Looking at Pentecost

                                                                 photo by Pom / flikr

We cotton-mill Baptists had not heard of Pentecost. We did know that two blocks away was the Pentecostal church. Which of course was a little too rowdy and uncultured for us Baptists. They spoke in tongues and waved their arms in the air during the service. The Methodist Church flour blocks away was a step above us Baptists but they had not gotten the word about Pentecost. But three miles downtown was the tiny Episcopal Church all ready observing Pentecost. And down that street, on the corner was the Catholic church with its tall white building with this day on their liturgical calendar.  But we stayed away from them because they not only worshipped idols like the Virgin Mary but they kept guns in the basement of their church and would one day take over America. 

For so many of us in the forties and fifties, the month of May meant Mother’s Day when we gave corsages to the oldest mother present and the woman who had the youngest baby. We also observed Memorial Day when we decorated the graves of our loved ones who had died and others too. We spread a cloth under a shady tree and had a delicious Southern lunch. But this was about all the celebrations we could take for May.

It was only years later that me, and so many other Protestants began to unpack the real meaning of Pentecost. My discovery reminded me of that little boy that stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and looking at the vista whispered, “Something happened here.”

After Calvary and all its horrors, finally Easter came and there was gladness everywhere among his believers, But Ascension followed saying Jesus  left the earth and they stood there just looking up more than a little afraid and feeling abandoned. And then Pentecost came. Something happened there to those bereft-grief-stricken disciples. They marched out and began to change the world. Some power was unleashed that day and tradition says eleven of the twelve were martyred because of their faith. Nothing could stop them.  Not even the power of Rome or the bickering of tiny churches or all those that just went away shaking their heads.

Something really did happen there. And although Jesus was not with them, his spirit came comforting, bearing truth, and standing by them always. And Jesus had promised: “You will know peace very different than what the world gives, and their hearts would not be troubled most days, and they would find even in their darkest hours they were not afraid.

No wonder the Church has finally discovered the wonder and vista of this day. And like the Grand Canyon—Pentecost is still here after all these years. I can now understand how those Pentecostals—then and  now—speak in tongues and wildly waved their hands with hope.

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So let’s look back at the Pentecost miracle after all these years. Nothing has diminished the joy that filled their hearts. And we can crawl out from under the craziness and hatred that seems to be all around us. But the wrongness of it all cannot stop the Pentecostal power. Remember Nazi Germany. Remember segregation. Remember the Viet Nam Memorial. Remember the hatred that still fills our streets. Remember this cursed virus that has killed almost 600,000 in our country alone. Remember the grief that all their loved ones still carry.

I gets downhearted when I look around me at all the cruelty, the evil that still rears its ugly head. But on my better days I remember Pentecost. 

“Grand Canyon” was an old movie and I still remember its power. Danny Glover plays a man who lives in a terrible section of the city. He is divorced and is estranged from his children. He drives a tow-truck and he lives with very little money. And a white man, played by Kevin Cline asked him how in the world he can you stand it. It seems impossible. And Danny Glover’s character replies: “When it gets too much I get in my car and drive thousands of miles to the Grand Canyon. And I get out of my car and sit on the ledge of the Grand Canyon and just get out and look and look Then I get back in my car and head back to my neighborhood with all its problems and I can make it.”

This is Pentecost. Let us not miss its power.

         

                                                                      photo by Lawrence OP / flikr

                                                 --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Ascension--Huh?

                                          photo courtesy of Let Ideas Compete / flikr

Ascension came and went last Thursday. Did you miss it? A whole lot of us Reverends skip over the word and rush own to more sacred things like what’s for dinner tonight? At the end of the Jesus’ story after Calvary and Easter morning he appeared to his disciples several times. He held out his nail-scarred hands. And over and over Jesus whispered a word that we still need to hear. “Peace,” said, “Peace. And the book of Acts begins by saying Jesus just slipped away. 

Acts says suddenly he was gone and they just stood there in shock. Slowly Jesus ascended through the clouds and those that had followed him through so much kept squinting their eyes, staring up and the blue sky and the clouds. And two men in white garments appeared before them saying: “Why do you stand there looking up toward heaven.” Good question then and now. And through the years so many in the church have focused on up there—heaven. A whole spate of books have appeared talking about heaven and those with near-death experiences let us know what it’s like up there. Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “I refuse to talk about the fires of hell or the furniture of heaven.” But a whole lot of Christians are sure they have it all worked out. 

