Easter Weekend

 A Long Weekend of Extremes

 

I like to think of this weekend as a long weekend, a loooooooong weekend that begins on Thursday and begins again on Sunday. On Thursday, as we signified in our Maundy Thursday service, Jesus sat at the table with his disciples for a last meal. It’s called “Maundy” Thursday because, in John’s gospel, Jesus got up from the table and washed the disciples’ feet, giving them the command (mandate) to love each other in the same way. 

 

Then, there’s “Good Friday,” which seems like such a misnomer, since there is nothing “good” about any of the human actions that happen on that day. A friend betrays; religious leaders persecute; disciples flee; political leaders waffle; soldiers torture; crowds jeer. If one ever wants to glimpse the worst of human nature, Friday is the place to look. And yet, with deliberate irony, the church began to see God’s ability to bring good out of evil at work, even on this day, within acts of violence and perfidy. 

 

The longest day of this long weekend might be Saturday. On Saturday, nothing happens. At least in the gospel stories, on Saturday everyone rested and abstained from doing work of any sort. The women disciples prepared their spices and ointments on Friday, so they could observe the day of rest on Saturday, before approaching the tomb to anoint a dead body just as soon as the sun arose on Sunday. The men disciples … well, we don’t know what they rested from on Saturday because they had not been performing very admirably on Friday and did not seem to have a plan for doing anything noteworthy on Sunday. I imagine Jesus’ opponents spent the day feeling victorious, while his followers spent the day in the depths of despair. But we can only conjecture, because the biblical accounts themselves are silent about Saturday. More about that below. 

 

Then came Sunday. Sunday starts with the women, going to find and anoint a corpse. What they find is a stone that had been removed and an empty tomb. Then, according to different stories, various individuals and groups began to encounter the risen Christ and so the joy of Easter hope begins. Death has been so many things to so many people – the shadow into which we must all journey ultimately; the inevitability that raises the question of whether life itself has meaning; the threat by which tyranny has always found its power. And now, the power of death is broken, and it is not just a story that affects Jesus. As the Apostle Paul puts it, “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). For the early believers, our participation in resurrection begins in our baptism, not after our death. And that assurance is what empowered the church to face the threat of the sword and keep its profession that Jesus, not Caesar, not popularity, not even one’s own wants or needs, but Jesus is Lord. Sunday alone is a mouthful of a day. 

 

So, I hope you are experiencing the longest weekend right now. It is a time when we face our own duplicities and fear. It is a time for asking who we are willing to scapegoat in order to secure our own safety. It’s not all colorful and delicious – certainly not all fun. But it is all intentional, focused, ever moving toward the good news of the resurrection. 

 

So, let’s circle back to Saturday for a moment. In the gospels, nothing happens on Saturday because it is the Jewish Sabbath, and all of the disciples were faithful Jews. The early Christian tradition wondered what was happening with Jesus on Saturday, and they developed a tradition that, on Saturday, Jesus descended into hell and set the captives free. It was called “the Harrowing of Hell.” While I think the rationale for this tradition is sketchy, I love the intent. As the disciples weep, as the killers gloat, as the sinners bask in self-righteousness, Jesus is entering into the depths of hell itself and liberating captives. I think we should all embrace the Saturday of this long weekend as “Liberation Saturday,” a time to offer hope to the hopeless, food to the hungry, care to the injured, welcome to the marginalized, and freedom for the prisoners. 

 

It is a long weekend indeed, from Thursday to Sunday, from tears to joy, from brokenness to new life. Come, let’s celebrate it together.

 

Mark of St. Mark

Holy Week Begins

 Friends, 

 

On Monday Mohannad Malas will be the presenter during our final Great Decisions event for the year. Mohannad is well-known to many of us, having been part of a “tables of 8” group that we formed years ago to gather Christians and Muslims around tables and conversation. Many people from that group continue to gather and remain close friends. Mohannad co-founded IRA Capital, a real estate firm based in Irvine. In addition, he also serves on the Board of Trustees and established a chair in Islamic Studies at both UCI and Claremont Graduate University. Mohannad is also a film producer of PBS series and Oscar nominated films. The Great Decisions finale begins Monday at 7:00pm in the Fellowship Hall and on Zoom. You can access the zoom through the calendar on the church website. 

 

This weekend marks the beginning of Holy Week with the event that we call “Palm Sunday” and that some describe as Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. It is a significant moment, because Jesus had repeatedly told the disciples that it was imperative for him to go to Jerusalem, where he would be put to death before being raised again. “Palm Sunday” is the day when Jesus makes that entry. And it is the occasion when we enter into that series of events that lead to Jesus’ death, which lead us to the resurrection on Easter. 

