how can we laugh at a time like this?

I'm sitting at my computer, looking out the 24th floor window of my hotel in Des Moines.  I am currently attending our annual School for Ministry and learning all sorts of neat things about capital campaigns and what kinds of fonts to use on worship slides.  We've had some good practical teaching this year... with some good theological underpinings.  It usually is.  I'm glad Iowa does this! 

Anywho... here I sit, looking out the window at 12:26am at the quiet streets below.  I'm still up because I'm trying to plan worship for Sunday so that I can send my organist the hymns.  I'm exhausted.  Both from Holy Week and now these days of sitting in a conference room with no windows for hours upon hours.  I do not want to preach.  I have two funerals ahead of me in the days to come.  And someone mentions "Holy Humor Sunday." 

I've heard of Holy Humor Sunday... but never actually done one.  It's this tradition (a very old tradition) of laughing on the Sunday after Easter as we celebrate the cosmic joke that God plays on sin and death when Jesus Christ is raised from the dead.  It is a day to laugh, to lift up our hearts, to thank God that we know already the end of the story. 

I'm loving this idea.  I've spent about an hour already looking up hymns and liturgy and of course, jokes to tell. 

And then I realize that since I've been holed up in a conference room for the last two days that I have no idea what has been going on in the world.  I check CNN, and I check weather.com... 72 dead from tornadoes in one town in Alabama... friends freaking out on facebook over tornadoes that barely clipped their own homes and the severe weather alerts that have them shaking in their boots every time the sirens go off. 

I start to think about these two funerals that I have coming up this very weekend.

I start to remember the brokenness so many people in our communities are experiencing right now.

I start to look out on that quiet street before me and wonder who is sleeping in an alley tonight, instead of in a king size bed at the Marriott. 

I know in my bones that God has already won.  I know that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.  I understand.  I believe.  But I find it so hard to keep that Easter joy in my heart because we haven't reached the end of the story yet!  We are inbetween times... in between the empty tomb and the new creation.  It's here, but not fully.  It's already, but not yet. 

How on earth can we laugh at a time like this?  How can we laugh as cities are ravaged by deadly winds and little ones go to bed hungry tonight?  How can we laugh when people are staring death in the face and losing?  How can we laugh when the disparity between the haves and the havenots is so stark?

Maybe the question is... how can we not laugh? 

How can we not just take a deep breath and remember that God is in control... not us.

St. John Chrysostom preached in his famous Easter sermon:

If anyone is devout and loves God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If anyone is a wise servant, let him rejoice and enter into the joy of his Lord.



He gives rest to him who comes at the 11th hour, even as to him who has worked from the first hour. And He shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first.


Let all then enter into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first and likewise the second. You rich and poor together, keep the feast. You sober and you heedless, celebrate the day.

Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast… Let all receive the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free.


O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown.


Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of the dead. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

This world is broken and imperfect and horrible things happen all around us.  But if we cannot laugh in the midst of our sorrows, then the Devil has already won.  If we cannot laugh and lift up one anothers spirits, then there is no hope.  If we cannot laugh and rejoice, then why keep going at all? 

Christ is risen. Death is overthrown. Life reigns. 

We don't have to be afraid.  We don't have to be scared.  We know the end of the story and we can laugh in the face of all that tries to hurt us.

Those words are so powerful...  and so hard to believe in.

But maybe... just maybe... if we get together as a community and we laugh, we will find the faith we need to trust.  Maybe together we can find the strength to laugh in the face of sin and death and to really and truly mean it.  

hiatus

I have had a really difficult time getting myself into the headspace to blog lately.  I've been in these funks before, when I just need a break from technology, and in some ways, that has been true of this past one. 

But I also think that things have just been moving at such a break-neck speed lately that I really don't have the mental energy to sit down, stop, and reflect.  I just keep doing.... and then zoning out... and then doing some more.  Self-care lately has been more about stopping than processing. 

A sure sign of the chaos has been my office spaces.  The church office... my pastor's office... and my home office.  Piles of stuff, accessible when it is needed.  But the time for processing just hasn't been there.  I keep telling myself that after Easter and School for Ministry I'm  going to really stop and deal with it all... organize, toss, file, connect pieces, put things in some kind of order so that others can find them. 

But it's not "after Easter."  In the smack dab of the waiting, I sit.  Christ has been laid in the tomb and the disciples hid away somewhere.  They didn't process.  They didn't sort through their feelings.  They locked the door and huddled together. That's kind of how this past month has been.  Working my butt off, and then cuddling under a blanket in front of the television when the meetings stop and the work is done.  Waiting... numb... not wanting to think about what comes next - at least for right now.

The disciples were shaken out of their stupor by the amazing announcement on that Easter morning.  Their work wasn't complete... their lives were not over... they need not be afraid... Their hopes were resurrected, their engagement was reignited. 

