Blog Posts
Not Knowing
Photo by Laurenz Blickwedel on Unsplash
This sermon was originally delivered by one of Church Anew’s advisors, Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto, as part of the opening worship for Renew 2023. To watch all of Renew On-Demand, click here.
Luke 9:28-36
28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, but as they awoke they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” not realizing what he was saying. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had these moments in my life when it felt like words tumbled out of my mouth before I could even figure out what I was trying to say. Sometimes those moments are caused by fear and uncertainty, resulting in embarrassment. Sometimes those moments are caused by making a silly mistake, resulting in some humor. Sometimes those moments come in the midst of a conflict with someone I love, resulting in hurt. Sometimes those moments come when I least expect it, resulting in surprise.
In some of these moments, it feels like I can see my words tumbling from my lips as I lunge to try to grab them, but it’s simply too late. The embarrassment has set in. The mockery begins. The hurt I have caused is all too real.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had these moments in my life when it felt like words tumbled out of my mouth before I could even figure out what I was trying to say.
But sometimes, every once in a great while, so very rarely, the words come tumbling out not because I’m stressed or I made a mistake or I was angry or I was frustrated but because it felt like I was no longer the one speaking, the words were no longer mine, some other force was at play.
A story. When I was in seminary, I spent a summer in a hospital serving as a chaplain. I had no idea what I was doing and even less any idea about what to say to the people I met. Day after day that summer, I was encountering patients and their families at their most fragile and vulnerable. I was there as these folks confronted death and all its cruelty. From babies struggling in the NICU to the elderly breathing their last, the hospital provided so many opportunities for me to learn that I didn't know what was talking about.
There was this one day in particular. A young, Latinx couple were in the hospital because they had lost a pregnancy. They were devastated. And I know Spanish. I really do, but you have to understand that though Spanish is my first language, all my education from kindergarten on was in English. At some point, I stopped praying in Spanish and defaulted to English. The whole of my theological education included but a smattering of Spanish. My vocabulary is largely English-speaking. When I’m speaking Spanish, I’m often translating in my head from English to Spanish. I already knew that I didn’t know what to say as a 22-year-old seminarian, but I was the only one around who could even begin to understand their words and share something, anything that might address the grief they were facing. When I went into that hospital room, I was confronted by an impossible situation in this couple’s lives and by my inability to speak comfort to them as well as I could have done in English.
Not knowing what he said. I relate to that, Peter. And perhaps you do too.
This morning, the Gospel of Luke takes us to a mountaintop, to the very presence of God’s glory, to a scene that is both beautiful and just confounding. I mean, what is going on in this scene of Transfiguration? I don’t know about you, but this story strikes me as so, so strange. And yet so, so familiar.
Let’s take a closer look at this beautiful and confounding story.
The action is intense in this chapter of Luke. First, Jesus sends the twelve out into the world to heal and exorcise; that is, he sends them out to do Jesus stuff. Herod hears about this proliferation of the forces of life, and he is perplexed, perhaps because the power of empire is to take life not to multiply it. To illustrate the force of life, Jesus feeds more than 5000 in the middle of nowhere. In light of all this action, Peter confesses that Jesus is the messiah. He gets it! He says the right words! And then Jesus shares some devastating news. His messianic path would not lead to a crown and a throne but to suffering and a cross.
All this action leads us to the quiet of a mountain where Jesus seeks to pray, to connect to the God who had laid a path of suffering before him. Perhaps Jesus knows all too well the burden he is about to carry on the road to a Roman cross. Perhaps he knows all too well that the power he needs is find in the quiet of prayer, not the bombast of empire’s power.
As Jesus is praying, his countenance changes. His clothes dazzle. And suddenly Moses and Elijah jump off the pages of the Hebrew Bible and are present in the flesh. Why Moses and Elijah? Well, because, as you might remember, both Moses and Elijah don’t die in the Scriptures, at least not in any normal human way. Moses is buried by God’s hand in a place no one knows. Elijah is welcomed into the heavens in a chariot. Their return forms part of the universe of messianic expectations that nurtured the Gospel writers. For Jesus to be Messiah, we had to see Moses and Elijah too!
And here, Peter steps in, overwhelmed by all he is seeing and experiencing and offers to put up some tents for Jesus, for Moses, and for Elijah.
And here is where the sermon typically says that Peter, as he often is wont to do, just doesn’t get it. He tries to contain the luminescence of this scene, capture it, stay at this mountaintop forever. Don’t be like Peter, I should be telling you now. Don’t try to explain the unexplainable. After all, doesn’t Luke say that Peter spoke, “not knowing what he said”?
Maybe there’s another possibility for this story. I wonder if we are not meant to be critical of Peter’s utterance here. Even though he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, his instincts are good ones. In the presence of beloved ancestors, in the presence of the radiance of God’s glory, is there a better move than hospitality? We will host you, declares Peter, in a Gospel so full of scenes of the joy-filled tables where Jesus sat. Jesus in Luke loves a good meal. Maybe Peter learned well from Jesus how the shape of welcome, the shape of the Gospel looks like a marvelous dinner party. After all, wasn’t this what was a credit to Abraham when he hosted angels unaware? The last time something like this happened in exodus, Moses stayed for 40 day. In a world in which hospitality is not just a societal nicety but a way of survival, isn’t Peter doing his best here? He doesn’t know what he is saying, but something or some force or someone leads him to the next best thing to say.
It wouldn’t be the last time that Peter speaks beyond what he understands. In the Book of Acts, Peter will preach the first sermon after Jesus’ ascension, his departure as our story puts it. He will be the first witness to the goodness of God and the power of the resurrection and the transformative force of forgiveness and the power of communities the Spirit has brought together. At Pentecost, Peter will declare that all flesh will receive the Spirit. All flesh! All of us! All of you!, he declares.
But this is the same Peter who will need to be convinced that all flesh means all flesh. In Acts 10, Peter will struggle with what to do when he is called to visit the Gentile, Roman centurion Cornelius and his household. Does all flesh really mean all flesh?
That is, Peter preached more than he was ready to believe, he said more than he understood. Sometimes that’s how the Spirit moves among us.
