My Coronavirus Meditation

photo by Christian Oterhals / flikr

This Conoravirus virus is hard on us all. I have a very sick friend in the hospital and nobody can visit, and he is too sick to answer his phone. We lost one off the great men of our community. He has seven children and a whole community that loved him. We can’t plan the funeral. Family members cannot visit and console one another. Neither can his friends.  I have a wonderful Catholic priest who is very sick with this virus. I have a nurse-granddaughter who works this week in the respiratory wing of the hospital and we all worry for her. This sad list seems seemingly endless.

I could talk about those millions who cannot work and so many of them have  no paychecks coming in—their places of employment shut down. At the first of the month so many are worried about rent, mortgage and car payments—not to speak of their credit cards. The ripples in the stream touch every continent and the death toll of today is 3,727 in our own country. 183,532 have tested positive to this virusd as of today. We don’t know when this epidemic will end. We wear gloves and masks and wash our hands continually. All through the day many of us find ourselves praying for our loved ones and the whole world. 

Many Chinese folk here have been turned on and spit on and called terrible names. Some people called this the Chinese virus. They are not any more guilty than the rest of us. This is not the time to blame. And it is not the time to play politics. This is not the time to act like this epidemic is just like the flu. Nor is this the time to keep the TV on hour after hour. We just don’t know how long this strange virus will last.

The closest analogy I can think of is what happened to England during the Second World War. As the country knew the Germans would either invade or at least drop bombs. It was scary time. So they sent more than a hundred thousand children, the infirm, pregnant women and mothers with babies and thousands of expectant mothers from their homes to obscure villages and farms until the war was over. So the people back home built bomb shelters and planned how they might use subways and other places so their citizens would be safe. 

And then the bombs came. For 57 consecutive days bombs fell on England. 40,000 British citizens lost their lives, 2,000 in London alone.  Homes, businesses, schools—everything  was disrupted. Over a million homes were destroyed in those terrible years of 1939-1945.

Their leaders held out hope that one day life would return to normal. Their songs like: “The White Cliffs of Dover” kept them going. Listen to the  words and the music.  Somehow in those terrible war years they hung on to that slender thread of hope.  

https://youtu.be/89487uG13Ro

One  of the stories that came out of those hard days told that one springtime on the gashes of those bombed-out places hundreds of flowers began to come up and covered the bombed out craters. And botanists discovered that when the bombs fell the nitrates unearthed seeds that had been buried for hundreds of years. And there flowers bloomed. And, as I remembered that English story, I looked around and in this strange springtime-flowers bloom and the signs of life are everywhere.

“Tomorrow when the world is free

The shepherds will tend his his sheep.

The valley will bloom again.

And Jimmy will go to sleep

In his own little room again.”

 Let it be Lord, let it be.

photo by will_bremen / flikr

--Roger Lovette /rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Lent--Jesus' Fifth Word for Our Time: " I Thirst"

  

“I thirst” we’ve all said it more than once. When we whispered many nights: “Mama I’m thirsty.” When the teacher told us we were to drink eight glasses of water a day. When our Mamas or Papas  put our feet in a basin of water and washed the dirt off our feet after we had played all day.When we came in from a walk or a run. When we were so sick in that hospital room and some angel of mercy took a cue tip and touched our lips with water or put a straw in a glass and held it to our lips. 

So when this fifth word came down from the central cross I think the church kept it because this is a universal word of identification. We all get thirsty and without water the body dehydrates and death could come.

But wasn’t this :”I thirst” remembered from the lips of Jesus a courageous word. Jesus thirsty. 

Jesus? there toward the end simply uttered what we all say: “I thirst.” Through the ages so many from the early days until today have tried to mute Jesus’ word here. We’ve all heard it. He appeared to be like us. He was God’s son and he was different from the likes of us. So we cosmetize this Jesus. Even from the cross we have dabbed away the blood and the grimace on his face and very little of his wounds show. Why many of those crucifixes show a downright pretty Jesus. But in my own Southern Baptist tradition of years ago we wouldn’t dare have a cross in our churches or on our steeples. (It’s Catholic!) We would say he hung on the cross but the cross is empty and Jesus had been resurrected. Yes, this is true. So we don’t need to decorate our churches with crosses.

