Easter
This Sunday, in lieu of a meditation on the week's readings, I'm posting the service I led this morning at a gathering with friends...enjoy.
I am grateful for this opportunity to lead this service and thank Pilar for the idea. It means a lot to me to have all of you here.
Let me tell you a little about what this is going to be like. Last night when I finally sat down to write this, I realized it was not possible for me to write a service that was not grounded in my own spiritual tradition. But what I’m hoping to do is not to celebrate Easter exactly, but to walk you through some of the stories associated with the holiday in order to get at their universal truths. I hope this won’t be offensive to anyone. There will also be times when we are sitting in silence or when I am singing a hymn from my tradition; at these times, it’s up to you, and dependent upon your own spiritual practices, if you want to pray, reflect, meditate, or simply be attentive to what you’re experiencing.
With that, I invite you to be silent for a moment to prepare for a time of reflection.
[Silence]
Here is a reading to help us to get into the right mindset for this service:
[Reading # 16 from Tao Te Ching]
In the tradition in which I was raised, the Easter season begins on what is called Lazarus Saturday, the Saturday that falls one week and one day before Easter Sunday. In case you don’t know the story of Lazarus, here it is: Jesus heard that Lazarus, the brother of his closest friends, Mary and Martha, was dying. He had fled Judea before this because there were people there who wanted to kill him, but he chose to return to Judea to try to help his friends. When he arrived, Lazarus was already dead. Jesus wept for his friends who had lost their beloved brother, and then he prayed for the power to raise him from the dead. It’s clear from most versions of the story that he had no idea he actually had this power and that he asked for the miracle out of a desperate longing to relieve his friends’ grief. On this day in the Greek Orthodox Church, there is a liturgy that commemorates this miracle, but it is not the liturgy or the story that I want to focus on, but instead, what happens after the service. At that time, The women gather in the church kitchen and begin to boil several hundred eggs. They also wash the palms that have been ordered for the next day, Palm Sunday, and lay them out on the table. During the next several hours, the women dye hundreds of eggs, and also fold hundreds of palms into the shape of a cross. At the table, they sing and pray and gossip together. By doing so, they honor the deep, lasting friendship of Jesus, Mary, and Martha, a friendship that will be tested several times throughout the last week of Jesus’ life. In honor of this celebration, I have folded these strips of paper into a circle that represents the connectedness of friendship; choose one of them as they are passed around the table, and as you hold it in your hand, give thanks in whatever way you choose for the friends that have helped you to rise up out of the dark places in your life. As you do, I will sing one of the traditional holy week songs that honors the friendship Mary and Martha had for Jesus.
[Verses from Good Friday Lamentations here]
Lazarus Saturday weaves into Palm Sunday, when Jesus returns to Jersualem, where he will die. His movement through the people who wave palms and shout their praises reminds us of the Passover, when the Jews, after 460 years in captivity, crossed an ocean of loud, towering waves in order to find their homeland. Let us reflect now on what home is for us and remember those who do not have a physical or spiritual home in whatever way we choose. As you do, make creases in your circle at the points that are marked. Your circle should transform into the shape of a home.
[Silence]
On Monday and Tuesday, we hear a series of parables that focus on the virtues of patience and hope. They are all, in one way or another, about waiting. We remember on these days that the Jews waited 460 years to escape slavery, that our own Greek ancestors waited 500 years for freedom during one of Greece’s occupations. I’m going to pass out these eggs now to symbolize the things we must wait for, the things that do not come easily—the loss that must be mourned, the gift we wish to accept that has not yet been offered. These eggs symbolize all that we wait for; all that we could easily attempt to rush through. The nourishment they have the potential to give us is enclosed in a hard shell. However, if we were to break the shell too early, we would not notice the eggs’ beauty. If we bit into the egg too quickly, we would not notice how the taste of the egg white compares to the yolk. From poet Adrienne Rich:
Even to hope is to leap into the unknown,
Under the mocking eyes of the way things are.
There’s a war on earth, and in the skull, and in the glassy spaces,
Between the existing and the non-existing.
I need to live each day through, have them and know them all,
Though I can see from here where I’ll be standing at the end.
[Silence while each participant takes an egg]
Finally we come to Wednesday, when we remember the woman who poured expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet and wiped it with her hair. There are many versions of this story. In some, the woman was a stranger who was asking Jesus’ forgiveness for an unknown sin. In others, she is Mary, his closest friend, weeping because she knows his life is nearing its end, because she realizes he has chosen a path of hardship rather than the easy path that would have allowed him to save his life. Either way, the act was planned and committed with the deepest devotion. Either way, the woman was acting out of a deep integrity, knowing who she was. In her poem “Song,” Adrienne Rich reflects on this deep sense of attention, of knowing oneself:
[Read “Song” by Adrienne Rich, from The Fact of a Doorframe]
On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, we commemorate Jesus’ suffering, death and burial. We remember that his disciples fled from his side or denied him, while Mary, Martha, and the other women who were close to him stayed at the foot of his cross. We reflect on all our losses, and we’re invited to move through them slowly and hopefully, singing together. In the end, we’ll be home again, but that home will look different than it did before. Now, tear open your strip of paper at the place where the tape is holding it together.
