We have a story for times like this
This Easter Sermon was preached at Frazer Mennonite Church on April 21, 2019.
Several years ago, you may remember the stories coming out of Philadelphia about the school budget problems. As a parent of Philly school kids, it was a traumatic, difficult time. I watched my kid’s school lose their nurse, school counselor and safety patrol, along with the gifted program and art department.
It was a terrible time to be in the school district, but we were determined not to give up. In truth, we could supplement our kid’s education with special after school programs, but so many families didn’t have this luxury.
The school crisis was something that local clergy talked about a lot. How do we respond to this crisis? At one local clergy gathering, we were talking about this, and a colleague, who walked in late, jumped into the conversation rather abruptly.
He said, “Schools have gotten so bad that i think we just need to give up on them. The era of public schools is over” This colleague named the neighborhood school my children attended as part of his diatribe. He declared something I cherish and champion–dead.
Needless to say, I was pretty angry.
After the meeting, two pastor friends, Jarrett and Martin, surrounded me, to check in on me and me still raging blood pressure. They had watched as my face turned red, as I shifted angrily in my chair, and they secretly enjoyed watching me call him out.
I struggled, with them, to understand how someone could give up on schools and our children like this.
After a couple of minutes of debriefing together, Jarrett reminded us,“You know, we have a story for this. We are Easter people. Resurrection people.”
We are resurrection people, friends. And when things feel difficult, when things feel dead and buried, we know better. We know we have a story for moments like this.
Here’s the part of resurrection that we don’t often like dwell on at Easter. And this is an uncomfortable truth about this season. We have no idea what resurrection looks like until we’ve experienced death. If we have not experienced death, pain suffering, then resurrection just looks like spring. Resurrection looks like daffodils and lillies. We can look at these flowers and think, “There’s that new life. That promise of spring. That must be what resurrection is.”
But that resurrection is only six inches deep. The resurrection I’m talking about is the kind that is dead and buried six feet underground, forgotten about, and restored to life–against all hope.
The women were the witnesses to Jesus suffering on the cross, his death (they saw him in the tomb), and finally his resurrection. Had they not witnessed to the suffering of Jesus on the cross, had they not seen him dead in the tomb, they may not have experienced the joyful, incredulous reaction to the resurrection. So let this be a lesson to you all–listen to women. Believe women. They know what they are talking about.
One year while travelling in Jerusalem, we stopped at an alternative burial site for Jesus. It was just outside the Damascus gate, a quiet, secluded, and cool spot to rest before our next event. After we debriefed about what we had seen that day, a volunteer tour guide from Texas showed us around the gardens. He pointed out the spot that may be where Jesus had been crucified–what is now a Palestinian bus station. He suggested we sing a hymn. We did not. It felt forced. Hokey even.
Then the Texas tour guide showed us the empty tomb where he believed Jesus was buried. He led us into the tomb, let us touch the walls, sit at the spot where Jesus may have been laid after his death. We irreverently took photos coming out of the tomb (a thing that apparently a lot of tourists like to do.) And still we didn’t feel anything.
We didn’t see Jesus on the cross. We didn’t watch his suffering. So that empty tomb was just empty to us. Meaningless.
But the women at the tomb knew that suffering. They stayed at the cross on that terrible night. They saw Jesus struggling, ridiculed, gasping for breathe, for comfort and for a sign that God was there. They witnessed these things and they did not look away. They stayed until the end. And they felt their own pain as they watched helplessly. If we don’t know what death, pain, and difficulty are, we don’t know what the resurrection is.
But, people of Frazer Mennonite, you know what the resurrection looks like. You have stories of sadness, death and confusion here. Several years ago, you saw the need for new life, and you prayed for families with children. And guess what–a lot of families with children came. Ten years ago, you had conflicts with the conference about who was allowed to be part of this congregation. After what felt like death, you joined a new conference, and felt the new energy and new life in Atlantic coast.
