Holy Friday

 

"Even bein' God ain't no bed o' roses"

----The Green Pastures

Today we come to that place where we all must come. That day when darkness settles down on us in the middle of our lives. But not just once but more than the admit. William Inge was right when he wrote there really is a dark at the top of our stairs. But we can’t brush over this day and cosmetize that cross and then rush on to Easter. 

In our time we don’t want to deal with that dark road which is really ours. We don’t want to upset our children with dismal things. Why they might have nightmares. So we look back on that hill faraway but most of us don’t linger there. So we have diamonds in our crosses and some of us put this decoration around our necks or tattoos on our bodies not having a clue to what that day—and this day truly means.

We really do not face the evil, the blood and the gore, and the spittle and the brittle laughter out there. Or the jeers even from the religious leaders that should know better. This was the cross and all four gospels tell this sad story in their own ways.They crammed it full of all the things the eye-witnesses had told them. The dark moments in the garden, the kiss of Judas. Simon of Cyrene forced to carry the cross for Jesus. They say he fell three times dragging his cross up the  hill. And Herod is there and Pilate is there and there blood-thirsty crowd is there. And criminals who will be punished with him are there. And all the scourging and the jeers and the injustice it all does not even come close to capturing that crucifixion. 

And so on our Good Friday we run headlong not into their story but ours too. Thomas Mann once said of great literature, “It is, it always is, however much we say it was.” We know pain. don’t we? And we know a world of unfairness. And we know too, too much about cancer and mental illness and the dreaded Alzheimer’s plus that long sad list of pain and tears.  And we know about those little girls in Nashville or all those other places. No thoughts and prayers—not yet. 

We must face our own horror. And our own Herod's and Pilate’s and pious religious leaders. And all those homeless and the poor on food stamps.  We know about the waste of life that should not be taken away—slow or fast. The list of our sorrows is long. Clergy abuse of little children. Women abused and hidden behind those suffocating Scriptures that keep them in line. We know about money, money, money and power that is strangling us to death. What of those 20 states who’ve passed cruel laws that punish the transgenders and their parents. We don’t have enough time to write them all down. But that man of sorrows knew so much. Like us. And he was nailed to that tree—where even God seems to be silent.

It was not all dark. There were women that stood weeping and the thief who agonized but saw even there a goodness. Or that young man who lifted a spear  of sour wine  to Jesus’ parched and bleeding lips. We cannot forget that other Joseph who offered his own tomb. We cannot leave them out. Nor should we.

Somehow God was there that terrible afternoon. And like Jesus we forget that sometimes our own bitter cup cannot be taken away. This is not the time for happy-clappy tunes or jubilation or even preaching it’s Friday but Sunday’s comin’. Oh yes, its is—but not now. Not today. We have to stare at our own Via Doloroso—our way of sorrows.

We must not try to forget all the injustices out there today. Even in the dark at the top of stairs—a kindly light may just come.

Thanks be to God for Good Friday. Then and now.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Holy Maundy Thursday

There hangs on the wall by my desk a wonderful picture of this wonderful sculpture of the Loving father and his prodigal son. The old man’s arms are around his broken boy. The son despite all he has done and not done—he feels love and acceptance and forgiveness.  

Churches all over the world meet this Thursday night. And we have followed that terrible journey that led to a table and unleavened bread and wine to the washing of feet. His followers sitting there with a lump in their throats  hearing Jesus say he would be leaving them. He knew what they did not know—soon, too soon there would be the place of the skull and the terrible cross. 

Around that table he gave them a last will and testament. And so they called this night maundy, which meant mandate or command. Judas had slipped away. Simon proudly pledged that he would never, never do what he thought Judas must even be doing that very night. One gospel said they all forsook him and fled. Not only Judas or Simon but all for them around that table. 

Jesus said the strangest thing to those all-too-human -disciples. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you.” With all their flawedness he gave them their orders—they were to love one another. 

And we know the rest of that story. Terrible things would be done over and over in the name of Jesus. And yet still after all these years the words are still our center piece: Love one another. Looking back on our tortured history one preacher said, “The church has dirty under-drawers.” And not only the church but all of us have fallen short of what we are to be. 