Which brings me back to Ascension. Maybe we still miss the point because it is more comfortable talking about the up there than what we find down here. Today looking around us is hard. We’ve all been through a terrible time. We have lost almost 600,000 of our brothers and sisters because of this awful word, coronavirus. We’ve been trapped more than a year at home mostly. Our world has been turned upside down. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        photo by Dimitris Caloris / flikr

No wonder some of us, hands above our eyes long to look somewhere than where we are. Maybe Ascension means it is time to change our focus. From there to here. From heaven back down to earth. And we can’t turn away from this hurting world as much as we would like. 

The world then and now convulses with enormous problems. Yet we have been called to take off our blinders and see what is here. This is our work. Not sugar-coated promises. No “it will be better before long.” The two angels said, “For God’s sake look around you.” This is our work. Abraham Lincoln used to tell this story that came out of the Civil War. It seemed that a very pious chaplain moved through the ranks asking soldier after soldier: “Brother are you saved?” One soldier knee-deep in mud, trying to push a stuck cannon out of that mess, snarled back at the Chaplain, “Don’t ask me any riddles I’m stuck in the mud.”

Ascension forces us to deal with the mud. Not us but them. We’ve reversed the order. This strange gospel shines the spotlight on the them’s. Jesus said we really do save our lives by losing them. Taking a towel and washing some very dirty feet. Bob Dylan sings mournfully, “You gotta serve somebody.” Them.

Of course we have to take care of those nearest to us. Those at our breakfast table. Those we send off to school. Those we would lay down our lives for. Taking care of us and ours.

Burt the Ascension gospel won’t let us stop there. We keep bumping into this cursed word, them. The outsiders. Immigrants. Blacks. The different. The poor and the rich. The Transgendered. The Gays. Those old folks in nursing homes. The people who live down your street whose names we do not know. 

Surely we have to keep our eyes on all that lies around us. This is our task. Ascension has passed but it’s challenge remains. Why do we stand gazing toward heaven when there is so much to do around here?

Wendell Berry reminds us: 

                                               “Make a story

                           Show how love and joy, beauty and goodness

                                     shine out amongst the rubble.”

                                   --Roger Lovette /rogerlovette.blogspot.com

                             

Making a Bed in a Pandemic Time

                                                photo by Robert Couse-Baker / flikr

A friend of mine told me one day that she had gone through a terrible divorce. Which left her drained and sad and angry. She got to the place where she simply shut down. Her Mother came by one day and she told her how terrible she felt and how depressed she was. After listening for a while the Mama told her daughter, “When you feel like you can’t do anything, make your bed.” My friend said those words helped her enormously. Looking back she said that was the beginning of her journey back into real living. Make your bed. Simple words. Strong words. Make your bed. 

I have thought of those words often when I have been down or when someone poured out their heart to me. Make your bed. A wise counselor told me once: “When you are depressed—move a muscle.” Do something—it might not seem like much but it could just be the beginning of your healing.

Once years ago I was Pastor of a church where things were not working out. Good folk. I just could not get a handle on things. I worked so hard there and it seemed to me that nothing I did mattered. But when you are depressed you don’t see anything clearly. A friend asked me later: “How did you get through that painful time?” “Well," I answered,  I tried to move a muscle.” I was swimming a lot in those days. And I would drive out to the pool and begin my swim. Most days I felt almost nothing. But I swam and swam and swam. And that exercise helped me enormously . Slowly my depression lifted. But It would be foolish to say to those having a hard time just swim and you will make it. Nothing that matters is simple. 

Make your bed. Read a book. Turn off the TV. Plant a garden. Listen to the birds.  Call a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Take a walk. Maybe a run. Write a letter. Clean your windows. Pray. Meditate. Zoom if you can figure it out. Do something. Remember. Remember.

Wendell Berry the wise poet said:

                                         

                                          “Make a story

                                    show how love and joy, 

                                      beauty and goodness

                                   shine out amongst the rubble.”  

