Easter 2022

 4/17

Croatian Easter Eggs...all natural dyes

It's a sunny cool late afternoon when I preach an Easter sermon to my friends at Beverley Church, Brooklyn back in the US. Here's what I had to say:

Greetings  to you from Berlin where I finally arrived after a long and arduous journey made all the more difficult by continuing Covid protocols. A Holy Saturday spent in Madrid along the way. And waking up this morning to find my grandchildren excitedly opening gifts left for them by the Easter Bunny.  Following my daughter-in-law’s Croatian tradition, they make a nest for the Bunny filed with flowers and eggs that have been colored with onion skins and beets and leaves and turmeric..reds, blues, purple, yellow. Deep down, it’s all about new life, how spring rolls round again…despite all, even in the darkest time. It comes again. While we celebrate new life, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine are doing their best to resist the power of death and hold on to the life they have. 

And so we turn again, as we do every year to the story of Easter, our Christian “origin” story if you like. Easter is what makes Jesus Jesus.  As Marcus Borg said, Without Easter there would be no Jesus.  He’d just be another one of the many first century Jews who  lost their  life resisting  the empire. 

We usually read the story from the Gospel of John. So this year I thought it would be fun to look at in Luke.  What do we find there ?

The women come to take care of Jesus. Note ..all the men, all the men, took off at the crucifixion. Only the women stayed to the end.  The men out of some  combination of disappointment and fear were gone. They’re like well, that certainly didn’t work out.. According to John they even went back to their old work of fishing. But not the women.

These women, like so many before and after, don’t worry about those things, they put their heads down and take care of business.And the business to take care of is taking care of the body of someone they had  loved, someone who was a friend.  And so they go.

Imagine how they feel to find the stone rolled away, the body gone! While they are trying to figure this out, two must be, angels, appear. And  they are terrified!. Mark actually ends his gospel  there…they, the women,  were afraid..and the two angels? They say the most important words, do not look for the living among the dead….and then  the women  remember everything he had told them. And they go to tell the disciples, the eleven (no more Judas) and the rest.

And what do our courageous men do? They  refuse to believe the women.  Say it’s just an idle tale. ( The Biblical Greek is actually more colorful…) Remember, in those days, women were not even allowed to be witnesses in court cases, because, you know, women….

The last scene of course, involves Peter. I love Peter, the guy with no impulse control, the guy with the big words, big statements, we’ll always follow you, all the way to the end…who winds up denying three times, scared to death, who me? Never knew the guy…But on the other hand, not worried about guilt, not worried about shame, he goes to see, he runs to go see…and comes away amazed…

So much more to come…but what to do with what we’ve got?

Don’t look for the living among the dead…Easter means  they came to believe Jesus was alive.  Get this….there’s no external way to prove it, right? No cell phone cameras on him as he gets up and walks away or whatever it as that happened. No instagram posts .  No tik tok posts by the women. No articles in the local press about empty tombs and the disappearance of the body of an executed rabble rouser. The external world did not know and did not care. 

I am going to go further and say that we know, not believe, we know this is true and truth is not bound by and is always so much more than facts. So how do we know this is true?  At the simplest level, we know this is true because we are here and we too are witnesses. 

Do not look for the living smog the dead.

Many cultures have their own way of measuring time…like for our Jewish friends celebrating Passover it’s 5782.  For our Muslim friends celebrating Ramadan it is year 1443 AG, Anno Hegirae. And back in February the Asian year 4719 began.  And yet the whole world measures time by this man. It’s what we used to call Anno Domini.  Remember BC and AD? Well now it’s CE, the Common Era.  So time itself testifies that Jesus is not to be found among the dead.

So what does that mean for us?

We know the power of death is strong. We have lived through two years of the pandemic now. Almost a million deaths in the US and almost 6 million world wide and it is still not over.  My trip to Germany to visit my grandchildren was bounded and defined by shifting covid rules that almost kept from getting there. Nearly all of us have loved ones who have died during this pandemic. It may have permanently changed the way we live. 

And if that were not enough, we have our awareness of the senseless war going on in Ukraine.  I get evert angry with people trying to explain how we git here, trying to figure out whose fault this war is. It’s like I told my boys…history is always more complex than we think it is. There are no clean hands here. Especially ours.  But wrong is still wrong.  Invading another country is wrong. Bombing theatre, schools, and even maternity wards is WRONG. But how to stop it? That’s another issue.