 

In many churches, for all manner of reasons, attendance on weekend services far outweigh the attendance at midweek services. Gone are the days when village shops would close during Holy Week so villagers could walk over to the church for services. So, if we adhered strictly to the liturgical calendars that were created during such times, most of our folks would enjoy the giddy, symbolic parade of Palm Sunday and then the next time they enter worship would be Easter, arguably the most joyful of all Christian celebrations. But moving from one mountaintop of joy to the next is a problem because, in between, is the awful valley where we encounter the last supper, the disclosure and reality of betrayal, the tears in the garden, the arrest and abandonment, the trial, the torture, and ultimately the death and burial. That difficult part of the week is often called the “Passion” (or “suffering”) of Christ. So, in order to assure that we hear the fuller story, we will hear both the Palm and Passion stories this weekend. 

 

Not long ago, Pastor Hayes and I reached out to other pastors in Newport Beach whom I know to be kindred spirits, namely Pastor Paul Capetz and Christ Church by the Sea (United Methodist) on the Balboa Peninsula, Rev. Ray Jordan and Kathy Kipp of Community Church, Congregational (United Church of Christ) on Heliotrope, and Father Shane Scott-Hamblen of St. Michael and All Angels, on Pacific View Drive. We met for lunch, because some of us had not met and none of us knew everyone else. It was time well spent, and we decided to join together with Fr. Shane and the congregation of St. Mikes for a Good Friday service. (Episcopalians are typically much traditional than the rest of us, and their Good Friday liturgy is closely associated with their Maundy Thursday and Saturday Vigil liturgy, so it was an easy choice.) 

 

So, despite the fact that our context is far different from the days of old, I encourage you to lean into the stories of Holy Week by attending our Maundy Thursday service next Thursday, at 6:30pm and the Good Friday service with our sister CDM churches, at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church next Friday at noon. 

 

See you in worship, 

Mark of St. Mark

Parables Open the Space in Between

Throughout the Lenten season we have been exploring the space “in between” - in between friend and stranger, faith and works, lost and found, and so on. I have been uplifted by the way that many of you have taken the time to reflect on and respond to the work of seeing this space in between differences as where discipleship happens. By reading biblical stories as “tensions within polarities” instead of “a choice between opposites,” perhaps we will be able to see life more dynamically. What a gift that is when we are tempted to buy into either/or, us/them choices. 

 

One of the brilliant qualities of Jesus’ preaching and teaching is his use of parables. People often treat parables like sermon illustrations, a dumbing down of difficult concepts so everyone can understand them better. Others treat parables like allegories, where every detail “represents” something in particular, even if one has to perform mental gymnastics to make them fit. And, indeed, there are times when a parable seems to clarify or serves as an allegory. But many parables obfuscate instead of clarify, because they overturn our expectations we have of how life typically works. And every allegory tends to break down sooner or later. With most parables, sooner more than later. 

 

One biblical scholar who has shaped my approach to parables is the late William Herzog II.  In his book, Parables as Subversive Speech, Herzog take an old adage about parables and corrects it. Parables are often described as “earthly stories with heavenly meaning.” Herzog describes them as “earthy stories with heavy meaning.” The difference is enormous. As earthy stories parables are often set in difficult contexts – demanding landowners, abusive bosses, upper-level decisions that can be devastating to poor folk below, etc. In such a world, some parables wrap up nicely, some take dramatic and unexpected turns, and some just end with no apparent resolution. For example, did the Fig Tree we read about two weeks ago respond to the year-long treatment and begin producing fruit? We don’t know. Herzog’s subtitle is “Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed,” meaning Jesus’ whole teaching approach is oriented toward those who are living under the shadow of the Empire, so those who suffer the effects of imperial power today are in the best position to appreciate the parables. For example, perhaps the non-ending of the Fig Tree parable calls us to shift our focus – what if productivity is not the point? That would take the wind out of the sails of a whole section of books in Barnes and Noble, wouldn’t it? (I’m tempted to get clever and write an alliterative paragraph of how “parables puncture pretentious presumptions,” but, alas, I’m out of space.) 

 

This week’s Scripture will give us a story, not a parable, and it will enable us to explore that space between “righteousness and mercy.” I’m looking forward to it and hope to see you there. 

 

Mark of St. Mark