You have opened your building to folks in recovery. Almost every night of the week, the parking lot is filled with people who find our fellowship hall to be a safe space, a space for healing from addiction. You wondered what you were called to do, and found that call in the soil on this very property. And now, because of a garden, we have people that come to our building and our property, and can eat. We have a story for these times. We have the resurrection story. It is our story.
We live in difficult times. We live in times where angry people cause carnage. We live in times where fearful people put up walls, literal walls, to keep out people they fear. We live in times where our government legislates hate. We are witnessing suffering and death every time we tune into the news.
We have urges to shelter ourselves from this, to turn off the news, to run away from the realities of our world. We have urges to protect ourselves from personal harm–to escape vulnerability–I find myself trying to do that with my kids and family all the time. But, we can’t really know how good the resurrection is, until we’ve experienced pain, or sat with those in crisis.
That’s when resurrection is truly miraculous.
To those who haven’t experienced suffering, perhaps this story–the one we Christian tell of resurrection seems like an idle tale, a silly, unbelievable story, told by overwrought women who didn’t know what they were talking about. Maybe those who haven’t experienced suffering and pain can appreciate this story, but it doesn’t connect at a deep level.
But we’ve seen death. We’ve seen pain. We know what heartache looks like, because we’ve shed our fair share of tears, and have called out to God saying, “Where are you?” So, when hope comes, when God shows God’s self to us, when something comes from utter desolation, we have a name for it. It is called resurrection.
We have a story for difficult times. The story is resurrection. It’s not just something that happened to Jesus. It is something that happens to us and in us. This is our story. The resurrection story.
It is Finished….
I preached this sermon at a Seven Last Words Community Service. I had the sixth word–It is finished.
My daughter, Reba, was two when I entered seminary. On days when I didn’t have class, and it was just her and I at home, I would sometimes take her into school, to run around the beautiful grounds. One morning I took her into the main building on my seminary campus, and there she encountered her very first crucifix, and a life sized one at that–Jesus hanging limp on the cross, in obvious pain. Reba was aghast. “Who is THAT, Mama?”
It was at that moment that I realized she only had memories of encountering a cute, cuddly, helpless baby Jesus in the manger. She knew how the story began, but not how it ended.
At that age, I had never talked to her about how Jesus died. I don’t think it was a deficit in my parenting. Who should have to explain Jesus’ death to a toddler? Who wants to explain Jesus’ death to a child, let alone look at death, facing the reality of the cross where Jesus was crucified at the hands of the state, an ancient version of the lynching tree, gas chambers, firing line, the executioners chair. No one should have to explain that to a child.
So, while I wasn’t sorry I held back, I also wasn’t exactly ready for her to meet dying Jesus like this.
Two year old wide eyed Reba looked up at life sized Jesus, hanging in agony on that cross, black body against black wood. She saw his form, degraded and humiliated on the cross. She touched Jesus’ feet tenderly, tracing his toes and the nails in his feet. Then she turned and looked at me, with her most serious, intense, two year old face, and said, “Poor Jesus. He needs a doctor.”
I feel badly for laughing at her in that moment. It wasn’t a “kids say the darndest thing” moment. It was a moment of deep sadness for my daughter. She saw the pain of Jesus on that cross, a pain to which I had become numb. I walked by that same Jesus hanging on that same cross several times a day, and never gave it a thought. I never noticed the pain in his tense muscles, recognized the agony on his face. It is important to see that pain, and I was glad that my daughter brought me back to that in the crucifix.
But, there is much more to this story than the pain. So, while we pay attention to the state torture of Jesus on that cross, I want us on this Good Friday to also notice these words. “It is finished.”
“It is finished” is one word in greek–tetelestia. And while “it is finished” sounds more final, more poetic, a more accurate translation is “It is completed.”
It is completed.
