So this will be a short post as we are in the throes of packing and the movers come later this morning – but I had one of those experiences that puts a few things in perspective.  At 11:30 in the evening I ran to Walgreen’s to get some last minute essentials for our trip to Tucson.  I have spent the day packing, cleaning out the garage, cleaning off lawn furniture, throwing away lots of trash, and more.  So after 15 hours of that, I was not looking my Sunday best.

When I went in to the store, a young woman was at the counter.  She was in soccer shorts and a t-shirt and seemed to be having a pretty animated though convivial conversation with the man working the counter.  I got my few items and went to stand in line while wondering why her transaction was taking so long.  I overheard her say, “It’s a great church!” It turns out she had been telling him all about her church – that’s what was taking so long.  When she noticed that I was listening in – she asked me “Do you want to know more?”

I was taken in by her energy and said that I would.  She explained that she goes to the Upper Room Church which was started in Dallas but has branched out to Denver.  She loves it because it is focused on “The work Jesus did.” When I asked what that meant, she said, “Well, for example, we’ve all been out tonight going to places where the homeless gather at night and inviting them to breakfast tomorrow morning.  No strings, just a meal and a conversation partner.”

So, at nearly midnight, she was out inviting those in need of a hot meal and companionship to come to her church.  More than that, she was talking to two unlikely candidates, the night-shift guy at Walgreen’s and a sweaty random customer in a tank-top and basketball shorts (that would be me), about how great her church is.  She said, “It’s small and authentic and I love it.” She asked me if I was interested in visiting and I came clean.  She said, “That’s awesome! I hope Jesus blesses your ministry!”

I told her that he already had and that it had been through her energy tonight.

Sometimes evangelism seems like a scary proposition – but here was a woman in her mid-twenties gushing about doing the work of Jesus and sharing it with strangers and those in need.  In the midst of packing and a bit of domestic chaos, I was in some need too.  The funny thing was that the Walgreen’s employee and I were not annoyed at all – we were not put out by her enthusiasm – indeed both of us were genuinely touched.  Part of what made her so compelling is that she was not just sharing Good News but living it.

I wonder just how the Episcopal Church could be changed and change lives if we were so willing to go out and tell whomever we meet, however they’re dressed, wherever they are that we have a Church that we love that is small but authentic and is about the work Jesus did – and still does in so many ways.

Robert

I sometimes wonder what those who had heard little of Jesus or had never encountered him made of seeing another young, probably rebellious, defiant, poor man lifted up on a cross as punishment for his crimes.  It was a gruesome affair – this we know.  Yet, it was probably common enough to elicit little comment and minimal reaction from those who happened to see it.  It was probably a common enough occurrence for an empire, bent on security, to whip and humiliate a man for claiming that a higher power than theirs commanded his allegiance.

Was it nothing to them?

I find myself wondering now, is it nothing to us?  Can we watch the video?  Can we hear the names?  Can we hear a girlfriend’s plea?  Can we see a child sitting in the backseat?  Can we see a bloodied badge held in a friend’s hand?

Those videos are a gruesome affair.  They are painful and heart-wrenching.  Is it nothing to us?

I can’t imagine why so many African-Americans are Christians.  I can’t imagine the children of slaves, watching their parents humiliated and sold, then claiming the owners’ God for themselves.  I can’t imagine the sharecropper singing the same hymns as the Klansman.  I can’t imagine singing “We Shall Overcome” knowing that what must be overcome is a hate too often laden and weighted with religious sanction.  I am privileged enough to not need to imagine it.

For some, the response feels as if it must be blood.  So innocent blood is shed in revenge’s desolating cycle – in the streets of Dallas and in so many places.  Yet, for the Christian, the answer is always Blood.

There is the enduring power of the Cross – not an event fixed in time and pinning one man’s life to the Earth – but an event still unfolding that still lifts our hope heavenward.  In the vile paroxysms of an empire’s fear was born the freedom to look hatred in the eye and say, “we shall overcome.” In the Cross, those who know the fear of empire and the casual cruelty of a disinterested crowd, can just see the crown upon a pierced brow.

In the sweat of the Son of God was mingled the sweat of a sharecropper grandfather.  In the tears of Mary were the tears of a girlfriend mourning a shot boyfriend with the tears of the world.  In the blood of the Son of Man was mingled the blood of every man who has ever had to fight, and rage, and cry out that his life mattered.  All those who are acquainted with sorrow and who are afflicted can see in the Cross the God by whom they are counted as worthy of unending, never-failing love.

Like Pilate, it would be convenient to simply think that this has nothing to do with us.

It may be easy for it to be nothing to us – but it is everything to God.  So it must be everything to us.  It must be everything to us to say, “That is our neighbor.” It must be everything to us to say, “That is a child of God.” It must be everything to us to say to the powers and principalities, to the demonic hold of violence and racism, “Go, Satan.”

It seems to me that the madness that is now gripping us is as sure a work of the Devil as anything – we kill one another, we see one another as deserving of killing, and we look away distracted by the next new thing.  Can the Devil plot a more sure ruin for lives and souls?  Yet, at the end of the path of violence, is an open tomb.  Standing before us is a risen Savior who can show us his wounded hands as if to say, “Look at what you have done” even as the quiet echo of “Father, forgive them” still rings.

Can we see Christ there though?  Can we not just look – but can we see?  Can we see Christ selling a few compact discs?  Can we see Christ serving and protecting though it may cost him all?  Can we see the Christ who knew the names of so many kids and even knew their food allergies?  Can we see a Christ who may have sold a few loose cigarettes?  Can we see Christ on the playground?   Eating skittles?  I think we can – for we certainly see a Christ slain because of the fear of those who were so, so ready to say, “Crucify him!”

Can we see through fear to the very sacred heart that is in each of us?  Can we see the Blood pouring from the wounds of those who are being broken and bled by fear and revenge?

And if we see, is it nothing to us?

Robert