The point is …we know too much of death.  It is always around us.  The death of loved ones.  The end of relationships. A job. A home. And the worst of all…spiritual death …when we have lost the passion, the desire, even the  will to live. 

And it is all too easy to give in to , to hold on to death. Resurrection takes courage. Stepping into, accepting, embracing resurrection, not after you die, but now…that takes courage. 

One of my favorite folksingers is the late Canadian Stan Rogers. He wrote  a song about a sunken ship and the efforts of the sailors who love her to bring it back. Listen to the words of its final verse…

Rise again, rise again; though your heart it be broken

And life about to end

No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend

Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again

Rise again, rise again; though your heart it be broken

And life about to end

No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend

Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again

                                                            Mary Ellen Carter

Don’t look for the living among the dead. Because Easter. Jesus lives and because he still lives he calls us to risk resurrection. To risk living. Holding on to death is easy.  Be brave enough to risk your resurrection.

Alleluia. Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia. 

Luke 24: 1-12

1But on he first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8Then they remembered his words, 9and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Lving in Coronavirusworld 261: One step out....

 4/4

Easter

4/2

Good Friday.  In keeping with the darkest day of the Christian year, the temperature drops down below 30 degrees. I go to the barber shop. My Easter shave. Which I didn’t do last year because the lockdown didn’t feel like Easter. So it’s been a year and a week since I’ve been fully shaved. 

My barber is still hurting. Many of his customers have never come back, still gone from the Upper East Side.  I lie back and enjoy the shave.  Tell him it’s one of the three best things a man can experience. He laughs.

Outside again, my face feels especially  cold.  When I see myself in the mirror, I’m not sure how I feel. This will take some getting used to. 

125th Street

I make the trip to buy everything I will need for Easter dinner I will cook for my family.  On 125th Street, they are selling full face sunglass face shield, the latest covid accessory. 

Forced back inside for Friday afternoon drinks. 

4/3

Back at the Stadium

Holy Saturday. Warms up a little in the sun.  Meet my son on the subway platform to go to Yankee Stadium.  It will be your fist visit there since September 2019, 19 months  ago. Scalpers are asking extra tickets  and it’s like dude, it’s all digital…another industry victim to Covid. To get in, you must show an ID, proof of vaccination or negative test, digital ticket and temperature check. Our club is pretty empty. No one behind the bar and no draft beer. (I’ve never figured that one out yet…). The Stadium is at 20 percent capacity and ticket prices doubled to compensate.  Every other row is roped off and 4 seats between every pod. Weird but comfortable.  We sit in the bleachers  to catch the sun. The only semi crowded section is the right field bleachers where the “Creatures” are out in force again.  Good to hear them do the “roll call” of the lineup at the beginning of the game.   And...the Yankees win…..

A long night of cooking and cleaning, getting my dinner ready. I even dye some eggs with onion skins, the old school way. It feels good to be hosting my family.

4/4

Easter.  And we are still virtual for church. My West Park friends were forbidden to have an Easter lunch at the church. That saddens me. I meet my friends from Beverley in Brooklyn via conference call yet again. We had hoped…and yet…

I’ve only got an hour after church to get ready for my family. We connect with my family in Berlin where something like chaos strangely continues to reign. We are all feeling worn out. We hear of then Croatian traditions of making a nest for the Easter bunny who will leave toys for the children. My grandson will leave children’s under wear, socks and other thoughtful items for the Bunny. (Which must the make their way to another family…) My grandson will rise early and make an Easter breakfast of hard boiled eggs and chocolate for his sister.

My mother will be allowed out of her assisted care facility and to my sister’s for an outdoor oj the porch socially distanced core family Easter dinner. Rules followed, she will not need to quarantine on return. Nevertheless, compared to last year….it's better...

The Easter table...

Yes I’m actually with my family sharing food. Not alone on ZOOM.  That is good. But we are not resurrected. We’ve taken one step out of the tombs and are awkwardly stepping out, blinking our eyes in the sun as we come.  It is Easter, 2021.

My sermon:

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed!  Happy Easter!