Sometimes God will teach us words to say to the grieving. Not knowing what we are saying.
Sometimes God will teach us to sing a song about the breadth and depth of God’s grace we will never fully understand. Not knowing what we are saying.
Sometimes God will teach us to speak words of forgiveness and repair. Not knowing what we are saying.
Sometimes God will teach us how to love one another, even to love our enemies. Not knowing what we are saying.
Sometimes God will teach us that we have been so, so wrong about our neighbors, God’s beloved children. Not knowing what we are saying.
But notice that our story does not end with Peter’s words, whether good or bad. The story ends with God’s clear voice calling us to listen to Jesus. And here the disciples are silent. It’s as if all their words have run out.
After all, what is there to say when we have come before the glory of God?
What is there to stay when we have experienced the very brink of losing everything we treasure?
What is there to say when tragedy strikes, when our hopes are dashed?
What is there to say when a relationship we thought was lost is healed, when that one secret prayer is answered, when joy and grace flow over you in an unexpected moment?
What is there to say when we just don’t know what to say?
Perhaps there isn’t much to say because God has already said it all. “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”
Listen to him, friends. He is always and already near.
Back to the hospital room where I started. I remember walking in with my supervising chaplain. I think he knew somehow that I needed to be in that space or better yet that God had already gone ahead of us into that space. I introduced myself. And our conversation began.
My friends, I began to speak in Spanish using words that I thought I had long forgotten or that I sometimes suspect I had never learned in the first place. It’s as if some reservoir of language had opened up. But more than anything, I kept repeating one phrase, “It’s just not fair.” Sometimes, it turns out, God might even teach us to speak healing words in a language we thought we had forgotten.
Not knowing what he said. I relate to that, Peter. And perhaps you do too.
Dr. Eric Barreto
Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. His passion is to pursue scholarship for the sake of the church, and he regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.
Twitter | @ericbarreto
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Two Years Later: Racism In America
National visionaries, professors, and pastors provide biblical wisdom to help make sense of the world today.
Two years ago today George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis. We continue to mourn his death and the racism that permeates this country. We offer the following words from our network of contributors shared after Mr. Floyd’s death in the hopes they would continue to provide a witness for your proclamation and our living together in a more just and peaceful world.
We are currently collecting thoughts from our contributors regarding the mass shooting in Uvalde, TX and will be sharing those shortly.
Sincerely,
The Church Anew Team
Dr. Walter Brueggemann
Professor Emeritus
Columbia Seminary
The church is in the “Love Business.” That is what we do. We dare make the claim that “God is love” (I John 4:16). Our come back to that wondrous passion of God for the world is to love back…love God…love neighbor. Indeed the way we love God is to love neighbor. When we receive the love of God and act it out toward God and neighbor, we are not afraid. We are not afraid because
Perfect love casts out fear! (I John 4:18)
That is the strategy we use with our young children. Our love for them overrides their fears. We may pause over this stunning statement. When we are secure in a long reliable faithfulness fear, has no power over us; we are free to live grace-filled, unencumbered lives without looking over our shoulder. As we face this immediate brutality in our midst, it seems that the gospel proposition in the epistle is completely reversed:
Perfect fear casts out love.
What a mouthful! “Perfect fear!” Fear that is totalizing, all encompassing, redefining everything! Our society is now occupied by perfect fear:
The virus lands us in fear;
The disabled economy leaves us in fear;
Elementally we may be fearful that the old familiar which is precious to us is evaporating before our very eyes. The old certitudes don’t count for much.
Fear mongering has become a political strategy, because frightened people are easier to manipulate.
And of course there is always the old fear of the other, fear of everyone who is unlike us, fear of people of color.
Fear makes love impossible. Love moves us toward the other; fear draws us away from the other. Fear turns to anger under threat. Fear turns to hate; fear easily morphs to violence. Anger, hate, violence are forms of fear that we imagine will make us safe.
The community in the love business might well pause over fear, name it, pay attention to it, notice it, and dissect it. We might do well to have prayers and litanies that name, in dramatic ways, the fears that summon us and notice their power for us. It is our work in love to outflank fear by greater evidence of love, by outrageous gestures and policies of love, by foolish give-aways of life’s resources with nothing held back. Love is “the great give-away” that can be acted out in terms of health, wellbeing, education, and housing.
We are in a contest between love and fear. It is counter-intuitive for us to bet on love but that is the bet we have made in baptism. The epistle ends with an admonition:
Keep yourselves from idols. (I John 5:21)
Idols are false forms of assurance. To trust such false forms of assurance is to live in fear because we know the idols cannot keep their promises to us. Every day we are in process of deciding whether love or fear is the order of the day. Now is the time for love to make a stand against fear. We make that stand by implementing our baptism in neighborly ways. Fear cannot win against love that is bold and wise for the neighborhood.
Dr. Valerie Bridgeman
Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Methodist Theological School in Ohio
Pentecost Sunday easily is one of my favorite days on the Christian liturgical calendar. The pageantry of fiery red banners and glorious music to remind us of the Spirit among us always encourages me. But as it has approached this year, I have not been excited. We are not going to gather in person for the pageantry, so we will not be able to reenact the spilling out of hiding into the full light of God’s grace and the boldness of witnessing the great power of God. We won’t be able to practice that pageantry that reminds us we are empowered and prepared to tell the story of God in Christ. But though I will miss the pageantry, that is not really why I’m not excited. The level of grief and rage that has encompassed me and so many justice seekers and workers I know has made it hard to turn toward the festival. What can we say about the power of God “fully come” to the gathered disciples in a season of sustained and increasing racialized terror? What can we say about spilling out into the streets, empowered beyond fear, in an age of sheltering in place and hunkering down? What can we say about rushing wind and little fires when Minneapolis is burning?