There are so many troubled places in the world. This virus-plague is still scary. We’ve lost so many in our country and all over the grieving world. I am losing too many of my friends. I find myself writing too many sympathy cards.  

Sitting here in the comfort of my house outside the storm rages on many fronts. Some days I wonder how all this furor and hate and death will come to an end. There seems so little that I can do. But this I know. I can make my bed—but this is only the beginning of my day. And yours, too.

                                                            photo by Tom Hodgkinson / flikr

                                             --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Easter...Easter...Easter

 

I've had this picture in my office for years and years. I look at it when I need hope. Maybe it will help you too.

Most everyone has a favorite story. Mine goes back to that time when my wife and I visited the Passion Play in Oberammergau  And I can still remember what I surprise I found there. The Passion play opened with Jesus riding into Jerusalem and a whole stage of people shouting the king has come. They yelled hallelujahs until they were hoarse. And then the story told of the last week Jesus spent marching, stumbling the way of the cross. We saw it all as Jesus  slowly made his way up that terrible hill. The crucifixion was gruesome as he was nailed to the central cross with two criminals on each side. And his mother and her friends stayed there until the end. And we saw those who loved him take him down from the cross and buried him. The lights on the stage darkened and almost went out. We sat mostly in darkness. But the thing I remembered most was happened next. Weeping women came on the stage and stood by the tomb hoping to get in. But the stone was too heavy. And suddenly an angel came and without saying a word, unrolled a long white aisle cloth from the stone doors down the steps to the where the audience sat. And as the grieving women beat on the great stone doors they began to slowly open. And light came from inside those doors. The light grew stronger and dazzling light slowly filled the stage and the whole theatre. The stone doors opened wide. And Jesus came through the streaming light. As he walked across the stage from everywhere a multitude of children came running forward, laughing and grabbing his legs. He had come back.

We didn’t say much as we left. Most of the crowd were quiet. But I could not get the scene of Jesus coming through the darkness into that blinding light.

Maybe those that waved their palm branches only days before were on to something. They had yelled: “The King is coming.” Little did they know that even after all these years †he King is here. No darkness then or now could keep him out.

Thanks be to God.

                                                          --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Good Friday in a Good Friday World

 

                                                            photo by Zaheer Bakshplof / flikr                

                                            

 

                                 Then                                     

Good Friday. And so the long circuitous week is just about over. It was called the Via Dolorosa Which means “The Way of Sorrows”. Seems like it has been a long time since that shining Sunday when they threw their cloaks on the road and shouted, over and over:”Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The King is coming.”And they were right—except they turned away that Friday because no King is nailed, naked to a cross. That was the fate of the criminals. Most of the crowd, bored that the show was over had moved away. Even the soldiers who had gambled for his garments had left. Only one soldier was left on duty. Most of the Disciples had fled. Judas had already killed himself. And so John, the beloved, Mary Jesus’ mother and a few women stood there at the foot of that terrible cross. The others? Where were they?

It is strange indeed. Through the years this King with a crown of thorns, nailed like the two criminals would move so many. And yet on that hill far away so many have found something that makes us feel maybe, maybe he stretched out those wounded hands for us.

This long and terrible year could well be the centerpiece for this Good Friday. Where grief and loneliness and injustice and cruelty and more grief is everywhere. The prophet in a hard time said, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”  He was in exile himself and kept speaking to his people. They thought Isaiah had lost his mind. They saw no hope hundreds of miles from their homeland and everything they held dear. What valleys had been lifted up? What hills and mountains has been low? What uneven ground and what rough place were not moved? They wanted to go home.

                      Now                                          

We’ve all felt it this year. Too many deaths, too many suicides, too much rage and hatred and just too much suffering. Just a year ago all those who now were dead. lived and worked and dreamed and loved thinking they just might live forever. And those they left behind separating belongings of their now-dead loved ones. This was not supposed to happen. 

Dear God, why after two thousand years do we still look up, make the sign of the cross and somehow go on? Does he still, this time bear our griefs and carry all these sorrows? Or is this merely preacher talk and wishful thinking? Who knows?

