The Power of Showing Up…

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anxious, beauty, church, comfort, expectation, gift, God, grace, Holy Week, kids, nervous, pilgrimage

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse with permission only

Most of you know that Holy Week is my favorite week of the year.  I love the way the week feels like a virtual pilgrimage, walking us from Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, to his last meal with the disciples, to his trial and crucifixion, to his death and resurrection.  Each daily liturgy gives us the opportunity to experience that journey in unique, meaningful ways.  Knowing my passion for this week, my family is gracious every year with my absences from family life that week.  But this year, my husband had an evening work conflict he could not miss, and so I had some options for that night’s service.  I could skip the service – I was not serving that night, and was not physically needed.  I could hire a baby sitter, using some date-night reserves.  Or I could take the girls with me to the quiet service with long periods of silence, knowing how difficult it would be for them after a long day of school.

After much waffling, I decided to try bringing the kids with me.  I really wanted to be there for my own spiritual journey, and I hoped the kids might get something out of the experience.  I prepped the kids endlessly so that they would respect the periods of silence and the experience of those attending.  All in all, for their ages, the girls did amazingly well.  There were certainly a few too many wiggles and distracting noises, but for the most part, they were well-behaved.  I, on the other hand, was a ball of nervous energy.  I know how much I have reveled in the silence of that service and I really did not want to ruin that experience for anyone else.  I found myself so anxious about it, that I realized I didn’t get to experience the service in the way I traditionally do.

But here’s what did happen.  In the midst of trying to prevents disagreements, and minimize crinkling of papers, I was still able to sing and pray the words of the songs.  In the midst of desperately trying to keep kids at whisper-levels, I was able to catch snippets of scripture that hung in my ears and mind.  In the midst of impatient children, I was able to hear my children singing along and see my kids embrace participation – whether in lighting candles, handing out bulletins, or praying at the altar.

Here’s the thing about Holy Week services:  there are a lot of them, and you might not think you are mentally or spiritually ready for them.  You might be curious about some of the services, but are not sure your kids could handle them.  Or you might be thinking you are too tired this week to get anything out of the services.  No matter what is going on with you this week, I promise that if you can get yourself to Church, God will find you.  It may not be in the way you expect, you may not be able to be present as fully as you like, and you might not be convinced it is worth it.  But I promise you, if you figure out a way to get to Church this week, God will break through the chaos of life and whisper a word of comfort, and give you a glimpse into God’s grace and beauty.  My guess is that if you open yourself up to the liturgies of this week, you might just figure out how to carry those lessons into the rest of the Church year too.  The community is gathered this week and welcomes you, wherever you are on your journey, and especially when you do not feel like you have much to offer.  Holy Week is a gift the Church offers to you.  Your invitation is to just show up.

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse with permission only

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Homily – Luke 22.14-23.56, PS, YC, April 14, 2019

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church, death, faithfulness, hope, hopelessness, Jesus, life, Palm Sunday, Sermon, sinfulness, tension

Several years ago, I was visiting a parishioner on her deathbed in the hospital.  We were talking about the things you talk about at the end of life:  the blessings, the memories, the unexpected turns of life.  Whatever fears about death that had been present were long gone.  All that was left was a sense of peace, and a certainty about the eternal life waiting for her on the other side.  I found myself wistful and a little sad, knowing there was nothing I or the doctors could do at that point.  Death was coming.  In the midst of this sacred, serious moment of inevitability, we heard a tinkling noise in the hallway.  Having had a child in a hospital, I knew what the tinkling noise was:  the tinkling sound was the announcement of a new baby being born.  As I explained the noise, the parishioner and I sat in awe – the closeness of life and death were all around us.  We did not have much to say at that point.  The sound of that tinkling just lingered in the room, long after the sound was gone.

I was thinking this week how similar the experience of Palm Sunday is to that hospital room.  We hold in tension so many things today.  We certainly hold life and death in tension:  the joyful celebration of Jesus with palms, and the wailing sorrow of death at the cross of Jesus.  We hold hope and hopelessness in tension too:  the promise of a new king, entering triumphantly, and the despair and finality of Christ on the cross.  We hold faithfulness and sinfulness in tension today:  the bold proclamation of the king who has come in the Name of the Lord, and the shouts of “crucify, crucify him,” just moments later.  Though we might prefer to claim life, hope, and faithfulness, today we must claim death, hopelessness, and sinfulness too.  They are as intertwined as life and death in a hospital.