I think this is the first time since I have retired that I have been able to begin and end a Lenten journey with the same community. On March 7th, we began Lent together and today that journey comes to an end.  If you are like me, there were certain Lenten intentions that went the way of many New Year’s resolutions. But perhaps something came out of your Lenten experience, something that can be celebrated this morning.

Today we come to our celebration fo Easter with a sense of a new incomplete and still uncertain future. We need no more proof of this than that we are still gathered here on phone. A year ago the man who was then our President said he expected “full churches on Easter.” Well, we know how that turned out. 

We know of death, Over half a million of us, including  friends and loved ones gone. We know what it is like to be shut in weeks on end in lockdown and quarantine. And for elderly people like my mom in her assisted care facility, that lockdown has been like a tomb.

But with the coming of this spring, with vaccinations spreading, there is a growing sense of hope. Like little buds of flowers, we begin to stick our heads out to see what’s going on out there. This year, my mom can actually go to my sister’s house for Easter dinner. Last year, I cooked a meal for myself to share on a ZOOM gathering with family.  Today I am hosting my family for dinner. We  have a taste, the beginnings of resurrection.

Who was the first to go to the tomb?  Mary, of course. The men had all turned and run away during that endless afternoon of execution on that hillside. The women remained. The men left out of disappointment. Let down that the revolution had not come. That he had not been  the one. 

It’s Mary who comes, out of a love that had no expectations but to be, Mary who comes to do the acts of love a loved one deserves upon their death. As always, women take care of business. And Mary is shocked to find the stone rolled away.

Who does she go to? Peter, the one Jesus had chosen to be the “rock” upon which his community would be built. So quick and impetuous to proclaim undying commitment and so quick to deny any relationship to Jesus at all. Somehow she knows he will still care. ( I believe it’s that very flawed humanity of Peter, imperfect but loving still that led Jesus to choose Peter. He knew Peter, like even the best of us, would screw up but still keep loving..) And who else? The disciple “Jesus loved.” The one who lay his head upon Jesus’ breast during the last supper. The one to whom Jesus commended his mother from the cross. Obviously someone very close and very special.  A relationship of which we know next to nothing. Except this…Jesus needed not just to be worshipped. Jesus, like any of us, needed to be loved.

 A lot goes on in and around  that tomb.   But I want to focus on that last scene with Mary.  First she mistakes Jesus as the gardener..What does that tell us?  That there was nothing special about Jesus’ resurrection appearance. He didn’t glow our have a halo. He wasn’t even wearing a brand new Easter suit. He looked like a common, ordinary working person in overalls, like a gardener.

She only knows it’s him when he speaks her voice, calls her by name, “Mary.” And then she knows. When someone we know calls our name, it sounds like no other voice can.  When she hears the sound of his voice, she knows.  We all have people in our life that when they say our name, we hear it like no other and know exactly who its is. 

She wants to hold on to him, but she can’t. He’s got to move forward and so does she. We want to hold on to those we haver lost, and even though they stay with us, we have to let go, we have to move on. Like we have to move out of the grave of lockdown and back out into the world, and back into the world..

But as we go…see this…much of what we see in the resurrection story has to do with love and intimacy… our need for that. It starts with a savior who like his love for Peter, loves us in all our imperfections, Knows we are the ones to entrust his church to,  And like Mary, he knows us like no other can and says our name in a way that we know he knows us through and through.  In the days ahead, friends listen for that voice, listen for that voice. 

But more…these will be wonderful days as we make our way out again. Wonder-full days. Let is not forget the things we have learned during our year of lockdown, our year of Lent. We are going to need each other.  Especially as a church we are going to have to love one another and offer that love to any of our community who feel isolated, lonely or afraid. 

At the end of the day, that is what conquers the grave., That is what love is all about. The love that goes on, the love that goes on.

Yes, these will be uncertain times. But we have taken one step out of the grave. More to come. And we are going together.  And we are going with Jesus.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look[a] into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,[b] “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

1. John 20:11 Gk lacks to look
2. John 20:16 That is, Aramaic

Living in Coronavirusworld 22 : Easter Monday

4/13

Easter Monday

Ann egg for West Park

A cold, wet, blustery day. Try to get up and go out but for the first time since March 4th I miss my walk.