But as I think of this Good Friday I remember a story I read somewhere. 

A.E. Hotchner was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway, the great writer. He followed him, through the years of triumphs and women and alcoholism and depressions. As far as Hotchner knew Hemingway had no faith. But one of the writer’s great friends was Gary Cooper. And one day Cooper and Hemingway both were slowly dying of cancer. Hotchner went to see the movie star and he talked to Cooper about Hemingway and told him some Hemingway stories and gossip. From his hospital bed Cooper, shook his head and said, “Poor Papa.” Some time before Cooper had come into the Catholic church and when Hemingway heard this he laughed and laughed. Over and over Hemingway would needle him about his faith. And this is the way Hotchner tells of that hospital visit with Gary Cooper:   

“He was hit by a big pain and his face contorted as he fought it off…When the pain had passed, Cooper reached his hand over to the bed table and picked up a crucifix, which he put on a pillow beside his head. ‘Please give Papa a message. It’s important and you mustn’t forget because I’ll not be talking to him again. Tell him…that time I wondered if I had made the right decision’—he moved the crucifix a little closer so that it touched his cheek—‘tell him it was the best thing I ever did.’” Cooper died ten days later. Hemingway took a gun and killed himself days later.

And as I think about today I remembered that story. Perhaps Good Friday is true after all. For maybe, just maybe Jesus really does bear our griefs and carries our sorrows. Could this be, after all these years, why we still set this day aside and look up at his cross? 

photo by Michal Kosmulski / flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

A Not-So-Holy Week

                                                          --Photo courtesy of Storm Crypt / flikr

A whole lot of we Baptists came late to Holy Week. For years we were taught this was some kind of Catholic thing. Romanists. Worshipping ceremony more than Jesus. Why celebrate this whole week when we could be getting out the Easter egg colors, buying our new spiffy clothes, getting the kids one of those cute bunnies—and waiting for Easter Day. We would always sing, of course, “He lives on High” to the Hawaiian tune. But somewhere along the way we began to realize that we all needed some preparation to make the Easter event more powerful than even the Crucifixion. Even then we were suspicious of crosses in church and especially not on the tall spire on top of the steeple. Thankfully we got over it.

From the fourth century on pilgrims celebrated Holy Week at least Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Later, following the Scriptures we would recall event after event that led up to Calvary and the Resurrection.

I’ve been thinking of late why did we call this particular week holy? The story is filled not only with the Triumphal Entry, but cleansing the temple, Maundy Thursday when Judas would betray our lord and Peter would deny him. The washing  the disciples’ feet. The agony of the Garden of Gethsemane and the capture of Jesus, the scourging, the stripping him naked, the crown of thorns and finally Calvary with all its gore and heartbreak.

I know…i know that Easter was coming and it would somehow erase all the pain of that long terrible week. What if it really was just a not-so-holy week. God knows history could state the case. Terrible things have happened in the name of Jesus and his Cross has been used as a weapon time after time. “In this sign I conquer.” 

There is so much in the story that seems anything but holy. The rigged trials, the degradation, the spittle and the hatred. They all took place on Holy Week. 

I look out at where we are today—this cursed pandemic and all its aftermath. More than 553,726 have died just in our country. Many of our loved ones have walked their own personal way of sorrows. Dying alone and cut off from all family members. Their loved ones touching that finger-smeared glass so their loved one would know they were not alone. This Holy Week brings the loss of too many jobs, too many suicides and so many enraged and acting out their frustrations. How in God’s name can we call it good?

The Church has been guilty of cosmetizing the truth, often denying all that went on that terrible week. Just Good Friday.

But let’s be fair. Most Holy Weeks have come in the middle of wars and plagues and hunger and injustice and utter heartbreak. In the Middle Ages as one town was immersed in leprosy and death the Priest took a painting of Jesus crucified with a body covered in sores. And the Priest would invite those who were themselves were in great pain and many who had lost children, friends, husbands and wives to gather around that painting of the diseased, dying Jesus.  Legend has it that the Priest would take a large candle from the altar and moved to the crucified. He would show those gathered the crown of thorns, then the diseased face and hands and feet and the terrible body racked in pain. And that was the sermon. The Priest snuffed out the candle and the people would begin to shuffle away in the darkness. 

