Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-40

 My dad used to tell a story. It was a story from when he was very young. He grew up in a small town north of where I was raised. For a good part of his life, he worked with a man who was in the hotel business. It was good work. The hours were weird, but he had a nice place to sleep. Things were good and quiet (not like here).


That is, he told me, until one night. Everyone had already bedded down. It had been a busy day, just like the ones before. There were more people around than usual, which meant there was more work to be done. It had taken him a while to fall asleep. And when he had, it wasn't long before something work him up. People, he said, were in the barn.


One of them, the hotel man's wife, he knew. But the two other people he didn't know. They had a donkey with them who crowded in the stall near my dad and promptly fell asleep. The woman who was with the strange man who'd just come in didn't seem to be feeling well. The hotel man's wife gave a lot of orders to people who ran around while she worked to make the woman comfortable. Before long, the woman started to scream. It was unsettling. At first my dad wanted to hide and cover his ears because the noise scared him, but he kept watching and soon realized that the woman was giving birth. He'd never seen another creature being born before. He couldn't take his eyes away.


Seeing a human baby being born wasn't the biggest excitement of the night, however. A bunch of sheep showed up later on that night, about the time my dad had almost fallen asleep again. They came with their people who all seemed very excited over this birth. He didn't know what happened to the people and their baby, he said, because they didn't stay for very long.


I thought about this story today, though I don't know why. Maybe it was the commotion in the city like when he was little. Maybe it was being so close to people, though no one, today, had a baby. Even so, everyone seemed very excited today.


I've never carried anyone on my back before. I was a little afraid when this man approached me. But, it's strange, his burden wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be. It was actually easier than the work I usually do.


I'm not sure who he was or where he went to after we rode into the city. He seemed like a nice man. He treated me very kindly. He even thanked me after he climbed off my back. He told me I did well.


And, he said he'd see me again.


Jesus, as we enter this week in which we remember your last hours and death, help us as we follow you to remember that you can bear our burdens. Help us, whether we need it or not, to allow others to bear our burdens as we bear theirs.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126

The first reading this week comes from what is commonly referred to as Second Isaiah. Isaiah chapters 1-39 are concerned with a pending doom. It is written from the Kingdom of Judah in the latter days before the Babylonians came and left everything, including the Temple, in ruins. The sense of judgment and dread are heavy in those first thirty-nine chapters.

But something changes when we reach chapter 40. The tone and location have changed. No longer is there a sense of doom. No longer is the writer in Jerusalem. The tone has changed to words of comfort. The location appears to be far-off Babylon.

"Do not remember former things, and earlier things do not pay attention to them," says verse eighteen. Don't get mired in the past. Why? "Behold, I am doing a new thing…." Most translations neglect that the verb in this statement is a participle, it's a verb form the Hebrew uses to show present action. Why should the hearers pay no heed to what has gone before? Because, God is already doing something completely new.

I love that the wording here is "a new thing." The verses that follow hint at what this new thing will be: rivers in dry places, pathways though the wilderness. These don't strike us as they're meant to because we've grown so used to them. And that's tragic because we miss just how exciting these words are.

"Behold," God says, "I'm doing a new thing. The factory smokestacks will begin to blow clean air. The fish will eat the chemicals and purify the ocean." Now that would be a new thing. That's so new it's beyond imagination. And that's exactly what God is getting at. "You've never seen what I'm about to do. You can't even imagine."

But, really, is God going to do this? Somewhere deep down, I suppose I believe that God can do this, but…nothing new ever happens. While I suppose I believe that the many tears I've cried will, eventually, reap a harvest…I just wonder when it will happen. Where is this new thing?

Sometimes it seems that the "new thing" promised is just a divine practical joke. We're caught looking and we expect God to eventually say "fooled you" and laugh. I suppose it seemed like that especially in those dark hours between Good Friday evening and Sunday morning. And yet, a new thing came even then. Something completely unexpected.

As we enter near the end of Lent and prepare for Holy Week, let us try and remember that God is a God of new things. And we must always hold onto the hope that we too can find ourselves looking around and feeling like "those who dream."

God of possibilities, help us as we try to hold onto hope when nothing new seems to happen. Give us expectant hearts that never stop looking for that which we cannot begin to dream.

