much…simpler…

We like to think that the world is simply weeds and wheat; that which is bad gets plucked up and burned, and that which is good is harvested and used to feed the world. But that’s not the nature of parables…nor is it the nature of the world we live in; it’s so much more complicated than that.

I have many least favorite activities when it comes to yard work, but one of my least least favorite is pulling weeds. It’s a pain, I don’t like it, and it seems like such a great amount of effort for so little reward.

But when I was young, one of my chores was to pull weeds in the flower bed at our house. True confession, I’m a terrible weed puller and an even worse gardener.

My dad would say, “Just grab at the base of the weed and pull straight up.”

“Ok. What does a weed look like?” I’d reply.

“You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Ok, is this a weed?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, what about this one over here?”
“Yep, that’s a weed.”
“Oh ok. Well, this one looks the same as that last one; is this a weed?”
“Nope.”

Seriously?!? Surely you can understand my frustration.

Weeds are supposed to look a certain way. Except when they don’t…

And grass and plants and flowers all look a certain way. Except when they’re weeds…

Wheat or weeds? Weeds or wheat? It can tie us up in knots trying to figure it out.

But what if we’re not meant to?

What if we’re not meant to be the ones figuring it out?

I think the writer of Matthew gets at least one thing correct in their explanation of Jesus’ parable here…I think we—we, the people of God—we are definitely not the ones doing the harvesting and the sorting. We are definitely not the ones deciding who’s a weed and who’s wheat.

Because the truth is…we are.

We are…wheat. And…we are weeds.

We are both. At the same time. In the very same breath.

We have such tremendous capacity for being able to be used to feed the world…and…we also have such tremendous capacity for choking out that which is being used to give life to the world.

Like the man possessed by demons, all of this capacity resides together within us…within the very same person. Capacity for tremendous blessing… Capacity for tremendous harm…

Part of our own unraveling is to let God do the harvesting and trust that God will do what God does. Trust that God will show us completely unmerited grace and compassion and mercy…love and forgiveness that we did nothing to earn, but that God lavishes on us anyway.

And here’s the scandalous part……if God shows you grace and mercy and compassion and forgiveness and love…you are most assured that God’s showing that same grace and forgiveness and love to that person or those people who you don’t think are deserving of such. “God makes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous,” as the author says earlier in Matthew in chapter 5.

It’s a scandal. It’s completely unfair. It flies in the face of what we think justice should look like.

But God’s ideas of justice are not our ideas of justice.

It’s completely offensive. But it is the way God works.

Let God do the unraveling, church.

Trust God to do the harvesting and the sorting.

You work on your wheatiness.

Let’s work on growing that capacity within us for feeding and caring for the world.

Those are thoughts I can sit with for a while.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And in the sowing, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away.

7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!
18 “Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When anyone hears the word of the dominion of heaven and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

Nurturing God,

Comfort your people.

Shower us with your goodness and mercy

And let your Gospel take root in our lives.

Make us fragrant reminders of your love for the world.

Amen.

—————

I’ve told the story before about serving as a chaplain at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago. About how I was assigned to the Medical ICU floor and how I was there to be with the sickest of the sick and their families during some of the worst times in their lives.

I’ve talked about praying with people who weren’t even particularly religious but praying together nonetheless because…hey, if there’s a chance that something could alleviate some of their suffering…they’ll try anything. I’ve talked about sitting with a man for 5 hours in the lobby of the hospital after he watched his wife of 47 years die on the stretcher in the ER…about how sometimes suffering looks like someone who’s just lost their beloved staring blankly at a cell phone, trying to remember who they were about to call, or even what they were going to say.

I’ve talked about, still to this day, the most honest prayer I’ve ever heard. About one family whose mother…the matriarch of the family…was dying and when the time came, the whole family crammed into her ICU room with machines and pumps whirring and hissing. And about holding their hands and praying with them and hearing them remember their mom…and then…for just a moment…the room was completely still. Everyone was holding their breath and the machines just fell silent…only for a moment…

And then…the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. Screams and cries of anguish and sorrow…ones that come up from the very depths of your guts, out of your soul.

