Holy Week 2010

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Monday of Easter Week

I wanted to say thank you this morning to all of you who followed my Lenten reflections. Without you, I’m sure my discipline would have flagged. Perhaps that’s true of most Lenten disciplines – they flag without community support for the act.

I’m grateful for what I learned by doing these daily reflections: one: my spiritual life, which sometimes gets put on the back-burner of living, is a vital component of my well being; and two: I can write fairly quickly, without agonizing over the constructions of sentences, when I’m being honest with my words.

In other words, I learned a new meaning of trust, and because of your comments and feedback, I also learned I need to continue writing in this way.

On Saturday morning, as the world seemed to hold its breath waiting for Easter, I sat here quietly and reflected on the journey. Quietly, without writing.

And I decided I’d continue with a spiritual blog, “Spiritual Crossroads.” So much of life these days feels like an enormous crossroad with no way to see the future. Last evening, head bleary from four days of services, I doodled on the Internet and found WordPress.

So although my Lenten reflections are over, I’ll be in touch again once I begin the new blog. For now, here’s an Easter Monday poem.

Spring rain tagged the heels

of hail throbbing over our house roof.

I woke, came to sit at my window,

brew tea, watch the show.

But it stopped.

And I sit in gray silk light

waiting for a daybreak long past

that will not come today.

The willow’s branches, softened

into leaf by three days of sun,

frames its new green lace

in the neighbor’s purple budding tree.

For three days spring leaped into Easter,

until now, exhausted from the effort

since rebirth is never easy, it rests.

This side of the window, I refill my cup.

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Good Friday: The Passion of the Lord

“Truth!” said Pilate. “What does that mean?”

The dark clouds rolling in from the west and covering the sky seem appropriate for this day. There is a somber quality that fits.

Yesterday’s bright promise also fit: the day active and springing-into-fullness culminating in the Holy Thursday service when we blessed the oils for the coming year; celebrated the Eucharist; and stripped the altar bare.

That stripping the altar ritual is never empty for me. Even though each week, in our rented space, we put everything away and pack up the altar coverings, the act of stripping the altar as part of the service ritual has a very different feel and meaning.

The table is empty. What will fill it?

What is our “truth” of this Easter Triduum? Is our truth focused on the experience Jesus went through – we do our best not to dwell on THAT too long except in the abstract; is our truth focused on Sunday morning’s service with beautiful music and maybe new clothes – or at least spring clothes, thank you. Where is our focus? What is our truth?

The sky grows darker. A storm is coming. The first raindrops hit the windows.

My thoughts – my truth if you will – my inner vision – stays on that empty table.

I don’t know what my life would have been had I not believed the Holy acted in my life. In all the many deaths and rebirths I’ve experienced, I believed I was led by Spirit. I had to believe. I had to believe in an inner guiding force that would somehow still be there regardless of the struggle I was going through. Sometimes, hope was all there was.

The oak trees outside my window here, branches still bare, twist fiercely in the wind. They too are tossed by life’s rough forces. Rain and wind whack against the house.

What is the truth of this Friday for you? What fills your empty table?

Will you fill it with frustration as the storm makes life difficult? Will you growl and complain at a day lacking bright sun like yesterday? Are you annoyed at once more grabbing for a jacket?

Or will you fill your empty table with compassion, with understanding? Will you lay hope on your empty table?

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Holy Thursday: Exodus 12; John 13

"I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."

Today’s readings tell the story of rituals that are followed today, thousands of years after their inception.

The reading from Exodus is the experience that created the law of the Passover meal. God tells Moses how to prepare for the angel of death’s passage over the houses of Israelites by killing a lamb, sprinkling the blood on the lintel, and eating their meal standing, dressed simply, ready to move on.

The passage in John is the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. This story only appears in the Gospel of John so it’s possible to doubt the historical accuracy of the experience but not the words. In all the gospel passages, Jesus instructs his followers to serve rather than set themselves above others, to see everyone as equal rather than follow the all too human characteristic of seeing our self as better than.

How have we replaced the meaning of the moment with a ritual to mean?

This week during Passover, when many have shared a meal, how many dressed simply? In the thousands of churches across the world where priests and even the Pope symbolically wash feet, how many of those “serving” are a model of equality?

How many of our most holy moments disappear into automatic ritual as if we are brushing our teeth?

Tonight, Cliff and I will also participate in this ancient ritual. In our community, we wash hands rather than feet in a recognition of our world where hands do more of the daily work than feet. We will once more dedicate ourselves to the priesthood. We will strip the altar, put away the linens, remove the symbols of our office and leave the table bare.

Each year, each day, we are challenged to make our rituals real instead of empty.

Wherever you are this Thursday evening, take a moment to be real. Remember this “last supper” as a moment in your life with your experiences and your needs.

If the table is empty, what will fill it? Who will come?
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Wednesday of Holy Week: Isaiah 50: 4-9; Matthew 26: 14-25

"God has given me a well-trained tongue…and opens my ears that I may hear;"

"The one who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will hand me over."