My prayer is that the spark might blaze again for me.  That my spirit will be reignited.  That I can lay aside those burdens that keep me huddled under blankets and that with the daffodils and the lilies and the tulips I can throw off the cold and say - here I am.  I'm ready.  Nothing can hold me back.  Try and stop me.

afraid.

Three women made their way to a lonely tomb just after sunrise. The sky still had that rosy pink hue – but instead of feeling warm and comforted, they were reminded of the bloodshed only days earlier.

Never again would they look at a cross the same way again. Before, it had been a symbol of punishment, a tool used by the Romans to keep the people in line. Now, it was where their teacher had been martyred. It stood for all of his truth and goodness and they would forever remember him upon that cross.

They were journeying back to the place where they had laid his body. They were going to mourn but also to honor and glorify his broken body. They were going to say goodbye.

A million thoughts raced through the minds of those three women. Chief among them – what’s next? Would they, could they, return to their old lives? With Jesus dead, there wasn’t really any among the group of disciples who seemed ready to continue sharing his message. No, it all ended on the cross. All of their hopes and dreams, all of the promises of the Kingdom of God ended on the cross. It was finished.

They brought with them the spices and oils they would need, but as the three women neared the tomb, they began to wonder what on earth they were doing. Were the Romans who crucified their Teacher watching them? What about the Jewish leaders? And if they made it there safely, how were they going to roll back the stone covering the entrance on their own?

Despite their doubts and fears, they kept moving forward, step by step, clutching one another’s hands, until they came to place where he had been laid.

The stone... That big huge obstacle they thought they would have to overcome. It was gone. And a young man sat on the cold hard slab just inside the tomb. What was he doing there? And where on earth was the body of Jesus?

The man looked at them and the women instinctively flinched. He had a strange aura about him and was dressed in dazzling white. They were absolutely speechless.

Don’t be afraid – he whispered to them…. You’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth, but he’s not here! He has been raised, just like he promised. Go – tell the disciples and Peter that he will meet you in Galilee. He’s waiting for you!

The hearts of the women literally stopped beating for a few moments. They had come to honor a dead body and they were met by a mystery. He has been raised?! He’s… waiting for us? Was it a trap? Was it true? Could it possibly be?

It was all so completely overwhelming. They felt like they were standing in the presence of the holy – like Moses before the burning bush – like Elijah standing on the side of the mountain and hearing God’s voice in the silence… and yet nothing made sense. Nothing that was happening fit with their understanding of the world! If the massive stone could be rolled away without any human effort, if Jesus really was raised from the dead, what other assumptions and truths that they had known would be proved false? If the very power of death had been overcome, what was next? What else was going to change?

The world was turned upside down for these three women by this radically holy encounter. Terror and amazement seized them and they turn and fled from the tomb. Was it unworthiness? Was it the weight of the message that they were called to proclaim? Was it fear and awe that come from being face to face with God’s power? The world may never know. But Mary Magdelene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome said nothing to anyone… for they were afraid.

Passion Sunday

For about two and a half weeks now, I have been working on and reworking and tweaking our Passion Sunday worship. Last year, our format was pretty much a lessons and hymns service - where we read the scriptures and sang songs in between chunks of the reading.

I'm always torn about whether or not to really focus on Palm Sunday or to span the gammit and do the whole Passion Sunday reading. Knowing my congregation, probably only 15% of those who regularly attend worship will be at our Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. And that is only 5% of the whole church. So if we didn't hear the Passion story on the Sunday before Easter, the depth of the journey, the betrayal and the sacrifice would go unnoticed. And Easter just isn't Easter if you haven't journeyed through the cross.

But how do you tell the whole story on a Sunday morning? I've been reading a lot of other pastor's litanies, and how they have put together worship and used some ideas from here and some ideas from there. The main structure that has fed into the service we will be doing tomorrow is a responsive singing of "Were You There." The verses are not the typical ones, but each one ties into the readings that have preceded it.

What I did end up doing however, was take each of the scripture readings and put any spoken words into particular people's voices. There is a narrator, but then there will be someone speaking the words of Jesus, of Peter, of the Disciples, of the Crowd, of Pilate, of Judas, and of Caiaphas. And then as I continued to wrestle with the text, each of those voices tell a bit of their own story and give some context to the message as we hear again the story of Christ.

I'm pretty happy with the final script, and I'm putting it all in God's hands for tomorrow morning - praying that the spirit will be in our reading, and will help everyone present understand the Journey Through the Cross.

Whose Baptism?

For a few weeks, I have felt a bit off in my sermon prep. The pieces I wanted to come together hadn't, and it just seemed like the message wasn't connecting with people where they were.

This week, I surely had a much different focus going into the sermon than what was produced, but I for some reason got into a roll on a modern interpretation of the passage from Acts this morning. I talked about a group of guys heading to the big city to see this crazy preacher lady. They just wanted to see the spectacle, but they were moved and were baptised by Jane B. in the river. And they headed home and while they wanted things to be different, nothing really was.