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Jesus is terribly, terribly rude.

Yes, it's nice that he goes out of his way to show how much he cares about the "poor" and those who are not as…well, you know…those who haven't gotten it all together. I suppose he does it to show off just how loving he is. Well hooray for Jesus. Now, can we please stop this nonsense? It's bad enough he wants to spend the day walking around and (God forbid it) talking to these degenerates. But to sit and have dinner with them. That's just unseemly.

And it's rude. It's terribly rude. After I went and invited Jesus long before these vagabonds did. I know the value of extending a dinner invitation well in advance. I know how busy Jesus' schedule is and how he'd prefer a well-thought-out meal than this…crock pot concoction these people are giving him.
Don't get me started on their table talk either. The things they say ought to make Jesus stand up and storm out of the room. It would be bad enough if he just continued sitting there, but oh no he doesn't stop there. No, he has to go and laugh at their crude jokes and the uncivilized things they do all day. God help me, he even joins in the conversations with them about shepherding and…I can't even talk about it. It's just so vile.
If he'd come to my house I'd have provided him with intelligent conversation. We'd have talked about holy things and not…this. I might have even gotten him to talk some more about this grace idea of which he seems so fond. It seems to run against God's way, but I'm willing (and educated enough) to follow his logic. These people could no more understand what Jesus was talking about than if he tried explaining what this "kingdom" of his is supposed to look like.

And what did he mean by that ridiculous story he told? I'm guessing he's just trying to fit in with this rabble. There was no moral whatsoever in that tale. Imagine, giving your child their inheritance while you're still alive. And then having a little party for him when he came home from squandering every penny of it? Please, I'm with the older brother. The dad should have locked the door and had a party for him instead. He's the one that deserved the good treatment after all.

But I suppose that's what happens when you hang out with this kind of people. Next thing you know he'll be telling them that they'll be "first" in his kingdom or some nonsense like that. As if that's what grace is about.

Christ, you sat down with rich and poor, righteous and unrighteous. Thank you for sharing table with us even though we often squander all we've been given.

Third Sunday of Lent

Psalm 63:1-8.
The Psalms have often been called the great prayer book of both Jews and Christians. Within their pages run the gamut of human emotion—from exultant joy to utter despair. Their words give us a guide to conversation with God. Nothing is off the table. Everything, truly every thought, emotion, complaint, and pleasure is permissible in our prayers to the One who loves us.
Isn't it interesting, then, how often churches (and lectionaries) seem to think the not-so-pretty parts of the Psalter are not ready for Sunday morning. This week's Psalm (Psalm 63) is called a Psalm of Comfort in God's Presence. Indeed, there are wonderful, comforting images here. The sense given in the "thirsting" of the first verse and the "clinging" of the eighth is not just a sense of being glad Christ is around, but that we cannot live without that relationship. However, just beyond the borders of the proscribed reading for today lies another side of the emotional coin.
"And they for ruin will seek my very being, they will go in lowest earth." To put it in our words: "Let those who are out to get me go to hell." Yikes.
But it gets better. Verse ten wants them to be bled out upon a sword and part of them given to feed the foxes. Think of singing something like this next Sunday.
The problem is not, for me, in what is said, but that I'm often afraid to say these things in prayer. Even though I've been told time and time again that God desires all of us, as a lover desires all of their beloved, I still hold back. Sure, I want that person who took credit for the hard work I did to get what's coming to them, but I can't say that, especially not to GOD. Thoughts like that aren't Christian. We're supposed to love our neighbor. And, thoughts like that aren't very loving, are they?
What I've come to realize is that sometimes, actually a lot of the time, it's really hard to love others. It's almost as hard as loving myself. And sometimes the only thing I can think of is how much I don't love someone. Sometimes the only thing that I can think about is how much I'd like someone to get what's coming to them. I want to cry out just like the psalmist did and say, "Oh God, just let them go to hell!"
The funny thing is, when I allow myself to pray those thoughts the strangest thing happens. Rather than my enemy finding themselves hellbound or on the edge of the sword, I find that I have found a way to love them again.
And I find that Christ does not love me any less for having prayed what I did.
God of infinite mercy, give me courage to pray anger as well as joy. Help me to hold nothing back in my talks with you so that I can become like the One with whom I'm speaking.