Painfully honest lament. Tears and sobbing. Visceral and embodied.

Grief and pain that captures you and won’t let you walk away.

When was your last good cry, church?

Have you allowed yourself to grieve all this unraveling that’s happening?

Don’t push it aside or away. As someone whose habit is to bottle those things up, I can tell you from my own experiences, it’s not a good thing. Grief is something that already comes out sideways under normal circumstances, much more sideways when it’s been under pressure from being bottled up.

We have an aversion to pain and suffering. We don’t like it or how it makes us feel. But if pain and suffering are a given part of our lives, isn’t it much better to deal with them in healthy ways? That is to say, if we recognize that part of what it means to be human is that we experience grief and pain, if those things are a given part of our lives, it does us no good to try and avoid them.

Because we can’t avoid them. We won’t be able to escape them in our lives.

But we can learn how to hold them well.

We can learn how to manage them and deal with them in our own lives, while also learning how to help alleviate and tend to the grief and pain of others.

Because that’s part of what it means to be part of a community of faith…not just to rejoice with those who are rejoicing…but to weep with those who are weeping…to suffer with those who are suffering.

To bear one another’s burdens.

This is your call, people of God.

There’s a lot of unraveling happening in our first story this morning. Initially, King David had these 7 boys put to death to right a wrong in a relationship that had come unraveled with the Gibeonites. And not giving much thought to who these boys might be to those who loved them, David had them summarily executed and strung up on a mountain for all who passed by to see. Then Rizpah, mother to 2 of the boys, goes up the mountain in her sackcloth and sits vigil with her grief…this pain that has unraveled her whole life. And finally, after a while, King David’s own heart becomes unraveled and untangled and he returns bones to their graves in an attempt to atone for this other wrong.

But it wasn’t just that David had a change of heart, or even that God changed David’s heart, but something certainly did.

See, I don’t think David would have given those 7 boys a 2nd thought had it not been for Rizpah. But Rizpah went up on that mountain in her grief and kept vigil there. And you need to know that this wasn’t a short-lived thing.

2 Samuel notes that these boys were murdered in the first days of the barley harvest and that Rizpah went up on the mountain from then until the rains from heaven fell on the bodies. Barley is the first crop harvested in Palestine in the harvest season. And the beginning of the harvesting season in Palestine is in late March or early April. The rainy season doesn’t begin until September or October. So for those of you who are counting on your fingers, Rizpah kept vigil over these boys’ bodies…driving away birds and wild animals and sitting with her grief…for 6 months…

For 6 months…this woman bore witness to this injustice. For 6 months…she tended to these bodies.

There is no timeline for grief.

If you’ve ever lost someone close to you, you know this is true.

There’s no pre-determined point at which suddenly your sadness is over and you no longer feel any hurt. You learn to live with your grief, but that’s different than the grief going away.

What I’m saying is, we would never think of asking someone who’s grieving when they’ll be getting over their grief.

But how many people passed by Rizpah as she was grieving and keeping vigil over the bodies and keeping away the birds of the air and the wild animals? How many people tolerated her way of grieving at first, but as it went on and on and on, how many of those same people started saying things like, “Shouldn’t she be over it by now?” and “Why hasn’t she moved on?” and “I know she’s sad, but really…why do I have to keep hearing about it all the time?”

Who among you, church, has ever questioned someone for how their grief comes out…maybe not to their face, but privately…behind closed doors and in hushed voices?

Who among you has had those thoughts of “Shouldn’t they be over it by now?”

Who among you has said, “I know they’re sad…but why do I have to keep hearing about it…?”

And so when it comes to the pain and grief expressed by our siblings of African descent, and communities of color, and our LGBTQIA2+ siblings, and any other marginalized group…why all of a sudden do we ask those same questions? Why do you feel like we tire of hearing and bearing witness to their pain?

Perhaps by being reminded of their hurt and grief, we might be driven to actually do something about it…to repair relationships and begin the long and difficult work of repairing our communities.