Acts 2:14 and following, where Peter—the one who had denied Jesus on the night of his arrest—found his voice to interpret the clamor the people in the streets were seeing arrested me while I was pondering those questions. “These people are not drunk.” Drunk didn’t make sense, especially since what was happening was that the people from the upper room, the once-hiding disciples were emboldened to speak about God’s deeds and more importantly, the people heard “in their own language.” Jerusalem was about as multinational and multicultural as they come, but these disciples were not. And maybe Pentecost in the midst of my sorrow can remind us that this gift is not nationalistic; it does not belong to one place or one people. For me, trapped in an North American nightmare, today that thought helps me say, “come, Spirit, come!”
The other piece that has me struggling is that Peter quoted the prophet Joel. “All flesh.” It’s the “all flesh” that I’m struggling with today, too. The Spirit comes and blows upon and ignites “all flesh.” That would mean that all flesh is holy, touched, anointed, called—no matter their gender, ethnicities, or economic status. It would mean that, like the scene to Toni Morrison’s Beloved, we are compelled to love our flesh. The spirit comes to “flatten the curve” of inequalities and differences in flesh, so to speak. But today—sitting in my living room, wondering about the fires alit in Minneapolis or the broken hearts of family members who have lost loved ones to COVID19, I want to both hold hope that that flesh is empowered, too, and scream to the top of my lung.
The Day of Pentecost in Acts is a hopeful scene. Today, I hope beyond the raging fires of frustration, the Spirit will blow on our embers and remind us what power we have to change the world for good.
Dr. Eric Barreto
Associate Professor of New Testament
Princeton Theological Seminary
On a Pentecost Sunday far too reminiscent of far too many Sundays for African American communities, I would start preaching this weekend by first going back to Jesus’ commission of his disciples in Acts 1:8. There, Jesus calls his followers to be witnesses, to bear witness to what Jesus has done until our feet reach the farthest extent of our imaginations. Before the gifts of Pentecost, a crucified victim and resurrected conqueror of imperial violence teaches us to witness, to see, to speak, to move, to be.
Witness, you see, is not just a verbal activity. Witness is not characterized solely by words or speech or language or even a tweet.
Witness is a bodily act. Witness walks alongside the oppressed. Witness looks into the eyes of the dying, not as a spectator but as if our lives are intertwined, for they indeed are.
Witness notes the thin, capricious, unjust line between the living and the dying. Witness marches on the streets. Witness votes with love.
Witness says, “Enough,” but then does something about it with the power some of our hands wield, the persuasion some of our voices are given, the places where privilege lets some of us stand without the threat of state violence.
The kind of witness Jesus calls for here includes our mouths and our eyes, of course, but also our ears. Witness trusts the testimony of those who have been oppressed, even without video evidence. Witness trusts those who have been harmed.
Such witness is necessarily costly. Such witness makes demands upon our lives. And let’s be clear: if we seek to be witnesses of what Jesus has done and experienced, the burden of witness is amplified.
For in the Gospel of Luke, we bear witness to an innocent man hung up on empire’s arrogance, sacrificed at the altar of law and order, vilified for the cause of the Pax Romana, executed because the powerful can get away with murder, killed to preserve the perception of social safety and economic prosperity. And in his innocent death, we ought to see that if we happen to sit in the shadow of empire’s protections, that shadow is fleeting as the whims of empire shift. And if that protection is something we never assumed, then we are reminded that Jesus lived that trauma right to a Roman cross.
My friends, hear Jesus say to us, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” And now hear him say, “You will be my witnesses in Ferguson and and Waller County, Texas; Baltimore and Staten Island; Cleveland and Louisville; Falcon Heights and Minneapolis; and to the ends of the earth where we imprison the masses and cage children because of profit and fear and the nation’s collective complicity in racial injustice.”
Before the flames of Pentecost, the call to the disciples was already clear: witness, see, speak, move, be.
That ancient clarion call could not be any clearer today.
Rev. Paul Raushenbush
Senior Advisor for Public Affairs and Innovation
Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)
There is a demon in this land. A demon, whose name is legion, who has infected our collective soul since even before our birth, a demon whose logic, whose power, whose method is degradation, subjugation, death. The demon possessed souls throughout the land, well dressed, respectable, scientific, religious, passing lies as truth to make profits for a few. It is a demon that quotes scripture to mimic divine sanction, that is taught, like Gospel, passing one generation to the next, delighting in the crucifixions of innocents that need no cross to make their point.
There is a demon in the land, its power is fear, its weapon is violence, its method is lies, its name is racism. This demon has passed from generation to generation taking new forms, resulting in the same violence. “I am legion” the demon warns, “I am slavery, I am lynching, I am prisons, I am policing. You cannot kill me, for I am with you always.” The demon is certain of its survival, because we, as a country, refuse to name it, refuse to expose the demon for what it is, refuse to do the spiritual and reparation work to cast it out. Until we do, it will throw us again and again into the fire, until we are consumed.
Will we cast out this demon of white supremacy? Will we send this demon into the herd of pigs to be drown? All things are possible with God. I believe Lord, help me with my disbelief. The Lord calls to this sinful generation: Repent of the racism that corrupts your body and repair the destruction of slavery that has been rent for the centuries. Cast out this demon, and be saved.
Dr. Kimberly D. Russaw
Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible
Christian Theological Seminary
On Monday, May 25, 2020 a police officer asphyxiated Mr. George Floyd.
As one of the human body’s reflex processes, breathing seems to be one of life’s most natural abilities. I heard one yoga instructor say that our bodies were made to breathe. Nevertheless, a police officer cut off Mr. George Floyd’s airway and denied him his natural ability to breathe.
On Memorial Day officers of the peace stood by as their colleague strangled Mr. George Floyd. On the day many paused to remember those who breathed their last breath in military service, those charged to protect and serve the citizenry suffocated Mr. George Floyd.
Breathing is so critical to human life that medical technologies have been developed to aid those who have trouble breathing on their own. Asthmatics and those who suffer from bronchitis, or emphysema know quick-relief inhalers and medications can ease restrictions to a person’s airways. Under extreme cases, breathing machines or ventilators blow air into the lungs, helping a person breathe when they are unable to do so on their own.
On May 25th, anyone with access to social media or network television heard Mr. George Floyd plead that he could not breathe. He could not breathe because his lung function was compromised. Lung function is important because, according to the American Lung Association, alongside our heart, our lungs pump oxygen-rich blood to all the cells in the body. The lungs move breath through our bodies.