A few years went by and suddenly this traveling preacher came to town named Paul and he told them about what they had been missing out on - that they only had half the story - and immediately those believers were filled with the Holy Spirit.

I hope to post on this in a few days, but I read the book "The Shack" last week. It absolutely amazed me. Yeah, there are some theological points that I don't agree with, but if I'm honest with myself, there are far more that resonate with my own theology than don't. Especially when it comes to really being open and trusting that God can dwell within you. That your life can be different because God lives within you.

In my sermon this morning, I tried to move from that story of missing pieces to talk about how we don't fully understand the power of the Holy Spirit that is given to us in baptism. We underestimate its power. We don't trust it. And so we are not able to do the things we know we are called to. We get caught up in fear and hesitation instead of resting in the knowledge that God is within us, God has filled us, God loves us and God is for us.

In the service we also had a time to remember our baptisms and I think the morning went very well. I had a number of people come up to me after the service and talk about how meaningful it was for them. And what was even more amazing about the service is that I felt like I really worshipped this morning too.

Afterwards we had our first ever worship committee meeting to talk about plans for Lent and Easter. Getting answers and ideas out of them was like pulling teeth, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm asking the wrong questions or if they just aren't used to being asked these kinds of questions. I think we did come up with a general theme for the lenten season: Simplicity and Spiritual Disciplines... about what we need to let go of in order to really enjoy our relationship with God... as well as some songs to guide us through the season. We talked about plans for Holy Week, Ash Wednesday, and then Easter Sunday.

To my amazement, someone suggested that we scrap the Sunrise Service - because it doesn't have a large attendance, and the youth aren't really involved in it anyways. And then someone agreed. And someone actually said: just because we've always done it that way doesn't mean that it's worth doing. WOO HOO!!! Last year's Easter Sunrise service was something the youth group helped me put together - complete with hard rock songs instead of hymns... and then none of them showed up. So this gives me permission to not do it... yay!

The rest of the day was spent on the couch watching moves. Lots of movies. "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" "Music and Lyrics" "Burn After REading" "Hancock" "Ratatouille"... it was just one of those kinds of days.

Christ is Risen! Easter Sunday is Over! Praise the Lord!

Well. Somehow I made it through one of the busiest weeks of my entire life. The irony didn't escape me that while many friends and siblings and loved ones were on spring break, I felt like i was in the midst of finals.

This past week, I had a funeral, gave the invocation at a banquet, had the neice and nephew over for a sleep over, did Maundy Thursday service, Good Friday service, visited three diferent sets of relatives and had 2 worship services on Sunday morning. *whew!*

Now I'm exhausted. But instead of taking the day off monday and sleeping, I ended up taking my car to the shop. And then found out the repairs would be almost as much as the car itself, that the parts had to be ordered and that I shouldn't even drive the vehicle until the repairs were finished. So, we dropped the car off at my in-laws, rented a vehicle and then got ready to drive to Des Moines for our School for Ministry.

I'm in the midst of it right now. I thought about blogging my way through, but for right now I'm just going to update as we go. Our faculty is Roberta Bondi, Tex Sample and Lovett Weems. So far- it has been EXCELLENT. Bondi is teaching us about prayer, especially through the desert mothers and fathers. Sample is lecturing about justice - especially corporate domination of government, the inequality of wealth and the increasing economic risk that families face. and Weems tomorrow will begin to talk about church leadership. I am just floored by what we have discussed so far and am SO glad that I am here.

grey area.. greys anatomy

I haven't written in here for a while. Lots going on. Had a young adult clergy retreat this last weekend and really really enjoyed being with other young pastors and just hanging out. It was good to veg for a while.

The whole sermon thing is starting to feel like homework. Especially this week. I feel like I am back in theology class having to write my christology/soteriology/resurrection-ology. I honestly don't remember ever having to preach an easter/resurrection sermon before... well - except at the two funerals that I have done already. And as I work this week with the raising of Lazarus and then think about Easter in two weeks, my mind is just stuck. What do I want to say about resurrection? Or more importantly, what I have I experienced in my life that is resurrection? I'm still a young person. And there have been a few bumps in the road... but I don't know that I have had a real resurrection experience. Everything I try to draw upon feels too fluffy and sappy and cheesy to work. To really connect with the lives of people in my congregation.

This week, I really am thinking hard about how this moment in John's gospel is really the beginning of Christ's passion. Raising Lazarus is what signs his death warrant here. And he comes so close to Jerusalem in order to do so. From here on out, we know how the story goes. I really want to include some of that tension and pain and passion in with this week. Especially since next week we are doing a sort of lessons and hymns and recalling the whole palm/passion story.

I just feel stuck. Not quite sure what direction I want to take. And instead of really sitting with it, I'm letting myself get distracted (I'm getting excited for Grey's Anatomy coming back... even though I still have a month and a half to wait! The old episodes, my dvds, are calling my name).