What I've learned about Easter since... Easter.

Yesterday my life was humming along when I got into my car to stop by Krazy Fish for a tuna taco on the way to a church meeting. As I pulled out of my driveway I saw a black cat lying in the driveway across the street. He was obviously dead. And I got a sinking feeling in my gut. Yes, it was my dear, sweet Romeo. It looked like someone had placed him there, although I’m not sure when. I had been out working in the yard all day and hadn’t noticed him earlier.

After wrapping him in a towel and carrying him home, the flies were already congregating around his eyes. I knew I had to get him in the ground a.s.a.p.

There’s a large natural area in the back corner of my yard where Romeo loved to play “Great Black Hunter”; I decided to plant him there. I dug at the petrified red clay laced with tree roots for about an hour and realized I had gone as far as I could go. It wasn’t a very deep grave, but it would have to do.

Numbly rocking back and forth in the porch swing, I sobbed as I reviewed mental snapshots of Romeo through the years. He was my first roommate after my divorce and had been by my side for over a dozen years. We had come through a lot together and I knew that losing him represented a number of losses in my life. They all came washing over me like a tidal wave.

I don’t know how long I sat there, but my thoughts were interrupted by the rumbling of a diesel engine that I knew so well. A dear friend, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, heard about Romeo and suspected I needed help. He was so right.

He listened to my stories and let me cry without shushing me. And then I told him about how I had buried Romeo in the yard. I was worried that he might not be buried deep enough and the body would start to smell. But my friend had another worry, something I hadn’t considered. He feared animals would find the body and dig it up. He offered to dig a new grave, a deeper one, so we could move Romeo’s body to a place where it wouldn’t be disturbed.

It was almost dark by the time my friend finished digging the hole. Then he scooped up Romeo in the dirt and planted him in his final resting place. Just to make sure, he placed a large log over the grave. For me, this was but one more horrible ordeal to endure in what had already been a horrific experience.

To say it wasn’t a good day for me is an understatement. But it wasn’t all bad, either. In the midst of my grief I learned that I have a dear friend. He’s one of those in-deed friends, the kind who comes through when you need him.

It reminds me of a time when Jesus wasn’t having a good day. He was in the wilderness, hungry, tormented by evil, and tempted to throw in the towel. As the story goes, God sends angels to wait on him. So often, that seems to be what God does. God’s angels don’t necessarily come to wait on us whenever we snap our fingers. But when we really need them, they seem to appear out of nowhere. No, they’re not winged creatures in white robes. Sometimes they might even show up in a station wagon with a rumbly engine.

I’m thankful as I think back on the past 24 hours. Thankful for a wonderful, furry companion with whom I gave and received so much love over the years. I’m thankful for a dear friend who cared enough to show up on my porch without being asked. And I’m thankful for a God who seems to provide for what I need when I need it the most.

This happened the day after Easter and I see resurrection written all over it. New life doesn't just spring from death like a blossom popping out of a tree. New life is only possible through the death of an old life. No matter how many times I experience that, I continue to be surprised by it. And grateful.

Do you suppose it’s time for her to take a day off?

Suppose there is a woman who neglects to take the time necessary to regenerate her brain cells. And suppose she isn’t paying attention to the fact that she isn’t as young as she used to be and every brain cell is precious.

Suppose this woman is a pastor, and she gives up her days off for Lent. Not intentionally, mind you, but that’s the way it ends up. It might be her own fault, because she has a tendency to do things like waiting until Friday, her scheduled day off, to write her sermons. Just suppose this goes on, week after week. And then, suppose it’s Holy Week and she’s preparing for extra worship services and obsessing over Easter Sunday details, so she hardly stops to eat.

Suppose she pushes herself through Easter, and then has to face all the things she ignored while she was absorbed in church stuff. Suppose her house is a three-bedroom/two bath dust-bin, and she needs a machete to walk in her yard, and she's down to wearing her ratty old pjs under her clothes because all her underwear is dirty, and she doesn’t even have a clean spoon to eat her cereal in the morning. And suppose that doesn’t matter a whole lot, because she’s out of cereal.