The church today as in every age is having a hard time. People—especially the young—have drifted away. Some call them the nones. They wearily threw in the towel or just do not care. Many reasons but we think of clergy abuse of children and adults. The coverups. A whittling down of Jesus’ mandate. No wonder they feel like the whole Sunday thing is a sham.  For they have not seen in us Christians—anything but love. How do the transgenders or their parents must feel today. Or the parents of those nine year old they buried this week. Or those immigrants think that find our doors shut. Or the poor living in old paper boxes. You won’t find many of these in church on this Maundy Night. 

So that picture on my wall is not just a loving father and a prodigal. It’s us he has his arms around. All of us. I give you a new commandment, he said: love one another. No exceptions.

I don’t have any answer to all our troubles. The Democrats. The Republicans. The political nones. But I do know it wasn’t only Pilate or Judas or Herod or Simon—but we have all forsook him and fled. 

We still have a mandate folks. Love one another. God knows how hard it is—but still after all these years our charge has not changed. No wonder they named this holy night Maundy Thursday.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Holy Wednesday--Passover Time

 

One summer at Princeton Carlyle Marney leaned over the pulpit and told 200 preachers, "Boys, if they ever find out Jesus was a Jew we're going to be in bad trouble." And we Christians often forget that Jesus was trained in the Synagogue. He followed all the Jewish rituals.  And on his road to the cross, so near--like his fellow Jews he observed Passover one of the greatest days of their faith. He remembered this was the time when they looked back, back to those suffering slaves in Egypt. And they prayed and prayed and the muddy waters of the Red Sea did not stop them. They learned there was a power greater than anything the world could throw at them.They walked to the other side of the water to a freedom they had only dreamed of. Though their wilderness journey would last years and years they kept going looking for that place of freedom they had been promised

And so every year on Passover they would light the candles and sit quietly around a table and usually the father would ask: "Why is this night different from other nights?" And once again as their forebears asked the same question someone would say: "It was the day when God's people moved from slavery to freedom." And though their year had been bad and suffering was seemingly everywhere they still would light the candles and remember their story. God was with them. God would always be with them. And even during those dark Nazi days when they were placed in concentration camps and millions of them were killed even there furtively they would keep Passover. 

As Jesus' days grew darker and he knew where his rocky road would lead he took his disciples to an upper room to observe Passover. Surely his faith must have said God is with me--and God will lead all these all-too-human disciples too me through whatever was out there. And we know the Lord's Supper grew out of that remembering. 

So we are really one with our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are all beset by many things--inside and out. Yet our challenge is to hang on to that slender thread of faith and go on. And the gift that the Negro slaves gave us were those spirituals we still sing:"Were You There," "Swing low sweet chariot," "Deep River,","The LonesomeValley," "Go Down Moses," "All God's Chillun' got Shoes."

So on this Holy Wednesday let us remember once again the troubled waters we have crossed and that old "I will be with you" keeps us coming back on the hardest of our days.

That stubborn kept Jesus going all the way to the finish line and that faith will lead us too.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Holy Tuesday--In-Between Time

 

THEN

Palm Sunday seemed to be so far away. There were rumblings everywhere. Jesus kept saying Be alert. Pray, brothers and sisters, that when the hard days come you will get through them.

The dark warnings troubled them now. Watch for what? He had said we would make it through. Sounded scary at the least. They knew this Holy Tuesday what Rome could do. They had seen the cruelty of those that should have known better—their leaders—the religious ones. 

The power of cursed Rome seemed to be everywhere. And the roads many days had been lined with cross after cross after cross. Men screaming in pain. Dying while mothers and fathers and wives and sometimes children gathered there. They could not believe it had come to this. 

Jesus had begun his walk up that terrible hill where the blood had dried and pain and death were not far behind. Yes, they could believe the crowd that spat on him, hurled stones and laughed their fool heads off as their Lord stumbled and fell. We knew how the end would go up there where the soldiers already gathered with that mound of splintered wood and nails and cloth to wipe the blood from their hands. 

They knew the end and all those hopes and dreams for a better life, a better world would be no more. What would happen to them. Dear God, what would they do.

It was only at the week’s end that they could hardly believe Simon and those women who came running, running saying over and over that he was not dead. Jesus was alive. 

And suddenly their grief shed most of its power and hope, that wonderful hope came surging back. They did not know what this Resurrection would mean. Or all the stories they pieced together later would mean, but many of them would find surprises in their hard lives they did not expect.