This important work of moving breath through a system is not new. According to the biblical writers, when The Divine began to create, “the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters” (Gen 1:2, Common English Bible).
The Hebrew word translated “wind” in this verse may also be translated “spirit” or “breath.” The verse may therefore read: God’s breath swept over the waters. Before God spoke and there was light, God’s breath moved. Before there was Sky and Earth, God’s breath moved. Before there was sun, moon, or stars, there was the breath of God. It seems in the beginning, the one thing active was God’s breath.
The American writer and civil rights activist, James Weldon Johnson renders a poetic account of the origin of humanity and offers that breath is what makes us living.
“This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.”[1]
God blew God’s breath into a lump of clay formed in God’s own image. On May 25, 2020 a police officer denied that same breath to Mr. George Floyd who (though formed in God’s own image) lay on the ground like a lump of clay. How is it that one human can so callously undo what which God has done?
Gen 1:2 reminds the reader that even when darkness covers the face of the earth—God’s spirit, God’s wind, God’s breath moves. And when God’s breath moves, chaos acquiesces to order. When God’s breath flutters light appears in darkness. When God’s breath moves without restriction, humanity transforms. We become living souls again. The question for believers is, “Will we move with God’s breath or will we restrict God’s breath?”
[1] James Weldon Johnson’s poem “The Creation.”
Rev. Angela Denker
Minnesota Pastor and Veteran Journalist
Did we lock the front door?
Where’s your mask?
Are the sirens far enough away?
My son looked out his window last night and said he saw a dark orange light, and his dad told him it was the sun, setting, but then we realized it was fire.
Flames engulfed our city of Minneapolis last night. Angry fire, purifying fire, destructive fire, devastating fire.
In the midst of a fire, the smoke gets so thick that you cannot breathe.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breath keeps us alive.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Don’t breathe my breath, or I could give you Covid, or you could give me Covid, and we both could die.
People who die of Covid often die because they can’t breathe, the virus engulfing their lungs and suffocating them. Sometimes a machine breathes for them, for long enough that their lungs can heal and gather strength again.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Shove a tube down his throat, he coughs, saliva enters the air, the virus doesn’t care: it comes only to kill and destroy, using the breath that gives us life.
George Floyd couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t the virus but a knee, a white police officer’s knee, kneeling onto tall, strong, dark-skinned George Floyd with the full weight of racial anger and prejudice and corrupt systems and segregated neighborhoods and institutions built in liberal Minnesota that weigh heavily on all our chests.
It all came to bear on George Floyd that sunny day.
George Floyd was big, strong, black. But in Minnesota we don’t have problems with race. We pretend it doesn’t exist. We support African-American rights and privileges. Just not in my neighborhood. In theory we love black people. We wish they’d come to our churches, sit in the back and sing our white hymns and not make too much noise.
In reality we choose a different park. We ask if they have a permit for that barbecue. We say it’s about “good schools” and “crime” and “drug abuse.”
We love diversity. Below a certain percentage. Talking a certain way. Staying in our sanctioned box.
The air we breathe itself has always been racist and contaminated and threatening death and destruction. Now we can’t ignore the death in the air any longer. It burns bright orange.
Fire needs oxygen to burn. First the fire then the air clears, and you can breathe life again.
This weekend is Pentecost: the day the church celebrates holy fire, flames that brought understanding and unification and new hope.
The flames of Minneapolis these past few days signify death and destruction. No neighborhood deserves to be destroyed. George Floyd did not deserve to die.
Only God can take flames of death and transform fire into new life and hope for the future.
First Jesus enters into a locked room filled with fear. He enters into a people who have begun to give up hope, to ask if all they believed was merely a mirage.
He breathes on them. The Holy Spirit is fire. It’s also breath. Breath is life.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
The Holy Spirit is among us.
Dr. Shively T. J. Smith
Assistant Professor of New Testament
Boston University School of Theology
This Sunday, I am seated before a mirror viewing the Paradox of Pentecost. Today should be a Sunday that reflects back on us a fresh vision of hope, expectation, and power. But, for many, we stand before our mirrors trembling with other emotions:
FRUSTRATION… because yet another white person feels entitled to censure a black and brown body in a public, open space
FEAR… because attacks on Asian and Asian American communities and individuals are on the rise
HELPLESSNESS… because protecting inmates and employees within incarceration facilities from the virus is low priority since African Americans and Hispanics comprise approximately 56% of all incarcerated people, though we collectively constitute only approximately 28% of the U.S. population
RAGE… because of George Floyd’s death when law enforcement took a knee on his neck.
This 2020 Pentecost Sunday, I am not in the upper room receiving an infusion of the Holy Ghost and power. Rather, I find myself returning to the foot of the cross on “Long Friday,” standing alongside Mary Magdalene and other women “looking on from a distance” (Mark 15:40) as Jesus “breathed his last” (vv. 37, 39).
This past week, we have lived our own modern version of that ancient crucifixion story. We watched the story replay again. We viewed the spectacle of death created by the racist actions and proclivities of those living under the delusion that they are the most powerful, chosen, and righteous of us. Yet, in our faith story, those most chosen are not the ones inflicting pain and death, mocking and blaming the victim as life leaves his innocent body.
Standing as one among the Marys and Marks of today, watching helplessly as “they” kill again, I see Jesus crying out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani; My God, My God why have you forgotten me” (Mark 15:34).
When the Bible ceases to be sufficient for capturing my lament this week, I reach for the Prophet Marvin Gaye when he crooned “Inner City Blues” in 1971:
Oh, make you wanna holler
The way they do my life
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
This ain't livin', this ain't livin'
No, no baby, this ain't livin'
Be clear, my friends. Though we ask, “My God, why have you forgotten us?” or we bellow Marvin’s declaration, “This makes me want to holler”—this week is NOT God’s doing. This moment is the theater and pageantry of empire that stares in the face of God’s creation and destroys anyway.