Today’s gospel from Matthew retells the story we heard yesterday: Jesus is celebrating the Passover meal with his disciples and says, “…one of you will betray me.”

Betrayal comes in many forms from many directions.

Sometimes we are betrayed by those we love or who love us; sometimes we are betrayed by strangers when they cut us off on the highway without thinking of the danger they represent.

So much of literature is tied into betrayal – from the Homer epics through Shakespeare to modern plays and music. We humans betray one another – in thought, word, and deed.

Betrayal may be the harshest human experience to forgive. We become hurt, furious, we want to hurt back. We rarely use a “well-trained tongue” when confronting it. We rarely listen to the inner voice that reminds us we are safe, to forgive, to move on. Instead we hold on to the betrayal as if we are justified in punishing ourselves as we punish another.

“Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Today, in your Lenten reflections and in preparation for a new birth into light, you may want to take some time to list the betrayals others have done to you that still elicit anguish or anger, and listen to your Spirit voice as you see those names. Can you forgive? Can you release the anger or rage or fear against that experience or person?

Are you able to move clearly and securely into resurrection?
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Tuesday of Holy Week: John 13: 21-33

"I tell you solemnly, one of you will betray me."

Each year, the journey of Holy Week begins anew, no matter how many times we have traveled it in the past. And each year, we have examples of human life in a condensed time frame.

On Sunday, we had wild celebrations, Monday’s gospel gave an example of human jealousy over the acclamations Jesus received, and today we have betrayal.

I’ve read or heard many theories of who Judas was, what was his reasoning or why he did what he did. There’s no sure answer to that except to note that the story of Judas appears in the synoptic gospels as well as the Gospel of John. And so, from that, we must surmise that the experience with Judas happened regardless of why.

But betrayal comes in many ways to Jesus just as it comes to us. Peter betrays – Peter the Rock who is strong and confident. Martha and Mary, the sisters who love Jesus, each betray when they doesn’t trust Jesus’ actions. The people whom Jesus heals betray when they don’t thank him or when they return to their previous lives and ways. The chief priest will betray him.

Betrayal. It comes to each of us in all ways and in many situations. When we use anger that hurts someone else, we betray the Christ Consciousness. When we get irritated at work or the lack of work, we betray our Christ Consciousness. When we refuse to help someone, we betray our Christ Consciousness. In little ways and big, we betray the injunction to love one another, to be at peace. We betray the Christ Consciousness when we worry or retreat from conscious behavior. We betray our Christ Consciousness when we judge another’s actions.

Observe your journey this week. How do you, how do I, how do all of us betray in large ways and small? How do we reconcile ourselves to our self?

This week, become conscious of all your actions and reactions, your emotions and your experiences. Become conscious of the times you judge another.

Lent and Holy Week give us a concentrated period of time to examine our lives, to release that which causes our darkness, to prepare once more for a rebirth into a new way of thinking, breathing, and living.

Take these days and prepare for rebirth.

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Monday of Holy Week: Isaiah 42: 1-7; John 12

"Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit."

We have begun Holy Week. Not only is it Holy Week for the Western churches, it’s also Holy Week for the Eastern church with Orthodox Easter and Easter Sunday falling on the same date this year, and Passover beginning at sundown today. Those concurrences happen rarely in the Julian calendar.

We are walking from exile into freedom.

The reading from Isaiah is called “First song of the servant of Yahweh.” It’s often used to show that Jesus was a promised messiah centuries before his birth.

What would happen if we read that passage and considered it ours?

“Thus says, God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand…”

What if we were to consider this song to Yahweh our song?

With yesterday’s Palm Sunday celebration, we have begun the walk to death and resurrection. As +Cliff said yesterday, most in our small community have been touched by the death of a loved one this year. Just in our small community. Think of all those in the wider community, those reading this reflection, those in the city, state, nation, world, whose lives have been touched by death this year. And when death occurs close to us, to those we love, we are forced to consider our own mortality.

With each death, we also must “get through it” as Cliff also said. Somehow, we get through it. We do what we have to do. We do what we are called to do.

This week, Eastern and Western Christianity as well as Judaism are looking at a task we are called to do: to walk out of our darkness and enter light. To enter freedom.

Has God-Spirit “grasped you by the hand…”? What would it be like to actually feel grasped by God’s hand? Would you believe that you can “get through it” whatever it is on any given day, or would you rebel at the task you’ve been given?

“I have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand…”
I don’t believe this means we will never stumble, never struggle. I do believe this means that every time we remember we are the servants of the Most Holy, we are called back to the task at hand and see the task in a new light. That’s resurrection.

Each time we can turn from our darkness, from sadness, anger, frustration, irritability, we are resurrected.

Observe your week rather than judge. Observe the wider world, the weather, the news, co-workers, family with a held-in-Spirit’s-hand vision.

Create your own prayer this week for those times when you feel stress or when you stumble. You could use what Jesus said: not my will but thine. You could pray, Lord hold my hand; or Holy One, let me feel your hand.

Have mercy on me.

Have mercy.

Mercy.

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