Holy Saturday: Absence Makes the Heart Ponder

As I sit in my comfortable living room on this late-April Saturday and watch the snow falling on our spring garden, I find myself thinking about absence. About the disciples of Jesus, especially the women, who had seen their friend and teacher violently and shamefully executed and laid in a borrowed tomb.  About that sabbath night and day, how their weekly worship must have been overshadowed by the weight and darkness of what seemed like the end of what they had been hoping for. 

The Apostles' Creed teaches that between crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus descended to the dead, and tradition says that his purpose was to release the righteous men and women of the Hebrew Scriptures from hell.  But this is one of those doctrines that developed with the benefit of hindsight; Jesus' friends and followers had little evidence that his death was anything other than a personal and public tragedy.

Today is the time in between.  The rest between musical movements, the blank space between sentences or paragraphs, the empty place in the heart after a loved one's death.  The old has ended, the new not yet begun - unknown, uncertain, without any guarantee that something will even happen, let alone be better than what was before.  Today is the day when God's absence seems a very real possibility, when all bets are off, when the old rules and promises and assurances have all been questioned, torn down, unwoven, and nothing has yet been rebuilt in their place.

Holy Saturday is a day for Christians to mourn, to ponder these things in their hearts (as Mary did), to trust in the rhythms of prayer and worship and community even when they feel out of synch with reality.  It is a day for anyone who has rejected what they were taught growing up (whether that is a literal 6-day creation, women as inferior to men, the idea that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, or the idea that Jesus died because God was angry about sin) but hasn't yet figured out what the life-giving alternatives are.  It is a day for anyone who has walked away from comfort and security for the sake of justice or integrity, and found themselves out on a limb, seemingly alone.  It is a day when we have seen what the powers of the world are capable of - a day when violence, self-preservation, and darkness seem to reign.

It is a day to lament, to confess our fears and doubts and loneliness, to acknowledge the holes in our hearts where we have known disappointment and grief.  It is a day to pray Psalm 22, as Jesus did on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"

And it is a day to remember how that psalm ends, not in a place of despair, but in the assurance that God is as faithful as God has always been:

For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
²⁹To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
³⁰Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
³¹and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

Sometimes during Easter weekend, it feels like cheating to focus on Resurrection before we get to Sunday - like I'm supposed to live through the denials, trials, suffering, and horror of the disciples day by day, page by page, as they did, without looking ahead to the next chapter.  But Psalm 22 helps me remember that Resurrection, that new and wondrous thing, is in some ways the expected outcome from the God of our salvation, the God of Abraham and Sarah, Miriam and Moses, Ruth and David and Isaiah and Mary.  And with St Paul, I hold on to this hope:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Today is a day for the times in between, the empty places in our hearts and our lives, a day to remember that God is faithful even when we cannot feel God's presence with us.  It is day to rest, and to prepare for what may come.

Blessings.

My remarks from today's Faith Leader Conversation in support of the Colorado Civil Union Act

I am here today to speak in favor of Senate Bill 172 as a Christian and a United Methodist minister; as a pastor, friend, and straight ally of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people; and as a newlywed. 

As a Christian, I am committed to the God revealed through Jesus, who taught his followers that the essential way to love God is to love your neighbor as yourself, to speak up and take action for the needs of those on the margins, and to include all people in the circle of care and justice.  I am part of a long tradition that sees the religious life as inextricably connected with the ordering of society in ways that honor human dignity, a tradition that claims “There is no holiness but social holiness,” and that sees the incarnate God in all people but especially in those whom society has rejected, cast out, or marginalized.

My tradition, the United Methodist Church, like many other Christian denominations, is currently divided regarding recognition of same-sex relationships.  However, we are clear that all people are of sacred worth, and that the human and civil rights of all people should be protected as a matter of clear and simple justice.  The Colorado Civil Union Act would move our state toward greater justice by allowing people in committed, same-sex relationships to have many legal protections that are not currently available to them.  At the same time, this bill also protects religious leaders’ freedom of religious expression by not requiring them to perform ceremonies that go against their beliefs or the requirements of their religious bodies.

I became an ally of LGBT rights because of my faith.  The teachings of Jesus, the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, and what we know about human sexuality from psychology and biology, all lead me to believe that God loves all people equally as children of God, that it is not a sin to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, and that same-sex relationships hold the same potential and challenges as heterosexual relationships: they are equally capable of being the solid foundation for a family with or without children, equally responsible for assuring mutual care and support, and should therefore be equally of interest to the state in honoring stability, mutual commitment, and responsibility. 