When I think about all the Floyd’s—male and female—who breathed their last and the countless witnesses that have watched in despair with little hope of recourse or justice, I return to today’s Paradox of Pentecost. During this day in which I am supposed to feel most powerful and hopeful as a person of faith, I instead feel powerless. Yet, I am animated by the random outbreaks of mixed emotion and the cacophony of sounds rising from within me and outside me. Today, I hear Jesus’ cry. I hear Marvin Gaye’s song. I hear Floyd saying, “I can’t breathe.”
I stand enveloped by the sounds of protest from every color, creed, and class challenging censorship, erasure, dismissal, divestment, and slaughter. People cry out in many forms to be seen, heard, and counted as human beings with the right to justice, equity, and flourishing. Today, I hear clearly. I see plainly. I feel deeply. Perhaps here is the Pentecost moment.
I also sense the lamenting vibrations of my ancestors running through my head, heart and hands. When they had no words, they sang a lament of truth and questions, facing death-dealers who wielded rhetoric of God and state for their own perfidious ends. Theirs is a song bubbling up from a grieving, yet defiantly resilient people. When I sing it, I remember that together, there is more than just watching we must do and my ancestors showed us the way… “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Ooh sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble …
Rev. Meta Herrick Carlson
Minneapolis Pastor and Poet
Bethlehem Lutheran Church
Now when Adam and Eve knew each other, she conceived and bore a son they named Cain, which means their sum (to produce). Cain grew up to be a farmer who cared for the land. His brother Abel watched over the flocks of animals. When the young men made sacrifices to God, Abel's was regarded but Cain's was not received with the same appreciation. And this was deeply disturbing to Cain.
While Cain knew how to produce and strive, he did not know how to feel or fail or ask for forgiveness. This lesser appreciation for his sacrifice was enough to unravel his sense of self, his loyalty to kin, his faith in God, and his stewardship of creation. You see, when you are named for what you produce, your output can become confused with your identity and inherit value.
Cain internalized God’s silence and decided that Abel was the problem. Scripture says he acted out of his mind.
So the LORD said to Cain, “Why is your body so angry, your face downcast, your mind keeping score, your spirit justified by fear? Evil waits where your insecurities fester. Turn away from these things and live.”
But Cain’s paranoia outweighed his fear of the LORD. He lured his brother to the fields and murdered him in a jealous rage. Cain chose being right over and against being in relationship while Abel’s blood soaked into the earth.
When God asked after Abel, Cain told the LORD “I am not responsible for my brother. What does his suffering and death have to do with me?”
And God wept. God wept for the brother whose breath and beats were stolen. And God wept for the brother whose breath was wasted on violent apathy and lies.
The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. You will toil and wander and struggle to produce in this land that knows your brother’s blood.”
Unacquainted with confession and empathy, Cain defended his actions and played the victim. His only concern was protecting his own breath and beats from revenge. And so he wandered away from family and farm and faith, marked by the curse of his own insecurity and isolation for generations.
Some say he still wanders, still seeking salvation without repentance, reparations, and reconciliation for the murder of his brother Abel. The fear is still breathing. The hatred is still blowing. Violence still swirls in the air between blood soaked earth and heaven’s banner.
Ms. Rozella Haydée White
Owner, Coach, and Consultant
RHW Consulting
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:21-22
Peace be with you.
I send you
Receive the Holy Spirit.
In these two verses, Jesus provides a framework for people of faith to embody life-giving and justice-seeking faith.
The Promise: Peace.
Our imagination of peace has to expand beyond a state that is defined as the absence of conflict or a sanitized, surface level understanding that doesn’t fight to create a new reality. In the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”[1] The promise of peace to always be with us; the peace that surpasses human understanding; peace that flows like a river all point to peace that is marked by justice. That which is just is that which breeds life. We have no peace because we have no justice. Lives are being taken because we have not justice. Peace and justice coexist to create a new reality that reflects the promise of God - a world where there is no more dying and no more tears; where there is no more grief and no more disconnection. The promise of peace makes way for us to do the work that God has sent us to do in Jesus’s name - the work of liberation.
The Assignment: Liberation.
I’ve been participating in an online conference this week called The Wellness of We. One of the presenters said, “I am not interested in allies. I’ve erased this word from my vocabulary. I am interested in folks who understand that our liberation is interconnected.”[2] When I heard these words, my spirit leapt and I was instantly reminded of a quote that is credited to Lilla Watson, an Aboriginal activist from Australia. “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”[3] I don’t need you—White people—to help me. I need for you—White people—to recognize your sinfulness; your brokenness and woundedness, and to repent. I need you to turn away from the sin that is White Supremacy and the lies that fear and scarcity pedal; lies that lead you to continue to invest in whiteness rather than divest from whiteness. I need you to be born again, into your God given humanity, a humanity we share and one that reminds us that we belong to one another. I need you to understand that you have nothing that can help me. Rather, we share a reality that is dependent upon our shared liberation in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven, here on earth. And our ever faithful Creator, the Triune God, has gifted us with the sustenance and power we need in the Holy Spirit.
The Sustenance: Spirit.
Famed Gospel artist, Hezekiah Walker has a popular song, “I Need You to Survive.” The words are simple and straightforward. They speak to our bound liberation and the importance of recognizing that we are inextricably linked. Spirit reminds us of this relationship and empowers us to continually seek out the restoration, healing, and wholeness of our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. Spirit provides the insight and wisdom to engage in the ongoing work of tending to our individual and collective wounds in order to find holistic, embodied healing. Spirit isn’t concerned with our intellect. Spirit is concerned with Knowing that is deeply rooted in our bones; Knowing that is tied to feelings of empathy, compassion, and love. Spirit calls us to nurture these feelings, to practice them, and to live them. We dive deeper until we meet ourselves again, as new beings who can see each other through Spirit lenses, ones that remind us of the promise, the assignment, and ultimately, the sustenance to be the people of faith that God invites us to be.
Our most faithful response is to trust the promise, engage the work of liberation and lean on Spirit. To not do this work is an affront to our Creator and a repudiation of Jesus our Lord.
[1] Stride Toward Freedom, 1958.
