April 4 -- Waking Up

This week’s lectionary texts: Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 65:17-25, Psalm 118:1-2 and 14-24, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 or Acts 10:34-43, and John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12.

It might not quite look like it in Boston today, but spring has sprung! Tiny green buds are covering the trees; daffodils and crocuses are dotting yards and birds are chirping in the bushes and branches. The snow is long gone -- rain keeps falling, but that rain is sure to bring even more new vegetation to life after the cold slumber of winter. The world, it seems, is waking up.

April 4th is Easter, the day that we remember Christ's triumph over death -- a triumph that allows us to wake up, to start fresh, to begin a new day full of hope and joy and renewed perseverance. On Easter, we are called to awaken to new possibilities, to new awareness of the needs of our world and our neighbor, to new understandings of how God is working in our lives. The resurrection of Jesus stands as a testament to God's unfathomable love for us -- through Christ, we have been roused from our complacency, our despair, our stagnancy, and urged to claim our new lives as beloved children of God.

This week's lectionary texts are full of beautiful reflections on the power of God to create and recreate, to awaken and enliven the world and all its creatures. In Isaiah, the prophet gloriously recalls God's promises to the world:

"For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth...But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight...no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress." (Isaiah 65:17-19)

God has promised to restore and renew us, to give good things to God's people and to encourage all of creation to live together in new ways that are life-giving and love-increasing. "They shall be offspring blessed by the Lord," we read; "Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox" (Isaiah 65:23-24). God wants to help us build a world of peace: "They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord" (Isaiah 65:25).

We all understand that this world can be full of pain and destruction, just as it can be full of beauty and goodness. But as Paul tells the Corinthians, there is hope in Christ: "For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:22). His is an eschatological vision, in which Christ has destroyed death itself, opening us to new chances to live spirit-filled, courageous, radically loving lives. Even if we feel held back -- by our circumstances, by our pasts -- God has promised us forgiveness and urges us to preach peace (Acts 10:42-43).

The resurrection story in the Gospel of John presents Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Upon arriving at the tomb and finding two angels where Jesus' body had been, she begins to weep. Turning around, she runs into Jesus -- whom she fails to recognize -- and he asks her, "Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?" (John 20:15). She asks Jesus to tell her what has been done with the body -- but then, as Jesus calls her name, she suddenly recognizes that the man in front of her is her dear friend, the man who was once dead but who has been restored to life.

So often we sleepwalk through life, our eyes closed to new opportunities for service, new ways to develop our God-given gifts and talents, new understandings of community and interconnectedness. How many times have we failed to recognize Jesus in a person in need? How many times have we been unable to see God's glory because we are just too tired to shake up our usual patterns and look at the world with fresh eyes?

Indeed, God understands that it can be difficult -- sometimes seemingly impossible -- to wake up. We can be held back by challenges both external and internal, difficulties that prevent us from awakening to the new life God has in store for us. But this Easter, let us hear the call to the joyful, vibrant, beautiful promise we have been given in Christ. Let us ask ourselves how we have fallen asleep and become disconnected from God and from our neighbors. And let us wake from our slumbers and greet the morning with boldness, proclaiming with the psalmist,

"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!" (Psalm 118:24)

March 28 -- Palm Sunday

This week's lectionary texts: Psalm 118:1-2 and 19-29, and Luke 19:28-40 or John 12:12-16.

Growing up Catholic, I remember spending one Palm Sunday gathering with the rest of the congregation in the parking lot of our church. Someone had started a huge bonfire on that chilly morning, and as we all huddled together, everyone was handed a palm frond. After some initial prayers, the priest then led us into the sanctuary, singing and waving our green leaves.

I have to confess that as a child, I was much more fascinated by the actual palms -- their bright colors, the way that you could peel off the edges into little strings -- than by their symbolism. Indeed, the whole story of Palm Sunday seemed strange to me: Jesus riding on a donkey? The residents of Jerusalem welcoming him with palm branches? It all sounded a little silly.

Now, the story of Palm Sunday still seems a bit strange, but in a different way. Namely, how could Jesus be so warmly welcomed one moment, and less than a week later have been sentenced to death, crucified, and resurrected?

This week's lectionary texts do not quite get at the question of how things took such a sudden turn. But they do offer reflection on the ways in which Jesus is continually portrayed as someone who upends expectations and changes our perspective on what it means to be powerful.