Suppose she needs to pick up some groceries. And suppose she can’t find her purse because she didn’t put it over the door knob in the hallway the way she usually does. And suppose she finds her purse over the door handle to her bedroom closet instead, the one where she normally hangs her bras when she takes them off.

Suppose she grabs her purse and heads for the local Harris-Teeter. She proceeds to make her way up and down the aisles, filling her cart with groceries. Then, she goes to the check-out line, and as she reaches into her purse for her billfold she feels something silky brush against her hand. And suppose she sees that there is a black 36D hanging from her purse.

Do you suppose it’s time for her to take a day off?

Jesus is on the Loose!

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably experienced that first visit to the cemetery after a loved one has died. And you know that it can be pretty hard to take. Someone you dearly loved, someone who was a big part of your life, someone you talked with, and laughed with. Someone who had hugged you, and helped you through many-a trial, is gone. It’s hard for that harsh reality to sink in. And then you find yourself standing in a place where the body of the person you love has been buried in the ground. How is it possible? The stark separation is too much to bear. It’s a pain that no Bible passages about eternal life can soften. A few days ago, this person you loved was alive and now, they’ve been planted in the dirt.

Three women are on their way to visit the grave of their beloved rabbi and friend. They come to perform the ritual act that is traditionally done before sealing a body in a tomb. Since he died just as the Sabbath was beginning, they had to wait, but now, at the first sign of daylight, it’s time. They come to comb out Jesus’ hair, to sponge away the dried blood and to massage precious myrrh into his skin. As they walk, they realize that they have no idea how they’re going to get into the tomb because there is a huge stone blocking the entrance. They know this because they hid and watched while Jesus’ body was laid to rest so they would know where to find him. So how are they going to move that stone? They’re discussing this as they arrive at the tomb and discover that the problem has already been solved. The stone has been rolled away! What’s going on? And then comes the real shocker. They look inside and the body of Jesus is missing.

Now, how would you feel, if you went to visit the grave of someone you love for the first time after they’ve died, and when you get there, you find a big hole in the ground with the coffin opened and the body gone? Terrified!

The women stood by and watched in agony as Jesus died on the cross. They knew he was dead. Now this was their last chance to pour a little compassion on his broken body. And just when they think things can’t possibly get any worse, they witness the final insult of this whole horrible mess. First, Jesus' life is taken, and now, even his body has been stolen away.

Well, if that’s not troubling enough, there’s this guy waiting for them in the tomb. He tells them not to be alarmed. Ha! Fat chance! The women do what any of us would have done in that situation. They run like hell!

And that’s where Mark ends his story.

There’s been a lot of debate over Mark’s non-ending through the years. Some translators have been so uncomfortable with it that they’ve added endings of their own. If you look in your Bible you will find a couple of different alternate endings. But these aren’t a part of the original text. So far as we know, Mark’s gospel leaves us hanging: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s it. And, actually, if you read it in the original Greek, it’s even more abrupt. Literally, the gospel of Mark ends like this: "To no one anything they said; afraid they were for..." It reads like the author of Mark had suddenly been jerked away from his writing in midsentence.

Mark ends his gospel with women who were scared out of their wits. Despite the mission to which the young man charges them-- “Go tell his disciples and Peter “, the women had one simple mission of their own in mind -- to put as much distance between them and that empty tomb as possible.
This is unsettling, to say the least. It’s like going home from a play before the final act, viewing a movie where the projector breaks down with 15 minutes yet to go, watching a tied football game on TV and the power goes off during the last two minutes… We can’t stand to be left hanging like that. We want to have all the loose ends tied up. We want answers. How could Mark do this to us?

But, you know, if you go to the other three gospel accounts, they might give us a narrative about what happened after the tomb was found empty, but they don’t much help. In fact, the story of the resurrection only becomes more confusing because the gospels are all different in the details. Who was there at the empty tomb isn’t the same in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Nor do they encounter the same thing when they get there. That leaves us wondering, what exactly happened?

Maybe, when it comes down to it, Mark’s gospel is the best account after all. Because, we don’t know what happened. And maybe what actually happened isn’t all that important. By faith, we can live without all the answers. We can live with the mystery. And we can grab onto what really matters.