But before that first Easter day we cannot dent that he whispered from his cross: “I thirst.” John Steinbeck knee deep in the middle of the terrible Depression wrote these words about Jesus and about us:

“Christ nailed down might be more

than a symbol of all the pain.

He might in very truth

contain all pain.

 And a man standing 

on a hilltop

with his arms outstretched, 

a symbol of a symbol,

he too might be a reservoir

of all the pain that ever was.”

So the church through the years has kept this word which most have largely ignored. John in those opening verses told us what the Lord had come to do: “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

And so Irenaus would say: ”He became like us that we might become like him.” Not only kind and loving. Not only stretching out his arms to everyone. Not only giving hope when there was no hope. But more. 

There is a legend that in the middle ages plague after plague killed 60% of the population in Europe, which was somewhere between 25 million and 200 million. Some artist painted Jesus like some plague victim festering with sores, hanging there crosseyed with unrelenting pain everywhere. And this painting became the centerpiece of one church. And priests and nuns and some family members would bring in their suffering love ones on pallets and place them beneath that painting of Jesus. And the sick would look up and know that in their suffering they were not alone. He really did thirst and ache just as they all ached and thirsted. 

And today? We need to stand close and hear this fifth word: “I thirst.” For in this strange time when everything is shut down, most of us are confined to our homes or wearing masks or suffering alone in some isolation unit. We do not know what the future holds for any of us.  We think of all the suffering Jesus’ thirst represents. Those worried about loss of paychecks. Scared of foreclosures of houses and cars. Those with no insurance. Or many with insurance beginning to see that nothing we do at the present moment can stop this scourge. 

He became like us that we might become like him. Not only on those sunny days in Galilee but when death hovers close and the pain is unrelenting from illness or grief or disappointment he was there. And even in the silence of the cross behind it all there was one unseen that cared and loved and kept him. And us, too.

I keep under the glass on my desk the wonderful words of the Carmelite nun, Jessica Powers: “I came upon earth’s most amazing knowledge someone is hidden in this dark with me.” I remember those words on my hard days. I have scribbled them on notes for so many sick at home or in hospitals. And as I pray and lift up these words for the names of my friends and loved ones and all the sufferers around the world.

photo by Tamaar / flikr


--Rogerlovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com

If I Were Preaching Today--This is What I Might Have Said: "Why?" The Fourth Word

photo by Maja Ruszpel / flikr

"Even bein' God ain't no bed o' roses."
--The Green Pastures

Thomas Mann used to say of great literature:  “It is, it always is, however much we say it was.” And when Jesus whispered this fourth word from the cross we know, don’t we, that what the nailed-down Jesus said it is as current today as any word our Lord ever spoke. The church remembered this word which stands at midpoint of the seven last words. Those standing by must have put their hands over their mouths as they heard it. “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me.” No. No. No.

And with hands over our mouths we have heard it again and again. When we looked up at the Vietnam Memorial and those fifty thousand names of our dead warriors we asked it. “My God why?” When President was shot we asked it yet again. “My God, why?” But this terrible word piles up against it all—not then but now. Nine Eleven. All those shootings from Sandy Hook until now. Anger. Suicide. Depression. Abuse. Heartbreak that comes in all shapes and sizes. No wonder we put our hands over our mouths because we know well this word of identification. And today all over the world people ask this question:”Why, God?” But not just over there but here too. This cursed virus that has shut down almost everything. Jobs. Schools. Empty grocery shelves. But long lines standing to be tested. And those grievers weeping as they bury their dead alone. We are scared to touch or leave the house or wonder what the future holds and how long this will last. 

Those standing near the cross must have wondered—Is it all over? This Jesus. His words. His miracles. His care for everyone from the old and the crippled to the little ones and even the whores and the criminals—even the racists? 

So here we are together even when we are locked in our houses or wearing masks or being tested. We are all one. We are all in this together. This family—mostly dysfunctional that brings us all in. “My God…”

It was as prayer to Almighty God. And it remains. “Why?”

And the church kept this embarrassing word because they knew in this fourth whispering he identifies with us all. The skeptics then and now said: “See…see..where is your God now?”But as keep looking up at that Jesus we remember what old Isaiah said years and years before: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

So we are in this together—God and us. Like those early disciples we do not know what our future will hold. We all agree that it is scary out there and we don’t know the effect this virus will have on all of us. 