Maybe this is why they called that week holy. For they found in His way of sorrows something that kept them going despite whatever they faced. It would be something if we could all lay down our burdens—not down by the riverside--but at the feet Jesus.

“At the feet o’ Jesus,

Sorrow like a sea. 

Lordy, let yo’ mercy

Come driftin’ down on me.

At †he feet o’ Jesus

At yo’ feet I stand.

O, ma little Jesus,

Please reach out yo’ hand.”

—Langston Hughes

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

We can't forget the Donkey on Palm Sunday

                                                                  photo by Vicki DeLoach / flikr

It’s Palm Sunday. Our second Anniversary of trying to be jubilant with all that stuff out there that keeps intruding…intruding. So churches everywhere will haul out the Palms and give one to everyone. One of my members back there once said: “What am I supposed to do with this branch thing?” Good question really. The Organ will pull out all the stops. Children will come in waving their Palm Branches and we all might stand and sing:” “All glory laud and honor, To thee Redeemer King.” And on and on it will go as the cute kids wave their branches and we hope nobody gets an eye put out.

I don’t want to sound too heretical, well maybe I do. But this Palm Sunday thing has always struck me as being a little odd. Dr. Fosdick preached  a sermon once  called: “The sin of Palm Sunday.” And in that sermon he asked how the crowd could possibly sing alleluia on Palm Sunday and just a few days later nail that same Jesus to the cross. Let’s face it folks. Those palm branches wither much to soon.

Lord knows we need some Alleluias. That’s why Leonard Cohen’s “Alleluia” struck a chord. And the book says the crowds did line the streets as he came toward Jerusalem on a donkey. Oh, I know what Zechariah prophesied about palms and donkeys. But most of the crowd that day must have wondered. “A donkey. The king is riding in a donkey?” It really was a clue to the kind of King he was. Never mind. They still stood there shouting. Nevermind the donkey--he was coming and he would bring in the Kingdom.

He came into Jerusalem people still shouting and all hell broke loose. He entered the Temple and it was a mess. People selling all kinds of trinkets. Maybe animals too. And the drove them out and this was a mistake as far as the Reverends and the Priests were concerned. With that single act he touched their pocketbooks and that was the beginning of his long sad week. They plotted his demise but they kept it to themselves because they remembered that crowd and those palm branches. 

“They all were looking for a king 

to slay their foes and lift them high,

There cams't a tiny baby thing 

that made a woman cry.”

So he never was the King they wanted but more. A King they needed. Read the story that follows that jubilant morning. He healed the blind and the lame. He cursed a fig tree. He told them parable after parable which most of the officials did not quite get but wondered if he was speaking about them. Not knowing that he was speaking about us, too. The Lord took on the established Temple. And this infuriated them even more. He stood on the brow of his beloved Jerusalem and wept and wept because, like us too, they did not know he wanted to take them like a hen that gathers her little ones—he wanted to take them all in his arms. For they did not know the things that make for real peace. And Jesus told them, as us too. That donkey should have been a clue. He said their task and ours was to feed the hungry…to give the thirsty something to drink…to welcome the stranger—even the illegals—to clothe the naked…to care for the sick..and touch even the prisoners. And he then said the strangest thing: “Inasmuch as you do it to the least of these…you do it to me.”

This was not the end of the story. But that donkey should have been a clue. He called the strangest and the weird. The Judases and the Simons with big mouths and clay feet…and all the dear Johns…and Jameses…and later the woman with all those husbands...and all those Marys and Mary Magdalenes…and the Marys and the Marthas…all those other women in the story. Strange King he washed his disciples' feet. And when people heard about what he did they kept shaking their heads and muttering: "Jesus washed their feet!"

The story was not over and never would be as long as there was hurt and need and hate. The manger maybe should have been a clue and his parents whom nobody knew and all those unlikely ones like tax collectors and the Zebedees and all the dispossessed.  Then and now. 

So at worship today even with my mask I will welcome the palm branches and maybe sing alleluia too. But i hope like you I do not forget the donkey because he may be the clue for us all.

                                                                      photo by Bill Smith / flikr

                                                      --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com