As the psalmist writes in Psalm 118, God is good; God's "steadfast love endures for ever" (Psalm 118:1). He offers a stirring image for entering into God's presence:

"Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it." (Psalm 118:19-20)

Paralleling the psalmist's words, John and Luke offer us their own interpretations of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. As Luke writes, two of the disciples are sent ahead to find a young colt and to bring it to Jesus for his entrance into the city. As he rode along, "people kept spreading their cloaks on the road," and the disciples "began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!'" (Luke 19:36-38).

While Luke omits any mention of palm branches, John writes that as Jesus entered the city, "a great crowd" appeared, taking "branches of palm trees and [going] out to meet him," shouting praises to the Lord (John 12:12-13). Here, John references the prophet Zechariah, explaining that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a young donkey to echo what had been written: "Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9).

Indeed, the texts we read this Palm Sunday are full of fascinating -- and sometimes unintuitive -- happenings. Jesus is the son of God, but he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey -- hardly the most noble of animals. He is welcomed with praise and excitement by the palm-carrying populace -- but condemned by them just days later. The psalmist seems to echo these seeming contradictions when he writes, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (Psalm 118:22).

Jesus is constantly causing us to readjust our expectations, to realize that things are not always what they seem. Just as Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of praise, only to see his entire life upended just a few days later, we too may experience upheavals in our lives. Things can go from good to bad in an instant; they can just as quickly go from bad to good. Life is unpredictable, and the story of Palm Sunday shows that Jesus can empathize with us when things don't go as we expect them to.

The photograph above was taken in Mexico several years ago. I was sitting near a palm tree, when I noticed a tiny nest woven into the branches. Every few minutes, a little head would poke out and chirp, and, without fail, a bigger bird would eventually return with a new tidbit for its baby. This went on for at least an hour as I watched, totally transfixed. It was a beautiful example of the care of a parent for a child, much like God cares for us, even in the midst of confusion or uncertainty.

We all know what happens after Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem that day -- he will come face to face with his own death, a death advocated by the men and women who had just welcomed him with palms. How rapidly things changed. But through it all, God is constantly there, constantly caring for Jesus, as God constantly cares for us. As the psalmist simply and powerfully puts it, "O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever" (Psalm 118:29).

Photo by the author.

March 14 -- Lost and Found

This week's lectionary texts: Joshua 5:9-12, Psalm 32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, and Luke 15:1-3 and 11b-32.

"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." So goes the version of the Lord's Prayer found in Luke. During Lent, the notion of sin can weigh heavy on our minds and hearts. As we reflect on the events of the past liturgical year and the ways in which we have conducted our relationships with God and our fellow men and women, our attention is often drawn to those ways in which we have fallen short and lost our way.

And in a sense, that's one way to define sin -- losing our way. We lose our way when we fail to come through for our friends and family in their time of trouble. We lose our way when we let a cruel or thoughtless remark pass our lips. We lose our way when we take more than we need. Sin does not have to involve a huge event like stealing millions of dollars or taking a life -- sin can be those little actions that fray at our spirits and slowly wear away at our efforts to live in community or draw closer to God.

In this week's lectionary texts, we hear about the ways in which sin can serve to divide us from those we love. In Luke's gospel, we read the story of the prodigal son, a parable Jesus shares with the Pharisees who have accused him of associating with sinners.

A man, Jesus explains, has two sons, and one wishes to claim his inheritance early. His father consents, and the young man "travel[s] to a distant country, and there he squander[s] his property in dissolute living" (Luke 15:13). He soon begins to starve, and decides to return to his father to beg to be treated as a servant, exclaiming, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son" (Luke 15:21).

Yet his father is simply overjoyed that his son has returned. The other son, upset about the warm welcome received by his brother, complains to his father. But his father replies, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found" (Luke 15:31-32).

Lost and found: indeed, this is what forgiveness is all about. When we sin, we distance ourselves from God and our neighbor; we lose ourselves. But when we acknowledge the pain or hurt we have caused, make amends for what we have done, and begin to follow a life-giving path once again, we are promised God's forgiveness.

As Paul writes to the Corinthians, Christ has made all things new: "In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us" (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). God wants to be reconciled with us, and for us to be reconciled with one another. God wants us to find our way back home.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 32 of the joy that is to be found in forgiveness: "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32:1). As he writes, "Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and you forgave the guilt of my sin" (Psalm 32:5). Owning up to our sin is not always easy -- but once we do, the psalmist writes, we will be "surround[ed]" by "glad cries of deliverance" (Psalm 32:7).

Sin can be a painful topic; no one likes to dwell on the ways they have hurt others, or the ways that others have hurt them. But this Lent, let us take the time to reflect on where we may have lost our way -- and how being forgiven or offering forgiveness to others can help us find that way again.

Photo credit here.