But it’s Lent—that time when we look up again at this cross and remember. And this faith that stretches out from crucifixions and plagues and despots and cruelty beyond belief and wars and rumors of wars down to our own weepings. So we put down beside the pundits and all the frantic governmental officials and the monotonous reporting-- this word of the Lord. 

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam. though the mountains tremble with its tumult.” (Ps. 46. 1-3)

And if we let out fingers move down the page The Psalmist added, lest we forget: “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” (Ps. 46. 7,11)

My good friend, Brother Andrew wrote these words yesrs before he lost his beloved wife, Mary Jo last year:

“Jesus, do not take away the hurt—

Especially when the hurt is all that we have left.

Let the hurt and all that it means to us

Sanctify our lives 

And enable us to live

 In honor of that which we lost

And in anticipation of the tasks that remain

For us to accomplish in your name. Amen.

No Pollyanna words here. No whistle while work. No “God is trying to tell us something.” Just this.

When we walk to the edge of all

   the light we have

and take a step into the darkness

   of the unknown,

we must believe that one of two things 

   will happen—

There would be something solid for us

   to stand on,

Or, we will be taught how to fly.”

      —Patrick Overton, The Learning Tree

“The Lord of hosts is with us

The God of Jacob is our refuge.”   

—Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Lent: Jesus' Third Word

 

photo by Don Marias / flikr

 

This Lenten season I am going again up Calvary’s hill and try to listen. Above the noise of the crowd and the weeping, Jesus spoke. And the church years later remembered some of those words he uttered that dark day. An so we know that nailed-down Jesus spoke to every one. Forgive them…forgive us. First, it was a word of inclusion. And then Jesus addressed one of the dying men next to him. Whispering a promise: “Today you shall be with me in paradise.” So the second word we could call compassion. And so today we still listen. What did he have to say in this third word? Standing near his cross was he broken mother and a tiny cluster of her friends. And there was dear John who stayed there until the end. And so these words: “Mother behold your son, John behold your mother” are words of relationship. Not only did he speak to crowds and the needy everywhere. But he did not forget those closest by—his mother and John, the beloved.

Up the road  two weeks ago the Greenville County Council was trying to decide about what do with that 1996 resolution that said “that the homosexuals were not adhering to Greenville County’s’ current community standards.’” The meeting drew a crowd. Opponents of this resolution wanted the 1996 action overturned. Thirty minutes was given over to those in attendance to share their concerns. And eight of the ten religious leaders that spoke said this change would be against the Bible. Family values needed to be upheld. The community had to be protected against “these people.” Those Pastors said terrible things about their opposition to gay folks. Over and over they intoned: “The Bible says…”  How far afield the church has gotten from this compassionate word that came down from the cross. This really is a word of relationship. Mother…John. He reached out to his mother to John giving them to one another. 

Just today The Greenville News’ front-page headline read: “County Votes Down Anti-gay Resolution.” So the old 1996 resolution was defeated at least for four years when this  discriminatory resolution will come up again. So—thank God enough Council members voted to rescind this action which designated Gays as not adhering to community standards. Many of those gays present they really counted in the Greenville area. Sometimes justice really is a long time coming.

The Bible more than anything else is a word about relationships. On almost every page we find people with names and faces.There were Adam and Eve and Sarah and Ruth and flawed King David and Joseph and Mark and Elizabeth and Anna and Mary and Martha and Paul and Lazarus. 

What does Jesus’ third word have to do with gays and all those others? Everything. Jesus

photo by Sharon Mollerus / flikr

never bashed anyone except those uptight religious crowd that had to protect the law, standing up for their family values. Forgive them included everyone. Remember me left no one out. And here the heart-breaking Jesus’ mother and John tell the real story. Take the names out of the book—and the Bible is a paltry thing. 

So maybe our task is to console all those who need consolation. Maybe our task is to make sure that women are same opportunities as men. But this word nudges us to stand and say “No more!” to women and gays and the poor and all those unnumbered ones who huddle in cold tents far away from their home land. Maybe this word speaks to all those mothers and fathers and children who have been wrenched from one another and placed all over this country. Don’t they count? Don’t they have needs and faces. Most of these immigrants have nothing in their whole lives but their children. 

