Forgiveness

When I was a kid, I sang in the Trinity Cathedral choir in Pittsburgh. When Palm Sunday came, when it was time for the Gospel, we all sighed when we discovered that it was so long. This was before the time when the Gospel was dramatized and members of the congregation took parts, sometimes dressed up, and made the Gospel come alive. the problem was that the church didn't take the Gospel as seriously as it might have. Us "little ones" just had to listen to it. I guess that they hoped that by constant repetition over the years, it might sink in. Well, they were right, it did sink in, but not by constant repetition. I learned that the Gospel for Palm Sunday was significant when I went to seminary and came face to face with the reality of the Passion. The very idea that God came to earth to live as one of us, and we killed him was not something that I learned in Sunday School. Jesus' death on the cross was always for me something that "they" did. "They" being the Pharisees and the other religious leaders in Jesus' time. When I discovered that it was me who killed Jesus, it put another face on it. I began to understand what forgiveness really meant. It wasn't simple "sins" that were being forgiven, it was my arrogance in believing that everything was about me. That is what Jesus' passion is all about. When I think of that, it brings me up short every time. On Palm Sunday, I like to think that Easter isn't necessarily going to happen. All of the Easter preparation that we do, the baskets, the bunny, the eggs, the candy are all ways to dress up this holiday so that we don't really need to think about what it means. The Resurrection of Jesus is an incredible event. It means for us all that we are forgiven the arrogance that makes us the center of the world.

I have known so called "born again" people who don't know this. They make their faith the center of their lives and push it forward as judgment on the rest of us. They need forgiveness too. We all do. The beautiful thing is that they have it. Jesus died for them as well as the rest of us. In terms of the real horrible evil that there is in the world, Jesus died for that too. Those with evil at the core of their being are loved and forgiven also by God. That little core of goodness that lies at the heart of every created person is exposed and loved by the God who created us all. That is what "heaven" is all about.

The Radical Expectation of Easter

Such a beautiful day. Sunshine, birds chirping, lots of hope for a wonderful season. This is great with Palm Sunday coming and Holy Week on the horizon. I love this time of the year religiously. I have already said something about Palm Sunday, but Holy Week is a particularly special time. The theme is forgiveness. We walk through Jesus last week, the anxiety that he feels, the coming loss of him to the disciples, the last supper, the betrayal, the arrest, the crucifixion and the agony of the death of God for three days. This culminates in the glory of Easter, but we kid ourselves when we assume Easter as a certainty. We need very much to experience the death of God at our hands. We kill Jesus in our collective arrogance. We have disobeyed the commandments, dismissed Jesus' teaching and we go on trying over and over again to have our own way. That is the root of all of the evil in the world. What is necessary for all of us is to look inside ourselves, at our hate, our prejudices and our tendency always to put our own needs first. It isn't always that blatant, we find ways to excuse ourselves and to explain why we are probably all right. That is why we need over all things to find forgiveness. It is what God gives us absolutely in this Holy Week.

We always had a Seder Supper on Maundy Thursday and celebrated the Eucharist in the context of our meal. That was a wonderful evening for all of us. After supper, we would process to the nave of the church where we would strip the altar and dim the lights and get the place ready for Good Friday. That, for me, emphasized my sin and prepared me for the truth of Good Friday and got me ready for the radical expectation of Easter. It was always a wonderful surprise when it came.

Spring and Summer

We have sleet outside this morning. Temperatures in the thirties. I need to go get new tires for the car today. I know somehow, deep inside, that spring is here and that summer is coming. I can't deny this even though the harshness of the winter that we had this year stays with me. We have a yard full of squirrels and the guys are coming to cut the grass this weekend. We rented two beach houses for our 55th anniversary family gathering this summer. Summer at Long Beach is a wonderful thing to think about. We will have the kids and the grandkids as well as Sammy, our Great grandkid. It will be wonderful. What have I done to deserve all of this? Well, nothing at all. We are a grown up family that needs each other. That is the wonderful part about what we are doing.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is an incredible day, and a metaphor for our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It begins with a procession through Jerusalem with Jesus on a donkey, or on two horses if you wish, with people strewing palms and branches in his way and great shouts of Hosanna! following him on the road. The day progresses to the end with the palms turned to crosses as we remember the horror of Good Friday which will come at the end of Holy Week. Most churches have some sort of enactment of this Gospel on Palm Sunday with parishioners taking the parts and acting out the passion of Jesus. I remember Judas coming down the center aisle and throwing the silver pieces at the high priests and running out of the place. What I remember more than all of that is the scene of crucifixion where Jesus is stripped and nailed to the cross and lifted up over all of us. In that moment, the whole of the day comes home to me and I know the purpose of it: to make sure that I know the depth of the love of God to send his son to die for all of us. God himself come to earth to suffer and to die for all of humanity. With that in place, how we treat each other, and our petty judgement of our neighbors bores into my soul. I can hardly imagine what this depth of love has created and how the pain of God for all of us must intrude on that love. But it doesn't intrude. God's love for us produced out of the exquisite pain of Good Friday the elegance of Easter. The Resurrection is God's answer to our cruelty. That is a wonderful answer that we all need to tuck into our hearts. Think of the last time that you were cruelly treated and think of what a gracious response might have produced. That can change my life, and it might change yours.

A reflection on Health Care

Passing the health care bill has to be one of the most momentous events in recent history. But it wasn't easy watching the sausage making as it went through the process. I am pleased that more people will be covered and that the beginning of insurance company regulation has happened, but I am not yet sure what will be tried to derail this thing. Like Social Security and Medicare, we have only begun a process that will work itself out over the coming years. Thank God for the beginning, and may God bless the coming years.

Some Reflections on the coming of Spring

We had an open house with the realtor yesterday and one couple came. I hope we can sell this place soon. We want to move back to Pittsburgh where our kids live and our grand kids. We also have a new Great Grandson who will need our attention. We are really pleased with all of this. The kids are as anxious as we are. For Easter, we will go to Pittsburgh and to Cleveland, spending some time with all of our kids. This ought to be wonderful. I can hardly wait for Spring to get into full bloom. The winter down here has been rather harsh, much more snow than anyone ever thought would come our way. A series of Southern storms dumped lots of white stuff on our driveway every couple of weeks. I gave our snow blower to Heather, who lives in Cleveland and has much more need of it than I do. I hope your winter was not harsh. Life is hard enough without shoveling snow.

Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent, 2010

This is a blog to let me reflect on my spiritual life during the season of Lent, and to continue after that. I look at Lent as a time of cleansing, cleansing of the sin that infects everything that I do. Ash Wednesday was a day of forgiveness, when God touched me and wiped away the sin that is so much a part of life. I don't think of sin constantly, I am simply aware that this is a constant part of everything that we do. I know that God's intention for me is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, his son and to do the best I can to emulate him and his life. I believe that Jesus' life is what we need to look at, not his death and resurrection, although those are significant events. His life was a life lived in the middle of people who were poor and downhearted. He asked his disciples to spend their time with them also. The stories in the Gospels are about the way that he shared his life with the poor. The 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel talks about how we are to feed, clothe and visit those who are in poverty, in prison and who are sick. When we do that, says our Lord, we do it for him. I think that is what Jesus has in mind for all of us. Unfortunately, our selfishness and pride get in the way of this. That is what I mean by sin, and my sin in particular.