Here in this moment on the cross, Jesus finished the work of teaching us and showing us how to live. After three years of ministry, after a lifetime of worrying his Mama and learning carpentry from his Pop, after escaping death at an early age, after learning all he could in the Synagogue as a young child, after walking through cities and countryside alike, preaching and teaching, after making religious and political leaders angry enough to kill him, he had completed his work. He had done all he had set out to do.
To everyone else at Golgotha, the place of death, Jesus was a mockery, a joke. To them, he had received the appropriate consequences for messing with the powers of Rome and the powers of the established religious authorities.
But, even in his agony up on the cross, Jesus knew better. He knew his work was completed. It was finished, for now. It was finished for the time being. And soon–in three short days–all would see. First the women would see it, because while women were and are underappreciated and undervalued, they often have more wisdom than those that claim to be wise. Soon, those women would see that what had been completed in Jesus ministry would be sealed in the resurrection, and soon they would tell everyone.
That resurrection was an “I told you so” to the “it is finished” on the cross. The resurrection was a “you didn’t think I would, but I did” to that cross. The resurrection, witnessed first by the women who stayed for Jesus’ very last breath, was Jesus’ hold my beer oh ye of little faith. Watch what I do next.
It is finished. It is completed. Jesus taught us up until his last moments how to live, without fear. Jesus taught us, in his every breath, to live as the people God has created us to be. Jesus taught us to bring our fully human selves to the work of discipleship, just as he did.
Another story about Reba. When she was 8, she heard an animal crying in our backyard. We looked for the source of the cry, and finally, found the tiniest kitten wedged between our fence and our neighbors. I struggled for a while to rescue this sick, dying kitten, and finally gave up. “Reba, we can’t get to it. I’m sorry. I think it might die.”
I went back inside, and Reba stormed in behind me. She would not take “no” for an answer. “Mom, you told me to always look after God’s creatures. And that’s what I’m trying to do. You are a pastor! You’d better help me!”
Emotional manipulation at its finest. But she was right. Yet again I had become numb to suffering. This kitten need saving and we were her only hope. So, what could I do? We had to go back out there. By then, this kitten, small enough to fit into the palm of my hand, had freed herself. She was sick and malnourished. But she would be ok. She found us and we would carry on the work of caring for this sweet kitten, a work that continues to this day.
As always my kids model to me the way of faith. Reba made the connection between someone else’s suffering, and her responsibility, between the “it is finished” and our own call as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus completed his work of teaching us how to live, of showing us what lived faith looks like, and now he has passed the work onto us. Jesus work in human form is now down and we take up the cross and the example of Christ. We become the living stories of healing, hope, comfort, care and inclusion that Jesus lived in the gospel.
Jesus took his work from birth to his death on the cross, and now it is complete. So–the challenge of Good Friday is–what will we do to live fully as the people God created us to be? How will we follow Jesus’ example and care for all God’s children?
God, who began a good work in us, will be faithful to complete it, just as he faithfully walked with Jesus who completed his work on the cross.
This holy week, let us follow in the way of Jesus, being fully the people God created us to be. Let us continue on this uncertain road of discipleship, knowing that God will complete the work in us, walking with us, showing us the way, remaining with us until the very end, until our work is completed. AMEN.
I Gave Up (Most) Plastics For Lent: Here’s What I Learned
During the season of Lent, and just a few days before our family moved into our new (to us) home in the suburbs, I gave up plastic for lent. Actually, to be clear, I have called it a “Less Plastic Lent”, because I knew that there would be some things I’d have trouble getting without plastic. The goal was to be mindful about our plastic use and its impact on the world.
My daughter, Reba, and I were well aware of our plastic use. We’d been living in a temporary place for the last six months and were eating out–a lot. We joked that we needed to make reparations to the earth for our terrible consumption habits during that season, but after a while it wasn’t funny any more. While we were bringing home disposable plastic containers, and recycling them faithfully, we were learning that our recyclable waste was no longer being taken by China and recycled–much of it was going straight into landfills. So, as we were moving into a new home at the beginning of lent, it seemed like a really good time to change our habits.