[2] Anasa Troutman
[3] Aboriginal Activist Groups, Queensland, 1970s.
Dr. Brennan Breed
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Columbia Theological Seminary
George Floyd’s was killed when a police officer knelt on his neck in plain view for over five minutes until he died. In the church, kneeling is often a symbolic act of worship, of reverence and humility in the face of the divine. But George Floyd's death was caused by someone who knelt in deference to a different authority: he bowed at the altar of white supremacy. To him, and to those who looked on and supported him, it seemed apparent that some lives do not deserve breath. We who have witnessed this brutal act are all now faced with a choice: what do we worship? At what altar do we kneel?
On the Christian calendar, this Sunday is Pentecost. The story of Pentecost as told in Acts 2:1- 41 describes a day of celebrating and witnessing to God's blessing of all the nations of the world. The nations heard the gospel preached in all the myriad languages that together in their multifaceted beauty reflect the glory of the God who created and sustains them all. Peter quoted the book of Joel to explain what had happened: “God says, ‘I will pour out my spirit on all people’” (Acts 2:17; Joel 2:28).
Pentecost is a day to remind ourselves that the God who created the world inhabits the breath and speech of all of our siblings throughout the entire earth. As Dr. Eric Barreto teaches us, Pentecost reveals that God cherishes our diversities, and that God is present in the gathering of diverse people who love and care for each other.
Pentecost is a day to celebrate God's breath, the spirit, as she renders God present in our diverse midst. In the Spirit, we understand that we are all the manifold, multifaceted image of God.
It follows, then, that Pentecost must also be a day to denounce white supremacy and the antichrist actions that it empowers. George Floyd, like Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland and so many other African-American victims of white supremacist violence, cannot breathe any longer. They cannot raise their voices. But like the earth itself (Gen 4:10), we can use our breath to cry out on behalf of the blood of the innocent and demand a reckoning. On the day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowd assembled the story of a man unjustly executed by the state —namely, Jesus—and then pleaded with them to repent and seek forgiveness for their sins, and to strive to separate themselves from the corrupt generation in which they found themselves immersed (Acts 2:38-40). We, too, must take a hard look at our complicity in our own culture’s corruption that time and again manifests in an event of anti-Pentecost: that is, the taking of breath from the image of God.
Ashon Crawley has written a beautiful book on the life-giving and liberatory role of breath and the spirit in the Black Pentecostal tradition that has sustained many individuals and communities who have emerged from this tradition in the midst of a world hell-bent on destroying and subjugating them. It begins with Eric Garner’s dying words: “I can’t breathe.” As Crawley shows us, the whooping and singing and speaking in tongues that one finds in Black Pentecostal spaces create a social space of shared breath and power.
But the time has long passed for the white churches in the United States to stand alongside our African-American siblings and refuse to be complicit bystanders in a system built to suffocate them. We must commit to making spaces for all of God’s children to breathe and exist, even flourish, in peace. This is the work to which the Spirit calls us. We must respond.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Preaching about Racism in America: What Comes Next?
In Luke, Jesus carries the kingdom in his wake. Wherever he walks, wherever he speaks, wherever the hurt are touched, lives are transformed. An unnamed woman in Luke 7:36-50 is no longer a “sinner”; she belongs at the table. Similarly in 8:26-39, a man invaded by a legion of demons, living among the dead, chained by his neighbors, is delivered from demonic possession so that he is found “clothed and in his right mind” (v. 35). Zacchaeus’s encounter with Jesus in 19:1-10 transforms his identity from a supposedly corrupt tax collector to “a son of Abraham.”
All three of these people have their lives transformed by their encounter by Jesus, not just because they have been changed by Jesus but also because the perception of their neighbors have been changed too.
Sinner to sister. Demoniac to neighbor. Traitor to kin.
But don’t you wonder what happened when Jesus left? Did the communities once transformed go back to old assumptions? Sister to sinner. Neighbor to demoniac. Kin to traitor.
What happens when Jesus leaves town? When Jesus moves on to the next community full of people yearning for deliverance, healing, and justice, what happens to those whom he has changed after he leaves?
Many pastors took an important step these last few Sundays. Already dispersed into online spaces and some confronting with new urgency the ways that white supremacy afflicts black communities, congregations gathered these last two Sundays. And in some of these congregations, preachers preached perhaps for the first time about the pervasive entanglements of racism, not just in policing and policy but in the church, too. Many preachers confronted the reality that racist systems were not dusty, old realities but present still in tangible, destructive ways.
Let’s be clear.
Many communities have been preaching and praying and working in concrete ways against these death-dealing realities for a long, long time. Many churches have been living with the effects of racism and advocating against it well before the last few weeks of protest.
But some churches and some preachers are treading new ground. Preachers are naming truths. Preachers are confessing sin. And thank God for that. The Spirit moves ahead of us so often, and it takes some of us a long time to catch up. There is room for repentance and repair when we have not heard the cries of our neighbors or heeded their affliction.
And many preachers who have proclaimed boldly have started getting the emails and letters. The concerned complaints. The exhortations to stick to the gospel. The desire that the church be a place that sets aside politics and focus on Jesus. The (not so) subtle threats. Some have faced something else. That eery silence that indicates not acceptance but simmering anger.
What comes next? What happens when the conviction and transformation Jesus brings in his wake seem to fade?
I wonder if Luke never narrates for us the longterm aftermath of Jesus’ transformation of these communities as a theological and literary challenge to us. Luke draws us to wonder what comes after Jesus’ transformative presence. When Jesus shows up in our midst, messing up categories and structures which we have learned to love even as they tear us apart, will we continue in the paths he has set before us? Will we persist in the transformation Jesus has wrought with his hands or return to the silence that comforted the comforted while afflicting the afflicted?
We must persist, friends. And we will. Not because we will try really, really hard to be a really, really good Christian, but because of God’s transformative and generous grace. There are no quick fixes when it comes to the racism that haunts our churches and our communities. There is a promise, a promise that God’s embrace is mightier than our deepest fears and a community’s most virulent sin.
