Guest commentary by David Evans
Last year during Lent, the pastors at University Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, preached on the lectionary psalms throughout the season. In addition, they invited everyone to compose a contemporary psalm to be used in worship. This is my contribution.
There’s all kinds of March Madness in Austin this week.
We have just moved into a new home
after nearly four months of living with friends and family.
We have had various combinations of our five grandchildren
for spring break this past week.
South by Southwest (or “South by” as I have discovered the “cool” people call it) has taken over our city.
Jimmy Kimmel and his sidekick Guillermo
are eating their way through our hometown this week.
Then there’s basketball, of course.
So the inspiration for today’s “Psalm” is patently obvious.
It is called…
March Madness
At the moment I am watching San Diego State and St. John’s.
The “State” school is beating the “Catholic” school.
My brackets are already totally busted.
All the Texas teams have already gone home.
Even though my beloved Lumberjacks came oh, so close!
But even so, the madness will continue.
Each year we wonder which #12 will beat which #5
(though this year it was which #14 would beat which #3).
The shots at the buzzer will fall, or not, and so will our underdog favorites.
And even though we hope in vain
that a SFA or a TSU
or even a nice Presbyterian school like Davidson
will break through and vie for the national championship,
or at least reach the next round,
in the end we resign ourselves to the fact
that it is almost always
a Kentucky or a Kansas,
a Duke or a Michigan State,
tipping off for all the glory.
March Madness
It is a wild ride.
52 games the first weekend alone.
36 teams go home and 16 are declared “Sweet.”
And we are wearily mad from watching so much basketball.
March Madness
But the truth is, of course, that March Madness
is not just for college basketball junkies.
There is yet another “madness” at work during these days of March.
We who follow Jesus indulge in our own sort of March Madness each Lent.
We allow ashes to be marked in the form of a cross on our foreheads.
We engage in deep reflection about our lives.
We enter into a time of darkness voluntarily.
We read the Gospels and kneel in prayer and fast one day a week
and gather for worship and sing hymns.
We load up our tools and go to Mexico to build a house
for a family we do not know and will likely never see again.
March Madness
Then, at the end of our madness,
we gather on a Thursday evening to break bread and drink wine
even as Jesus did the last week of his life,
and on Friday night we gather
to allow the agony of the cross to overwhelm us and
the darkness of the tomb to become a reality.
March Madness
Yes, much of the world thinks we are mad
for devoting our lives to an obscure carpenter
who lived 2,000 years ago
in an arid land occupied by a foreign army.
We say our lives “belong” to a Jewish peasant
who advocates an outlandish and absurd ethic.
He dares to teach us that we should
love our enemies,
turn our cheeks to those who offend us,
return no one evil for evil,
show hospitality to the strangers in our midst,
visit the prisoners in their cells,
feed those who are hungry and give drink to those who thirst.
Then, as if that is not enough, he says that
the meek and those who mourn and peacemakers
will be the ones who are blessed in this life.
And the final madness is that he tells us
that if we want to follow him
we must sell all that we own
and give it to the poor.
March Madness
In a world seemingly gone mad,
what is madness anyway?
Is it madness to believe that
Faith will overcome fear?
Is it madness to believe that
Love will triumph over hate?
Is it madness to believe that
Peace will prevail over violence?
Is it madness to believe that
Hope will be victorious over despair?
Is it madness to believe that
Death does not have the last word?
March Madness
If you resonate with any of this madness,
if you have any faith in this hope that does not disappoint,
then you may be ready for the ultimate madness,
not two weeks from tomorrow when a new national champion will be crowned,
but the madness that will finally prevail two weeks from today
when our alleluias will reverberate off these hallowed walls
and into the streets.
Do not miss March Madness.
For in the end this madness is our only hope in a world gone mad.
DAVID M. EVANS has pastored congregations in Maryland and Texas and served as the seminary relations officer at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Linda, live in Austin, Texas, where he is an honorably retired member of Mission Presbytery and serves on the board of trustees of Presbyterian Mo Ranch Assembly.
