Weekly Reflection--April 24

Theologian Karl Barth uses the image of the crater of a meteor to help us think about the life, ministry, arrest, torture, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus.  We don't know exactly when the meteor hit, nor do we know the exact size of the meteor, nor do we even know precisely what the immediate impact of the meteor was.  However, the crater reminds us that  something happened that changed what followed.

Indeed, we do not know exactly when Jesus was born.  We don't know the exact nature of his ministry (albeit we receive a great deal of second hand reporting in the gospels), and even the narratives surrounding his arrest, death, and resurrection conflict with each other.  Though, the truth be told, the particulars are not really that important.   

The gospel stories, the liturgies of Holy Week, and the music of these services remind us that something--something big, something profound, something transformative, something life-changing--happened.  

The reports that follow the events of this Holy Week describe people and communities who are changed forever.  They cannot see the world as they once did.  They are possessed with an alternate vision, a radical perception of God's presence with and for them, and the call to love as they have been loved.

The desire of generations (and I suspect those of us as well) has been to try and figure out exactly what did happen during Jesus' last week.  (As if, when we do this, we will know for certain--or not--that the whole shootin' match is true.)  Well, in the same way as we can never fully describe the meteor based on the remains of the crater, we cannot fully answer all the questions of Jesus' last week based on the remnants of history and the scattered stories of those events.   

One step removed from this posture is the desire to recapture or relive the final week in the services that we hold.  "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" is the question posed by a famous Good Friday hymn.  And we may enter Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter day with the solemnity, sadness, and surprise as if we were there.  Our services, in this instance, mainly re-creations of the original story.  

However, we live as people who know the whole story.  We can't re-create what it was like to be there.  We can't pretend that we know the fear and abandonment of such a crisis moment.  We can't fully understand the awe and fear and wonder of those first resurrection experiences, for we know the whole story.  Nor do we need to role back the hands of time.   

In fact, what we may really be participating in today, tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, and beyond  is God's profound love for each of us here and now and God's call to us to expand the gracious presence of God in the world here and now.  The vehicle through which this promise is mediated is the icon or symbol--expressed in ritual, narrative, and music--of these Holy Week and Easter services.   

We  are not there; rather God  is here!

And so we participate in the rhythms and movements and narratives and rituals and music of Holy Week bearing our hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, failings and achievements within our bodies that enter the sacred space of the sanctuary as well as the sacred time of these days and all days.  We remember the events of our Lord's last week, so that we might reflect more fully and deeply on the profound presence of God in our midst with and for us here and now.   

And though you may not be able to fully recapture all that happened, you live and move and have your being confronted with the gracious knowledge that something happened, and it didn't just happen but it happened . . .

for you!   

Blessings,

  

Mark

Weekly Reflection--April 17

"I'm really conflicted over the issue," was the comment a parishioner voiced recently after Sunday worship and the invitation was given to write a letter to a legislator encouraging him or her to repeal the death penalty in Connecticut.  And, I suspect, he was not the only one who felt conflicted.  Indeed, we--as a community, state, and nation--are clearly conflicted about this issue.  There is no clear consensus.  

Furthermore, there  probably exists more heat than light when this issue is raised, and there are any number of us who would prefer not to have to think about or deal with the death penalty issue (or any other complex and controversial issue) when we cross the threshold of a church.

So, why is this issue being raised and raised now?

To begin to answer that, I would like to initially underscore the importance of raising this and other issues precisely in the church.  Clearly, one facet of worship is the sense of comfort and reassurance that we find in the rhythms and ritual of the liturgy.  Yet, as our Eucharistic prayer C that we use in Lent so aptly exhorts, "Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal," we are not meant to experience only comfort.  There exists and intersection between world and worship, and one enters the other reality and vice versa.   

Indeed, the irony should not be lost on us that during this upcoming week we reflect  upon the capital punishment meted out by the Roman hierarchy on our Lord.  Jesus lived very much in the world.

Yet, just because the world and worship intersect does not mean that there are clear answers to the vexing questions of life.  Remember where this piece began:  "I'm really conflicted. . ."  And that is an honest response to such complexity.  My hope is that the church can be a safe place where we raise critical issues impacting our lives and our communities and our society and  we can listen to and respect the divergent viewpoints within our community.    

Again, there is enough heat and too little light generated within the public square around critical issues.  The church need not--indeed cannot--be a place where there is a litmus test for how you think about issue X, Y, or Z.  And we recognize that we can feel strongly about various issues while acknowledging that others may differ in their opinion.  We are bound together first by God's unconditional love for us in Christ, not by the political or social membership cards that we carry.

So, we start from a place of respect, and we honor the varied opinions in our community.  Church, lived out this way, truly is counter-cultural.   

Still, the Church exists in the world, and it has been called to engage the world.  We are not called  to shrink from the important conversations of our time.  Thus, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church, the Roman Catholic House of Bishops and other religious bodies all develop social statements that weigh in on critical issues, provide information for parishioners, and are not, ultimately, exhaustive on the issues or require acquiescence for membership.   

The Episcopal Church--nationally and in the Diocese of Connecticut--has passed a number of resolutions seeking the repeal of the death penalty.  The Diocese of Connecticut urged member parishes to raise this issue with parishioners during Lent.  Hence, we offered a letter writing campaign to repeal the death penalty.  This effort was never meant to be coercive; we truly meant it to be an opportunity for those who felt the death penalty should be repealed, and no one should be made to feel troubled if they did not participate.   

If that message was not clearly articulated, I apologize.  Going forward, I hope that this experience may be instructive.  There will never be unanimity around the complex issues we face in life.  So while we seek to follow the call to act in the world, we do so with great humility.  We try to apply the great teachings of Jesus and the themes that are consistent with the God of Scripture, and we realize that we will never fully arrive at the complete answer to life's mysteries.  However, while we continue on this earthly pilgrimage, we do so seeking to be faithful, encouraging and lovingly challenging each other,  remembering the limits of our understanding, and passionate about the God who meets us in life, calls us to engage more deeply with life, and guides us all to the fulfillment of life. 

Blessings.

Mark