I want to share with you some of the changes we made. I don’t share them as an act of piety, or to make anyone feel badly about the way the organize their household (whoever is without sin should cast the first stone, says Jesus, and I couldn’t agree more). I want to share this with you because the theme of lent in my congregation this year–God makes beautiful things out of dust–has been the constant reverberation under my lenten practice this season. I’ve asked myself with each change in habit, “What is God doing here?”
So, here’s what I changed:
Toilet Paper.
I now buy toilet paper from whogivesacrap.com (that’s REALLY the name of the company!), a small start up. They make their products using bamboo, a more sustainable source of wood. And they wrap their individual rolls in paper, rather than in plastic like most other toilet paper you find in the store. The toilet paper is 3 ply, and thicker than I expected, which was a nice change from the regular Scott tissue I had used. And it’s comparable in price to other product. This is a subscription service, which is not everyone’s thing, but I like it. A big box of TP comes right to my door every other month.
Shampoo, Conditioner, Face Cleaner, Body Wash, Lotion.
This was a scary one for me. I’m kind of fussy about what I use on my hair and skin. But, I found another subscription service that I really like–Plaineproducts.com I’ll admit that it’s pretty pricey compared to regular shampoo and toiletries. But, the products come in aluminum bottles with reusable plastic pumps. When you are done with your bottle, return it, and Plaine Products sends another bottle.
Lush is another toiletry company that is trying to address plastic waste. They make shampoo and conditioner bars. Also, many local farmers markets have local folks that make these products too.
Dish and Laundry Detergent
I’m a fan of those pods that you throw in your washing machine and dishwasher. And I found I another subscription service that will send the product to you every few months (Dropps.com). I like them and they come in some natural, gentle, non-chemical scents. They arrive on my doorstep in cardboard containers. No plastic used at all. I have friends that make their own laundry detergent. I applaud them, but I’m not there yet. Maybe one day. For now, I’m using Dropps.
Cleaning Products
There’s not a lot of plastic free options out there. Meyers has concentrate products, but they all come in plastic. But cleancult.com is coming out in April with a subscription service of products that come in cardboard milk cartons. And in some organic food markets, there are places where you can refill containers of your favorite cleaning supplies.
Toothbrushes and Toothpaste
There are bamboo toothbrushes out there. We haven’t needed to get any yet because our plastic ones are still quite usable. Also bitetoothpastebits.com has toothpaste “pills” you bite on to create toothpaste. They come in glass bottles. I like them!
Now for the really hard stuff. Let’s talk about our food containers.
Plastic Wrap
I’ve switched to fabric covered in beeswax. You can make them yourself or by them from a company called “beeswraps”. They cover leftover dishes, the half tomato that goes in the fridge, and other things like that. And you can wash them off, hang them up to dry, and reuse them. My partner, Charlie, likes them because the beeswraps don’t get all stuck to themselves like plastic wrap does.
Milk
I switched to glass jars of milk and creamer, which I get at Kimberton Whole Foods. You can also get them at Whole Foods and Moms Organic Market.
Condiments
Most come in glass and plastic, so I am choosing glass every time.
Snack Foods
Instead of buying granola bars and cookies for the kids to snack on, I’ve been making muffins and cookies and keeping them in the freezer. My household seems to really like this for the most part. But they have missed the convenient Clif bars that we usually keep around.
Bread
Often bread comes in two layers of plastic nowadays. What a bummer. So, we started making our own bread! I’m kind of obsessed with it right now. We bought a bread maker, which I guess is cheating, but it is so nice to come home to the smell of baking bread. And I’m freezing leftover bread to make bread pudding, bread crumbs, or croutons.
