Servants’ tools: A Maundy Thursday meditation
“Let me take your place,” Jesus says, behind the broom, in front of the hot stove, beside the assembly line, underneath the crushing weight of sin.
Carrying the lament of another
Last fall, I attended the DisGrace Conference on racism at Montreat Camp and Conference Center in North Carolina. The conference continues to..
Grave guard
Guarding a grave is hardly the most lively way to spend this early springtime night, or serve almighty Rome. Why would anyone..
Holy Week prayer
The news this week, dear God, the news. It is relentless. Bombs in airports and subways. No boundaries between combatants and innocents,..
Aliyah
“He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” They went up to Zion in joy with an ancient song on their..
Easter through the doorway of the cross
Easter is a paschal mystery. We can only approach an encounter with Christ’s resurrection through the doorway of the cross. I am..
Palm and Passion Sunday liturgy: Hearing the story through Matthew’s Gospel
Call to Worship A reading from Matthew 21:1-10 One: Rejoice, rejoice, you children of Zion! Shout for joy, you daughters of..
The fall and rise of Holy Week
Presbyterians love Lent. I have the data to prove it. With thousands of visitors each year, the webpages for the season..
Celebrating Holy Week with Children
I just reread Frederick Buechner's novella, “The Christmas Tide,” a story inspired by the suicide of his father when Buechner was 10..
What Holy Week means for the rest of the world
Who cares, really, about Holy Week? Not many of my kids’ friends. Most of my children’s closest friends have no faith affiliation..
He hid from them
“After Jesus had said this; he departed and hid from them.” John 12:36b
Holy Week and Easter: What are they all about?
(RNS) This is Holy Week, the most sacred time of year for Christians. It is the time they mark the betrayal, trial..
Holy Week music sets a high bar, but one church rises to the challenge
by Mary Beth McCauley PHILADELPHIA (RNS) Think Christmas, and carols come to mind: “Joy to the World,” “Silent Night,” “The First Noel.” But..
Prodigal cross
The idea that the Son had to die so the Father would be able to forgive us has never made much sense..
Holy Week
These weeks between the ashes and the lilies demand hardly any getting used to. The lurking guilt has ever been there, tight..
‘Zero Dark Holy Week’
In death and in life
I accepted the call to pastoral ministry with humbled thrill. But when reality set in, I found myself dreading the thought of having to officiate at funerals. For the past four years writing, editing, and publishing have separated me from regular congregational leadership duties, and I find myself missing most the pastoral practice of officiating at funerals.
From palms to passion to …
Do you think Jesus enjoyed his triumphal entry? Did he enjoy the adulation in those crowded streets in the way a young preacher enjoys affirmations in the post-worship narthex?
New vistas for a misguided hope; Luke 24: 1-35
Cleopas asks Jesus, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? (v.18). But Cleopas himself appears to be uninformed about the transformation that took place among the multitude at the Cross.
The popular mind thinks that there was a murderous mob around the Cross crying, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" But such was not the case. The city of Jerusalem was and is relatively small with limited public space. Pilate's judgment hall could not have held more than a few dozen people. The High Priest and his supporters were naturally present for the political trial of Jesus. There is no hint that the supporters of Jesus were allowed into the room. On that occasion the High Priest's men (in the hall) responded to Pilate with the cry, "Crucify him." But on the street it was a different matter.
The chief cornerstone and the game plan
It is clear that Jesus carefully planned the first part of the Triumphal Entry. He chose a village where he had friends. One of those friends was alerted to ready a colt and tie it in front of the house at a specified time. Its owner was waiting and watching. The disciples were told where to find the colt and both parties memorized passwords.
It is also clear that Jesus engaged in similar planning for the Last Supper. A man who could recognize the disciples was waiting with a water pot to lead them to a house where the owner had already offered his large, furnished upper room to Jesus. Those involved used passwords again. Meticulous planning clearly surfaces in both of these occasions during holy week. I would suggest a third: the Triumphal Entry itself.
Mid (Holy) Week
Was there a Weary Wednesday led into Maundy Thursday? A day when all that went before the palm branches and plotting, all..
When I washed the feet …
(Used by permission of the author.)
When I knelt to wash the feet of an African-American woman who is an elder of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I knew the moral universe of my youth had vanished. A cynic viewing the action only moments before when she knelt to wash my feet could argue that nothing had changed. But when the roles changed, even a cynic could acknowledge that deep change has occurred.
It certainly did to me in last Maundy Thursday, when a small group of Christians gathered to remember the gospel story of the night Jesus washed his disciples' feet. We listened to the story and I said a few words about servant leadership. Then we came forward, two by two, to wash one another's feet, reenacting Jesus' humble example of love.
The big ditch: A reflection on Palm Sunday
Reflections on Matthew 21:1-11
On Palm Sunday at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, churchgoers arrive early to get a good seat. The graceful procession of the children waving palms is a sight I recall decades after I worshipped there.
Come to Good Friday
Here is the simple thing that I did. I opened an envelope that contained a hospital bill. It was 19 pages long, an exact tabulation of every syringe, every test, every pill, every process that had occurred. It was the concrete, specific inventory of everything that had happened to my mother. It was the ritual of her last days, a medicinal rosary, one bead after another of failed instruments and procedures. Each one, listed here, rested now in my hand nine years after her death.
‘He Descended into Hell’
Formerly a United Methodist minister, I am now Presbyterian. Methodists don't use the line, "He descended into Hell" as part of the Apostles' Creed. It was always hidden in the footnotes, a part of the traditional creed, something no longer used. In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), people affirm their faith as a community, in response to hearing the Word of God.
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