                                                                      ****

Just one week after his mother died, my friend Jim’s father died. This coronavirus is merciless. 

                                                                      ****

Spend most of the day preparing for the West Park Bible Study, tonight Matthew’s Easter story. (Matthew 28: 1-10). I chose Matthew over John, mainly because of the weirdness of Matthew’s telling.  Elements that we often forget when we think of the combined Easter narrative we carry in our heads. What is unique in Matthew?

* Who’s there? Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” Who? Mother of “James and Joseph” and “the sons of Zebedee.” But in 4: 21, they are “James and John.” In 13:55, when Jesus is rejected by his hometown, “Is not his mother Mary? …are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” So is this his mother? Wouldn’t Matthew  have said so? It’s not clear. What difference does it make?  Sidenote: in classic Matthew style, note Jesus had a brother with the same name as the one who betrays him, Judas.

* Earthquakes. Only in this gospel. Nowhere else. Back in 27:50, when Jesus  dies, the “…earth shook and rocks split,” the “temple curtain is rent.”  Why? This  is the veil that hangs at the access to the ‘Most Holy Place”  or “Holy of Holies.”,(Exodus 26: 31-55).  As if to say, with Jesus' death, God is no longer hidden. Access is opened to all. 

- “Tombs were opened..” Foreshadowing the general resurrection. “Saints” are raised. “Saints” being the nominative form of the Latin “sancti,” holy, like sanctified and sanctuary. It’s the term Paul uses for all Christians (Rev. 15:26, 1 Cor.1:2)  For Paul, all believers are saints.  But coming out of graves? Nowhere else does this happen. This would seem to draw some attention. No one else mentions this.  Matthew, who has as a major agenda linking his narrative with the narrative of the children of Israel, seems to be connecting his story with the prophet Ezekiel and the story of the “dry bones.” In Ezekiel 37:12, “I will…open your graves, bring you up form your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel…I will put my spirit in you and you shall live..”  Ezekiel is addressing a spiritually dead people, in exile coming back to life. Perhaps Matthew is telling us that Jesus death will shake us back into life….

- These earthquakes give the story an apocalyptic edge, as in Revelation, Exodus and 1 Kings. 

* Heavy stuff is happening here and no one is noticing. Is heavy stuff going on around us and we are not noticing? 

* An angel come down form heaven dressed in white to roll away the stone in front of their eyes. In every other gospel, the stone is already rolled away when they get there. 

 -White like the robes of the holy in Revelation 19. 

who’s that yonder desk in white

must be the children of the Israleite

pharaoh’s army got drowned

oh Mary don’t you weep.

“ Oh Mary don ’t you weep”

- the angel says “Do not be afraid”

like God to Abram (Genesis 15:1), angel Gabriel to Mary (Luke 1:30)

* Jesus had told them that he must “..go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering..and be killed and on the 3rd day be raised…” (Matt. 16:21)

* Two women are the first witnesses.  Jesus doesn’t need the stone rolled away, he’s already out. He appears them out of nowhere. And they recognize him. Not like John where Mary mistakes him for the gardener.

- why were they the witnesses? All the men and run away. As Marsha says, the women are the ones tt take care of business. They always do. 

* They “worshipped him” 

-Like the Magi (2:2). and the disciples in the boat after he walked on water (14:33)

Maybe in corona virusworld , we need the Jesus who says to Mary, do not hold  on to me..” (John 20:17)

* He’s going ahead of you to Galilee. Why?

-predicted at Last Supper “But after I am raised I will ahead of you to Galilee…” (Matt. 26:32). Why? Marsha points out that this was the home of Jesus' ministry. For Russ, it's  away from the seat of Empire power and into the midst of the common people. The purpose is mission, to make disciples, followers to teach "what I have taught. Obey my commandments."It’s a way of life, not agreeing to a theological proposition. It is doing as Jesus, following Jesus, not believing per se. 

* ‘Lo I am with you to the end of the age” That’s the bottom line. As Marsha, says, the comfort we need.

So, to summarize, for Matthew:

1. It’s an apocalyptic event.

2. There is now open access to God

3. People are being brought back to life again

4. The purpose is mission.

And in April 2020, where are we? 

* We are still the in between time

*  Our graves have nor been opened. The stone has not bene rolled away.