So as we move away from this word of relationship we should remember the One who stretched out his arms and said: “Mother…John”. No wonder years later a nameless slave working hard in some white man’s farm put his dreams into a song: “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” Everybody included…no one left out. Amen  

—Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Lent: The Second Word

photo courtesy of Slices of Life / flier

There were three crosses on Good Friday Most artists only show us Jesus in terrible pain.  But on each side of his cross were two criminals. has third cross was supposed to crucify Barabbas but we know that story. The crowd put Jesus on that cross and let Barabbas go free. 

Standing there listening the crowd heard three words thatcame down from  the crucified. Tradition says Gestus screamed out at Jesus: “If you are the Christ—save yourself and us.” But on Jesus’ left Dismas, He came to Jesus’ defence. “We landed where we were supposed to be. Jesus did nothing.” And then Dismas turned and asked Jesus. “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said , “Today you shall be with me in paradise.” So two words stand out here. “Remember me” and “Today”. 

Dismas wanted to be remembered. Not take me down. Not even save me. But simply: “Jesus, remember me.” It was as cry perhaps it was a prayer. On sick beds, behind bars, lying in some nursing home—sleeping on a grate one winter day. They all must have prayed like Dismas: “Remember me.”And at one times or another almost all of us utter those words Dismas spoke.

Years ago at Princeton Seminary a whole cadre of preachers came from everywhere hoping to get some infusion after a long year’s work. Who knows while they were there. Scared of the Session back home. Worried about one of their kids or their  arriages. Some brought alcohol with them and others their own personal addictions. Some came really wondering if all this stuff they had been preaching really had anything to do with Jesus. Some felt their faith slipping away. And a musician stood and said:”We’re going to learn a song this morning. You may have heard it. It comes from the Taize movement in France. The song goes like this: “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” So we began to sing quietly almost like a chant. And then the leader divided us into three groups to sing the words like a round. One group, then another and still another followed. “Jesus remember me.” We sang it over and over that song—that prayer. Jesus remember me.” There were tears in my eyes. Looking around I heard someone sobbing. The whole room seemed to be awash in tears and longing. 

Dismas' words spoke to us that day. And spoke to all those things we thought we had left behind but could not. You don’t have to be on a cross to be desperate. We all know that. Not save me. Not get me lout of this mess. Not don’t let them find out. No. Just the words from that other cross: “Jesus remember me.”

And those standing by hard another word. Jesus spoke: “Today you shall be with me in paradise.” Today is the second word that came from Jesus’ lips. You will be remembered. You have been heard. Today—you shall be with me in paradise.” 

And those gathered, at least some of them must have heard Jesus. “Today.” Today? With all that blood and gore and injustice and heart-break. Someone remembered. This was no mere criminal who had done terrible things. But somebody’s son or mate or father. We all need remembering. And right now, the place where you stand or find yourself nailed s holy ground. Of course you cannot forget the bed sores and the embarrassing words in the paper or the unfairness of your life. Not tomorrow or next week or some time in the future, But today. Right now. Just where you are.

As I thought about this second word it all came back. I was a Pastor and a couple came in one day and said they wanted to talk. As they sat down they were embarrassed and found it hard today anything. And then they poured it out. “Our boy has lived in Louisiana for a long time. And he got sick with AIDS. We knew," they said, " he was gay and we were so worried about him and he called us and wanted to know if he could come home. So many of his friends said their families had turned them away. But he said: “Can I come home?” “Couldn’t work anymore,” they said. “ And what we want to know is, if he decides to come to church—could he come here? Our church would not take him. Why even the friends in our dinner group would not understand.”

And I said, “when he comes home have him come talk to me. I think we would take him. I would hope so.” And he knocked on the door one day and said he wanted to come to our church and maybe join. I told him that Jesus stretched out his arms to everybody. 