What really matters is that our God is a God of resurrection. And by that, I don’t just mean that someday when we die we’ll all go to heaven. Resurrection is so much more than that. We are resurrected people, even while we live.

We know the empty tomb is found at the end of a path that first leads us through a graveyard. The way to a new life is always through the death of an old life. That’s not just the way God operated on Easter morning, it’s the way God always works. We read about it in Bible stories, we hear about it in the lives of God’s saints, and we experience it in our own lives.

Resurrection is feeling utterly defeated and being surprised by a victory. Resurrection is coming to the end of your rope and letting go, only to find a new beginning waiting for you. Resurrection is having every good reason to despair, and finding a better reason to hope. Resurrection is facing an empty tomb in terror, and running right into the arms of someone whose love will never let you go.

A Presbyterian minister, Scott Black Johnston, tells about an annual Easter greeting that he receives from his roommate from seminary. Every year, on Easter day, his phone will ring. The voice on the other end will say, “Jesus is on the loose” and the man will hang up. Jesus is on the loose.

I like it. It may sound like another way of saying, “He is risen!” but it’s more than that. Not only is Jesus risen, but he is living in the world around us. He is present among his resurrected people. As one of my favorite Easter hymns says:

Christ is alive! Let Christians sing.
The cross stands empty to the sky.
Let streets and homes with praises ring.
Love, drowned in death, shall never die.

Christ is alive! No longer bound
to distant years in Palestine,
But saving, healing, here and now,
and touching ev’ry place and time.

In ev’ry insult, rift, and war,
where color, scorn, or wealth divide,
Christ suffers still, yet loves the more,
and lives where even hope has died.

That’s the story of the resurrection. Death is no match for him. A tomb can’t hold him. Nor can he be contained within the pages of a book. Or within the confines of geography or time. He is alive in the world around us. He is alive in us and through us. Jesus is on the loose!

Is This Resurrection Stuff for Real?

I remember my first experience with death. I was only six years old, which was a long time ago, but I remember it. I remember a room filled with people who were all talking above me as if I wasn't there. I remember the stifling smell of flowers and the horrifying sound of my grandmother wailing. Most of all, I remember the body in the box. It didn't look real. It was like the people in the wax museum we had visited at Niagara Falls. Only this wax figure was my father. I took it all in. His closed eyelids, the expression on his lips, his powdery face, the hands with the puffy fingers. This was not the same person who had carried me in his arms and bounced me on his knee.

The corpse of my father traumatized me; not just when I saw it in the funeral home but for most of my childhood. I was afraid to look out the window at night because I would see that face looking back at me. I was afraid of the basement, the attic, the closet, and the top bunk in my bedroom, and any place I couldn't really see, because I was sure that the body was there.

I wanted desperately to believe that my dad was in heaven with God because the idea that he was in heaven was so much better than believing that he had just ceased to exist. But it all seemed rather unbelievable, like some fairy tale that adults made up to make people feel better when someone dies. When I was a little girl and into my teenage years, I was so terrified of death that many nights I cried myself to sleep. I used to pray that I could know there really was a heaven so that I wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

Lots of people go through something like that, although usually not at such a young age. When we're confronted by death, our faith is challenged. I wasn't raised with any kind of a faith background, so I didn't have any spiritual resources to handle the death of my father. But even those who have been raised in the faith can have that faith seriously challenged by the reality of death. Is this resurrection stuff for real or is it just some fairy tale that we've been taught so that we can face the grim reality of death?

It's all rather unbelievable, and it's only natural to question it. That's been the case ever since the very beginning. Even Jesus' own disciples were in disbelief. The women who took spices and perfumes to the tomb that first Easter morning didn't go to witness a resurrection; they went to anoint a corpse. When Mary Magdalene saw that the tomb was empty, she didn't say to herself, "Oh, it looks like Jesus has been raised from the dead." She assumed that someone had come and stolen the body. When she and the other women told the other disciples that they had seen the risen Lord, Luke's gospel tells us, "These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them" (24:11). That night the disciples hid out behind locked doors because they feared for their own lives. Later, two witnesses told the disciples about their encounter with the risen Jesus, but the disciples didn't believe them either. And there's the story of Thomas, the most famous of all the doubters. Right up until what might have been his last resurrection appearance in Matthew, we read that there were still some of the eleven disciples who doubted.