*  We are being asked to celebrate what we have not yet experienced. 

We have ben asleep. The Covid 19 Virus is like the earthquake waking us up.  

Our being shut up and shut in could have the key to our going out from our exile, our graves. 

We are to follow Jesus, not dependent  on theological propositions.  How we behave in the “in between days” is critical to creating what we can be on the other side.

Lo I am with you to the end of the age.

                                                                                                     ****

Leading up to Wednesday’s celebration of Jackie Robinson’s historic breaking baseball’s color line, has 1945 team, the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League. 

Jackie 1945

- 

Living in cornavirusworld 21: Easter Sunday

4/12

Easter

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Christ is risen  indeed!

Easter Sunday.

It’s odd not to have a sermon to preach or a church to go to on Easter Sunday. I was to have gone to Beverley Church. Not this year.

I have a lot of cooking do before my virtual meeting with my family at noon. I start with asparagus, my choice for today’s green vegetable.  (Remembering how excited my friends in Germany get when it’s “spargle season,” especially the white asparagus.) I'll bake them with fresh garlic and parmesan cheese. Then my ham roast baked with a light honey glaze. I’m taking great care for the meal I will serve with my family and then only eat myself.

At noon we gather from our various quarantines.  My middle son is making a dinner for he and his brother.  The family brisket recipe, a reminder of Passover, and of course the cheesy potatoes,. My oldest son and his family were to have arrived from Berlin yesterday for an all too rare visit to the US. Its been two years.  Sad for that not to happen. They join us on ZOOM and it’s great to see the grandkids, Roko and Karla. I have a colored egg for revery member of the family that I hold up to the camera.  I’m impressed to learn that they have made Easter a big event for their family in the tradition of the kids’ mother, from Croatia. Last night, Roko made gifts for the Easter Bunny and left them in a nest. This morning, those gifts were gone replaced by gifts for Roko, like a firetruck, and chocolates. There was ham for breakfast and lamb for dinner. My son says that while most of the time, they eat a mostly vegetarian healthy diet, for some reason when there’s a holiday, there’s got to be an animal in the oven. I haven’t seen Karla since last August. She’s two years and three months now and becoming a person. It’s hard them being so far away.

I spend some time with the paper. Take a walk.  And notice for the first time that the hoops are down in the park basketball court.

the hoops are down

Had to do something get the players off the court.

 Back home, I enjoy my dinner.  I turn to Theatre Dzieci's

Easter dinner

"A Passion: A Dramatic Choral Liturgy Unbound".  For years, they came to West-Park twice a year as part of our annual liturgical year A Fool's Mass in Advent and A Passion on Palm Sunday.  Their Passion digs deep into the Matthew text, touching Hebraic roots, specific and yet archetypal. We shared this with places like St. John the Divine. They were part of our life. And this year I experience the Passion on ZOOM. 

It’s good to see everyone. My sister in New Jersey with her two children,  my niece grown and a dancer and my nephew a student at Northeastern.  There are my twin nieces in Dayton and Cincinnati and my brother outside of Dayton, his much anticipated surgery last week indefinitely postponed leaving him in continued chronic pain. It’s good to be all together, as if we were in a  living room somewhere, but of course we new not. Even blue to get my mom in on sound for awhile. When I spoke to her earlier, she had been upset at not being able to be part of this gathering. 

She had always been the host of our Easter gatherings, the egg hunt in her back yard, plastic eggs filled with treats and the occasional dollar, and of course chocolates from Sarris in Canonsburg,  until the egg hunt moved to my sister’s backyard in Robbinsville. That’s what my boys remember. That was Easter. Even across the miles, even just on  screen we feel the warmth and it’s hard to let go.  

By the time, we’re done, I don’t really feel like going to CC Eve’s We  Love Songwriters Open Mic. Being present in virtual reality takes a lot of spiritual and emotional energy. 

I’m having trouble with any feeling of resurrection yet. Still in that in between time, when, as it says in the Creed, he descended into hell.  That much I do know, he’s right here with us, in the middle of all this, in the hospitals, the shelters, the tents in Central Park, with those who suffer ,those who heal, those who risk, those who die. Here. Now. 

It’s Easter.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Christ is risen  indeed!