He joined. He was there about every Sunday. He didn’t look sick but after a while people knew he was not well. Lost weight. Looked terrrible. So when Bob got so sick he couldn’t come to church anymore I and some of our members would visit him in his parents’ home. They were so devastated. They wouldn’t tell their friends—and they went to another church every Sunday—they didn’t think they would understand. So they kept quiet. But one day they called me and said, “The Doctor came by and said he’s not going make it.”  I brought the Bread and the Cup. And he took them slowly. Painfully. And I also brought my tape recorder and told his Mama and Daddy and Bob—I want to play something. And the recorder began to play: “Jesus remember me…Jesus remember me…Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” It was a prayer. For Bob. For his broken devastated parents. And for me and those two who had come with me that day.

Is it any wonder that the church wrote down these words. Someone must have known that Jesus’ words were for us all. To be remembered despite who we are or what we have done. To hear Jesus say again: “Today.” Today. Right now. Thanks be to God.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The First Word--This Lent

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It must have been thirty or forty years after Jesus had died. That handful that had been there--seen his miracles, heard his stories--were slowly dying out. And so Mark and followers knew that if someone did not write the story down the gospel--the good news--would be lost. So four different writers--maybe more--put down in their own way--the Jesus' story. The centerpiece of all those writings clustered around Jesus' final days.

Last words are most important. Three of the gospels give us these words as they remembered them. Much later the church turned to Good Friday and worshippers would spend three hours looking at the cross and the words that Jesus said that day. Year after year pilgrims would listen to those last words.  Why focus on these gloomy words when they could have skipped them and moved on to Easter? I think these last words of Jesus touched something deep in their hearts.So like all those others we climb Calvary's hill once again duing our own Lenten season to listen closely to what he said and what, after all these years, those words still mean.

Nailed down, delirious with pain that first word they thought he said was: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." As he looked down from his cross what was it that he must have seen. His broken mother and her tiny circle of friends. Dear John, the lone disciple would be there until the end. He might have remembered Judas dead by his own hand or the betrayer Simon Peter. Standing near but on  the edge of the crowd were the Priests with their long robes and folded arms. There must have been children there, too not knowing what was happening. And this first word took them all in: "Forgive them. No--Father forgive us all those things we do not know and all the things we cannot forget."

So like those other pilgrims we draw near and listen. It all began that day when young Jesus unrolled the Isaiah scroll and told his neighbors what he had come to do. He stretched out his arms and took in the poor,  the captives, the blind and the oppressed and all the broken-hearted. Oh, there would be so many. Forgive us all. Even those of us who cannot turn the other cheek or walk yet another cursed mile or push aside all the violence against the women and the little children and that long enemies' list we secretly carry. Jesus stretched out his arms and took them-and us--all in.

Most days we are too busy for this forgiving. It takes too many in.  Our arms only reach so far. Hate was not the word he used for all those sinners out there beyond the cross and the crowd and the town and the hills and even to the Roman rulers that put him there.

Forgive them--forgive us. During those stormy days of the civil rights movement, Dr. Robert Coles, a phychiatrist came South to study the effects of racial discrimination on the lives of the little children caught in the crossfire of simply trying to go to a good school. Rubye Bridges was the first little black girl to walk through the long, awful scary crowd in New Orleans.  Federal marshalls would hold her hand every morning and lead her safely to the school. Dr. Coles wondered what all that hatred and hostility had done to this little girl and so many others. He knew she ought to have trouble sleeping and eating and trying to carry on a normal life. Dr. Coles would meet with Rubye every day for a while. He asked, "Rubye are you sleeping all right?" "Yes, suh I'm sleeping just fine." Sometimes he would ask, "Rubye are you eating OK?" "Yes, Dr. Coles I'm eating all right." He could not understand Rubye's reactions. One of the teachers had told him that as Rubye walked through those lines of ugliness she seemed to be talking to herself. So the Doctor asked her one day, "When you are walking through that line and people yelled terrible things at you the teacher told me that you seemed to be talking to yourself. What were you saying?" "Dr. Cole, I say 'Father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.'"

Maybe little Rubye had heard those word first in her Sunday School or from her Pastor. But they really came first from a dark afternoon on a Friday that would come to be called Good. No wonder Carly Marney said this is a word of identification. He is with us all. So we listen once again: "Father forgive them-us--for we know not what we do." So the church kept these words knowing that if that forgiveness would seep down into the troubled places of our lives--it might just become the healing word we all need.

photo by Lawrence OP /flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com