Cheese and Meat
This has been the hardest one for me. I’m working on finding a local butcher, and will either bring my own container or have them wrap the meat and cheese in paper. This is a hard one at a regular store, but it can be done! Still a work in progress…
I also buy a part of a cow from my Aunt (anyone want to go in on one with us?) who raises it in North Central Pennsylvania. The butcher gives us an option to wrap it in paper, so the only thing that comes in plastic is the ground beef.
Hummus
I’ve started making my own hummus, using a recipe from my favorite place to get the chickpea delight–Palestine! And I’ve fallen in love with hummus making. I’m always working to get the creamiest hummus I can make, and every batch gets a little better.
Drinks
I’ve been keeping iced tea or orange juice in the fridge (the kind from concentrate, which is contained in aluminum and paper) so that we’re not tempted to go buy liters of drinks. That means keeping lots of fresh lemons around. And the compost pile loves those citrus peels!
Bulk Food shopping
For things like sugar, flour, oats, nuts, beans, and rice, I’m going to Moms Organic or Kimberton whole foods. You can bring your own container, or bring your own bags (I bring fabric bags) to fill and weigh. Moms even has vegetable based plastic bags that biodegrade, in case you forget to bring your own bags or containers.
Fruits and Vegetables
Instead of buying a bag of oranges or lemons or such, I’m buying individual ones. Lettuce has been difficult here, truthfully. They all seem to be wrapped in plastic. And buying like this is certainly more expensive than going to Aldis or the Produce Junction to buy veggies.
Where it has been harder
Tortilla chips. It’s hard to find them in paper bags. And we aren’t ready to start making them.
Surprisingly, spaghetti containers all come with those little plastic viewing windows, or in all plastic. We do have the ability to make pasta, so maybe we’ll start doing that regularly. But I’m not quite ready for that yet either.
Yogurt and sour cream have also been hard but I will re-use those containers for applesauce making this fall so they have have a lot more use and won’t go into recycling immediately.
We still need to buy trash can liners. And I haven’t found bird seed that doesn’t come in plastic, and we bought new pillows–and you guessed it–they came wrapped plastic! There’s still so much for which we have to be mindful.
I also recognize that the subscription services offer plastic free options, but will have more gas used with delivery. Also many of these products I’m trying aren’t locally sourced, so that’s also problematic.
The impact of this on my life
All of the changes we are making feel like things we can continue to do after lent is over. And that was the goal. It was a real eye opener to go into a grocery store the first time and realize just how much plastic was in there. It was discouraging, to be honest. But I had a lot of encouragement from friends, and I turned it into a game. Find a way to get toilet paper without it being wrapped in plastic–challenge accepted!
The food cost has been about the same, even with more expensive veggies and fruits, probably because we’re making more food from scratch. Cleaning supplies are probably about the same too. I’m still waiting to see what toiletries end up looking like, but that looks like it is costing quite a bit more.
We have been filling up about one bag of trash a week. Far less than before. We still have a lot of recycling, but more and more of it is paper, which we will eventually be able to use in the woodstove or in the worm bin. And we’ll have a better sense of the trash and recycling situation once we are really done unpacking all of our boxes from the move.
For me, this has been a way to take on an environmental practice AND a way to be more connected to God’s creation. I’m appreciating the spiritual practices of cooking and baking again, and recognizing that they don’t really take up that much time. Plus, a little time making something delicious is good for my spirit, and for my body.
I also have a heightened sense of packaging now. I notice everything. I can’t NOT see the packaging anymore. The other day, I had to buy sugar while at Kimberton whole foods. I couldn’t find a single sugar option that didn’t come in plastic. And I was really angry about it. It has been important for me to have eyes to see the ways my consumption has impacted my spirit and God’s creation.
I’ve had to learn to give myself grace during this season. This is a practice, not a perfection, and there will be times when I have to buy sugar, and it only comes wrapped in plastic. I am learning to give myself grace to find a better option next time, and to make the steps I can, where I can.
Most importantly, this has been a valuable practice of attentiveness to my impact on this earth. And it’s a practice I expect to continue from here on out.