4/6/20 Tuesday in Holy Week

The theologian Herb Butterfield wrote, “Hold onto Christ and for the rest be entirely uncommitted.” This week we are walking into Jerusalem, and because we have been here before, we have no illusions about where we are headed. The Hosannas of Palm Sunday are over. No more waving of branches; no more crowds; no more euphoria that the world is magically going to be changed.

No, Holy Week is a deeper dive into the mystery of God in Christ and that mystery is always the theology of subtraction. All of us have a way of translating what God wants from us and for us into a formula that suits us and doesn’t require too much from us. My version is to think that if I read enough books or quote enough writers, somehow I will advance deeper into being truly connected to God. This week all that must get stripped away. God isn’t interested in how many books we’ve read, or seminars we’ve attended, or whether our political views are correct, or whether we eat the right food, or know the right people or worship in the right Church.

It’s not about our stuff; it’s about our hearts. What needs to die in us this week, so God can raise us to new life—abundant life—a life without dead end diversions or paralyzing fear? What must we let go of in order to be made new?

It’s always love. Why else do Mary and Mary Magdalene and the disciple John stay at the cross? They aren’t thinking about the future; they aren’t thinking about the past. Their love of Jesus has brought them out of their safe box to be connected to Christ regardless of the cross.

Now—don’t mix metaphors here. Wear your mask; stay away from crowds; don’t go into public places; do all the right things to stay alive and to avoid being a carrier of the disease. But. But if we are to find new life, it won’t be by white knuckling our way through this pandemic. It will be by opening our hearts and connecting to Christ and being indifferent to everything that we have to surrender.

Our faith is that resurrection always follows death. Something new is being born here and now, as we let go of our old ways of being community—we discover something that is deeper. Holding onto Christ means discovering how fragile life is; how interdependent we are; and how precious this moment is because it’s the only moment we have.

As we get closer to Friday, now is the time to become more and more uncommitted to the many ways we have diverted our attention to the only one who matters: Christ himself.

Prayer: “Jesus, open our hearts wider and wider so that we may hold onto you and for the rest become totally uncommitted.”

Practice: At the end of each day, recall when you felt connected to God in Christ through the Holy Spirit and give thanks.

+Porter Taylor

3/24/20

The novelist Bernard Malamud writes, “We have two lives: the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering brings us towards happiness.”

In this moment we are in both of those lives because we are learning what it means to live a different life, but we can’t hold our breath until it’s over. We must live this life now because it’s the only life we have.

Those of us in affluent peaceful America may be bewildered that suffering brings us towards happiness, but of course the gospel has been teaching that for over 2000 years. Perhaps this virus is teaching us what the cross means---we are having to let go of any illusion that we can make the world behave. No gadget, no remote control, no button that we can push will take us back to where we were. Like the people following Moses in the wilderness, the only way is forward.

As I have been trying to come to some sense of what’s going on, I think that suffering brings us towards happiness by opening our hearts. Remember that it’s at the cross that Jesus shows us that to find our way, we must reconstitute relationships: the disciple John becomes the son of Mary and Mary becomes the mother of John. Suffering shows us what matters and what doesn’t. It reminds us that we are all mortal and that life is fragile and precious and that God in Christ is calling us to a different way of living and being together—a holy communion.

So---maybe there’s a lesson in this time. Maybe we are in the midst of the life we learn with, but we are invited into the life we live with after that. Our name for that life is resurrection.

Prayer:

Gracious God, open our eyes to witness all that is happening around us: the joy and the pain; the weeping and the laughing. Help us to learn the way of the Cross so that you might open our hearts to be resurrection and be agents of resurrection. In Christ name we pray. Amen

Practice: Allow yourself to feel what you feel and offer it up to God.

+Porter Taylor