From cultivating new friendships with congregations of color in our neighborhood…to finding new ways to support organizations in our community that are participating in this restoration…to asking how our campus can be used as a resource for our community……these are all excellent ideas that you have reached out to me with over the past month as we grapple with what we’re increasingly coming to understand are deeply systemic and structural discrepancies in our shared life together.

David’s heart became unraveled when he wrestled honestly with Rizpah’s grief. David was driven to act because of Rizpah and her persistence. Like the widow and the unjust judge in the gospel of Luke, persistence can wear down hearts that have been hardened.

But notice here, too, that it’s only when David rights this injustice that God breaks the famine. Consistently throughout the Scriptures, God is deeply concerned in the righting of injustice. God consistently shows up on the side of those who have been wronged.

Maybe by keeping these realities of injustice and inequality at the forefront of our hearts and minds, maybe we, too, will have our hearts worn down by persistence.

I’m usually not a fan when the gospel writers explain the parables they’ve recorded. It’s like explaining the joke after you just told it. Plus, I think it implies that some parables are meant to be understood a certain way, and I just don’t think that’s true. As I’ve said many times before, parables have many entrances and many exits and there are many different ways of understanding them.

But in this case, I think the writer of Matthew is pretty close. Except what if we ourselves are the path, the rocky ground, the thorns, and the good soil? What if we have the capacity for all those different conditions?

And what if Jesus is the gardener, extravagantly spreading innumerable seeds of Gospel good news over us, in hopes that just some of this good news will find a place to take root in our souls?

And here it is, beloved children…here’s the part I desperately want you to hear……it only takes one.

It only takes one, single, solitary seed…just one tiny mustard seed of Gospel…to transform your life.

You’ll have to help tend it and nurture it. You’ll have to help care for it.

But oh goodness, will it ever grow.

Because the good news of the love of God given to you through Jesus Christ is too wonderful to stay small. It will grow and it will grow exponentially and it will take over and transform your life and you will be so filled up that you can’t help but reach out and do what you can with what you have to help alleviate suffering for those who are in pain and grieving.

This is both the Gospel and the call that was placed on you in your baptism.

You are the embodiment of God’s love in the world.

You are the vessels through which God acts in our world to alleviate suffering.

You are the ones called to bear one another’s burdens.

Let this good news unravel your hearts.

Allow your hearts to be broken open that the seed of God’s extravagant love would be planted there and allowed to take root.

Let your life be good soil.

Let your feet and hands be the branches that carry you and reach out to embrace a hurting and grieving world.

And let your acts of love bear the sweet fragrance of beautiful flowers.

Unraveling is arduous and difficult work.

But the transformation is so beautiful.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

[Jesus said:] 16 “To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19 the Son-of-humanity came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by wise deeds.”
25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, God, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, God, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by God; and no one knows the Son except God, and no one knows God except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal God.
28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy God,

Your people are weary.

Their souls are longing for rest.

Lead us to abide in your restful grace today.

Help us to rest,

That we might be energized for the work to which you have called us.

Amen.

—————

For my very first Father’s Day this year, Tiffany and Oliver got me this wonderful contraption that straps up on my shoulders and lets Oliver sit up on top of them, which he really likes to do. It’s a carrier, but rather than strapped to my back or in front, this one puts him up, kind of up above everything where he can easily look around and see everything that’s going on.

We used it for the first time last Sunday when we went on a short hike over by our house. It works well, it turns out. It’s nice. It’s good. As I said, he likes to be up on my shoulders anyway, so this is a great thing for that.

But here’s the thing, once you’re all strapped up and in, there’s really no shifting around. You can take it off and on, take the kid out or put them back in, but it doesn’t really shift that well. So you’re pretty much stuck that way until you’re done. And we all know well that we’ve got a big kid, right…he’s growing, which is great and wonderful. But he’s like, close to 25 lbs now…so like, not the easiest thing to have strapped on top of your shoulders while you walk around for an hour.