NOW

So like them we are at that in-between stage. There is dark at the top of our stairs. Fear. Worries on top of worries. Heart-breaking things like the loss of a wife, the death of  child, enormous disappointments looking back on what was and will never come again. 

And even today with all its craziness we remember that first Easter and all the strange joy it brought. And how despite Rome still in charge and nightmares of Judas still warm and hardly enough to eat—they went on and told the story and believed it as well.

And this Easter despite our own way of sorrows, and all the heavy things we carry—hopefully we will be surprised at those did those first half-believers. Maybe Easter is not just another Easter. Colored eggs, cute bunnies and a little more finery than we usually wear. Crowded churches and Easter lilles everywhere. 

Maybe is really a to-be-continued story for us too. Not knowing that on some Emmaus Road of our own despite the crutches and walkers, the grief and the pain and really wondering if this could be true—doors we thought were closed forever,  slowly cracked and then opens to enough light that, like them our hearts will burn within us at the surprises we have not yet reckoned with. 

—Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

It's Holy Monday and Our Hope is beginning to Fade

 

It was only yesterday, they told me and I squeezed into the crowd to see Jesus of Nazareth ride into Jerusalem. We yelled our hearts out. It was the day we will always remember—or so we thought. But here it is Monday. The palm branches we waved were tossed aside and some are beginning to wither. We found the garments we had thrown at his feet, bundled them up ragged as they were and headed for home.

The warm, wonderful sounds of the alleluias are still with us. But word came that he went into the Temple and turned the tables over and scattered the animals and the merchants. We also heard our leaders, Scribes and Pharisees—learned men—mumbled and whispered dirty things about him. Little did we know that these doings—his and theirs—were only a prelude. 

 If Jesus is the king we sought then where is the power and strength every king has? And why did he say so little about our Jewish leaders? He didn’t defend himself. In fairness maybe that will come. So even on Monday we began slowly to doubt. We even heard that some of his disciples like the Pharisees murmured and wondered. 

Holy Monday. How fickle yesterday’s crowds were. Maybe us too, just a little. If King Jesus is who we hear he is—where is the thunder and the clouds? Where is the sunshine? Why do I not feel as hopeful as I did yesterday.

God knows we need someone to change all this blood and gore and Rome, cursed Rome who really have chains around us all. We live in fear always.  Surely he will change all of this.

It’s Monday and somehow it just isn’t as clear as it was yesterday.  

 --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Palm Sunday for Me and You too.

It’s Palm Sunday. The day when we remember when Jesus slowly rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowd that gathered rejoiced that hope had come again and things would never be the same. But little did they know that before the week was over he would be nailed to a cross. So many waved those palm branches had threw down their palms and turned away. Why? Because they discovered that this was not the promised Messiah they had expected. Riding in on a donkey. The poor  throwing their ragged clothes at his feet. First cursing a fig tree. Cursing? And if that was not enough he overturned tables and drove out the money changers from the temple. And that strange scene when his first act in Jerusalem was casting out the money changers from the temple. Upsetting the way things were.

So Holy Week begins not as they expected at all. No wonder the church early would call these days that followed the via dolorosa—the way to what? A cross. No palm branches there. No alleluias. 

So this Holy Week I think back on my own Palm Sunday journey. How old was I when first Jesus marched into my life? Here at the center of my little life there came one who was goodness personified. But ever so slowly he did not do what I expected.  I kept hearing the preachers talk about sin and judgment and the fires of hell and Jesus coming back when I least expected him. It scared me to death thinking I would be doing something secretively and he would catch me and I was be judged by an awful powerful God. 

Little did I know my Jesus would change. Jesus became in time my friend. Jesus loved even me. But I did not know that he loved those with lint in their hair who work those twelve hour shifts. How he loved our church leader who divorced. He loved her? Later I discovered he cared deeply for those preachers who stood Sunday after Sunday not having a clue about those struggling black folks on the other side of our town. They shined our shoes, they cleaned our houses, they took our dirty clothes home and brought them back all clean and folded on a bus. But slowly I discovered he loved us all. Even the mean shift foreman and the broken man who stood on the street corner shining shoes and scaring us to death. 

Slowly I learned that even the Catholics were his people. That all those other denominations, many well-heeled were in our camp. Like the spiritual went: “We didn’t no who he wuz.”