[Pause to let them do this; give more instructions if necessary]
You are not destroying your home; rather, you are opening it further. It is no longer the smooth circle you remember or the roof you recognize, but instead, a narrow strip of highway you are traveling. There is no escape from change; you can choose only how you will respond to change. There is no escape from making a mark on the world, from shaping it in some way; you can choose the way you will shape it. There is no escape from feeling the world deeply, from being part of it. From poet Marge Piercy:
[Read “The Blessing of the Day”]
[Sing verses from Lamentations]
And then we come finally to the Passover, the Resurrection, the moving across the water, from darkness to light. On this day, Mary and Martha and other women who were close to Jesus go to the tomb to dress Jesus’ body with myrrh and spices. They are the only ones left; the disciples fled during the resurrection, and even the man who kindly laid Jesus’ body in a tomb is gone. They find the tomb empty, and an angel tells them to spread the word of the empty tomb. They flee in fear or joy, depending on the version of the story.
Some believe this story has something to do with what will happen to us after we die, but I think instead that the story’s lesson is altogether different. It is a story about deep friendship, about being present at even the most sacred passages in each others’ lives. It is also a story about wonder. The man whose stories have shaped so many since his death lives on in some way in each of us who are willing to pass on good news, however we ourselves might understand that news. In other words, what is the message we have been given to share with others, and how will we live our lives so as to share it? Passing on good news and being present in each other’s lives is sometimes hard work, sometimes scary. At other times, it is the simplest thing we can do, but we must first put aside our other tasks and run joyfully into this new, more important task. In the tradition in which I was raised, we pass the light of the Resurrection in order to signify our desire to spread the good news. Let us do the same.
[Sing Thefte lavete fos]
[Sing Christos Anesti]
[Read Mary Oliver’s “Making the House Ready for the Lord” from Thirst]
Now, crack your egg w/ the person’s next to you to symbolize how we nourish each other in love.
Blessed be the waters that rage behind us.
Blessed be the land that opens before us.
Blessed be the hard shell of our impatience.
Blessed be the white grief and the yellow joy that nourish us.
Blessed be the work of slowly opening.
Blessed be the places we can’t open.
Blessed our leaving and our returning.
Blessed our mourning and our healing.
Blessed be the good news.
Blessed be the tools and the work and the rest.
All the rest.
Blessed be.
I am grateful for this opportunity to lead this service and thank Pilar for the idea. It means a lot to me to have all of you here.
Let me tell you a little about what this is going to be like. Last night when I finally sat down to write this, I realized it was not possible for me to write a service that was not grounded in my own spiritual tradition. But what I’m hoping to do is not to celebrate Easter exactly, but to walk you through some of the stories associated with the holiday in order to get at their universal truths. I hope this won’t be offensive to anyone. There will also be times when we are sitting in silence or when I am singing a hymn from my tradition; at these times, it’s up to you, and dependent upon your own spiritual practices, if you want to pray, reflect, meditate, or simply be attentive to what you’re experiencing.
With that, I invite you to be silent for a moment to prepare for a time of reflection.
[Silence]
Here is a reading to help us to get into the right mindset for this service:
[Reading # 16 from Tao Te Ching]
In the tradition in which I was raised, the Easter season begins on what is called Lazarus Saturday, the Saturday that falls one week and one day before Easter Sunday. In case you don’t know the story of Lazarus, here it is: Jesus heard that Lazarus, the brother of his closest friends, Mary and Martha, was dying. He had fled Judea before this because there were people there who wanted to kill him, but he chose to return to Judea to try to help his friends. When he arrived, Lazarus was already dead. Jesus wept for his friends who had lost their beloved brother, and then he prayed for the power to raise him from the dead. It’s clear from most versions of the story that he had no idea he actually had this power and that he asked for the miracle out of a desperate longing to relieve his friends’ grief. On this day in the Greek Orthodox Church, there is a liturgy that commemorates this miracle, but it is not the liturgy or the story that I want to focus on, but instead, what happens after the service. At that time, The women gather in the church kitchen and begin to boil several hundred eggs. They also wash the palms that have been ordered for the next day, Palm Sunday, and lay them out on the table. During the next several hours, the women dye hundreds of eggs, and also fold hundreds of palms into the shape of a cross. At the table, they sing and pray and gossip together. By doing so, they honor the deep, lasting friendship of Jesus, Mary, and Martha, a friendship that will be tested several times throughout the last week of Jesus’ life. In honor of this celebration, I have folded these strips of paper into a circle that represents the connectedness of friendship; choose one of them as they are passed around the table, and as you hold it in your hand, give thanks in whatever way you choose for the friends that have helped you to rise up out of the dark places in your life. As you do, I will sing one of the traditional holy week songs that honors the friendship Mary and Martha had for Jesus.