That yoke is neither easy nor is that burden particularly light.

My shoulders really are just now starting to stop being so sore.

And it makes me wonder, church…what are you carrying around?

What burdens are you shouldering?

What aches and pains and soreness are weighing you down?

Maybe even what wounds are you bearing these days?

As we work our way through our summer series Unraveled, we’re exploring themes of the places in our lives and in our world where things have come unraveled, where things are in the process of unraveling, and where things are in need of becoming unraveled.

And this morning, we encounter Saul in this well-known story of his experience on his way to Damascus. And a little back story for you: Saul was from Tarsus, which is in modern south-central Turkey. He was Jewish—a Pharisee, actually—and from a devout Pharisaic family. He was in Jerusalem and he asks for letters from the high priest so that he could go to Damascus and bind and bring back any Christ-believers he finds on his way. Saul was a persecutor of the early Christ-believing communities and a somewhat vicious one at that.

See, Saul was present for the stoning of Stephen, the first murder of a Christ-believer…what, in the church, we call the first martyr of the faith. After that, Saul would also go into the houses of Christ-believers and take them away to prison. It seems that Saul derived some particular form of satisfaction from oppressing early Christ-believers.

Also, it’s important to note here that I’m using the term “Christ-believers” purposefully. Christians didn’t exist yet. The early Christ-believing communities were Hebrew and Greek people who had come to believe that Jesus was, in fact, the Christ…the Messiah. They were either Jewish Christ-believers or Greek Christ-believers. The earliest Christ-believing communities never really stopped being Jewish or Greek, they still maintained many of their customs. It wasn’t until later in Antioch that Christ-believers started being called Christians.

So, Saul’s on his way to Damascus to arrest some more Christ-believers, and he has this otherworldly encounter with the risen Christ. “Saul…why do you persecute me?” This encounter literally knocks Saul down—he fell to the ground…and it literally changed him—it blinded him and he wasn’t able to see.

Saul has a transformation—spiritual, physical, emotional—Saul is completely transformed and changed.

This transformation is a lived experience. Contrary to how we approach our faith most of the time, this transformation is something physical and embodied. So often, we think exercises of our faith as having to do with our minds. Church, you can’t intellectualize a transformation, it’s something you feel, something you experience.

And this transformation, I think we could say it saved Saul. It certainly took him from this one road that he was on and picked him up and set him on an entirely new path. Saul would later be known as the apostle, Paul, one of the most prolific writers and ardent defenders of the Christian faith. I think we could say this transformation saved Saul. And as is true with us, church, you can’t intellectualize salvation, it’s something you feel and experience, something that happens to you.

Which is why I talk so much about liberation being about action. We can talk about issues and problems and discuss ways to address them, but until we lace up our shoes, get out, and actually do something about injustice, nothing will change.

It took an encounter with the risen Christ for Saul to do a complete about-face and transform from a zealous persecutor of Christ-followers to one of the most zealous proclaimers of Jesus the Christ as Savior and Lord. I think there’s a good argument to be made here for Paul’s zeal in proclaiming Christ as Messiah as being an attempt to make up for how brutally he treated the Christ-believing community before his encounter with Christ on the way to Damascus. I think Paul is trying to outdo himself for the years he spent viciously persecuting those who professed the name, Christ.

So, what’s been a turning point for you, in your life, church?

What has it taken for you to undergo this same kind of radical transformation?

How can we allow that transformation to move us from a place of intellectual understanding to an embodied faith? How can we be transformed from a passive discipleship to an active discipleship?

For me, it was moving to Chicago. It was leaving the North Texas suburb that I had grown up in and in many ways was all I knew and moving to a place where I could see injustice. It took people pointing certain things out to me, being patient with me, and explaining them to me. They didn’t have to do that, but I’m so incredibly grateful they did.

And ultimately, it took my willingness to change. Ultimately, people of God, transformation happens because you’re open to it…if you’re willing to have your hearts broken open and changed.

So, what does it take for you to be moved from a place of agreeing that an injustice has occurred to a place of actively working to right that injustice?