In some ways, the tension of this day is just what we need in a culture that might like us to jump from the palms to the risen, triumphant Lord.  I am reading Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead this Lent, and one of the hazards to leadership she articulates is numbing.  Numbing can happen in all kinds of ways – through food, work, social media, shopping, television, video games, or alcohol.  The problem with numbing is that we cannot selectively numb emotions.  As Brown says, “if we numb the dark, we numb the light.  If we take the edge off pain and discomfort, we are, by default, taking the edge off joy, love, belonging, and the other emotions that give meaning to our lives.”[i]  When we numb our way through life, we not only suppress the bad stuff; we never get to fully enjoy the good stuff of life.

Today, the Church refuses to allow us to numb.  The Church has us wave palms and sing loudly and smell the sweet smell of victory, with a grin from ear to ear.  And the Church has us listen to the devastation of betrayal, hear the voices of contempt and hatred, and shout for Christ’s death.  Our hearts feel heavy as our minds try to justify all the times we too have betrayed Christ.  We feast as the disciples did on Christ’s body and blood, and we leave in silence as his disciples did from the cross.  Today we feel everything:  life, death; victory, failure; joy, and devastation.  In letting go of our tendency to numb, we open ourselves to the fullness of all that happens on this day.  Only then can embrace the Easter message of resurrection that is to come.  Only when we are fully broken, fully vulnerable, fully present in the tension of this day can we receive the fullness of joy that comes next week.  Only when we are looking into the doorway to death can we understand the depth of joy that comes from the tinkling sound of new life.  So, stay awake with us for just a little while longer.

[i] Brené Brown, Dare to Lead (New York:  Random House, 2018), 85.

On Race, Lent, and Children…

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America, brokenness, children, Civil Rights, confess, Jesus, Lent, prayer, race, racism, repentance, shame, sin, unite

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse only with permission

This past week, our family traveled to Mississippi to visit friends.  On the trip we were able to see both the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.  While the museums were appropriate for our older child, who has been studying the Civil War and Reconstruction in her Social Studies Class, our younger child was a bit mystified by the museums.  She struggled with understanding the concept of history versus modern day, but she especially struggled with why people were hurting and killing each other.  She clearly made the connection that Caucasians (or “peach-skinned” people as she called them) were being mean to African-Americans (or “brown-skinned” people), but she could not fathom why.  With every video or picture, I was barraged with questions about why people were doing what they were doing, or why someone would kill someone like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Explaining the atrocities of American racial history to a five-year old is one of the most gut-wrenching experiences I have had.  I already struggle with the shame of our history and my participation in racism.  But to expose my child to the sinfulness and brokenness of our country made the shame deeper.  As the museum bombarded me with statistics around racial disparities, as prerecorded voices shouted out awful words that were once shouted out to people of color, and as “Precious Lord,” or “We Shall Overcome,” played overhead, I was reminded of all that we have been through as a country, and how much further we have to go.

In Lent, we do a lot of confessing of our sinfulness and working on repentance.  On Ash Wednesday, we confessed our exploitation of other people, our blindness to human need and suffering, and for “all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us.”[i]  In the Great Litany this Lent, we prayed, “From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity, Good Lord, deliver us.”[ii]  In the Exhortation in the Penitential Order, the priest asked us to “Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed. And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, being ready to make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by you to others; and also being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven.  And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food.”[iii]

As we finish these last days of Lent, as we hear the passion narrative on Sunday, and as we walk the days of Holy Week next week, I am reminded of how much work we still have to do.  For me, I will be contemplating the ways in which I participate in the systems and practices of racism in our community, working to not only be better, but to teach my children to be better.  And knowing our work of repentance is on-going, I look forward to our Eastertide book study that will allow us to delve into these issues even more.  This week I pray for the whole human family:

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.[iv]

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse only with permission

[i] Book of Common Prayer (BCP), 268.

[ii] BCP, 149.

[iii] BCP, 317.

[iv] BCP, 815.