After all, what is our aim as preachers? Why are we doing this? Why did some preach for the first time a gospel that named the truths about white supremacy and anti-black violence that have always been evident before us?
Our aim as preachers is not just to be right. Our goal is not just getting the right answer or just getting accolades from folks who agree with us.
Our hope is love, not the sappy love of movies and greeting cards but the kind of love that digs deep into the ground, the kind of love that marches and demands justice, the kind of love that costs us something, the kind of love Jesus embodies in healing the sick and drawing the marginalized to his side and exposing the frailty of the empire’s cross.
That kind of love is a beacon of belonging. That kind of love makes us whole.
So keep preaching, preachers. And keep marching. And keep protesting. And keep working toward a world that more closely reflects the kingdom of God.
Your neighbors and your church are yearning for a prophetic word. And with God’s grace, our frail words can bear witness to what God has done and is doing in our midst. With God’s grace, our words will echo what our hands do, where our feet walk.
What comes next?
The Jesus who makes us whole, who sits with us in the mire of injustice, who was lifted from the grave teaches us that the kingdom is here and just around the corner, too.
Some preachers have long addressed the systemic sin of racism in America. But others are coming at this for the first time. This week, the Church Anew Blog draws from the deep well of scripture to find renewed hope in a gospel that transforms lives and communities for justice.
Eric D. Barreto
Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. His passion is to pursue scholarship for the sake of the church, and he regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.
Twitter | @ericbarreto
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Difference Is a Gift (Acts 2:1-11)
The story of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11) makes us wonder about a different world and helps us understand how God sees our differences.
A sermon for Day of Pentecost for a world riven by division and injustice. God shows us a different path.
There's no better place to start a study of the Book of Acts than the account of Pentecost. Now, this is a moment we often identity as the birth of the church, that moment when God's blessings poured down upon us and the church tasted God's goodness.
But what happened that momentous day, and what does it all mean for us today? The story of Pentecost makes us wonder about a different world. Wouldn't life be easier if we were all the same? If we all spoke the same language, wouldn't we avoid so many of the conflicts and rifts that destroy our relationships? If we all shared a common culture, wouldn't we all be much better off?
I want to propose today that there are a number of problems with this line of questions. Initially, the question isn't as honest as it should be. The real question we ought to pose is: "Wouldn't life be easier if we were all just like me?" After all, that is so often what we really hope for. Too often, Christians have hoped for a time when our differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided.
Many such interpretations emerge from a fervent hope that the specters of racism, sexism, and myriad other destructive "isms" would no longer bind us to cycles of violence and hate. Such interpretations imagine that becoming Christians means becoming all the same in all ways. But, nothing could be further from the truth.
Our adoption as children of God does not erase our differences. Instead, that adoption erases the need to claim superiority or inferiority based on these markers of identity. We are not the same, but we are reminded that our differences are not ways to measure our value in the eyes of God or in the eyes of one another.
The story of Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2 helps us understand how God sees our differences. Simply put, diversity is one of God's greatest gifts to the world. At Pentecost, God through the Spirit does not erase our differences but embraces the fact that God has made us all so wonderfully different.
First, a quick recap. The final chapters of the Gospel of Luke and the first chapters of Acts find the disciples and other followers of Jesus regrouping and discerning what a life of faith together looks like after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. And, both at the end of the Gospel of Luke and again at the beginning of Acts, Jesus promises that he would grant this gathered community with the gift of the Spirit.
And that gift arrives in grand style. These early followers of Jesus gather in Jerusalem along with fellow Jews from around the Mediterranean world. They are gathered together in one place when suddenly tongues of fire descend from the heavens on the day of Pentecost. The gift of the spirit precipitates an extraordinary event. As the disciples proclaim the good news, everyone hears the good news proclaimed in their own language.
What might this all mean? After all, I don't remember the last time I was able to speak another language without a great deal of study and effort along with more mistakes than I can count. Speaking a new language always involves more than a few moments of embarrassment. And yet, none of that is narrated here. What then might this all mean?
Many interpreters have viewed this Pentecost moment as a direct response to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. That's a fantastic story that seeks to explain how a people once united by common ancestors eventually became peoples with many different languages. Some have forwarded that Pentecost reverses the punishment God meted out at Babel. Finally, we can understand one another because the Spirit enables all to understand one language.
But to me, this is a significant misreading of Babel. Is it really a punishment from God that we are all different, that we speak different languages and live in different cultures? That is, is difference a problem in need of a solution? I certainly don't think so, and the vibrancy of the world's cultures is evidence against the misreading of Babel.
Most importantly, if Pentecost were a reversal of Babel, if Pentecost undid the diversity of human languages precipitated by Babel, why would the Spirit enable everyone to hear the gospel preached in their own languages? Why not cause everyone to understand one, universal, heavenly language? Perhaps because Acts does not understand Babel to be a punishment God inflicted upon us. Perhaps because Acts understands Babel as an expression of God's greatest hopes for all of humankind, not a punishment. Perhaps because Acts understands God's commitment to our differences.
So, notice what happens at Pentecost. God, through the Spirit, chooses to meet us where we are: in the midst of a multitude of languages and experiences. The Spirit translates the gospel instantly into myriad languages. And if you think this is easy, then you have never tried learning a new language! You don't just substitute one word in one language for a corresponding word in another language. Language, as we know, is messy and it's intricate. Language is rooted in a wider and complex culture and way of thinking and living. Even when we speak the same language, don't we still have a hard time understanding one another? Imagine then the miracle of Pentecost and what it means for us today.
God meets us in the messiness of different languages and does not asks us to speak God's language. Instead, God chooses to speak our many languages. God does not speak in a divine language beyond our comprehension. At Pentecost, God speaks in Aramaic and in Greek and other ancient languages. And today, God continues to speak in Spanish and Greek and Hindi and Chinese alike.
At Pentecost, God makes God's choice clear. God joins us in the midst of the messiness and the difficulties of speaking different languages, eating different foods, and living in different cultures, and that is good news.