In my pastoral role, and among my friends, I have seen many examples firsthand of the beauty, joy, and love found within committed same-sex relationships and families headed by same-sex couples; and I have also heard the stories of pain and tears, from families who have faced not only social isolation but also legal barriers to living out their commitments in hospitals, in adoption courts, and after a loved one’s death.  The Colorado legislature has the opportunity now to reduce some of those barriers, to end discrimination and injustice and the pain that they cause, by providing legal protections to more committed couples.

The people of Colorado have decided that marriage is reserved for relationships consisting of one man and one woman, and I know that religious or spiritual beliefs were the basis for many people’s support of that decision.  While I personally disagree with this stance, it is important to note that Senate Bill 172 has absolutely no impact on this established definition of marriage. Instead, it acknowledges that the state already recognizes some committed relationships for its own, secular purposes; and it extends that recognition and certain important legal protections to all people, instead of excluding some couples and families because of the gender of those involved. All people deserve equal protection under the law, and Civil Unions are the best option available in Colorado for protecting the rights of people whose relationships do not fit the state’s definition of marriage, but who are doing the important work of building strong families and contributing to their community.

Finally, on a personal note, I want to share that in October, I had the joy of committing my life to a wonderful and loving partner, a man with whom it is my privilege to walk through life, to build a home and family together.  Although this bill is not about marriage per se, this recent personal experience of finding the person who loves me and whom I love, and wanting to stand up in public to commit my life to him, makes it clearer to me than ever why this issue is so important. 

Committed relationships have always been part of human experience, but societies in different times and places have identified some of those relationships as more worthy of recognition than others.  As we have learned more about the diversity of human experience and expression, what remains constant is the importance of loving, committed relationships in the formation of families and communities.  For those of us who believe that God is love, and that God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, providing legal protections to all committed couples, whether gay or straight, is an important way of continuing to move forward in honoring the humanity and dignity of all people both as citizens and as children of God.

Bible in Haiku, Genesis 2

Dust plus breath of life
(God's creative equation):
a living being.

Garden of Eden
two trees, four rivers, one rule.
Earth-creature tends it.

Alone is no good.
Adam names the animals
but finds no partner.

At last, flesh from flesh
and bone from bone she is born:
true companionship.

Bible in Haiku, Genesis 1

One of my resolutions this year is to make more time to write, but I've been struggling with where to start and what focus to choose. I read a reference somewhere recently (probably Twitter) to converting some big work to haiku, but didn't follow up to find out what that was about. However, I liked the idea, and thought I might take some of the better-known sections of the Bible and see what I can come up with, mainly as an exercise to get my creative juices flowing again. No great promises or grand ambitions, just a starting-point.

So without further excuses, here's my adaptation of Genesis 1:

God said, "Let there be..."
And day by day, it was so.
God called it all "good."

Light/dark, sky/below,
land/water, plants, sun/moon/stars,
and last: animals.

Made in God's image,
humans are given a task:
care for creation.

Six days of labor,
God blessed it all and rested:
Sabbath's gift to all.

In the midst of the whirlwind...

I believe I am a thoughtful, creative, communicative person who has a lot to say and should be able to come up with dozens of blog topics on any given day. And yet, somehow, after hanging out on Facebook and checking my email and now reading dozens of tweets on my Twitter account, I end up feeling inundated with information and unable to produce anything new.

Add to the usual information overload (hardly a new or unique story in the 21st century), this summer I have been the unofficial-interim-lead pastor while our senior pastor is on spiritual renewal leave (while still working half-time at my non-profit job), and I am planning my wedding (with a great deal of assistance from my lovely fiance!) for early October, and I'm feeling fairly starved of intentional time for sabbath and creativity. Yes, I am making sure I get a day off from paid work each week, and there are a few creative tasks in the wedding preparations, but they are constrained by social expectations and deadlines... not the greatest combination!

I long for time
for space uncluttered
for escape and retreat
for solitude
(and loving company)
for purposefulness and play
for harmony and balance
for grounding and center
and I know this requires discipline
but I want it to be easy
to walk away from my messy floor and kitchen table
from my buzzing messages and beeping calendar
from the spend spend spend
and decide important things every day
of planning a threshold day
and simply find that space
that peace
that rest
in the meadow
where time is the sliding of sunbeams
and pressure is a pattern of grass under my skin
and the world speaks in quieter, broader, less pixelated ways
with a hum and a sigh and a song.