A little lower than the angels

4 Easter 2011-05-14 I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly. Friday night some of us joined 15,000 plus youth in the Tacoma Dome for a stewardship conference. Well, it wasn’t called that, but that’s what it was. It was called “Be the Spark” . We enjoyed two hours of performance and inspirational speech, highlighted by the appearance of a small man dressed in a dark suit, a purple shirt and a clerical collar. This man spoke with humor and great warmth, and that Dome grew silent as a church as Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave a stewardship talk. Well, it wasn't billed as a stewardship talk, but that's what it was. Bishop Tutu lovingly gave us a picture of our God, who without our help brought all things into being; but who now waits on us to join in partnership to bring about the kind of world God had in mind. Bishop Tutu described himself to the press in Tacoma as a “prisoner of hope”. And he is clear with all who hear him the source of his hope. His hope lies ...

2 Easter May 2 2011 St. Paul’s Bellingham I’m a fan of the Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, and in the past week since Easter Day one of his songs came to mind. I reached into my collection of CDs and found it. In the song he is heard in a conversation with someone with whom he’d been in love, and it becomes clear that things have gone south in the relationship. Yet the song is ultimately about a trust that things are alright; deeply alright. I did my best, it wasn't much I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah . Hallelujah . God be praised. Despite the brokenness around him, Cohen finds a prayer of trust to be the final word. The second Sunday of Easter always brings us Thomas, for whom things seem to have fallen apart. Jesus, for whom Thomas set aside a whole life, met a brutal end at the hands of ...

Easter Day 2011 John 20:1-18 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.” I love this Easter Gospel, so comic. Mistaken identity, the confusion and cross-purposes that arise from mistaken identity; it's all there as it is in many of Shakespeare's plots or comic operas. There's Mary Magdalene early in the morning on the first day of the week coming to the tomb of Jesus. In my imagination she makes that walk in a slow, pensive way. There's Mary Magdalene arriving at the tomb to find nothing as she expected. The stone that once sealed the entrance is cast aside. There's Mary now at a full run, robes clutched about her to free her feet for her haste to reach Simon Peter and the other disciples. Then there's another footrace back, Simon lagging behind but catching up to be the first to e...

Pilate therefore said to Jesus, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above....” On Sunday, April 3 our Guatemala mission team made a tour of Santiago Atitlán in the company of Dolores, a native of this Mayan town on the shores of Lago de Atitlán. One stop in the tour led us up a narrow alleyway to a small space in front of a small building with an open doorway, which appeared dark in the bright light of a sunny morning. In this small space Mayan women sat greeting visitors, along with a couple of men. They are guardians of a shrine we came to visit. High in the mountains of Guatemala live the descendants of the ancient Mayan people, speaking their own language and with their own customs which distinguish them from those Guatemalans who descend from Spanish ancestry. In this village Mayan religious beliefs exist alongside th...

Last Saturday our Guatemala mission team visited La Merced, a Catholic church near the center of Antigua. In the church to the right of the chancel is a shrine to Mary. The photo I took shows her sad-eyed, attired in a long white dress, with the hilt of a sword appearing above the neckline. Below the shrine is an ascription that reads simply “MD”. A fellow traveller asked me “What does 'MD' mean?” “Why is that sword there?” It took me a minute, but I then recognized the imagery. The “MD” means “Madre Dolorosa”, or in English “Mother of Sorrows”, and the sword was a reminder of the story told in Luke's Gospel when Jesus' parents presented him in the Temple as their firstborn son. At that time the old prophet Simeon blessed the child and addressed Mary with these words: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul t...