I would argue that’s what needed in this time we find ourselves in. We need to not only recognize the injustices present, but those who are being affected by these injustices need us who have been made uncomfortable to get to a place of joining in the work to correct these injustices.

This is the work of discipleship. It’s the work you were called to in your baptism.

It’s not easy work. taking on systems and structures and people in power…you will need every bit of energy you can muster for this work.

And that’s why the rest for your souls is important.

How can you pour into and fill others up, when you yourself are empty?

Rest is a holy and good thing. We need to be well-rested for this work. But we cannot remain at rest.

The yoke is easy and the burden is light—working to right injustice is the easiest…and the hardest thing you will ever do.

Easy, because it only requires you to recognize the image of God in someone else and their worthiness as a beloved child of God…

Difficult, because it requires you to give up something of yourself. Maybe it requires some unlearning on your part, maybe it requires some growth in understanding in some areas that you were previously so sure of, maybe it requires examining what you thought you knew and being willing to admit that you have been wrong…

Difficult, because it requires you to show up—a movement from passive to active discipleship.

The yoke is easy and the burden is light.

But it is a yoke, nonetheless. There is still some measure of burden to being a disciple of Jesus.

There is something required of you as a disciple.

Being a disciple of Jesus demands your life—that you lose your life in order to find it, that you give up your life for the sake of the other. The call to Christian discipleship is one of giving up…of letting go…of relinquishing. It’s a call to servanthood. A race to the bottom. There is certainly a cost associated with this discipleship.

There is a yoke. There is a burden.

But they are easy and light.

Find some time to rest this weekend, Church.

Find some time in your lives for rest and renewal.

God knows, your souls need it.

Rest up, because you’re needed.

Your voice. Your actions. Your very self.

You are needed in this moment.

Get some rest.

Then put that easy yoke back on your shoulders.

Palm Sunday 2020

Matthew 21:1-11

1 When Jesus and his disciples had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them both and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And they will be sent immediately.” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Zechariah, saying,
5 “Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 And a very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of Jesus and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in the Galilee.”

—————

Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy God,

As we conclude our Lenten pilgrimage

And begin our journey through Holy Week

Go with us. Be our companion.

Walk with us through these abnormal days.

Amen.

—————

Welcome to Holy Week, friends.

A week unlike any other in the life of the church. The most important week in the life of a Christian. And…in this time of a pandemic, truly a week that we’ve never experienced in this way before.

The thing is, I’m not exactly sure how to do this Holy Week… See, Holy Week—Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter, and finally that glorious Easter Sunday—the point of Holy Week is to gather together. And not just to gather together, but to experience these liturgies together. The worship services of Holy Week and Easter are so tactile and experiential…they’re meant to be a feast for our senses. The reason we pack all these worship services into an 8-day stretch is so that we tell the old, old story together…so that we hear the familiar story in new ways…so that we enter once again into God’s story and find ourselves changed and transformed by it.

Because the truth is, we’re not the same person year after year, so even though the story stays the same, we’re the ones who are different, so we hear and we experience and we’re changed by the story in new ways.

But what to do in a year and a time that is so far outside the lines of what anyone reasonable might consider to be “normal”…? How can we experience these worship services, when part of what’s keeping us safe from the spread of this virus is a limitation on what we can truly experience together? How can we hear and experience and be transformed by the familiar old, old story in new ways, when the people we are today, the people experiencing a pandemic, have fundamentally changed…have been so completely altered at our most basic level…? Yes, we’re the ones who are different year after year, but…is this year too different? Have we gone too far beyond the expected rate of change to be impacted by this story this year?

Maybe so. You might feel like this year is just too different, too unusual, that you find it difficult, if not nearly impossible, to enter into this story in a meaningful way this year. Maybe the options for gathering together as the communal, yet physically distant and separated, the body of Christ leave just too much to be desired. Perhaps trying to enter into the story through your device or computer or TV simply doesn’t do it for you.

