An extra for this weekend

Passion Sunday generates a wide spectrum of emotions.  We enter Holy Week, and for those who have experienced many, many Holy Weeks, it can be challenging to see the unique invitation of Holy Week 2013.

I found this in my e-mail this morning.  It is from one of my favorite on-line devotional sites, "The Praying Life."     I am grateful to the author,  Loretta F. Ross for this gift, which now invites us to Holy Week in a way I have never encountered before!

 And we are put on earth a little space,

That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

- William Blake

 

PASSION SUNDAY

They fought on the way to church
this time ugly.  

Was it the tone he took,
or her throbbing resentment
that kicked in the door
like a demon repo man
turning up to repossess their souls?  

Mud rushed in 
a roaring sludge 
of sorrows, lashes 
rebukes, scorn
bitterness, betrayal 
heaping up
burying the light.  

The back seat was silent.  

In the sanctuary they stood mute 
in the crowd of flourished palms
hosannas fluttering like petals
watching their kids in the happy throng 
pass by with pain in their eyes.  

Across town the detective 
poured herself another cup of coffee 
scanned reports from last night 
homicide, hit and run
three break-ins, some domestics.  

Robert rolled over, 
knees up to his chin, gripping the covers. 
He hurt so bad. He couldn’t get those feelings
for Andy to go away, nor the horror
in the cafeteria when they snickered and laughed.  

Lester sat at his kitchen table, thumbing through his Bible. 
He got the diagnosis the day before.  
The words didn’t make sense.
He looked around. 
Everything seemed tilted sideways. 
Does cancer cause this? he wondered.  

Alice in a back pew waved her palm like a white flag.
During the week she goes into a house full of roaches 
and mice to treat the baby of a twelve year old girl.
People so desperate, so much pain. Plse pray,
she texts her friend and waves harder, 
counting on this Jesus to make a difference.  

Nations thrash and groan. Politicians rage.
The bomb ticks in the parked car.
Seas haul homes and lives
out to watery oblivion.  

Some peasant playing a fool on a donkey 
rides into town saying he is the King.
He is going to turn things around, 
unseat the emperors, 
release the grasp of greed,
cure the lust for money, 
and heal the virus. 
Sure enough the fool gets himself killed.  

Everyone is looking for a goat to carry off 
that mudslide of shame, regret, and responsibility.

For a while we can pimp up the peasant,
wave some foliage, call him king
as the bullies and the haters
the fear mongers and the betrayers 
the self- righteous and the proud hitch
a ride on his back like fleas.
Then we can go home, relax
watch the ball game and root for our team.  

But the peasant with pain in his eyeson the donkey has his own agenda.  

I am not your Palm Sunday ornament,
a wonder super hero
your ticket to respectability
a card to play in your political games.  

Look again. I am you.
I am you riding high into town. 
I am you awash in disgrace and humiliation. 
I am you having done the unthinkable 
and there is no way you can repair the damage you caused.  

I am you, holiness, hawking yourselves day and night 
in the holy places you have turned into markets.
I am you, holiness, stuck 
right down in the middle of a profane life in a profane world. 
I am you, holiness, betrayed by a sneer, or the grab for influence.
I am you, holiness, trampled on and defiled.  

Will you duck out now
skip those other services
and only show up year after year 
in your new clothes 
to see the lilies and hear the music?  

Or will you come back 
to listen to my commandment 
to let me wash your feet
and drink to a new covenant?  
Will you stay awake with me
and with yourself one hour in our suffering? 
Will you say, not my will, but thine?  

Will you face your betrayer, see what you need to see 
become truth in the face of authority?
Will you strip off all your disguises, costumes
facelifts, masks, and self-deceit? 
Will you hand over your assets for others to toss the dice?  

Will you watch at our dying?
Will you thirst? 
Will you feel your own pain? 
Will you cry out why has God forsaken us?  

Will you rest in the tomb 
that silent womb of mystery
dead with me?  

Will you come early on the third day?

Lily (Photo credit: amitkotwal)