The resurrection has always been hard for people to swallow, even people of great faith. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Saint Paul has much to say about the resurrection, because apparently it was a problem for members of the early church, as well. There were already those who were refuting the resurrection of Jesus. Paul has to remind them that without the resurrection, there is no Christian faith. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus are at the center of it all.

The proof that Paul gives for the resurrection is that the risen Christ appeared to the disciples, and to hundreds of other people, including Paul. That continues to be the strongest proclamation we can make regarding the resurrection.

You know, messiahs weren't all that uncommon in Jesus' day. There were others who had devoted followers like Jesus did. He was just one among many. Just like Jesus, they routinely died at the hands of Romans. But when they died, their movements died with them. The Jesus movement was unique, because it didn't die when he did. Instead, within days of his crucifixion, the movement had been transformed. Within weeks it was proclaiming that Jesus really was the Messiah. Within a year or two, it was taking the message of the good news to all the world. How can this amazing transformation be explained? It surely didn't come about because of a Messiah who had been crucified and buried.

There is a consistent message about the followers of Jesus in the Bible. Down to a person, not one of them believed in the resurrection of Jesus in the beginning. This rings true because the scriptures tell us about it in so many places and in so many ways. It also rings true because we know from our own experience that it's hard to believe. And yet, we know that something happened to Jesus' followers in the Bible, something so convincing that they devoted their lives to sharing the good news of the resurrected Christ with others. In fact, they were willing to give their lives rather than deny its truth. This, from the ones who cowered in fear behind locked doors after Jesus was crucified.

What was this thing that happened to them? The risen Christ appeared to them. We get some of these accounts in the Bible, but no doubt there were other instances as well. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul mentions an instance that we don't read about anywhere else in the Bible, so we're not sure what it's referring to: a time when the risen Christ appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at once. Now, when over 500 people see something at the same time, you cannot dismiss it as some kind of vision or a dream. There can be no doubt that it really happened.

After Jesus was raised from the dead, hundreds of his followers had the opportunity to see him. They saw the risen Christ. That explains why their lives were so transformed. I'm not sure how there could be any other explanation. After seeing the risen Christ, all the stuff that had confused them in the past became clear for them. Jesus really was the Messiah. From the perspective of the resurrection, the cross was not a shameful death after all but a victory.

The mission of the early church was simply to tell about what they had seen and heard. It was to bear witness to the things that happened. "... Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3b-4).

The biblical witnesses are still announcing the resurrection to us today. That's why we gather together on Easter, and every Sunday actually, because that's why the Christian church changed their sabbath day to Sunday, so every week our worship is a celebration of the resurrection. The resurrection had the power to transform the lives of the first disciples. The truth of their witness to the resurrection still has the power to transform our lives, as well. Amen.

Beyond the limits of love

According to Jewish law, if someone hurts you, you have every right to hurt them back. After all, the law above all laws says that you should love God with all your heart, mind and soul and the law that goes with it is you should love your neighbor as yourself. But this says nothing about extending love beyond God and neighbor.

And then along comes Jesus and he stretches the boundaries of love and takes it to a place that people can’t imagine. “Don’t just love your friends. Anybody can do that,” he says. “What I’m asking you to do, as my followers, is love your enemies. Don’t seek revenge for those who wrong you, but seek to do them well. Return love for hatred.”

Now, if that doesn’t push you to the limit, I don’t know what will. It’s what Jesus did in his own life. He hung out with the people no respectable person wanted to be associated with. He touched the untouchables. He ate with the unclean. And then, he pushed love to the limit by going to a cross and loving the ones who put him there.

I don’t know about you, but it’s been my experience that God is continually pushing me to my love limit, too. Just when I think I’ve gone as far as I possibly can, I’m challenged with a new struggle to love someone I had never considered.

On this Good Friday, take some time to think about the limits of your love. Who are those people in your life you find it impossible to love? How could you grow to see them through the eyes of the one who had the grace to forgive those who nailed him to a cross?