Look, I get it. There’s nothing about this that feels natural or normal to me. I adore Holy Week. I love the long 8-day trudge through this story because of the commitment it demands. I love that for me to truly grasp the significance of what’s taking place, it requires me to show up every. single. day., to gather together with people whom I love deeply, and viscerally and completely immerse myself in the experience of these holy days.

But I don’t get to do that this year….we don’t get to do that this year.

And honestly I think that’s ok. I’m at peace with this situation.

And actually, I’m beginning to think that the unusual-ness…the abnormality…of this year might be more true to these sacred stories anyway.

Stick with me…the author of the gospel of Matthew has Jesus sending 2 of his disciples to a village to grab a donkey and colt, and then to bring them both back. Then they put their cloaks on the donkey and the colt, and Jesus sits on both of them…and then enters into Jerusalem. The gospel of Matthew is the only one who does this, both Mark and Luke have Jesus riding a much more manageable singular hoofed-creature. The author of Matthew, who’s using the gospel of Mark as a source, misreads or misunderstands the prophet Zechariah, chapter 9, where it says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey…on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Notice there’s no “and” there. Just one donkey. But I do love Matthew’s version because I get to imagine Jesus standing up and donkey surfing during this triumphal entry and parade.

It’s completely absurd. Totally not normal.

But this parade is farcical. It’s mocking the long-established Roman custom of the victorious war hero riding into town on a white horse, flowers and petals and olive branches floating down and flying everywhere, all the townspeople shouting, “Hail, glorious ruler! Praise be to the savior! Praise be to our messiah! Praise to the Caesar, the son of god!”

Jesus’ parade and entry into Jerusalem were a mockery of all of that. Jesus is a different kind of ruler, a different kind of hero…a different Messiah.

Nothing about Jesus’ parade and triumphal entry were normal. In fact, they were backwards, subversive, flipped upside-down.

Very much like I believe many of our lives feel right now…out of sorts, backwards…turned inside-out…flipped upside-down…

This virus is no joke. It’s serious. This time we live in is scary. We’re in need of saving. We’re crying out, reaching out, grasping for something to hold onto, something solid. Grasping for something—anything—to save us.

There are just a handful of words in the gospels that aren’t translated into Greek. They’re words that are untranslated Aramaic, which is likely the language Jesus spoke. Anyway, Hosanna is one of these words. Hosanna is an Aramaic word which means, very literally, “Save us.”

Those people waving palms in Jerusalem weren’t just shouting praises, they were crying out for Jesus to save them. And when Jesus showed them what it would cost them…that the way of following Jesus is the way of giving up your life, of giving of yourself for others, the way of nonviolent resistance, the way of peace…they turned their cries of “Save us!” to shouts of “Crucify!”

Which, for us who sit on this side of Easter…who know that the cross was God’s act of salvation for all of humanity…know that they might have been using different words, but they were still crying out to be saved…

At our most basic and fundamental, we’re still crying out “Save us!” If you’re being honest with yourself, you know you cannot do this on your own.

…And deep in your heart of hearts, you know you don’t have to…

“Behold! Your king—your Savior—comes to you humble and mounted on a donkey…”

Behold…your Savior looks down to you from a cross…

Nothing about this Holy Week feels normal.

Church, it’s not supposed to. Holy Week isn’t normal.

It isn’t normal for us to be proclaiming that our Savior comes to us riding a donkey…or two.

It isn’t normal for us to be insisting that rather than taking the highest place of honor at the table, that our Lord stoops down to wash our feet.

It isn’t normal for us to be looking up to a king who gets lifted high on a cross and crucified.

It isn’t normal for us to be worshiping a Messiah who dies.

It isn’t normal for a Christ who dies to be raised to life.

And yet…that’s precisely what we do.

Every year. Every time we gather, whether together in-person or together online.

We proclaim the absurdly abnormal truth about our God who brings life from things that are dead, and who raises we who are dying to new life…whose intent for us is that we have life, and life abundant.

This Holy Week in a time of pandemic is anything but normal, church.

But that might make it the most true Holy Week any of us have ever experienced.