[Verses from Good Friday Lamentations here]
Lazarus Saturday weaves into Palm Sunday, when Jesus returns to Jersualem, where he will die. His movement through the people who wave palms and shout their praises reminds us of the Passover, when the Jews, after 460 years in captivity, crossed an ocean of loud, towering waves in order to find their homeland. Let us reflect now on what home is for us and remember those who do not have a physical or spiritual home in whatever way we choose. As you do, make creases in your circle at the points that are marked. Your circle should transform into the shape of a home.
[Silence]
On Monday and Tuesday, we hear a series of parables that focus on the virtues of patience and hope. They are all, in one way or another, about waiting. We remember on these days that the Jews waited 460 years to escape slavery, that our own Greek ancestors waited 500 years for freedom during one of Greece’s occupations. I’m going to pass out these eggs now to symbolize the things we must wait for, the things that do not come easily—the loss that must be mourned, the gift we wish to accept that has not yet been offered. These eggs symbolize all that we wait for; all that we could easily attempt to rush through. The nourishment they have the potential to give us is enclosed in a hard shell. However, if we were to break the shell too early, we would not notice the eggs’ beauty. If we bit into the egg too quickly, we would not notice how the taste of the egg white compares to the yolk. From poet Adrienne Rich:
Even to hope is to leap into the unknown,
Under the mocking eyes of the way things are.
There’s a war on earth, and in the skull, and in the glassy spaces,
Between the existing and the non-existing.
I need to live each day through, have them and know them all,
Though I can see from here where I’ll be standing at the end.
[Silence while each participant takes an egg]
Finally we come to Wednesday, when we remember the woman who poured expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet and wiped it with her hair. There are many versions of this story. In some, the woman was a stranger who was asking Jesus’ forgiveness for an unknown sin. In others, she is Mary, his closest friend, weeping because she knows his life is nearing its end, because she realizes he has chosen a path of hardship rather than the easy path that would have allowed him to save his life. Either way, the act was planned and committed with the deepest devotion. Either way, the woman was acting out of a deep integrity, knowing who she was. In her poem “Song,” Adrienne Rich reflects on this deep sense of attention, of knowing oneself:
[Read “Song” by Adrienne Rich, from The Fact of a Doorframe]
On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, we commemorate Jesus’ suffering, death and burial. We remember that his disciples fled from his side or denied him, while Mary, Martha, and the other women who were close to him stayed at the foot of his cross. We reflect on all our losses, and we’re invited to move through them slowly and hopefully, singing together. In the end, we’ll be home again, but that home will look different than it did before. Now, tear open your strip of paper at the place where the tape is holding it together.
[Pause to let them do this; give more instructions if necessary]
You are not destroying your home; rather, you are opening it further. It is no longer the smooth circle you remember or the roof you recognize, but instead, a narrow strip of highway you are traveling. There is no escape from change; you can choose only how you will respond to change. There is no escape from making a mark on the world, from shaping it in some way; you can choose the way you will shape it. There is no escape from feeling the world deeply, from being part of it. From poet Marge Piercy:
[Read “The Blessing of the Day”]
[Sing verses from Lamentations]
And then we come finally to the Passover, the Resurrection, the moving across the water, from darkness to light. On this day, Mary and Martha and other women who were close to Jesus go to the tomb to dress Jesus’ body with myrrh and spices. They are the only ones left; the disciples fled during the resurrection, and even the man who kindly laid Jesus’ body in a tomb is gone. They find the tomb empty, and an angel tells them to spread the word of the empty tomb. They flee in fear or joy, depending on the version of the story.
Some believe this story has something to do with what will happen to us after we die, but I think instead that the story’s lesson is altogether different. It is a story about deep friendship, about being present at even the most sacred passages in each others’ lives. It is also a story about wonder. The man whose stories have shaped so many since his death lives on in some way in each of us who are willing to pass on good news, however we ourselves might understand that news. In other words, what is the message we have been given to share with others, and how will we live our lives so as to share it? Passing on good news and being present in each other’s lives is sometimes hard work, sometimes scary. At other times, it is the simplest thing we can do, but we must first put aside our other tasks and run joyfully into this new, more important task. In the tradition in which I was raised, we pass the light of the Resurrection in order to signify our desire to spread the good news. Let us do the same.
[Sing Thefte lavete fos]
[Sing Christos Anesti]
[Read Mary Oliver’s “Making the House Ready for the Lord” from Thirst]
Now, crack your egg w/ the person’s next to you to symbolize how we nourish each other in love.
Blessed be the waters that rage behind us.
Blessed be the land that opens before us.
Blessed be the hard shell of our impatience.
Blessed be the white grief and the yellow joy that nourish us.
Blessed be the work of slowly opening.
Blessed be the places we can’t open.
Blessed our leaving and our returning.
Blessed our mourning and our healing.
Blessed be the good news.
Blessed be the tools and the work and the rest.
All the rest.
Blessed be.
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