Doing feet

The scene of Jesus and his disciples on the night of his betrayal could rip your heart out if you could really grasp all that’s happening. Jesus was teaching his disciples then, and his disciples now, the very essence of what it means to follow him: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In one way, Jesus’ disciples would have understood why Jesus was washing their feet. In that culture, any good host would make sure that his guests’ feet were washed when they entered his house. It was the custom. But it wasn’t something that the host himself would ever have done. It was the job of one his servants. So, it wasn’t the foot-washing that disturbed the disciples, it was the fact that it was being done by their host, their rabbi. What Jesus is showing them is about more than hospitality or good manners. He’s putting himself in the position of a servant. And he’s willing to serve all of them, even the one who was going to have him arrested and killed. Isn’t it amazing the Jesus didn’t turn him out of the community? He got down on his knees before Judas and washed the dirt from his feet.

So, Jesus tells his friends, I’ve set an example for you here. You also should do as I’ve done. He says the same thing to each of us. And, if he could include Judas, it forces us to think very seriously about those with whose feet we’d rather not find ourselves on our hands and knees washing. Face it, it would be hard enough to do that for a member of your own family, but for some low-down, back-stabbing, pathetic excuse for a human being, come on!

Whose feet are you be willing to wash? By washing feet, I don’t mean literally, whose feet would you scrub clean, but who are you willing to humble yourself before? Who are you willing to serve as Jesus did?

Am I "The Fringe"?

“Has your pastor been talking about me lately?” That’s what I asked my dance friend who goes to First Baptist Church in uptown Charlotte. His pastor has spearheaded the introduction of Amendment One in North Carolina, which says that the only people in domestic partnerships with any legal rights are those who are married. Of course, it’s intended to make it pert near impossible for gay folks to ever legally marry in our state, but lots of others would be hurt if we vote to add this amendment to our constitution, as well.

So, my dance friend informed me that his pastor had indeed been talking about me from the pulpit. Well, not me specifically, but people like me, people who are out there working against Amendment One. He referred to us as “The Fringe.”

The Fringe. Isn’t that something you’d say about people who are kooky? Seems to me that it’s a good way to dismiss them so that you don’t have to take them seriously. So, my first reaction to being referred to as The Fringe was to get all bristly over it.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been called The Fringe before, so I’ve been turning it over in my mind for a couple of weeks now. Am I The Fringe? Hmmm. If I lived in New York City, or San Francisco, I would never be considered a part of The Fringe. I’d probably be more middle-of-the-road. Heck, in Asheville, North Carolina, I’d be somewhere in the center. But in Charlotte, North Carolina, I’m The Fringe. What does this mean?

Well, I’ve decided that I like it. People on the fringe of society are the ones who are living just on the edge between being in and being out. And, this seems to be exactly the place where Jesus himself chose to live.

Is being part of The Fringe the same thing as being marginalized? I don’t think so. When you’re marginalized, you’ve been forced out of the circle by the people in the center who find you unacceptable. You aren’t on the edge between in and out. You’re just out. I may have experienced being an outsider from time to time in my life, in minor ways, but never enough to consider myself truly marginalized. Certainly not the way half the adults in my congregation have experienced it because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

I’ve grown in my understanding of what it means to do ministry with the marginalized over the past seven years. Back when I interviewed to be pastor at Holy Trinity, I told the search committee that I would not be stepping up to the microphone at a synod assembly and advocating for the full inclusion of LGBT people in the life of the church, nor would I publically speak out for the rights of gay folks in the community. I would support them, and encourage them, but I was never going to be an activist; that just wasn’t my thing.

God only knows why they called me to be their pastor. But, of course, since coming to Holy Trinity, I have done everything I said I would never do. All my preconceived ideas about what I would and wouldn’t do changed when I realized that the ones being marginalized by others are the people I love. I can’t throw them words of encouragement from a distance or text- message support to them from a remote location. I have to join them where they are-- in the margins.

But it seems to me that there’s a difference between being forced into the margins and choosing to go there. When you could live in the center, but choose to do ministry with those in margins, out of love, maybe that’s what it means to be a part of The Fringe. As a follower of Jesus, I can’t see any other way of being in the world. I’m not sure if it’s a group I’m worthy of claiming as my own, but it’s certainly where I long to be.

God, keep me on The Fringe.