So, what would it mean for a church to be Pentecostal in this way? Well, first, like those early disciples, we might be accused of being drunks, but that's okay, I guess. That puts us in good company with the first Christians and even Jesus himself! But, more seriously, we might find ourselves surrounded by people and languages we don't understand; but we will also know that what sounds like babbling to us, that's sweet music in God's ears.
But most important is that such a church will open its doors and its people will open their arms as widely as possible. That church will seek out all kinds of people and not require them to become like us. That church will recognize that without "those" people we cannot be God's people. That church will take a risk, but a risk worth taking, a risk God has called us to embrace. And last of all, that church just might be changed by God at its core. And that would be the greatest gift of all.
Let us pray.
God, we are a people in need of a miracle. Ours is a world riven by division and injustice, but you, God, have shown us a different path. Lead us on the paths of understanding and love. Forgive us when we declare the differences you have created a curse. Teach us to cherish our differences as precious gifts. Amen.
Used with permission. Originally posted on Day1.org.
Eric D. Barreto
Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. His passion is to pursue scholarship for the sake of the church, and he regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.
Twitter @ericbarreto
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Not a Pastel Easter: A Conversation with Kate Bowler
What aspects of the Gospel story we hear year after year might we see in a new light this Easter?
The Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto interviews Dr. Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, about the story of Easter in a new light due to this COVID-19 moment in time.
Eric: Many clergy may be reading this, and it feels like we are ministering to what you have called, “a community of affliction” right now. That image is really sticking with me: a community of affliction, headed towards the cross and the resurrection. I'm wondering about Easter morning when a bunch of Christians are gathered around their screens and devices in their homes for worship:
What do you hope they and we hear?
What Easter message?
What message about the resurrection?
Kate: For so many years, we have used Lent to play at death. We go through the motions. And now we're not playing. We're not going to feel Easter in the same way. I mean, most of us won't, because we're not messing around anymore. And so I think we just have to do what the early church did, which is we say something like,
“Hey, did you see what happened?”
And then we just ask each other,
“Show me . . . were there any witnesses?”
Then we look, and we ask for hope. We trade little secrets of what hope feels like, and we do that until it feels “real-er” and “real-er” and “real-er”. I know I just made up a word! More and more real. But we do it until we find it. We're searching until we get there, and we trade with one another. We trade the little glimpses that we see because we're not going to see it for a while. I think that's our job.
It's just that the kingdom of God is so . . . sneaky. I mean, when I was really, really sick, I used to feel really angry about it. I was, like, God, I know you’re here and everything, but, like, not quite enough.
And then, a year later, I can see daffodils popping up. And I think, oh, you're already here. So in times of deep despair, I think that's when we need one another to act as witnesses. So we know what to look for.
Eric: It’s striking to me that in this moment, when we're supposed to be physically distant, this is the moment we most need to bear witness to one another to the resurrection. In the middle of so much loss, so much illness, and so much death.
Eric: When we think about the story of Easter, the story that we hear year after year, I wonder if there are aspects of that story that we might see in a new light due to this moment in time:
What small details will loom large in this moment?
What neglected characters might come to the fore?
Kate: Can I ask you that question first? What do you think about? I promise I'll answer, but I really do want to know your answer.
Eric: First, I wonder if we'll notice the length of the days. I think often Good Friday to Sunday feels fast because we're preparing, and we’ve got family and we're doing all that stuff, right?
Kate: Yeah.
Eric: And now I wonder if the time between Good Friday and Easter will feel different this time. In this moment, there are days that feel like weeks and weekends that feel like a month. So, maybe the three days in the tomb will feel different now.
I’m reminded that the disciples on the road to Emmaus say something like, “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.” Had hoped. That hope was gone. And it was three days of darkness and loss that brought them to that moment. So I wonder if we'll know a little more what it feels like to not know that Sunday is coming.
Kate (chuckling): I'm so sorry that I'm like a garbage American religion historian, and I forget the biblical text. But isn’t there a phrase “while it was yet dark?” Is that the phrase?
Eric: Yes, when Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb?
Kate: I like your answer then. I think we will be thinking about Easter as a story of “while it was yet dark.”
Eric: That's really good.
Kate: We’re good. We love this story.
Eric: Yeah, it's really powerful.
Kate: And we will fumble around, and we won't recognize Jesus from the gardener. We won’t. The things that look beautiful will not be beautiful to us. The feeling that we won't know what is what – what will sparkle. You know, like when the light hits it, you get a little glimpse of the thing that's beautiful. And then you spend the rest of your life trying not to forget that. And I think that when things are really the worst, and you see these gorgeous moments of people — nurses, first responders, people sheltering homeless people — saving each other. Now, that is the time when I understand that there's a thing that is good and beautiful.
We might miss it. If we're not looking for Easter.
Eric: I wonder too. I think for a long time I was holding on to this hope that, you know, whenever we get back we're going to have like second Easter, no matter what Sunday it is.
But more and more it seems clear that it's not going to be a moment – but a trickle. That there will be these stages of going back to a place that won't be what it was but whatever the new normal is going to be, we'll slowly go back to that. And I wonder if that's what Easter felt like for those first disciples. That it wasn't just this moment, “Jesus is with us. We get it. We're celebrating.” But that Jesus had to keep coming back. He had to keep appearing for forty days. And even then, the community had to figure out, “Wait, what do we do now?
Kate: I think it's kind of magical that we are going to have the least sentimental, least pastel Easter in living memory. I think that might be good for us.
From all of us at Church Anew:
During global pandemic and global crisis. This least sentimental and least pastel Easter in living memory. May this Easter bless you and those you serve in new ways:
May you wonder about that first Easter.
May you notice the length of the days between Good Friday and Sunday.
May you see daffodils popping.
May you trade little secrets of what hope looks like.
May you know and celebrate Jesus is with us!
And be communities of faith figuring out, “Wait, what do we do now?”
Kate Bowler
Dr. Kate Bowler is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. Her first book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, received praise as the first history of the movement based on divine promises of health, wealth, and happiness. In 2015, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35. In her viral New York Times op-ed, she wrote about the irony of being an expert in health, wealth and happiness while being ill. Her subsequent memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I’ve loved), tells the story of her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character.
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Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.