So, for all the hardship and need we see and experience, let’s commit to being a community that tends to its joy and its curiosity. Which means we not only learn together and pray together and serve together, but that we also eat and drink together, sing and laugh together, rejoice in all the ways we can together.
For most of our history, we Christians have been re-drawing the lines between who’s in and who’s out, between whose beliefs are correct and whose are not. For one group, fundamentalists might be the problem; for another, it’s woke liberals. For yet another, it could be terrorists or immigrants or environmentalists, rich people or poor people, or Muslims or
Psalm 23 reminds us that we are never alone—that we are led beside still waters, our souls are restored, and even when we walk through difficult valleys, we are not afraid. Because we are lucky enough to have had the guidance of so many amazing shepherds.
Just as Ananias embraced Saul as family by calling him, ‘Brother Saul,’ Ruthie and I will always think of you as ‘Sister Calvary.’ We are family to each other. You will always be in my and Ruthie’s hearts. And God’s ongoing story of conversion in all our hearts will never end.
Go be a Thomas. Not Thomas, the cool skeptic of tradition. But Thomas, who knows that an incarnate relationship with complicated people is what we’re made for, not membership in a religious club we join by storing beliefs in the attic of our mind, like furniture under bedsheets no one even thinks to sit on anymore.
Let the women at the tomb be our guides back into a love that’s at work in our lives still, right now, right here. Today.
I feel a kinship with the women in this kind of moment, in which the story is still unfurling. And I am grateful and profoundly moved by their witness, their belief, with only the barest bit of news to go on.
So say the prayers, whether it feels like anyone’s listening or not. Jesus did. Say the prayers, if only to remember that you’re not the only one who’s ever felt like everything that matters is unsolved in their heart. Say the prayers as a way to be still, expand your soul to hold
When Jesus stood up and wrapped a towel around himself, in essence, he taught them, ‘Do not be afraid to stoop down and offer the most humble service imaginable to one another. It is no more than I have done for you.’
Spectacle seems the right word for the scene. Overwhelm seems the right word for the feeling.