And even today there is so much about his Jesus that I still do not know. But I have come to see the crowd with the palm branches did not have the last word. Or those with folded arms and pursed lips that plotted his demise. Or the Pilates or the Herods and those that nailed the nails and gaped at the ragged figure caught between two thieves. And yet his arms were stretched out and even with all that pain and injustice he whispered forgiveness. And then that strange Sunday when a stone was rolled away and the world changed forever. 

He still marches into my life. He still turns me topsy-turvy. He still pushes and pulls me in ways I  do not want to go.

So this Holy week I try to remember among all the things of my tired life—sickness, injustice everywhere, losing this weekend the best and brightest I have ever known—old age and its complications there may well be a via dolorosa who knocked on my door—my own way of sorrows—that forces me to know deep in my heart just as that cross was not the end—there is so, so much more that I  begin this week to remember. Faith which flickers so low sometimes—hope when comes and goes—and love that will not let me go even when I feel it not at all. 

Bring holy week on with all its twisting hard days—stretching me yet again to know this old tattered story may be the best there is.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Is the Bible Woke?

 

The Woke Bible

I have been bumping into this strange word, woke a lot lately. I wondered what it meant. Woke? Digging around I found woke means to be alert to racial and social discrimination and injustice. 

Why is this woke considered such a bad thing? The term means that all lives matter. Woke also means that LGBTQ—gays matter. And everybody from transgenders to the victims of other systemic injustices in American society. Woke means open discussion about race and injustice and other systemic oppression, gender and sexual orientation. Unpacking the word means that school teachers are to teach history not cosmetize the past. Our Christian faith requires us to teach the good and dark side of who we are as a people. The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang says woke means to be socially aware and empathetic. The opponents of woke blame everything on it from deadly mass shootings, too bank failures to most of the problems in society. Opponents of wokeness  have politicized it and twisted its meaning until it scares a lot of people.

What does the Bible have to say to woke?  Old and New Testaments deal with this very human circle that includes all of us. Not only the dark at the foot of the stairs but also faith and hope and love.

 Read the words for yourself. 

1—Equality. God so loved the world which was all inclusive. Jesus had no pecking order except for those who put up roadblocks and practice cruelty to any persons. No one was to be turned away. The word community meant just that—we all have something in common. 

“He has abolished the law with all its commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace and might reconcile both groups to God in one body.” (Ephesians 2. 15-16a)

“So we are claimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who are  near…So there you are no longer or aliens, but you are citizens  with the saints and also members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2. 17, 19)

2—Justice. Jesus was a friend of publicans and sinners. Those hands refused to turn anyone away. Whether they were lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans or rich young rulers. This included those on the fringes of society and all of us in  the human family. He stood with the prophets who said: “What does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy…” (Micah 6.8)

3—Hospitality. Jeremiah 22.3 says: “”…I will save the lame and gather the outcasts and I will change their shame into praise.”

“So his fame spread to all of Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.” ( Luke 4.24b )

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11.28)  “I was a stranger and you took me in.” Matthew 25

4.  Servant. Jesus turned the word power upside down when he washed his disciples’ feet, He said, “Whoever would be chief among you, let him be your servant.”  

His followers later understood those words of Jesus when James wrote: “If a brother or sister be naked, and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith without works is dead.”(James 2. 15-16)

5. Love

In  this Lenten season we remember that Jesus died on the cross because he challenged the out-of-control power and the lop-sided values of his day. He was a threat to those who stood by and cheered and those leaders who gave the orders to nail him to his cross.

“But I say to you Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” 

(Matthew 5.43)

Jesus made a hero of the Samaritan, challenging  which was unheard of. Answering the neighbor’s  question he elevated the Samaritans who had been Israel’s enemies for hundreds of years “But a Samaritan…came near him: and when  he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds,…Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him…Which was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? Jesus said, “The man who showed him mercy.”(Luke 10.29-37)

“The greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13.)

The word woke really is a threatening word. challenging our ease and contentment.The church has watered down Jesus’ actual good news.  Jesus was a friend of sinners, which includes all of us. Today’s church, like so many that came before us, has misunderstood Jesus’ whole incarnation. This gospel includes us all. Any message that pares his message down to only our circle misses the many hard sayings of Jesus. Woke is not an ugly word but a challenge to us all.

Jesus said to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. Reckon this means that we are not to politicize the things that are God’s or drag Caesar’s dirty feet into the Sanctuary. Ever.

—Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com